Father Figure

by Rebecca Daniels

  “Sixteen years this fall,” Jill announced proudly. She tapped her tummy again. “This one’s number five. How about you?”

  Marissa’s gaze flicked momentarily to Dylan. “About three hundred,” she said with a laugh. “I’m the principal at Sutter High.”

  “Kimberly mentioned that. My oldest son’s a student there.” She stopped, grimacing a little. “He ran into some problems with grades at Jackson High. But he’s doing better now at Sutter, so I’m delighted you’re there. You always were great with kids.” She turned to Dylan. “When my brother Kevin was little, he used to be such a pain in the neck—a real handful, you know?” She put her arm around Marissa, giving her a squeeze. “But Marissa…she knew just what to do, really knew how to handle him. I swear she had him wrapped right around her little finger.”

  “Is that right?” Dylan murmured, looking down at Marissa. He remembered Kim telling him the same story, and wondered just how many other men there were in her past still wrapped around that little finger of hers.

  “How is Kevin?” Marissa asked quickly, turning away from Dylan’s gaze. “What’s he doing now?”

  “Actually, he just got married a few months ago,” Jill said, reaching back and pulling her stuffed grocery cart closer. “He and his wife are expecting, too-their first, though. They live in Sacramento. He’s a doctor now, can you believe it?”

  “Wow,” Marissa said with a laugh, trying to picture the disheveled little boy she used to know in a white coat and stethoscope. “Boy, do I feel old.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t feel bad,” she laughed, glancing up at Dylan. “I still call him my baby brother.” Her smile faded. “I heard about your brother and his wife. I’m really sorry. That must have been terrible.”

  “Yeah, it was, especially for Josh,” Marissa said, patting Jill’s hand. She was sometimes skeptical of people’s concerns, thinking that they used it as an excuse to gossip about Josh’s trouble, but it was easy to see that Jill’s concerns were heartfelt.

  “Kim also said he’s living with you now.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “Well, teenagers can be a real challenge,” she said, giving her a sympathetic pat on the arm. “Believe me, I know. I’ve got two of them.”

  Jill went on to tell Marissa about her children, and the half-finished nursery she was redecorating, and the changes at the deli Dom now ran after his parents retired several years ago. Marissa listened with interest, caught up in Jill’s amusing wit and easy, relaxed manner. As she looked into Jill’s lively face, she couldn’t suppress a small pang of regret. She remembered what it was she’d always liked about Jill, and why they’d become such good friends. There wasn’t a pretentious bone in the woman’s body, she was what she appeared to be—an open, honest and sincere individual.

  Marissa almost regretted that she hadn’t kept in touch with Jill and her other friends over the years, but she’d told herself it had all been for the best. Her child was going to be raised in Jackson, and she didn’t dare do anything that might make anyone suspect the truth about his birth. Still, she remembered how lonely she had been. She’d known no one in Maryland, and as good as her Aunt Bea had been to her, it hadn’t been the same. She’d missed Mallory that first year, until she’d finished high school and they’d gone to the University of Maryland together, and of course she’d missed the rest of her family terribly. But despite all the awful things he had said to her, she’d missed Dylan most of all.

  She kept her attention on Jill, but there wasn’t a moment that passed that she wasn’t aware of him standing at her side. She could literally feel his presence, just as if he were touching her—but of course, he wasn’t. He simply stood close, listening to Jill, making a comment here and there, and nodding his head from time to time.

  Marissa couldn’t help wondering if Jill found it odd to find the two of them together. She had never told anyone about her love for Dylan—not even her best friend. Only Mallory knew about that, and only Mallory had known how she’d traded identities, how she’d let Dylan believe he was seeing Mallory instead of her. But there had been talk once Dylan had discovered the truth, there had been teasing, and joking, and gossip about the “trick” she’d played on him.

  Did Jill remember all those old rumors? Would seeing her and Dylan together cause her to draw the wrong conclusions, make the wrong assumptions? Would the gossip start and the old rumors begin to fly again?

