“Yes.”
“I don’t know what I should say or do.”
“Yes.” She understood that, too. And how badly not having those answers would drive Blake bananas.
“Hell.” He heaved another sigh. “Look, whatever we did or failed to do before, neither of us can change that. It’s spilled milk. But I want to do the right thing now. For you. For our son.”
As if it were happening to someone else, she felt herself standing up, felt her bare feet in the cool grass as they moved toward him.
Obviously you’re not going to kiss him, her conscience informed her, as if the idea were laughable, completely out of the question. Which, of course, it was.
She’d made love with Blake once. Years before. He was angry with her now, and for good reasons. In fact, there was nothing between them right now but a painful and terribly sensitive problem.
But, oh, God, that was exactly why. Why she’d made love with him that once. Why she’d never been able to stop herself from falling in love with him.
And just maybe, why no man had even come close to her heart the same way since.
Blake had always set impossible standards for himself. He never made a mistake if he could prevent it, never asked for help from anyone, never let on that he had fears the way all mortals did.
But it was the mortal man who’d gone to her head years before. And who still did now.
She saw the frown pleat his forehead, saw his head cock in an expression of curiosity and confusion. He didn’t understand what she was doing, what on earth had motivated her to suddenly stand up and fly toward him.
He figured it out. When she surged up on tiptoe, when she cupped her palms around his head to pull him down. When her lips took his, in an eyes-closed, need-to-do-this kiss. Oh, he got it, all right. His whole body froze, as if a monster just wandered into the yard and he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He stood still. But not forever. Eventually his mouth remembered her mouth. His taste remembered her taste. So maybe it had only been that once, but that night had changed her life, changed every idea she’d ever had about sensuality and sex and giving and men, exploded every concept she’d ever felt about control and good-girl behavior and morality. Because nothing had mattered to her that night but him. His aching, lonely kisses. His reverent kisses. His wild, rough, to-hell-with-everything-I-want-you-now kisses.
That was precisely how she felt at this moment. In the span of a heartbeat, everything changed. The real world hadn’t disappeared. She could still smell sweet grass and primroses and the minty iced tea on his breath. She could still hear the cackle of crickets and the cat purring—the cat never stopped purring—and through the screen door, the muted canned laughter from a left-on TV program.
Yet the only sensory perceptions really denting her awareness had his name on them. His smooth, sleek muscles, the way they bunched under her hands. His mouth, taking her under like an ocean current gathering power. The heat coming off his skin, coming off hers.
Need sparked like the flame of a match, the burn so sudden, so bright, so unexpected. A moan whispered in the darkness. The dog, she thought—but it wasn’t the dog. It was her. An instinctively angry moan, that no man had touched her this way in so long, that no other man seemed to move her the way Blake did. That wasn’t how she wanted it. It was never how she expected her life to be. Still, she remembered that stinging, vibrant excitement humming through her blood, the dizzying high, the delicious, wicked sensation of being pulled in by him, to him, kissed until she couldn’t breathe, kissed as if he’d die if he couldn’t have her.
He suddenly jerked away from her faster than a cat in a thunderstorm. “Damn it, Serena.” His hands closed around her shoulders, his elbows locked straight as if to force a distance between them. “I never meant to…”
He dropped his hands completely then and backed up another foot.
“Take it easy,” she said softly.
“No. Neither of us is going to take it easy. We’re going to do the right thing.” Blake sounded absolutely dead sure of this, until his eyes suddenly rolled to the sky, and he muttered, “As soon as the two of us figure out whatever the hell that is.”
Three
Blake had never lacked decisiveness. But four days later he discovered that kissing a woman had completely destroyed—along with his ability to think—his skill at taking charge in a crisis. All those things he’d always taken for granted were gone. Poof. No hope of getting any of them back.
Something rocket-fast and diapered shrieked at the top of its lungs. Two teenagers jostled him, both carrying boxes that literally boomed at ear-shattering volumes. A maniacal battery-driven cackle echoed from the next aisle. A troop of small boys charged toward him with bloodthirsty war cries.
