Claiming Colleen

by BETH KERY

  Just thinking about the predictable phrase featured in dozens of chick flicks and romantic comedies made her cringe. Why did men have to be the only ones who were supremely comfortable not questioning motives at the beginning of relationships and just taking things as they came?

  No, she assured herself. She would not turn into a simpering idiot just because she liked a man. She’d take this one step at a time, like Eric was doing. Just because she was a novice in the world of sex and dating didn’t mean she was naive. Experience and knowledge were two different things, and she’d racked up years of knowledge being a professional counselor.

  “Do you want to work on Lucy tomorrow?” she asked him once she’d brought out the tea and they were sipping it on the couch before the fire.

  “Sure, if you do.”

  “The wedding is only two weeks away. I can’t believe it. I still haven’t gotten them a wedding present,” she murmured, setting her cup on the coffee table. She leaned back and snuggled against Eric’s side. He put his arm around her. The heat from the fire warmed her cheeks.

  “We’ll say Lucy is from all of us.”

  Colleen lifted her head, blushing. “No…I didn’t mean anything like that—”

  “I know you didn’t,” he said. “Still, it only seems right. You, the kids and your mother have worked on her. Brendan asked me point-blank if he could help restoring Lucy. That takes a serious time commitment for someone his age. He’s a great kid. So’s Jenny.”

  She shook her head in amazement. He quirked one eyebrow at her.

  “What?” he asked, grinning.

  “I can’t believe I ever thought you were arrogant.”

  His grin faded. He leaned forward and deposited his cup on the coffee table. He put out his arms, reaching for her. “Come here,” he said gruffly.

  Colleen went without hesitation. Nothing in the world sounded so appealing to her at that moment as the idea of sitting in his lap and having his arms surround her. And it was nice, she acknowledged a second later when she settled on his thighs, facing him, her knees bent at her side and her hands around his neck.

  Not as nice as when she leaned forward and kissed him with the force of all the emotions she had brewing in her chest. Not as nice as when Eric returned the kiss with undisguised fervor and admirable skill.

  “I’ve been waiting to do that since I woke up this morning,” she told him a while later, her damp lips brushing against his as she spoke.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to do that for half my life.”

  She laughed. He delighted her. She kissed him again. He opened his hands along her hips and buttocks, scooting her forward on his thighs. Their embrace was very similar to that night after the engagement party on her couch. Intimate. Heated.

  It was drastically different, too. Tonight, Colleen’s desire had been liberated.

  She ran her fingers through his hair, and then tilted his head, turning hers at an angle to deepen their kiss. He groaned, and she transferred her mouth to his throat, relishing the vibrations of his desire on her lips. She ran her fingers fleetly down his chest and belly, unbuttoning his outer shirt. Beneath it, he wore a Detroit Red Wings T-shirt. He seemed all too eager to assist her struggle in getting him out of it, post haste.

  She kissed his bare chest a moment later, submerging herself in the sensation of him. She gave herself full permission to forget everything but the gorgeous, delicious male she currently sampled with lips, tongue and teeth. He hissed when she bit gently at a hard, rounded shoulder muscle. He began to lift up her sweater, but she stopped him.

  “Remember last night?” she asked breathlessly. “When you said I’d have my moment to touch you? Now’s the moment.”

  His nostrils flared slightly. She pressed a kiss just below his right nipple and glanced up at him. She thought his stare would burn her when she placed her lips directly over the nipple. He was still watching her, his face rigid and his eyes blazing, when she scooted back on his thighs and tested the texture of his taut abdomen with her lips. His muscles leapt at her touch, sending a thrill through her. Her hair fell forward, swishing across his stomach.

  He hissed like she’d scalded him.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her up to him. He consumed her with a kiss so hot, it melted her all the way from her core to her toes and the roots of the hair on her head. He started to undress her. Colleen didn’t protest this time. It felt too amazing, and besides, if she gave him enough practice, maybe he’d get used to the idea of her being the one to ravish him once in a while. A girl could always hope, anyway.

