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'Isn't it a bit too soon to be talking about marriage?' She strove for teasing lightness. 'Can't we just enjoy what we have for a while before we get serious?'
To her dismay he must have heard the buried note of panic. He drew back slightly, his eyes solidifying from melting warmth to blue ice at what he saw in her face. 'I thought we were serious. I thought that's what the fuss was about... you and I, having to readjust our lives to one another. Was I wrong? Exactly what do you think we have, Fran? What is it we should "just enjoy"?'
She stared, afraid to answer, feeling her brief moment of freedom slipping inexorably away. Oh, why were they always out of step? Why did he always insist on demanding more than she felt capable of giving?
'I see...you're dooming us before we even begin, aren't you, Fran?' he said bleakly. 'You'll trust me in your life, but only so far. You want a stud, not a lover. The hell of it is I'm almost tempted.'
'That's not fair, Ross!' Fran cried shakily, freeing herself from the fingers bruising her shoulders. 'Damn it, you spring this on me from nowhere...you said...we never even... marriage was never one of the options!'
'Nor is it now. It's the only one.'
Fran couldn't believe it. The conversation had the quality of a weird nightmare. 'But why! I thought you only wanted—'
'A slick exchange of sexual pleasures?' he cut in crudely. 'I could have got that from half a dozen women in the last few months.' He saw her wince and that seemed to enrage him even more. 'Do you think I'd have wasted all this time if all I wanted from you was sex? And you were willing to settle for that?' His incredulous disgust made her bewildered and angry. Just when she had reconciled herself to the rules of the game, he changed them. How did she know that he wouldn't change them again? 'My God, Fran, is that a measure of your own self-worth... or mine? It's an insult to both of us. What in the hell do you want from me? You obviously want something I'm not offering. Is it love? I wouldn't be here if I wasn't in love with you! You think I'd put myself through this kind of hell just for masochistic kicks? I love you, Francesca. Does that make a difference? Does that make me a better risk for your cautious soul?'
No! Fran's heart squeezed in anguish. Ross, in love with her? Dare she believe it? And if she did, what an awesome burden of responsibility it would be. His expectations of her were so impossibly high... he expected her to be herself, no barriers, no defences, herself, vulnerable to deepest joy and deepest hurt. Oh, God, she would disappoint him, she didn't think she could be that open. Her own suffering she had learned to cope with, but to know that his happiness rested with her...
Her hesitation was fatal. The blue flame that had burned so intensely in his eyes flickered and went out. Fran was stricken with the knowledge that already she had let him down. She put out a hand to touch him, wanting to explain, but he had already moved away, distancing himself with space as well as his heart-shattering words,
'No, I can see that it doesn't. I misjudged you, Francesca. It's not only giving love that you're afraid of, it's receiving it. And, coward that you are, I don't think it's a fear that you even want to conquer...'
CHAPTER TEN
What am I doing here?
The roar inside Francesea's head was almost as loud as the booming rush of air past the open cabin door of the Cessna. Turning her head, weighted by her yellow helmet, she could see the young man sitting stiffly on the vibrating floor beside her. His eyes behind his goggles were tightly closed, his lips moving soundlessly. Fran wondered whether he was repeating the liturgy of the drill or a prayer. She had already said her prayers.
The other three first-time parachutists from her course were sitting in front of them, in the space left by the removal of the plane's passenger seats, facing the jump-master kneeling by the door. All too soon they would be over the drop zone and that sergeant-major bawl would be launching them into blue oblivion.
Why on earth am I here?
Because I'm crazy, the answer came. Crazy about a man who was crazy enough to do this for fun! Crazy enough to want to understand him, and, through him, herself. Crazy enough to do something drastic about it. This was a proving ground, a test and, if she could confront and conquer this ultimate fear she knew that all others would dwindle in comparison. Heartbreak, rejection, loss... after this she would know she could endure anything.
Poor Beth, she was justifiably bewildered by the events of the past
couple of weeks. She had been flabbergasted to emerge from her bedroom that night to find her brother and her flatmate, not locked in impassioned embrace, but silently smouldering at each other from opposite sides of the room. Breakfast the next morning had been spent trying to ferret out the reason.
'Ross nearly bit my head off last night, when I asked him. He was in a foul mood all evening. I pity the poor woman whose baby he got dragged off to deliver halfway through the meal! What happened, I thought you two were nutty about each other?'
'Whatever gave you that idea?' said Fran automatically, staring into her coffee, alternately seething and despairing. How dared he give her something precious with one hand and snatch it away with the other! And because his ego was dented they were further apart now than they had ever been, even during the last few months of limbo that she had discovered last night he had decided she needed. And now he wanted to make another decision about her life!
'Come off it, Fran,' Beth scoffed. 'I've been in love hundreds of times, I recognise the signs, and I'm not so dumb that I don't know that my being Ross's sister had a lot to do with you letting me move in. Why do you think Mum was so keen? Ross told her he'd fallen for you, that's why. You just needed a little help in getting together—' She subsided, looking so guilty that Fran smiled wanly.
'It's all right. I did manage to figure out that last night wasn't just a startling coincidence.'
'Are you going to chuck me out?' Beth gnawed her lip.
'No, of course not, as long as you promise not to interfere again.'
'Cross my heart,' Beth vowed, but was unable to resist the desire to speculate, 'Did he try and talk you into an affair? Is that why you had a fight? Don't worry, Fran, he'll come round. You can't blame him for being twitchy, though, even if he is in love with you. Women have been trying to back him into corners for years, it's just a conditioned reflex to duck. Believe me, Mum wouldn't approve of Ross messing you around. She really likes you, she wouldn't want you to get hurt. She really thinks that Ross is serious about you—'
It was no use. Fran couldn't let Ross's family go on believing him the villain of the piece when he was being so disgustingly, implacably honourable...
'Well, you can set your mother's mind at rest... or I will when I write to her next. It's not Ross who's baulking at marriage. It's me.'
Beth was predictably scandalised. 'Fran!' she screamed, upsetting her coffee. 'He proposed? And you turned him down?' She hooted. 'Poor Ross, no wonder he looked as if he'd been run over by a concrete mixer!' Then outrage conquered sisterly malice. 'But why? Are you crazy?. I thought you liked us, I thought you'd jump at the chance to be my sister-in-law,' she wailed.
'You marry a person, Beth, not a family,' Fran said drily, although she knew that wasn't quite the case with the Tarrants. They were all lovingly close.
