by Edie Ramer
Now, his brother...
If he really wanted someone, wanted her with all his heart, he’d be like a bull and keep charging until he conquered.
“Would you mind keeping Cara for a few hours tonight?” Holden asked.
“How few?” She gazed at the living room where Cara was making a monster puppet out of a kit that had belonged to Grace when she was a child. Last Tuesday, Abby and Grace had dug a box out of the attic, and every day, the three had played with it, she and Grace having as much fun as Cara.
“I should pick her up about nine.”
“You have a date with Portia?”
He didn’t answer at first. When he started to speak, she talked over him. “Don’t answer, it’s none of my business. I was just...” Feeling a little crazy? “Not thinking.”
“Yes, I’m seeing Portia,” he said.
“Tonight’s fine.”
There was silence for a moment. She watched Cara put a tutu on the puppet then balance a hardhat on its head.
“I hope it’s not ruining your plans,” he said. “Of course, I’ll pay extra.”
She wanted to tell him not to pay extra. That with tonight’s date off and Grace sleeping over at her friend’s house, she was glad Cara was staying with her.
And then there was the way she felt... Restless. As if the blood flowed too fast in her veins. As if a fire blazed through her body. She wanted to do strange things. To dance a flamenco. To tap her toes and heels. To swing her hips until every man on the planet looked at her with his loins stirring. And she’d look back, a flame in her eye.
She wanted to swirl. She wanted to feel heat. Not with Ryan. No, no, no. Just...with someone else. Someone who made her blood quicken.
She was feeling...odd. If Cara weren’t here, she might get more than a little wild and do something very stupid.
“No plans,” she said and heard her voice deepen. A voice like one of the mythical Sirens, calling to the sailors. “Come to me. Come. I need you.”
“I have to go.” She hung up, putting down the phone, her hand shaking.
She raised her hands to her cheeks, pressing her fingers against her cheekbones, feeling the heat emanating from her skin. This was craziness. Madness. She needed to take a bath in ice cubes.
Or better yet...
“Cara, you get to stay with me for tonight. Your dad can’t come until—”
Cara’s squeal stopped her. She jumped up and clapped her hands. “I get a sleepover!”
“No, sweetie, he was planning on picking you up. He—”
Cara’s big smile and sparkling eyes fell into a downturned mouth and blinking eyes. Her shoulders slumped, her body drooped.
“But I’d love to have you sleep over,” Abby said so fast the words practically tripped over each other. “Grace is at her friend’s, so it will be just me and you.”
Cara stood straight again. Not smiling yet, but hope radiating from her. Then she did smile. “It will be like you’re my mom.”
For an instant, Abby couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. So overcome with empathy and love for this small girl who didn’t get any from her absent mother.
“I wish I was your mother,” she said once again. Then she stepped toward Cara, and Cara ran toward her, and she fell to her knees, and they hugged. Her eyes closed tightly as the small girl’s chin rested on her shoulder, the sides of their heads together. Abby smelled Cara’s fresh scent, and love grew inside her, getting bigger and taller then expanding even more inside her. She wished she could wrap all the love around Cara in layers, thick and permanent, so she’d feel that love for the rest of her life. Wherever she was, whatever she was doing, she’d know she was loved.
How had this happened so fast?
Opening her eyes, Abby loosened her hold. The three cats and Lion sat around them, watching. For an instant, she wondered what they thought.
Probably that people were weird...and they wouldn’t be wrong.
She kissed the top of Cara’s head, much like she’d kiss Minnie, Quigley, or Lion. Pulling back, she put on a smile as if she were putting on a protective coating.
“I’ll call your dad and ask him if you can stay over.”
Of course he would say yes. He didn’t deserve a daughter like Cara. He was better now than the first day when he’d been so rigid, but sometimes better wasn’t good enough. Not when it came to children.
Abby pulled away from Cara, then she marched to the phone.
At least she wasn’t sighing over him anymore. Right now, her hormones and her mind weren’t singing the same song.
***
He’d lost her. Holden pulled into the parking lot of a bowling alley so he could turn back to the city.
Before tonight, he’d never imagined he’d wait outside Portia’s apartment to follow her like a suspicious lover.
But before tonight, he’d never imagined she’d be so nervous and jumpy, finally telling him that she wasn’t feeling well. And when he asked, she told him she had PMS.
Normally, he would have believed her, kissed her on her forehead, and driven home.
That was before Ryan’s cryptic warning.
So he’d parked his car across the street and just down the block from her condo building. After twenty minutes, he was thinking of leaving, when her silver BMW pulled out of the underground parking and turned the opposite direction that his car was facing.
He’d turned as soon as he could but ended up following the wrong car.
Stopping his car in the bowling alley parking lot, he called Ryan, who answered on the fourth ring.
“What do you know about Portia?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“You know what?” Resentment hardened Ryan’s voice. “She’s your fiancée. You figure it out.”
The phone went dead.
Holden sat in the parking lot for long moments before driving home, knowing what he had to do tomorrow.
