The Baby Gift

by Day Leclaire

  She turned away and drifted toward the Christmas tree, running her finger along the short, spiky needles. "We discussed all that. You said you were trying to comfort me."

  “ls that why you kissed me back?"

  "No," she whispered.

  Curiosity got the better of him. "Then why did you?”

  There was a long pause before she answered. "I was hoping it might help you remember Meg."

  "By kissing you?" he questioned skeptically. "Not very logical."

  "Neither is the hole in your memory," she flashed hack, swiveling to face him once again.

  This wasn't the time to explain. Not until he'd heard whatever story she'd concocted. "Skip the speculation and give me the details. You said Meg and I met at a restaurant."

  "That's right."

  He leaned against the mantel, coffee mug in hand.

  "And our hands accidentally brushed over a cup of coffee and that was it? Love at first touch?"

  "No. My sister was your waitress. She…she fainted. You drove her to the hospital. I worked at the restaurant, too, and went with you.”

  It was his turn to frown. "Was she ill even then?" he asked gently.

  "Yes. Though the actual cause wasn't discovered until shortly before Nick's birth. Not that it would have made any difference. Some things can't be fixed.” Lauren's carelessness sat at direct odds with the distress evident in her voice. "My sister's condition was one of those things."

  "I really am sorry. I may not remember her or any of the events you're describing, but losing your sister must have been rough."

  "Yes, it was." She buried her nose in her hot chocolate. "It still is."

  He took a long swallow of coffee as he considered how to phrase his next question. "Was there anyone else in her life? I realize she named Nick after my father, but—"

  Anger exploded in Lauren's eyes. "Meg named Nick after your father because she knew that's what you wanted. She knew a lot about you, Alessandro. Haven't you been listening? You two were close. Very close. You told her things you never revealed to anyone else.”

  His mouth twisted. "If you're referring to her knowledge of my father's name, that's hardly classified information."

  "It isn't just the names. It's their personalities, too." She ticked off on her fingers. "Your oldest brother is Luc. He's the responsible one. You're second in line and pride yourself on your self-control. Next comes the twins, Marco and Stefano. You described the strange circumstances surrounding their marriages and how wonderful their wives are, despite how their weddings came about. Then there's Rocco, the tough guy of the bunch—"' She scowled at him. "Though he's nowhere near as tough as you. And finally, Pietro. Your mother died when you were a boy and for a brief time you were in foster care. You said it had a traumatic effect on your family."

  "All of that's public information. A good investigator—"

  "Does it look like I could afford a good investigator?” she broke in. "Or even a bad one? Stop analyzing this with your head, Alessandro. Deny the closeness of your relationship with Meg, if you must. But stop looking for an excuse to deny your own son."

  "The tests—"

  "The test will confirm your paternity. But what about everything else I've told you? There isn't a test in the world that will prove to your satisfaction that you loved Meg with all your heart and that she loved you."

  "Maybe because that's not how we felt."

  "Don't say that!" Lauren deposited her hot chocolate on the coffee table, the ceramic mug striking discordantly against the glass surface. Ignoring it, she crossed to stand before him, her hands balled into fists, her eyes incandescent. The muscles in her jaw worked as she fought to speak. "You fell in love. You told Meg you'd love her forever. You promised, Alessandro. You promised you'd be back. But you never returned. You left her alone and pregnant. Where were you? Why didn't you return like you said?"

  The raw fury of her questions got through to him as nothing else would have. He should have told her the truth when she first showed up on his doorstep. Perhaps if he hadn't been so wary, so suspicious of her motives, he'd have explained sooner. "I didn't keep my promise because I didn’t remember it."

  "Why? Why didn't you remember? How could you possibly forget the woman you claimed to love?"

  "Because I was in a car wreck, Lauren. A serious one." The flat statement stopped her cold. Or perhaps it was the guttural way he said it, the words so thickly laced with the accent of his ancestors that they were barely intelligible. "I don't remember any of the time I spent in North Carolina. I don't remember you. Or Meg. And I especially don't remember this great love affair you claim I had. Now do you understand? As far as I know, it never happened."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Four days before Christmas...

