“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying,” she said finally.
“I’m not, either,” he admitted. “It’s been a long time since I pursued a woman. Since I even wanted to pursue a woman. But I feel as if I’m ready to move on to a new chapter in my life.”
Lanie looked deeply into Garrett’s eyes, and she saw genuine emotion there. Confusion and excitement warred within her heart. He was being as honest with her as he could be, she was sure of that.
Then she knew he was going to kiss her again, and that if she was going to argue, now was the time. But she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted it badly.
And so she kissed him, revelling in the sweet exploration of his mouth on hers, until Dalton put up a bawling protest. Garrett took him upstairs to rock him, as they’d planned, and when he came back down they worked together to clean up the picnic.
The evening had been a simple one, the sort of evening that a husband and wife would share—at home with their child. Only they weren’t husband and wife, and Garrett was going to leave. Lanie retrieved his clothes from the dryer, and he changed.
She walked him to the door, aching with the need for him to stay, to take this night of uncharted hope one step further. She wanted to make love, to know what it would feel like to have Garrett’s body pressed to hers, his soul blending with her own.
But that wouldn’t be a little step, that would be a big one. She’d been reckless enough for one night There were too many things about which she was still uncertain. And the false closeness of physical intimacy wouldn’t answer her questions.
Still, heat drenched her feminine center as he stopped, turned to meet her eyes in the dark hall in front of the door. He drew her close, and she felt his own arousal burgeoning against her.
He claimed her mouth with his for a long, lazy kiss that curled her toes and sent her mind reeling. It was tender, heartbreakingly romantic. She was alarmingly light-headed by the time he released her.
“Good night,” he whispered into her ear, and she stood there, hanging onto the doorjamb for dear life as he drove away.
“I love hippos. They seem so worry free. They’re fat and slobby, and they just don’t care.” Lanie rested her head against Garrett’s shoulder as they sat together on a secluded bench across from the hippo enclosure. She and Dalton had met Garrett at the zoo in Austin for the afternoon. It was over a week since their picnic. It was a weekday afternoon, and crowds at the zoo were relatively sparse.
She was in over her head, and she knew it. She was more than halfway in love with Garrett already. It wasn’t her nature to hold back her feelings, but she was trying. She was afraid of feeling too much, too soon. Garrett had said he was ready to move on to a new chapter in his life, but he hadn’t said anything about love and trust. She knew she was going to have to take a wait-and-see approach with their relationship—which was a lot easier to accept in her head than it was in her heart.
Some hippo-style nonchalance would come in handy for her right about now. She needed to take things slow and easy until she figured out whether or not she and Garrett had a real future. She couldn’t let herself love him, not knowing if he could ever love her back. She’d been down that road before, with Ben, and she wasn’t going back.
“My favorite animal when I was a kid was the lion,” Garrett commented lazily beside her. He was holding Dalton against his other shoulder. The baby was sleeping.
“Ah, the king of the jungle, I could have guessed,” Lanie said, tipping her head up to look at him. “You Blakemores like to be in charge, don’t you?”
“And what’s wrong with that?” he countered lightly. “Comes in handy in the business world.”
“I’m sure it does.” Lanie closed her eyes, enjoying the warm breeze as she cozied against him on the shaded bench. “Ben must have taken after his mother’s side of the family. He seemed to have missed out on the Blakemore killer instinct somehow.”
“Killer instinct? I prefer intense aggression.”
“Intense aggression? Okay.” Lanie smiled to herself, thinking that if Garrett’s kisses were an example of his intense aggression, he had to be a real powerhouse in a boardroom.
The light breeze felt good on her skin, and Garrett’s shoulder felt even better. She fit perfectly against him.
“I barely remember Ben’s mom,” Garrett said quietly. “You know, Walter was crazy about Ben’s mother. She died from some sort of complication following Ben’s birth.”
