MILLION DOLLAR BABY

by Patricia Ryan

  She wished she wasn't pleased.

  Dean cleared off the starboard bench and sat, patting the brown cushion next to him.

  Instead, she pushed aside a stack of magazines and paperbacks and sat opposite him on the port bench. The magazine on top was folded back to show an article called "Exploring the Atlantic Seaboard." The author was Dean Kettering.

  Dean rested his elbows on his knees, his hair obscuring his features. He raised a callused hand to his beard-darkened jaw and stroked it, producing a soft scraping sound that sent a buzz of sensation coursing over her.

  Sighing, he said, "I don't guess I can blame you for … wanting to keep your distance. One thing you've always been good at is taking care of yourself, and I'm—" he dragged a hand through his hair "—nothing but trouble."

  "Dean…"

  "I understand that." He raised his gaze to hers. "I'm cool with that, but that doesn't mean you can't take the money."

  "There's nothing to discuss here, Dean," she said softly. "I came here to give you back that check, and that's what I'm going to do. You can't change my mind."

  "Damn it, Laura." Dean curled his hands into fists, then spread them beseechingly. "I'm just trying to do the right thing here. Let me do the right thing for once. Please." He entreated her with his gaze; she saw his jaw clench.

  Taking a deep breath, she set her coffee cup on the little table. "I can't accept your money, Dean."

  "Why not?"

  She looked away from the puzzlement in his eyes. "I just can't. Don't ask me to explain it."

  In a low voice, he asked, "Are you that mad at me?"

  "No. It's not—"

  "’Cause you have a right to be." He scraped his hair back with both hands. "I mean, I can understand it if you hate me."

  "I don't hate you. It's not that."

  "Then why won't you take the money?"

  "It…" She sat back and closed her eyes, a little whimper of frustration escaping her. "It wouldn't be right."

  A heartbeat later, she felt his hands, hot and rough, wrap around hers. Startled, she opened her eyes to find him kneeling in front of her, his gaze fiercely imploring. "It'd be the most right thing I can think of, Laura, the most right thing I've ever done. Maybe the only right thing I've ever done, the only thing I didn't do for purely selfish reasons. I want you to have that money."

  "I don't want it."

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You don't want a million dollars?"

  "It's your money, Dean, not mine."

  "I lucked into it," he said lightly. "I won't miss it."

  "How'd you luck into it? Where did it come from?"

  "It doesn't matter," he said, a little self-consciously. "It was just … someone wanted to thank me for something I did. It's not important."

  "Oh, my God. It was a reward, wasn't it? For saving those two boys."

  "How do you know about that?"

  "The Internet."

  "Yeah? I never would have pegged you for one of those propeller-heads."

  "Not me." She couldn't help smiling. "My friend Kay. It was how we found you."

  "Ah. Of course." Dean rubbed his thumbs over her hands. "The money doesn't mean a thing to me, Laura. I mean it when I say I won't miss it. I want you to have it."

  "I…" She wrested her gaze from his and tried to pull her hands away, but his grip was too tight. "I don't need it."

  He made a tsking sound. "The Laura I used to know could never have lied so baldly."

  Laura's face grew warm, but she met his gaze squarely. "You're not the only one who can develop new bad habits."

  He studied her in an astute way that penetrated right through her. "No. You still hate lying, and you can't do it worth a damn. And you sure as hell need that money. You need it and you want it."

  "But I'm not going to take it."

  "What about Jane?"

  "What?"

  "Your daughter, Jane. Even if you don't want the money for yourself, don't you think you'd be shortchanging her if—"

  "I call her Janey, not Jane," Laura said. "How did you know about her?"

  A telltale something stirred in his eyes, all too expressive despite his efforts to be unreadable.

  "How did you know?" she repeated when he hesitated in answering. "You and I haven't seen each other in six years. How did you know I had a daughter, and what I named her?"

  "I…" He shrugged, looked away – although he still held her hands in his.