  She came to him again, all silk and sweetness and heady feminine perfume. As Alessandro watched, the early morning rays crept across the bed, gilding her hair with sunshine. He couldn’t resist running his fingers through the silken weight, amazed by the unusual texture. He'd never felt anything like it. The hip-length strands clung, wrapping around him, binding them together in chains more vibrant than gold and more enduring than forged steel.

  As though sensing his gaze, her lashes quivered and she opened eyes that were a dark, penetrating brown, the color unusual in one so fair. They were the exact shade of newly tilled earth, rich and fertile and abundant with life. She smiled at him, her love communicated with a natural ease he envied. Not even Rhonda at her most passionate had expressed herself with such open generosity or undisguised ardor. Everything about the woman in his arms spoke of love— the softness of her delicate, mischievous features, the gentle touch of work-roughened hands, the tender emotion lacing even the simplest of words.

  "Alessandro? Are you awake?"

  He stroked her cheek with his thumb. "I've been awake for hours. You're the one who's intent on sleeping the clock around."

  She wrinkled her nose at the blatant lie. "Never in all my born days have I spent so much time lazing around in bed," she scolded. "It's not part of my nature. You've been a very bad influence, Mr. Salvatore."

  "I think I've been an excellent influence. You should laze around in bed more often. That way you wouldn't work so hard."

  "I wouldn't bother you except... I couldn't sleep."

  "Then let's not sleep." He tucked her more firmly against him "There are lots of other things we can do instead. Now that the snow's melted, we can find more of those crocuses you like so much. What did you call them?"

  "Spring's ambassadors. Lauren calls them little cups of hope."

  "I like that," he said gruffly. "I sometimes think there isn't enough hope in the world.”

  Her laughter teased him. "In that case, it's our sworn duty and obligation to find more. Would that make you feel better?"

  "Much. How about a picnic lunch?" he suggested. “There's a little shop not far from here where we can pick up some wine and cheese and a loaf of fresh-baked bread. We could load up a basket, grab one of your quilts and go into the woods where we’ll find all the hope we need. How does that sound?"

  "I had a bad dream." Her breath hitched in the night air. "About you being hurt and alone."

  He cupped her face and reassured her with a lingering kiss. "Don't be afraid, bella mia. I'm not hurt or alone. Not anymore. After my experience with Rhonda, I gave up on love and marriage and fairytale endings.” He couldn't hide his amazement. “And then I met you."

  "Do you think we could talk for a bit? Just until I feel sleepy again?"

  "We can do anything you want."

  "Alessandro?"

  He wrapped her in a protective embrace. "I’m here, sweetheart. And I'm not going anywhere. What did you tell me the other day? Home is where the heart is? Well, my heart and home are right here with you."

  "Are you awake?"

  He wanted her.

  "Can you hear me?"

  Needed her.

  "Please," she whispered. "Don't send me away.”r />
  Took—

  "Lauren?" He bolted upright in bed, the dream dissolving around him, fading before he could fully grasp the details. "What...?"

  A shimmering light from the windows helped him track her passage into the room. She paused at the foot of his bed. "Do you mind if I talk to you?"

  "Is something wrong? Is it Nick?" He struggled to separate dream from reality. It was becoming more and more difficult with each passing night. "Is he okay?"

  Her smile flashed in the darkness. "That's supposed to be my line, remember?" She crossed to the bay windows, her ghostly figure caught within the grasp of a full moon. "I couldn't sleep."

  "Did Nick wake you?" He deliberately infused his words with a threatening tone, striving to ease her tension with a touch of humor. "You want me to have a talk with the boy and explain the facts of life to him?"

  A short laugh escaped her. "No. It wasn't his fault. He's pretty good about sleeping straight through until morning."

  Alessandro frowned. That didn't make sense, not considering the well-used path she'd carved between her bed and Nick's crib. "Then why do you get up so often? You must check on him four or five times during the night.”

