Home Before Midnight

by Virginia Kantra

  Which apparently satisfied Gabrielle. She snuggled into her pillow. “Okay. Thank you for tucking me in,” she added politely.

  “Thank you for inviting me. It was . . . fun,” Bailey said, because she wasn’t going to be outdone by a nine-year-old in the manners department, and it was also weirdly true.

  Steve leaned past her to kiss his daughter on her forehead. The sight of that tough, stubbled face so close to the delicate, smooth one created an emptiness low in her stomach, a fullness around her heart.

  “Goodnight, sweetheart. Sleep tight,” Steve said.

  Gabrielle grinned and pursed her lips to kiss his cheek. “ ’Night.”

  Bailey followed him down the darkened stairs, still with that odd, aching fullness in her chest.

  “Thank you,” Steve said.

  She found her breath and her voice. “I didn’t do anything. She’s very . . .”

  Pretty? No, she’d said that about the mother.

  Precocious? That sounded presumptuous.

  “Friendly,” Bailey settled on.

  “She would be.” Steve’s smile gleamed in the shadows of the hall. “She wants me to get married again.”

  Bailey stopped at the bottom of the stairs, one foot in the air. “Excuse me?”

  “Gabrielle’s convinced herself—or maybe my mother convinced her—that if I had a wife, we could all move back to D.C.”

  O-kay.

  Bailey released her grip on the banister. “Do you want to move back to D.C.?”

  He rubbed his hand over his face. “This isn’t about what I want. It’s about what’s best for Gabby.”

  Not her problem, Bailey reminded herself. None of her business. But what actually came out of her mouth was, “Did you ask her?”

  “She’s nine years old,” Steve said. “What does she know?”

  “She seems to know what she wants,” Bailey offered cautiously.

  “But not what she needs.”

  “And you do.”

  “It’s my job to know.” He sounded tired. “I’m her father.”

  She admired his determination to take care of his daughter. She really did.

  “My father—” she said, and stopped.

  He frowned. “What?”

  Was it her imagination, or did he sound the teensiest bit defensive?

  Sympathy weighted her chest. She didn’t have a lot of experience with in-control, protective Manly Men. But she could imagine for a type like that, a man like Steve, nothing could be harder than to be faced with a disease he could not control and a daughter he could not protect. His uncertainty touched her even more than his concern.

  Would he be amused if he guessed how she felt? Or appalled?

  “Nothing,” she said, and went into the kitchen and sat, determined to restore an appropriate distance between them. “Like you said, I don’t have any experience being a parent.”

  “But you were a kid once, you said.”

  She looked up, startled he remembered.

  He held her gaze a long moment, his hard, dark eyes assessing. “Hungry?”

  She struggled to find her place in the conversation. “Excuse me?”

  “You sat down at the table. You want something to eat?”

  Just the suggestion made saliva pool in her mouth. “I’m fine, thank you. I’ve been surrounded by food all day.”

  “And you didn’t touch any of it. Too busy waiting on other people. I could make you a sandwich.”

  He’d been watching her? Closely enough to notice what she ate? The thought was warming. Flattering.

  Terrifying.

  “You can’t make sandwiches at . . .” She looked at her watch. “Oh, my God, it’s two-thirty in the morning.”

  “Eggs, then.” His mouth quirked in one of those crooked, heart-bumping smiles. “We’ll call it breakfast.”

  They didn’t know each other well enough for him to make her breakfast. For heavens’ sake, she’d had sex with men who hadn’t made her breakfast.

  Heat started in the pit of her stomach and rose in her face. Not that she was having sex with Steve. Or even thinking about it.

  “I don’t want to put you to any trouble. Any more trouble,” she corrected.

  “No trouble.” He opened the refrigerator to remove eggs and butter. “We can talk while you eat.”

  She didn’t want to talk anymore. She was all talked out, empty and light-headed from stress and lack of sleep.

  He dropped butter into a skillet, and the aroma rose with a sizzle that seriously weakened her resolution. He looked very . . . not domesticated, she decided, watching his muscled forearms and strong, square hands as he beat eggs and added them to the pan. But he was housebroken. He looked comfortable. Competent.

  Sexy.

  The toaster pinged. Steve glanced over his shoulder as he reached into the refrigerator. “Milk or juice?”

  “Uh . . . milk, please.”

  It was like playing house.

  At least until he started questioning her again.

  “What were you saying about your father?”

  She blinked. That was the last topic she expected him to introduce. But lots better than, say, what she was going to do now that she had no job, no prospects, and no permanent address. And he was feeding her. He could question her about whatever he wanted.