  "Is it too much to ask for the truth here, Dean? Am I the only person in the world who still believes in real honesty – as in telling the truth even when it isn't easy?"

  A fleeting smile quirked his lips. "Probably." His expression sobered; he shifted his gaze to her hands and rubbed them between his. "You're right, though. I owe you the truth. I didn't want to tell you, 'cause I felt a little … funny about it, like a stalker or something. But a couple of years ago, I hired a private investigator to look you up, find out where you were living, how your life was going, that kind of thing."

  "You're kidding. Why?"

  "I just needed to make sure you were okay, you know – that things were all right for you, that you were getting along."

  "Most people, if they want to check up on an old friend, do it themselves."

  His eyes froze over with that inaccessible look she loathed so much, like a door closing on his soul. "Yeah, well, I'm not like most people."

  "Have you gotten to be that much of a loner that you can't even pick up the phone, or drop someone a line—"

  "Laura, you know me," he said heatedly. "I've never been the kind of guy to 'drop someone a line.' I keep to myself 'cause whenever I don't, I just end up bringing misery down on other people. You should know that better than anyone."

  Laura looked pointedly away, her cheeks burning.

  "Laura." He released one of her hands to seize her chin and turn her to face him. Gentling his voice, he said, "Take the money. Take it. I want you to have it."

  She shook her head.

  "If you won't take it for yourself, take it for Janey."

  Janey's the reason I can't take it. But she couldn't tell him that, not now, not ever. "No, Dean. I can't take it. I won't take it. I know you don't understand, but I just … I can't."

  He closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, his gaze roamed slowly over her, alighting on her eyes, her hair, her mouth. Still holding one of her hands as he knelt before her, he caressed her face, his work-roughened fingers grazing her jawline, her cheek, her temple.

  Very quietly he asked, "Does Janey look like you? Or more like Will?"

  "Like … like me," Laura murmured, breathlessly aware of his warmth and of his subtle, indefinable scent, still so familiar to her, and so seductive, after all these years.

  "She must be beautiful, then." He threaded his fingers through her hair, curled them around the sensitive nape of her neck.

  She closed her eyes, tried to steady her breathing, tried to keep from swaying toward him, astounded and appalled at how drawn she was to him still, after everything that had transpired between them.

  I'm not like most people, he'd said. I'm no pack animal. It was true. He wasn't like her, or Will, or anyone else she'd ever known. He was her antithesis, a solitary creature who answered to no one but himself, a beast of prey who needed to go his own way, who could never be domesticated, could never learn to live in her world. Everything that meant anything to her – especially those all-important bonds of marriage and family – he held in contempt.

  Dean Kettering was nothing but trouble, just as he'd said. She'd always known it, and it had always frightened her, deep down inside – frightened her, but fascinated her, too.

  And, God help her, it still did.

  "Does she have your eyes?" he asked.

  "No." She has yours.

  Laura felt his breath warm on her face, tickling her lips. She opened her eyes, pulled away from him, wrenched her hand from his. "I've got to go."

  "Laura—"


  "Let me go." Pushing him away, Laura stood and turned toward the galley. "I can't stay here."

  Leaping to his feet, Dean grabbed her arm before she could pass through the doorway. "Don't do this, Laura. You don't have to run away from me. I promise I'll leave you a—"

  "Let me go, Dean," she said, struggling.

  "I'll leave you alone," he said gruffly, seizing her other arm from behind. "For real. Take the money and I'll never bother you again."

  She closed her eyes. All she could hear was their harsh breathing, all she could feel was his chest, rock-hard against her back, his hands like bands of iron.

  "That's what you want, isn't it?" he asked, his tone resigned but laced with a hint of bitterness. "For me to be out of the picture for good?"

  Why did Laura feel a pinch of contrition, when their six years of estrangement had been his doing? After that fateful night, he'd been the one to cut her out of the picture, not the other way around.

  Ah, but it was so much more complicated than that. If she was contrite, it was because she felt compelled to keep the truth about Janey from him. Never mind that she had good reasons for doing so. She couldn't help but feel guilty about keeping such a secret.

