by Nan Comargue
“I can take care of a kid. I can take care of you, too.”
Why does that second statement frighten me?
“I don’t need taking care of,” Leda told him. “The kid part? Well, that doesn’t even enter the equation at this point. Why turn ourselves inside out over something that might not even be happening?”
He lowered his head and gave her a veiled look. “Would you tell me if it was happening?”
Leda straightened her shoulders. “I don’t lie.”
“An omission isn’t necessarily a lie.”
She sighed loudly. “I’ll tell you, okay?”
Somehow it seemed as if they were saying goodbye. From fucking to goodbye forever in less than ten minutes. This must be a new world record.
Funny how the specter of a pregnancy managed to do what the exorcism hadn’t—finally get her out of his head.
Really, really funny.
Chapter Nine
“So, where’s this cousin?” Denise asked, her voice light and teasing and completely at odds with her fixed smile.
She made a show of looking around the house as he let her through the front door of his home.
“She’s back in Heart Lake,” Zach told her.
“Really?” Her smile relaxed around the edges as she draped the wrap she was holding onto a nearby chair. “From what that man said last week, I half expected her to be curled up on your couch wearing one of your T-shirts.”
Zach flinched. That was exactly what Leda might have been doing last week. This week, however, his couch—and his bed—were empty.
“Heart Lake,” Denise repeated as she settled onto the couch herself. “Is that the name of your hometown?”
“Yes.”
She tilted her head and studied him as he moved into the kitchen to get them a drink.
“It’s funny. I don’t think I’ve ever even seen you in a pair of jeans. Yet, you must be quite the country boy if you grew up in a rural area.”
“I can ride a horse, I can shoot a gun and I can fix a pickup,” he said promptly and truthfully. “In fact, I have one parked in the garage I can show you.”
“I’d rather see the horse and the gun,” said Denise. She accepted the wineglass he held out to her. “What does she look like?”
Zach watched her over the rim of his glass as he sipped the silky Scotch. “The horse or the truck?”
“Your cousin. What does she look like?”
For some reason, it felt disloyal to say she resembled a Cabbage Patch Doll.
“Average height, average weight. Curly hair. Green eyes.”
“Like yours? I thought you weren’t related.”
“We’re not.” He drained his drink. “She doesn’t have my eyes. She has her own.”
Though, maybe, one day soon, we’ll have a kid with her eyes—or mine.
Denise stared at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you didn’t want to talk about her. From what I gathered, you two got along well.”
“What does it matter?” Zach asked.
She re-crossed her legs in their sleek pantyhose. “It matters because that man the other night implied that she was the competition. My competition. And, it appears she has the home-field advantage.”
He lifted his glass again before realizing it was empty. He got up.
“I don’t want to talk about Leda.”
“Oh yes, I’d forgotten you’d told me her name.” Denise reached across to put down her wineglass. She rummaged through her purse until she came out with a gold-toned phone. “Leda. Saskatchewan.” A pause. “Oh, here we are. She’s cute. I wouldn’t have thought she was your type, though. It says on her ProProfile page that she’s a designer and she’s unemployed. Oh dear, definitely not your type.”
A sly smile sat on her face when she lowered the phone. Just as he’d done weeks ago, he realized that Denise had performed the comparisons, made the calculations and come up with the most logical answer. He and Leda were a mismatch.
Except the calculations were fucked up.
He still wanted her, just as much as always.
The exorcism had merely given him a taste of what he’d hungered for all these years. Leda, hot and responsive beneath him, then warm and pliant in his arms afterward. Her laughing over some silly viral video. Her wiping taco sauce off the side of her face, using the back of her hand. Wearing one of his shirts as a dress. Moving a few items around in his rooms and making the entire place look different, more natural and homey, somehow. For the few short days they’d spent together, his memories now seemed endless.
A taste of Leda had only been enough to whet his appetite.
Denise’s smile faded. “You really don’t like me talking about her, do you?”
“No.”
“Zach, are you in love with this woman?”
He said nothing. He wanted to say nothing…but he couldn’t keep his mouth shut about her.
“Do you know why she’s back in Heart Lake?” he asked as he got up to refill his glass. Denise’s was nearly full still.
“No. Why?”
“Because she’s waiting to see if she’s pregnant and she didn’t want to do it here.”
The silence that followed was heavy with surprise.
“Pregnant by you, you mean?” Denise finally asked.
He jogged the decanter and spilled some of the expensive liquor. “Yes, by me.”
“Why is she waiting it out there? Why wouldn’t she want to do it here, with you?”
“Because I don’t get a say,” he replied between gritted teeth. He took another swig of Scotch.
Denise appeared thoughtful. “Well, no, you don’t really, but I would have thought she would want some…comfort. Though you’re not a comfortable sort of person to be with, are you?”
He wasn’t. He could admit that. Of all the traits he’d cultivated, being comforting wasn’t one of them. It never even had a chance of making the list. Yet, he’d wanted to be there for Leda and she’d brushed the idea aside so casually that he realized she’d never even considered him a viable option as a shoulder to lean on…or cry on.
