And she almost whimpered when, instead of pressing his warm lips to her hand, he slid her palm along his jaw.
The abrading of the shadowy stubble there was almost worse than his lips would have been.
Worse. Better. What was the difference?
She felt like she was coming undone.
She swallowed, hard. “Ryan.” It came out husky and thick. “What—” But she broke off, because she didn’t even know what she wanted to say. If she wanted to say anything at all. “I thought you didn’t want…this.”
He still held her palm against his jaw. She could feel the working of a muscle beneath the pad of her index finger.
“I don’t.”
The stinging confirmation accomplished what her own willpower couldn’t. The mesmerizing spell he seemed to have cast broke, leaving her feeling oddly dizzy as she easily tugged her hand free.
Had it been that easy all along?
Uncertainty dogged her as she sidestepped past him to the car door, only to realize that he still had her keys. She started to turn back, but he was already slipping the key into the door lock.
It was unnerving how quickly the man moved at times.
He unlocked the door, pulled it open and handed her the key. “I’ll see you about six.”
Her cheeks heated because the dinner plans had completely slipped her mind. Without looking at him, she nodded and pulled the door shut.
She watched in the mirror as he shouldered the massive bag of dog food again and, when he’d moved away from the rear of her car, she backed out and drove away, feeling as if the devil was at her heels.
“That was a delicious meal, Rebecca,” Mallory said several hours later. She set the plates she’d helped clear from the table on the deeply colored granite counter next to the kitchen sink where the hospital chief—wearing an oddly incongruous “kiss the cook” apron over a pair of narrow black slacks and a pink sweater—stood rinsing dishes. “I don’t know how you do it. I barely have the energy to heat leftovers in the microwave when I’m finished for the day.”
“A roast is easy,” Rebecca said blithely. She set the stack of plates from Mallory into the sink and directed the water over them. “I can’t tell you how much this has meant to Sawyer and me,” she said softly. She looked at the large window that was situated above the sink.
It was dark outside, but the outdoor lights shining over the wood deck that ran the entire width of the back of the house clearly illuminated the two men and the little girl who stood between them.
A ridiculously ugly dog with flopping ears and the name of Beowulf was chasing the stick that Ryan’s father was tossing. He’d bounce through the snow that reached up to his belly, ferret out the stick and bounce his way back for a giggling hug from Chloe, rewarded with a sloppy lick over her face, and then bounce off again.
At least Mallory knew now who the dog food had been for; Ryan had had the bag in the back of his pickup truck when he’d picked them up.
The evening had been a total success if all Mallory considered was Chloe, and Ryan’s parents. The elder Clays had seemed genuinely disappointed that Kathleen had had another commitment—a quilting circle that Mallory hadn’t even been aware her grandmother had decided to join. But that disappointment hadn’t really stood a chance against the sheer joy in their faces whenever they’d looked at Chloe.
Chloe who, after learning what their plans were for the evening, had asked Mallory again if Mr. Ryan was her boyfriend.
Mallory had denied it as certainly as she had the first time, though she was afraid her daughter hadn’t believed a word of it. But she hadn’t had time to deal with that, because Ryan had arrived then, and Chloe had merely sat between them on the truck ride over, beaming at both of them like some benevolent fairy godmother.
What hadn’t been a success that evening was Ryan.
He might be standing outside there now with his father and his daughter, but his hands were shoved in his pockets and he carried the same air of remoteness around him that he’d assumed from the moment they’d walked through the front door of his parents’ incredibly beautiful home.
Even Chloe had noticed his mood, giving him more than a few concerned looks through the meal.
When the concern in her daughter’s face had started to slowly slide into hurt, Mallory had wanted to kick him.
Only good manners had controlled the uncharacteristically violent urge.
Fortunately, when Sawyer had suggested they let the dog out for a run, Chloe’s face had brightened up again.
“I don’t think Ryan is very happy about it.” Mallory gave his mother an apologetic look.