  And, in light of that secret, she couldn't possibly accept his money. How could she live with herself?

  "Take the money," he said.

  She shook her head. "It would be better for everyone – you, me … and Janey – if you'd just let me go. Please, Dean."

  "Why won't you let me do this, Laura?" he asked, loosening his grip on her arms and smoothing his hands up and down them. "Just let me do this one decent thing. I know I can't undo … that night … what I did…"

  "No." Laura turned to face him. "It can never be undone." In her mind's eye, she conjured up a vision of Janey in her dinosaur jammies and T-rex slippers, giggling and blowing big, silly kisses at her from Kay's front porch as she drove away early this morning. She smiled. "The truth is, I wouldn't want to undo it even if I could."

  That seemed to leave him speechless.

  Laura reached up with one hand and cupped his face. He closed his eyes, rubbed his prickly cheek against her palm.

  "Goodbye, Dean." She stepped into the galley, put on her parka, took out the check and laid it on the counter.

  In the entrance to the companionway, she looked back and saw him watching her, his hands gripping the edges of the doorway, his eyes bleak.

  She turned and bolted up the stairs.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  «^»

  Dean gripped the door frame with white knuckles as he listened to her leap from the boat onto the dock and sprint away. She fled like a creature pursued who had no intention of being captured.

  Releasing the door frame, he clawed his hands through his hair and let out a pent-up breath. The green envelope lay on the galley counter, scrawled on and dog-eared, a million-dollar check no one wanted tucked away inside.

  No, that wasn't quite right, Dean mentally corrected himself as he lifted the envelope and brought it to his nose, inhaling the faintest whisper of her scent. She still wore the same light, grassy cologne she'd worn in college, the one that reminded hint of a breeze drifting over a freshly mowed meadow. Her hair had smelled different, and still did – richly floral. The two fragrances merged to produce a paradoxical and altogether devastating bouquet of innocence and lush sensuality.

  Sighing, Dean tossed the envelope back on the counter. It wasn't that nobody wanted the money. Dean wanted it himself, but in a seemingly futile stab at nobility – not his long suit – he was trying to force it on Laura. Laura wanted it, too, but for mysterious reasons of her own, she wouldn't take it.

  Don't ask me to explain it…

  And then, when her stonewalling had fallen on deaf ears, I don't want it … I don't need it. Outright lies, which he'd never thought to hear from her lips.

  Laura Sweeney, lying. On trying to. Which implied desperation.

  She felt compelled to refuse the money – which she needed as much as he did, or more – but was desperate to keep the reason for her refusal a secret from him.

  She'd turned downright enigmatic, his guileless little Lorelei. She'd always been so forthright, so wonderfully genuine, so plainly and simply herself. No pretensions, no obfuscations, no genteel white lies from Laura Sweeney.

  Yet now she was hiding something, this excruciatingly honest woman who'd always worn everything right there on the surface for everybody to see. It was the only conclusion he could draw. I can't take it … I won't take it. I know you don't understand…

  No, he didn't understand, but he damn well meant to.

  Retreating to the main cabin, he fed another chunk of wood to the fire and gazed into it, sorting through the things Laura had said – and speculating on the things she'd kept to herself. Fitting pieces together, taking them apart and fitting them together differently.

  It almost certainly had to do with that night. Dean braced his arms on either side of the fireplace to watch the flames leap and twitch, to feel their crackling heat infuse him, stoking his memories of that night – the night that still haunted his dreams, although reminders of it shamed him.

  I wouldn't undo it even if I could.

  That had stunned and perplexed him. Time and again Dean had fantasized about going back to that night and doing it right this time – resisting her, as he should have. Walking away. Being strong for both of them. Being a different kind of man, the kind of man Will had wanted him to be, expected him to be. A man of honor, a man of restraint.

  He'd tried, in his own half-assed way, to do the right thing. At first.