  "I'm sorry. I didn't realize I’d been disturbing you." Curling up on the window seat, she wrapped her arms around her legs and drew them tight against her chest. Moonshine draped her in silver, flowing across her hair and cheekbones and down to her shoulders before losing itself in her white cotton shift. She bore an uncanny resemblance to the photo of Meg in that moment, the light giving the illusion of long, lustrous hair. "You have no idea how hard I've tried, but I haven't been able to sleep through the night. So whenever I wake, I peek in on Nick as a precaution."

  Alessandro still didn't understand. "Did he just start sleeping an eight-hour stretch? Is that why you're having trouble adjusting?"

  "No, he's been doing that for ages. Unfortunately, my disrupted sleep patterns don't have a blessed thing to do with him. Not anymore."

  "Then what?"

  The confession came reluctantly. "I used to get up every couple of hours to check on my sister. Especially toward the end.” She shrugged. "I guess the habit stuck."

  It took a minute for the full import of her words to sink in. "Wait a minute. Your sister?" He stared in disbelief. "You nursed her?"

  "There wasn't anyone else," she said simply. "She didn't have medical insurance and we lived a bit off the beaten path. It was hard to get help. At least, help we could afford. Besides, she found being at home a comfort. How could I deprive her of that?''

  No wonder Lauren looked so exhausted. He'd assumed it had come from the difficulty of playing surrogate mother to Nick, or the fact that she'd worked her way across country. But to care for a terminally ill sister on top of the demands of a baby... Hell. It was a wonder she hadn't dropped from sheer exhaustion months ago. "You said Meg died in September. I'd have thought that was enough time for your sleep patterns to readjust."

  She rested her chin on her bent knees. "Maybe they would have if it weren't for the dreams."

  Her comment struck a chord. "That's right. You said something about having a nightmare when you first came in." He could sympathize. Though his dreams couldn't be termed nightmares, they were disturbing. "Do you want to talk about it?"

  She started to shake her head, then hesitated before nodding abruptly. "It's the same one I have almost every night. I've been having it for close to a year." She shivered, her voice so low he could barely hear it. "In the dream I'm all alone and it's snowing. I'm trapped outside in the cold. Bitter, bone-gnawing cold."

  "You're not alone now," he reassured gently. "I'm with you."

  "Believe me, it helps knowin’ that." She laced her fingers together. There was just enough of a glow from the moon for him to see her knuckles bleach white beneath the tightness of her grip. "Normally the dream doesn't get me quite so worked up. But tonight was different. It...it changed."

  "How?"

  Her gaze fixed on him. The color had been washed from her eyes, leaving them glittering crystalline-bright within the oppressive shadows. "You were in it this time. I wasn't the one all alone, anymore. You were. You were hurt and no matter how hard my sister and I looked, we couldn't find you." She exhaled, the sound harsh within the gentle embrace of the darkness. "I need to know about your accident, Alessandro. What happened?"

  Considering the events of her dream, she wouldn't like what he told her. "According to my family, the day I was due to fly home from Asheville, I ended up in a car wreck.”

  She struggled to conceal her alarm, with only limited success. "Someone hit you?"

  "No. I skidded on a patch of ice coming down from the mountains outside of the city. I went off the road into a deep gully."

  He saw the taut movement of her throat as she swallowed. "There's more, isn't there?"

  "It took a while for anyone to find the wreck." He kept his voice even and dispassionate. "They say I was trapped in my car for hours."

  She buried her face in her arms, shuddering. "Alone and cold. Just like in my nightmare."

  "Don't, Lauren." He left the bed and approached, grateful that he'd chosen to sleep in a pair of sweatpants tonight. She shifted to one side and he took a seat next to her, draping a protective arm around her shoulders. "If I was cold, I have no memory of it. No memory of being alone, either. No pain or panic or fear."

