Dedicated to Deirdre

by Winston, Anne Marie

  When she called them, to her surprise they emerged from the house. She’d checked not fifteen minutes ago, and they’d been playing in the grassy field behind the back fence. “What happened?” She could see from their faces they weren’t hurt.

  “What happened?” Ronan came jogging over from the stable. He eyed the broken living room window. “How’d you do that, guys?”

  Lee took a deep breath. “Well, we went in the house for a drink of water—”

  “And we saw dat fan.”

  Fan? Her eyes widened. “What fan?”

  “The one in the living room,” Lee said.

  “Onna ceiling,” clarified his accomplice.

  “We just wondered if it could hit a baseball, so we threw the ball up a couple of times while the fan was on.” Lee spread his hands as if his logic would have occurred to any one.

  “An’ it did!” Tommy’s face glowed for a second before he remembered the results of the experiment.

  She’d sent them to their rooms, unimpressed with their scientific bent.

  When she’d turned around, Ronan had been shaking with laughter. “I’m getting quite an education from watching those two.”

  She hadn’t seen anything funny about it. The window had been extremely old, the kind of beautiful wavy glass that actually had bubbles in it. “I’m going to have gray hair by the time I’m forty.”

  Ronan had still been chuckling, shaking his head as he’d walked away. Sure, he might think they were cute. But if he lived with them full-time, she thought as she finished packing the cooler, she doubted he would adore them.

  In fact, that was one of the reasons she never thought she’d marry again. Not only because the mere thought repelled her, but because of Tommy and Lee. They were a handful, but she still loved them. Someone who wasn’t their biological father would have a harder time with things like broken windows, spray-painted bedroom walls and miniature trees and houses glued to the floor to make a village.

  She closed the cooler and took a deep breath. Time to go. Lifting it, she carried it to the back porch, then went back for the picnic basket. As she locked the door, the boys came squealing back along the stone path.

  “Hey, Mom, are ya ready yet?” Lee had asked her that approximately fifty times in the past three hours or so.

  “Yes, I’m ready.” She dropped her keys in her pocket and put both hands on the handle of the cooler.

  “All right!” Lee disappeared as fast as he’d popped up, with Tommy hot on his heels.

  “I’ll get that.” Ronan had followed the boys back up the walk.

  She shook her head. “That’s all right. I have it.”

  But he stepped right in front of her as if she hadn’t spoken, forcing her to stop as he removed the cooler from her. She had to surrender it or allow his hands to cover hers on the grips, and she wasn’t about to get that close to him. He settled the cooler on one hip, then hefted the picnic basket in the other hand. “Do you want these in the back of the Bronco?”

  “Yes, please.” Scurrying around him, she led the way to her vehicle. When she opened the back, he set the cooler in, turned and did the same with the picnic basket. Then he reached for a bag sitting beside the rear tire with two lawn chairs. As he set it in the Bronco, she asked, “What’s that?”

  He hooked a finger in the edge of the bag and tilted it toward her. “Sparklers. And a few other small kinds of fireworks. I didn’t want to show the boys until I’d cleared it with you.”

  Her first instinct was to say no. Fireworks terrified her, no matter what size. She’d had a playmate who had lost two fingers when a small firecracker had exploded in his hand. For that matter, fire terrified her. She’d never been one of those children who had played with matches. The mere sight of a small leaping flame made her apprehensive. Even burning the candles in her kitchen made her too tense to leave the room while the tiny wicks were lit.

  But she knew the boys would be thrilled. And she also knew that Ronan wouldn’t let them near anything that might harm them. Slowly she said, “I suppose it would be all right. As long as they don’t actually handle anything except the sparklers.”

  He nodded. “I wouldn’t let them near any of the other stuff. I just thought they might enjoy having their own personal fireworks display.”

  She was touched. “Thank you,” she said.

  When he shrugged and said, “Sure,” she reached out, without thinking, and put a hand on his arm. His flesh was covered with fine silky hairs, warm and firm beneath her palm and immediately, an involuntary charge of arousal detonated deep in her womb. She jerked her hand away, but she knew from the intent look on his face that he’d discerned her reaction. His eyes dropped to her mouth. It wasn’t fair, she thought, that he could get her so excited that she forgot everything but him.

  Looking away, she stepped back a pace and fought to recall the conversation. “I really appreciate your thoughtfulness,” she said. And she did. Nelson never would have thought of doing anything simply for the sake of his sons. In fact, she really didn’t think he would take any time for them except for the fact that he knew it bothered her. He’d become incredibly vindictive since she’d left him.

  It wasn’t until she was in the driver’s seat of the Bronco, bouncing through the lower field, that it occurred to her that she trusted Ronan with her children, trusted him enough to permit him to introduce her children to fireworks. Trusted him more than she did her children’s own father.

  They settled under a big oak tree standing isolated and majestic on the highest hill on the property. The grass was green and the ground was soft since it had been a wet summer, and they could see the fields around the house in the valley a little distance away.

  She spread a blanket and began to get the food out of the containers Ronan brought from the truck. He had a real thing about women carrying anything heavy, she thought. If she so much as got close to the cooler, he was there, asking her where she wanted it.

