“Children see things differently.”
“Thank God,” he said fervently.
“I didn’t know about Mary.” Without asking, Kelsey got out a cup and poured him some coffee. He took it with a murmur of gratitude. “Gage never said anything.”
“Maybe he thought I’d already told you.”
“Is she... She mentioned some kind of patch?”
“I think she pictures it like a patch on a bicycle tire,” Cole said with a choked laugh.
“She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?” Anything else was unthinkable.
“The odds are in her favor. It’s a fairly common procedure. When she’s older, when her heart is big enough, they’ll repair the damage, and she should be like any other kid.”
“It must be terrible for you.” She was conscious of a rush of gratitude that Danny was healthy.
“I try not to think about it too much,” Cole said. “It helps that it doesn’t cause her too many problems.”
“Well, it’s certainly cemented her place in Danny’s affections. I wouldn’t be surprised if he asks me how come he doesn’t have anything that ‘neat,’” Kelsey said.
Their laughter cleared away the vague melancholy that had invaded the room.
“Too bad adults don’t see things the way children do,” Cole said, still chuckling.
“It would make life simpler, wouldn’t it?”
“Speaking of making life simple, can you manage my lump of a brother on your own? He’s going to make a lousy patient.”
Kelsey stiffened at the mention of Gage, reminded of the myriad of problems his presence created. Obviously she couldn’t ask him to move out now. Despite his insistence that he was fine, he obviously wasn’t. He’d have to stay here until he healed, and there was no telling how long that would be. It could be weeks, which created its own set of worries. If he was here too long, he’d surely notice—
“Kelsey?” Cole’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. She drew a deep breath and gave him a quick smile.
“Sorry. I was just thinking about what Gage might need.”
“If it’s too much for you to take on, we can move him home. Mom would probably love a chance to fuss over one of us again.”
“It’s not too much. It’s not like he’s bedridden. I don’t think he needs anything except someone to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t try to leap any tall buildings in a single bound. At least not for a week or two.”
“He’ll probably be a lousy patient,” Cole warned her again.
“I’ll manage.” She gave him a smile filled with confidence.
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
If only she were half as sure as she sounded. She didn’t doubt that she could handle whatever nursing Gage was likely to need—or to allow. Her concerns were more fundamental. Living in the same house, how long would it be before Gage began to suspect the truth?
How long before he realized she was pregnant with his child?
Chapter 13
“I’d never realized that falling down a mountain would cause such an outpouring of family feeling,” Gage said as he limped back into the kitchen after seeing his brother Sam and his wife on their way back to Pasadena. “I didn’t get this much attention when I was in the hospital.”
“They’re worried about you,” Kelsey said.
“They don’t have to be anymore. I’m practically good as new.” He sank down on one of the kitchen chairs.
“Yeah, right.” Kelsey gave a pointed glance at his injured leg, which he’d stretched out in front of him, and at his arm, which he was still favoring, though he’d left off the sling two days ago. “You’re a hundred percent all right.”
“Okay, so maybe I’m not completely back to normal,” he conceded. “But I’m getting there. I’m not at death’s door, and there’s no reason for Sam and Nikki to drive up from L.A. to confirm it. And Keefe drove half the night to get here and then drove back the same day.”
“They’re your family. They love you. Would you rather they just ignored the fact that you’ve been hurt?” Kelsey hands moved quickly over the tomatoes that covered the counter, sorting them into separate piles by some criteria known only to her.
“Isn’t there a happy medium between expressing concern and hovering? My mother has been here five times since I got back a little over a week ago.”
“I like your mother,” Kelsey said. She picked up a tomato, examined it briefly and then set it in the appropriate place.
“I like my mother, too. But she’s got to stop treating me like she expects me to expire at any moment.”
“She’s your mother. She’s supposed to worry. It’s part of her job description.” She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes meeting his for an instant before she turned her attention back to the tomatoes.
“Well, between her and my brothers, I’m starting to feel like Rick may have been right, after all—there is something to be said for being an only child.”
He’d mentioned Rick deliberately and felt a certain bleak satisfaction when he saw the slight stiffening of her shoulders.
If there was anything good to come out of the hours he’d spent in bed since the fall, it was that it had given him plenty of time to think. And the thing he’d thought most about was Kelsey. It had taken him less than a month back at work to realize the absurdity of thinking that six months apart was going to make it possible for them to forget the night they’d spend together. The only way that was going to happen was if they could make time run backward and erase that night completely. And since that wasn’t going to happen, they were going to have to find another way to deal with it. It had taken him two weeks and the calling in of a lot of favors to arrange for more time off, and then he’d fallen down the side of a mountain and delayed his return still more.
When he’d finally made it home, he’d been weaker than he’d expected and he’d spent most of the first couple of days sleeping, telling himself that they’d talk as soon as he got a little of his strength back. But he’d been up and about for a good week now and they still hadn’t talked. Kelsey had done a remarkable job of keeping a subtle distance between them.
