“I do feel guilty. But that’s not the whole story. When I started thinking about giving him this property, it just seemed right to me. For one thing, the land could be a trust for Nate. A legacy. Both roots and financial security, something of his own, something that belongs to him.”
She looked at him softly. “But where does that leave you?”
“Me? I’m talking about taking care of Nate.”
She nodded. “I understand. But our son is still a small child. And you barely had this land before you’re trying to give it away. Don’t you have the need yourself to belong to something or someone?”
For just an instant she saw the young boy’s yearning in the grown man’s eyes, as if for years Blake had hoped to belong to something, hoped to feel a part of something. But then he’d grown up and put aside his belief in Santa Claus. “I don’t need the land or anything. There’s also another reason—a more important reason—why I want Nate to have it.”
“What?”
He gestured, as if wishing his hand could communicate what he didn’t know how to say. “I want badly for Nate to know I’m his father, Serena. But this gives both you and Nate a choice. If you feel my being part of his life isn’t a good thing for him, then he’ll still have this land. Always. Forever. And that way he’d never have to accept me as his dad unless he actually wanted to.”
Serena didn’t quite understand what he was getting at, only that it was obviously very important to him. “Blake, you are his father. You don’t have to prove anything.”
“I think I do.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Can you understand? Essentially I had two fathers, but the one never gave a damn if I existed and the other never acknowledged me. I know exactly how much fathers can hurt sons. And this is one way I can make absolutely positive that never happens to Nate. I can give him a choice about whether he wants me in his life, partly because, by owning this property, he’ll always have security. He won’t need anything materially. And neither will you.”
“That’s wonderful, but no. It’s not necessary. And it’s just too generous.” Serena kept thinking that security wasn’t the issue that Blake was making it out to be. The real issue was those dark heart corners where Blake had always been unwillingly vulnerable. As a kid he’d tried forever to win Harold Remmington’s love and couldn’t…only to discover that his blood father had never sought contact with him, either.
Maybe those wounds were scarred over, but they weren’t forgotten. Blake had never felt valued, not by the adult men in his life. And now he seemed to see the land as a way to guarantee that Nate could have proof of a father’s love, or more to the point, that Nate would never have to seek a relationship with a father who wasn’t worth it. These were such dark, troubling issues for Blake that Serena was startled to see a sudden smile from him.
Her refusing his offer seemed to strike Blake’s sense of humor. She caught a hint of a crooked grin, a winsome lightening in those dark blue eyes. “Well, honey. I hate to tell you this, but I wasn’t asking your permission. I’m afraid this is how it’s going to be. The property’s going in Nate’s name, with you listed as guardian, as soon as the legal rigmarole is over with. But I did want to tell you now. Just in case something happened to me before the papers are signed. I want both you and Garrett Kincaid to know what I want.” He suddenly glanced at his watch, realized that he couldn’t read the dial in the dusky light, and promptly stood. “Hell, I should have realized how late it was getting. We’ve got to get you back for Nate.”
She stood, too, but her eyes were on him. She couldn’t be less worried about being on time. Her brothers would never leave Nate alone if for some reason she wasn’t there.
“Blake?”
“Yeah?” He hooked his right hand securely with hers, as if assuming she suddenly realized that the uneven path tended to be unpredictable in the murky twilight. “I should have noticed how dark it was getting. But it’s not that far to the car—”
“Wait.”
Immediately he stopped with an amenable smile, clearly waiting for her to say whatever was wrong.
But it wasn’t that simple. Nothing was wrong. It was just that her mind’s eye kept replaying the picture of Blake, his eyes, his face, when he motioned to the sprawling land. He was a doctor, not a lumberjack. A healer, not a cowboy. He’d never been that all that interested in nature, but at that moment she’d seen how he loved it. It had been in his eyes, the joy of it, the joy of this land, of it belonging to him, of having a treasure of a haven such as this. And that feeling of haven was obviously something he’d never had in his life.
Only how fast, how blasted fast, he was giving it away. To do the right thing for Nate and for her. Serena couldn’t let it go.
“If you want to give this to your son, you can. As long as it’s in your name and Nate’s. Not mine.”
He shook his head, swiftly, surely. “That wouldn’t solve the same thing, Serena. I want it to be security for you, too. And I want the property to give Nate a choice. Like I said, the kind of choices I never had. No, none of us can choose who we’re related to. But this way he’d never need me for any material reason. He’d be secure on his own. He’d never have to have a relationship with me, unless I’d proven to him that I’d be the kind of father he wanted to be with.”
“Damn it, Blake. You think I’d raise a fool for a son?”
His jaw dropped, his expression twisted in confusion. “Well, no, of course not. I never meant—”
Serena knew he’d never meant to criticize her. He was criticizing himself. Making it sound as if he were unworthy as a father—so unworthy that he had to prove himself to her and Nate, as if he were auditioning for a job. By his life rules, he was being completely logical.
By his sense. By his logic. But not by hers.
She pulled him closer. Loving him had never been sane or wise. But it had always been right, the way reaching for him right now was right.
