Hero by Nature Page 18

  “You know,” her older sister answered confidently, “you only have to admit it to yourself, Autumn.”

  “I have to go, Spring. Thanks, okay?”

  “Anytime. I love you, Sis.”

  “I love you, too.” Autumn replaced the receiver, then almost immediately lifted it back to her ear, her fingers moving over the buttons to punch another often-called number.

  “Hi, Summer, it’s Autumn. I want to ask you a question, and I want you to answer honestly without asking why I want to know, okay?”

  “Okay,” Summer agreed easily. “Shoot.”

  “What would your life be like without Derek?”

  “Empty. Lonely. Frightening.” Summer answered without even hesitating. “Any other questions?”

  “You were happy enough before you met him. You had a great time with your parties and your friends. You didn’t need anyone.”

  “Wrong. I needed Derek. I just didn’t know it until I met him. I may have been happy before without him, but I wouldn’t be now.”

  “But he’s so strong, so self-contained. Doesn’t it bother you to need someone who doesn’t need you as much?”

  “Who says Derek doesn’t need me? He does, Autumn. As much as I need him. He says I bring sunshine into his life, keep him from being a stuffed shirt. He claims that he was never really happy before I came into his life. Personally, I don’t intend to argue with him. I’d rather believe him. Now do you want to tell me what this is all about?”

  Autumn smiled tremulously. “I’m in love, Summer, and I’m scared witless about it. I guess I was just hoping that those of you who’ve been there and survived could pass along a few pointers.”

  “You want my advice about love? Grab on to it and hang on to it with all your strength. Because when it comes right down to it, there’s nothing in life that’s more valuable. And it’s too rare to pass up once you find it. Does that make sense?”

  “Oh, yes, it makes sense.” Autumn pushed her hair out of her face and sent a smile through the telephone lines to her sister on the opposite side of the country. “I love you, Summer.”

  “I love you, too,” Summer replied, surprised and pleased with Autumn’s infrequent expression of affection. “Let me know how this comes out, will you?”

  “I will. Give Derek a kiss for me. I’ll talk to you again soon.”

  She spent the next hour on her couch, deep in thought, barely moving. Babs tried a few times to capture her attention, then gave up and curled up at her feet for a nap. Autumn thought about women she knew who hadn’t been afraid of the risks—or if they had, they’d decided not to let their fear keep them from reaching for their happiness. Autumn’s mother had chosen to give up teaching to raise her three daughters and sometimes help out in the store. Spring had combined a career in optometry with the responsibilities of being a wife and mother. Summer would finish her education soon and begin a new career but still looked forward to starting a family with her beloved, supportive husband. Jeff’s mother seemed to truly enjoy taking care of her husband and her son, when he would allow her to do so. Jeff’s friend, Pam, was a brilliant surgeon whose love for her accountant husband and baby daughter were evident to anyone who spent even a few minutes in her company.

  Each of those diverse, intelligent women had deliberately chosen her path in life and had made whatever adjustments necessary to follow that path. No one had tried to tell Autumn that it was always easy, or that there hadn’t been hard times, but all of them seemed content with their choices.

  Autumn could marry Jeff and continue her career. He wouldn’t ask her to give up her work or her plans for the future. He’d be right beside her, offering support when she wanted it, giving her freedom when she needed it. She finally allowed herself to acknowledge that it wasn’t fear of losing her career or even her independence that had caused her to send him away. It was, after all, only a job.

  So the crux of the problem was this need thing. And still she hadn’t worked it all out. Some tiny detail was niggling at her, haunting her. Holding her back.

  So deeply lost in thought was she that the telephone’s strident ring made her jump and swear. She stared at it for a moment, wondering if it was Jeff. Just as she’d dreaded—and hoped—it would be Jeff every time someone had called during the past three weeks. “Hello?”

  “Autumn? It’s Pam Cochran.”

  Surprised, Autumn blinked and sat up straighter on the couch. “Hi, Pam, what can I do for you?”

  “I’m calling about Jeff.”

