She suspected he wasn’t seeing his own hands, but his father’s.
“Ash…he’d slammed her into the wall so hard, her head split. She went into a coma…never woke up.”
Sloane wanted to weep. For the little girl she’d never even known existed, and for the man standing before her now.
“Phillip knocked my father down. His wife was there—she grabbed me and pushed me into my mom’s arms, but my mom…she couldn’t do anything. Marie went to take me out of there and…she…she stopped. I saw Ashley.”
She’d been so pale, her blonde hair like snow, right up until it met the red spilling out of it.
“He killed her.” Boone closed his eyes as the fury and misery and grief twisted through him yet again. It had been almost twenty-five years and he still couldn’t forget the sight of his little sister lying there, like a broken doll.
His arm had been broken and he’d had a concussion from where he’d hit his head when his father threw him, but the worst pain had come from knowing he’d never again wake up to find the little girl snuggling in next to him after a nightmare. They’d only been a year apart and she’d been sweet and gentle and innocent—everything Boone had never been.
“You’re nothing like him.”
The sound of Sloane’s voice pulled him out of the past.
His voice was rusty as he answered, “I look just like him.”
“That’s on the surface,” she said, her eyes soft and gentle. She reached out a hand.
He didn’t know what drove him to take it, but he did.
“My dad walked out on us. I was four and he just left. He walked away from his family farm, walked away from my mom, my brothers…me.” Her voice skipped and she had to clear her throat before she continue. “My brothers and I, we don’t look much alike.”
She looked away and he let himself stair, let himself look at her. A breeze kicked up and blew several strands of her dark brown hair across her cheek. “They look a lot like my mom and my grandfather—her dad. But me?”
A soft sigh escaped her before she looked back at him. “I look like my dad. I’ve got his hair, his eyes…even the shape of my mouth and my nose. I can see it now and I know my mom saw it then. But I’m not my dad. She knew it. I know it. I’m not ever going to walk away from my baby and I don’t walk out of my family.”
She squeezed his hand and moved in closer. “And you’re not
your
father. You couldn’t raise a hand to a woman.”
“But I have.”
She blinked, startled.
“I spent years hunting down terrorists, Sloane. I’ve
killed
women before.”
“Did you have a choice?”
The question caught him off guard. He’d been prepared for disgust, for fear, but not for that simple—and honest—question. “I did what had to be done—or what I thought had to be done, at the time.”
She reached up and when she thread her hand into his hair, he didn’t pull away. “You’re not him. Maybe you don’t know shit all about being a father, but that’s because…”
She closed her eyes. Erratic breaths escaped her and he watched as she made a visible effort to calm them.
When she looked at him again, her gaze was serene. “That’s because I didn’t give you a chance. I know what it’s like to have a father who doesn’t care. I didn’t want to take that chance with my baby. She couldn’t be a
problem
—not even from the beginning. Do you understand?”
A problem.
Two hours later, he held Dani in his arms and she stared back at him with the same, avid fascination he seemed to feel. When he stroked a finger down her cheek, she batted a hand at him and then closed her fist around his pinkie.
She had a solid little grip there, especially for something so tiny, so delicate.
She had his eyes.
He wondered why he hadn’t seen that already.
She had his eyes.
Sloane had said she didn’t want her baby to have a father who thought of her as a
problem
, but he wasn’t so sure that possible.
Little Dani was already a problem for him. She seemed to hold his heart in that tiny hand and as if she’d read his thoughts, a brilliant grin lit her face.
“I didn’t know.”
He lifted his gaze to the man in the door.
Taylor stood there, his hands in his pockets, his expression troubled.
Boone went back to staring at the baby.
Sloane was outside.
He could see her from where he sat, both her and Ellen. They were out on the swing and although he’d been sitting there for nearly thirty minutes, he hadn’t seen either woman say a word.
“I’m having a hard time believing that Sloane could do this to you, man. I’m so so—”
“Don’t.”
At the sound of his voice, his daughter started and then blinked, gazing up at him with what looked like fascination. He couldn’t help but smile at her and stroke her cheek. She cooed and waved her fists—including the one that held his finger—in the air.
“Don’t,” he said again, keeping his voice soft. He looked up at her. “I get it.”
“Do you?” Taylor stalked closer, moving to stare out the window. “Well, that’s just great. Explain it to me. I mean,
I
don’t get it. Damn it, Boone, she
knew
you.”
He laughed. “Did she?” He shook his head. “I don’t think she did. Nah, she didn’t know me. We wrote each other a few times and when we…” He stopped and then tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment before looking back at Taylor. “We met at the bar in town—Huley’s? Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t know who she was, she didn’t know who I was.”
Taylor’s eyes went wide. “You met…” Then he breathed out a soft curse. “Son of a bitch. You’re the big guy Huley saw leaving with her.”
It didn’t surprise Boone that Taylor had done some nosing around. Even if he claimed he was trying to respect her privacy, Taylor cared too much about his sister to just let it go as short as that.
“That’s me,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. “We…um…well, we didn’t figure out who the other person was until you introduced us the next morning.”
“At my wedding.” Taylor looked away, a muscle starting to pulse in his cheek. “Son of a bitch.”
“You’ve said that.” Dani started to squirm and he lifted her up to his shoulder, patting her bottom the way he’d seen Sloane doing. “We didn’t know each other. If we had…” Boone shrugged. “I guess I would have figured out I was handling it wrong—or I would have known the right way
to
handle it. And maybe…”
He lapsed into silence.
Taylor moved closer and settled on the low-lying coffee table across from Boone. He watched Boone closely as he said, “This is about your father.”
Boone looked away. “I don’t want to do a post-mortem on this. If I was her and I knew jack shit about me, I’d run screaming in the other direction.”