The whole milieu of the toy store could have been lots of fun, but not today. Blake pushed a harried hand through his hair. It was just eleven o’clock. He still had plenty of time to get to Serena’s house before noon, but he needed a toy first. He needed one bad.
The problem was that it had to be the right toy, the perfect toy, and even though he’d been prowling through Bubba’s Toy Store since it opened on Saturday—9:30 a.m., a lifetime ago—he just couldn’t seem to decide on the right one.
It wasn’t as if this were a test, he kept telling himself. All he’d had to do was ask, and Serena had readily agreed that he could spend time with Nate. She’d simply requested that he wait—for all their sakes—before revealing his fatherhood relationship. He concurred completely. Suddenly discovering that an honorless philanderer like Larry Kincaid was his real father had been a slap in the face for Blake; he never wanted to do that to his own son. He had no intention of telling Nate anything unless and until it was good for the boy. But the only way to prove himself to the child was to spend serious time with him.
Technically, that’s all that was happening today. There was no noose tightening around his neck, no stress, all he was doing was going over to Serena’s to hang out for a couple of hours. That’s all. No sweat. No test. He just thought it’d break the ice with Nate if he brought a little something with him. Something like a toy.
Preferably the perfect toy.
Only what the Sam Hill did a six-year-old want? He loved kids and saw tons of them in the examining room every day. But that wasn’t the same thing as playing with them. Were yo-yos too hard? If he bought something as expensive as a train set, would the kid think he was trying to buy his affection? Of course he was trying to wow his son, but he didn’t want it to look that way. Some of the water pistols looked really cool, but guns were out. Serena’d probably have a cow about any toy resembling a weapon, he figured. Board games….
Aha. His gaze narrowed on the board games, again, but this time he saw potential. He could play with Nate if he bought him a game that took two players. That’d help them talk, get to know each other, and it wouldn’t seem so much like bribery. He could just act as though he really wanted to play. He started squinting at the labels. War Zones…. Scrabble…. Candyland….
Finally—once that life-threatening decision had been made—he strode outside, expecting to feel better. Instead, another life-threatening problem charged into his mind. Serena. Kisses he’d been trying to forget replayed in his memory. Emotions he’d been practicing denying seeped back to the surface of his nerves. A night from seven years ago, never forgotten, never buried the way a man who’d been married should have buried such a recollection, ignited his hormones like a match to dry tinder.
A fat droplet spattered onto his head, helpfully distracting him. A serious rain would make the local ranchers deliriously happy—they’d been wringing hands for weeks about the drought, as if a dry August in Montana was something new. Weathermen had forecast a serious deluge for tonight, but right now the dribbles coming from the sky only added humidity to a tropically hot morning. Juggling his package, he wove around pedestrians, recognizing a few from years ago—Homer Gilmore, who had a habit of miraculously spotting a
liens; Gracie Donahue, the buxom-mom-type lady who ran the local styling salon; Lettie Brownbear, a sweet old Cheyenne woman who rarely came near town. Clipping down Center Avenue, trying to remember where he’d parked his Acura, he suddenly spotted another familiar face.
But this particular face was more than passing familiar.
Bolting out of the Hip Hop Café was a man who measured a precise six feet, two inches. Athletic build. Dark brown hair, blue eyes.
Blake could have glanced in a mirror and seen the same thing, with a few minor differences. His twin brother walked like a lazy rogue, his hair was long enough to brush his collar and the clothes were notably less buttoned-down and more casual than Blake’s. Growing up, people used to label Trent as the “maverick bad twin” and Blake as the “saint twin”—tags that both of them equally resented.
Trent spotted him at the same time Blake stopped on the sidewalk.
Blake almost smiled.
Trent almost smiled.
Hell, it was better than they used to get along. Blake switched the toy bag to his left hand and shot out his right. “I keep thinking, what’s the point of us both being in Whitehorn when we seem to see each other even less? How’s married life going? You treating my new sister-in-law okay?”
