“But...?” They moved in tandem around the tree.
Finished with one, they added another strand and began decorating the top half of the tree. “Being a mom, 24-7, is a lot more demanding. There’s so much you have to learn. Luckily, most of the women at Laramie Gardens have cared for infants, so I’ve gotten a lot of helpful tips. Plus, assistance holding and rocking him during what is otherwise his fussiest time of the day.”
“Early evening.”
“Mmm, hmm.”
Her cell phone rang. Nora looked at the caller ID. “It’s Davina.”
“Want me to step outside?”
Nora shook her head, already answering. “Hey, sis. Still in Qatar?”
“Roger that,” Davina retorted happily. “Although I may be moving back to AFRICOM in Stuttgart, Germany, soon.” Davina went on to tell Nora a little bit about her latest assignment, which sounded both challenging and exciting...
When it was her turn to talk, Nora said, “I just put Liam down, but if you want to FaceTime so you can see how big he’s getting, I’ll wake him...”
“No, don’t do that.” Davina’s response was adamant.
“Or I could just take the phone up there, and let you see him sleeping?” Nora hated the desperation in her voice.
The ever-present need for a familial connection that never really seemed to come.
“Just send me a photo when you have time,” Davina went on briskly. “Listen, I got your note about Liam’s Christmas gift. You can get him anything you want from me. Just put my name on it. And send me the bill. And you may want to do the same for Mom. You know how bad The General is about remembering stuff like that.”
Really bad, Nora acknowledged miserably.
Still, she tried again. “You sure you don’t want to at least help pick out the gift? I could send you a few choices.”
“I don’t have time,” her sister retorted, “and anyway, I’m sure you know best. Got to go. I’ll call again soon. Okay? And if I don’t talk to you before then, merry Christmas!”
Nora choked out, “Merry Christmas to you, too.” Doing her best not to cry, she cut the connection.
“Everything okay?” Zane asked, as Nora put her cell phone back on the charger. Briefly, she explained.
“You were hoping for a different outcome,” Zane guessed sympathetically.
Nora nodded, as tears began to fall.
The next thing she knew, Zane’s arms were around her. He held her close while the storm inside her raged.
He stroked a hand through her hair. “Davina’s disinterest doesn’t have anything to do with Liam,” he said.
“I know that.” Nora sniffed.
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Then what’s gotten you so upset, darlin’?”
She’d held her worry inside for way too long. She had to confide in someone. Nora swallowed around the ache in her throat. “What’s going to happen to Liam if anything ever happens to me?” She drew back to look into Zane’s eyes. “Is my little boy going to end up like Miss Isabelle? Deserted by those who should love him and be there for him, but just won’t...for whatever reason?” Selfish reasons.
Zane carefully wiped away her tears with the pads of his thumbs. Briefly, he looked as miserable as she felt. “I’d like to say no, but...” His voice trailed off. He searched her face for a long moment, then frowned in concern. “You don’t have a guardian lined up?”
Guilt rolled through her with the force of a tsunami. Reluctantly, she shook her head. “I know I should. The lawyer who handled the adoption advised me to get one, but...no. I don’t.”
“Then how about me?”
Chapter Eight
Nora stared at Zane in amazement. “You want to be Liam’s backup guardian?”
Actually, he wanted to be the little fella’s daddy, but afraid that he’d scare Nora off again, he said, instead, “Yes. Especially if it will help give you peace of mind.”
Her sky blue eyes narrowed in consternation. “But if you’re not here, then...”
He had already told Nora he was not reenlisting. Obviously, she did not believe him. No one who knew him did. Figuring she’d realize how serious he was when his actions bore out his promise, he reminded her, “I was prepared to step up and take paternal responsibility for him—when I came back.”
“Yes!” She threw up her arms and began to pace the length of her cozy living room. “Yes. When you thought Liam was your child.”
He tore his eyes from the flattering red corduroy shirt and jeans she’d put on after work. The shirt buttoned all the way down the front, curved in at the waist and hugged her body in all the right places, just like her dark denim jeans.
“He still could be.”
Pretty cheeks flushed, she spun back around to face him.
She took a step closer, looking more beautiful and impassioned than ever before. “In a worst-case scenario.”
The doubt in her voice made him want to reassure her.
“And best case, too.” He flashed a grin, but his heart lurched when she just stared blankly at him. “Unless you can see someone else as his daddy?” Zane pressed.
“Whoa now, soldier.” Hands up in surrender, Nora took a deep breath and backed away. “Now we’re really getting ahead of ourselves.”
Not in his view. He wanted her to be able to count on him. The way she’d never been able to count on anyone else.
“Not necessarily,” he reiterated gruffly, closing the distance between them and taking her hand in his. “I’ve always felt connected to you, Nora. From the time we were kids and spent summers hanging out together.” They’d had something special from that first moment. A shimmer of awareness. An undeniable bond. It was still there. Would always be—if he had anything to do with it.
