Thinking of the file his father had kept on him, he blurted, “He even saved an interview I gave to a tiny Nashville newspaper five years ago. Why the hell would he do that?”
* * *
Irina knew he wasn’t asking her as much as he was throwing the question out to the universe, but she tried to answer anyway. “I told you. He loved his children. He just didn’t know how to get past the mistakes he made.”
Kellan lifted his gaze to hers and she saw pain and confusion in those sky blue eyes before he shuttered them to keep her from reading any more of his emotions. He and Buck were more alike, she thought, than either of them would have wanted to admit.
So she tried a different tack. “Buck helped so many people. Two of the stores on Main Street in Royal are only open now because Buck bought their buildings and sent the shopkeepers the deeds.”
“What?”
She threw her hands up helplessly. “And a young couple trying to adopt? He paid all their fees and bought them airplane tickets so they could fly to China to get their baby.”
He tossed the folder back into the open briefcase with the other three and scrubbed his hands over his face. “I can’t decide if all of this information makes things better or worse for me. I didn’t know the man you’re telling me about, Irina. And bottom line? It doesn’t change anything.” Voice flat, he added, “Buck’s still dead. He still left our family legacy to Miranda and shafted his own children. So all of this other stuff may only mean he was feeling old and trying to buy his way into heaven.”
Impatience swamped her. “It can’t change the past, true. But it could change how you feel about your father. Instead, you’re determined to hate him, aren’t you?”
“I don’t hate him. Never did,” Kellan argued. “But I won’t pretend we had a great relationship. Or act as though his kindness to strangers makes up for the way he treated his own kids.”
“No,” she said, closing the briefcase and snapping the locks. “I don’t suppose you will. But I wanted you to know, because Buck deserved that recognition. He wouldn’t claim it in life, but now that he’s gone, I want you and Sophie and Vaughn to know what kind of man he really was.”
He laughed shortly. “And don’t you see the irony in that? You have to tell me stories about how he treated strangers to give me an idea about my own father?”
“Yes, I see it. But you don’t want to see anything else.”
“What else is there?”
She looked around the beautifully appointed but somehow empty room. This was Kellan. On paper, his life looked wonderful. Fulfilled. But in reality, he was a man alone and determined to stay that way.
Nothing could have been more irritating. “There’s opening your eyes to the present and letting go of the past. I did it. I had to, to be able to have a good life.” She wanted to tear at her own hair in frustration. “You are not the only one to have survived pain. But survival isn’t enough, Kellan. You’re letting bad memories cloud your vision so much that you can’t see past them.”
“This isn’t about Buck, is it?” His voice was low, quiet. “None of this was. Not really.”
Irina folded her arms across her chest and held on. She felt a little unsteady. Unsure. But it was too late to back down now. She’d wanted to show him a side of Buck he hadn’t known, yes. But in doing so, she’d come up against a door to Kellan’s past. One he’d always kept locked and barred from her. And she’d hoped, ridiculously, that he would finally open it—and if not let her in, then at least step out himself.
“No,” she admitted. “I suppose it’s not.”
“I’m not going to talk to you about Shea.”
She flinched. Couldn’t help it. “I wouldn’t think so. You never would before.”
One dark eyebrow winged up and his jaw went tight. “And how much did you tell me about your ex-husband? Nothing. That’s how much. What did you say his name was?”
“Dawson Beckett,” she snapped, and even saying the man’s name left a bad taste in her mouth. “What should I have told you, Kellan? That I was foolish enough to marry a man I didn’t know? That he was mean? Abusive?
“He used me to make himself look better. And Buck helped me get away. Your father intimidated Dawson into giving me a divorce. And I will always love Buckley Blackwood for that.” She hated it, but tears gathered in her eyes. It always happened when she was angry, and right at that moment, she was furious. “I was young and stupid and wanted a new life. I got a nightmare.”
Kellan took a step toward her and Irina backed up, holding one hand out to keep him at bay. If he touched her then, she’d crumble, and she didn’t want to do that in front of him. Angrily, she swiped the tears off her cheeks and glared at him.
“Damn it,” he said, clearly frustrated. “I didn’t mean to hammer you with your own past.”
She lifted her chin and tossed her hair back behind her shoulder. “Unlike you, I don’t hide from my past, Kellan. I face it. I overcome it. I don’t lock it away, because it made me who I am now. As much as I hate remembering my marriage, every time I do, it gives me strength to know that it didn’t destroy me.”
Kellan stared at her for a long moment and the tension building between them arced like a power line.
“And because I don’t want to ‘share’ the most painful time of my life, I’m a coward? Is that it?”
“I didn’t say that,” she hedged.
He choked out a short laugh. “You didn’t have to.”
Irina took another deep breath. “Kellan, I know you lost your wife...”
“And my child,” he ground out.
“What?” She swayed a little, not really sure what she was hearing.
He looked as though he wanted to bite his own tongue off for saying that out loud. But clearly, it was too late to call it back now. He scraped both hands across his face as if he were trying to wake up from a nightmare that had been haunting him for years. “Shea was pregnant. The coroner told me. I didn’t tell anyone else.”