All he’d done was make demands of her. She’d taken his angst and she’d tried to give all the help she could, yet she wanted and needed nothing from him.
That fucking hurt.
“So the guy with the ponytail was right,” Denise mused. “She is hard to get—and you haven’t gotten her. But you want to, don’t you?”
“It’s just a crush,” he said, for the millionth time.
“You don’t sit drinking your heart out over a woman you have a crush on possibly being pregnant,” said Denise. “You do that over the woman you love.”
He didn’t bother denying it. It would sound all too ludicrous out loud.
He loved Leda. He had to get used to the idea. He had to get her used to the idea.
“She doesn’t love me.”
Denise shrugged. “Possibly. I rather think she might. I more think it’s a case of her not wanting to love you. So you’d better find which of the two it is before you self-destruct.”
* * * *
Leda’s aunt and uncle stared at her over the remains of their dinner. She’d waited until the end of the meal to spring her news on them.
“And you really think this is the best choice for you?” her aunt asked for the second time.
“It is,” Leda replied with as much firmness as she could put in her voice. “It will be a new chapter in my life—an exciting one.”
Exciting, but also very scary. Her aunt and Mike only saw the scariness, not the opportunities—to start a new life, to be successful, to forget the past once and for all.
“Doing this all on your own is a tough row to hoe,” Mike said in his quiet way.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve thought about it.” All week long. “I won’t be alone though. I’ll have you guys behind me.”
“It’s not the same—” Leda’s aunt started to say when the sound of booted footfalls made her break off.
She turned to face the man who’d just walked into the dining room. “Zach! We weren’t expecting to see you this weekend. What a lovely surprise.”
“I missed your home cooking,” Zach said smoothly, sitting down in the chair opposite Leda’s. “But it looks like I missed dinner as well this time.”
“There’s plenty more in the kitchen. I’ll get you a plate.”
Before anyone could reply, her aunt was out of the room. At least Mike remained to protect Leda from Zach’s narrowed green gaze. That stare made her think all kinds of crazy things, like how good his mouth felt as he moved it over her body.
Leda tucked into the slice of strawberry pie in front of her. “Mmm, this is good.”
Zach’s attention shifted to the dessert. “I thought you didn’t like strawberries.”
What was he implying, that it was some strange pregnancy craving?
“I love strawberries,” she quickly claimed. “This pie is my favorite.”
Neither statement was the complete truth, but he didn’t need to look at her like she’d committed perjury. His scrutiny ended up forcing her to eat the entire slice.
“What brings you home so often?” Zach’s father asked, his twinkling gaze moving from his son to Leda and back again. “We seem to hold a special attraction for you nowadays.”
Zach’s face flushed but he spoke very plainly. “I came to see Leda.”
She got up. “We can talk upstairs.”
“All right.”
“What about dinner?” Leda’s aunt asked, entering the dining room with a plate filled with lamb stew and creamy mashed potatoes.
They spoke at the same time. “It can wait.”
The staircase seemed like a long climb with Zach right behind her.
In her bedroom, they were both silent for a few minutes, awkward as only people who had recently shared intimacy and were now strangers again could be.
“My dad was right,” Zach told her, sitting down on the edge of the bed and leaning forward on his elbows. “Being a single mother is a tough row to hoe.”
Being a single mother? What the hell did he think he’d overheard?
“I’m not pregnant,” she said. “I’m moving—to Calgary. I got a job there.”
“You don’t have to move.”
He was staring down into his hands. Did he even hear me?
“I got a job,” she said. “Finally. And I’m not pregnant, so you don’t have to worry about a child or about me being a single mother.”
“You made a promise to me.”
Again he spoke as if he was having a slightly different conversation from the one she thought she was having with him. Maybe she needed to give in and listen to what he was saying.
“What promise are you talking about, Zach?”
He lifted his head to finally look at her. “You promised to help me exorcise you from my head.”
Clasping her hands behind her back made her less likely to reach out to him. No doubt he didn’t require her sympathy. Look where it had gotten them so far.
“I tried,” she said. “We tried. I’m sorry if I couldn’t do it.”
He stood in one powerful movement, the action seeming to shrink the dimensions of her bedroom considerably.
“You couldn’t do it. Time couldn’t do it. God help me, other women could never do it. How the hell do I get you out of my brain, Leda? How?”
If he’d shouted the words at her, it couldn’t have hit her any harder. Except he hadn’t shouted. His voice had remained low and controlled, even though it had shaken at the end.
He wasn’t blaming her, she knew. He was asking for her help again—help she didn’t have the ability to give.
She made a helpless gesture with her hand. “I don’t know how you do that. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
He took two steps toward her.
“Sleeping with you just made me want you more. Whose brilliant idea was that? Mine? Because all it’s done is remind me of exactly what I’m missing. Before, I could only imagine it. Living with the vivid memory of you in my bed is a hundred times worse.”
Neither of them had been able to forecast that outcome.
“I was only trying to help.” She smiled at him. “You know I always say yes.”
