DOUBLE THE TROUBLE

by Maureen Child

  “Give me another one,” he countered.

  “Stay.”

  Oh, God, the moment that word left her mouth she wanted to pull it back in. Wanted to pretend she’d never said it, especially when she saw shutters drop over Colt’s eyes.

  “We’ve been over this. I can’t stay.”

  “You say that but you don’t tell me why.” She jumped up from the sofa and faced him.

  “And you won’t tell me why you won’t accept the help I can offer you.”

  “Because I don’t want your money, Colt.” All she wanted was his love, and she wasn’t going to get that. “Or your guilt.”

  He shook his head, threw his hands high and let them slap down against his thighs. “What’s guilt got to do with anything?”

  “Do you think I can’t see it?” Penny took a step closer to him. “You’re getting ready to leave so you want to make sure you’ve covered all of your bases. It’s like you have a mental list. Help for Penny, check. Nanny for the twins, check. Money in her bank account, check. And once you’ve completed that list, you can leave with a clear conscience. Well, forget it. If I need help I’ll ask for it.”

  “No, you won’t.” He laughed shortly and gave her a look that told her he was far from amused. “You think you’ve got me all figured out, huh? Well, I know you just as well, Penny. You’re too stubborn for your own good. You hate accepting help. Don’t want to lean on anyone.”

  That verbal slap struck a nerve and Penny felt the sting of tears at the backs of her eyes. She blinked hard and fast, because she wasn’t about to cry. He was pulling away from her with every passing moment and had the nerve to accuse her of not wanting to depend on him?

  “Why should I lean on anyone, Colt?” she asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper of old pain. “I’ve been taking care of myself for most of my life. I grew up taking care of myself and Robert. No one was there to help.”

  He frowned. “Your parents?”

  Shadows in the room gathered closer. The flickering light of the fire danced on the walls and reflected in the window panes. The world slipped away until it was only Penny, Colt and the past crowded into the tiny living room.

  “When my mom died ten years ago, my father just shut down. He went to work, came home, but he was like a ghost in the house.” It sounded so cut-and-dried when she said it, but the memories of her childhood were still with her. Still painful. When her mother died, Penny was eighteen. She felt lost and turned to her father, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t give her the emotional support she needed so badly. She’d had to learn how to stand up. How to be a rock for Robert and how to take care of herself.

  “I couldn’t lean on my father,” she said hotly. “I couldn’t trust him. Sometimes he came home, sometimes he didn’t. So I took care of myself and Robert. And the day I turned eighteen my dad took off for good and we haven’t seen him since.” She poked her index finger at the center of his chest. “So don’t tell me that I’m too stubborn to ask for help. It’s not stubbornness, it’s survival. I don’t trust easily, Colt, and I learned early that it’s easier in the long run to not depend on anyone but yourself.”

  Her breath was coming in short, hard pants and she kept her gaze fixed on his, so she saw the shadow of sympathy in his eyes. Penny’s spine went stiff and straight and she lifted her chin defiantly. “I don’t need you to feel sorry for me, either.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  She folded her arms over her chest, cocked her head at a mocking tilt and studied him.

  “Okay,” he admitted, “maybe I was. Not for who you are now, but for the girl you were, with so much responsibility dumped on you.”

  “I survived.”

  “Yeah, but it affected you.” He shook his head. “You tell me I take too many risks, but you don’t take any, do you? If you don’t trust people they can’t let you down. Is that it?”

  She shifted position uncomfortably. Maybe that was a little too close to home. “I trusted you once.”

  He ground his teeth together until she saw the muscle in his jaw flexing furiously.

  Shaking her head, Penny said, “Our situations are different, Colt. You risk your life constantly. I don’t want to risk trusting the wrong person. Big difference.”

  “This isn’t even about trust,” he countered, blowing out a breath. “Or what’s between us. This is about you accepting help. You’ve already proven you can do everything on your own, Penny. That doesn’t mean you have to.”

  She laughed a little but there was no humor in the sound. “You don’t get it. Who is there to lean on, Colt? Robert? He and Maria are building their own lives. They don’t need me hanging around being needy. You?” She sighed. “Why would I lean on you when you’ve made no secret of the fact that you’re leaving just as fast you can?”

  “You could while I’m here,” he started to argue.

  “Why would I get used to help from you, Colt?” She reached up and shoved both hands through her hair as frustration grabbed hold of her and refused to let go. “You arrived here with your bags packed emotionally. You’ve had one foot out the door for this entire time. So tell me. Should I count on you, Colt? Should I depend on you?”

  “No.” He cut her off abruptly and Penny was so surprised her mouth snapped shut. Briefly.

  “Well, at least that was honest,” she choked out as she wrapped her arms around her middle and held on.

  * * *

  Colt looked at her and not for the first time thought she was one of the strongest people he’d ever known. Now that he knew more of her background, he was even more impressed. No wonder Robert had said he owed Penny everything. She’d raised him. She’d kept him safe. And she’d done it on her own with no help from anyone.

