by Caro LaFever
Another zing of lust flew between them.
The child didn’t understand the conversation flying over his head.
Thank goodness.
“Well.” She stood and grabbed her discarded mac. “This was fun.”
At their favorite word, both males went taut. Or perhaps the reaction was an objection to her leaving. The thought tugged a whisper of pleasure through her, but she couldn’t let it affect her.
Things were getting perilous, here.
Even with a child around.
“Come on, Jen.” The boy bounced to her side and took her hand in a sticky clutch. “We haven’t eaten all the food.”
“I’ve had more than enough.” She rubbed her hand across her stomach. “And it’s time for bed.”
“But we were going to sleep here. Da said.”
“What I say, doesn’t always hold sway.” The low rumble wrapped around her like a giant paw. “Does it, Jenny?”
“I’m sure you’ll have fun without me.” She smiled down at him and ignored the father. “It’ll be good for you and your father to spend time together alone.”
A wary look crossed his small face. “Jen.” He tugged on her hand until she leaned in closer. “I need ye to be here with me so I can be with him.”
“Robbie,” she whispered back, trying to hold firm in the face of his childish plea. “You’ll be okay.”
“Please.” His eyes were wide behind his glasses. “I’m scared.”
His boy was scared.
Of him.
A steel jab of hot hurt dug right into his chest. Even if the boy had confided the emotion in a soft, hard-to-hear voice, Cam had heard.
He’d always been cursed with a keen sense of hearing.
The mouse appeared torn, as well she should be. Her choices were either to stay here in the scary-man’s lair, where she’d be teased about her English ways and tormented by his unwanted lust. Or she could abandon the wee lad to his father’s rough care.
A hard choice indeed.
“Jen.” His child held on to her average hand with a stubborn grip. “Stay for a while more at least.”
A while more. A while where he’d find himself using his words and his voice to lure her in. Where he’d find himself in a restless dance to charm and cajole her closer and closer.
“I’m sure she’d much prefer her warm, cozy bed alone then spending time on this hard stone floor with us two ruffians.” The bitterness in his voice surprised him. She was just a mousy little lass. Nothing to get upset about.
Rob glanced at him with his eyes wide.
“What?” he muttered at his son. “She can go if she wants. We’ll be fine without her.”
His sullen tone drew her gaze. Her blonde brows rose, her average mouth dropped.
Cam flushed.
He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He sounded younger than his own son, for fuck’s sakes. He was ashamed of himself. It shouldn’t matter if she stayed or went. Somehow, though, he felt as if her presence bound them together, all three, and he didn’t want to lose the feeling.
Not now.
Maybe not forever.
“I think I’ll stay,” she said with simple grace and a slight smile.
His stupid lust roared approval and even worse, his stupid heart rose.
“Great!” Rob bobbed in a jig by her side, swinging her hand in his. “Come here and sit by me.”
“First we should clear up the supper.” With her usual efficiency, she turned to the stack of plates and unfinished food.
“Leave it.” He forced himself to lounge on the pile of pillows pretending he was a sultan and she was a mere supplicant. It was the only tale he could pull out of his story skull at the moment. The turbulent emotions running through him threatened to blank everything all together. “Mrs. Rivers will clean it tomorrow.”
The mouse gave him a sharp look from beneath her lashes as she grabbed a plate. “I don’t think that’s fair.”
“It’s what I pay her for.” He ruffled the edge of the blanket in his fingers, trying to quiet himself down. “She isn’t doing anything else I pay her to do. She might as well do this.”
She straightened her English back and he could practically see the rod shooting up her spine. “It isn’t her fault you gave her an impossible task.”
“Taking care of me?” His son piped in with avid glee.
“No. Your father wants to have a party.”
Rob’s face lit with pleasure. “That’s brill—”
“Here.” Jenny plunked the plate on the floor. “In this monstrous place.”
“Monstrous?” He hated the house himself, yet some remnant of pride rose inside. “A place worth millions and ye call it monstrous?”
“Jen.” His boy dropped her hand and stepped away. “This is my place.”
Her shoulders sagged. “I don’t mean—”
“Ye do mean.” Cam’s accusation grumbled out of his gut. A gut that had turned from sour to sore. “Ye hate this place.”
His boy’s face crumbled.
Jenny stared at his son and he thought for a moment she might cry. Or stop breathing. Which would let him pace over and grab her and hold her. But that wasn’t what he wanted to do, was it?
Hell. He was a mess inside.
“Robbie.” Her hands grabbed his son’s shoulders. “I don’t mean this house is a monster.”
“Just inhabited by a monster.”
She ignored his surly comment and kept her focus on his boy. “I mean that having a party here in two weeks would be a monstrously difficult thing to do.”
“Why?” The kid’s forehead creased in confusion. “There’s plenty of space.”
“Plenty of dirty space,” she corrected. “Only one housekeeper can’t be expected to clean it all by herself.”
“I could do some dusting, I guess.” His son’s voice sounded unsure.
“And I guess I could get a mop and dance around a bit with it.”
Jenny let go of the boy and turned to confront him. Him and his sulky words. “You both could dance around with a broom and a mop and a duster for weeks, but it wouldn’t do any good.”