  Marissa watched as Jill chattered on. If she found it unusual to find Dylan with her, if she was the least bit curious, it didn’t seem to show.

  The truth could be a terrible thing, she reminded herself as she laughed at Jill’s account of her four-year-old’s latest antics. It could be a heavy burden, and it could sometimes make her see things that simply weren’t there.

  She’d been so absorbed in her thoughts, and with listening to Jill, that she hadn’t even been aware that the line had moved. It wasn’t until Dylan had reached around her and hoisted the milk carton onto the counter that she realized they’d made it to the clerk.

  “Well,” Jill said in a conspiratorial voice, glancing back at the people standing in line behind them, “I’d better get back to my spot in line before there’s a minor riot here.” She turned and gave Marissa a quick hug. “This has been so great. Could we get together sometime? For dinner, maybe? I know Dom would love to see you.”

  “I’d really like that, too,” she said, feeling Dylan’s hand at her elbow. She gave Jill a wave. “And I want to meet all your kids.”

  She let him lead her out the door and into the parking lot. He held the door for her as she climbed into the passenger side of his Jeep, and she watched as he walked around to the other side.

  “Oh, wait,” she said suddenly as he climbed into the seat beside her. She reached for the handle of her door. “I forgot to pay for the milk.”

  He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “It’s okay. I took care of it.”

  “What?” she gasped. “You paid for my milk?”

  “Well, I couldn’t very well let you walk out of there without paying, could I?”

  “Well, no,” she replied, confused. “But—”

  It had grown quite dark, and the only light inside the Jeep came from the small sign in the market’s window. Her pale hair reflected the faint rays, and her eyes sparkled large and clear. She looked beautiful in the dim light, her lips full and inviting, and he felt a twist of emotion in his chest—an almost painful spasm tightening around his heart. For a crazy moment he wanted to reach across the seat and pull her to him, wanted to press his mouth against hers and kiss her long and deep.

  His hold on her arm tightened, and he leaned close. “And how would it look if the sheriff had to arrest the principal?”

  Chapter 7

  Marissa felt her world skitter to a stop. She watched in a kind of daze as Dylan leaned across the seat, pulling on her arm and bringing her close. She felt the strain of the seat belt pressing hard against her chest, felt the throb of her heart pulse thick in her throat and the pant of his breath against her cheek. He was going to kiss her. There was nothing sudden or unexpected in his moves, nothing questionable or unclear. He’d made his intentions clear, given her plenty of time to consider. He was going to kiss her, and she wasn’t doing anything to stop him.

  He didn’t caress her lips, didn’t brush or lightly graze against them. He pushed his mouth to hers, determined and decided, pressing her lips apart, and allowing his tongue to plunge deep. It wasn’t the kiss she’d expected, and she wasn’t reacting as she thought she would. It was far from a first kiss, far from a staid, inquiring introduction. It was the kiss of a lover, the kiss of a man hungry for a woman, and who would tolerate nothing getting in his way.

  Dylan felt the air in his lungs grow hot and humid. It had been years since she’d been his, years since she’d whispered his name and yearned for his touch. He had pushed her away, had told himself he hated her and would never forgive what she had done. He had gone on—to
other women and other relationships. He’d done his best to put her out of his heart and out of his mind.

  But with her lips against his, with her taste shooting through his system like a high-speed chase, he realized a part of him had never let go, a part of him had never stopped thinking of her as belonging to him.

  Marissa parted her lips, welcoming the invasion of his tongue and feeling her breath stop and her heart thunder in her ears. It wasn’t the fact that he was kissing her she found surprising. It was discovering just how much she wanted him to. There had been other men in her life since he’d been her lover—other men who had kissed her, and who had wanted her. But this man was different, and his kiss was different, too.

  This was Dylan—her Dylan—the father of her child, the man she had loved. Years had passed, emotions had come and gone, but this was what she wanted, this was where she was supposed to be.

