In Bed With...Collection. Emma Darcy
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stood with Nathan, instead of feeling as though she was caught in another web of deceit.
“No,” he answered slowly. “Marriage was never on the cards with Susan.”
“You just had a mutual sex thing going,” Miranda muttered bitterly, having been all too freshly reminded of how Bobby Hewson had used her.
“I suppose you could put it that way, though we were also friends and I always enjoyed her company,” he said quietly. “Because of injuries from a car accident in her teens, Susan couldn’t have children. She told me straight up not to ever get seriously attached to her. It was her unshakable belief that one day I would want children of my own and she’d hate not being able to give them to me.”
Had he tried to shake that belief? Out of a whirl of confusion came one definite fact. “Sam told me she did marry.”
“Yes. To a widower who already had two young children. Susan is a schoolteacher. One of the children was in her kindergarten class last year. She told me it was her chance to be a mother and she was taking it. I was not prepared to argue that, Miranda. It was her choice.”
Never judge anything before hearing all the circumstances, Miranda silently berated herself, shamed by the full story of Nathan’s relationship with the woman who had engaged his interest for two years. He hadn’t said he’d loved Susan but there’d been caring in his voice, caring for her personally and respect for the needs he couldn’t answer.
There had to have been a sense of loss when she’d chosen the widower with the children, closing Nathan out of her life. The ending of any long relationship left an empty place. Even Bobby’s defection had left her ravaged. For Nathan it would have been much worse, presented with a set of circumstances he couldn’t fight, forced to let go by his own code of decency. And since then, he’d been alone for months, Sam had told her, not interested in picking up with anyone else.
Until she had arrived on the scene and a strong sexual chemistry had hit both of them.
Had it been that way between him and Susan?
Impossible to ask. It was wrong to make comparisons. People were different and their relationships were different. She darted a glance at him but his expression was closed to her, his concentration fixed on the road. It startled her to see they were driving through the station’s community, almost at the homestead.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I shouldn’t have brought up Susan like that.”
He shrugged. “It was on your mind.”
He brought the Land Cruiser to a halt in front of the entrance to his homestead and switched off the engine. For a few moments he sat frowning, his fingers tapping the steering wheel. Then he turned to her with a look that was searing in its intensity.
“I’m not another Bobby Hewson, Miranda. I have never acted dishonourably over any woman and never would. I don’t want you coming into my home, feeling at risk in any way. If you do feel…compromised in some fashion…I’ll take you somewhere else…to one of the families on the station…”
“No. This is fine,” she protested in an agony of embarrassment at her own blind and bitter thoughts about him. “I do trust you, Nathan. God knows you’ve proved you’re a decent person and I thank you, very sincerely, for all the trouble you’ve gone to on my behalf.”
He nodded, his eyes still burning into hers, intent on scouring any doubts. “I’ll put you in a guest suite. I think it best if you accompany me out on the station tomorrow. Can you be up, dressed and ready for breakfast by six-thirty in the morning?”
She was too drained to argue anything any more. “If there’s an alarm clock in my room and it works.”
“I’ll set it for you.”
Decisions firmly made, he alighted from the Land Cruiser, collected her bag and was opening her door before Miranda could collect wits enough to get out of the vehicle by herself. “Thanks,” she murmured as he steadied her wobbly step onto the ground.
“Want to hang onto my arm?” he offered kindly.
“I’m okay. Just tired.”
Too tired to even try to figure out what Nathan was feeling, how he saw her now. There were so many layers to him…kind, caring, ruthless in carrying through decisive action, shouldering responsibility at a moment’s notice, a masterful controller of situations, yet still respectful of others’ choices.
Part of her very much wanted to hang onto him. Part of her recoiled from giving him any reason to wonder if she was the kind of woman Bobby Hewson had painted…perhaps giving him sex yesterday so he would take her side today.
Though it hadn’t been like that.
She hoped Nathan realised it had been some spontaneous need, triggered by the man he was, nothing else. Nevertheless, she could hardly blame him for wondering about it. If enough dirt was thrown, some of it stuck, and Bobby had certainly done his worst to hang dirt on her tonight.
Too sensitive on this point to touch Nathan even accidentally, Miranda kept a safe space between them as she accompanied him inside, down the long central hallway to another hall that ran at right angles to it. They turned into this and halfway along he opened a door, switched on a light and stood back, waving her ahead of him.
It was a very welcoming room, a pretty patchwork quilt on an old-fashioned brass bed, richly polished cedar wardrobes and chests of drawers giving a warm character to the rest of the furnishings. Following her in, Nathan placed her bag on the end of the bed and moved straight to the lamp table near the bedhead, indicating the clock radio there.
“Will five-thirty give you enough time?” he asked.
“Yes. Thank you.”
He set the alarm, then pointed out the door between the two wardrobes. “Your ensuite bathroom is through there. Would you like me to fetch you a hot drink or…”
“No. I just want to drop into bed. Thanks for looking after me, Nathan. I’m sorry I’ve brought this trouble…”
“It’s not your doing,” he cut in emphatically. “Just put Hewson behind you, Miranda. You won’t see him again, I promise you.”
Seeing Bobby again was not really the problem. As she watched Nathan give her a wide berth as he moved towards the door, she suddenly couldn’t bear the thought that tonight’s nasty insinuations were simmering away in his mind, seeding doubts about her integrity.
“Nathan…”
The needful cry halted him. His shoulders squared before he turned around, and she mentally cringed at what seemed like his reluctance to face her again. He looked back at her with hooded eyes, tensely waiting for her to complete whatever she wanted to say.
Only her deeply ingrained sense of self-worth drove her on, her eyes begging his belief. “I’ve never used sex to—” she agonised over the right words, desperate to correct the impression he might have “—as a tool to gain some advantage for myself.”
“Miranda, if that was the way you worked, you would have targeted Tommy,” he said with quiet conviction. “Don’t fret over what we might think. Neither Tommy nor I will be shaken from what we’ve seen of you and how you’ve conducted yourself since you’ve been at King’s Eden.”
Tears pricked her eyes.
“You have earned the right to our support and pro-tection,” he went on. “So rest easy tonight, knowing you have it and we won’t fail you.”
She nodded, too choked up to speak. No one had ever thrown support behind her like this, such an unstinting degree of faith and loyalty. It gave her almost a sense of belonging, as though she was accepted as one of their own.
Nathan moved back to where she’d stayed, near the bag at the foot of the bed, and gently touched her cheek. “It must have been rough, growing up in such an insecure environment,” he murmured sympathetically.