Can’t Say No

Chapter Twelve

Bree shook her head with a nervous little laugh. “First I lost my voice, and now my hearing seems to be going. I could have sworn you just said-”

“Marry me.”

Stunned, Bree tried to search his face in the dim light, but Hart’s eyes seemed to be shuttered beneath thick dark lashes. “You’re not serious,” she said.

“Of course I’m serious. You already know I love you. Whether you like it or not, you’re in love with me. I don’t really see that we have any other choice.”

“Hart.” Maybe he was joking. Of course he was joking. But being Hart, he would give her a really wretched demonstration of his sick humor when her emotions were in an upheaval and she couldn’t think straight. And that “You already know I love you” hurt. It hadn’t occurred to her before how badly she wanted to hear those words…but not said lightly, or accompanied by an offer of marriage.

Bree kicked out at the mosquito netting, and after thoroughly tangling herself in the white cloth managed to twist free and stand up. Hart bunched the cloth into a huge white pillow and leaned back against it, watching her. She couldn’t figure out the strange tension that seemed to grip his features; Hart was never tense. His voice was certainly as teasing as ever as he remarked, “You adore me, you know.”

“You’re full of peanuts. And-among other things-you just spent an entire dinner totally absorbed in another woman. Not to mention the beauties I saw bustling around your place like a harem of slaves.”

Astonishment shone from his eyes. “What on earth are you talking about? What harem?”

“Hart,” Bree said lowly, “you’ve had more women helping you fix up your place than a hive has hornets, and most of them looked like jailbait.”

A faint smile creased his cheeks. “Because they are.”

“Wonderful.”

“Reninger has six granddaughters. I told you about him-the man I went to dinner with, the night we…uh-”

“I remember,” she said stiffly.

“They’ve been friends of the family for years. I always see them when I’m on vacation.” He added mildly, “I diapered most of the girls a few years back.”

“They certainly haven’t needed that recently.”

“Beauties,” Hart agreed. “The two oldest are twins, seventeen, and they both definitely fill out a bikini. Nubile or not, I usually manage to control myself where children are concerned. And hard as it is to believe, I’m just too old to take on two at a time, much less six. Because most of the time they come en masse-”

“All right, Hart.” Bree could feel a flush of embarrassment heating her cheeks.

“Actually, they always help me set up house when I come here on vacation. And my mom usually houses the whole Reninger troop for a few weeks in August-”

“I get the picture,” Bree muttered uncomfortably.

“Sure?” Hart asked dryly.

“Very sure.”

“And as for my absorption in Marie over dinner, my sweet nitwit, I wouldn’t have had to pump her if you’d been a little less stingy talking about yourself. Getting information out of you is like pumping a dry well. But if you read any more than that into the attention I gave Marie, I’m going to be insulted. I happen to have,” he informed her, “much better taste in women.”

He didn’t give her much chance to answer before his tone changed. The lightness was suddenly gone, and his eyes held a quiet watchfulness as his finger traced her cheek. “Bree,” he said quietly, “you persist in imagining racy scenes in my background. I’m not saying I haven’t been around, but fidelity happens to be one of those old- fashioned values I could never quite shake. You’ll be stuck keeping me happy, honey, don’t doubt it. And I certainly don’t plan on giving you any reason to look elsewhere for someone to keep you satisfied in bed.”

Flushed and nervous, Bree raked a hand through her hair. She suddenly knew he was serious, and the old Bree sneaked to the surface, the Bree who was terribly afraid of foundering in unfamiliar waters. “Hart,” she said haltingly, “you don’t marry someone just because you love them. There have to be other reasons. Sane, rational reasons. Sensible reasons.”

He was silent.

“We argue all the time,” she reminded him.

He said nothing.

“We haven’t known each other very long. We don’t have anything in common. I don’t even know where we’d live!”

Still he said nothing.

“And my life is a mess-haven’t you been listening? I-”

“Yes, I’ve been listening,” Hart interrupted quietly, “but I’ve never seen your life as a mess, Bree. All I saw was that you’d taken a turn you didn’t like and were backtracking toward a different path. Perhaps,” he added lightly, “I misunderstood a great deal. Because I never much gave a damn where we’d live. Or about ‘sane, rational reasons,’ either.” He sat up, ducking his head for a moment, and when he raised it there was a lazy grin on his face, typically Hart, swiftly erasing any hint of an earlier emotional turmoil. “You can put your smile back on, red. Nobody’s upset. And anyway,” he said firmly, “it’s time for breakfast.”

He pulled her to her feet, and for a moment Bree stood absolutely still. Then she reached for her jeans and tennis shoes. She’d hurt him. She’d rather break all four limbs than ever hurt Hart. She’d never meant to be insensitive; she’d tried to treat the subject of marriage lightly because Hart treated everything lightly…but not this. She could see from the quickly masked vulnerability in his eyes that he’d simply known no other way to ask her…or that maybe she’d never given him much of a chance.

“Corn Flakes at your place or mine?” Hart’s teasing grin was the same, only his eyes looked different. Hollow and weary.

“Hart-”

“Yours. Then you’ll get stuck with the cleanup. Come on, lady.” He gathered up her sleeping bag and the netting, motioned her to hurry up tying her shoes and then flung an arm loosely across her shoulders as they started from the woods, all devil-may-care. “We’re going to make wine today,” he said swiftly.

“Wine?” There was such a huge lump in her throat that she could barely talk. Her hands were trembling. Hart loved her. Could he really? He’d already dropped the subject as if it had never been mentioned. Bree didn’t want to drop it, but she didn’t have the least idea how to reopen the door she’d just closed in his face.

Hart stopped to turn and chuck her under the chin. Very gravely, he turned up one corner of her mouth and then the other as if he could order up a smile. “Cherry wine,” he continued. “There’s no reason to look all upset. We’re going to have a very good time. I picked up an antique press a few days ago, and I want to put it to use.”

Bree surfaced, forcing the smile he was so insistent she wear. She searched his eyes and found there only a shuttered determination that she didn’t know how to handle. Vaguely, her mind registered what he’d been talking about. “Hart, don’t be an idiot. Where on earth are you going to find cherries at this time of year?”

“I’ll get the cherries. And the sugar and the yeast. All you have to do is provide the brawn, honey.”

He wasn’t joking. Three hours later, Bree’s yard looked like a winery. A sticky winery. Hart had brought down two lawn chairs from his place. And two wooden barrels. And a hundred pounds of cherries.

The wine press stood in the center of the mess, an innocent-looking contraption. One poured a bowl of cherries into the machine and turned the crank, and voila, cherry juice was supposed to stream