Nathan's Child

by Anne McAllister

  Now Carin took a careful, steadying breath and let it out slowly.

  “Well, he’s here now,” she said with far more calm than she felt as she smoothed the light cotton blanket over Lacey, then bent to give her daughter a kiss. “So you can enjoy getting to know him.”

  “I will,” Lacey vowed, and settled back against the pillows again.

  On a normal night, once Lacey had gone to sleep, Carin would have finished up her bookwork from the store, then made herself a cup of tea and taken it out on the porch to sit in the swing and unwind from the day.

  Tonight she couldn’t settle. She tried to do her bookwork and couldn’t concentrate. She made a cup of tea and couldn’t sit still to drink it. She paced around the house, picking things up and setting them back down again.

  Finally she went outside and flung herself down on the swing, grabbed her sketchbook and tried to funnel some of her restless energy into ideas for her work. But all her drawings became sharp-featured, dark-haired men, and she ripped them out of the sketchbook, crumpled them up and tossed them aside, wishing it were as easy to get rid of Nathan.

  A creaking noise at the gate made her look up. A pair of yellow eyes glinted in the darkness. “Ah, Zeno,” she said as the gate was nosed further open. “Come here, boy.”

  A dark shape shambled toward the porch. He was a little taller than an Irish setter, a little wirier than a terrier, a little more spotted than a dalmatian, a little less mellow than a golden retriever. He had turned up one day, full-grown, and no one knew which visiting boat he’d come off.

  Her friend Hugh McGillivray, who ran Fly Guy, the island transport company, had begun calling him Heinz because he was at least fifty-seven varieties of dog. But Lacey had named him Zeno because he had appeared on their doorstep about the same time Nathan’s book, Solo, had come out.

  “He looks nothing like a wolf,” Carin had protested.

  “Looks aren’t everything. Are they, Zeno?” Lacey had said stubbornly, hugging the gangly animal who had grinned and furiously wagged his tail.

  “He’s not ours to name.” Their house wasn’t close to big enough for a dog the size of a wolfhound.

  “He’s nobody else’s,” Lacey rejoined practically. “Not unless someone comes back for him. Besides,” she added, apparently deciding that an outside dog was better than no dog at all, “he doesn’t have to come in. He can just come around.”

  Which was pretty much what he did. Zeno the dog seemed to have no more interest in settling in any one place than Zeno the wolf had. He moved from place to place, from house to house—life was a movable feast for Zeno—and pretty soon everyone on the island knew him, fed him and called him by the name Lacey had given him. Mostly he divided his time between their place and Hugh’s, because Hugh had a mostly border collie called Belle who had apparently caught Zeno’s eye.

  Tonight, though, Belle must have had other plans as Zeno was looking hopefully at Carin. She scratched his ears and rubbed under his chin. It was soothing, petting the dog. It calmed her, centered her, slowed her down.

  “Thanks for coming,” she told him with a wry smile.

  Zeno grinned. His tail thumped on the porch. He looked toward the door. Carin knew what he wanted.

  “It’s late,” she told him. “You must have eaten. Didn’t Hugh feed you? What about Lorenzo?”

  But Zeno cocked his head and whined a denial.

  Carin sighed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. Let me see what we’ve got.” Giving his ears one last scratch, she went inside to check the refrigerator. She found leftover peas and rice from dinner plus a bit of the fish Lacey had caught. Carin crumbled it into a bowl, carried it back through the living room and started to push open the screen door.

  “Here, Zee—”

  Nathan was on the porch.

  So much for calm and settled. Carin’s fingers automatically clenched the bowl in her hand. Instead of going out, she let the screen bang shut between them. “What are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “Yes, we do. Invite me in or come out here.”

  Zeno, whining at the sight of the bowl, offered his opinion.

  Nathan reached for the door handle.

  Carin beat him to it. “Fine. We’ll talk out here.” She yanked the door open and stalked past him onto the porch. Zeno pushed between them, his eyes fixed on the bowl, his tail thumping madly.

