Can’t Say No

wasn’t wearing a stitch.

Hart wasn’t either. He was standing stark naked, with one of those lazy smiles on his face…but it was the dark blue depths in his eyes that made her feel vulnerable. She couldn’t read his expression, and she was just coming to understand that Hart wasn’t at all the man he let on he was. The public Hart was a heartless, insensitive, macho- type nuisance. Now that she had her tongue back, she felt reasonably confident that she could handle that side of him. The private Hart, she was increasingly afraid, was dangerous.

He knew a lot about women, far too much about her in particular, and had a gift for making a woman feel loved-but Bree knew better.

He didn’t love her, and she couldn’t possibly love him. And if he’d been any kind of gentleman, he would have stolen away at dawn so she could now face alone the mountains of guilt and self-reproach for her abandoned behavior the night before. You don’t sleep with a man you barely know. You don’t start relationships with womanizers. You don’t play with a man you’re not even absolutely sure you like…but seem to have embarrassingly fallen in love with.

“One does get the feeling you’re not used to waking up with a lover in your bed,” he said mildly.

“Nonsense. I’ve done this hundreds of times.” Making up her mind to put a good face on the lie, Bree bounced airily out of bed, her eyes staring at the wardrobe so she wouldn’t have to look at him. How did other women face these mornings after the night before, anyway?

“Hundreds?”

A flush crawled up her cheeks. “Maybe thousands. As I’m sure you have.” Faster than the speed of light, she dragged a thin cotton robe around her and belted it. Courageously, she faced him then, and like a coward she whipped her eyes away. To be fair, he wasn’t standing there like a seductive Viking by choice; all his clothes were outside. On the lawn. Strewn. “I’m going to have to find something for you to put on,” she said flatly.

He snuck up behind her while she was leaning into the wardrobe, trying to find something- anything-he could wear. She felt his palm on her spine like the stroke of a feather, soothing and quiet. “Bree.”

“What?” she said distractedly.

“Stop being so nervous. I won’t bite. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. And nothing’s going to happen that you don’t want. Ever. Not with me.”

In spite of herself, she felt the flush on her cheeks recede. Her heartbeat even pounded out a more normal rhythm. “I’ll get you some breakfast,” she said swiftly, and bolted for the loft steps, deciding to let him worry about what he could find to wear.

By the time he came downstairs, she’d brushed her hair and teeth, had placed two bowls at the kitchen table, and had stopped yawning every third second from a severe attack of nervousness. Hart strode right by her and went outside, returning seconds later wearing his suit pants and nothing else.

There was something terribly decadent about a man wearing five-hundred-dollar pants and no shoes. Except decadent wasn’t the word. Sexy was. When he dropped to the kitchen chair and glanced up at Bree with a lazy grin, she could feel her heart plump down to her stomach, and some hot-blooded memories that she was trying to forget flooded through her. So he’d been an outstanding lover. So no one else had ever made her feel that way. So?

She plunked a spoon down in front of him.

“Are you going to let me help make breakfast?” he asked calmly.

“No help is required. You don’t think you’re getting anything more than Corn Flakes, do you?” She took a breath. “Which reminds me. I hate Corn Flakes. You can cart all of the purchases you made up to your place, and those that I’ve used up I’ll pay you for.”

“What’s wrong, Bree?”

His baritone had that…implacable tone, misleadingly gentle and coaxing. She slipped into the chair opposite him. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“The lady sounds as prickly as a hedgehog, but her fingers are trembling and her eyes have the look of a wounded fawn again.” Quietly he added, “Did I hurt you?”

She reached for the pitcher of milk. A drop or two spilled as she tried to pour it into her bowl of Corn Flakes; Hart had a napkin, waiting for her. She set down the pitcher. “Look. I just feel…” She hesitated. For an instant, she felt lost, staring into a pair of dark blue eyes that rested on hers as though they loved the fragile quality in her face. “I don’t want you to think I’m making too much of this,” she said uncomfortably. “I mean, people do this kind of thing all the time without-”

“Without what?”

“Without…” She motioned helplessly with her hands, having completely forgotten what she meant to say. “Anyway, last night is hardly likely to repeat itself. I really don’t know what got into me-”

“I do.”

She flushed to the roots of her hair. “Hart-”

“It was the most special night I can ever remember. You were beautiful, Bree. A beautiful, loving, giving, passionate woman. You’ve got spirit and humor, and I haven’t the least idea what you’ve been running from-but you don’t have to run from anything. You’ve got the strength to carry you-you just need someone to tease it out of you once in a while. And last night was not a one-night stand, so quit trying to make it sound like one.”

She was staring at him, a jumble of words jammed in the back of her throat all trying to get out at once, when there was a knock on the door.

It opened. A familiar face peered in first, a woman with faintly graying auburn hair tied back in a loose bun, a soft tentative smile and worried lines on her forehead. Behind her was another familiar face. The man was just short of six feet, with steel-and-charcoal hair and a slight paunch, and in addition to a wrinkled cotton shirt, he was wearing a scowl.

Bree lurched up from her chair. “Mom! Dad! What a surprise!” she said weakly.

Chapter Eight

“Darling! You’ve got your voice back!” Addie Penoyer’s words came out in a delighted rush, tears filling her eyes as she surged toward her daughter. “I can’t believe it!”

Bree hugged her mother back, suddenly laughing. “I couldn’t either. It just happened last night, or you know I would have called you, Mom.”

“I don’t care, as long as it happened. Darling, I know I should have called to tell you that we were coming, but I kept telling Burke that we just couldn’t let you stay down here alone-we had to do something…” Addie tripped just slightly over the word alone; Bree turned tomato-red, and behind her she heard Hart’s chair scrape back.

“Look. Mom…” Bree started uncomfortably, but Addie, staring over her shoulder at Hart, wasn’t wearing the maternally disapproving expression Bree expected. Maybe Hart had miraculously donned clothes in the past thirty seconds? Searching her mother’s face, Bree saw Addie bite her lip slightly, glance at Bree again with joy and relief in her eyes, then gulp in a little breath. She squeezed Bree’s shoulder, and then with a tentative smile offered a slim hand to Hart. “Mr…?”

“Manning. Hart, please, Mrs. Penoyer.”

Bree pivoted around, startled to see Hart’s normally cocky demeanor destroyed. His complexion was ashen and his movements jerky as he courteously took her mother’s hand. And for some reason, he had draped a kitchen towel around his bare shoulders. The flowery pattern didn’t do a thing for him. “Mrs. Penoyer.” Hart cleared his throat. “I know how this must look to you, and I don’t want you to think…”

Addie waved a hand in midair. “My daughter is talking again, Mr. Mann-Hart. If you think her father and I care about anything else-”

“Agreed,” cut in an ominous tenor from the door. “Just because a man’s clothes are strewn all over my daughter’s backyard, I wouldn’t want you to think we see any reason to be the least upset.”

Another time, Bree would have been fascinated, watching Hart turn from pale ashen to dove gray. At the moment, she was too mortified. Thirty seconds of silence filled the cabin. Each one lasted about a year and a half.