“Nope, we’re not having macaroni and cheese again,” Rafe told Parker. “We’re taking Zoe out to dinner.”
No wonder her knees went weak. Not that Zoe wanted to be put to the test, but there was a good chance she’d have sold her soul to the devil rather than wash any more dishes. “You think we can manage them? I mean, out in public?” She felt she had to voice a token objection.
“Of course we can. You boys go wash your faces.” Zoe headed for the door with the troops, but Rafe grabbed her hand. “Not you,” he said gravely. “You look fine. In fact, you look incredibly good.”
The compliment startled her, but not for long. “You don’t understand. No rational person would leave them alone in a bathroom together.”
“Nonsense.” His thumb dawdled on her wrist, tracing the delicate veins, quickening her pulse. She glanced down to see her palm lying in his, limply accepting a touch that was dangerously close to a caress, inviting more. Had a few hours with a couple of small kids really made her feel that desperate for contact?
Hand, would you move? Please?
“How was work?” She had to find something to say.
“I was surrounded by magnetometers and scintillation counters. Now how did you survive today?”
“Fine.”
“No, you didn’t. How bad was it?” When she opened her mouth to deny any problem, he shook his head. “Look, there’s no reason to lie, not with me. I already know how you feel about kids, but it isn’t just that. You think I can’t appreciate how hard your day has been? I don’t know any more about parenting than you do, and I think I made it pretty clear that there’s no way in hell kids could fit in my lifestyle. Kiddo, if you can complain to anyone, it’s me.”
“Rafe, I don’t think it would be as impossible as you think to have them fit into your life—”
“The only reason it’s working at all is because you’re here,” he said firmly. He knew that if she thought for a minute he could cope with the boys alone, she’d run away. With deliberate emphasis, he continued, “If I’d wanted kids, Zoe, I would have taken on the responsibility long before this.”
That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She’d hoped so much that his feelings were at least starting to change. “You know, they behave like angels for
you.
”
“Yeah. Because I’m six feet three. Only one of these days, the little devils are going to discover that I’m scared witless of them.”
He made her smile. In fact, he made her smile all through dinner. He never even blinked when a French fry went flying through the air or when Parker let out a burp that sent both boys into fits of giggles. He answered what seemed like four thousand questions beginning with the word
why,
wiped up a spill and escorted each little boy to the men’s room at least nine hundred times.
With Zoe, he barely exchanged five words. Who could talk? Zoe hadn’t been in a family restaurant in a long time. Mothers were wolfing down their food in the vague hope they’d finish before the kids got antsy. Fathers were radiating patience. The route to the bathrooms needed a traffic light. The noise level rivaled that of a baseball stadium on opening day.
“You’ve been here before?” she questioned Rafe.
He shook his head with a wry grin. “Never. But I figured it had to be reasonably safe to come here from their ads in the paper.”
The place
was
safe, the man
less
so. Rafe kept drawing her eyes to him…for his quietness and patience, the way he took charge, the way his mouth twisted in a smile. He repeatedly claimed he didn’t want the responsibility of children, yet nothing threw him where the kids were concerned.
Where
she
was concerned seemed to be the problem. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel drenched in softness, as though she was special to him, as though in the middle of chaos they were surrounded by an intimate privacy that just had to do with two people.
It was dark when they drove home, and few lights marked the road once they left the small Montana town of Logansville. Under the cover of darkness, Zoe stole pensive glances at Rafe’s shadowed profile. He wasn’t an easy man to understand, and she had to remind herself to be careful. She was alone, far away from her life and job, tossed into an emotional whirlpool because of the children. It would be far too easy to turn to Rafe out of need, but involvement would impossibly complicate both their lives, and perhaps prove detrimental to the twins.
When they arrived home, the kids suggested a bargain: They would promise total peace and quiet if they were allowed to watch television for a half hour. Rafe agreed, and steered Zoe into the kitchen, where he put water on for coffee—decaf and instant at that hour.
“They’ll never let us drink an entire cup in peace,” Zoe warned him wryly.
Rafe took the tinfoil off the huge pan of chocolate-chip cookies and then offered the tray to her.
“They’re all for you,” she said politely.
“Thanks.”
“If they help me with any more cooking projects, we may all starve.”
“I can see that.” He leaned back against the counter and nibbled on one. “They’re not that bad.”
“What’d you get—a tiny burned one or one of those huge ones that still look like unbaked batter?” The kettle was boiling. Zoe lifted it off the burner, turned off the heat and reached for cups.
Rafe figured that was enough casual chatter. Maybe she’d forgotten that she’d treated him like yesterday’s newspaper that morning, but he hadn’t. “Those were Sarah’s black panties you found in the kitchen…but I think you already guessed that, didn’t you?”
