by Loree Lough
“I could pick you up after work, drive you and Liam over there. If you’re not busy, that is.”
Me? Busy? Jaina almost laughed out loud. She didn’t know what had inspired the invitation, but it pleased her nonetheless. Did he want to show Liam the room he’d be sleeping in? Or did he want her to see it so she’d know firsthand how well he could provide for the baby? Either way, Jaina’s curiosity was piqued. “I’ll bring supper,” she volunteered, “so Liam won’t get off his schedule.”
He began walking backward toward his own car. “Pick you up at five?”
“We’ll be ready.” She watched him climb into the sleek silver sports car. If it hadn’t looked like rain, would he have put the top down? she wondered. And then something else occurred to her, and she half ran toward his car. “You’ll have to leave your car at the diner.”
He leaned out of the driver’s window to ask, “You have some objection to foreign models?”
“There’s no back seat in this thing. Where would we put Liam’s car seat?”
Connor pursed his lips. “Good point.” Grinning, he added, “See? It’s like I said…you’re a natural-born caretaker.”
She’d almost asked it the last time he’d paid her the compliment. What have you got to lose? she asked herself. “If you really feel that way, why do you want to take Liam away from me?”
Jaina felt his gaze sweep over her face. When his eyes met hers, he said, “I don’t want to take him, Jaina. I have to.” She was about to ask why again, but thought better of it as he revved the sports car’s powerful engine. “See you at five,” he called out, then drove away.
The answering-machine light was blinking when they walked into his kitchen. Still reeling from the similarity between his house and the one she’d dreamt of for as long as she could remember, Jaina watched as Connor reached for the Play button and Liam tugged his earlobe. “Easy, little guy,” Connor said, gently prying open the baby’s fingers.
She thought of what he’d said just before he’d driven away from the parking lot earlier. A fierce possessiveness overtook her, and Jaina stepped up and held out her arms. “Here,” she said, “I’ll take him while you do that.” Liam’s shirt had ridden up, exposing his round tummy, and Jaina adjusted it.
Connor read aloud the bold black letters on the front of it. “‘Actually, I’m a rocket scientist.’” And laughing, he played the message.
“Better be careful,” a gravelly voice said, “because when you least expect it, you’re gonna get yours!”
Scowling, Connor flushed. “Don’t tell me this is starting again.”
“What’s starting again?”
He shook his head, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the phone. “Threats.”
“You’ve been threatened before?”
“Only a few thousand times.” He shrugged. “Actually, that one was tame compared to most. It sorta goes with the territory.”
She frowned. “I presume you’ve notified the police.”
“Yeah. And I’ll give you three guesses what they said.”
“They want to assign someone to guard you?”
He perched Liam on his shoulders. “Ain’t she the sweetest, most innocent li’l thing you ever did see?” he asked the baby.
“Well, at least they must be going to guard you part of the time,” she pressed. “Right?”
Connor shot her a crooked grin. “Gosh, you’re cute when you’re being naive.”
Jaina felt a blush creep into her cheeks. “Then…they’re going to increase the patrol cars that pass by your—”
He hissed a stream of air through his teeth. “Don’t make me laugh. I’m a defense attorney, remember? I’m the guy who puts their collars back on the street.”
Liam heard the hissing sound Connor had made and tried his best to emulate it.
“But…but you’re so isolated, way out here in the country. Are you safe, all alone like that?”
“So far…and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”
“Then why aren’t you doing something about it?”
Connor unfolded the portable playpen she’d brought along, and Jaina put Liam into it. Together, they emptied the mesh bag that held his toys. The baby squealed with glee as stuffed animals and rubber balls rained down upon him.
“How ’bout a glass of lemonade?” he asked.
“I’d love some.”
“I have to warn you…it isn’t fresh-squeezed,” he bantered.
While he put ice cubes into glasses, Jaina poured. “You can’t change the subject that easily, Connor.”
He heaved a deep sigh. “It’s a long story.”
