A Mother's Secret (7 page)

Rebecca rolled her eyes. Daniel hid a smile.

Daniel had also brought him a couple of boxes of apple juice and a selection of bottled water and various sodas for them. There were chips and luscious, fat, ginger cookies from a bakery. Rebecca heaped her own sandwich with vegetables, as well as turkey and cheese, the pesto aioli and a balsamic cream she drizzled on top.

“Yum,” she said, showing it to Mal, who forced a smile.

“That looks real good, Mom.”

Daniel gave another rusty laugh. “Was that code for ‘yuck’?”

Letting him see her amusement, she said gravely, “I’m afraid so. But I’ve convinced him it’s much nicer to pretend you can see the appeal of things other people like than to tell them what they’re eating or wearing is yucky.”

“Aunt Nomi wears these real ugly pants,” Malcolm informed him. “But I just pretend she’s got on jeans like me.”

“Yeah, they have flowers all over them,” Rebecca murmured. “Big flowers.”

“I can see the temptation to say yuck.”

“
She
thinks they’re pretty,” Mal said around a mouthful of roll and cheese.

They discussed why people had different tastes and why some men wore turbans and some women covered their faces and how Malcolm wished he never had to put on shoes. It was obvious by the time he’d nibbled at a quarter of one of the giant cookies that he was getting sleepy.

“Time to get home?” Daniel asked.

He was lounging on his side on one edge of the blanket, his head braced on his hand as they’d talked, his gaze often lingering on Rebecca’s face. Sometimes that gaze was unreadable, but a couple of times she’d seen him look from Malcolm to her, anger sparking. She hated knowing how difficult this pretense of friendship must be to him.

“Probably,” she agreed.

She packed up the basket with Daniel’s help, then wrapped Mal’s wet shoes and socks and the towel in the blanket while Daniel lifted the boy to his shoulders again. Then they started up the path, turning at the top to see how far the tide had come in. Their car was the last one here.

The drive was far quieter than the outbound trip had been. Mal was asleep within minutes.

Rebecca groped desperately for something to talk about but came up lacking. She was just conscious enough of Daniel in the enclosed confines of the car for her thoughts to be scattered. She couldn’t seem to resist sneaking glances at his big, tanned hands, wrapped around the steering wheel.

What popped out was, “You had freckles when you were a kid, didn’t you?”

He shot her a look. “Uh…yeah. On my shoulders and my nose.” He glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. “I guess they faded away at some point. I don’t remember when.”

“Malcolm has them.”

“I noticed.” His voice was uninflected.

She swallowed. “He looks so much like you.”

“I noticed that, too.” He was quiet for a moment. Then, with suppressed violence in his voice, he said, “God, Rebecca…!”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her head bowed. “You’re a natural with him.”

“And of course you thought I wouldn’t be.”

“I…didn’t know.”

Several miles passed before he said, more calmly, “We’re not gaining anything here.”

“No. It just hit me today, watching you with him, that…” She closed her eyes but made herself say it. “That having his dad will matter to him.”

“Should I be flattered?” he asked with less heat than she’d expected.

“I’m just trying to…”

“Say you’re sorry. I get it.” He slowed to turn into Half Moon Bay. “I’ve missed four and a half years of his life, Rebecca.”

“I know.” Four and a half years she’d clutched greedily to herself.

Daniel didn’t say anything else until he pulled into her driveway and turned off the car. Then he asked, “Can we plan on dinner some night this week? I’ll be down here at least a couple of days.”

That was it? They’d just go on the same way?

Grateful that she’d have the chance, Rebecca nodded. “Any night…no. I have a parent open house at school Tuesday night. Any other night.”

They settled on Wednesday. He let her carry Malcolm
inside while he followed with the car seat, which he set just inside the front door. Then he waited until she reappeared from her son’s room.

“Wednesday works for me.” His gaze rested on her face. “You got some sun today.”

“Sun? Oh!” She pressed hands to her cheeks. “I should have put lotion on. I did put it on Mal. I just wasn’t thinking. I burn so easily.”

“I remember,” he said, his voice husky and oddly intimate.

She couldn’t seem to look away from him. His eyes were intent, darker than usual. The air seemed to have been sucked from the room although the front door stood wide-open.

He was the one to back away, his expression so closed she couldn’t imagine what she’d thought she had seen.

“I’ll aim for five, five-thirty.”

“Yes. Okay.”

He nodded and left. Rebecca closed the door behind him and wondered how much else he remembered.

D
ANIEL DROVE BY THE TURNOFF
to Cabrillo Heights without even slowing. He hadn’t lied to Rebecca; he’d intended to come down today to check out the progress at the work site. But he’d gotten stuck in the office dealing with unexpected resistance to the San Rafael subdivision from neighbors, and it wasn’t as if he was needed in El Granada. He could have called Rebecca and said, “Let’s reschedule.” She’d likely have been thrilled to be able to put him off for another week.

But he hadn’t called. Had never even considered canceling. In fact, he was going to be early.

The truth was, he’d been mentally crossing off the days ever since Saturday. Damn it, he was living to see Malcolm again.

Malcolm, and Rebecca.

Going home at night these past two weeks, Daniel had been unusually conscious of how quiet his house was. He found himself remembering his satisfaction when Rebecca stayed over during their year together. Even when he’d had to work, he would look up, and there she’d be, sitting at the end of the sofa with her feet tucked under her, usually reading. Somehow she’d always sense his break in attention and lift her head to smile at him. Whatever she be
lieved, Daniel had put in fewer hours when she was around. Bedtime had been a great motivator to shut down the laptop.

