Another Woman's Son (Harlequin Romance) Page 14

  “Let me take the bags.” He reached for Tony’s shopping. His touch teased her through the heavy wool sleeve of her coat. His body seemed bigger, stronger, more forceful than she’d ever noticed.

  “Maybe you should come with me,” he said.

  “You sound as if you’re threatening me.”

  He shook his head. Shock chilled his expression. “I’d never do that.”

  She let the shopping bags go, afraid the blood pumping in her ears was loud enough for Ben to hear. She felt too close to him so she fled to her room.

  “I’D LIKE TO VISIT the day care with you this morning, Ben. Leah phoned to say she’s busy so I don’t have to go to the house.”

  “School, Iz-bell.” Tony kicked and Ben, still holding the laces on his boy’s shoe, accidentally untied it. He looked up from his son fidgeting on the stairs. “Hold on, buddy.”

  “Ben?”

  “I’m no threat today?”

  “I’m sorry. I was tired and overreacting.”

  She still looked tired. Instead of her usual jeans, she’d put on a black skirt and a soft white sweater that emphasized her too-sharp collarbones and tied at her waist, which seemed more narrow.

  “You’re losing weight,” he said.

  “Maybe you should stop looking at me.” She blushed, and he wrapped his hand around her leg, before thinking such a touch was too intimate. She stepped back. “How about it? Can I go with you?”

  “Yeah.” Ben finished tying Tony’s shoe and let go, a rodeo rider, roping a calf. “Ready?”

  “No.” Tony started back up the stairs, hand-over-hand on the rail. “Get Bob.”

  “No Bob today, bud.” Ben went after his son and turned him back down the stairs. Isabel pulled their coats from the closet.

  Ben helped Tony on with his and then put on his own. He held the front door for Isabel. “Should we tell your parents we’ll be out?”

  She frowned, doing up her top button, and then took her phone out of her pocket.

  “I’ll help Tony into the car.” He looked at her, dialing. What had really passed between them last night? “Come on, Tony. Ready for school?”

  Tony giggled with pure delight. Ben held his son close. Maybe too close, since Tony struggled to get down, but moments like this—the ones that felt too painfully sweet—reminded him of the phone call he’d had from the police.

  Some officer had started with “There’s been an accident…” By the time the man said Faith’s name, Ben had fallen into his chair, as weak as any child. “Tony,” he’d said. He’d tried with his wife, but his first thought that afternoon had been for the baby boy who owned him heart and soul.

  “Dad-dee.” Tony squirmed again, and Ben loosened his arms.

  “Sorry.” He kissed Tony’s head, and coughed to clear a lump of relieved tears from his throat. “I love you, Son.”

  “Lub, Dad.” Tony planted a wet kiss on Ben’s cheek. Ben wore the moisture as a badge. He couldn’t do without his son. Couldn’t imagine surviving if he’d lost him.

  Ben completed the process of installing Tony in the car as Isabel ran down the sidewalk. She scrambled into the seat beside him.

  “All set. Mom’s making Dad take her out for lunch.”

  He started the car and gave all his attention to pulling away from the curb. Last night stuck in his mind. He couldn’t forget she’d suggested he was threatening her and then run for her life.

  At the school, Isabel leaped out first. She must have knocked herself over the head last night, because she’d clearly had more sleep than he dreamed of having again.

  “I’ll get Tony.” She climbed in the back and soon hauled him out. “Have you left him alone here yet?”

  “No. I’ve only been with you and then with your mom. I stood in the back of the room while she cross-examined the teachers. Tony played with the other kids, but he’d look back at me for reassurance. I don’t have the guts to leave him yet.”

  “He’s probably vulnerable because of the accident. He’s had play dates before.”

  “But Faith stayed for them.” Mad as hell at Faith, he couldn’t deny that Tony had loved her and she’d loved him. “She was a good mom.”

  “Yeah. She had a good example.”

  He couldn’t dwell too long on Faith’s finer points. “Here we are.”

