He didn’t answer her. Talking about it wouldn’t help. It would only bring too much attention to feelings that were best left dormant.
Feelings, he knew, that weren’t really dormant any longer.
Suddenly Katie returned, struggling to hold aloft a giant cup filled to the brim with soda.
“Here it is,” Katie said proudly. “And I even have change.” Since both her hands were filled with the cup, she could only indicate the money in her pocket with the point of her chin.
Courtney took the cup from her. “Keep it.”
Katie’s hand stopped midway into her pocket. She stared at Courtney. “Keep it? Really?”
Courtney nodded. “I think it’s about time you started having an allowance.” She shifted her eyes to John. “Right, Daddy?”
He was going to say that Katie was too young to handle money. But then he thought about it again. In every other way, Katie had displayed that she was far older than her years. Far more responsible that the average four-year-old. Why not in this area, too?
Maybe Courtney was partially right. Maybe he did feel as if he was being pushed to one side, his own light dimmed in the shadow of the aura she cast on his daughter. It was only natural to feel a little put out after being both mother and father to her for the past three and a half years.
Four, he corrected himself. Diane hadn’t been there for her even in the beginning.
Well, whatever the psychological underpinnings, he wasn’t about to engage in a tug-of-war, not when the rope was his daughter.
Besides, he never could resist the eager look on Katie’s face. “Right.”
“Oh, boy. I like living with Mommy, Daddy.”
He couldn’t help laughing. “You would.”
John rose, dusting off his hands. His fingertips still felt a little sticky from the cotton candy he’d stolen from Courtney. Everything, he mused, had consequences.
Behind him, he heard music coming from the giant carousel. They hadn’t hit that ride yet, and now that the park was getting crowded, it was one of the few rides they wouldn’t have to wait for an hour or more to get on.
“Anyone for the merry-go-round?” He pretended to look everywhere but at Katie.
Her hand shot up, waving to and fro in the sultry air. “Me, me.”
Stooping, he presented his arm to her. “Then, your pony awaits, madam.”
Katie giggled as she wrapped her arm around his. She looked over her shoulder at Courtney. “You, too, Mommy, right?”
“Me, too,” Courtney promised. She had to walk slowly not to get ahead of them.
“We could have stayed for the fireworks,” Courtney said with a touch of wistfulness as she tapped out the security code on the keypad. A bag filled to overflowing with souvenirs she’d bought for Katie was leaning haphazardly against the wall. With the alarm disarmed, she picked up the bag again and opened the door.
Or we could start some of our own. The thought, unbidden, came to her as she waited for him to walk in. John had his own arms full. He was carrying Katie, who was sound asleep, her head nestled against him.
Careful not to wake her, he made his way slowly up the stairs. “I don’t think even fireworks could pry her eyes open. She’s exhausted.” Maybe they’d overdone it, he thought guiltily. He should have brought Katie home hours ago. It was just that she was having so much fun, he didn’t want it to end for her.
Ever.
With effort, he shut out the feeling that followed on the heels of that thought. If he started thinking along those lines, he wasn’t going to be able to let her go through with the surgery. And then he’d lose her for sure.
Either way he turned, there was a sword pointed at his heart. He shook his head. To think he’d once yearned to grow up and be on his own.
But that was only because living under someone else’s roof had been so intolerable. So what was he doing now? Now that he was so grown up? He was living under someone else’s roof again.
It was different this time, he insisted silently. This was only temporary, a bargain, with a finite time involved, and then he could return to his own house. It wasn’t like when he was living with his aunt and uncle. It wasn’t even like when he was married to Diane, living in the. house her parents insisted on buying for them. For her, he amended. Nothing had ever been done with him in mind. He’d just been the interloper.
Just as he was here, he reminded himself.
Following up the stairs behind him, Courtney watched Katie’s sleeping face. She’d never thought very much about having children before. Never thought about it at all, actually. She’d been too much of a child herself, she supposed. Willful and wanting to be indulged.
She didn’t feel like that now. She felt…maternal, she realized. It was a very odd, very sweet sensation.
Courtney bit her lip as she pushed the hair out of Katie’s face. Maternal feelings somehow equated to worrying. The little girl seemed to tire awfully quickly, she thought, concern nibbling at her. She remembered having energy to spare at Katie’s age.
It was probably just all the excitement and all the sugar she’d ingested, Courtney rationalized.
She walked ahead of John and opened the door to Katie’s room.
“I’ll get her ready for bed,” Courtney volunteered. “Why don’t you go downstairs and relax?” She moved to take the sleeping burden from him, but he held on to his daughter, walking over to the bed.
“I am relaxing,” he answered. “Taking care of Katie isn’t a chore for me.” He laid her down on the bed. She murmured something in her sleep, then rolled over to her side. “I’ve been doing it since she was born.”
One of Courtney’s earliest memories was the scent of her mother’s perfume as she hovered over her bed. “Your wife didn’t put her to bed?”
He remembered the disdain on Diane’s face. The complete absence of love in her eyes. “She didn’t stay around long enough to get the hang of it. Besides, she never liked getting her hands dirty.” He shrugged, not wanting to go into it.
