Everything But Marriage Read online

  *'Don't worry about it/* Devlin ignored the fact that, hours ago, he'd been thinking exactly the same thing. "Everybody needs a little help now and then."

  "But I shouldn't have just assumed I could stay here."

  "I don't mind." He reached across the table, closing his hand over the fingers she was twisting together. The impact of the small touch was more than he'd expected. Her hands felt so delicate beneath his, as fragile and vulnerable as a child's.

  He was torn between conflicting urges. He wanted to put his arms around her and tell her everything would be all right, that he'd keep the world from hurting her again. And he wanted to carry her into the bedroom and see just exactly what that heavy length of hair looked like spread across his pillow.

  "You're welcome to stay the night," he said again. He drew his hand away casually. Annalise didn't seem to have noticed anything unusual about the moment.

  "I can't offer to pay you," she said with difficulty.

  "Good. Because I wouldn't accept it." He pushed back from the table and stacked their plates. He felt her eyes following him as he moved to the counter. After a moment, she stood up and cleared the table of their glasses. Devlin took them from her and placed them in the dishwasher.

  "I really do appreciate everything you've done for me," she said.

  "I haven't done all that much." He snapped shut the latch on the dishwasher and turned to look back at her. He really wished she didn't look so vulnerable

  and so uncertain. The protective shell she'd locked herself inside of was breaking up around her.

  "Tomorrow, Fll get myself out of your hair," she said.

  "We'll worry about it tomorrow." Devlin pretended not to see the uncertainty in her eyes. He knew as well as she did that getting her out of his hair was going to be more than a matter of simply waving goodbye as she disappeared into the sunset.

  Hours later, hands beneath his head, Devlin stared up at the ceiling. The exposed beams were nothing more than deeper shadows in the darkness above him. He'd considered, briefly, putting in a ceiling, but he liked the feeling of spaciousness that the open beams gave.

  But his thoughts weren't on the architecture. And they weren't on the next day's tasks. Since the day he'd decided to build a home, the house had occupied most of his waking hours, either thinking about it or working on it.

  Tonight his thoughts weren't on plaster versus dry-wall or whether to build a deck or pour a patio. Instead, he was thinking about the woman who now occupied his bed—his comfortable bed, he amended, taking note of just how hard the floor was, even with an air mattress beneath him.

  It didn't take a genius to guess that Annalise had hit rock bottom. The emptiness that had been in her eyes this morning had told of someone who no longer cared what became of them. She hadn't reacted when he'd

  asked her if she'd tried to commit suicide, because it really hadn't mattered to her.

  When she awakened to find herself alone with a strange man, she hadn't shown any of the normal concern a woman might have been expected to feel. And he didn't believe it was because he had a particularly winning smile. She hadn't been worried about what he might do to her, because nothing could be worse than whatever she'd already experienced.

  What had happened to her to drive her so low? Rape? The thought brought a slow flush of anger to his face. He'd long believed that a man who'd force a woman was something less than human. But the thought that someone might have raped Annalise brought that contempt into focus, sharpened it with a more personal rage.

  He forced his tight muscles to relax. He didn't know that that was what had happened to drive all the life from her. Time enough to find the son of a bitch and castrate him if he found out that was the case.

  Odd how she'd literally dropped into his life less than twenty-four hours ago, and here he was lying awake wondering about her. He frowned into the darkness. He had the feeling that he should have let Ben take her to the hospital the night before. Already he was getting involved. No matter how tenuous that involvement, it wasn't for him.

  But he couldn't just walk away from her. His mouth twisted in rueful acceptance. Like it or not, he cared what happened to Annalise. She'd brought out feelings he'd thought only Kelly could stir in him. Feel-

  ings of protectiveness and concern, things he didn't particularly want to feel.

  Maybe it was the fact that he'd saved her life. Maybe you couldn't save someone's life without them becoming real to you. Perhaps it was the vulnerability in her eyes. He couldn't ignore that look, the fragility of her. Physically she looked as if a stiff breeze could carry her away. But it was the uncertainty in her eyes that spoke to him.

