And the haunting unanswered question that was causing fresh tears to sting her eyes was whether or not she would ever see Andrew Malone again.
Chapter 12
“So, there I was,” Andrew said, “balancing on the framework of the roof of the house, the kitten clinging for dear life to my shirt—and the skin on my chest, I might add—and hollering its head off, and the ladder flat on the ground.”
Kara laughed in delight. “How did you finally get down?”
“Two little boys came along who were searching for their lost kitten. I called to them, telling them I had the kitten, but I couldn’t get off the roof. Could they lift the ladder and lean it against the house? No, it was too heavy for them.”
“You’re kidding,” Kara said.
“Nope.” Andrew chuckled. “One of the kids said he’d go for help and took off at a dead run. This all took place close to ten years ago, and to this day someone will remember it and razz me about the time the fire department came to rescue me and my cute kitty from the roof of a house I was helping to build. I’ve never lived it down.”
“What a wonderful story.” Kara covered one of Andrew’s hands with one of her own on the kitchen table. “Thank you for telling me that tale. I could visualize it all so clearly in my mind. I imagine those two children thought you were a real hero.”
“No, actually, they were more impressed with the firefighters when they arrived. It’s hard to compete with a uniform, you know.”
Kara’s smile faded and she looked at Andrew intently. “Like a baseball uniform? They put the outfit on the baby, Andrew. He was wearing it when I saw him last. It was adorable. He was adorable. That was such a sweet and thoughtful thing to do.” She paused and looked at their layered hands for a second, then met his gaze again. “Why did you buy him that little suit?”
Andrew shrugged. “I don’t know. It was another one of those ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’ moments. I was wandering around a mall, attempting to fill the hours until I hoped I could see you, and I saw the outfit in a store window.
“The baseball suit was a symbol, of sorts. You know, step up, give it your all, always do the best you’re capable of—that kind of thing.” He chuckled. “I’m sure the baby picked right up on that message of life when they put the thing on him.”
“He did,” Kara said, nodding. “He told me.”
“Oh, okay.” Andrew smiled, then grew serious in the next moment. “I guess I’ve been assuming that the baby will be put up for adoption, have a chance of a normal happy upbringing with a mother and father who love him. I suppose, though, that his birth mother might be able to keep him if she gets her act together. Right?”
“Yes, there have been cases where the baby was placed in foster care while the birth mother underwent rehabilitation for drug use, and they were eventually united. In this case, however, the baby’s mother signed release papers before she left the hospital so he could be adopted. She really wasn’t interested in giving up drugs.”
Andrew nodded. “Then the little guy will be adopted, be part of a real family—mom, dad, dog, cat. Maybe even brothers and sisters down the road. That’s good, really good.”
Tell him, Kara’s mind yelled. The conversation had taken a direction that gave her the perfect opening to share with Andrew the fact that she had applied to adopt the baby, that she hoped to be his mother. Tell him, Kara.
No, no, this wasn’t the time. Andrew had so much on his mind, such a great deal to come to grips with already. She couldn’t expect him to comprehend something that was so vitally important to her when he was already on mental overload.
She’d have to wait. She’d explain it all to him later when he—if he—returned to Ventura. Oh, dear heaven, what if he never came back? What if this night was the last she was to share with Andrew Malone?
“Well, it’s nice to know that the baby is going to have a happy ending,” Andrew said, bringing Kara from her troubling thoughts. “I’m surprising myself with the fact that the little guy is on my mind a lot. I guess it’s because he’s the first baby I’ve ever interacted with. You know, held, fed, bored him into a deep sleep with my pearly words of wisdom.”
“He’s a heart-stealer, all right,” Kara said quietly. “He’s…well, very special, a little miracle.”
“Yep. A big miracle is how much better I feel at the moment,” Andrew said. “That’s due to the delicious dinner you made and the relaxing conversation. Thank you very much, Dr. MacAllister.”
“You’re welcome, Mr. Malone.”
Andrew pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “The least I can do is help you clean the kitchen.”
