Romulus and Remus trotted alongside Burke as he held Seamus’s hand and led him toward the stream that bisected the back half of the acreage behind the large garden area. Burke wasn’t sure whether or not there were any fish in the stream, but if there weren’t, he’d see that Mr. Mayfield arranged for the stream to be stocked before next spring. He and Seamus could enjoy fishing together, a sport he had occasionally enjoyed with his stepfather. But for Gene Harmon fishing had been like everything else in his life—a competition. The man hadn’t known how to relax and simply enjoy himself. But it would be different for Seamus and him.
Everything would be different for Seamus. Better. Right. He glanced at his son, and a feeling of pride and deep love swelled inside his chest. The child was such a delight. Inquisitive and intelligent. Looking at the world through the eyes of his son was like looking at the world for the first time. Everything was fresh and new.
“Don’t let him get too close to the water,” Callie called as she followed them. She had stopped by Mrs. Mayfield’s cottage to say hello and had lingered to talk for a spell.
“I’ll look out for him,” Burke said. “Since we have the pool and a stream running through our property, I think we should make sure Seamus learns how to swim, don’t you? I can teach him myself as soon as it’s warm weather.”
“Will you have time to teach him?” Callie caught up with father and son, who stood by the edge of the stream, Seamus peering into the fast-running, bubbling water. “Your business and your…your other work take up a great deal of time. Not to mention your social life in London.”
Burke went down on his haunches so that he was almost at eye level with Seamus. “Nothing’s more important than spending time with you.” He patted the top of his son’s head, ruffled his black curls, then lifted the hood attached to Seamus’s coat and pulled it over his head. “It’s cold out this afternoon. We want to keep you all warm and cozy, don’t we?”
“Cold,” Seamus repeated and grinned broadly, showing his teeth.
“A new word?” Burke glanced at Callie.
“Yes, a new word. I believe that extends his vocabulary to eighteen words now.”
The cold November wind whipped around them. Clusters of dried leaves swirled in the air. A dark cloud passed across the sky and blotted out the sunlight.
“He’s a very bright boy,” Burke said. “You’ve done an excellent job with him, Callie. I want to thank you for…” Burke paused, lifted Seamus onto his hip and held out a hand to Callie. “I want to thank you for giving me such a splendid son. I’m very grateful that I can be a part of his life.”
Callie accepted Burke’s outstretched hand. He engulfed her hand in his and tugged her to his side. How was it possible that he couldn’t remember the night he had spent with this woman two years ago, the night she had conceived his child? Callie was the most unforgettable woman he’d ever met. So why had he erased her face—her identity—from his mind?
“We mustn’t stay out much longer,” Callie said. “Mrs. M. said she took a pot of stew up to the house a while ago. Aren’t you two hungry? We skipped lunch, you know.”
“Are you hungry?” Burke asked Seamus. “Mama says it’s time to go back to the house.”
“Meck,” Seamus said.
“Yes, milk.” Burke grinned. “He associates milk with eating, doesn’t he?”
“He loves his milk,” Callie said as they turned from the stream and headed toward the garden. “I was afraid when I weaned him, he might not care for cow’s milk, but he took to it right away.”
When I weaned him. Her words repeated inside Burke’s head. The image of his son at Callie’s breast flashed through his mind. How he wished he could have been there to have seen her nourishing their child from her body. If he had searched the world over, he couldn’t have found a more loving, maternal woman to have mothered his child.
When they reached the back door, Seamus’s little hand reached toward Romulus and Remus. “Doggie.”
“I think he wants the dogs to come inside with us,” Burke said.
“Do you usually allow them inside?” she asked.
“Into the kitchen,” he told her. “They’re accustomed to me feeding them in front of the fireplace on cold nights.”
Callie cupped Seamus’s chin with her thumb and index finger. “Do you want to help Daddy feed the dogs tonight?”
“Dada. Doggie.” Seamus squealed with delight.
On the closed-in back porch, they divested themselves of their heavy coats, hung them on the wooden rack attached to the stone wall and then entered the warm kitchen. Mrs. M.’s stew filled the room with its delicious aroma. Romulus and Remus galloped into the kitchen and plopped themselves down in front of the fireplace. The minute Burke set Seamus on his feet, he toddled straight toward the dogs.
Burke and Callie stood together and watched while Seamus wedged his pudgy little body between the two big Irish setters and wrapped his left arm around Romulus’s neck and his right arm around Remus’s neck.
“Doggie, Dada,” Seamus said. “Meck.”
Callie and Burke laughed, each enamored with their precious child and the fact that they had both understood his command to feed the dogs. Suddenly their gazes met and held. Burke felt as if he’d been hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer. Not giving his actions a thought, acting purely on instinct, he pulled Callie into his arms and kissed her.
Chapter 14
Callie waited in the hall and watched Burke as he tucked the covers around a sleeping Seamus. She thought about the kiss they’d shared in the kitchen a couple of hours ago. Indeed, she’d been able to think of little else since it happened. Heat suffused her body when she remembered the way she’d felt and the way she had reacted. His actions had been so unexpected that she’d barely had time to realize what was happening before her traitorous body responded. The kiss had gotten out of hand quickly, but passion had been subdued by their son’s giggles. He had toddled over to them and inserted himself between their legs. Burke had pulled back from her, both of them breathless. When he’d lifted Seamus in his arms, they’d all three laughed. In that moment they had been a family.
