First Impressions

be because I’d never be able to resist the woman you are.” His eyes were suddenly very dark and very direct on hers. “I didn’t want you, Shane, and I wanted you so badly I ached. I loved you, I think, from the very first minute.”
    On a long breath, he moved away again to stare at the flickering lights of the tree. “I could have told you—should have—but at first I had a need for you to love me without knowing. Unforgivably selfish.”
    She remembered the secrets she had seen in his eyes. Remembered too, telling herself they were his until he shared them with her. Still, she felt the hurt of not being trusted. “Did you really think any of it would have mattered to me?”
    Vance shook his head. “No.”
    “Then why did you hide it all from me?” Confused, she lifted her hands palms up.
    “I never intended to. Circumstances—” He broke off, no longer sure he could make her understand. “The first night we were together, I was going to tell you, but I didn’t want any past that night. I told myself it wasn’t too much to ask and that I’d explain things to you the next day. God, Shane, I swear to you I would have.” He took a step toward her, then stopped himself. “You were so lost, so vulnerable after Anne had left, I couldn’t. How could I have dumped all this on you when you already had that to deal with?”
    She remained silent, but he knew she listened very carefully. He didn’t know she was remembering very clearly the things he had said to her their first night together, the tension in him, the hints of things yet to be told. And she remembered too his compassion the next evening.
    “You needed my support that night, not my problems,” Vance went on. “From the very first, you gave everything to me. You brought me back, Shane, and I knew that I took much more than I gave. Until that night, you’d never asked me for anything.”
    She gave him a puzzled look. “I never gave you anything.”
    “Nothing?” he countered with a baffled shake of his head. “Trust, understanding. You made me laugh at myself again. Maybe you don’t see just how important that is because you’ve never lost it. If I could give you nothing else, I thought that for a few days I could give you some peace of mind. I tried to tell you again when we argued about that damned dining room set.” Pausing, he sent her a narrowed look. “I bought it anyway.”
    “You—”
    “There’s not a thing you can do about it,” he stated, cutting off her astonished exclamation. “It’s done.”
    She met the angry challenge in his eyes. “I see.”
    “Do you?” He let out a quick, rough laugh. “Do you really? The only thing you see when you lift your chin up like that is your own pride.” He watched her mouth open, then close again. “It’s just as well,” he murmured. “It would be difficult if you were perfect.” He moved to her then but was careful not to touch her. “I never set out to deceive you, but I deceived you nonetheless. And now I have to ask you to forgive me, even if you can’t accept who and what I am.”
    Shane lowered her eyes to her hands a moment. “It’s not accepting so much as understanding,” she said quietly. “I don’t know anything about the president of Riverton. I knew the man who bought the old Farley place, you see.” She lifted her eyes again. “He was rude, and nasty, with a streak of kindness he did his best to overcome. I loved him.”
    “God knows why,” Vance replied, thinking over her description. “If that’s who you want, I can promise I’m still rude and nasty.”
    With a small laugh, she turned away. “Vance, it’s all hit me, you see. Maybe if I had time to get used to it, to think it through . . . I don’t know. When I thought you were just . . .” She made an uncharacteristically helpless gesture with her hands. “It all seemed so easy.”
    “Did you only love me because you thought I was out of work?”
    “No!” Frustrated, she tried to explain herself. “I haven’t changed though,” she added thoughtfully. “I’m still exactly what I seem. What would the president of Riverton do with me? I can’t even drink martinis.”
    “Don’t be absurd.”
    “It’s not absurd,” she corrected. “Be honest. I don’t fit in. I’d never be elegant if I had years to practice.”
    “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Suddenly angry, he spun her around. “
Elegant!
In the name of God, Shane, what kind of nonsense is that? I had