“Besides,” he added quietly, “you were out. You barely moved when I pulled my arm from under you.”
The reminder of how she’d fallen asleep tucked against his side, their bare limbs tangled, had heat rising in her cheeks.
“I can’t believe I didn’t hear him.” It was so unlike her not to hear her son. “I never sleep that hard.” Except with this man beside her, she obviously had.
“Thank you for the rescue,” she all but whispered.
He turned off the water for her. With Tyler hidden by the sofa, he lifted his hand, curved his fingers at the side of her neck.
“I’m going to leave in a while,” he told her, brushing his thumb over the lobe of her ear. “Pax said everything was okay at the boatworks yesterday, but I have some things I need to do. There’s something here I want to check first, though. Is there anything you can think of that you need me to do before I go?”
In the past eight hours, his touch had become as exciting to her as it was calming, as disturbing as it was comforting. He had reawakened her heart and her senses and she’d never felt as confused as she did now, standing there desperately wanting him to pull her to him and hoping he wouldn’t.
He’d said he needed to leave, that he had things he needed to do. He’d already talked with Pax, asked about the condition of their properties, their business. She’d heard him tell Tyler that he needed to check on his own place. She knew his entire life was on the other side of the sound. In her need for the temporary escape he’d offered, she’d forgotten that for a few critical hours last night.
“You don’t need to check my gutters, Erik.”
“Yeah, I do,” he said, thinking of her lovely, long limbs and how perfect they’d felt wrapped around him. He’d really prefer that none of them got broken. “It’ll save you having to do it yourself.”
“I’d have to do it if you weren’t here.”
The hint of defensiveness in her tone sounded all too familiar.
“But I’m here now,” he pointed out, looking a little more closely to see the unease he’d missed in her moments ago.
“You can just tell me what I’m supposed to look for. I’ll need to know, anyway.”
Caution curled through him. “It’s raining out there.”
“So I’ll wait until it stops.”
“That could be June.”
He had a point. She just wasn’t prepared to concede it. “Is there a particular bracket you noticed?”
There was. The one at the front of the garage that would keep water from pouring over her and Tyler when they came and went from the car. He’d noticed it yesterday and had meant to walk around the garage and the main building to see if any other gaps were visible. But this wasn’t about a bracket. It wasn’t about a gutter. From the uncertainty underlying her quiet defensiveness, he’d bet his business this wasn’t about anything but what had happened between them last night.
Not totally sure what he felt about it himself, not sure what to do about any of it with Tyler wandering over in search of cereal, Erik decided it best to just go do what he’d planned to do anyway.
“I’m going to get the ladder from the basement. I’ll be back when the coffee’s ready.”
It took eight minutes to brew a full pot of coffee. It was another ten before she heard the rattle of the ladder being propped against the wall in the mudroom and the faint squeak of the door to the kitchen when it opened.
Tyler had just handed her his empty bowl and was on his way past the island to go get dressed when she heard him tell Erik he’d be right back.
“Take your time, sport.” Ruffling the boy’s hair as he passed, Erik looked to where she again stood at the sink.
Still holding the bowl, she watched his easy smile fade to something less definable as he pushed back the navy Merrick & Sullivan ball cap he’d taken from his truck. It looked as if he’d shaken the rain from his cap and swiped what he could from his leather jacket. Beneath it, the charcoal pullover he’d pulled on before he’d gone out was dry, but the darker spots on the thighs of his jeans and the hems looked damp.
“You have two broken brackets,” he told her, conscious of Tyler still moving up the stairs. “I’ll pick up new ones and be back with them in the morning. I leave for my folks’ house in San Diego tomorrow afternoon, so that’s the only chance I’ll have.”
She set the bowl in the sink, picked up the mug she’d taken out for him and poured him his coffee.
Tomorrow was Christmas Eve.
She held the heavy mug out to him.
“You know, Erik,” she said as he took it, “you really don’t need to come all the way over here to fix those brackets.”
The mug settled on the counter beside her.
“I know I don’t. And I don’t need you telling me that,” he insisted, and skimmed her cheek with his knuckles.
The small contact compounded the anxiety knotting behind her breastbone.
Taking a small step back, needing to break his touch as much as the hold he’d gained on her heart, her voice dropped to an agonized whisper. “I can’t do this.”
Even as his hand fell, his shoulders rose with a slow, deep breath. His hard, handsome features were suddenly impossible to read.
“By ‘this’ you mean the sex.”
“No. Yes.” Shaking her head, she shoved her fingers through her hair. “I mean, it’s not just that. Making love with you was amazing,” she admitted, because it had been. “It’s that I can’t let myself feel what I’m starting to feel for you.” What she already did feel, she thought, and which totally terrified her. “I can’t let myself count on you to do things for me. Or for you to be around to talk to. Or for you to be here. If I do, it would be too easy to rely on you even more.”
