“Okay,” she whispered, and he bent his head, kissed away her tears, kissed her lips...
“Sage,” he said thickly, and she opened her arms to him...
More than that.
She opened her heart.
* * *
She awoke alone in the bed.
Her heartbeat stuttered. Was he gone? She reached for her robe...
And smiled, as Caleb entered the room. Oh, her lover was beautiful. His hair was rumpled; he was shirtless and barefoot; his trousers, the top button undone, hung low on his hips.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” he said.
She blinked. “Is it really morning?”
He came to the side of the bed, leaned down, caged her within his arms and gave her a coffee-laced kiss.
“Morning, evening, I’ve no idea.” He kissed her again, slowly, tenderly. “I made coffee. And herbal tea.”
She smiled. “Perfect.”
“Of course, we could skip the coffee and tea and get right to dessert...”
Sage’s belly rumbled. Caleb grinned, dropped a quick kiss on her forehead and rose to his full height.
“On second thought, how about breakfast?”
* * *
She made scrambled eggs.
He made toast.
“Too bad you don’t have any cheese,” he said, peering into the fridge.
“I have cottage cheese.”
“Cheese,” he said with a dramatic shudder. “Real cheese. You know. Yellow. Sliced. Comes in a package—”
It was Sage’s turn to shudder.
“Or hot dogs,” he said. “Hot dogs would be perfect.”
“Please don’t tell me those are your favorite food groups!”
He chuckled, shut the fridge and turned toward her. Damn, she was gorgeous. No makeup. Hair long and loose. Lush body wrapped in a robe that kept coming open.
“Caleb? Packaged cheese and hot dogs are...?”
He cleared his throat.
“Specialties of the house,” he said. “Well, Wilde brothers’ specialties.”
“Oh,” she said, and it hit him that she didn’t know anything about his family, but there’d be time to tell her more.
Except, there wasn’t.
Not when he was in a rush to take her back to bed, to make the most of the hours they had left because he had to be back in Dallas by tomorrow.
Their eyes met.
She said his name. He opened his arms. She went into them.
“Sage,” he whispered, and she sighed as he lifted her and carried her back to the bedroom.
He kissed his way down her body, pausing to savor the sweetness of her nipples, her navel, the softness between her thighs.
“My turn,” she murmured.
Her hands were cool, her mouth warm, her caresses at first cautious, even delicate, and he realized, on a rush of what he knew was foolish masculine ego, that she had never touched another man as she was touching him.
They kissed endlessly, loving the tastes and textures of each other’s lips and tongues until, suddenly, there was no more time to spare. He was hungry for the feel of her closing around him. She was hungry for the feel of him deep inside her.
She wept, and came on a high cry of ecstasy.
He followed seconds later, throwing his head back and calling out her name. Then, he collapsed in her arms, sweat-slicked skin against sweat-slicked skin.
After a long, long time, he rolled to his side, stretched out beside her and laid his hand gently over her belly.
He bent his head, pressed a kiss to where his child lay sleeping. She cupped her hand around the back of his head and fell asleep.
He was too busy thinking, planning, making decisions.
After a while, moving carefully so he wouldn’t wake her, Caleb rose, collected his clothes and went into the bathroom. He showered, dressed, then called his pilot on his cell phone, telling him to have the jet ready within the hour.
He went back into the bedroom. Sage was still sleeping and he bent down and kissed her mouth.
She stirred, sighed, opened her eyes and smiled.
“Caleb,” she said softly.
He sat down next to her and took her hand.
“I have to go home,” he said. “I have a meeting. I can’t cancel it.”
Her smile tilted. “No. That’s okay. I understand.”
He lifted her hand to his lips.
“I’ll fly back next weekend. We’ll find an apartment. A house. I’ll contact a Realtor.”
“I’ll do it.”
“Sure. Fine. Just be sure to get something in—”
“I know. Something in a safe neighborhood.”
“Yeah, well, absolutely. But what I was going to say was, make sure it’s on the park.”
“The park?”
“Central Park, if you want to stay in Manhattan. Or, I’ve been to a couple of really handsome towns in Connecticut... What?”
Sage sat up. The duvet dropped to her waist and Caleb bent his head and kissed her breast.
“No,” she said, “you have to listen.”
“I’m listening,” he said in a husky whisper. “But, luckily for you, ma’am, I’m a multitasker.”
She laughed, but it was a quick laugh, and she pushed him gently away.
“Seriously, Caleb, I’m not going to take a place on Fifth Avenue, or in one of those—what’d you call them? One of those ‘handsome’ towns in Connecticut.”
He sat back. “Because?”
“Because,” she said patiently, “I can’t afford them.”
“That’s just plain silly. I can afford them.”
Hell. There it was. The narrowed eyes. The cool look.
“You’re not going to support me,” she said.
“I’m going to support our child. Did you think I wouldn’t? Did you think I’d walk away from my responsibility?”
