Can’t Say No

She shrugged it off, vaulting for the car.

“Bree? My goodness, darling, what happened? I was just telling Hart that I wanted you to take more time off. You deserve a vacation, so make it as long as you-”

Bree whirled to face Marie. “I’m not coming back,” she said crisply. “I gave you my resignation-you knew that before you came here.”

“Of course I did,” Marie said soothingly, even as she glanced at Hart. The look was “meaningful” and made Bree almost physically ill. “But you can’t give up an excellent job on a whim, darling. I know you don’t mean it. After you’ve had a little more rest-”

“I’ve had tons of rest, and I’ve decided I’d rather wait on tables for a living.” She’d reached Hart’s car, and grabbed the backseat door handle.

“You can’t mean that-”

“You have something against waitresses?” Bree frowned at Hart. He’d removed her hand from the door handle of the backseat and was firmly trying to maneuver her into the front seat next to him. And succeeding. “I would prefer to sit in the back,” she said flatly.

“Tough.” He only mouthed the word, but the pat on her fanny was very close to a push, and he grinned suddenly. “I’m proud of you,” he mouthed again.

Was that supposed to make sense? The man was crazier than she was, and her hands were still shaking. Somewhere in the back of her head she felt a terrible ache, sudden and sharp, taunting her with the memory of failing Gram whom she loved so very much-failing her by failing to be assertive, and endlessly strong, and a thousand other things she’d expected of herself…and never seemed to be.

Hart started the engine. As soon as they were on the road, Marie leaned over the front seat, and that seductive, teasing note she’d used for Hart was gone. This was strictly Marie to Bree. “Look, darling, we’ve been together forever. You can’t just give up your work on a whim-you’ve got more sense than that. When you’ve thought this through-”

“I’ve thought it through. I’m sure in the past decade at least half of all women have thought it through. Fulfillment’s the word. The media are trumpeting it. You’ll be fulfilled if you’re successful in your career, and you’re a failure if you can’t manage it all-house and job and husband and children to boot.” Bree twisted around to offer Marie a stony glare. “Hogwash. It means trying to please everyone and going nuts in the process.”

Marie sat back in her seat. “You’re not,” she said stiffly, “yourself.”

That was certainly true. Knife spears were lancing in and around her temples; she was trembling like a leaf in the wind, and she was imagining that Hart had just winked at her, when he was clearly facing the road. Furthermore, she never…yelled. Much less at Marie, who’d come all this way to see her…only to be treated uncivilly?

Silence stretched in the car like a taut rubber band. Hart reached over, flicked on a tape and classical guitar music filled that silence. She felt his eyes on her as clearly as she felt his hand reach for her thigh. She pushed the hand away. Like a fool, she wanted nothing more than to reach out to him, to be enfolded and protected and warmed…but again to turn to Hart out of need? He probably considered her a three-day wonder, the one woman in a million who didn’t instantly throw herself at his feet; regardless, she wasn’t his responsibility. She wasn’t anyone’s. Just her own.

Within a half hour, Hart’s headlights gleamed on Marie’s rental car, which was parked by the cabin. They all rushed from Hart’s blue Lexus at the same time.

“Bree?” Marie straightened the collar of her dress, standing in the darkness.

Bree suddenly stretched her hands out, meeting Marie halfway. “I apologize if I sounded rude, and I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing,” she said quietly.

“You can’t be sure-”

“I’m very sure.” Without a glance at Hart, Bree whirled toward the cabin. Inside. If she could just get inside… Nightmare shadows were swallowing her up, none of them real, just something in her head. She had to be alone.

Escape didn’t prove that easy. As she walked toward the porch of her cabin, she heard Marie’s car sputter and cough, and then die. Without turning around, she heard Hart offer to take a turn at starting the rental car. It wouldn’t. She heard Marie say something in a panicked flutter, then Hart’s blunt, “I’ll put you on that plane. Believe me,” which effectively let Bree off the hook. She couldn’t conceivably cope with another hour of Marie’s company. She really couldn’t conceivably cope with anything for a little while. Her hand grasped the doorknob, and suddenly Hart was there, whirling her to face him on the dark porch.

“What the hell’s come over you?” he said furiously.

That fury seemed to come out of nowhere. She stared at him blankly.

“You were doing damned fine,” he hissed. “The broad’s like dynamite with a constantly lit fuse. When I think of you working for her day after day-never mind.” Hart’s jaws clamped together. “The point is that you should be giving a victory cheer, and instead you’re having a silent temper tantrum. What is happening?”

“Nothing is happening. Enjoy your ride to the airport,” Bree said brightly.

Hart jammed his hands in his pockets. “For two cents, I’d take you over my knee.”

“You’d have two black eyes first.”

“I’ll take the black eyes,” he growled. “You just be here when I get back.”

“I won’t wait up,” she said pleasantly. “Marie will undoubtedly keep you busy, but then, you’re outstanding at handling lit fuses.”

Those cold blue of his eyes amazingly took on fire. “Make that one cent. After you tell me what you meant by that crack.”

Marie called out. Hart turned his head for an instant, and Bree slipped inside the cabin and closed the door.

It wasn’t hard to find her sleeping bag, but her tennis shoes were buried in the back of the wardrobe, and then there was the search for a flashlight with working batteries. Bree had no intention of being there when Hart returned.

Outside, she stumbled pell-mell toward the woods, quickly discovering that flashlights weren’t very effective against a night as dark as black velvet. In time, she made it to the pond. Clouds wisped across the crescent moon, and the water was like a still, charcoal mirror. The stone shoreline was not the most comfortable of sites on which to lay out a sleeping bag.

Keep moving, Bree. Everything will be fine if you just keep moving… A mosquito buzzed in front of her nose; Bree swatted it as she backtracked to the forest’s edge. The ground was a little damp, but once she’d tossed away a few branches and twigs, it wasn’t an unbearably rough mattress. She stretched out the sleeping bag, slapped another mosquito, slipped off her jeans and tennis shoes in a record three seconds, and zipped herself in up to her throat.

About then her lungs took in one wretched breath after another. She felt like an utter fool. Ungratefully spouting off to Marie, who’d come such a long way to see her, running off as if ghosts were chasing her, snapping at Hart…and she really knew why he’d been glaring at her all evening. Marie might not have known it, but she’d been describing Bree as a woman who jumped before anyone even told her how high. Hart had contempt for that kind of woman.

She didn’t blame him; so did she.

Her head felt as if it were coming off. Wearily, Bree closed her eyes and curled up in a ball.

The nightmare came back in the clouded mists of sleep. It started as it always had, with Bree guiding Gram through the stores, talking her out of carrying her packages, laughing as she ran to get the car. Then the dream turned into a nightmare…but this time there was no screaming siren. Before she felt crushed under the weight of guilt and helplessness, Bree awoke to a predawn world and utter quiet.

Silent tears streamed down her cheeks. She curled up inside the sleeping bag, folded her arms around her knees and cried, rocking herself back and forth. Aching grief surrounded her, inside and out. The tears she’d never allowed before came pouring out, like a flood, an open faucet, a bottomless well.

Up to this moment, she’d refused to accept the fact that Gram was gone. She’d tried so hard to believe that if