by Carole Buck
Exhausted both physically and psychologically, she’d gazed down at the scrunched-up face of the little boy to whom she had just given birth. In the space of a single heartbeat, every detail of his appearance had been imprinted on her soul. If his features had offered clues to the identity of his father, she hadn’t been able to see them. Her baby had been…unique. He’d looked like himself and no one else.
Mine, something deep within her had declared. A serene certitude—the antithesis of the distressed. confusion that had eaten away at her for every waking moment of the previous nine months—had enveloped her. This is my son.
To say that the question of her baby’s paternity had ceased to matter in that poignant moment of bonding was to overstate the case. But it definitely had faded in importance. The anguished memory of the night of his possible conception had lost some of its power to hurt her, too.
“Hello, sweetie,” she’d greeted her child, stroking lightly beneath his chin. There had been a lilt in her voice she’d never heard before. “Aren’t you a good little boy? Yes. Oh, yes, you are. Do you know me? I’m your mommy.”
Leigh sighed. Keeping Andy had saved her life. There was no doubt in her mind about that. Oh, she would have survived physically had she given him up as she’d intended, but her existence would have been a hollow one.
She sighed again. Her eyelids fluttered down. She felt so…tired.
Eventually, the woman who’d been born Suzanne Whitney slept. And as she did, she dreamed of a dark-eyed man with silver-threaded hair and a harshly compelling face whose name she couldn’t recall…but whose essence seemed wholly familiar.
In her dreams, this intimate stranger said he loved her.
He also promised that nothing would ever hurt her, or her son, again.
Chapter 3
“Gullible?” Leigh repeated, eyeing Andy dubiously. “The man who helped you told you his name was…Gullible?”
“Hunh-huh,” her son cheerfully affirmed through a mouthful of fruit-filled cookie. The homemade pastry was from a basket of get-well treats Donatella Pietra had delivered several hours ago. The older woman had been extremely distraught about Andy’s accident. Although Leigh had assured her repeatedly that a complete recovery was in the cards, Nonna P. had seemed unpersuaded. She’d kept asking about the possibility of concussion. She’d also seemed inexplicably inclined to hold herself responsible for what had happened.
Leigh frowned, searching her memory. Gullible. Gullible. That had to be wrong. And yet—
“He’s Mr. Gullible, Mommy,” Andy asserted again. Dressed in his favorite pajamas and floppy-eared bunny slippers, he was ensconced on the living-room sofa like a pint-size pasha. Although he was still a bit paler than Leigh would have wished, he looked one-thousand-percent better than he had the night before. He was also clearly intent on milking his invalid status for all it was worth. “You know. Like on that TV show you said was made from a really famous book. ‘Member? The one about the guy who went to the place filled with little people. And the little people captured him and tied him up, but he excaped. Then he went to another place that was filled with giant people. And the giant people sort of captured him, too. They picked him up—”
“Gulliver?” Comprehension dawned. “The man’s name is Gulliver?”
Andy rolled his eyes and plucked another cookie from the plate of goodies balanced on the left arm of the sofa. “I telled you it was.”
Gulliver, Leigh thought, testing the name. Yes! That was it. And his first name was—what? James? No. Joe? Mmm…close. But it wasn’t quite—
John!
The memory of Andy’s rescuer introducing himself in the examining room at the clinic surfaced and slotted smoothly into place.
“I’m John Gulliver,” he’d told her in his raspily distinctive voice.
A strange tingle of reaction—unsettling, but not wholly unpleasant—danced up her spine. She recalled again the potent sense of connection she’d experienced the first time John Gulliver’s gaze had met hers.
Her knees wobbled suddenly. She took a not-quite-steady step to her right and sank down into the chair she’d positioned next to the sofa an hour or so ago when Andy had tired of watching TV and asked her to read him a story.
Why? Leigh demanded of herself. Why had she felt such an instant affinity with a man she’d just met?
If she could have chalked her reaction up to a rush of appreciation for what he’d done for Andy, she would have. But there had been more than gratitude at work in the examining room, and she knew it.