  He held the door and Isabel carried Tony inside. Immediately, the boy kicked to get down. He loved playing with the other kids.

  Mrs. Nash met them at her office. “Morning.” She reached for Tony, who tiptoed for her to pick him up. “I saw you drive in. Mr. Jordan. We have the opening. The other family is planning to move as we expected, and Tony’s welcome to start here on Monday if you’d both like.”

  “Thanks.” Ben fought an urge to grab Tony and run. Single parents used day care every day—no doubt by the millions. “They want me back at work.”

  “I understand your ambivalence.” Mrs. Nash might have been offended, but instead she offered compassion. “Why don’t you let me take Tony into his classroom? You and Isabel can take a break. There’s a coffee shop in the strip mall at the end of the block. We’ll just see how the little fellow does for a half hour or so.”

  Ben put his hand on Isabel’s shoulder. She distracted him, moving into his touch. “Are you sure he’ll be all right?”

  “Fine,” Mrs. Nash said. “I have your cell number on the paperwork you filled out. Do you have your phone?”

  He nodded with a lump in his throat as big as the cell. This day care was his first decision as a single parent. He’d just as soon not screw up Tony’s life.

  “I’m glad your family is so involved with Tony.” Mrs. Nash smiled into his little boy’s face. “Want to see the other children?” He nodded and she set him on the floor. “Say goodbye to Daddy.”

  “Bye.” Tony waved and ran to the door of the room he usually visited. “Dad?”

  Ben forced himself to speak over a massive knot. “See you in a little while, Son. Have fun.”

  Tony hesitated, but Mrs. Nash led him into the room. “You like puzzles, don’t you, Tony?”

  The door swung shut. Ben dragged his hand across his mouth.

  “We had to let him try it out.” Isabel took his elbow and led him toward the front door.

  “We?” Ben asked.

  She nodded. “We. I’m here, too. I’m part of the family.”

  What part? He’d like to know. “How about that coffee?”

  “Sounds good. He went without much argument.”

  Ben smiled at the wet ground and hunched into his coat. “Makes a guy feel unnecessary.”

  “Not a chance.”

  He opened the passenger door for her and she climbed in.

  “Wait, Ben.”

  He paused and she pressed both hands to the sides of his face, warming him in the frozen air. “I’m sorry.”

  “What happened last night?”

  “I looked at you and my mom and Tony. You were a family—we’re a family. I don’t know why we can’t tell her.”

  He broke away. “Are you planning to?”

  “No. I promised and I won’t without talking to you, but how do you think she and Dad are going to feel when they do find out?”

  “If we’re lucky, they never will.”

  “Not ‘we’ this time. I want the truth out. I’m afraid I’ll slip. I’m afraid Mom and Dad will be angry we’ve lied and they’ll want revenge.” She nodded at him. “Just as we want Will and Faith paid back.”

  He’d like to deny he wanted his ex-wife to suffer, even though she was beyond pain now. Half of trying to get over this mess was his frustration, because Faith and Will might have died, but they’d also had the last word.

  “I want to know why they cheated on us,” he said. “I don’t want them hurt.”

  “And you didn’t want to hurt me last night? You were just afraid I might tell my mom something she’s entitled to know.”

  “What’s changed? You chose Tony and me when we started th
is.”

  “I was stunned then. I hadn’t seen my father looking like a walking ghost. My mother hadn’t asked me over and over where Faith was going with her suitcases.”

  “I’m asking you to help me keep my son.”

  “You’ve changed, too,” she said, losing her temper.

  “I’m supposed to be the angry one. You came down this morning perfectly happy.”

  “I was pretending, okay?” She tried to turn away on the seat, but he caught her legs. “I tell myself if I pretend you and I haven’t changed, I’ll start to believe it,” she said.

  “I don’t feel guilty for wanting you.”

  A sigh hissed between her lips. She looked young and frightened and aroused with her mouth slightly open, her lips full and red from the cold.

