by Ann Mcintosh
“It’s because it’s so fine and straight. Nothing keeps it in place for long.”
“You know what? I like that it flops around like that.”
“Flops around?” She’d feigned annoyance. “And why on earth would you like that?”
He’d moved closer, nuzzling her so his breath rushed, warm and exciting, over her cheek, as he replied, “Because it’s one more reason to touch you.”
He raised his hand, not to his face this time, but to the back of his head, and once more memories swamped her, brought on by the cowlick at his nape. How many times had she swirled her finger through it, or snuck up behind him and kissed him just there? Too many to count, but she remembered as if it were yesterday. And when Jeevan was born with a full head of hair, and she’d seen the same swirl of baby-fine hair at his nape, it had brought her to tears.
Elise drew a long breath into her lungs and held it for a beat before letting it out silently.
This wasn’t then, and she wasn’t that relatively naive twenty-six-year-old, she reminded herself stoutly. And Rohan Khan wasn’t the man she’d fallen for and mourned. They’d both been changed, fundamentally, by the events of that year and all the intervening ones. Now the best they could hope for was to find some way to co-parent so no one got hurt.
Especially Jeevan.
She stepped into the room, drawing his attention. As though watching a curtain fall, she saw the expression leave his face, and it hurt her more than it should.
“Do you have a tree stand?” he asked, as though that was the most important thing in the world.
“I’ll get it,” she replied, turning away so he couldn’t see her silly pain.
“Do you need a hand with getting it out?”
“Not right now,” she called back to him, although his superior height would have been useful in getting at it on the top shelf.
Carrying a chair over to the storage closet, she climbed up to get the stand, glad for a few minutes to herself.
“I could have gotten that for you.”
She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t heard him come in, and the suddenness of his voice behind her startled her into spinning around and she toppled from the chair.
Rohan caught her, bending over her to shield her from the cascade of wrapping paper and boxes that came down around them.
“Are you all right?” he asked, slowly straightening, although his arms remained around her. She told herself to move, to step back, but her head filled with his scent, and her entire body awoke, tingling and heating.
How can he still smell the same?
“Elise?”
His voice was cool and controlled, and she was made aware of how stupid she was being, getting lost in memories of a time so long gone it could have been a different life.
“I’m fine,” she said, stepping back and having to suppress a shiver of sudden cold. “The tree stand is right there. Thank God it didn’t fall on one of our heads.”
Although, she thought as he easily pulled the article in question down, it might have knocked some sense into her, if hers was the head in question.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE AFTERNOON FLEW by and ended up being a lot more fun than Elise had anticipated. Once they had the tree set up, they put back on their outdoor clothes and went to the woodlot to cut branches to decorate the house.
“Jeevan and I usually decorate the tree together,” she explained when Rohan asked about ornaments. “But there’s still lots to do. I like to have fresh pine boughs above the cupboards in the kitchen and along the mantel, and we can decorate those if not today, then tomorrow. If you’re available,” she added quickly, suddenly aware of how easily she assumed he’d be around.
It wouldn’t do to start thinking that way. At all.
But he replied, “Sure,” without a hint of anything untoward in his tone. “Later, I’d like to go up to Trail’s End and look in on the husky we operated on, just to make sure he’s doing okay.”
As they were cutting boughs and putting them on the sled, Rohan said, “So Jeevan is an ornithologist, huh? Couldn’t get him to choose veterinary medicine?”
Elise chuckled. “He swung between the two for a while, but birds were always fascinating to him, although I never really understood it. I don’t mind them, but he was obsessed. Made it easy to buy him gifts, though, which isn’t always the case as a parent.”
Rohan glanced over, and his eyes were smiling. “Never thought he’d go into human medicine?”
Elise gave a decisive shake of her head. “No. Never. He worked at the hospital, to get his volunteer hours in for school, and he hated having to be inside all the time and complained that there were too many ‘crotchety old people’ to interact with.”
That made Rohan chuckle.
“I’d feel the same way,” he said, amusement still evident in his voice. “Although I mostly do small animal work now, some of my favorite jobs are when I get called out to do house calls at farms or ranches. A few weeks ago, I had to attend on a birth at an alpaca farm. Mind you, I would have preferred if it were summer, but, hey, at least it got me out of the office.”
“I love working in the emergency room—the bustle of it, and never knowing what will come in next.”
“You have the mind and temperament for it, I suspect.”
Surprised, she asked, “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Not everyone can keep cool under stress, or be open to all possibilities, which you have to when you’re trying to diagnose patients. From what I’ve seen today, those are both qualities you possess in spades. They must have served you well in SAR too.”
“I guess,” she replied, ridiculously flattered by his factual tone.
“Do you miss it? Search and rescue?”
