Can’t Say No Read online

  “Scotch for me,” her seatmate said smoothly, but instead of looking at the stewardess he was studying Bree. A ripple of a frown dipped into his tanned forehead.

  He said nothing until the stewardess returned with his drink. “The lady has changed her mind and would like a scotch as well,” he told her.

  “Certainly, sir.” The brunette beamed.

  Bree glowered. She hated scotch. Furthermore, Mr. Manning refused to stop staring at her. Averting her face, she again tried to ignore him.

  “There you go…” Hart pulled down the tray in front of her, set her unwanted drink on it and arranged the napkin. His movements were so casual and automatic that she was totally unprepared for his next one. Firm fingers claimed her chin and tilted her face to his. “I didn’t mean to offend by teasing you before,” he said quietly. “I didn’t realize that you couldn’t speak. Look…I know how difficult it can be for you in public-I have a second cousin who’s deaf. And if I could help…”

  He enunciated in clear, careful tones. Ideal for a lip reader. Frustration warred in Bree with an unfamiliar confusion. Something was wrong with her pulse rate. Something that directly related to the caress of his forefinger on her cheek.

  His fingers gradually dropped, and she groped for the drink, taking a quick gulp. The scotch was awful, awful, awful. Like oil. Still, she took another slow sip before setting the glass down again. Immediately, those fingers reached for her chin again, as firmly determined as they were gentle, forcing her eyes to meet his.

  “Are you still offended? I really didn’t mean to tease you,” he repeated softly. He stared at the trace of moisture on her bottom lip as if he’d just found gold. Wet gold. A wickedly elusive smile touched his mouth. “But you’re also an exceptionally attractive woman. You can hardly blame me for coming on to you. And believe me, whether or not you can talk doesn’t make a whit of difference.”

  Very slowly, she removed those long fingers from her chin, replaced them in his lap and bent down to get the notepad and pen from her purse. Her thumb clicked down the ballpoint with a vengeance. Mr. Manning, she wrote swiftly, I am neither deaf nor desperate. Lay off and we’ll get along just fine.

  She handed him the scribbled sheet. He burst out laughing. Not the response she was expecting. Several passengers glanced in their direction, and Bree flushed with embarrassment. Hart Manning’s eyes danced back tangos of amusement. “But you can’t talk? Don’t tell me I misunderstood that.”

  She nodded.

  “Since you were young?” His voice was gentle with empathy.

  She shook her head no. Wearily. Wasn’t he getting tired yet?

  “You’ve been ill, then,” he probed quietly. “A recent operation?”

  She shook her head again.

  “It isn’t physical? But then…” An absent frown puckered his forehead. “Why?”

  He had just that kind of voice: one wanted to tell him everything-dark secrets, buried guilts, indecent fantasies. Bree bet a lot of women had mistaken the timbre of that seductive baritone for sympathy. She had already figured out that the man was downright nosy.

  Unfastening her seat belt, she curled a leg under her, leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. She was going to sleep if it killed her.

  Naturally, instant sleep proved impossible. She felt as relaxed as a drummer in a parade. Yes, she was a thirty-year-old woman who had certainly handled her share of men. But Hart Manning still made her unreasonably nervous. Verbal defenses had always been her specialty; she felt a horrible vulnerability without them. And he was still looking at her. She could sense his curiosity; she had the terrible feeling he was the kind of man who never left a puzzle until every last piece was in place. He almost made her feel…afraid. Which was ridiculous. What was there to be afraid of?

  Ten minutes later, Bree opened her eyes to see the stewardess removing their drinking glasses. “He went out like a light, didn’t he?” the brunette whispered with a little laugh.

  Bree nodded, regarding her seatmate with a dry half smile. His eyes were closed, his legs stretched out, and he was clearly enjoying the deep sleep of the just.

  So much for the hunt and chase, and that foolish little frisson of fear. Mr. Manning had never been a danger, anyway, not to Bree. She could take care of herself; she always had. She’d work herself out of this no-talk nonsense and get back to managing her life…

  And what a tremendous job you’ve been doing of that lately, Bree, a small voice whispered in her head.