“Bring the monitor so we can hear him,” Callie told Burke. “And leave the door partly open. If he wakes and the door is closed, he’ll be frightened.”
When Burke joined her in the hall, he handed her the monitor, which she stuffed into the pocket of her bulky sweater. “He played hard today and tired himself out.”
“He should sleep the night through,” Callie said as she walked ahead of Burke toward the stairs. “He usually does when he’s really tired.”
“There are so many things that I don’t know about him.” Burke reached out and laid his hand on Callie’s shoulder, halting her.
She glanced at him. “You’ll learn everything there is to know about him soon enough. He’s still just a baby. He won’t ever remember a time when you weren’t a part of his life.”
“I do realize that you had legitimate reasons for not coming to me when you discovered you were pregnant, but…” He shook his head and sighed. “I don’t blame you. Not entirely. After all, I’m the one who was drunk that night. I’m the one who didn’t bother using a condom. And I’m the one who can’t remember all the details of that night.”
“I’d like a cup of tea,” she said, deliberately changing the subject as she moved away from him. “Would you like some dessert? Mrs. M. brought over a cake while you were giving Seamus his bath.”
“Mmm. Cake and tea sounds quite nice.”
When Callie started down the stairs, he caught up with her and said, “Let me help you. You fix the tea and I’ll cut the cake.”
Callie nodded. They busied themselves in the kitchen. Like an ordinary married couple spending a Saturday night at home together, she thought. But they weren’t an ordinary married couple. There was nothing ordinary about Burke Lonigan or about her marriage to him. Her husband, whom she’d believed to be an arms dealer, was actually some sort of super
agent for a secret organization. And her husband had as many women in his life as the famous fictional agent 007. Unless Burke was willing to retire from his dangerous fieldwork and put an end to his playboy lifestyle, she couldn’t be his wife no matter how much she loved him. And she did love him. In the deepest, most private recesses of her heart, she had probably loved him since the night Seamus was conceived. But even then she’d known that Burke was a lethal combination of charm and danger.
She finished preparing the tea, placed their cups on a silver tray and added the two cake plates. “Shall we take this into the parlor?”
“Excellent idea. I built a fire in there earlier, while you put dinner on the table.”
In the parlor, Callie placed the tray atop the walnut table between the two Louis Philippe armchairs that still had their original cut-velvet upholstery.
Burke glanced around the room. “It’s cozy, I suppose. But it needs completely redoing. New paint on these old walls is the first order of business. The floors are in good shape, so they probably need only a good waxing. But the furniture needs recovering and—”
“Are you truly interested in redecorating this house or are you simply trying to make conversation?” Callie asked as she reached for her cup.
“Both,” he admitted. “I do want you to redo this house to suit your own tastes. I haven’t had anything done to it since I bought it because I’ve spent little time here.” He clasped her hand before she lifted her cup. “Trying to make idle conversation with you is difficult, when what I truly want to do is to take you to bed and make love to you all night.”
Callie jerked her hand from his. “I would have thought after half a week in London, you wouldn’t need the attentions of your wife.”
Burke glowered at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I’m not a fool, despite evidence to the contrary. Why else would you want to stay in London during the week other than to carry on with your life as usual, and that includes all the sophisticated, exciting women you know.”
His gaze narrowed. “You think I’ve been having sex with one or more of my old lovers these past few nights?”
“That’s precisely what I think.” Callie sat ramrod straight, her shoulders squared, her backbone rigid.
“Would it do any good for me to deny it? Would you believe me if I told you that not only have I not touched another woman in quite some time, but I haven’t even wanted another woman?”
Callie’s heart gave a little flutter. She truly wanted to believe him. But did she dare? He was a known charmer, a man accustomed to getting whatever he wanted by whatever means necessary.
She sat there, speechless, staring at him. She knew he wanted to make love to her. If her instincts hadn’t told her before the kiss in the kitchen that Burke wanted her, that kiss had spoken loud and clear. Would he lie to her in order to get her into his bed? Ask him outright. An inner voice egged her on. If he swears that he hasn’t been with another woman, then believe him. He had never lied to her, except by omission.
“Have you had sex with another woman?” Callie asked boldly. Her accelerated heartbeat hammered inside her head.
“I’ve had sex with numerous women.” The corners of Burke’s lips twitched with humor.
“Dammit, that’s not what I meant and you know it!” Callie shot out of the chair and glared at Burke. “Have you been with another woman since you and I were married last Saturday?”
Burke got up. His big, lean body leaned ever so slightly toward Callie. She drew in a deep breath and held it until he said, “You kept my son a secret. You lied to me. You disapprove of my lifestyle and you hate the fact that I’ve been a government agent most of my adult life. You’d think I wouldn’t want you, that I’d prefer a woman who didn’t care who I was or what I did. But the truth of the matter is that I haven’t wanted anyone but you for several months. Not since the day you walked into my office for a job interview.”
