All that mattered was that, for the first time, her son wanted to go somewhere to be with Blake. For sure the boat ride was bribery. But he still wanted to go. He wasn’t just being polite. He was talking nonstop to Blake with only a token comment directed to her—in other words, just occasionally needing to connect with Mom-the-safety-net—but Serena could see she wasn’t really necessary. As she scooped up the supplies from the kitchen and stepped back outside, a shadow suddenly crossed overhead.
Instinctively she glanced up, saw a young—and so rare—bald eagle, its white head and velvet-brown wings catching the sunlight. She wasn’t superstitious. It always burned her to hear about Native American stereotypes such as being chronically late, or unable to hold a glass of wine, or being overly superstitious. But it seemed sometimes she was pure Cheyenne, because that precious eagle just had to be a good omen.
“Okay, let’s get everybody strapped in.” Blake opened the back door of the Acura for Nate to pile in, when Serena interrupted.
“Nate, you can sit in the front seat if you want.”
“By Dr. Blake? Okay!”
She stashed the towels and sack of supplies in the back seat, but didn’t get in herself. As if on cue, both males seemed to realize that she was standing outside and not moving to join them.
“Mom, aren’t you coming?”
If her son had sounded the least upset, Serena would probably have popped right into the car. But Nate only sounded curious when he asked the question. It was big, strong Blake who suddenly looked panic-stricken. “Serena, you have to come.”
Well, that had been the plan and until seconds ago Serena had never considered staying home. She wanted to go, wanted to be with both of them. But, darn it, this was the first shot her guys had had to bond. “Well, you know I’d love to come,” she said smoothly, “but school’s starting in just a few days. If you two were going to be gone for a couple hours, that would give me time to head over to the school and get some work done on my room. I’ll be back here and have dinner ready by the time you guys get home.”
“Okay, Mom. But it’s your loss,” Nate told her sadly. “Let’s go, Dr. Blake.”
Blake momentarily looked as stunned as a statue.
Man. It was all she could do not to whisk around the car to pull him into a hug. But a display of affection for Blake wasn’t quite right around Nate—at least not yet—and right then, would probably only unsettle Blake even more. “You’re going to be fine,” she told him. “Have a great time, you guys. Nate, you watch out for Dr. Blake now. Don’t let him do anything wild. And don’t you guys pick up any girls!”
Nate started giggling. “Aw, Mom.” He turned to Blake, “She’s teasing, Dr. Blake. You can do wild stuff if you want. You’re a grown-up. And I’ll be good because we’re going sailing. You can’t imagine how good I’m gonna be. You can’t.”
She waved them off, her mind meandering back over the last week. Three times, she mused. Since that unforgettable Tuesday night, Blake had popped over three more times to see Nate—and each time had been a complete disaster.
She’d racked her brain trying to understand why. Yes, she could see that he was trying too hard and just couldn’t seem to relax around Nate, but she’d been so sure that a little time would help the problem.
Wrong. The first occasion she’d put aprons on both of them and let them loose in the kitchen making cookies. What could possibly go wrong? She’d made the dough herself. All the guys had to do was mix it. By nature cookie-making was a terrific guy activity, because it involved making dreadful messes on a par with playing with mud. Only her guys had started licking the spoon a little too early and a little too much, and both had ended up with stomachaches.
The time after that, she’d set them up in the backyard with some basic science experiments. Again, the kind of thing all males enjoyed—making wedges and pulleys and levers. Serena used the experiments herself in some of her science classes, so she was positive that a six-year-old could pull off the concepts in a sandbox and that success would make him feel really cool. And it had worked just like that. For Nate.
But apparently the experiments were a little too challenging for a thirty-two-year-old Rhodes scholar to master.
Lastly, there’d been the kite episode. The afternoon had been sweltering hot, but there’d still been a wind, and not just a little fretful breeze, but a gusty wind tearing off the Crazy Mountains. As it happened, Nate had a fancy kite shaped like a cougar that he’d been dying to fly, and the day was one of those perfect ones when even a novice kite flyer could get it up in the air.