She gazed down at their entwined hands. Let out a quavering breath. “I’ve always felt connected to you, too,” she confessed softly.
Seeing a chink in her emotional armor, he pointed out, “Our dual stints in the military only intensified that.”
She disengaged their palms and moved away. Her eyes locked on his. “Except now I’m out, Zane. For good.”
And he still had to go back. For a few weeks, anyway.
Refusing to let that be a roadblock, he moved closer. Continued resolutely, “I was prepared to leave the service for Liam as soon as I heard about him. I’m still ready to do that.”
Nora looked at him as if none of what he said computed. Peering down at her, he took in the tousled state of her hair and her flushed cheeks. “You need to know that Liam will always be taken care of. That he’ll have family and be loved, whether you’re here or not,” Zane said practically. “You need to know that there will be a rock-solid backup plan for him.” Without warning, his voice grew unaccountably rusty. “I want that for the little guy, too.”
Nora’s lower lip quavered.
Her vulnerability broke his heart. Resolutely, he continued, promising firmly, “If you let me step up here, you’d never have to worry that Liam would end up alone or be forgotten.”
Nora stared up at him, thinking, considering.
Zane paused to let his words sink in. “No matter what, he’d have the whole Lockhart clan there for him. My four sibs, their spouses, my mom...”
“That’s quite an offer,” she said, her voice abruptly turning rusty, too.
And one that came straight from his heart. He studied the soft shimmer in her eyes. “The question is,” he rasped, inhaling the sweet lavender scent of her, “will you take me up on it?”
* * *
NORA DIDN’T KNOW what to say to that.
She knew what she wanted to say, of course. Yes, yes, jingle bells all the way, yes! But if this was a pity ploy...
She folded her arms tightly in front
of her. Challenged him emotionally, “It all depends. Are you doing this out of some misplaced sense of duty or honor?”
He stepped close, his brow furrowed. “Because I’m not Liam’s biological daddy but could have been?”
He radiated pure masculine strength and his nearness made her want to kiss him again. Nora swallowed around the parched feeling in her throat. “Because of the way things ended between us the last time we called a halt to whatever-this-has-always-been,” she said with difficulty, staring into his eyes. “Because you made promises to me before. About quitting...”
“That I ended up not keeping,” he interjected grimly.
“Yes.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way. But I do want to make it up to you, for all the things I’ve done backward or badly in the past.”
Nora sighed and shook her head. “You don’t have to do that. I was at fault, too. I wanted to keep both feet out the door every bit as much as you did.”
“True.” Crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes. “But I could have been more traditional about it from the first. Made sure that you felt like the fine Texas lady you are.”
She knew what he was getting at, but she had never felt used. The two of them had both gone into their tempestuous affair with their eyes wide-open. They’d both known what they were risking and chosen to take the leap anyway.
She went back to decorating the tree. “I’m an independent woman, Zane. Always have been. Always will be.”
He followed and began to help. “An independent woman who still needs a backup plan for Liam.” Their fingers brushed as they draped the end of the light strand near the top of the tree. “Because you know the way life is.” They stepped back, to view the gorgeously lit tree.
Zane caught her hand, clasped it warmly in his. “If you have insurance of any kind, you’ll likely never need it.” He shook his head. “The minute you don’t...”
Nora sighed as she pivoted to face him. “You find yourself in one heck of a mess.”
“Right.” Zane wrapped his arms around her. Gently, he smoothed the hair away from her cheek. “So think of my stepping in as a way of guaranteeing that Liam’s future—and yours—is every bit as happy and wonderful as it deserves to be.”
Nora splayed her hands across Zane’s chest. Beneath her fingertips, she felt the steady thrumming of his heart.
She wasn’t surprised he was protecting her.
He was always rushing to rescue someone.
It was in his nature.
“This won’t change anything between us.” It wouldn’t make him fall in love with her, in the boundless way she wanted to be loved. “This agreement won’t change who and what we are.”
His eyes darkened. “I know that.”
She studied his sober expression. “You don’t care?” Because a part of her did. Very much!
A corner of his mouth quirked up. “I wouldn’t say that,” Zane drawled in the sexy timbre she loved.
He lowered his head. Kissed her lightly. And his eyes smoldered all the more. “I wouldn’t say that at all.”
He deepened the kiss, and need swept through her. Taking his head in her hands, she rose on tiptoe, and then with an aggression she had never let herself unleash before, she pressed herself against him and poured every bit of passion and longing she had into the steamy embrace.
Zane groaned, his unbridled hunger coming through loud and clear. The years of wanting and needing, coming together only to separate again, accumulated into a soaring, desperate yearning.
“I want you,” he muttered.
Nora gazed breathlessly up at him. “I want you, too.”
Taking him by the hand, she led him upstairs, to her bedroom. Instead of heading for the bed, she backed him up against the wall. And then all was lost in the thrilling press of mouths and bodies.
