by Joanne Hill
“You know, I think we're done.” His words broke into her thoughts and he turned to Eric. “Eric? Do you want to give me a hand cleaning up?”
“I guess.” He pushed his chair back without enthusiasm and rose to his feet.
Good thinking on Jack’s part. Get Eric involved in a task, anything that might take his mind off his grief, even for a few brief minutes.
Even in moments like these, Jack was doing the right thing. He was being a terrific father.
It was close to midnight when Robyn heard the gut wrenching cry as she flicked the page on a mystery she was having a hard time reading.
She set the book down, listened, and seconds later, it came again. She dropped the book on her bed and walked quickly up the stairs to Eric's room.
She drew to a sudden halt in the doorway to find Jack had beaten her to it.
He stood alongside Eric’s bed. Moonlight battled with the mist and rain outside to shine through the windows into the darkened room, and light up Eric’s figure. He lay restlessly, his Spiderman duvet and sheet kicked off, one leg hanging loosely down the side of the bed, his arm wrapped around his bear, Dudley.
Her gaze flicked back to Jack. It looked as if he'd been preparing for bed. She’d registered the sound of running water while she’d been trying to focus on her novel.
He must have quickly thrown on jeans, but his torso was bare, save for the drops of water skimming his broad back from his damp hair ends. She drew a sharp breath at the sight of him. His shoulders were sleek, smooth, his skin tanned as it tapered down to his waist, and to the curve of his buttocks in denim that made her stomach clench.
Then he turned, and his gaze connected with hers.
His eyes were dark and steady but she knew him enough to know that was not how he was feeling.
It was a redundant question but she had to ask. She murmured, “Are you okay?”
The answer was in his eyes, in the dark bleakness, and without hesitation, she went to him, and wordlessly he brought his arms around her, pulling her close so he could rest his chin on the top of her head. She wrapped her arms around him, linking her hands against the bare skin of his back.
He breathed, and she felt the pounding of his heart, and she closed her eyes. Male soap, woody and cool, filtered through to her. The heat from his body mingled with her own and the intimacy of touching his bare skin flushed heat down her spine. He was warm and masculine and she allowed herself to breathe him in.
They held each other for long, long minutes, until slowly he released her, and pulled back a step to face her. His eyes were dark, intense, and he touched her chin with a finger. “Were you asleep?” he asked in a low voice.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“I guess we have to get used to that.”
“Is Eric all right?”
“I don't think he woke up. He was talking in his sleep but he’s fine now.”
“He must sense your presence, even when he’s asleep. It reassures him.”
Jack’s expression abruptly closed and he said, “Come with me.”
They went down the carpeted hall, and in through to his bedroom where Jack switched on an overhead light, and turned to face her.
Beneath the brighter glare of the light, his body shone, clear and bold. Muscles bunched and gleamed on his upper arm and on his chest that minutes ago she had laid her head against.
In spite of what was happening in Jack’s world right now, there was no denying that she was attracted to him. She always had been but there had been no reality to it, admiring him from a distance, knowing deep down it was only ever a fantasy she could indulge in. Even when she'd moved in here, it had been that way.
But right now she was keenly aware of him, in a way she had never been with another man.
With an effort of will, she dragged her gaze back up to his face but it involuntarily slipped back down to his chest. Awareness punched her again, this time hard and sharp.
Oh, man. Get out. Get out of here before you do something stupid, before you make a complete fool of yourself. The man is going through a terrible time and this will not be helping.
“Jack...” Nerves made her voice a rough croak. She needed to move back. Put some distance between them. “I wish...I wish I could help more.” Her voice sounded nothing like her own, and her feet hadn’t moved an inch. The urge to lean closer to him was overwhelming.
He said, “Being here helps. More than you know.”
Her heart pounded at a frantic pace, so loud it seemed to beat in her ears. She couldn't think straight. She had to get out. “Jack, I —”
He moved purposefully closer, his teeth white between his beautifully sculpted lips, his silver blue gaze on her. So potent, it burned.
He reached out, and as if in slow motion, he traced her lips with his forefinger.
She couldn't suppress a tremble, and he moved closer, began to bend his head down to hers.
“Jack, I—” The breath left her lungs in a rush as his lips came down on hers, as his arm went possessively around her and he murmured against her mouth, “You what?”
I don't want this. Can't want this.
Am longing for this so much it hurts.
“Nothing,” she murmured hoarsely back.
She didn’t know whether he was reaching out to her in his own grief, and right now, she didn’t want to know. She slid her hands up his chest to link behind his neck, and kissed him back, kissed him intensely, felt him respond, felt a rush of pleasure surge through her. Her heart pounded so fast, so strongly, a hunger for him so consuming...
What if she disappointed him? What if doing this was just going to make it harder than it was already going to be when she had to leave.
When Jack was a man who was never going to be able to give her love.
Even as his hands slid down her back and she shuddered in response, her mind began to clear.
Is a brief memory what you want to be left with, a memory forged out of his own desperation at this god awful time? You’re nothing more than the babysitter, Robyn.