They’d gotten it up beautifully. The two guys had been shrieking together as they’d run through the fields. Only it seemed the cougar hit a teensy whirlwind and it had started nosediving and then crashed. One dead cougar kite.
Nate had recovered from the tragedy, but Blake had been inconsolable. Worse yet, her brothers, who had stopped by after that, had known how to mend the kite and Blake hadn’t. He’d seemed to get on just fine with her family. Both her brothers liked him. But the doc was only trying to prove himself to one human in the universe—Nate—and so far nothing was cooking well with him. At least in his daddy’s judgment.
Maybe this time, Serena hoped as she meandered back into the house. She’d fibbed about working at the school. The new school year was about to start next week, but she’d had her classroom long ready, which left her with several hours free. She put on “The Nutcracker Suite” at boom-box volume, lolled in a tepid bath, then ambled out to the kitchen in fresh jeans and a shirt to make dinner. Four o’clock passed. Then four-thirty. Then five. Then five-thirty.
She’d roasted potatoes in a clay pot, fixed some Prairie-rubbed chicken, buried some zucchini under so much cheese that Nate’d never realize there was a vegetable, threw together some blueberry muffins, then abruptly realized she was making enough food for ten people. She quit working and paced.
She set the table and paced some more.
When Whiskey and the cats started pacing with her, she fed the menagerie, sat with the kittens and a book, then got up and paced again.
Finally, just before six, she heard a car door slam. Her son, damp around the edges, hurtled in the house with pink cheeks and a big smile.
“Mom! Guess what! We tipped over! I had the best time in my whole life! I got all wet and we almost died! It was so much fun I didn’t want to come home! You gotta go with us next time!”
“Wow, that sounds like quite a story.”
“It is, it is! I can’t wait to tell you and I’m starving and I have to go to the bathroom, too!”
“Okay, short stuff, hit the bathroom first then wash your hands. You and Dr. Blake can tell me the whole story over dinner.”
By the time Serena was dishing up homemade peach ice cream, she’d heard the story at least six times, each version more extensively embellished than the last. Nate was talking so nonstop that she’d had no chance to engage Blake in any conversation, much less realize that something was seriously wrong. When she handed him his bowl of ice cream with a dollop of marshmallow on top, he shook his head.
“Dinner was wonderful. Couldn’t have been better, but I’m really full now.”
He couldn’t be full. Normally he had an army-size appetite, but his dinner plate was barely touched and now he was turning down the most famous homemade ice cream in the county. Serena kept trying to get a serious look at him, but there was just no tuning down her exuberant son.
“Mom! Did I tell you the part about when we tipped over?”
“Uh-huh, I do believe you did, but I have the feeling you want to tell me again.”
He did. And Serena listened, yet again, to how Blake had trusted him for approximately a second and a half to hold the jib and then, like a ride at the carnival, the boat tipped and they ended up in the water with the boat on top of them.
“I cried for a second because I was a little scared. But just a little, and Dr. Blake said I was being brave even if I did cry. I wasn�
��t going to tell you about that part, Mom. But it wasn’t for long, anyway. We were in the middle of the lake in the middle of nowhere and I thought we were going to die!”
“Wow,” murmured Serena, this time as she tucked him into bed a good two hours later. Nate was so whipped he could hardly keep his eyes open. The story was still getting replayed, still with exclamation marks, but yawns were making up more and more of the punctuation. Whiskey and the kittens had snuck up onto the bed and were still valiantly attempting to listen from various hiding points in the blanket folds. “Okay, lights out for everyone now. You can tell me about it again tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay. I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too. Sleep tight, lovebug.”
Back in the living room, though, the silent Dr. Blake now seemed to be wearing a hole around her hearth. The easy, reassuring smiles for his son were gone. His hands were jammed into his shorts’ pockets, his forehead dented with a serious frown, his skin pinched with stress.
