All That Remains

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He nodded and grabbed another mug.

  “Sally wasn’t sure you and Randy could be civil all the way through dinner.”

  “We talked.”

  “Is that good?”

  “I’ve been a jackass.” He gave her a rueful look. “Again. I shocked you, didn’t I?’

  Almost whispering, Wren said, “You looked so furious. I’ve never seen you like that before.”

  “I scared you.”

  “No, not like that.” She tried to think how to say this. “I didn’t know. Although I guess I should have. I mean, you’re a cop. So you have to be able to be…”

  When she hesitated, he finished. “Violent? Is that what you were going to say?”

  After a moment, she nodded.

  “I can be, Wren.” He sounded disturbed. Or maybe only weary. “I won’t lie. But I would never hurt anyone defenseless. For me, it’s always a last resort. Do you understand?”

  She found herself nodding again.

  “I would never hurt you.”

  “I know that.” She crossed the room to him in a rush, because she could see that she’d wounded him. “I’ve never been afraid of you. I never could be.”

  His Adam’s apple rose and fell. “Okay.”

  She stopped so close to Alec he could have reached out and touched her. She was embarrassed to realize how much she wished he would.

  Somehow they’d come to be staring at each other. She got lost in how blue his eyes were, in the shape of his mouth when it softened as it was now. He straightened away from the cabinet so he was no longer leaning. Seemingly in slow motion, he took a step to close the small distance between them.

  Wren’s breath backed up in her throat as she kept looking at him. Oh, please, was all she could think.

  “Wren?” His voice sounded raw.

  She must be swaying toward him, because she could see every individual line radiating from the corners of his eyes, every dark eyelash, the texture of the stubble that shadowed his jaw.

  He groaned, or she did. All she knew was that suddenly his arms had closed around her and she’d splayed her hands on his chest. His head bent, his mouth found hers, and he was kissing her. Not sweetly and gently, but so desperately she could tell he’d bottled up all his hunger as she had.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HE WAS KISSING WREN.

  What in hell am I thinking?

  He wasn’t thinking. Couldn’t. This felt too good. Too right.

  Her mouth was unexpectedly lush, the taste everything good she’d ever cooked for him. Alec had started by diving in deep, his tongue startling hers into hiding. He cradled the back of her head so that he could angle it to please him. With the other hand he gripped her hips and pulled her tight against him. His erection pressed against her belly.

  No subtlety. No decency. No romance.

  He wanted her. That was all his blurry mind could wrap itself around. Wanting.

  But he couldn’t have her. Somehow he knew that, too. Newborn. She wasn’t ready, even if he wasn’t scaring or repulsing her.

  His awareness grew, took in the fact that her mouth had opened to his and she wasn’t fighting him. He loved the feel of her small hands spread open on his chest. His heart must be thundering against one of her palms.

  But she wasn’t kissing him back, either. She was holding herself very still.

  Despite the fact that his blood all seemed to be in his groin, his brain regained enough function for her stillness to worry him. Had he made her afraid of him, despite what she’d said? He didn’t want to know what he’d see in her eyes if he set her away from him.

  Everything changed in that instant. He began gently massaging her hip and butt as his mouth became gentle. He licked her lips and nibbled at them, coaxed her tongue from hiding and played with it. Whispered, “You feel so good,” between small, biting kisses. She relaxed—yes!—and kissed him. Made a humming sound in the back of her throat that was so erotic he could go ballistic on her if he let himself. But no. He couldn’t have her. Newborn baby. Kissing was enough. Listening to the song of her desire.

  It was a long, long time before he could make himself gradually ease away. Stroke her hip instead of kneading it, move his hand up to the delicate small of her back. Relax his fingers in her incredibly silky straight hair. Take his tongue into his own mouth where it belonged, and brush tender, close-lipped kisses on her swollen mouth.

  And finally, lift his head enough to see her face.

