Kitabı oxu: «Gavin's Child»

One

The storm broke as Annie started for work.

Car keys in hand, she stood on her small covered porch and watched as the wind sighed through the gnarled trees that lined the dusty street. A faint drumroll of thunder echoed through the artificially early twilight, only to fade away as the first raindrops began to fall, rich with the scent of sun-baked evergreen.

She lifted her face to the breeze. It had been unseasonably hot all week. She let her eyes drift closed, the better to savor the cool wash of air that ruffled her hair and tugged at her clothes. While she no longer minded working nights, had even convinced her body it was okay to sleep from first light to mid-morning, she didn’t think she’d ever get accustomed to life without air-conditioning.

A rueful smile lit her face. Watch out, Annelise. Your silver spoon is showing.

She sighed. Time and past, to get going. Clia would no doubt have her head if she were late.

The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was the truck.

Big and black, its headlights gleamed in the murky light as it rolled down the street, slowing and speeding up in a way that suggested its driver was reading house numbers as he drove.

As simply as that—with an instinct she didn’t question—she knew.

Gavin.

Annie had been expecting him for more than a week, ever since their disastrous encounter in the grocery store. In some ways his arrival was a relief. At least now the waiting would be over. She would see him again, and the confrontation she’d dreaded for three long years would become a thing of the past. No longer would she struggle with the guilt, the regret, the host of what-might-havebeens.

No longer would she have to look into Sam’s precious little face and wonder if she’d compromised his future to survive her past.

At least now, she would know.

In the street, the pickup stopped altogether, then slid in against the curb with a throaty rumble. The headlights winked out; the engine fell silent. Raindrops spattered, sizzling as they struck the hood.

Oddly calm, Annie watched as the door swung open and Gavin climbed out. He hadn’t changed, she thought with that strange sense of detachment. Last week in the store she’d been so overwhelmed at the sight of him she hadn’t really seen him.

But now…Dressed in boots, jeans and a navy T-shirt, he was all man, from his hard thighs and narrow hips to his wide shoulders and strong, chiseled features. The wind snatched at his hair, tumbling the thick, inky strands across his forehead. Even from where she stood, the blue of his eyes was startling.

He started up the slight slope of her ragged lawn. His long legs made short shrift of the distance, and it was only a handful of seconds before he halted at the foot of the stairs. His gaze was shuttered as he looked up at her, taking in her work uniform of black slacks, white blouse and braided hair.

“Annie.” He inclined his head a scant quarter inch.

Pain shot through her hand. She glanced down, bemused to see she had a stranglehold on her keys. Perhaps she wasn’t so calm, after all. “Hello, Gavin.” She forced her fingers to relax.

A faint smile twisted across the achingly beautiful curve of his mouth. “You don’t look very surprised to see me.” His eyes were as hard as ice chips.

Her courage almost deserted her then. “Liam Corson called me. He said you’d been making inquiries.” Corson had been her father’s attorney. “I—I thought you might come.”

He raised one straight black brow. “And?”

“And I guess you’d better come in.” She crossed the few feet to the door, opened the screen and got her key in the lock, only to falter as she heard his footsteps coming up the stairs.

Goose bumps prickled across her arms. To her horror, her hand began to shake, and the lock, always temperamental, refused to budge.

“Here.” His voice sounded in her ear. She froze as he moved up behind her, unknowingly sheltering her from the wind. He reached for the key, so close she could feel the heat from his skin and taste his scent on her tongue.

And as quickly as that, she was caught in a flood of memories; of waking to the slow caress of his workroughened fingers; of the melting pleasure she’d found in his powerful arms; of the deep, urgent murmur of his voice filling the night…

Annie. Look at me. Look at me while I love you, baby. See how perfect we fit together—

The door swung open.

Annie fled inside. Pulse racing, cheeks burning, she crossed to the battered old highboy set against the wall to the right. She dropped her car keys and pocketbook next to the diminutive chiming clock that had been her mother’s and switched on a small ginger jar lamp. Then she hurried across the room and turned on the larger lamp that sat on the end table next to her yellow-and-white sofa and the bentwood rocker—as if the light could banish the specters of her past.

All the while she was acutely aware of Gavin, who stood in the shadows inside the entry, silent and watchful.

Panic welled inside her. She couldn’t do this, she thought wildly. She’d been a fool to ever think she could match his calm, his control, his icy lack of emotion—

Stop it. With a slight shudder, she clamped down on the flow of negative thoughts and instinctively fell back on the endless drills in deportment that had filled her teenage years. While the Brook School for Girls hadn’t taught the proper etiquette for dealing with an estranged husband who’d broken one’s heart, Miss Kesson had repeated countless times that good manners were always a lady’s best line of defense.

