The Housekeeper's Daughter

by Laurie Paige

  “How’d it go?” Drake asked.

  He was leaning against the wall, his hands tucked in his pockets, his stance casual.

  “Fine,” she said, looking away. “It’s raining,” she added, as if just noticing this fact.

  “Yeah. I talked to Inez. The storm has closed in all along the coast. I, uh, told her we would stay in town for the night.”

  Maya hugged the tote bag to her chest. “Yes, it would probably be wise.”

  She knew that was a lie. She wanted it too much. Hours alone with him. The whole enchanted night.

  He led the way to the car, pointing out puddles to be avoided, his manner brisk, almost impersonal. But his eyes…they spoke of intimacies once shared, of being in his arms, hidden from reality, just the two of them.

  The hotel was near the tourist district with commanding views of the bay, Alcatraz Island and the Golden Gate Bridge, barely visible through the gray sheets of rain. Their rooms were across the hall from each other on the seventeenth floor.

  “Is this okay?” Drake asked when they were alone.

  She stood at the window and stared at the bay, then the street, crowded with office workers going home, far below. “Yes, it’s fine.”

  He crossed the room and stood behind her. “What do you see that’s so interesting?”

  “Nothing. Just the street. It looks like a painting, all misty and soft gray, with the bay in the background.”

  “It’ll be deserted soon. The street people and tourists are already gone for the day.”

  She inhaled deeply, taking his scent into her, feeling his warmth at her shoulder. She wished life was different.

  Grow up, she advised. A sigh escaped her.

  “Tired?”

  His hands went to her shoulders, his fingers like magic on the tense muscles of her neck and upper back. She didn’t object. She knew she should, but she didn’t.

  What did it matter now if he touched her?

  That was foolish logic, but at the moment she didn’t care. This was Drake, the boy she’d worshipped as a child, the man she’d come to love as only a woman can. Drake, with his sense of responsibility and need to atone for a crime he didn’t commit. Drake, so kind to others, so harsh on himself.

  She faced him, all her love on the surface. She couldn’t hide it from him or herself.

  He swallowed hard, then touched her cheek with his fingertips. “I’ve dreamed of you, of us, alone like this, all those months I was away.”

  His loneliness was a bleak destiny, a darkness in the golden depths of his eyes. Her heart went out to him.

  “We could have been together.”

  “Sometimes it seems possible.”

  “But it isn’t,” she concluded.

  “I don’t know.”

  His admission spoke of longing he couldn’t hide. The muscles in his jaw moved, and she sensed he was hanging on to his control, but only by a precarious thread. If she pushed ever so little…

  “I think I’d like to rest for a while.”

  He dropped his hand and stepped back. “Of course. Do you want dinner in, or shall we go out?”

  The hotel had a restaurant on the highest floor, one of her favorite places to dine. “I love it upstairs. It’s like being on top of the world.”

  “All right. About seven?”

  “Yes, that would be fine.”

  Their formality was somehow ironic, filled with nuances of hunger for other than food. Drake nodded and left.

  Maya stood at the window for a few minutes, her eyes on the misty view, her mind oddly empty. It was as if she waited, as if she were expecting something, or someone.

  A shudder rippled down her back, and she retreated from the cold seeping through the glass. Lying on the bed, she closed her eyes as weariness crept over her in gentle waves of drowsiness, one after another, until she slept.

  The restaurant was surprisingly busy for a rainy Monday night, Maya noted when she and Drake were seated. A large group noisily occupied one side of the room. Fortunately their table was a quiet nook beside a window that overlooked the bay. Streetlights reflected off the wet pavement. Lights from the islands dotting the bay were vague halos in the inky blackness of the night.

  “Did you sleep?” Drake asked.

  “Yes, soundly. To my surprise.”

  He nodded. “You were tired. Tests always get you uptight. As if you weren’t going to ace them.”

  She started to protest, but smiled and shrugged instead. “A basic insecurity, I suppose, about being tested and not meeting expectations.”

  “You’ve never come up short, as far as I know,” he assured her.

  His voice was smooth and melodious as usual, but the undertones were deeper, rife with meanings she couldn’t decipher. Each time she looked up, his eyes were on her, moving restlessly from her mouth to her eyes and back.

  Another couple passed them. The woman was dressed in a smart black pantsuit, her figure sleek and perfect. Maya glanced at her own outfit of navy slacks and the usual tentlike maternity top. She was anything but svelte.

  “It’s like an island up here,” Drake said, switching his attention to the view from the window. “Like being alone in some strange, alien place suspended between the earth and the sky. The cars could be space ships light-years away.”

  “We’re on a space station, circling the universe,” she said, joining in the fantasy.

  “Yes.”

  His voice was soft, filled with promises like a warm wind in winter, hinting at springtime.

  Inside, she was filled with a sense of urgency, of life pushing at the seams of earth, ready to grow and blossom. After the long winter, she was ready for the fulfillment of promises not spoken, but there nonetheless.

  Her composure wobbled. She was glad when their salads arrived and she had something to concentrate on besides him and the arcs of awareness that flowed like electricity between them. After a while, she wished the meal to be over as every moment became a separate, painful wish that it would last forever.