  “Jeff?” Her heart suddenly stopped. “Is anything wrong? He’s okay, isn’t he?”

  “No, he’s not okay,” Pam answered gravely, frightening Autumn even more. Her mind filled with all sorts of horrible possibilities as she broke into a cold sweat. And then Pam’s words made her close her eyes in sheer relief. “He’s miserable,” Pam said flatly. “I’ve known him for a long time and I’ve never seen him suffer like this. What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Light-headed with gratitude that nothing had happened to Jeff, Autumn chuckled weakly. “That’s what I’ve been asking myself for a long time now, Pam.”

  “Look, I know this is none of my business, and he’d strangle me if he knew I was calling you, but I’m crazy about that guy and it’s tearing me apart to see him this way. I’d stay out of it somehow if I hadn’t seen the way you looked at him while y’all were together. I know you love him.”

  “Yes, Pam. I love him.”

  “So what’s the problem? He needs you, Autumn. Why don’t you go to him and put him out of his misery?”

  He needs you.

  Autumn promised Pam that she would make every effort to mend the damage to her relationship with Jeff, thanked her for calling and ended the call as soon as she could, her mind whirling with her revelation.

  He needs you.

  Clay needs me, too, Spring had said, not a trace of doubt in her voice.

  Derek needs me as much as I need him, Summer had confidently assured her confused younger sister.

  He needs you, Pam had said.

  And now Autumn knew why she’d been afraid. Why she was still afraid. But suddenly she knew she had to try. Because she loved and needed Jeff Bradford.

  AUTUMN HOPPED NIMBLY out of her Fiero, tugging the brim of her battered brown baseball cap low over her oversized sunglasses to shade her face from the Sunday-afternoon sun. Her auburn hair bounced defiantly around the shoulders of her yellow knit top as she strode briskly toward the front door of Jeff’s house. She punched the doorbell with a slender, short-nailed finger, listening with satisfaction as the bell chimed inside.

  The man who answered the door was as beautiful as ever, but three long, lonely weeks had left their mark on his handsome face. For the first time since she’d met him almost six months earlier, Jeff Bradford looked every year of his age and more. There were lines around his blue eyes that had not been there before, a grim cast to the mouth that had always smiled so easily for her.

  She had hurt him deeply.

  “Autumn!” Even his voice was different when he uttered her name, raw, hoarse, thick.

  Autumn reached up to remove her sunglasses, revealing her eyes to him and hoping that he could read the love brimming in them. “I wouldn’t blame you if you sent me away,” she told him quietly, her own voice rather weak. “But I’m praying that you won’t.”

  His knuckles were white on the edge of the door. “I guess…that depends on why you’re here.”

  “I’m here to tell you that I’ve done what you asked. I thought about us, about what I wanted for us. And I’ve decided that I want it all. That you’re worth the risks,” she told him boldly, her gaze locked with his. “Please tell me you haven’t changed your mind.”

  His eyes closed for a moment, then opened to bore into her. “Come in.” He stepped back to allow her to pass him, being very careful not to touch her as she walked by. She longed to reach out to him, but she hadn’t expected him to make it that easy for her. She underst
ood. He had to be sure this time that she wouldn’t hurt him again.

  In his den she pulled off her cap and dropped it and her sunglasses on a table before turning bravely to face him. “I love you, Jeff,” she told him before he could say anything.

  Something that might have been hope rippled across his drawn face, but still he hesitated. “And?”

  “And…I need you,” she told him steadily. “I need you so desperately. Won’t you please give me another chance?”

  In answer he opened his arms, his beautiful face lighting with the smile that she had craved for the past three unhappy weeks. Autumn flung herself into those welcoming arms, her own going tightly around his neck.

  “I’m so sorry, Jeff. So very sorry. I was an idiot.”

  “Yes, you were,” Jeff agreed lovingly, pressing kisses along the curve of her cheek. “I missed you so much. I was afraid that you would manage to put me out of your life for good, that you’d never allow yourself to admit that you needed me in any way.”