“My goodness,” Kara said, rising. “Your mother certainly trained you well.” She paused and sighed. “Oh, Andrew, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up the subject of your mother. I was just blithering and…Now you’ll think about Sally Malone and that will lead you to dwell on Uncle Robert and…I’m so sorry. This was supposed to be an evening off from heavy thoughts.”
Andrew closed the distance between them and pulled Kara into his embrace.
“Shame on you,” he said. “You blew it. I would say that it’s now your responsibility to occupy my entire thought processes with something pleasant to make up for your mistake.”
Kara encircled Andrew’s neck with her arms. “Seems only fair.”
“Indeed.”
Kara inched her fingertips into Andrew’s thick hair and stood on tiptoe to claim his mouth with hers. He answered the demands of her lips eagerly, hungrily, and passions soared.
Andrew raised his head to take a sharp breath, then slanted his mouth in the opposite direction as he captured her lips once again. His tongue slipped into her mouth, found her tongue, stroked, dueled, danced.
Kara pressed her body more tightly against Andrew’s and felt his arousal, glorying in the fact that he wanted her as much as she did him. She drank in the taste of him, inhaled his aroma, savored the strength in his magnificent body and the wondrous sensation of feeling so safe and protected within his powerful arms.
“The dishes,” Andrew murmured close to her lips.
“Can wait,” she said.
“Good.”
Andrew broke the kiss and swung Kara into his arms, causing her to laugh in delight. He strode from the kitchen and carried her into the bedroom, setting her on her feet next to the bed.
They shed their clothes quickly and flung them away, no thought given to where they landed or the wrinkles being created in the fabrics.
Andrew swept back the blankets on the bed, lifted Kara into his arms again, then placed her in the middle of the cool sheets. He followed her down to claim her lips in a searing kiss.
They kissed and caressed, hands never still, touching, exploring, rediscovering wondrous mysteries that were known only to them. Where hands had been, lips followed, tasting, savoring, cherishing.
The flames of want and need grew hotter, consuming them, causing breathing to become labored and hearts to race in wild tempos.
But they waited…waited…anticipating what was yet to come, going to the very brink of what they could bear. A whimper of need escaped Kara’s throat. A groan rumbled deep in Andrew’s chest.
He left her only long enough to take steps to protect her, then returned to her embrace. He entered her, sheathing himself in her feminine heat, then began a thundering rhythm that took them far far away. Up. Higher. Over the top and into ecstasy.
“Andrew!”
“Kara. My Kara. My Kara.”
They hovered, drifted, floated back to the room, the bed, the sated contentment of reality.
Andrew shifted off Kara and settled close to her side, one arm curled across her waist as she nestled her head on his shoulder. Minutes passed in blissful silence as they gathered themselves.
“Just gets better and better,” Andrew finally said.
“Mmm.”
“I can’t…can’t deal with the idea of never seeing you again,” Andrew sai
d, “but neither can I promise that I’ll come back to Ventura, Kara. I would never make a promise I wasn’t certain I could keep. There is so much I have to sort through and…Hell.”
“I understand, Andrew,” she said softly, struggling against threatening tears.
“I don’t expect you to sit around waiting for me to get a handle on this muddled mess called my mind. God, I’m so confused about so many things right now.”
“I know.”
“So, I mean, I have no claim on you or…But the thought of your being with another man is…whew. See? I’m a basket case. Maybe, hopefully, once I get back to Santa Maria, pick up my life, get to work, I’ll have a clearer picture of everything, know what I should do.
“Ah, hell, I don’t know. All I’m doing now is chasing my own thoughts in an endless circle.”
“I…I hope you’ll come back to Ventura, Andrew,” Kara said, splaying one hand on his chest. “But I’m sure you know that.”
“It’s nice to hear,” he said, sifting his fingers through her hair. “But there’s no erasing the fact that you’re a MacAllister. If I return to see you, be with you, it would mean taking my place in the MacAllister family unit, being acknowledged as Robert’s son and becoming comfortable with that truth myself. That is one heavy trip, let me tell you.”