  It was nearly seven o’clock when they all sat down on the blanket to eat. She’d prepared fried chicken as well as baked beans, which she’d kept hot in an insulated casserole dish, and a seven-layer salad with peas in it so she could get some vegetables into her sons, who thought cows and rabbits were the only creatures who should eat green stuff. She’d also brought some silly, molded gelatin shapes for the boys, their favorite no-bake chocolate cookies, potato chips and Ronan’s watermelon.

  It seemed to take only moments for the three males to demolish all the food. She’d delayed as long as she could so that she wouldn’t be stuck sitting out there with Ronan for hours waiting for the fireworks to start, but the boys weren’t used to eating late, and she could only wait so long. They still had more than two hours until dark, when the fireworks display would begin.

  The boys scampered off to investigate a hole Tommy had discovered in the ground, convinced there must be a giant groundhog inside.

  “That was delicious,” Ronan said as he picked up the paper plates and dumped them in a plastic trash bag she’d brought. “Thanks for letting me come along. I know it wasn’t your idea.”

  She smiled, a quick and impersonal expression. She hoped. “The boys are enjoying having you with us.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “I’m enjoying seeing Lee and Tommy harass someone else for a little while.” She was going to keep this neighborly and friendly, casual, if it killed her.

  He smiled, but he didn’t rise to the change of subject “Deirdre.”

  “Yes?”

  “I want to apologize—”

  “That’s not necessary. I don’t want to talk about it.” She turned away so fast her braid almost hit her in the mouth. Grabbing the thick hank of hair, she slung it over her shoulder with more force than she needed.

  “It is necessary,” Ronan said. His voice was quiet, but she recognized the same hint of steel she’d heard when he said he would carry the cooler. “I’m sorry if I made a wrong assumption that night. Maybe I believed what
I wanted to believe.”

  She turned back to him, desperate to get him to stop talking, and found he was right behind her. “It’s okay. We made a mistake.”

  He was gazing down into her eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m not sure of anything right now.” She had ceased to care whether or not he heard the note of desperation in her voice. “Can’t we just forget it?”

  “I can’t.” He lifted his hand, and as if she were underwater, in slow-as-molasses motion, she watched it come toward her, then she felt the rough drag of his finger along her bottom lip. “Can you?”

  He was too close; she wanted to back away, but her body had other ideas and her feet were rooted to the ground as she fought not to simply melt against him. “No,” she admitted in a muted tone, closing her eyes.

  “I told you I was sorry about misunderstanding you, but I’m not sorry about what happened.” The finger probed gently along the sensitive inner flesh of her lip, causing fresh desire to heat her blood. His voice dropped even lower. “I think about it all the time. About the little noises you made, about how soft the skin on the underside of your breasts was, about the way you felt around me.”

  She couldn’t draw breath, so thick was the air around her. “Stop it.” Her voice was a hoarse plea.

  He smiled, a knowing, dangerous smile. “I want to make love to you again. But this time I want to carry you to a bed. I want to have hours and hours to taste every inch of you. I want to feel your hands touching me. Anywhere you like.”

  He withdrew his finger from her mouth and slid his hand around the back of her neck, seizing her braid and tugging until her face was tilted up to him. “Tell me you want me, too.”

  His mouth was a breath away from hers; if she lifted herself on tiptoe, he’d be kissing her. His hand lay against the back of her neck, and she could feel the heat of his big body only inches away. A surge of feeling, strong and sure, rushed through her. “I want you, too.”

  His lips descended. But unlike last time, he made love to her mouth alone, ravishing every inch, nipping at her bottom lip and licking a soothing comfort on the small sting. His tongue sought hers, enticed her to play, then plunged deep, claiming her surrender. In her abdomen, a seductive, throbbing ache began and she closed her eyes, giving herself to sensation.

  Then, as she was on the verge of pressing herself against him, encircling his wide shoulders with her arms and offering herself to any whim he had, he ended the kiss, retreating slowly until his lips were barely touching hers. The grasp on her hair relaxed. He began to withdraw his hand and as he did so, he deliberately allowed it to trail over her shoulder, the fingers slipping down the slope of her breast to briefly brush one sensitive tip before moving away. She gasped, and her body jerked in an involuntary sexual reaction to that touch.

  He chuckled, low in his throat.

  She opened her eyes, seeing only Ronan filling her view. He was smiling, though deep in his eyes lurked a hot, dark, wanting that echoed in her blood. “That was a start.”

  “Ronan!” It was the shrill voice of her youngest child. “Come play ball wif us!”

  “Reality has really bad timing.” He grinned. The sexual intent faded from his eyes, but before he turned to jog off across the meadow to where her boys waited, he stopped and gave her a long, serious look. “Don’t even think about pretending this didn’t happen.”

  While Ronan played catch with her sons, Deirdre finished packing away the picnic supplies, except for the cookies and a big batch of green grapes she’d brought for munching on later. So many thoughts swirled around in her head that she finally sat down on the blanket with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them, giving her full attention to sorting out the crazy feelings she was experiencing.