Annie was no longer certain she qualified as a lady, but the reminder served to steady her. “Why—why don’t you come in and sit down?”

He didn’t move. “You live here?”

The disbelief in his voice puzzled her, and then she understood. The little house was certainly nothing like her father’s sprawling Denver compound, or even the deluxe town house she and Gavin had shared in the ritzy suburb of Bretton Hills. There was just the one room, with a pair of doors on one side that opened into her and Sam’s bedrooms, a bank of windows on the other side, and an archway at the back that led to the kitchen and bathroom.

Still, in many ways it was the first real home she’d ever known. And except for the handful of months that had comprised her marriage, the time she’d lived here since Sam was born had been the happiest period of her life.

She stood a little straighter and retreated further into formality. “Yes, I live here. Please, sit down, Gavin. I need to make a phone call, and then I’ll be right with you.” With that she escaped into the kitchen to call work.

Annie punched in the number she knew by heart, then braced herself.

A woman’s brassy contralto answered at the other end of the line. “Yo?” she said irreverently.

Annie sagged with relief. “Nina? It’s me.”

There was a pregnant silence. “Shoot. Don’t tell me. Your car broke down again. I’m going to personally murder that son of mine—”

“No, no. The car’s fine. Really. It’s just—something’s come up. Can you tell Clia I may be a few minutes late?”

“Well, I can try. But I’ve gotta warn you, she’s on a real tear tonight. Unless you’re being held hostage by terrorists—which, by the way, would be considerably less scary than making her angry—you’d better get your fanny in here ASAP.”

Annie’s stomach sank. “Okay. I’ll do my best.”

“Good. I’ll see you shortly. Oops—gotta run. The Wicked Witch is coming this way.”

The line buzzed in Annie’s ear. She replaced the receiver, trying not to think about how much she needed her job as she walked back into the living room.

There was no relief to be found there. On the contrary; it was like going from the frying pan into the fire. Gavin stood in Sam’s darkened bedroom doorway, a small, slightly shabby teddy bear clutched in his hands. The look on his face stopped her in her tracks.

“The boy—your son…his name is Sam?” he said carefully.

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“How old is he?”

“He was two on January the second.” It was a year to the day after they’d been married; less than seven months after the Colson gates had slammed shut, destroying their marriage.

“So…” He glanced down at the stuffed animal. “He is mine, isn’t he, Annie?”

He didn’t mean the teddy bear, and she knew it. Just as she suddenly understood that, despite the stillness of his posture, the blankness of his expression, the lack of inflection in his voice, he wasn’t nearly as indifferent as she’d supposed.

Yet it never occurred to her to lie. Not because she still cared about him, she was quick to reassure herself. Other than a knee-jerk response to his undeniable physical attractiveness, she didn’t have any feelings left for him at all. Not after what he’d done…

No; she was doing this for Sam.

No matter what she felt, her child deserved a chance to know his father.

“Yes, Gavin.” Outside, the breeze had died down; her voice seemed to hang in the sudden silence. “Sam is your son.”

His head jerked up. A tremor went through him. Something flashed in his eyes, something fierce and primitive. In the next instant his control disappeared like smoke in a hurricane. “Why? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” he. demanded harshly. He closed the distance between them in two explosive strides, not stopping until the toes of his boots struck the ends of her tennis shoes. “What were you trying to do—pay me back for calling it quits?”

“No!” He was so close she had to crane her neck to look up at him. “No, of course not!”

“Then what?”

She told him the only part of the truth she could. “You made it clear you didn’t want a wife. I didn’t think you’d want to be bothered with a child!”

“Yeah?” His face worked as he stared down at her. “Well, you thought wrong! Dammit, Annie, if I’d known you were pregnant, it would’ve changed everything!”

Even though it was what she’d expected he’d say, it hurt.

Yet it was a survivable pain, she realized slowly. Three years ago it would have destroyed her, but not now—not after everything else she’d been through.

She lifted her chin and gave an eloquent shrug. “I’m sorry.”

“Damn you.” Gavin wheeled away and stalked over to one of the windows, where he braced a hand against the sash and stood staring out at the deepening twilight.

She sighed, but her voice when it came was level. “I didn’t do it to hurt you.” To be honest, she hadn’t known she could hurt him. “All I can say is that it’s in the past. We have to go on from here.”

The cotton-covered muscles in his back flexed. “Yeah? That’s easy for you to say. You haven’t missed out on your kid’s entire life.”

A half dozen retorts trembled on her tongue, chief among them a pointed reminder of where he’d been the past few years. But she swallowed it and the others, afraid to tread any deeper into the past. This was hard enough as it was. “So what is it you want?”

He turned, his blue eyes hard. “What the hell do you think?”

