Page 36 of Enchanted
“I never said a lot of things.” She crossed to him again, laying her hands on his arms. “I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry I didn’t know what to say or how to say it until now.”
Alan’s eyes kept sliding back toward the wolf. “Could you put him outside?”
Put him outside? she thought, and felt another shaky laugh tickling her throat. The wolf came and went as he pleased. “He’s all right. I promise. Come sit down—you’re still shaken up.”
“Small wonder,” he muttered. He would have asked her for a brandy, but imagined she’d have to leave the room to get it. He wasn’t risking being alone with that great black hulk.
As if to show the wisdom of this decision, the wolf bared his teeth.
“Alan.” Rowan sat on the couch beside him, took his hands in hers. “I am sorry. For not understanding myself soon enough or clearly enough to make you understand. For not being what you’d hoped I would be. ButI can’t change any of that, and I can’t go back to what was.”
Alan pushed his heavy hair back again. “Rowan, be reasonable.”
“I’m being as reasonable as I know how. I do care for you, Alan, so much. You’ve been a wonderful friend to me. Now be a friend and be honest. You’re not in love with me. It just seemed you should be.”
“Of course I love you, Rowan.”
Her smile was just a little wistful as she brushed back his hair herself. “If you wereinlove with me, you couldn’t have been so reasonable about not sleeping with me anymore.” Her smile warmed with affection when he fidgeted. “Alan, we’ve been good friends, but we were mediocre lovers. There was no passion between us, no urgency or desperation.”
Discussing such a matter quite so frankly embarrassed him. He’d have risen to pace, but the wolf had growled quietly again. “Why should there be?”
“I don’t know. I just know there should. There has to be.” Thoughtfully she reached up to straighten his tie. “You’re the son my parents always wanted. You’re kind, and you’re smart and so wonderfully steady. They love both of us.” She lifted her gaze to his, thought—hoped—she saw the beginnings of understanding there. “So they assumed we’d cooperate and marry each other. And they convinced you that you wanted the same thing. But do you, Alan? Do you really?”
He looked down at their joined hands. “I can’t imagine you not being part of my life.”
“I’ll always be part of it.” She tilted her head, leaned forward and laid her lips on his. At the gesture, the wolf rose, stalked over and snarled. She put an absent hand on his head as she drew back, and studied Alan. “Did that make your blood swim or your heart flip? Of course not,” she murmured before he could answer. “You don’t want me, Alan, not the way a man wildly in love wants. You can’t make love and passion logical.”
“If you came back, we could try.” When she only shook her head, he tightened his grip on her hand. “I don’t want to lose you, Rowan. You matter to me.”
“Then let me be happy. Let me know that at least one person I matter to, and who matters to me, can accept what I want to do.”
“I can’t stop you.” Resigned now, he lifted his shoulders. “You’ve changed, Rowan. In three short weeks, you’ve changed. Maybe you are happy, or maybe you’re just playing at being happy. Either way, we’ll all be there if you change your mind.”
“I know.”
“I should go. It’s a long drive to the airport.”
“I—I can fix you a meal. You can stay the night if you like and go back in the morning.”
“It’s best if I go now.” Skimming a cautious glance toward the hovering wolf, he rose, “I don’t know what I think, Rowan, and don’t honestly know what I’ll say to your parents. They were sure you’d be coming back with me.”
“Tell them I love them. And I’m happy.”
“I’ll tell them—and try to convince them. But since I’m not sure I believe it myself …” He sneezed again, backed away. “Don’t get up,” he told her, certain it was safer if she kept that light hand on her dog’s ferocious head. “I’ll let myself out. You ought to get a collar for that thing, at least … make sure he’s had his shots and—”
The sneezing fit shook his long, lanky frame so that he walked to the door with the handkerchief over his face. It looked as though the dog was grinning at him, which he knew was ridiculous.
“I’ll call you,” he managed to say, and rushed out into the fresh air.
“I hurt him.” Rowan let out a deep sigh and laid her cheek atop the wolf’s head as she listened to the sound of the rental car’s engine springing to life. “I couldn’t find a way not to. Just like I couldn’t find the way to love him.” She turned her face, comforting herself with the feel of that warm, soft fur. “You’re so brave. You’re so strong,” she crooned. “And you scared poor Alan half to death.”
She laughed a little, but the sound was perilously close to a sob. “Me, too, I guess. You looked magnificent coming through the window. So savage, so fierce. So beautiful. Teeth snapping, eyes gleaming, and that marvelous body fluid as rain.”
She slid off the couch to kneel beside him, to burrow against him. “I love you,” she murmured, felt him quiver as she caressed him. “It’s so easy with you.”
They stayed like that for a long, long time, with the wolf staring into the dying fire and listening to her quiet breathing.
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