Once a Father Page 14

  “’Morning.”

  So much for a smooth exit. He passed his tongue over his lips. “’Morning,” he muttered.

  Tracy sat up, freeing his trapped arm. He pulled it away as if he thought she was going to pin him down again. She cocked her head, trying to read him. “Were you trying to make a getaway?”

  “I was trying not to wake you.” Which was the truth, as far as it went.

  “Considerate and a fantastic lover. What a combination.” Her eyes washed over him. There was mischief in them, just as there had been last night.

  If anyone deserved a compliment, it was her. “You were pretty fantastic yourself.”

  She laughed softly to herself, her eyes never leaving his. “I guess we both rose to the occasion.”

  A corner of the sheet drooped, allowing him just the barest hint of a view of her breast. Enough to whet his appetite. And then some.

  If he didn’t get moving now, he was going to slip back into bed with her and make love again, a little voice warned.

  Tracy glanced at her watch, the only thing she hadn’t taken off last night. It was six o’clock in the morning. A sense of responsibility reared its head somewhat belatedly.

  “Oh God, Petunia’s probably eating the rug.” On her feet, completely unselfconscious in her nudity, Tracy began to gather up her clothes. “I’ve got to get home and feed her.”

  He couldn’t help himself.

  The sight of her body, seductively shadowed in the dusky early morning, was too much for him. He couldn’t even try to resist.

  Coming up behind her as she started to get dressed, Adam turned her around to face him. And then he kissed her again.

  Tracy’s good intentions melted with her resolve.

  “Well, maybe a few more minutes won’t hurt,” she murmured. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d left the animal to starve. She’d made sure Petunia had a heaping dish of pet food in her dish before she’d left yesterday morning. “I’ll give her an extra portion when I get home. Roasted ears of corn with truffles. Her favorite.”

  It was all she could say. Her mouth was suddenly too busy to form words.

  Chapter 12

  Adam had no idea how it evolved, but thoughts of Tracy were filling his days and his nights.

  He’d actually made himself believe, after that first night they’d spent together, that it was just a one-time thing, that it was better for both of them that way. That if he didn’t say anything to her and steered clear of the subject, the night of passionate lovemaking would be forgotten.

  Instead, though he had valiantly kept up his side of the silent bargain he’d made with himself, that night was always there, in the back of his mind, whispering seductively to him. Making him ache to recapture the moments. To duplicate them. The memory of that night dictated his movements, dominated his mind, gave him no peace.

  After more than a week, he stopped waiting for it to fade and stopped secretly hoping that fate would arrange things so that the decision to be with her would be somehow taken out of his hands and forced upon him by one event or another. After nine days of trying to remain civil but distant, Adam became a mover again, rather than a bystander in his own life.

  As they went through their own changing of the guard ever since he had gone back to duty and she to her position in the hospital, Adam took matters into his own hands. About to leave for work, he stopped Tracy before she could go to check in on Jake. The boy was in his bedroom, playing with a video game set she had recently bought for him. After some coaxing, Jake started to play. Now it seemed to be the only thing that grounded him.

  Surprised that Adam stopped her, she raised her brow in a silent query. Silence, it seemed, was not a mode restricted to Jake alone. Adam apparently preferred it himself.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Tracy could feel her heart pick up its tempo. They’d hardly spoken more than nine sentences in as many days. She was beginning to think that anything she’d felt that single night they’d shared had been one-sided. The following day, he’d acted as if it had never happened and she would be damned if she was going to be the one to bring it up. Up to that point, she had to admit she’d done almost everything except trip him and stand on his chest to bring him around. But some things a woman had to let a man do or it just didn’t count.

  Tracy wasn’t altogether certain she liked the tone of his voice. Was he going to tell her he wanted to erase her from his life? Or maybe he wanted her to know he was going to give Jake back to the foster system that was still attempting, along with his lawyer, to untangle the matter of his guardianship? His expression gave nothing away. The man was just as much of a trial to her as the boy. More so.

