“When I picture her,” he said in an odd tone, “I always see her in the living room, the lamp making a pool of light in the darkness, her head bent over her book. She’d be lost in it. I could tell when she looked up that she’d forgotten there was a here and now.”
He didn’t have to say, She’d forgotten she had a son. That memory made Rebecca sad, the idea that Daniel hadn’t had a place in that living room, or else it would have been better lit in his memories.
The last thing he said before she served dinner was, “Funny how little I really did know Mom.”
Rebecca shook her head. “I simply can’t imagine.” And she couldn’t. Daniel must have been so much like Malcolm: smart, cute, eager. Had Jo Fraser not loved him because she thought he was Vern Kane’s son and not Robert Carson’s? But even then—he was her son. Shouldn’t that have been what mattered most?
As they sat and began to dish up, Rebecca said, “I’m amazed the phone hasn’t rung yet.”
“Malcolm?” A grin tugged at Daniel’s mouth. “He did tell me he thought he wouldn’t be scared this time. Because after all, he’s almost five. Although he couldn’t remember how far away his birthday actually is.”
She laughed. “Yeah, the passage of time is still a puzzle to him.”
“It’s relative to all of us. Depending on whether we want something to happen, or we dread it.”
“True enough,” she said lightly. She felt…odd. As if some champagne had joined the blood flowing through her body. She seemed to fizz. What was going to happen? Did she want it to happen?
Did she even have to ask herself that question?
Rebecca closed her eyes. Oh, I’m as big a fool as Jo Fraser was, taking back the man I love, over and over again!
She grabbed for something, anything, to say. “I don’t suppose you plan to change your last name.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Carson Construction doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
“No-o…But you wouldn’t have to change the name of the business, since it’s so well established.”
He was shaking his head. “No. I have no desire to take on his name. A name is a gift. He didn’t give me his.”
And Vern Kane had, whatever his other failures as a father. Rebecca nodded.
“Most of these new relatives aren’t Carsons, either. Sam will be the only one once his daughter Belle is married. Jenny took her husband’s name, too.”
“No boys to carry it on.”
He looked at her. Of course there had been boys. Adam and he both ought to have been Carsons, which would have made Joe a Carson, too.
“Do names matter anyway?”
“I think they might,” Daniel said thoughtfully. “They have power. Kids get ridiculed for the wrong name. Actors choose names that express…God knows.”
“Magic. Charisma.”
“Anything but the ordinary,” he agreed. “A business rises and falls in part because of the name the founder chooses. We judge people by their names.”
“Kane is a good one,” Rebecca decided.
“You sound like Malcolm.”
Oh, Lord, so she did. She remembered how awful she’d felt when he had announced that Kane was a good name, and she couldn’t help thinking it should have been his.
“Well, it’s true.”
Daniel watched her, his eyes dark and intense. “I missed you. Talking to you.”
Please don’t do this to me, she begged silently, but said only, “You must have other friends.”
He shrugged, his gaze not leaving her face. “Joe.”
She set down her fork. “You have other friends!”
“People I entertain. Maybe enjoy. Nobody else I could talk to about this.” He frowned. “Sam Carson’s daughter, Belle. We’ve talked.”
What an idiotic time to feel jealous! And hadn’t he said she was getting married?
“She’s the one with the birthmark that looks like mine. She was trying to tell me about family the other day.”
“Do they know about Malcolm? I mean, besides Joe?”
He shook his head. “Hasn’t come up.”
It seemed they had safely left behind dangerous territory. I missed you. She rose. “I’m afraid I don’t have any dessert to offer. And my coffee is instant, but if you’d like a cup…”
She knew what a coffee snob he was. He shook his head, but in an automatic way, not as if he cared whether she was offering powder from a jar or fresh-ground Bolivian dark roasted. He wasn’t thinking about coffee.
He was thinking about her.
“Rebecca.”
She froze.
