The Mommy Quest

by Lori Handeland

  Stella nodded. “What a waste.”

  “Damn straight. You should sue the security provider.”

  His vow of not swearing seemed to have been forgotten, but Stella didn’t mind. Whenever she thought of Frank, she swore a lot, too, but usually in her mind.

  “I meant a waste of talent,” Stella said. “Frank could have done so much, if he’d only put his genius to good use.”

  “Since you’re speaking of him in the past tense,

  I’ll assume he’s no longer in need of the ass-kicking I had planned for him.”

  “You don’t even know what he did, Dean.”

  Dean reached out and ran his thumb over her cheekbone. “He put shadows in your eyes. He made you jump when I try to touch you. I hate him for that.”

  “He was sixteen,” she repeated.

  “I don’t care.” His hand fell away. “Now, finish the story. I’m sure the truth has to be less upsetting than anything I’ve imagined, or at least I hope it is.”

  “Depends what you imagined.”

  “I knew something happened in L.A, and that it had to be awful to make you come back here. How awful was it, Stella?”

  Suddenly she couldn’t find the words.

  Stella had been raised in a world without physical violence, and even though she’d entered one where violence was commonplace, she hadn’t been prepared for how being hit had made her feel. Sure it hurt, but worse it pained her. Even after the bruises went away, the fear and the degradation remained.

  “Did he—” Dean stopped, as if he couldn’t go on.

  “What?” She met his eyes and understood. “No, he didn’t rape me. Although he might have gotten to that if the security guard hadn’t come.”

  “Was this a random attack? He got in because he could, then you happened to be there?”

  “No. He planned the entire thing just for me, which would have gotten him death row if he’d actually succeeded in killing me.”

  As it was, Frank had gotten death, anyway. Why did she still feel bad about that?

  “What could you have done to make him so angry?”

  Frank had been angry from birth, but a lot of the kids she dealt with were. There’d been something missing in Frank, something that made him think he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it.

  “He was furious because I’d expelled him for hacking into the grading system and wiping everything out.”

  Dean raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Like I said—genius completely wasted.”

  “Doesn’t sound wasted to me. We used to dream about doing just that at Gainsville High.”

  “We keep hard copies. His little stunt only meant we had to work overtime to put everything back the way it was before he messed with it.”

  “So he wasn’t being a Good Samaritan, he was just being mean.”

  “Which is why he got expelled. Frank took offense. He thought I should have praised him. He wanted me to get his computer lit teacher to raise his grade.”

  Dean frowned. “This kid sounds like a serious problem. What was he doing in school?”

  “Public school.” Stella spread her hands. “Couldn’t keep him out until he did something wrong.”

  He stared at her for a long minute. “I think you got me off the subject of Frank.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” Stella took a deep breath and went back to the story. “When the security guard didn’t answer, I headed for the rear entrance, figuring he’d show up there eventually. Frank knew I left by that door. He waited around a corner and pow—” Stella made a jabbing motion with one fist “—out went the lights.”

  “He punched you?”

  “What did you think he did, Dean, gave me a really bad paper cut?”

  His eyes narrowed. “And then?”

  “When I came to, I was tied up in my office. It was dark, and he was hovering in the shadows, teasing me. He’d loom up out of nowhere, punch or slap me, then disappear.”

  Which was how she’d gotten so damn spooked by the shadows of men in the darkness and fast movements any old time.

  “He would have killed me,” she whispered. “He knew Mr. Benito was dead, and even though he hadn’t meant to do it, he also knew that one more death—”

  They can’t fry me twice, Ms. O’Connell.

  “What happened to the security guard?”

  “Woke up. Figured Frank was headed for me and came to my office.”

  “And then?”

  She met his eyes. “He hit Frank a little too hard.”

  DEAN COULD TELL STELLA felt bad about that, but he didn’t.

  Who’d have guessed he was a vigilante at heart? Probably every one of his high school teachers.

  “You came to Gainsville to rest,” he murmured. “Not exactly.”

  “What exactly.”

  “Medical leave.”

  His chest tightened at the thought of what might be wrong with her. He didn’t know how to ask.

  “Actually, psychiatric leave,” she continued.

  His chest eased, although mental illness might be worse than anything else.

  “Don’t you want to know why?” she asked.

  “Uh, sure.”

  Stella rubbed her forehead, then with a sigh, she dropped her hand and blurted, “I couldn’t do it.”

  Dean waited, but she didn’t elaborate. “Do what?”

  “My job. The bruises went away, but what got them there didn’t. Frank was dead, but I saw him everywhere at school.”

  “And you think there’s something wrong with that? If you didn’t, Stella, you should have your head examined.”

  She leaned her elbows on the table, shoulders hunched, and Dean reached for her hand again.

  “When you see someone who’s dead,” she said, “and you think they’re coming after you, you can’t be the principal of a school.”

  “You didn’t get over being attacked by one of your students quickly enough, so they fired you?”

  “A medical leave isn’t fired—although if I can’t get over my irrational fear—”

  “I wouldn’t call it irrational.”

  “My boss does. At any rate, a leave was strongly recommended. The third time they found me hiding under the desk was one time too many.”

