time to get settled wherever she’s gone, and then, if we don’t hear from her in, say—oh, a month—we’ll talk about looking for her? Meanwhile—” he lowered his voice seductively and lifted her chin so that he could gaze into her eyes “—why don’t we take advantage of our newfound privacy and get married right away.”
Beth gasped. “Right away? You mean—?”
Doug nodded and gave her a practiced smile, heavy with promise. “I mean tomorrow. We already have the license, and with Cara gone, we don’t have any family to cater to. Let’s just go off by ourselves and exchange our vows privately.” He brushed her lips with his own. “It would be so much more romantic, my love,” he whispered.
“What about my friends?” Beth protested weakly. “They’ll be so disappointed.”
Doug’s hands moved from Beth’s back to just under her breasts. He held back a smile of satisfaction when Beth gave a tremulous gasp of excitement. “I’ll be even more disappointed if I have to wait one more night to make you my wife,” he said, making his voice rough.
“We don’t have to wait,” Beth said, moving closer, rubbing her pelvis against Doug’s. “I’ve always told you I’d be willing to make love with you before the wedding. After all,” she added archly, “I’m a woman of the nineties.”
Damned near, Doug thought. But he said, “No, darling, as I’ve told you so often before, I need to know you’re all mine, entirely committed to me, and I to you, before I can accept that last, most wondrous gift from you.”
He let his fingers graze her nipples, almost as if by mistake, and had the satisfaction of hearing her moan of desire as she ground her hips against him in desperation.
He drew away, his expression one of deep regret. “Don’t make me wait any longer, Beth darling, please. I need you so.” He put his hand to his fly and clutched himself in seeming pain. “Please, darling, say you’ll marry me tomorrow, and let’s start our honeymoon now, tonight.”
He could see she’d had all she could take of his sexual game of cat and mouse. His offer to put the honeymoon before the wedding was the clincher. She fell into his arms, almost tearing his shirt open, and agreed to marry him the next day.
Doug called on his favorite fantasy in order to prepare for the night ahead. Cara Dunlap might have gotten away from him in fact, but in his mind he could still have his way with her, and visualizing breaking her to his will was exciting enough to allow him to perform like a passion-crazed bridegroom.
Hours later, as Beth slept beside him, Doug lay in the darkened master bedroom and eased himself into sleep by working out the details for making Beth Dunlap’s fortune his own.
* * *
“WE’RE HALFWAY THERE,” Bill said as he slid into the booth across from Cara. “The driver says we’re right on schedule.”
Cara put down the menu she’d been studying. “Are you going to be staying in San Francisco for a while?”
Bill gave her a strange look. “No,” he said, in a tone that prohibited further questions.
Cara wriggled uncomfortably and frowned. “I just thought, since I don’t know anyone there, it would be nice...”
“Look, kid, when this trip is over, we’re history. I travel fast and I travel alone, and I don’t take on any cargo along the way.”
Cara flushed. “I’m not a kid, for one thing, Bill Hamlin, and I wasn’t suggesting you `take me on,’ so you can drop the Humphrey Bogart routine. I just thought it would be nice to know there was someone I knew in the same city with me while I’m getting settled.”
He hadn’t meant to snap at her like that, and he knew he’d sounded like a real jerk. But as the hours they spent together sped by, he was beginning to feel more and more at risk. There was something so compelling about her—a combination of vulnerability and recklessness. Something in him yearned to reach out and either shake her or grab her and hold her tight. And that was exactly the kind of emotional involvement that could make him lose sight of his own safety concerns, make him careless.
They had another day and a half on the bus, another night of falling asleep smelling her shampoo, her sweet, clean fragrance, feeling her arm against his, her leg brushing his when she turned to say something to him. He was, first and foremost a man, one who hadn’t held a woman in longer than he cared to remember. It might be years before it was safe for him to get involved again—if ever—but while they were traveling across the country, suspended in the limbo of continuous movement, he could almost pretend they were just two normal people who were on the verge of becoming friends.
“Order something filling,” he said gruffly to Cara. “And don’t be so thin-skinned. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
He hid a smile behind his menu. He could tell from the play of emotions he’d seen across her face that she was torn between indignation and hunger.
She ordered eggs and pancakes and a large glass of milk.
“That’s more like it,” Bill said, nodding in approval. “Now, let’s talk about you. What are you going to do in San Francisco?”
He had a day and a half in which to enjoy this young woman’s company. He decided that as long as he was on the bus it was safe for him to let his guard down enough to make it a congenial trip. She intrigued him, with her soft prettiness, her feisty temper, her hint of sad mystery. He would have liked to encourage her to reveal the source of that mystery but he knew that if he did, she’d feel justified in questioning him in return. He couldn’t have that.
Cara played with her cutlery and looked out the window of the café, staring off into the distance, where the desert met the horizon like a great sand-colored ocean.
“Look for a job, a place to live,” she said dreamily. “Start a new life.”
“Wipe out the old one,” Bill said, almost to himself.
“What?” Cara returned her gaze to Bill, startled by his remark. How could she respond to that? How could she tell a stranger about her mother’s obsession with a younger man whose own obsession was with her daughter? How could she explain the guilt, the shame, she felt every time she entered a room with her mother and Doug in it. And, worst of all, how could she explain how Doug had manipulated her with emotional blackmail, knowing she wouldn’t be able to bear to hurt her mother by telling her the truth about the man her mother loved?
“I...I just felt the need to try someplace new,” she said weakly.
“And you’re traveling clear across the country to find it?”
Cara nodded and returned her gaze to the window.
Doug was going to be furious when he discovered she’d finally found the courage to escape his advances. Would he look for her, risk losing her mother? She prayed that her opinion of Doug was correct, that he was just a bit more obsessed with her mother’s money than he was with Cara, that that little edge might keep him in Greensville, keep him from looking for her.
She pushed away the stab of guilt she felt over leaving her mother at Doug’s mercy. She’d turned the situation over in her mind, considered her options, made her choice. She’d live by it.
Their food arrived before Bill could ply her with more questions. Cara picked up her fork almost before the waitress set her plate down, glad for the diversion and for the bounty of food before her.
They were almost finished with the meal when the driver came in and called for everyone’s attention.
“We’re going to have a slight delay, folks. Nothing to worry about, but you’re going to have a couple of extra hours here, so take your time and enjoy the scenery. If you want to go for walks or look around the town, be sure you’re back by ten.”
“Oh, let’s go for a walk,” Cara said, excited at the prospect of seeing something of the countryside that was passing by her almost