Seth grinned. He had a feeling the old woman wasn’t here to fawn over Kirk or to borrow sugar. She was on a fishing expedition. “He is an exceptionally handsome child,” Seth agreed.
“We didn’t officially introduce ourselves earlier.” The woman held out her hand to him. “I’m Rose Columbus, and you’re…?”
Seth thought fast. He had a feeling Rose Columbus was not the soul of discretion. He could easily envision her at the butcher shop, haggling over a cut of meat while wagging her tongue over the local gossip. Telling her the truth might jeopardize him. More importantly, telling her the truth might jeopardize Meghan and Kirk.
He took Mrs. Columbus’s hand in his. “I’m Steve,” he improvised. “Meghan’s cousin.”
Rose’s gray eyebrows danced up in surprise as she looked at Meghan. “You naughty girl, you told me you had no family.”
Meghan glared at Seth. “Steve is sort of a black sheep.”
“Indeed.” Rose returned her gaze to Seth and smiled slyly. “Well, he’s a handsome black sheep, if I do say so myself. So, are you staying here long?”
Seth shrugged. “Just for a little while.”
“How nice for Meghan to have family over the holidays. Since her scalawag husband left her, she spends far too much time alone,” Rose said.
Scalawag husband? What exactly had Meghan told Rose Columbus about him? He raised an eyebrow and looked at Meghan.
Meghan’s cheeks were pink as she thrust a plastic bowl of sugar toward Rose. “Here you are, Rose. That should be enough sugar for several cups of tea.”
“Thanks, dear.” Reluctantly, Rose stood.
Seth had the feeling she wished she’d asked to borrow something that took a little longer to prepare, giving her more time to pick and prod for information.
“It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Columbus,” he said.
“Please, call me Rose,” she replied. “Perhaps one evening this week you and Meghan and little Kirk can come over to my place and share a little holiday punch.”
“Great,” Seth agreed easily. “And Meghan can bring some of her caramel coffee cake. She makes a great coffee cake.” He studiously kept his gaze away from Meghan, knowing he was probably irritating the hell out of her.
Rose beamed. “Oh, that would be lovely. I’m quite fond of coffee cake. Well, I guess I’d better get back next door.” With another broad smile at Seth, she turned and left the kitchen with Meghan following in her wake to show her out.
The moment Meghan left the kitchen, Kirk sent up a wail of displeasure. “Hey buddy,” Seth said softly. “It’s all right. She’ll be right back.” He fought the impulse to pick up Kirk, knowing that would probably only make him more afraid.
If nothing else came from this time with Meghan, even if he didn’t discover Simon’s whereabouts, at least he’d have some time with his son.
And he had a feeling, before his time here was finished, he and Meghan were going to renegotiate their agreement that he stay out of his child’s life.
Meghan closed the door behind Rose and drew a deep breath and counted to ten. She was mad…mad at Seth for being here, irritated at him for telling Rose he was her cousin, and especially angry because she felt as if things were spinning out of control.
Hearing Kirk’s laughter, she hurried back into the kitchen. She halted in the doorway, stunned by the vision that greeted her.
Seth—the man who’d always exuded a simmering sense of danger, the man who had been trained to deal with criminals and situations that would give most people nightmares—sat with a napkin covering his head and face.
As Meghan watched, he tore the napkin off and grinned at his son. “Peekaboo,” he exclaimed. Kirk laughed in delight. Peekaboo was his most favorite game.
Meghan wasn’t certain what bothered her more, Kirk’s enchanted laughter or the expression of utter devotion on Seth’s face. Both filled her with a flutter of fear.
“I’d prefer you don’t get him all wound up before dinner,” she said as she entered the kitchen.
Seth quickly folded the napkin and placed it on his lap. “I was just trying to make him happy.”
“He’s a very happy, well-adjusted little boy,” she said defensively. She frowned and went to the oven. “Have you eaten?” she asked as she removed the now-warm tuna casserole.