“How do you know?” Rob gave her a look of reproach. “My da can do anything. I can, too.”
His son might be afraid of him, but at least he had some pride in his stupid father. The realization lifted Cam’s spirits.
Then he glanced back at the mouse.
She glared at him. “You know this can’t be done, and yet you gave poor Mrs. Rivers the job.”
“Mrs. Rivers is not poor.” His hand tightened on the rough wool of the blanket. “Not with the wages I pay her.”
“You could pay her a small fortune and she wouldn’t be able to do this job.”
“But ye can, eh, Jenny?” he snarled. “If I paid ye enough money, ye could get the job done.”
“Could ye?” His son stared at her with dawning hope. “It would be wonderful to have a party.”
“She could.” Cam’s resentment expanded inside him. He had all the money in the world. Why didn’t she grab it like Martine had? Why did she have to be difficult? “She ran a damn estate.”
“Really?” Rob gazed at her with instant awe. “Why didn’t ye tell me?”
“Because she doesn’t want to do it.” He attacked as he usually did when he had a thorn pricking him. “She said no even though I told her I’d pay her more money.”
“I didn’t want money for myself, you bloody-minded man.” The mouse awoke, her skin flushing with spirit, her hands fisting at her side. “I meant you were going to have to spend a lot of money to hire the staff you’ll need to get the inside done and the crew you’ll need outside.”
“Staff?”
“Crew?”
She glared at them with a righteous rage. “You are both idiots.”
Rob threw a glance at him over his shoulder, a smidgeon of a smile trying to crawl onto his face. “She thinks we’re idiots, Da.”
The camaraderie in his ey
es, the eyes so much like his, nearly brought Cam to his knees. Good thing he still pretended to laze on the side of the sofa, to all appearances unfazed by the conversation. “At least you’re not bloody-minded, too.”
His son giggled.
The mouse threw her hands in the air. “I’m just telling you that—”
“I need a staff,” Cam said. “Plus, a crew.”
“Yes.” Marching to the fireplace, she threw a log on the fire. Preferable, perhaps, than throwing it at him. “If you want to have this party in a couple of weeks, it’s going to require a huge staff and crew.”
“And,” he let his voice roll the word to tease her, “a monstrous amount of money.”
“Yes.” She glanced at him, the light of battle still gleaming in her eyes.
“Good thing I have money.” He eased back on the sofa and closed his own, so he wouldn’t keep looking at her average mouth. “Piles of money.”
The crack of the log echoed in the silence that came after his words. He wouldn’t look, wouldn’t see what was on her face when he asked once more. He’d be protected. “Will ye organize the party for us, Jenny?”
His quiet question, not surly or sullen, not teasing or tormenting, settled in the room. Nothing about the way he lay or the way he rolled out the words could give her any hint of the turmoil inside him. For some reason, some desperate, needy reason, she had to say yes. Or he might…do something awful.
Which he usually managed to do without any goad in the slightest.
“Yes.” Her voice was hesitant, halting. Yet she said the right word. The word he needed. “I’ll do the organizing, if you want me to.”
He popped open his eyes. “I just asked ye, didn’t I?”
His wise little mouse caught the tease in his gaze and relaxed. “You’ll have to let me order things about for a bit.”
“Yeah!” Rob frolicked by the fireplace, his scrawny legs kicking and his arms waving. “We’re going to have a party.”
“It will mean you’ll have to move some of your collections, Robbie.”
“Collections?” Cam straightened. “Ye have collections? Of what?”
His boy stopped in mid-twirl. His gaze met his father’s, a wary, worried look. “All sorts,” he finally admitted. “Rocks and stuff.”
“There’s a lot more than rocks,” the mouse muttered under her breath.
He leaned in, wanting to know everything. “Rocks and what else?”
“Marbles.” His son shuffled his feet. “And grass.”
“Hmm.” He kept his gaze on Rob, although he knew Jenny wanted to jump into the conversation by the look on her face. “And?”
“And maybe some shells.”
The mouse muttered again.
“I have a collection of my own.” He offered it up along with his heart. “Right here.”
“Here?” His boy, the lad who loved collections, the son he’d missed for too long, glanced around. “Where?”
Chapter 11
The two heads bent over the collection strewn across the old Persian rug. “This one,” Cam plucked up a black ebony pen and twirled it in his fingers. “I got from India.”
“I like this one.” Robbie eyed the long, feathered creation in his hand. “It would match my hat.”
“Ye like your hats, don’t ye?”
“Yes,” his son stated. “I like being a pirate or a warrior or a king.”
Jen sat in the pile of pillows by the opposite sofa. The position afforded her a view of the two males without having to be too close. Too close to join in the fun or tease Robbie or touch Cameron Steward.
She’d wanted to touch. When he’d turned into a surly, sullen boy. She’d wanted to run to his side and curl into his lap and pet him until he let go of his snit and purred.
Rather than doing that stupid thing, she’d agreed to stay.
He gave his son a grin now instead of giving her a purr, all white teeth and creased cheeks accented by his usual stubble. The grin churned her insides into tiny little needy bits.
She’d been smart to separate herself.