  “I don’t think my father ever had any idea what was best for me.” She shook her head, afraid that hadn’t come out right. “I don’t mean he didn’t want what was best for me. He worked hard. He made sure I had food, shelter, clothes.” She smiled. “A curfew.”

  “All the basics,” Steve observed, buttering her toast.

  “Mom wanted me to go to Meredith College, like Leann. We had these horrible fights when I got the Bryn Mawr scholarship, but in the end she let me go. I used to wonder if maybe Dad took my side, but I don’t know. We never talked about it. We never talked about much of anything.”

  Steve set a plate in front of her, scrambled eggs with cheese and toast. “Guys don’t.”

  Oh, wow, that smelled so good. She closed her eyes and breathed in.

  When she opened them again, Steve was watching her, an arrested expression on his face.

  Hastily, she picked up her fork. “You never talked to your father about your plans? Your life?”

  “Nope.”

  “So the two of you weren’t . . . close?”

  Poor guy. No wonder he was having trouble connecting with his daughter.

  He looked amused. “Sure we were. We did the usual father-son stuff.”

  Bailey swallowed and asked, “What kind of stuff?”

  He shrugged. “Fishing. Catch. Cleaning out the garage. He came to all my football games.” He looked away, a muscle working in his jaw. She remembered how he had looked standing alone in the graveyard, all tough, broad shoulders and lonely eyes.

  “Are those the things you do with Gabrielle?” she asked softly.

  “She’s a little small for football,” Steve said dryly. “We cleaned the garage the other day.”

  He was on the defensive again.

  “I’m sure that was a treat for both of you.” Diplomatically, Bailey turned her attention to her plate. “These are good eggs.”

  “Look, even if we did more together, it wouldn’t be enough.” The words burst out of him, rough with frustration. “I can’t talk to her the way Teresa could.”

  “You don’t have to talk,” Bailey said, her heart hurting for him. “You just have to be there. To listen.”

  “We did grief counseling together,” he said. “For a year. It didn’t fix anything.”

  He was such a guy, she thought, bemused. Did he honestly think of his wife’s death as something that could be “fixed”?

  “You can’t solve every problem,” Bailey said, poking at her eggs. “Sometimes the best you can do is share it.”

  “By talking about it.”

  “Yes. Why not?”

  “Because there’s no point talking about somethin
g you can’t fix.”

  “Except to make you feel less alone.” She set down her fork. “Do you ever talk to Gabrielle about her mother’s death?”

  “I told you, we went to grief counseling. She didn’t talk there, either.”

  “Kids don’t talk on the clock. Or on a schedule. They find their own times. So if you don’t make the time, they’ll never talk.”

  Steve raised his eyebrows. “Speaking from experience again?”

  She leaned forward, her eggs forgotten. “I never played football. I didn’t have the slightest interest in football, even though my father watched it every Sunday afternoon and Monday night of my life. I never expected him to sit in the back of the yearbook room cheering my great layout of the senior pages. But I wish just once he’d said to me, ‘Hey, honey, State’s playing Florida this afternoon. Sit down and watch the game with me.’ ”

  “And that would have been enough.”

  “Probably not,” she admitted. “But it would have been . . .” She struggled for words. “A start.”

  His eyes were warm. “So, you’re suggesting we make a fresh start.”

  Her heart thumped. Stupid. He was talking about his relationship with his daughter. Wasn’t he?

  Her mouth went dry. She didn’t answer.

  With slow, sure movements, he nudged back her chair and drew her to her feet. His hands on her shoulders were warm and firm. Her heart hammered wildly.

  She could say something. She should say something. Her mind went blank.

  He stood close enough for her to feel the heat emanating from his body, close enough to see the stubble of his beard give way to the smoothness of his throat. He didn’t touch her except for his hands and his gaze like a caress on her face. Her mouth. He was looking at her mouth.

  Her lips parted.

  He kissed her. Gently. Firmly. Briefly.

  And raised his head.

  Bailey waited. That was it? She opened her eyes, relief and disappointment curling in her stomach.

  It was over before she had a chance to react. She didn’t know what to do with herself. With her hands. With him.

  His gaze met hers, serious and steady, and she knew.

  She wanted him to kiss her again.

  Flexing her fingers in the soft fabric of his T-shirt, she pulled him closer and kissed him. Like that. Like this. Again, harder, taking him in tastes, in bites. She wanted him.

  His arms came up to steady her as she inhaled him, attacked him, pushing her tongue past his teeth, plastering her body against his broad, hard body. And he kissed her back, pulling her even closer to support her weight, absorbing her clumsy assault with easy strength.

  He felt so good. So safe. She pressed against him. Rubbed against him. If she could have crawled inside him, she would have.

