Everything but the Baby (Harlequin Superromance) (20 page)

“I don't mean to insult the power of the famous O'Hara oath,” he said, smiling for the first time since she'd arrived, “but I'd rather err on the side of safety. I think Daniel understands that Janelle is better off without Lincoln, but young love is notoriously illogical.”

She dropped her head back down against his chest. She took a deep breath, releasing a lot of the tension that had tormented her all night. Mark was watching over the situation. Even when she didn't see him, even when he wouldn't answer her calls, he was protecting them all.

It was instinctive for him, the role of guardian.

What a wonderful father he would have made.

“But that wasn't the real reason I couldn't sleep,” she said. “The real reason was that I was lonely. I missed you.”

“I know,” he said. It seemed like enough. It seemed, almost, like an admission that he'd been lonely, too.

She reached down and retrieved Stephen's small blanket, which she'd dropped on the grass. She shook it gently, so that it floated over them. And then she tilted toward him, nestling one hand under his back and letting the other hand fall softly onto his stomach. She lay her cheek against his chest. His heart was going just as fast as her own.

They lay that way, unmoving, while the hammock gently rocked, reacting to her movements. Eventually it drifted to a stop, and there was nothing but the rhythmic rise and fall of their breathing and the erratic trip of their hearts.

“This is just for tonight,” he said. “Not tomorrow. Not forever.”

“I know,” she answered honestly. “I know.”

She looked up at him and saw that he was watching her. She could see pinpoints of starlight in his eyes. She saw the hunger, too.

“I know what you need, Allison,” he whispered.

“Do you?”

He nodded. “Turn over,” he said softly. “Lie on your back.”

She obeyed. She shifted so that she lay flat, staring up at the stars that peeked between the palm fronds. It was only a few degrees of difference, but suddenly, in this position, she felt vulnerable, as if she couldn't breathe.

“That's right,” he said. He reached down and slid his hand behind her knee. He tugged gently, so that her legs opened, and the one he held lifted slightly, then came to rest between his thighs.

She held her breath while he ran his hand up her leg, from the knee to the rim of her tap pants, then down again.

All the movements were minute, slow, so that the hammock hardly reacted. But a quick heat was pooling in her midsection, and her legs shook slightly, trembling from the inside. She made a soft sound and tried to turn her head into his chest, but he wouldn't let her.

“Be still,” he said. “Just close your eyes and feel it.”

She nodded, though she knew it would be hard, so hard, not to move. Already she could feel a restlessness in her hips, a shivering in her veins.

His hand slid once more across her leg, but this time it didn't stop at the satin of her pants. He kept going, agonizingly slow, but supremely confident, until his fingers cupped the throbbing place between her thighs.

“Mark.” Her voice was hoarse.

“Shh.” He bent his head and kissed her softly, cap
turing her groan. He held her lips with his, as if to silence her, while his fingers began to move.

There was magic in those movements. She pressed hungrily against his lips, trying to contain the fire as his fingers stroked, then circled, then probed, pulling sensations out of her that she'd never felt before.

He wouldn't let her speak, or moan, though soon her whole body seemed to have coiled into one overwhelming struggle for release.

“Slow down,” he said when she began to pant softly against his lips, fighting for the climax that he seemed to keep just an inch beyond her reach. “It's yours now. Take a minute and just feel it. Own it.”

She hardly knew what he meant. She didn't own this feeling—it owned her. She lost track of where she ended and he began. He kissed her over and over, driving his tongue slowly into her mouth as he drove his finger into her body.

She breathed his breath. She nipped at his lips when the need to cry out was unbearable. She swelled and throbbed, damp and helpless under his hand.

Finally, as if he knew he'd driven her as far as she could go, his fingers paused. Though his hand was completely still, waves of heat continued to course through her body.

And all at once his words made sense. The mindless drive to climax was gone, and in its place was a beautiful, throbbing, golden awareness. She felt herself moving rhythmically, pulsing without being touched. Every tiny muscle in her body was hers to control. She could touch the fire, go right to the edge, then back away.

Every inch of her shivered and sparkled, from the soles of her feet to the roots of her hair. She had only to think about the aching spot between her legs to break out in rippling chills.

“That's right, sweetheart.” He spoke against her lips. “It's yours. You tell me when.”

She reached her hand between them and touched the hard length of his erection, the place where his body answered her ache with its own needy heat.

“When
you
do,” she said. “I want it to be both of us, Mark. I don't want to be in this alone.”

She wondered if he'd deny her, even now. But they'd gone too far to turn back. They were beyond pretending that anything else mattered, any worries about tomorrow's dreams or yesterday's tragedies. This moment existed apart from all that.

