She kept her back to him and plucked knives and forks from the drawer. “Let’s hope you do eggs better than you do a cheese sauce.”
After breakfast, which she had to concede was delicious, Nate helped wash the dishes then shoved a gift bag into her hands.
“Here. I’ll leave you and Drew to it.”
Drew’s reaction was instantaneous. “But you gotta stay and watch me open my presents from Santa, Nate, you gotta!” His lower lip pooched out, and his eyes grew shiny. “I want you to.”
Lauren looked to Nate in mute appeal. Drew didn’t demand anything from men who weren’t family members. He wouldn’t even approach the male staff at his preschool, always gravitating toward the women. Drew had learned early to rely on the female sex for reassurance and comfort.
Nate froze beside the back door. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”
“We’d both like you to stay.” She kept her voice pitched low, trying to prevent her own desire for his company from showing.
Drew wrapped his arms around her thigh.
At the flexing of Nate’s hands, she added, “Please. It won’t take long.”
Seeming to relax in increments, he found a crooked smile. “If Drew lets me have one of those candy canes hanging on the tree, I’ll stick around a bit longer.”
“You can have two.” Drew unwound his arms from her leg and sniffed heroically. “But don’t eat them all at once, ‘cause you’ll get a sugar rush.” Then, in a typical four-year-old mood swing, since disaster in his world had been averted, he shouted, “I’ll get cushions.”
He snatched three off the couch and disappeared through the archway.
Lauren approached Nate, flattening a palm against his chest and brushing a soft kiss across his cheek. She stepped back, reeling a little at the bone-melting scent of his warm skin and swallowing the desire to press her lips to his.
“Thank you. It means a lot to him…and to me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Come on, you guys!” Drew’s shout made her jump.
Nate followed her into the family room. Drew bounced on his toes beside the three cushions placed in a semicircle around the Christmas tree.
“I’ll sit on the middle one,” he said. “And you sit there, Nate. I’ll give the presents out.”
Drifts of Christmas-themed paper soon surrounded them. Nate enthused over the painted river rock Drew made him and pinky-swore not to eat the whole tin of iced cookies in one sitting. The box containing a new two-wheel bike from Santa had been oohed and ahhed over, with Drew securing Nate’s promise to assemble it. Nate chuckled at Lauren’s indignation that her son thought her incapable of helping and then doubled over laughing as Drew announced in all seriousness that, “making bikes is a man thing.”
Lauren laughed with him, but her heart clenched into a bruised fist at the two of them huddled over the bike’s instruction leaflet.
You cannot go there. You just cannot hand him your heart and expect him not to break it.
“Aww. Only three presents left.” Drew dragged out a small rectangular box and looked to Nate. “Can I open it now?”
At his nod, Drew tore off the paper, squealed, and launched himself onto Nate’s lap. Confused helplessness swept over Nate’s face as his arms closed around her son. Lauren glanced at the kids’ digital camera Drew left on the carpet and bit her lip. Why did he have be the kind of guy to do something so thoughtful, so sweet?
“Say thank-you, Drew.” The words were automatic, but she struggled to keep her voice even.
“Thank you,” Drew parroted. “Can you show me how to use it?”
“Sure.” He patted Drew’s back and eased him off his lap. “Now how about you pass your mum her last gift?” He pointed to the bag he’d handed her earlier.
Lauren’s fingers missed the sticky-tape edge three times before she gave in and tore the delicate tissue paper. The wrappings fell away to reveal a statue of a mother cradling her child, carved out of a block of ancient kauri wood and polished with exquisite care.
“It’s made by a local artisan, Samuel Ngata. I watched him work for a while. He’s got real talent.”
She inhaled a shaky breath, ran her fingers over the smooth lines of the woman’s head. “Yes, he has. Sam’s one of Kathy’s cousins.”
And she’d never stepped inside his workshop, much as she admired and respected the man himself.
