“You wrapped up his arms,” John explained quietly. “He can’t communicate without them.”
J.J. had already set about remedying the situation by pushing his way out of the towel. Then his little arms reached for her and his little body followed close by. Even if Nina had been wearing her fanciest dress rather than shorts and a T-shirt, she wouldn’t have minded the dampness or warmth. Grabbing J.J. around the bare back and bottom, rocking him from side to side, she felt she was holding something more valuable than any property title that had ever passed through her hands. He was precious. He was alive. He was a special, special little boy.
Her eyes rose to John, who was standing near where she knelt. He was regarding her somberly, seeming unsure as to what to make of her arrival.
“I just wanted to stop by and say hi,” she explained softly. “To see how you are.”
“We’re fine,” he said as somberly as he was looking. “We weren’t the ones who were sick.”
“Well, I’m fine, too,” she said, but no sooner were the words out than J.J. pulled back and began making sounds. His small hand was at work finger-spelling something, but far too quickly for her to follow, even if she had known the manual alphabet, which she didn’t. Something about the sounds, though, the repetition of the syllables, began to ring a bell. Not knowing whether to believe what she was hearing, she looked wide-eyed up at John, who explained.
“He wrote your name for the therapist. She had him practice finger-spelling it, but he wanted to say it, too.” Begrudgingly, Nina thought, he added, “It isn’t often that he voluntarily speaks. You should feel honored.”
“I do,” Nina breathed. Looking back at J.J., she grinned and nodded vigorously, then gave him another hard hug, followed by a kiss, followed by, “Very honored.”
John didn’t sound terribly impressed. “It’s nice you stopped by so he could try it out on you. He’s been asking all week where you were.”
She raised stricken eyes to John’s, but he turned on his heel, muttering something about getting pajamas, and left the bathroom. Holding J.J. back, Nina put a finger to the tip of his nose, mouthed, “Thank you,” then, tucking him into the curve of her arm, pulled the plug on the water in the tub. When he reached over to take out his rubber duckie, she saw an ugly scrape on his elbow. Forming her mouth into a dismayed “Oh,” she took the arm in her hand. “Boo-boo?”
J.J. nodded and signed something that she couldn’t understand. She was telling herself that she’d have to learn more signs, when John returned.
“He did that yesterday. Came fast off the slide and scraped it. It hurt.”
Gently Nina lifted the scraped elbow and put a feather-light kiss to it. “I’m sorry.”
Retrieving the towel, John began to dry J.J.’s back. “It’s part of growing up.”
“It must hurt you, too, when it happens.” She could feel the sting herself.
“Uh-huh.”
Little by little, J.J.’s small body disappeared into his pajamas. Sitting back on her heels, Nina watched. She half wished she had someone to take care of like John had J.J. She didn’t have the time, of course; still there had been something nice about that warm little body snuggling close.
With a flurry of hands, John and J.J. began to talk to each other. Nina waited patiently, wishing she knew more about signing, making up her mind to learn. Finally John looked at her.
“How long were you planning to stay?” he asked in a neutral tone of voice.
Wanting to stay awhile, but, thanks to that neutral tone, unsure of her welcome, she shrugged. “Did you have plans?”
“J.J. wants you in on a good-night story. He wants you to hold the book and turn the pages, while I sign.”
“I’d love to,” she said with pleasure. John might not have been thrilled to see her, but if J.J. was, that was a start. She’d steal time with John any way she could.
The next fifteen minutes were near to heaven. Sitting on J.J.’s bed with the small child nestled close to her side, Nina watched John sign the story of The Little Engine That Could as she read it aloud. She knew the story. Her first-grade teacher had loved it, and she had loved her first-grade teacher, so she’d always remembered the book.
She wondered whether John had chosen it for a reason. With its theme of the small engine that, against all odds and by dint of sheer determination, made its way over the mountain to deliver toys and games to the little boys and girls on the other side, it suggested to J.J. that he could do whatever he wanted if he was determined enough.