“Sometimes,” she replied honestly. Somehow it was easy to talk to him out here in the open, the cold prickling her face, the smell of pine in the air. “The comradery, and the act of helping people under tricky situations. But there are parts I’d rather forget, and unfortunately, those are the ones that stick with me.”
He tossed the branches he’d just cut onto the sled and turned to her, their gazes meeting, snagging.
“What parts?”
She wanted to turn away, refuse to tell him, but something inside was clamoring to tell the story, to try to leach some of the constant fear away.
Would he judge her as a coward, if he heard what had happened?
“Bax and I were on the slopes, looking for a skier who’d gone off the marked trails. There was an avalanche warning in effect, but the team can’t think about that when they’re trying to find someone.”
She paused, took a deep breath, trying to slow her racing heart.
“We got caught in an avalanche, and buried. Bax was injured, but he still managed to dig me out.”
“God, Elise.” He took a step toward her and then stopped. “I’m sorry. You must have been terrified.”
“I was, at the time, and even after a few months, I realized I still was. Even today I froze, coming through the tunnel, because I had a flashback when I heard the rumble of snow falling from the barn roof. There’s no room for error or fear when you’re on a rescue, and I knew I’d be a danger to the team, so I quit.”
Those dark eyes of his surveyed her, seeming, as they so often did, to be looking into the heart of her.
“Do you want to go back to it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaken to honesty by his question. “Sometimes I do, and then I know I’m too scared to risk it. Yet it feels like I gave up on something I was so proud and happy to do, and that’s almost worse than the fear.”
He frowned, his brows coming together for an instant. “You’re going to have to decide what’s more important, I think—the fear or the determination to get past it. But you’re the only one who can make that choice
.”
“You’re right, but it’s not a choice I feel strong enough to make right now.”
He nodded before turning back to his chore. “Give yourself some time.”
At his words, something eased inside, as though she had just been waiting to hear that advice to be able to relax. And the pangs of guilt and loss she usually felt when talking about it were softer, somehow more bearable.
When she decided they had enough boughs, and they were heading back to the house, she worked up the courage to ask a question that had been nagging at her all day.
“Is your father still alive?”
“He is, but he has advanced dementia.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “He’s had it for a number of years, and it progressed slowly at first. Then he had a series of strokes, and all at once, his condition deteriorated rapidly. He’s nonverbal and barely ambulatory now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, knowing how inadequate the words were, but unable to find any better.
Rohan slanted her a look. “That’s kind of you to say, considering what he put you through.”
“Whatever he did, whatever his reasons, that’s no way to end your days.”
“I know.”
There was something in his tone—sadness and anger all mixed together into the type of pain she knew all too well—that brought her to a halt and made her wish she could alleviate it in some small way.
“Do you want to see something totally ridiculous?” she asked, as he stopped walking, too, to turn a questioning gaze her way.
“Sure.”
Elise bent to pick up some snow, saying, “For a dog as smart as Bax is, he completely loses his marbles around a snowball.”
Even as she spoke, Bax noticed what she was doing, and came running, barking his head off. As he got closer, he screeched to a halt, then started jumping and prancing in a frenzy of delight.
“Bax, catch!”
Elise threw the snowball, and Baxter leaped to intercept it, biting at it in midair. The loosely packed ball disintegrated, of course, but after it did, the dog looked shocked and began a concentrated hunt for it. As he turned in circles, snuffling on the ground, Elise prepared another ball.
“Bax, look.”
His comical expression of surprise on seeing what he obviously thought was the same ball, magically back in her hand, never failed to amuse her. And she was happy to hear Rohan snort with laughter, too.
“He looks that way every time,” she said, throwing the next snowball. “As though I’ve tricked him, and he can’t figure out how.”
When Baxter reacted the same way the second time, Rohan’s amusement turned to actual laughter. Encouraged by the sound, and the joy on his face, Elise threw the next ball at him instead of for Bax. The situation quickly devolved into an out-and-out snowball fight between them, with Baxter jumping about, barking and capering.
It was a much-needed moment of levity, and they were still laughing as they finally pulled the sled into the garage.
Yet, despite her laughter, Elise almost wished she hadn’t seen this side of Rohan again. One that was so redolent of his younger self it made her yearn, wanting something that no longer existed.
* * *
Even with the laughter, Rohan couldn’t shake the disquiet he’d felt as he spoke about his father. There were so many unanswered questions regarding their relationship, and about why the older man had done the things he had in life. Rohan had always intended, at some point, to sit down with his father, perhaps over a glass of rum, and talk about their shared past. Ask all the questions he’d known his father wouldn’t have answered in Rohan’s youth, in the hopes they could talk as men rather than as parent and child.
Of course, now it would never happen, and with the kind of role model his father had been, Rohan couldn’t help wondering what kind of father he’d be.
The fear that he wouldn’t know how to relate to his son, that he’d mess up somehow, was nagging at him, eating away at his insides.
