by MJ Rodgers
“Fine,” Marc said, once again getting that unwanted mental flash of a creamy bare bottom at the end of two long, lovely legs. He rubbed his free hand hard over his eyes as though trying to erase the vision. It wasn’t any use. Just like it wasn’t any use washing his hands. He could still smell her bath oil every time he touched one of those damn law books.
After that bath-towel incident, he’d taken to closing and locking his study door. He tried to put enough work on her desk in the den every morning to keep her busy all day. But she proved too damn fast and efficient. She was frequently knocking on his door by early afternoon, asking for more.
And driving him insane with her walk and her voice and her damn cool composure.
“Marc?”
Marc snapped out of his reverie, realizing that A.J. had paused because she must have asked a question. Only he hadn’t the faintest idea what it was.
“Sorry, A.J. My mind wandered. What was that?”
“I just said if there wasn’t anything else, I’m going to call it a night.”
“Right. Thanks again.”
Marc hung up the phone and looked at his watch. It was already nine o’clock. He stretched and immediately felt the ache in his shoulders and back and the rest of his body. Too much sitting. And too much tension from being around Remy.
He’d never envisioned how difficult it would be having her in his house, seeing her day after day, glimpsing the quickness of her mind, hearing the warmth of her laughter.
Damn. He got to his feet. He had to stop thinking about her. He really needed his workout tonight. Maybe he could exhaust himself enough to finally get a good night’s sleep.
* * *
REMY SETTLED NICHOLAS with his toys in the cordoned-off area of the den a few mornings later and began to go through the papers Marc had left on her desk. As usual, he had come and gone before she and Nicholas had arrived. Purposely.
And, on those occasions when he’d bring in additional work, he’d spend more time talking with Nicholas than he would with her. His continuing avoidance of her was really getting on Remy’s nerves. Him and his damn switch.
Remy’s pique faded as her eyes caught a different-looking paper in the pile. She picked it up and read it. Angry warmth splashed her cheeks. She immediately stomped toward the door.
* * *
MARC’S EYES FLEW UP when Remy burst into his study, waving something in her hand.
“What is this?” she demanded.
Marc rose to his feet just about the time that she came to a screeching halt at the front of his desk. She slapped the sheet of paper down in front of him.
His eyes quickly scanned it. Well, now he knew where the blasted thing had gotten to. He must have inadvertently slipped it in with some of the papers he placed on her desk that morning.
He looked up from the paper to the angry golden flecks in her eyes, finding himself curiously relieved to see her normally calm composure gone for once.
“I want an explanation,” she said, “and I want it now.”
“I don’t see what you’re upset about, Remy. This fax came in over a week ago. It’s merely a confirmation from Dr. Hamilton at the lab that he understands I’ll need the results of the DNA match on Louie Demerchant and Nicholas by the trial. Since Heddy and Colin refused to cooperate with a sample—and legally I can’t compel them, since they are not parties to the civil action—Louie was the most reasonable alternative.”
“I don’t care about Louie or Colin or Heddy. How dare you go behind my back and get a sample of my child’s blood!”
“Remy, the blood was taken when Dr. Gail Enders performed that physical on Nicholas for the custody hearing. I just took the opportunity to send a sample to the DNA lab.”
Marc watched as angry frustration welled in her eyes. “You never asked my permission. You never even told me!”
Remy turned her face away, her voice suddenly breaking on her last words.
Before he knew it, Marc found himself at her side, reaching for her, gently gathering her into his arms. He held her close and stroked her hair. She smelled so sweet. She felt so soft. And suddenly, so very fragile beneath that facade of strength she projected so well. His chest filled with a painful pressure that knew no release.
“God, Remy, I’m not trying to hurt you.”
Her face rose to his, captured tears swimming in her eyes. “Why not? You’ve made it clear nothing I feel matters.”
The piercing shrill of the telephone punctuated her words—words that had been flung at him with such stirring sadness. Before Marc could say or do anything, she tore out of his arms and ran from the room.
He wanted to go after her. He wanted to take her back into his arms and deny that awful accusation. He wanted to kiss her senseless to prove to her that he was not the enemy.
But she would not believe his denials. And kissing her senseless wouldn’t prove he wasn’t the enemy. It would only prove that his word could not be trusted. He had told her he would keep his distance. And he would, even if it killed him.
From the way she continued to wring him out emotionally, he was beginning to think it would kill him.
* * *
HE CLIMBED THE STAIRS later that night on his way to his bedroom to change into his sweats. He noticed the light coming from her room, its door ajar. He could hear her voice.
Despite all the mental warnings to keep his eyes straight ahead and walk on past, he stopped and looked inside. He could see her sitting up in bed beneath a table lamp, Nicholas snuggled beside her.
She was totally absorbed in reading. Her voice rose and dipped in animation, bringing back to life a poem that sounded surprisingly familiar to Marc.
“A little boy has one nose and ten toes.”
Nicholas raised his feet to point at his toes as Remy nodded.
“A little boy has two eyes and two thighs.”
Once again Nicholas gestured in the right direction.
“A little boy has soft lips and hard hips.
A little boy has dimpled knees and a sneeze....”