  Bree sighed, suddenly feeling a mixture of depression and confusion. Closing her eyes, she curled up toward the window-as far away from her seatmate as possible-and fell asleep.

  Chapter Two

  The mental pictures were so vivid to Bree that they never seemed part of a dream. It was just…happening again.

  Charcoal clouds drooped low, and snow pitched down helter-skelter. Bree curled a protective arm around the diminutive shoulders of her grandmother, and squeezed. “I don’t believe I let you talk me into taking you out in this weather,” she scolded.

  “Couldn’t stand to be cooped up another minute. What a winter this has been!” Gram chuckled, her pale blue eyes nestled in a sea of soft, wrinkled skin. “We bought out the stores, didn’t we, Bree? Haven’t a penny left in my purse.” Her lips compressed as Bree gradually stole two more packages from the armful Gram was toting. “What do you think I am, helpless? I can carry my own load just fine. Don’t you start treating me like a senile old woman who has to be humored.”

  “All right. You want to carry all your packages and mine, too? Just to prove you’re a tough old cookie?” Bree asked.

  “Old? Eighty-five isn’t old. Now ninety-ninety starts getting up there.”

  Bree laughed, casting a loving glance at her tiny grandmother. Tenacious, sassy and fiercely independent-that was Gram, who stubbornly denied her failing health, who drank sherry with her peppermint ice cream, who had spurred Bree into every mischievous escapade she’d ever been on. Often Bree thought that Gram wished her granddaughter had been just a little bit more…wicked. More interesting. More prone to trouble. As Gram had been in her youth. Bree had always had a boring tendency to be good.

  At the moment, she had a definite inclination to get Gram out of the snow and wind. “Now just wait here,” Bree ordered her, as she grabbed the rest of the packages and settled Gram under the sheltering canopy of a department store entrance. “I’ll bring the car around in two seconds flat.”

  In four minutes flat, she pulled up to the store, her mind more on fixing Gram’s supper than on standing in a no-parking zone. Hats bobbed, blocking her view; she stepped out of the car, intending to motion to her grandmother. Bodies seemed to be deliberately obscuring her vision, and a tiny frown flickered across her brow.

  And then someone moved, and there was Gram, clutching her purse as a stranger tried to grab it. Gram, shouting, her little gray topknot all awry, her gentle features contorted, and Bree was suddenly running, running…

  She managed to get her hands on the thief; her head cracked when he slammed her against a concrete wall as he made his escape. There was blood on her scalp; she could feel it, but worse than that was the crowd, where curious blank faces surrounded her as she surged frantically toward her grandmother.

  A man in a navy uniform tried to shield her from the small prone body…as if anyone could possibly keep her away from Gram! Bree threw herself down, feeling her knee scrape raw through slushy cement, not caring, not believing the terrible blue-gray color of Gram’s lips, the way she was clutching her heart. “I’m afraid it’s a heart attack, miss,” someone said, and Bree said fiercely, “No!”

  Gram’s face was ashen, her hand far too cool and weak in Bree’s. “The cabin,” Gram whispered. “It’s for you, Bree, when you need it. Remember…”

  “You’ll be fine,” Bree said desperately. “Don’t talk, Gram. Don’t…”

  “Fight for what you want, darlin’,” Gram said. “Nothing halfway. Don’t
you settle for halfway, Bree…”

  Nothing could have hurt more than that machete slash of pain as Gram smiled one last time. The whine of a siren in the distance became a shriek, augmented by a terrible silent scream in Bree’s head that no one else could hear…

  “Wake up. Now, honey.” Bree’s eyes flew open as a strong hand shook her shoulder and a pair of intense navy blue eyes fastened on her own. For a moment, she was totally disoriented to see a stranger’s face peering at her with such fierce concern, but then she recognized Hart Manning. And before she was fully awake, his lips had curled into an immediately relaxed smile. “Whether you know it or not, sweetheart, there isn’t a thing wrong with your vocal cords. You can scream like a banshee-in fact, you just did, in your sleep. And since you’ve deprived us both of any possible rest, you may as well buckle up. We’re landing.”

  Bree’s lips parted to deliver a rejoinder, failed to produce any sound and formed a thin line to stop their trembling. Tears had collected in her eyes during the dream; she blinked them back, ducking her head to fumble with the seat belt-only to find she was draped from neck to toes in a blanket.