“Not since this morning,” he replied.
Meghan was perversely pleased that all she had to offer him was the casserole, which he’d always professed to hate when they were married. She placed the dish in the center of the table, then glared at him, challenging him to utter a single complaint.
“Hmm, looks good,” he replied. The twinkle in his eyes let her know he knew she’d been expecting something different from him.
She handed him two plates and silverware and while he set the table she added the corn, a prepackaged salad mix and dressing, and bread and butter. She quickly microwaved a jar of Kirk’s favorite baby food meal…little hot dogs with bits of macaroni, then joined Seth at the table.
They filled their plates in silence, Meghan studiously trying to keep her gaze focused away from Seth. She was chagrined to discover that even after all this time, after all they’d been through, she still found him devastatingly handsome.
“You shouldn’t have told Mrs. Columbus you were my cousin,” she said, knowing subconsciously she was working up a renewed dose of annoyance with him.
He shrugged. “I couldn’t very well tell her the truth. I have the feeling discretion isn’t in Rose Columbus’s vocabulary.”
“I don’t like to lie to my neighbors,” she re turned. “And I suppose you thought that bit about the caramel coffee cake was quite amusing.”
He grinned. “Maybe you can fool her like you fooled me…pretend it’s homemade when it’s actually store-bought.”
Meghan frowned, definitely not amused by the memory of the morning after their wedding. Seth had told her his favorite breakfast was homemade, fresh-from-the-oven caramel coffee cake.
Meghan, who couldn’t cook at all, had snuck out of bed at the crack of dawn and raced down to a nearby market to buy the treat for her new husband. She would have pulled it off without a hitch had she not forgotten to throw away the box it had come in. Seth had teased her unmercifully.
He picked up a piece of bread and slapped butter on it, then looked at her, one brow raised. “Tell me, what exactly have you told your neighbor about your ‘scalawag’ husband?”
“Nothing but the truth,” she replied evasively.
“Your version of the truth or mine?” he asked dryly.
“What difference does it make? You won’t be here long enough for it to matter.” She smiled absently at Kirk as he banged on his tray, demanding attention. He wasn’t accustomed to sharing his mom.
Despite the fact that Seth had always professed to hate her tuna casserole, he ate like a man starved. He attacked most things with the same single-mindedness.
Even his lovemaking had always been breathtak ingly intense. He’d always kissed her like it was a new experience, as if he were starved for the taste of her. Each stroke of his fingers across her body, every exploration of hands and lips had been powerful.
When he’d possessed her, she’d had the feeling he was attempting to brand her, to forever mark her as his, making it impossible for her to be intimate with any other man. And in the darkest hours of the night when she was alone in her bed, she was afraid that was exactly what he had done.
Warmth suffused her and she consciously shoved these thoughts away. The last thing she needed to do was remember their lovemaking. It was the only thing they had managed to do right and it certainly hadn’t been enough to sustain a marriage.
“You look good, Meghan,” Seth said softly. He pushed his plate aside, his gaze intent on her.
“What did you expect?” she replied, a blush warming her cheeks. “Did you think when you left I’d just fall apart? Fall into a deep depression? Stop showering?”
He smiled curtly a
nd held up his hands in surrender. “Are you this touchy with everyone?”
“No, only with ex-husbands who show up uninvited on my doorstep.” Meghan stood and carried her plate to the sink, suddenly weary from the sniping.
She’d agreed to use her expertise to help find Simon’s whereabouts and to allow Seth to stay for a few days so there was no use fighting it now.
She turned from the sink in time to see Seth lifting Kirk from the high chair. The tall man with the haunted eyes held the child a moment longer than necessary, then carefully set him on the floor.
When Seth looked at Meghan, it was impossible for her to read the dark expression in his eyes. All she knew was that at that moment he looked tired…more tired than she’d ever seen him.