This moment had its own hungers that demanded satisfaction.

He hesitated only a second, and then, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he deftly shifted and rolled them both out of the hammock.

They tumbled softly onto the grass.

The urgency was suddenly overwhelming. In the darkness, he knelt over her, while she unzipped his jeans, easing him free. She caught her breath, and touched him, feeling the heat and the power.

He shoved aside the satin of her pants and slid inside her. She closed her eyes, dazed by the heavy, stretching heat as he filled her. It hurt a little, but in spite of the pain it felt so perfect—and so new, as if she had
never before experienced the ultimate, intimate ownership of lovemaking.

When he was sure she could accept him, he began to move, slowly at first, in and out, with firm but gentle strokes. Then harder, then harder still, as she sank into the fiery pleasure. With each stroke he seemed to fill her even more, or perhaps she closed more tightly around him, until each thrust sent streaks of starlight stabbing through her.

Within minutes, his breath tightened, and she felt strange new sensations, rhythms within rhythms, as he fought to postpone his surrender.

“Tell me,” he said again, grinding the words between clenched teeth. “Tell me when, sweetheart.”

“Now.” It was beyond enduring, the need to feel the fall was suddenly greater than anything else. Her body began to jerk, subtly, and the spiraling fire licked everywhere.

“Please,” she cried. She reached up and dug her nails into his shirt, trying to find the warmth of his skin. “Now.”

He groaned gratefully, and his last thrusts were slow and hard. She felt the heavy throbbing deep inside her as he came to the end of his control.

Everything inside her shattered then. Hot pleasure shot through each glowing inch of her body—burning everything in its path.

When it had finally moved through her, she lay, shimmering and breathless, against the damp grass. Mark lay on his back beside her, his arm across her belly.

She remembered the Irish blessing she'd read in Fiona's book.

May the saddest day of your future be no worse than the happiest day of your past.

She closed her eyes and smiled. Whatever happened from here, even if she lost him forever, this was that day.

No matter how many years old she lived to be, no matter what else was granted her, other starlit nights, other lovers, other dreams, this would always be the happiest day of her past.

This was the day she learned what it felt like to be in love.

“I
DON'T CARE
if it's a real wedding or not,” Kate shouted to her husband as they tied blue ribbons around the stems of a dozen champagne glasses. “Our guests will see it, and they'll tell their friends, and
they'll
tell
their
friends! The reputation of the Hideaway depends on this!”

Stephen caught Allison's eye and winked. “Now, if I were a betting man, I'd be betting that you wish you could turn back the clock and erase the moment you spoke the fateful words,
perhaps we could have the wedding here.
”

“Not at all,” Allison insisted, though there was more than a little truth in Stephen's comment. The four-o'clock ceremony was only an hour away, and O'Hara nerves were fraying and sparking like downed power wires. Still, it was far easier to go into this wedding charade with her family arrayed protectively around her.

“But am I right that you're not going to have the police pick him up here, then? You're going to wait until later?” Stephen's eyes were mournful, giving him a slight resemblance to a basset hound. “A shame, it is.
We'd all enjoy watching the bastard led out of here, wearing those lovely silver bracelets.”

“And have our guests see it, too?” Kate shuddered. “No one on this island would talk of anything else for months.”

“She's right,” Allison said. “A little sordid for a family hotel, don't you think? Besides, we don't want to complicate things for the police. They can't be involved before Lincoln signs on the dotted line or it could be dismissed as entrapment.”

Stephen grunted. “And what's wrong with setting a trap for your vermin, I'd like to know? Are you supposed to let them ravage your best crops and never lift a hand to interfere?”

“Nothing's wrong with it,” Allison assured him, trying not to chuckle at the thought of herself as an acre of corn or potatoes, “as long as it's just between Lincoln and me.”

“What she means is, the police are more constrained than average citizens,” Mark said, appearing suddenly at the doorway. “There are laws against official entrapment.” He smiled at Kate. “Can I borrow Allison for a minute?”

“With my blessing,” Kate said. “I keep telling her if she hangs around in here, she's going to get something on that lovely dress for sure.”

Mark glanced over the simple ivory gown that Moira had picked out for Allison just two days ago. Allison fought the impulse to twitch at it. It was nothing compared to the Vera Wang that still hung in her closet at home, but it was feminine and far more appropriate
for a small family beachside wedding. Sleeveless, with a full, knee-length skirt and a narrow silk belt of sky blue that tied in a small bow at the back.

“Suits her, doesn't it?” Stephen eyed Mark closely. “She's quite a woman, my granddaughter. The man who really marries her will be the luckiest cuss on the planet.”