  With a frown, she pushed the thing aside, not remembering when the blanket or the pillow behind her had appeared. For a moment, she couldn’t think at all but could only feel. Her emotions bounced from the guilt she felt for her grandmother’s death to her relief at being jolted from the endlessly recurring nightmare to…rage at the insensitive clod next to her.

  Rage won out. Furiously, she fastened her seat belt. Hart, was it? Well, anyone with any heart would have at least offered her a little sympathy after a terrifying nightmare…

  Of course, if he had, you would have burst into tears and embarrassed yourself no end, her mind’s voice swiftly reminded her.

  “And we’d better finish putting you back together, honey…”

  If there was anything Bree hated, it was someone who tossed out casual endearments like honey. After glaring up into a pair of fathomless blue eyes, she lowered her gaze and glimpsed her bone pumps, swinging back and forth from his finger. She snatched them, not remembering having removed her shoes any more than she remembered the appearance of the blanket and pillow.

  A watery sun was peering through the tiny plane window, and Bree’s stomach went bump as the earth seemed to rush up at them. She put her shoes on, then hurriedly grabbed her purse and reached in for a brush and compact. What she needed was a bathroom and some soap and water; her compact mirror affirmed that three hours’ sleep hadn’t been nearly enough. Her makeup had long ago worn off: dark, bruised eyes and tousled hair confronted her, along with lips gnawed red in the process of reliving Gram’s death.

  From the corner of the mirror, she glimpsed her seatmate’s expression. Her hasty brush strokes stopped. He was…staring. And the corners of his lips were just turned up, as if he’d caught her doing something intimate.

  “You have someone to help you at the airport?” he asked.

  Ignoring him, Bree shoved the brush back in her purse and hurriedly stood up, in a sudden rush to get off the plane, which had taxied to a stop. Hart stayed right behind her; she knew, because she could feel those navy eyes riveted on her back. And like a schoolgirl, she was conscious of bra straps showing through the silk of her blouse, of every motion of her hips…Darn it. Did her fanny sway or jiggle or bounce or whatever when she walked? She hadn’t worried about such idiotic things in years.

  She forgot him for an instant as she stepped off the plane and climbed down the metal boarding ramp. Sultry heat assaulted her in dizzying, shimmering waves, and the early morning sun was almost enough to burn her eyes. Still, she could smell the mountains. A three-hour drive and she’d be in the Appalachians; there’d be woods and silence, and the trillium would just be starting to bloom. There was no softer solace than Gram’s feather bed…

  Still, her fingertips touched her temples once she entered the main airport terminal. Frigid air conditioning chilled her skin; there was such terrible noise and confusion, and her heartbeat picked up the cadence of anxiety. Everything would be fine once she got to the cabin, but around people she felt isolated by an invisible glass wall, knowing she couldn’t communicate.

  “So there isn’t anyone waiting for you. I should have guessed,” Hart said disgustedly.

  She looked up, unaware he was still behind her until she felt his hand resting possessively on the small of her back, redirecting her steps to the right instead of the left.

  “The baggage pickup is this way. You have to read the signs. You do read?” he asked conversationally. “First impressions are deceiving. I had you pegged for the efficient, self-sufficient type, if you want to know the truth. Now, do you think you can possibly cope from here?”

  Depression didn’t stand a chance next to a healthy, invigorating surge of rage. Four-letter words tripped on her tongue, fell back and stuck helplessly somewhere in her throat. “Yes,” her lips formed frigidly. “I can cope just fine. Leave me alone, would you?”

  “Can’t understand you. You’ve got an arousing pair of…lungs, honey. Why don’t you use them?”

  He stalked off through the throng of people waiting for luggage. Anxiety faded in Bree, replaced by a second wind of energy. Furious energy. For two cents, she would have followed him and landed a right hook…but then, she wasn’t the type. She had no temper now and never had. “Bree’s my good one,” her mother used to say. “I can always count on her to stay cool and calm. She never even cried as a baby…”

  Good Bree, good Bree, echoed the rollicking headache in her temples. An arousing pair of lungs, was it? Bristling, she stalked toward the luggage pickup. Lungs, schmungs. The first time she’d laid eyes on Hart, she’d guessed he was obsessed with that particular portion of a woman’s anatomy. You could always spot a breast man in a crowd.