“Serena, I didn’t want to say anything in front of him, but…” He hesitated. “Let’s go outside.”
“Okay.” Understanding that he didn’t want Nate to overhear them, she grabbed the couch throw so they could sit on the lawn. It was a good night for it. A breeze was crisping out of the west, chasing away the bugs, cooling off the mean heat of the day. One kitten had followed them out and curled up on Serena’s stomach when she laid back. Blake lay back on his elbows, about as relaxed as a rabbit in lion’s paw range.
“You have to be upset with me,” he started baldly.
“Upset?”
“Serena, I’d have shot myself before knowingly exposing Nate to any danger. We had life jackets on and there was barely a breeze, so it’s not like we were flying across the water. Sailing was one of the few things I took up in California, and I swear I know what I’m doing.”
She saw those blue eyes, so full of emotion, so full of storm. His muscles were all tensed and bunching in his forearms and shoulders. “Blake, hold on there. You think I’m angry with you about something?”
“Obviously. For putting Nate in jeopardy. But it didn’t happen quite like he said.”
“Of course it didn’t.”
“Of course?” For an instant he looked blank, as if trying to comprehend that she didn’t buy a six-year-old’s version of any story wholesale. Then he sucked in a breath. “Look, Serena, this is what really happened—”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Pardon?”
She knew she’d startled him again. But all this time, this was the Blake she’d fallen for. The Blake who felt life and emotions so deeply. Although he was a contained man, and never would be one to reveal his feelings easily, she’d always respected that. But years ago she’d understood that the right woman could matter to him. Blake needed someone he could be himself with; that freedom to let go didn’t seem to be something he could give himself. Seven years ago, the realization that she had the power to do something good for him had given her a feeling of rightness inside as nothing else ever had.
He began again. “I want to tell you—”
“No.” She leaned over and lifted a hand to his cheek. That slight gesture was enough to make his eyes darken and his body still. “There’s nothing I need to know, except what I already figured out. You two had a great time together today. You enjoyed him—”
“Well, yeah, of course I did, but—”
“—and he enjoyed being with you. I was beginning to worry you’d never loosen up and just be yourself with him, Doc.”
He was trying to whisper, obviously for Nate’s sake, but his hissed bass voice had the ragged hem of impatience. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! I loosened up. And we capsized a boat. This is not something you need to be understanding about, for God’s sake.”
“I’d trust Nate in your hands any day of the week. If any type of accident had to happen, I’d be relieved to find out he was with you, because I’d trust you to handle it better than anyone else.”
“Serena, you’re not listening to me! I’m trying to tell you that I screwed up.”
“And I’m trying to tell you that you didn’t. So forget it.”
“Damn it…”
It wasn’t she who initiated a kiss this time. And for darn sure, she wasn’t expecting it. Blake just suddenly pounced, as if too exasperated to think of any other way to make her quit arguing with him. The kitten snoozing between them screeched when she suddenly found herself squished. Serena felt like screeching, too.
There he was. The Blake she remembered. Naked, not physically, but heart-exposed, the kind of naked that mattered. Yeah, she felt the crush of frustration when his mouth first met hers, but that anger was gone faster than a puff of wind. He lifted his head. She heard a man’s sigh, half groan, half wooing call, guttural and low. And then he gathered her up, claiming her mouth again, his hands taking in the scent and shape and texture of her, his leg reaching over to wrap hers under him.
Suddenly they were body to body, lover-close, only a few scraps of cotton between them. She could feel the heat of the sunburn on his chest from that afternoon, still smell the lakewater freshness, taste the tang of her minty iced tea he’d gulped at dinner. It struck her as funny that her son had told an incessant tale about a boat capsizing when that was precisely what was happening to her.
She was capsizing. Over Blake. Dipping over, tipping over, falling deep underwater, with nothing to hold on to but him.