  And they really were crazy, she thought. She knew next to nothing about Ronan except that with one kiss he could have her ready to roll over and beg for his touch. She had only known him for a matter of weeks, and for more than half of that they’d barely been speaking. How could you love someone with whom you had never spent a day, never gone out on a date, never even held hands on a front porch or kissed on the stoop?

  But what they had done on her porch certainly made up for it.

  She groaned, resting her forehead on her knees. She’d been young and stupid, easily blinded the first time she’d fallen in love, and it had turned out to be only a thin veneer that quickly began to show wear. She’d promised herself she’d be sensible, take her time, get to know a man before leaping into another relationship.

  Right.

  Here she was, falling in love with a man whose birth date and middle name she didn’t even know. The only thing about him she was sure of was that when he touched her, her world felt so right she knew she finally understood what she’d been missing before. He was so beautifully made and so handsome to her that she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Ronan came charging through the field toward her as she watched, with one little boy held upside down under each arm. Each child was screaming madly and giggling—and her heart broke its final thread-thin moorings and flew straight off to the man of her dreams.

  As it turned out, they didn’t even get the lawn chairs out of the Bronco. As the light began to fade from the sky, Ronan brought out his bag of tricks. Deirdre had never seen her children so excited.

  Or so obedient. He told them firmly that they had to sit in one place while he lit the fuses on the “snakes,” the “cherry bombs” and the “pinwheels” in a bare spot down near the stream. If either of them disobeyed, he warned them, he would put the fireworks away. For good.

  Why did they believe him? If she’d said that, sure as the sun rose, one or the other would be sneaking around behind her trying to get a better look.

  He amused them with the small fireworks for a while, then got out the box of sparklers. He stood with Lee, while she kept a cautious hand over Tommy’s as they pierced the air with the sizzling sticks. They repeated it several times until the box was empty, and by then it was fully dark.

  “Let’s get comfortable on the blanket,” she said to the boys. “The town fireworks will be starting soon.” They bounced over to where she indicated, but it was apparent that little eyes were growing weary, and they didn’t argue when she suggested the view might be better if they were lying flat. Ronan had been standing silently while she settled her children; as she rose, she said to him, “If we get the chairs from the back of the Bronco, we can sit right here behind them.”

  “I have a better idea.” He took her wrist and drew her down onto the blanket. Sitting with his back propped against the tree, he drew her between his bent knees. “Lean back,” he said.

  She let him draw her close but she suddenly felt self-conscious, sitting in his embrace in front of her children. Just then, the first beautiful display lit the sky in a blossoming burst of pink and gold.

  “Look, Mom!” Lee cast her one unconcerned glance as he pointed toward the sky. “Look up or you’ll miss ’em.”

  She did, and Ronan used the opportunity to gently pull her toward him so that her back was against his chest and her head rested against one shoulder. He was warm, and hard, and he smelled so wonderfully of clean male animal that she couldn’t resist the urge to linger for a moment. Then his arms snaked beneath hers and linked across her waist, and the sensation of being protected, cared for and coddled, was too much to resist. Her body relaxed; she laid her arms over the whipcord strength of his forearms and savored the moment.

  The fireworks display lasted nearly an hour. She, “Oohed,” and, “Aahed,” with the boys but after a while, she noticed their voices fading into sleepy mumbles. Ronan pushed himself to his feet at one point, and when she made to follow him, he shook his head.

  “I’ll lay them on the back seat of the truck. If they stay there much longer, they’re going to get bitten by a million mosquitoes.”

  He was right, but what amazed her was that he thought of it at all.

  When the boys were safely, and soun
dly, he assured her, sleeping in the Bronco, he returned to the blanket and eased himself down behind her exactly as he had been before. It felt so right it was scary. For once, she decided, she would agonize and worry in the morning. Right now, all she was going to do was enjoy the companionship and closeness, snuggled in the dark under a spangled, flashing sky.

  Finally the fireworks display ended. There was no reason to linger any longer, no reason at all. She really should move. But it was hard to convince her body, snuggled into the warm circle of his arms. Turning her head, she said, “Thank you for joining us tonight. You made this a memorable Fourth for Tommy and Lee.”

  “And how about their mother?” His jawbone was just at the level of her ear; he turned his head and placed his lips against her temple.

  She smiled, unable to squelch the tentative tide of happiness rising in her heart. “For their mother, too,” she admitted.

  “Good.” His voice sounded as if it rumbled up from a very deep well. He lifted his hand, putting a finger beneath her chin and tilting her face back and up as he lowered his head and sought her lips.

  Her breath shuddered out on a wave of pure, unadulterated desire. Butterflies took wing in her stomach, quickly moving lower to flutter tantalizingly in her womb.

  He kissed her as he had earlier, learning every nook and cranny of her mouth, drinking her response with his tongue, tracing the outline of her mouth and encouraging her to explore him as thoroughly. He taught her how erotic an ear could be, using his tongue again in combination with gentle sucklings that had her sighing aloud as she shifted against him.

  His hands flattened against her body. One moved up to bracket a breast, worrying the nipple with a rhythmic brush as his other hand moved lower, spreading over her stomach, moving even lower to trace the seam of her jeans, the seam that was as hot as the steaming center of her.