  Nathan reached down and absently scratched his head. “Who’s this?”

  “A dog.”

  “No? Really? I’d never have guessed.” Sarcasm dripped. “What’s his name?”

  Carin didn’t want to say, knowing full well what he’d think. But if she didn’t, Lacey undoubtedly would. “Zeno,” she said defiantly. “Lacey’s choice.”

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “Somehow I didn’t imagine it was yours.”

  “He turned up about the same time your book did.” She put the bowl down so that Zeno would have to stay between them to eat. Then she straightened up again, wrapping her arms across her breasts as if they could protect her.

  “I was surprised Lacey had read my books.”

  Carin shrugged. “She was curious.”

  “About them or about me?”

  “About what you did. Your job.” She turned away from him and stared out into the darkness. Down the hill she could hear the faint sounds of steel drum music coming from the Grouper Bar and Café. The night breeze, which normally she looked forward to, seemed chilly now, and Carin rubbed her bare arms to ward off goose bumps.

  “She seems interested,” Nathan said after a moment.

  “I guess.” She still didn’t look his way, but she didn’t need to in order to know he was there, right on the other side of Zeno. It was almost magnetic, the pull he had over her. She’d never felt that way about any other man. She didn’t want to feel that way about this one. Didn’t want to fall under his spell again.

  “What do you desperately need to talk to me about?” she said when he didn’t speak.

  “Lacey. Fishing. This parenting bit. How we’re going to handle it.”

  “I handle this ‘parenting bit’ just fine, thank you.”

  “Good for you. But you’re not handling it alone anymore. There are two of us now. And you’re going to have to remember that. We need to present a united front. We don’t argue in front of our daughter.”

  “Don’t tell me how to parent!”

  “I backed you up tonight.”

  “I said thank you.”

  “And I’ll expect the same from you when I tell her something.”

  “If I agree with you, I will.”

  “Whether you agree or not,” Nathan said evenly.

  “No way! If you think you can just waltz in here and take over and expect me to back you up—”

  Nathan lifted a brow. “Like you took over and never even told me we had a child?”

  “You wouldn’t have wanted—”

  “You didn’t let me decide what I wanted!”

  “So I’m the bad guy in this? I’m the one everybody blames?” Carin said bitterly.

  First Lacey, now Nathan. As if she’d taken on single parenthood for thirteen years to spite them both.

  “You’re not the bad guy, Carin,” Nathan said gruffly. “I’m sure you did what you thought was the right thing at the time.”

  She snorted. “Thank you very much for the vote of confidence.”

  “Jesus, what is it with you? I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt!”

  “Don’t bother.”

  He drew a breath, then let it out and sighed. “Look, Carin. I didn’t come here tonight to fight with you. And I didn’t come to Pelican Cay to make your life miserable. I came because my daughter’s here.”

  If Carin had ever dared hope he’d come back for her, she knew now that she’d hoped in vain. It was only Lacey he’d come for.

  She swallowed the hurt, told herself it didn’t matter, tha
t she wasn’t surprised. Which she wasn’t.

  “And you’re determined to do your duty by her.” Her tone was mocking. She couldn’t help it.

  “Yes, damn it, I am.”

  “Bloody noble of you. And unnecessary. We don’t need you.”

  “Lacey does. She said so.”

  Hell. Oh, hell.

  “Well, I don’t need you. And I don’t want you!”

  “Don’t you?”

  His quiet challenge made her glare at him in fury. “What are you saying?”

  “That once upon a time, you damned well wanted me!” And he stepped around Zeno, who never even looked up as Nathan hauled her into his arms and kissed her.

  It was a kiss to remember—a kiss so like the passionate kisses they’d shared so long ago that it was as if all the years between vanished in an instant. As Nathan’s hot mouth pressed hers, persuaded hers, opened hers, Carin’s mind fought the surge of desire, the onslaught of memory. But her body did not.

  Her body wanted it—wanted him.

