An Unexpected Addition

by Terese Ramin

  Hank grinned, then unslouched to move over and sit on the wall closer to the swing. Dumb move, his tightening gut assured him. Dumb, dumber, dumbest. “What, you mean I’m not the only parent who has a problem with you?”

  She snorted. “Hardly. Most parents find out I’m an ex-nun, figure I must be perfect and use me as a measuring stick to decide what they will or won’t let their kids do—”

  “You mean like, ‘Is Li’s mother letting her go?’”

  Kate nodded and finished the thought. “That or they remember the nuns they had in school and imagine me ten times worse.”

  Hank’s turn to snort. “Yeah. I know that one. The neighborhood moms used to pull some of that with Gen, too. It’s easier to point at someone else than have convictions of your own.”

  “What do they do with you?” she asked, idly curious.

  “The single ones throw themselves at me, the married ones bake macaroni-and-cheese and flirt.” He heaved a regretful sigh. “Not one of them thinks of me as a role model.”

  Kate chuckled. “Poor baby.”

  “Yeah, right.” He propped a foot on the wall and draped an arm over his raised knee. “So, what about the parents who don’t think you’re perfect?”

  “They do like you,” she said, squiggling her back to scratch it on the swing. “Call me Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes and take me in avid dislike.”

  Laughter shouted out of Hank, long and delighted. cleansing. “So,” he said when he could speak, “I’m in good company, then.”

  Kate made a rude noise. “If you want to call it that.”

  “I do,” Hank assured her, chuckling. “It happens so seldom.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Ah-ah-ah. Don’t be that way. Doesn’t sound like Saint Mom to me.”

  “That’s Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes to you.”

  “And that makes me who?” He grinned, his teeth a snowy gleam in the half-light, all wolfish charm. “The filthy beast?”

  “If you like,” Kate agreed equably, amazingly coherent for all that her pinging pulse kept shouting, He’s better looking than Cary Grant, hugely better, best! “But I never said it. Thought it a thousand and a half times—”

  “But never said it,” Hank finished for her. “Right.”

  “You asked.”

  “My mistake.” He settled back against the roof support beside him. “You ever see that movie?”

  “The one with goody-two-shoes and the filthy beast?”

  “Father Goose, yeah.”

  “Maybe fifteen, eighteen times.” Kate dangled a leg off the swing and shoved her foot against the floor to set it rocking. “I think between that, Life with Father, Cheaper by the Dozen, The Sound of Music, With Six You Get Egg Roll, Yours, Mine and Ours, and all the rest of that insane-parents, fifty-zillion-kids genre I was pretty much brainwashed into this kid thing from the start. Looked like fun, you know?”

  Hank studied her silhouette in the yard light, suddenly curious about her beyond the unwelcome call of his libido. “It’s not?”

  “Mmm, a lot of the time, sure. It’s also nerve-racking, painful and never boring, and Lord—” she sat up, sounding rueful “—what I wouldn’t give for a little boring sometimes.”

  “Unh-huh, and I’ll bet you were dragged into this nonboring life kicking and screaming.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I left the convent kicking and screaming—figuratively, that is. My choice, their suggestion—mutual decision—but it scared the bejeebers out of me. If I wasn’t a nun, who was I? What was I going to do? All that rot. I mean, I could still be a missionary, work the food trains, volunteer with the International Red Cross, but that didn’t answer the big question I thought I had the answer to when I took my vows. When I found Tai—or he found me—in that refugee camp it was like—” Her hands popped wide in enthusiastic demonstration. “Wow! Light bulb! Major revelation! I didn’t have a husband, so going forward wasn’t a piece of cake, but the nun thing on my résumé has its uses. We didn’t look back.”

  “Yeah.” Hank nodded, understanding. “That’s the way I felt when I first joined drug enforcement. Like a big sponge to be used to mop up the bad guys, make the streets clean for kids like Meg.”