The damn kettle spat a drop of boiling water on her finger. She shook her hand and then started pouring. “Forget it, Rafe.”
He wasn’t about to let it go. “I’ve known her for two years, ever since I moved here. I got to know her because I work with her. Her husband left her about a year ago.”
“Which is none of my business,” Zoe said firmly.
Rafe was blunt and his tone quiet. “Our relationship is simply a friendship—but, yes, I’ve slept with her several times. She was lonely as hell, and her ex-husband was a bastard. If you want it clear as glass, she’d occasionally come over here when she wanted a man.” Honesty vibrated in his voice. “I don’t want you to think badly of her, Zoe. She’s a good lady.”
“A
wonderful
lady,” Zoe agreed instantly.
“But not for me. It was never any more than a casual relationship. She knew that, and so did I. There was a time when we could fill a few needs for each other, and that’s all it amounted to.” He added, “I talked to her this morning.”
What he talked to her about Zoe didn’t want to know. She also didn’t want the mug of coffee in her hands, or to be alone in a softly lit kitchen with him. She set the mug down. The whole problem with being close to Rafe…was being close to Rafe.
She said nothing for a moment, because she couldn’t think of a thing to say, and then a crash interrupted that silence—a glass-splintering, explosion-type crash. The lights went out.
She collided with Rafe on the rush for the door.
As soon as Zoe reached the living room, she was surrounded by darkness and two frantic boys. An acrid odor of smoke permeated the room. “Good Lord! What were you two doing!”
She couldn’t tell one voice from another in the pitch-black room, and they were both talking at once. “The lamp just fell all to pieces; I didn’t mean to—”
“What’d you expect to happen when you threw the book at it, stupid?”
Rafe clamped a hand on her shoulder from behind. “Keep them away from it, Zoe. I’ll unplug the lamp and change the fuse.”
Grabbing the little ones, she tried to soothe and calm and at the same time determine just how the disaster had happened. Both boys were safely stashed on the couch next to her when the lights snapped on again, and then her eyes widened in shock at the wreckage. Rafe’s huge porcelain lamp was in shards on the floor, its shade bent grotesquely. A leatherbound textbook lay in the center of the mess.
“All right. Who threw the book?” Rafe hadn’t taken long to return from the fuse box. Standing in the doorway, he looked like ten feet of cold male fury.
Total silence, then “Me.” Zoe stood up, but Aaron wrapped his arms around her hips in a viselike grasp.
“You know what’s going to happen to you, don’t you?” Rafe said sternly.
“Yup,” Aaron said sadly.
“And right now.”
“Yup,” the little boy agreed again.
“Now, wait a minute,” Zoe said frantically. “Rafe, I’m sure it was an acci—”
“Aaron, upstairs,” Rafe ordered.
“Yup.” Aaron quietly pried his fingers away from Zoe’s hip. Her arm tightened protectively around his shoulders.
“You haven’t even heard what happened!” she yelled at Rafe.
His voice was as calm and cold as the ocean in November. “I don’t need to hear a darn thing. I can see the book. He admitted he threw it. Upstairs, Aaron.”
“Yup.” Resigned to his fate, Aaron lowered his head, ducked out from under Zoe’s hold and headed for the stairs. He climbed them as heavily as if he were old and weary.
Zoe rushed after him, but Rafe reached the landing first.
“Stay out of it,” he said quietly.
“I won’t. Darn it, you can’t mean this! You’re angry, Rafe. You can’t deal with him when you’re this mad—”
“I sure as hell can.”
“It was an
accident!
”
“It was deliberate. And he knows it.”
“He’s only four years old!” They were at the door to the twins’ bedroom. Startled, Zoe noted Aaron had already bent over the bed, bottom up. One might almost think he’d been through this before. She flashed a look at the child, and then at Rafe.
His eyes were blue-black, and his jaw like iron. He was too big a man, too powerful, too strong…and all that patience he’d been famous for was gone. Rafe was flat-out furious.
With some vague thought of protecting Aaron, she hurled herself over him. Firm hands settled around her waist and lifted her off the small trembling body.
The trace of humor in Rafe’s voice came from nowhere. “Read that in a book, didn’t you?” he asked amiably.
“You are
not
going to spank him!”
“Seems to me I read that same book in a lit class my junior year in high school,” he continued gently. “The guy was a Canadian Mountie or something? Only these aren’t quite the same circumstances. I’d know that little boy’s fanny anytime over yours, and I’m not about to lay a hand on you. On him—you can bet your sweet petunias.”
“The heck you are!”
“Zoe. Try to relax.” He set her gently, firmly in the hall, and then quietly closed the door in her face.