“Liam doesn’t have to be in bed until nine. We have four hours by my watch.” She put their glasses on the kitchen table, sat, then crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m listening….”
He took the seat across from her, leaned both elbows on the pine surface and, for the next half hour, compelled her attention with the tale of his life in the courtroom, first as a prosecutor, then as a defense attorney. “Didn’t matter much which side of the courtroom I was on; in the opinions of the defendants, I helped some, I hurt some.”
Jaina wondered whether or not to tell him she had been a defendant. “This is a free country, certainly they’re entitled to their opinions. But what they’re doing is wrong. And what’s that old adage? ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right.’ You can’t let them get away with this just because you feel sorry for them.”
“It isn’t pity, Jaina. It’s guilt.”
“Guilt? But you were only doing your job!”
“True, but I’m not God. What if, in a few cases that I prosecuted successfully, the defendant really didn’t deserve to go to prison? If the evidence said otherwise I had to do my job. Still, my presence is a constant reminder of their years behind bars.”
She studied his face and saw that he meant it. The more Jaina learned about Connor Buchanan, the better she liked him. If only there was some way to convince him to let her keep Liam. If only there was a way they could share him.
“If you’re in danger…so would Liam be…if he lived here.”
He considered that for a moment. “You’ve got a point. But he doesn’t live here.”
“Yet.” She brought the subject back to the phone call. “How do you know so much about how they feel?”
He stared at his hands, folded on the tabletop. “I was a prosecutor before I became a defense attorney. The things I saw and heard…” He shook his head and gave her a long, penetrating stare. “And how is it you can be so forgiving?”
Jaina flinched. “I…I…I’m afraid I don’t…”
He leaned forward, both hands now pressing down on the tabletop. “Yes you do.” He cupped her hands in his own. “You understand perfectly, because you lived it yourself. Why aren’t you bitter and angry? Why don’t you blame all men for what one man did to you?”
She began to tremble. It started in her fingertips, then reverberated to her limbs, her shoulders, her hips. Surely he could feel it, as tightly as he was holding her hands. He knows about… But how did he know? Had it been something she’d said or done? Was the past written on her face like a scarlet letter? One thing was sure: if he knew about the surgery, he knew everything that had led up to it, too. Jaina’s heart thundered, because if that was true, Liam was as good as gone.
“Who told you?” she asked, her voice a thick, hoarse whisper.
He broke the intense eye contact and, staring at their hands, said, “I just know, okay?”
Jaina glanced at Liam, playing happily in the playpen. “I should start supper. He’ll be hungry soon.” She stood, then nervously began rummaging in the cooler she’d filled with Chili Pot food. “I think we’ll start with a nice salad, and then we’ll have some of Mom’s famous minestrone before we eat the spaghetti. There’s a wedge of cheesecake in here somewhere,” she rambled, jostling jars and plastic containers around. “I’ll let you set the table since this is your kitchen and you know where things ar
e. If you’ll just get me a saucepan so I can heat the—”
In a heartbeat, it seemed, he was beside her, gently encircling her wrists with long, strong fingers. “Jaina,” he breathed, “don’t.”
Don’t what? she wanted to demand. Unable to meet his eyes, she focused on their hands. What must he think of me? she wondered as her trembling intensified.
Connor lifted her chin on a bent forefinger. “Look at me.”
Slowly, she raised her gaze.
“I’d never hurt you, not in a million years.”
You’re going to take Liam from me, and that’ll hurt worse than anything I’ve ever…
There was a hitch in his voice when he asked, “Do you believe me? That I’d never intentionally hurt you, I mean?”
The same instinct that could have saved her—if she’d listened to it that night with Bill—pinged inside her now. For a reason she couldn’t explain, she wanted to say “Yes, I believe you,” for no reason other than that he seemed to need to hear it. But it was a lie. He would hurt her, intentionally, when he took Liam. Jaina looked into his eyes, sparkling with expectation and hope.
She nodded.
Connor looked toward the ceiling and heaved a great sigh. “Thank God,” he whispered, his voice quaking, “thank God.”
