face and ask, “So what was it that made you look me up after all these years, Lacy?”
Renewed panic swelled inside her. Frantically, she did what she could to tamp it down. But she could do nothing to quell the deep maternal yearning that plagued her soul. Her success here was more important to her than any business venture she’d ever strived for, any success she’d ever achieved.
Lacy literally blanched at the thought. She knew how intense, how terribly profound, her longing was to become a mother…to birth, to hold, to care for, to raise, to love a child of her own. She’d described it to her friends as being marrow-deep. But the fear pulsing through her at this moment, the chill the thought of failure brought, made her recognize that filling this hole in her, satisfying her mothering instinct, was more important than anything she’d ever needed or done or accomplished in her whole life. In that instant, she realized she’d never be complete without a child.
She also realized the extreme anguish she faced…if Dane were to refuse her request.
His gray gaze had darkened with concern as he reached across the table, his work-roughened palm warm, almost comforting, as it slid over top her hand.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’ve gone quite pale.”
The physical contact made her blink, and she forced her eyes to remain open as she battled the wave upon wave of energy that coursed up her arm—over every inch of her skin—as her body reacted to his touch.
Her lips were cottony dry, and she moistened them. She had no idea how long she’d been silent…or how long she’d been wrapped up in her own desperation.
“I’m all right.” She picked up her glass of water, noticing the slight tremble of her fingers, and took a gulp. “You must think I’m crazy,” she said after setting down the glass. “Coming here unannounced. After so much time.”
“I don’t think that at all.” He relaxed against the back of the kitchen chair. “I will admit to being curious. I mean, it has been a lot of years.”
She paused a moment, her mind going completely blank. How could she ever explain herself to him? He was going to hear what she had in mind, and he’d go screaming and running into the night. When they had sat down at the table to eat, rain had begun to ping against the kitchen windowpane, but Lacy doubted the weather would stop the man from fleeing the situation should he decide to do so.
Dane was sure to react adversely to her idea. All the other men had, hadn’t they?
She wanted to give herself a swift kick. She wouldn’t get anywhere thinking such negative thoughts.
With her eyes glued to the window, she murmured, “You see, I’ve been searching for the perfect man—”
His loud groan cut her words to the quick.
“You’re not a journalist, are you?” he asked, suspicion varnishing his tone until it was sharp and burnished. “Twice over the years, I’ve had reporters hunt me down about that stupid article that was written about me during college. And I don’t mind telling you, both times I’ve refused to be interviewed.”
The subject of their conversation had twisted out of shape so suddenly that Lacy was taken off guard.
“No,” she assured him. “I’m not here to do a story on you.”
He looked visibly relieved. “That whole thing was such a crock. I can’t believe that idiot reporter printed that story back then.” Almost to himself, he said, “That silly article nearly kept Helen from marrying me.”
“Well, I thought it was a wonderful article,” Lacy told him. She couldn’t have stopped the words from tumbling off her tongue even if she’d wanted to. “Very flattering.”
“Too flattering,” he spat out. “The adulation was so overdone that the whole piece bordered on obsequious. It was downright obnoxious with its sugary depiction of me and my life. If I’d have been diabetic, I’d have gone into insulin shock.”
The venom that oozed from his words, his expression, his whole body stance, took her completely by surprise. Although she couldn’t say why, his strong reaction annoyed her.
“But it was all true, wasn’t it?” She blurted out the question, sure that she knew the answer already. “Every fact in that article was correct.”
He refused to relent. “Come on, Lacy. The Perfect Man? No one is perfect. Especially me.” His face screwed up as if he’d bit into something bitter. “The whole mess made me look damn pompous. I was relieved that the magazine hit the stands so late in the school year. I was never so glad to be away from a place as I was that university. That town. I’m not a conceited person, Lacy. And I hated being made to look like one.”
She fingered the linen napkin draped across her lap. “It never dawned on me that you might feel that way about it. In fact, all these years I never imagined that you’d be anything but proud of the title.”
Dane shook his head. “You have no idea how that title nearly ruined all my plans.”
As soon as Lacy heard the statement, she remembered how, when she’d made her final blatant attempt to encourage him to ask her out, he’d stressed to her his intent to carry out a certain plan he had for his life. She’d wondered about it at the time, but he’d kept his statements vague and she never did discover exactly what that plan involved.
“I arrived home after graduation,” he continued, “to find my fiancée waving that magazine at me and insisting that our getting married was a mistake. It took me six months to convince Helen otherwise.” Under his breath he added, “I’ve never been a violent man, but if that reporter had been within reach, I’d have beaten the daylights out of him more than once.”
“You were engaged back then?” Surprise was evident in her tone, and she was terribly relieved that it masked the hurt that welled up in her.
His gray eyes averted from her face as he nodded silently, awkwardness seeming to settle on his broad shoulders.
The news was like a bolt from the blue—a bolt that burned and ripped at the very heart of her. “When you took me out? When we…”
Kissed was the word teetering on her tongue, but it petered out before actually forming. She felt stunned. Wounded.
“No.” His answer was emphatic, his gaze conveying a steeling assurance as he shook his head. “Not when I took you out. But directly after.”
For a moment, he looked as if he had more to say on the subject. But the moment passed, and he remained silent.
She remembered his disappearance after their date, surmised that this had been the time when their paths had veered from one another. What she’d wanted to do was ask, once he’d returned to campus, why he hadn’t told her that he’d been spoken for. That he was in love with another woman. No wonder he hadn’t nibbled any of the bait she’d tossed out at him. He’d been a fish that had already been caught. She felt embarrassed by the way she’d practically thrown herself at him all those years ago.
His words sunk into the chaos of her thoughts. It took me six months to convince Helen….
Why a man like Dane Buchanan would have to convince a woman to marry him was beyond Lacy.
