The ringing silence was proof that he’d said way too much, but he didn’t want to take it back. Just the opposite. It felt good to tell her how he felt, as though he’d been in a cage and was now able to spread his wings and soar to freedom.
Lia, on the other hand…
Well, lookie there. Ms. Special Agent wasn’t quite so cool and impervious now, was she? A vivid red flush crept over her cheeks, and she shifted in her seat. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she’d just crossed her legs, possibly because she was as hot right now as he was.
“I’m not trying to be a challenge. This isn’t a game. This is my life.”
He stared at her, unsmiling. “Do I look like I’m playing?”
Some of her defiance wavered, and he wondered, for one terrible second, if she was going to cry. Lia was tough, though, and that vulnerability passed, leaving only that iron core of determination to keep him at arm’s length for as long as she possibly could. “I am not a woman for you to screw with, Thomas. My life is fine right now, so I don’t need you coming in and messing things up on a whim, even if we do want each other. So if you’re just marking time or trying to play house with your baby mama or doing whatever it is you normally do with women, then find someone else, because I’m not the one for that. I have a son to raise. Oh, yes, I’ll have the pistachio gelato, thanks. The large one.”
She and the server, who’d rematerialized at his shoulder, both stared at him, waiting to see what he wanted and what he’d do next.
Like he knew.
He thought of his thriving practice, his house, his car and the money he had in the bank, which was a lot. He thought of his looks and his smarts, which had always gotten him whatever he wanted in life.
All that was on his side, and it still might not be enough to get him this fierce and beautiful woman.
He may not, in other words, be mature enough or man enough or have character enough to win the big prize sitting across from him. Maybe he could eventually seduce her, but her body, much as he wanted it, was only a fraction of what he was after. The rest was still formless and vague, but he wanted it. Might go so far as to say he needed it.
She wasn’t impressed—not enough, anyway—and that scared the shit out of him.
The question, for the first time in his charmed, spoiled life, was this: was he worthy?
He had no freaking idea.
He felt, as he always felt when he was with Lia, as if his world had tipped just that much further off center. But then a lightning bolt of clarity hit him, and everything made sense.
“I’ll have the raspberry,” he told the server, determined to get rid of her. When she hurried off, he focused all his attention on Lia and gave her a wry smile.
She stiffened and frowned. “What’s so funny?”
“You are.”
“How’s that?”
“You almost had me fooled there for a minute, but I get it now.” He paused, giving her time to squirm so that she could be as off balance as he was. That was only fair, right? “You must be awfully scared to work so hard at pushing me away.”
Her face turned purple. “I’m not—”
Her bluster couldn’t fool him. Not anymore. “And why are you so scared? Could it be that I’m not the only one struggling with this?”
She stilled, looking as though she didn’t particularly want to ask the logical follow-up question. “With what?”
“With the feeling that you and I could have something big.”
“We’ll never know, because I don’t want it.”
Oh, she was funny. She said it like that was the end of the matter. “Wow. Most people your age have already realized we can’t control everything that happens to us in life. I’m assuming you didn’t want a sick kid, either, but you got one of those, didn’t you?”
“Are you comparing having feelings for you to kidney failure?”
A wave of tenderness hit him, so powerful he wondered if he was already in love with this woman and thought that he probably was. She’d been on her own for so long, juggling all the balls by herself and standing strong and proud by sheer force of will. No wonder she was scared and prickly.
Not that he could read her mind or anything, but she probably figured that since life hadn’t been kind to her, why would it start now? She’d had a husband; he’d died. She had a kid; he’d nearly died. Why would she trust in anything that could be good and beautiful just because Thomas had showed up on the scene?
“The thing you need to realize, Lia,” he said, knowing he needed to continue to be patient and knowing it would be hard, “is that some things just happen. They just are.”
Lia stared at him, her expression giving nothing away.
“Some relationships just are.” He paused because the words needed time to sink in. “We just are.”
Chapter 11
“Wow. This is, ah, great.” Jalen eyed his ninth birthday present from Thomas, a BMX bike with fiery orange detailing and a matching helmet dangling from the handlebars, with wary eyes, as though he expected the thing to run him down and leave tire tracks all over his back. “Thanks a lot.”
Lia exchanged a glance with Thomas, who looked as bewildered as she felt. This was not the ecstatic reaction they’d expected, especially after the weeks of planning and conspiring that had led up to this moment. They’d researched bikes on the web and visited all the local bike and toy stores, comparison shopped and consulted Consumer’s Digest.
Once the model was chosen, they agonized over color choices and strategized about how best to get it into Lia’s basement ahead of the birthday dinner without Jalen noticing. They’d even found a big-ass red bow for that damn bike, and this was the excitement level it generated?
Oh, hell no.
Thomas stepped forward and gripped the handlebars for stability, so the thing wouldn’t topple into the table and ruin the cake, a chocolate monstrosity with enough butter-cream-frosting balloons on it to ice another three or four cakes. “Why don’t you hop on, buddy? Try it out.”
Jalen kept up that game smile even as he edged back a step. “Maybe later.”