  Dean made a disgusted sound. “What are you going to do?”

  “Hope I wake up one morning and all my irrational fears have disappeared?”

  “Yeah. That’ll happen.” Dean considered her for a moment. “I’m no expert, but I think you need a psychiatrist.”

  “Saw one. Didn’t help.”

  “Is it better for you to avoid the situations that scare you or confront them?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Who you listen to. Everyone’s got a theory.” She squeezed his hand, smiled too brightly, then straightened. “I feel better now that I’ve finally told someone everything.”

  “What did you tell me that you didn’t tell the psychiatrist?”

  If he hadn’t been touching her, Dean wouldn’t have felt her start. “Or maybe I should ask what didn’t you tell me, either?”

  She looked away.

  “Stella?” Dean’s fingers tightened. “What else did he do?”

  “Nothing. It was something I did.”

  “You can tell me.”

  She took a deep breath, and it shook in the middle, as if she’d been crying for hours. Dean had a feeling she’d been crying silently for months, and the idea made him want to break something, preferably Frank, but that was already done.

  “I begged him not to kill me.”

  She was mortified, and Dean wasn’t sure why.

  “Big deal,” he said. “I’d have been begging like a—like a beggar. There’s no shame in that, Stella. Are you nuts?”

  “Yes.” She stared at him now, her eyes huge and bright. “I thought we’d established that.”

  He wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want to make her cry. Th
en she smiled, and his heart went ba-boom.

  She was teasing, and that she could when she was so sad and lost only made him more fascinated with her now than he’d been fourteen years ago.

  “I’ve been better since I came here,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but—”

  “But what?” He rubbed his thumb over hers.

  “Why did you kiss me?”

  “Which time?” he asked, getting to his feet and taking their empty mugs to the sink.

  “A question isn’t an answer.”

  “No?” He turned as her eyes narrowed, and he laughed. “Sorry.”

  She stood and crossed the short distance separating them. Dean tried to move back, but he was already flush with the counter.

  Stopping so close he could smell the rain on her skin, she peered into his face. “Sorry about the kisses?”

  “No.”

  The word slipped out, he wanted to take it back, but it was too late.

  Stella put her hand on his arm, and Dean realized in that moment why he’d never married, why he’d barely dated. It had always been her, and he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to find anyone else who made him feel the way that she did.

  “Did you ever love me,” she murmured, “or was it just the sex?” Something in her voice made him answer. She needed to know the truth, and maybe it was time.

  “You think I’d risk jail for sex?”

  “You were eighteen,” she said dryly.

  Good point. At eighteen, most guys would risk anything for sex and he’d been one of them. But he also would have risked anything for her.

  She’d just given him the truth. Though it was a mistake, Dean could do no less for her.

  “It wasn’t just the sex.” Dean touched Stella’s hair. “It was you.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “YOU LOVED ME?” Stella whispered, her fingers tightening on Dean’s arm.

  From the joy that filled her, you’d think no one else ever had.

  Dean hesitated, then sighed, his shoulders sagging. “Yes.”

  In the face of the admission, his behavior on that long-ago night was heroic. He’d given Stella up for her own good, and in truth he’d given her a chance to break free.

  She wanted to slug him. Instead, she kissed him. She couldn’t help herself.

  Stella wrapped her arms around his neck, slid her tongue between his teeth, pressed her body against his with the same recklessness she’d shown at seventeen.

  At first he stiffened, and she feared he would shove her away. Then he groaned, the sound vibrating against her lips and her chest, creating a whole new sensation. He ran his big, scarred hands up her thighs. Gooseflesh chased across her skin and she shuddered.

  Dean started to lift his head, but she grabbed his lower lip in her teeth before he could escape. If he had time to think, he might decide this was a bad idea, and she didn’t know if she had the words to convince him otherwise.

  He came back with the whisper of her name, sliding his palms under her skirt, his thumbs beneath the high cut of her panties.

  She wanted to wrap her legs around his waist and was pleasantly surprised when he lifted her, settling her knees over his hips as he pressed tiny kisses across her jaw, then down her neck.

  His arms tensed; the muscles bulged as he supported her weight. He swung them around, settling her on the counter. His fingers drifted down the inside of her bare thighs, stroking her knees, urging them wider.

  He’d managed to hike her skirt so high it was more of a belt, and he brushed his thumb over her just once. Gasping, she arched against him.

  She wanted to strip off his damp, dirt-streaked T-shirt, then run her mouth over every dip and curve. She wanted to relearn all that she knew of him, and discover everything she did not.

  Ignoring the little voice that pointed out: He said he loved you, Stella. Past tense. She gave herself over to Dean’s touch. She’d worry about that later. Right now she had to have him again, even if it was only one time, the last time.

  He gave in to her insistent tugs on the hem of his shirt and drew the garment over his head. She smoothed her hands over his firm chest, his rippling stomach, then filled her palms with his biceps. Leaning forward, she tasted the sensitive skin where his collarbone became his shoulder.