  Finding the cat seemed to have cracked her shell. Beauty. He grinned into the darkness. The name was pure wishful thinking. The cat looked like a scruffy, furry gray basketball. But Annalise had looked at her and called her Beauty. There was something ineffably poignant about that.

  Thirty-six hours ago, he'd had nothing more on his mind than what color to paint the window trim. Now he had a woman who needed a lot of careful handling if she wasn't to retreat back into whatever hell she'd been hiding in when he foimd her; and a cat who looked as if she were about to deliver a litter of fifty any minute and in the meantime was threatening to eat him out of house and home.

  Devlin shook his head and closed his eyes. Time enough to worry about both of them in the morning.

  He might have been more concerned if he could have seen the half smile that softened his mouth as he drifted off to sle^. He didn't look at all like a man who'd taken on unsolicited burdens.

  Chapters

  >Ar hen Annalise awoke, the first thing she was aware of was that she didn't feel as if a heavy weight were sitting on her chest, making every breath almost more of an effort than it was worth. She snuggled her head deeper into the pillow, keeping her eyes closed as she took a mental inventory.

  She sensed that it was still early, probably not much past dawn. But she didn't feel like going back to sleep. She was awake and she wanted to stay awake. For the first time in months, she felt a sense of anticipation for the coming day.

  A small movement alerted her to the fact that she wasn't the bed's only occupant. She opened her eyes, her mouth curving in a soft smile when she saw Beauty stretched out beside her. Annalise stroked her fingers over the little cat's head. Beauty opened her eyes, giv-

  ing her an unreadable look before closing them again. The rumble of her purr made it clear that Annalise's attentions were acceptable.

  Annalise's smile widened. The cat felt full of life, content with her lot. Of course, her lot was pretty darned good at the moment. She had tuna for breakfast, lunch and dinner and a comfortable bed to spend her nights in. Much the same as her own lot, Annalise thought, her smile fading.

  Maybe it was time to look ahead, to try to put some order into her life. These past few months were little more than a smoky blur. She'd probably never remember all the places she'd been. But as Devlin had said, the past was past. She couldn't go back and change things. She could only move on from here.

  Devlin. She'd known him only a day and still knew virtually nothing about him; yet she had the feeling that she knew him well. Something deep inside her responded to him, telling her this was a man she could trust, not just with her life, which he'd already saved, but with her soul.

  Odd, for the past year, she hadn't been entirely sure she still had a soul. She'd more than half believed it had died when she'd lost the only person in the world who meant anything to her. But it seemed it had just retreated away from the black pain that had gripped her for so long.

  She scratched under Beauty's chin. Maybe what she'd needed all along was for someone or something to need her again. Or maybe, she'd had to go through a period of mourning before she'd be able to respond to that need.

  When Devlin had asked her if she'd tried to kill herself, he'd chiseled the first small crack in the wall she'd built to protect herself. Life had held little value for a long
time, but hearing that it had almost been taken from her, perhaps by her own actions, had struck her harder than she'd realized at the time.

  She sat up, dislodging the cat, who gave her a huffy look before jumping from the bed, hitting the floor with a less than dainty thud. Annalise hardly noticed her indignant departure. She swung her legs off the bed and then sat without moving, staring at the bare plywood beneath her feet.

  Just where was she going to go from here? It was all very well and good that she was starting to rejoin the living, but that didn't make all her problems go away. She had no money, no place to live, no job and no prospects of getting any of them.

  She fought back the depression she could feel hovering in the background, ready to swoop down and swallow her whole. Squaring her shoulders, she stood up.

  There'd been a time when her optimism had been so strong it might almost have been considered a character flaw. It might take a long time to recapture that optimism. She might never regain it. But she wasn't going back to the gray emptiness that had characterized her life for so long.