Apparently nothing she’d said explained why she was withdrawing from him. If anything, Erik just looked a little mystified. She figured that was because of what she’d admitted about the sex part. But then, she always had had a problem filtering what she said to him.
His eyes narrowed on hers. “Why not?”
Crossing her arms over the knot in her stomach, her voice dropped another notch. “Because I’m not going to set myself up to lose something I don’t even have. It doesn’t make sense to do that,” she admitted, not sure she was making sense to him. “I can’t do that to myself. And I definitely can’t do it to my son. It will only hurt Tyler if I let him grow any more attached to you than he already is, Erik. I know people will come and go from his life. People already have, but I’ve never seen him take to anyone the way he has to you.” She’d done a lousy job of protecting herself. That failing would not keep her from protecting her son. “Since the arrangement between us is temporary anyway, it just seems best to back away and keep business...business.”
Her heart hurt. Rubbing the awful ache with her fingertips, she watched his jaw tighten as he stepped back.
Erik wasn’t at all sure what he felt at that moment. He wasn’t even sure what he felt for this woman, beyond an undeniable physical need and a sense of protectiveness he wasn’t familiar with at all. All he knew for certain was that they had stepped over a line she clearly had not been prepared to cross.
Recriminations piled up like cars in a train wreck. He’d known all along that it would be a mistake to get involved with her. He’d known from the moment he’d met her that she was dealing with far more than he’d gone through when his marriage had ended. What he didn’t understand was how he could have forgotten that his sole goal in agreeing to help her was to have no reason to return to this place once his obligation to Cornelia had been satisfied.
The fact that he hadn’t considered any of that last night had his own defenses slamming into place. Having done enough damage already, he wasn’t about to complicate their relationship any further. Or let her push him any farther away.
“Just answer one question for me.”
“If I can.”
“Last night. The tears. Were they because you were thinking of Curt?”
He figured he had to be some sort of masochist for wanting to know if that was what really had been going on with her while they’d been making love. No man wanted to think a woman had another man on her mind while he had her in his arms. Still, for some reason he couldn’t begin to explain, he needed to know.
For a moment, Rory said nothing. Partly because the question caught her so off guard. Partly because it was only now that she realized her only thought last night about the man she’d married was how Erik had lessened the void he’d left.
She couldn’t begin to explain everything she’d felt last night. Or what she felt now because of his question.
It seemed easiest to just go to the heart of what he really wanted to know.
“The only person in that bed with me was you, Erik.”
He heard something a little raw in her quiet reply, something that made her look as if he’d just totally exposed how absorbed she’d been in only him—which was no doubt why she stood there with her arms crossed so protectively and her eyes begging him to go.
He could hear Tyler racing down the stairs.
“We’re supposed to meet with Phil after the first of the year.” He spoke the reminder quietly, as conscious of the child coming toward them as he was of the definite need for distance. “I don’t remember the date, but I’ll get it from her. We can figure out our work schedule from there.”
“Can we do the train now?”
Tyler had stopped at the end of the island, his expectant glance darting from one adult to the other. He’d pulled on pants and a green thermal shirt and held a red flannel shirt in his fist.
“I have to go now,” Erik told the grinning little boy. “But I heard your mom say she’d help you.”
His smile fell. “You have to go?”
“Yeah, bud. I do.” Unprepared for how the child’s disappointment affected him, not sure what to make of the strange hollow in his chest, he tousled his sandy hair one last time, gave him a smile and let himself out through the store.
* * *
“Erik! I was just going to call you!”
Erik turned from where he was locking the front door of Merrick & Sullivan’s client office. Phil had just emerged from the silver Mercedes parked behind the construction Dumpster in front of the building next door. The tails of her white scarf flew in the breeze as she hurried around to the sidewalk. “Do you have a minute?”
He didn’t feel particularly sociable. What he did feel was defensive, edgy and impatient to be on his way. Still, he made himself smile. “Sure,” he called back, pocketing his keys. Hunching his shoulders against the chill, he headed to where she’d stopped by Cornelia’s building’s front door. “What’s up?”
“Let’s get out of the cold. I’ll make us some coffee.”
“A minute is really all I have, Phil. I’m leaving to see my folks in a couple of hours.”
“Oh. Well, then.” Hitching her bag higher on her shoulder, she crossed her arms over her furry white coat. Beneath her matching hat, her eyes smiled through the lenses of her bookish, horn-rimmed glasses. “Rory said you were there when I called the other day. The power being out everywhere had us concerned about her and her son,” she explained, “but some neighbors were visiting so I knew we didn’t have to worry. We didn’t have a chance to really talk, though. Is everything all right with the property?”
Realizing she was checking up on Cornelia’s investment threatened to turn his mood even more restive. “There are a few downed trees and a loose gutter, but no structural damage,” he told her, thinking that was about all she’d be interested in. “I heard the power was restored a while ago.”