  The kiss deepened. Somehow her hand had found the front of his shirt, and she clutched at the smooth khaki uniform. His hand had found her cheek, sliding to the back of her neck and burying itself deep in her hair.

  Marissa wasn’t sure if it had been him who had intensified things, or her, and she was swiftly approaching that point where it no longer mattered. All she knew was that there was a magic in his touch—a magic she had been without for far too long, a magic she didn’t think she could live without another moment.

  He pulled his mouth away, staring into her smoky blue eyes and hearing the soft groan that escaped her parted lips reverberate through his entire system. His breath came in labored, rasping gasps, and the hand in her hair flexed and caressed. It had been sixteen years since they’d been together, but he remembered with uncanny clarity the sounds she had made when they had made love, when he’d buried himself deep inside her and sent them both spinning out of control. He longed to hear those sounds again, longed to return with her to that special place they had found together. He wanted to recapture magic, wanted to find the happiness he had shared with her. It had been so long since he’d been happy—so very long.

  Marissa saw the desire etched on his face, felt the wild beat of his heart beneath the palm of her hand. This couldn’t be happening—it shouldn’t be. It was crazy, dangerous, and it made no sense. She couldn’t let him hurt her again, couldn’t risk letting herself start to feel again. There was too much history between them, too much water under the bridge, too much that had gone wrong.

  And yet none of that seemed to matter—the past, the present. Nothing seemed to matter in the face of the passion that arced between them. It was powerful and potent, born of too many years spent alone, and too many nights without the man she wanted.

  Dylan stared into her eyes, watching as they cleared and focused, as the world took shape in them again. He had wanted to kiss her—had wanted to since that moment in her office. It was what had him camping out in front of her house, what had him drumming up lame excuses, and seeking opportunities. He’d wanted to kiss her, and everything in him that was a man told him she’d wanted to kiss him, too.

  “Don’t forget to call.”

  They both jumped violently as Jill wrapped on the window and waved as she walked to her car.

  Dylan pulled away, sliding back into the driver’s seat and starting the engine as Marissa gave Jill a meek smile and a small wave.

  They drove the few blocks back to her condo in silence. Marissa was too absorbed in her own thoughts, too preoccupied by the inner turmoil of her trembling emotions, to have time to be awkward or uncomfortable.

  Dylan made a U-turn in the street, pulling to a stop at the curb in front of her house. He stepped out on to the pavement, and walked quickly around the Jeep, but Marissa had already gotten out by the time he reached her door.

  The summer night was warm and clear, and the hint of a breeze that blew down from the foothills lazily stirred the limbs of the huge scrub oaks that lined the quiet street. The light on her porch glowed pale and bleak in the darkness, and from the bedroom above, she could hear the faint sounds of Josh’s stereo.

  “I need to pay you for the milk,” she said, juggling the milk carton to one side and fumbling with her purse.

  “No,” he said, putting a hand out to stop her.

  She froze at his touch and looked up at him. The porch light cast his face into shadow, but she didn’t need to see his gaze to feel it on her. “Oh, but I—”

  “Maybe we should talk about what happened,” he said, the hand on her arm sliding to her elbow.

  “I…I don’t know what to say.” She took a deep breath. “This all seems a little…crazy.”

  “Crazy good?” he asked, slipping his other hand around her. “Or crazy crazy?”

  She smiled a little, shaking her head. “That’s what’s so crazy. I don’t know what happened back there.”

  “That’s interesting, I thought what happened was pretty clear. Maybe I was mistaken.”

  Marissa dropped her gaze, and the smile faded. He was right, of course. And it would be ridiculous to try to deny it. After all, they were hardly kids anymore. She shook her head. “No.”

