“Not the baby’s physical well-being. More about what will happen to her.” He translated the rest of what Rosa had said and watched the anxiety in Lauren’s eyes turn to soft compassion.
“Oh, Rosa,” she said, and hugged the girl. Big help there, he thought, panicking more. Rosa only seemed to sob harder.
After a tense moment, she seemed to calm down and Lauren produced a tissue.
“The other day in the hospital, you said you wanted to give the baby up for adoption, remember? Rosa, there are wonderful couples with so much love to give a child. If that’s what you decide, we will find the perfect home for your baby, I promise you. I’ll help you. You can choose exactly where the baby goes.”
He translated for Lauren, though he had the impression the girl understood the gist.
She twisted the tissue in her hands until it was mangled. “But what if my baby hates me for giving her away?”
“She won’t. I promise.” She squeezed the girl’s hands, tissue and all. “I can tell you that from experience. I was adopted and I have never been anything but grateful to the woman who gave me life.”
He stared at her, struck dumb at that unexpected bit of information. How had he never known that about her, in all his months of investigating R.J.? Or maybe he had learned it, he had just been so consumed with vengeance he hadn’t internalized the information.
He suddenly remembered his translator duties and relayed what she had said to Rosa. Her words seemed to ease much of the girl’s worries. Lauren spent a few more moments reassuring her, until the tears appeared to have dried up, to his vast relief.
“Come on,” Lauren said. “The best thing for you right now is rest. You will feel much better about everything in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Rosa whispered. “Thank you for everything. You have both been so kind to me.”
Lauren hugged her once more, then went with her to help settle her for the night.
She returned just as Daniel was throwing another log on the fire. She paused inside the room and again he caught the wild edge of restlessness in her stance.
“I don’t believe I ever knew you were adopted,” he said.
She blinked as if she hadn’t quite been expecting his statement. “It wasn’t some big dark secret,” she said. “I don’t think about it much, it’s just part of who I am.”
“What were the circumstances?”
“The usual, I guess. My parents were married for five years and found out they couldn’t conceive. This was in the early days of in vitro. They tried everything, apparently, without success. Finally they went the private adoption route.”
“Do you know anything about your birth mother?”
“Only that she was young and pregnant and alone, like Rosa,” she said. “That’s all.”
Was this the reason Rosa’s situation seemed to affect Lauren so strongly? She had sympathized with the girl from the very beginning. He had asked her why she had insisted on bringing Rosa home with her to Moose Springs to heal. Perhaps this helped explain her actions somewhat.
“She chose my parents before the birth,” Lauren continued, “but stipulated there be no contact between them. My mother and father never met her. I don’t know anything more about her than that.”
“Have you ever wanted to look for her?”
“When I was in high school, I was curious. I guess I grew out of it, right around the time I figured out only fools go borrowing trouble.”
“How do you know it would be trouble?” he asked. “Maybe you would be friends.”
“Maybe. I just figured she could find me if she wanted. She knew my parents’ names and where they lived. She would only have to Google R.J.’s name to know the whole ugly story. It wouldn’t be hard to find mention of his only surviving child in those stories. His only legal one, anyway.”
Again, he heard the bitterness in her voice. He knew the reason for it and he ached for her. Before he could respond, she spoke again.
“We don’t need to dance around this, Daniel. You must know all the gory details. You worked in the sheriff’s department at the time everything happened so I’m sure you were privy to all the juicy details that never made it into the papers.”
If she only knew.
Before he could respond, Lauren forced a smile. “I’m sure you’re wondering if my mother’s inability to conceive had anything to do with the choices R.J. made later. The other family he kept in Salt Lake City. His three bouncing baby boys from another woman who thought she was happily married to a man who merely traveled more than she liked. I’ve certainly wondered the same thing. My mother was unable to give him a son and apparently he found someone who could.”
Though she tried to hide it, he heard the raw pain in her voice and would have given anything to have the right words to ease it, as she had comforted Rosa.
“I do know the truth,” he said carefully. “But you can be sure I’m one of only a few who do.”
“I figured as much, otherwise everyone in town would know by now.”
“Have you met them?”
She gave a humorless laugh. “Still more trouble I didn’t want to go borrowing. My family tree is quite a wild tangle, isn’t it? But yes, I have met my half brothers. Ian, Jamie and Kevin. And their mother. She’s a very sweet woman who didn’t deserve a betrayal like this.”
“Neither did you or your mother.”
“No, we didn’t.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. You must think I brood about the past constantly. I’ve talked about this more the last few days than I have since it all happened. I’m not sure why that is, but I would really like to put it behind me.”
This was the perfect opening for him to tell her the truth he had been running from, the guilt that burned through him whenever they talked about the grim ghosts of the past.
He hesitated. If he told her, everything between them would be ruined, this fragile friendship that had begun to take flight the last few days. If he told her, she would loathe him. How could she not?
Perhaps he would be better to just let things stay as they were. No. He couldn’t take the coward’s way out, not about this.