  Her chin stayed tilted up to him and her eyes closed for seconds that stretched while his heart hammered in earnest. In apprehension. Then her lids slowly lifted to reveal the melted chocolate of her eyes, which studied him for a paralyzing moment.

  She blinked several times in succession and took a step back. His hands dropped to his sides. He saw her swallow.

  “You kissed me.”

  “Yeah.” That came out hoarse. “Yeah, I—” I what? I’ve wanted you like crazy since about twenty-four hours after your baby was born? That would thrill her to hear. “I’ve been wanting to,” he said at last, the closest he could come to what he really felt.

  She absorbed his explanation. “Oh.” Undecipherable thoughts caused little twitches in her expression. “I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know?” he asked, disbelieving.

  New color layered over already pink cheeks. “I thought sometimes…”

  Throat thick, he said, “I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable.” He still had a raging hard-on. He didn’t dare glance down to see whether the loose twill shirt disguised it. He could only hope.

  “No. I mean…no.” But now her eyes avoided his.

  “I won’t put any pressure on you. I swear.”

  She nodded.

  Alec tried again. “I like having you here. I— Tonight got to me.”

  “Your sister.”

  “And Randy.” And the kids. The whole family thing. Wren, most of all. The highs and lows had all hit him.

  “I shouldn’t have said that.” Now she was looking at him. “About you being violent. I know you wouldn’t have hit him. It’s just that you looked like you wished you could.”

  He rubbed his open hands against his jean-clad thighs. One good thing, this particular topic was taking care of his physical reaction to her. “It’s probably good that you interrupted when you did. I saw on your face what an idiot I was being.”

  “That isn’t exactly what I was thinking.”

  Surprisingly enough, he was able to smile. “It worked anyway.”

  “The water is boiling.”

  “What?” He turned, startled, and saw that she was right. It had probably been boiling for five minutes. Swearing under his breath, he turned off the burner and poured hot water over the tea bag in her cup and the scoop of instant coffee in his. He turned to her, mugs in hand. “Can we sit down? Talk for a few minutes?”

  She moved ahead of him to the table and sat in what he’d come to think of as her place.

  In dismay, he thought, It will keep being her place, even after she’s gone.

  He might have to quit eating at the table.

  He watched as she stirred half a teaspoon of sugar into her tea, then waited.

  “You know why I don’t like Randy.”

  Her forehead puckered. “Kind of.”

  That said it all, didn’t it? Yes, Randy wasn’t exactly his dream brother-in-law. Whether he would have liked the rich doctor was another story.

  I don’t like Randy.

  But maybe he could. A possibility that made him frown.

  “If I’d been here for Sally to talk to when she first started dating him, she might have made different choices,” he said. “I should have moved to Arkansas when Mom did. Dad would have expected me to take care of them.”

  “But you said that was ten years ago.”

  “Right.”

  “Sally must have been…sixteen?”

  “Seventeen. I expected her to kick and scream when Mom dragged her here
for her senior year, but she didn’t. I thought she hated visiting Aunt Pearl as much as I did. But I guess not.”

  “So, she was almost an adult,” Wren said slowly.

  He could tell she didn’t get it. “She was a teenager. At the worst of being boy-crazy. Mom had to take care of Aunt Pearl, so she wasn’t paying enough attention to Sally. She took the SATs, then never applied to colleges.” He grimaced. “She’d started dating Randy.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Nineteen. Turned twenty before she graduated. Mom mentioned that she was dating someone, but not that he was older. I should have been paying attention.”

  “Alec. You’re her brother.”

  All too familiar anger rose in him. He bounced his fist on the table. “She doesn’t have a father, does she?”

  She stared at him for ages, her lips parted, her eyes no longer melted chocolate. Darker, thoughtful, possibly sad. “Why didn’t you move with your mom and sister?”

  “I had a job.” It came out as a near snarl. “I’d gotten engaged.”

  “You had a life,” she said softly. “Isn’t that what your father would have wanted for you?”

