Freefall

by RaeAnne Thayne

  "What is it, honey? What's wrong? Did you have a bad dream?"

  "No." Zoe sobbed. "I woked up and saw a monster. He runned out when I screamed."

  Zach sat up from his own bed, rubbing at his bleary eyes. "You know there's no such thing as monsters, Zo. Mom told us."

  "I saw one. He was big and mean and scary and he was standing right over there." She pointed toward the window.

  "Honey, I think you were having a dream and it probably just seemed real and scary when you woke up," Sophie said gently, pulling the little girl into her arms.

  "I've had that happen to me before," she went on. "One time when I was probably a few years older than you, I dreamed I had a magic cape and whenever I wrapped it around me I could fly wherever I wanted to go. Paris, New York, Rome. Anywhere I wanted. It was so real to me, I woke up with a quilt around my shoulders and your mom tugging me away from the window of our apartment."

  She had completely forgotten that little snippet of memory until just this moment, but now she could almost feel the soft cotton under her fingers and the cold rush of wind from the open window of that trashy third-floor apartment.

  How significant was it that even then—when she couldn't have been older than eight or nine—she had dreamed of escape? Of flying away from Sharon and the chaos that always surrounded her.

  And Shelly, as always, had tugged her back to solid ground.

  "I'm sure I saw a real monster," Zoe insisted.

  What should she do in this situation? She couldn't think of anything to make the night fears go away.

  After a moment, she decided to go to the experts. Zach and Zoe knew better than anyone what made them feel better in a situation like this. "If your mom was here, what do you think she would have done to make you feel better?"

  Zoe frowned for a moment but Zach piped up immediately. "She would probably use the bad dream spray."

  "Bad dream spray?"

  "Uh-huh. It's over there on the dresser."

  Sophie rose and crossed to the dresser where he pointed. "Where?"

  "There, in the red bottle."

  The top of the dresser was cluttered with the children's treasures but she moved aside some shells and a water-smoothed piece of jade and found a fancy glass perfume bottle that looked like an antique, with an old-fashioned bulb pump spray. "What do I do with it?"

  "Whenever we had bad dreams Mama would spray around the bed to keep the monsters and the scary stuff out," Zoe said. Sophie was relieved to see color return to her cheeks and her eyes begin to lose that haunted, terrified look.

  "And by the windows and the door," Zach added.

  "I can do that."

  Though she had to admit to feeling a little foolish, she gripped the bottle and began to spray it around the bedroom. It seemed to be odorless and colorless, confirming her suspicion that it contained nothing more than water. But if it worked, she couldn't quibble. Already she could see the tension leaving Zoe.

  Shelly had been such a good mother, had thrived in the role, she thought as she sprayed. How could she ever hope to measure up to her sister's example? She never would have come up with something as creative as bad dream spray.

  Uncertainty and self-doubt assailed her again but she ruthlessly squelched them.

  "Is that better?" she asked.

  Zoe nodded. "Will you stay here until I fall asleep to make sure the monster doesn't come back?"

  She sounded so forlorn that Sophie could do nothing but nod. "Of course I will, sweetheart. Do you want the light left on for a little while?"

  "Yes, please."

  Zoe made room for her on her narrow twin bed and Sophie leaned against the headboard and drew the little girl into her arms, tucking the quilt around her small shoulders. Zoe smelled of soap and baby shampoo and cuddly little girl. Not a bad combination at all, she thought with a contented smile.

  "Will you sing me a song, Aunt Sophie? Whenever I have a bad dream, Mommy sings me the song about when the dogs bite and the bees sting until I fall asleep."

  "My Favorite Things," from The Sound of Music, Sophie realized, her heart twisting at the memory. She and Shelly used to sing that song to each other when Sharon was out late working or with her current man—or out drinking away her sorrow if she was between men.