“I guess. Gina seems to be enjoying being pregnant. I’ve been meaning to call you, just to find out if you’d be willing to take on another patient a few months from now.”
“There’s always room in my practice for my niece or nephew.” Blake grinned. “And I keep meaning to call to ask you and Gina over to dinner, but I still don’t have much of a place put together. The move here was pretty rushed. How’s Garrett?”
“He’s fine.” Trent hesitated. “It still feels like a shock. I still can’t get used to thinking of him as our grandfather.”
“Yeah. I know.”
Both of them fell silent. Not a comfortable silence, Blake thought, but at least it wasn’t like the fighting and animosity that had hounded their childhood. Shoppers brushed past them. Traffic ambled by. An occasional drip splashed down from the smoky gray sky.
Blake couldn’t remember ever actually wanting to talk with his brother the way he wanted to now. Everything had been different between them since Garrett Kincaid had contacted them both in early May and revealed that he was their real grandfather. Before, the brothers had been like Mutt and Jeff. Trent was a wildcatter; Blake, a respectable pediatrician. Echoing how they’d always been: Trent had always been the wild one, the daredevil-rogue and, truth to tell, the exciting risk-anything kind of man Blake had always wanted to be. But Blake was only now coming to understand why they’d fought so much.
The whole truth about Larry Kincaid’s life still wasn’t known—and maybe never would be—but both brothers now knew certain facts, specifically that Larry had seduced their mother. She’d gotten pregnant with twins from the liaison. She’d married Harold Remmington early in that pregnancy, but God knew if Harold was really fooled as to whether he’d actually fathered the twins.
At this point Blake suspected that Harold must have guessed the truth, because he’d never seemed to be able to express love for either him or Trent. Blake and Trent had endured the same childhood. Their mother had been ambitious and overly busy, but at least she’d been striving for something better for the family. The man they’d called “Dad” hadn’t cared enough to budge for anyone or anything.
Growing up, Blake remembered striving constantly to win the old man’s approval, but no honors or awards or achievements ever worked. Trent had done the opposite—become a devil and a screw-up, as if driven to prove that he didn’t give a damn if the old man noticed him or not. Now, it struck Blake’s sense of irony that the twin brothers had actually been very much alike. They’d both been responding to the tense undercurrents in the house where they’d grown up.
And all that trouble had been caused by Larry Kincaid.
Blake thought he’d accepted all the new truths he’d discovered—until he’d met up with Serena and Nate. Finding out that he’d sired a son still stuck in his craw like a sore bear tooth. He’d never been irresponsible. He’d never been anything like his blood father, and he hated every association to the man. Even Remmington’s wimpy coldness had been better than the kind of man who’d seduce a young woman and take off.
But now, looking at his brother, he hated the years the two brothers had wasted fighting like a snake and a mongoose. Maybe they were completely different. But Trent had had his world upturned, just like Blake. Their new problem wasn’t alienation anymore, but just plain not knowing how to talk to each other.
“Hey…” Trent broke the silence first by motioning to the long, oblong package Blake was carrying. “I couldn’t help but notice the toy bag. Don’t tell me you’re goofing off? Playing? You, the eternal workaholic?”
Months back, Blake would have taken offense at the tease, and likely come back with some comment about Trent’s gambling, vagabond ways. Now he was too aware that they both had another chance at forging a family relationship, if at least one of them had the guts to take the first step. “No, I’m still working the same long hours. I wasn’t shopping at the toy store for me.”
“It looks like a game. I take it you’ve got a young friend.”
“More like…a son.”
“Pardon?” Trent was still grinning, cocking his head as if he were positive he’d misheard.
Blake had never planned to blurt it out, yet he didn’t regret telling Trent. When push came to shove, no matter how often the two had bickered and fought, he trusted his brother. And if anything happened to him, Blake wanted someone to know that Nate was blood kin and for Trent to know that he had a nephew, as well. He lifted his hand in an unconscious and awkward gesture. “Hell, I never meant to bring this up in a chance conversation on the street. But I have to admit, there’s about nothing else on my mind these days. I just found out recently that I had a son.”