In her mind’s eye, she saw Jonathan in his armchair, looking out at the glitter of Manhattan’s famous nightscape. Heard the rough, repetitive scrape of his little paring knife peeling off a single coil of apple skin. He’d turned his gaze on her as she’d watched in trembling fascination from the doorway, the bruises on her breasts blossoming into purple, finger-shaped blotches. No, she couldn’t bear to watch Sam work with his blade.
Lauren met Nate’s eyes with a forced smile. “It’s lovely and so very kind of you to get us gifts. Thank you.”
He shrugged, but his eyebrows drew together in a quirked frown.
“Drew, get the last present for Nate.”
Drew crawled under the tree and passed the flat package out to Nate. “This one’s from Mummy.”
Nate shot her a quick glance and tore off the paper.
Drew rushed to his side and pointed to each cross-stitched word behind the glass frame. “Home. Is. Where. The. Heart. Is. I can read it, see?”
“Very impressive reading, kid.” A muscle contracted in Nate’s throat, and the angle of his jaw turned sharp. “And thanks, Lauren. I’ll hang this in my Auckland apartment.”
“Why don’t you hang it next door?” Drew said. “Uncle Todd says you’ve got walls now.”
Nate’s eyes clashed with hers above Drew’s head.
“Mac’s place is not my home, Drew. I’m not going to live there permanently.” He stacked his gifts in a neat pile beside the tree and stood. “I’ll help assemble your bike now, but then I’ve got work to do.”
He offered her a tight smile and picked up the bike box. Without a backward glance, he carried it outside, Drew skipping right behind him, once again adopting the position of his little shadow.
Lauren gathered sheets of torn wrapping paper, gaining some satisfaction from twisting and crumpling them into balls. Well, any illusions about Nate’s future intentions had vanished. She’d foolishly allowed dangerous daydreams to blind her this morning. Let herself pretend, for one short space of time, that they could be a family.
Fat chance.
She stomped into the kitchen and hurled the huge wad of paper into the recycling bin. She and Drew were already a family—they didn’t need anyone else. Especially not a man like Nate, who’d made it clear his heart would never find a home with her.
Chapter 7
Nate gripped the length of two-by-six and rested the saw’s teeth on the penciled line. The mid-afternoon sun slipped under his baseball cap and stung his eyes. Lauren’s car door slammed. He’d recognized the crappy old station wagon’s engine but had defied his need to look as it ground up the driveway.
Demanding woman. What the hell did she want now? He’d already constructed a two-wheeler, found batteries and shown her kid how to use his camera for the better part of the morning. No doubt, she’d come to bring the stitched sign to smash over his head. Like he hadn’t been smashed over the head unwrapping the thing.
Home is where the heart is?
Could the woman be any more blunt and bullheaded? He dragged the saw across the wood, the satisfactory rasp of metal teeth blocking the sound of her footsteps. Pushy. That was Lauren Taylor. Couldn’t accept he’d never have a home or a family, or want either.
Heels clicked a staccato beat on the nearly completed deck. Heels? He slanted a look from under his cap. Crimson-tipped toenails poked out of strappy, high-heeled sandals, leading to slim ankles, leading to slender calves, leading to a silky red fabric skimming shapely thighs—holy hell! His head jerked up.
Lauren stood, fist on cocked hip, in a dress that made his ja
w sag. It flowed over her, hugging every curve, barely concealing skin he yearned for. He didn’t dare open his mouth in case he uttered something idiotic. Like a plea to touch.
“You’re done for the day.” Her hand appeared from behind her back, white fabric dangling from her fingers.
“Hmm?” His eyes spurned his brain’s suggestion to shift off her delicious curves. Would she be furious if he reached for his camera? Stunning, absolutely—
“Nate!”
She thrust the white fabric under his nose. He spotted a collar and slowly made the connection.
Oh. One of his shirts.
He let go of the saw handle, the blade still wedged in the timber. “What’s this for?”
“You can’t come to Christmas dinner in a grubby tee shirt.”
His stomach muscles tensed. “I already told you and your brother earlier; I don’t do Christmas.”