She sat up a little straighter.
“Helping support our child is one thing but I don’t intend to be your ‘responsibility.’”
He heard the way she said the word, knew she’d taken it in a way he hadn’t meant it.
“Sage. Honey, maybe I’m saying this wrong—”
“No. It’s me saying it wrong. What I mean is—thank you for wanting to help.”
He drew back. “Do not,” he said coldly, “absolutely do not thank me.”
“I simply meant—”
“Is that what you think this is about? Me, ‘helping’ you?”
“I didn’t meant it that way. It’s just...look, I’ve been on my own for years. I can take care of—”
“If you take care of my child the way you’ve taken care of yourself—”
“For your information, I’ve done just fine taking care of myself.”
“Oh, right.” Sarcasm frosted each word. “One look at this—this palace is proof of that.”
Sage struggled with the duvet, managed to keep it clutched to her like a shield, and rose from the bed.
“You know what? I think it’s time you left.”
“Yeah. I think so, too.” Caleb strode to the door, stopped, spun around and pointed his finger at her. Anger was etched into his face. “I don’t know what kind of sorry SOB you think I am, but get this straight. I never walk away from a responsibility.”
Sage’s eyes glittered with angry tears.
“You already told me that. But this isn’t a ‘responsibility,’ it’s a baby.”
“Goddammit, of course it’s a baby! My baby.”
“This child is mine. It’s part of me. And if you think you’re going to take over where Thomas Caldwell left off—”
Caleb said something ugly. Then he turn
ed on his heel and walked out.
CHAPTER NINE
WHAT did women want?
Men had been asking that question for centuries.
Caleb had debated it for most of his thirty-two years, with his brothers, in college dorms, in Marine barracks, over beers with his fellow spooks at the hush-hush camp tucked into the Virginia mountains where he’d prepped for life at The Agency.
He’d never come up with an answer.
Nobody had.
Travis had summed it up.
“Babes don’t know what they want,” he’d said. “If you’re tender, you’re a wuss. If you’re tough, you’re insensitive. You’re never smart enough but you sure as hell can be dumb enough, in which case you’re a lost cause.”
Thirty thousand feet above flyover country, Caleb grimaced into his tumbler of Scotch.
That’s what he was. A lost cause.
“Damn right,” he muttered, and he raised his glass and took a long, warming swallow.
This time yesterday, he’d been an attorney representing a client.
Now he was... What?
A man on a tightrope. All he could do was put one foot in front of the other and not look down.
Maybe he really should have listened to that old adage about lawyers being fools if they represented themselves.
Except...
He took another drink.
Except, this wasn’t a legal thing. Not yet, anyway, unless Sage decided she wanted to try and move him out of the picture.
“Fat chance she has of accomplishing that,” he muttered.
He’d put a child in her womb. That gave him certain rights. He was not Thomas Caldwell, demanding access to a kid that wasn’t his. He wasn’t trying to take her baby from her, he just wanted to assume his role as its father.
What kind of woman would tell a man he couldn’t do that?
“Mr. Wilde?”
Caleb looked up. The cabin attendant smiled politely.
“Captain wanted me to tell you there’s weather moving into Dallas. Things might get a little rough in a couple of hours.”
Things were already rough, Caleb thought, but not in the way she meant.
“Right,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Can I get you anything? A sandwich, perhaps?”
What, he thought, and spoil the buzz he hoped would accompany this, his second shot of whisky?
“Thank you,” he said politely. “I’m fine.”
She smiled again and went back to the galley.
Caleb drank a little more of the Scotch.
This was one of those times having an entire jet to himself was one damned fine idea. He could pace, as he had already done; drink, as he was now doing; talk to himself and avoid all contact with humanity except for his pilot, his co-pilot and the cabin attendant.
Now if could only avoid contact with himself....
But he couldn’t. His head was full of nonsense.
He kept going over that last confrontation with Sage, trying to figure out how they’d gone from making love to making war with hardly any time in between.
He kept seeing her face, the anger in her eyes...
The passion in them, only a little while before.
“Dammit,” he said, and he put aside the tumbler of Scotch, plucked the satellite phone from its niche, punched in a number, heard Travis say hello.
“It’s me,” Caleb barked.
“Caleb?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“Well, no. What you said was ‘it’s me,’ and I hate to tell you this, dude, but there are probably zillions of me’s in this world, and I’d bet I know at least a couple of hundred of them.”
“Very funny.”
“Yeah, well, we aim to please.”
“Is Jake with you?”
“You want to be accurate, I’m with Jake at El Sueño. As you’ll be, in a little while...or are you calling to say you’re not gonna make this meeting?”
“Are you in the ranch office? Switch to speaker phone, okay? But shut the door first.”
“Any more instructions?”
Caleb closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers.
“Travis.”
“Yeah?”
“I want to talk to both of you. And I need to warn you, I’m not in a good mood.”
