She winced at the flat accusation in Nathan’s tone, but it had the effect of stiffening her spine. “I’m glad,” she said. “He wouldn’t have been happy with me.”
“Because you were in love with me.” Nathan didn’t look as if he relished saying the words. He tossed them out as if he had to say them, had to confirm them in order to justify his presence here—and his proposal.
“I was twenty-one. A very innocent unworldly twenty-one,” she added with a grimace. “A very foolish twenty-one. I’ve grown up since. I thought I loved you. Now I know better.”
And if that wasn’t entirely honest, it was as close to honesty as she dared to get. She wasn’t about to admit that seeing him again had sent her heart somersaulting and that no one but Nathan had ever affected her that way.
It was hormones, she told herself sharply. Sheer animal attraction. Nothing more than a normal response to his male magnetism which, let’s face it, Nathan Wolfe still had in spades.
But it was absolutely true—what Carin had said about growing up and knowing better now. It hadn’t been love, only infatuation. She’d been enchanted by his dark good looks and his brooding intensity. Mostly she’d been swept away by his enthusiasm, his focus, his dreams and aspirations.
In her circumscribed world all the men she met were like her father—moneyed, high-powered men who ran business conglomerates and whose goal in life was to preserve the family millions and make more. There was certainly nothing wrong with those aspirations, as her father was only too willing to point out to her. His success at achieving them had, after all, paid for their Connecticut estate, their beach house on the cape, her very expensive private school education, and the art and music lessons she’d wanted to take.
Carin knew that. But it had still been refreshing to meet a man who didn’t care how many houses he had, who had dropped out of college in his sophomore year and had gone to work on a freighter. That had been the first of many odd jobs. He’d worked as a stringer for a magazine in the Far East, had taken photos on a Japanese fishing boat, had been a deck hand on a copra boat in the South Seas and had washed dishes in exchange for meals and a place to sleep in Chile.
She had listened, wide-eyed and enchanted, to Nathan’s tales of a world she had only dreamed about. And he had told her that that’s what his life’s dream was—to see the world, to experience it, not just read about it…or own it, he’d added disparagingly. He wanted his photos to make it real for people who could never go themselves.
To a young woman who had never had the courage to do what she really wanted to do—who hadn’t even known what she really wanted to do—Nathan Wolfe had been a hero.
For a week.
Now Carin said firmly, “Trust me, I don’t love you now. You don’t need to feel any belated compunction to marry me.”
“This isn’t just about you,” Nathan said sharply. “It’s about our daughter!”
“My daughter. I gave birth to her. I nursed her. I walked the floor with her. I patched up her cuts and bruises and sang her lullabies and read her stories.”
“And didn’t even tell me she existed!”
“You wouldn’t have cared!”
“The hell I wouldn’t.”
“You left!”
“And now I’m back!”
“Well, we don’t need you! So just go away again. Go off to Timbuktu or Nepal or Antarctica. Take your photos. Enjoy your freedom. It’s what you wanted!”
“Wanted,” he agreed. “Past tense. Like loved.”
“What do you mean?” she asked warily.
“I mean it’s not what I want now. And I’m not leaving.”
She stared at him. “Ever?”
“If that’s what it takes.” He had the look of his brother again. Hard and implacable. Determined to get his way.
“So you’re going to stay here,” she said conversationally. “Doing what, If you don’t mind my asking?”
“Being a father.”
It was the last thing she expected him to say—and it hit her right in the gut. She stared at him. “You?”
Kids had never figured in Nathan Wolfe’s universe. In the week they’d spent sharing dreams and hopes and plans, never once had he mentioned wanting a family.
His jaw tightened. “You don’t think I can be a good parent?”
“I’m surprised you want to.”
“Did you? Want to?”
The question caught her off guard. And the panic she’d felt when she’d discovered she was pregnant appeared unbidden in her mind. She banished it now as she had determinedly banished it all those years ago.
