by Lisa Childs
“Holden!”
“I have to taste you,” he said, but instead of kissing her lips, he moved down her body and slipped his tongue inside her. He stroked it in and out, just as his fingers had done.
Robbie clutched at his shoulders, then laced her fingers through his hair. “I want you. Now!”
“If I don’t do what you say, will you arrest me?” he teased.
“I will get out the cuffs,” she warned.
He stood up and shoved his boxers down his hips. Then he grabbed his jeans, rooted in a pocket and pulled out a condom. After rolling it on, he knelt between her legs. The tip of his penis nudged through her curls, then pushed against her.
She arched her hips and stretched as he thrust deep. Biting her lip, she held back a moan at the sensation of Holden buried inside her. Then he pulled out, just a bit, before thrusting deep again.
He groaned. “You feel so…”
Right. It felt right making love with him.
He leaned down and kissed her, imitating with his tongue in her mouth what was going on below, stroking in and out. She locked her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper yet. Her nails gently raked his back as the tension grew inside her.
Then he reached between them and touched that sensitive nub again. A scream burned in her throat as she came again, shuddering beneath him. With one more deep thrust, he buried his face against her neck and uttered a primal growl. At last he collapsed on her, then rolled onto his back, his chest rising and falling as he panted for breath.
Robbie fought to breathe, too, and to recover the control she’d lost in his arms. She was afraid that her control wasn’t all she’d lost. Had Holden taken her heart, as well?
When he slipped from the bed, she sighed—was it relief or did she feel bereft? But he returned moments later, crawling in beside her. His voice still rough with desire, he murmured, “That was…”
A mistake.
“I know,” she assured him.
“…amazing,” he said with a ragged sigh as he wrapped his arms around her.
Helpless to resist, Robbie curled against him and laid her cheek on his chest where his heart was beating hard. “It was…” So much more than she had expected. More than she had feared it would be.
“I didn’t come over here for that,” he said.
“You came to talk,” she said, remembering. “About what?”
“I came to apologize,” Holden said as he stroked his fingers over her bare shoulder, “for kissing you on the beach.”
She laughed. “We just did a little more than kissing. It’s okay. Meredith assured me you aren’t a cheating bastard.”
“Just a bastard,” he remarked with a faint trace of amusement. “I think I get that from my father. I’m really sorry about what he said.”
She settled her cheek against his chest. “You don’t need to apologize. It’s not like what he said isn’t the truth. I was a stray that Joelly dragged home.”
“That’s how you got off the streets?”
She nodded. She hated talking about her past, hated thinking about what could have happened to her and her daughter. “You listen to people’s problems all day. You don’t need all the gory details of my past.” He wouldn’t appreciate some of the things he might learn about her.
“You’ve told me bits and pieces, Robbie,” he said, his fingers playing with her hair now, “but I’d like the details. Starting from the beginning.”
She sighed. Sharing her past was sharing too much of herself; it was more intimate than making love with him.
“Tell me,” he urged her.
She shook her head, unwilling to give any more of herself to a man who’d once vowed he would never love her.
“Robbie, I need to know.”
And maybe she needed to tell him.
She’d once been such a fool; she hated admitting it. “I warned you. You’ve heard it before. Teenage girl falls in love with teenage boy. Thinks he’s the one. Romeo to her Juliet.” She forced a short laugh. “They really shouldn’t make kids read that in English lit.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, “teenagers tend to overlook how that story ended.”
“Our story ended when I got pregnant. Romeo wanted me to get rid of it.” Anger surged through her again as she remembered how Kayla’s father had referred to his unborn child. “So that it wouldn’t mess up his football scholarship. I already told you that Romeo wasn’t the only one who wanted me to get rid of it.”
He blew out a breath that stirred her hair. “Your parents did, too.”
“They were insistent.” Her heart clutched with remembered pain and fear. “I was so scared to tell them—so scared I had disappointed them.”
“But they disappointed you.”
So much so that when she’d gotten busted she had not been able to make her one phone call home to them. She’d had no one to call in the way that Joelly had called her father. “Yes.”
“So you ran away to protect Kayla.”
She fisted her hand on his chest. “I was so stupid. Trying to save her, I could have gotten us both killed. I probably would have if I hadn’t met Joelly.”
“You really need to share your story with more people,” he said.
“You want me to talk to the TV networks or the Chronicle?” She laughed. “I hardly think they would be interested.” Even her own parents hadn’t been interested in what had happened to her—or their grandchild.
“The kids at the shelter would be interested in how you went from living on the streets to patrolling them. How did that happen, Robbie?” His voice was rough with emotion. “How did you get off the streets?”
When Lorielle hadn’t, he no doubt thought.
Robbie wrapped both arms around him, holding him tight, offering comfort. But he remained tense with the same pain and guilt tonight’s class had apparently brought back for him.
“So tell me,” he persisted, “how’d you do it?”
This was the part she hadn’t wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t continue to ignore his question. “I got arrested.”