But when he stopped the car, he wasn’t at his home. He was parked in front of Abby’s house, even though he’d given Abby his permission for Cara to sleep over. He’d driven here automatically, his mind working on the Portia problem. Keeping his hands on the wheel, the engine still running, he looked at the front of the house with the large front window. Through the filmy curtains, he could see outlines of a slight woman and a smaller girl.
They were dancing.
A sigh whispered through him. Tension rolled off of him. He turned off the ignition, pulled out the key, opened the door, and stepped toward the house.
15
“You’re here!” Abby said, seeing Holden on her front porch. As if they were waiting for him. As if he was supposed to be here all along.
Instantly she felt like an idiot. “How come?” she asked, acting cool, as if she hadn’t just made an ass of herself.
He didn’t reply right away, looking dazed. She opened the door. “Come in. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He followed her into the living room. “Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Daddy?” Cara peered uncertainly at him. “Did you come to see me?”
He gazed down at her, and in slow seconds, the bewilderment faded from his face. Blinking, he shook his head. It almost felt to Abby as if he’d just walked out of a thick fog and wasn’t sure he’d ended up in the right place.
A purr caught her attention. Epic, the kitten who’d been so timid when she’d come to her home, was at his feet. As Abby watched, the kitten stood on its back legs and scratched his pants below his knees, getting his attention.
“Hey, here’s my two girls.” Speaking softly, he crouched and put one hand on Epic’s head and one on Cara’s shoulder. His expression still looked slightly dazed. “My dinner ended early, so I came here.” He paused. “To see you and Epic.”
Cara’s face lit up, and a warmth kindled inside Abby. Then his gaze swept higher, wordlessly including her in the mix, and her body hummed soundlessly.
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Not a good thing. A really stupid thing.
She told herself he was engaged. She told herself she was just feeling this way because it was a childhood dream. This was how her childhood had been before the accident. Mom, dad, her little sister, herself, and a kitten.
Stepping back, she told herself she wasn’t a child, this was no dream, and he for sure wasn’t a dream lover. Her dream lover would be smiling, laughing, kissing her all over. Adoring her.
She couldn’t imagine this man who held himself so stiffly doing any of those things.
“Did you come to take Cara home after all?” she asked.
Cara gave a disappointed cry that sounded a lot like Epic when she objected to something. “We’re doing a sleepover!”
“I want you to stay.” Abby bent forward, her hands flat on the front of her thighs, her face level with Cara’s. “I just wondered if your dad came here to take you home now that his plans have changed. I thought he might want to be with you.”
“He can stay with us, too! He can sleep over.” Cara twirled to face him. “You can, Daddy, can’t you?”
His silvery gaze swept to Abby’s and didn’t leave. His eyes seemed to glitter, and she thought that when she met him five days ago, they hadn’t glittered. Their silvery-blue color had been flat. Having his daughter with him, even this short time, had changed him. It had poked holes in the shell that surrounded him and kept away all emotion, as if it guarded his heart.
“Only if it’s okay with Abby,” he said.
She felt their stares on her as if they had weight. She saw the hope in Cara’s face, as if she was wishing so hard, she couldn’t breathe. And in Holden’s, laughter and ruefulness.
And something else. Hope? Not as bright as in his daughter’s eyes, but looking at him, she saw a spark. As if, for a long time, he hadn’t had any and now he wasn’t too sure, but he was open for the possibility.
She wasn’t sure, either. All she knew for sure was that she had an oversized imagination.
And clearly it had been too long since she’d had sex.
“It’s okay,” she said.
Cara squeaked and jumped and clapped, her small face glowing, happiness streaming from her pores. “Abby’s going to make popcorn! You can have popcorn with us. Where will you sleep? There’s only two beds. Epic and I are sleeping on Grace’s bed. And Lion!” She gave another hop. “Lion sleeps with Grace. Abby says so.”
“She does?”
Abby shrugged. “We got Lion after the accident. Sleeping with him comforted Grace.”
“It will comfort me, too,” Cara said loudly, this girl who’d spoken so softly only a few days ago.
Holden gazed at Cara and swallowed, his Adam’s apple working. Emotion, Abby thought. This unemotional man was swallowing emotion. Or it could be that his throat was dry, and she just wanted to think it was emotion.
“Daddy, you can sleep with us, too.”
“It might be crowded,” he said.
“Your father can sleep on the couch,” Abby said. “Or the floor. His choice.”
“I’ll take the couch.” He grinned at her. “Since I wasn’t offered any other bed.”
She cocked her eyebrow. He was flirting with her. In front of his daughter.
Her heartbeat fluttered. What happened to the uptight, stick-in-his-butt, slightly frazzled guy who’d come to her house a week ago?
And when did he get so...sexy?
He’s engaged, she reminded herself. Maybe he flirted now, but that didn’t mean anything. There’d been an attraction between them since the first day in her kitchen, even if she’d thought he was the opposite of fun. But that happened sometimes between men and women, and the best thing to do was ignore it.
She didn’t admire women or men who took any pretty thing they desired just because they could. Not caring if it was right or wrong. She was not going to become one of them.
Even if she wanted it.
Even if he wanted it, too.
“There’s always Lion’s dog bed,” she said.