Is that what you want?
Her heart began to slow down, suddenly heavy in her chest, and with everything she had, she dropped her hands and pulled slowly, regretfully back.
Her voice was startlingly clear. “No.”
His eyes burnt into her. In a thick voice he murmured, “No?”
She nodded, her breathing ragged. Was she nuts?
He shook his head, closed his eyes, ground out, “The children, I know.”
Something tightened in her chest. “No. It's not just the children.”
She didn't want him to think that. That the children in the surrounding rooms were the reason. One reason, yes, but if they weren't sleeping here in the house, she'd say the same thing.
“Then what is it?”
“I don't go around... Sleeping with a man...It’s not something I take casually.”
The blaze seemed to burn even deeper.
“There's so much to lose and I know to some people sex is just something you do when you want —” Sheesh, she was butchering this but how could she explain this, say that if she slept with anyone she wanted it to be more than the slaking of a physical need. She’d been a disappointment to so many and she couldn’t bear it if she was a disappointment to Jack as well.
She lifted her chin against the smoky gaze in his eyes. She suspected she was falling in love with him. The thought was terrifying.
“Do you want to?” His voice was deep, edgy. “Leap into bed with me?”
There was no point lying. “Yes.” Her body was burning and he could probably feel the heat. “I can't say I haven't thought about it.”
His eyes flashed.
“But...It's not something I'm...” Even to her mind this made no sense. Jack was a god. She was Miss-still-got-a-bit-of-a-spare-tire from all the stress-eating in pregnancy. She wasn't Charlotte, perfectly toned and tall and a genetic freak. You don’t believe he is really attracted to you. That’s what it a
mounted to. It was just the circumstance that was making him want her —
“Ssshh.” He put his finger over her lips. “I'm flattered that you would like to have your way with me. The truth is I'm not the kind of man who sleeps around either.”
He dropped his hand away.
“But you’re the one to tempt me.”
He reached over then, and kissed her. Short but not in any way sweet. As if saying, this is what it will be like and you better believe it will be so good you won't ever forget it.
He lingered a moment, and in that second she melted into his touch. His kiss. His scent. She wavered. Just one time.
No. Jack was grieving and she would just be the one who happened to be here, who could take his mind off it. Much as she was tempted she didn’t want to be that woman.
He pulled back, his own breathing ragged, his eyes glazed.
He murmured, “Good night.”
And with the taste of him, the scent of him, the image of him in those jeans with that bare, wet chest burning into her eyes she said, “Good night, Jack.”
And she turned and left.
She slept badly and woke feeling she hadn't slept at all. She showered, threw on shorts and a t-shirt, quickly blow dried her hair and went downstairs where Saturday morning cartoons sounded from the TV. She went in to check.
Ruby and James sat on the floor and between them was Eric. They were still dressed in their pajamas, all three of them, and they sat up close together, their legs crossed, and their arms touching.
As she walked around the side, a splash of bright pink caught her eye.
Ruby’s blanket.
With a jolt, she saw it had been draped across the three of them.
She stared at it a second, unable to believe what she was seeing then she spun on her heels and left.
Before they asked her something, before her voice cracked, before she broke down and made a complete fool of herself.
She went round the corner into the kitchen and stopped in her tracks.
Jack stood at the counter. A shiver went through her, a mix of skittish excitement and wary nerves. He’d thrown on black shorts and a faded grey T-shirt, and on his feet, he wore trainers. A patch of sweat dampened his back from the neckband half way down to his waist. The tips of his hair were wet, and he was drinking thirstily from a water bottle.
He set the bottle down and she said in a voice that sounded calmer than she felt, “Good morning.”
His body tensed, he turned, and watched her as he backhanded his mouth. Finally, not taking his eyes off her he said, “Good morning back.”
She moved forward, searching for anything to say to break this tension.
“I was wondering...” What was she wondering? That we came close to making love, that we both wanted to, so does that mean anything?
“Is there any news on what's happening with Eric?” she said instead.
His gaze left hers only briefly to glance out to the family room. He flicked the lid shut on the bottle. “Val's friend Maria rang this morning.” He set the bottle down. “I'm taking him home Thursday.”
In three days. So soon.
And it was all going to be over.
The silence drew out and she searched for something to say, something that wouldn’t alert him to just how confused she felt.
She couldn’t think of a thing.
“I’ve put the coffee on,” he said.
She moved tentatively closer to the counter. “Jack...”
He turned around. A muscle throbbed down his jaw, and she found herself staring at the dark stubble on his chin. Nerves pooled in the base of her stomach. He looked too male for her right now. He was too rugged and sexy, too hard and strong, and far too hot and sweaty. It reminded her of what could have been.
But it had been the right decision. Her feelings for him would consume her. His rejection of her would be like a fatal wound.
She shook her head. “It’s not important,” she lied.
Jack took his coffee up to his study to get away from the promise of her. She'd showered and had smelt of...he didn't know.
