Читать книгу The Texan - Catherine Lanigan - Страница 12

Four

“The house was built by my great-grandfather in 1850, the year of the Great Compromise,” Rafe said breezily as he showed Angela the original kitchen cabinets and cupboards that he’d painstakingly oiled since he was a child, as had his father before him. He explained that all the solid brass hardware was original, as were the cypresswood floors, mahogany-interior doors and trim. Nothing had been changed or added except the appliances and the granite countertops he’d installed five years ago.

“I hadn’t expected to see anything quite this expensive or well done,” Angela said.

“I had more money than sense back then, I guess.”

Angela investigated the climate-controlled wine cellar with its rustic wooden crisscrossed racks. Rafe explained that his great-grandfather had built the room half below ground to ensure a cool climate for his homemade wines. It wasn’t until Rafe’s father, Michael, installed a modern cooling system in 1970 that their wines had been properly preserved

“You’ve got wines that old?”

“Yes,” he replied stiffly. “But some things are not for sale.”

As Angela toured the rest of the house, she realized how bitter Rafe’s words had been. Almost every room was completely bare of furnishings. Corners of rooms, where unfaded rugs met dark stained, untrodden wood, revealed the places where treasured family heirlooms had rested for nearly a hundred and fifty years...until now.

How devastating all this must be for him, she thought. To know that three generations had gone before him never losing, always gaining ground. Rafe was being forced to sell furnishings, china, silver and leatherbound books to settle a bankruptcy. Angela couldn’t help thinking she wished there was some other, saner way for someone in his position to recover his losses. Unfortunately, she knew of none.

She followed him up the stairs to the second floor noticing the runner had been removed. “What color was the stair carpet?” she asked, simply for herself, so that she could better visualize how it had looked a hundred years ago.

“Royal blue and gold. Persian. My grandfather bought it in Tabriz from a trader. He said the blue was the color of my grandmother’s eyes.”

Thinking she’d never heard anything more dear or poetic, she felt her resolve toward Rafe melting with every word he spoke.

The bedrooms were larger than she’d imagined and the ceilings were higher, which would help bring a substantial price. Only the master bedroom still contained the original furniture. The antique mahogany rice bed nearly took Angela’s breath away. She walked toward it with an outstretched hand, as if she were being pulled into another century. “He gave this to her, didn’t he?”

“My grandfather?” Rafe asked dispassionately. “Yes. Nearly everything of value was his. But I’ve adopted his philosophy.”

Angela touched the delicate handmade lace canopy, thinking it felt lighter than an angel’s wing. “Which is?”

“Things are meaningless...” He stopped in midsentence as Angela raised her face to him. At that moment she had that same faraway soft look in her eyes as she’d had the night they’d met. He didn’t know what it was about her when she looked at him like that, but it was compelling and he thought he would lose his mind if he didn’t touch her, hold her, kiss her...just one more time.

She hadn’t realized he’d moved so close and when she looked up at him she was still thinking about the people who’d made love in this bed, creating their children and preserving their family for the future. She was unprepared for the touch of his hand against her cheek.

With his thumb he brushed away a lone tear that fell from her eye. “You’re crying,” he said, without asking for an explanation. “I know why. Every time I walk into this room, I can feel the enormity of loneliness in the world. You feel it, too, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she answered. How could he feel her spirit so effortlessly?

He kissed her delicately as if she were the most fragile of porcelains. He cupped her face with his strong, callused hands making it impossible for her to turn away from him. Logical thoughts loomed in a faraway distance, but they had no place in this world of emotion and overpowering physical passion. Rafe was responding just as eagerly to her. How was it he could be so utterly cold one moment and then instantly transform into this inferno of desire? Which was the real side of Rafe Whitten?

Angela placed her hands tenderly over his. She knew she should push him away and keep their discussion on the business at hand. But all she knew was that if she didn’t let herself experience this man right here, right now, she might regret it for the rest of her life.

Never before had Angela abandoned herself to a man she barely knew, much less one she knew in her heart didn’t want her. Though Rafe Whitten was moved by the moment, remembering a family who’d obviously left him as alone in the world as she was, her mind told her that when the kiss was over she would never feel his lips on hers again. He’d tell her that he regretted his impulsiveness; that he didn’t want to get or be “involved” or “committed” to anyone. Angela had heard those words from men all her life. She’d never understood what it was about her that frightened them away. Perhaps in some deep way, she pushed them away, her inner self always knowing that none of them had truly been the right one.

Angela would be kind when he wanted to back away because she knew, as always, it would be for the best.

But for right now, it was as if they were suspended between time and space, hung in a netherworld of ghosts and dreams where the past met the present.

It wasn’t curiosity that caused her to open her eyes, but a yearning to have more of him. As if reading her thoughts, slowly he opened his eyes at the same time. It was the first time she’d see him without his icy self-protective shields. His eyes were like crystal blue ponds and as she dove into him, she began to understand what it was like to touch someone’s soul.