“Why don’t you go on in the living room and relax,” she said. He’d told her he’d left the Condor Mountain Resort last night. He wouldn’t have taken a direct route here, which meant he’d had to have traveled for much of the night and day. She knew if he’d been traveling incognito, he’d probably traveled by plane, bus and train to assure nobody could track him.
“I think I will,” he agreed.
She breathed a sigh of relief as he left the room. She gave Kirk a plastic set of measuring spoons to play with, then finished cleaning up the counters.
As she worked, her mind whirled with the challenge of finding Simon. She knew the quicker she could accomplish what Seth needed, the sooner he’d leave her home and her life.
When she had the kitchen spotless once again, she scooped up Kirk in her arms and stepped into the living room. Seth was stretched out on the sofa, sound asleep.
For a moment she simply stood there, staring at him as she hadn’t dared before when he was awake. She didn’t know all the details of the sting in L.A., but even in sleep the failure of that operation showed full on Seth’s features.
His long, thick eyelashes rested on dark circles that discolored the skin beneath his eyes. His features, even in rest, appeared taut, as if even sleep couldn’t ease the tension within him.
As she watched, his arm jerked, an involuntary twitch that let her know his rest wasn’t peaceful. More than ever before, he looked like the man on the edge of both physical and mental exhaustion.
Exactly what had happened during the raid? She knew they’d lost men, knew Simon had escaped, but Seth had been part of unsuccessful operations before. What had been so different about this one? What had caused the haunted darkness she’d seen flash in the depths of his green eyes several times during dinner?
She frowned and hugged Kirk closer to her chest. She didn’t care. She refused to care. She couldn’t afford to care about Seth ever again.
He’d turned her upside down, twisted her inside out when he’d left her, and she would never, ever give him that power over her again. And she would never allow him to hurt Kirk as he had hurt her.
Shifting Kirk from one hip to the other, she walked down the long hallway to the closet at the end. She grabbed a set of sheets and a thick blanket, then returned to the living room.
Careful not to awaken him, she set the bedding on the arm of the sofa where he would see them when he woke up. If she had a heart, she would have offered him the bed in the spare room instead of the sofa. But having him set up residency in the spare room felt far too permanent.
Besides, she didn’t have a heart. Seth had stolen her heart when he’d met her, and he’d broken her heart when he’d left, leaving her nothing but loneliness and broken dreams.
Chapter 3
Seth awakened just before dawn, surprised to realize he’d slept deeply and without nightmares. The house was dark and silent and cold…especially cold.
In fact, he was freezing. He sat up, stretched, then turned on the lamp next to the sofa. It felt like a meat locker in here.
He grabbed the multicolored afghan from the back of the sofa and wrapped it around him, then reached up and touched the tip of his nose.
Meghan had always liked to turn the furnace way down at night and apparently this peccadillo of hers hadn’t changed. His nose felt like an iceberg in the center of his face. He rubbed it several times as he contemplated turning up the thermostat, then dismissed the idea. He was here on shaky ground as it was, no sense pushing his luck.
With the afghan still around his shoulders, he padded into the kitchen and flipped on the small light above the sink.
Coffee was in order, not only to ward off the chill of the house, but to get his brain cells working properly.
He frowned as he pulled the coffee from the cabinet. She’d switched brands. He eyed the container of a gourmet brand he’d never heard of before.
She’d changed the furniture, changed her brand of coffee—what other changes had occurred in his lovely ex-wife?
As he watched the dark brew drip into the glass carafe, he wondered if she still spent long minutes each night creaming her slender, shapely legs before getting into bed? It had been one of those nightly female rituals that had driven him crazy with desire.
He’d lay next to her in bed and watch. He’d smell the heady fragrance of the cream and imagine those long, sweet-scented, silky legs wrapped around him. And when she’d finished, on most nights, his imagination would transform into mind-blowing, sensual reality.
The gurgle of the coffeemaker pulled his thoughts from what had been, and what would never be again. He poured himself a cup of the fresh brew and sank down at the table.