“How the hell could you—” Trent frowned, then clipped off whatever question he’d been about to ask. For two seconds the men’s eyes met, sharing something they never had before. “It had to kill you to make a mistake. You were always pretty understanding when someone else screwed up, like me. But you could never tolerate it in yourself, no way, ever.”
“It wasn’t deliberate carelessness.”
“Like you needed to tell me that. You all right with the situation?”
“Right now, no.” Blake shifted on his feet. Okay, so he was glad he’d confided in Trent. But a man couldn’t master Mount Everest on his first climb. These were heavy waters for two brothers who’d never talked. “I’m working on it. And to be honest, I don’t know where anything’s going right now, but I want you to know about your nephew. Another time maybe we could talk about it a little more. Just not now.”
Trent nodded. “I’m late right now besides. Gina’s parents are visiting, and I’m scheduled to do something with them, so I have to go.” He hesitated. “And I heard you. You’re not ready to give me all the details right now. But how about if we do something next week?”
It was Blake’s turn to hesitate. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
“We could just put our feet up, have a beer. Don’t have to talk about anything heavy.”
“Sounds good.”
Even after Trent started walking away, Blake found himself staring at his brother’s back. Trent used to be a devil, but he’d never been a happy devil. These days he had a smile bigger than the Montana sky. Gina had clearly made a giant difference in his life. He still had that live-for-today swagger, but it wasn’t just a gambling bent that had turned him into a wildcatter back when. Trent had always lived on the edge, courted the rim of trouble. Now the toughness and mean edges all seemed gone.
Maybe Blake really could tell him more about the situation with Nate.
And maybe not.
Hustling, he hiked to his Acura, stashed the toy package, and wheeled out of Whitehorn toward Serena’s place. Although it still wasn’
t raining, a fretful wind tumbled the prairie grasses, and overhead the clouds had darkened and were bunching in big fists. Blake could feel his pulse quicken, his stomach knot.
He still didn’t understand exactly what had happened the other night. He’d started out feeling wronged, and somehow ended up feeling in the wrong—and still did. Serena should have told him about Nate, yes. But the real wrong in the situation had his name on it. The reality was that he’d failed her and Nate. No father had been in the picture when they’d both needed one.
No different than his real dad who had never been there for him or Trent.
Still, it was kissing her that had put the bow on his personal guilt package. He wasn’t prepared for the titanium-sharp tug of hormones. But that was no excuse. He had no business touching her this time, any more than he’d had the right to make love with her on that long-ago night years before. Impulse had never been part of his character. He’d never given in to selfish needs.
Except with her.
Well, there was no reason to be afraid, Blake told himself as his fingers drummed an off-beat rhythm on the steering wheel. He wasn’t afraid of Serena. Or of Nate. He needed to see this whole circumstance as an opportunity.
No kid had a choice in who fathered him, which Blake knew damn well. But Blake had a choice with his son—a choice to prove what kind of man he was, what kind of dad he could be, before Nate was stuck with the relationship. And Serena….
All right, all right. He’d never felt anything for any other woman like he did for Serena. Then or now. But this was an opportunity to make that right, too. He’d be careful with her. Infinitely careful.
This time he’d do everything right. Or die trying.
Serena had never been a nervous person, which she reminded herself as she paced around the circular hearth in the living room. She glanced out the picture window. Again. Peered at the wall clock. Again. Chewed on a thumbnail. Again.
Abruptly she saw Blake’s car pulling into her drive and charged for the door. This was so silly. All morning she’d had this foolish premonition that his visit was going to go all wrong. Naturally she was a little anxious, but she wasn’t roiled up in a negative way. It was more like all her cylinders were firing with anticipation. She couldn’t help remembering how much she’d once loved him. If she could have chosen someone to father her child, she’d always have chosen Blake.
You Belong to Me Page 4