“Stephen, for heaven's—”

But Mark merely smiled. “I don't know,” he mused, still appraising her. “I seem to remember something you said about bad luck following redheaded women.”

Allison touched her hair self-consciously. She'd long since given up trying to keep it under control. With all this humidity and all these hours in the sun, it was as unruly and red as a field of wild strawberries. She'd woven a blue ribbon through it to keep it off her face, but otherwise it hung free.

“Oh, that's just an old wives' tale.” Stephen slapped Mark's shoulder, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “You mustn't be so gullible, son. Most of what I say is a load of superstitious rubbish.”

“That's God's own truth,” Kate put in grumpily. “Let the young people go, Stephen. If you don't get back to tying these bows, you'll be walking your granddaughter down the aisle in a wheelchair.”

“Come on, Allison,” Mark said. He held out his hand. She took it as casually as possible, hoping her flush didn't betray her in front of her grandfather.

Mark led her to the lobby, which, for the moment, was empty. Everyone else was out in the courtyard, either admiring the decorations or helping to set things up. Even the front desk was deserted.

“You do look beautiful,” he said. “Your grandfather was right. The guy who marries you will be a very lucky man.”

She wished she didn't love him so much. She wished she couldn't so clearly hear all the sad, unspoken words that lay behind the ones he was willing to utter.

“But it won't be you, will it?” She attempted a smile. “That's what you're trying to tell me.”

He shook his head slowly. “I've told you that from the start. I never lied to you, Allison. And someday, when you and that lucky guy are picking out nursery furniture, you'll thank me for it.”

“Are you so sure about that?”

“I've never been more sure about anything.”

She took a deep breath. “I don't know what your first wife did to you, Mark, but—”

“She didn't do anything to me.” His voice was flat, matter-of-fact. “Don't kid yourself that things went wrong because she was a monster. She's a very nice woman and she loved me. She tried to make our marriage work for six long years, but eventually she had to face the truth. Even while she pretended she didn't care, she'd been secretly praying for a miracle. And miracles just don't happen in the real world.”

He sounded so certain. Without rancor but also without hope.

She wondered if he was right, after all. She wondered if she, too, had a secret dream, in which a miracle visited them in the night while they were making love and proved the doctors wrong.

Maybe he wasn't being cynical. Maybe he just knew
more than she did. Maybe he had seen it all before—from the hopeful beginning, where fresh-faced love seemed capable of surmounting any obstacle, to the slow, tearful end, where no one won and everyone took home a broken heart.

Maybe it was too much to ask him to endure it again.

“When are you planning to return to San Francisco?”

The plan was for him to leave the Hideaway now, before Lincoln arrived. His detective would call him as soon as Allison and Lincoln arrived at Mrs. Jerrald's mansion, where they were supposed to spend the night before catching an early plane to Ireland in the morning.

Once he got the call, Mark would telephone the police. He'd tell them he'd located the man who had abandoned his sister, and that the man had just committed bigamy.

After that, after the cops took Lincoln and launched the investigation that would, they hoped, leave him behind bars for at least a couple of years, the mission was over. After that, there were no more plans.

Allison would return to Boston. She had a business to run, and she'd ignored it too long already.

Mark would go back to San Francisco. He, too, probably had a million obligations waiting impatiently for his return.

“I don't know,” he said. “As soon as the police have everything they need, I suppose. Tracy will need me, I think. Though she wants him caught, it's going to be difficult for her.”

“Yes, I'm sure it will.”

She hated the way her voice sounded, so prim, so
Cabot
. The conversation had reached that stilted phase
that meant their reckless O'Hara intimacy was over. They were becoming polite strangers once again.

She wished she could do something to stop it all from happening. But even as she stood here, close enough to reach out and touch his rugged face, she knew they were losing each other. They were trapped in separate boats, floating away on opposing currents.

“Mark, I wish that—”

His cell phone rang, cutting off her sentence. She hadn't even been sure what she was going to say.
I wish that you believed in love? I wish that you believed in miracles? I wish that you believed in me?

He listened for a minute, and then he flipped the phone shut. His face was expressionless, which frightened her. He was hiding something. And no one needed to hide good news.

Her mind raced through the possibilities. Had something happened to Tracy?

To Janelle?

“That was my investigator,” he said. “The one who has been watching Lincoln's house.”

“Yes?” Suddenly she felt a slow, dripping dread. “What's wrong? What did he say?”

“I'm sorry, Allison. He lost him. Lincoln has disappeared.”

 

B
Y FOUR-THIRTY
, all hope was gone.