“You have a record?” he asked in surprise.
She shook her head. “My charges were dropped because Joelly claimed all the drugs were hers when they booked us.”
“Were they?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
She couldn’t lie to him. “No.”
“You were pregnant…”
“I wasn’t using them,” she said. “I was selling them. We were desperate. We had to do something to survive. It was either sell drugs or sell ourselves…” She slid a hand down her face, trying to wipe away the shame. “To our credit, it was our first sale. Our customer was a cop.”
“One of Lakewood’s finest?”
She smiled. “The finest. Chief Archer himself. That was over nine years ago—he was a captain then.”
“But he was working undercover?”
“He was training someone.” Someone who had died in the line of duty a year later, but she wasn’t going to share that with Holden. He already thought her job too dangerous. “He also may have been looking for Joelly at her father’s request. He got us off the streets.
“Joelly finally called her dad, and the chief took us to the mayor’s house.” Emotion rushed over her, cracking her voice as she added, “I will never forget the look on Joel Standish’s face.”
Holden must have picked up on her wistfulness, for he patted her back as if she needed comforting. She didn’t need it now, but she was going to need it when he left.
“It wasn’t like your father said,” she insisted with pride, “that I was a dirty stray who’d followed her home.”
“My father’s an ass,” he responded, his voice hard with bitterness. “He’s the reason Lorielle ran away. After he divorced her mother, his only contact with Lorielle was the checks he sent. And he has no contact with Holly.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “She deserves better.”
“She really likes you.”
&nb
sp; “I like her.” The truth was, she was falling for the child. “She’s a sweet girl.”
“Quit your job,” Holden said. “You could do so much more at the shelter because you really understand.”
If only he understood her.
“Because I’ve been where they are,” she replied, “I know all the pretty speeches and lectures in the world aren’t going to help them. They’re not going to listen.”
Color flushed his face. “So I’m wasting my time?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you think it.”
“Joelly and I have talked about how we wished you’d been around back when we were on the streets. We would have loved having a safe place to sleep, a warm meal…” She pressed a kiss to his chest. “You’re doing a good thing,” she assured him. “Really, you are.”
“But I’m not doing enough,” he said with a resigned sigh. “And it’s only safe now because of your visit. You did so much in that one visit. If you worked there every day you could help these kids a lot, Robbie.”
“I help them more by being a cop,” she said, “by getting the dealers and the johns and other criminals off the street.” She pulled away from him, but she suspected it was too late, that she’d already fallen for him. “And now I have to put you on the street.”
“What?”
“You have to leave,” she said. “You can’t be here when Kayla comes home. I can’t have her getting the wrong idea.”
A grin curved his lips. “Yeah, Mrs. Groom called. They’re already telling everyone that they’re sisters.”
“You think it’s funny that they’re lying?” she asked with concern. Honesty was very important to her.
His grin faded. “No, of course not.”
“It’s bad enough that they’re confusing their classmates and teacher. We don’t need to confuse them, too. You need to leave before Kayla sees you. I don’t want her getting the wrong idea.”
“Is it the wrong idea?” he asked.
“I think we both know it is.” If only her heart would realize it. “I can never be that woman you promised your sister you would find for Holly.”
“Robbie, I wish—”
She shook her head. “I can’t change who or what I am.” Not even for the man she loved.
“SOMETIMES I FORGET what she looked like,” Holly said as she climbed into Holden’s lap and took her mother’s picture from his hands. “She was so pretty.”
“Like you,” he said, tickling her under the chin. She squirmed and giggled and tried to tickle him back. The chair rolled farther back from his desk in the den.
After a few gasps for breath, her laughter subsided and she stared at the picture Holden had taken of her mother just a few months after she’d given birth to Holly. Lorielle’s gaze was warm with love and respect. She had idolized her big brother. But he’d let her down; he hadn’t been able to help her.
“Mom would have liked Miss Meyers,” Holly said. “I bet they would have been friends, like her and Miss Jo are.”
Maybe…when they’d been kids. But Lorielle wouldn’t have liked Roberta for Holly. She would not have wanted a woman who put her life at risk every time she clocked in for a shift as her daughter’s new mother. She wouldn’t want her child to suffer through any more of the uncertainty that Holly had already suffered through having a drug addict for a mother.
Holly tipped back her head to meet his gaze. “Do you like Miss Meyers?”
Holden more than liked her. He was afraid he was falling in love with her.
“What do you remember about your mother?” he asked the child.
She was quiet and still—and Holly was never quiet and still. Finally she released a shaky breath. “I remember that she didn’t look this pretty. She usually had really dark circles around her eyes, sometimes bruises. Sometimes her lip would bleed. I remember her leaving me home alone.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” he said, hugging her close. He shouldn’t have brought up Lorielle. But he hadn’t realized that Holly would remember so much.
He didn’t think of Lorielle now. He thought, instead, of Robbie’s bruises and blood. He couldn’t put Holly through that pain and uncertainty again—not even for Roberta.