  "Oh, Alessandro. You may not remember, but you were all of those things. How could you not be?" She curled into him, wrapping herself in his warmth. "Tell me the rest."

  "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

  That day had left scars he'd rather not discuss. He'd lost far more than his memory in the accident. He'd also lost an essence of himself, a time line that connected his frame of reference from the days before the accident to the days following it. There was a gap, a lack of continuity that troubled him still and left him feeling out of kilter. But far worse, he'd lost an irreplaceable talisman…the chain holding his mother's wedding band. He still hadn't found the words to tell his father. He doubted he ever would.

  "Please, Alessandro. I need to know what happened."

  He hesitated for a moment before relenting. "According to the report, the accident occurred early in the morning. The rescue workers told Luc that if I'd driven that stretch an hour later, the sun would have melted the ice and the accident could have been avoided."

  "You had to leave early," she whispered. "You had a plane to catch."

  He didn't question how she knew. "I came out of the coma two weeks later. I remember leaving San Francisco in mid-March. I remember meeting with my wife—ex-wife—and her lawyer to finalize our divorce. And I remember waking in the hospital with a full month missing from my memory. What happened between leaving the lawyer's office and returning to San Francisco is a blank."

  "It's not a blank to me."

  Between the dreams he'd been having and some of the things Lauren had told him, he was beginning to believe it. "Discussing what happened that day isn't going to help you sleep." He thrust a hand through his hair. "And it sure as hell isn't going to help me get through the night."

  "No, probably not." She pulled back ever so slightly and stared up at him, a wealth of emotion in her gaze—sadness, regret, pain...and a heartrending hope. "Thank you for telling me about your accident. I know you don't remember me. Or my sister. But it's made a huge difference hearing why you never returned. It explains so much."

  "It must have been tough for Meg, especially with her health problems coming on the heels of her last months of pregnancy." It was as close as he'd come to conceding that he'd had a relationship with Lauren's sister. But it wasn't the issue that concerned him the most. "Having the baby's father desert her must have made everything all the harder," he forced himself to add.

  "Your baby, Alessandro. Nick's your son."

  "So you've told me."

  "And you didn't desert him. You'd never have done that." She allowed her comment to sink in and Ales
sandro had the distinct impression he wouldn't like what she said next. "If you're going to be a proper father to him, he'll need love. So do you, for that matter."

  "There's where you're wrong." The correction came out sharper than he'd intended. "I already tried my hand at love and romance and fairy-tale endings. They don't exist."

  "You found them with Meg," she whispered. "You've just forgotten."

  He'd had enough. One way or another, this conversation would end. He slipped his hand along the nape of Lauren's neck, stabbing his fingers deep into the silken layers of her hair. Moonlight fell full across her face, gifting her with a breathtaking beauty while dusting him with insanity.

  "Did I find love with her? Are you so sure?"

  She didn't hesitate for an instant. “Yes."

  "Then why don't you try and help me remember the way you did before."

  He lowered his head toward hers, inhaling her unique fragrance. He caught the crisp, clean odor of soap mingling with a more distinctive scent—the scent of a baby. His baby, most likely. Knowing Lauren carried his mark in such an elemental way stirred something primal in him, as did another, richer aroma that underscored all the others. It was an earthy, feminine essence that interacted with him on the most basic level. It spoke of a desperate want, a want that mirrored his own.

  A want he couldn't resist.

  The softest of moans escaped her throat. And that's all it took. He breached the tiny gap separating them. The hunger he'd felt for the woman in his dreams vanished beneath the onslaught of what he experienced the moment his mouth collided with Lauren's. Her lips mated perfectly with his, parting to welcome him home. He wouldn't get a better invitation. He surged inward, totally losing himself in the most delicious mouth he’d ever fasted. And then she did something that shattered his self control. She touched him.

  Just one simple touch and a desire so fundamental, so primitive and powerful seized hold. It wiped out over two full decades of self-imposed restraint as though they'd never been. The work-roughened tips of her fingers danced from the flat plane of his abdomen, over his chest to his shoulders.