She clicked around the sawhorse and shoved the shirt into his hand. “You don’t do this and you don’t do that. Well, newsflash, Nate—you’re doing Christmas this year, even if it’s only to eat for an hour. Drew and Sophie look like two hound dogs, and Todd’s hen-pecked and miserable.”
He snorted but took the shirt, weighing it in his hand. “One hour. Only one hour.”
He’d already worked off some of his mad by the time her car rolled up. Had in fact planned to stop by Todd’s place with a few beers later, perhaps staying awhile if an offer arose. Shoot the breeze with Todd and Kathy. Maybe watch Todd’s little sister from the corner of his eye.
But Nate didn’t want Lauren to get the wrong idea about him—about them. He’d seen her misty-eyed look from the doorway as Drew crouched beside the toolbox, slapping tools into his hand like a surgical nurse. “Happily-ever-after” didn’t figure into the equation, but there could be a happy-for-now if Lauren would play on less-permanent terms.
He wanted her. She wanted him.
It should be straightforward.
But the emotions squeezing his solar plexus at the sight of her in that red dress? They were anything but straightforward.
***
One hour had turned into two, then three and four. Nate had been unable to politely excuse himself at Todd’s place, and truthfully, he hadn’t made much of an effort. Greeted like an old friend, he’d tucked into the plate of steaming lamb and vegetables prepared by Kathy’s extended family in a hangi.
Kathy had spotted his camera bag earlier when they’d arrived and encouraged him to shoot some photos of the day. He’d wandered into the back garden where the men raised the hangi and caught the explosion of steam as the baskets were hauled from pits in the ground. Then he’d snapped a group of kids rough and tumbling like exuberant puppies, found a group of elderly women fanning themselves under the shade of the trees. They giggled and flapped their hands girlishly after he asked to photograph them but happily let him click away.
Capturing laughter, camaraderie and tradition, rather than the frantic and terrifying panorama of a war zone, was disquieting. Yet strangely exhilarating.
After the meal, he found Lauren in a hidden corner of the garden on a swing seat, Drew tucked sleepily on her knee, her bare feet pushing them gently to and fro. Relaxed and unaware of him, she was so lovely it made his chest ache. The camera around his neck urged him to capture this image forever. But instead, he shoved his fingers into his pockets and turned away.
“Hey.”
He glanced back. “Hey, yourself.” He pulled his hands out, spread his palms wide. “I didn’t take any photos of you, pinky-swear.”
Her smile wavered then solidified. “You’ll have them lining up for free family portraits the way you’re going today.”
“How about a portrait of you and Drew?”
“Nate.” Her voice held a trace of warning.
“The only photos you have on your walls are of him. Don’t you want Drew to have at least one of the two of you for when he’s older?” He couldn’t pinpoint why he needed to convince her. He just had to get this shot.
“You’ll come across a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take a once-in-a-lifetime shot, once,” Steve had said early on in Nate’s career. “Make sure your bloody camera’s ready.”
Lauren planted a kiss on the boy’s tousled hair. Two fine lines deepened between her eyebrows. “Okay. But I’m the only one who sees it.”
She turned her head to a three-quarter profile, tilted her chin slightly, familiar with how to position her face for the best possible shot. His stomach pinged, recalling their earlier conversations about her life in New York. How easy to forget her modeling experience when dazzled by her unaffected, natural beauty.
He shook his head and fired off a couple of quick frames. Not quite the one.
“I’m going to walk around a bit; forget I’m here.”
He stepped away, smiling at her murmured, “As if.”
Drew asked a sleepy question, and a myriad of expressions crossed her face. Something in her whispered reply made him giggle, and the pure sunniness of Lauren’s smile as the boy’s fingers tangled in her hair stabbed deep in the gut, even as Nate’s finger hit the shutter release.
That was it. The million-dollar shot.
He walked back to her, holding out the camera.
Her smile was tentative, but heartfelt. “Beautiful.”
“And yet it still doesn’t do you justice.”
She shook her head and stood, Drew in her arms. “I’m going to put him down for a nap.”
Lauren walked away, and his camera, for the first time, dragged his neck down as if it were cast in lead.
“You’ll miss your life if you only ever see things through that camera.”