  “I need you in every way, darling. And I’m not afraid to admit it now.” She smiled tremulously up at him, her fingers stroking the silky dark hair at the back of his neck.

  His eyes flared. “You’ve never called me that before. I like it.”

  “I’m glad.” She tugged his head down to hers, and at last his mouth was on hers again. Their kiss was long and sweet and infinitely loving.

  “Tell me why you were so afraid,” Jeff urged her long minutes later, holding her close as they sat on his wood-framed couch. “Tell me what made you change your mind.”

  Autumn cuddled closer to his shoulder, one hand around his waist, the other stroking his chest. Desire was there, just beneath the surface of their contentment, but for now they needed this time to hold each other and talk. Time to heal the wounds they’d inflicted on each other.

  “I don’t know if I can put it into words,” she murmured thoughtfully, trying to compose an answer that would make him understand the turmoil she’d gone through during the months since she’d met him. She tilted her head back against his arm to look at him as she spoke. “At first I was afraid of having to give up the freedom I’ve earned by being independent. I wasn’t sure what I’d have to give up to take on the new role you offered me.”

  “I understand up to that point.” Jeff stroked her arm almost absently, fingers lingering at the pink scar left from her accident some two months earlier. “Sex roles are confusing and frustrating, particularly the ones that are obsolete and ridiculously restrictive. Believe me, I know.”

  Autumn lifted a questioning eyebrow.

  “I was always a guy who liked little kids,” he explained with a slight smile. “When I was in high school, playing football and doing other macho things, I Was still a sucker for babies and toddlers. You never saw me without a few younger kids tagging at my heels, imitating everything I did, taking everything I said as gospel. I loved the adulation, of course,” he admitted with gentle self-mockery, “but more than that, I was fascinated by the way their minds developed and interpreted things. And I couldn’t stand it when one of them got hurt.”

  “So you became a pediatrician.”

  “Yeah. It’s perfectly acceptable now for me to like kids, but at the time I took a lot of ribbing. The other guys my age couldn’t understand my affection for the little yard-apes, as they called them. It was okay for teenage girls to like children, but not teenage boys.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Autumn admitted, struck by his words. He did understand. At least as much as a man could understand a woman’s rebellion against society’s restrictions.

  “What I don’t understand,” Jeff continued, “is why I brought out such panic in you. From the beginning I accepted your career and never made demands on you to change. Couldn’t you tell that I wasn’t a rigid traditionalist, despite my traditional upbringing? After all, your own background was pretty traditional, and look at the way you turned out.”

  “I know. I was using that for an excuse,” Autumn confessed, hanging her head. “I didn’t realize it until the past few weeks. I wasn’t really afraid of loving you or of you trying to change me. I was afraid of needing you.”

  He nodded. “I figured that out after you hurt yourself and you were so careful to point out that you would have been just fine without me. Were you afraid that you’d grow to need me and I’d let you down?”

  “That’s it, I guess. At first, I thought my fear of need was another facet of the man-woman thing. You know, not wanting to be one of those clinging, dependent women who needs a strong, dependable man to make her whole, to center her life upon. And maybe that was part of it. But today I finally understood what I was really afraid of.”

  “Which was?” he asked, going very still.

  She squirmed around on the couch until she was facing him directly. “Don’t you see? I didn’t want to need you because I couldn’t imagine that you really needed me.” She raised a hand to silence him when he would have spoken impetuously. “No, listen, Jeff. You’re handsome, popular, a successful pediatrician. You have many friends, a close family, a beautiful home. You could have any woman you wanted with very little effort. You seemed completely at ease with yourself and your life, happy and content. I couldn’t see you needing me the way I was beginning to need you because I couldn’t see anything missing in your life, any void I could fill.”

  Jeff had flushed uncomfortably at her matter-of-fact description of him. Now he shook his head in disbelief. “Really, Autumn.”

