by Lucy Francis
He wanted to look in those hauntingly familiar golden brown eyes and see only himself, none of the ghosts from her past.
He scratched Peg behind the ear. He needed to know what that son of a bitch had done to her. The wrenching in his gut when he thought of someone hurting Victoria might lessen if he knew what had actually happened, rather than letting his broad imagination fill in the blanks. One day, when the time was right, he’d ask her.
One day, when the time was right, he’d make love to her. But she was more fragile than she wanted to admit, and he was willing to wait.
He rubbed the bison’s shoulder and left the box. He stepped through the door into a blast of freezing wind. The truck caught his eye, and he considered it for a moment. Drive over there, wake her, love her while she’s still half asleep and unable to think too much about her past, her fears…
It sounded like heaven. Hell would follow when dealing with her anger, or worse, her shaken trust, for taking advantage of her. He sighed and trudged back to the house.
One day. Soon.
“Come in, Victoria!”
Victoria barely heard Kelli’s shout, muffled by the steel and frosted glass door. She turned the knob and stepped inside the woman’s house.
Kelli sat cross-legged on the deep blue carpet of the living room, surrounded by boxes. Some were spilling over with photographs, others were stuffed with papers and die cuts. Scissors, glue, colorful stickers, and a massive binder with a few pages in it covered the walnut coffee table. She brushed a lock of dark-blonde hair off her forehead and grinned up at Victoria.
“That glorious hair of yours caught my eye as you came to the door. If you’re in search of Curran, he’s not here. He and Rob went to lunch. They’re having man time.”
Victoria shook her head to clear the wistfulness that pricked her. Curran took his responsibility as male role-model to his nephew seriously. He’d make a wonderful father. “I didn’t see his truck. Actually, I came to see you.”
Kelli beamed. “Oh! How lovely! Here—” She grabbed a box off the pale blue recliner near her. “Take a seat, stay and chat for a while.”
“I’d like that.” Victoria never had many female friends, and while she hung out with Mara on occasion, Kelli was really the only woman she was close to these days. She craved female company.
She sat down, looking over the explosion in the room. “I never knew anyone who actually made scrapbooks.”
“I love it. I started collecting photos and stories and such ages ago. I’m working on Robby’s right now. Christmas pictures. I’m a bit behind.”
Kelli handed her a stack of photographs. “Rob and I spent last Christmas with my mum and dad. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of being able to go to the beach in December.”
“How did he handle the flight?”
“Pretty well. Thank God for in-flight movies and video games.”
Victoria looked through the pictures. Rob opening gifts. Rob with a smiling gray-haired woman. “Is this your mother?”
Kelli glanced at the photograph. “Yeah.”
Same nose, eyes. “Curran looks like her.”
“Quite a bit, yeah. I take after Dad.”
“Do you go back to Australia often?”
Kelli glued a fancy yellow die cut frame around one photo on a red sheet of paper. “At least once a year.” She looked sideways at Victoria. “You know he doesn’t go back, right?”
She nodded. “I never quite got him to discuss why.”
“Because he’s darned stubborn. He’s got it in his head that he was a difficulty Mum was glad to be rid of. I was really too young to understand everything that happened, but I remember he fought with her and Dad over everything from money to curfews.”
Kelli rummaged through a box and came up with a tube of clear glitter. “He packed a bag one day and moved in with some friends over in Gold Coast. He got into some trouble, partying, stealing, that sort of thing. Total delinquent. Next thing I knew, Mum told me his father took him to the U.S. For a long time, I thought she lied to me, because he didn’t contact us. I thought he was dead.”
“He sounds like kind of a jerk in his younger years.”
Kelli laughed. “Still is, sometimes. He’s a good man though. I don’t know what Rob and I would’ve done without him.”
Victoria picked up a scrapbook with a dark green cover from the box near her feet. “May I?”
“Feel free. You’ll probably like that one. I keep books for Curran, too. That one is childhood stuff. He doesn’t appreciate these things now, but even if he never does, someday he might have children. They’ll like reading about their dad.”