Blake had hungered his whole life to belong, to feel worthy of love. On the surface—in school, in life—he wore confidence in face and style. Yet, on the inside it wasn’t there; he never felt good enough. He was no longer a child, searching for acceptance. As a man he lived by his own code, coped in his own way. But, Serena thought, he still needed to be loved.
He still believed himself unlovable.
And if she wanted to kiss him silly, she was damn well going to.
Blake couldn’t understand it. How on earth could he have unleashed such a catastrophe? He hadn’t touched her, except for courtesy gestures, even though touching her had been on his mind. Even though the look of her mouth and memories of her warm, soft skin and the pleasure sounds she made had invaded his head in nonstop replays. He’d let her alone. The way he was supposed to. He’d done what was right. His relationship with her and Nate mattered way too much to risk doing anything wrong.
Yet one instant the sun had been sneaking down the hillside and the next she was suddenly in his arms. One instant she tilted her face up and the next his mouth was taking hers, tasting hers, slammed on hers like a snap for its catch. One instant his bandaged left hand was swinging in midair as he walked and the next it was hooked around her neck like a noose, pulling her closer, pulling her in, the crushing swell of her breasts igniting every hormone he’d ever had and some that he hadn’t known existed.
Eyes, shocked and startled, met his for all of a long, liquid second. Then that was it. She closed her eyes and seeped right into that kiss again. Her lips were softer than butter. Her tongue whispered against his, teasing, taunting. He heard her sigh, the sound of a jeweled promise. I remember you.
And the answering sigh from deep inside his belly. And I remember wanting you like my whole body was on fire. And then, oh man. I remember having you.
It was just like before. On that long-ago night he’d been wallowing in despair so deep he couldn’t seem to swim out of it, grief over losing his mom mixed with a loneliness, a feeling there was no one out there, just a dark abyss.
And then Serena had stopped by. A half hour later…hell, he never knew what hit him. She had. He could have sworn sex had never been on his mind, yet he’d been all over her faster than a match could strike flame. She couldn’t heal him. No one could. The sadness was still his problem to deal with, waiting for him…but not then. For those few hours there’d been nothing in his head but fire and smoke, and everything that burned had her name on it.
Now it was the same fire. The same burn. The same who-cared-if-the-moon-exploded. If he could just have her…one more time. One more minute. One more anything, as long as it was Serena.
His left hand was a bandaged mitt, yet somehow her blouse buttons loosened. Somehow the snap on her white shorts unclipped. Somehow that long, neat braid of hers started coming apart. Like his mind, her hair started unraveling and loosening, and suddenly there was silk. Heavy, rich silk shimmering over his fingers, through his fingers, and when he clutched her hair, she angled her neck even more responsively, allowing him to kiss her deeper, more possessively.
He realized that it was too uncomfortable for her to stand, straining her neck that way. It was easier, much easier, when he lowered them both to the ground. The raw scrape on his left thigh stung sharply, trying to distract him from the leftover memory of his encounter with the asphalt street and cement curb earlier that day. But he’d never have met up with Serena if it hadn’t been for that accident, so he was grateful for the scrapes and cuts. Grateful for the ticklish prairie grass, the rocky soil beneath, the sudden hushed coolness as the moon started rising and they dipped out of sight of man or mountain, cleaving together in the soft shadows. Her breast filled his hand, firm, full, the tip swollen and hot in the nest of his palm, her heart slamming against him. She wanted…
Him.
It amazed him seven years ago, and stunned him even more now. He was a good man and a good doctor; he knew that. But the people closest in his life never seemed to find much motivation to love him, to want him around. Except for her. She fired up for his kisses the way a furnace lived for a winter blizzard. Her long supple body swayed into his, melding close, melting close, as if she belonged to him.
Both were breathing as if desperately short of oxygen. She rubbed against him, inviting more intimacy. He was achingly hard and primed. Too primed. Until that moment he had no idea how long he’d been suffering from Serena deprivation. He hadn’t been with her in seven years. That was a long time to be without sunlight, without sustenance, especially when he knew exactly how fiercely, how wildly, he wanted her. Flat, beneath him. Flowing into her, claiming her, drowning her in every tenderness he owned, every prowess he claimed, every skill he’d ever dreamed of.
“Blake?”
He heard the question in her voice. The demand. “Shh.”
“Blake. Yes. Now. Yes.”
“Too rough. The ground is too rocky—”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s late.”
“I don’t care.”
“I could hurt you.”
“I don’t care.”
Hell, he didn’t know where the sudden burst of sanity came from. He sure didn’t appreciate it, but it was like a bee sting to his mind, the kind of mean, stinging hurt he just couldn’t ignore.
Their making love just wouldn’t be right. It mattered more than life to him to be good to her. To do the right thing this time—for her, for Nate. What the two of them—the three of them—could have together was too important to risk screwing up just because he had a small problem like dying from wanting her.
He severed the kiss, then tried to practice breathing the way a decent man breathed—in, out, taking air in instead of inhaling her as if she were more than his survival oxygen. He clenched his jaw, removed his hand from her breast, then covered her with the white linen shirt she was wearing. He tried to button it, but with his bandaged hand he couldn’t. At least, he could still make sure sights weren’t adding to his temptation. He pulled up her shorts, thinking this had to be penance, when two seconds before he could have had it all.