Callie released her breath. A shudder rippled over her nerve endings. “Then why…why stay in London? Why—”
Burke slid one arm around her and brought her against him. She trembled as he lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers. “Two reasons,” he said. “I honestly thought it would be easier for you to adjust to our marriage if I didn’t come home every night. At least not at first. And second, I do have an import-export company to run and there are important negotiations with SPEAR that need to be wrapped up.”
“Business is the reason you’re staying in London?”
“Do you honestly think that I wouldn’t prefer to come home to you every night?” Dipping his hand beneath her hair, he grasped the back of her neck and held her face to his, only a hairbreadth between their lips. “If sex alone could make a good marriage, then you and I would have the most solid marriage in the world.”
She longed to cry out her true feelings, to declare that she loved him beyond reason, but how could she confess her love when he hadn’t even mentioned the word?
“Say something.” Burke kissed her jaw, then her chin and followed up with a string of soft, moist nips down her neck. “Tell me that you believe me.”
“I believe you,” she replied as she draped her arms around his neck and dissolved into shapeless putty. Breathless with expectation, she went weak in the knees.
His mouth descended as his arms tightened around her. She opened herself up and welcomed him. Like hungry savages ready to devour the beast that tormented them, Callie and Burke kissed and touched and quickly began undressing each other. Passion rode them hard.
Her sweater dropped to the floor. His shirt landed on one of the Louis Philippe chairs. Her blouse and bra fell over their untouched teacups. His trousers and hers pooled into cloth puddles on the floor, and they stepped quickly over them as they made their way to the sofa. Socks and shoes and underwear flew this way and that, landing haphazardly throughout the parlor.
“I’ve thought of little else but you while I’ve been away,” Burke whispered in her ear just before he nibbled on her earlobe.
“I’ve missed you,” she said, then gasped when he pushed her onto the sofa.
“We have so many problems that aren’t resolved, but right now none of them seem to matter.” He came down over her, scooped her buttocks up and lifted her to meet his descending body. “Nothing matters except this—” He spread her legs with his knees, then thrust into her.
She moaned with pleasure the moment he filled her, relishing the incomparable feeling of having Burke buried deep inside her. Rational thought ceased as she gave herself over completely to the sensations spiraling through her body. Whenever she was with him, she lost all sense of herself and the world around them. She existed only as a part of him, only to belong to him, as he did to her. They were one. Bodies joined. Hearts combined. Souls touched.
“Feel it all,” he murmured, increasing the tempo of their mating. “Feel everything I’m feeling.”
She met him thrust for thrust. Hot kiss for hot kiss. Fiery passion for fiery passion.
“I am,” she whimpered. “Oh, Burke, I am!”
They came together with a ravaging hunger, fueled by a week of celibacy. Days of longing. Nights of deprivation.
Callie tightened around him, her body pulsing with tension. And then with one hard lunge, he sent her over the edge. Her climax hit her with the impact of a freight train. As she cried out, her body trembling with completion, Burke came undone. He tensed as a powerful release claimed him. Breathing hard, moist with perspiration, he slumped on top of her until his big body covered her completely. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed his forehead, his cheeks and then sought his mouth. He captured her lips, loving her anew.
The harsh pounding on the front door jerked them out of their intimate cocoon, but it took Burke several minutes to fully comprehend that someone was trying to beat down the door.
“Who—” Callie tried to speak.
Burke kissed her. “Get dressed, my darling, whi
le I find out who it is.”
He picked up his trousers and slipped into them hurriedly, then lifted his shirt out of the chair and put it on, leaving it unbuttoned. Callie rushed about, picking up her clothes and trying to dress as quickly as possible. By the time Burke returned to the parlor, she was partially dressed and had regained enough composure that she worried about who might be with him.
Burke came toward her. She glanced past him and saw a man’s shadow in the hallway.
“Leland came up from the Mayfields’. It seems I left my mobile phone upstairs and we didn’t hear it ringing.”
“What does Leland want that is so urgent it couldn’t wait until morning?” Callie asked.
“My mobile phone is how SPEAR contacts me,” Burke explained. “When my superior couldn’t reach me, he contacted Leland.”
“Leland? I don’t understand. Why would they contact—”
“Leland works for SPEAR, just as I do,” Burke told her.
“Oh.”
Burke pulled Callie into his arms, rubbed his cheek against hers and then kissed her temple. “There’s an emergency I must handle immediately. I’ll have to take the jet from Heathrow tonight. I can’t explain further, but believe me, I have no choice but to go.”
“Orders from SPEAR?”
“Yes. And I’m afraid I might be out of the country for a couple of weeks.”
She clung to him. “You’ll be in danger, won’t you? Oh, Burke, please…” She sucked in a cry of despair. “Please, be very careful. I…we…Seamus needs you.”
“If you need anything while I’m gone, contact Ardell Healy, my solicitor.” Burke released her long enough to delve into the back pocket of his jeans for his wallet. He withdrew a credit card and handed it to her. “You’re authorized to use this card. Why don’t you start redecorating while I’m gone? And find a nanny for Seamus.”
Her Secret Weapon Page 19