  He didn’t stop to think. He kissed her, tilting her head so he could reach her throat and the tender flesh beneath her chin. She shuddered and her fingers flexed into his nape.

  “Isabel.” He whispered her name, because he liked saying it. When he said it, she seemed to fill his head.

  “The school,” she said.

  “On the other side of the car.” But he kissed the lobe of her ear, suckling for a sweet moment as she fell against him and he was grateful. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. “All the same…”

  “THIS TIME you’re the one with second thoughts.”

  Ben turned, pastry dough drying in his hands. “You’re everywhere, Isabel.” For the first time since she’d come back to Hartsfield, he wasn’t pleased to see her.

  They’d shared a coffee he’d never remember and returned to the school close as two people who knew they’d eventually make love.

  At least he knew.

  Isabel’s soft laugh worked like the caress of her fingers. He had to concentrate to understand what she said.

  “Most men don’t bake when they think they might be seducing the wrong woman.”

  Over his shoulder, he met her challenging gaze. Dust and all, she seemed to glow in the dusky orange of a sunset without snow. “You’re disputing my manhood?” His voice had gone deep. He was tense from head to toe. He wanted Isabel in so many ways. Her body seemed to come alive the second he touched her. She was so easy to be with. She loved his son. She loved family. “It may sound old-fashioned, but I can prove anything you’d like to question.”

  She backed down immediately, her gaze skittering away. Even her flushed skin enticed him. He needed to feel her, pliant and clinging, with no thought for why they shouldn’t be together.

  “Baklava?” she asked, with a nod to the pastry on his counter.

  “Coward.” She’d changed the subject.

  “Maybe I am.” She nudged the flour canister. “You started making that because it was Faith’s favorite.”

  “We made it together.”

  “To patch up after arguments without having to actually say you were sorry.”

  He returned to his task. “You do know too much about me. She used this to make up, too.”

  “Maybe if you’d talked instead of baking together…”

  “You’d still be with Will?”

  “No.” Her quick denial relieved his unexpected jealousy. She opened the fridge and took out a bottle of water. “He’d have found someone else. When you spend solitary days packing and cleaning a house, you have plenty of time to think—and I think I bored him.”

  “He was an idiot.”

  “He never baked.”

  That did it. He dropped the pastry and walked across the kitchen. “I am a man, Isabel.” She closed her eyes before he touched her. He studied her softly angled face as he slid his hands down her back, indulging in the infinite pleasure of her curves against him. He held her with the hunger of a man who’d never eaten.

  Warm and soft and firm where her body gave him the most pleasure, she arched against the pressure of his palms. He took her mouth. For now she belonged to him. He’d erase any other man’s touch.

  She started to resist, keeping her mouth closed. He cradled her face, pressed his thumbs against her lips, rubbing gently. “Open your mouth, Isabel.”

  She opened her eyes instead. Her steady stare refused him until he stroked her lips again, and her eyes narrowed. Her face crumpled as if she might cry.

  “Damn.” He let her go. Memories of Faith and the rejections he’d never understood powered him away from Isabel.

  “Wait.” Her hand on his back, affection and need in her tone, stopped him.

  He faced her again. “I’m not playing a game.”

  “I’m afraid,” she said. “I don’t want to be abandoned again.”

  “I can’t promise anything.” Except that he’d likely never be in the same room and not want her in his arms.

  “I need the promises.” She held his hands, asking for his consideration. “The ones Will made and broke.”

  He pulled away. “I won’t touch you with his name on your mouth.”

  She looped her arms around his neck, ignoring his aloofness. “You want Will and Faith to disappear—as if they never existed. We can’t forget them. They’re part of our lives, and they’re vital to Tony’s, but we’re still so close to them I don’t trust what you feel.”

  “Knowing all that, I can’t promise.” Ben held her waist. “I never thought of you like this before. Now I can’t seem to stop, but trust is something I’m not sure I’ll ever feel again.”

  “Not even for me?”

  “I can’t even talk to you without hurting your feelings.”