Kathy’s voice behind him made him jump, and he spun around.
“It’s the only life I know.”
“Always on the outside looking in.” She clucked her tongue and moved closer, patting the rump of one of her infant nieces or nephews snuffling into her neck. “You need to participate, not be the fella who watches from the sidelines.”
“I don’t know how.”
Kathy angled his hand so she could see the camera viewfinder and the shot of Lauren and Drew. She touched his cheek. “I think you do. You just gotta realize relationships are a contact sport, and if you run too fast, nobody’ll pass you the ball.”
“That’s a hell of a metaphor.”
“It’s a hell of a game. Be in it to win it, Nate.” She winked and left him blinking in the late afternoon sun.
***
Lauren selected another plate from the dish rack and glanced out the window to where Todd, Nate and four of Kathy’s brothers-in-law had finished a competitive game of touch rugby.
“Your Nate fits right in here.” Kathy scrubbed at a roasting pan beside her. “Got an easy way about him.”
Outside, Todd slapped Nate’s shoulder, and they grinned at each other before bumping fists with the others.
Lauren carried the stack of dry plates to Kathy’s sideboard and kept her back turned. “He’s not my Nate. He’s just a neighbor.”
Temporarily a neighbor, at that, once the reconstruction of Mac’s place was done. She concentrated on keeping the plates from slipping out of her grasp.
“Funny, that’s what Todd said when I mentioned Nate looked at you the same way Java looked at the hangi this afternoon.”
China rattled in her hands. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Kathy rescued the wobbly plates and stacked them away. “Todd only sees what he wants, and he doesn’t want to see you looking at Nate like that.”
If it’d been anyone other than Kathy making that observation, Lauren would’ve flat-out denied it. But Kathy called Lauren “sister” for a reason. Through perseverance and a large dose of tough love, Kathy had bulldozed through Lauren’s protective walls and forged a bond of trust.
“It can’t go anywhere. He said he doesn’t do families, and Drew and I are a package deal.”
“Doesn’t do families, pah.” Kathy d
ismissed the notion with a flick of her hand. “He’s like a lot of men, terrified of his own feelings. Why, Todd told me when we first met the only way he’d ever stay with one woman was if she took out both kneecaps with his hunting rifle.” Her eyes crinkled as she grinned. “And he’s still walking around, isn’t he?”
“He adores you, Kathy.”
“My point, exactly. Aroha changes your heart.”
Lauren shook her head. “Love isn’t going to change Nate’s heart about selling his land—and love has got nothing to do with it. We want completely different things.”
“So what does he want?”
“Just to sleep with me, I suspect.” She narrowed her eyes, waiting for shock to register on Kathy’s face, but her sister-in-law remained impassive.
“You so sure about that?”
Lauren paused, remembering the gentlemanly way he hadn’t pushed for more intimacy at the beach, his quiet consideration when he’d helped around the house. The way she sometimes caught him looking at Drew with baffled affection.
“No. I guess I’m not.”
Kathy stepped closer, her brown eyes unwavering. “Then what do you want?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice barely rose above a whisper. “I’ve been doing what other people want for so long, I’ve forgotten how to figure it out.”
“You’re not Sexy Lexy or Alexandra Knight anymore.” Kathy moved to the kitchen table to transfer chunks of rich fruitcake to a platter. “It’s about time you let someone in to know the real you.”
“He might not want the real me”—a woman too cowardly to leave her husband before her son was traumatized—“or worse, he might try to turn me into his vision of who I should be.” Like Jonathan had.
“You won’t know unless you talk to him.”
“I can’t talk to him.”
“I think it’s more like you’ve decided that you can’t trust him. If you truly believe the man is another sheep in a wolf suit, you’ve no business looking at him the way you do.” She slid the last pieces of cake into neat rows and added a wad of paper napkins. “You’d best decide quickly what sort of man he is, because Drew’s already tucked up asleep in Sophie’s room, and you’ve an empty house to go back to tonight.”
Christmas Down Under: Six Sexy New Zealand & Australian Christmas Romances Page 110