by Docter, K. L
Patrick tossed aside the sheet that covered him, stood up, and walked toward her completely comfortable with his nakedness. Rachel felt a thrill of excitement go through her, a zing of anticipation when he stopped directly in front of her. “No more running, Rachel.” His hand around the back of her neck, he pulled her close. “Don’t regret what we just did.”
“I don’t.” She bit her lip. “I just….”
What? Gave all of herself to a man for the first time in her life? Fell in love? Put her daughter in his hands in the hope he wouldn’t ultimately betray them both as every other man in her life had done?
He smiled crookedly. “This thing between us is scary, I know. I should never have let it happen.”
There it was! “No problem,” she said, her hurt clear in her tone. “It won’t happen again. I’ll—”
He cut her off with a hot, drugging kiss that went on and on. She moaned as he picked her up and carried her back to the bed. When he climbed in after her, he yanked her beneath him. “I should never have made love to you,” he said, his voice rough, “because I knew once wouldn’t be enough. When I’m around you, I’m distracted. I can’t keep you and Amanda safe.”
Relieved she wasn’t the only one affected, Rachel wriggled with pleasure. “Then, why are we here again?”
Patrick growled. “I told you, dammit. Once isn’t enough!” He reached for the lamp on the bedside table and turned it off, plunging them into darkness.
Then he kissed her, his skillful hands building the fire inside her once more. And she was lost in sensation with the man she loved despite all of her good sense.
~~~
When Rachel woke up, she was still nestled in Patrick’s arms. She didn’t know what startled her awake, but hearing her daughter’s breathing over the monitor on the bedside table, she knew Amanda was okay. She listened to the sounds of the old Victorian settling and decided she’d awakened because she wasn’t used to sleeping with anyone. Amanda didn’t take up as much of the bed as Patrick.
She was tempted to turn on the light so she could watch him sleep, yet she didn’t dare wake him if she ever expected to climb out of bed before dawn. He’d made love to her twice more so she was a little sore, but it was her worry Amanda would wake up to find her mother gone that made it imperative that she leave the sensual world Patrick had carved out for them the past few hours. It was time to rejoin the real world.
Rachel eased out of his embrace and left the bed. After being surrounded by his warmth, her skin broke out into a rash of goose bumps in the air conditioned room. She searched the floor for the shawl, but couldn’t find it in the dark. Locating Patrick’s football jersey, she pulled it over her nakedness. Warmer, she picked up the baby monitor and left the room, shutting the door most of the way so the hall light didn’t shine directly on the bed.
After checking on Amanda and Buckwheat, who gazed up at Rachel with what she was sure was an accusing look for her desertion, she reclosed the master bedroom door and padded downstairs to the kitchen. A glass of milk might help her get back to sleep…in her own bed.
The kitchen door swung shut behind her before she turned on the overhead lights and glanced at the clock over the stove. Three o’clock. Ugh. She’d have to be up again in a couple of hours to get herself and Amanda ready to accompany Patrick to Southgate. What she wouldn’t give for a sleep-in this morning!
Opening the refrigerator, she reached into the back for the milk carton. Her head buried, she heard the distinctive beep of someone disabling the security alarm ten feet away. She crouched behind the negotiable protection of the eggs, butter, mustard and ketchup bottles lining the refrigerator door, and peeked around it in time to see the exterior doorknob turn. The next thing she saw were strong male fingers curling around the edge of the door as it opened.
Horror seized her heart at the thought of Patrick and Amanda upstairs asleep, unaware of the danger breaking into the house. Rachel grabbed a large bottle of soy sauce in one hand and a half-full, pint jar of almond butter in the other. She didn’t stand a chance of catching the intruder unaware, not with the lights blazing overhead, but maybe she could lob her weapons fast enough to throw him off guard so she could escape the kitchen and run up the stairs. A head start. That’s all she needed.
She straightened slowly, squeezing her glass missiles tightly in both hands. She leaped out into the open—the soy sauce raised over her head—and looked into dark startled eyes very much like Patrick’s.
