by Leanne Banks
"Can't sleep, either?" Abe asked from the doorway.
Nicola whirled around, her heart climbing into her throat.
"A couple shots of whiskey might work better," he said, lifting a bottle of liquor that she knew cost more than her most expensive shoes. He was dressed in a pair of lounging pants and a nightshirt partially unbuttoned to reveal a muscular chest that belied his age. Nicola liked him best this way, with his hair mussed and his manner casual and approachable.
That was what had gotten her into trouble in the first place, she reminded herself. She cleared her throat. "I want to try this tea. It promises relaxation."
His lips tilted in an engaging grin as he moved toward her. "There are lots of ways to relax. Why are you tense? The election's over, babe."
Nicola turned her attention to her tea. "Oh, you're type-A, so you know how it is. Your mind starts whirling and won't stop. I guess I could ask you why you're awake—" He slid his fingers through her hair to the back of her neck.
"Yeah, you're stiff. What's wrong?"
Her heart hammered from his touch. "I told you," she said. "My mind is whirling."
"About what?" he asked, rubbing his thumb over a knot.
She bit her lip at the soothing sensation. The man was so good with his hands, she thought, and a dozen forbidden images of Abe with his hands on her body slipped through her mind.
"You got quiet. Am I doing something right?"
She cleared her throat. "Too right," she murmured. "You always seem to know exactly how to touch—" She broke off again and couldn't swallow her moan as he found another knot.
She felt him lift her hair and his mouth pressed against her bare skin. "I know a more effective way of taking care of your tension," he murmured, his voice creating a delicious buzz on her neck. He slid his hand around to the front of her and eased her bottom against the front of him.
Nicola closed her eyes. She could feel his arousal. It never ceased to amaze her that he could want her this way. He seemed to have the power to make her forget everything but being with him this very moment. Maybe things could work out between them. Unbidden, the hopeful thought squeaked out. Maybe the magic between them could work for something longer. "We've never really talked about the future," she managed to say.
"Yes, we have," he said, rubbing his mouth over her shoulder. "I want you to come to Washington with me."
Caught between arousal and the desire to tell him about the baby, she swallowed hard. "I mean we've never talked about us personally."
He paused. "What do you mean?"
Thankful he couldn't see her face, she inhaled carefully. "I mean our personal future. We've said we shouldn't be involved, but we keep giving in to temptation."
Abe pulled back slightly. "Do you want to go public?"
"Do you?"
His sigh drifted over her hair. "I hadn't thought about it. It was impossible during the campaign. I've liked keeping the personal us just for you and me. Lord knows, the public has the rest of me. I like having you and me just for you and me. I know I'm too old for you for anything long-term."
"What if I disagreed with you on that?" she asked, feeling her chest tighten.
"You'd change your mind when I get arthritis and you're still moving and shaking," he said with a laugh that didn't set right with her. "I don't see any need for me to get married again. I screwed that up pretty well the first time. And having children is the last thing I'd want to do right now. All my children would tell you I was a dismal father figure. I don't want to disappoint another kid because I'm not the father I should be."
But do you want children?
"That's one way you and I are alike, Nic. We both want the freedom to pursue our careers. A marriage and children. You might as well tie an anchor around my neck and toss me in the ocean."
A door to a place inside Nicola that held a tiny ray of light slammed closed. She would go this alone.
Nicola successfully avoided Abe the entire weekend, but when morning dawned on Monday, she knew she would have to face him, to work with him, and keep her secrets to herself. She only had to last six weeks. Abe would take the oath of office in January. In Washington. Nicola planned a move to the West Coast. A plan of action made all the difference in the world.
Less than six weeks, she told herself and lifted her chin. She pushed Abe's office door the rest of the way open and found him standing with his broad back to her as he stared out the window. His posture was so erect she often wondered if he had a titanium spine.
She stiffened her own shoulders and stole the moment just to look at him. Honest Abe, as the voters knew him, had a killer body and could make her blood run so hot and so fast that her brain just flat-out stopped. His combination of sincerity and strength knocked out her first level of resistance, and the way he looked at her, as if she were the only woman alive, finished off any other defenses she erected.
For all his strength, he looked totally alone. The knowledge bothered her. His children wanted to know him better. He wanted a closer relationship with them. Accomplishing that should be easier, she thought, feeling a familiar trickle of frustration.
Abe turned around and looked at her. "Good morning, Nicola."
His deep voice touched a chord inside her; it always had. Her name felt like beautiful, sensual music coming from his mouth. One more reason she'd found him so difficult to resist. "Good morning to you. How's the packing going?"
"My assistant has grown tired or distracted by the holidays. Her daughter's Christmas program is this morning, so I let her off for the day."
"Nice boss," Nicola said with a smile, moving closer to his desk.
"Misplaced guilt," he corrected in a dry voice. "It made me think of how many of my children's Christmas programs I missed."
"You could do something about your own children."
"Kinda late," he said. "I don't think Marc's interested in making gingerbread men anymore."
Nicola laughed at the image of the two Danforth men up to their elbows in gingerbread cookies and frosting. "I don't think you are, either. I meant you could try to spend some time with each of your children. You could add it to your to-do list before you go to Washington."