  “But it’s not the way you feel now.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “No,” he answered, an ounce of bitterness surrounded by contempt. “It’s the sort of work that no matter which side of the desk you’re on, it uses you up. No matter how many battles you win, the war goes on. If you’re not battling bad guys, you’re fighting your own higher-ups to let you get at the bad guys. I moved up in the ranks hoping to change some of that, but it makes no difference. Now I’m a bureaucrat. That might be up some guys’ alleys, but it’s not up mine. At least,” he amended wryly, appalled by his own vehemence, “not with this attitude.”

  “I’m glad you said that.” Kate laughed gently. “Saves me from having to point it out.”

  “Gee thanks. I knew if nothing else, I could count on you to be tactless about my early mid-life crisis.”

  She shrugged. “Hey, what are ex-nuns for, if not a little verbal knuckle wrapping now and then?”

  Hank chuckled, amusement edged in irony. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  They sat quietly for a bit, digesting evening songs and revelations, companionable.

  Or as companionable as the intermittent flickerings of adult hungers allowed.

  Hank recognized the difference immediately. Looking at her—the overly lush curves and summer hair, the wide open, innocent without innocence features; smelling her, remembering the touch of her hand in his brought the burn, without question. But it was no longer a burn without apparent reason, without liking. It was more. Harder, hotter, more insistent. More disturbing. More comfortable—God, when had it gotten comfortable to be with her?

  More dangerous.

  He couldn’t get distracted from the reason he was here: Megan and only Megan.

  Megan.

  “She looked pretty tonight, didn’t she?” he asked suddenly, wistful.

  Kate nodded, without having to ask to whom he referred. “Megan’s a beautiful girl, Hank.” She slid down the swing, close to where he sat on the wall, and touched his jeaned ankle, then repeated with conviction, “Beautiful.”

  He stared at the spot where he could feel Kate’s fingers on his leg, willing himself not to feel the spread of heat upward. An edge of tension ran down his spine. Undercover experience had taught him to ignore a potential problem at his own risk; to avoid the temptation to create one at all costs. If she kept touching him, they would have a problem of major proportions—instead of one that was just bigger than a bread box. He didn’t move. “I wish she wasn’t so...” He huffed a breath and hesitated, choosing his words. “So damned confused. So blasted confusing.”

  “Yes.” She was silent a moment, then. “Did you talk with her about this morning?”

  “No.” He shook his head, shifting erect on the wall, sliding his ankle out from underneath her hand. Enough already. “She kept someone or something between us all day. I didn’t have a chance.”

  “Me, either.” Kate rose and moved to stand at the wall beside him, leaning into the top rail. Closer to him than she’d intended. Closer than she had a feeling she should be, than it was safe to be. But she didn’t back up. Couldn’t. It was a rule: go forward. Always. No matter what. “She’s avoiding me, too. She’s never done that before.”

  Hank released the breath he’d held without realizing it. It seemed childish and petty to be glad, but he was. It meant he wasn’t the only one. It meant he wasn’t alone, as he often felt.

  It meant she was too damn close.

  He could feel her warmth adding to the heat of his own skin—near enough to touch, but far enough away so he shouldn’t feel anything from her at all. Or as if he wanted to feel more.

  He already felt too much.

  It was a little like waiting to close a long prepared sting, or loitering around until the oth
er shoe—one that was maybe a size ninety—dropped. Adrenaline in his veins, fever in his blood. Exciting, stimulating, challenging. Could he or couldn’t he get out of the way in time? Did he want to? How close could he get to that icy fire before getting burned? How close did he want to get?

  Real close, his pulse told him.

  Soon.

  He swallowed, tasting desire on the back of his tongue. Whoa, he thought. Not acceptable, not appropriate. Not here, now or ever.

  But he wanted. Bad.

  God help him.

  He slid off the wall onto the porch, intending to put distance between them; decreasing it instead.

  “Hank?”

  A question he couldn’t answer, so he didn’t try, simply slipped a hand into the heavy cape of her hair and let it wash through his fingers. She backed away. He pursued her, he couldn’t stop himself.

  “Hank ... please. I don’t understand.”

  As though he did.