  Richard, being a decent man, would never have been so crude as to stare at any woman below the neck.

  Richard would also have helped her with her luggage, instead of leaving her standing there, the last one in the crowd, to face a moving conveyer with nothing on it. Where were her two pale blue suitcases?

  The attendant looked blank. After two phone calls and seven pieces of paper from Bree’s scratch pad, she gathered that her luggage was on some other plane. Apologies and promises were politely delivered…one day, at most two, hand-delivered to her doorstep…

  Which was nice. Except that her silk blouse was already wrinkled and damp with perspiration, and her pencil-slim skirt was hardly cabin attire. Glumly, Bree stalked off in search of her rental car, her stomach starting to cramp from hunger and her muscles protesting too many nights of insufficient rest.

  She became abruptly alert as she neared the car desk. Hart Manning was there, bent over the long counter as he filled out some forms, his leonine mane unmistakable. He certainly wasn’t delivering sarcastic comments to the clerk as he had to Bree. The blonde was laughing, all dimples and bright blue eyes.

  Ducking behind a conveniently tall businessman, Bree bolted for the farthest clerk as she rapidly smoothed her blouse and flicked back her hair. On the off-chance Hart should look her way, she’d make certain that the egotistical, opinionated boor saw a-how had he put it?-an efficient, self-sufficient woman. Her smile was wide awake and brilliantly capable as the young redheaded man across the counter glanced up, indicating it was her turn.

  “How you doin’, miss?” The clerk had a cheeky grin and a wink for a hello. “What can I do for you?” It took several seconds for him to readjust his eyes down from her face to the piece of paper her hand was frantically waving. “Bree Penoyer, a month’s car rental, huh? Okay, sweets…”

  But he returned a moment later with a boyish shrug. “You sure it’s under that name?”

  She nodded vigorously.

  “Can’t find a thing.”

  Already paid for it, you must, she scribbled rapidly on her pad, but he’d turned to answer another customer’s question, and he didn’t see the note. He just winked
again in her direction. Two customers later, she regained his attention, at least insofar as he leaned on the countertop and stared at her like a lovesick calf. “Hi again.”

  Weren’t there child labor laws in this state? The kid couldn’t have been eighteen.

  My car, Bree scrawled desperately.

  “Maybe it was another rental agency? You want a phone?”

  A phone was as useful to her as diamonds in the desert. Tears were so ridiculously close she was ashamed of herself. She never cried. Please look again, she scribbled, and sent pleading eyes to the young redhead.

  “Hey, look, no problem. There’s a convention in town, and we’re booked up, but we’ll get you something.” The boy brought back a computer list, suggesting three gas guzzlers that would cost her twice as much as the one she had arranged for.

  Bree closed her eyes in frustration, dragging one hand through her hair.

  “Now what’s the problem?” growled a baritone next to her.

  Bree’s spine turned ruler-straight, her lips twisting in a stiff smile. “Nothing,” she mouthed to Hart.

  “No problem exactly, mister…” The redhead explained the mix-up with a happy grin. That grin gradually faded as Hart let forth a stream of invective.

  Fifteen minutes later, Bree had in her hand the keys to an affordable compact, and faced the nasty job of having to thank her rescuer. “Thanks,” she mouthed tightly.

  “Can’t understand a word. I admit I’m fascinated by your game of not talking, but the immediate priority is food for the hungry. Usually, I offer a woman a meal before we’ve slept together-you’re a passionate snuggler, aren’t you, Bree? Or at least you were until you decided to start screaming. Now, now…” Hart shot her a lazy grin when her eyebrows shot up in outrage. He added in a whisper, “I had to pick up your name from the rental agent, since you’re so stingy with conversation. You look like hell, you know. Actually, a lot of men would probably burn for the way you look. I fail to understand why there isn’t a ring on your finger. You’ve been in Siberia for the last decade? Never mind. You can explain it all to me in sign language while we’re eating.”