  He angled his head and used his tongue. Zings and tingles raced up her spine and shorted out her busy brain. He glutted her senses. He filled her mind. As long as she was kissing him, she didn’t have to think about tomorrow.

  And then his hands came up and gripped her hands. He straightened his arms, forcing her away from his solid, aroused body.

  “Enough,” he said.

  THIRTEEN

  BAILEY stared at him, her eyes unfocused and her lips swollen from the force of their kiss.

  Steve inhaled sharply. She looked like his personal sex dream come true. Beautiful. Vulnerable. Available.

  She looked like a big mistake.

  He had kissed her as a sign of truce, a gesture of comfort. And because he really wanted to kiss her. But what he’d intended as an exploratory fresh start exploded when she detonated in his arms. Her response had completely blown him away. She blew him away. He was still reeling from the aftershocks. His blood pounded in his head. His erection pressed against the zipper of his jeans.

  “Enough,” he said roughly.

  Her mouth, her sweet, slick, kiss-swollen mouth, dropped open. “Are you kidding me?”

  He wanted to laugh. He wanted to jerk her into his arms and finish what they’d started. He shook his head instead, not trusting himself to speak. If he spoke, he might do something else impulsive and stupid, like beg her to trust him or invite him to his room to have sex or ask her to have his babies.

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “I don’t mix sex with the job,” he said. Pompous ass.

  “You could have fooled me.”

  He wasn’t fooling either one of them.

  “That wasn’t sex,” he said.

  Not only sex. He had feelings for her. He hadn’t figured out yet what those feelings were, or what he was going to do about them, but they definitely elevated that amazing, full-body-contact, no-holds-barred kiss above simple sex.

  Bailey stopped tugging against his grip and glared at him, the kiss-dazed, cloudy look fading from her eyes. “What are you, one of those Bill Clinton, it-has-to-be-penetration guys?”

  His control frayed. His breathing was ragged. “No, I’m one of those I-shouldn’t-fuck-a-woman-when-she’s-vulnerable-and-came-to-me-for-protection guys.”

  Hot color swept her face. “Oh.”

  Shit. This time when she tugged at her hands, he let her go.

  She looked at the ceiling, at her shoes, anywhere but at his face. “Sorry.”

  She was taking responsibility again for something that wasn’t her fault. He’d kissed her. He started this. And it was killing him not to finish.

  “My mistake,” he said.

  She grimaced. “Yeah. Thanks. That makes me feel lots better.”

  Damn it, he didn’t mean it like that. “Bailey . . .” He reached for her.

  Her chin came up. “Don’t.”

  He stopped cold. “No. I won’t. I just . . .”

  Fucked up. Big time.

  “Didn’t want to take advantage,” he said.

  Not after the way Ellis had used her and betrayed her. She’d been taken advantage of enough.

  “Thanks,” she said again. “I’m sure I’ll appreciate your restraint in the morning.”

  Frustration balled in his gut. “At least one of us will.”

  This time she managed a smile. Thank you, Jesus.

  “Well.” She hugged her arms, still not quite meeting his gaze. “It’s late. I should go.”

  He didn’t want her to leave. Not now. Not like this.

  Not ever. He pushed the thought away. He had obligations, to his daughter and to his job. He couldn’t pursue a relationship until he figured out how it fit into the rest of his life.

  “Are you too tired to drive?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. You have to stay with your daughter.”

  He did. At least Bailey recognized Gabrielle was his top priority. That didn’t mean he couldn’t make sure she got home okay.

  “I could call you a cab,” he offered.

  “In Stokesville? At three-thirty in the morning?” She shook her head, making her dark hair swing against her cheek. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  She smiled wryly. “Yeah, that’s what all the boys say.”

  “I will. When I get back from Raleigh. I don’t want you to go into the station alone.”

  “All right.”

  “And don’t go to Ellis’s house,” he said.

  Her head snapped up. Well, what did he expect? He’d kissed her, rejected her, and now he was ordering her around like he had some kind of right. Gabby was right. He was out of practice.

  “Won’t Paul suspect something if I don’t show up at work?”

  Steve hid his relief at her mild tone. “It’s Saturday. Do you usually work weekends?”

  Her silence answered for her. Of course she did.

  “Jesus,” he said.

  “Only for a couple hours in the morning. I’m baby-sitting for Leann in the afternoon.”

  “Well, tomorrow morning stay home,” Steve ordered. “Maybe he’ll figure you’re still upset over . . .”

  Too late, he saw the pit he’d dug for h
imself.

  “. . . upset over a kiss?” Bailey finished for him. Now she met his gaze. “That would be pretty stupid, wouldn’t it?”