He and Meghan might have remained married forever had they been able to spend every minute of their time in bed. Between the sheets, they had been equal partners, companionable in their wants and needs. Out of bed they had been disastrous.
He’d probably made a mistake in coming here. He wrapped his hands around the mug, grateful for the warmth. It probably would have been better for both of them had he stayed away, had he not seen his son.
Frowning, he took a sip of his coffee.
Kirk.
Seth had never thought much about having children. He’d had Meghan and he’d had his job. He’d believed that had been more than enough to fill his life, fulfill him as a man.
Even when Meghan had called him and told him she was pregnant, the idea of a child had remained vague, a mere abstract in his mind. She’d been so vehement about him staying out of her life, and at the time he’d been so bitter, it had been easy to agree to her terms that he keep away from her and their child.
There had been times in the past fourteen months that Seth had wondered about the boy, but always in his head he’d thought of Kirk as Meghan’s child, a tiny entity that had little to do with him.
He recognized now that keeping Kirk a mere abstract in his mind had been a survival instinct. But now the abstract had been transformed into a smiling little face with a mop of dark hair and bright green eyes. Now the abstract had become sweet baby scent and chubby arms and legs.
Suddenly hungry to look at his son, he shoved back from the table and stood. Leaving his half empty cup of coffee on the table, he walked through the living room and down the long hallway.
The faint illumination of night-lights spilled from each of the doorways in the hall. It had always amused Seth that a woman as bright, as totally together as Meghan, had refused to sleep without a night-light in practically every room of the house.
He had to pass the master bedroom in order to get to the smaller room he assumed to be Kirk’s. The third room at the very end of the hall he knew was Meghan’s home office, equipped with a state-of-the-art computer system.
Moving with the grace of a cat, he started across the doorway of her room, but paused to peek in before gliding past.
She slept on her stomach, her hair an explosion of scarlet color and wild curls against the pristine white of the pillowcase. The floral bed comforter was bunched at her waist, exposing a soft green nightgown and her freckled shoulders.
He’d once told her that they’d remain married for as long as it took him to kiss every freckle she possessed. And consi
dering the fact that she had a million freckles, the implication was their marriage would last an eternity.
But she’d blown the scenario of eternity. A blast of bitterness laced with pain shot through him. She’d excised him out of her life with a surgeon’s precision, with unrealistic expectations and the attempt to force him to deny the very essence of himself.
So much for kissing freckles, he thought as he moved on past her bedroom doorway. Eventually some other man would have that pleasure and he didn’t want to examine why that particular thought bothered him.
He drew a deep breath as he stepped into the small bedroom across the hall, drinking in the scents of sweet innocence and babyhood.
The night-light cast shadows around the room and made the teddy bears on the wallpaper appear almost animated.
The crib was against the far wall, and through the oak bars he could see his son sleeping. Holding his breath, not wanting to awaken the slumbering child, Seth stepped closer…closer still.
Kirk slept on his back and he was snoring faintly. Clad in a dark blue fuzzy sleeper, his cheeks flushed a rosy red, the sight of him expanded Seth’s heart.
His child.
His son.
Never again would Kirk be a nebulous abstract in his mind. Seth would never again have the luxury of ignorance, the bliss of not knowing what he was missing.
The desire to pick up Kirk, to hold him tight against his chest was overwhelming. The need to feel the little boy’s arms wrap around his neck, feel the snuggle warmth of his body inundated him. Forever now, Kirk would not just be a name in his mind, but rather a face, a spirit, a little person who was a part of Seth.
“What are you doing in here?”
He whirled around to meet Meghan’s angry gaze. He reeled at the sight of her. Clad in an emerald green velour robe, with her hair tousled from sleep, she looked as lovely as he’d ever seen her.
She motioned him away from the crib and out of the room. Once they were in the hallway, her expression was anything but lovely. “I don’t appreciate you skulking around the house in the middle of the night.”
Strangers When We Married Page 3