At the yearning in her voice, cold fingers of dread danced over his skin.
Did he want this? A woman who loved his horses, his home, his family…but not him? Out in the corner of the paddock he could see Red pawing through the snow. In a flash of insight he saw what marrying him would mean-it would give Miranda back everything she’d lost and finally assuage his guilt.
And he’d get the woman he wanted more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.
Callum sucked in a breath. He crossed the room, and slid his arms around her shoulders from behind and drew her to his chest.
Beneath his palms the woolen cardigan she wore was soft, and he could feel the rise and fall of her rib cage as she breathed. His fingers crept forward. Below the cardigan, the edge of her wraparound dress had parted and his fingertips brushed her bare skin. Need swamped him. God. Just by breathing she made him desire her. He resisted the fierce urge to yank her up against his hardening body. Now was not the time.
The thought he’d had when he’d woken with her in his arms this morning returned.
This woman belonged with him.
He stared blindly over her shoulder at a red-breasted robin chirping in the undergrowth beneath the window.
If she married him, he would have her in his bed each night instead of seeing her only through functions she catered for him-or through communications about her brother. Surely this was a win-win situation?
So why wasn’t he asking, begging, her to marry him?
Because this wasn’t what he wanted.
He wanted Miranda to love him.
And there was no chance of that ever happening.
With a hop, the robin he’d been staring at vanished into the undergrowth, bringing Callum back to life. His hands dropped from her shoulders. He felt the loss of the softness of her skin acutely.
He loved her.
God.
Despite the success of his parents’ marriage he’d always known that love wasn’t easy or straightforward, and that it would make an emotional mess of him-and he’d been right. Good thing she didn’t know how he felt.
But he had to ask again. Give her the opportunity to accept what he could give her. Because then he’d get what he wanted more than life. Her.
Callum drew a shuddering breath. “Miranda, you really could marry me-and make my dumb suggestion a reality.” He directed the words at golden curls that cascaded down the back of her head, relieved he didn’t have to meet her eyes. This way she would never know how desperately he craved to hear her say yes. “We would go downstairs and celebrate our engagement. What do you say?”
Miranda spun around.
Callum was asking her to marry him? There was an expression in his eyes that caused her heart to ache.
A flutter of hope made her stretch out her hand to touch his chest-to check he was real, that this wasn’t a dream.
The tension of the moment was shattered by the jazzy “Jingle Bells” ringtone of her phone in her cardigan pocket. Definitely no dream. Life had intruded.
Miranda hesitated. It might be Adrian, calling her back after terminating their call yesterday, but she didn’t want to speak to him. Not now, not while Callum was asking her to marry him. Not when she knew Gordon was right. She had been less than trustworthy. Her stomach clenched.
“Answer it.”
Reluctantly she hauled it out of her pocket, but by that time the ringing had stopped. She stared at the screen and her heart sank. “It was Adrian.”
“Do you want to call him back?”
She shook her head. “I called him yesterday-he’s probably just returning my call.” No point telling Callum her brother had hung up on her because she’d wanted permission to tell Callum the truth.
As she was about to pocket the phone, it started to ring again, loud and intrusive. Faced with no choice under Callum’s expectant gaze, she answered it.
Impatient now, Callum thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers and turned away to stare back out the window, trying not to listen to Miranda’s conversation with her brother. He searched for the robin but couldn’t find it.
Miranda was going to accept his proposal. He’d seen it in her eyes.
The corners of his mouth turned up as he anticipated Fraser’s surprise. Callum would be the first of the Ironstones to marry. For once he would’ve beaten his brothers at something life-changing. There was some small masculine satisfaction in that.
Behind him Miranda’s voice lowered, catching his attention.
“I can’t talk about that, Adrian. Not now.”
What was going on? What did she need to speak to her brother about that she couldn’t say in front of him?
Frowning slightly, he swiveled to face her.
She gave him a fleeting, sideways glance from beneath those long, dark lashes and turned away. “Thank you for that. I appreciate it more than I can tell you.” A silence. Then, “Yes, I know it’s hard for you, but it has to be done. I must go. I’ll call you later.”
Was Adrian in some kind of trouble? Callum told himself the suspicion was unfounded.
Except…there was that air of discomfort.
When she clicked the phone shut he asked, driven by a compulsion he couldn’t name, “What’s wrong?”
Her lashes fluttered down. She drew a deep breath, looked up and said in a rush, “Adrian’s being blackmailed.”
Twelve
“What?” Callum’s eyebrows jerked together into a ferocious frown. “What do you mean Adrian’s being blackmailed?”
Miranda forced herself to hold his gaze. Inside she was trembling. I can trust her. Callum’s words rang in her ears. He wouldn’t want anything to do with her after this. She wouldn’t blame him for reneging on his proposal.
“The day you called me to see you, I found out after our meeting that Adrian had crashed-” she hesitated “-a car.”
“Yes?”
“I didn’t want to tell you because you’d said you were pleased with him.” Miranda spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I was afraid it would jeopardize his chances of getting a great reference from a vacation job.”
“But what does that have to do his job? Or being blackmailed? Was someone killed? Did he fail to report it?” Callum looked bewildered.
“No, no one died.” Thank heavens! “But he’d borrowed the car without permission.” She bit her lip. “It was one of your company’s cars.”
Callum’s eyes turned to slits. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He was scared you would fire him…and have him arrested and charged with theft.”
He didn’t blink.
Unnerved by the relentless stare, she blurted out, “So he found a panel beater who could fix the car in a hurry and managed to get it back into the car yard before anyone noticed.”
Still Callum said nothing.
Miranda started to tremble. “And now the panel beater says if Adrian doesn’t pay him more, the man is going to blow the whistle on Adrian and tell his supervisor.”
“And you’ve known about this all the time?”
The lethally soft tone caused Miranda’s throat to close. She nodded, unable to speak.
His relentless blue eyes bored into hers. “You believed I would have had him arrested?”
She thought about that. Did she really believe he would have Adrian arrested?
“You’ve done it before,” she pointed out in her own defense. But her father’s crime had been so much worse. “And you must remember I believed that you’d had no reason back then. And this time I knew Adrian had actually taken-” she couldn’t bring herself to say stolen “-your car. At the start I didn’t think you’d have any compassion for him.”
Callum turned away. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Had that been pain she’d glimpsed in his eyes?