  It had been years since she'd heard it and she wasn't sure she could remember all the words but she gave it her best shot. On her second run-through, she realized Zach was already back asleep and Zoe was close. She kept singing softly and made it through one more time before she heard Zoe's breathing pattern change to a steady, even rhythm.

  If only she could fall asleep as easily! Envious, she watched Zoe sleeping for a moment in the soft glow from the bedside lamp.

  She looked so sweet and peaceful. How Sophie wished she could so easily vanquish all the monsters in the children's lives, with a little make-believe and a softly whispered song.

  Was this how Shelly had felt watching her children? she wondered. As if she would do anything, sacrifice anything, to make their lives as smooth and trouble-free as possible?

  She was trying. She would probably never be the kind of insightful, nurturing mother Shelly had been but she decided she should give herself a little more credit for effort.

  She slid from the bed carefully and settled Zoe on her pillow. After a moment, she gave Zoe's forehead a soft kiss and tucked the blanket more snugly around her small shoulders, smoothing an errant curl away from her face.

  A dark shadow in the doorway caught the edges of her vision as she straightened. Her mind still on Zoe's monster, she couldn't contain her instinctive gasp.

  "It's me," a low voice responded. Tom, she realized. How long had he been watching her?

  Nerves fluttered in her stomach but she sternly repressed them and forced herself to walk toward him. Out in the hallway, she drew the door almost closed behind her, leaving it slightly ajar in case Zoe might cry out again.

  "Bad dream?" Tom asked when she joined him.

  She nodded. "Zoe saw a monster."

  "Poor thing. I imagine it won't be her last for a while."

  "I'm sorry we woke you."

  "You didn't. I was still working and heard footsteps up here. I just wanted to make sure everything was all right."

  "You put in long hours, Lieutenant."

  "Just for a while, I hope. The board of directors should be meeting in a few weeks to determine a permanent CEO. I've decided it's in Canfield's best interest to bring in new blood. I'll remain temporarily until the board of directors can choose a replacement for Peter."

  She heard the weary resignation in his voice and knew what a tough decision that must have been for him, to seek someone outside the Canfield family to run the company for the first time in its history.

  On instinct, she touched his arm in sympathy then regretted it when she encountered heat seething from him. She quickly dropped her fingers and cleared her throat. "Will you go back to the Coast Guard?"

  He shrugged. "Hard to say right now. Even if they're willing to extend my leave of absence until things are settled here and at Canfield, I'm not sure the Coast Guard would be the best place for me anymore."

  "Why not?"

  "I've been lucky to be stationed close to home at Monterey Bay for the past three years but I can't say how long that might last. I could be transferred out of here at any time. That's the nature of the military—you go where they send you. I'm not sure that kind of upheaval would be the best thing for the children right now."

  Tom had given this a great deal of thought in the past few days, whenever he wasn't obsessing about Sophie and her soft green eyes and her delectable mouth.

  "I have to think about them first," he said. "The Coast Guard was a great career when I only had myself to think about. I loved it, I won't lie to you about that. But now Ali and the twins have to be my focus. As you pointed out the day of the funeral, who's going to care for them while I'm out playing Rescue Ranger?"

  "Me! I'm going to care for th
em, just as I have been doing. Or is that not good enough for you? I know I'm not Mother of the Year material yet like Shelly was, but I'm learning."

  "That's not what I'm saying at all. You've been great with the children. I've told you that. You've given them exactly what they need. But you have to admit that we can't keep going indefinitely the way we have been these last few days."

  "Why not?"

  Because I can't be in the same room without wanting you. Because I see you smile and all I can think about is tasting you.

  Because you're going to leave again.

  "Are you just going to forget about your photography career? Throw away everything you've worked so hard to earn?"

  "No. Not completely. I don't think my choice has to be an either-or proposition, Tom. Of course I can't go back to travel photography, but that's okay with me at this stage in my life. I've been thinking about maybe teaching a class when things settle down. And even before all this happened, I had some offers to do a showing. With all the galleries in the area, I believe I should be able to find at least one somewhere that would be interested in putting my work on permanent display."

