was stunned by the passion in his voice. Her throat felt thick as she remembered the two people who had raised Ryan and his brother, the two people who had opened their arms and their hearts and included her in their charmed circle anytime she entered their home.
She cleared her throat. “I never even knew you wanted children.” She spread her hands. “You were married to Wendy for six years—”
“Wendy couldn’t conceive.” His voice was harsh now and abrupt. He stood so suddenly he knocked against the table, and the coffee sloshed in the cups. Stalking over to the window, he shoved his jacket back and put his hands on his hips. “We wanted them. Badly. But we tried for three years with no luck and then spent another one finding out what the problem was. We tried in-vitro fertilization twice but no luck. And then she died.”
She eyed the rigid line of his shoulders, and her heart squeezed painfully. She’d been thinking selfishly and was sick at heart that she’d inadvertently caused him sadness. Softly she said, “I’m sorry to bring up something painful to you. If I’d known, I never would have—”
“It’s not exactly something you want to share with the world.” His voice was curt.
Hurt pierced her heart. She wasn’t “the world.” She’d thought she was his oldest friend. But apparently, in his mind, that old bond didn’t mean the same thing it still meant to her. She felt the hot sting of tears at the backs of her eyes and she strove to breathe deeply, to stay calm.
At the window Ryan turned, and she quickly dropped her head. As she did so, one fat tear plopped down onto her hands, tightly clenched in her lap. Smoothing it away with her thumb, she kept her head bent as he resumed his seat beside her.
“Jess?” His voice was quiet. “I don’t want to argue with you. You mean too much to me.”
“You mean a lot to me, too,” she said. And then her voice broke and she turned at the same instant he did, moving into the arms he held wide.
Jessie had danced with Ryan before, hugged him occasionally, brushed quick friendly kisses on his cheek. But she’d never known she’d find such comfort in his embrace. Even when his parents had died, they hadn’t shared a closeness like this. He’d had Wendy to comfort him then. Now his arms were hard and muscled beneath the fabric of his jacket, his shoulder a wide plane just right for her head. When she felt him press a kiss into her hair, she smiled. “I have a great idea,” she said.
“What’s that?” His voice rumbled up from beneath her ear.
“Let’s forget this whole stupid conversation. Just pretend it never existed.”
He was quiet for a moment. “If that’s what you want.”
She frowned, drawing back and looking him in the eye. “Isn’t that what you want?”
He shrugged, hesitated. Finally he said, “I still think marriage would be a good plan, if you want to know the truth. We both want the same thing, Jess. I think we could be happy together.”
She sighed. “We’re never going to go back to the way we were, are we?” she asked sadly.
Soberly he shook his head. “Doubt it.”
Fear shot through her at the cool, measured tone. The last thing she wanted was to lose him altogether. Reluctantly she said, “All right.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Explain exactly why you think we should get married.” Get married…get married… The words echoed in her head. Was she really having this conversation with this man?
“Okay.” He stood and began to walk the length of her living room, such as it was. “Selfish reasons first. Number one—I’ve got ridiculous numbers of women throwing themselves at me ever since that stupid article came out. You saw how it is today. Marriage would kill all that.”
“One of them might make a good wife.” But she hoped not.
He shook his head. “Any woman who would come on to a man like that is not a woman I’d want to date, much less marry.”
“Maybe not.” She shouldn’t feel so relieved by his terse words. After all, she didn’t want to marry him. Did she? Of course not. Ryan deserved to find another woman like Wendy, a woman who would adore him and whom he could adore in return. It wouldn’t be fair at all to trap him into marriage to her simply because they shared a history and a common goal.
You both could do a lot worse, pointed out a small devil’s voice inside her head.
That might be true, but what if it didn’t work out? A tremor ran through her at the mere idea. She didn’t think she could bear losing Ryan, as she surely would if they married and it was a disaster. He’d been the rock that anchored her stormy childhood, and he still was her dearest friend in all the world. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—do anything to jeopardize that.
“Number two.” Unaware of her mental deliberations, he held up two fingers of his right hand. “I liked being married. I liked coming home to someone, sharing meals, sharing conversation. Wendy and I were friends. We could talk about anything.” He looked at her. “You and I have that, too.”
Jessie nodded. But she was very aware that there was one thing he hadn’t mentioned sharing in a marriage: a bed. A tingle of awareness shot through her, shocking her with its intensity.
“Number three,” he went on. “I want children. Of my own. Running through my house making noise, breaking windows with baseballs—”
“They might be girls,” she said automatically, still preoccupied by the strange feelings rioting through her.
But Ryan didn’t respond. He stopped pacing, his back to her, and she could see the tension in the rigid set of his shoulders and the way his head drooped. Sensing pain in his silence, she rose and went to him, wrapping her arms around him from behind as far as they would go.
The butterflies that had been plaguing her returned the moment she touched him. He felt bulky and muscular, warm beneath her hands, and his strong back, against which she pressed herself, was as unyielding as steel. He smelled of some expensive cologne and the clean scent of drycleaned wool. Then he turned, dislodging her hold. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he bent his head and kissed her temple.
Her breath caught in her throat and she stepped back, giving him room. As she lifted her gaze to face him, he said, “So what are your objections?”
She shook her head. “When you get hold of an idea, you don’t let go, do you?”
He grinned. “Just noticing?”
She smiled, then crossed her arms and lifted a finger to tap her lips. “Objections. Hmm.” She spread her hands, loath to put all the things running through her head into words. “I don’t know. I haven’t even given marriage a thought since I was too young to know better.”
“With what’s-his-name.”
“His name was Chip and you know it. You never liked him, did you?”
Ryan shrugged. “Maybe I just didn’t think he was good enough for you.”
She laughed. “You were right. And thank God I figured it out before I married him!” Then she sobered. “Actually, he was a great guy. Just not for me. I realized that I liked the things I got from him—security, adoration, the illusion of belonging—a lot more than I liked him. And marriage wouldn’t have been fair to him.” She fell silent.
“Back to your objections,” he prompted.
“I don’t know,” she protested. “I suppose I always assumed that when I married it would be for the usual reasons.”
“The usual reasons?”
“You know. Love,” she said, throwing her arms wide. “And passion.”
As soon as the words were out, she saw his face change. Though he hadn’t moved, she suddenly felt as if all the air in the room were supercharged. A strange,