by Helen Lacey
Fiona poured herself a cup of coffee, took a long drink and waited for the caffeine to kick in.
It didn’t help much. With Wyatt asleep down the hall, her body aching in places she’d forgotten could ache and her mind reeling with the knowledge she had fallen in love with a man she hardly knew, Fiona needed more than a double espresso to calm her nerves.
She pushed the coffee aside and sat down.
So, think. Think hard. And think quickly. Because he’s not going to stay asleep forever. And I’ll have to talk to him.
But think what? That it was a onetime thing? A quick roll in the hay? Physical attraction gone wild. A one-night stand?
Ouch.
Fiona didn’t do one-nighters. Ever. She’d seen firsthand the damage indiscriminate sex could cause. Shayne’s example was burned into her memory bank. Her head felt as if it would explode when she considered the enormity of what she’d done. Some good example I am for my daughter.
She didn’t want Cecily to think she was...what? A flake like Shayne? She’d told Wyatt she didn’t want her daughter to think she was easy. But it was more than that. She’d missed out on fourteen years. Years where Cecily had managed quite effectively without her. Years where she’d had near-perfect parents. And a perfect mother.
She couldn’t compete with that. She didn’t want to be Karen Todd. She could only be herself. More importantly, a version of herself whom Cecily could respect. Fiona had to show her daughter she was reliable, dependable...worthy.
And a one-night stand with Wyatt didn’t make her fit into that category.
Despite Cecily’s eagerness to get them together, Fiona knew it was a fantasy. He’d be gone in two weeks and Cecily would be gone with him. Of course, she’d still see her daughter during school breaks. But for Wyatt...it would be a holiday fling at best. Casual, noncommitted sex between two people attracted to one another. In other circumstances she might have been okay with that. She might have accepted whatever she could have of Wyatt even if only for a short time. But not with Cecily stuck in the middle.
When she heard the shower hiss a few moments later, she got to her feet, pulled out the makings of breakfast from the refrigerator and grabbed a fresh mug. Ten minutes later Wyatt walked into the kitchen. Jeans unbuttoned at the fly, bare chest, bare feet, hair damp and a towel tossed over one shoulder—he looked so good her knees wobbled.
“Coffee?” she asked as she grabbed a skillet from its hanging spot above the stove top.
“Sure,” he said as he came to the other side of the bench. He rubbed a hand over his chin. “I need to shave.”
Fiona barely dared to look at him. The faint stubble across his jaw was too sexy for words. And she remembered how the gentle abrasion had felt across her skin as he’d trailed kisses over every inch of her body. Too good.
“Are you hungry?” she asked as she pushed a mug across the bench.
He looked her over and grinned. “I guess we did forget to eat last night.”
“I’ll make breakfast now,” she said so cheerfully her ears hurt.
Wyatt took the coffee. “I swiped a towel. Hope you don’t mind.”
She smiled and wondered if her jaw would stick in that position. “Fine. How do you like your eggs?”
“Fried, scrambled.” He shrugged. “Whatever.”
Scrambled like my brain. “Omelet it is,” she said and began cracking eggs into a bowl.
“Can I help?” he asked.
She pointed to the cutlery draw. “You can set the table.”
“Sure.” He got the job done quickly and came back around to the counter. “You like to cook?”
“I guess,” she replied. “I like to make cakes. Sometimes I make them and take them over to Callie’s. The kids always go crazy for my fudge brownies.”
“I’m sure they do.”
Oh, Lord, it sounded so sickly sweet, and if they were any more excruciatingly polite, Fiona’s teeth would fall out. “Actually, my baking’s not the best, but the kids don’t seem to care.”
Fiona could feel the heat of his gaze on her. The thin cotton T-shirt seemed way more provocative in the cold light of day—especially considering she wore nothing underneath. She remembered her discarded bra and briefs still on the floor in the living room and wished she’d shown the sense to snatch them up. Staring at his bare chest wasn’t helping, either.
“Do you need help with anything else?”
She shook her head. “I’m good,” she said and began whisking eggs.