  Hell, he hadn’t wanted her to depend on him and it should make him feel good that she had no intention of counting on Colt for anything. Instead, he felt worse than ever. He wished to hell he could just grab her, pull her close and never let her go. But that wasn’t gonna happen. Couldn’t happen.

  Pulling back from her and the kids was the right thing to do and he knew it.

  But clearly Penny believed he simply didn’t want to stay. That bothered him more than he wanted to admit. So if he told her the truth, then not only would she understand, she’d agree that his leaving was the best thing for all of them.

  “You think I don’t want to be here.”

  “I think you can’t wait to leave. Just like before,” she said sadly.

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Then prove it,” she countered. “Stay.”

  “No,” he said tiredly, feeling old guilt and the shadows of pain he’d never allowed to die swamp him.

  “This is ridiculous. You’re not telling me anything. Just like before, you’re going to walk away. And I’m supposed to believe that what? You’re leaving for my sake? Because if that’s it,” Penny snapped, “then don’t do me any favors.”

  “I’m trying to keep you and the twins alive and safe.” He grabbed her upper arms and barely held back from giving her a hard shake. “You think it’s easy for me to walk away? It’s not. But if I stay, then somewhere down the line, everything’s going to go to hell.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Her eyes were locked on his, confusion and fury glittering in those green depths. She was amazing and he wanted her more than his next breath.

  Deliberately, he let her go and took a step back from her. Swiping one hand across his face, he muttered, “It was ten years ago.”

  “What?”

  He looked away from her because how the hell could he look into her eyes while he said, “I was in Switzerland with my folks. Supposed to be a big ski trip.” His voice sounded as haunted as his dreams. Colt closed his eyes briefly, but the images from the past were so clear, so sharp, they nearly killed him. So he
opened his eyes again and stared down into the fire.

  “We were supposed to take a helicopter to the top of a peak and then ski down. But the night before the run, I met some blonde in a bar—” he stopped and realized “—I can’t even remember her name. Point is, I blew off the ski trip in favor of spending time with the blonde. My parents died in an avalanche.”

  He turned to face her and realized that now it was his turn to read the sympathy in her eyes and he found he liked it no better than she had. Shoving his hands into his jeans pockets, he shook his head wearily. “I let them down. They were depending on me to show them the safe route down the mountain and I wasn’t there.”

  “Colt, I’m so sorry but—”

  He shook his head. “Don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault. I know it was. If I’d been there, they wouldn’t have died because I could have steered them to a safer run.”

  “Or,” Penny argued, “you would have died with them.”

  “Maybe.” He’d thought of that, too, and sometimes wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off. He pulled his hands free of his pockets and scrubbed both hands over his face. She was still watching him and the urge to hold her was so strong it rocked him. But if he touched her, then he’d lose himself in the flash of heat and passion that threatened to consume everything in its path. And it wouldn’t change a damn thing.

  “It was an accident, Colt,” she said firmly. “Not a reason for you to run from me or your kids.”

  “Weren’t you listening?” He shook his head. “I’m not running. It’s not me I’m worried about. It’s whoever depends on me. I let my folks down and they died. I won’t do that to my kids. Or you. I won’t live with even more of the kind of guilt that chews on a man when he fails.”

  Penny lifted both hands and shoved them through her hair in an impatient gesture. “So, basically,” she said tightly, “instead of failing, you just don’t try at all.”

  “You don’t understand what it’s like.”

  “Yeah, I do,” she said, voice breaking until she swallowed hard and took a breath. “You know, over this last week or so, I’ve watched you with the twins. Seen how good you are with them. How much they love you.”

  His heart clenched hard in his chest.

  “And I tried to figure out why, when you have so much in your life, you insist on flying off around the globe chasing death in those ridiculous extreme sports.” She scrubbed her hands along her upper arms as if trying to create warmth that just wouldn’t come. “Now I know. Are you trying to make it up to your parents by dying? Is that it? Do you think you’ve been on borrowed time or something? That you should have been the one to die on that mountain?”

  “I didn’t say that,” he argued.

  “You might as well have.” Penny glared at him and Colt felt his hackles rise. Damn it, he’d expected her to get it. To finally understand why nothing could work between them. Instead, she was staring at him like he was crazy.

  “Let me get this straight,” she finally said, tipping her head back to meet his eyes. “You want me to lean on you and at the same time you tell me you don’t want anyone to depend on you. That about cover it?”

  He scrubbed one hand across his jaw, then the back of his neck. It sounded...stupid when she said it like that. Irritated and getting angrier and more defensive by the moment, Colt said, “You’re deliberately twisting my words around.”

  “No, I’m not,” she countered and stepped closer, tapping his chest with her forefinger. “I’m pointing out that what you’re telling me doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It does to me,” he managed to grind out. “I’m the reason my parents died. If I’d been there—”

  She cut him off. “You’ll never know what might have happened if you had been there, Colt. But the point is, you didn’t cause the avalanche. It was an accident. A tragic, horrible accident. But you didn’t do it. You weren’t even there.”

  “That’s the point,” he snapped. “I promised them I would be and I wasn’t.”