Remy paused, deliberately, and Marc heard Nicholas’s excited little voice insert “Ah-choo!” and then laugh delightedly.
Marc continued to watch and listen, carefully hidden out of sight as Remy read through the rest of the poem, Nicholas quickly touching his chin and shin as the rhyming lines mentioned them.
Then Remy put the book down and gazed out at the dark night as she added two stanzas of her own, the liquid flow of her inflection now filled with promise.
“My little boy will go far to his special star.
For my little boy rides moonbeams in his dreams.”
Then she cradled Nicholas closely against her and hugged him as she gently kissed the top of his hair.
Forgotten memories swirled around Marc. For a moment, he could almost feel the brush of his own mother’s hair against his cheek as she read the book’s version of this poem to him. He could almost smell the Old Spice on his father’s robe as he carried him sleepily to bed afterward.
For more than twenty-five years he had forgotten these things. And then, suddenly, the memories had surfaced crystal clear as though they had happened tonight.
They had happened tonight.
Watching and listening to Remy and Nicholas, he had relived those forgotten memories of joy with his own parents.
“Who’s there?”
He must have made some sound to betray his presence. He stepped forward quickly, out of the darkness of the hall, not wanting to cause her a moment’s fear.
“It’s me. Is everything all right?”
She visibly relaxed as he came into view. “Fine. Nicholas was just having one of his favorite poems read before bed.”
He stepped farther inside the room. “That was my favorite up until at least age five.”
Her eyebrow went up in a small surprise. “And then it was straight on to Perry Mason, I presume?”
He chuckled, relieved that the morning’s episode seemed to
be behind them. He walked over to the bed.
She ran her hands almost reverently over the book she held. “Poems and stories are such wonderful vehicles for children to pick up the right kind of feelings.”
“This is from some child-rearing textbook, I suppose?”
“No. I learned that from my mom. She always read the most wonderful stories to Phil and me—stories to help our hearts to grow, she called them. Storytime was always my favorite time of the day.”
“Yes, I think it was mine, too.”
She looked at him quizzically. “Your parents were what, doctors? Lawyers?”
He sat on the edge of the bed. “Nothing so erudite. They owned a small family restaurant. Just to make ends meet, my brothers and I worked there every day when we got home from school. Mom’s specialty was baked potatoes with all the toppings and Dad’s was onion soup with crusts of bread loaded with melted cheese floating on the top. We called Mom ‘Big Potato’ and Dad the ‘Big Cheese.’”
“Do they still own the restaurant?”
“No, after expanding it into a chain of restaurants, they sold it and their recipes for megabucks and now live in Palm Springs.”
Her tone was accusing. “Your family has money.”
He smiled at her sudden frown. “Scads of it. But only in the last ten years or so. While I was growing up, they rarely had the money to buy us kids much. I remember there were these real expensive tennis shoes I wanted, but they could never afford. Boy, how I wanted those tennis shoes.”
“A deprived childhood.”
He chuckled at her sarcasm. “These things are important to kids. I always promised myself mine would have the extras. But helping in my family’s business made me understand my efforts were important and valued. That’s a great feeling for a kid.”
She looked at him as though trying to readjust some picture in her mind.
He began to notice how softly her hair and skin glowed in the subdued lamplight. He couldn’t afford to notice such things. He deliberately rested his eyes on Nicholas.
“He’s nodding off.”
“Yes. Time to put him into bed,” Remy said.
“Let me,” Marc said, bending forward quickly to lift Nicholas into his arms.
Remy’s eyes grew with surprise. Marc was rather surprised, himself. But Nicholas wrapped his arms around Marc’s neck without hesitation, as though this was something that happened every night.
Marc held Nicholas’s warm, lean little body securely against his chest. He carried him to his crib and laid him down gently. He pulled the covers up and carefully tucked them around Nicholas.
Nicholas’s hand grabbed Marc’s finger as his mouth opened into an enormous sleepy yawn. He turned his pink cheek to the pillow and seemed to fall asleep instantly. Marc stood there watching him, captured by that small hand, a smile drawing back the corners of his mouth.
He wished David had lived to see his beautiful child.
Still, knowing of Nicholas had eased the pain of David’s loss, because it made his death seem that much less than final. Nicholas was proof that a little bit of David still lived.
He wondered what it would be like to know he was responsible for a life this new and precious, to have a little guy like this look up to him, trust him.
Marc was so caught up in his thoughts that it was a moment before he became fully aware of her beside him. And then it was simply too late. His senses were already overflowing with her warmth and scent; his body was already responding to her closeness.
Desire rose in him so fast and hard that it struck like a blow to his gut, knocking the breath out of him. He knew he had to get out of there and fast.
He spun around and raced for the door. He was already stepping into the hall when he heard her call, “Good night.”
Marc didn’t answer. He didn’t look back. He didn’t even slow his pace. He didn’t dare.
* * *
THE PHONE SHRILLED insistently. Marc bounded over to the kitchen phone, juggling a sandwich in one hand as he snatched at it with the other. “Truesdale.”
“It’s Dr. Hamilton, returning your call.”