  She giggled a little at his embarrassment. “Oh, Jeff, I didn’t realize that I had such an inferiority complex until I met you. I couldn’t understand what a man like you could see in a semigrown-up tomboy. I was terrified that, just about the time I allowed myself to admit my love and my need for you, you’d wise up and decide that I had nothing to offer you.”

  “You are an idiot,” Jeff told her in mock disgust, his gaze caressing her rueful face.

  “I know that now. I’ve done a lot of thinking for the past few weeks. Today I started remembering a few times when you did need me. The time before Christmas when Julian paged you to tell you that the little girl with CF was dying. I didn’t know how to reach out to you then, but I wanted to so badly. The time you lost the little boy in the car accident. The time you were up forty-eight hours straight and needed me to make dinner for us and then make sure you were allowed to sleep uninterrupted for eight full hours. The time your head hurt and I rubbed your temples for you. And I thought of all the many times I’ve needed you during the past few months and you were there for me. And I realized that I was the one who’d walked out. You’d allowed yourself to need me, and I wasn’t there for you. I’m so very sorry, Jeff.”

  The last words were spoken in a thin whisper. Autumn’s eyes had filled with tears as she thought again of how deeply she’d hurt him, how deeply she’d hurt both of them with her insecurities. One of those tears escaped to trickle down her cheek. She swiped impatiently at it.

  Jeff caught her close, shaken by the tears. He’d never seen her cry, he realized in near awe. She’d never allowed herself to be that vulnerable to him before. Now he knew that everything was really going to work out. She was offering him all of herself. Just as she already possessed all of him.

  “I love you, Autumn. I love you so much. And God knows that I need you like I’ve never needed anything before. I’ve always needed you. Don’t ever send me away again. Please.”

  “No,” she murmured brokenly, her damp cheek pressed tightly to his. “Never again. Do we have to talk anymore now, Jeff?”

  “No, honey. No more talk for now.” He stood abruptly, his movements sure and smooth as he lifted her high in his arms. “Let me show you how much I love you. How much I need you.”

  “Yes,” she answered trustingly, smiling through her tears. “Show me, darling.”

  And though both of them knew she was strong and healthy and fully capable of walking, he carried her to his bedroom as if she were a ra
re, precious treasure. And she allowed him to do so, and gloried in the gesture, because she felt the same way about him.

  It took several minutes to shed their clothing because both of them were trembling so hard that their fingers were clumsy and awkward. Jeff swore beneath his breath, then laughed shakily when the zipper of her jeans refused to cooperate. “Maybe you’d better do this,” he told her unsteadily.

  “Maybe I’d better,” she agreed in tender humor and swiftly removed her remaining garments. Then she held out her arms to the beautiful, strong, vulnerable man that she loved.

  Jeff kissed her deeply, falling with her to the bed, his hands feverishly reacquainting themselves with the soft curves he’d missed so desperately during the past weeks, that he’d been so afraid he’d never hold in his arms again. His breathing was ragged, his heart thudding frantically, and he had to pause and take a long, deep breath in an attempt to regain control. He felt like a nervous teenager, overwhelmed by the depths of his needs and emotions. He wanted to go slowly, to love her with skill and patience, to take her again and again to ecstasy before allowing himself his own relief.

  But then Autumn’s hands were on him, caressing, demanding, and he groaned and drove himself deeply into her, fiercely welcoming her cry of pleasure. Skill and patience were abandoned, control willingly relinquished, and they loved each other with all the passion and hunger inside them. Kissing, arching, rolling, panting. Gasping out their love and their pleasure. And when they reached the point where neither could postpone their climax, they shuddered together, their delirious cries echoing from the evening-shadowed corners of the room.

  And then there was silence, except for their gradually slowing breathing. The shadows lengthened, spreading like a warm, soft blanket over the glistening, damp bodies entwined in the middle of the big bed. Peace was a living, palpable entity in the quiet room, guarding the doors against the outside world until the recuperating lovers were ready to face it. Together.

  A very long time later—hours? days? eons?—Jeff’s voice inserted itself smoothly into the silence. “Marry me, Autumn.”