He put his mug aside and braced his hands on the counter. “So, are we going to have the postmortem now or after we eat?”
Fiona stopped whisking. “After,” she said quietly and returned to the task. “Or not at all.”
“We’ll probably have to at some point.”
She shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“And what’s that?”
Fiona felt his stare through to her bones. “You tell me... You’re the one who came here with a condom in your pocket.”
* * *
Wyatt rocked back on his heels. She sounded mad. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes as sharp as daggers. Okay, so she was mad. “Let me get this straight—you’re angry because I brought protection?”
She dropped the utensil in her hand. “I’m not angry.”
“No? So you just look like you want to whack me over the head with a frying pan?”
She glared at him, but he was relieved when he caught a little smile crinkling her lovely mouth. Of course, thinking about her mouth quickly crammed his head with memories of exactly what she’d done with it the night before. His libido spiked and wasn’t helped one bit when she moved across the kitchen and the thin T-shirt, which only just reached her thighs, shimmied over her delightfully curvy bottom.
He cleared his throat and tried not to think about how much he wanted her again. They had to talk first. “Fiona?”
“I’m not angry,” she said again. “I’m not anything. Honestly, I’m not exactly sure what I’m feeling at this point.”
Wyatt appreciated her truth. “Look, I didn’t come here last night just for...” He stopped himself from calling it sex. Because being with Fiona had felt way different from any sex he’d ever had before. “Let me try that again. I wanted to see you. Did I want to make love to you? Yes. Was that the only reason I was here? No. I like you, Fiona. That’s why I’m here.”
It sounded lukewarm at best, and Wyatt wasn’t surprised that she looked as if she wished a great big hole would open up beneath his feet and swallow him.
But he wasn’t about to admit to anything else. Or even consider anything else. He’d jumped quickly into his last relationship and it had ended in disaster. He’d met and proposed to Yvette within months. He wasn’t about to do that again anytime soon. Whatever happened with Fiona, Wyatt knew now wasn’t the time for any kind of declaration about feelings.
“What I’m trying to say is—”
“It’s okay,” she said, cutting him off as she banged the skillet. “I get it.”
She looked so lovely with her hair curling around her face and her cheeks ablaze with color. Wyatt moved behind her. “Fiona, please turn around.”
She stilled, dropped the skillet and turned. “Yes?”
Wyatt propped an arm on either side of her. “I’m not entirely sure what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours.”
She looked up and he noticed a pinkish mark on her neck. Not exactly a love bite, but close enough. The scent of her shampoo assailed his senses and kicked warmth through his blood. No one had ever had such a strong effect on his libido. She noticed the shifting mood and her blue-gray eyes shadowed with a sexy haze. Wyatt wrapped his arms around her and urged her close, then ran his hands down her hips and over her lovely behind. The moment he got a handful of bare skin and realized she was
naked beneath the thin T-shirt, his building desire leaped forward like a racehorse at the starting gate.
When she dropped her forehead against his chest, he experienced a sharp and uncharacteristic pain behind his ribs. He kissed the top of her head, and she quickly shifted position and offered her lips to him. Wyatt took her mouth with such possessiveness he startled himself for a second. When he moved to pull back, Fiona pushed forward. She returned the kiss in the kind of hot, heady way he was becoming used to. She tugged at his fly and shoved his jeans down his hips, and he smiled at her eagerness. Need suddenly overshadowed finesse. He lifted her up and propped her on the edge of the bench.
“Fiona,” he muttered against her lips. “Protection...we have to get—”
“Let’s improvise,” she suggested huskily and wrapped her legs around his waist.
Improvise? He could do that. Wyatt grabbed the towel dangling around his neck and tossed it on the counter behind her. “Okay,” he breathed raggedly. He lifted her T-shirt and pushed it upward as he encouraged her to lie back. “Let’s improvise.”
She sighed as he ran his palm between her breasts and rib cage and lower, across her belly and lower still. She moaned her pleasure when he cupped her gently and parted the soft red hair covering her. She was divine. A goddess. My woman, he thought with an unusual pang of male possession. And he wanted to brand her with his kiss, his body, his very soul.
