by Kate Thomas
Even if he did look and act the part, she reminded herself sternly, Josh was only an absent stranger, not Prince Charming. And his masterful kisses were just... impulses, not promises.
Get practical. Come up with a career possibility that provides financial security and allows you time to be Michael’s mother.
The baby squirmed mightily—and lifted his head off the playpen pad for almost two seconds.
Dani grabbed a shirt and the spray starch, wishing Josh was here to share the thrill of Michael’s accomplishment. But he wasn’t.
A rueful smile escaped her. The man who stood up to Bubba without flinching had been routed by an infant’s tears.
And by her meddling into his past.
Dani spread the shirt collar on the ironing board. With almost two lonely weeks to think about it, she’d come to the conclusion that she owed Josh Walker an apology. If he wanted to be resentful and unforgiving, that was his right. The only person he was hurting, after all, was himself.
She, on the other hand, would be endangering not only herself, but an innocent child if she lost her heart to Josh Walker.
She had trouble remembering that when he was around. Shoot, when Josh was around, she had trouble remembering anything—except that she was a woman, with a woman’s desires and needs.
And a baby who needed his mother’s full attention.
The collar finished, Dani starched and steamed the yoke, which reminded her of Josh’s broad shoulders. From there—flip the shirt, press a sleeve—she was right back to fantasizing about his hot turquoise eyes, his sexy, lopsided smile. Shoot, she even found his gruff exterior, one of those simplistic male defense mechanisms designed to hide a heart of mush, endearing.
With a sigh, Dani ironed the second sleeve. She’d expected Jimmy to become a man like Josh. But Jimmy hadn’t given himself—or her or his son—the chance.
Thinking about Michael and Josh had Dani wondering again if, for her baby’s sake, she should consider marrying a second time.
She sprayed starch on the body of the shirt. Maybe she would—if she could just stop picturing this future partner with honey-gold hair and turquoise eyes...
Needing a legitimate reason for the sudden heat flooding through her, Dani hit the burst-of-steam button.
As she finished the first shirt and returned it to its hanger, she looked over at Michael, who’d worn himself out with head-lifts and leg-kicks and fallen asleep. Would her son be terribly disadvantaged growing up without a father? Without grandparents?
Indecision rocked her again. By refusing to even try to work out a compromise with the Caldwells, was she being as irresponsible and selfish as Josh’s girlfriend had been? Had her decision to flee Texas left Michael’s grandparents as bereft as Josh was?
But I can’t give up Michael! He’s all I have.
He’s all Pete and Edna Caldwell have, too.
Dani reached for another shirt as she wrestled with her dilemma. She’d do a couple more, then Michael would be awake again and hungry. After which, I’ll quit this squirrelcage thinking and experiment with salad dressings, she decided.
Let’s see... She’d purée some garlic, add balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Whisk in a little mustard and honey, add some tarragon....
Maybe she could keep house and cook for a big, rambunctious family. Three or four kids and their parents, whose love for each other radiated through the family like ripples spreading across a pond. Yeah, that might be perfect. She and Michael would have an apartment over the garage and—
Without references?
Dani positioned a gray, banded-collar shirt and applied the iron firmly. If she had to sacrifice everything—home, friends, romantic fantasies and Jimmy’s grieving parents—to keep her son, she would. Simple.
Still...when she got on her feet, she’d work on finding a safe way to contact the Caldwells. She’d ask Josh how to protect her legal rights first, though. If he ever returned from Cleveland, where some toxic dumper picked the wrong old lady’s warnings to ignore.
That’s what his note had said and his secretary confirmed. Marletta called every day, asking if they needed anything, dropping blatant hints about his abilities and successful practice. Dani couldn’t tell if the woman was bragging on Josh or warning her off.
It didn’t matter.
In less than a month, Michael and I will just be memories to Josh Walker, fading like old photos left in sunlight.