Slowly, he lowered his head. That time in his office…she’d worried he might kiss her. This time, she knew he would. In the instant, that tick in time before it happened, thoughts churned dizzyingly in her mind….
For the first time since they’d met, she saw him as more than the savvy legal shark whose no-holds-barred approach to law had likely won him a thousand cases. It was evident in his square-shouldered stance, his no-nonsense gait, his matter-of-fact voice, that he was a man unaccustomed to losing. Until now, she believed he viewed Liam as the trophy to be won at the end of a long, arduous battle, or property to be claimed, like a lost dog or a wallet that had fallen from his pocket.
When Jaina read the yearning in his crystal blue eyes, she was reminded of the reason he’d offered for having avoided most of his secretary’s get-togethers. Adopting Liam wasn’t about ownership, she realized. And it wasn’t about winning, either. It was about love, about family, about the need to feel he belonged. With nothing more than a forlorn expression, he’d awakened feelings in her she didn’t know could exist.
He stood a head taller than her, outweighed her by at least fifty pounds. Clearly, he didn’t need her protection. And yet protecting him was precisely what Jaina wanted to do. She felt compelled to stand in front of him, to defend him against anyone who threatened him.
She guessed him to be in his early thirties, and by all outward appearances, he seemed to have done a fine job taking care of himself physically. The house, though sparsely and plainly decorated, was spotless, the yard around it as manicured as a golf course. Yet she wanted to cook for him, clean for him, turn this house into a haven that would welcome him at the end of a long, hard day.
And though she could tell by the taut set of his lips and his lantern jaw that he was trying hard to hide it, Connor looked sad and lonely, and she wanted to wrap her arms around him, whisper soothingly into his ear that everything would be all right…that she’d make everything all right.
She was surprised by the tenderness welling up inside her. For one thing, she’d never felt anything like it before; for another, this was the man who wanted to take Liam from her. To feel such things for him…
Yes, he was going to kiss her.
And she welcomed it!
When his arms slid around her, she felt the protective wall she’d spent years building around herself begin to crack. He pressed her to him, gently, tenderly—as if the action was, for him, more a gesture of comfort than passionate need—and the wall crumbled around her feet.
His hands, so strong and sure as he tended to her cut that day in his office, trembled now as he embraced her. She felt the thrumming of his heart, steady and sure against her chest, and the faint quaking of his fingers as he combed them, slowly, lovingly, through her hair.
He leaned back slightly, holding her at arm’s length, and silently searched her face. She read his soft gaze and understood that he saw her not as a scarred woman with a limp, not as a woman with a sordid past, but simply as a woman, a whole woman, with yearnings and dreams that matched his own.
Jaina had thought that, in her twenty-eight years, she’d experienced every emotion known to humanity…love, hate, fear, gratitude. She’d accepted others at face value many times, but she’d never experienced it herself. Not like this. It was new, brand-new, this wonderful sensation that came with knowing that someone who wasn’t obliged by blood ties to accept her unconditionally, as her parents did, accepted her, scars and limp and history and all!
Overwhelmed with gratitude—to God? to Connor? Jaina didn’t know—she felt her heart begin to pound. Hesitantly, she lifted a hand to trace his beard-stubbled cheek with the backs of her fingers. Oh, what a face it was. Square-jawed and high-cheeked, it was hard angles and raw planes, completely masculine. And yet, beneath the thick sandy blond mustache, a tenderhearted smile, and in the bright blue, long-lashed eyes, a shimmering tear.
She wiped it away with the pad of her thumb, smiling shakily through tears of her own. A silent prayer of thankfulness whispered in her heart, and she bowed her head, humbled by the breathtaking freedom Connor had given her. Freedom from feeling she’d been tainted by the violence of that fleeting, long-ago moment. Freedom from believing that the sharp edge of that instant in time had cut her out of the normal things in life, had destined her to spend her life alone, remembering, reliving, regretting her immature, injudicious decision….