Victoria carefully turned the pages, a feeling of connection growing inside her as she watched the years of Curran’s life pass. Infant, toddler, school years. Pictures he drew when he was eight, playing soccer at twelve. She saw him grow taller, watched his face age. The last photograph showed him at sixteen, washing a car. Young, leanly muscled, hinting at the man he would become.
She replaced the book in the box. “Thank you for letting me look at that. You do a great job.”
“Thanks.” As Victoria stood, Kelli waved her back down. “Stick around, the boys should be home soon.”
“Uh, no, I really should go. Lots to do, but I can only chase work assignments for so long at a stretch.” As much as she wanted to see Curran, she wasn’t at all certain he would appreciate her rifling through his memories. A pang of guilt struck her heart. She’d done quite enough background research on him.
Before his retirement, he’d had a very public yelling match with Amanda Dannen, when he found out she was cheating on him. Curran didn’t take things going on behind his back very well. If he ever found out she knew who he was when this relationship started, he’d probably come unglued. So anything else she wanted to know about him, she’d find out the most open, direct way she knew. She’d ask him.
Victoria said goodbye, then glanced out the front window when movement caught her eye through the sheer curtains. A man tall enough to play in the NBA stepped up to the door. “You have company, Kelli.”
Kelli looked up from the photo and glue she held as a knock sounded on the door. “Did you see who it is?”
“Really tall, blond guy.”
Victoria’s heart skipped a beat when Kelli squealed and bolted for the door. She threw the door open and leapt onto the concrete landing, into the arms of the man standing there.
“Hey, if I’d known the welcome would be this good, I’d have taken my vacation a lot sooner.” Humor and affection filled the man’s pleasant voice.
“How did you manage to get away so fast, mate?”
He hugged Kelli, then set her back, looking her over. “I’d actually had it planned for a few weeks, so, surprise. You look great, Kelli.”
“So do you.” Kelli glanced back over her shoulder, waggling her fingers at Victoria, beckoning her onto the landing. “Victoria, meet Jamie Mickelson. He’s an old friend.”
She turned back to Jamie. “This is Victoria Linden. She’s off-limits.”
His brow furrowed, then his eyes brightened. He extended a long hand to Victoria. “Hi, so you’re the bright spot in Curran’s life. I knew there was somebody special when I talked to him last. I could hear it in the way he refused to discuss you.”
She shook his hand, the blush rising in her cheeks. Was Curran keeping their relationship private because she wasn’t important to him, or because he protected the people dear to him? She could take it either way. “It’s nice to meet you, Jamie.”
“We’ll have to go out, the four of us, while Jamie’s here,” Kelli said.
Victoria nodded. “I’d like that, Kelli. See you later.”
She left the house, hearing the door close behind her, cutting off Jamie and Kelli’s already lively discussion. Halfway to the SUV, she heard a distinctive bawl from the direction of the barn. She changed course, following the noise along the path toward Curran’s house, until she reached the corra
l beside the barn. Peg-leg stood several feet away from the thick metal bars. The big beast shook his head as she approached, then snorted and moved his bulk in a diagonal shuffle closer to the corral fence.
Victoria scratched his thick coat, rubbing his side. The harder she rubbed, the more he leaned against the bars, into her touch. She laughed. “I hope that corral was built especially for you, Peg-leg, or Curran will have another fence to fix when he gets home.”
Crouching so she could look into the animal’s deep brown eyes, Victoria rubbed his forehead. “I owe you, you know. It’s your fault we got together. Thank you.”
If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn Peg-leg winked at her. She gave him one last scratch behind the ears, then headed home to drum up some new assignments. Otherwise, work was going to get a little lean in a few weeks.
Chapter Six
A few days later, Victoria stood loading the dishwasher in Kelli’s sunshine-yellow kitchen. Mulled cider steamed on the stovetop, the scent overlaying the remains of Kelli’s amazing lasagna.
