by Lilian Darcy
But the moment had changed. The whole Palmer family was inside the house, and Jodie had remembered the fact. She hadn’t asked Dev what it all meant, back at the park, and he was glad about that because he wouldn’t have known what to tell her.
“This isn’t a good idea right now,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t just you.”
“I started it.”
“I let you.”
“You’re not really strong enough yet to push me away.”
“Oh, you think?” She did it with a cheeky smile, a nice shove to his chest—a little clumsy but very well-directed—and began to steer herself firmly toward the house, the shoe sole on her weaker side brushing the paving with a light rasping sound.
The front door opened, and Barbara appeared. For a moment, Dev wondered if she might have seen that steaming kiss. Lord, he shouldn’t have let himself! It should never have happened! It hadn’t needed to happen when he’d kissed her so thoroughly—and done so much more—in the moonlit park.
But Barb’s face seemed untroubled, and he had no doubt that she would have looked and behaved differently if she’d been watching them from the window. “Elin said you were home. You’re a little later than we expected. How did it go, honey?”
“Major victory with the pepper grinder. Slightly challenging drive home in the dark, on the country roads. That’s why we’re home late. We took it slow.”
Some of it they took slow, Dev amended to himself, fighting back his awareness of everything she hadn’t said. Some of it they took at magical, erotic speed.
“And I’m cutting class tomorrow,” Jodie finished.
“Cutting class?”
“Dev’s taking me—” She stopped and corrected herself. “Dev’s taking us to Oakbank.”
“Us?”
“Me and DJ.” Her voice wobbled a little at the end, and there was a little note of triumph in it, too. Dev heard it, and was so happy she wanted to bring the baby, too.
Barb looked at him. “Dev?”
“I think it’s a great idea,” he said firmly. But he knew from Barb’s face that she wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily.
Chapter Eight
Elin appeared at Dev’s front door just as he was about to head upstairs to bed, after some mindless TV to wind himself down. For the first three seconds, he thought it was about DJ and the strength drained from his legs. It was after eleven at night. His little daughter had been fast asleep an hour ago when he’d left the Palmers, just a few blocks away.
But this was anger on Elin’s face, not panic. “We need to talk,” she said.
She was a strong woman, a good six inches taller than Jodie and more heavily built, with the weight of her three children starting to gather around her hips. She had Jodie’s blue eyes, blond hair and wide smile and Dev liked her a lot, but he didn’t particularly want her here on his doorstep with such a hostile look on her face, and arms folded in a way that said she meant business.
“Come in.” What else could he say?
She launched in before she’d even crossed the threshold. “I heard your car in the driveway. I was in DJ’s room picking up a load of laundry. I looked out the window to see how Jodie was managing the climb from the car. And I saw what happened.” The accusation was crystal clear.
“Right,” he answered. What would she say if she knew what had happened half an hour before that? He shuddered to think. “Would you like coffee, or something?”
“No, I wouldn’t. I’d like to know what the hell you think you’re doing with my sister.”
Pretty obvious, wasn’t it?
Unfortunately, however, Elin was right. He knew it as he’d known it all along. He hadn’t absorbed a second of the TV murder mystery he’d just watched, because he’d been thinking about tonight instead. He should never have kissed her, let alone sat her on the hood of his car, pushed her pretty skirt up to her hips and— Yeah.
Had that shattering episode of flashback to the accident done so much to destroy his good sense? Or was that only an excuse?
He sighed between his teeth. “Okay, you don’t have to tell me.”
But Elin told him anyhow. “She is so vulnerable right now! She has so much to deal with and to work out.”
“Don’t I get a share in that?”
“A share in what?”
“The vulnerability, the stuff to deal with.”
“All the more reason I shouldn’t have to say this, Dev. You have no right to add any kind of complication whatsoever, and especially not that kind. Can you honestly tell me she’s in the same place she was in last year—or that you’re in the same place—when it was okay for both of you to have a no-strings-attached relationship with a use-by date of three months? Can you honestly tell me DJ doesn’t make a massive difference to the equation?”
“No, I can’t. You’re right.”
“Are you going back to New York?”
“You’d like me to, wouldn’t you?”
“What makes you say that? Is that an accusation?”
“I guess it is, Elin. I think you and Barb would sometimes be only too happy to have me out of the picture, now that Jodie’s recovering, because it would simplify everything, wouldn’t it?”
“It would, if you’re going to start messing with my sister’s emotions. I’m not having that, Dev, I’m just not. Are you in love with her?”
“Don’t ask me that.”
“I’m her sister and I care about her.”
“It’s not fair. You’re right, we shouldn’t have kissed. And yes, I’m phrasing it that way because you must have seen that she kissed me back.” And if you could have seen her in the park, gasping when I suckled her breast, arching her back, clinging to me and moaning… “She’s vulnerable.”
“I know. It won’t happen again.”
It couldn’t. It was too big a risk.
That pang he’d felt just now when he thought DJ might be ill… Imagine if Jodie tried to shut him out because he’d slept with her and messed with her emotions and she couldn’t forgive. Imagine if he lost his daughter because of one piece of very male loss of control. His whole body ignited in Jodie’s arms, but his head and his heart had to rule right now. His body didn’t get a vote.