“I do the same thing,” he said to his attentive boy. “I tell stories so I can be other people.”
“I haven’t read any of your stories.” Robbie placed the feathered pen on the carpet, keeping his gaze from meeting his father’s. “I started, but they scared me.”
There was a short pause and she tried to grab some homily out of her mind.
Cam beat her to it. “My books are for older people. They aren’t meant to be read by kids.”
“Still, I should have been able to read them and not get scared.” He shot a swift glance at his father before going back to studying the pen. “Boys shouldn’t be scared.”
“Who told ye that?” His father’s voice went gruff.
“Granny. She said ye weren’t ever scared when ye were young.”
Cam’s jaw tightened and Jen wanted to scuttle across the cold floor and place a hand on his cheek to console him. She didn’t, though, because this was between the two of them and at least, they were continuing to talk and find their way to each other.
“Rob.” A big paw reached out and yanked the boy into strong arms. “I was scared all the time when I was a lad.”
He stiffened at his father’s touch and looked lost for a moment in his grasp. Then he glanced up and met Cam’s gaze. Whatever he saw there made him relax into the grip. “Ye were?”
“All the time.” Something flashed across the man’s face and she wished she knew what memories were running through his head and heart. Before she could gather the courage to ask, his familiar cocky grin chased the memories and her courage away. “I used to also scare my parents.”
“Really?” His boy’s face lit with answering mischief. “Maybe that’s what I should do, too.”
“Ye better not.” A big hand ruffled short, spiky hair. “Ye better behave.”
A snort was his response.
“And with that, it’s about time for a boy your age to get some sleep.” Looking over his shoulder, Cam met her eyes. “I’m sure Jen here will tuck ye in.”
“I should probably go to my room.” She should. She should leave this warm pile of fluff and hightail it to her nest above. Mrs. Rivers might have started her a fire, and her single bed would be nice and cozy.
“Naw, Jen.” The boy rolled out of his father’s lap and crawled to her side. “ Ye can tell me a story until I fall asleep.”
Then she’d be alone with Cam. Glancing at him, she caught the sly smile on the man’s mouth before he turned to attend to the dying fire. A tremble of delicious trepidation filled her gut. “I think it’s better if your father tells you a story.”
“But he’ll tell a scary story.” Rob stared at her with earnest sincerity. “And I don’t want to fall asleep afraid.”
“He’s got ye there, Jenny.” A soft chuckle slid across the floor.
“I’m sure you can tell other stories besides scary ones,” she challenged him.
“Maybe.” Shifting the wrought iron screen in front of the fireplace, he turned back to the two of them. “But to do that, I’ll need some inspiration.”
“What kind of inspiration?” The boy swung his head around, a faint smile on his face.
“When it’s only men and boys in an audience, I tend to tell scary stories.” He brushed his big hands together, a wicked glitter of delight in his eyes. “Though when there are ladies in attendance—”
“Jen is a lady.”
“Yes, yes she is, isn’t she?” The big hands brushed over each other again, more slowly this time. “My stories tend to be much nicer when there are ladies around.”
“Sod it.” She wanted to laugh because the teasing was lovely, yet there was something about the way he rubbed his hands that made her tingle with an exalted fear. “Sod you both.”
“Now, now.” Those hands landed on the stone floor and he began to crawl toward them with feline grace. “That’s not very ladylike.”
A sticky
hand slid into hers. “Jen will stay while ye tell us a good story.”
“Will she?” Those odd eyes glittered as he came closer. “Will she, lad?”
“I’ll stay.” She’d be safe as long as the boy was near. “Robbie can use me as a pillow while you tell us both a story.”
His prowl stopped and he straightened, leaning on his heels. “That’s safe enough, isn’t it?”
There was an underlying meaning there, surging below his actual words, a hint that there was nowhere safe with Cameron Steward and she should know better. But she wasn’t going to run this time. She wrapped her arm around Robbie’s bony shoulders and hugged him close. “Go on. We’re ready.”
“Da.” The boy nestled his head into her. “Ye can tell us a ghost story. Those aren’t too scary.”
“Hmm.” A paw came up to scratch the sexy stubble on his strong chin. “I’ll tell ye a story about the kelpies.”
“Naw.” His son scrunched his face. “I know all those stories.”
“Do ye, lad?” The man smiled, a knowing smile that made her tingle. “I’m thinking ye won’t know this one.”
“Okay. Try me.”
“Well, first I have to tell the Sassenach what a kelpie is.”
“I know what they are.” She laid her cheek on spiky, messy boy hair. “They’re little horses who live in the water.”
He gave her a grunt of disapproval. “Little horses? Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Robbie peered at her. “Sometimes they come out of the water and steal people.”
“Really?” The last of the fire crackled as the shadows approached from the corners of the big library. A soft, moaning wind whistled outside, making her snuggle deeper into the pillows and closer to her young friend. “I didn’t know that.”
“In this particular story, there is a kelpie who lives in the very loch we sailed this afternoon.” Cam leaned on his elbows, spreading his long legs in front of the warmth of the fire, a dreamy look she’d seen many times before covering his face. “This kelpie is male and mad.”