Dani jerked the plug from the wall socket and wrapped the cord around the iron. Enough of the pity party. Time to create the world’s greatest vinaigrette.
At Marletta’s insistence, Josh called the office twice a day. Since the docket date was approaching, Endicott’s legal team finally wanted to talk settlement.
He also dialed his home number a thousand times, but never let it ring.
Well, it was either too late or too early or—What the hell was he going to say over the phone?
He worked furiously on the new case, but still, he was stuck in Cleveland through the weekend and for four more interminable days. Dammit! Almost three of their six weeks gone.
Evenings in Ohio dragged like a tractor in deep mud, so Josh found a bookstore and loaded up on child-rearing books. Studied them at night instead of surfing cable channels or organizing his legal notes. The paper experts agreed with Marletta: successful parenting involved trial and error. They, too, assured him that love and willingness offset nearly any mistake.
Love is something you learn by doing, too.
“But not in Cleveland,” he muttered, glaring out the rainspattered hotel window at a glowing blob of light across town: Jacobs Field, where some fools were trying to play baseball despite the weather. Josh kicked aside his shaving kit and stomped on yesterday’s tie as he prowled the room restlessly. Baseball, bah.
Double bah for the idiot who picked a career path that required him to practice law all over the damned countryside.
He wanted to be home with his baby, dammit! And with the woman who could teach him...everything he’d refused to learn for so long. Then maybe someday he could have a baby of his own. A baby like Michael.
Why not the genuine article? Josh’s heart pounded as he considered the possibility for the hundredth time. Yeah, why not Michael himself?
That would mean marrying Michael’s mother.
For a second Josh contemplated it. Imagined Dani. In his life. In his bed, her hair tumbling down over his—
Not exactly a hardship.
Unless she expected what every wife deserves. To be loved and cherished.
He wondered if he was capable of loving a woman, even one as incredible as Dani. What he’d felt for Carrie had been fleeting, already waning when he’d learned about the tragic consequences of immaturity and self-indulgence. Of heedlessness.
Our heedlessness. “Carrie’s mistake,” he admitted to the frozen silence of six years. “And mine.”
Drifting back to the window of his room, watching fat raindrops slide down the glass and slick the streets with silver moisture. Josh finally took Dani’s advice. Set aside his rancor and faced his own part in the tragedy.
If Carrie had betrayed him, he’d failed her, too. By not being responsible. Not being supportive. Not communicating enough to save his now-lost-forever child.
Josh slid his hands into his pockets as a car drove past the hotel, its taillights painting red brushstrokes down the wet street. Leaning his forehead against the cool glass, he closed his eyes and felt the last hard knot of grief and resentment dissolve inside his chest.
Once again, Dani’s words echoed in Josh’s head. It’s not about forgiveness.
He still wasn’t sure he understood, but he could move forward now, instead of twisting his gut around the past in a futile effort to transform it.
With a sigh of release, he turned to start packing. Smiled a little as he dredged shoes and underwear and a cuff link out from under the bed and stuffed it all into his overnight bag. Disassembled his laptop and encased it. Pile
d his bags by the door and took a flying leap across the room to land spread-eagled on the bed.
Flopping over on his back, Josh grinned at the ceiling blobs.
He’d have to revisit Cleveland soon, but in the morning, he was going home. To tell Dani he understood how fruitless his years of icy anger had been. To ask for another shot with Michael. Take a few lessons in living. Make some amends.
And if the lady was willing—
No, Josh thought with a stab of regret. Dani’s had one flawed husband already. He couldn’t ask her to take on another bozo whose heart, no matter how healed, remains scarred.
That still left three weeks with his baby. And if Dani decided she needed more time to recuperate... I’m always willing to negotiate. Especially with a green-eyed Texas angel. Josh grinned at the blobs again. Or two.
Leaping up, he searched the room for a pillow. Retrieved one from behind the TV and fell asleep—smiling—the instant his head hit the waxy hotel pillowcase.
