Always Box Set

by Ward, Susan

  She shook her head. “No. But I was hopeful.”

  I grinned. “You stole my line.”

  “It’s a good way to live. One I should try more often.” Her eyes widened. “I remember every word, every minute of our time together, Jack.”

  “Me, too.” I made a face at her. “Now sleep.”

  I closed the door between us and headed out onto the porch. Shit, it was freezing. I hadn’t noticed that when I’d reached home, but I could see Georgie’s breath on the icy air.

  “Come on in, George. I’m sorry I left you out here so long.”

  George stood up. “Everything OK, Jackie?”

  I nodded, even though I still wasn’t certain that it was. “Lena’s going to be staying here for a while. Do you think that’ll be all right with Reggie?”

  George’s eyes widened. “That’s Lena Mansur?”

  He said her name in that way people said it when they knew her history, and it shouldn’t have surprised me—or angered me—that Georgie, for whatever reason, had checked up on her background after I told him about my affair with her. He was just that way, cautious and curious, but it pissed me off nonetheless that he’d done it.

  “Yep. And the baby is Samuel. My son. I’ll introduce you to both of them in the morning and then you can help me figure out how to get married. That’s not going to be a problem between us, is it, George?”

  “Oh, Jack, slow down.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

  “She’s a looker. I’ll give her that, but are you sure you want to marry her? Have you thought this through? Are you even sure the baby is yours? The girl has a past. And marrying a senator’s son would go a long way to making life easier for a girl like that in her situation.”

  My temper spiked. “Of course I’m sure the baby’s mine. And what the hell did you mean a girl like that?”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “Well, don’t. My mind is made up. No one’s going to change it—not my father and not you. Not now.”

  I trotted down the steps toward the car before he could say another word. I didn’t want to fight with George and I didn’t want to hear another word against Lena. Georgie was wicked smart and saw all things from every direction, whereas I accepted things how they came, at face value.

  I’d gotten a girl pregnant. I was marrying her. It was the right thing to do, no matter how anyone else might have viewed it. And if they viewed it differently, I didn’t want to know.

  It wouldn’t change anything.

  Not for me.

  Yuri was slouched in the driver’s seat, sleeping. I knocked with my knuckles on the window, startling him, and then he rolled down the glass.

  I extended my hand. “I’m Jackson Parker.”

  He gave me a severe once-over and ignored my hand. “Yuri Aristov. Where’s Lena?”

  I took a step back from the car and shoved my chilled hands into my pockets. “Hopefully sleeping. She looked worn out.”

  “That shouldn’t surprise you,” he said, his cheek twitching. “Not after what she’s been through.”

  His criticism of me with that was clear. His affection and loyalty to Lena even clearer. It was my turn to do a careful inspection of him.

  “Why don’t you come in?” I offered, since I suspected I should get to know Yuri Aristov better. Whoever he was to Lena, they were important to each other.

  He looked undecided.

  “It’s too late to drive back to the city. And it will probably please Lena to find you here in the morning.”

  He held me in a curious stare, then reluctantly climbed from the car.

  “I’m supposed to get her bags,” I said.

  His brows shot up. “She is staying, then?”

  I smiled. “I hope so since we’re going to be married soon.”

  His answering look was one of relief, and there was a slight thawing of his icy demeanor. As he reached into the backseat for the bags, he said, “I told her she should bring her problems to you. That you owed her that. That if you were the man she claimed you were you’d do right by her.”

  Bring her problems to you—it was interesting phrasing and I wasn’t completely sure it had anything to do with English being his second language.

  “I don’t consider Samuel a problem,” I countered.

  My comment offended him. “Neither do I.”

  “Come on. It’s cold out here. Let’s get you inside.”

  I took the suitcases from his hand, and gestured him forward. When we entered the house, George was waiting in the living room, ready to pounce on me for round two. It made me relieved that I’d retrieved Yuri from the car.

  “Yuri Aristov, this George Thompson. He can get you blankets and show you where everything is. Why don’t you get acquainted while I set the bags in Lena’s room?”

  Lena’s room?

  I shook my head at myself all the way down the hallway. I don’t know why I’d decided to give up my room to her and bed down for the night somewhere else. It struck me as odd—but then there had been a lot odd today—and frankly, I was too tired to probe any of it.

  I could hear the two men conversing in the living room as I closed the bedroom door behind me. I set Lena’s bags at the foot of the bed and again paused for a moment to just stare at her.

  She was already asleep, naked in the center of my bed, and because she hadn’t turned off the lights I could see everything. Every detail of her gorgeous body, but I could also see the dark shadows beneath her eyes I’d missed on her face.

  I sat on the edge of my desk, my gaze unable to look away from her. I did want to marry her. There was no doubt about that. I also wanted to climb into bed and make love to her—oh, definitely. And now back with her in my room, I wasn’t sure I was able to do either, which surprised me.

  Damn George—whether I liked it or not, he’d said enough to get me thinking. Yuri, later, had added fuel to that.

  What had really brought Lena here to me? I doubted it was only the baby, and I sensed it was more than me.

  Love her I did; there was no doubt about that.