  He took her in his arms as if he had a right. She opened her mouth this time and kissed him back with frank need that shook him. Rational thought fled. He lifted her onto the cold granite island. The better to feel her breasts pushing against his chest, taste her breath as hot as his own. Even her delicate muscles seemed to flex against his palms.

  Staring into her eyes, he pushed his hands beneath her thighs and ran his fingers down the legs of her jeans, enjoying every sinew that tightened in anticipation of his touch. When he pulled her legs around his waist, she scooted closer. She held his face with more possession and passion than he’d ever known. She brushed his lips once, twice, until he couldn’t stand any more teasing and held her head to deepen the kiss.

  He mattered to Isabel. God help him, he should have realized he’d stopped mattering to Faith, because she’d never touched him like this.

  He nudged Isabel closer still. The instant she felt his arousal, she arched, and he almost laughed with joy. He only held back because she might not understand. Smiling, he kissed her cheek and the hollow of her ear. He opened his mouth against her throat, his smile fading as her moan hummed against his lips.

  “Someone will find us,” she said, taut with passion.

  “Let’s go to my room.”

  “I can’t.” She devoured his mouth, rousing him until reaching some room, somewhere, became imperative. “There’s the past we haven’t dealt with, and the truth.”

  He lifted his head, losing all connection with sanity. “Blackmail?”

  “No.” She said it against his lips. “I’ve never made love with a man without being sure it was right.”

  “I’ve never felt more right, but we can’t stay here.”

  She tightened her calves and he groaned. No choice but to bury his face in the hollow of her shoulder and ease his pain in the cradle of her legs.

  “Stop,” she said, though need pulsed in her voice.

  He tried to do as she’d asked, though he ached to thrust against her one more time. He pulled away, reaching for the counter at his back. She looked stunned and vulnerable, and he wanted to tear off her inconvenient clothes and finish what they’d started.

  “You should go,” he said.

  “Are you angry?”

  Surprised, he jerked his head back. “What?”

  She glanced around the room, somehow including the whole house in her nod. “Because we might be disturbed.”

  “Are you nuts? I am a man. I understand n
o.”

  “I know you’re a man. Your baking is all over my sweater.”

  He took one step toward her before she slid off the island.

  “No.” She held up both trembling hands. Regret pinched her face. “We’ll end up making love right here if you prove anything else.”

  Nowhere near satisfied, he let her weave out of the room. Her unsteady gait seduced him. He would have followed, but he suspected he’d fall flat on his face. His head understood no. His body didn’t have a clue.

  TALK ABOUT MISTAKES. She’d nearly made her worst one yet. Making love with Ben couldn’t solve any problems. Her parents would never understand.

  In the middle of the night, Isabel packed her things. She’d stayed to be with Tony, but each new moment under this roof taunted her with the fact that Ben was becoming a necessity.

  In the morning, she knocked on his door before Tony was awake. He opened it right away. He looked so glad to see her his smile hurt.

  Then he pulled her inside, and his slightest touch felt delicious. She could hardly speak when he put his arms around her. She leaned away from him. “We shouldn’t. You and Tony are closer than ever to my mom and dad, and they’d be appalled at the idea of you and me together.”

  A vee formed between his eyebrows. “We’ve been starved for the feelings we give each other.”

  “You can’t say that.” Nor could she let herself agree. “It may be just how Faith and Will rationalized their affair.”

  “If it is, they said it in bed.”

  “But you and I are not people who leap before looking. I’m not feeling as righteous as I was about them.”

  “We’ve done nothing wrong, Isabel.”

  She looked at him, loving the boxers that rode low on his hips and just right on his thighs, a T-shirt that hugged his muscled chest. There was plenty she wanted to do and feel, wrong or right.

  “We’re alone. We’re adults.” He surprised her, swinging her close enough to brush his thighs, pressing his lips to the side of her neck, just where his kiss triggered goose bumps that chased up and down her arms and legs. “I want you. You want me.”