Opening the top drawer in the bureau, he took out Katie’s pajamas. When he turned around, he saw that Courtney had taken off Katie’s sneakers and was working her socks off. “She hired a nanny to take care of things, but I didn’t want Katie to see only strangers peering over her crib.”
There had been a squadron of doctors and nurses attending his daughter the first few months after her birth, helping her hang on to the thin thread that was all that tethered her to life.
Though he was immensely grateful to all of them, once Katie was home, he wanted his daughter to know that there was someone who loved her within call. Someone she could always depend on.
One nanny could hardly be called a crowd, Courtney thought, but she decided not to raise the point. She didn’t want to argue with him, not tonight. All in all, it had been a really nice day. One of the best she’d had in recent memory.
Savoring the feeling, Courtney backed away, leaving him alone with his daughter. “All right, I’ll be downstairs if you need me. I mean…”
“I know what you mean,” he answered without turning around.
Maybe he did, she thought as she left the room, but she didn’t Things weren’t so black-and-white to her anymore.
Chapter Eleven
How was Disneyland, Madam?” Sloan asked Courtney when she walked into the living room.
For a moment, lost in thought, she’d forgotten that there was anyone else in the house besides the two people she had left upstairs. “It brought back memories, Sloan. A great many of them.”
“All pleasant ones, I trust.”
The smile on her face answered his question before she did. “Very pleasant.”
Courtney was tired, as tired as Katie had seemed, but at the same time she felt too keyed up to sit. Crossing to the window, she pulled back the drape. The moonlight moved along the lawn, wrapping everything in dark velvet. She let the peaceful scene play upon her senses.
“Will you be requiring anything further,
Madam?”
“Yes.” Courtney stroked the drape’s soft nap before turning from the window. “Could you find it in your heart not to call me madam? It really makes me feel like I’m a thousand years old.”
He inclined his head, silently giving his word. “No one would mistake you for a thousand, mad—” Sloan paused. “What shall I call you? Mrs. Gabriel?” he suggested.
She wouldn’t be Mrs. Gabriel for very long and there was a danger in becoming accustomed to hearing herself referred to that way. “Why don’t you just keep on calling me Miss Courtney?” That would make the transition much smoother for the butler after John left.
But who was going to make the transition smoother for her?
Less than a month into the bargain and she was already getting very, very used to the idea of having him around. This hadn’t been in her plans.
It was the chain, she thought. When John had given her the chain, her feelings, already in flux, had changed. Katie had softened her up.
The duo packed some one-two punch, she mused, running her fingers over the chain meditatively.
“Very good, Miss Courtney. Will you be wanting anything from the kitchen tonight?”
It was obvious he had somewhere else to go. The thought made her smile. She’d never thought about Sloan having a life outside these walls. But that was silly. Everyone did. It had just never occurred to her before.
A great many things hadn’t occurred to her before. “If I do, I’ll fix it myself. You’re off duty, Sloan. As of now.”
The faintest of smiles graced his thin lips as he retreated from the room. “Very good, Miss.”
She didn’t quite like the sound of that, either, Courtney thought “Miss” sounded too much like “missing.” She’d been missing a great deal from her life these past few years. Losing her father was just the beginning of the wake-up call. Pretending to be part of a family had brought it all home to her. It had crystallized exactly what was lacking in her life.
This was what she wanted. To have a family, a husband, a child, people to love who loved her in return, not because they had to or wanted something, but just because they wanted to.
Of course, John didn’t love her, but it was evident that Katie did. Enough to get her hooked on the feeling. Maybe someday, if she was very, very lucky, she would have the feeling on a permanent basis.
It was something money couldn’t buy.
Her father’s words rang in her head. This was what he’d meant, what he’d wanted for her. Love that had no boundaries, no price tags.
“Too bad I didn’t listen to you earlier, Daddy. You were right.” She hoped somehow he could hear her.
The telephone rang, breaking into her thoughts. Mandy, she thought. When she had postponed her lunch this morning, Mandy had been too sleepy to think of a new day to reschedule. Mumbling something under her breath, she’d promised to get back to her by eight tonight.
Mandy’s version of noon, Courtney thought with a smile. She picked up the receiver, prepared to sink into the comfort of a nice, long conversation with the only person she trusted well enough to regard as a confidante.
“Hello?”
She was caught completely off guard by the baritone voice. “So, tired of him yet, Courtney?”
It took her only a moment fit the voice with a face. But even as she did, Courtney hoped she was mistaken. “Andrew?”
The deep chuckle erased any doubts. There’d been a time when she had lived for the sound of his voice, the sound of his laughter. But then, there had been a time when she had adored licorice, too. And it turned her stomach now.
“None other.”
The best defense, her father had said time and again, was a good offense. Back straightening, Courtney launched hers. “It’s been, what, four years? Why are you calling me now?” Are they fumigating the woodwork where you live? she thought testily.
“News has it that you’re married.”
Four years, and the cocky note in his voice hadn’t changed one iota. If anything, it had intensified. As if he had anything to be so proud of.