Lanie opened her eyes, straightened. She didn’t say a word, just waited for Garrett to go on. Something about the serious note in his voice told her he was about to tell her something important, if only she would listen and understand.
“I was just five then,” he said, “but I remember later hearing my parents talk about how much Walter changed after that. That’s when his business really took off. Of course, then my parents died and Walter ended up raising me and Ben both.”
“What was that like, going to live with Walter?” she prompted.
A couple passed, pushing a stroller, then Garrett answered her.
“Strange, at first. I didn’t know Walter very well. And he wasn’t a demonstrative man. I was grieving for my parents, and I’m sure he didn’t know how to deal with that. It was summertime, so he took Ben and me to the office with him a lot.”
He stared toward the hippos, but she knew he was much further away than that.
She was quiet, and he went on after a few minutes. “Ben and I would play games, taking turns pretending to be president of the company. It gave me something to focus on, something that was completely disassociated with the life I’d led before. It was even more fascinating to me as I grew older and it stopped being a game.”
“That must have made Walter happy,” Lanie said carefully, realizing she was learning a lot about Garrett and not wanting to say anything that would make him close up.
“I owe Walter a huge debt for raising me,” Garrett said quietly. “I admire him. I know he seems harsh and cold, but he’s not without feeling. You just don’t know him. I promise you, he cares about Dalton. He talks about Dalton all the time.” His gaze focused in on her again. “I’m not going to pressure you about the tests, but I just want you to understand that this is just Walter’s way. He doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one.”
She watched his big, strong hand patting Dalton as the baby stretched, waking. There was such tenderness in the automatic gesture. She sensed the words he spoke about Walter rang just as true for himself. Garrett had been hurt by love, just like Walter. Maybe that was why he understood his uncle so well.
Was there a chance she could heal them both?
Chapter Twelve
“I’m sorry, Lanie, I forgot about this meeting when I offered to come help you scrape paint this afternoon.” Garrett said, speaking to her from the phone in his office.
Business still made his pulse race, but that was nothing compared to what his heartbeat did when he was with Lanie. The fact that an afternoon of scraping paint off her house was something he anticipated with pleasure—and regretted passing up—said it all.
It had been over a month since they’d begun seeing each other. With Lanie busy on the weekends now that the bed-and-breakfast had reopened, they usually met during the week. Garrett had been making a habit of taking some afternoons off to meet Lanie at various places—a special showing at an art gallery, a flower show at the botanical gardens, a folk music celebration in the downtown district. Dalton loved strolling or being carried, so the activities they’d planned had worked smoothly.
He wanted to be alone with her, though. He wanted it so much, he burned up inside just thinking about it. He wasn’t disappointed about missing their date in Deer Creek tonight because he liked to scrape paint.
“Oh, don’t worry about helping me with the house,” Lanie told him, but he was glad to hear there was disappointment in her voice, too. “I’ll be fine on my own.”
&n
bsp; “Why don’t you just wait until another time, when I can be there?” he suggested.
“That’s all right. I don’t need your—”
“—help,” Garrett filled in, and they both laughed. Of course she wouldn’t agree to wait for him before she started working on the house, but he hadn’t expected she would. And he respected her independence. She might look like a fragile flower, but she didn’t act like one.
“I know you don’t need my help,” he said teasingly. “But do you need me?”
“Need you?” she repeated, her voice softening.
“I want to be alone with you, Lanie. No crowds. Just you and me.”
The line was silent for a few seconds. “I want that, too,” she whispered across the miles.
“I want to plan another picnic,” he said. “Another private picnic, at your house. You can meet me at the door in that little gown again, and after Dalton goes to bed...”
“After Dalton goes to bed, what?” she asked, sounding breathless.
He smiled. “You’ll find out,” he growled softly.
They set a date, and he hung up the phone a few minutes later, and rolled his chair around to face the window and the splash of afternoon sunshine washing over the city below. But he wasn’t thinking about the city, or about business. He was thinking about Lanie.