Kelli put the salad dressing away in the fridge then shook her head. “You shouldn’t be doing that, Vic, you’re a guest.”
Victoria filled the detergent dispenser. “Well, you certainly shouldn’t do it. You made dinner.”
The other woman crossed her arms. “Actually, we ought to make the men do it.”
Victoria looked over her shoulder, into the great room. Jamie sat cross-legged on the carpet, helping Rob put together a building-block race car. Curran relaxed on the recliner built into the end of the burgundy floral sectional couch. She smiled, then closed the dishwasher and started it. “Too late, all done.”
“They’re saved from women’s work for another day.”
She laughed with Kelli as she washed her hands, then walked to the end of the breakfast bar which separated the kitchen from the great room. She tucked her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and studied Curran. He looked so comfortable in the recliner, eyes closed, the fireplace crackling near him.
Rob whooped and jumped on the couch beside Curran. “My car’s done, my car’s done!”
Curran opened his eyes and examined his nephew’s creation. “Great car.”
“Yeah, I know.” Rob settled beside him, driving his car in the air, then down Curran’s arm and leg. “It had some hard parts. Jamie helped with those.”
Kelli leaned over the bar from the kitchen. “That was nice. Did you remember to thank him?”
Rob gasped. “Oh. Oops. Thanks, Jamie!”
“Any time, little bud,” Jamie said, stretching out on the other end of the L-shaped couch.
Victoria headed for the couch as Rob stood up, driving his car into the air. He lost his balance, landing full-force on Curran’s chest. She flinched, braced herself against the anger, the yelling that would surely follow.
Curran grunted at the impact, then half groaned, half laughed. “Rob, go easy, right? I have old bones, and you’re heavy.” Not a single trace of anger sounded in his voice.
As he gently set the boy on the couch, Rob patted Curran’s cheek. “Did I break you?”
Curran ruffled his hair. “One of these days, you might. Be careful with me, or I’ll be forced to tickle you senseless.”
Rob giggled and jumped down, driving his car across the front of the couch and around the floor.
Victoria relaxed, watching them. Nothing made the differences between Nate and Curran more apparent than the way he treated his nephew. Rob responded to Curran with open trust and blatant adoration.
Curran glanced at her, then raised his hand and beckoned. She joined him on the couch, leaning against him.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered, his lips creating a shiver of want in her belly as they moved against her ear.
“Me too.”
Kelli came into the room and passed out mugs of cider to everyone, then sat near Jamie. Victoria sipped the tangy spiced cider, its warmth suffusing throughout her body. Conversation flowed freely, though she listened and watched more than she spoke.
The dynamics of family and friends who were comfortable with one another fascinated her. She never spoke to her parents any more, but when she had, her family talked at rather than with each other.
Jamie asked if Curran had any new plans for the ranch, and Kelli laughed. “Yeah, he wants some cows now.”
“A ranch should have a cow or three,” Curran said.
Kelli raised a brow. “Don’t we have enough trouble with the single bovine in the family?”
“Keep up the attitude about Peg, sister, and I’ll buy a herd of bison just to make life interesting.”
Victoria laughed. Watching the easy banter between Curran and Kelli, she’d never guess the two were separated by a decade in age and, for much of their lives, an ocean as well.
It felt like she’d been zapped into one of those perfect family gathering commercials for tissues. As foreign as this comfortable coziness was, in a way it seemed right. As if she’d always known on some deep level what a family was supposed to feel like, and once within the circle, she recognized the sensation.
She snuggled into Curran’s side, contentment brewing within her as he gently squeezed her shoulders.
After a while, Rob hopped onto the couch next to her. “Victoria, wanna see my car?”
“I’d love to.” She dutifully examined every side of the brick construction, marveling at the clear blue windshield and the tires that really rolled as he pointed them out to her.