He sighed. He had to come clean, and damn the consequences.
“Lauren, there’s something I should tell you.”
She studied him across the room, his darkly handsome features suddenly solemn, and her stomach jumped with nerves.
“Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it,” she said immediately, jumping up from her chair. “Not tonight.”
“Lauren—”
She cut him off. “I need to do something physical. If you need anything, I’ll be in my room on my yoga mat in the downward-facing dog.”
He studied her intently, until she flushed under the weight of it. She could only hope he couldn’t see the wild chaos of emotions she was doing her best to hide from him.
“Why are you running away?” he asked.
“Who’s running away?” she retorted, then sighed at his raised eyebrow. “Okay,” she admitted. “I’m running away.”
“Why?”
She gave a short laugh. “I’m a physician, Daniel. In my world we need to talk is just about the most terrible thing I can say to a patient. The only time I ever use those words, I invariably follow them up with something really awful. Whatever it is you want to tell me about my father or anything else, I don’t want to hear it. Not tonight. I don’t care if that makes me some kind of an ostrich up to my eyeballs in sand. I just…I can’t take any more right now.”
Though she knew it was rude to a guest in her home, she left without waiting for an answer and retreated to her bedroom, where she quickly changed into workout clothes.
At first, she pushed herself through her asanas, but after ten minutes or so her body and mind relaxed and she could feel the long days of tension begin to seep out of her.
Thirty-five minutes later, she finished her usual poses and was asking herself why she hadn’t tried this days ago to still the turmoil inside her, wh
en she heard the outside door open and close.
Daniel must be outside shoveling snow, she assumed. This would probably be the perfect time for her to grab a bottled water from the refrigerator, something she had neglected earlier in her haste to escape from him.
For the first time in days, her mind wasn’t churning and her muscles felt pleasantly loose as she went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She found a bottle and was taking a long, refreshing drink when that sixth sense warned her she wasn’t alone.
She turned and found Daniel standing in the doorway, his eyes shadowed.
Her relaxed feeling disappeared. Acutely conscious of her yoga clothes—a midriff-baring tank and stretchy capris—she swallowed hard, sincerely wishing she had never left her mat.
“Snow’s stopped.”
Her nerves tingled at the hoarse note in his voice.
“I…Good. That’s good.”
“I’d say we got at least a foot out of the storm. Maybe eighteen inches.”
How could he possibly talk about the weather, with all the currents zinging between them? She couldn’t even manage to string together a coherent thought.
“How’d the, er, low-down dog go?”
That strange note in his voice caught her attention again and she took a closer look at his expression. She finally saw the hunger there—hot desire with an edge of desperation.
She continued to stare at him, hypnotized by the twitch of muscle in his jaw. He was so big, so dangerously male, and all she could think about was how easy it would be to tug him into her bedroom right now and get her hands on all that hard strength.
He wanted her. She couldn’t quite believe it, but she couldn’t deny the evidence in his eyes.
“It’s the, um, downward-facing dog.” Her voice sounded hoarse as well. “I feel much better—all loose and relaxed. You should try it.”
She took another swallow from the bottled water. When she lowered it, she found him staring at her mouth. Had she left a water droplet or two there? she wondered, sweeping her tongue across her bottom lip to be sure.
Daniel made a strangled sound. “You’re killing me here, Lauren.”
“I’m…what?”
“I have to kiss you again. I’m sorry.”
She had only half a second to wonder why he seemed compelled to apologize for something she wanted with a fierce ache, and then she was in his arms.
His lips were cold from being outside and he tasted of mint. She shivered as he pressed her against the cabinet, his mouth hard and possessive. Oh, my. She wrapped her arms around his neck, relishing the strength of him against her curves. Raising her arms lifted her exercise tank another few inches, baring more of her midriff and she could feel the nubby texture of his sweater against her skin.
When he slid a hand to her bare back, under the cotton of her tank, and pulled her closer, she forgot all about it—forgot to breathe or think or do anything but exist in the heat of his arms. Raw sensation glittered through at the touch of his fingers on her bare skin, at his tongue stroking hers.
Oh, my.
He was so big and solid, like those mountains outside the window, and she wanted to melt into him.
Where their kiss two days before had been slow, easy as a sluggish creek on a hot summer day, this one was a raging, churning whirlpool. She feared if she wasn’t careful, the urgent force of it would suck her down and carry her away.
Clinging wildly to the spinning edges of her sanity, she summoned every ounce of willpower and managed to wrench her mouth away from his long enough to come up for air.
She could feel his chest’s rapid rise and fall, see the dazed desire in his eyes.
Had she really done that to him? It didn’t seem possible that she could have that effect on someone who was usually so calm and unruffled under any circumstances.
“You taste just like I always imagined you would,” he murmured.
It took a moment for his words to sink in. When they did, she raised disbelieving eyes to his. “You…imagined kissing me?”