“News is right.” She hoped her cold tone was enough to send him scurrying back under whatever rock he had crawled out from under.
“To a gigolo,” Andrew concluded. There was pity in his voice, as if he thought the only reason she’d turned to John was to console her aching heart after their breakup. “Really, Courtney, if you were going to throw it all away, I would have thought you’d return to me. After all, I am your kind.”
There was that damn word again. “Kind.” “He is not a gigolo.” She struggled to hold on to her temper. She wasn’t going to have today spoiled, especially not by some narcissistic cretin who had a money clip where his heart was supposed to be. “And you, Andrew, are not my kind at all.”
He didn’t believe her. It was there in every word. “Then you’ve lowered your standards.”
“Actually, Andrew,” she informed him crisply, “I’ve raised them since we were together.”
“I’d like to test that theory.” She could see him in her mind, playacting. How could she have been so stupid as to be taken in by such amateur theatrics? “My life hasn’t been the same since you left me, Courtney. There, I’ve said it. You left me. And wreaked undue havoc on my ego and my heart. But it doesn’t have to be over. I’m coming down. Why don’t we get together?”
The man was slime. “I’m a married woman now, remember? It’s just not possible.”
She heard him laugh again. “You don’t mean you’re going to take your vows seriously, now, do you, Courtney? You never took anything seriously. I should have never let you slip through my fingers.”
She knew he sincerely meant that, as if he’d had a prayer of remaining in her life after she’d found out why he was there to begin with—to marry her father’s trust fund. His mistake had been in bragging about it to a friend. Hers had been in being blind in the first place.
“You didn’t let me slip, Andrew, I ran. As far as I could.”
“I’ve changed, Courtney.” Just the right note of pleading entered his voice. He must have been taking lessons from a professional, she thought.
“I’ve changed, too. I have more common sense now, and I’m a far better judge of character.”
She could see him pouting as he huffed. “Well, when you’re tired of slumming, you know where to find me.”
It was her turn to laugh. “Yes, under the nearest rock.” Humor left her mouth. “And now I really have to go.”
“Hubby calling?” The question was patronizing.
She decided to rub it in. For old times’ sake. “As a matter of fact, he is.”
With that, she hung up. Courtney blew out a breath, trying to come to terms with her anger. Calming down wasn’t easy when she desperately wanted to wring Andrew’s neck. The nerve, the unmitigated nerve of that man, thinking that just because he’d shed crocodile tears, she would be eager to forget her vows and come running.
Never mind that the vows were only words. Andrew didn’t know her marriage was in name only.
She thanked God she’d been spared the misfortune of marrying him. Though she hadn’t thought so at the time, things did have a way of working out for the best. Maybe there was a guardian angel watching out for her, after all. And if there was, she thought, she could just picture him. With silver-white hair, a cherubic expression and a cigar clenched in his teeth.
“Who was that?”
Courtney swung around, startled. John was standing in the doorway with the oddest expression playing across his face. He looked as if he were angry. Angry and something more. Now what?
“Andrew,” she answered.
She didn’t expect the name to mean anything to him and she really didn’t want to elaborate. All she wanted to do was forget the man had ever surfaced.
She looked guilty, John thought. He felt something sharp twist in his gut. “An old…friend?”
She pressed her lips together as she glanced at the telephone. “I wouldn�
��t exactly call him that.”
It wasn’t any of his business who called her, or why. He knew where he was going with this, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Then what would you call him, exactly? Maybe lover is a more appropriate word?”
Her eyes narrowed as John’s tone finally registered. “And if he was, what business is that of yours?”
He had his answer. Rage flared suddenly with the speed of an exploding gas tank, surprising the hell out of him. It was all he could do to maintain a calm exterior. After all, she’d been perfectly clear in the beginning exactly where the lines were drawn and what they were.
And where he stood in relation to them. He’d even wanted it that way. Then.
“None.” His tone was flat, dead. “The contract between us is perfectly clear. You get to run off and sleep with whomever you want whenever the whim hits you.”
The taste in his mouth was foul. Almost as foul as the emotions running through him. He was jealous. It was easy enough to recognize the sensation. But he shouldn’t be, John insisted silently. She wasn’t his to be jealous of.
It didn’t help. The words were coming of their own volition. All he could do was stand there and listen to himself, the same as she.
“I just didn’t think you’d do it so soon, that’s all. But then, I never could figure your kind out.”
Confusion gave way to hurt and found its home in anger. He saw it all wash over her face, one after the other, like previews of a movie.
What kind of madness had ever possessed her to have feelings of any kind for him? “I am sick to death of hearing that term. Your kind. Your kind,” she shouted at him. “For your information, Andrew tells me you’re not my ‘kind.’ Well, I’ve got a news flash for both of you, I don’t have a ‘kind.’”
He wanted to shake her for making him feel this way. At the very least, he wanted to walk out and never come back. But he couldn’t.
For more than just the reasons that had brought him into this unholy merger to begin with.
He damned her for hurting him. For having the power to hurt him. He felt as if the very air had been snatched away from him. “How about Andrew, isn’t he‘your kind’?”
Wanted: Husband, Will Train Page 14