Cara laughed so hard she fell to the floor and held her stomach.
She had a gift, Abby thought, grabbing on to joy so quickly. The speed of her recovery from years of lack of affection was amazing. And to see her like this... Abby’s heart felt full.
A choking sound came from Holden, and she saw he was staring at Cara with astonishment. Abby’s eyes prickled with moisture. Every time one of her foster cats was adopted, she always cried. Even for the ones who’d given her trouble. The ones who bit and scratched her and had bathroom accidents.
She’d been looking forward to the two weeks passing, but now she knew that when Cara was gone, she’d better make sure she had a full box of Kleenex in the house.
***
“Daddy, will you kiss me goodnight?” Cara pursed her lips to meet his as he bent over her bed. One peck, over quickly. She smiled at him, her face blindingly happy.
As he stepped back, the dog jumped on the bed and then the white cat, each settling down on a different side of her.
“You look like a princess in a fairy tale,” Abby said, standing next to him, a faint scent of jasmine reaching up to him. “All you need is a tiara.”
Cara giggled. “I feel like a princess. Will you kiss me, too?”
“Of course.” She bent and hugged Cara, her whisper coming up to him. “You’re a sweetheart.”
“You’re a sweetheart, too,” Cara said, her voice clear. “This is better than any dream I ever had in my whole life.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Abby bent forward again and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Close your eyes and go to sleep. I’ll make eggs in the morning. Okay?”
Cara closed her eyes tight.
Holden had to force himself to follow Abby out of the room. All night he’d been unlike himself, as if his brain were still in that dark fog and only emotions pulled him through it. At the door, Abby turned off the light and murmured, “Sweet dreams.”
She headed into the kitchen and offered him a drink. He surprised himself by accepting a beer.
“You’re going to be a great mother,” he said.
Sitting at the table, she gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. He sat across from her. Even before she spoke, he could tell by the tension in her face that she wasn’t going to tell him he was a great father.
“Did you know she hardly ever sees her mother?” she asked.
He took a sip of his beer.
“And apparently she sees her grandparents more often, but sometimes full days go by when she doesn’t see them, either.”
He didn’t reply, though every word was a twist in his gut.
“Most of her time is spent with a series of changing nannies who spend most of their time on the phone talking to friends or texting them. The last one was sneaking out at night. She made Cara promise not to tell her grandparents that she left her alone in their wing of the house.”
He closed his eyes, feeling as if he’d been kicked in his heart.
“You can’t let her go back to them.”
He nodded, looking at the ceiling and seeing a crack in it. Cara shouldn’t live in a house with no love. And Abby and her sister shouldn’t live in a house with a crack in the ceiling. “I know.”
“You’re going to keep her?”
“I have no choice, do I?”
“You have the same choice you did before. She told us she never saw you before her grandparents brought her here.”
He lowered his gaze to her. She leaned toward him, her elbows on the table, her expression so serious and so hurt. As hurt and serious as he felt inside.
“How could you do that?” Her tone was low and tense. “It doesn’t sound like you.”
“I thought Juliana would take better care of her.”
“You never checked. I can’t understand that. It’s crazy to me that you—” Her voice choked, and she set her lips together and stood. “Never mind. I’ll get a pillow and a cover for the couch. You can watch TV. I think
I’ll go to bed early.” She headed to the hall, leaving the full bottle of beer on the table.
Except for the pad of her feet and the hum of the refrigerator, there was no sound. She hadn’t reached the hall when he finally spoke in a low voice that sounded tortured, unable to stop himself.
“Cara’s not mine.”
She turned, staring at him. She took a quick glimpse down the hall then strode back to the table.
“What do you mean?” Her voice was hushed.
“Juliana was cheating on me. Cara’s not mine.”
“You’re sure?”
“By the time Juliana had gotten pregnant, we’d stopped having sex. She lived in California, and I lived in Wisconsin. We planned on getting a divorce, but my grandparents weren’t in good health. I didn’t want to upset them. Juliana was in love with her married boyfriend and in no hurry to end our marriage. When she found out she was pregnant, she begged me to wait until after the baby was born. Begged me to let her put my name on the birth certificate.”
Emotions flitted across Abby’s face: surprise, anger, sorrow. He braced himself for more questions about his marriage. Instead, she looked at him for a long moment before speaking.
“Does this mean you can’t get custody?”
He laughed again. He should have expected the unexpected from her. “I’ll get custody.”
“Good. I wouldn’t let a mouse stay with the grandparents.”
“Who are upright, well-respected citizens,” he said.
“I guess money can buy a good reputation,” she said. “As many politicians have already discovered.”
“I can’t speak for politicians, but her grandparents aren’t doing anything illegal. They aren’t beating her.”
“Not physically. But emotionally...” She sat, grabbed the beer bottle, took a slug then slapped it down. “Do the parents know she’s not yours?”
He shook his head. “Juliana was afraid of what they would say. She made me promise not to tell them. In return, she promised a swift, uncontested divorce and said she wouldn’t seek child support or any money, so I agreed.”
“I suppose her parents were cold to her as well.”
“I believe they were. Cara and Juliana had that in common.”