Taylor glanced out the window. “She’s not screaming.” Then he met Boone’s gaze dead-on. “And there’s the deal, man. You know how much I love her, how protective I am. If I had any idea about the kind of man you were, I never would have invited you—not for my wedding and not after…your little vacation down in Mexico. You’re a good man, Boone.”
Boone knew better than to believe those words. Hours later, they echoed mockingly in his head.
He stood at the window, staring out over the sprawl of the Redding farm. It was so peaceful here. Quiet and easy, everything he’d never really known, not even as an adult.
He’d slept easily in the silence over the past few weeks but right now, the quiet felt stifling.
And then it seemed to disappear entirely when he looked up at the soft
click
.
Sloane slipped inside his room.
His mouth went dry. Blood started to roar in his ears.
There were no lights on his room, just the silvery rays of the moon streaming in through the wide window on the southern wall.
She came to stop in front of him and that put the window at her back.
His heart slammed against his ribcage with enough force that it practically knocked the breath out of him.
The nightgown was thin and white.
He could see every elegant line of her body, the slope of her hips, the curved length of her legs.
His hands itched. He wanted to reach out and catch her waist, pull her to him.
He forced himself to look away, but it didn’t do much good. That image of her body was imprinted on the very fabric of his memory.
“I thought maybe we should talk,” she said softly.
Talk
.
He fought the need to hunch his shoulders at the very idea of it. He didn’t want to
talk
to her. He wanted to hold her, kiss her and pretend he was a different man than who he was. A different man than who she must
think
he was.
“What’s there to talk about?” he asked, voice gruff. “I’ll…I’ll help you take care of her. Send money. I’d…I think I’d like to be a part of her life, if you’d let me.”
When she made no response, he dared a quick look at her.
There was an expression of dismay on her face and it set his stomach to rolling. But even as if he struggled to figure out how to make her understand, she reached up and touched his cheek. “Do you honestly think I’d
keep
her from you?”
Then her hand fell away and she laughed bitterly. “Well, of course you do. I did just that, didn’t I?” She turned to the window, mirroring his pose, right down to the way she crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “I’d love for you to be part of her life, Boone. I…I never had a real dad. Shoot, for that matter, my mom was absent most of the time—too busy trying to handle this place on her own after my dad skipped out. I don’t want that for my baby.”
“Then why didn’t you tell—” He snapped his jaw shut and closed his eyes.
“Would you have been there?”
At the soft question, he opened his eyes and looked at Sloane. “Been there?”
She angled her head to the side, her eyes mysterious and dark in the dim room. “Yes. Would you have
been
there? For me? For her? Would you have
been
there…because you wanted to be or because you felt obligated?”
“I…” He floundered and then went with his gut. “Both. She is my responsibility as much as she is yours. But I…”
The words left him as he thought of that tiny little girl—so much more than a
responsibility
. So much of a promise, so much of a miracle. “I don’t think I’ve ever thought about being a dad—no, that’s not right. I specifically thought about
not
being a dad. What with my dad and all…”
He went to turn away.
Sloane stopped him with the simple touch of her hand on his arm.
“If people made decisions in life based solely on who or what kind of parents they had, the world would be in a very strange place. Plenty of good people have come from absolutely
terrible
parents, and plenty of terrible people had very good parents.” She squeezed his arm gently.
He reached up and covered her hand with his.
And that was his mistake.
It was already a strain on his willpower to stand this close without touching her, to smell her skin and not taste.
But when he covered her hand, her lashes fluttered and he remembered how she’d do that when he’d kissed her, when he’d trailed his mouth down her body and sought her out with his mouth.
“I missed you,” he said, the words surprising both of them.
Her mouth parted.
He reached up and pressed his thumb to her lower lip.
“After I’d gotten hurt and woke up with my head a blank slate, I knew I was missing something and not just memories. I was missing something vital.”
Sloane’s throat worked as she swallowed.
“I remember everything now—well, except for the first few hours after some thug tried to cave my skull in. But I’d been in a cantina…working. Got to thinking about you and thought maybe I needed to talk to you.” The look in her eyes made his heart beat a little faster and he dared to take a step closer.
When she didn’t back away, he reached down and covered her belly with his palm. “And when I left, after you told me….” He had to stop and swallow. “When you told me there was no
problem
, I was…disappointed.”
Sloane drew in a deep breath.
He didn’t cover her mouth with his, as much as he wanted to. Instead, he brushed a thumb over her lower lip. “I would have been there, Sloane. Yes, I
should
have been…I try to be the kind of man who lives up to his responsibilities, but more…I wanted to be there. I didn’t let myself admit it, but I wanted there to be a reason for me
to
be there.”
Sloane didn’t know if she’d ever had this many emotions flooding through her—not all at once like this.
Joy.
Hope.
Fear.
Need.
Excitement.
Lust.
Hunger.
Guilt.
Regret.
Unable to focus on any one thing, she felt frozen, but when he reached out and touched her cheek, she turned her face into his hand.
The near-panic gripping her cracked at the soft intake of his breath and she skimmed her lips across his palm.
He made the same noise again, and then there was another noise—almost a growl, deep and low in his throat.
Daring to hope, she moved closer and brought up her hands, resting them on his waist.
He slid his hand down to her nape and she felt the convulsive clench of his fingers before he dipped his head and brushed his lips against her brow.
That faint touch made her shiver and sway closer.
The hand on the back of her neck tightened.
She lifted her head to his when he pulled away and stared, for a moment, at his mouth.
Her heart skipped what felt like a dozen beats when she looked up and realized he had been doing the same thing—his gaze locked on her mouth.
She licked her lips instinctively.
His groan was a low rumble in the quiet around them and she rose up on her toes to kiss him before he could pull away.