Uh-oh, Erin thought, as he reluctantly took it out of her hand. This could go badly.
But she shouldn’t have underestimated his ability to handle any female—including one pint-sized. Lifting the dog, he inspected it gravely and stroked its mangy plush from neck to tail. Then he pressed a kiss to the top of its head, and returned it to the child, with a little bow as if to thank Charmer for momentarily sharing her beloved.
The toddler beamed.
And another cold wave doused Erin. This time, it was the truth.
There could be no getaway weekends, no mai tais, and no long mornings in bed with the man across the table.
That would only court trouble for Erin. Because she was already a hair’s-breadth from doing something extremely undisciplined and in the long-term dangerous to her heart’s health—namely, falling in love with Knox Brannigan.
Knox trailed Erin toward the restaurant exit, his mood lowering with each step. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she hadn’t jumped at the idea of seeing him again once she scheduled herself some free time.
Hell. What had he been thinking to propose it, anyway? That notion of his had been more than misguided. A long-distance romance with her would never satisfy him.
Much better to end it altogether and hope that this surprising passion died a swift and pain-free death.
Tomorrow he’d take off on the Indian and…what?
Leaving Southern California, his goal had been two-fold. One, he’d thought to re-discover his former self, the Knox Brannigan who was a player at all things, who took a casual approach to every aspect of life, including relationships with family and with the female sex.
Yet now he couldn’t see himself being so cavalier ever again. In the few short days he’d been away, the absence of a closer connection with his brothers had gnawed at his soul. He couldn’t let that continue. As for women—
There too, he’d probably been much too careless. He hoped fate wasn’t going to punish him for it now.
In any case, he’d climb onto the motorcycle the next day and see if he could achieve his other goal—finding some understanding of why the Indian had been left to him. His brothers had gained clarity about themselves and about Colin himself since their father’s death, while Knox only had more questions.
At the prospect of never having answers to them, a now-familiar dark weight settled over him again.
At the hostess desk, Erin stopped to inspect a large bowl of individually wrapped mints. Knox shoved his hands into his pockets just as cold, insect-like feet skittered across the back of his neck. He slapped a palm there and obeying some odd hunch turned, glancing around the bar area through which they’d just passed.
At the far end, striding through glass doors that led to a patio lit with twinkling lights and two fire pits, was a dark-coated figure with wide shoulders and a familiar shock of white hair.
Colin Brannigan.
Knox’s air left his lungs in a rush. His belly knotted, and then he was moving, striding toward those doors only partly aware that Erin was calling his name.
Fury flashed through him. How could Colin have lied to them? How could he have deceived the seven sons who had been shocked by his “death?”
A hand plucked at his sleeve, and he kept walking, his gaze trained on the exit that he’d seen his father walk through.
“Are you all right?” Erin asked.
“I have to do this,” he said, shoving through a glass door, then catching it at the last second so it wouldn’t shut in Erin’s face. But his gaze swept the patio and there—there—near the far fire pit, he spied Colin. His back to Knox, the man seemed to be chatting calmly with a party of several others, clearly unaware his seething sixth son was on his scent.
He stalked forward, his vision tunneling to that burly build and that distinctive hair of his father’s as both betrayal and gladness roiled in his belly.
Erin continued to speak, but he couldn’t hear her words over the thudding boom of his heart. Then he was behind Colin, close enough to touch him, and he was aware of the faces of the others seated around the flames lifting to look at him, their expressions puzzled.
Knox raised his hand to get his father’s attention, pausing when he noted how it trembled. Then a spike of fresh rage cleared away his hesitation. The man had let them believe he was dead.
“And you criticized me as a player,” he spit out, grasping Colin’s shoulder. “What kind of game is this, you son of a—”
As the man turned, Knox went speechless. He felt as if all his blood drained from his body as the other person got to his feet.
“Do I know you?” The stranger’s beetle brows came together over his hawkish nose.
Not Colin’s nose. Not Knox’s father’s face.
His mouth worked, and at first nothing came out. Then he swallowed. “Some trick of the light,” he managed to choke out. Some trick of the mind. “I mistook you for someone else.” Nausea filled his belly, and for a shameful second he thought he might heave on the man’s polished shoes.
Erin tucked her hand in the angle of Knox’s elbow. “We apologize for interrupting.” Her fingers squeezed his arm. “You’re sorry, right, honey?”
Her pretty features and pretty apology might help him save face.
“Yes. Sorry,” Knox said. Though his muscles felt stiff, he managed to signal to a passing server. “Another round of drinks for this table on me, please.”
“We’ll pay for it at the bar,” Erin added, with another squeeze. “Let’s go, honey. The babysitter awaits.”
Then she looked toward the guests at the table. “Triplets. We’re a little sleep-deprived.”
They left to understanding noises from the women in the group. Erin practically hauled Knox off the patio and then out of the restaurant after their brief stop to pay the tab.
He let himself be led to her car and folded into the passenger seat without a word. What was there to say?
One of her last memories of him would be of him making a fool of himself.
A lump of emotions he couldn’t separate sat like a weighty ball in his belly. Letting his head fall back to the seat cushion, he closed his eyes and breathed heavily, trying to settle himself.