  For years she’d told herself she had imagined the hunger in the kisses they’d shared. For years she’d almost believed it.

  But it wasn’t true. She hadn’t exaggerated. This kiss was as fierce and possessive and hungry as his long-ago kisses had been. And it touched that same chord deep inside her, and she responded. Desire and need and hunger and passion all resonated, reverberated, began to grow.

  Blood pounded through her veins, her heart hammered against the wall of her chest. And against her will, against her better judgment, against everything she had been telling herself for years, she opened to him. Her lips parted, savored, welcomed.

  And then, heaven help her, she was kissing him back.

  Nathan groaned. “Yesss.” The word hissed between his teeth, and he wrapped his arms around her more tightly and pressed his hard body against hers. And far from frightening her away, the pressure of his arousal incited and encouraged her own. Her own hunger, unsatisfied for so long and now awakened, was ravenous. She deepened the kiss, couldn’t stop herself, needed it, needed him!

  And then quite suddenly, Nathan wrenched himself away.

  Carin stared at him, stunned, the night breeze cold on her burning flesh.

  “There,” he said raggedly, “I’d say that pretty much proves it.” His breathing came quick and harsh. The skin over his cheekbones was flushed and taut.

  Dazed, Carin shook her head. “Proves what?” She ached, abandoned and bereft.

  “I said you wanted me once, Carin. You still do. We’ll start from there.”

  “So,” the gruff voice on his cell phone said the minute Nathan answered it. “When’s the wedding?”

  “Dad?”

  Douglas Wolfe was the last person Nathan expected to hear when he’d grabbed the phone off the bedside table. And yet, the moment he heard his father’s unmistakable baritone, he didn’t know why he was surprised.

  Just because the old man had never rung him on his cell phone before—and as far as Nathan had known, didn’t even have his number—didn’t mean that Douglas wouldn’t have it and use it when he chose to.

  “Of course it’s me. Who were you expecting?” Douglas gave a huff of impatient indignation. “So, did you set the date?”

  How his father even knew he’d proposed was a mystery to Nathan. But Douglas Wolfe hadn’t run an internationally respected company for thirty years by being unaware. He had tentacles everywhere.

  “The old man’s an octopus,” Dominic had once said, a note of respect and awe in his voice.

  Nathan hadn’t given a damn then about his father’s far-reaching tentacles; they’d had nothing to do with him. Now they did. He raked a hand through his hair, wondering if the old man had the house bugged or if he could just read minds.

  If so, he ought to try reading Carin’s.

  “No,” Nathan said flatly. “We didn’t set a date.”

  “Why the hell not? You dallied around a whole year just getting down there.”

  “I had obligations.”

  “You have a daughter!”

  “I know that,” Nathan said roughly. “And I didn’t want to come and have to leave again right away. I took care of my responsibilities elsewhere, and now I’m here. I spent this evening with my daughter.”

  “Ah, you met her? Isn’t she a peach?” Douglas’s whole tone changed, and Nathan could hear his father’s obvious delight. “Pretty as a picture. Reminds me of your mother.”

  There was just a hint of wistfulness in his father’s tone as the older man recalled Nathan’s mother who had been the love of his life. “Beth would have loved her,” Douglas said. “She’s smart as a whip, too, that girl. Got a good head on her shoulders. Polite, too. Wrote me a thank-you letter after I, er, stopped to see her in the spring.” He said that rather quickly, as if he wasn’t sure he ought to be admitting to having visited his granddaughter.

  “She showed me the camera you gave her,” Nathan said so his father would know he was aware of the visit. “Thanks.”

  “Made sense to give her one,” Douglas said briskly. “She was interested.”

  “She’s taken some pretty nice shots.”

  “Figured she might. Reckon she comes by it naturally, what with you being a photographer and her mother an artist.” Douglas paused again. “That Carin’s got talent.”

  “Yes.”

  Douglas waited for him to amplify. He didn’t.

  Finally, impatiently, Douglas demanded, “So when are you going to set the date? Dominic will need to know in order to set aside some time, and Rhys will have to apply for leave.”

