"Freeze!"
He did.
Carol grinned to herself as he slanted a look at her over his shoulder.
"Hey." A curl of pleasure unwound inside her. Who said watching TV wasn't educational? "What do you know? That worked really well. I've never actually said it before and—"
"Why now?" he asked, one eyebrow lifting in a high arch as he watched her.
She met that eyebrow lift with one of her own. Although she didn't have the one-brow lift down like he did, so both of hers went up, which really didn't have the same effect at all. But Carol absolutely refused to let that cranky tone of his bring her down. She'd expected the snarls and the shutters in his eyes and had surprised him anyway.
She wouldn't back off now. "No way," she said, shaking her head and holding up one hand like a crossing guard protecting her charges. "You're not going to ruin this for me."
"I'm not doing a damn thing, Baker. Just going into my place."
"Nope. Not tonight." She reached out to grab his forearm. Her fingers held on and tightened when she felt him flex the muscles lying just beneath his warm skin. Ribbons of something really delicious spooled throughout her body. She swallowed hard. "No locking yourself up tonight, mister."
"You're drunk."
"Not yet."
"Your eyes are rolling."
She grinned at him. "Well, that explains a lot." Huffing a breath in and then out again, she squinted up at him. "You only have the one set of eyes, right?"
"Last time I looked."
"Okay good." She'd eat a little something before having more wine, she decided. But she would have more wine. And she wasn't going to whoop it up alone. "Come on in."
He shot a look through her open apartment door and then lowered his gaze to take in the less-than-welcoming stare Quinn was giving him. "No thanks."
"Come on, Reilly." She didn't put a plea in her voice, but she couldn't keep it out of her eyes. "Give me a break. Come in and have a drink with me."
He blew out a breath, turned and stared down at her. There was no welcome in his eyes, but he hadn't shaken her hand off, so Carol took that as a good sign.
"Why?" he demanded.
"To celebrate."
"What?"
She frowned at him. "Jesus, you're a good time, you know it?"
One corner of his mouth tipped up briefly, then flattened again a heartbeat later, just before she had enough time to enjoy it.
"What's going on?"
Carol smiled again. 'That's what I'm trying to tell you, so come on."
She dragged at him, and when he reached back and closed his apartment door before letting her pull him after her, she counted it as a victory. But just to be sure, she didn't let go of him until they were inside her apartment and she'd closed the door behind him.
A classic-rock channel on the radio pumped in a clash of sound that, even with the volume turned low, refused to be ignored. The Beach Boys sang about good vibrations and Carol did a quick little sidestep along with the steady beat. Then she grinned and reached out
to snag up the bottle of wine and a glass off the coffee table.
Filling one for him, then topping off her own, she handed Jack one of the etched crystal glasses. While he held it, his gaze still on hers, she lifted her glass, clinked it to his, and grinned at the musical ping of crystal meeting crystal.
'To me," she crowed as she took a drink, then swallowed and frowned when he didn't mirror her action.
"Hello?" she said. "This is a toast. You're supposed to drink to me, too."
"Do I get to know why?" he asked, that corner of his mouth twitching again.
Seriously, she thought as her heart did a fast trip and hammer, if he ever really gave her a flat-out grin, it'd probably knock her on her ass. He was more potent than the wine.
"Why?" she repeated, then said, "Oh!" She laughed and reached out for him, laying one hand on his forearm again. He just felt... good. Why not touch? she thought. Why not feel everything? Tonight of all nights? "That's right. Haven't told you yet. I'll tell you and then we'll try that toast thing again. It's about Liz."
"The baby?" His gaze narrowed as he shifted a quick, calculating glance around the room. "Where is she?" he asked as his gaze slid back to her. "You lose her again?"
"She's at your mom's." Carol tipped her head to one side and stared up at him. And it was way up, she thought absently. Really tall, Jack Reilly. Really tall and really gorgeous and really ... cranky. But that was okay. She was sort of getting used to the crabbiness. To the glowering expression and the coolness of his eyes.
And she knew it was because every once in a while, he let that guard down. His lips fought to smile. The
shutters in his eyes creaked open just far enough to show her the warmth waiting inside him. And those small tastes of what he was really like were enough to intrigue her beyond reason.
She took another sip of wine and let the cold, slightly fruity liquid slide down her throat and turn to ice in her stomach. It didn't do a thing toward cooling her off. And really, did she want it to?
"Your mom is really the greatest, you know? I mean, she's so nice and everything and—"
"Yeah," he agreed tightly. "She's great. So what about the baby?"
"Oh, yeah." Her fingers curled tightly around his arm and she swore she felt his muscles quiver under her touch. She gave him a squeeze, then let him go long enough to turn, take three steps toward the stereo, then quickly come back again. Quinn walked with her, his big body ranged alongside her like some overpriced bodyguard. When she stopped again, though, the dog had had enough and lay down in front of the couch, where he could keep a wary eye on both of them.
"It's the best," Carol said. "Just the best. I mean, I didn't think this would happen. Didn't really want to let myself think this would happen, you know?"
She frowned as she tried to make sense of her own jumbled thoughts, crowding together in her mind, each jockeying for position. And as her brain worked, she tried to explain. To him. To herself.
