Unexpected Son

by Marisa Carroll

  His coat was unbuttoned, and she could feel the pulse at the base of his throat beating against her wrist. His hands were busy unzipping her coat, thrusting it aside, so that he could lift her higher, nuzzle the skin of her throat, mold his hands to the softness of her breasts. His arousal pushed against her thigh, hot and hard. It was a devastatingly sexual kiss, a joining on an elemental level. This time there was no fear in her, no apprehension. Each day that passed made her more aware of herself as a woman, more attuned to her wants and needs. Intellectually Sarah knew she should hold back, temper her response, keep herself from hurt. But it had been so long since she’d felt this desirable. It had been so long since she’d wanted a man to make love to her that she put all logical thought aside and reveled in the return of passion.

  She felt his fingers brush against her skin as he unbuttoned her shirt. She twisted in his arms, trying to get comfortable, wanting him to deal with the last barrier of cotton and lace that separated her breasts from his mouth. She felt his hands on her back, and her bra fell away. His breath caressed her nipples and he hesitated, remembering, no doubt, what had happened before. Sarah bracketed his face with her hands, pressing him to her. He sucked gently, sending white-hot spasms of pleasure along the pathway between her womb and her heart.

  “Michael.” She didn’t know if she whispered his name or shouted it aloud. She wanted to feel his skin against hers. She wanted to lie naked beside him, feel him with her, in her. It no longer mattered that he had never said he cared, never said he loved her. None of the things she had deemed important all of her life could stand beside her need for this man. She had not thought herself capable of such passion, such wanton behavior.

  She tugged at his belt, the zipper of his pants. He reached down and covered her hands with his, held them tightly. “Sarah,” he said, his voice rough and dark with passion. “Stop.”

  “I don’t want to stop.” She pushed against him. She didn’t want him bringing her back to a sense of herself, a sense of restraint.

  “I’m not going to make love to you, Sarah. Not after what happened at Thanksgiving.” She recognized the effort it took for him to speak so firmly, but she ignored it.

  “I was off guard that day. I...I wasn’t sure I would be a good lover to you.” She struggled to find the right words.

  Michael groaned. “You’re not ready for this.” His voice was rough, wary. She could feel him pulling back, sealing himself away.

  “I’m ready.”

  She meant what she was saying with all her heart and soul or she would never have found the courage to speak the words aloud, to be this aggressive, to fight this hard for what she knew was meant to be. “You aren’t the first man who’s been attracted to me since Eric died, but you’re the first, the only one, who’s attracted me in return. I believe in love at first sight, Michael. That’s how it was with Eric. That’s how it was with you.” She could admit it now. Indeed, she had no other choice.

  He cupped her face in his hands and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I can’t take what you’re offering me. I don’t love you, Sarah. Not the way you want me to.”

  She thought she’d been prepared to hear those words. She thought it didn’t matter, that it wouldn’t hurt as if he’d driven a stake through her heart. “I don’t care,” she lied. She knew the words sounded as desolate as she felt.

  “Yes, you do.” He hesitated, then pulled her close, stroked her hair. His heart was beating as hard and as quickly as hers was. Was it only physical passion? Did he truly feel none of the connection that bound her so strongly, even in the face of his seeming indifference?

  “I don’t care,” she insisted, blinking back betraying, hateful tears of weakness and need. The rush of words that had sustained her argument moments before deserted her. She could barely speak at all, and when she did, she knew she sounded like a child, lost and forlorn. “I want you. That’s all that matters.”

  “I’m not worth it.” His voice broke. “Believe me.”

  “I can make you love me,” she whispered. It was a cry as old as womankind.

  He closed his eyes as though she’d delivered a blow straight to his heart. “I don’t think I’m capable of loving anyone. Not the way you deserve to be loved. Not the way you want to be loved.”

  “You don’t mean that, Michael.” The catch in her voice made it sound as if she were pleading with him. Sarah bit her lip to still its trembling.

  “Don’t try to analyze me, Sarah.” He reached up and touched the tip of her nose. “I want you to respect me in the morning,” he said, almost hitting the right, light note. Almost, but not quite.

  The fight went out of her. She began to tremble. Sanity returned in a icy rush. She had come so close to betraying everything she believed in, and he had stopped her. He had kept his head, held back. He might not admit it, but for Sarah, for the moment, that was enough. Michael might believe he was selfish and self-centered, but if he truly did think only of his own wants and needs, he would have taken what she offered without a moment’s hesitation. He was a good man, whether he believed in himself or not.

  “What happened to you, Michael? Why are you so afraid of your feelings?” He didn’t answer immediately, just buttoned her blouse with fingers that were rough and gentle at the same time. They were trembling, but so was she, with cold and frustration and deep, deep sorrow for the pain she saw reflected by the starlight in his eyes.

  “God, Sarah. You don’t pull any punches, do you?”

  “Not when I know I’m right.” He shifted her in his arms, leaning against the door as he held her against him. It was still a cramped and uncomfortable arrangement, but Sarah wouldn’t have moved away if her life depended on it.