  He was having trouble taking air into lungs that felt compressed, and he didn’t even know why. Why should something he’d believed for ten years now seem…unreasonable? He’d made a promise at his father’s grave, and he hadn’t kept it. It was that simple.

  “So that’s it. You feel responsible for everyone in your life. Your mom, Sally… Your nieces and nephew?”

  He hesitated; nodded.

  “Me,” she whispered.

  He could only nod again. Of course he felt responsible for her, and for the baby she’d named after him.

  Something that might have been pain flared on her face and she pushed to her feet. The chair toppled backward to the floor, but she didn’t seem to notice. “I don’t want you to feel responsible for me. If things go wrong, you’ll only torture yourself over me, too. I never meant for that to happen.” Eyes huge and dilated, she pressed her hand to her mouth.

  Alec rose slowly. “It’s not the same.” The calm voice came naturally; it was the one he used on the job, to soothe a hysterical victim. “You’re different.”

  “How am I different? How?”

  He loved her.

  Hell. Damn. No.

  He stared at her in shock. Thinking of asking her to stay so they could get to know each other better, toying with the idea of a future, that was one thing. Going under without even a chance to bob to the surface for a last breath… That was something else.

  He was in such turmoil, he felt as though he’d swallowed battery acid instead of a gulp of black coffee.

  Glittering with hurt or tears or maybe anger, Wren’s eyes still held his. She was waiting for an answer.

  Alec fumbled to say something. “You’re not…”

  “Family?”

  “Maybe.” That was a lie, Alec realized, still in the grip of that shock. She felt like family. His. And Abby felt like his, too, despite every effort he’d made not to let himself become attached to her. “No.”

  “Then you don’t have to worry, do you?” she said in a cold voice he’d never heard from her before. “I guess you won’t have to torture yourself after all, if something goes wrong.”

  Yes, he thought. He would. The way losing his father, his mother, then his girls, had come close to crippling him. But Wren… Oh, God, if James got to Wren— Alec didn’t think he’d survive.

  She wasn’t different, he realized dully. She was more. It was crazy, given how short the time he’d known her, but the way his heart clenched was as real as his panic. He’d never felt this way about Carlene, which was why he’d suffered guilt after their divorce more than he had any sense of loss. No, the true grief was for losing Autumn and India from his life, not Carlene.

  He couldn’t afford to make an impulsive decision he’d regret.

  “Why don’t you ever see your daughters?” He didn’t know what she’d seen on his face, but Wren’s voice had changed. It was warm bath water instead of sharp-edged ice cubes.

  “That’s not really something we need to talk about.” He managed to sound…remote. Facade safely pulled into place.

  There was a long silence, neither of them moving. Then she made a funny sound, a gulp that, with horror, he realized might have been a sob, and she raced past him, striking the corner of the table with her hip as she went. Her untouched tea splashed, his cup rocked.

  He spun. “Wren!”

  Her footsteps were racing up the stairs.

  Alec let loose of an obscenity and sank into his chair. Half an hour ago, they’d been friends. He hadn’t known he was in love with Wren, hadn’t ground his erection into her belly and thrust his tongue damn near down her throat. Hadn’t told her he felt responsible for her.

  Hadn’t lied and implied that he didn’t care in any personal way.

  Hadn’t screwed up his life even more than it was already screwed up.

  He swore again, braced his elbows on the table, bent his head and ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets.

  IF ONLY THIS WASN’T SUNDAY, Wren mourned. Monday she could have stayed in bed until Alec left. He could have cold cereal for breakfast. That was undoubtedly what he did most of the time. Then she would have had all day to figure out what she would say to him.

  Wren couldn’t imagine what had gotten into her. Alec had been unbelievably nice, and what did she do? Turn into an emotional mess that must have astounded him.

  How am I different? How?

  What was the poor man supposed to say to that? I worship and adore you? Yeah, right. All he’d tried to do was be tactful and point out that she wasn’t a member of his family, so of course, his sense of responsibility for her was different than what he felt for his sister or his mother.