  His breath stirred her hair as she trailed her tongue lower, licking one flat brown nipple, scoring the tip with her teeth. He muttered her name and tugged her head back, melding their mouths as he cupped her breasts, testing their weight, rolling her hardened nipples under his thumb.

  Desperate to be closer, she scooted to the edge of the counter and latched her heels around his thighs, urging him forward. He was hot and hard, the denim of his jeans creating a friction she remembered from their youth. His hands ran down her rib cage and around to her back, pulling her to him, rocking them together in a rhythm that was theirs alone.

  Her fingers tangled in his hair, still damp, softly curling. He lowered his head, rubbed his cheek against the fullness of her breasts, took her in his mouth and suckled both the silk and her.

  “Dean,” she whispered, remembering all the nights she’d awoken with his name on her lips and tears on her cheeks.

  “Shh,” he murmured, inching back. “I’ll make everything all right.” Somehow she doubted that, but she was certainly going to let him try.

  He reached between them, his thumb seeking the place that cried out for him, but she grabbed his wrist, held it away.

  His gaze met hers and lucidity crept back in, until she popped the button on his jeans, drew on the zipper, inched them over his hips and freed him into her waiting hand.

  She took a moment to stroke him, before wrapping her fingers around his length and driving him to a point from which neither of them wanted to return. With a single tug and a few less-than-graceful movements, he managed to divest her of her last bit of clothing, and they came together as they were meant to all along.

  DEAN WAS MAKING A MISTAKE. But what a mistake. He’d never thought to have Stella in his arms again, let alone in his bed.

  Make that his countertop.

  He should have put a stop to this, but it was too late. She moved against him. He was thrown back in time even as he became trapped in the present. The same woman, the same feelings. The same damn problem.

  She wasn’t going to stay.

  Dean gritted his teeth and forced himself to stop thinking, to focus on his body, on hers. He was good at sex. Always had been. And he’d been the best at it with her.

  Her eyes were closed, her head tilted back; he was captivated by the pulsing blue vein that trailed down the slim column of her throat. Lowering his head, he traced that vein with his tongue.

  She shuddered, the reaction jiggling her breasts against his chest, the nipples already hardened from his mouth. He lifted her hips, flexing against her with tiny, intense movements until she cried out, contracting around him, making him come.

  Turning her head, she kissed his brow, let her fingers drift over his hair. “I’ve never stopped loving you.”

  Dean buried his face in her neck and wondered what in hell he had done.

  STELLA AWOKE IN THE middle of the night, alone in a strange bed. For an instant she couldn’t remember where she was or why. Then she caught the scent of Dean on the pillow, and it all came rushing back. Joy at his touch, sadness at his silence, then determination.

  He’d loved her once, he could love her again. Her gaze wandered over the room. Plain, sturdy furniture, white sheets, a handmade quilt. The room reflected the nature of the man. He belonged here, and so did she.

  She might not know anything about animals or farming, but she knew about love, with him. And to her mind, love trumped everything—her father, her allergies, Dean’s fears and insecurities. Now she only had to convince him of that.

  Deep in thought, Stella was startled by a creak of a floorboard, and she spun toward the sound. The shadow of a man loomed in the doorway
. She waited for the fear, the panic. None came.

  She was safe in Dean’s house, on his farm, in Gainsville. Going back to L.A. had never seemed like a dumber idea.

  “Hey,” she murmured. “You okay?”

  Dean moved slowly into the room, then sat on the edge of the bed and hung his head. Stella inched closer, wrapped her arms around his waist, laid her cheek against his shoulder and pressed her breasts to his back.

  “This was a mistake,” he said.

  “Didn’t feel like a mistake to me.”

  “Stella—”

  “Don’t tell me all the reasons you shouldn’t have made love to me. There’s only one reason I want to hear.” She tightened her arms. “Why you did.”

  He turned, his eyes glittering in the faint light from the hall. He was so beautiful he made her heart ache. He always had.

  “I couldn’t help myself.” Leaning forward, he brushed his lips over hers. “I still can’t.”

  “Don’t,” she murmured, and he started to pull back. She clutched at his shoulders. “Don’t help yourself. Or maybe that should be—help yourself.” She pulled him onto the bed with her. “To me.”

  The second time was slower, softer, better. From the way that he touched her, she could swear that he loved her. But she was still too afraid to ask.

  In the end, Stella cried out his name while he said nothing at all, then he kissed her cheek, fell away, held her hand.

  “Dean?” she whispered to the darkest part of the night.

  “Yes?” His voice was wary. She couldn’t blame him.

  “You really did make everything all right.”

  “Go to sleep, Stella,” he said, but she heard the smile in his voice.

  As she drifted off, her hand held tightly in his, everything was all right for the first time in a lifetime.

  OF COURSE, it didn’t last.

  Stella awoke to the sun shining in her face. She experienced a momentary heart attack at the thought of sleeping right through the tardy bell.

  No one would know where she was. Her purse was still in her office. Laura would have a stroke. Right after she called in the marines.

  But a quick glance at the clock revealed it was only 6:45 a.m. She had plenty of time, and she smelled coffee.

  Since her clothes were nowhere to be found, Stella borrowed a robe from the closet, then followed her nose to the kitchen.