  She had a long way to go before she had her life in order. But she could only take it one step at a time and hope to God that there was firm ground to step onto.

  Devlin had showered and shaved in the second bathroom and was cooking breakfast when Annalise made an appearance.

  *'Good morning."

  "Hi." Devlin returned his attention to the bacon, trying to ignore the sharp pinch of awareness he felt. Damn, why couldn't I have fished a ninety-year-old lady out of the river?

  "Is there anything I can do to help?" In the face of his less-than-enthusiastic greeting, Annalise's smile faded, her eyes taking on the uncertain look that made his chest ache.

  "Sure. You can tell me how you like your eggs and then you can butter the toast." Devlin made a conscious effort to soften his voice. It wasn't her fault that she made him think of hot nights and cool sheets.

  A few minutes later, they sat down at the kitchen table. Ordinarily Devlin ate at the breakfast bar, but he preferred to have Annalise across the table from him than sitting inches away on a stool.

  She had more appetite this morning, he noticed. She was doing justice to the bacon and eggs. He waited until they'd both finished eating before breaking the silence. "Do you remember where your car is?"

  "I think so." She frowned, trying to bring better focus to blurred memories. "It died and I pulled it off the road. I remember seeing an old bam. It looked like it was about to collapse."

  Devlin nodded. "I think I know the place. It's a couple of miles from where I first saw you, though. Did you walk far?"

  Annalise thought about it for a minute and then shook her head. '*I don't know. I.. .wasn't thinking very clearly, Vm afraid."

  "Don't worry about it. There aren't all that many dilapidated bams around. Chances are it's the one I'm thinking of." He rose from the table and picked up both their plates. "Why don't we go take a look at your car? If I can't get it running, we'll tow it back here."

  Annalise started to protest that he'd already done more than enough for her, but she closed her mouth without speaking. Without a car, she couldn't go anywhere. No doubt, Devlin had already thought of that. He was probably anxious to get her car in running condition and get her out of his hair.

  They left the house a few minutes later. Devlin stopped on the porch, frowning down at her bare feet. "You can't keep running around without shoes. With all the construction that's been done on this place, the whole area is probably full of nails and bits of wire and God knows what else."

  Annalise curled her toes against the floorboards. "I don't have any shoes."

  "No. I suspect they were lost in the river," he said absently, still frowning at her feet. "Hang on."

  He disappeared back into the house, leaving Annalise to contemplate the embarrassment of being so completely incompetent in providing for herself that she was dependent on someone else for something as basic as shoes.

  Devlin was gone only a minute, returning with a pair of white sneakers in his hand. "Here. See if these come close to fitting/*

  Annalise took the sneakers from him and sat down on the edge of the steps. A moment later, she stood up, flexing her toes inside the slightly stiff canvas.

  "They fit."

  "Good. Kelly left them last time she was here. I should have thought of these yesterday before asking you to check the mail."

  "Kelly?" Annalise hung back when he stq)ped off the porch. "Are you sure she won't mind me borrowing her shoes?"

  "Positive." Devlin turned back, narrowing his eyes against the bright morning sun. "She'd be glad you could use them."

  "Oh." Annalise followed him to his truck, aware that the shoes didn't feel as nice as they had a moment ago. Who was Kelly? A girlfriend, no doubt. The thought caused an odd twinge of something that could have been, but wasn't, dislike.

  "She sounds nice," she said as Devlin inserted the key in the ignition.

  "Who?" He glanced at her questioningly as he started the truck.

  "Kelly. She sounds nice."

  "She is. Always has been, actually." He put the truck in gear and started down the driveway.

  "So you've known her a long time?" They were probably practically married, she thought. Maybe he was even building the house for the two of them.

  "All my life." He shot her a curious look. **She's my sister.'*

  *'Your sister?" Annalise felt her mood lighten. Not that it had anything to do with finding out that she was wearing his sister's shoes and not his lover's. "She lives near here?"

  '' In Remembrance.''