“Oh God.” She couldn’t imagine what he’d been through, hearing about his lost child from a coroner. Not only had the woman he loved died, but she’d taken a piece of him with her.
Irina’s heart ached. Literally ached. She’d had no idea and now she felt terrible for prodding at this wound. For forcing him to face a memory that had to tear at him. No wonder he was locked in the past.
As far as Kellan was concerned, he’d lost his future eight years ago.
“I’m so sorry.” For his loss. For assuming she knew what he was dealing with.
He pushed one hand through his short, neat hair. “Don’t. That’s why no one knows,” he said tightly. “I didn’t want to hear ‘I’m so sorry.’ Or see the sympathy, the pity in people’s eyes.”
“I’m not offering pity,” she countered. Though she really wanted to, she had known without being told that it wouldn’t be welcome.
“Yeah?” His gaze locked on hers. “Then why do you look like you want to cry?”
“My God, Kellan.” Completely exasperated, she continued, “I’m not a robot. I feel badly for you. For what you lost. That doesn’t mean I’m offering you pity.”
“Exactly what are you offering, then, Irina?”
Well, that was the question, wasn’t it?
“I...” She took a breath, tried to settle her wild, racing thoughts and finally had to admit, “I don’t know.”
Kellan stepped up to her and she felt the heat of his body reaching out for her, wrapping itself around her. She nearly sighed but managed to stifle it. Irina knew she was in dangerous territory here, but she couldn’t seem to care. Maybe it was because they’d talked more in the last fifteen minutes about the things that really mattered to them than they ever had before. And maybe, she thought, she was simply responding to the fire in his eyes.
“I think I know,” Kellan whispered.
“I didn’t come here for this,” Irina said softly. She wanted him, of course. She always did. But today, she’d hoped only to reach him somehow.
“Yeah. I know that, too.” His hands dropped onto her shoulders and Irina’s eyes closed briefly at the rush of heat pouring through her.
This was not wise and she knew it. Worse, though, she didn’t care. How could she? It had been seven years since she’d felt his hands, his mouth on her. She’d worked so hard to push thoughts of him out of her mind and yet here she stood, as eager for him as she had been the first time.
What was the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
By that measure she was completely crazy.
“This is not a good idea,” she said.
“Or,” he countered, “it’s the best idea we’ve had in seven years.”
Amazed at that statement, she stared at him. “Really? You walked away all those years ago. Avoided me every time you’ve come back to Royal and now you think it’s a great plan to slide back into bed as if nothing happened?”
He frowned and let his gaze move over her face like a caress before settling on her eyes again. “I won’t apologize for leaving. It was the right thing to do.”
“Maybe it was. For you.” But she remembered how she had felt when he had left. As if he’d hollowed her out and left her an empty shell. Which she didn’t want him to know. And that, she admitted, was pride. For a long time, she’d grieved the loss of him, wallowing in the pain because it was all she’d had left of him.
Eventually, though, she’d reassessed and realized that she didn’t want a man who didn’t want her. She’d asked herself, if Kellan had thought it was so easy to walk away from her, then why was she wasting tears on him? She’d worked hard to rebuild herself. To discover who she really was and what she wanted. Wouldn’t going back now undo all of that work?
Or would it help to solidify her strength?
“Yes. And for you, too, as it turned out.” His hands on her shoulders tightened a little. “You went to college. Now you’re in law school...”
She frowned. “How did you know that?”
“You told me.”
“I don’t remember telling you.”
“When you were busy defending Buck to me.”
She frowned again.
“And now,” Kellan said, “I hear you’re an author, too.”
“I know I didn’t tell you that.”
“Sophie did,” he admitted. “What’s the book about?”
“It’s about starting over,” she said. “When your world crashes down on you.” That was the easiest explanation, and really, at the heart of it, that was her book.
“Maybe I should read it,” he murmured, his gaze moving over her face like the lightest of touches.
“It’s not finished.”
“Fine. I’ll buy a copy when it comes out.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter?” He slid his hands to the column of her throat, then up to hold her face in his palms. “I missed you, Irina. Didn’t want to. Tried not to. But I did.”
“If that’s supposed to be a way of flattering me, I don’t understand it.” His hands on her face, his thumbs stroking her cheeks, his eyes locked with hers.
“Understand this,” he said and bent his head to hers. Irina held her breath as he took her mouth softly, almost tentatively at first. Then he deepened the kiss and Irina felt herself drowning. There was no air. There was no help. There was nothing but him. Just like seven years ago.
The moment that thought entered her mind, she pulled her head back and fought for the air he’d stolen from her. “I don’t think I can do this again.”
“It’s just a kiss, Irina,” he said tightly.
“It’s more than that and you know it,” she argued. Her body was humming and her mind was about to take a long vacation. Between them, a kiss was a lit match to dynamite. “And you don’t have to look so pleased by that.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” His lips quirked. “Are you actually going to tell me you don’t want to?”