“Nothin’ new there, pal. You always were too uptight for your own—”
“Trav. I need—I need advice.”
Silence. Then he heard his brother say, “Jake? It’s Caleb.” He heard him say something else, too, but the words were muffled as if Travis had put his hand over the phone.
A second later, he heard the slightly hollow sound that meant Travis had switched to speaker phone.
“Caleb?”
“Jake?”
“Yes. Caleb, Travis says—”
“I, ah, I want to run something by you. Both of you.”
“Sure,” Jake said.
“Sure,” Travis said.
Caleb said nothing. He wasn’t sure how to start, or where to start, or even if he should have made this call.
“Caleb? You there, man?”
He nodded. Cleared his throat. And went for it.
“Say there’s a guy. Meets a woman. Spends, you know, spends a night with her.
“Sounds good so far,” Travis said, chuckling.
“She’s, you know, she’s okay. Pretty. Smart. Fun. She’s—”
“She’s nice,” Jake said helpfully.
Caleb shook his head.
“She’s more than nice. She’s—well, she’s special.”
Silence again. Then, warily:
Jake: “How special?”
Travis: “Special special?”
Caleb got to his feet, walked the length of the airplane.
“Yeah.” His voice sounded hoarse and he cleared his throat. Again. “Anyway, he meets her. And then, some time goes by. A couple of months. And he finds out she’s—he finds out she’s pregnant.”
There was no mistaking the sudden, sharp intakes of breath that came over the line.
“Wait a minute,” Travis said. “They were together only this one time?”
“Right.”
“Not again during those two months?”
“Three. Actually, it was three. And, no, they never saw each other after that night. He had no idea she was pregnant.”
“What,” Jake said, on a huff of disbelief, “she didn’t tell him?”
“No. She couldn’t. She, ah, she didn’t know his last name, didn’t have his address, his phone number...”
“But she claims he knocked her up.”
“He didn’t ‘knock her up,’” Caleb growled. “He made her pregnant.”
In Jacob’s office on the Wilde ranch, two pairs of eyebrows rose.
“And,” Travis said carefully, “and he’s sure he’s the guy who did it?”
“He’s sure.”
“Because there’s been a paternity test?”
“Listen, I didn’t call so you two could run an interrogation, I called for—”
“Advice,” Travis said, signaling wildly to Jake for a pen and paper. Jake shoved both at him. WTF is he talking about? Travis wrote, to which Jake mouthed back, What am I, a mind reader?
Caleb had made his way back up the aisle. He sank into his seat, picked up his drink and finished it.
“Here’s the problem,” he said. “She doesn’t want to do anything he says.”
Travis: “The paternity test?”
“Not that.”
Jake: “You mean, get rid of the—”
“I mean, move out of the r
at trap she lives in. Put herself under the care of a top ob-gyn. Let—let this guy buy her things she needs, let him take care of her and, of course, the kid once it’s born.”
“Of course,” Jake said calmly, and clapped his hand to his head.
“He wants to do the right thing,” Travis said, just as calmly, and mimed shooting himself in the temple.
“Exactly. He wants to do the right thing. The logical thing. The responsible thing.”
Silence again. Caleb rose, paced a little more. In Wilde’s Crossing, Texas, Jacob and Travis rose, paced in opposite directions, shaking their heads whenever their paths crossed.
“So,” Travis finally said, “who, uh, who are we talking about here, man?”
“A friend,” Caleb said quickly. Too quickly. He winced. “Just some guy I know.”
“And,” Jake said, “and you, ah, you want our advice?”
“Yes. Because I—I haven’t been too helpful.”
“What did you suggest he do?”
“That’s just it. Nothing she’ll accept. Not yet.”
His brothers looked at each other and pumped their fists in the air.
“Good,” Jake said. “Because, you know, he shouldn’t do anything precipitous.”
Precipitous? Travis mouthed. Jake glared at him.
“Yeah,” Caleb said, “but he has to do something. This is his baby. His woman. I mean, she isn’t his woman, not really, but—”
“Here’s what I think,” Jake said. He sat down at the desk, motioned Travis to do the same. “First of all, he needs to arrange for a paternity test. Then he needs to see a lawyer. Work up the legalities. Like—”
“Like the financial obligation your friend is willing to assume,” Travis said. “For the woman. For the kid.”
“I told you, she doesn’t want—”
“If she really doesn’t want money,” which we strongly doubt, Jake’s roll of the eyes said, “he can set it up as a trust. She taps into it? Fine. She doesn’t? That’s fine, too.”
“It isn’t. It’s not any kind of solution. What if she doesn’t touch it? I would never—my friend would never let her go on living from hand to mouth, or let her raise the child in poverty when it’s absolutely, totally, completely unnecessary.”
Harlequin Presents January 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2: The Ruthless Caleb WildeBeholden to the ThroneThe Incorrigible Playboy Page 12