“So? It’s your baby, isn’t it?”
Sean stopped, took a breath and looked at Mike. “Yeah, it is. She is.”
“A daughter?” Mike grinned widely. “That’s excellent. Congratulations. We find out our baby’s sex tomorrow.”
Sean nodded, knowing just how excited Mike was about the baby Jenny was carrying. They’d made a family, they were building a future. Right now, all Sean had was the knowledge that he would be a father. He’d never really been one to look into the future. He was more of a right-now kind of guy. But a lot was changing in his life lately.
“That’s great, Mike,” he said, dragging one hand through his hair. “Really.”
“Yeah, it is.” Mike walked across the room and sat on the edge of his desk. “What’s going on, Sean?”
“Oh,” he said, snorting a laugh, “not much. I just found out I’m going to be a father. The woman carrying my kid wants nothing to do with me, and did I mention she used to be married but her sainted husband died two years ago?”
“Whoa. That’s a lot.”
“You think?” Sean dropped into a chair, stretched his legs out in front of him and folded his hands on his abdomen. “It bugs the hell out of me that she didn’t tell me she was married before.” He shook his head. “I mean, sure we haven’t known each other long and she really didn’t have a reason to tell me, but why didn’t she? Hell, I don’t even know why it bugs me so much.”
“Don’t you?” Mike asked.
“Is she still in love with the dead guy, Mike?”
“I don’t know,” his brother said thoughtfully. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“Because she should have told me about Saint Sam,” he snapped. This had been gnawing on his gut since Kate’s dad told him about her marriage and how it had ended. He’d been biting his tongue for days to keep from saying something because damn it he wanted her to tell him. But it was looking like that wasn’t going to happen, so he’d have to do something to end this. Did she kiss him and think of Sam? Because Sean wasn’t going to stand for that.
“Look,” Mike said, “you gave me some good advice not long ago when Jenny was making me crazy—”
“Not the same thing,” Sean said, cutting off his brother. Mike had been in love with Jenny. Sean was in lust with Kate. Big difference.
“Right.” Mike shook his head impatiently. “Anyway, the point is, you told me I should talk to her, get everything out, and you were right. Why don’t you take your own advice? Talk to her, Sean. For God’s sake, you’re having a baby together. Maybe you should work some of this stuff out?”
“Yeah. The question is, how?” Sean jumped from the chair and prowled the office again, as if he was trapped and looking for a way out. Throwing a look at Mike, he said, “I don’t have time for this right now. We’ve got the big launch next week, and there’s a million details to refine yet.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We’re still putting together the storyboards for ‘Dragon’s Tears’—and that comes out in December, we’ve got to get those finalized...”
“Uh-huh.”
Sean stopped dead and fired a look at his brother. “Just say what you’re thinking. You agreeing with me so easily is a little creepy.”
“Fine.” Mike came off the desk and faced him. “We’ve always got a launch or a new game in the pipe and hopefully, it’ll be like that for the next fifty years. But you get to have a life, too, Sean, and sometimes you have to make the time for it.”
He scrubbed one hand across the back of his neck. “Make time.”
“Yeah. You brought Kate out here—take advantage of having her on your home court, so to speak. Figure out what the hell it is you want, then go and get it and stop giving me a headache.”
Sean laughed and shook his head. Leave it to family to wrap things up so neatly. “Wow. Touching. Okay, fine. Speaking of taking some time, I won’t be in tomorrow.”
“Good. Improve your attitude before you do come back, okay?”
“Gonna work on that,” Sean said and left.
* * *
Several hours later, Kate was sitting across the table from Sean in the most elegant restaurant she’d ever seen. Candlelight flickered on every table, white linen cloths were brightened by deep red napkins and the sparkle and shine of crystal and silver. Quiet conversations sifted through the room and soft, classical music was a whispered backdrop.
Kate smoothed her napkin across the lap of her new black dress and looked at the gorgeous man opposite her. In jeans and a work shirt, Sean was hard to resist. In a well-tailored black suit with a sapphire-blue tie, he was amazing. He looked as if he’d been born to be in places like this. Actually, he was as comfortable in this rarified atmosphere as Kate was uneasy. Just one more reason that loving him was going to bring nothing but trouble.
“You look beautiful,” he said, shattering her thoughts.
“Thank you.” She’d had to go shopping, of course, since she hadn’t brought anything with her that would have been good enough for a place like this.
There’d been a tension between them all day. Well, Kate admitted silently, Sean had been...different, since they’d left Wyoming. For her, realizing she was in love made her cautious, afraid she might somehow let the truth slip and set herself up for pain. So the two of them did a careful dance, where every word was weighed and measured and what wasn’t said lay between them like a minefield.
Conversation during dinner had been stilted, and Kate felt as though she was balancing on a tightrope, trying desperately not to fall.
“How do you like California so far?”
She smiled at him. “What I’ve seen is beautiful. I love the view from your terrace.”