“So you’re not in love with her?”
“I don’t even know what that means, Elin.”
“Sure you do.”
“I care about her.” Otherwise why the heck would he be busting his gut to help her bond with her baby, when it could so easily backfire on him? It didn’t make sense.
“You’d damn well better!”
“We have DJ. I don’t want conflict. I want whatever we decide, long-term, to be the best outcome we can find for DJ.”
She snorted, part pacified, part bristling and protective. “If I think you’re going to hurt her…”
“I would never hurt my daughter.”
“My sister. I know you wouldn’t hurt DJ. That’s the only thing that’s stopping me from hitting you right now.” She bracketed her hands on her hips. “But if you hurt my sister…”
She didn’t finish, and he didn’t dare to make a promise he might not be able to keep. Sometimes it just wasn’t in one person’s power to stop the other person from getting hurt. The idea of hurting Jodie… Well, it hurt him, it made his chest go tight and his breath catch. But that didn’t mean he had the power to prevent it.
“I hear you, Elin,” he said wearily. “You’ve said the right things. I won’t forget. I’m glad you came.”
The weather was perfect, with a breeze from the northwest making a rare break in the summer’s humidity and heat. Jodie couldn’t have wished for a better day. Mom and Elin had both said they wished they could come to Oakbank with her, but they had errands to run this morning and Jodie wasn’t sorry. The idea of being alone with Dev and DJ frightened her the way it always did—two very different reasons, there—but it was still less daunting than the prospect of her mother and
sister watching her like a hawk the whole morning.
DJ was awake and happy when Dev arrived to collect them, to Jodie’s relief. It meant he focused on the baby, on cooing at her and picking her up. It gave both of them a distraction and a way to keep their distance from each other after everything that had happened last night.
The unsuspected vulnerability he’d shown over his memories of the accident. The bone-deep need she’d felt to soothe his fear away. The explosive power of their lovemaking. On the hood of the car, for crying out loud, with both of them climaxing within seconds of each other, not caring that they were right in the open air, not caring about the previous agreement they’d made.
He regretted it.
Every word he spoke and every movement he made telegraphed the fact.
Minimal eye contact.
No touching at all.
When his body softened and his voice went tender, it was because of DJ. When he smiled, he smiled at his daughter, and she smiled back. It was the right thing, Jodie knew, the only thing. She should be grateful for it. Instead, she had to fight not to feel shut out. Still, DJ hadn’t yet once smiled for her.
Mom and Dev had a little back-and-forth over whether he’d packed enough diapers, and whether she’d be sheltered enough from the sun. “She’s too young for sunscreen,” Mom said.
“I have a hat for her,” Dev promised, “and the stroller’s canopy shades her when she’s in that.”
“Wipes?”
“Right here.”
“Pacifier.”
“She doesn’t like it.”
“You mean you don’t like it. You don’t believe in them. But I raised all four of mine and they were never too attached—”
“I have a pacifier, Barb,” he said patiently, “but she just spits it out again whenever I try it.”
“It’s not important, is it?” Jodie said, and they both looked at her, their frustration with each other spilling in her direction.
“Ready?” Dev asked.
“More than.”
DJ was getting on for four months old now, and growing every day, her periods of alert wakefulness getting longer and her body strengthening as fast as Jodie’s. You would scarcely know that she’d been born seven weeks premature. Dev strapped her into the car seat and they were away in just a few minutes, after those first awkward moments, heading west out of town to the rolling green hills where Oakbank’s twenty horses grazed.
Their route covered part of the same road they’d taken on the way back from the restaurant last night, but it seemed so different in the daylight, none of the menace and memory, and they turned onto a different road before reaching the sign and turnoff leading to Deer Pond Park.
Oh, Oakbank was so familiar and so well-loved and she’d forgotten so much of it, but it all came flooding back, every fresh sight and sound. The gravel of the long driveway entrance popping beneath the tires, the lush shade of the summer-clothed trees, the white-painted fences, the loom of the big red barn as they turned into the parking area.
Behind the barn, beyond a screen of greenery, was the manager’s cottage she’d been living in at the time of the accident. Katrina and her boyfriend had it now, although they hoped to buy their own place soon, apparently. Jodie’s family had moved all her things back to Mom and Dad’s after the accident because no one had known if she’d ever be able to return to her little home. She’d recovered so much better than they’d all feared, but still it might be a while before she could live independently.
Independently…
On her own?
Her and DJ?
She couldn’t picture it, tried to imagine herself and a baby in the manager’s cottage, but it was such a scary idea. Her fine motor control would have to improve a heck of a lot before she could even think about it. The thought came with a flood of both relief and guilt.
So don’t think about it, Jodie, think about just being here right now instead.
She saw a string of kids on horseback heading out on a trail ride with members of the summer staff at the head and tail of the group, and realized they must be a batch of vacation day-campers. There was another group doing a beginner lesson in the outdoor arena, where morning shadow still stretched across the sand from a line of cool oaks.
