by Neesa Hart
“I’m disappointed,” Zack heard her say as he slipped on his shoes.
August lay in her queen size bed, surrounded by four small bodies, watching Zack’s shadow as he moved about in Jansen’s house. Her pulse had finally begun to return to normal. Had it not been for Chip’s untimely visit, she would have made love with Zack. The belated fear she felt at the realization had her trembling.
Once Teddy and Bo realized that Chip hadn’t been sent back to bed, they’d been quick to follow. Even Lucas had made his way down the hall. A part of her had known that their behavior today was an outward expression of the inner anxiety they felt about her trip to Hampton Roads. They’d known she and Zack were going to see the judge. The stress had manifested itself in the scene she and Zack had found when they entered the house.
It wouldn’t be fair not to tell them all that had happened. They had a right to know what had been discussed about their future. As methodically and nondramatically as possible, she told them about her meeting with Fulton Cleese.
Within minutes, she had them comfortably asleep in her bed. One more dragon slain, one more night of peace.
But while they slept, her mind continued to twirl about in anxious indecision. She wasn’t sure why she’d allowed them to sleep in her bed that night. Under normal circumstances, she worked hard to help them feel independent While she had no intention of letting anyone, including George Snopes, take them away from her, she knew from experience that a feeling of self-sufficiency added another layer of security to an otherwise unsettled life. Allowing them into her bed was an unprecedented decision, one they’d taken to like ducks to water. The slightest indication from her had had them scrambling between the sheets, where they’d lain quietly, waiting for her to tell them about the judge.
She hadn’t had the heart to send them away. Resigned, she’d stepped into the walk-in closet to pull on a pair of pajamas while she told them what Fulton Cleese had said about Teddy’s case. When she emerged, they had been sleeping soundly, leaving her to wonder what had caused the rash decision.
Perhaps the fear she’d felt when Cleese told her they’d probably end up in court fueled her restlessness. Perhaps it was the look of utter devastation on the boys’ faces when she’d fled the den that evening. More likely, she admitted, it was the notion that they’d serve as a safety net between her and Zack. The look he gave her as he walked, shirtless, from her room had been hot enough to send her shivering beneath the covers, despite the warm night.
In seconds, he’d stripped away her every defense, and half her clothes, and had her clinging to him with a desperate yearning need that scared her witless.
She could not afford to fall in love with Zack Adriano, she told herself as she slipped beneath the quilt. He’d leave. He’d told her he would. Even knowing that he’d walk out of her life, leave her feeling like an abandoned child with a shopping bag full of meager clothes, hadn’t been enough to stop her from making a physical commitment to him that was only the outward expression of a deep emotional attachment. Zack might be able to manage a no-strings-attached casual affair, but she couldn’t. If she’d made love with him, she’d have given him the power to destroy her.
How close, too close, she had come to initiating her own destruction. And how—she glanced at the small heads sleeping peacefully in her bed—was she going to keep it from happening again? Chip couldn’t be counted on as a knight in shining armor, that much was certain.
As if on cue, the tin can by her bed rattled. She pulled it to her with a sense of anticipation and dread. “Hi.”
“Hi.” His voice sounded rumbly and soft. “Everybody asleep?”
“Except for me.”
“Sorry I left without saying good-night.”
“Sorry you had to,” she said.
“Maybe it’s better this way. You weren’t yourself tonight. I wouldn’t have wanted you to feel like I took advantage of that.”
“You didn’t,” she insisted. “I needed to be close to you.”
“Keep saying things like that, and I’m coming back over.”
“I have a bed full of kids.”
“And mine’s empty.”
She sank into the pillows with a slight smile. “I don’t suppose you’d like to come join the slumber party.”
His laugh made her skin tingle. “When I finally get to sleep in a bed with you, there aren’t going to be any kids involved.”
“Do you have any idea what you’d have to do to arrange an uninterrupted night?”
“Believe me, I’ve got plenty of ideas.”
“None of that, Counselor,” she quipped. “I’m here and you’re there. No teasing allowed.”
