“Just give us a chance, Autumn. That’s all I’m asking. I won’t push you, I won’t pressure you, I won’t even tell you how much I love you until you’re ready to hear it. But don’t ask me not to see you again. Please.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “I wish I could ask that, Jeff,” she admitted at last. “But I can’t because I can’t stand the thought of not seeing you again. But—” she added quickly, holding up her hand as he took an impetuous step forward “—that doesn’t mean I’m ready for more than the affair I’ve already offered. I’m not.”
His eyes were glowing with hope—and the love he didn’t try to hide from her. “I don’t want an affair. That’s not right for me, and we both know it’s not right for you, whether you’ll admit it or not. So until you’re ready to take what I’m offering, we’ll see each other as friends, give you a chance to learn that I’m no threat to you. I’m willing to settle for that. For now.”
She eyed him skeptically. A platonic friendship? She would have laughed if she hadn’t lost her sense of humor sometime during the past half hour. She and Jeff could hardly be in the same room without attacking each other. It had been that way from the moment they’d met. What made him think they could keep their hands off each other now, particularly since they’d already been lovers and knew how good it could be between them? Even now she was quivering with longing for him to touch her. “We can try it, I suppose,” she offered doubtfully.
He laughed at the look on her face. “I never said it would be easy, honey. But it’ll be worth it when you realize that I’m right about us.”
Inhaling deeply, Autumn pushed an unsteady hand through her hair. “For the past five years I’ve known exactly what I wanted from life, exactly how I intended to accomplish my goals. You confuse me, Jeff. I don’t know what I feel or what I want when I’m with you. I can’t say that I like being that way. I don’t.”
“I’ll give you time to work out your feelings, Autumn,” Jeff promised again. “All the time you need. Because I have faith that when you stop running and give yourself a chance to look without fear at what we have, you’ll know we belong together. Not for an affair, but for a lifetime.”
9
AUTUMN HAD NEVER been courted before. Her engagement to Steven had come about quite casually, primarily because it seemed to be expected of them. If asked, she would have said she didn’t want to be courted in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Demeaning, she would have said. Sexist.
For the next few weeks Jeff courted her in true Southern tradition, with flowers and chocolates and patience. He took her to dinner, he called her, he brought her whimsical little gifts wrapped in silver paper. He talked to her, sharing stories of his childhood, his dreams, his hopes. His pain. He came to her after losing one of his favorite little patients in a car accident, and he wasn’t ashamed for her to see his tears. She held him in her arms and ached for him, wanting so desperately to take away the pain. She would have made love to him that night—just as she would have any of the nights in the preceding weeks—but again he left her with kisses that short-circuited her brain and a growing frustration that was making sleep impossible and her temper increasingly quick.
And no amount of arguing with herself could convince her that she wasn’t loving every minute of his courtship, despite the frustration. She was undoubtedly a fool, she told herself every night before going to bed, but she woke every morning with a sense of anticipation, knowing that she would see or hear from Jeff that day. She stopped accepting dates from anyone else, though she refused to dwell on the implications of that. Outside work she saw only Emily, Ryan and Webb when she wasn’t with Jeff.
Jeff’s work was, of course, very demanding. More than once during those weeks their dates were interrupted by the demands of his job. She heard him talking patiently on the telephone to hysterical mothers, discussing complicated medical treatments with his partners, discoursing heatedly on parents who abused or neglected their offspring. He was a doctor, first and foremost, a healer, a defender of children. She was a little in awe of that part of him.
He was also a man in love, and he made no effort to hide it. He didn’t actually say the words because he’d promised her he wouldn’t until she was ready to hear them, but they were in his eyes every time he looked at her, in his touch when he held her or kissed her. She never questioned his sincerity. For some crazy, incomprehensible reason Dr. E. Jefferson Bradford loved Autumn Sarah Reed, electrician, and he fully intended to spend the rest of his life with her.
As time passed, her denials of his intentions grew less forceful. In her weaker moments—and they were coming all too often now—she found herself wondering if Jeff might be right about their future.
And then she’d wake in the night, rigid with dread, unable to breathe, desperately frightened of her growing feelings for him and the heavy sense of inevitability that something would go wrong. She would dream of losing him, and even in her dreams the pain was almost too much to bear. She was beginning to need him, she thought in panic. No, she couldn’t allow herself to need him.
And she’d add another emotional brick to the wall she’d built between them.
“You’re doing it again.” Jeff’s words were uttered on a resigned sigh.
Lying in his arms on her couch, she frowned at him in bewilderment, her heart still pounding, breath still ragged from the hungry kisses they’d just shared. “Doing what?” she asked, her voice husky with passion.
“You’re pulling away from me.”
She looked pointedly down at their intimately entwined bodies, their clothing loosened and disheveled. He was hard and aroused against her; she was trembling with the force of her own desire. “Hardly.”
He shook his head, ruffling the lock of hair that had fallen onto his forehead. “Not physically. Emotionally.”
She knew now what he meant. He’d been whispering words that were all too close to an outright declaration of his love for her, and she’d found herself coming perilously close to responding in kind. She’d swallowed the words and shut a mental door on her feelings for him, attempting to abandon herself wholly to sensation. How had he known? Was he now adding mind reading to his other talents?
Jeff dropped a quick kiss on her swollen, pouting mouth and pushed himself upright. “It’s getting late. Guess I’d better go.”
The notorious temper that had been building for the past few weeks, exacerbated by doubts and uncertainties and sheer sexual frustration, finally broke loose. Without even thinking about it, Autumn snatched up a throw pillow that had fallen to the floor earlier and swung it at him. Hard. “You arrogant, obnoxious, unscrupulous jerk!”
Jeff choked on a startled laugh, caught her hand before she could hit him again and stared down at her as she half sat, half lay on the end of the couch. “Want to tell me what that was about?” he inquired mildly.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me!” she shouted, leaping to her feet and angrily straightening her sweater and slacks. “I’ve had it with you, Bradford, do you hear? What gives you the right to do this to me?”
“What am I doing to you, Autumn?” He leaned back against the cushions, arms stretched out along the back of the couch, his eyes kindling with amusement though he managed not to smile. He knew exactly why she was angry, she thought furiously. Damn the man!
“You’re driving me crazy, that’s what you’re doing. And you know it! Spending all your free time with me, kissing me, making me want you and then leaving me on the doorstep with a kiss on the forehead. I won’t be blackmailed this way, Jeff.”
He wasn’t amused now. “I’m not trying to blackmail you, Autumn.”
She tossed her head scornfully. “Aren’t you? Aren’t you using sex to make me say what you want to hear? Don’t you think if you tantalize me a little longer I’ll say anything to have you make love with me? I hadn’t expected such conceit from you, Jeff.”