  Understand her I didn’t; there was no doubt about that as well.

  Fuck, what did it matter? Her reasons, my reasons wouldn’t change a thing, and since we were getting married none of it mattered anyway.

  I reached for the cigarettes in my pocket and then stopped when I realized the baby was awake and moving around. At the bed, I paused, unsure if I should pick him up or leave him alone.

  Carefully, I scooped him from her side, clutched him awkwardly against me, and left the room. George was gone from the sofa and Yuri bedded down there for the night, so I went into the kitchen and settled at the table, lying one leg over the other to prop up Samuel facing me.

  His eyes widened and I laughed.

  “Well, hello to you, too. I’m your dad, if your mother hasn’t already told you that.”

  He started sucking his fist, and I looked away. Dad—it made me think of my own father and the things he’d done. For my well-being, I’m sure he thought. What about the well-being of his grandchild?

  I looked back at Sammy—yep, the kid looked more like a Sammy to me—and I knew, right then and there, I wasn’t ever going to be like my father. I would never do to my son the things done to me.

  I wouldn’t withhold love.

  I wouldn’t tell him who he had to be.

  And I wouldn’t ruin his life behind his back.

  Sammy was going to know me and I was going to know him, and if doing the right thing by Lena and my boy became the final straw with my father, so be it.

  I was halfway to reaching for the phone, to call and tell off the senator, when the baby started fussing, no longer happy with his fist.

  An hour later, he screaming up a storm and George was back at the kitchen table, annoyed again. Fuck, I didn’t know what to do. I walked the floor, jiggling Sammy, but I couldn’t get him to stop crying
. And Lena was sleeping like the dead, as though she hadn’t slept in years.

  “He’s probably hungry, Jack. Just feed him so we can all go to sleep,” George said in annoyance.

  I opened the refrigerator. Lots of beer, no milk, a little juice. “Do you think he can drink juice?”

  “I don’t think it matters at this point, Jack. I think he’d be happy with anything.”

  I started rummaging through cabinets, trying to find something to give it to him in. Could he drink from a cup?

  Reggie stumbled into the kitchen half asleep. “Fuck, whose baby is making all that racket?” His squinting eyes fixed on Yuri. “And who’s the guy on the couch?”

  “Jackie’s baby,” George said glibly, “and Jackie’s Russian.”

  Reggie sank down at the table. “What the fuck is a Russian doing here?”

  “Really, that’s the one you want the answer to?”

  Reggie shook his head. “No. I don’t think I want to know any of it, George.”

  “Why don’t you just take the baby back to Lena?” George suggested. “She’d know how to stop this.”

  Reggie looked up. “Who’s Lena?”

  “Jackie’s girl.”

  He frowned. “Which one?”

  “The one in his bedroom.”

  Reggie made a face. “Like that’s going to clear up anything.” He stood. “I need to go back to bed.”

  He was almost out of the kitchen when he stopped. “You still OK filling in for Owen tonight or should I find another replacement for the gig, Jack?”

  “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  His brows lifted as his head tilted, and he stared at the baby before he turned to amble back to his room. “Why don’t you ask your girlfriend and let me know in the morning?”

  “I don’t have to,” I called out at Reggie’s retreating back. “I’ll be there. And this time, you guys have to give me my cut. I’m pretty sure when my father finds out I’m getting married I’m going to need the money.”

  His door shut behind him.

  “Reggie’s got a point,” George said seriously. “Maybe you should ask Lena what you’re allowed to still do.”

  “Very funny,” I rebuked. “Lena’s a musician. Me filling in with Reggie is the one thing I’m certain won’t ever be a problem between us.”

  “I’d ask her anyway.”

  Grimly spoken.

  I started filling a cup with orange juice we only kept around to make screwdrivers in the mornings. “And you know what, Georgie? If I were you, I’d call Patty before it was too late.”

  Eighteen

  I felt something smooth run my cheek and I opened my eyes to find Lena standing above me.

  “Did you sleep all night in the chair with Samuel?” she asked, amused. She was wearing one of her sexy nightgown sets, champagne colored, and it brought me awake instantly.

  I sat up, keeping hold of Sammy. “No, he cried most of the night. We’ve only been sleeping for about an hour.”

  She lifted the baby from my arms, kissing him instead of me. “You should have just brought him back to bed, Jack. Why didn’t you?”

  Staring at her now, it seemed foolish that I hadn’t. Everything about her this morning was an unmistakable message she wanted to pick up where we’d left off in Santa Barbara.

  I shrugged. “You needed sleep.”

  She sank onto the edge of a chair, then pushed down her gown, putting Sammy to her breast.

  She didn’t look at me. “I thought maybe you’d changed your mind about marrying me.”

  “Nope, not possible. Never going to happen.”

  She answered that with her low, breathy laugh, but it was the truth. The only thing I’d changed my mind about since yesterday was how quickly I should try to get her into bed, since I’d toyed with the idea of waiting for our wedding night. But that switched in an instant from when it was right to the sooner the better the second she woke me up wearing that.

  I adjusted in my chair, watching as she nipped on the baby’s fingers while he devoured her breast.