“Yes, I imagine it is.”
“I’m a very solitary man, Kara. The number of people in your family is daunting, let alone the emotional involvement being a part of that group would require.
“I grew up with a single mother and a nutty aunt who dropped in between husbands. My grandparents were killed in a drunk-driving accident when I was three years old. I have no memory of them whatsoever.
“I live alone, answering to no one and…and I like my existence just the way it is.”
A chill swept through Kara and she pulled her hand back from the warmth of Andrew’s chest.
“Yes, well, that’s certainly a very safe way to live, isn’t it, Andrew?” she said, unable to keep the sharp edge from her voice that was caused by the cutting pain of his words.
Andrew shifted enough so he could meet Kara’s gaze, frowning as he looked at her.
“What do you mean?” he said.
“If you keep yourself isolated, exist behind a protective wall where no one can ask anything of you, then you can’t be hurt, can you? There’s no risk involved in the way you live. But the thing is, Andrew, if you never allow yourself to love, you just might never be loved in return. And I think that sounds very empty, very stark and bleak, and very lonely.”
Andrew’s jaw tightened slightly. “I don’t see a wedding ring on your finger. Why haven’t you run the risk of loving one special man, making a commitment to forever?”
“There are many kinds of love,” she said, her voice rising. “The love between a man and a woman is far different than the love you feel for your family.”
“I’m not a stupid man, Kara, so I realize that. I loved my mother with my whole heart, but our time together was cut short. When she died, all I had left were memories, with no actual person to center my love on.
“My aunt Clara? Forget it. You have a very clear picture of the kind of woman she is. She’s not what you would call lovable. Not by a long shot.”
“No, she’s not but—”
“Don’t you get it?” Andrew said none too quietly. “I don’t know how to love the way you MacAllisters do. The image of all of you in my mind is…is smothering, draining and…”
Kara wiggled out of Andrew’s embrace and sat up, drawing the sheet toward her to cover her breasts.
“I’m a woman, not just a MacAllister,” she said, turning to look down at Andrew. “Don’t lump me into the MacAllister pile as if I was your sister or cousin or whatever.
“I’m your lover, Andrew, and the emotions that go with that are not the same as what you might come to feel for my family. Separate me from them in your mind, realize that you can be a part of the MacAllister family even if you don’t want…even if you choose to end what we…”
Kara shook her head and stopped speaking as tears closed her throat. She raised her knees and rested her forehead on top of them.
“Believe me, I know you’re a woman, my lover, not just a MacAllister,” Andrew said, flinging back the blankets and leaving the bed. He turned to look at Kara. “I also know that what I feel for you is like nothing I’ve known before. That does not, however, mean that I understand what it is. You scare the hell out of me, lady.”
“Well, you scare the hell out of me, too, mister,” Kara said, raising her head and the volume of her voice.
“Fine,” he said gruffly. “At least we agree on something here. It’s obvious that you don’t want to get caught up in a serious relationship any more than I do.”
Yes, she did, Kara thought frantically. No, no, she didn’t. But then again, this was Andrew and…Oh, mercy, she was losing her mind.
“I know why I never intend to fall in love, marry, the whole nine yards,” Andrew said, splaying one hand on his chest. “I saw what love did to my mother. Oh, sure, she claimed she was happy, that I was enough to fulfill her, that we were a team and all that.
“But as I got older and really looked at the situation, I knew how badly she had been hurt, how devastated she was by Robert’s betrayal. I made up my mind when I was still a teenager that that would never happen to me. Never. And it won’t.
“But you, Kara? Are you running from love, hiding behind your wall because of your involvement with that loser, Rick, when you were just a kid? That’s wrong, really out in left field.”
“Don’t you dare pass judgment on me, Andrew Malone!” Kara shouted. “You have no idea what’s going on in my mind, my heart. And another thing. Your mother was not betrayed by my Uncle Robert, remember? She chose well when she loved, she really did. Her heartache was caused by your aunt, not by my uncle.”