It suggested the same thing to Nina.
She was still thinking about that when the book was over. A sleepy J.J. gave her a big hug and a kiss, then turned to his father. Not wanting to intrude on their private good-night, Nina quietly left the room. She was leaning against the wall in the hall, with her arms wrapped around her middle, when he joined her.
His look was quelling. “He wanted to know if he could go in and see you in the morning. I had to explain that you wouldn’t be here.” Without giving her a chance to reply, he took off down the stairs.
Silently she followed. He had a right to be upset on J.J.’s behalf, she knew. But she would have liked it if he had been pleased to see her.
He hadn’t said a word to that effect. Nor had anything in his look said that he was glad she had come—except maybe for his surprise when he’d first seen her, maybe there had been a little pleasure in that.
He went straight on into the bookstore, to the cartons stacked there, waiting to be unpacked. “It’s hard for a kid to understand why someone he likes is there one day and gone the next.”
“I know.”
His gaze was cutting. “You should, if what you told me about your mother was true.”
“It is. But I didn’t think J.J. would make such a close tie in such a short time.”
“Neither did I, or believe me, I’d never have let you stay here. But it worked between you and him. You’re so totally without preconceptions about what a little boy his age should or should not be doing that you accept him completely. He senses that and responds.” Swearing under his breath, he pounded the seam of the top box with a fist. Without benefit of a knife, he slipped his fingers into the small slit he’d made and pulled the carton open.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. “But I’m not sorry you had me here. You were right. I couldn’t have gone home. I was too weak at the beginning.”
She waited for him to pick up on the suggestion and ask how she was feeling now. Instead, he pulled books from the carton and stalked off toward a far shelf. Several minutes later, after he’d taken his time putting those books in the appropriate spots, he was back for more.
“I talked with Christine and Gideon today,” she said lightly. “They agreed about postponing the open house. Chris was actually relieved, because some of the furniture for the model didn’t come in right, and with the extra time, she can have it done over. She wants everything to be perfect.” The last sentence was spoken more loudly to follow John down another aisle with another arm load of books.
Again he was several minutes arranging the books on the shelves. By the time he returned, Nina was growing uneasy.
“Aren’t you going to talk to me?”
He was loading his arms a third time. “When you say something worthwhile. So far, all I’ve heard is babble.” Off he went.
“It’d help if you’d stop working and look me in the eye,” she called, growing annoyed. She waited until he returned before muttering, “And you tell me I work too much.”
“These books have to be shelved.” Tossing one empty carton aside, he started in on the second.
“Right now?”
“Is there something more worthwhile I should be doing?”
“Talking with me.”
“Worthwhile, I said. There’s nothing worthwhile in what we have to say to each other.”
“There might be, if you could stop running back and forth with those books.”
His an
swer to that was to head in a different direction with a new arm load.
“John! Please!” On impulse, she took right off after him, following him down a short aisle and around a corner. “I want to talk with you.”
He was already putting one book after another in line. “What about?”
“You. How you’ve been. What you’ve been doing.”
“Well,” he said, raising the last six books and wedging them in a bunch onto the shelf, “I’ve been fine and doing all the same things I always do, so that’d be a pretty worthless conversation.” He turned to leave.
“John,” Nina cried, unable to take any more of his running. “Don’t!”
Her cry must have reached him, because he stopped in his tracks. At first his body was straight. With an expelled breath, it seemed to sag a little. Cocking a hand on one lean hip, he hung his head and stood, silent, with his back to her.
She wanted to reach out and touch him, but didn’t dare. Nor, though, could she let him go. More quietly, a little desperately, she said, “Talk with me. Just for a minute. Please?”
At first, she thought he’d refuse. When she was about to repeat her plea, even to intensify it, he straightened his spine and turned slowly. Spreading his arms along the bookshelf at shoulder height, he leaned back against the books and looked her in the eye.