On the surface, nothing had changed. She was friendly. They spoke to each other. They even laughed occasionally. But he’d noticed that she was careful to steer the conversation away from anything remotely personal. If the conversation showed any sign of veering away from the safe and narrow, she suddenly realized she had something urgent to do elsewhere.
Gage hadn’t pressed her, thinking that, given a little time, she’d stop jumping every time he walked into a room, stop finding things to do anywhere he wasn’t, stop talking to him as if he were a casual acquaintance rather than someone with whom she shared several years of friendship, not to mention one incredible night in bed. But it had been over a week now, and his patience was wearing thin. Maybe it was time to take more positive action.
“What are you doing with these?”
At the sound of Gage’s voice coming from right behind her, Kelsey started, feeling her pulse suddenly kick into high gear. After the comment about Rick, he’d been quiet so long that she’d almost managed to forget he was there. No, that wasn’t true—she hadn’t forgotten. She hadn’t been able to forget him for so much as a second since he’d come home. Come to think of it, the words out of sight, out of mind hadn’t exactly applied even when he was gone, either.
“They’re tomatoes. I’m sorting them,” she said. It was difficult to force the words out past the sudden dryness of her throat.
“I may not be a farmer but I did recognize that they were tomatoes and I kind of guessed that you were sorting them. The question is—why are you sorting them?”
His tone was gently teasing. Kelsey felt a subtle loosening of the tension in her stomach. Despite herself, a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
“I wasn’t sure you’d know what they were if they weren’t already in a can.”
; “Don’t malign my character. Just because I spent my formative years in Los Angeles instead of small-town Minnesota, that doesn’t mean I don’t know what a tomato is. They come in plastic bags from the supermarket. Everyone knows that.”
His exaggerated tone of superiority made Kelsey’s smile widen.
“How do you think they get into those plastic bags at the supermarket?” she asked, her fingers moving quickly over the mounds of bright red fruit, sorting out those with blemishes.
“The produce manager puts them there.”
“And where do you think the produce manager gets the tomatoes to put in the bags?”
“That’s easy.” He picked up a tomato and tossed it idly in one hand. “They’re stamped out of a factory somewhere in Idaho.”
“They just taste like they’re factory made. But somebody has to actually grow them.”
“Like, in dirt?” He sounded so appalled that she bit her lip to hold back a smile. Casting him a stern look, she took the tomato from him and set it back on the counter.
“It’s not dirt. It’s soil,” she corrected primly.
“How come it’s soil when it’s outside but dirt when it’s on the floor?”
“It just is.”
“Sounds like a blatant case of prejudice to me. Maybe we should find a lawyer to fight for more equitable treatment. We could come up with a slogan. Soil Forever, or Soil Isn’t Dirty.”
“I think you might have a hard time getting that campaign off the ground.”
“I like a challenge. I managed to get you to look at me. I figure that proves it.”
The brief moment of humor burst like a pinpricked balloon. Kelsey concentrated fiercely on the tomatoes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure, you do. You’ve been avoiding looking at me for a solid week.” Gage leaned one hip against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. He was much too close, much too large and much too masculine. “Afraid you’ll turn to salt if you look at me, Kelsey?”
There was no mistaking the soft challenge in his voice, no ignoring the gauntlet that had been ever so lightly thrown down. Kelsey could feel his eyes on her, watching, waiting. She drew a deep breath and forced herself to look at him directly.
“There. I’m looking at you.” The words didn’t come out cool and confident, the way she’d intended. But she ignored the breathless uncertainty and lifted her chin a notch. “I haven’t turned to salt so far.”
“That’s a start.”
It took all her willpower not to look away from the searching blue of his gaze. It felt as if he were looking inside her, pulling out all her secrets. The thought of those secrets was enough to make her lower her eyes. This was one challenge she couldn’t afford to accept.
“We need to talk, Kelsey.” Gage’s voice was gentle, but there was no mistaking the determination there.
“We talked before you left.” She wasn’t going to pretend that she didn’t know what he meant but neither was she going to willingly open the subject again. Not here, not now.
“It’s not going to work. This pretending that everything can just go back to the way it was. There’ve been too many changes.”
More than you could possibly imagine. If he knew about the baby...
“We agreed—”
“We were idiots. We can’t just pretend that night never happened. At least I can’t. And if you could, you wouldn’t be so nervous around me.”
“I’m not nervous,” she lied weakly. “Besides, we agreed this was the best way to handle things.”
“Neither one of us was thinking clearly.”
“Danny—”
“Danny isn’t the problem right now.” He reached out and cupped his hand around her chin, turning her face up to his. Kelsey stiffened at the touch but she didn’t pull away. She forced herself to meet his gaze without flinching.
“I want what’s best for Danny, too,” Gage said. “But we can’t keep up this pretense. It’s not going to work.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Because of this,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.
Afterward Kelsey was forced to admit to herself that he’d given her more than enough time to pull away. There was never a question of his forcing the kiss on her, a consideration that she found almost harder to forgive than the kiss itself. He didn’t force her to hold still, any more than he forced her mouth to open for his or her hands to lift, her fingers curling into the solid muscles of his shoulders.