ROBBIE STARED at her friend’s face until Joelly sensed her presence and opened her eyes. The blonde jumped, knocking her blankets from her shoulders. “What the hell!”
Sassy, sleeping on a cushion beside the bed, yipped.
“A little late to warn me now,” Joelly told her watchdog as she rubbed her eyes and scooted up against the pillows piled on her bed. “Did I leave the door unlocked or did you use your key?”
“Key,” Robbie said. “Just like you used mine to surprise me a few weeks ago.”
“At least I brought you coffee.”
“I brought you shoes,” Robbie said, dropping the heels on the floor near Joelly’s overflowing closet.
Jo’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I thought you lost them.”
“Someone found them for me.”
Jo emitted a squeal of delight, which had Sassy barking. “Your very own Prince Charming.”
Robbie shook her head. “I don’t want a prince. Or any other man right now,” she said with a glare.
“Uh-oh, you have that look,” her friend observed with an exaggerated shiver. “What did I do?”
“Don’t help me.”
“What do you mean?” Joelly widened her eyes into the blank stare she used to convince people she was an empty-headed ditz. Joelly perpetuated all the myths about herself because she was afraid of anyone getting to know her and rejecting her in the way she felt her father had rejected her. But sometimes she just used those myths for her own amusement.
Because Robbie knew how smart Joelly really was, the ditzy look always infuriated her. “You know what I’m talking about.”
She would have confronted her friend earlier about her machinations, but she hadn’t had a chance to catch her alone. And Robbie hadn’t wanted to have this conversation in front of Kayla.
“No, I don’t,” Joelly said, her eyes still wide with feigned innocence.
“You know,” Robbie prodded her. “You had your dad invite Holden to the ball.”
Jo grimaced and mumbled, “You’d think a politician would know how to keep a secret.”
“Stop trying to throw us together,” Robbie warned her. “I know what you’re up to, and I don’t appreciate your matchmaking. I don’t need a love life.”
“Why not?” Joelly asked. “One of us should have one.”
“Not me. I have a daughter to worry about,” Robbie reminded her. “I don’t need a man who disapproves of what I am.”
“What do you mean?”
“He doesn’t think I should be a cop.”
“Then he doesn’t understand you at all,” Joelly said. “I’m sorry…”
Tears stung Robbie’s eyes now. “Not as sorry as I am.”
Joelly patted the bed next to her, and Sassy jumped onto her lap. But she patted again, and Robbie crawled in beside her just as she had when they were kids and as Joelly had done with her just a few weeks ago. They’d always been more like sisters than friends. Jo slid her arm around Robbie’s shoulders. “Well, at least you got everything out in the open and found out it wasn’t going to work before things went too far between the two of you.”
Robbie crooked her neck until her head settled against Joelly’s shoulder and she released a miserable sigh. “Too late.”
“Oh, Robbie…” Joelly stroked a hand over her hair in the same way she stroked her dog’s fur. “What happened?”
“We made love,” she admitted.
“Then it did go too far for you. You love him.”
Robbie sucked in a breath. “No. I don’t,” she lied, to her best friend and herself. “I don’t have to be in love to make love. As we both know, I’m not the virgin. You are.”
“You would be, too, if the only guys who showed any interest in you were really just after y
our father’s money and connections.”
A twinge of sympathy struck Robbie’s heart. She understood the fear of rejection and thinking that you weren’t good enough. But Joelly had no reason to have low self-esteem. “Jo, that’s not true. You have more to offer than you realize. They’re attracted to you, not your father’s money.”
“That hasn’t been the case in the past.”
“You dated some losers,” Robbie admitted. “But there are good guys out there. You need to keep looking.”
As usual Jo moved the focus away from her own love life. “I really believed Holden Thomas was one of them.”
“He is a good guy,” Robbie agreed. “He’s just not the guy for me.” He would have been, had he been able to accept her as she was.
“The guy for you is out there,” Joelly said, then wistfully continued, “The guy who will appreciate you and everything that you are…you’ll find him. You just have to keep looking.”
“No, there’s no reason for me to look.” Robbie doubted she’d ever find someone who’d accept her as she was. “I don’t want or need a man in my life.” She held her friend’s gaze and insisted, “I don’t need a love life.”
Joelly held up her hands. “I understand. No more matchmaking.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. But I’m not the only matchmaker you need to worry about,” Joelly reminded her.
Robbie sighed and dropped her head back onto Joelly’s shoulder. “My daughter.”
“Kayla has her heart set on you and Uncle Holden getting together.”
How Robbie had hoped that her daughter would never have to experience what she had years ago and was experiencing again now. Heartbreak.
Chapter Thirteen
Kayla’s tummy ached, but it wasn’t because she’d eaten too much pizza. She’d barely finished a slice. And it wasn’t because she’d picked up some bug from school, although there’d been a lot of kids out sick this past week.