There was nothing she wanted to hold on to but him.
He sighed again, this one darker, growlier. A hand swept up her side, skidding over her ribs, smoothing over her breasts, then pausing. His heart hiccuped against her and then his head dipped down. A tongue shivered across her throat, damp-kissing the vee of her shirt, parting the cotton. A button obligingly opened and his lips directly connected with her breast. Connected, and then settled in, slow and lazy, as if just maybe he never intended lifting his head ever again.
Instinctively she pulled the light blanket over both their heads. There were no neighbors in sight, no cars going by this late on a somnolent evening, but that wasn’t the point. The point was the intimacy pouring off of Blake, the intensely private way he was kissing her. Those kisses were all hers. Only for her. Vulnerability was never anything he willingly exposed.
Under the blanket, because it was darker, he seemed freer. So did she. Limbs tangled with limbs; her kisses tangled with his kisses. Grass tickled where it touched bare flesh, and more bare flesh was exposed. Earth scents permeated the darkness, and more than anything she felt his smooth hands, taking, giving, learning her, inspiring her. Desire fired like an engine, heating up, revving up, smoking as it urgently charged up speed.
“Serena.” He just said her name. But she heard longing, need, belonging. A question.
“Yes.” She whispered it, groaned it. The word said everything.
Yet he suddenly closed his eyes for one agony of a second and then abruptly pulled away—not far, still next to her, but his hands moved away from dangerous territory. She could hear his breathing in the quiet night, hear her own. He yanked off the blanket, allowing them both cooler air. The watery twilight sky wasn’t bright enough to make her blink, but it was still a smack of reality after the private darkness. Their private darkness.
Serena squeezed her eyes closed, the way he had, craving a moment’s space, a moment to figure out what they were doing, what was going wrong, why he’d started this at all if he meant to pull away yet again.
His voice broke the silence. “I want you.”
She turned her head. “And I want you.”
“It’s been building. I think about you all the time. Crave you. I imagine you when I go to sleep, then when I wake up. Serena, I’m not positive I can control it.”
“And would that be so bad?”
Finally he turned his head. She saw the brilliance in his eyes, the tenderness when his gaze brushed her face. “I screwed your life up once. I’m no
t doing it again.”
“What? You’re the only one with a vote?”
He flashed a brief grin at her teasing, but it didn’t last. “We both have a vote. I’m not saying that I know what’s best for you. I’m just saying that I was guilty of being careless of you once. For the sake of my own conscience, I can’t live with being careless of you again. If we’re going to make love, I want us to talk about it. Ahead. Before I’ve got my hands on you.”
“All right. And I agree. So you talk first, Doc.”
But he was quiet for some long, heart-ticking moments. No sounds intruded on the night but the muted symphony of crickets and cicadas. “An affair around Nate would never work. He’s too old, too aware. I’d like to think we’re headed for a future. Not an affair, but the whole kahuna, rings and honeymoons and everything that goes with it.” Again, his gaze touched her face, as sensually as a physical caress. “I’m not asking a question right now, Serena. Right now I don’t know how either of us could be sure where we’re headed. But that’s just it. I’m wary of complicating your life too far, without feeling more sure that I’ve proven myself to Nate.”
Serena swallowed. She wanted to leap up and soar, understanding full well that Blake was thinking of marriage. And so was she. But whether Blake was motivated by love, or still driven by responsibility, she still felt completely unsure. “Blake, you brought this up before. But you are his father. You have nothing to prove. And you’ve spent plenty of time with him now. If you want to tell him who you are, I think we could do it—”
“No. Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because—” He washed a rough hand over his face. “Because I don’t feel I’ve earned a place in his life yet. And after today I assumed you’d feel the same way. Instead of making inroads with our son, I seem to be screwing up worse all the time.”
“Blake?”
“What?”
She asked carefully, “Are you making excuses not to be involved with me?”
You Belong to Me Page 10