Her response to John Gulliver had been visceral. Almost…sexual.
Leigh gnawed on her lower lip, her hands fisting at her sides. She wanted to be free of the fears that had tormented her for so long. To finally be healed and whole again. But after five and a half years—
“Mommy!”
This irritated-sounding exclamation jerked Leigh out of her disturbing reverie. “What is it, honey?” she quickly asked, then flashed a smile meant to assure her son that he had her full attention.
Andy cocked his head, gazing at her with winsome eyes. He was up to something. After a moment he wheedled, “Can we have pancakes for lunch?”
“Pancakes?” Leigh was relieved by the innocuousness of the request. Given his expression, she’d expected to be asked for something much more outrageous. Like a dog. Or—heaven forbid—a little brother. Andy had been on a want-a-baby kick for more than a month. Exactly what had sparked this yearning for a sibling, she wasn’t sure. But he’d mentioned that he planned to plead his case when she took him to see Santa Claus later in the month. “We had pancakes for breakfast, Andy.”
“So? Pancakes are one of my most favoritest foods in the whole world. ‘Sides. This is my day to re-cooper-tate from my hurt head, right? You said that when you talked to Miss Bleeker on the telephone and telled her you were gonna stay home and take care of me. I heard you. You telled Nonna P., too, when she came to visit. Only I’m not sure she b’lieved you. Like, I think maybe she’s a-scared I have that cun—uh—cuncushing thing she kept askin’ you about. Anyways. I’m re-coopertating. And that means I should get stuff I really, really like so I’ll eat it all up and get feeling better very fast.”
She had to laugh. “You’ve got this all figured out, haven’t you, Mr. Smarty-Pants.”
“Uh-huh.” Andy turned on a dimple-displaying grin, clearly convinced that he’d maneuvered his mother into a position where she had no choice but to acquiesce to his gustatory desires. “Can we have pancakes? Please?”
“Will you eat them without maple syrup?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you remember? You used up the syrup at breakfast.”
“Oh.” Andy wrinkled his nose. “Yeah. Now I do. I didn’t mean to, you know. It just poured out really fast.”
“Yes, well, maybe next time you’ll remember to tilt the bottle, not turn it upside down. What do you say to pancakes with powdered sugar?”
“Yuck!”
“Is that a no?”
“Sugar doesn’t go good with pancakes. And that powder sticks on my tongue and feels funny.”
“Heavens. We can’t have that.” Leigh took a moment to mentally review the contents of the McKay larder, then asked, “How about pizza?”
“With pepperonis?” Her son was extremely particular about his pizza toppings.
“Unless you’d rather have it with anchovies and black olives.”
Andy made a gagging sound, just as his mother had expected he would.
“How about some delicious grape jelly, then?” she teased.
“Grape jelly?” The words were inflected with astonished disbelief and punctuated by a fizzy laugh. “You’re so silly, Mommy. Nobody has pizza with grape jel—”
At that point, the front doorbell rang.
“Who’s there?” Andy instantly demanded.
“I don’t know.” Leigh rose from her chair, smoothing the front of the loose-fitting gray sweatshirt she’d pulled on earli
er along with a pair of wash-faded jeans. She wondered fleetingly whether Nonna P. might have decided to pay another call. Perhaps a second visit would persuade the older woman that Andy truly was going to be all right. “I guess I’ll have to go and find out.”
Which she did.
“Oh!” she exclaimed on a startled exhalation once she’d opened the door and saw who their caller was. Although the air rushing in from the outside was frigid, her body seemed to suffuse with heat. “Mr…. Mr. G-Gulliver.”
“Good morning, Ms. McKay,” he returned quietly, inclining his head. He was wearing an expensive-looking tan raincoat and carried a tissue-wrapped package in his left hand. Although his manner was diffident, there was something very determined in his eyes. “I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”
“Oh, no. Not at all.” She gestured him inside and shut the front door, conscious of an abrupt acceleration in her pulse. She also realized that her hands were trembling. “I’m very glad to see you again. I wasn’t sure I would. See you again, I mean. And I…I wanted to.”