  Second-guessing was giving her a headache. “Yes?” she prodded.

  Adam felt as if his tongue had turned into a giant, hot omelet that was almost impossible to handle. Words weren’t coming. Frustrated, he said the obvious. “I have to go on duty tonight.”

  “I know that.” Tracy waited for him to tell her something she didn’t know.

  Damn, but she was making this hard, looking at him with those soft hazel eyes of hers. “But I don’t have to tomorrow.”

  This was beginning to sound odd. “I know that, too.” He’d given her his schedule last week. He knew that. What was this about?

  Pressing her lips together to keep her questions back, she waited for Adam to continue. After all, he’d started this conversation, such as it was.

  But when no more words followed, she leaped to the only conclusion she could. “If you’re trying to tell me not to come over, you don’t have to. I know the arrangement.”

  He blew out an exasperated breath. For once he wished that he had the glib ways of his brothers. Especially Dennis. Dennis always knew what to say no matter what the situation.

  “No,” he finally said, “I’m trying to tell you to come over.”

  She decided he couldn’t mean what she’d like him to mean. This was Adam and Adam wanted no involvement. He’d made that perfectly clear. “Because you’re going out?” she guessed.

  He didn’t know how much plainer he could make this without tripping on his tongue again. “No, because I’m staying in.”

  She’d had shoes that were more communicative than this man was. “I bet they called you ‘Gabby’ when you were a kid.”

  Adam cleared his throat and made another attempt. “I’m trying to ask you to come over because I’m staying in.” His eyes held hers for the briefest of seconds. “Come for dinner. I’ll cook this time. Grilled steaks,” he elaborated. The impact of what he’d just said hit him. Maybe she’d misunderstood his motives. He dragged a hand through his hair. “Look Tracy, I can’t promise you anything—”

  One step at a time, she cautioned herself. Like with Jake, take this one step at a time. “I never asked you to,” she told him quietly.

  He went on as if she hadn’t interjected anything. Now that he’d started this, she deserved to know the rest of it. “—But I can’t seem to get you out of my head.”

  Was that fear she saw in his eyes, or wariness? “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “I don’t know,” he told her honestly.

  She smiled, her heart warming. This had taken a lot on his part, she knew that. “Maybe you should try to find out.”

  He squared his shoulders, feeling not unlike someone sharing military plans with the enemy. Maybe he was crazy. All he knew was that trying to avoid her wasn’t working.

  “That’s what I’m going to be doing. Tomorrow night.” He shrugged, afraid that she might make more of this than it was—even though he wasn’t sure himself just what it was. “Besides, you’re so much better talking to Jake than I am.” He looked at her. “I need input,” he confessed.

  Tracy couldn’t help laughing. “You need a ventriloquist,” she corrected. “Maybe you haven’t noticed but most conversations I have with you are eighty percent monologues. You have a tendency to act as if you came from the Gary Cooper School of Communi
cation. All you need to do is kick the ground a few times and mumble, ‘Shucks, ma’am,’ and you’d be a shoo-in.”

  He tried to find his way in this maze he found himself in. “So is that a no, you won’t come?”

  Her mouth curved in a fond smile as she shook her head. The man couldn’t read her at all, could he?

  “No, that’s a yes.” Unable to stop herself, she touched his cheek. In his own strange way, the man was a dear. “Haven’t you heard? I’m a sucker for Gary Cooper. Saw all his movies as a kid.”

  He looked at Tracy uncertainly. “Hasn’t he been dead for a long time?”

  “Cable has an awful lot of old movie channels,” she reminded him. The man probably never even turned on his set when he was alone, she guessed. Which made him very different than her. After greeting Petunia, she always turned on her set just for the comforting sound of voices talking in the background. “You’d be surprised what’s on late at night for a lonely kid to watch.”