“What if I’d come after you? What if I hadn’t accepted the note as goodbye?”
Her legs failed her. She sank back into the chair. “I don’t know.” Her voice came out husky, barely above a whisper. “I suppose…I would have had to tell you.”
“The note didn’t sound as if you minded parting ways. Did you?” He made a gesture. “Malcolm aside.”
She couldn’t look away from him. Lying would be the best tactic. I thought we’d taken the relationship as far as we could. Sound…blithe. Surprised he’d ask now.
“Yes, of course I minded.” She glared at him. “I thought you were tired of me. That hurt. And then, when I found out I was pregnant…” Her throat clogged.
“You should have told me.”
“Why?” That old pain pressed at her rib cage. “It wouldn’t have made you love me when you didn’t. Or want to get married. Or even be a father. You’d made it plain your answer would have been none of the above.”
A muscle in his jaw spasmed. “I was scared.”
His voice was so soft, she wasn’t sure she’d heard right. She couldn’t have heard right.
“What?”
“Conversation with a woman is usually, uh, a means to an end.”
“That’s…that’s an awful thing to say.”
His shoulders moved. “But true. I’m not saying I haven’t enjoyed talking to women I’ve been involved with. But that wasn’t the point. I didn’t…count on it.” Lines creased his forehead again, as if he’d disconcerted even himself. He took a moment before he finished, “It was different with you.”
She tried to comprehend. “You liked talking to me. And that scared you?”
“Needing someone else doesn’t come naturally to me.”
That almost made her cry. Of course it came naturally to him, as it did to every helpless newborn! But Daniel, while never truly neglected or abused, had been taught that no one else cared all that much about him. He had to be sufficient unto himself. And whatever he had come to feel for her had threatened that self-sufficiency.
“You can’t tell me you didn’t find another girlfriend right away.” Please, please tell me you didn’t.
He shook his head. “It was a while. Six months, maybe. And even then…” He moved restlessly in his chair. “No other woman has ever stayed the night at my house.”
No one had taken her place at the breakfast table, even if they had in his bed. Longing and hope dug their claws into her.
“What are you saying?” she whispered.
“Like I said. I missed you.” He shoved back the chair and stood. Suddenly his voice was hoarse. “Every goddamn day.”
Rebecca let out a sob. She wanted to hear other words, but these…these were a miracle all their own. She stood, too, and they met at the foot of the table.
No chance for second thoughts. He yanked her against him so hard, their bodies slammed together. His fingers tangled in her hair and tipped her head back so his mouth could claim hers. No tenderness, only raw hunger. The clutch of desire was so much more vicious than she remembered it.
One of her arms was painfully bent between them. She freed it and flung both around his neck, on tiptoe to press herself closer yet. Her mind blurred; Daniel was holding her, kissing her, as if he’d spent years dreaming about this kiss.
Her legs sagged; he backed her against the wall with a thump hard enough to
rattle the china cabinet. Her shirt fell to the floor first, his on top of it. The hooks of her bra defeated him, and he swore and lifted his head long enough to deal with them. The next thing she knew, he hoisted her high enough to allow him to suckle her breast. With a squeak, she wrapped her legs around his waist and pressed against his erection as he took her other breast into his mouth.
Oh, now she wanted his T-shirt off even more. She pushed it up, even knowing she couldn’t succeed without him letting her go. And she didn’t want him to let her go.
“Beautiful,” he said, in an unrecognizable voice. His face was taut, almost savage. He kneaded her butt, rocked her against him.
Would they make it to the bedroom? If they’d gotten their pants off, he could take her against this wall. Except…
“I’m not on birth control,” she gasped.
He went still, then swore. “I think I have a condom in my wallet.”
If he didn’t have one…She almost didn’t care. Some risks were worth taking.
His mouth closed over hers once again, his tongue sliding along hers in a primitive rhythm that made her belly cramp. She peeled his tee off; he kept kissing her, even as he pulled the wallet out of his back pocket and opened it. They pulled apart long enough for him to open the wallet and extract a slim packet.