She was still saying yes with her eyes as she sat up and started buttoning her shirt. Her gaze still glazed his face. He saw warmth, need, fire in those sensual eyes. But he also saw wariness, as if Serena were waiting to be hurt.
“I want you,” he whispered fiercely. “If it were up to me, I’d never stop in this lifetime.”
“But you did stop. You’re the one pulling back.”
“Only because I’d have to shoot myself if I caused you regrets a second time, Serena.”
“I didn’t have regrets the first time.”
“You had a son that neither of us planned. A pregnancy that upended your whole life. And I don’t know where you and I are headed this time. I just know one thing. I won’t risk hurting you again if I can help it.”
When they climbed into his car a few minutes later and he leveled the accelerator, speeding for her place, Blake kept thinking gloomily that it was exactly the same as it had been before. Around her, he wanted to be good. The best man he was capable of being. Instead, he seemed doomed to be wicked, to do the wrong thing.
Worse yet, he mused, he loved that feeling of being wicked with her.
But that wasn’t good enough. Blake had a taste of the future now—and a hope they actually might have a future together. He could risk everything, for her and Nate, if he made mistakes. He needed to behave like a Boy Scout from now on, and that was that.
Seven
Serena managed to be “accidentally on purpose” in the backyard with Nate when she heard the car pull into the drive. “Well, I’ll be darned. It sounds like we have company,” she said brightly.
“Nffgh.”
Well, her son’s grunt lacked a certain enthusiasm—he was having way too much fun with his rabbits to care about visitors. But Serena was determined to make this particular visitor feel welcomed if there was any possible way.
When Blake stepped around the corner of the house, her pulse galloped like a frisky colt’s. But then she remembered her son, and swiftly, heartily, slapped a hand over her heart. “Why, it’s Dr. Blake! What a surprise!”
Blake grinned and rolled his eyes, as if teasing her for hamming this up too hard. His stopping by this Saturday morning, of course, was no surprise. They’d had it planned since last Tuesday. Serena had mentally started dating everything from the Tuesday Night They’d Almost Made Love—as if that were the title on the only chapter that mattered in her life.
“Hey, Serena. Hey, Nate. Man, those are really cool rabbits.” Blake’s gaze took a long telephoto shot over her eyes, her mouth, her barefoot figure in a navy top and shorts. Her stomach flip-flopped in response to the promise of trouble she saw in his eyes, but he quickly turned away and hunkered down next to her son.
Nate glanced at him sideways as he continued feeding his long-eared babies prize carrots from his mom’s garden. “You like rabbits?”
“I love rabbits,” Blake assured him. “In fact, I’d like to play with ’em sometime, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Sure. You just gotta watch Whiskey. The cats don’t pay any ‘ttention. But Whiskey…sometimes I think he’d like to catch my rabbits.”
“I’ll bet he would.” Naturally the animals swarmed Blake the minute they spotted him. Whiskey was already drooling on his shoulder and one of the kittens was trying to climb up his pant leg. Clearly, though, the enthusiastic welcome he’d been hoping for wasn’t from the pets. “Nate, there was a reason I stopped by. I can see you’re busy, but when you’re done feeding your rabbits, I thought maybe you and your mom might like to go sailing with me for a couple hours this afternoon.”
Nate held a carrot midair, green top swinging. “Sailing? Like in a boat?”
“Yup.”
“Wow. You mean, like really sailing? Like in a real boat?”
“Yes. It’s a little boat, but definitely a real one.”
“Mom, did you hear? Did you? Did you?” Nate’s face whipped back to Blake’s. “My uncles ta
ke me fishing a lot. I love fishing. But we fish from the shore, you know? Nobody in my whole life ever took me sailing.” Another whiplash back to Serena. “Can we go, Mom? Can we? Can we?”
Serena pretended to consider, because it was so much fun watching her son build up anticipation, and even more fun watching Blake light up at Nate’s response. “Sounds like a super idea to me.”
“It is. I can swim, did I tell you, Dr. Blake? I can put my head under water and everything.”
“No, you didn’t tell me, but I’m not surprised you’re so good. Of course, if you’re in a boat, you have to wear a life jacket. I do, too. Even if you can swim, it’s a good safety rule.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I love life jackets. My whole life, I loved life jackets. Piece of cake, right, Mom? Uh, Mom?”
“What, darlin’?”
“Do I have a life jacket?”
Typical of a child, Nate was talking as if Blake couldn’t hear him. “I happen to have one just the right size for an extra-strong six-year-old.”
“That’s me, extra strong. How did you know?”
“I looked at you and thought, Boy, Nate’s really big and strong.”
“Well, you were right, Dr. Blake. Nobody’s strong as me. You can ask my mom. Mom?”
Like the straight man in a comedy, Serena dutifully came through with her line about her son’s Godzilla-like strength, but on the inside she was holding her breath. This excursion had been planned, which was why swimming suits and towels were heaped on the kitchen counter, ready to go. She’d never asked Blake where he’d found a sailboat to rent or what lake they were going to. None of those details mattered.
You Belong to Me Page 9