They hung garlands of boughs in the living room and festooned them with lights, to the accompaniment of Titan’s running commentary. Then, while he arranged more boughs above the kitchen cupboards, Elise noted, “You’re very quiet.”
He stepped down from the ladder and stood back to view his handwork. “Just wondering how Jeevan and I will get along.”
He tried to keep his voice light, but he didn’t think she was fooled, since she put her hand on his arm and looked at him with compassion shining in her eyes.
“I think you’ll get along fine. Yes, you’re his parent, but it won’t be like meeting him as a child. You’re both adults, and both fine men. It might take a little time to find common ground, because of the situation, but I think you’ll find it.”
“Do you have an adult relationship with him?”
Her smile was soft, a little rueful.
“It’s hard for me right now, because it was always him and me, and I was always the one in control. Once he went off to university, I had to start stepping back from my role as parent and give him the room to become whatever he wanted to be.”
She sighed and glanced away. “Everyone seems to think there’s some particular point in life when parents stop treating their kids as children and accept them as adults, but it’s not as clear-cut as that. He’ll always be my baby, but now I have to walk a fine line on a slippery slope, so he doesn’t think I’m interfering in his life too much.”
“I don’t have the best experience on how fathers and sons relate to each other,” he told her, knowing he had to be as honest as he could be, if he hoped for her help. “And I’ve become less and less social over the years, so my interpersonal skills are rusty, at best. I just want to do the right thing by him, and I’m not sure I know how.”
There were so many other things he worried about, including the aftereffects of that long-ago accident, which seemed set to stay with him forever.
Although he’d retained most of his memory, was able to recall all he’d learned in school, knew his family and friends, something else had happened to his brain as a result of the crash. Something above and beyond the loss of those crucial seven months.
He couldn’t remember having emotions about anything prior to awaking in the hospital. Couldn’t recall how he’d felt during important times of his life.
In a way, he couldn’t remember what it meant to be loved, and on the whole, accessing emotion had remained difficult.
Oh, he’d felt things—anger, sorrow when his mother died—but always at a distance, as though the hole in his memory banks had created a barrier between him and the world.
She squeezed his arm, her expression one of understanding.
“It’s an unthinkable situation you’ve found yourself in, and it’ll take time to figure it all out. Be kind to yourself. I’m sure everything will be fine.”
Her assurance was generous, but was she comparing him to the young man he once was? The one who no longer existed?
The sensation that washed through him was familiar.
It was the urge to escape—an instinct to flee that came over him any time talk of his younger days surfaced. That urge to turn away, both from the conversations and the people wanting to have them, had led him into a solitary life.
Yet he couldn’t do it now. Not when it meant forgoing a chance to meet his child.
And to spend a bit more time with the woman who’d given him this unexpected, glorious gift.
Again, honesty propelled him to say, “I’m not the man you knew, twenty-seven years ago. I’ve changed and—according to some—not for the better.”
Her eyebrows rose, and her gaze searched his. Then the corners of her lips tilted up.
“If you were, after all this time, I’d say you suffered from a severe case of arrested development. Everyone changes, as life
goes on, but I can say that the best qualities you had when I knew you are still very much in evidence. If they weren’t, I’d probably not have said anything to you about Jeevan.”
Her forthright words and acceptance made something warm bloom in his chest and spread its heat out through every vein in his body. He didn’t know what the sensation was—could put no name to it—but perhaps a shadow of it crossed his face, for her eyes widened.
Once more he couldn’t help noticing the sweet curve of her mouth, the way it softened, and the tip of her tongue briefly peeked out to touch her lower lip.
He wanted to kiss her, pull her into his arms, but fought the impulse.
“Nothing good can come of this.” He hadn’t planned to say the words aloud, but they echoed between them, and Elise nodded slowly.
“You’re right, of course,” she whispered, but Rohan realized their lips were closer together than they’d been before. So close he felt the rush of her breath, warm against his mouth.
Had he moved? Or had she?
Did it really matter, when his hands had already found her waist, and hers gripped his forearms?
“Elise.” He’d planned to say more: We can’t. Tell me to stop. Anything, in a last-ditch attempt to stem the tide of desire trying to drag him under. But his voice caught in his throat, and her name came out more like a plea.
The muted chime of a phone sounded from the table behind them, and they both froze. Almost simultaneously they stepped back, and he saw a warm rush of color stain her cheeks before she could turn away.
Walking to the table, she picked up her phone.
“Jeevan is in Hong Kong. He’s been bumped from his original flight but hopes to get on another soon.”
Rohan let out a long, silent breath, battling to get his wayward libido under control.
The best thing he could do would be to get away, try to make sense of what was happening between them.
He cleared his throat.
“I’m going to run up to Trail’s End and check on the husky.”
That would give him a little time to himself to work out what to do.