  He'd tried to leave on the sly – the coward's way out. Still, it would have worked, if she hadn't caught him.

  The kiss … it had just happened. A mistake, yes, of course it was a mistake, but it had overwhelmed him, the need to kiss her. To warn her off.

  To scare her. Had it?

  It had scared him, shaken him to the core to feel her mouth hot against his, her body quivering with shock and maybe something else, something more…

  But he'd tried. He'd tried. "Now do you see why I have to go?"

  And then her response, softly spoken, a little shaky. "No, Dean. You don't."

  The whole world shifted crazily then. Joy and terror suffused him.

  Go, he commanded himself, his back to her, fists trembling at his sides. Leave. Walk away.

  He knew she was grief stricken and lonely, didn't know what she was saying, hadn't worked out the ramifications.

  He knew, and yet he turned and came to her, grabbed her and kissed her again, just as hard as before, reckless with long-suppressed desire.

  He banded his arms around her, crushing her hard to his body, moving against her in helpless need. She broke the kiss with a little indrawn breath that sounded almost like a whimper, a plea.

  For one immeasurable moment their gazes met in the darkened room, lit only by what little moonlight filtered through the lace curtains. Would she push him away? he wondered, heart thundering.

  She didn't, thank God. She didn't.

  Framing his face with her hands, she kissed him. She kissed him.

  His heart kicked. He jerked awkwardly at her robe. She lost her footing, tumbled backward onto the sleep-rumpled bed.

  He fell on her, renewing the ruthless kiss as he yanked at her nightclothes. Buttons popped.

  She gasped as he tore her nightgown open, filling one hand with soft, hot flesh as the other fumbled with the gown's skirt, raising it to her hips.

  He couldn't see her – not well, anyway – but he could feel her, even through her bunched-up flannel nightgown. She was so warm, so womanly, and she smelled so good, and she was wet and arched her hips when he touched her.

  She tried to tug his denim jacket off, but he was too impatient, wanted too much to be inside her. Still fully clothed, he unzipped his jeans and freed himself.

  Her legs cradling him, she shifted her hips, positioning him right
where he needed to be, where he'd ached to be for years, imagined during countless sleepless nights.

  Poised for entrance, heart thudding, he hesitated briefly to savor this moment, this dizzying anticipation.

  This is Laura, my Lorelei. I'm making love to Lorelei.

  He could barely see her, but he could tell that her eyes were closed. And then an awful thought snaked its way through his euphoria and into his consciousness.

  She's imagining I'm Will. She wishes I were him.

  The thought shouldn't have devastated him – she was a recent widow, after all – but it did.

  Then something miraculous happened. She whispered his name.

  "Dean," she breathed, opening her eyes, those heart-stopping golden eyes, and looking right at him, her hands closing over his shoulders, her hips tilting, urging him into her.

  It's me she's making love to, he realized with a burst of savage gratification. Me, not him.

  That knowledge undid him, stripped him of his doubts and misgivings, peeled away all rational thought and left him in the realm of pure sensation, pure animal hunger.

  Rearing over her, he flexed his hips and drove into her, a hard, smooth lunge that sank him deep, deep inside her, forcing a cry of fierce masculine pleasure from his throat.

  Laura moaned at the abrupt joining, clawed at his jacket, rocked against him. Her slick internal walls gripped him as he withdrew and plunged again, and again, his movements driven by brute instinct, the timeless thrill of penetration.

  And something more, something he'd never felt with any of his forgettable erstwhile girlfriends – the exaltation of two people coming together as one. He felt a sense, not only of possession, but of sharing, of a physical coupling that echoed the long-standing, silent, secret communion of two hearts.

  He gave himself up to his body's command, thrusting in an ever more frantic rhythm, with which she kept pace. It was a delirium of mutual pleasure, which crested swiftly, not just for him, but for her.

  He felt the shuddering tension in her legs, her hips, heard a little panting cry escape her as her head fell back, something almost like panic glittering in her eyes.