He nodded, and one corner of his mouth tipped up. “That’s the reason I bought it. I like seeing the ocean when I wake up.”
“You can see it from your bedroom?”
One eyebrow lifted. “If you’d joined me last night, you could have found out for yourself this morning.”
“You didn’t invite me.”
“You don’t need an invitation and you know it.”
Oh, if she had joined him last night, the view would have been the last thing she was interested in. Even as her body stirred, she let that go and said instead, “This is actually my second trip to California. Of course, on the first trip I was ten and my parents took me to Disneyland.”
He smiled, and this time the smile reached his eyes. “Every kid should get the chance to go there.”
“You probably went all the time, growing up here.”
“Not really. My folks were more about going camping and exploring rather than amusement parks.”
“Tonight, you don’t look like a camping kind of guy.”
“And you don’t look much like a contractor who wears a tool belt like other women wear diamonds.”
“But that is who I am.” Waving one hand to encompass the restaurant, she said, “Places like this, not really a part of my life.”
“They could be,” he mused.
“Not a lot of five-star restaurants in a little town in Wyoming.” Her heartbeat sped up, but before it could get out of hand, Kate reined it in. Her life wasn’t here in California. Even if by some miracle she and Sean could find a way to make things work between them, she still couldn’t stay here. She had a business, people depending on her, and besides, she wanted to raise her child where she’d grown up.
In a place with more trees than people. Summer nights of lying on a blanket in the yard watching the stars. Fourth of July town picnics, snowmen and ice skating on the lake. Small schools and big dreams. She wanted that for her child and knew she wouldn’t be able to find it here in California.
His fingers tapped lightly against the table as he studied her.
“You’re staring at
me again,” she said.
“I like the view,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee.
“You’re doing the charming thing again,” Kate said and smiled a little. “I wondered if I’d see it again.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Just that I’ve never seen you as quiet as you have been the last two days.”
His gaze dropped deliberately to her belly. “A lot to think about lately.”
“You’re right about that.” She shifted a little under his steady stare. So much to say, she thought, and no way to say it. She changed the subject to one less personal, one less fraught with emotions neither of them was willing to discuss. “So do you come here often for business dinners?”
He smiled and in the candlelight, his eyes glittered. “Not really.”
“But you brought me here.” She tipped her head to one side. “Why?”
“You didn’t enjoy your dinner?”
“It was wonderful, but that doesn’t answer my question.”
“Easy answer, then. I wanted to take you someplace nice.” He stood up, came around to her side and helped her to her feet. “Now, I want to show you something else.”
She slipped her hand into his and felt the sizzle of electricity that always happened when he touched her. How would she live without feeling that every day? Would she spend the rest of her life wondering what he was doing? Missing him?
Rising, she looked up into his eyes and asked, “Where are we going?”
His mouth curved briefly. “It’s a secret. You like secrets, don’t you, Kate?”
They drove down the coast and in his Porsche, the miles flew by. On her right, the ocean shone and sparkled in moonlight that danced on its inky surface. On her left was the man who had so thoroughly breached what she had believed to be well-honed defenses. His charm and his smile had attracted her and now his quiet distance drew her in even further. Was it the baby that had changed him so completely? Was he thinking about how to gain custody? Was he regretting saying he wanted their child?
And what had he meant when he said she liked secrets?
She glanced at him as he steered the sleek car down the crowded road that ran alongside the beach. Why was he suddenly so hard to read? When they’d first met, she’d dismissed him as an arrogant rich man—now she knew he was much more than that. But what was driving him now?
“Now who’s staring?” he asked.
“Just trying to figure you out.”
He laughed and it was a short, sharp sound. “I’m not that deep, Kate. You don’t have to try so hard.”
“I wouldn’t have to try at all if you’d just tell me what’s going on.”
“No fun not knowing what’s going on, is it?”
She bit her bottom lip to keep from responding. She knew he was making a crack about her not telling him about the baby. But she’d done what she thought was right, and that was all anyone could do. Besides, she’d apologized for that, hadn’t she?
She didn’t say another word as he steered the car into a right turn by a sign announcing View Point. He parked, got out of the car then came around and helped her out, as well. Tucking her hand in his, he pulled her along behind him as he walked to the short, white barrier that stood at the edge of the cliff.
Theirs was the only car in the narrow lot, and the roar from the cars on the road seemed muffled somehow beneath the sigh of the ocean below. A sharp, cold wind plucked at the hem of her dress, and the three-inch heels she wore weren’t made for crossing uneven asphalt at the pace needed to keep up with Sean’s long legs. But finally, he drew her to a stop beside him, with the really insufficient white fence the only thing between them and the long drop to the rocks below.
“This is one of my favorite spots,” Sean said, pitching his voice to carry over the wind, the sea and the highway behind them. “Used to come here when I got my first car. I’d sit on the hood and watch the sea for hours.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said. And only a little unnerving to be so close to the edge of a cliff.