“I always wanted children,” she said defensively. “I love my daughter more than anyone on earth.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting our daughter.”
She wanted to say, Well, you’re not going to. She wanted to banish him from the island, from her—and Lacey’s—life. But she couldn’t, and she knew it. He was her daughter’s father, and ever since Dominic and Sierra had turned up, Lacey’s curiosity about him had been piqued. She’d studied his books avidly, asked a million questions, wondered whether she would ever get to meet him. And Carin had had to smile and act indifferent, as if it wouldn’t matter to her whether Nathan appeared or not.
“I’m sure she’ll be glad to meet you, too,” Carin said stiffly.
“Where is she?”
“Fishing.”
Nathan raised a brow. “Fishing?”
“Girls can fish, too.”
“I know that. I just didn’t think about it. I thought…school or something.”
“It’s July. No school in July. She went with her friend Lorenzo. He’s Thomas’s son.” Nathan knew Thomas. They were about the same age, and Thomas’s parents, Maurice and Estelle, were the caretakers of the Wolfes’ house. “They won’t be back until late.”
Not that late actually. Thomas brought his catch in before dinner every day. But Carin wasn’t having Nathan hanging around waiting, for the rest of the afternoon.
“I’ll just mosey on down to the pier then, shall I?”
“No! I mean…no.” She’d forgotten Nathan would know that unless a fisherman was going to be gone for several days—in which case he wouldn’t be taking a couple of kids—he’d be back in time to sell his catch to housewives looking for fresh fish for dinner. Carin wetted her lips. “You can’t just go. I need to talk to her first.”
“Come with me. We can talk to her together.”
“No. We can’t. I can’t. I have to keep my shop open.” And she didn’t want to show up on the quay with Nathan in tow. “Let me talk to her, Nathan. Let me prepare her first. Please.”
Nathan jammed his hands into the pockets of well-worn jeans. “Prepare her? How?”
“Tell her that you’re here. Have some consideration, Nathan. She thought as soon as you knew about her you’d come. You’ve known about her for months. You didn’t show up until today.”
“I had assignments. I had work. I didn’t want to come and leave again two days later.”
“Fine. Whatever. You did this on your timetable. Give me a chance now.”
“All right. You can have the rest of the day.”
“But—”
“How long does it take, Carin?” he said impatiently. “Just tell her I’m here. We’ll work it out from there.”
“We can’t—”
“Promise me you’ll tell her tonight. Or I’ll go down to the pier and tell her myself.”
“All right! Fine. I’ll talk to her. Tonight,” she added grudgingly when he lifted a brow, waiting.
“Do that.” He nodded. “And tell her I’ll come by tomorrow morning.”
She shrugged. “Come whenever you want. You obviously will anyway,” she muttered.
Nathan didn’t reply He just allowed her a ghost of a smile, then he turned and ambled toward the door. Opening it, he turned back. He leveled his blue eyes on her. “Don’t even think of running off.”
“As if I would!” she ex
claimed hotly.
A corner of his mouth twisted. “See you in the morning,” he promised.
To Carin it sounded more like a threat.
So she wouldn’t marry him.
Nathan wasn’t exactly surprised, since she hadn’t even bothered to tell him he was a father! Damn it to hell! He could still get furious just thinking about it! Did she think he wouldn’t care that he had a daughter? That he wouldn’t have wanted to know?
Even now he could recall the punched-in-the-gut feeling he’d experienced when Dominic had told him he’d met Carin again at Pelican Cay.
Nathan had done his best not to think about Carin Campbell—or the week they’d spent together—for years.
It had been an impossible situation right from the start—the two of them thrown together, more or less alone in the house on the island for an entire week. Nathan, taking a well-deserved vacation from six solid months of being in the field in South America, had shown up at the family house on the island, ready to do his bit as his brother’s best man the following Saturday, and had been astonished to find Carin, said brother’s quiet, sensitive, pretty fiancée, already there. She’d been sent down early to fulfil a residency requirement for their Bahamian marriage. She’d been there two weeks already—and she’d spent them, as far as Nathan could figure, worrying nonstop about her upcoming nuptials.