"The problem with that is they'll want to ask sticky questions. Marc asked one the other day," he said, leaning against his large cherry desk.
"Questions about what?" she asked, sitting in an upholstered chair and pouring a cup of tea for herself and a cup of coffee for Abe.
"About why I wasn't around more. About his mother."
"Did you tell him the truth?" she asked and took a sip of her tea. Abe had told her about his marriage. His wife had deeply resented his military career and he'd felt unable to please her.
"Some of it." He narrowed his eyes. "She was with the kids more than I was. It wouldn't be fair to disrespect her memory."
Nicola gave a snort of disagreement.
Abe looked at her in surprise. "What?"
"She may have been a wonderful woman, but I don't think she needs to be martyred. Plus, Marc's a big boy. He doesn't need to be protected from the truth. He's a grownup. If he understood more about what made you the poster boy for overachievers, it might actually help him."
"Poster boy for overachievers," Abe echoed, lifting an eyebrow.
Others would be intimidated by that raised eyebrow, but Nicola wasn't. "If there were a man's photo beside the word overachiever in the dictionary, it would be yours."
His lips twitched. "I don't know whether to be insulted or complimented. Besides, isn't that like the pot calling the kettle black? You're no slouch."
"I can be lazy," she argued. "I can sleep past 6:00 a.m."
"So can I if I have a good reason," he said, his gaze sliding over her and lingering.
She felt the snap of electricity between them. Yikes, she would have to be careful. Surprise, surprise. Even though she was pregnant, Abe could still make her too aware of him. "I said sleep, not just stay in bed. But back to your children, I reall
y do think you should add it to your to-do list."
"I'll think about it," he said, and sat across from her. He lifted his coffee to his lips. "Did you take care of your personal matters?"
She nodded. Prenatal vitamins, extra rest, a strategy to control morning sickness and a plan of action with Abe.
"And you're still not going to tell me what it was?"
She tensed, but shrugged. "Boring, boring."
He shook his head and caught her hand as she reached for her cup of tea. "Nothing about you is boring."
Her heart stuttered at the sensation of his hand around hers. She tried to answer lightly. "You're such a flatterer."
"You know that's not true."
She did, unfortunately. Abe could be brutally honest. It was his greatest strength, but it could hurt sometimes, too. She didn't know how to respond.
"Are you seeing someone else?"
The question sounded as if it had been grudgingly dragged up from the recesses of his stomach. It caught her off guard. "No. Why?"
"You pull back when I touch you. You avoided me this weekend."
"Well, you're leaving soon. I thought it would be better for both of us to back off gradually." Plus there was the matter of her pregnancy, and she couldn't imagine keeping herself on an even keel emotionally if she and Abe continued to be lovers.
"I still want you to come to Washington," he said.
"I'm not."
He pulled back and raked his hand through his hair. "Damn, this is hard. I've always thought you should find someone your own age."
If she were smart, she would let him continue thinking he was too old for her, but the truth was it irritated the hell out of her every time he mentioned their age difference. "That's right. You're ancient and I'm not. Your mind is going, your sight is going. Physically, you've gone to pot. And sexually, you just can't get it up like you used to. Heaven help me if I'd known you when you were younger. I've had a hard enough time keeping up with you as it is."
"You are one mouthy woman," he said, but his eyes were glinting with humor.
Nicola sighed. Lord, the man was just too appealing to her. "Yes, I am. One more reason to kick me to the side of the road," she said and pulled out her PalmPilot and changed the subject. "So what do you have on tap for today? Looks like you're making an appearance with The Christmas Mother Fund Drive and an afternoon meeting with a representative from the Small Business Association. We should leave in—"
She stopped when she felt his hand on hers. She slowly met his gaze and the intensity in his eyes rendered her mute.
"Nic, I'm serious about wanting you in Washington. I'll do just about anything to make it happen."
Her heart raced at the determination she saw in his face. She knew that when Abe set his mind to something he rarely failed. She would have to draw the line and say no to him. She bit her lip. Six weeks, she told herself. Six weeks. "You can't move Savannah to D.C.," she told him and felt a little hypocritical because her plan was to move to the West Coast once Abe left for Washington.
"I'm putting together an offer. Don't say no right away. I want you to think about it, really think about it. We're a dynamite team."
They were, which added to the pain and shame of it all.
* * *
Two
« ^ »
The following day, Abe's phone started ringing.
"Hey, Dad, I got a message that you wanted me to call you about getting together for lunch," his oldest son, Ian, said.
Abe hesitated. He hadn't called Ian for lunch. But hell, he wouldn't turn down the opportunity. He glanced at his calendar. "Right. I have Thursday open. Is that good for you?"
"That will work. Uh, do you have some kind of announcement?"
Abe heard wariness in his son's voice. "Why do you ask that?"
"Well, every time I get a summons, it seems like there's something big going on. Like you announcing you're running for Senate. Or finding out I have a half sister." He paused. "You haven't had any other children show up, have you?"
"No," Abe said and looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head. "I just wanted to get together with you before I go to Washington."
"For what?" Ian asked.