He’d learned that from Ed, who’d done as Erik had asked him to do and called when the area had gone back on the grid. Since he’d told his old friend about Rory’s unfamiliarity with the generator when he’d borrowed his saw, Ed hadn’t questioned his concern about wanting to make sure there were no other glitches.
Erik hadn’t let himself question his concern, either. He’d tried hard to keep thoughts of her and Tyler to a minimum.
“That’s good to know. Just one other thing, then, and I’ll let you go.” She flashed him a smile as she crossed her arms tighter, anxious to get out of the wind. “I take it the two of you were working when the storm hit,” she said quickly, making it apparent that Rory hadn’t mentioned his insistence about helping with their Christmas tree. “So, how do you think she’ll do? Or is it too soon to tell?”
He wanted to say she’d do just fine. She certainly didn’t lack for aptitude or the determination to succeed. She even had the incentive of keeping a roof over her son’s head pushing her. It would be a challenge doing it on her own, but she’d make a living there. With the connections she was establishing, she’d probably even make a life.
He brushed past the thought that she’d be making that life without him. He had a life of his own right where he was. He had work he loved, a great business, good friends. He had money and the freedom to come and go pretty much as he pleased. His obligation to the woman messing with his carefully constructed status quo ended once they had the business established. Once it was, he could walk away and never go back there again.
“Is there a problem, Erik?”
“No. No,” he repeated, waiting for the quick shutdown of feeling that normally reinforced his last thought. “I’ll make it work.”
I will. Not we.
Phil apparently heard the distinction.
“Isn’t she cooperating?”
Not when she was giving him grief about helping her, he thought.
“She just needs a break right now,” he decided to say. “With her little boy and the holidays, it just seemed like a good thing to do.”
“Was that your idea?”
Initially, it had been. For the business part, anyway.
“The decision was mutual.”
“So when do you meet again?”
“Whenever we’re scheduled to be here.”
“That will be the fifth.”
“That soon?”
“At two,” she added, and cocked her head. “Do we need to meet before then? We certainly can, if there’s ever a problem,” she hurried on, having caught his lack of enthusiasm for the meeting. “Part of what we do for our ladies and their mentors is help them work through challenges. Differences of opinion can arise over anything from creative priorities to scheduling—”
“It’s nothing like that.”
“May I ask what it is?”
It was clearly too late to deny a problem even existed. But all he would admit was, “It’s complicated.”
“I see.” Adjusting the frame of her glasses, she peered at him with interest. “Do you have a solution to the problem?”
He wasn’t sure there was one. Not for the two of them. “Not yet.”
“Can you work together?”
“Yeah. Sure. There’s always email and the telephone.” He’d given his word. He’d hold up his end of the deal. For his grandparents. For her. “She wants the business to work. That’s what I want, too.”
She considered him for a moment, her head tipped thoughtfully, the fine fibers of her white hat fluttering. “You know, Erik, when I gave Rory the address of your grandparents’ property, I suggested she look for the possibilities. We knew what she would see when she got there, and that it would be nothing she could have imagined she would want.
“What she’d been looking for was a small home for herself and her son,” she confided, “but her needs changed when she lost her job. To see the potential in that property, she had to let go of a mind-set that focused on what she had bee
n looking for and what she now needed. To find the solution to your problem, maybe you should look at the possibilities, too.”
She smiled then, gave a little wave of her white-gloved hand. Crystals shimmered on its cuff. “I’ve kept you long enough,” she said. “You have a plane to catch. And I need to get inside before I freeze. Have a safe trip. And merry Christmas.”
He thanked her. Added a quick “You, too” and started to turn away.
As he did, his glance caught on the gold plaque engraved with three letters above their doorbell. He’d been curious about it ever since it had gone up last week.
“Hey, Phil,” he called, catching her unlocking the door. “What does FGI stand for?”
“It’s who we are,” she called back. “Fairy Godmothers, Incorporated.”
His forehead furrowed. As near as he’d been able to figure out, he’d thought they were in some sort of mortgage business. “Fairy Godmothers? Don’t they have something to do with pumpkins?”
“And helping dreams come true.” With a charming smile, she disappeared inside.
Mentally shaking his head, he strode toward his truck at the curb in front of his office. He had no idea how anyone over the age of ten could possibly believe in fairy tales, happily ever afters or that other impossibility that Rory had once imagined, Christmas magic. As for dreams, they died by the thousands every day. Reality simply wore them down, if it didn’t kill them outright. He knew. He’d spent years in the emotional limbo that remained after his vision of his future had turned to ash. But he’d glimpsed those dreams again, and what Phil had said about possibilities now gave him pause.
She’d said Rory had to let go of a mind-set that focused on what she had been looking for and what she needed now. She’d had to be open-minded enough to see what would be possible living in a place she’d have never considered, rather than writing it off as not what she’d had in mind.
He certainly hadn’t considered any sort of personal relationship with her when they’d first met. But one had evolved in spite of him. To see the possibilities in it, he’d need to get past the defenses he’d spent years honing before he could be open to what those possibilities were.
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