  "I'm sure you could. Your photos are brilliant."

  She looked so astonished by his compliment that he couldn't help laughing. "What? Don't pretend modesty with me. They are brilliant and you know it. You have a gift, this amazing way of finding the unique and quirky no matter what you're shooting. Yet you always treat your subjects with dignity and respect."

  "That's quite an analysis, Lieutenant." In the hallway lit only by the glow of a small lamp, her green eyes were wide—startled and flattered at the same time.

  For some reason he couldn't identify, he was vaguely embarrassed. He was no art critic and probably shouldn't pretend he was. "My two-cent critique, for what it's worth."

  "It's worth far more than two cents. Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  They stood in the quiet hallway for several moments while the house settled around them and the children slept a thin wall away.

  "I should be returning to bed," she finally said. "And you ought to be trying to get some rest as well. You have to slow down sometime, Tom, or you'll wear yourself out."

  "Yeah. I probably should," he murmured, warmed by her concern. Then, unable to help himself, he reached for her.

  Chapter 13

  For a few seconds she stood motionless in his arms, her body as stiff and unyielding as the Big Sur cliffs. He thought for a moment she would pull away and retreat to that cool distance she maintained between them, but then slowly she softened, surrendered.

  Her arms slid around him and she returned his kiss with an enthusiasm that left him breathless and aching.

  He wanted her with a fierce intensity he had never experienced with any other woman. He couldn't think about anything else but sinking into her, about how he had hungered after Sophie Beaumont for a decade, how his one brief taste of her so long ago had only left him craving more.

  Her mouth tangled with his, warm and soft and sweet. When he slid his tongue inside, she tightened her arms around him and tilted her head to give him easier access.

  He gripped one hand around her head, tangling in the sultry honey curls, and slid his other over one hip, bunching the silky material of her nightgown in his fingers as he drew her closer.

  She moaned softly in her throat, a sexy little sound that made him lose all control. Their kiss grew wild, frenzied. He needed to be closer. He was crazy with it, mindless. With their mouths and bodies still entwined, he thrust open the door behind her and backed her into her bedroom. In only a few short steps they reached the bed and he lowered her to it.

  He had dreamed of her for so long. Their kiss the night before had only rekindled all those old feelings he had tried for so long to suppress. No woman had ever moved him like Sophie, had ever reached into his chest and yanked out his heart.

  He reached a hand between their bodies and touched her through her nightgown. She was as perfect as he remembered, curvy in just the right places. At his touch, her gasp whispered through the room and she arched against him.

  She wore some kind of loose, high-waisted nightgown that for some reason brought to mind harems and smoky incense and exotic scents like cloves and patchouli.

  He really loved the things she slept in—and made a mental note to tell her so. But just now he couldn't wait for it to be gone so he could taste her, touch her.

  He reached for one strap to tug it down over her shoulder. It slid easily, baring the slope of one high breast gleaming white in the moonlight. His heart pounding, he leaned down and pressed his mouth to that curve. Her hands dug into his hair and she held him close while his mouth lavished attention on her. From here he could hear her heartbeat raging in his ear, as loud and reckless as his own.

  Just as he moved to draw that tight rosy bud into his mouth, she froze then gripped his arms.

  "Tom. Thomas. Stop. We have to stop." She sounded breathless, as if she'd just tried to outswim a riptide.

  He didn't want to stop. He wanted to bury himself inside her heated body. To forget about the heartaches of the past and find a new future together.

  She wanted the same thing. He could feel her limbs quiver with need, see the dazed yearning shimmer in the green of her eyes. Even as she said the words, her hands gripped his arms tightly as if she couldn't let him go.

  "Why?" His word sounded harsh, flat, and she blinked.