John Gulliver lifted his left eyebrow, causing the scarred skin on his temple to pucker. “You did?”
“Of course.” Leigh was taken aback by his seeming skepticism. “I was terribly upset yesterday at the clinic and I’m afraid my behavior toward you was…well, if not actually rude, then definitely lacking. I didn’t even thank you for the help you gave Andy. What you did—the way you stepped in—” She paused, swallowing hard as emotion threatened to clog her throat. “And for a little b-boy you d-didn’t know—”
An expression she couldn’t put a name to moved across her visitor’s angularly irregular features.
“Your behavior at the clinic was completely understandable,” he replied after a few seconds. “Andy was your first and only concern. Anything I was able to do for him—” He stopped abruptly, his gaze flicking away from hers to connect with something behind her. She saw him stiffen. She also thought she heard him catch his breath.
Then, excitedly, “Mr. Gullible! You came to see me!”
“Hi…Andy,” the man who’d been addressed returned, a curious break in his voice. The weathered skin that lay tautly over his prominent cheekbones darkened with a rush of blood. “You’re looking much better.”
Leigh turned. Her “re-cooper-tating” young son was shuffling toward the front door, tugging up the elasticized waistband of his pajama pants with his left hand. His face was alight with a delighted grin.
“His name is Gulliver, honey,” she corrected, disconcerted by his obvious euphoria. Although Andy was a naturally warm and outgoing little boy, she’d never seen him react this enthusiastically toward anyone, let alone a man he’d met just twenty-four hours ago.
“He’s welcome to call me John, Ms. McKay,” the individual in question said. “Gulliver is a bit of a mouthful.”
“Wow! Yeah!” Andy cried, clearly bowled over by the suggestion. “Can I, Mommy? Can I?”
Leigh hesitated. She resented the response John Gulliver was eliciting from her son, she realized with a shock. No, more than resented. She was jealous of it. It seemed to underscore the anxieties she harbored about the lack of a strong male authority figure in Andy’s life. Although she worked very hard to be the best parent she knew how to be, she was acutely aware of her limitations as a single mother. She worried that those limitations would become more and more obvious as Andy grew older.
“Ple-e-ease, Mommy?”
“All right.” Her consent was reluctant, given mainly to avoid the tantrum she suspected a refusal might provoke. “You can call Mr. Gulliver John. But only because he specifically invited you to. I don’t want you to get the idea that this means you have automatic permission to call every grown-up you meet by their first name.”
“I won’t,” her son promised fervently, yanking at his pajama bottoms again.
“I’d be pleased if you’d call me John as well, Ms. McKay.”
Their guest’s voice dropped a note or two as he spoke, acquiring an insinuating—almost intimate—edge. Leigh’s breath snagged at the top of her throat. She suddenly found herself regretting her casual clothes, barely brushed hair and unmadeup face. This shook her. It had been a long time since she’d experienced even the slightest desire to make herself attractive for a man.
A very long time, she thought with a pang. And the man who’d provoked the desire was gone forever, the central character in a past she’d been forced to shut away to preserve her sanity and protect her son.
She met John’s dark gaze for an instant, then glanced away. Lifting her right hand, she began fluffing at her fine, shoulder-skimming hair. A moment or two later she registered the implications of this unthinking act of preening and jerked her hand back down to her side.
What’s happening to me? she wondered, feeling herself start to blush. And why was whatever it was happening now, with this particular—
“Mommy?”
“Ms. McKay?”
Leigh started. “S-sorry,” she stammered, her gaze moving from John Gulliver to her son and back again. “I, uh, didn’t get much sleep last night and I seem to be a bit, uh, discom- bobulated. John it is, Mr. Gulliver—if that’s what you’d like.” Drawing a steadying breath, she summoned up what she hoped looked like a cordial smile. “And please, call me Leigh.”
“Thank you…Leigh.”
“Take off your coat, John,” Andy commanded, stepping into the role of host. “Then come in and have a visit.”