“What if I tell you I can’t keep my mind out of your sheets?”
“I’d tell you to let your imagination run wild.”
“Trust me. It already is.”
Whistling, Zack cracked fifteen eggs into the French toast batter. He stood, barefoot and content, in the sunny expanse of August’s kitchen. His remarkably good mood amazed him. Most men, he figured, didn’t awaken feeling quite this fine after having their plans effectively squelched. He’d been awake most of the night. August’s scent had clung to his bare skin. He’d been reluctant to take a much-needed cold shower, lest he lose the memory of it. The thought of her so tantalizingly close, and yet so completely untouchable, had kept him in an almost constant state of unfulfilled arousal. He had only to picture her lying beneath him on the bed to feel his body grow heavy and warm.
With a brief economy of motion, he scrambled the eggand-milk mixture. By rights, he should be feeling frustrated and annoyed.
Had he not come to some conclusions during the night, he thought as he slung three drops of grease onto the griddle to test the heat, he probably would be. Lying alone in Jansen’s house, he’d had plenty of time to think. He felt like a fool for not realizing sooner what was going on. He’d let August’s commitment to her kids drive her from him, instead of using it to his advantage. There was no reason why everyone shouldn’t get what they wanted. He could give her the security she needed. He could keep his promise to the boys. And August’s warmth could still belong to him. He just had to convince August that he was right.
For the first time in months—for the first time, he admitted, since Joey Palfitano lied to him—he’d felt a sense of purpose. His whole life, he’d been needed by someone. First his mother, then his brothers and sisters, had depended on him to be reliable, decisive, just. For the past several years, he’d felt that need slipping away.
Despite the effort he’d made to deny how important that need was to him, he felt lost without it.
Perhaps that explained the decisions he’d made in the early hours of the morning. As the sun crept over the trees, he’d thought of the small family sleeping in August’s bed, and made several rapid decisions. The feeling of being needed had seemed as comfortable as an.old sweater. Ruthlessly he’d crushed the inner voice that insisted that August didn’t need him. August was the strongest woman he knew. She didn’t need anyone.
Determined, almost desperate, Zack had pictured her staring in horror at Fulton Cleese, and clung to the image as if it were a lifeline. Here, he was needed. He felt like a man too long deprived of oxygen, suddenly surfacing for air. Immediately, his weary soul had responded to the challenge. This, he knew how to handle. This was what he did best.
With a few strategically placed phone calls, he’d managed to turn his life upside down. And he felt great about it.
“Whatcha doing?”
Zack glanced over his shoulder and found Bo looking at him with a curious expression. His Batman pajamas had that faded look of too much wear and too many washings. “Making breakfast. You hungry?”
“Sure. Are you still mad at us?”
“Nope.” He handed Bo a handful of flatware. “You want to set the table?”
“What are we eating?” Bo took the pile of forks and knives in both hands.
“French toast.” He dropped thr
ee more drops of grease on the griddle. They sizzled and danced about on the hot surface until they disappeared in tiny brown puffs of smoke. Satisfied, Zack dipped twelve pieces of bread in the egg and milk mixture, sprinkled them liberally with cinnamon, then spread them on the large surface of the heated griddle.
Immediately, the pleasant smell permeated the kitchen. Chip appeared in the doorway, still clutching his bear. “What’s that?” he asked Zack.
“French toast.”
“I’m hungry.” He hurried across the kitchen to peer over the counter at the griddle. “Is it ready?”
“Not yet. A few more minutes.”
“Mr. Adriano?” Bo tugged on the leg of Zack’s jeans. He held two forks and knives in his hand. “You got extras.”
“I know.” Zack handed Chip a bowl with cinnamon and sugar, and a large wooden spoon. “We got company coming.”
“Company?” Chip juggled the bowl and the bear until he’d set them down on the counter.
“Yep.” He pointed to the bowl. “Stir that, would ya?”
Scrambling onto one of the high stools, Chip peered into the sugar mixture. “What is it?”