Though she didn’t remember turning toward him, her body was suddenly curving into his. She heard him groan, and then his arms were around her. Her breasts were crushed against the width of his chest. He widened his stance, drawing her closer so that she was pressed against the full length of his body.
It wasn’t fair of him to remind her, she thought despairingly, not fair for him to make her remember, to make her feel. She’d tried so hard to convince herself that she’d forgotten what it felt like to have Gage holding her, to feel the solid thump of his heart beneath her fingers, the warmth of his mouth against hers.
She didn’t know how long they stood there wrapped in each other’s arms. Long enough for her to remember how right it had felt to have him hold her, to have him love her. Long enough for her fragile defenses to come crashing down, leaving her achingly vulnerable and half-frightened by the need he created in her.
“My bike’s got a flat tire, Uncle Gage. Can you fix it?”
Danny’s voice preceded him by mere seconds. Long enough for Gage to break off the kiss, not long enough for Kelsey to step away from him. Not that she had much confidence in the ability of her knees to support her on their own. Her heart thumping with sudden panic, she turned her head to look at her son, aware that Gage was doing the same.
Danny had skidded to a halt in the kitchen doorway and was staring at the two of them, his eyes round with surprise and full of questions. Questions she couldn’t even begin to answer, Kelsey realized despairingly. How was she supposed to explain to him why she was wrapped in Gage’s arms when she couldn’t even explain it to herself?
“Danny...”
Gage’s voice overrode her apologetic beginning. “I think I can handle a flat tire,” he told the boy. His tone was so casual that Kelsey shot him a look of disbelief as he released her. “Why don’t you bring your bike around back and I’ll take a look at it.”
Danny hesitated a moment, looking from Gage to his mother. Kelsey felt the uncertainty in his look like a knife through her heart. She wanted to drop to her knees and hold her arms out to him, to beg his forgiveness. But Gage’s response had given her a moment to think, and she knew he was right. The best way to handle this was casually. If she didn’t make a big deal out of it, it wouldn’t be a big deal to Danny.
Gage limped toward him. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go take a look at your bike. Bet it’s not as gimpy as I am, is it?” He held out his hand, and Danny took it without hesitation.
“What’s ‘gimpy,’ Uncle Gage?”
“‘Gimpy’ is what happens when you’re dumb enough to fall down a mountain,” Gage told him, gesturing to his injured leg.
“You’re not dumb, Uncle Gage. I think you’re the smartest guy in the whole world.” The adoration in his small face broke Kelsey’s heart all over again.
“Thanks, kiddo. But I think you’re biased.” Gage reached out to ruffle his fair hair, grinning down at the small boy. “Take me to this wounded bike of yours.”
He turned his head before they went out the door, his eyes meeting Kelsey’s.
“We can’t go back, Kelsey. We can only go forward.”
She watched the two of them leave and wondered how two simple sentences could sound so threatening.
* * *
Over the years, it had become part of Danny’s bedtime ritual that Gage spend a few minutes with him before Kelsey came to tuck him in. Sometimes Gage read him a story. Sometimes, they talked about whatever had happened during the day that Danny thought warr
anted discussion. Gage enjoyed the ritual as much as Danny did. It was a rare chance to see the world through a child’s eyes.
“Were you kissing Mama this afternoon?”
Gage had spent the afternoon half expecting the question, but expecting it didn’t mean he had an answer ready. The one thing he was sure of was that it would be a mistake to lie about it.
“Yes, I was,” he answered calmly.
“How come?”
The eternal question, Gage thought, amused despite himself. How should he answer? He chose an abbreviated version of the truth.
“Because I wanted to kiss her.”
While Danny considered that, Gage sank down on the edge of his bed. He twisted so that he faced Danny, who sat cross-legged at the head of bed, his fair hair neatly combed, his face thoroughly washed, a cherub in Superman pajamas, Gage thought, half smiling. But Danny’s next question made his smile vanish abruptly.
“Does that mean you’re going to be my new dad?”
Gage stared at him, feeling as if he’d just taken a sharp blow to the solar plexus.
“What makes you think that?” he asked when he’d managed to regain his breath.
“‘Cause when I was at Billy Desmond’s house, his mom and dad were kissing and he said they do that all the time and that’s how come he’s got two little sisters. So I thought, if you were kissing Mama, maybe you were going to be my dad now.” He shrugged and looked away, as if to say that it really didn’t matter one way or another, but Gage wasn’t fooled.
He’d been older than Danny when his own father was shot while trying to stop a liquor store robbery. He didn’t know if having more memories had made it easier for him or harder. But he knew the hunger Danny was feeling, the empty space in the boy’s life.
How the hell was he supposed to answer his question when he didn’t even know what was going on between him and Kelsey? A few weeks ago, he would have known what the answer was, would have said that he’d never be anyone’s father, never take that risk. He’d known that for years. He could never risk failing a child the way he’d failed his sister Shannon.
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