I won’t think about why he carries one.
“I want you on a bed.”
She managed a nod. Self-control was good. Comfort was good. Not essential, but how would she feed Malcolm peanut butter sandwiches at this table with the memory of rutting on the floor beside it?
They bumped walls and corners. Rebecca left her shoes in the living room, her jeans in the hall. She had his unbuttoned, and his breath rasped as they staggered into her small bedroom. Daniel lifted her and dropped her on the cloud-soft duvet, stripped off his jeans and followed her down.
His hand was between her legs. She moaned his name, arched. “Please.”
Daniel rose above her. His hands were shaking as he tore open the packet and rolled the condom on. Seconds later, he nudged at her entrance even as he kissed her as if his life depended on this connection between them.
For a second it hurt, having him press into her. She was ready—oh, so ready—but this felt new again. It had been so long; she’d had a child in between. Daniel must have felt her stiffen; he lifted his head and watched her face as he pushed deeper, deeper, going so slowly she could see the strain on his face. And then he was buried to the hilt, filling her utterly.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yes.” An inner tremor shook her, a hint of something sweeter, wilder. “Yes.”
He eased back as carefully, then pushed inch by inch, his eyes never leaving hers. This time, as he retreated, she lifted her hips to hold him, to welcome him, and his control snapped. He thrust, again and again, his lips drawn back from his teeth, his eyes molten. Rebecca clutched at his shoulders with desperate hands and wrapped her legs around him so he couldn’t escape, not now, not this time. Never again. And her body simply…imploded. Some strange sound escaped her, maybe his name again, she couldn’t have said, as pleasure flooded her the way hot lava flowed sizzling into the sea.
She’d drawn Daniel with her. He jerked and groaned, his face buried in her hair. His weight sagged onto her, but she didn’t care. This must be what it felt like in the aftermath of a tornado, she thought, dazed, the silence absolute and shocking, the walls around them probably no longer standing. She would open her eyes any minute and find out.
The phone on her bedside stand rang.
Rebecca whimpered. Daniel mumbled an obscenity and pushed up on his elbows.
“You don’t have to answer.”
“I won’t. Unless it’s Malcolm.”
“Do you have caller ID?”
She nodded.
The mechanical voice from the answering machine in the kitchen announced, “Dunhill, Mark.”
Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then fumbled for the phone. “It’s him. Or maybe Judy.”
Daniel flipped off her to lie sprawled on his back.
She picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Mom?” Malcolm sounded terribly young. “I know I said I’d try to stay, but I’d really like to come home.”
“Aren’t you having fun?” she asked, marveling at her ability to sound so much like usual.
Daniel groaned and laid his forearm over his eyes.
“Yeah! We had lots of fun, and I liked Mrs. Dunhill’s spaghetti almost as much as yours. But now it’s time to go to bed, and…and I want to go to bed at home. Maybe next time I can stay all night.”
“Yes. All right. You tell Chace’s mom I’ll be there in a few minutes. Okay?”
“Okay!” He sounded jubilant. “Bye, Mom!”
“Bye, sweetie.” She hung up and let the phone drop onto the bed.
Daniel lifted his arm enough to roll his eyes her way. “You couldn’t say, ‘Tough, kid, you’ll survive’?”
“He’s four. And not so tough. Besides, do you have another condom?”
“Crap. No.”
“Well then.”
“God,” he said, and pulled her on top of his big body so that he could kiss her, a leisurely, sensuous exploration of her mouth while his hands kneaded her back.
Maybe Malcolm could spend the night….
Daniel slapped her butt. “No condom.”
Flushed, she scrambled off him with scant dignity. “Right. I need a shower.”
He didn’t follow her into the bathroom, thank heavens. No condom, she remembered. No birth control. He hadn’t wanted the first child, and wouldn’t want another surprise.