Dani heard the front door a second before she closed the washer lid. Resisting temptation, she twisted the dial to the proper cycle setting and started the load of laundry before she ineffectively smoothed a hand over her unruly hair, took a deep breath and headed toward the foyer.
He was standing at the entrance to the living room, luggage and a huge teddy bear clasped in one hand, his blond hair gleaming above the black trench coat covering his broad shoulders.
Her knees threatened to buckle. She wanted to call his name, then launch herself into his arms when he turned. Oh, grow up, she told herself. Life’s not a movie and you’re not his leading lady.
Even if you want to be.
She must have made some sound because he turned around and her heart slammed against her ribs, ignoring her head’s warnings. Every feminine part of her ached for this man, for his touch, his smile, his mouth on hers.
“Hi, Dani.” Wariness lurked in his turquoise eyes. Well, that was an improvement over the bleak anguish she’d seen the day they’d arrived and she’d abandoned him to the mysteries of infancy. “It’s...it’s nice to have something to come home to,” he said, his voice deep and velvety.
Silly heart leaped again, then crashed back to earth as he continued, “What’s that wonderful smell?”
“Apple cake.” She pushed the words past dejected tonsils.
Josh turned back to study the living room. “Well, uh, how are you, Dani? How’s Michael?”
“I’m fine. He’s sleeping.
“Thanks to that great invention, the pacifier,” Dani added with a smile.
He whirled, but she was the one who got dizzy. “The what?” Josh demanded.
“Michael kept fussing,” she explained. “So, finally, I called a local pediatrician. Her nurse said some babies just need to do more sucking than others.”
“You mean it—” His turquoise eyes heated up and that irresistible lopsided smile slowly appeared. “It really wasn’t me?”
Oh, the poor, darling man. Dani blinked back tears as she tried to recall one time Jimmy had accepted responsibility for the problems he’d caused—and here was Josh taking the blame for a baby’s natural behavior.
“No, Josh,” she assured him. “It wasn’t you.”
After a long moment he nodded and deposited his luggage beside the bear. He turned toward the living room again and cleared his throat.
“What did you mean,” he asked abruptly, “when you said it’s not about forgiveness?”
Dani clasped her hands in front of her nearly flat stomach and uttered a silent prayer for the right words. “Forgiveness implies the right to judge others. That’s not our job.”
Turning again to face her, Josh looked confused, but there was something... open about him for the first time since they’d met through his broken windshield.
So Dani used her own pain to explain. “Look, my parents thought I hung the moon. But Jimmy’s dad was always measuring him. Always expecting more than he could give. I simply can’t know how that affected Jimmy. So how do I judge his behavior if I can’t really understand his pain?
“I don’t. The only person I’m qualified to judge is myself.”
Josh growled, then raked fingers through his hair. “Then, is there... Are you saying that my loss, all the suffering—mine and Carrie’s—was all for nothing?”
Dani shook her head. “We can’t change the past, but we can pay it honor and give it meaning by not forgetting the lessons it teaches us.”
He looked at her so long she thought she was going to start squirming like a kid caught unprepared in class. “For someone so young,” Josh said finally in his deep, dark voice, “you have a lot of wisdom to offer. Once again, I think I owe you my life. Thank you,” he added softly.
Then he took a step forward and kissed her. Lightly. Gently.
And Dani’s heart turned over. Despite her hard-won knowledge and endless warnings, she was clearly teetering on the verge of falling in love with Josh Walker.
Or maybe I’m already there.
“You’ve, ah, been busy, I see,” Josh said to break the awkward silence. “The place looks... I don’t know, different.”
“I picked up a little, that’s all.”
“Ha. You probably needed a shovel,” Josh said, flashing his lopsided grin that heated the coils of desire inside her. “But it’s more than that.”
He cocked his head to one side as he pivoted on one foot to survey the living area again. “I can’t put my finger on what you did, but the room’s...well, inviting now.”