  He had to get going, even though the fire station was only a few blocks from his apartment. Yet he wanted to linger, to hear her speak. Having abandoned his futile attempt to root her out of his mind, both subconscious and otherwise, he now wanted to remain and talk with her.

  Hell, he upbraided himself, call a spade a spade. He didn’t want to talk with her, he wanted to make love with her. Wildly. All night.

  And feeling this way scared the hell out of him.

  With effort, he shook himself free of the thought. This wasn’t the time or the place. He had work to get to and Jake was awake.

  Adam began to edge out of the room and toward the door. But his eyes remained on her. What she’d said had caught his attention.

  “Were you? A lonely kid I mean?” he asked when she didn’t respond immediately.

  She nodded. “Pretty much. My parents didn’t approve of too many people.” Well-to-do with superior intellects, her parents were utter snobs and completely unapproachable. “That limited my access to anyone. They thought I would do better to read and improve my mind instead of wasting my time playing with other kids.”

  He would have thought that someone who was raised like that wouldn’t be able to relate to children, would be more of a loner, like him. Yet he was the one with a basketful of siblings and a large extended family and he liked keeping to himself for the most part. Especially after fate had twisted a knife in his gut.

  Funny how things turned out.

  He realized that if he remained here one more second, looking into her eyes, he was going to sweep her into his arms and kiss her. And more than likely set fire to all his good intentions.

  In self-defense, he glanced at his watch. “I’d better go. I don’t want to be late.”

  “Can’t tarnish a perfect record,” she couldn’t help teasing.

  “Right.”

  Adam was halfway out the door before he stopped and doubled back. Good intentions or not, he knew he couldn’t just walk out like this. Not when there was this need building up within him like some kind of coal-fed railroad engine. Catching hold of her waist with one hand, he pulled Tracy to him and kissed her hard before finally releasing her.

  Without a word, he turned on his heel and left, knowing that he was precariously close to throwing all caution to the wind.

  Tracy ran the tip of her tongue lightly along her lips. Tasting him. She stared after Adam, more than a little mystified and dazed. And more than a little happy.

  “You are a puzzlement, Adam Collins, that you are,” she murmured. But it was a puzzle she meant to find the solution to.

  With that, she went to look in on Jake.

  He wasn’t altogether sure that he was doing the right thing. A dozen trite sayings ran through his head, from “Let sleeping dogs lie” to the equally spectacular “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” All of them undermined his decision to have Tracy over for dinner.

  If he continued to sail along, he argued silently as he threw cherry tomatoes onto some fresh lettuce, avoiding all but the most cursory encounters with Tracy, perhaps eventually he would get back to the place he’d been before he met her.

  Dumping a glob of Caesar dressing on the combination, he began mixing everything together.

  Yeah, right, and maybe the sun would start orbiting around the earth.

  It wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t going to find his way, blindly or otherwise, to square one and he might as well make his peace with that.

  Setting the salad bowl aside on the counter, Adam opened the oven door and pulled the pan halfway out. Gingerly, he turned the three steaks he was broiling over with his large fork.

  As he closed the door again, he saw the boy looking at him curiously. Jake had been hanging around the perimeter of the kitchen for the past ten minutes, watching him.

  “Yes, she’s coming.”

  He was getting pretty good at reading Jake, at anticipating the questions that were not going to be verbalized.

  Adam knew he’d guessed correctly when the boy smiled. It was a Tracy smile, Adam thought. The smile that Jake wore whenever the woman did something to please him. It wasn’t difficult. The boy was coming along, eating better, playing games. Listening when she read to him. Even watching that silly little pig of hers when she brought it over to do tricks. Adam could have sworn he almost laughed out loud when she showed the boy the way her pet could find her when she hid in closets or behind doors.

  Maybe soon, he thought. Maybe soon Jake would talk again.

  He wondered what Jake’s laugh was like. Was it like hers? Light and airy, or did it sound like a high-pitched belly laugh, the way his nephew’s did?