“I don’t know,” she said truthfully.

“I want to be a part of my son’s life.”

Annie bit back an automatic refusal, determined to remember her vow to put Sam’s interests first. Still, now that the moment was at hand, it wasn’t quite so easy to say the words that would allow Gavin access to her child. She took a deep breath. “All right,” she said finally. “I’m sure we can work out some sort of schedule for you to visit—”

“Visit?” He shook his head. “No. I’ve already missed too damn much. I’m not missing any more.”

Her breath froze in her lungs. “Then what?”

“Hell, I don’t know!” He looked around, as if the answer could be found lurking in the corners. A curious expression suddenly moved across his face. “Where is he, anyway?”

“Sam?” The clock struck six, its muted chime marking off the hours. Her heart sank. She was now officially late. “He’s at the sitter’s.”

Gavin frowned, as if only now registering the significance of having encountered her earlier out on the porch. “Why? Did you just get home from somewhere?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, then dropped her hand. She hadn’t even worked her shift, and already she was exhausted. “No, I was just going out. As a matter of fact, I’m late. Do you think we could table this until tomorrow?”

“No.”

A small spark of desperation flared inside her. Though she didn’t think Clia would fire her just for being late, she didn’t want to find out. She couldn’t afford to lose her job. “Please. It’s clear we’re not going to settle anything tonight.”

“The answer’s still no.”

“But why?”

He smiled, completely without humor. “Why do you think?”

It took her a moment to correctly interpret the distrustful look in his eyes. She sighed. “You think. If I were going to take off, I would’ve done it a week ago. I swear I’ll be here tomorrow. Maybe by then we’ll both be calm enough to talk this through and decide what’s really best for Sam.”

Amazingly, the mention of their son’s welfare did the trick. The suspicious gleam in his eyes flickered out, although his expression remained cool and probing. He searched her face. “What time tomorrow?” he asked finally.

The breath she hadn’t known she was holding sighed out. “How about noon?” This wouldn’t seem like such an ordeal after a few hours sleep, she told herself firmly. They would be able to work something out, something adult and civilized.

“The boy—Sam—will he be here?”

“Of course.”

He continued to give her the same piercing stare before he nodded abruptly. “All right.” He started for the door, only to rock to a stop after a few feet and look back at her over his shoulder. “But I’m warning you, Annie. Don’t even think about running. Now that I know about my son, I’d find you.”

With that he turned and slammed out the door.

Annie stood staring after him, not certain what she wanted to do more—yell, plead, throw something, or sink to her knees and cry until she didn’t have any more tears.

In the end she did none of those things. She didn’t have time for histrionics. Instead she grabbed her things, turned out the lights and ran for her car.

The Palomino Grill was located off Interstate 25, at the end of the freeway ramp that led to the little town of Mountainview. It was open around the clock and looked considerably better at night than during the day.

Its floor plan was simple. Booths lined three of the four walls, tables dotted the center space, and an open-ended counter with padded swivel stools stretched the length of the kitchen. An old manual cash register topped a glassfronted counter that was filled with the usual assortment of gum, candy and antacid tablets. Garish red-and-black carpeting, sun-faded red curtains and a jukebox crowned with a decade-old display of dusty plastic geraniums completed the decor.

Annie was an hour and a half past the end of her regular shift when she dropped the tray of dirty dishes. There was a ringing crash, interspersed with the tinkle of breaking glass and the clatter of bouncing cutlery.

It might not have seemed so bad if it hadn’t been the second tray she’d dropped that night.

Or if she didn’t suddenly have an overwhelming urge to cry.

But it was and she did. To her horror the room began to blur, while a lump the size of one of Sam’s Nerf balls bloomed in her throat.

Mortified, she stooped down, righted the tray and blindly began to pick the silverware out of the debris, stubbornly blinking back tears. She hadn’t suryived the past three years just to fall apart over a bunch of broken dishes, she told herself.

The reminder helped. But not nearly as much as the irreverent female voice that sounded above her head a few minutes later. “Wow. Two trays in one shift. It’s gotta be BFS.”

Annie glanced up at her friend, Nina. “What?”

“You know. BFS.” The other waitress wiggled her fingers. “Butterfinger syndrome. Occupational hazard of waitresses, data processors and brain surgeons. Of course—” she bent down, scooped up the remaining pieces of silverware and whisked away the tray “—as far as that last group goes, the consequences tend to be an eensy-weensy bit more serious.” She gave Annie a meaningful look. “Know what I mean?”

Annie stared at her thirty-something friend, looking past the rose tattoo on Nina’s wrist, the improbable burgundy hair and the triple-pierced ears, to the sympathetic hazel eyes. A grateful if shaky smile spread across Annie’s face. “I guess that does put it in perspective.”