He kissed her belly, her hips, anointing every part of her with his mouth. And for the next hour they went beyond pleasure, beyond reason, beyond any feeling he’d experienced before.
Much later, once the passion had receded and they’d tumbled back into reality, they got dressed and then Wyatt finished cooking breakfast while Fiona fed the dog. They ate in silence, and he was painfully aware of the altering mood between them. Doubt and regret were suddenly filtering through the air, and by the time the meal was over, she seemed so wound up she looked as if she wanted to scream.
“I think...I think you should go.”
Breakfast was over and the dishes done, and he stood by the countertop, watching her intently. Her request wasn’t a great surprise. “If that’s what you want.”
She nodded and moved around the table. “It is.”
“Can I see you tonight?”
“No.”
“Fiona, if we—”
“I don’t want to see you,” she said quickly and then added, “unless Cecily is with us.”
He pushed down the stab of annoyance. “It’s a bit late for a chaperone, don’t you think?”
She sucked in a breath. “I told you I wanted to concentrate on Cecily, and despite what happened last night...and well, just before...despite all that, I still feel the same way. Cecily is what’s important. This...” She waved a hand. “This is a complication neither of us need.”
Wyatt looked deep into her eyes. She was right. He knew that. He’d brought Cecily to Crystal Point to meet her mother...not so he could get Fiona into bed. They’d crossed the line. Big-time.
When he spoke again, there was quiet, deliberate control in his voice. “Then I’ll see you Saturday...with Cecily. Goodbye, Fiona.”
* * *
Fiona pulled the Christmas tree from its box and glanced at the impossible-to-comprehend instructions that came with it. She felt a little ridiculous putting up a tree in the middle of the year, but it was what Cecily wanted, and she was inclined to do whatever made her daughter happy. She really wasn’t in any kind of mood to be assembling trees, but considering she’d promised Cecily, Fiona tried to develop some enthusiasm.
The fact her life was a mess had nothing to do with the fake tree and its incomprehensible instructions. She hadn’t seen Wyatt for two days. Not since the morning where she’d completely lost her mind and did a whole lot of things with him that she’d never done with anyone ever before in her entire life.
Wild and erotic things. Things that made her cheeks burn with the memory. And her body burn with a shameless longing for more.
“I told you it was a cool tree,” Cecily remarked five minutes later once Fiona had plumped out the branches and plugged the transformer into the wall socket.
“I’m not so sure,” she said and watched the tree change color from green to red and then a brilliant blue. A real pine would have been more suitable, but she hadn’t the heart to dampen Cecily’s enthusiasm for the modern optical version. Finding a tree at a store in the middle of the year had been a feat in itself.
“Wait until we stack the presents around it,” her daughter said. “Then it will look real.”
Fiona smiled. “Shall we do that now?” she asked, thinking of the stash of gifts in her spare room, all wrapped in assorted paper. Even Wyatt had given his niece some to put beneath her tree.
“Yes,” Cecily said excitedly. “But you mustn’t try and guess what I got for you. I tried to wrap it so it didn’t look obvious.”
Fiona crossed her fingers over her chest. “Cross my heart.”
“Or Uncle Wyatt’s to you,” she said, and Fiona stilled at the mention of him. “I told him to wrap it different, but he’s too sensible for all that.”
“Mmm. So let’s get these gifts.”
Fifteen minutes later, all the gifts were around the tree. The gift Wyatt had bought her was obviously professionally wrapped. The flat, two-foot-square object was intriguing, and she did her best not to grope the shiny bronze paper.
“Um...Fiona,” Cecily said once the tree was sorted and they were in the backyard, playing with Muffin and drinking sodas. “Have you and Uncle Wyatt had a fight?”
Fiona stalled midsip but quickly gathered her wits. “Of course not. Why?”
Cecily tossed Muffin her toy. “I don’t know...he just seems really cranky.”
Yeah, cranky because she wouldn’t talk to him. And probably cranky because she wouldn’t sleep with him, either. After her shocking behavior in the kitchen, she could barely look at him. Loving him was one thing; acting so outrageously needy just because he said she was beautiful and looked at her as if she was the only woman on earth, well, that was another thing altogether.