  And it was a nice, long weekend…

  The next day they lingered in bed until late morning. Eric had pulled back the draperies on the window that faced Lake Michigan. They held each other and watched the heavy snowfall.

  “Did you ever consider becoming anything besides a doctor?” Colleen mused during one of their many murmured conversations. She lay on her side, facing the snowy window. Eric’s long body traced hers from behind. She dreamily was stroking his forearm, which surrounded her belly.

  “Sure. I wanted to be a hockey player. What kid doesn’t dream of being a professional athlete? My mom wasn’t too thrilled about the idea.” He chuckled and nuzzled her neck. She felt his smile pressed against her skin when a shiver coursed through her.

  “Was it your mother who wanted you to be a doctor?”

  “Yes. Luckily, I decided the same thing before she died. The winter that I was seventeen, I got a bad knee injury during the high-school playoffs. I was out of commission. Thought my life was over. My mom made a comfortable life for Natalie and me, but she worked her hands to the bone to do it. She couldn’t afford insurance. She’d religiously save money every month for Natalie’s and my medical care. When I started working, she made me do the same thing.

  “My knee was really screwed up after the playoffs, and the doctors said I needed surgery. We didn’t have the money to pay for it. I took the news hard…acted like a real ass,” he said bluntly.

  Colleen turned in his arms. “What do you mean?”

  “I thought hockey was my whole world. My golden ticket. I sulked a lot when my mother told me we couldn’t afford the surgery.”

  “That’s not too surprising,” Colleen murmured. “Not if hockey meant so much to you, and you were so talented at it.”

  He shrugged. “I made such a big deal about it, my mom did something she’d never considered before. She applied to get state medical aid.”

  Colleen studied the angry slant of his mouth and averted gaze. It obviously still bothered him that his mother had done such a thing for him.

  “She was your mother, Eric,” Colleen said softly. “She didn’t apply for the aid because you were being a sulky teenager. She did it because she would have done whatever was necessary to get you the care you needed.”

  “You think so?” he asked levelly.

  She touched his shoulder. “I know so. I’m a single mother, just like your mother was. I’d do the same for Brendan and Jenny in a second if I had no other choice,” she whispered feelingly.

  His gaze flickered over her face before he brushed his finger over her jaw. “Maybe you’re right. Anyway, it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. My orthopedic surgeon’s name was Mac Harkman. Harkman loved what he did, and he managed to pass his enthusiasm on to me. When he found out I was a natural in math and science, he sort of took me under his wing. He joined league with my mom in encouraging me to go to medical school. Changed my life, I guess you could say.”

  Colleen smiled. “And we’re all luckier for it, Brendan and I included,” she murmured before she kissed him. He groaned and came down over her, pressing her back into the mattress.

  The snow continued to fall outside the window, thick and silent, but they were too absorbed in one another for the next half hour to notice.

  They finally got up, showered and made a breakfast of whole-wheat toast, scrambled eggs and fruit. After Colleen h
ad called Brendan and Jenny, hearing their enthusiastic report of the good time they were having in Chicago, they began working on Lucy. By the time they called it quits at around nightfall, Lucy looked glossy and smart with her second coat of varnish.

  Eric looked out a window in the kitchen. “The snow is getting thick on the ground. I’ll get out the snowblower in the morning. It’s a good thing we took your car back to your house, though. It might have gotten stuck. I’ll be able to take you home in the SUV tomorrow.”

  Her eyes went wide when he abruptly turned around, an odd, intense expression on his handsome face, and stalked over to her. She’d been in the process of getting some tea bags out of the cupboard, but she dropped the box when she noticed his determination. She yelped in amazement when he lifted her and set her on the counter before him.

  “What are you doing?” She laughed when he pressed his mouth to her neck and started kissing her hungrily, his hands busily unbuttoning her shirt.

  “I just realized I don’t want to take you home. How would you feel about me kidnapping you indefinitely?” he growled softly before he slipped his hand between the folds of her shirt and over her left breast.

