Change of Heart by Jude Deveraux Page B

have . . . You mean, they want us to . . .”
    “Yes. At least that’s my guess.”
    “Your . . . guess?” She swallowed. “My guess is that your family sent me here because the idea of a woman like me with a man like you is a great joke.”
    He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. While she’d been speaking, he’d continued to work at untying his bootlaces. So far he’d not managed to even loosen the knot.
    Not even thinking about what she was doing and certainly not what she was wearing, Miranda knelt before him and untied his laces, then pulled off his boots. “I don’t mean to pry,” she said as she removed his socks. Then, just as she did for Eli and used to do for Leslie, she gave each foot a quick massage. “But why would they choose someone like me ? With your looks and money, you could have anyone.”
    “My family would like you. You look like a poster illustration for fertility.”
    She had her hands on his shirt collar as she began to unbutton it. “A what?”
    “A symbol of fertility. A paean to motherhood. I’m willing to bet that this son of yours is your whole life.”
    “Is there something wrong with that?” she asked defensively.
    “Nothing whatever if that’s what you choose to do.”
    She was helping him out of his shirt. “What better life is there for a woman than to dedicate herself to her children?”
    “You have more than one child?”
    “No,” she said sadly, then saw that his eyes seemed to say: I knew it. “So your brother sent me up here in the hope that I would . . . would what, Mr. Taggert?”
    “From the look of your gown, I’d say Mike did this, since his wife, Samantha, is the personification of a romantic heroine.”
    “A romantic heroine?”
    “Yes. All she wants out of life is to take care of Mike and their ever-growing brood of children.”
    “ You have not been reading what I have. Today, the heroines of romance novels want a career and control of their own lives and—”
    “A husband and babies.”
    “Perhaps. Stand up,” she ordered and began unfastening his trousers. She’d undressed many patients, and she was doing so now without thinking too much about the action.
    “How many heroes have you read about who said, ‘I want to go to bed with you, but I don’t want to get married and I never want children’?” he asked.
    “I guess normality is a requirement in a hero.”
    “And to not want marriage and children is abnormal?”
    She smiled coldly at him. “I’ve never met anyone like you, but I assume you are not married, never want to be, never will be, and will have no children. But then, if you did, you would only visit them by court order.”
    She had him stripped to his undershorts and T-shirt and he was certainly in fine physical form, but she felt no more for him than she would have for a statue.
    “What makes you think I have no wife? I could have married many times.” He sounded more curious than anything else.
    “I’m sure you could have, but the only way a woman would marry you is for your money.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    Maybe it was rotten of Miranda, but she felt a little thrill at having upset his calm. “You are not what a woman dreams of.”
    “And what does a woman dream of, Mrs. Stowe?”
    The thought of that relaxed Miranda as she pulled back the blankets on his bed. “She dreams of a man who is all hers, a man whose whole world revolves around their family. He might go out and solve world problems and be seen by everyone as magnificently strong, but when he’s at home, he puts his head on her lap and tells her he couldn’t have accomplished anything without her. And, most important, she knows he’s telling the truth. He needs her.”
    “I see. A man who appears to be strong but is actually weak.”
    She sighed. “You don’t see at all. Tell me, do you analyze everything? Take everything apart? Do you put it all into an account book?” She gave him a hard look. “What are you making your