him, but men in love weren’t always rational, she guessed. He’d wanted Bess for a long time, and now he had her. It wasn’t his fault that he wanted to look ahead and not behind him.
Warchief was quiet these days, almost as if he knew he’d lose his home if he kept being noisy. He purred at Elissa and talked to her, but he’d stopped making such wild noises at dawn and dusk. She wondered if he was sick.
Heaven knew, she was. The morning sickness hadn’t let up, and she was beginning to feel pregnant. Her slacks were tight, and her breasts were sensitive. She grinned at all the little disadvantages. None of them mattered, because she was going to have a baby and love it so much that it would feel as wanted as she always had.
She settled down to bed that night, leaving her parents sitting up to talk. There was a full moon and a scattering of stars, and she closed her eyes with a sigh. King would be seeing that moon out his window in Oklahoma, probably with Bess lying beside him. She hoped Bess would be kind to him. Tears stung her eyes. Instead of getting easier, bearing the knowledge that she’d never see King again was getting harder every day. But she’d better get used to it, she chided herself. Forever was a long time.
About two o’clock in the morning, she and Warchief were awakened by a thunderous knocking on the front door. With a white chenille bathrobe thrown hastily over her nightgown, she rubbed her sleepy eyes and stumbled to the door, calling, “Who’s there?”
“Kingston Roper,” came the gruff reply.
She fumbled the door open. With his jacket slung carelessly over his arm, his tie hanging haphazardly around his neck, and his face hard and drawn and in need of a shave, he looked haggard and weary but devastatingly handsome. And Elissa wouldn’t have cared if he’d been covered in mud.
“Come in,” she said, fighting down the impulse to throw herself at him, trying to appear calm when her heart was beating her to death and her breath was stuck somewhere below her collarbone.
He stood looking at her as she shut the door again, his eyes dark and troubled and oddly hungry. He didn’t move, as if riveted to the spot, staring.
“What was that noise? Oh, hello, Mr. Roper,” Tina said, smiling at him from the door of their room off the living room. “You look exhausted. Elissa, there’s some decaffeinated coffee you can reheat, and some of that cake I made. You can put Mr. Roper in the spare room if he’s staying. Good night, dear.”
She closed the door again, and King turned back to Elissa.
“I’ll heat the coffee if you’d like a cup,” she said quietly.
He searched her face, looking for any sign of welcome, but there was none. His eyes dulled. He’d hoped so desperately that she might have missed him even a fraction as much as he’d missed her. He’d stayed away deliberately, denying himself the sight and sound and feel of her all this time to try to make her miss him, to make her see the light. And he knew that it hadn’t worked. He looked at her and thought he’d die of emptiness if she sent him away. He followed her into the kitchen without another word, as cold inside as an empty tomb.
CHAPTER TWELVE
KING SAT DOWN in the chair Elissa indicated and watched her move around the kitchen, slicing cake and heating cups of coffee in the small microwave oven. She looked delicious. Glowing. Wait a minute—didn’t they say that pregnant women glowed? He took a slow breath, feeling warm all over with the possibility of it, with possession in his eyes as they followed her. He’d win her back somehow. He had to.
“I didn’t expect you,” she said.
“I went back to the office tonight to check some figures,” he said as she placed mugs of steaming coffee on the table, along with saucers and forks and slices of cake. “I’ve been in Jamaica,” he added, glancing up.
“Have you?” She nibbled at her cake.
“Your cottage had a young redhead in it,” he remarked. “She said her parents had bought the cottage from you. Warchief was gone, too.”
“I have him here,” she said. She took another bite of the cake, still without looking at him. “You found my letter tonight, I guess?”
“Buried in a stack of bids,” he confirmed. He left half his cake uneaten and leaned