Rob leaned against her, pulling his feet onto the couch. Shock zipped through her at the easy, guileless way Rob accepted her into his world. He took after his mother. Kelli welcomed her with open arms, too. Did everyone in Curran’s life feel this acceptance, or was she lucky?
She tried to hand the car back, but Rob patted her arm. “No, it’s okay, you can hold it for a while.”
Not wanting to hurt his feelings, she set the car on her thigh, patted his head, then tried to catch up on the adult conversation.
Jamie probably couldn’t speak if his hands were tied, given his animated motions as he talked. “So, by the day of the tournament, half of human resources is out with food poisoning from that stupid deli platter, including Paul.”
Curran said, “And you need a full foursome to play.”
“Exactly. So, I’m thinking, who’s going to replace him when we have to be on the green in less than an hour?”
Victoria puzzled over the bits and pieces of the conversation, putting two and two together. She came up with the annual DCS GlobalTech-sponsored golf tournament, a fundraiser for a children’s shelter in L.A.
Curran nuzzled her cheek then said, “So who did you end up with?”
Jamie shifted to the edge of his seat. “Mike Criszawski.”
“Criszawski? Short, skinny, trips-over-his-own-feet, Criszawski? From accounting?” When Jamie nodded, Curran laughed, the rumble in his voice vibrating against her skin, tickling her ear. “Does he even golf?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so, but after he birdied twice and sank a hole-in-one on the fourth, I figure I found myself a new ringer. I’m seriously considering making him a vice president so he won’t be tempted to jump ship and make some other company look good in the future.”
“Go ahead,” Curran said. “You don’t exactly need my permission to advance him.”
Kelli giggled and Jamie rolled his eyes. “Thanks for handing over the mantle of authority, boss, but you’d kick my ass if I brought someone up that high without your blessing.”
Victoria felt Curran stiffen beside her. In the weeks they’d been seeing each other, he’d never brought up his company, and she’d never prodded. She sat up slightly and met his gaze, unsure what to say, if anything. The conversation with Jamie clearly went somewhere he hadn’t anticipated, and would have left her with questions, had she not already known about his company.
But he didn’t know she knew. The rock-hard tension in his muscles told her he realize
d she’d want an explanation. Finally, he gave her a half-smile and whispered. “We’ll talk later.”
She nodded, and turned slightly against his side, realizing as she did that the warmth and weight against her right hip wasn’t moving. She looked down at the top of Rob’s blond head, resting against her waist. One small fist curled against her thigh, his other arm rested limply across his stomach.
He’d fallen asleep.
For one crystalline moment, Victoria pictured herself sitting this way in Curran’s home, his ring on her finger, their child snuggled against her, asleep. It was merely a glimpse of what it would be like to have a family. Her family. A husband. A child. A wave of longing washed over her, threatening to overwhelm her completely before she blinked and swallowed hard, forcing the emotion back.
She coughed, covering the hitch in her breath, the tiny cry clawing at her throat. The realization struck hard. This wasn’t what she’d given up when she signed away her parental rights. With Nate, it would never have been like this. Everything about him diametrically opposed the comforting warmth, the happiness surrounding her. And that baby—that child, now—was far more a part of Nate than of her.
But what she felt now…this is what it would be like with Curran. If she’d even briefly considered giving in to her physical craving for him, the incredible sense of belonging bolstered her resolve. Too great a risk, to feel this much or more and have it ripped away when whatever this was between them eventually broke apart.
Kelli left her seat and crouched in front of the couch, looking at Rob. “What I wouldn’t give to fall asleep as easily as he does. Come on, sweet thing.” She eased Rob into her arms, then smiled at Victoria.
She managed to smile back. Apparently her internal shattering had gone unnoticed by the others. Thank God. The flash flood had left her shaken to the core, but if no one saw it, she could pretend it never happened.
Rob stirred as Kelli hoisted him higher on her shoulder then took him down the hall to put him to bed. Her feelings settled somewhat with the boy gone, but the level of comfort Victoria knew before this emotional revelation was beyond her reach.