Marc put down his sandwich, licking the mayonnaise off his fingers. “We go to trial tomorrow, Dr. Hamilton. Any results yet?”
“I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which do you want first?”
“Better give me the bad.”
“We are really backed up here in the lab. Just before I received your samples, we were inundated with requests from police labs to do DNA testing for their forensic investigations. So you’ll understand when I say I don’t know if I can get the results on Louie Demerchant and Nicholas Westbrook by this week.”
“Do you know of any other lab that isn’t as swamped as yours that you can send the samples to?”
“No. All accredited DNA labs have been inundated with requests both from the police and from the lawyers of defendants, insisting on their own DNA results being run. I’m sorry, Mr. Truesdale. I’ll get to yours as soon as I can, but I can’t promise anything.”
“Well, I’m not happy with the prospect of waiting, Dr. Hamilton, but I see your problem. If I don’t have the DNA results in by the time I need them for the defense’s case, at least I’ll have the ammunition I need to demand a continuance. Judge Swellen wouldn’t be able to deny one on those grounds. So, now that we’ve dispensed with the bad, what’s the good news?”
“Lyton hasn’t asked to see any of the DNA test results. I’ve received no court order to provide them and no subpoena for me to testify.”
Marc’s thoughts instantly clouded. “That’s strange. He knows I’m having you perform the tests. There was no way I could legally keep the information from him once he filed the proper discovery motion. Why isn’t he interested in seeing the results?”
“Maybe he figures you wouldn’t have had the DNA tests run unless you knew they were going to support Nicholas’s claim, so he decided not to bother even getting a copy.”
“No, a lawyer learns never to assume. Even a first-year law student wouldn’t make such a mistake. Something is wrong here. Very wrong.”
“I thought this was good news.”
“On the contrary, Dr. Hamilton. This is very bad news.”
Chapter Ten
Marc turned the treadmill knob to the maximum, ten miles an hour. As his feet raced, so did his thoughts. They kept going over and over his conversation that afternoon with Dr. Hamilton.
He knew there had to be an explanation for Lyton not asking for a copy of the DNA results. Did he really think he could challenge the DNA testing and get it thrown out of court? No, Lyton wasn’t a fool. He knew DNA had a solid footing. What was going on? What was it Marc was missing?
Something pink and out of place caught his eye next to the rowing machine. Marc turned off the treadmill and went over to investigate. He picked up a wrist weight.
He realized Remy must have left it behind when she had used the machine that morning. Before caution could take hold, he brought it to his nose. Damn. It smelled sweet, just like her.
His mind and body suddenly felt exhausted. He knew it wasn’t from the case or the exercise. It was from the daily tension of being around Remy. It was from the sleepless nights, tossing and turning, knowing she was just a bedroom away. And that she would get no closer.
Marc put the wrist weight back where he found it. No way was he returning it in person. He trudged back to the treadmill. Let her find it in the morning. He already had far too long a night ahead of him.
* * *
IT WAS JUST PAST TEN when Marc turned on the Malibu lights around the pool in the backyard and began his laps. Remy stood at the window in the darkness of her bedroom and watched him as she had watched him almost every night since she arrived. She knew his routine by heart. He’d spent an hour either on the treadmill, the stationary bike or the weight machines, and now he’d come out to the pool for a half hour of laps.
He had totally avoided her since that night he’d p
ut Nicholas to bed. He had even stopped bringing her additional work in the afternoons.
She missed the work. She also missed the way he’d stop by Nicholas’s play area on his way out to ask him what he was doing. She missed the way he’d patiently listen to Nicholas’s often long and incomprehensible explanations. She missed the way he’d find some excuse to touch Nicholas’s hand or his cheek or his hair.
She missed him.
She also had gradually begun to realize she’d been approaching this problem all wrong, because she’d been approaching Marc Truesdale all wrong.
This man didn’t respond to reason, guilt or accusation. But this man did respond to her.
Switch or no switch, she had read that response clearly in his eyes that morning he’d grabbed her shoulders as she stood before him in just a towel, and he’d begged her to put on some clothes. And when he’d held her in his arms after she’d become upset over the fax, his heart racing against hers, the hunger growling beneath his breath. And that night he’d put Nicholas to bed, only to then run out of the room.
All this time she’d been confronting him, not understanding that it was the confrontation that made him strong. It was a game he understood because he knew its rules.
It was time for a new game, with new rules.
She knew she had to be sure she thoroughly understood her opponent before she went up against him in this, the deadliest game of all—head against heart, duty against desire. For there could be only one winner.
She filled her eyes with him. There was a magnificent sensualness in the silent, swift way his body moved. His powerful strokes cut through the water so smoothly they scarcely made a ripple. He never allowed himself a backward glance. Everything was focused on his forward momentum.
She suspected that was probably how he dealt with the women in his life, too. Smoothly. Without a ripple. And without a backward glance.
She’d discovered his winner’s trophy on a shelf in the den for an August triathlon, which included a 1.2-mile swim, a twenty-five-mile bike ride and a 9.4-mile run, all completed in a mere two hours and fifteen minutes. She sensed he found success because he always pitted himself against himself.