Both boys were in bed by nine. A half hour before they went upstairs, Zoe had watched Aaron climb on Rafe’s lap and regale him with a story about a lost puppy. She’d watched Rafe listen, and she’d watched Aaron laugh. Rafe had toted both giggling boys upside down to bed and nobody was stingy with the good-night hugs.
Which was all very well. The urchins might take spankings for granted, but Zoe certainly didn’t, and nothing was about to subdue her growing fury.
When the kids were finally asleep, Rafe went for a walk, and Zoe settled in the living room, stiffly turning the pages of a book she had no interest in. Another half hour passed before she heard the back door opening.
He was rubbing cold hands together when he appeared in the living room. His dark hair was glistening with snow, and his cheeks were ruddy from his walk. He sent one quick look in her direction, and then crossed to the fireplace. He wasn’t smiling, but the patient expression on his face was darn near enough to make her want to hit him.
He bounced down on his haunches and started stacking logs on the hearth. “I had major hopes you’d cool down, but I can see that you’re still mad. Okay, let’s hear it,” he said quietly.
“You bet you will! I think that was one of the most cruel, insensitive, heartless, unfair—”
“Honey. I laid three quick ones on his backside. I realize from his yells you must have thought I was killing him, but you can’t seriously believe I would have harmed a hair on his head.” Rafe held a match to the fire and then turned to look at Zoe.
“That’s not the point. He was crying! And you didn’t even let me go in to him afterward—”
“There’s no point to a spanking if someone cuddles him two seconds later.”
His calmness only further infuriated her. “How
could
you? He just lost his parents. He’s having a terrible time believing they’re even gone. So he threw a lousy book. We’re all he’s got, and he goes and makes one tiny little mistake—”
Rafe shook his head despairingly. “
Little?
That was a three-hundred-dollar lamp, he could have set the house on fire—and we’re really going to have to do something about this cold-blooded streak of yours. Want some wine?”
“No.”
He sighed. “Look, honey. I loved Janet like a sister, but she coddled those kids way too much. Jonathan was my best friend, and there’s no question that he took his role as father very seriously. But haven’t you noticed that the monsters are a teeny bit spoiled?”
“I don’t care if they’re spoiled. They need love,” Zoe said furiously.
“I agree with you, but that doesn’t answer my question.”
“You have to consider what the kids are going through right now!”
He nodded. “I did. I thought they needed to know that in a world turned upside down, there’s still somebody in control. There are still rules they can count on. I wanted to give them the security of knowing that some actions are acceptable and others are dead wrong.”
His words sank in. Zoe could feel her fury abating as a confusing moodiness replaced it. He not only sounded sure, but he sounded right as well. The kids did need order. And suddenly she could think of a dozen times when they’d probably been testing her, demanding limits, rules…and she’d failed to provide them. It had never once occurred to her that rules might mean security for them.
While she was staring at the fire, Rafe came up behind her. With a firm, sure touch, he probed the knots of tension in her shoulders. At that first contact, she flinched away, but he paid no attention. She was getting a back rub. He really didn’t care whether she wanted it or not.
Flames licked a circle around the biggest log on the grate, and hot orange sparks soared up the chimney. His nostrils inhaled the sweet cherrywood smoke as his fingers relentlessly kneaded and probed and soothed. She didn’t want to relax. Her silhouette danced in the shadows on the far wall, so small next to his. Her slim shoulders and delicate profile emphasized that she was fragile and the splash of damp lashes on her cheeks showed that she was vulnerable. He knew damn well Zoe wanted to be neither.
But she wasn’t moving away.
He applied pressure to her shoulders to get her to sit down. That quickly, she coiled up again. “Come on, Zoe,” he scolded. “Is the world going to cave in if you relax?”
Maybe. All she really knew was that the weariness of a long, traumatic day was catching up with her. Feeling helpless, she eased down on her knees next to the crackle and warmth of the fire. She didn’t want the comfort of his long, strong hands on the nape of her neck. Or maybe she did. Maybe she wanted it far too much.
She sighed helplessly. “Rafe, I don’t know what the right thing to do was.”
“Neither did I. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Zoe. That I can’t handle this alone any more easily than you can. This parent business is exhausting,” he murmured wryly.
“Maybe we should get them some books?”
“Maybe we should forget about children for a while.”
“I can’t.”
Rafe’s eyes softened. “I know you can’t. So let’s talk about them indirectly. Tell me about the man who was in your life. He wanted kids, didn’t he? Is that why you broke off with him?”
“I never said…I never told you—”
“So tell me now,” he said quietly. “Why not?”
He sat on the floor and pulled her down in front of him, his thighs bracing hers while he continued to rub her back. A gentle massage wouldn’t do. Her slender spine was so knotted up with little coils that he was tempted to wrap her up in his arms and kiss her until every thought of children permanently vanished from her head…but that wouldn’t do, either. For now, he wanted to listen. He needed to listen.