“I, uh, rearranged the furniture a little.” She suspected the delivery crew had created the boring placement she’d altered. “Do you mind?”
Josh didn’t answer, just ambled into and around the room.
“I...” She swallowed her regret. His house, his life, his furniture. None of my business, she reminded herself fiercely. “I can move it all back to its origi—”
He held up a hand to stop her. “No, it’s great! It’s just...”
Quick, you idiot—think! He wanted an extension of their agreement and for that, he needed a plan. Some way to make Dani feel invested here. In Virginia. In his house. In him.
“I’ve got some vacation scheduled and...” Josh glanced wildly around again. With the furniture redistributed and the layers of sporting equipment and cast-off clothes removed, the living room looked—Ha! He waved his hand at the room. “I, uh, planned to do something about all that beige.”
Dani goggled those forest-glade eyes at him. “You mean, paint the walls?”
Not alone, dammit. “Don’t you think a little color would help the place?”
“Well...” She tugged on her lower lip as she gazed at the bland Sheetrock. “What color were you thinking of?”
“I was hoping you’d have some suggestions.” His were probably still illegal in the state of Virginia, as well as physically impossible for—“Aren’t you and Michael due for checkups soon?” he asked, then went on before she could answer. “We’ll do that this week, too.”
“Anything else, master?” Dani asked with her mischievous grin, making him instantly hard again.
A hundred erotic suggestions came immediately to mind. After a slow inhalation to ensure he could control himself, Josh nodded. “Yeah,” he said, flashing a grin of his own. “How about a piece of that apple cake?”
“Coming up,” Dani said, and led the way to the kitchen.
There was a disassembled something-or-other from the old clunker on the counter next to the cake. “I’m rebuilding a few of the engine parts,” Dani replied to his question about it as she cut him a slice of cake.
“Lord, woman,” Josh asked after his first taste of the moist, flavorful dessert. “Is there anything you can’t do?” Except love me, that is.
He’d never expect that—no matter how much he was beginning to suspect he wanted it. Even Texas angels had their limits.
Chapter Seven
They painted the living room orange. Well, Dani called it per
simmon or melon or something. He had to admit it looked pretty good, especially after they refreshed the trim, too.
Not as good as Dani in a pair of skintight jeans....
Josh managed to keep rolling cantaloupe-colored paint over the bland beige wall while his mind floated off to its favorite image. Him making love to Dani.
Or better yet, vice versa.
Desire streaked through him, hot and demanding.
She leaned over to paint the last foot of baseboard on an adjacent wall.
“Dammit, Dani!” he roared as his jeans threatened to strangle his, er, excitement. “I mean, bend at the knees before you strain your back.”
His outburst surprised her into looking up from her work. A tactical error if she aimed to keep her heart in line until he went back to the office.
Look at him. Wearing more paint than the wall, hadn’t shaved this morning and he still had enough sex appeal for six or seven movie stars.
He also expected sarcasm. She could see it in the set of his jaw. So she twinkled her eyes at him, folded her legs to sit on the floor, then asked sweetly, “Did you study chiropractic medicine before or after law school?”
“During,” he retorted, grimacing as the loaded roller dripped orange latex in his ear. “Same time I saved the whales, provided free debt counseling and taught Sunday school.”
Dani’s lips twitched. And so, unless she was mistaken, did Josh’s. “You must be eligible for sainthood, then.”
“Not till Tuesday,” he snapped.
And suddenly they were laughing. Then Josh tilted his head to let the paint run out of his ear, dropped the roller, stepped on it, lost his balance and wound up with one hand completely immersed in the roller tray. They laughed some more.
In fact, they spent most of the day laughing.
Living out Dani’s dream.
It wasn’t a very big dream. Just a house turned into a home, two or three babies to love, someone with whom to share the ups and downs of life. Dani sighed. She grew more afraid every day that her special someone had turquoise eyes, a gruff disguise for his tender heart, and the lithe, tawny grace of a mountain lion.