  Nothing lasts forever, she told herself, but that didn’t stop the wishing.

  “You look so solemn. What are you thinking?” he asked, ignoring the steak platter the waiter had delivered.

  She cut into the perfectly sautéed fish fillet and considered. “I’m thinking about having one more quarter of tests to go,” she said lightly, forcing herself to smile.

  “You’ll have the baby by then.”

  The smile melted. “Yes.”

  “How will you manage?”

  “Newborns sleep most of the time. I’ll take Marissa to class with me the last month.”

  “Are you going to breast-feed?”

  The oddest sensation speared through her breasts at the question. “I—I thought I would. I mean, it’s so much better for the baby.”

  “Good,” he said solemnly.

  She made the mistake of looking in his eyes. The stark loneliness she saw there nearly made her weep. Resolutely, she continued eating until the moment passed. At last the meal was finished.

  “I think I’d like to go to my room now,” she said, refusing dessert.

  “The check, please,” he said at once.

  She was silent while he charged the dinner to his room. In the elevator, on the way to their floor, she slumped against the wall, feeling the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. She had only to say the word and Drake would step in, offering marriage and an easy way out of her worries about making it on her own with a baby.

  Pride wouldn’t let her consider this solution to her problems for more than a minute. She had made her bed and she would lie in it. Alone.

  At her door, she quickly thanked him for the meal and rushed inside, locking the dead bolt behind her. She felt his presence on the other side before he opened the door directly across from hers and quietly closed it.

  She breathed easier after that. Besides the standard white terry robe, a nightshirt was laid across the pillow. She also found a toiletries kit in the b
athroom.

  Knowing Drake had thought of the items for her, she brushed her teeth with the travel-size toothbrush, slipped into the nightshirt and got in bed. With the TV on an old movie, which should have put her to sleep, she lay awake, restless and tense.

  Nine o’clock passed. Ten. Eleven.

  Sitting up and turning on the lamp, she looked around the room for something to read. She flicked through a magazine extolling the attractions of San Francisco. She glanced at the window where the rain beat in a monotonous drone against the glass. A hotel room in a rain-drenched city was the loneliest place in all creation.

  A knock came softly at the door.

  “Maya?” Drake said.

  She pulled on the robe and opened the door. “Yes?”

  He came inside. “Is your back hurting?”

  “Is rain wet?” she retorted with wry humor.

  “Lie down. I’ll rub it for you.”

  “Not a good idea, Drake.”

  He froze, his eyes seeking hers. She gazed at him in despair and longing, her resolve to go it alone weak at the moment.

  “Maya,” he murmured, his tone echoing the hunger that couldn’t be denied in either of them. His hand closed into a fist. “I didn’t plan this.”

  She shook her head helplessly. “It’s madness…to want like this, to need someone who isn’t there.”

  Drake reached for her, needing to erase the pain from her eyes. He saw more than she wanted him to see—the stubborn refusal to let herself need anyone, the courage to face life on her own terms, the tenacity to keep on…

  Her courage humbled him, causing him to question his own convictions. He knew he shouldn’t make promises. His life was too uncertain for that. Yet, there was the fact of her, her warmth, her goodness, her love.

  “I can’t give you what you need,” he told her in a final attempt at honesty. “I am what I am.”

  Maya closed the one step that separated them, as drawn to him as a stray planet captured by the sun. “You are what I need,” she said. “You just don’t know it.”

  He frowned as if in pain. She slipped her arms around him and laid her head against his chest. He hesitated, then his arms enclosed her. She sighed, elated and weary at the same time.

  “Make love to me,” she said.

  “I want to. Desperately.”

  His brief laughter bitter with self-knowledge, Drake guided her toward the bed. Nothing could make him give up this moment, not even knowing he would face a firing squad when morning came, or worse, his conscience.

  When she untied the belt, he removed the robe from her shoulders and tossed it to a chair. The nightshirt brushed the midpoint of her thighs and disguised her pregnancy so that she looked as she had last summer.

  His heart beat fast as hunger and longing raged through him. She was the woman of his dreams, and he could no more deny the passion between them than he could willfully stop breathing. It was too much to ask of a man.

  “Let me look at you,” he requested.

  When he gathered the nightshirt into his hands, she didn’t protest. He lifted it carefully over her head and laid it aside.

  Dropping to his knees, he pressed his cheek to her abdomen and marveled at this evidence of life, this miracle he had helped create.

  “Lie down,” he said.

  Maya stacked the pillows against the headboard and leaned against them, unable to tear her gaze from the man who watched her as he undressed. His gaze seemed lambent in the lamplight, all the tenderness inherent in his nature gathered in those depths.

  An arc of golden light flashed through her, leaving an afterglow of trembling anticipation. This was Drake, the man she had loved all her life. Whatever the cost—and it would be high—she would take this night.

  When he joined her in bed, she surrendered doubt to the wanton ecstasy of his touch.

  “You’re beautiful,” he murmured after kissing her mouth, then along her neck.