"Because, really," she said, scooping one hand back and through her hair, pushing it away from her face. "If you just let yourself feel, sometimes things get all screwed up in your head and then your heart gets all twisted and before you know it... pow, you get slammed. And you can't figure out what you did to get pounded into the
ground." She shook her head now as memories raced in to fill the gaps between her thoughts. Images of other times when she'd trusted, when she'd taken a chance—only to be emotionally pummeled by whatever fate was willing to take a hand. She blew out a breath, let her smile come flooding back, and told herself that this time it would be different. "But then it happened, so I figured, why not?"
She took another sip of wine, reached down to the tray of food on the table and snatched up a pretzel. Taking a bite, she chewed as she talked, waving her glass in dramatic circles that sloshed the pale, almond-colored wine to the very brim of the glass and over. "I mean, when you get the chance, you shouldn't just look away, right? Maybe there's a reason—a purpose—and if you don't grab the opportunity, maybe you'll be really sorry and spend the rest of your life wondering if you were an idiot for not grabbing what you could when you could." She took a breath, tipped her head back, and stared up at him. "You know what I mean?"
He met her gaze and she read the confusion there. "Not a clue."
"Huh?"
"You haven't told me what's going on."
She inhaled sharply, told herself that she'd had enough wine for the moment, and looked up at him. Her gaze moved over his face. From the thick black eyebrows to the pale, icy blue eyes, to the slightly imperfect nose and the growing shadow of beard on his jaw. A lock or two of his black hair fell across his forehead and she had the weirdest urge to reach up and push it back. To run her fingers through his hair and then smooth it down with her palms. She wanted... "You really are amazing-looking."
His gaze narrowed.
"Even when you do that—your cop face—you just... wow."
"Carol—"
"I've been thinking about that kiss," she said as bubbles drifted through her bloodstream, popping, expanding, reproducing. "A lot. Have you?"
"No."
"Liar."
His jaw twitched and she was willing to bet he was gritting his teeth. Which meant she was getting to him as much as he was to her. Some consolation, she supposed.
"Okay," she said suddenly. "We'll let that go for now."
'Thanks."
She held up a hand again. "But we'll get back to it."
"Oh, no doubt."
Carol grinned and felt the smile slide right down inside her. She couldn't help it. She held the warmth of it to her tightly and told herself that this time, it would be different. This time, she wasn't going to be slammed. Or hurt. Or devastated. This time, taking a chance would pay off.
She took a long gulp of her wine, swallowed, then blurted, "I'm gonna be Lizardbaby's permanent foster mother."
There. She'd said it. Out loud.
And it sounded ... wonderful.
She waited for a reaction.
What she got was a frown.
"Thought you only wanted the baby for a while," he said. "Thought you didn't want it to be permanent."
She nodded and her hair swung forward, hanging over her left eye until she shook it back. "That's what I said, sure. Because, well." She scowled, too, then admitted, "I was sort of afraid, you know, that if I loved her
too much, I'd lose her and then it would hurt too much, but then I already love her—too late there—and when Maggie was talking to me about this ... it occurred to me that love is a gift."
He snorted a laugh and stared down at the wine he'd yet to taste. "A gift."
"Yeah. It's like what Christmas morning must feel like to a kid," she said. "You know, coming downstairs, seeing a tree all lit up, with wrapped packages underneath it. Maybe snow falling outside the window and a fire in the fireplace and inside it's all cozy and warm." She sipped at her wine again. "That kind of gift."
He was watching her again and she shifted position slightly as his steady gaze started making her a little uneasy. "What do you mean, 'what it must be like for a kid at Christmas'?"
"Whoops." Carol leaned over, set her wineglass down on the coffee table, and paused long enough to give Quinn's wiry head a pat. "That sort of slipped out, huh?" She shook her head. "No biggie. I just, I don't remember many mornings like that, so I'm guessing it would be pretty great."
"There's a story there," he muttered.
"Not much of one," she said with a slightly tipsy shrug. "Sad little story—but hardly on a Dickensian scale. The people at the home did their best, I guess."
"Right." He was watching her again and his blue eyes were darker, softer.
"Anyway," she continued, her voice lifting, "I'm just saying that if love is a gift, then not taking it is almost... rude."
"Not taking it is safer."
"But less fun."
Jack stared down into her soft, whiskey-colored eyes
and wondered about her even more than he had before. He had his own secrets, God knew. And now he'd discovered a few shadowy places in the one woman he wouldn't have expected to be carrying them.
She didn't talk about her childhood much, but he knew that it had been a far cry from his. He'd had everything, she'd had nothing. And yet... which of them was the happier human being? Which of them carried the darker shadows? Which of them hid from life rather than going out to look for it?
And why the hell did he care?
His grip on the wineglass tightened until he was almost sure the fragile crystal would shatter in his hand. Lifting it, he took a long swallow of the chilled wine and wished it were Irish whiskey. He could use the fire right now, to ease away the chill dancing in his blood, in his heart.