“Cinnamon and sugar. You eat it on French toast.”
“August just gives us syrup,” Bo said.
“Then August doesn’t know what she’s missing.”
Lucas and Teddy entered the kitchen together. Teddy was rubbing one fist in his eye, while Lucas watched Zack with a wary expression. “Hi,” he said.
Zack glanced at him as he flipped the toast. “Morning.”
A lock of Teddy’s hair stood straight up on his head. He yawned as he padded across the kitchen to Chip’s place at the counter.
“Cimmanon sugar.” Chip tipped the bowl so that Teddy could see the tan mixture.
Zack felt Lucas’s approach. “Teddy,” he said over his shoulder, “would you get glasses out and pour milk and juice?” With a quick nod, Teddy scrambled for the cabinet under the sink. Lucas took another step closer to the griddle. Zack flipped three more pieces of toast as the boy watched.
“What are you doing here?” Lucas asked.
“I thought you guys might be hungry after last night.”
“So how come you’re cooking us breakfast?”
He handed him the plate. “I’m trying to impress August.”
Lucas had just opened his mouth to respond when August came into the room. She looked warm and tousled, and Zack had to fight back an urge to take her back to bed. She wore baggy , yellow-and-green men’s pajamas. Her red curls lay in a riotous mass around her face. Her eyes, still blurred from sleep, swept the tranquil scene in the kitchen with quiet bewilderment. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“French toast,” Bo said.
Chip showed her the bowl. “With cimmanon sugar.”
She raised an eyebrow at Zack. “How domestic.”
“It’s the only thing I know how to make besides peanut butter and jelly.”
“So you’re doing it in my kitchen.”
“My recipe feeds fifteen. I figured I probably couldn’t handle it all myself.”
“Just how I like a man,” she quipped. “Barefoot and cooking.”
He decided he didn’t care if the boys were watching. Strolling across the kitchen, he tugged the dishtowel from his bare shoulder. In a quick move, he looped it around her waist, then pulled her against him. “I can show you a few other things you’ll like, too,” he whispered.
Her hands were sandwiched against his chest. She gave him a warning look. “We have an audience.”
“Who cares?” he mouthed, then claimed her lips for a leisurely kiss. Her lips were slightly swollen and warm. The taste of her toothpaste mingled with the musky scent of her to send an unexpected burst of passion flaring through him. August’s hands slid up his chest to wind around his neck.
Beneath his hands, her curves fit against him like a second skin. He pressed her to him with one hand at the small of her back, while the other roamed her neck and shoulders. When his fingers tickled the nape of her neck, she gifted him with a slight moan.
Zack finally ended the kiss when the giggling in the room drowned out the passion roaring in his ears.
August nearly collapsed in a pile on the floor when he released her. The man was creating serious havoc with her equilibrium. The boys were looking at her in amazement, as she struggled to regain what little bit was left of her composure.
“Coffee?” Zack asked, pushing a mug into her hand.
She gave him a disgruntled look. “My hero.”
His laugh was warm and rumbly, and it set off a flurry of butterflies in her stomach. “I hope so.”
She took a grateful sip of the coffee, forcing her gaze from him to the boys. The sight of him barefoot and comfortable in her kitchen was entirely too pleasant for her peace of mind. There was something too homey, too right, about the domestic happiness of this scene, and it was sending little panicky flutters down her spine.
“Lucas” Zack called over his shoulder, “will you bring me the butter from the refrigerator?”
“Sure.” Lucas eased past August. When he returned with the tub of butter, he pressed it into Zack’s hands without comment
“Thanks,” Zack told him. “Why don’t you help Bo finish setting the table?”
August’s eyebrows lifted in surprise when Lucas padded off across the kitchen with an amiable “Okay.”
“You two certainly are chummy this morning,” she whispered to Zack.
“We had a chat last night,” he told her.
She opened her mouth to respond, but he pressed a warm crumb of the French toast between her lips. “How’s it taste?” he asked, rubbing away the cinnamon from her lips with the pad of his thumb.