“Oh, yes.” Leigh struggled against a welter of contradictory emotions as she seconded the invitation. The gratitude she felt toward John Gulliver because of his aid to Andy was beyond words. Still. She wasn’t certain she wanted this man in her home. “Please. Do. Unless you’re in a hurry—”
“Not at all.” The unequivocal tone of John’s response suggested that her ambivalence had not gone unnoticed. This prompted the level of Leigh’s uneasiness to rachet up another notch. Although she’d once found it extremely difficult to dissemble in any way, for any reason, she’d thought that the past five and a half years had taught her to hide her feelings very effectively. It was unsettling to have this self-perception called into question. “I have all the time in the world.”
“Well, then…” She gestured toward the coatrack that stood in the corner to the right of the front door. Then she glanced at Andy and said, “I think you’ve been up long enough. Go and lie down on the sofa again. Mr. Gulliver and I will be in in a minute.”
“John,” her son corrected, not budging an inch.
“What?”
“You’re s’posed to call him John, Mommy.”
“All right. Fine. I’ll call him John. Now, scoot. Boys who get to stay home from preschool to ‘re-cooper-tate’ are supposed to rest, not run around the house.”
Andy made a face, plainly wanting to remain with their guest. Leigh gave him a don’t-argue-with-me-young-man look and pointed toward the living room.
“Okay,” he acquiesced with a put-upon sigh, then turned and shuffled away.
“‘Re-cooper-tate’?” John asked in a curious undertone as he finished hanging up his coat.
Leigh pivoted back to face him, short-circuiting an instinctive urge to retreat as he took a step toward her. While Andy’s rescuer was not a huge man—perhaps six-one to her own fiveeight—he had a very formidable presence. The dark turtleneck and dark, snug-fitting jeans he was wearing underscored the sleek, coiled-spring power of his body. He looked…dangerous.
Yet her impulse to back away from him was not prompted by fear. Rather, it was a reaction to the unnerving realization that some part of her wanted John Gulliver to move closer. After five and a half years of holding herself aloof from every member of the opposite sex except her son, she suddenly found herself tempted to invite an obviously strong and emphatically virile stranger into her personal space.
There had been a period, not all that long ago, when the idea of encouraging a man—even a man she knew very well—to come withi
n touching distance would have been unthinkable for her. Although she’d gotten beyond this point, she was still extremely wary about leaving herself open to anything but the most impersonal kind of hands-on contact.
That she was physically vulnerable was a brutal truth the woman who’d lived her first twenty-three years as Suzanne Whitney could not refute. Although a key component of her transformation into Leigh McKay had been taking steps to ameliorate this vulnerability, there was no escaping the fact that she was smaller and weaker than most men.
She could cope with this reality and the anxieties it engendered. Much more difficult to handle was the sudden discovery that she was psychologically vulnerable, too. To find herself face-to-face with someone who seemed capable of breaching the emotional defenses she’d worked so hard to—
“Leigh?”
She blinked, appalled to find that she’d once again gotten lost in a maze of thoughts. Get a grip! she commanded herself.
“Sorry.” Her voice was a bit more breathless than it had been the first time she’d apologized for her distractedness. She scrambled to pick up the thread of their conversation. “Uh…you asked me about ‘re-cooper-tate,’ right? That’s Andy-speak for ‘recuperate.’ He’s a real sponge when it comes to picking up big words. But he sometimes has trouble getting his tongue around them.”
“Like Gullible for Gulliver?” John suggested with a fleeting smile.
“Exactly.”
“He seems like a very smart little boy.”
Leigh had heard compliments about Andy’s Intelligence before, of course. Even as a baby, he’d prompted people to comment on how bright-eyed and alert he was. But there was something about the tone of John Gulliver’s observation….
He’d sounded proud, she realized. Which made no sense at all. Why should this man take pride in the gifts of a child he’d only met a day ago?
“I think Andy’s pretty exceptional,” she confessed, fiddling with the hem of her sweatshirt. “But then, I’m not exactly an impartial judge.”