Anna and Katrina, the two full-time riding instructors, knew she was coming. Dev had phoned this morning from his place. They came hurrying out as soon as they saw her climb from the car, and she had to blink back tears as she hugged them both.
“Oh, it’s so good to see you!”
“We wanted to visit more….”
“We’re so glad you’re here.”
They’d each come to visit her once in the hospital, but hadn’t seemed to know what to say. She’d been a little hurt at the time. They couldn’t have come more often? They couldn’t have stayed longer, and talked more?
Now, of course, she understood how hard it must have been. They’d known about the baby, but couldn’t talk about it because of the medical decision that Jodie herself wasn’t yet recovered enough to know. She felt their apology about all those unsaid things in the warmth of their greeting, and something inside her eased a little.
“And I’m so glad I’ve come,” she said. “It’s the best thing. Do—do you want to see DJ?”
Dev was unstrapping her carrier from the back of the car. She’d gone to sleep, lulled by the journey. “Can we bring her inside first?” he said. “The sun’s so bright.” He draped a soft flannel blanket over the top of the carrier handle to shade her.
Anna and Katrina led the way, and Jodie almost kept up with them, she felt so strong and energized just by being here.
The barn was cool and quiet, its wide end doors flung open to catch the fresh breeze. Clean sawdust covered the arena, horses poked their heads over the half doors of their stalls and there was Bess, saddled and working, walking patiently down one long side with a child holding the reins and a therapist by her side.
Dev put DJ’s car carrier on one of the bleachers that overlooked the arena and took off the flannel blanket. Anna and Katrina both bent over the carrier, clucking and cooing at the sight of the sleeping baby. “It’s incredible, Jodie,” Anna said.
“I guess it seems so right and natural to you now,” Katrina said. “But we’re still in shock. She is beautiful.”
“And you are amazing.”
That word again. Dev had said it last night.
“I don’t feel amazing.” And if they knew that it didn’t feel right and natural at all with DJ, if they knew she still hadn’t smiled at her…
“No, you never do,” Katrina said, “but trust me, you are.”
“Tell me that once I’m in the saddle!”
“You really want to ride?”
“Katrina, have you ever known me to not want to ride?”
“Holly’s about to finish her session,” Anna said. “You’re next.”
“Oh, that’s Holly?” Jodie looked at the girl in the saddle. “Wow, she’s grown since I last saw her!”
Holly had cerebral palsy, and had been coming to Oakbank for hippotherapy since she was six years old. She adored her riding lessons, and had shown significant improvement in muscle tone and coordination over the past four years. As always, she slid down from Bess’s back wearing a huge smile, put her arms around the horse’s neck and kissed her. “I love you, Bess.”
Jodie hung back a little, not knowing if Holly would recognize her after ten months of absence and so much change. Her hair was shorter. Her body moved so differently. She was thinner and so much of her athlete’s muscle tone had disappeared. Jodie didn’t think that she looked actively scary, or anything, but still…
“Say hi, Jodie,” Dev prompted. “I don’t think she’s seen you.”
“I— Yes, okay. Of course I’m going to say hi. She’s a great kid.”
But the moment had gone. With the therapist at her side, Holly had started toward the arena’s opposite exit where her mother was waiting, already full of
news about her ride. “Did you see me trot, Mommy? I was on the correct diagonal the whole time.”
Oh, well, there’d be another time. Jodie walked up to the patiently standing horse. “Hi, Bess,” she said softly.
Bess turned a big brown eye toward her, and gave a satiny little prod with her nose. Recognition? Probably. Horses had good memories. Jodie rubbed the horsey face gently, fighting to keep her coordination so that it felt good on Bess’s shaggy cheek. “There? Is that okay? Is that how you like it, Bessie-girl?”
Katrina brought a mounting block, something Jodie had never needed before. Then, remembering, she proclaimed, “My helmet!”
“Here,” said Anna. She’d crossed the soft sawdust with barely a sound. “It’s been hanging on the hook behind the office door this whole time.”
“Need help?” Dev offered.
“I’m fine.” But it was tricky, and in the end she couldn’t manage the helmet’s plastic catch and had to accept his offer. His fingers brushed her jawline and the tender skin beneath her chin as he fastened the clasp and she closed her eyes, thinking of last night. Was Katrina watching? Could she see…?
See that I’m thinking about kissing him, about feeling him inside me.
It had kept her awake for far too long. The need and wanting. The powerful body memories. The regret. Why had she let it happen? Why had his vulnerability caught so strongly at her heart? Why hadn’t she found a different way to respond? How could her awareness of him surge so fast when she had so much else to deal with? It didn’t make sense. She didn’t want it.
And she didn’t want one simple brush of his fingers to take her back to last night with such immediacy and power. The clasp snapped into place and she stepped back, unsteady but very relieved.
“Ready?” Katrina asked.
“Not sure how we do this.”
“You’ve helped other riders a thousand times, Jodie.” Kat’s voice was an odd mix of deference and encouragement. She was five years younger than Jodie, and had begun working here part-time at seventeen, when Jodie was twenty-two and already a well-qualified riding instructor. Their relationship of mentor and student had changed, too, because of the accident. “You were the one who taught me how to assist a rider with special needs, remember?”