  “Maybe I ought to get out of this town. It’s changing me,” he said, his voice rumbling in his chest beneath her ear.

  “How, Michael?” Her body still thrummed with passion, with need but she ignored it, concentrated on listening, or hearing what he said and, more importantly, what he didn’t say. If she could understand him, she could help him heal, help him become the man he was meant to be, and then, God willing, he could love her, would love her as she was coming to love him.

  “It’s making me think too much. It’s making me start to consider putting down roots. I’ve never wanted roots.”

  And he’d never wanted love. He might as well have spoken the words aloud. “There’s no place you can call home? Nowhere else in the world?”

  “Not since my grandmother died. And then all there was was a two-bedroom apartment in the worst part of Miami. But it was clean and she always had something in the refrigerator to eat. It may not have been much, but it was more than most of the neighbors had. God, that place. A government housing project. A hellhole. I’ll never forget the sights and the sounds and the smells. Prison was better. It’s a wonder I stayed out of real trouble as long as I did.”

  “Who framed you, Michael? Who was responsible for your going to prison?”

  He didn’t answer for so long that she was afraid he was going to ignore her question. The windows had steamed over, sealing out the world. The moon had disappeared and it had started to snow again. It was dark and cold and there was only the wind and the scrape of branches against the side of the car to keep them company.

  “I’d better get you home. It’s getting late,” he said at last.

  “No, Michael. Don’t change the subject.”

  “It was my business partner,” he said flatly.

  “Was he a friend?”

  “I thought so.” His tone warned her not to pursue that subject further.

  “And your business was restoring classic cars?”

  “Yeah. Kenton and Carnelli Classic Cars.”

  “How did you learn to do that?”

  “When I was on probation from juvenile hall the second time, my case worker got me
a job through one of the rehab programs. Giuseppe Carnelli was a great old guy. He knew cars. He had worked for Ettore Bugatti before the Second World War. I liked the work. I was good with my hands. Mechanical. The old man taught me everything I know. He taught me where to find parts. He introduced me to his clients—rich men, powerful men. I thought I’d found my niche in life.”

  “What happened?” Sarah could feel the tension in him—not sexual any longer, but angry, old and familiar.

  “Rick Carnelli was Giuseppe’s nephew. He was about ten years older than I was. A real mover and shaker, I thought. He’d been to one of the big Ivy League schools back East. He had the connections we needed to expand the business. I knew the cars. He knew the people who could afford to own them.”

  “You went into business together.”

  “Giuseppe turned it over to us. We were the sons he never had, he said. For two more years everything went along pretty well. I was twenty-two and earning a good living. I found a nice apartment for my grandmother in a good part of town. I fixed up the loft above the garage. Rick bought a condo on the ocean. We were going to buy Giuseppe out in a couple more years so he could retire to Italy.”

  “Your business was doing that well?”

  “We were doing okay,” he said. “But Rick had a taste for the good life. Once in a while a check would bounce. They shouldn’t have. I let it slide. God, what a jackass I was. I should have seen the signs from the beginning, but I didn’t. I was just a kid. Making it on my own, working on cars that were works of art, some of them practically handmade, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And movie stars and politicians and people with names you saw on TV every day were in my shop, peering over my shoulder, asking my advice.” He laughed, a low, mocking rumble beneath her ear. “I had the world by the throat. I had it made.”

  “Rick Carnelli was the man who framed you?”

  “Yeah. It was Rick.”

  “Why couldn’t you prove it?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Dead.” She couldn’t help herself. She shivered, and Michael’s arms tightened around her.

  “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m thinking that if he’s dead you’ll never be able to prove your innocence.”

  “Bingo,” he said, but there was no bitterness in his voice, only resignation that she knew had been forged in the furnace of despair.

  “How did it happen?”

  “Rick loved to play the ponies. That’s what I thought was wrong when the checks bounced. But it wasn’t only the ponies he was into. It was gambling. Big-time. And the guys he owed money to weren’t the kind to back off just because he told them the check was in the mail. He got desperate, I guess. He might have gone to Harvard, but he wasn’t too bright. We’d made an investment, on our own. A Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost and a Duesenberg. They were in pretty bad shape, but a hell of a find, anyway. Rick had insured them for a bundle without telling me. He forged my name to the insurance papers. Then one night he set fire to the garage. But he didn’t do a very good job of it. The insurance company wouldn’t pay up. I got nabbed, the kid with the record a mile long. And Rick disappeared.”

  “But you were a juvenile when you were in trouble. I thought those records couldn’t be used in court.”

  “Believe me, that’s not always the case. Especially when one of the dumb things you did as a kid was set fires.”

  Sarah’s heart ached for him. It was no wonder that he thought the world was against him sometimes. “Then who killed Rick?”

  Michael shrugged. “The guys he owed money to, I suppose. I told you they played rough. I was already in prison when they found the body. He’d been shot, but the coroner said it looked like he’d been buried alive.”

  “My God,” Sarah said, shutting her eyes to block out the horrific image.

  “Yeah, a fitting end for the bastard, but with Rick dead there was no way left to prove I hadn’t set the fire. I figured I was lucky they didn’t try to pin the murder on me, too. I served my time and headed north. Got a job on a lake freighter where no one cared who I was or where I’d been.”