“No,” she said, because it would be pointless to lie. He could see the truth in her—just as easily as she saw the heat still glittering in his eyes. “I do want you. But doing this would solve nothing.”
“Why does it have to?” he ground out. “Why can’t it just be what it is?”
“Because...” She tried to come up with a reason, but she couldn’t find one. Self-respect? Please. She had plenty of that and she wouldn’t lose it by giving in to the need to be with him again. Pride? What did pride have to do with anything here? Really, why shouldn’t they have sex? They’d always been good at it. Chemistry was never a problem for them. It was what came after that had always been their undoing.
“Not much of a reason,” he taunted her.
She gave him a reluctant smile. “I’ll find one. I only need a minute.”
“Take two. It won’t change anything.” He moved in, closing the distance between them. “I want you. Always have,” he admitted. “That didn’t end when I left.”
“But you still went.”
“And will again,” he agreed. His eyes were burning. His jaw was tight and his voice, when he spoke, was low and filled with an urgency that echoed inside her. “No secrets here, Irina. I can’t stay.”
“Won’t.”
“Either,” Kellan said. “But this is now, Irina. We’re here. Together. In this moment. So do we waste that? Or enjoy it?”
Was it that simple? Or was this a road studded with land mines that could blow up in her face and tear her heart to pieces again? Could she just “enjoy” time with Kellan and then let him go?
A tiny voice inside reminded her that she would watch him go anyway. Would it be better to stand strong and not know what it was to have his hands on her again—or would losing him be easier if she gave in to the fire sizzling inside and relished what they had while they had it?
Her breathing quickened and her heartbeat jumped into a gallop. She couldn’t look away from his eyes. Maybe because she didn’t want to. That settled it, as far as her body was concerned.
Missing Kellan had been like breathing for her. Inevitable. Unavoidable. Simply a part of her life. Irina had tried dating other men, but they had never quite measured up to the memory of Kellan. So instead, she’d buried herself in her studies, her job and, eventually, the book she was writing.
And somewhere along the way, Irina had convinced herself that she had a full life because to do otherwise was just too depressing.
But now he was here and she had a chance at—if not forever—then at least the opportunity to experience the magic of being with Kellan again. She’d be a fool to turn away. And she hadn’t been a fool in a very long time.
Irina took a step toward him and his eyes flared in response. But he stayed where he was. He didn’t reach for her. Didn’t make a move. He was leaving this all up to her. He’d made his case, and now he waited to see what the answer would be.
Another man would push. Or try to sweet-talk her into his bed. But Kellan Blackwood was different. For him, it was all about people making their own choices. He was honest. Didn’t make promises he wouldn’t keep. Even seven years ago, he hadn’t guaranteed her anything. So Irina had had only herself to blame for the misery she’d felt when he left.
Just as she would now.
Looking up into his eyes, she said, “We might regret this.”
“We might,” he agreed.
“And we’re going to do it anyway.”
He cocked his head to one side. “Are we?”
Irina gave him a half smile as she surrendered to the inevitable. “Was there any doubt?”
“Only from you,” he said and finally, finally, reached out for her, his arms going around her with a st
rength that stole her breath.
She linked her arms around his neck, looked up into his eyes again—those amazingly deep, beautiful eyes—and said, “That’s gone now.”
“Thank God.” He kissed her. Fiercely, desperately. His mouth took hers and his tongue claimed all that she was.
Irina’s entire body lit up like the finale in Royal’s annual July Fourth fireworks show. Her blood ran hot and fast, and an ache set up shop at the juncture of her thighs. This was what she’d missed. This was what she’d wanted from the moment she saw him again.
He tore his mouth from hers and then ran his lips and tongue along the column of her throat. She tipped her head to one side to give him better access. She shivered, in need, anticipation. How had she lived without this feeling? Without his touch? His kiss?
Her mind blanked out and her body took over. She lifted her right leg, hooked it around his hip and, when his hand cupped her butt to hold her there, she groaned.
“You’ve got too many clothes on,” he managed to say.
“You, too.” She ran her hands up and down his broad back, feeling his muscles shift and bunch. Irina wanted the feel of his skin against hers, the heat of the two of them, building, burning together.
“Upstairs.” He threaded his fingers through her hair and dragged her head back, to look down at her.
Hunger was etched into his features. A need she shared seemed to be alive and pulsing in the room around them.
She cupped his face in her palms, kissed him, then whispered only “Yes.”
Five
Kellan grabbed her hand and headed for the stairs. Thanks to her long legs, Irina matched his stride until they hit the first step, then they were running, taking those steps two at a time.
At the head of the stairs, Irina gave a quick look around. Pale gray walls, white oak floors and a dark green runner carpet going along the length of the hallway. There was a skylight overhead that allowed the watery sunlight to spill down onto them.
Then he was pulling her down that wide hallway to the room at the far end, overlooking the front of the house. He threw the door open and tugged her inside in one smooth move. Before she could catch her breath, Kellan slammed the door, then turned to grab hold of her. Irina went to him eagerly, her body practically vibrating with the tension he’d instilled in her.
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