“What did you want to say?”
She saw it then, saw hurt in his eyes, saw confusion and vulnerability and wanting. Long fingers clenched around her heart. She let out a small breath, then swallowed.
“I’m listening,” he said evenly.
Swallowing again, she started toward him. Guilelessly, thinking only to tell him what she was feeling, she said, “I’ve missed you.”
“You could have called to tell me that.”
“I didn’t know it until tonight.”
“It just—” arms still outspread, he snapped his fingers “—came to you?”
“Seeing you.” Stopping before him, she raised a hand to his face. “I’ve never missed anyone before.” She brushed the wayward hair from his brow, but it fell right back in the way she loved. Entranced by that and by a tug she felt inside, she rasped a palm over the shadow of his beard, touched fingertips to his chin, then his mouth. Unable to help herself, she went up on tiptoe.
“Nina—”
“Don’t move,” she said in a hoarse whisper, and before he could say another word, she put her mouth to his. It was a simple touch at first, a sweet homecoming that was repeated with additional little touches and tastes. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered again, going up this time for a deeper kiss. His lips resisted. She stroked them gently, traced them with the tip of her tongue, nipped at them until they began to soften. When he opened them enough to allow her entrance, she slipped her tongue inside. He tasted wonderful, so warm and exciting, so like John that when he began to respond to her kiss, she gave a totally helpless moan.
Startled by the sound, she dropped back to her heels. Watching her, John’s eyes were alert. They seemed to question and warn, but she was beyond answering and heeding. The only thing she was capable of doing was touching him in response to a clamoring need inside. Raising trembling hands to his shoulders, she tested his strength there before moving inward to the buttons of his shirt.
“Nina, what—”
“Shh. Let me.” One by one, she released the buttons, finally spreading the still-damp material to the sides. From the first time she’d seen him bare, she had known he was beautifully made, but memory paled before the real thing. Slightly awed, she caught her breath. Her hands skimmed lightly over his skin, over the cording of muscles higher up, over the wedge of hair that tapered toward his belly, over the dark, flat nipples that grew hard and tight. He was warm and gentle yet masculine through and through. Unable to deny herself the pleasure she leaned forward and put her mouth where her hands had been.
He whispered her name. She shushed him again, this time against the soft hair that swirled over the swells of his chest. She pressed her lips to one spot, put her tongue to another, dragged her teeth over a third. Only once did she stop, with her ear to the rapid thud of his heart and the pad of her thumb on his nipple, but if what she was doing excited him, it excited her as well. While her mouth continued its loving sport, her hands fell to the snap of his shorts.
Again he whispered her name, this time taking his arms from the shelves and framing her head. Still she hushed him. She kissed him lightly, one spot to the next on his chest, while she unzipped him and slipped her hands inside. He was hard and hot, a binding brand against her palm. She traced his length, curved her fingers around him and drew him up, then repeated the stroking until he began to shake.
“Oh, Nina, that feels good.”
It was all she needed to hear. Working her way down from his breast, she kissed a trail over his navel to the thick nest of hair that flared at his groin. When she opened her mouth on the velvet tip of his sex, he tried to pull back.
“I’ll come, baby, I’ll come.” His voice was a tortured moan, the sound of a man in the deepest stages of want.
The sound excited her beyond belief. Defying the hands that clenched and unclenched around her head, she loved him in ways she’d never loved a man before, and when his release came she stayed with him, showing him without words how much he meant to her.
Between harsh gasps, he whispered her name. His body seemed held erect by nothing more than the wild trembling that shook it. As the trembling eased, he slid down down until he was kneeling, face-to-face with her. Hands in her hair, he looked at her for the longest time until, brokenly, he said, “No one’s ever done that to me before.”
“Then it was a first for us both,” she whispered back.