It seemed as natural as breathing to press her cheek against his hard, broad chest, to wrap her arms around his narrow waist. Jaina stood in the shelter of his embrace and reveled in the utter peace that surrounded her.
Connor kissed the top of her head, her temple, her cheek. His eyes met hers, and she read the longing there. The same pining beat in her own heart, and she willed him with her gaze to continue, to touch her lips with his.
But she couldn’t speak past the sob that blocked her voice.
Since her release from prison so many years ago, every time a man had let her know, by his expression, by taking her in his arms, by saying point-blank that he wanted to kiss her, fear had made her stiffen, step back, call a quick halt to anything that might lead to emotional or physical intimacy. What if the same poor judgment that had allowed her to get into the car that night had also affected her ability to discern between the right man…and another like Bill? And what if he was with her only because he believed her to be defiled to the point that she’d be, as several had put it, “easy pickin’s.” Equally fearsome, what if, in those rare instances when the man had no knowledge of her disgrace, he found out about it and judged her contaminated?
She had no such things to fear from Connor. He’d spent the bulk of his career dealing with the worst society had to offer after all. He’d have gone into another area of the law if he didn’t believe every murderer, robber and rapist had an inalienable right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. He would not judge her sullied. At least, not until all the evidence was in.
And he knew. The evidence was in!
The knowledge made her feel safe. Secure. Sure.
His tenderness that day in his office, the gentle way he handled Liam, the respect he showed her mother—despite the fact that Rita was always so hard on him—was rooted, Jaina believed, in a good and decent heart that beat strongly with compassion and thoughtfulness. She sensed he was the type who’d teach his children to pray for those less fortunate, who’d help them learn to field a grounder, and who’d sit proudly in a dark auditorium while his youngster massacred Beethoven’s Fifth. Patiently, lovingly, he’d assist with homework and mean it when he recited timeworn clichés like “The world is your oyster” and “Look before you leap” and “Sticks and stones may break your bones but…”
She had never been the bold and brazen type. Despite the fact that she’d gone onstage, wowing audiences, she’d always been a bit shy. It was almost as though the microphone and the guitar had been props that helped her believe some invisible barrier existed between her and the crowds. Like the clown who hides behind his makeup and the politician who hides behind his speech writers, Jaina hid behind her talent.
No one was more surprised than Jaina when she bracketed his face with both hands, her thumbs drawing lazy circles on his cheeks. Holding his gaze, she slid her hands to the back of his neck, guided him near, nearer, until she felt his warm breath on her lips, until she felt the softness of his mouth against hers.
A dizzying swirl began churning inside her, eddying through her being, until her heart beat like a war drum and her pulse pounded like a jackhammer. She wasn’t damaged goods, hadn’t been ruined forever by that night. Connor knew—she didn’t know how, but he knew about her sorry past—and yet he wanted her. It was a glorious, miraculous feeling. Her pastor had been right when he’d advised her to stop ridiculing herself for feeling so afraid every time a man got too close. “None of them has been the right man,” he’d said. “When the mate God has chosen for you comes along, fear is the last thing you’ll feel.”
Connor Buchanan was that man!
Groggy with joy, Jaina began to laugh and cry at the same time. Thank you, thank you, thank you, she repeated—to God? To Connor? Both?
“Oh, Jaina,” he gasped, hands on her shoulders, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that I got carried away. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He grimaced as though in pain. “And I promised…I swore you’d always feel—”
Shaking her head, she placed her fingertips over his lips to silence him. Her tears had sent him the wrong message, she realized. “Shhh,” she managed to say, “it’s…it’s not you. I’m…I’m not crying because…I’m afraid,” she haltingly replied. “It’s…because I’m…relieved! I thought…I was…that something was wrong with me.”
He looked into her eyes, and as understanding dawned, he drew her close. “Ah, Jaina,” he said, “there’s not a thing wrong with you. Nothing.” He cupped her chin in a palm, and with a perfectly straight face, said, “Well, there’s one thing wrong with you….”