Can’t Say No

alternately whisked in the open doorway and disappeared; clouds were playing peekaboo with the sun.

Bree straightened from disentangling the wool fibers with the carder. “You want another cup of coffee, Dad?”

Her father rolled down his paper, suddenly staring at her. “Would you mind at least telling me how long you’ve known him, Bree?”

“Around two weeks.” Bree poured him a cup, then perched on the stool, waiting. She’d been expecting this-was curiously relieved it had come. She’d been glad to see her parents; she loved them and cared about them, but all three of them had been oddly uneasy around one another, laughing when there was no reason, falling into a silence where there once would have been none. Bree knew the reason for that was Hart’s spending the night, and perhaps, at another level, they were hurt because she’d gone against their wishes by coming here. She’d never done that before. That she’d hurt them hurt her, and guilt lanced through Bree like a toothache. She’d always tried so hard to be good to them.

“Around two weeks,” Burke echoed.

Addie rose from the spinning wheel nervously. “You never did say if you liked my new dress, Bree. Last Monday I went shopping with Kathleen Romberger. You remember her, don’t you? I couldn’t believe the sales we ran into-”

“You really consider that an adequate time to know someone before…jumping into a relationship with him?” Burke said quietly.

With sad eyes, Bree confronted her father. “Dad, I’ve done nothing I’m ashamed of,” she said simply. “No one took advantage of me, and no one ever will. Please accept that.”

The eyes of father and daughter met, a matching clear green, more the color of sea than emeralds, more the consistency of water than stone. “You were terribly unhappy a very short time ago,” Burke reminded her. “Perhaps the question I should be asking you is when you’re coming home. You’ve got your speech back, Bree-that’s why you came here, for rest and just to be alone through that rough time. But you’re yourself again. There’s no reason you can’t come home now.”

“I’m not ready yet,” she said quietly.

“Because of him.”

“No.” Bree shook her head. “There are some decisions I need to make. About the work I want to do, the direction I want to go now. Everything’s…changed,” she admitted haltingly.

“Because of a man you’ve only known a very short time,” Burke insisted quietly.

“Burke, I really think we should be packing up,” Addie intervened swiftly. “You know we’ve got almost a six- hour drive ahead of us…”

She rambled on for a minute or two. Bree, shoving her hands in her pockets, leaned back against the wall, her eyes never leaving her father’s face. When her mother had finished talking, she spoke in a quiet voice. “Yes, I’ve only known him a short time, but he’s got nothing to do with the changes I want to make, Dad. I took a wrong turn in the road-it’s that simple, and Gram’s death made me see it.”

“Bree, don’t talk about it,” Addie admonished worriedly.

Bree touched her mother’s shoulder reassuringly. “I’m not about to lose my voice again,” she said gently. “But as far as Hart goes, Dad, he’s not the reason I’m staying here.”

Burke hesitated. “I just don’t want to see you hurt, sweetheart. I’ve thought a lot about what Manning said to me, and he made his feelings more than clear where you were concerned. But it wouldn’t matter how good a man he is, if he isn’t what you want and need.” Burke scratched the back of his neck, the way he always did when he was nervous. “You know, it was a devil of a lot easier being a parent when you were of grounding age. You’re grown, Bree. I respect you as an adult, and I respect your choices. But as your father, I know you’re at a time in your life when you’re vulnerable. He’s a good-looking man…”

Bree shook her head. “Since when have I ever been swayed by a pretty face?” she said teasingly.

“Bree-”

“Look, Dad. I know what your first impressions were, but you’d like him if you gave him half a chance. Hart’s the kind of man who does what he thinks is right no matter what other people think. He makes me laugh, and he makes me think. And there’s something there I never had with Richard. Also, he…takes care of people, and he does it in such a way that you never even realize that’s what he’s doing, and…”

“Burke, I really feel we should start packing,” Addie interjected, her eyes darting from father to daughter.

“Yes.” Burke’s eyes searched his daughter’s face as he rose from the rocker. He smiled suddenly.

The smile didn’t register with Bree. She was busy gnawing at her lip, startled to hear herself defend Hart. Defend Hart? Heck, her dad hadn’t even been attacking him. And to defend him, the egotistical, pushy chauvinist, who claimed to lead such a decadent lifestyle, who’d never offered her one ounce of sympathy, who had a harem of women up on the hill?

Heck, he was the son of a seadog he’d labeled himself. He’d seduced her without one word of love or commitment and expected more of the same action free and clear. Bree, you’re not only a fool with a screw loose, you’re an idiot, she chided herself.

Scratched and panting, Bree clapped her hands together to get rid of the dirt and stood up. Dusk was bringing in mosquitoes. Dusk was also, not surprisingly, bringing in darkness. A simple fifteen-minute stroll down her backyard, around the pond and up the ravine to Hart’s place had proved an obstacle course. She’d just tumbled over a hidden rock. Much of his hillside was made up of rocks and waist-high bramble bushes.

Rubbing her hands on the backs of her jeans, she glanced up. Clouds had been rolling in all day, but had waited until after dinner to start seriously rumbling overhead. A thick tangle of branches blocked her view of the sky, but in the direction of Hart’s house there were still glimpses of lamplight. Way up there. Still way up there.

How Hart had scurried down to the pond so swiftly was beyond her, particularly without being scratched to bits and devoured by the man-eating mosquitoes. Irritably, she slapped at her neck, and then shook her head in despair. Her neck felt bruised, and the mosquito was still free, along with its supporting cast of thousands.

Digging her tennis shoe into a rocky crevice, she stubbornly groped for another foothold. And then another. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck; a bramble grabbed her hair.

Her goal was to get to Hart before he showed up at the cabin. Only why couldn’t she have had the sense to take the car and drive around the mountain?

Because she hadn’t thought. Her mind had been totally on getting this conversation over with. Her parents were gone, and if they weren’t completely in agreement with her choices, at least there was peace between them. Bree couldn’t feel equally peaceful with herself until she’d communicated with Hart.

The romp in bed had been nice, but there would be no encores, though she had in mind telling him so tactfully. She’d rather gentled toward him, since he’d taken that silly chivalrous role the day before with her parents, but that really changed nothing. A flat-out sexual relationship with a man you argued with constantly the rest of the time-it just wasn’t her thing.

Thunder clapped overhead. Bree scowled. One fat drop of rain made it through the umbrella of leaves above and splashed on her nose.

Concentration was difficult. Mentally, she was trying to rehearse the proper words. Hart, I don’t think you were listening to me when we woke up yesterday morning, but I’m really not in the market for an affair. Shake hands on it?

No, Bree.

Hi, Hart. Did you know I’ve been under an incredible amount of stress? I didn’t think you did. You see, when your entire life is falling apart, occasionally you can be forgiven for spending a night…out of character. You see, that wasn’t really me you were sleeping with…

Who was it then, Bree?

Well, maybe she didn’t have a fully prepared speech yet, but how was she supposed to think? The rain was sneaking down, sliding into her hair and down her shirt.

His patio was cement, braced into the hillside with steel beams. She crawled under and then around it, and when she stepped onto the smooth flat white surface, a deluge of warm, utterly drenching rain greeted her. She lifted her face for a moment. Thanks, God. You couldn’t have held off a few more minutes?