“What’s to worry about?” he’d asked cavalierly. As long as it was someone else getting married and not him, he hadn’t seen the problem.
But Carin had. Her cheeks had turned a deep-red as she’d admitted, “Your brother.”
“Dominic? What’s not to like about Dominic? He’s handsome, wealthy, powerful, smart.” Definitely the best catch of the Wolfe brothers, that was for sure.
“Yes, he is. All of the above,” Carin had said faintly. She had barely smiled, and he’d realized she was serious.
He should have realized then she was no match for Dominic. But Nathan had had no experience thinking like an unsophisticated, green girl. Relationships of any sort didn’t interest him. Sure, Dominic was hardheaded and used to having his own way, but he was kind, he was honorable, he was the best of men.
“That’s the trouble,” Carin said when he’d pointed that out. “I don’t know anything about men.”
“How the hell did you get engaged to him then?”
“Our fathers introduced us.”
He should have known. So Dominic was marrying to please their old man. And Nathan supposed Carin was marrying to please hers.
Even so, they had seemed well matched. Both had fathers who were high-powered businessmen, independent entrepreneurs who had used their brains and plenty of hard work to build multinational concerns. Both Dominic and Carin had grown up on the East Coast, had gone to the same sorts of preppy schools and Ivy League colleges, had the same sorts of friends.
And Nathan couldn’t imagine that his brother was indifferent to his bride-to-be.
Slender and fine-boned, with long long long blonde hair and wide sea-blue eyes, Carin was your basic, everyday, downright gorgeous female.
If Nathan had been interested in a woman of his own—which he wasn’t—he’d have felt a prick of envy at his brother’s lot.
But the last thing Nathan wanted was a wife—especially a wife who would tie him to a corporate lifestyle he had rejected. But Carin was the sort of wife who would suit Dominic to a T. She’d be a terrific accessory to his career and not bad on the home front, either.
So he’d said cheerfully, “You want to learn about men? You want to get to know Dominic? Hell, I’m just like Dominic—” perhaps a stretch of the truth there, but in a good cause “—just stick with me.”
He figured they’d have a good time that week. He would enjoy a little friendly platonic female companionship, would cement his role as favored brother-in-law in years to come, and at the same time he’d do Dominic a good turn.
After all, Dominic had gone to bat for him when Nathan had told their father he didn’t want to work for Wolfes’, that he wanted to be a photographer instead.
The old man had been downright furious. “What do you mean you don’t want to work for Wolfes’? It’s buttered your bread your whole life, you ungrateful whelp.”
Then Dominic had stepped in, pointing out that what Nathan wanted to do was no more than what Douglas had done when he’d built Wolfes’ in the first place—be his own man.
“He’s the most like you of any of us,” Dominic had said forcefully.
Not something Nathan cheerfully acknowledged. But it had stopped the old man. It had made him look thoughtful. And the next thing Nathan knew, his father had been beaming and shaking his hand.
“Chip off the old block,” he’d said, nodding his head. “Dominic’s right. You’ve got guts, my boy.” He’d fixed Nathan with a level blue gaze. “Fine. Go hop your freighter or thumb your way around the world, if that’s what you want. It will be hard and long, but it’s your choice.”
So Nathan owed Dominic. And showing his wife-to-be a good time and giving her a little confidence had seemed a small chore.
It hadn’t been a chore at all.
Carin had been eager to listen to his tales of far-off lands and to ask questions about all his experiences. Very few people, Nathan had discovered, listened as well as she did. He had thoroughly enjoyed basking in her worshipful gaze.
Every day they had gone swimming and snorkeling and sailing. And while they did, he had told her about his family—not only about Dominic, but about their youngest brother, Rhys, and their parents, their mother who had died when they were young, and their father who had been everything to them ever since.