  She smiled at the exaggeration, but said nothing.

  He took her breasts into his hands. “You’re different here, too. Not just bigger, but…”

  Her nipples had changed from pale pink to a dusky rose shade. “Darker,” she said. “That’s natural, I read.”

  “There’s more of a glow, too.”

  He touched her cheek and trailed a finger down her chest, leaving a molten path along her skin. He laid a hand on her tummy, leaving warmth there, too.

  “Can we do this without hurting you?” he asked.

  She blinked up at him, then smiled. “Yes. Right up until time—” She stopped as a blush slid into her face.

  “I’ll be gentle,” he promised.

  She closed her eyes as need and yearning flamed and grew and entwined. She ran her fingers into his hair and brought his face to hers.

  The kiss was sweet at first, before it became desperate. She moved restlessly against him as the passion claimed her. His scent filled her. The masculine feel of him all along her side sent delicious spirals of need shooting off inside her.

  “Drake,” she whispered as desperation seized her.

  His touch became familiar, intimate, arousing. She caressed him the same way, exploring his body as he explored hers, finding all the ways to drive him to passionate insanity. He did the same to her.

  “What’s this?” she asked, pausing at a raised furrow of flesh she didn’t recall.

  “Nothing,” he murmured, his eyes passionately exciting as he caressed her breasts.

  She pushed against his chest until he reluctantly turned and let her see. She gasped when she saw the pink of a new scar along his hip. “You were hurt.”

  He shrugged. All in a day’s work, the gesture implied.

  Tears filled her eyes. “On the last mission?”

  “Yes.” He grinned in a disarming way meant to reassure her. “It didn’t slow me down, then or now,” he added huskily, his hand caressing along her thigh.

  Catching his wandering hand with its magical touch, she brought it to her lips, then pressed her cheek against the palm. “I would hate it if you died. I would grieve forever. In my heart, I would.”

  His expression hardened. The tension increased. She gazed at him steadily, refusing to be intimidated.

  I love you.

  The words stuck at the tip of her tongue. She didn’t say them, but neither did she try to deny them. This was Drake, the love of her youth, of her woman’s heart.

  “You don’t allow anyone to trespass into your emotional life,” she whispered, “but if you accept my body, you must also accept my feelings.”

  “There’s no future in it. I don’t—”

  She laid her fingers over his lips. “You do have something to offer. Yourself. Just as you are. Not as a hero who will go into any danger in order to save lives, but as a man who is incredibly kind and gentle. I’ve watched you with the boys. You have so much goodness in you, Drake. Why won’t you see it?”

  Passion receded and tension escalated. She regretted the admonition as the silence grew longer.

  “What you think you see in me is only a pale reflection of what you are,” he finally said with an intensity that stilled her protest. “You are the good things…the things I fight for when I go out.”

  The words seemed pulled from that dark place that lived inside him. She blinked as the tears burned her eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, consoling him as best she could. “Only this moment does. Give me tonight, Drake, and let tomorrow take care of itself.”

  “I can’t promise tomorrow.”

  She shook her head, not wanting to hear it.

  He exhaled deeply, then kissed each of her fingertips. “You make me dream, sweet Maya, of things that can never be.”

  “They can,” she said fiercely and hugged him close, as close as possible, wanting to shield him from the pain he would never admit and the need he couldn’t entirely deny. “Love me, Drake. Now. I want you now.”

  He hesitated only an instant, then bent to her mout
h with a kiss that reached right to her soul in its loneliness and hunger. She pushed the problems aside and let the desire take her.

  “Do I need anything?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  He lifted his head, his eyes dark with hunger. “Would you feel more comfortable if I used a condom?”

  “Why? I mean, why now?” she asked, perplexed.

  He shook his head and caressed her cheek gently. “Such innocence,” he murmured. “I’m safe. I haven’t been with anyone, not since you.”

  “Neither have I.”

  “You didn’t have to tell me that. There’s never been anyone but me.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Has there?” he demanded gently. He wanted to hear her admit it. He needed the words.

  She closed her eyes. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Nothing. It’s enough that you’re here. We have tonight.”

  For once, he had no plans, no strategy. There was only this moment and this woman. Beyond that, he couldn’t think.

  He cupped his body around hers, guiding her thighs to rest over his. Then he entered her, finding the ecstasy and the relief from memories that only this woman gave him.

  As she cried out and writhed against him, he kissed her as if his life depended on it, as if there would be no tomorrow.

  For him, there might not be. He had to remember that one fact. That was the future he had chosen. How could he ask another to share it?

  Eight

  The rain continued throughout the night and the next morning. Maya had little to say on the trip back to the Hacienda de Alegria, except to reflect that perhaps House of Joy was no longer an appropriate name for the estate.

  “It’s sad,” she began, then stopped.

  Drake cast her a thoughtful glance as he drove carefully through the misty gloom. “What is?”

  With the dawn, sense had returned and they had retreated from each other and from that place they’d reached during the night, the place where they were both so terribly vulnerable. Making love was only a temporary haven from the reality of life.

  “That things have to change. Your parents—” She realized this might not be a good topic.