She was watching him and he felt the heat of her gaze and was tempted to use her fire to warm himself. To ease the chill in his bones. But going down that path was something that would only make a complicated mess into a tangle of threads that might never come undone again.
"Love's not a gift," he blurted, forcing himself to meet her eyes. "Love's a bill. Due and payable."
"Huh?"
He sighed and took another long drink, grateful now for the wine she'd poured him. "People love you," he murmured, "you owe them. 'I love you, so don't make me worry. I love you, so don't hurt me. I love you so—'" He broke off, biting the words back, and took another tack altogether. "Take the Reillys. Sean's saying masses for me, my mom's lighting candles, my sisters are whispering about me and stop when I come in a room. They're worried, so they're handing me a bill."
"You're wrong."
"Am I?"
"They only want to help. To make you feel better. To—"
"They can't." He could only look into those eyes for so long without folding. Without giving in to his own need to dive into them and lose himself. So he turned away. Turned his back on her and walked across the room to stare out the front window at the night beyond the glass. He set his wineglass down on the window ledge and leaned into the wall beside the window. "I didn't ask them to help. No one can."
"That's the thing with families, or so I'm told. You don't have to ask."
"It would have been easier," he told himself, his voice just a hush above the Beatles complaining about an eight-day week, "if I'd never come back. I shouldn't have come back."
"Jack, what's wrong?"
"Never mind." His gaze focused on the flower beds lining her front walk. In the moonlight, they looked black-and-white, torn from an old movie set. Light and shadow. As colorless as he felt. As his life had been for the last two years. Until Carol. Until the baby. "Let it go, Baker."
"You keep telling everyone to let it go," she said, and he heard her crossing the room to stand behind him.
No tinkling bells tonight, though, he mused. She was barefoot. He'd noticed her long, tanned legs, denim shorts frayed at the hem, dark pink polish on her toes. He noticed everything about her, dammit. Her scent reached out for him, grabbing him by the throat, demanding he take it into himself. Coconut and springtime, he thought. A hint of some kind of floral scent mingled
with the coconut in her lotion that drove him insane and kept intruding on the dark thoughts that wanted precedence in his mind.
"What is it that makes you so unhappy here?" she asked, her voice softly rising above the music's steady beat.
He didn't turn around. Didn't dare. She was too close and his nerves were on edge.
"Its not being here" he said, shaking his head as he lifted his gaze to the nearly full moon staring back at him from a black sky. He placed one hand on the cool glass. On the opposite side of the window, the multicolored Christmas lights shone. Just out of his reach. As so much was beyond his reach, now. "I've always loved this place. This town." Damn, it had been a long time since he'd admitted that. "Oh, we made fun of it, growing up, but... it's home. I just don't belong here anymore." And by damn, that was a hard thing for him to accept. A harder thing to live with. That the one place you craved to be was the one place you couldn't go back to. "I don't belong with my family. With these people."
"Why?"
She touched him.
A simple, light touch on his shoulder. He felt the weight of her small hand on his body and wanted more. Wanted to feel her skin on his. Wanted to lose himself in the laughter and warmth she promised. Wanted it so badly, he could have begged for it.
But he didn't.
Instead, he told her why she should back away. As far away as he kept his family and the friends he'd grown up with. Turning away from the pale, ivory light of the moon, he faced her, staring down into whiskey eyes that shone up at him with more emotion than he could handle. Grabbing
her shoulders, he held on tightly, his fingers digging into her bare arms. "Because I don't deserve it. I don't deserve this place. And if I stay here too long, they'll know it and they won't want me here anyway."
"Of course you deserv
e to be with your family."
"There's things about me you don't know, Baker. And they're not pretty."
"Ugly enough to keep you from your family?"
"I think so." He waited for her to pull out of his fierce grip. To take a step back from him that would put worlds between them. But she didn't do any of that and he shouldn't have been surprised. Carol Baker never reacted the way he expected her to. Maybe that was part of why he was so damn fascinated by her.
"You're crazy," she said after what seemed like an eternity of moments.
He laughed shortly and let her go, wincing only slightly when he saw that he'd left the imprint of his hands on her arms. He curled his fingers into fists by his sides and tried to laugh about it. "Yeah? That's what I keep saying about you"
She shrugged and the little reindeer decorating her red tank top shifted and moved over her breasts. Jack blew out a shaky breath.
"Takes one to know one?"
"Maybe," he agreed and took a shallow breath. Couldn't risk inhaling her scent, having it cling to him as he went back to his own apartment for another long night of sleeplessness.
But she wasn't going to let him go yet. He saw it in her eyes even before she reached up to cup his face between her palms. Heat speared through him, going deep, seeking out all the dark, cold places inside him, leaving Jack shaken and hungry for more.
"Your family doesn't think you owe them, Jack."
"You're not letting this go, are you?"
She shook her head. "No."
He reached up and took hold of her wrists, but didn't pull her hands away from his face. Didn't think he'd be able to bear it if she stopped touching him. God, he wanted her. More than anything, he wanted her.
"You're too drunk for this," he said, knowing he had to give her this one chance to back out. To change her mind.
"No I'm not," she said, going up on her toes. Just before her mouth brushed over his, she said, "I'm just drunk enough."
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