He still held her, his hands on the bare skin of her back, and his low laugh rumbled against her chest. “Not much. Only just about every time I saw you for the last decade or so. Possibly more.”
She managed, barely, to keep her jaw from completely sagging open. She swallowed hard. “You have not.”
His expression suddenly guarded, as if he wished he hadn’t said anything, he dropped his arms and stepped back. She instantly felt about a dozen degrees colder in her skimpy yoga clothes.
“I don’t mean to argue with you, Dr. Maxwell, but I know my own fantasies, thanks very much.”
Here was twice in one day she felt she had just entered some kind of alternate universe. He had fantasized about her?
She rubbed her chilled arms. “I…Why didn’t you ever do anything about it?”
“Tried that once and you shot me down. Quite brutally, in fact. I didn’t see the need to embarrass both of us by a repeat performance.”
Disoriented and more off balance than she was in her most challenging yoga pose, she didn’t know what he meant at first. It took her a moment to realize he must be referring to the time she had turned him down for a date, that terrible summer she had returned to Moose Springs between her freshman and sophomore year of college.
She would have felt threatened by any male who showed interest in her that summer. She was jumpy, skittish. Someone as athletic and virile and overpowering as Daniel would have sent her spiraling into panic.
But that had been years ago, another lifetime. All this time he had wondered about kissing her and he had given her absolutely no indication of it until now.
She couldn’t quite fathom it—at the same time, she realized she probably hadn’t exactly given him any encouragement to do more than wonder.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t you,” she said lamely. “I…that was a crazy summer.”
He leaned a hip against the counter. “It doesn’t matter.”
It did, she realized. She could tell by the studied casualness in his eyes. Somehow her rejection had bothered him very much.
All these years, she thought the subtle tension that always seemed to simmer between them stemmed from what her father had done. How foolish of her, especially when Daniel had made it clear many times that he didn’t believe her responsible for her father’s sins.
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or dismayed that his discomfort might have more to do with her blunt rejection, that he thought she disliked him all these years, when she had been fighting her own attraction.
She let out a breath. How could she ever explain how messed up she had been that summer, what a blur those weeks had seemed?
She had to, though. She loved him. He deserved the truth, no matter how hard the telling of it might be for her.
“Daniel, I promise. It wasn’t you. I had…reasons.”
“Yeah?”
She sighed. She did not want to have this discussion in her workout clothes, probably smelling like that low-down dog he talked about.
“Give me a minute to change and I’ll explain. Okay?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, just made her escape.
Fifteen minutes later, he sat back on his heels after tossing another log into the fire and watched the flames consume it, trying fiercely to remind himself he was working here. He needed to keep his senses alert and vigilant to guard against any possible danger to the women under his care.
He couldn’t risk losing control with Lauren, not with so much at stake. Maybe he would be better off if she just decided to stay in her room for the night. Temptation was far easier to resist when it wasn’t gazing at him out of columbine-blue eyes.
But he had to admit, he wanted to hear what she had to say. More, he wanted to know if the desire he had seen in her eyes had been real or just a reaction to the heat of the moment.
He gave a heavy sigh. He had it bad. No surprise there. He just needed to try like hell not to let her see how
he burned for her. He still yearned for the pink-and-white princess in the castle.
No. He didn’t want that fairy-tale dream. He wanted Lauren. The smart, dedicated doctor who poured her heart and soul into healing her patients, the one who showed such kindness and compassion to a frightened young girl, the courageous woman who faced down an entire town’s whispers.
She came out a few moments later, her hair damp and curling at the ends. She must have taken time to shower before changing into soft jeans and a white blouse.
She looked beautiful, soft and warm and delicious. As he gazed at her in the fire’s glow, the truth seemed to kick him in the gut like a pissed-off mule.
He was in love with her. Not because she took away his breath, but because of all those things he had thought about earlier. Her courage, her strength, her compassion.
Her heart.
His own chest ached and he fought the urge to rub his hand across it. He was in love with her and probably had been since those days he used to ride his bike by her house.
What the hell was he supposed to do with that?
“I’m going to make some hot chocolate,” she said. “Do you want some?”
He wanted things to go back to the way before, when he thought he was just a stupid kid craving the pretty blond princess who represented everything he didn’t have.
“Sure,” he mumbled.
“What flavor?”
As if he cared about that right now. “Anything.”
She spent a few more moments in the kitchen. His mind churning with shock and dismay, he tried his best to keep his eyes off her as she bustled around boiling water, pulling out mugs, pouring, measuring, stirring.
Was Lauren the reason he was still thirty-three and single? He had come close to changing that a few times, but had backed away before things reached the sticking point. Those other relationships never felt quite right, no matter how hard he tried to make them so.
What a mess. He was in love with a woman who would despise him if she knew the truth about what he had done. He finally gave in and rubbed the ache in his heart.
When she returned, she handed him a blue mug with intricate silver snowflakes on the side. “It’s cinnamon. I didn’t know which one to pick for you but, um, I know you like cinnamon mints.”
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