He’d never wanted anyone as much as he wanted her. It was a need like none he’d ever felt for Vanessa. Looking back, he realized now that his relationship with Vanessa had been one based on duty. He’d chosen her and married her because she was suitable, not because of fiery passion. He’d loved her, though, and she’d utilized that knowledge to stomp all over him in divorce court, leaving him bitter and emotionally drained. So drained, he hadn’t thought he would ever want to get involved with another woman.
But then he’d met Lanie. She made him feel hot and dizzy and reckless in a way that was powerful and new. And that was scary—because if Vanessa had been able to hurt him, how much more might Lanie be able to?
This time, he was going to keep his feelings to himself—and keep the upper hand.
He couldn’t forget that there was a lot at stake, more than just his heart. Walter continued to be anxious and troubled over the issue of the testing. He’d asked Garrett more than once to press Lanie on it because she had made no response to his attorney’s letters.
Garrett had refused his uncle’s requests. He knew that as long as Lanie was afraid of Walter, she wouldn’t go through with the testing, and he had no idea how to resolve the situation. He felt caught in the middle between two people he cared for deeply.
He swiveled away from the window, hearing his secretary enter the room.
“Mr. Blakemore—about the meeting,” she began.
“Hayden!”
Lanie almost fell off her ladder when she saw her brother come around the corner of her house. He was dressed in his uniform, and so she knew he had to have come straight from the airport.
She managed not to have an accident as she made it down the ladder and barreled into his arms.
When she was done hugging him, she punched him and said, “You jerk. You and your surprises. One of these days you’re going to come home by surprise and find me gone. And it’ll serve you right.”
“Oh, right, gone where?” Hayden teased her.
He was hard to argue with. He knew she was the biggest homebody on the planet. She’d been feeling pretty mopey, missing Garrett, and Hayden’s arrival was the perfect medicine.
It was hard to believe how much she’d come to anticipate the time she spent with Garrett, how disappointing it was when it was taken away. No matter how hard she tried to take things slow, her heart just wouldn’t cooperate. She knew Garrett was tired of taking things slow, too. He wanted to take their relationship another step. And she was tempted.
She wondered what her brother would think if he knew his homebody sister was about to plunge into a hot love affair. She looked at Hayden.
“Hmmph. My life is more exciting than you think,” she told him mysteriously.
Hayden laughed. “Sure, Lanie. Sure.” He cocked his head in the direction of the empty baby swing on the deck. “Okay, where are you hiding the little guy? I can’t wait to see him.”
“Sleeping. I put him in his crib. Come on, I’ll give you a peek.”
Lanie led the way inside the house while Hayden explained that he was on his way to a new position at a training base in Oklahoma.
Lanie gasped, stopped and turned to stare at him. “You’re not going back to Germany? Oh, Hayden, I’m so glad.”
“That’s right. I’ll be underfoot more often.” He grinned at her. “But first I’ve got three days with nothing planned but sitting around letting my big sister wait on me hand and foot, and playing with my brand-spanking-new little nephew.”
“Ha.” Lanie pivoted and headed up the stairs, Hayden directly behind her. “How about three days of scraping paint off the outside of the house and changing diapers?” she teased.
Hayden groaned. “And you wonder why I never tell you in advance when I’m coming to visit. The jobs you think up for me on the spur of the moment are bad enough. I’d hate to think what you’d come up with if I gave you advance warning!”
She shushed him when they arrived in the hallway upstairs, and he peeked in at Dalton. She wouldn’t let him go inside the room.
“I’m afraid he’ll wake up,” she whispered. “Believe me, you’ll get plenty of time to see him awake in the next three days. Never wake a baby!”
It was a Wednesday, and as usual during the weekdays, she didn’t have guests. She was doing pretty good business on the weekends since she’d reopened, but her weekdays rarely filled up.