“Whoa, Rachel!” Ross Thorne raised a hand in surrender. “Don’t shoot. It’s us.”
Patrick’s mother, Evelyn, poked her head around her husband’s shoulder. “Oh, dear! We did scare her, Ross. I told you we should get a motel until morning.”
Rachel lowered her weapon and worked to subdue the rush of blood in her head. “I-It’s okay. I’m fine,” she said, noticing the crutch tucked under Ross’s right arm. His knee on that side was bandaged, in a brace, and everything around it was an ugly, swollen mass of black and blue. It probably hurt like the devil. “Besides, it looks like you should be in your own bed tonight.”
Evelyn shut the door behind her. “It seems like we’ve been traveling for a week trying to get home. We had to fly into Colorado Springs and rent a car for the last leg.” She went to the breakfast nook to pull out a chair at the table for her husband. “Ross, sit before you fall down.”
“Evie, will you stop—”
The swinging kitchen door slammed open and Patrick ran into the room. “Don’t move, you bas—” he said, his arms outstretched in a shooter’s stance, a Glock steady on the intruders.
“Good to see you’re carrying protection, son,” Ross quipped. His gaze ran from the gun down Patrick’s naked body and back up again.
Patrick’s arms dropped to his sides. “Mom. Dad. What are you doing here?”
His mother snorted. “I think the same question could be put to you, Patrick.” She grabbed a dish towel from the rack and handed it to him, then glanced at Rachel while he tried to cover himself with the miniscule cloth.
Rachel’s face heated with embarrassment under Evelyn and Ross’s appraisal. She wasn’t wearing any underwear and Patrick’s football jersey covered her but she noticed, tugging at the hem, she’d put the shirt on inside out in the dark. With her bed-tossed hair, his parents would have to be blind to not know what she and their son were doing earlier tonight.
Just let me crawl into the pantry now!
Evidently, Patrick didn’t feel the same embarrassment. He walked behind the center island so that he was only visible from the waist up, and then tossed the towel onto the counter in front of him. “Dad, how did you get in here?”
Ross raised an eyebrow in a manner that reminded Rachel of his son. “We live here, Patrick. We have a house key and the security code.”
Patrick scowled. “No, I mean, how did you get past the security guard outside? He wouldn’t have let you in without calling me first.”
Evelyn shook her head. “We didn’t see anyone.”
Wait. “Security guard?” Rachel stared at Patrick. “You brought Dad’s goons back without telling me?”
“Not now, Rachel.” He stalked around the island toward his father. “Dad, give me your shirt. There’s supposed to be a guard out there. I’ve got to find him.”
Jockeying his crutch under his arm, Ross began to rise from the chair. “I’ll go with you,” he said in what Rachel suspected was his “cop” voice. “Back you up.”
“You can barely stand, Dad. Just give me your shirt,” he said. When Ross handed him the multicolored tropical shirt, he tugged it on and aimed for the exterior door. “I’ll be back in—”
Rachel’s gaze fixed on his muscular buttocks below the shirt hem, she didn’t realize the door was opening until Larson Cook, the security consultant who’d found Rachel’s trashed car, rushed in, his gun in his left hand. “Thorne,” he said with a downward glance. His gaze shot back up and fixed on Patrick’s parents. “There’s a problem?
”
“You might say that,” Patrick said tersely. “The problem is that my parents caught you with your pants down and somehow walked right past you. Where were you?”
Cook raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t say the obvious, or look below Patrick’s chin again. “I thought I heard something in the alley and went to investigate. Turned out it was a couple of cats f—,” he paused to glance at Evelyn and Rachel before he said, “fighting.”
If Rachel weren’t so ticked Patrick had brought her father’s guards back, she might have laughed at the man’s discomfort. “Well, you can go home. You’re fired.”
The man straightened. “Beg your pardon, Ms. James, but you can’t fire me. Your father is my employer so he’s the only one who can. The Thornes can throw me off their property. I’ll still do my job, from the public sidewalk and alley, if necessary.”
“You were re-hired on my say so, Cook,” Patrick said. “But screw up again and you’re out of here, no matter who hired you. Understood?”