Rebecca sighed a little and loaded the last dish in the dishwasher. She shut off the water faucet and dried her hands on her apron. “It’s not Chloe,” she assured.
“How can you be sure?” It was probably not the most tactful thing to ask. Rebecca was Ryan’s mother.
“Because I saw him with both of you at the hospital,” Rebecca reminded. “It’s not Chloe. Ryan is…well, he’s better since he’s found you than he’s been in months.”
He hadn’t found them so much as been hunted by her, Mallory thought.
“It’s being here at the house where he grew up,” Rebecca continued, unaware of the troubled turn of Mallory’s mind. “Being with his family that still bothers him.”
Rebecca’s voice was calm and quiet, but Mallory could see the faint tremble in her slender fingers as she turned a beautifully artistic pecan pie this way and that on the counter before dipping the point of a sharp knife into the center and making quick work of the slices. “I know the what,” she said. “I just don’t know the why. Other than it has to do with that business that kept him away from us for so long.” She pointed the knife at a glass-fronted cabinet behind Mallory. “Would you mind getting down the dessert plates?”
Mallory retrieved the small plates and Rebecca began dishing up the slices. “What was that business?” On one hand, she felt she was going around Ryan’s back for information that he should be the one to provide. But on the other hand, she badly needed to know what she was dealing with.
For Chloe’s sake, she excused. It wasn’t untrue.
Nor was it the entire truth.
Rebecca’s hands paused over the pie slices. “I wish I knew,” she sighed. “My son was one man when he left us nearly five years ago. He was another man when he returned nine months ago.” Her head tilted a little. “But no matter what happened in those years between, he’s still my son.” She slipped the last slice onto a plate and when she looked up her smile was steady though her eyes were a shade too bright. “He’s alive and he’s home. And now we have his daughter in our life, too. Next to Ryan’s return, it’s the best Christmas present any of us could ever have.”
“I’m sorry that I’m not ready to tell Chloe, yet.”
But Rebecca just smiled softly. “I’ve told you that is your decision, Mallory. Please don’t let that worry you. We’re going to love Chloe no matter what, and when you do tell her we’re her family, too—well, then it will just make something wonderful that much more complete. Now here.” She handed two plates to Mallory. “Take them into the family room if you would, and I’ll call them inside. Do you think Chloe would like ice cream instead of pie? Or with her pie?”
Mallory let out a breath. “I think she wouldn’t care if it were yogurt on cardboard after getting to play with Beowulf like she has.”
Rebecca’s laughter followed her out of the kitchen.
In the spacious family room, there was a fire burning low in the wide stone fireplace. She set the plates on the large square coffee table situated in the center of a massive leather sectional before moving over to the tall fir Christmas tree beside a wide window. The tree was studded with so many ornaments that only as she got closer to look at it did she realize many were as homemade as the ones yet to be hung on their own tree.
She smiled a little at the school pictures pasted in the center of glittery stars; some
craft projects didn’t change no matter what decade it was. From the tree that already had several gaily wrapped packages tucked beneath, she moved toward the fireplace mantel to study the collection of frames clustered among a stunning flocked pine garland. She couldn’t help lowering her head toward the garland and inhaling the crisp, green scent as her gaze traveled over the delicate beauty of the nearly translucent, ivory glass bulbs threaded among the garland, to the photographs.
Sawyer and Rebecca, decades younger, arm in arm as they looked at each other so plainly in love. A young, grinning Ryan wearing a football uniform with a trophy in one hand and a football in the other. Courtney, impossibly lovely in a formal gown, probably a prom dress. And then the photos of the four of them, all together as a family.
She picked up one photograph that was tucked almost in the back of the others. More recent, this one. Sawyer and Rebecca looking very much as they did now, though Sawyer’s hair hadn’t gone entirely gray, yet. Courtney was no longer a schoolgirl and Ryan was clearly a man, right down to the navy whites he was wearing.