“Yeah, well, I still don’t want any part of…” Andrew swore under his breath and dragged both hands through his hair. “This is great, just terrific. What happened to the relaxing night with no heavy stuff on the agenda? Now we’re having an argument about this mess, for Pete’s sake.”
“Oh. Yes, I guess we are, aren’t we?” Kara said, a rather bemused expression on her face. “Hollering at each other isn’t going to solve anything.”
“No, it isn’t. This screamer wasn’t a total waste, though. We both know we can be together without any demands for a long-term commitment. Right?”
Yes? No? Kara thought. She was so confused, so muddled, she just didn’t know.
“Right, Kara?”
“Oh, well, yes, of course,” she said, nodding. “That’s right.”
“Although I still believe that at some point in your future you ought to take a close look at why you feel the way you do.”
Kara narrowed her eyes. “Don’t start that with me again. Besides, you would do well to reexamine your views on the subject now that you know your mother was not hurt by loving the man in her heart.”
“Truce,” Andrew said, raising both hands. “All we have to know is that we are on the same wavelength now. What I can’t tell you at this point is whether or not I’ll be coming back to Ventura. I…just…don’t…know.”
Kara nodded, then flopped back onto the pillow, covering her face with the sheet.
“Hello?” Andrew bent over and pressed a fingertip to her sheet-covered forehead.
“I’m exhausted,” Kara said, her voice muffled. “Brain dead. I can’t think any more tonight. I refuse to say another word.”
Andrew slid back onto the bed and tugged the sheet from Kara’s face.
“Good idea,” he said. “We won’t talk. Won’t think. We’ll just—” he outlined Kara’s lips with the tip of his tongue and she shivered from the sensuous foray “—feel.” He brushed his lips over hers once, then again. “Yes?”
“Oh, yes,” Kara whispered.
Then no more words were spoken.
When Kara awoke
the next morning, Andrew was gone.
She sighed, a wobbly, close-to-tears sigh, then reached for the pillow where he’d laid his head and pressed it to her face, inhaling his lingering aroma. In the next moment she flung the pillow to the floor.
“Cute, Kara,” she said. “How adolescent can you get? What’s next? I’ll never wash the fork he ate dinner with last night?”
How was it possible, she thought miserably, that her life had become so topsy-turvy, so complicated, so confusing in a short amount of days…and nights?
Oh, those nights. Those incredibly beautiful, beyond-description nights with Andrew. My, my, my, she thought, her mind shifting into a dreamy state.
The telephone on the nightstand rang, and Kara yelped at the sudden noise. She placed one hand on her racing heart and grabbed the receiver.
“Hello?” she said.
“It’s Jack.”
Kara shot upright on the bed, her eyes widening. “Jack? Why are you calling so early? Has something happened to Uncle Robert?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Jack said. “I went for an early run while Jennifer and Joey were still sleeping. During my jog, I passed a newsstand where the guy was putting out the morning papers.”
“Uh-oh,” Kara said.
“Yep, little sister, uh-oh. A photograph of you and Andrew Malone is on the front page of a sleazy tabloid. The story is trashy, indicating you two are getting it on while Robert MacAllister lies near death. I just wanted to warn you so you’ll be prepared if anyone says something about it to you.”
“I imagine you’re furious with me,” Kara said wearily. “Pictures don’t lie, I suppose.”
“No, I’m not angry. What you do with Malone is your business, Kara. My only concern is that you don’t get hurt, but you’re all grown-up now and I can’t protect you from that sort of thing. I just feel…well, that you’ve cried enough tears in your life. I’d hate to see you torn up because of your involvement with Andrew.”
“That’s very sweet, Jack. Thank you. You and Richard are the best big brothers anyone could ever hope to have.” Kara paused. “Andrew has gone back to Santa Maria.”
The Baby Bet: His Secret Son (The Baby Bet #5) Page 15