“What’s wrong?” Lia tried to keep it casual, but this was crazy. What kind of kid didn’t scream with delirious joy when presented with a bike, especially when said kid had spent much of his life being too sick to learn to ride with all his friends? “Don’t you like it?”
“Sure I like it.” Jalen’s guilty gaze flickered to Thomas and back, which was good. At least the boy was remembering her stern strictures about being polite when you didn’t like a gift. “It’s, ah, nice.”
“But,” Thomas prompted.
Jalen opened and shut his mouth, clearly struggling, and then seemed to decide to let loose with the honesty, which was always a dicey proposition where a kid was concerned. “But those things are crazy dangerous. No way am I getting on that.”
“Are you—” Thomas, who was apparently taken aback by all this vehemence and not sure whether Jalen was serious or not, started to laugh and then thought better of it. “Are you for real?”
“Heck, yeah,” said Jalen.
“But I got you a helmet. It’s right there.”
“Dude,” Jalen said, letting out a huff of exasperation, “have you seen the statistics on emergency-room visits caused by bike accidents? I just got my kidney! I’m not trying to go back to the hospital. I mean, come on. Are you for real? The only thing more dangerous than a bike is a skateboard! Why didn’t you get just me one of those and be done with it? Or maybe a rifle. Why not just get me a rifle with some ammo?”
Thomas’s jaw hit the floor.
Muttering darkly, with Bones hopping along at the heels of his gym shoes, Jalen dropped back on his chair at the table, helped himself to another slice of bacon-mushroom pizza and took a giant bite.
Thomas turned to Lia, as though she had any answers.
“That’s your son,” she reminded him, reaching for the dessert plates. “Who wants cake?”
“I get t
he first piece!” Three bites into the pizza, Jalen swallowed, turned the slice around and went to work on the crust. “And I want the green balloon, okay? The green balloon.”
Naturally he wanted the green balloon, which was in the dead center of the rectangular cake. How on earth was she supposed to manage that? It wouldn’t do any good to point out that all the balloons would taste the same, either. Jalen was a kid and that, by definition, meant he didn’t want to hear it.
“That’s your son,” Thomas murmured in her ear, brushing her cheek with a quick kiss as he rolled the bike into the corner by the TV, where it would be out of the way.
Lia grinned down at the cake, feeling ridiculous—it was only a little kiss, stupid!—and happy. They’d spent a lot of time together in the last few weeks, she and Thomas, and her breath still caught when he walked in the room, and her skin still shivered when he touched her.
She kept telling herself that that would change if—when—they finally slept together, but she didn’t believe that actually having sex with him would cool things off between them. If anything, it would probably heat things up.
The heat terrified her.
Were there other terrors lurking in the corners of her mind?
Hmm. Let’s see.
The way she now looked forward to talking to Thomas about everything from Jalen to the weather to politics to a new recipe she’d found, because Thomas was funny, interesting and interested, brilliant and, yes, insightful. The way she longed for him when he wasn’t there. The way her body ached for him.
He was making a place for himself in her life, and that was terrifying, too.
“There you go, thinking again.” Thomas was back with those keen eyes of his, skimming his fingers over the groove between her eyebrows, smoothing away a frown she hadn’t realized she was making. “You should stop. You’re not good at it.”
She had to laugh. “Sorry. I—”
The doorbell chimed. Uh-oh. Showtime. All she could do now was pray for the best.
“Could you get that for me?” she asked him.
“Sure.”
Thomas strode to the front door and opened it to reveal the Admiral standing on the porch, his shoulders squared and chin hitched high, the better to stare at everyone with his imperious gaze. Seeing who it was, Thomas stiffened.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Thomas asked after a tense beat or two.
“Thomas!” Lia hissed, but the Admiral merely raised an eyebrow at the rude welcome.
With a resigned sigh, Thomas gave the whole greeting thing another shot.
“What I meant to say, Admiral,” he said in a formal voice, stepping aside and opening the door wider to let his father pass, “is, good evening. What a pleasure to see you. Do come in. Would you like some cake?”
“Too late.” The Admiral, who was carrying a small square fish tank with a blue bow on top, waved a dismissive hand and strode inside with that rigid posture of his, looking as though he was leading several of his men through marching drills in front of the commander in chief. “Don’t pretend you have manners, boy. We all know better.”
Thomas scowled at Lia and shut the door. “I assume you invited the Admiral?”
“I did,” she admitted.
“I assume you thought it was a good idea?”
“I did.” She pointed. “Look. He brought Jalen a present.”
“That’s right. I heard about that fluffy rat you got here—” the Admiral paused to glare down at Bones, who’d hopped over to nibble on the laces of the Admiral’s polished brown oxfords “—and decided it was past time for you to get a real pet. I figure you can handle it now that you’re a grown nine-year-old.”
“Hi, Grandpa, sir!” Jalen, who’d finished his pizza, popped up from his chair and raced across the room to peer down into the tank, which the Admiral obligingly lowered for him. “Ooh! It’s a black goldfish!”