  Examining and discarding several, Adam finally dug out three paper napkins that didn’t look as if someone had sat on them. He placed them on the table.

  “Wish I knew what you were thinking, Jake. Wish I knew how to unlock whatever lock snapped shut for you.”

  Frustrated, he pushed the thought out of his head. Nothing was going to change tonight so there was no use in belaboring things he had no control over.

  Like the way he was beginning to feel about Tracy.

  Beginning.

  The word mocked him, as if he knew that he was lying to himself.

  Well, hadn’t he been lying to himself all along, thinking that he couldn’t feel anything for anyone again? That everything he was or would ever be had died along with Gloria? He hadn’t died and maybe that was what he regretted the most. He was alive and well and every passing day made him that much more acutely aware of that fact.

  That he felt.

  But he couldn’t dwell on it.

  “Get me the milk out of the refrigerator, will you Jake?” he asked as he put the appropriate flatware on the table.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the boy making his way to the refrigerator.

  To look at Jake, you would never have thought anything was wrong. He looked like an average, healthy five-year-old. Except that he still didn’t speak.

  But there was life to him now and color to his cheeks, unlike when he’d gone to see Jake in the hospital or when he’d first brought him home. That was entirely Tracy’s doing, Adam thought.

  He smiled to himself. Tracy had a way of breathing life into the lifeless.

  He was living proof.

  The doorbell rang as he put down the last fork on the small kitchen table. It barely accommodated the three of them, but luckily, Jake was small and didn’t require much room.

  He saw Jake looking at him expectantly.

  “That’s her,” Adam told the boy even as he crossed to the door. The boy took a step back, waiting. His eyes intent on the door.

  Adam pulled it open.

  She looked different, he thought. And then it hit him. She was wearing a dress. She looked the way she might if she were going out on a date.

  Is that what this was? A date? He couldn’t wrap his mind around that.

  And he couldn’t take his eyes off her. The electric blue sheath slid along her curves the
way his hands itched to do.

  He needed a cold shower. But it was too late for that.

  “Can I take that from you?” he asked, nodding at the grocery bag she was holding.

  “My arms haven’t gone numb, Collins,” she informed him cheerfully, breezing past him and walking in. “Mrs. Wells looked as if she approved.”

  “You talked to her?” he asked, shutting the door.

  “No, but she smiled when I waved to her.” Tracy saw Jake standing next to the counter. “There’s the light of my life. How are you doing, Jake?” The smile on his face, albeit tiny, caused triumph to course through her veins. Baby steps. She set the bag down on the counter, then bent over to kiss the top of the boy’s head. “He been treating you okay?” For the boy’s benefit, she nodded toward Adam. “Can’t complain, huh? Well, you can if you want to,” she advised, slipping off her coat and tossing it onto a recliner in the living room, beside Adam’s and Jake’s. For some reason neither one of them understood, Jake wanted to keep his jacket there, close to the door. So that was where they left it, along with theirs, to give the boy a feeling of unity.

  “Just tug on my sleeve anytime you’re ready and we’ll have a heart-to-heart about this big, strapping fireguy.” She stopped to sniff the air. “Is that dinner?”

  Adam tore his eyes away from the back of her dress, which dipped down halfway to her waist and made him realize that she couldn’t be wearing a bra. It took a second before he could reply.

  “Yes, and it’s not burning if that’s what you’re going to say. It’s grilling.”

  Her grin was broad, humoring. “Of course it is. I never doubted it for a moment.” she stepped over to the stove. “Mind if I take a look?”

  Before he could say anything about the sacred firefighter tradition of meat grilling, Tracy was opening the oven door.

  He shook his head. The woman did have a way of taking over. “Would it stop you if I said yes?”

  Bending over to examine the steaks, Tracy smiled at him over her shoulder. She gave dinner the once-over. “It might give me pause.”