  Everything below my waist grew uncomfortable. Crap, how was it possible watching her feed our son was making me fucking horny? If anything should have been an erection blocker, especially after the night I just passed, it should have been this. But then whatever Lena did made me burn for her, and our time apart hadn’t changed a damn thing.

  I went to the fridge and grabbed what remained of the juice I’d mostly spilled trying to feed Sammy. I held up the bottle to her, she shook her head, then I poured myself a large glass.

  “I’ve got to get out of here. I want to make a stop at the registrar’s office. If the office is open today it will be less crowded on a Saturday and I need to do the paperwork to withdraw from Harvard. Are you going to be all right here until I get back? There isn’t much to eat, but we can take care of that when I’m done.”

  Her face shot up, alarmed, her brows puckering. “Withdraw from school? What are you talking about?”

  “I can’t go to school and support a family, Lena. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “But I thought…” She broke off confused.

  “Thought what?”

  “That you would stay. That I would move in here with you and you’d finish your education. The law is important. It’s where the Government hides the rules.”

  I frowned at her. It surprised me how neatly she had our future worked out in her head, and it was the first time I’d noticed an idiom that betrayed Lena wasn’t American born, though she didn’t have an accent of any kind, as far as I could tell. But if anything screamed immigrant it was phrases like Government hides the rules.

  Watching her grow all fretful and concerned about such a trivial thing as my not finishing school, I realized I knew practically nothing about her. The woman inside the ravishing creature I couldn’t drag my eyes from.

  “Don’t you need a degree to be a lawyer?”

  “Lawyer?” I laughed. “What made you think I wanted to be a lawyer?”

  Her eyes widened, surprised. “Don’t you? It’s what your father said at the theater the night we met. Once Jack gets some experience with the law, he’ll be unstoppable.”

  “No,” I countered, shaking my head in disbelief that she remembered that, my dad’s delusion. “I’ve been just going through the motions here, humoring my father while I try to figure out what I want to do with my life, but that changed yesterday. I need to find a job, Lena. Once we’re married we’re going to be on our own. My father is going to cut me off before we say ‘I do.’ Graduating college isn’t going to happen.”

  I was leaning in for a kiss when she turned her face away. “I can’t let you do that, Jackson. Not for me.”

  I eased down until we were at eye level. “You’re not. It’s not your decision. It’s the way things are. It’s what I want to do. I never wanted to attend Harvard and frankly I’m relieved that it’s over.”

  She looked sad. “You want to throw away your future? That’s what you’d be doing, Jackson. And if marrying me costs you that, I can’t marry you. It would be wrong.”

  I eased my arms around her, careful of Sammy, and buried my lips in her curls. “Not wrong. In case you don’t know it, you and this little guy are my future. That’s what marriage is.”

  She lowered her gaze, upset.

  “What kind of marriage can two people have if it starts with them giving up important things for each other?”

  “It’s not. We’re starting with giving to each other. You gave me a son and now I’m giving you me.”

  Those bedroom brown eyes locked on me. “Then don’t give up on your education. Don’t change who you are because of me.”

  I nodded and kissed her, but I didn’t have the first clue why this was so important to her. “Fine. I won’t do anything about school until we’ve discussed it more.”

  Her palm flattened against my cheek. “Promise me you won’t.” />
  It was ridiculous—and cute—how serious she was about this, and I fought not to grin at how naïve she sounded to me then. Besides, I could let her believe whatever she wanted for now, because whatever I said wasn’t going to change a damn thing.

  “I promise. Whatever you want, Lena, that’s what I want to give you.”

  “Whatever I want, huh?” Her head tilted slightly to the side and her eyes began to shimmer beneath her long, inky lashes. “Samuel’s asleep.”

  It was her voice not her words that shot through my veins. She began to touch kisses down my neck, and I shivered, struggling not to give over to this. “Yuri is in the living room,” I warned between the erotic play of her mouth against mine.

  “No, he isn’t,” she answered, before teasing my flesh with her lips. “I sent him back to the city before I came into the kitchen. It was horrible not being with you last night. I want to go to bed with you. Right now. Haven’t you missed us?”

  I tilted my head back to steady myself as a current ran my body. “Of course I have. Lena…”

  Her tongue ran the sensitive parts of my throat and my pulse jumped that she remembered each spot that drove me insane for her.

  She rose from the chair, slipped around me, and disappeared into the hall.

  Yep, I followed her, softly closing the bedroom door behind me. Sammy was already out of her arms in a makeshift bed made from a drawer set on the floor, and Lena was undressing.

  I sank back against the door, more for support than anything, and told myself slowly, Jack, slowly. But it was agony not to spread her on the mattress and bury myself inside her as I longed to.

  She stretched on bed, and turned onto a hip facing me. “Why are you only standing there staring at me?”

  “Because I’ve missed you.”

  And I had, though I hadn’t admitted it to myself before this. Harvard had been a lonely place. I’d passed the months here feeling alone for the first time in my life. And now I knew why.

  Oh, I kept busy. But no matter how many girls I ran through, not a single one had brought me even close to the way Lena was making me feel.

  “If you’ve missed me, don’t make me wait any longer, Jack.”