  Her eyes were silver-white pools in the fading dusk and yellow glow of the yard light Wary, not quite afraid. She looked at him the way she might if caught in a corner, as though he were, somehow, either predator or contagion. As though it would not be wise to turn her back even to run.

  He viewed her as he might either human prey or something toxic: carefully, from all angles, with every sense open to danger. Knowing he was the taller, heavier, stronger, but that small size wouldn’t necessarily make her less lethal. He backed her into a corner of the porch, trapped her between the pillar and his body. Surrounded her with his arms, hands cramped around the pillar to either side of her head.

  “Kate.”

  Desire roughened her name in a way she’d never heard it, never imagined hearing it Mesmerizing. The sound sent tongues of name ticking down her spine; heat made her shiver without understanding, wanting to hear him call her that way again. Instinct made her afraid of what she wanted.

  “Please, Hank, I—”

  He heard nothing but his name, the plea that lay underneath fear, the seductive whisper of invitation. His head lowered the nine inches separating his mouth from hers. “Kate...”

  She made a soft sound of uncertainty, “No, I—” but the hand she placed on his chest to hold him away betrayed her, drew him closer. Before she could press her lips shut against him, he took her mouth.

  Chapter 5

  Soft.

  Her mind registered the texture of his mouth with surprise. So very soft.

  So very exotic.

  It had been twenty years since the last boy kissed her. He’d been a friend, the kiss a shared moment sitting in the dark on theater steps waiting for the curtain to rise on the last play of their high-school career, more goodbye than hello. Nice, soft, yes.

  Nothing like this.

  For all its gentleness there was demand in Hank’s kiss, a hunger and passion that claimed her response before she was aware of giving it. Before she was aware of her own need to give it and take his.

  Drugging.

  Breathless murmurs, the quiet whimper of a plea without words. Amazement slid through her when she felt the sounds coming from her own throat.

  Her fingers were on his chest, kneading his chambray shirt, trying to bring him closer. Astonishment and fire laced through her when the length of his body accepted her invitation, and pressed hers hard into the pillar. Consternation made her gasp and stiffen when his hands moved to her face, thumbs pressed her jaw, urging her mouth wider; when his tongue caressed her lips, seduced its way by them to brush over the sharpness of her teeth, made an intoxicating sweep of her mouth. She didn’t know how to kiss like this; that old friend on the theater steps had never taught her. Hank would find her lacking and stop and she didn’t want him to and—

  But he didn’t. He anchored a fist in her hair, slid his other hand down her back, over her rump and deepened the kiss, coaxing her tongue to play. She melted and came to him because she couldn’t resist him. Because she didn’t want to.

  Her hands, uncertain what to do with themselves, clung to his waist, slipped restlessly up his sides and chest, found his face and opened wide to touch him, to hold him.

  So sweet.

  She tasted like nothing he’d experienced before, like nothing he’d known existed. Innocence without naïveté. Passion without the darkness he was used to having accompany it. Power without corruption. Tender, hot, luscious, welcome... welcoming:

  Rare.

  He filled his hands with her softness, feasted on her rarity, gorged on her welcome. Shivered when her hands claimed his face, drew him into her. Went willingly where he knew he would drown.

  Craven. Depraved.

  He moved his tongue from her mouth to her jaw, her throat; her ear, back to her mouth. This was not how a man kissed a woman the first time; in some rational part of himself he knew the beast in him had crossed a line, but he couldn’t care. Didn’t want to. Wanted only to go on tasting and sampling until he’d fed on all of her, licked and suckled her head-to-toe and back again until she was boneless. Until he could make her part of him.

  Like Gen, for all her loving him, had never been.

  Shock bit him; panic, pain and honor—like ice water and acid fire in one—shriveled all his cravenness and passion in the stillness of a missed heartbeat. What was he doing, where was he going?

  God, what had he done.

  “No.”

  Hands clamped around her upper arms, he levered himself away from Kate. Shuddered and caught her hands, backing out of reach when she moaned and would have drawn him back. He wanted to go back.