Her throat felt tight as her thumb hovered over his handsome image, not touching the glass lest she leave smudges behind.
“Who are you?” she murmured to herself.
“Maybe you should have asked that before you brought Chloe to Weaver,” he said behind her.
She pressed the frame to her breast and whirled. “I thought you were still outside. Where’s Chloe?”
“My mother is showing her where Beowulf sleeps.”
She was still clutching the photograph and she quickly replaced it. “And your father?”
“Outside stealing a smoke.” He reached around her to pull out the picture she’d just so carefully replaced. “My mother doesn’t approve,” he added absently.
She knew that Ryan smoked on occasion, though he’d never done so around her or Chloe. Yet he hadn’t chosen to stay outside with his father and share that time. “I don’t approve, either,” she said. “Shortens your life.”
His lips twisted a little. “Sometimes that’s the idea. My sister was the homecoming queen at the high school here four years running,” he went on before her frown could turn into a comment. “She’s still one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen.”
“But you hardly seemed to want to talk to her the day we were at the hospital with Chloe.” The fact that his aloof demeanor throughout the evening shifted into something even harder, colder, didn’t stop her runaway tongue. “You hardly want to talk to any of your family members, from what I can tell.”
He pushed the picture frame back on the mantel, dislodging one of the delicate glass bulbs. It rolled off the mantel, but he shot out a hand, catching it before it could fall to the hardwood floor. “Leave it alone, Doc.”
But her runaway tongue wasn’t finished. “I can’t.”
“Why? I talk to Chloe. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Of course, but—”
“What goes on between me and my family won’t affect how they feel about Chloe.”
“I know that.” She’d seen it for herself, hadn’t she?
“Then why the hell does it matter to you?”
“Because you matter to me!” She stared as the words dissolved into the silence around them.
The fire crackled softly. Deep in the house she could hear the high pitch of Chloe’s indistinct words and the lower murmur of Rebecca’s, the sound of a door closing.
“Because you matter, Ryan,” she said. More softly. More deliberately.
His expression was still remote; his eyes were anything but. “Because of Chloe.”
“Because of—” me “—all of us,” she finally settled on. Judiciously. Cowardly.
He exhaled sharply. “Chloe didn’t know me before. They did.”
Before he’d been gone.
She suddenly felt as if she were standing in the center of an ocean of very thin, very fragile ice and if she reached out to touch him the way she badly wanted to do, they’d both go crashing through it. “What happened during those years you were gone, Ryan?”
“Mom,” Chloe propelled herself into the room, barely stopping in time to keep from smashing into Mallory’s side. “Dr. Rebecca says I can play with Beowulf whenever I want!” Her face was full of glee. “We can come again, right?”
Mallory nodded and managed a smile for her daughter. “Yes. You can come again.”
She was pleased for her daughter’s sake.
But one look at Ryan’s face put an end to her burgeoning hope that—before Chloe had interrupted them—he’d been on the verge of actually answering her.
Chapter Eleven
“If this is a birthday party, why are we hanging Christmas decorations instead of balloons?”
Mallory handed another ornament to Ryan, who was using a stepstool to reach the top branches of the tree.
It was Saturday. The day of Chloe’s seventh birthday. And in a short while, there would be eight little girls, including Chloe, probably racing around like terrors, from what Mallory remembered of the birthday parties from when she and Cassie were young.
But for three days now, ever since the dinner at his parents’ home, instead of being preoccupied by Chloe’s looming birthday party, Mallory had found herself preoccupied by the man who was Chloe’s father.
Or rather, the mystery of the man who was Chloe’s father. She was no closer to understanding Ryan than she had been at his parents’ home.
He’d turned to hang the deep blue pear-shaped ornament on the tree and she absently plucked another from the box to hand to him. “We have to finish decorating it now, because Chloe fully expects a decorated tree for her birthday.”