  He didn't seem interested in expanding on the bare-bones information, and Annalise didn't pursue the topic. She doubted if he'd have told her even that much if she hadn't questioned him.

  It didn't take them long to find her car, pulled crookedly off to one side of the road. Annalise felt as if she were seeing the little compact for the first time in months.

  The car had been a wedding present from Bill. His family had been wealthy, and by the time they married when she was nineteen and he was twenty-two, he'd already come into two trust funds. Buying a car for a wedding gift had been nothing out of the ordinary for the Stevens family.

  She remembered how excited she'd been, examining every inch of shiny blue paint, polishing out imaginary smudges on the bumper with the hem of her shirt. Now the paint had faded to a dirty gray shade and the bumpers were pitted with rust. The little car looked unloved and unkempt. Reflecting its owner, she thought bleakly.

  She smoothed her hand over the cheap cotton of her skirt. She hadn't taken any better care of the car this past year than she'd taken of herself. And they'd both suffered some wear and tear as a result.

  Devlin pulled his truck in behind the car and got out. After a moment, Annalise followed him. She wasn't at all sure she wanted to get any closer to the car. It held so many memories. She'd gone from happily married to single to destitute in that car. For the past few months, she'd lived in it more often than not, sleeping curled awkwardly across the front seats.

  As Annalise reached the rear of the car, Devlin opened the driver's side door and reached in to pull the keys out of the ignition.

  *'I guess I wasn't too worried about anyone stealing it," she said uneasily, though he hadn't, by so much as a look, commented on her carelessness.

  "I guess." The look he ran over the car made it clear that he thought any such worries would have been close to delusional. He slid behind the wheel with some difficulty. The seat was adjusted for legs considerably shorter than his, and his efforts to push it back proved useless.

  Annalise linked her hands together in front of her, watching as he cranked the engine without result. A look under the hood didn't produce any miraculous solution. Devlin lowered the hood and pulled a rag out of his back pocket, wiping his hands as he considered the battered little car.

  "Is it something awful?" Annalise asked at last.

  "I don't know. How long has it bee
n since you had a tune-up done?" Her blank look told him it had been considerably longer than it should have been. "It could just be that it needs points and plugs." He shrugged. "Or it could be one of half a dozen other things."

  "Oh/' There didn't seem to be much she could add to that single word. She didn't need to tell him that she didn't have the money for a tune-up, let alone the half a dozen other things it might require. He hadn't asked about her financial state, but he had known it was nearly nonexistent.

  If Devlin was aware of the blow his words had dealt to her fragile optimism, he didn't show it. He looked up and down the road, frowning in thought.

  "There's no sense in trying to do anything with it here. I brought a tow chain. I'll tow it back to my place."

  Annalise nibbled on her lower lip. She wanted to ask him to just tow it to the nearest service station and she'd deal with it from there. But the truth was, a service station was going to want money even to look at the car. And money was something she had all too little of.

  While Devlin moved the truck around to the front of her car, Annalise opened the passenger door. Her purse was lying on the floor in front of the seat, an open invitation to anyone who'd happened by. On the other hand, the purse wouldn't have been much loss. When Shakespeare wrote that "Who steals my purse steals trash;" he could have been writing for her.

  Even the purse itself wasn't worth stealing. It was cheap brown plastic that had started to crack on the comers, an advertisement that its contents were no more valuable than it was.

  Perched on the edge of the seat, she opened it, examining its contents as if someone might have dropped a wad of one-hundred dollar bills in when she wasn't

  looking. But it was the same pathetic inventory she'd been seeing for months: a lipstick she hadn't used in weeks, a checkbook for an account she no longer had, a pocketknife that had gotten damp and rusted shut, a handful of small change and four tattered dollar bills.

  Her fingers trembled on the edge of a leather photo wallet, its quality a contrast to its surroundings. She hadn't opened the wallet in almost a year. The images it held were just too painful. Not that she'd noticed the pain growing any less for avoiding the photos.