His thumbs brushed her cheekbones, his lips caught hers. He drew her against him, only to ease her back in the next breath and tug her shirt from her shorts. “I need to feel you against me,” he whispered as he unhooked her bra, and in the next instant he pushed her shorts to her knees and drew her in close again.
Nina couldn’t contain the bubble of desire that swelled from her throat into a ragged moan. Large, capable hands covered her back, then her bottom, then worked their way to her breast and her belly.
“Does it hurt?” he asked by her ear, fingering the scar that was still too new to have faded.
Her breath was warm against his neck. “Once in a while, just a pinch.”
“Can I make love to you?” he whispered.
“I wish you would,” she whispered back.
Very gently then, with a care that brought tears to her eyes and small sighs of pleasure to her lips, he lowered her to the carpet, removed her shorts and his, and filled the place inside that had been wanting him so. Though he held his weight off her stomach, his penetration was deep. He let her set the pace, but he was attuned to her every need. When she grew hotter and her body began straining toward his, he used his fingers to help her to a stunning climax. His own followed soon after, leaving them in a limp tangle of arms and legs.
Snuggling closer into his embrace, Nina whispered a broken, “Oh, John, I was beginning to think you hated me.”
He took a long, deep, shuddering breath. “Not hated. Loved. Love, present tense. I love you.” Her fingers flew to his mouth, but the words were already out. Taking her wrist, he anchored her hand on his chest. “I do, Nina, and it’s hell. I want to be with you all the time, but you have this thing for independence. I’ve been in agony all week, waiting for you to call.”
Shaken by the depth of his feeling, by the intensity in the amber eyes that peered down at her, by the intensity of all she was feeling inside in the wake of his declaration, she managed a meek, “You could have called me.”
“No. I insisted you come here from the hospital, and while you were here, I insisted you lie around and be coddled. I couldn’t insist anymore. You wanted to fly. It was your turn to take the initiative.”
She remembered words that had been spoken in anger and frustration on the
day she’d left. “You said you were independent and self-sufficient, too.”
“I am,” he said quickly, then slowly to a more pensive pace, “but it’s not how I want to live my life. I don’t see anything weak about wanting a woman the way I want you. I don’t see anything weak about wanting to sleep with a woman, or talk with her over breakfast and dinner, or take her to the beach, or eat the chocolate chip cookies she bakes. I don’t see that I’d be losing anything by committing myself to you—” he took a deep breath, but when he went on, his voice was harder “—unless you don’t make the same kind of commitment in return. I can’t live the way I have been this week, Nina. I can’t live in a vacuum, thinking of you, wondering, worrying, wanting. I can’t sit around waiting for you to call when you chance to get a free minute. And I can’t put J.J. through that.”
Hearing his words, feeling the beat of his heart and the warm draw of his spent body, Nina was in heaven and hell at the same time. “What are you telling me?”
He was awhile in answering, and during that time, she had the awful feeling that he was savoring the last bits of pleasure before it all fell apart. She was feeling nervous when he finally took a deep breath and spoke.
“I’m saying,” he began slowly and with conviction, “that I’ve been down this road before, only this time there’s so much more of my heart involved that I can’t, just can’t take the risk. I love you, Nina, but if you don’t love me back, if you can’t marry me and move in here with me and cut back on your work so you can be a wife to me and a mother to J.J., I don’t want it.” He took another breath, a more labored one this time. “I guess maybe it is all or nothing. I can respect your work. I’d be the first to insist that you keep it up, and if you had an appointment at dinnertime once in a while, I certainly wouldn’t complain. But work can’t come first in your life. I have to. That’s the only way it can be with me. I’m sorry.”
Nina wanted to cry. Exerting the utmost control not to, she carefully pushed herself up. “Then—”
“Either we do it my way, or not at all,” he said, rising to look her straight in the eye. “Either you love me, or you don’t. Either we’re together the way we should be, or we break it off. Cold turkey. Over. No phone calls. No visits. No ‘maybe, if we find the time.’”
The Dream Comes True Page 17