He came to stand right in front of her. As always, his height was overwhelming, but there was also a new prickly awareness of him that went with the instinctive sense of his dominance. She wanted to move away but couldn’t do it without revealing her discomfort.
Goodbyes were so awful. That was why she usually avoided them.
“To me,” Zach said, staring down at her with intense green eyes. “I only want you to say yes to me.”
Oh no. Doesn’t he realize that this is a goodbye?
That meant she would have to hurt him. It was the better way in the long run.
“Other women will say yes to you,” Leda said, striving for a light, teasing tone, though her fingernails were cutting into her palms. “What about that woman from the other night? Denise? She will say yes to you.”
He scrutinized her expression. “Are you jealous?”
“Of course not!”
“You sound jealous,” he pointed out, not untruthfully.
“I just want you to move on,” Leda insisted. “I’ll be gone in a week, anyway. My new job starts at the beginning of the month.”
The job was the perfect excuse, she realized. It gave them a safe way out—and a future buffer against unwelcome reminders of those few days spent together.
She wasn’t sure who needed the buffer more—her or him.
“A lot can happen in a week,” said Zach.
Leda faltered beneath his intent glare, turning away from him to hide her inexplicable surge of emotion.
Yes, a lot could happen in a short time. She’d gotten to know Zach in less than a week—had laughed and fought with him, had had sex then slept in his arms. Those had all been good times, even the arguing, yet it hurt to think of them now. She couldn’t risk hurting like that. Not again.
“I can’t offer the girlfriend experience anymore.”
“To me or to anyone?” he wanted to know.
To anyone. She’d learned that lesson the hard way. Pretending had led to very real emotion.
“To you, Zach.” She sighed. “Only to you.”
“Why only to me?” He sounded furious. “Why not me? You know me already. You know I would never hurt you.”
Leda swung back around to face him. He looked as angry as he’d sounded, with his features set in rocky lines.
“You don’t have to hurt me,” she said, “but I could still get hurt.”
He took her by the shoulders. “Do you want me to promise not to get shot, not to get killed? I can’t. No one can.”
Fighting against his hold, light as it was, proved impossible. “I don’t care!” she shouted. “I don’t need your promises. I’m better off by myself, anyway.”
Zach’s anger gave way to confusion. “You don’t have to be alone,” he told her. “I want to be with you, Leda. Are you listening?”
He was the one who wasn’t listening.
She was trapped in her worst nightmare all over again—loving someone, letting them get close, only opened the possibility of losing them.
Leda couldn’t cope with such a devastating loss again. She refused to.
Yet she knew Zach wouldn’t take her refusal as an answer. He wanted more. He wanted her. And he’d proven that he was incredibly persistent.
Instead of pushing him away, she pressed closer to his stiff, angry frame. The shock of her sudden shift in attitude showed in the shudder that traveled through him. He took his hands from her shoulders to her waist, holding her to him.
“We can have sex if you want,” she offered, moving one hand between them to cover his crotch. Looking up at him, she was fascinated to see the way his expression changed as she touched him so intimately.
“I want to talk to you,” Zach said from between clenched teeth.
“You want to,” she murmured, ignoring his contradiction, preferring instead to take her signs from his body’s immediate and unmistakable reaction. “You’re already hard.”
“That’s because you’re doing…that.” He jerked his hips against her seeking fingers. “God, that feels good!”
“Yes.” As long as he was aroused, he was less likely to be thinking.
He didn’t stop her when she reached for his zipper and freed his cock, nor when she started to play with it and stroked it into full erection. Touching him made her hot. The power of holding him in her hands and making him weak for her was like nothing else.
As strong and capable and independent as he was, she could make him vulnerable by merely caressing him.
“What is this, a consolation prize?” Zach’s voice was harsh.
When she peeked up at him, his eyes glittered with a hard, green light.
It hurt her somehow to see him struggle like this, even against the needs of his body. And his body needed her. That much was obvious. His dick rejoiced in her touch. It nudged her hand, wanting more. She could give his cock what it wanted—but the man behind the penis, she could not satisfy.
“It’s pleasure,” Leda said, “with no strings.”
Zach pushed his hand through her wild locks, binding her with his grasp. “That’s no prize,” he said. “I want strings. I want thick fucking chains wrapped around you so you can’t go anywhere without me.”
The stark words made her blink rapidly. “Don’t.”
He laughed shortly. “Don’t,” he repeated. “Is that all you can say?” His fingers tightened painfully in her hair. “If you didn’t want to hear me tell you the truth, then you should have never started this.”
Leda tried to shake her head and lost a few strands of hair in the process.
“I didn’t start—”
“You told me you loved me.” His grip slackened and his voice grew husky as his eyes roved over her face. “Liar.”
“Zachary—”
He lowered his head and kissed her strongly.
Leda returned the kiss. Even without him holding her, there was no resisting his power. She wanted him, and he wanted her. His cock still throbbed in her hands. She needed no chains to bind him to her. Those bonds were there, anyway, invisible and irresistible.