  “What about your grandmother and Giuseppe?”

  “Giuseppe went back to Italy. He died right after they found Rick’s body. He never spoke to me again after the trial. When I got out of prison, Gram tried her damnedest to get my case reopened. She never quit believing in me. But it was too hard on her. She had a series of strokes and I had to put her in a nursing home, a nice place. The nicest I could find. She died there, last spring.”

  “And now you’re alone?”

  He hesitated. Sarah lifted her head. He looked at her for a long moment, searching her face. Sarah held her breath. She had the impression he had something important to say.

  But all he said was “I’m alone.” He moved her gently away from him. “It’s time to go home, Sarah.”

  She didn’t argue with him. He looked drained, the way she felt. His profile was a stark outline against the frosted windowpane. She sat in silence, watching the windshield wiper scrape away at the frost. For a private, untrusting man like Michael to unburden himself to her as he just had was an act more intimate than sex.

  He had to care, she told herself over and over in rhythm with the windshield wipers. He hadn’t told her all those things just because she was here, available, a convenient listener. He had to care.

  * * *

  MICHAEL WRESTLED WITH the warped wooden garage door. It was the old-fashioned kind that folded up into sections like an accordion, heavy as hell. Damn that penny-pinching church counsel. How did they expect a tiny little thing like Sarah to manage this relic? “I’m going to replace this door,” he said gruffly. “I’ll get Jonas Phillips to okay the expense.”

  Sarah laid a hand on his arm. “No, you won’t. I don’t want a new garage door. There are too many other things the parish needs.” He could have sworn he felt the silkiness of her fingers on his skin, even through the layers of cloth that separated them, even though she was wearing mittens that looked as if they’d been knitted from yarn as thick as his finger. But then he didn’t have any trouble imagining all kinds of things where Sarah was concerned—how it would feel to hold her naked in his arms, to thrust himself inside her and feel her tighten with pleasure around him.

  “It’s stopped snowing,” she said, lifting her face to the sky. “Jonas will probably be around early to clear the walks. I hope the snowblower doesn’t wake you.”

  “You know I’m always up before the sun.”

  “I know,” she said, dropping her gaze to her shoes. “But Jonas has cows to milk and he gets up even earlier than you do. He might turn up here before sunrise.” She lifted her face and smiled at him, and his body tightened and hardened again. Did she know what she did to him, smiling like that?

  The shock of it hit him right in the gut. He could barely catch his breath, order his thoughts. God, was she right? Did he love her? Was that what was wrong with him? Was that why his insides churned when he thought about leaving this place, leaving Sarah?

  There was sure as hell something wrong with him. He’d never before put a woman’s needs ahead of his own. He’d never even thought about it. Sex was sex and he was good at it—that was all there was to it. But love was different. When you loved someone, you cared, you thought about that person first and yourself last.

  Was that what it was then—love? Was that why he’d pulled back, refused the gift of herself she’d offered so trustingly? He wanted Sarah. He wanted her more than any woman he’d ever known. And he’d waited longer to have her. He was still waiting. Waiting for everything to be just right. He didn’t want her to leave him, not tonight, not yet, but he couldn’t find the words to make her stay. He had come as close as he dared, as close as he could, back there in her car, when he’d said he
was starting to put down roots.

  “Good night, Michael.” She was walking away.

  He didn’t want her to go.

  “Sarah, wait.” What could he say? I think I love you but I don’t know for sure. And oh, by the way, my real name is Michael Baron Kenton. I’m Ronald Baron’s bastard son.

  “Yes?” She waited, patient, beautiful in the snowy starlight.

  He took a step forward, another one; took her in his arms. He looked down into her face. Her nose and cheeks were red with cold. He pulled her hat off so that he could feel her hair tangled around his fingers, smell its flowery scent.

  “Sarah, don’t go.” Take the chance, Kenton, a voice inside his head kept whispering over and over. Take the chance. You must be falling in love with her or you could let her go, turn around and walk away from her and never look back. With any other woman he’d known he could have done just that without a second thought. But not Sarah. Not this small, determined, passionate creature who had become as necessary to him as the air he breathed. “I don’t know how to say it....” He was going about it all wrong. Damn, if he could just come out and say it, tell her everything. But he wasn’t ready to do that, not right now. He didn’t like keeping secrets from her, but his feelings were all mixed up with his secrets. Better to leave things unsaid than to lose her.

  She reached up and touched her mittened fingers to his lips. A tear slipped from beneath her lashes and slid down her cheek. “Don’t, Michael. Don’t say something you aren’t ready to say. Let me go, Michael. It’s late. Very late, and it’s been a long day.”

  He could feel her slipping away, emotionally as well as physically. Just say it, the voice screamed. Damn it, man, tell her you love her. The rest would come in time, when he understood his heritage, himself. The urgency in that voice, his voice, scared him, galvanized him. “Sarah, no. Wait. I love you. I’ve been falling in love with you for weeks. I just didn’t know what it was. I—”