But she was right to send him away. Fiona loved him—but she loved Cecily, too, and was determined to do what was best for her daughter. Falling in love with Wyatt wasn’t sensible, and she would inevitably end up nursing a broken heart. And right now she didn’t want to think about how he was feeling. It was simply too hard.
“I’m sure he’s fine.”
Cecily tossed the toy again. “I’m not so sure. If you guys have had a fight, couldn’t you just make up or something?”
Guilt hit Fiona between the shoulders. “I promise I’ll—”
“Everyone was angry that last Christmas at Waradoon,” Cecily said quietly and dumped the toy because Muffin lost interest. “You know, the one before my parents died. I wasn’t supposed to know, of course. But like I wouldn’t know they were hardly talking to one another. And Uncle Wyatt was mad about something, too. He didn’t even come to our house that year on Christmas Eve like he always did. My mother didn’t kiss my dad under the plastic mistletoe. My dad sat in the corner and didn’t say a word. And the worst thing about it was everyone kept telling me everything was fine. Well, fine just doesn’t cut it anymore. So if it’s not fine, I’d rather you told me the truth.”
There was so much pain in her daughter’s voice, and Fiona wanted nothing more than to soothe her. Cecily had lost so much. She wasn’t about to let her own lack of control and foolishness impact her child in any way.
“I promise you that we really are fine. He’s coming here tomorrow night for our Christmas-in-July thing, right? So, if we were fighting then he wouldn’t be. We just needed some time apart this week. It’s not a big deal,” she added when Cecily raised both her brows. “Don’t read too much into it. The fact is all I want to do is sp
end as much time as I can with you while you’re here.”
Cecily considered her words and nodded slowly. “I want that, too. But I want you guys to like each other.”
“We do. I promise.” And it wasn’t a lie. She did like Wyatt. The problem was she also loved him, and that seemed a whole lot more complicated than she could handle. “Adult relationships can be complex.”
Cecily stared at her. “Because of sex?”
Fiona almost swallowed her tongue. “Er—yes...and because when two people like one another in that way, things get complicated.”
“So you like Uncle Wyatt in that way?”
As things plummeted fantastically downhill, Fiona wanted to cover her ears. A mother-daughter sex talk she hadn’t prepared for. “Well, the point I was trying to make is that sex isn’t something to rush into with someone.”
Cecily grinned. “Is this the part where you tell me I’m too young to think about it and should steer clear of all boys until I’m twenty-one?” She laughed and scooped the dog into her arms. “Uncle Wyatt has already given me that talk. His ears were red when he was saying it, which was pretty funny. Anyway, I think he was happy when I told him I wasn’t interested in all that stuff yet. I know he said it because he doesn’t want me to get into trouble and wreck my life.”
Fiona’s throat tightened. Cecily’s words hit with the precision of an arrow. And they both knew it.
“Um—sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean that you’d wrecked your life or anything.”
“It’s okay,” Fiona said assuredly. “I’ve never, not for one minute, regretted having you.”
Cecily tried to smile. “Did you love him? I mean, my father?”
Fiona’s heart thundered. I’m not ready for this. But Cecily deserved an answer.
“I didn’t know him very well.” That wasn’t a lie. Jamie Corbett had been Shayne’s lover for less than a month before the night they’d been left alone together. Shayne should have known better. And Fiona, starved of attention for so long, hadn’t realized her harmless flirting was not harmless at all. Jamie Corbett mistook her clumsy attempt to get his attention, and it wasn’t long before she endured the worst hour of her life. Afterward, sore and bruised and ashamed, Fiona vowed she’d never tell anyone what had happened. When Shayne discovered Fiona was pregnant, it didn’t occur to her mother that her own lover was the father. Not until Fiona told her mother the truth. A truth Shayne didn’t believe—instead she’d called Fiona every kind of tramp and accused her of trying to steal her boyfriend. Twenty-four hours later, Fiona was dumped at her uncle’s farm, and she never saw Shayne or Jamie Corbett again.