  “Sorry. Can’t help you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? By God, boy, she had your child. I don’t care if thirteen years has gone by, Lacey is a Wolfe!”

  “I know that!”

  “Well then, do your duty and ask—”

  “I asked.” The words hissed through Nathan’s teeth. “She said no.”

  The sputterings of disbelief on the other end of the line should have been comforting. Dominic, Nathan was sure, would have been heartened to know the old man was on his side. And even their younger brother, Rhys, wouldn’t have seen Douglas’s meddling as a liability.

  Only Nathan had consistently turned his back on their father’s commands. He hadn’t finished college. He hadn’t gone into the family business. He hadn’t shown any interest in any of the girls Douglas had wanted him to date. Instead he’d taken his camera and left. He’d made his own way in the world ever since.

  It had been a point of pride to do things his own way.

  And in the old days he would have taken Douglas’s demand that he marry Carin as reason enough to pack his bags and head for the hills. Even now Nathan found that the instinct ran deep.

  But for once, unfortunately, he agreed with his father’s assessment of the situation. He was Lacey’s father and he wanted to be part of her life. More than a peripheral part.

  Easier said than done.

  “She said no?” Douglas was still sputtering. “I’ll talk to her,” he said.

  As if that would help. Nathan was almost tempted to say, Be my guest.

  He could just imagine how Carin would react to Douglas’s corporate power tactics. She’d run from them once already when she’d jilted Dominic.

  There was nothing to stop her running again.

  But having seen her today, Nathan didn’t think she’d run this time. The Carin Campbell he’d met today wasn’t merely older, she was stronger. She wasn’t a girl anymore. She was a woman. There was a resilience and a determination in the grown-up Carin that she’d lacked all those years ago. She had no trouble speaking her mind now.

  He had no doubt she’d speak it to Douglas if he attempted to interfere, too. And Nathan didn’t need any more complications than he already had.

  “You stay out of this,” he told his father.

  “I’m only trying to help.” Douglas sounded aggrieved.

  “Fine. Then don’
t meddle. Leave us alone.”

  “Left you alone for a year.”

  Nathan ground his teeth. “And you’ll keep on doing it now. Trust me, Dad, you sticking your oar in won’t help at all.”

  “She likes me. Said so. Said it was good for Lacey to know me. Told me I could come and visit anytime. I could just sort of drop in and—”

  “No!” Nathan said sharply. He drew a steadying breath. “No,” he said again, more moderately. “Thank you. I appreciate the support, but I’ll handle it.”

  Douglas didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he sighed. “I damned well hope so.”

  To be honest, Nathan did, too.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WEDNESDAYS were Carin’s day to paint.

  Last month she had promised Stacia, her agent, a dozen more paintings for the show Stacia had got her in New York City right before school started. That meant a lot of hard work.

  So every Wednesday Fiona Dunbar did behind-the-counter duty while Carin stayed home and painted.

  But that wasn’t going to happen today.

  Fiona had arrived, of course, bright and early to pick up the cash box and anything else Carin wanted to send to the shop. She was standing in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee and talking animatedly about the collection of flotsam and jetsam she was going to use for her next big sculpture, when Carin heard a noise on the porch and turned to see Nathan at the screen door.

  This morning he wore a pair of faded denim jeans and a chambray shirt with the tails flapping. His sunglasses were parked on top of his thick, tousled hair, and Carin thought he looked like an ad for RayBans, gorgeous as ever and well rested to boot.

  Clearly he hadn’t tossed and turned all night. The kiss that had kept her awake for hours obviously hadn’t affected him!

  But then, it wouldn’t, would it? He didn’t love her.

  Well, damn it, she didn’t love him, either, Carin vowed. Not anymore. She steeled herself against reacting to him now.

  Fiona had no such compunction. Always a connoisseur of male beauty, Fiona gave Nathan an appreciative once-over and murmured, “Well now, where’d you find him?”