  “And I bet your mother’s last thoughts were, ‘Thank God Colt isn’t here.’”

  He jerked his head back as if she’d slapped him.

  “It’s what I would have thought,” she continued, her voice softer now. “What I would have been grateful for. That my child was safe. How can you believe your parents would have thought differently?”

  He spun away from her, his mind racing, heart pounding. He’d lived with the guilt for so long that it was a part of him. A dark shadow that crouched inside his heart always ready to take a stab at him.

  “It must have been hideous, Colt,” she said, threading her arms around his waist, pressing herself against his back. “But it doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t your fault.”

  Con had said the same thing for years. So had his other brothers. His cousins. But, “No matter what you say, it doesn’t change the fact that I wasn’t there when they needed me.”

  He turned in her arms, looked down into her eyes and vowed, “I won’t risk it again. Won’t let you or the twins depend on me because it’d kill me if something happened to any of you.”

  “And if something happens anyway? Then what?” Tears glistened in her eyes and the light from the fire made the dampness there gleam with a red-hot glow.

  Slowly, she stepped back from him and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her worn, faded jeans, as if trying to keep from reaching out to him again. “Don’t you see? Nobody gets a guarantee in life, Colt. All we have is every day and the people we choose to spend our lives with—for however long that is. You’re not to blame for what happened to your parents, Colt. But maybe it’s easier for you to tell yourself you are.”

  “Easy?” Voice tight and hard, he said, “You think anything about this is easy?”

  “It’s always easier to walk away than to stay and make it work.”

  “I told you—”

  “I know what you told me,” she said, mouth twisting as she fought trembling lips. “But you were wrong. You didn’t escape that avalanche, Colt. Something in you died that day up on the mountain.”

  Outrage swelled up inside him. Hell, he’d expected her to get it. To understand and see that he was doing this for her and the twins. To protect them the one sure way he knew how. But she was standing there glaring at him through eyes that had gone as cold and dark as a forest at midnight. “Penny, damn it, don’t you see—”

  “Are you supposed to pay penance for the rest of your life, Colt? For something that wasn’t your fault?” Penny shook her head, met his gaze and held it. “Is that the price you have to pay to satisfy the ghosts in your heart? You’re not allowed to be happy? Not allowed to be loved?”

  “This isn’t penance,” he argued. “This is me trying to protect you and the twins. Why don’t you see that?”

  “What I see is that it’s time for you to go, Colt. Just leave.” She pulled her hands free of her pockets and used them both to push back her thick mane of hair. “You would have left soon anyway, so go tonight. I don’t want my children to love a father who’s so busy trying to kill himself that he’s forgotten how to live.”

  Ten

  Colt didn’t stick around. What would have been the point? He threw his stuff together and left while the twins were still sleeping because God help him, he didn’t think he could walk out the door with his kids watching him go. His kids.

  Those two words bounced around in his skull like maniacal rubber balls. He never had bothered to get a paternity test. He hadn’t needed to. He’d known in his gut the moment he’d seen them that those babies were his. Just as he knew now that he had to leave.

  He just hadn’t expected Penny to be the one to tell him to go. Damn it, he was the one who left. Always. No woman before her had ever asked him to leave. Though he supposed she had reaso
n enough.

  “The problem is she doesn’t get it,” he muttered, and drove down the Pacific Coast Highway not even noticing the ocean on his right. “How could she? She’s never failed anyone before.”

  He had, though. His mind spun darkly through all the memories he’d just dug up and stomped through.

  “Never should have tried to explain,” he told himself, pushing dark thoughts aside to concentrate on the road and the wild race of his heartbeat. “Should have just gone. Should never have stayed that long in the first damn place.”

  But how could he not? He had kids. Two tiny human beings who were alive because of him and they deserved...what?

  “Better than a part-time father, that’s what,” he muttered as he turned his car onto the private road that led to the house on the cliff.

  He slapped one hand against the steering wheel, then waved at the security guard at the gate. He drove past in a hurry and followed the narrow, winding road to his driveway. When he got there, he stopped, parked and reluctantly turned off the engine.

  What he wanted to do was to keep driving. To push his car and himself to their limits. To feel that rush of speed that came when you discarded the idea of being careful. When you raced out to stay just ahead of—

  He stopped that thought cold as Penny’s voice echoed in his mind. Chasing death. Forgotten how to live.

  She was wrong, though, he argued silently. He wasn’t chasing death, for God’s sake. He was relishing every moment of his life. He wasn’t wasting time. He wasn’t going to be an old man and regret not taking chances. Not living life to the fullest. That’s what this was about. Life, not death.

  But Penny’s voice wouldn’t leave his mind. Her accusatory stare seemed to drill right into his soul. And the look on her face when she told him to leave the cottage would stay with him forever.

  From the moment he’d met Penny, he had known that this woman wasn’t the kind you could forget. And he hadn’t. Now the memories of her were thicker, richer, more deeply embedded in his soul. Somehow, she’d become a part of him and leaving her had felt as though he was carving out his own heart with a butter knife.