“Understood,” he said. He tucked his gun into a shoulder holster beneath his jacket, and acknowledged Evelyn and Ross with a nod. “Welcome back, Mr. and Mrs. Thorne. I’ll just do another sweep of the perimeter. Excuse me.” Then he walked out the way he’d come in.
The door barely closed behind the man when Rachel confronted Patrick. “How could you let dad’s hired thugs come back here? You know how I feel. I thought you were on my side.”
“Of course, I’m on your side.” Patrick straightened. “But, I won’t take a chance on you or Amanda getting hurt because you can’t deal with your father or what he did.”
“Patrick,” his mother said, quietly. “Maybe we should postpone this dis—”
“This has nothing to do with what he did,” Rachel said, her fists on her hips, “but what he wants. I refuse to give him another chance to throw me and Amanda away.”
“He wants what I want, your safety, dammit!” He glared at her. “You’d know that if you’d talk to him like a grownup, instead of ignoring him like a hurting twelve-year-old.”
She jerked back like he’d slapped her.
“Patrick Michael Thorne! Stop yelling at Rachel this minute!” In the silence that followed Evelyn’s order, she glared at her son. “Now, if you would be so kind as to go put on some pants, we can talk like civilized human beings. Or, better yet, go home. We’ve been traveling for three days and your dad is injured, in case it’s escaped your notice. He should be in bed.”
Lowering his head, Patrick sighed heavily. He looked calmer when his gaze skimmed over Rachel to his mother. “Sorry, Mom.” He frowned at his dad’s knee brace, and the two men exchanged a look Rachel couldn’t interpret.
Ross nodded to his son without saying a word, and then stood and grabbed his wife’s hand. “We’ll all sleep better with Patrick parked on the living room couch, Evie.”
“But—”
“Enough, woman. He stays.” After he got his crutch situated under his arm, he hobbled across the kitchen toward the hallway with Evelyn fussing around him.
As they passed Rachel, Evelyn turned to Patrick with a stern eye. “Couch, son.”
Color filled Patrick’s face. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Seventeen
Dressed in a bright pink sundress, Amanda stood on the bench seat in front of the vanity mirror, her gaze fixed on her mother’s reflection. Rachel finished braiding her fine, blond hair into one pigtail down to her shoulder blades. Then, Amanda sat on the seat while Rachel tied her sparkly pink tennis shoes. “So what should we have for breakfast?” Rachel asked with a smile. “Cereal or muffins? Miss Jane left banana muffins.”
Her daughter shrugged, not looking particularly excited by either option.
Rachel would happily sign over her great-aunt’s estate to have her little girl respond the way a normal child would. A demanding whine for marshmallow cereal without the cereal would have been welcome this morning. She’d never had a chance to ask Patrick last night about his phone call to Sam. They’d gotten a little sidetracked making love.
Had Sam suggested a doctor for Amanda? She would have to ask Patrick, if she ever went downstairs again. She wanted to see him, yet she didn’t. After last night, she was feeling particularly vulnerable this morning.
She also dreaded facing his parents after the awkwardness of their arrival, but knew she couldn’t put it off forever. How could she deny that, yes, what they suspect happened between her and their son did happen?
The evidence stood right in front of them under the glaring kitchen lights, her wearing practically nothing, her hair a tumbled mess from Patrick’s roaming fingers. Her face and neck burned with more whisker burn than embarrassment. She’d looked well and truly loved when they walked in. And, Patrick? He’d run into the room naked!
The memory of the man racing to her aid when he thought she was in danger, not stopping long enough to put on pants, made her heart flutter. He’d crashed into the kitchen like one of the sexy, protective warriors from her books. With the bandage over his ribs, he’d even carried a battle scar. She hoped his parents interpreted her quick flush of color as embarrassment, and not her overwhelming desire to drag him back up the stairs to give him his reward.
Heat washed through her. Patrick was right. One night wasn’t nearly enough. He made her feel so much, showed her a side of herself she’d thought was missing.
