Home to Laura

by Mary Sullivan

  Her expression took on some of the guilt with which he lashed himself. “Yes,” she conceded. “I was. I turned out to be a willing partner. I hadn’t planned that night, though. You had.”

  “True.” While she might have given in to temptation in the spur of the moment, she hadn’t had the ulterior motive he’d had when he’d returned to town with the aim of sleeping with her.

  He’d wanted to destroy his brother, to shame and embarrass Gabe the way he’d shamed Nick in front of the man he’d wanted to work for. Nick had left college with Marsha. They had gone to Seattle to meet her father. Nick wanted to marry Marsha and work for Mort.

  “You arranged for Gabe to find us,” Laura said.

  “Yes. What difference did it make?”

  “I was engaged to him. I was going to marry him.”

  “Did you honestly think you could still do that after we’d slept together?”

  “No. I was guilty of infidelity. I wouldn’t have made Gabe try to live with that.” She huffed out a breath loaded with anger. “I would have softened the blow, though, and found a better way to tell him than to have him walk in on us.”

  She pressed a hand against her mouth. “It must have been awful for him.”

  “I wanted him to find us.”

  “I eventually figured that out. Why?”

  “I’d left college and run off with a girl. I wanted to marry her. Gabe caught up to us and dragged me back to college. He shamed me in front of her and her father.” He still remembered how deeply his embarrassment had run, how humiliated he’d felt, and how afraid he’d been that Gabe had ruined his chances with both Marsha and Mort permanently.

  “So? He’d worked for five years to save enough money for you to go. You should have been grateful. You should have been down on your knees kissing his feet.” She leaned forward, speaking with a feverish intensity. “You and Tyler would have been the first in the family to attend college. All thanks to Gabe.”

  “So? It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t the way I wanted to start my career. The girl’s father was a big deal in development. He had a lot of money. I wanted him for a father-in-law. I knew I could learn more from him firsthand than I would ever learn in school.”

  “So, why didn’t you just run away again? Why come back to Accord to seduce me?” He would have objected, but she rushed on. “Yes, you did seduce me, even if you didn’t find it hard to do. I would have let my attraction to you slide. I would have had a good life with Gabe.”

  “I saved you from a mediocre future.”

  “Not true. Gabe is a good man.”

  “You couldn’t have loved him too much if you were tempted by me so easily. Marriage to Gabe would have been too tame for you. I rescued you.”

  “Don’t,” she bit out. “It wasn’t a charitable act. What you did had nothing to do with me and everything to do with hurting Gabe as much as you could.”

  “Yes.” He’d wanted to hurt Gabe, the meddling bastard, but seducing Laura had been magnificent. Yeah, it had everything to do with hurting his brother, but so much to do with Laura, too. Lovely, breathtaking Laura.

  “You were a selfish bastard concerned only with your own revenge.”

  “I was only nineteen. I regret it now.”

  At his even tone, her eyes narrowed. “What are you? A robot? Don’t you have feelings?”

  Too many at the moment. “I don’t see the value in indulging them.”

  They stared at each other, apparently at an impasse.

  “I have to go,” he said. “My daughter is waiting for her lunch.”

  Something changed in Laura, as though a whirlwind fanned a flame higher. A blush flared on her cheeks.

  “You have a daughter?” she asked, her voice quiet again, but pulsing with anger.

  He cocked his head. “Why does that make you angry?”

  “You have no idea what you took from me, do you?” Laura asked. “How unfair it is that you have a child while I don’t? You stole my chance at a family.”

  Ah. He understood. “You didn’t want Gabe as much as you wanted children. Gabe was a means to an end.”

  “I loved him. He was a good man. He would have made a brilliant father.”

  For the briefest moment, he thought she might cry. Over ancient history?

  “You owe me so much.”

  “Were there no other men in this town who would marry you and give you babies?” Were they blind?

  She shook her head, once, quickly. There were things going on here that he didn’t understand, that she didn’t want to share with him. He didn’t blame her. They were strangers.

  The longer she stared at him, the more he got the impression of something forming inside of her, something calculating and sly, of that wind fanning a twister.

  “You owe me,” she said again, with conviction this time.

  Her smile worried him.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “You owe me a baby.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “WHAT?”

  “I’m planning to collect on an old debt.”

  “You’re—” Had he heard her right? She couldn’t possibly mean—? “You’re asking me to impregnate you?”

  “If you want to be technical about it. I’d rather call it lovemaking.”

  “You’re not even talking in vitro fertilization. You’re talking sex.”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to use my body.”

  “You used mine to get your petty revenge on Gabe.”

  Yes, he had. Gladly. Passionately.

  “Today is the perfect day.”

  Meaning she was ovulating.

  The idea was ludicrous.

  She was insane.

  She was glorious.

  Glorious, but out of her mind.

  He would make love to her in a heartbeat, but give her a baby? No.

  “I barely have time for my own daughter, let alone having another child.”

  “I don’t want you involved. The baby would be mine.”

  “No.”

  “Why not? All I need is a little sperm.”

  It angered him that she wanted to use him as though his penis were nothing more than a syringe. Talk about being made a sexual object.