“She taught us to care,” he said. “He taught us to be tough.”
And Carin had listened intently, taking it all in, nodding and watching him with those gorgeous blue eyes. He told her about the house on the beach out on Long Island where they’d grown up and about the holidays they’d spent here on Pelican Cay when he was a child.
“Dominic has a place in New York,” he’d explained. “But only because the offices are there. He isn’t as much of a city boy as you might think.”
“I don’t think he’s a boy at all.”
Well, no, he wasn’t. But Carin wasn’t a girl, either. She was a woman.
And Nathan knew it. The more time he spent with her, the greater his awareness of her had grown. His eyes traced the lines of her body. They lingered on her curves. At night it hadn’t seemed to matter how much exercise he got during the day, he couldn’t settle down, he couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t stop thinking about her.
She’s Dominic’s fiancée, he’d reminded himself over and over. And he tried to think about her with his brother, tried to imagine her in bed with Dominic. But his mind left out Dominic. It only saw Carin. He had fantasies about Carin in bed. And he and not Dominic had been the man in bed with her.
He should have taken off then. Should have started running and never looked back.
He hadn’t. He’d stayed. Of course he had stepped up his commentary about Dominic, telling her how his brother had defended his desire to take photos.
But then she’d asked to see them. And when he’d shown them to her, she’d been enchanted, eager to see more, eager to learn about what he looked for in shooting photographs.
And that was when he’d discovered she was an artist.
She’d been shy about admitting it. But when he’d shown her plenty of bad photos he’d taken, she’d relented and allowed him to see her paintings and sketches. They were lively, cheerful, bright, almost primitive paintings and detailed, very realistic sketches. He’d expected something amateurish. Instead she was enormously talented, and he’d told her so.
“What does Dominic think about your work?” he’d asked.
“He wouldn’t be interested,” she’d said with a shrug. “He only thinks about business.”
If he only thought about business when his eager, beautiful, talented fiancée was around, Dominic had rock
s in his head.
Nathan hadn’t been able to think about anything else.
In fact, whenever he’d thought about the perfect woman for him, Carin was it.
Not that he had said so. He hadn’t wanted to make her uncomfortable. Besides, there was no point. Nothing would happen, Nathan had assured himself, because he wouldn’t let it.
And possibly nothing would have—if it hadn’t been for that storm.
The day before Dominic and his father were to arrive, Nathan and Carin had gone for a walk after dinner along the pink sand beach. When they’d reached the rocks that jutted out into the sea, he’d held out a hand to help her up, and somehow he’d never let go.
He’d liked holding it, enjoyed running his thumb along the soft smooth flesh, relished the gentle grip she held on his fingers, as if she didn’t want to let go, either. It felt right holding her hand. And when they climbed down the other side, their fingers stayed laced together as if by mutual consent. Their hands had known what they were still unable to admit.
When they got back, Nathan remembered telling himself, he would let her go.
The storm had come up quickly, and they were soaked by the time they got back to the house. The wind was chilly, and Nathan had built a fire while Carin changed clothes. Then he’d gone to change his own clothes, expecting to meet her back in the living room and spend the last evening they had together before everyone else arrived lounging in front of the fire.
That’s what he’d thought until he’d gone to his room to change. He had stripped down to his shorts when he heard a tap on his bedroom door. “Yeah?”
The door had opened.
Carin had stood before him wearing a towel and a tentative smile. Nothing else. “All my stuff is in the wash and I forgot to put it in the dryer,” she confessed. “Do you have some jeans and a sweatshirt I could borrow.”
Nathan remembered dumbly nodding his head. He didn’t remember saying anything. He didn’t think he could have. He’d seen Carin in a bathing suit, of course. He knew—had memorized—those slender enticing curves.
But it was different seeing her wrapped in a towel. It was different knowing that she had nothing on underneath. He remembered the feel of her soft fingers. He wanted to touch the rest of her. His body responded even as his mind tried to resist.
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