Hayden brought in his things and she set him up in one of the guest rooms. He changed clothes and joined her outside again. Dalton woke up, and she brought him out into the fresh air to meet his uncle.
They sat down together in the glider. Hayden held Dalton warily in one arm, his other casually slung around the back of the glider. Lanie leaned against his shoulder, just enjoying being together.
“You know,” Hayden said after a few minutes, “I swear he looks like that baby picture of me that Gran always kept by her bed. Except for the hair. I didn’t have all this dark hair.”
“You had no hair,” Lanie reminded him, toeing the glider gently to keep the motion going.
“Neither did you, so I wouldn’t talk,” Hayden jabbed. “Seriously, he looks like me, don’t you think? You are one lucky dude,” he said teasingly to Dalton.
Lanie laughed. “Okay, you have such an ego, I hated to point it out, but yes, he looks exactly like you.” She leaned over impulsively to kiss him on the cheek. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
As she settled back, she saw a flash of color from the corner of her eye. She turned her head and saw Garrett standing at the corner of the house, one hand on the gate. He was dressed in black denim shorts and a red T-shirt.
“Garrett!” She jumped up, flew down the deck steps and rushed over to him. “Hi. What happened? Was your meeting canceled?”
“It was rescheduled at the last minute,” he said stiffly. His eyes were dark, wary. “I thought you were going to be working on the house. I thought it would be all right if I came on over.”
Lanie took in his rigid features, his closed expression. His coldness had an immediate dampening effect on her excitement. What was wrong?
“I was working on the house,” she started, still breathless from her dash across the lawn, “but—”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” he went on, his tone formal. “I didn’t realize you would have made other plans. I’m sorry. I should have phoned first.”
Lanie stared at him, blinked. “What? I didn’t make other plans. What do you mean?” She shot out the questions, incredulous. Then just as quickly, it hit her—and hit her hard. She drew in a sharp breath. “Just what do you think you’re interrupting?”
He didn’t say any
thing, his gaze moving beyond her. She turned, saw her brother walking up with Dalton in his arms.
“Hello,” Hayden said, eyeing Garrett.
“This is Garret Blakemore, Ben’s cousin.” Lanie introduced the two men, her mind reeling with hurt and confusion. “This is my brother, Hayden McCall.” She saw the startled flash in Garrett’s eyes, and the confirmation of her instinct deepened her pain. She controlled her voice with effort, spoke quietly. “Hayden, I need to speak to Garrett alone for a few minutes, all right? Would you mind taking Dalton inside?”
Hayden looked reluctant, but nodded. He watched Garrett, and she knew her brother sensed the strange tension when he said purposefully, “I’ll be right inside if you need me.”
Lanie waited till Hayden and Dalton were inside, then looked back at Garrett. “I can’t believe that you thought for one minute that I was with another man,” she clipped out, her voice low, anger thick in her throat. She needed the anger, clung to it. Because without it, there was only pain. “I told you weeks ago that I wasn’t seeing anyone, and since then you and I—” She broke off, swallowed thickly. “That is what you were thinking, wasn’t it?” she went on. “You arrived unexpectedly, saw me with a man and you jumped to conclusions. You thought it was just like when you caught your wife cheating on you, right?”
A muscle worked in Garrett’s jaw. His eyes filled with a dark torture, no longer cold. “What do you expect?” he demanded, his eyes blazing defensively. “I came back here looking for you and found some man with his arm around you, then you were kissing him—” His mouth formed a tight, hard seam. “It was a natural assumption.”
“I expect you to trust me, that’s what I expect,” she lashed back at him. “That’s what a relationship, a real relationship, is about—love, trust—all those things you said belonged in fairy tales. I knew you felt that way, but when you said that you were ready to move on to a new chapter, I thought—”
She stopped, shook her head. “I was wrong. We were both wrong. You’re not ready to move on.” Her anger seeped away as quickly as it had risen, leaving a horrible, sick defeat in its wake.
The Billionaire and the Bassinet Page 11