  Thirteen years ago, you used her for your own ends, didn’t you?

  Yes, but I also wanted her.

  And yet, you walked away.

  I had bigger fish to fry.

  You were heartless.

  It was business.

  So is this for her. A means to an end she obviously wants desperately.

  He sympathized, he really did, but her demand left him cold. He leaned back against the counter and rammed his hands into his pockets, because they were having ideas of their own, of giving in to Laura. “Besides, I’m only here for one day.”

  “My apartment’s upstairs.”

  “Now?” he sputtered then choked on his own spit.

  “Now.”

  The look on her face—of hope and...hope—made him wish that he could give in, but no. He didn’t want another child. He refused to have a baby if he couldn’t be part of its life. He wouldn’t do that to a child again. Never again.

  He barely had time for his daughter. Look what that was doing to Emily. He’d just made a commitment to her, wanted to get to know her better. A baby would take all of his attention away from her. No way was he having another kid.

  “I can’t,” he said, sidestepping the issue. “My daughter is with me and I have to deal with a problem on the business site.”

  “It only has to take fifteen minutes.”

  To pay homage to a masterpiece? No. If he were going to love her, he would do it right. If he was going to sin, he was going to sin, and he sure as hell wouldn’t rush.

  He shook his head.

  She drew a shaky breath. “It was worth a shot.”

  “I have to go.”

  Something inside of her had turned off and she merely nodded. She seemed diminished a
nd he hated that.

  He felt responsibility, but didn’t know what else to say to her, or what to do, so he returned to the bakery at the front of the building, unsettled and shaken. That was saying a lot. Nothing much shook him.

  Hadn’t he more than once been called a cold bastard?

  The bakery was humming again with conversation, so Nick placed his order with Tilly, paid for it and waited at the table with Emily. Laura wasn’t going to kick him out of the café, not with Emily here. Laura wouldn’t hurt a young girl if her life depended on it.

  “Dad?” Emily sounded uncertain. “What was that about? Why did you go in the back room?”

  “Laura and I had a misunderstanding a long time ago. I tried to settle it.”

  “Did you?”

  “What?”

  “Settle it?”

  He shook his head. Not by a long shot.

  Music still rang from the speakers overhead. He recognized Dr. John and Rickie Lee Jones. “Makin’ Whoopee.” It suited Laura, made her earthy laugh sound as if it held a world of secrets whispered on hot nights. Nick wanted to make whoopee with her. He just didn’t want to give her a baby.

  * * *

  I CAN’T BELIEVE I said something so idiotic.

  Laura took a pitcher of iced tea out of the walk-in cooler, poured herself a glass and added ice. Needing to cool down, she trudged up the back stairs to her apartment, the ice in the glass clinking because her hands were shaking so badly.

  Telling Nick Jordan he owed her a baby was so far removed from what she wanted in her life and how she wanted it. Upstairs, she lay on her bed and stared at the colored gauze draping the ceiling.

  She’d hung it there to create a sexy harbor, a haven for sex play. She loved sex. Adored it. Loved both the noisy sloppiness and the exquisite pleasure. She used every sense to heighten her enjoyment—sight, scent, sound.

  She found no haven here at the moment.

  Her cheeks, her chest, still burned. She replayed every speck of her conversation with Nick.

  You owe me a baby.

  Temporary insanity.

  What else would explain it?

  Desperation?

  Yeah, that, too.

  She’d propositioned the worst man on the planet, the worst man for her. When he’d mentioned his daughter, something inside of her had snapped. Where was the fairness in life? He had ruined her chances with Gabe then had gone off and fathered a child of his own.

  He might not have been responsible for all of the guilt in their one-night affair—she understood her own culpability, her own weakness in giving in to him all those years ago, and accepted it—but she hadn’t planned that night. He had.

  She could have resisted Nick for the rest of her life, but that one night, he’d put real effort into getting her into his bed. And it had worked.

  Damn her passionate nature and her unruly attraction to Nick. What was it about the man?

  She would never in a million years have had Gabe find them together. She couldn’t let go of her anger at Nick for that.

  Her throat ached with the urge to scream. He shouldn’t be a parent. She should.

  She lay on her bed with the weight of shame and chagrin and envy hurting her chest and with tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. She’d never been a weak person. She’d always depended on herself.

  At this moment, she needed someone. She couldn’t be alone right now.

  She couldn’t stay here harming herself with jealousy and bitterness and anger. She had to get out, to find support.

  She’d always been independent, but it was time to ask for help. She needed someone to hold her.

  Against habit, natural inclination and history, she needed her mom.

  * * *

  OLIVIA CAMERON STEPPED out of the office in the gallery she owned called Palette. The door chime had sounded. She hoped it was a customer. It had been a slow day.

  When she saw who had entered, she halted.

  Aiden McQuorrie.

  He didn’t realize she was there, so she just watched him. Dear God, he was beautiful.

  He prowled the gallery studying the current artwork on display. She’d always thought prowled an odd verb to use for a man, fanciful and too romantic, but if ever it fit a man, that man was Aiden.

  Sculpting stone had broadened Aiden’s shoulders, had built powerful biceps and had kept his midriff so trim and hard it was concave.