He’d wanted to clear the air but the fact was, it was impossible to clear. What he’d felt last night, he still felt.
She didn’t need to hear it.
He slugged back some coffee and set the cup down on the varnished surface of his desk. Mrs P. would have a fit he hadn’t used a coaster but he didn’t give a damn about coffee stains on expensive furniture right now.
Robyn. He’d have been an impotent priest not to respond. She had stood there in denim shorts and a red t-shirt that had skimmed her body to perfection and had staked a claim on his heart and on his body.
He gripped his forehead and groaned. Staking claims. His heart. He shuddered. He was starting to scare the hell out of himself.
He pulled open the top drawer of his desk and reluctantly reached for the Fed Ex envelope. He’d put this off long enough. He ripped the zip on the package, and took out a smaller manila envelope.
He unsealed that, pulled out several sheets paper clipped together, and flicked through them. A birth certificate. He quickly skimmed it.
He'd seen it before, but again it startled him. He was the father of a child. He set the document down.
Next was the Last Will and Testament. He unfolded the goatskin paper, and skimmed the text.
There wasn’t a lot to it. Her parents had both died some years back, and she had no siblings. Not a lot of possessions either.
He read further, and suddenly stumbled over a clause. His gaze flickered and he re-read that portion of the will.
He looked away a second, and blinked to clear his sight. Clearly something wrong with his eyes. He forced himself to focus, and he re-read the sentences.
No. He read them again, and swore under his breath. No. This could not be true. Inside, he went deadly still as he let out a long shuddering breath. There had to be some mistake, he told himself, as he stared disbelievingly at the phrase and everything around him went hazy.
I request that Eric’s birth father, Jack Ronald Fletcher, be given full custody of Eric.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jack dropped the will and grabbed the other pages, sending half of them flying as he scrabbled around on his desk. He needed an explanation, he needed a reason, he needed...
He grabbed a handwritten note like a lifeline and read it.
It was there in her neat, italicised writing. She wanted him to be Eric’s full time guardian. His father.
His dad.
Jack set the paper back on the desk as disbelief ripped through him. What the hell was she playing at?
He'd talked to Maria, and she'd been vague about Eric, about his future. It hadn't bugged him because he knew what was meant to happen. He was meant to go back home to a suburb in Toronto, to his friends, to his mother’s closest friend, a friend with children that Eric played with. To what was familiar to him considering he'd just had his life ripped apart from the inside out.
That's what happened. Anyone with common sense knew that. He even knew that.
You did not make a kid stay with a man he'd known less than a month.
Especially a dad who was never going to be a hands on, car-pooling, sideline soccer Dad.
He pushed himself away from the desk, his mind spinning in turmoil, and made his way restlessly down the stairs to the family room.
He stopped abruptly in the doorway, his skin an alternating mix of hot and cold. He breathed in so deep he felt it hit the pit of his stomach as he waited for some of the tension to go, waited for the pulse in his neck to slow down.
Eric suddenly looked up. “Hi, Dad,” he said in that voice that had become so damnably solemn these past days.
“Hey.” Jack’s voice threatened to catch in his throat at Eric’s greeting. Dad. “How you doin’?”
Eric shrugged, and Robyn came round the corner, a plate of jam-smothered toast in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other.
She halted, hesitat
ing for a moment. Her eyes were wide and unsteady, and question flashed across them, but he couldn’t speak to her, couldn’t tell her what he was feeling when he was damned sure he didn’t know himself. She beckoned behind her. “Did you want toast? I can make some.”
Nausea swelled in his stomach at the thought of food. He shook his head. “Thanks, but no.”
She frowned. “You’re pale.”
He tore his gaze away from her, from the concern in her eyes, and he focused instead on Eric.
“Eric?”
Eric finally swallowed down the mouthful of fruit he’d been chewing as though it were rubber.
He glanced slowly, expectantly, up.
“Eric, when you were back in Canada...”
Was it right to do this? He didn’t know but he did know he had to ask something, to find out anything that Eric might have known about his Canadian home when Val had made it clear what her dying wish for her son was. Had she said anything to prepare Eric? Anything?
“What did your mother tell you — about me?”
Eric looked a little confused at first. “I dunno.”
He took a step closer. “She told you that you were coming out here to have a holiday with me, right?”
He nodded, his eyes large, solemn.
“And she didn’t tell you anything else?”
He shrugged. “Not really. Just that you were my dad and you’d never seen me before.” He cocked his head a little to the side. “She said you were a really nice man.”
His heart began to splinter. Why had she done this? “So there was nothing else she said to you?”
“No,” he said finally and he accompanied it with a too nonchalant shrug. “I mean...Well, I know lots of kids who don’t have dads.”
His voice faltered and he looked down quickly into his bowl; his body began to shake and he put both fists to his eyes. Right there, the nausea in Jack’s stomach solidified into a cold, hard, foul mass as he watched helplessly as a tear trickled down the side of Eric's nose while he squeezed his eyes shut.