How could she still want him, though after the way he’d roared at her in front of his parents? And what about the bodyguards? On the logical hand, she knew she should be grateful for the extra protection. The police hadn’t been able to put Greg behind bars yet, and Patrick couldn’t be with her and Amanda every second of every day. On the other, more emotional hand, she wanted to smack Patrick for being just one more man controlling her life.
Worse, he’d talked to her father without discussing it with her first. If he’d told her what he wanted to do, she would have forbidden him to make the call. It was not his decision to make.
She didn’t want—or need—her dad’s help. He wasn’t coming back into her life just so he could get his hands on Great-Aunt Amanda’s money. Much as she’d like to believe there was an acceptable reason for him to show up after all of this time, she just couldn’t. It would break her heart to watch him walk away from her a second time. And she refused to allow him to hurt Amanda once.
Rachel knew what she had to do with the money her great-aunt left her, and it wasn’t to hand it all over to the men in her life. She’d decided last night after everyone went to bed, when she was stuck wide awake trying not to relive every second of Patrick’s lovemaking, it was time to call her lawyer and have him set her proposal in front of her uncles. It might not be enough to get them to withdraw their challenge to the will, but it was worth a try to start a dialogue with them. She didn’t want all that money for herself—God knows, money couldn’t buy happiness—but she had to keep her promise to her great-aunt.
Flashing a smile at Amanda, she helped her off the vanity stool. Her little girl’s hand clutched in hers, she escorted her downstairs to the kitchen.
“Good morning, Rachel,” Evelyn called out merrily from the stove. The tall, spare woman looked fresh as a daisy in Bermuda shorts and a sleeveless cotton shirt, an apron with decorative spills all over it that said in bold letters, “It takes real talent to get food into the pot.” Evelyn eased pancakes onto two plates on the counter and handed one to Amanda. “Do you like blueberry pancakes, sweetie?”
Amanda nodded with more animation than she’d shown the muffins her mother suggested earlier.
Evelyn motioned toward the table. “Then, find a seat and dig in.” She glanced at her husband. “Ross, please stop reading that newspaper and pour some syrup on Amanda’s pancakes.”
Patrick’s dad winked at the little girl, folded his paper, and reached for the bottle. He’d poured a sticky lake over her single pancake by the time Rachel walked around Buckwheat, planted at his master’s feet, and sat at the table with
her own breakfast.
Grateful Patrick wasn’t there—she wasn’t ready to deal with him yet—she bit her bottom lip and waded in. “I’m sorry you couldn’t sleep in your own bed last night, Mr. Thorne,” she said, pouring creamer into her coffee. “Amanda and I will move out of the master suite this morning.”
It was a great excuse to avoid going to Southgate with Patrick. She’d strip and remake the bed in the room at the top of the stairs, too. It was bad enough the Thornes suspected she and Patrick slept together without providing incontrovertible proof.
“It’s Ross, and that’s really not necessary,” he said. “Amanda’s safe in the adjoining room with Buckwheat, and she needs her mother nearby.” He frowned down at the brace on his right leg. “Besides, it’s easier to get in and out of the twin bed in the boys’ old sick room next to my office. I can’t say I was looking forward to negotiating the stairs on crutches.”
“I’m happy enough in the other twin, too,” Evelyn said from her position by the stove, wiping a hand on her apron. “In forty years of marriage, the only time I’ve slept alone was when Ross worked graveyards. Now he’s retired, I’m catching up.”
“Sprain or not, I’m still able to outrun you, woman.” Ross grinned at his wife, a naughty glint in his dark brown eyes.
Wow. Rachel suddenly knew where Patrick got that look that melted her bones. “I meant to ask last night. What did you do to your leg?”
Patrick chose that moment to walk into the kitchen from outside, dressed for a day at work, his hair still damp from a shower he must have taken at his house. “I want to hear this one, too, Dad.” His intense gaze tangled with Rachel’s before he looked away. “You and Mom weren’t supposed to be home from the Virgin Islands until Jack’s wedding in three weeks.”
Ross shook his head at his son and mouthed, “Don’t mention—”