  He wanted to go back into her arms and her kiss and more.

  More...

  He shut his eyes and breathed great gulps of air while his lungs burned, his gut twisted and his body called him a dictionary. full of unprintable names.

  Kate’s fingers curled in his, uncertain. “Hank?” Soft and bewildered. A plea to understand.

  “No, Kate. God, don’t.” He let go of her and wheeled violently away, shoved his hands through his hair, bunched them into fists and jammed them into his back pockets where they couldn’t get loose and reach for her again, do to her all the things he couldn’t let them do. “I didn’t want this. I don’t want this. We can’t do this, what are we doing?”

  “I don’t know.” She was shaky and disoriented. Smoothing her hair behind her ears, she tried to regain order. “You kissed me first, so you tell me.”

  “You kissed me back.”

  “Yeah.” She nodded, disbelieving. “I did.” She touched her swollen mouth uneasily, made an inadequate gesture. It had never occurred to her to think she would ever kiss a man—could ever kiss a man, any man, but especially this man—tike that. Feel compassion for him, yes, but this... “I guess...I don’t know, maybe you took me by surprise.” An understatement, if ever she’d made one. She’d taken herself without warning, too.

  “I took you—? What...you mean you’d respond like that to anyone who surprised you that way?”

  Kate swallowed. “I don’t know,” she told him truthfully. “You’re the first person who’s ever ambushed me successfully. I don’t know how I’d respond to somebody else. If I would.”

  “You don’t know how you’d...because nobody’s ever...?” Incredulous, Hank rubbed a hand across his face and stared at her. Who the hell was she, anyway?

  When it came right down to it, he knew nothing about Kate Anden except that she had a lot of kids and had once been a nun, yet somehow by default he’d trusted his daughter in her keeping for years. Assumption—as they’d already discussed—stated that because she’d been a nun, then a lay missionary, she must be the perfect saintly person, the holy, wholesome influence so many people—parents besides himself—thought her. Reality, as so often happened, was something else entirely. No matter how real the tapestry of kindness and generosity, the illusion of perfection that Megan and others verbally wove around Kate was merely that, illusion.

  The real Kate, the woman behind that single, scorching kiss
, was a thief who could steal him blind, a heart-and-soul looter with the potential to leave him wanting her to swipe him deaf and mute as well. Succumbing to the temptation of her lavish body, the compassion with which she treated his daughter would do neither him nor Megan any good. Could, instinct told him, damage his relationship with his daughter beyond repair—especially if things between him and Kate didn’t go well.

  Or went so well that the only thing he’d want to do for the rest of the summer was jump Kate Anden’s bones. Went so well he wound up ignoring Megan, the way she’d accused him and Gen of forgetting her when they got wrapped up in each other every time he came home after an extended absence. And as drum tight as he felt right now, not to mention how many years he’d been celibate, forgetting why he was here in favor of a hot summer affair was a frightening possibility.

  “Look,” he told Kate evenly, emphatically, “This can’t happen, I’m not here for this.”

  Something in his tone made Kate still and straighten. “Not here for what?” she asked carefully.

  “This.” He made a harsh gesture indicating the two of them. “Here. Now. A minute ago. Things are complicated enough without...” He hesitated.

  “Without what, Hank?” She felt wooden, numb. Betrayed by a body she thought she’d known well—hers. It didn’t matter. She’d functioned just fine feeling like a stick of wood in the refugee camp on the border between Burma and Thailand where she’d found Li, betrayed there by a calling she’d thought her own. She’d reevaluated and rebuilt who she was then; if necessary she would do the same now. “Us kissing?”

  “Without us going where that particular kiss would have gone in another three minutes.”

  “I live with teenagers and eight-year-olds, Hank.” She held control in a tight fist. Well, at least sort of. She lifted her chin, pretended he was the Burmese colonel who’d tried to intimidate her out of his way so he could get at a student protester, and kept her voice level. “We don’t do subtlety here. There’s too much opportunity for misunderstanding when things aren’t spelled out.”