  His hard handsome profile was softened by too-long hair. When he worked, he often forgot about things mortals did as a matter of course, like eating and getting haircuts. Aiden was an artist. When he was sculpting, time meant nothing to him.

  Olivia wished she were an artist so she could paint him, but she wasn’t. Her deepest regret was that she couldn’t paint, or sketch or sculpt, or fashion art of any kind. Instead, she funneled her passion into enjoying the art others produced, like Aiden’s stunning stone sculptures and divine crazed metal abstractions, and into promoting artists.

  She loved his artist’s eye and his lack of inhibition.

  He prowled closer and the hard planes of his face reminded her of a laird in ancient times in Scotland surveying his holdings and his clan. She could picture him in a kilt. His legs would be strong to match the rest of his body.

  Aiden McQuorrie was gorgeous and passionate, and she loved every particle of his temperamental genius. She loved him.

  And there wasn’t a damn thing Olivia Cameron could do about it. In two days, she would turn fifty-eight. According to Aiden’s press release, he was forty-three.

  “Aiden, what can I do for you?” Her voice sounded extra sultry today. She didn’t know why. People had remarked on it often, on how at odds it was with her cultured manner. It wasn’t something she put on. It was just the way her voice came out of her throat.

  “Come to my place,” he said without preamble.

  What? Her imagination stirred. Why did he want her there?

  “I have work to show you.”

  Oh. Work. Of course, you foolish old woman. Why else would he want you there? She called herself an old woman, but didn’t feel like one. She didn’t even feel middle-aged, had yet to figure out when middle age ended and old age began. One thing was certain—she was foolish to think of Aiden as anything but a client.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’d be happy to come over. Monica is covering for me tomorrow. Would that work for you?” Since she had hired Monica Accord, Olivia had been able to take Sundays off for the first time in years.

  “Aye.”

  The slightest trace of a Scottish burr softened his speech every so often, a reminder that he hadn’t been born in Colorado. It made her want to swoon, foolish, middle-aged, not-quite-old woman that she was.

  “What time should I come over?”

  “Noon.”

  He wasn’t much for words.

  He left the gallery and Olivia ran to the window to watch as that body, a piece of artwork in itself, strode down Main Street.

  For Pete’s sake, he was fifteen years younger than her. She had no right to drool over a forty-three-year-old man, even if he was as gorgeous as Michelangelo’s David, albeit more rough-hewn.

  So what if he was handsome? She’d known good-looking men, including her late husband. She wasn’t that shallow. Oh, but there was that talent, that artistic genius that had her drooling over his work. And that intensity. When he gazed at a woman, he really looked, deeply, as though searching her soul for all of her secrets.

  She’d only ever known one man—her husband. He’d died ten years ago. She didn’t have the experience to deal with a man like Aiden McQuorrie.

  The bell above her door chimed.

  “Mom?”

  She stepped away from the window, but not until after Aiden had entered the food market down the street and she could no longer see him.

  “Mom? Are you okay? What are you looking at?”

  “Nothing.” She forced images of Aiden from her mind and turned to her daughter. When she
saw misery and pain on Laura’s face, her gaze sharpened. “Something’s happened. What?”

  Laura shrugged and studied one of the paintings. Olivia took her arm and spun her around.

  “Laura, tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Nick Jordan’s back in town.”

  “Oh, honey, come here.” She embraced her daughter, fully understanding what this meant to Laura. Coming on the heels of losing her baby, it must be devastating.

  Why on earth was Olivia so worried about a simple business meeting with a man when her daughter was suffering so?

  “Come.” She led her into the back office and plugged in the electric kettle. “We knew he would come to town once they started building the resort.”

  “I know, but the timing couldn’t have been worse.” Laura fell into a chair, her lack of grace a sign of how upset she was. “Vin called while I was on lunch. It’s over. He’s not coming back.”

  Olivia turned from dropping a tea bag into a pot. “Didn’t you suspect he might not?”

  Laura worried a chip in one of her nails, concentrating so hard Olivia wondered whether she were trying not to cry. “I tried to stay positive.”

  Olivia sat across from her and took her hand. “It’s hard to accept the truth.”

  “I feel like he was my last chance.”

  “You don’t need a man to have a baby. Not these days.”

  “I do, Mom. I want a family.”

  Olivia didn’t have to ask why. She and Laura had been down this road before. She wanted what they’d had before her sister died.

  “Mom, do you ever think about Amber?”

  As though Olivia had spoken the thought aloud, Laura mentioned her. Anger flashed through Olivia. “Why?” They never talked about her. Never spoke her name out loud.

  “I do,” Laura said quietly. “All the time.”

  “Why?” Why open this wound I’ve spent twenty-one years cauterizing? Twenty-one long years.

  “Because I miss her so much. Don’t you?”

  All the time. “I live for the present.”

  “Do you?”

  Those two words spoken so quietly, as though her daughter could look inside her heart and know her better than she knew herself, shattered her.

  She exploded. “Yes! Why would you do this?”

  Laura’s jaw dropped. She stared at Olivia as though her mother had two heads. “Do what?”