  The concession pleased him, and a slow smile broke across his lips. “Any suggestions as to where we should go from here?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted honestly. “But maybe we need to give it a rest. I mean…I need time to think.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. It wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted. He would have preferred something more along the lines of her dragging him by the arm into her bed, but it would do. He could be patient, if she wanted—for a while. He pulled her close, crushing her purse and the carton of milk between them. “And while you’re at it, think about this, too.”

  His mouth settled on hers with the same assurance, the same determination, that it had before, and Marissa found herself wanting nothing more than to yield to its silent demands. And when he let her go, she stood there on the curb in a crazy kind of stupor, watching as he walked back around the Jeep and climbed inside. It wasn’t until he’d started the engine and sped off down the street that she finally turned and started back toward her door.

  She glanced down at the milk in her arms, feeling a little dazed and shell-shocked. What the hell had happened to her? She’d left the house for a simple carton of milk. She hadn’t even been gone a half hour, and yet it felt as though her whole world had changed.

  She walked slowly to the porch, fishing her house keys out from the bottom of her purse. She glanced up at the light in the bedroom window above. Josh’s room. Once again Dylan James had stepped into her life and changed everything. Only she wasn’t some love-struck teenager any longer, and she wasn’t about to make the same mistakes twice. After all, she didn’t just have herself to look out for—she had Josh to think of now, too.

  She unlocked the door and stepped inside, tossing her purse and her keys down on the table in the entry. She needed time to think, time to try to figure out just what it was she was doing. She couldn’t afford any mistakes this time—not this time. There was too much at stake. She wasn’t worried about a broken heart, she was worried about Josh—her son.

  Their son.

  “He wants me where?” Dylan asked again, pouring the last of the coffee into his mug. The morning staff meeting had just broken up, and except for Kim and himself, the small break room was empty.

  “In his chambers,” Kim said again, perusing through the large pink box in the center of the table. Finding a creamfilled éclair, she lifted it out of the carton and plopped it down on the napkin in front of her. “Around twelvethirty.”

  Dylan brought the cup to his lips, gingerly taking a sip. The coffee was hot but tasted particularly bad. He swallowed, making a face, and examined the contents of the cup more closely.

  “Jeez, what are they trying to do with this stuff? Poison someone?” he muttered, tossing the coffee into the sink and down the drain. “Did Judge Kent say what it was about?”

  “Nope,” Kim said, shaking her head. Taking a bite of the donut,
she licked her fingers. “Just that he expected you to be there.”

  Dylan reached for the tea bags in the cupboard above the sink, slipping one out of the paper package and dropping it into his cup. There was only one thing Kent would want to see him about—it had to be the progress report he’d sent over to the courthouse five days ago. But the summary had been straightforward and thorough, what could there be about it that would cause Kent to summon him to the courthouse? If he had questions, couldn’t they handle them over the phone?

  Dylan shook his head, filling his cup with tap water and placing it and the tea bag into the microwave. He liked Randolf Kent, but couldn’t help being just a little annoyed. He did have a job to do. After all, he was the county sheriff and there were appointments to keep and duties to perform. Dropping everything on a moment’s notice wasn’t always easy to do—even at the request of a superior court judge.

  “Heard you were out shopping the other night.”

  Dylan set the timer on the microwave and turned back to Kim. “What do you mean?”

  “My sister—Jill. She said she met you the other night at the market.”

  Dylan clenched his jaw tight. “Yeah.”

  “She…also said you weren’t alone,” she said, popping a piece of éclair into her mouth and chewing.

  The microwave beeped behind him, and Dylan turned around and retrieved his mug from inside. The tea was steeped, and steamed in the cup strong and potent. He’d wondered how long it was going to take before Kim brought it up. He’d known it would be just a matter of time, and frankly, he was surprised it had taken as long as it had. It had been nearly a week since that night at the market, and it had been six long days since he’d seen Marissa, as well.

  He pulled the tea bag from the cup, dropping it into the trash can and turned back to Kim. “No, I wasn’t.”

  Kimberly looked at him, waiting. “Well?”