That hurt.
She’d kept her hair from getting wet by bundling it up on her head. As she got dressed, Rebecca couldn’t help wondering what he did want. Besides…well, what he’d already gotten.
I missed you every single goddamn day. What did that mean? I love you? Or We had something good, let’s recapture some of it? Surely he must see that things were different now. How would she explain to her young son that the time she spent with his father didn’t mean anything, that they were just having fun for old times’ sake?
Should she ask? Let matters unfold? Admitting to as much vulnerability as he had must have been hard for Daniel. He didn’t like acknowledging that he had frail human emotions at all. Maybe it was unreasonable of her to expect more right away.
But, she didn’t think she could survive having him again, and losing him. If she’d been devastated the first time, what would it be when a few months from now, a year from now, he moved on, but she had to keep seeing him because he was Malcolm’s father?
Just like that, she was fighting for breath. I shouldn’t have done this.
Eventually she regained enough control to leave the bathroom with a semblance of poise. Daniel was already dressed and had laid her strewn clothing on her bed. Was he gone? But no, he waited in the living room, standing beside the sofa, his laser-sharp gaze going straight to her face when she appeared.
But he said only, “I’ll drive.”
“You don’t have to stay.”
“I’d like to see Malcolm.”
“Oh.” Breathe. “Yes. Okay. Then let’s go.”
Chace lived less than ten minutes away, thank goodness. Rebecca didn’t even try to make conversation on the way. Daniel drove in preoccupied silence.
He waited in the car while she collected their son, who was delighted that Dad was here to get him, too. He started to fall asleep during the ride home, though, short as it was, and Daniel had to carry him in.
“Did you brush your teeth?” Rebecca asked.
He blinked at her over his dad’s shoulder. “Uh-huh. Chace’s mom made us. But I didn’t like Chace’s toothpaste. I wished I had our kind.”
Their house had only the one small bathroom, so they shared toothpaste. Maybe if she’d sent it with him, he would have stayed the night.
Yes, but maybe this was better. Her foolish
ness had had a time limit.
Daniel didn’t make any move to leave. Once she’d helped Mal into his pajamas and pulled his covers up to his chin, Daniel bent and gave him a clumsy kiss that seemed to be an imitation of her more practiced one.
“Good night, buddy.”
“’Night, Mom. ’Night, Dad,” Malcolm murmured sleepily. His eyes were shut by the time she turned off the light and pulled his door half-closed.
Daniel followed Rebecca to the living room.
“He has amazing self-possession,” he said, surprising her. “Is he ever shy? Or unsure of himself?”
She couldn’t help a small laugh. “No, I don’t think so. I swear, he was born with that ability to engage with people.”
“He didn’t get it from me,” Daniel muttered.
“I don’t know. Maybe you were like that. Before…” She stopped, then said apologetically, “He looks so much like you. I can’t help seeing you as a child and wondering in what ways you were like him.”
He ignored that, only watched her for a moment with eyes that had darkened and looked somber. Then he dropped his bombshell.
“This probably isn’t the time or place, but…Rebecca, will you marry me?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
HE’D ASKED HER to marry him?
Assailed by dizziness, Rebecca held on to the back of the sofa as she gaped at Daniel. After a moment, she found enough voice to whisper, “You’re serious?”
“No, I joke about things like that all the time.” He hunched his shoulders, a frown knitting his brows. “Of course I’m serious!”
Then why was he all the way across her living room, his expression brooding? Why hadn’t he pulled her into his arms? Why wasn’t he kissing her, coaxing her, romancing her?
Because this wasn’t about romance.
“Um…Why are you asking?” She had to lay her fears on the table. “Because of Malcolm? Because it would be convenient if we were married?”
“I want you and Malcolm both in my house. But it’s more than that. I told you. I missed you.”
With some asperity, Rebecca said, “I miss having my sister as an ally. That doesn’t mean I want to spend my life with her.”
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