Decadent, she thought. It tasted decadent. She just barely refrained from licking his thumb. “Fine.” At her mumbled answer, he gave her an amused, slightly heated look. Mentally chiding herself to get a grip, she forced herself to walk away. Studying the mixture in Chip’s bowl, she asked, in what she hoped was a halfway-normal tone, “Whatcha got there, buddy?”
He beamed at her, his grin saying that he, at least, had completely recovered from the previous night’s trauma. She should be so lucky. “Cimmanon sugar,” he explained. “Zack says you eat it with French toast.”
“Some people do,” she said, reaching to steady a glass as Teddy sloshed milk into it.
Across the room, Zack gave her a look that threatened to melt her insides. “Some people know what’s good,” he drawled.
A firm knock on the front door saved her from responding.
Bo finished setting the last of the plates on the table. I’ll get it.”
“Me too.” Chip jumped down from his stool.
August took a calming sip of her coffee. “Must be Sam and Jeff.” She glanced at the clock. “Henry’s a little late dropping them off today. I don’t know where Emma is, either. I’ve got to go out to Bruce Duggs’s place this morning. He thinks he’s got a few hens with fowl cholera.”
Zack frowned. “Ugh.”
August shrugged. “You don’t have to watch, you know. It’s going to take me a couple of hours to run the tests, and I need Emma to watch the boys today. I’d like to go ahead and get out there so I can make a council meeting at three.” She glanced at the clock above the sink. “We’re voting on that Continental Motors plant today.”
“You won’t have time,” Zack started to say, but then the kitchen door swung open with a loud bang.
Chip skidded into the room on the rubberized bottoms of his pajamas. “August. There’s a pirate in our den.”
When Bo ran through the swinging door, it bumped Chip in the back. “And he’s got friends.”
“That,” Zack said, plunking another plate of French toast on the table, “would be my brothers.”
Chapter Eleven
Before August could question him, the kitchen door swung open. Three men who did, to Chip’s credit, look like pirates strolled into her kitc
hen and suddenly took up all the available space. In the back of her mind, she remembered that she’d first thought that about Zack. The dark hair, the brooding features, had all reminded her of some fantastical drawing of Long John Silver, or Blackbeard. In comparison with these three, however, Zack looked alarmingly normal.
The one in the middle, the tallest of the three, had the widest shoulders she’d ever seen. Dressed in black jeans that hung just right on lean hips, he wore a full white shirt that emphasized the breadth. His long hair, as dark as Zack’s, was clipped at his nape. A black patch over his left eye completed the look. All he needed, she thought a little wildly, was a swirling black cape and a peg leg.
“You must be August,” he told her, swooping down on her with an astounding grace for a man his size. “I’m Rafael. Welcome to the family.”
She felt Zack’s hands close on her shoulders. “I didn’t know you were coming,” Zack said quietly. She heard the steely note in his voice.
“The family?” August asked.
Another of Zack’s brothers, this one with a militarystyle haircut, stepped forward. August noticed the way her boys seemed transfixed by the presence of the three men. She couldn’t blame them. Zack alone was a daunting man. Flanked by his siblings, he was downright intimidating. “I’m Miguel,” the stranger said. Vaguely August remembered Zack telling her one that one of his brother’s was in the navy. “I’m sorry we’ve barged in on you like this. Zack made it sound urgent.”
She glanced at Zack. “Urgent?”
His hands tightened on her shoulders. “Miguel, what’s the meaning of this?”
Rafael held up his hand. “I was visiting with Miguel when you called. I decided if you were getting married, I was coming along.”
August’s eyebrows rose. “Marriage?”
The third brother eased his way forward. He extended his hand to August. She took it reflexively. The callused feel of his flesh was oddly comforting amid the chaos. “I’m Sebastiano,” he said. “And we’re being rude.” He muttered a few phrases in Spanish that had his brothers easing away from the tight circle they’d formed around August. Zack’s fingers remained like steel manacles on her shoulders.