  "Be—because." She slid away a few inches—not far, but it might as well have been as wide and unbreachable as the Grand Canyon. "You know we have to stop. We can't do this. Think of the children. If we…if we make love it will only complicate a situation that's already terribly complicated."

  "This has nothing to do with the children. This is about us. About unfinished business."

  "We don't have any unfinished business, Tom," she said, her voice quiet, tugging up the strap of her nightgown. She sounded resigned, almost sorrowful.

  "You might not, but I sure as hell do. I'd like some answers. Like how you could melt in my arms one minute then run off without a word five minutes later."

  "Please, let it go. It was ten years ago. We were both young and foolish."

  He rolled to his back away from her then sat up on the edge of the bed. "We weren't so young that I didn't recognize when I was falling in love. I thought you felt the same."

  She stared at him as her entire world shifted like a house sliding down a cliff in a mudslide. Falling in love. He couldn't have been.

  She gazed at him, the powerful, unyielding strength of him. The pearly moonlight lent a harsh cast to his face, all shadows and angles and hollows, but his image began to blur with the tears burning behind her eyes. Tears she forced back.

  Why did the contrary man have to go and say something like that, destroying all her defenses in one quick swipe. He had said during that magical night on the beach that he was coming to care for her but she supposed she hadn't really believed it.

  A man like Tom Canfield didn't fall in love with the white-trash daughter of a wandering cocktail waitress.

  Blood rushed from her face and she was cold suddenly. She didn't really think that about herself. Did she?

  Had she left so easily when William ordered her away from Seal Point because some portion of her psyche agreed with him that Tom would be better off without her, that he couldn't throw his life away on someone from her kind of background?

  It was a stunning thought, one she couldn't take time to analyze just now with him watching her so intently out of those silvery-blue eyes that burned in the moonlight.

  "We can't do this," she repeated, trying hard to cling to her resolve. "Circumstances are vastly different than they were ten years ago. We're different people than we were then. Older. Smarter, I hope. Besides, we have the children to think about."

  "I'm thinking about them. They need a stable home."

  He paused, then flipped on the lamp by the bed. In the soft glow, she saw sudd
en resolve on his features and for some reason butterflies began to flutter in her stomach.

  "I think we should get married," he said calmly.

  Now the entire state of California seemed to slide into the sea. She stared at him. "Married? Are you crazy?"

  "Maybe. Probably."

  "Definitely! We can't possibly get married!"

  He tilted his head and studied her. "Why not? You don't already have a husband tucked away somewhere in some exotic locale you've neglected to mention, do you?"

  "Of course not!"

  "Then what's the problem? Think about it, Sophie. It makes sense." He leaned against the headboard, seeming to be perfectly comfortable having such an outrageous conversation. "We can't go on living in limbo like we've been doing this week."

  "Why not? Except for a few little glitches, it's working so far. Not great, maybe, but okay."

  He made a strangled sound that could have been a laugh or a groan. "Only because I'm living on cold showers and fifty laps in the pool. Tonight only demonstrated once again that sooner or later we're going to give in to this heat between us."

  "Not necessarily," she muttered.

  "You keep kidding yourself, Sophie, if it helps you sleep at night. But if you're honest you'll admit that as long as we live under the same roof, it's going to happen between us. We're going to make love."

  "Then I'll move out."

  "And go where?"

  She raised her palms in the air. "Somewhere nearby, maybe. Pacific Grove or Carmel. I don't know."

  "And have what kind of relationship with the children?"

  She didn't know how to answer, how to work their way out of this tangled situation.

  "We both want to be involved in raising the children," he went on, "but the logistics of that are staggering if we live separately."

  "Divorced people do it all the time. We could work out some custody arrangement."

  "Do you honestly think having the kids spend a week with me and a week with you would be in their best interest especially now when their life has just fallen apart?"

  She gazed at him helplessly. "But marriage. That's a fairly drastic step, don't you think? We can't base a successful marriage on physical attraction alone."