“Yeah, it is.” He pointed, and her gaze tracked in that direction. “When it’s clear like this, you can see all the way up the coast. Sometimes you can see Catalina, too. On a foggy night, it looks like something from out of a dream. Most nights, though, are like tonight and from up here, the beach city lights don’t look too bright, too harsh, too crowded.”
Listening to him, Kate could see him as a teenager, out here in the dark, alone, watching the world. Hadn’t she done the same thing when she would go to the lake as a kid and watch the moon and stars dance over the surface of the water?
“It’s a lot more lights than I’m used to seeing at night.”
“You have lights, too,” he said, with a half smile. “They’re called stars. I’ve never seen so many, and I’ve been camping in the desert.”
“It’s true.” She looked up and saw maybe a quarter of the stars she would have seen at home. There were just too many lights here to let the sky shine as it should.
She shivered in the wind and shifted her gaze to the bottom of the cliff, where waves slapped hard against the rocks and sent frothy spray into the air.
“Cold?”
“A little.” A lot actually, but when he dropped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tightly to him, cold was just a memory.
“When I was a kid,” he said, “I’d come here, and no one would know where I was. This place was my secret.”
There was that word again, Kate thought, looking up at him to find his gaze fixed on hers. “You keep talking about secrets. What is it, Sean?”
His eyes narrowed against the wind as he stared at her. After a few seconds, Kate thought he was going to ignore her question. Then he asked, “Why didn’t you tell me you were married? That your husband died?”
Nine
Kate felt all the air whoosh out of her lungs, and it took her a second or two to refill them. His arm around her tightened in response to her instinctive push to back away from him. Her father. Kate closed her eyes briefly when she realized her dad must have told Sean about Sam.
She should have expected it. Anticipated it. Harry Baker was not happy that his pregnant daughter was unmarried. She probably should have been grateful that he hadn’t come after Sean with a shotgun. Instead, he’d done what he could to convince the father of his grandchild to do what Harry would think was the “right thing.”
Now, Sean’s arm around her felt like a cage, keeping her where she didn’t want to be. She needed a little space, a little breathing room. “Let me go.”
“No. Talk to me.”
“About what?” She shook her hair back from her face when the wind tossed it across her eyes. “Sounds like my dad already told you everything.”
“Not everything,” Sean argued, turning her in his arms until she was facing him, pressed up against him. “He couldn’t tell me why you kept Sam a secret from me.”
She looked everywhere but into his eyes. How could she have told him about her late husband? “Because my marriage had nothing to do with what happened between us.”
“That’s what you think?” He took her chin and tilted up her face until she had no choice but to meet his gaze. Kate didn’t like the shine of anger there, but she was surprised by the layer of hurt she saw over it.
“Okay, when was I supposed to tell you, Sean? Before sex or directly after?”
“It wasn’t just sex, Kate.” His grip on her tightened. “What happened between us was more than that, and you should have told me. God knows there was plenty of time when we were snowbound.”
Yeah, he was angry. But instead of convincing her to back down, his anger served to kindle her own. “Just how was I supposed to work that information in, Sean? I know, ‘Help me pull out the carpet upstairs and oh, by the way, did I
mention I’m a widow?’” She set both hands on his chest and gave a shove. “Let me go, damn it.”
He did, and Kate stalked off a few steps before she turned around to face him again. He hadn’t moved. Just stood there, a tall presence whose features now looked as if they’d been carved in stone.
“I don’t talk about Sam,” she blurted out. “Not to anyone. He’s gone, that’s all, and when he died, a piece of me died with him.”
“Kate...”
“No,” she snapped, holding one hand up to get him to be quiet. She’d done this. Opened herself up to this. Memories of Sam tangled with new ones of times with Sean and twisted her up into knots of pain and regret.
Damn it, why did she have to love him? Losing Sam had hurt so badly, and she knew that losing Sean was going to be worse—not only because what she felt for him went deeper than what she’d known with Sam. But because she would also be losing him and still have to live knowing that he was alive and well—just not with her.
So she struggled against the misery curled in her heart and said, “You wanted to hear it, so just be quiet and listen.” She had to take a deep breath and steel herself against the flood of memories that swept through her. “We were happy,” she finally said. “Sam was a sweet man with a kind smile and a big heart. We were married a couple of years, talking about starting a family. Then there was an accident on a job site and he was killed.
“He’s been gone two years now. And when he died, my dream of kids, a family of my own, went with him.”
Sean’s eyes narrowed, and a muscle in his jaw twitched as he ground his teeth together. She felt the power of his stare slamming into her, heard the rawness of his voice when he said flatly, “Until you found out you were pregnant.”
“Yes.” She curled her arms protectively across her belly. “This baby is a miracle for me, Sean. Dreams I let die are alive again because of her.”
“That’s why you didn’t tell me,” Sean said, taking two long strides that brought him right up in front of her. “As long as you didn’t tell me about my kid, you could pretend that it was Sam’s.”
Snowbound with the Boss Page 12