He kissed her like he’d never get enough of her. She kissed him back in exactly the same way, sliding her hands beneath the hem of his sweater, moving her palms up and over the width of his shoulders and the satiny smooth muscles of his back.
She kissed his neck, his jaw, each corner of his lips. Felt him shudder in response.
Lower still, there was a tsunami of desire. Pressing against the front of his jeans. Dampening hers...
The next thing she knew, her shirt and bra were coming off. Their positions were reversed. It was her back against the wall, and his sweater was coming off. They came together once again, her breasts nestled in the soft mat of hair sprinkled across his chest, her breath catching.
He bent his head, ravishing her lips again, using the flat of his palms, then the pads of his thumbs to tease her nipples into aching crowns. When she could stand it no more, his touch drifted lower still, unfastening her jeans, sliding inside the satin of her panties. Finding her there. His fingers exploring the slick folds, sliding inside her. Making lazy forays. Moving in and out and in again.
“I thought I was supposed to be in charge here,” Nora gasped.
“In due time...”
He drove her crazy with his touch, making her feel more womanly and wanton than she ever had in her entire life. Until her body ignited and she was so consumed with wanting him inside her she could barely breathe.
Needing to give as well as receive, she tried to wrestle free. He held fast. Lowering, delivering the most intimate of kisses. Thrilling, she slipped right over the edge, into ecstasy.
When the delicious shudders had finally ceased, she kicked completely free of her jeans. Divested him of his. And then, her heart brimming with feeling, knelt to show him just how talented she could be. Flush with victory, she discovered the hardness of his body, the fierceness of his desire. Sending him right to the brink.
He lifted her up. She rolled on his condom and he possessed her with one smooth stroke. Awash with sensation, she clamped her legs around his waist and rose up to meet him. He lifted her, going deeper, slower, stronger. Bringing them closer, making them one. And then there was nothing but the hot, melting bliss.
The two of them clung together for long moments. Knees weak. Hearts pounding.
“About this,” Zane said finally. “About us...”
Nora had no idea what he was going to say. His expression was so inscrutable.
She knew what she wanted, however.
“How about we take it one day at a time?” she suggested recklessly. “Just...” She inhaled a quavering breath. “Let what happens...happen...”
For a moment, she thought he was going to ask for something else. What, she wasn’t exactly sure.
Then, to her immense relief, he smiled and nodded. Threading his hands through her hair, he lowered his head and delivered another soul-stirring kiss. “Sounds good to me,” he muttered gruffly, inciting her passion all over again. “And what I’d like now...” He lifted her in his arms and carried her to her bed. Following her down, he stretched out beside her. “Is this...”
And “this,” as it turned out, was more than good enough for her. More than good enough for both of them.
* * *
TWO DAYS LATER, Zane sat at his dining room table, surrounded by mounds of paper. Résumé, credit report, income tax returns. Financial and bank statements. A half-finished business plan and lists of assets still needing to be purchased, facilities built.
Hearing a car in the lane, he put the lengthy application he was working on aside. Groaned at what he saw.
Not about to let his mom see what he was currently working on, he grabbed his jacket, the big box of outdoor holiday decorations and the toolbox she’d brought over to him the previous weekend. “Hey, Mom. Great timing. Want to help me put up the lights?”
Lucille made her way up the walk, looking elegant as ever in a designer wool coat, scarf and heels.
“Ah... Not really.”
Lucille looked longingly toward the inside of his ranch house. “It’s a little chilly out here.”
“Hang on.” Zane dashed inside and returned carrying a velvety lap blanket with a shearling underside. “So what brings you out here?”
Lucille pulled a pair of fine leather gloves from her pocket and inched them on. “I wanted to know if it was true. Have you been making the rounds to the West Texas Warriors Assistance, the sheriff, fire and EMS departments, as well as the local airstrip, talking about employment?”
Not about to jinx anything at such a precarious stage, Zane pounded a few nails in, above the windows. “Just checking out my options, Mom. I’ll have to do something when I do get out of the military.”
Lucille paused, the way she always did when she was about to jump ahead to what was really on her mind.
“Is the misunderstanding about Liam’s paternity the only thing that brought you back to Laramie for the holidays?”
Zane moved the ladder a little farther down. “No.” He had already planned to return to Laramie when he was on leave, because he knew Nora had settled here. He had wanted to see if they could somehow make a go of it again. Not wanting to get into all that with his mother, however, he resumed hammering and said, “I also wanted to see you and the rest of the family.”
Lucille tucked the blanket more closely around her. “Is Liam the only reason you were even considering not reenlisting in January?”
Initially. Zane strung snowflake lights across the windows, above the doors, then moved his ladder to the other side. “If he had been my biological son, it would have been the right thing to do.”
“And now that you know he’s not your child?”
For a whole host of other reasons, it was still the right thing to do.
He squinted at his mother. “I don’t appreciate the inquisition, Mom.”
Lucille turned up the collar on her coat. “If I didn’t pry just a little, I would never know anything about your life.”
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