Then the car stopped, and Erin was tugging at his arm. “Come inside. I’ll make you green tea. It will help.”
He owed her for the scene he’d just put her through, so green tea would be the price. As he exited her car, she watched him with big eyes. “It’s okay,” she said in a kind voice, as they walked toward the stairway leading to her front door. “We’ll talk.”
Talk? He shook his head. “For God’s sake, no.”
What he needed was distraction, he decided. Action. Something to focus on besides that ugly weight inside him that seemed to be growing by the second. His gaze caught on the door to the utility closet under the stairs and he halted. An idea took hold. “That last wall,” he said.
Frowning, she glanced at him. “What?”
“I have a last wall to paint in the locker rooms. I did some repair work and then primed it, but I didn’t get to the final coat.” He made his way to the door and stripped off his jacket to toss it on the ground.
“Not now,” Erin said, following at his heels and then grabbing up his discarded garment. “This isn’t the time. You’re wearing nice clothes.”
Instead of answering her, he flung open the door. The automatic light flipped on, illuminating mops and brooms, a few basic tools, and the painting implements and cans on shelves attached to the rear wall. “Who put that stuff back there?” he muttered.
“The cleaning people were in,” Erin said. “Come on, leave this. We’ll take care of the painting another time.”
“The time is now.” To get to what he wanted, he began yanking out buckets and mops and jugs of cleaning supplies.
“Knox, please.”
Her voice was a buzz in his ear as he continued clearing his way. His sleeve caught on a shelf and at the ripping sound he looked down and noticed a couple of tea
rs and then dirt and grease stains all over his new dress shirt.
No matter, he thought, and carried on with the task.
Finally, he had a two-gallon can tucked in one arm with a smaller one balanced on top. In his free hand he gripped a paint tray, with a scraper and an open utility knife rattling around at the bottom.
Crossing the threshold, he encountered Erin, her hands on her hips and an expression of exasperation on her face. “You can’t really mean to do this.”
“I really mean to do this,” he said, brushing past her.
Then his foot caught on the handle of a bucket and he tripped. The paint, the tray, and everything else tumbled from his hold as he struggled to remain upright.
“Are you okay?” Erin hurried forward as he regained his balance. “Let’s go upstairs. We’ll put it all away tomorrow.”
“No.” Suddenly infuriated by his own clumsiness and by that stupid moment when he’d mistaken a stranger for his father, Knox grabbed up the offending plastic bucket and threw it as far as he could, until it skittered along the asphalt where her students parked. His hand found a broom next, and he sent it sailing like a javelin in the same direction.
Erin’s eyes went wide. “Knox, stop.”
But stopping wasn’t an option. Instead he continued hurling item after item after item across the parking area, as anger rushed like fire through his blood and a sour metallic taste rose up his throat to coat his tongue. His fingers closed around another implement, and then a sharp, bright pain made him freeze.
Erin gasped. “You’re hurt.”
He glanced down to see he’d seized the blade of the utility knife and that blood was dripping down his hand to his wrist. More of it was spattered on his dirty shirt.
He shifted his gaze to Erin, and at her horrified expression all his riotous emotions quieted. Don’t scare her, he thought, locking himself down. For God’s sake, get control.
“I’m okay,” he assured her, his voice hoarse. Loosening his fingers one by one, he let the knife clatter to the ground. “It’s nothing. I’m okay.”
She came slowly toward him as he held his bleeding flesh to his soiled shirt. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, replaying the last few minutes in his head. What a beast. He hauled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry. Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid of you. I’d never be afraid of you.” Taking his uninjured hand in hers, she tried tugging him toward the stairs. “Let me look at that in the bathroom.”
“Erin…”
She tugged again. “This way.”
He complied, wanting to reassure her he hadn’t lost his mind. It was just…he couldn’t explain what had happened. For a few minutes, all the darkness surrounding him lately had taken over.
In the bathroom, he blinked under the light’s glare. She left him leaning against the countertop as she collected first aid supplies. “Do we need to go to the emergency room?”
He took his hand from his belly and inspected the shallow cuts. “No, it’s nothing.”
Without answering, Erin ran his hand under cold water. Then she delicately dried it before smearing each injury with ointment.
He glanced from his hand to his reflection in the mirror, startled by his dishevelment—his hair mussed and his clothing filthy. No wonder she’d stared at him with such wary eyes. Beast, indeed. “Hell,” he said in disgust. “I can’t bear to look at myself.”
Erin continued her ministrations, now applying elastic bandages. “Then why don’t you try taking a look at your grief instead?” she said, her voice as gentle as her touch.
His grief? His grief? While his brothers had been saddened upon learning of Colin’s death, he’d pretty much accepted it right away. It is what it is. Then later, yeah, the doldrums had come to visit, but that persistent gloom didn’t mean…
Grieving? Why would he have been grieving?
“I hadn’t seen him in months,” he said.
Instead of answering, Erin wound another bandage around another finger.
“I don’t know that he even liked me.” Knox shoved his free hand through his hair. “He certainly didn’t like my attitude.” You never take anything seriously!