When he found the taut cord at the nape of her neck, she lifted her head. He firmly pushed it back down again, and discovered that Zoe was a helpless sucker for a scalp rub. Her silky hair curled around his fingers, catching gold lights from the fire. In time, loosening all those tight muscles seemed to loosen her tongue as well.
She told him how sympathetic her parents had been after her hysterectomy, and how she’d come to the point where she’d had to reject that sympathy. Pity wasn’t going to help her put her world back together. She’d thought Steven would.
“You loved him?” He stopped rubbing only once, to lean forward and add another log to the fire.
“Yes.” Her head was bent low over her raised knees.
“But he wanted kids.”
“Naturally he wanted kids.” She added wearily, “Men seem to feel it’s macho to appear footless and ready to pursue a brief affair, but they have the same nesting urges that women have. When it comes down to the bottom line, men want a home, a wife and kids. It’s no different for them than it is for women.”
“In other words, the bastard split on you.” Rafe couldn’t keep the sharp coldness from his tone.
“He wasn’t a bastard!”
He paid for hitting that nerve. Her eyes snapped open, and her shoulders grew tight; he had to work on those muscles all over again. In time, she calmed down…in direct proportion to his tensing up. Thigh-to-thigh contact had already contributed to an unavoidable male response, but now he found his jaw clenched and his arms and shoulders coiled as tightly as a bowstring.
Leave it alone,
he told himself. Only he couldn’t. “You still love him?”
She didn’t answer that.
“Look, Zoe. He was a damned fool. It’s not as if the two of you didn’t have any other options—like adopting kids if he was so hot on—Never mind, never mind! Forget I said anything.”
When her lips parted, he gently shoved her head down again, discovering he didn’t want to hear her defend the bastard. He also didn’t want her tense. When his fingers gently kneaded her scalp again, she arched like a kitten in the sun. That was how he wanted her. Free to be soft and lazy. Easy, sleepy, safe.
Out-of-control protective urges rushed through him. All he could think of was that her attitude toward kids made sense now. She felt she had to avoid men who liked children. The ability to have kids had been taken away from her, and that trauma had been followed by the emotional blow of rejection by a creep who had led her halfway to the altar and then ditched her as if he’d discovered she was a mutant.
He meant to shut up and stay shut up, but, dammit, he couldn’t. His tone had a gruff scrape to it that he just couldn’t help. “That bastard didn’t leave you with the idiotic notion that being unable to have kids meant no man would ever love you, did he?”
“Rafe, stop talking about him that way. Our breakup was as much my fault as his, and I…” When his hands stopped massaging, it was as if he’d broken a magic spell. She was barely aware of what she’d said or of why they’d been talking about Steven. Rafe’s touch had mesmerized and comforted her after a terrible day, but Zoe had never been one to allow herself the excuse of extenuating circumstances. She pushed back her tangled hair and gave a quick laugh. “Look, I’m sorry for bending your ear like this. Steven and I parted a long time ago; it’s not your problem, and—”
Rafe wasn’t listening. “He must have made you feel totally inadequate. No wonder you’re uptight on the subject of kids.”
“Of course he didn’t. I told you, it wasn’t all his fault. For heaven’s sake—”
Too fast, he swiveled her around so she was facing him. Not expecting the quick move, she felt suddenly disoriented, and a two-second glance at Rafe’s face was all it took to tell her he was angry. His brows formed a grooved furrow, and his eyes snapped like the facets of a sapphire. The fire illuminated his rigid jaw and the compressed line of his mouth, but his voice came out soft and husky. “You don’t still love him. But maybe we’d better make absolutely sure you know that.”
She knew what he intended. She saw his blue eyes coming for her, and she saw his lips parting to take hers. It was like watching an avalanche headed her way with all the escape routes blocked. When she tried to duck her head, his fingers anchored her chin. When she tried to rise, his arms surrounded her and the pressure of that first kiss scolded her for even trying to escape.
Her body had a small problem: It still felt like a marshmallow from all his soothing caresses. Limbs that normally obeyed mental commands simply didn’t want to work just now. Her common sense seemed suddenly to have taken a vacation to Tahiti. She knew better than to allow him to kiss her. She’d sampled Rafe’s kisses the night before, and her pulse rate signaled that she was in danger…only the danger tasted so delicious.
She stopped struggling, only because a temporary submission was better than an awkward argument. As it happened, the mental fib wasn’t necessary. It wasn’t a simple submission Rafe wanted at all. Kiss followed kiss until she was breathless, until the snap of the fire sounded like a roar in her ears, until her arms were tightly wrapped around him and her fingers were laced in his hair. Responding to him wasn’t a matter of choice. She only wished it were.