  Wren stifled a moan into her pillow. Yep, she’d gone off the deep end. How could he help but know how she felt?

  In one way she wanted to march downstairs and tell him that she was leaving. Thank him for everything he’d done, but it was time she started depending on people who actually did love her and hadn’t gotten shanghaied into taking care of her.

  But she knew she couldn’t do that to Alec. If she did that, and James hurt her or—God forbid—killed her, Alec would never forgive himself. He’d be sure it was his fault she’d gotten upset and taken off for Florida.

  With a sigh, Wren tossed off the covers and got out of bed. Abby was asleep. She’d awakened and nursed about two hours ago, which should mean Wren would have time for a shower.

  She took it hastily then made a face at herself in the mirror before she returned to the bedroom. She wished she had a hair dryer. With no makeup and her hair wet and slicked to her head she looked about twelve years old. Except—she glanced down at herself ruefully—her boobs were too big for that, and leaking, besides.

  Abby was stirring, thank goodness, which gave Wren an excuse to put off going downstairs. She sat on the bed with her back to the headboard and let her daughter have a leisurely meal, then changed her and dressed her for the day. At last, with no more excuses to dawdle, she started downstairs.

  The doorbell sounded before she’d gone down more than a couple of steps, and with a now familiar jolt of fear she stopped. Alec came out of the kitchen without noticing her and opened the door.

  “Randy.” He stood back and let the visitor in.

  His brother-in-law was about the same height as Alec but with a rangier, less compact build, dark russet hair and big hands and feet. There was something unfinished about his body, Wren thought, but she found him disarming.

  Without even a greeting, he said, “Sally liked what you suggested.”

  Knowing she was eavesdropping, still Wren didn’t move.

  “Hiring you to work on this house?”

  “No. The idea of me setting up as a contractor. We’re going to take a chance with a piece of her inheritance.”

  “Good.” Alec nodded. �
�Does that mean you’ll work on this place for me?”

  “Yeah.” The two men moved, and Wren saw Randy’s grin. “Except I’m wondering if you’d mind waiting until spring.”

  “Spring?” Alec sounded surprised. “Ah…would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “Sure.” There was a bounce in the other man’s step as they went into the kitchen.

  Wren hesitated. Abby gurgled and managed to grip a fistful of her wet hair. With a giggle, Wren pried the fingers loose and smacked a kiss on her button nose.

  Shoot. She wasn’t going to lurk here in the shadows. Having Randy here would make seeing Alec easier. She should take advantage of it.

  As she neared the kitchen she heard their voices. Randy was talking about having made a couple of phone calls that morning and already lining up a job.

  “We’re going to have to gut most of the first floor, maybe even lift the house off its foundation.” His enthusiasm was apparent. Wren couldn’t hear the next bit, but as she walked into the room he was saying, “Unless you’re planning to put the house on the market, I figured you could wait. I want to jump on some of this other work.”

  “Makes sense.” Alec turned to look at Wren, his blue eyes sharp.

  She smiled vaguely in his direction, more directly at Randy. “Hi, you’re up and about early.”

  He grinned in his engaging way. “People to see, things to do. Had to thank Alec here, first.” He slapped his brother-in-law on the back hard enough to rock him on his feet.

  Alec winced, but to his credit kept a smile on his face.

  “Have you eaten?” Wren asked. “I thought I’d make pancakes if you’d like to join us.”

  Randy thought he’d like to. Alec started to protest that she didn’t need to wait on them, but she ignored him, settled Abby in her bassinet and started cooking bacon. He gave up and, seeing that the coffee was ready, poured cups for the two men.

  While she worked, he listened and made occasional suggestions as Randy talked enthusiastically about his fledgling business. They’d decided that Sally could do the books for now; she’d apparently done some bookkeeping for a logger before Maribeth was born.

  “She’ll be my receptionist, too.” Randy propped a booted foot on his knee. “Considering I won’t have an office for the time being. Since we don’t have a garage, I may have to rent someplace for equipment storage, though.”