“He was still your father.”
Knox recalled that gladness he’d felt when he thought for a moment he’d found Colin alive. “And I’m not sure I liked him,” he confessed. “He had his admirable qualities, sure, but…”
“You can grieve for what might have been, too, you know.”
You can grieve for what might have been.
God. Was grief that dreary presence that had been either bottled up inside him or hanging on his back for the last couple of months?
Grief. A natural, normal response to loss.
Just the idea that what he’d been experiencing was something so…ordinary, something to be expected, seemed to lighten the darkness. Maybe acknowledgment of it was the first step to managing the condition. He inhaled a long breath, testing the thought. For weeks he’d felt like something alien had come over him. Now it had a name. And understanding that he grieved for his father made him…made him feel like a better son.
On a wave of gratitude, he stared at Erin’s head, still bent over his hand. How had she known what plagued him when he’d been without a clue? “Baby,” he murmured.
She looked up, and he could barely breathe as another emotion rolled through him, filling his chest and filling his head, the emotion he’d come to recognize as love.
He cupped her face with his good hand and she turned her head to kiss his palm.
“Okay now?” she asked.
“Always okay with you.”
“Good.” She glanced away from his face to start unfastening the buttons on his shirt. “This grubby thing has got to go.”
Watching her carefully, he let her strip him of the offending garment. Then he stood half-naked before her, and his body reacted as a male body would react. Her gaze shifted lower, and he knew she noticed the heavy bulge in his pants.
“Purely biological,” he said, trying to inject a proper note of apology in his voice. “Your hands on me will do it.”
Silver eyes met his. “I like touching you.” Her palms stroked his bare chest, then moved lower to cup him over his pants.
Knox sucked in a sharp breath. “I like touching you, too.” And more of that warm euphoria surged through him as, in answer, she took up his uninjured hand and held it to her breast.
“Let’s go to bed, Knox.”
Chapter 11
Erin wondered if she should take back the offer. He’d been through so many moods tonight, and maybe it wasn’t fair to push him into something as personal, as intimate, as sex. But when a smile grew on Knox Brannigan’s handsome face and he took over to guide her out of the bathroom and toward the bedroom, she saw him for the experienced man he was.
Remember how he’d soothed her nerves and boosted her arousal by that game of “Tell Me” in his motel room?
The sharing of sexual gratification came easy for him. He didn’t attach undue importance upon it.
She was just another in a line of willing pleasure-partners.
Not that he was selfish at all—he gave with a generosity that communicated he deeply enjoyed a woman’s body—but she supposed they might be almost generic to him.
Lips, breasts, the curves and valleys, the softness and heat, all one and the same.
And that was fine, Erin told herself. Then she would be able to stay safe behind her own private gates. He wouldn’t reach any dangerous territory that would make her vulnerable to him. That could cause her pain.
Her bedroom was dimly lit by the small lamp atop her bedside table. She glanced about her room and blushed a little, thinking how it might appear to him. It wasn’t a room decorated with male guests in mind. Scarves hung from the edge of the big mirror over the dresser.
An old stuffed animal sat on the chair in the corner.
Gah. It made her feel about as young as the toddler w
ho’d flirted with him at the restaurant earlier. He caught the direction of her gaze and dropped her hand to cross to the toy. “Now what is this?” In his bandaged hand, he held up the bedraggled tan bear with its nearly shredded blue satin neck ribbon.
She tried for a semblance of dignity. “Something between a rite of passage and a badge of honor. Randy Gunderson won it for me at the autumn fair when I was thirteen years old. Deanne and Marissa were green with envy. And it really upped my standing in the seventh grade.”
He smiled at the bear then tossed it back on the chair. “I recall winning a stuffed animal for Tiffany Gilbert, but it was an overgrown snake. However, it got me to second base.”
Erin rolled her eyes. “I suppose that was also in seventh grade.”
He merely smiled, then sauntered to her again. “I don’t remember. And I don’t remember much about Tiffany, really. I know she was not as pretty as you.”
Erin’s pulse leaped as he stroked his thumb down her neck. She was supposed to be the same as Tiffany! Not prettier.
Lifting her hair away, he bent to trace his tongue along the rim of her ear. Fiery chills dashed away from the wet touch to run down her neck and along her arms.
“You can be so adorably girly, Erin,” he murmured. “I loved all that dancing you did this afternoon.”
Her hands clutched his taut sides as her knees weakened. “Ballet. Tap. Jazz. Years of classes.”
He pulled his head away to look down into her face. “What would it take to get you to show me that? Some of all of that?”
“No.” She cleared her throat. “You saw me lead a yoga class, isn’t that enough?”
“I had to stop watching,” he admitted, a wicked gleam in his dark eyes. “I was afraid I’d get too worked up and your seniors would have me arrested for lascivious imagining.”
She laughed, a little breathless. Then his mouth moved hotly on her neck. “Erin. God, what you do to me.”
No. What he did to her. Afraid she was about to become a puddle at his feet, she pulled away and turned to present her back. “Can you undo the zipper?” It was nearly impossible to reach.
“I could,” he said, “if you’d show me just one…what is it called? An arabesque?”
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