Amanda roused and looked up at him. “I think I fell asleep.”
He pushed her head back down to his shoulder. “Sleep all you want.”
Amanda was returning to being Amanda and not some blind machine of passion. She was also beginning to remember some of what she’d done. “Dr. Montgomery, I—”
“Hank,” he said and held her head down. He never wanted to break this moment. Never wanted to leave here. Here was where he was meant to be, where he never wanted to leave.
“I think I should go home,” Amanda said softly.
“Not yet,” he answered and put his leg over hers, and at that moment their most intimate entanglement was broken.
Amanda knew she needed to get away from him. She had to go somewhere and think about what had happened to her tonight. And she was beginning to be embarrassed by where she was and what she’d done.
She pulled away from him, turning her back to hide her breasts from his view. “I think I should get dressed.”
The spell was broken for Hank. She was Miss Caulden again. If she wanted to play formal, so could he. “The last I saw your clothes they were on their way to the bottom of the pond.”
Amanda felt a little like a reveler the morning after. Now she was going to pay the price. Was she supposed to enter her father’s house stark naked? Dr. Montgomery and I were talking and one thing led to another, she’d say. She took his shirt from the grass and slipped it on. “Now what do I do?” she said, mostly to herself.
Hank sat up, trying unsuccessfully to control his anger. Her only concern was how she was going to conceal what she’d done from Driscoll. Sympathy for another person only went so far. There came a time when Amanda was going to have to think for herself, a time when she was going to have to say this is what I want. “I’ll take you home,” he said flatly. “We’ll sneak you in like we did the night of the dance.”
No word of, Stay with me, Amanda thought. No words of love. No words of, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Just an animal coupling, then she was to go home. She deserved it, didn’t she? She’d gone after him, sought him out. He’d left the Caulden Ranch, yet she’d followed him, had climbed into his car with him and had asked him to make love to her. What was that old saying? Beware of what you ask for, you might get it. Well, she’d got what she asked for, all right, and now she was going to have to pay the price.
She stood. “I’d be grateful if you’d return me to my house,” she said coolly. She was very close to tears. Would he go back to Reva now or would he maybe visit that pretty little Italian girl she’d seen him looking at today? She couldn’t bear to look in his eyes. For all Amanda’s strict upbringing, she wasn’t really any better than the women who lived on the edge of town. “I will find a way to get inside.”
He drove her back to her house in silence, neither of them speaking, each of them occupied with his own thoughts, both of them angry and hurt.
Amanda sat in the passenger side of the car, wearing his shirt and her black silk stockings that stopped just above her knees.
“Stop here,” she said, indicating the end of the long Caulden driveway. “I’ll walk.”
He was further angered that she wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible. Would she go tearing back into her fiancé’s cold arms? “He won’t forgive you for this, you know,” Hank couldn’t resist saying.
“No, I guess not.” She didn’t know who he meant, but it didn’t matter, because she doubted if anyone would forgive her. She got out of the car and he didn’t bother to help her out, nor did he say a word before he sped away, leaving her standing in the darkness.
Amanda walked slowly up the long driveway and at the house she saw a light on in the parlor and her mother sitting alone reading. Amanda put her head up to the window. “Psst!” she said.
Grace Caulden looked up, saw her daughter, then went to the window. “Amanda, are you all right? You look as if you’ve been in an accident.”
“Worse than that,” Amanda said. “Mother, could you get me some clothes? I seem to have…well, lost mine.”
“I would be glad to, dear,” Grace said and left the room. Moments later she was outside in the darkness of the trees, a dress over her arm. “That dragon, Mrs. Gunston, was hovering about your room. I had to sneak past her.”
“She is a bit of a dragon, isn’t she?” Amanda said, staying in the shadows so her mother couldn’t see the extent of her nudity.
“Would you like to tell me why you’ve come home wearing only a man’s shirt? It wouldn’t by chance be Dr. Montgomery’s shirt, would it?”
Amanda didn’t want to answer her mother. She just wanted to go to her room and be safe.
Grace watched her daughter for a while then smiled. “Whenever you want to tell me what happened, I’ll be here to listen.”
Amanda nodded. She was afraid she might cry if she started to talk. They walked together into the house. Taylor was standing at the head of the stairs, as if he were waiting for Amanda. He was formidably tall, his face as dark as a thundercloud.
“You are very late, Amanda,” he said.
“And very tired,” she answered.
“You are to come to the library. I want to talk to you. There was an exorbitant bill sent here today for sandwiches. You must explain yourself. And also explain why your hair is down.”