  Her heart hitched beneath his palm, but then he seized her mouth and she forgot everything but his scent, his texture, his heat. How could a man who had once claimed to be the champion of rational thought have the capability to erase it so completely from her brain?

  Eric drifted off to sleep, but Colleen wasn’t tired. She was feeling pensive and a little heartsore. Eric’s lovemaking had been wild, delicious and intense. Did he recognize that their time together was drawing to a close? All the what-ifs she’d been shoving into the periphery of her brain while she luxuriated in her time with Eric started to crowd to the forefront once again.

  She got up, dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a sweatshirt, and wandered downstairs. She checked her cell phone for messages and saw Mari had called. Worried something was wrong with the kids, she called her back. Mari hadn’t been calling about the kids, however. Instead, she wanted to get all the details about what was happening between her and Eric. Since Colleen was feeling especially vulnerable on that particular topic, she managed to make light of Mari’s inquiries and cut the conversation short.

  After she’d hung up with Mari, she noticed her sister, Deidre, had called. She immediately returned the call.

  “Deidre? Is everything all right?”

  It turned out that everything was not all right. Death hovered close in Lincoln DuBois’s Lake Tahoe mansion tonight. It broke Colleen’s heart to hear her usually fearless, indomitable sister sounding so fragile and lost.

  “The kids are with Marc and Mari this weekend,” Colleen said after they’d talked awhile, her mind spinning into crisis mode. “As soon as we get off the phone, I’ll call and get a plane ticket to Reno.”

  “No, that’s okay. Linc… Well, he’s not gone yet,” Deidre murmured in her characteristic low, smoky voice.

  “You can’t go through this alone, Deidre,” she said, looking nervously out Eric’s front window, her thoughts coming rapidly. Would the snow prevent her from catching a flight out of Detroit? Maybe the conditions at Chicago’s airports would be better.

  “I’m not alone. Linc’s doctor and two hospice nurses are here…along with Nick Malone.”

  “You mean Lincoln’s Chief Executive Officer? I thought he’d gone to the San Francisco offices and left you in peace,” Colleen said, concerned. She’d gotten the distinct impression from Deidre that her biological father’s right-hand man was more than just a business acquaintance: he was like an adopted son. Malone was highly suspicious of Deidre’s sudden appearance and Linc’s official proclamation that she was his daughter. Colleen had always looked up to and admired her older sister. A fortune hunter was the last thing Deidre was, but apparently Nick Malone didn’t believe that. Colleen had to wonder if he wasn’t so irritated by Deidre’s sudden appearance because he was worried she’d steal some portion of the pie he’d been counting on as his own from Lincoln DuBois’s inheritance.

  “He did leave for a while, but he’s back,” Deidre said, her flat tone becoming a little more animated. “He’s one of the coldest, most paranoid people I’ve ever met, but I can’t fault him for being here. Linc isn’t doing well, and Malone is concerned. I may not like him, but there’s no doubt that Lincoln cares about him.” She sighed. “You should have seen how he lit up when Nick came into the room.”

  It pained Colleen to consider everything her sister had gone through in the past few months. “Deidre, I refuse to leave you there without any family to support you, especially if Nick Malone is giving you a hard time.”

  “I can handle Malone,” she stated, her mellifluous voice going grim. Suddenly, Colleen had a clear vision of her sister in her mind’s eye, the determination stiffening her delicate features, the steely expression that entered her large, grayish blue eyes just before she tried a risky new ski jump or new dive. Deidre was a daredevil, a championship diver, trick-skier and a decorated army nurse, but Colleen couldn’t help but feel that her fearlessness could only get her so far during this difficult trial. “Just promise you’ll come to Tahoe if…when…Linc—”

  “I will,” Colleen said firmly when Deidre wavered. “The second you call. And after everything is settled, I really want you to consider coming back to Harbor Town with me.”