Abe's gut knotted. Ian's surprise and wariness reminded him yet again of the distance between him and his children. "Because I said so," Abe said.
Silence followed then Ian chuckled. "Okay. That's good enough for me. I'll see you on Thursday."
Just as Abe hung up the phone, there was a tap on his door. "Come in," he called, and Nicola entered the room.
"I just got—" His phone began to ring. "Just a minute. Abe Danforth," he said.
"Hi, it's Adam," another of his sons said. "I hear you want to get together for lunch?"
Abe opened his mouth and hesitated for a half beat, then he looked at Nicola suspiciously. "Yes, I do. You want to do something Saturday or Tuesday?"
"Selene and I have plans on Saturday. How about noon on Tuesday?"
"Good," Abe said and wrote a note to himself.
"Is everything okay?" Adam asked.
"Yes. Why?"
"You haven't asked me to lunch very often. Maybe never. Except when something big is going on."
"No, Adam," Abe said impatiently. "I don't have any other children. I just wanted to get together with you before I go to Washington. Is that good enough?"
Silence followed. "Sure."
"Good. See you on Tuesday," Abe said in a brisk voice and hung up the phone. He locked gazes with Nicola. "What's all this?"
She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "Think of it as my little Christmas gift to you."
"What? Opening Pandora's box to the past with two of my sons."
"Well, actually, it won't be just two of them," she said with a hopeful smile.
Abe felt irritation wash over him. "I don't like interference in my private life."
"I guess you could fire me," she suggested in a cheeky voice, ignoring his quiet, serious tone. Abe knew other men had quaked at that tone.
Not Nicola, he thought, exasperated. "This was none of your business."
Hurt flickered across her face, but it was gone before he could focus on it. "I know, but it's been wrenching for me to watch you want to have a better relationship with your children and not do anything about it."
He sighed. "Their resentment is justified."
"To a degree," she said. "On the other hand, you made sure they were safe, well educated and you encouraged their relationship with your brother, so they would have some stability and support. That's not all bad."
"But I wasn't there," he said, and the blunt fierce truth was unavoidable.
"No you weren't," she said. "And if you could do it over again?"
"I can't," he said firmly. "There's no need to go there." He hated the bitter taste of regret, and in facing each of his children, Abe knew he would be feeling regret with each meeting.
"You don't have to view this as a visit to the guillotine," she said. "You could see it as an opportunity for a new beginning."
"If I lived in Disneyland," he said. "You may be a great campaign manager, but you have no experience being a parent, Nicola," he said. "You have no idea what you've started here."
Her face paled. "Okay, you've made it clear that you're angry that I interfered," she said in a low voice. "We should move on to the business of the day."
The rest of the day their conversation was so stilted and cold he kept thinking he should turn up the heat. He disliked stepping on Nicola's toes, but she shouldn't have nosed into his relationships with his children. Despite the closeness he and Nicola had experienced throughout the campaign, he still had boundaries, and Nicola had violated one in a big way. Every time he thought about facing his grown children's questions, he felt itchy enough to jump out of his skin.
By Thursday when Abe met his son Ian for lunch, Nicola still hadn't thawed. Abe ordered a steak and baked potato. He was in the mood to tear up the meat with his bare teeth.
/> "How's the coffee business?" Abe asked, focusing his attention on his son.
"Great. It will be even better when the members of the drug cartel that were trying to pressure me are caught." He shook his head. "I'm glad Marc was cleared."
Abe nodded. "And Kate?"
"Is beyond great," Ian said with quiet wonder. He rubbed his jaw. "I didn't see that one coming."
That was how Abe had felt about Nicola. She'd been an unexpected blast of heat from the first moment they'd met. More like an arctic freeze lately.
"Dad?" Ian said. "Dad, is something wrong?"
Abe shook off his distracting thoughts. "No. I just had something on my mind. Back to you and Kate. What are your plans for the holidays?" he asked as the waiter served their meals.
"It required some intense negotiations, but we decided to celebrate Christmas here and join the Fortunes for New Year's Eve."
Abe smiled at his son's wry expression. "Good for you. Kate's got her share of fire, so there will be more negotiations in your future."
Ian cracked a wicked grin. "I look forward to it."
Chuckling, Abe sliced his steak and began to eat. Silence stretched between him and Ian. After he swallowed another bite, Abe glanced up and found his son looking at him with curiosity in his gaze. Abe's stomach sank. Here come the questions.
"Did you win your negotiations with Mom?" Ian asked.
"There's winning and there's winning," Abe said.
"Sounds like a nonanswer to me," Ian returned.
Abe placed his knife and fork on his plate. He suspected he wouldn't be eating much more. He'd prepared his answer. "Your mother and I wanted different things. She wasn't happy that I was in the military. She wanted me to quit."
Ian leaned back in his chair. "So you had to choose between honor and duty or your wife and family."
Abe narrowed his eyes and sighed. "It was more complicated than that. I had a lot to prove. Especially because of my father. I was a disappointment to him. I didn't perform well in elementary school and I was never a natural student. My father told me he didn't expect me to accomplish much of anything."
Ian's eyes rounded in surprise. "That was harsh."