When he first got the call from his investigator, Mark had known the game was over. But Allison had insisted that they proceed as if they believed Lincoln would still show up.

“We've come this far,” she said. “Let's see it through, just in case.”

Mark hadn't believed for a second that they'd lay eyes on Lincoln Gray today. The man had obviously realized the wedding was a trap and had devised some elaborate strategy for sneaking out the beach side of the mansion and disappearing into the crowd of surfers and joggers and families with squealing kids.

But Mark had stayed at the Hideaway anyhow,
just in case
. He couldn't have left Allison to face this alone. They waited together in a private room, while the justice of the peace mingled with the rest of the family, politely pretending that all was well.

Mark could imagine how awkward that small talk must be. The twins would ask the same questions over and over, and Moira would lose her temper. Stephen was probably keeping the conversation going with a million Irish proverbs and perhaps a few bars of “Who Put the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder?”

In Allison and Mark's little room, though, everything was quiet.

Allison sat by the window, watching the ocean. Her face was as pale as her dress. Mark stood by the mantel. He wanted to pace, but he knew his only hope was to go completely still. Otherwise, he'd burn up with the need to kill any son of a bitch who made Allison look like that.

“Someone must have told him,” she said for the tenth time. “He didn't suspect a thing yesterday. I'm sure of it.”

“It doesn't matter,” he said. “We found him once. We'll find him again.”

She turned to Mark. “I feel like such a fool,” she said, trying to smile. “Surely I'm the only woman in the world who's ever been jilted by the same man twice.”

He was so glad to see that smile. If only he could keep it there. “Probably,” he agreed. “Shall I call
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
?”

“Maybe later.” She took a deep breath, planted her palms on her thighs, and pulled herself to a standing position. “Right now I think I should go out and talk to the family. We should at least let that poor judge go home. Stephen has probably talked his ear half off already.”

“Are you sure you're ready for that?”

She shrugged. “I have to be.”

He had to admit, this woman had courage. She had claimed the best of both her inherited worlds—the dignity and elegance of her father and the laughter and passion of the O'Haras.

And the beauty of a snub-nosed angel. He wished her mother could see her now.

She bent to adjust her skirt, and the sun caught in her clouds of curls, making them shine like a rosy halo. His pulse stumbled, just looking at her and remembering how she'd felt last night as she came apart in his arms.

He should never have stolen those moments. They were not meant for the likes of him. But he did steal them, and he didn't regret it. By God, he refused to regret it. She would forget, someday. The touch of her husband's hand would blur the memory. And, later, the warmth of small, trusting fingers would erase it entirely.

But he would never forget. He would cherish the memory forever.

He held out his arm. “Let's go, then. At the very least there's a whole lot of champagne out there that someone needs to drink.”

Every single person went still, as if the film had jammed in the projector, when Allison appeared in the courtyard. Even Fiona and Flannery froze in place, looking like Victorian dolls in their frilly sky-blue dresses. Somehow Moira had managed to coax Fiona into leaving her backpack up in her room.

Daniel stood off to one side, leaning against the white-rose arbor. When he spied Allison, the dark triumph on his face couldn't have been more revealing.

He was the one.
O'Hara oath, my ass,
Mark thought. The damn idiot had done it anyway. He'd found a way to tip Lincoln Gray off.

Allison must have seen it, too. Mark felt her arm tremble slightly, and he tightened it against his chest.

“Don't be too angry,” he said under his breath. “He's young, and he's foolish. Once he realizes what a mistake he's made, he'll spend the rest of his life regretting it.”

“I know,” she said. “It's all right.”

Then she cleared her throat and spoke to her family. “I guess it's pretty clear there isn't going to be a wedding today,” she said. “I'm so sorry to have put everyone through so much—”

She stopped. Mark knew why—he had heard the sound, too. It was the sound of a car door slamming. Everyone turned toward the south edge of the courtyard, where it led into the parking lot. Mark could swear not one of them took a single breath.

They listened to the sound of footsteps running along the sidewalk.

“If this is the insect himself—” Stephen began.

And then, a woman rounded the hedge, still jogging a bit, finally slowing as she caught sight of the family gathered around their beautifully decorated courtyard.

Allison took an instinctive step forward. “Janelle?” She shook her head, disbelieving.
“Janelle?”

Daniel let go of the arbor so violently it shook, sending off waves of rosy perfume. He lurched toward the newcomer.

“Janelle? What are you doing here? You weren't supposed to come. You weren't supposed to let anyone know—”

“It's okay, Danny,” the young woman said. She touched his arm gently. “You were so wonderful. I can never thank you enough. But I had to come. Lincoln asked me to.”