“Until she was four, she believed it was all part of the celebration for her birthday,” Kathleen added. She set a tray of crown-shaped cookies topped with lilac frosting on the table next to the packing box, then stood back with her hands on her hips to survey the tree. “Finest tree we’ve ever had,” she determined.
“And the balloons come next,” Mallory finished, warning. She dragged her gaze from the breadth of Ryan’s shoulders that were clearly delineated beneath the long-sleeved charcoal sweater he wore as he turned to hang the next ornament, to look at the pile of party decorations they still had to deal with before Chloe’s guests started arriving.
Not surprisingly, Chloe had accomplished what Mallory had not. Ryan hadn’t been able to turn her down when she’d beseeched him to be there for her party.
And right now the birthday girl was upstairs in her room, debating which outfit to wear. She’d gone reluctantly just a few minutes ago only because Mallory—from long experience—knew that on some occasions, these things could take time.
Chloe was, after all, female. Even if only seven. And she had at least a dozen purple-hued outfits from which to choose.
Mallory realized that Ryan’s long-fingered, square-palmed hand was extended, waiting for another ornament. She reached blindly into the box, grabbing whatever her fingers encountered first, and dropped it in his palm.
It was yellow, shaped like a rattle, and it said “Chloe’s first Christmas” on it.
Cassie had ordered it specially from a catalog while she was pregnant, even though Chloe hadn’t been due until January.
Mallory’s throat suddenly felt tight, but for the first time the ache she felt wasn’t sharp as a scalpel. It was duller. Muted. And the poignancy of watching Ryan study it silently before squeezing her hand and gently hanging the ornament on the tree had her heart melting. Unnerved, she quickly pulled the last two ornaments out of the box. She didn’t look at Ryan as she handed them to him, and as soon as she had done so, she plucked the square packing box off the table to carry out to the kitchen. She’d find a closet somewhere to store it in later.
“That’s it? What about the tree topper?”
“We don’t have one,” Kathleen said as she reached for the empty box. “I’ll take care of this, dear. You worry about all that.” She gestured toward the r
est of the decorations that were of the more traditional birthday variety.
“Thanks, Gram.” Mallory was going to get her mind on Chloe and off her father, and that was that. She sat down on the floor and tore open two bags of balloons. Twelve purple. Twelve lime-green. It was eye-popping and Chloe’s favorite combination. And with two dozen balloons to blow up, she was strongly wishing that she’d thought to rent a helium tank or even an air pump. Resigned, she lifted the first balloon to her mouth and started to fill it the old-fashioned way.
“Have something against tree toppers I should know about?” Ryan edged the cookie tray over to one side and sat down on the coffee table. He picked up a balloon, stretching it between his fingers.
She shook her head but kept blowing.
“Your cheeks are turning red,” he observed.
Successfully making her feel more self-conscious.
She lowered the balloon, pinching the top of it between her fingers so as not to lose her hard-blown air. “You showed up this morning saying you wanted to help. So put your comments inside the balloons,” she suggested wryly, and resumed blowing.
He smiled faintly, but merely continued stretching the rubbery balloon. “I would have been there yesterday while she got her cast, but I got hung up out at J.D.’s.”
Studying the fatness of the balloon was easier than studying him and she deemed it full enough to tie off the end before adding a short curly piece of ribbon to it. When all of the balloons were filled and tied off in a similar way, she’d hang those ribbons from a wider one strung over the dining room table where Chloe’s nauseatingly purple birthday cake sat center stage. “I never expected you to drop everything in your life to spend all of your time with Chloe,” she assured him. If anything, given the way he’d learned about Chloe’s existence, Mallory was surprised and a little—or a lot—affected by his general willingness ever since the E.R. incident to be around Chloe as much as he had been.
But she would have bet her little finger that he’d been perfectly happy to have any reason to avoid again going to the hospital, where he might possibly run into his sister or his mother.
A Weaver Holiday Homecoming Page 12