  “I can’t even go that far in my mind, right now. I’m already feeling overwhelmed with the fact that I’m losing Linc when I just found him. He’s the second father Mom stole from me,” Deidre whispered.

  Her heart squeezed in her chest when she heard a muffled sob through the receiver.

  Colleen wanted to weep, too. She loved Deidre. She loved her mother, even though she knew Brigit had made a terrible mistake in lying about Deidre’s paternity. She wanted to knit things back together between mother and daughter, and knowing that it was beyond her control hurt. It hurt a lot.

  It was all such a mess.

  She stayed on the phone a while longer, trying her best to bring Deidre comfort. When she did eventually hang up, she sat curled up in the corner of Eric’s couch, feeling lost. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, feeling miserable. The next thing she knew, Eric was coming down next to her and his arms were surrounding her.

  She lost control at his touch. For some reason, his compassionate, strong embrace made the dam break. She sobbed with emotion. She’d held so much inside of her since that night last summer when she’d heard her mother’s confession about her affair with Lincoln DuBois and her subsequent pregnancy with his child—Deidre. It bewildered her, this upsurge of emotion. Sadness, worry, hurt and anger swelled and spilled to the surface. Eric didn’t say anything but just held her and made soothing noises. When her storm began to recede, however, Colleen knew she had to offer some kind of explanation. He stood to get her a box of tissues.

  “I’m sorry. Here I go again. You really must think I’m a basket case,” she mumbled, wiping off her cheeks with the tissue he offered her.

  “I don’t think that at all.” He sat down next to her again on the couch and put his arms around her. He’d pulled on a clean T-shirt and jeans before he came downstairs. The clean cotton smelled good when she pressed her cheek against it. He stroked her back. “Who were you talking to? Are the kids okay?”

  Colleen realized he’d noticed her cell phone sitting on the couch cushion next to her. “I was talking to my sister, Deidre,” she whispered.

  “Is she okay?” he asked, concerned.

  “She’s fine. It’s…Lincoln DuBois. He’s dying.”

  “The family friend? The one she’s visiting in Lake Tahoe? Natalie told me something about it. Isn’t he the DuBois of DuBois Enterprises?”

  Colleen swallowed thickly. She’d shared so much with him in the past few days. Somehow, lying to him given their new closeness felt wrong. Very wrong. She lifted her head and met his stare.

  “Yes. Lincoln DuBois isn’t just an old
friend of my mother’s,” she whispered. “He’s Deidre’s biological father. That’s what Liam and Natalie discovered last summer, when they investigated the reason Derry was so upset on the night of the crash. My father had encountered some medical information about Deidre that made him suspect she couldn’t be his biological daughter. He confronted my mother about it on the afternoon of the accident, and my mother had admitted the truth about her affair with DuBois and her suspicion that Deidre was his child. That’s why my father got so drunk that night…the night he killed your mother and injured Natalie.”

  Eric’s stroking hand stilled on her back. His expression looked flat…incredulous. The sound of the furnace turning on interrupted the thick silence.

  “Deidre is out there in Tahoe with none of us there. She just told me DuBois is near death. She’s losing another father, just when she got to know him, and she’s so angry at my mom…and there’s nothing I can do.” She broke at the last, a fresh convulsion of grief tearing through her. Eric tightened his hold on her while she wept.

  “I thought about telling you before,” Colleen said, lifting her head off his chest and straining to compose herself.

  “Why didn’t you?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “Embarrassment?” More tears spilled down her cheeks, and she wiped them away impatiently. “I used to think my parents were the perfect couple, but in the background, in secret, all this drama was taking place, and it’s so…tawdry,” she spit out. “It’s bad enough that the crash happened…that you lost your mother, and Mari lost her parents, and Natalie went through all that pain. But the reason behind it is so shameful.”

  Her gaze flickered over him. He looked sober as a judge. He inhaled slowly, and she found herself on pins and needles, wondering what he would say. He placed his hands on her jaw, tilting her face so she was forced to meet his stare.

  “I understand why you didn’t want to tell me at first.”