The Admiral’s brows snapped together with clear outrage at this ignorance. “This is no goldfish, young man. This is a betta fish. Spelled B-E-T-T-A. Pronounced BAY-ta. Siamese fighting fish. Meanest fish in the world. Loves to kick other bettas in the ass. That’s why you can only have one per tank.”
Jalen lapsed into the kind of grinning rapture you’d think he’d show for a bike. “Awesome!”
“Here you go.” The Admiral handed off the tank to Jalen, who took it with the greatest care. “Feed him once a day. Clean the tank once a week. Don’t kill him.”
Jalen was all wide-eyed seriousness, as though reciting a solemn oath. “I won’t.”
The Admiral gave a sharp nod of approval. “Good man. That’s a nice-looking bike you got there. You ride? You can’t be a man until you know how to ride.”
“Ah,” Jalen began.
Thomas, perhaps sensing opportunity, spoke up and shot the boy an encouraging smile. “I’m going to teach him. Right, Jalen?”
Under the expectant gaze of his grandfather, Jalen squared his shoulders and decided to accept the challenge. “Right.”
Thomas, now bursting at the seams with paternal pride, winked at the boy.
“What’s his name?” Jalen asked the Admiral, turning quickly back to the most important topic at the moment: the fish.
“Pick one.”
Jalen cocked his head, thinking hard. “How about Spock?”
Another nod. “Spock it is. Let’s put him in your room before you drop and kill him.”
Grandfather and grandson headed down the hall and disappeared up the steps, their voices still audible. “Do you like our house, sir?” Jalen asked him.
“It’s not bad,” came the gruff reply. “I’d like it better if it wasn’t so dusty. I can see your mother isn’t much of a housekeeper.”
What could Lia do except laugh? “He’s a gem, all right.”
“You’re the genius who invited him,” Thomas said.
He didn’t look angry or anything, but she figured a little smoothing over wouldn’t hurt. “I hope you don’t mind. You know Jalen calls him every day, right? They’re crazy about each other.”
Thomas nodded. “I can see that. The Admiral put his hand on the boy’s arm. That’s the rough equivalent of a bear hug from anyone else.”
“Good point. So you forgive me?”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling as he smoothed the hair at her temple. “Because I’m putty in your hands, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Helpless to do otherwise and enthralled by the feeling of his skin on hers, she smiled back because, sometime in the last few weeks, she’d realized something important: Thomas was now in her blood, and wishing him out hadn’t worked. He was also still here, just as he’d promised, and opening the door to the possibility of a relationship between them had begun to feel…safer. Not safe, exactly, but safer.
“Putty in my hands?” she repeated, tipping her smiling face up for his kiss. “That works for me.”
Lia closed the book, eased the blanket away from Jalen’s sleeping face so he wouldn’t suffocate in the night, slid off the edge of the bed and clicked off the lamp on the nightstand.
Was she forgetting anything? A quick glance told her that Spock the fish was settling in nicely in his new spot over on the dresser. She’d have to make sure Jalen fed him first thing tomorrow. As a final act, before she was officially off mommy duty for the night, she flicked a sheet over Bones’s cage. The bunny, which was snuffling against the cedar shavings, getting comfortable, wriggled his pink nose at her before he disappeared from view.
There. Done. Now she could relax until tomorrow, when it all started again.
“Well, I think the troops are finally all bedded down for the night,” she said.
“Finally.”
Thomas’s low murmur came from the overstuffed chair in the corner. He liked to sit there while she and Jalen took turns reading aloud, his head leaned back against the cushions, eyes closed and long legs stretched halfway across the room. It was all part of the routine they’d developed in the last couple of wee
ks, almost like they were a family. There’d been a time or two when his breathing had evened out and she suspected he’d dozed off, but he never missed a detail and always had a ready answer if Jalen asked a question or didn’t understand a word in his book.
His posture of extreme relaxation was at such odds with the brusque, professional side she saw of him at the hospital that she could hardly believe he was the same man. If she didn’t know better, she’d think this was one of the favorite parts of his day.
Lia headed for the door. “I was worried he wouldn’t wind down after all that pizza and cake, but he surprised me.”
“I think he hit a wall.”
Lia’s skin prickled with delicious heat, especially up the back of her neck into her nape, something it had been doing for the last half hour or so. There was something different about Thomas tonight—a new intensity in his shadowed eyes, maybe, and a huskier edge to his voice. Even now, as he unfolded that big body from the chair and followed her into the dark hallway, there was a thrumming tension about him that resonated inside her and almost made the air vibrate.
Her hands, she saw as she turned and reached for the knob to close the door behind them, had begun to tremble with sudden jitters, and she opened her mouth, unable to stop the nervous babble.
“He and the Admiral both seemed to have a good time, don’t you think?”
“Hmm,” Thomas said.
He was close behind her now. Way too close. That prickling sensation sharpened, running up her scalp and down her face, making her cheeks burn and her throat tighten. He was going to press the sex issue now, because he was finally out of patience with her. And who could blame him? What kind of grown man waited this long for a woman?
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