He wondered what the boy—his son—would think of his house. Daniel found himself relieved that Rebecca’s delaying tactics had given him time to ease into his fatherhood thing. Spending a couple of hours with a kid that age was one thing, being responsible for him for an entire weekend was another. As bold as Malcolm had been, that was in the company of his mother. There, he felt supremely confident. Daniel had a really bad feeling that Malcolm wouldn’t happily go off to bed upstairs in this strange house shared only with the near stranger who was his father.

The highway between El Granada and Half Moon Bay was congested with commuters on their way home from work. Being stuck in the line of traffic made Daniel irritable and impatient, even as he knew he had more than enough time. He didn’t want to look too eager.

At last he turned off into Half Moon Bay and a minute later pulled up in front of Rebecca’s cottage. It was a crappy little place that should probably be razed, but he couldn’t deny that she’d made it feel homey. That was another thing she had a gift for. She’d pick up some odd piece of junk at a flea market she had dragged him to, and the next time he was in her condo he’d see that, yeah, it looked perfect on the kitchen counter with mugs hanging from it, or that it had a sculptural quality against a white wall in her hall. He had once suggested that she could have been an interior designer if she had wanted. Rebecca had only laughed.

“No, I know what
I
like. Seeing through someone else’s eyes is a whole other skill.”

He’d immediately thought she could do that. When she said, “That would look perfect in your bedroom,” she was always right. Just as he’d enjoyed every one of the books she’d loaned or given him, every all-time favorite movie of hers she had absolutely insisted he would love, too. He hadn’t said it, though, didn’t want to admit how well she understood him.

It wasn’t his insatiable physical hunger for her that had made him shy away, Daniel had long since realized. No, it was her ability to get under his skin that had bothered him. What did she see when she studied him with those disquietingly perceptive eyes? Sometimes he’d imagined her peeling away layer upon layer, until she had bared even the hurt little boy who didn’t understand why his mommy sometimes flinched from him.

He gave himself a shake, sitting there in front of her house. Apparently he had a streak of paranoia. Of course she hadn’t seen anything but the confident, successful man he’d made of himself.

No, but the fact that her very presence could shake that confidence had been enough reason for ending their relationship. He didn’t like the way she made him feel emotionally naked, and that was yet another gift of hers.

It was just too bad that seeing her again had reminded him how unbeatable their lovemaking had been.

Daniel got out, locked the car and walked up to her front door. No doorbell. He glanced at his watch as he knocked—5:07 p.m. He might look eager, but at least he wasn’t early. And why shouldn’t he be eager to see his son, after having been cheated of the first years of Malcolm’s life?

Daniel braced himself when he heard footsteps and the
door opened. Even so, he was stunned by the impact the mere sight of her had on him. Yeah, she was beautiful, but he saw beautiful women every day and wasn’t interested. Joe was right: there
was
just something about her.

Over a spaghetti-strap camisole she wore a cream-colored, loose-weave sweater that came close to sliding off one shoulder, leaving bare her long graceful neck and the delicate line of her collarbone. Hiding his reaction, Daniel thought it was damn sad when a woman’s collarbone was enough to turn him on.

She wore her rich, brown hair bundled at her nape, giving her more than ever the look of the ballerina she’d once been.

“Hi,” she said. “Come on in. Mal’s in the tub. He went to a friend’s house after school and managed to get filthy. Evan’s family has two sheepdogs, and when the dogs started digging in a flower bed the boys decided to help them.” She grimaced. “On the upside, they had a really good time.”

He laughed. “And the downside?”

She grinned, her initial caution apparently overcome. “None for them. But I’m betting Evan’s mother won’t step inside to answer the phone again and leave them unwatched for even a minute.”

Put like that…Should preschoolers ever be left unattended? “She shouldn’t have.”

“The backyard is fully fenced, and the dogs are big sweeties with the kids. Besides, Mal and Evan both are responsible for their age.” She cleared her throat. “Usually.”

His lips quirked again.

Her gaze touched on his mouth, then shied away. “Um…Go stick your head in the bathroom if you want. I’d better check on dinner.”

Daniel nodded and watched her walk away. Worn over
black leggings, her sweater came to midthigh but was so thin it clung. She was curvier than he remembered her. Maybe carrying a baby had done that. He felt a flash of…oh, hell, not anger this time, but regret, that he hadn’t seen her ripe with child.

He turned down the short hall. The bathroom door stood open and he heard a strange sound.
Blub, blub, blub.

Startled, he stopped for a minute before realizing that the kid was blowing bubbles.

He stepped into the doorway. “Hey, Malcolm.”

The boy had been floating on his stomach. He rolled and sat up, skinny and pale. And, yeah, freckled. “Hi, Mr. Kane! Did’ya see? I can put my face in the water. Mom says I can take swim lessons real soon. I can already float and everything. You wanna see?”

Daniel had barely gotten a, “Sure,” out before Malcolm rolled over again and indeed floated on his belly. The big, claw-foot tub looked a lot like the one in Daniel’s own bathroom in his 19th-century “painted lady” house. Rebecca had really loved that tub, and the fact that they both fit in it. They’d soaked the floor a few times, pushing waves over the rim when she rode him.

The memory was enough to make him shift uncomfortably. The next moment, he frowned.

She must have gone hunting for her own deep, old-fashioned tub. It wouldn’t have come with this dump of a house. Had she wanted a bathtub big enough to share with someone else? The idea pissed him off, even though he knew his anger was irrational.

“Good for you,” he said, when Malcolm surfaced triumphantly. “Learning to swim will be easy for you. The hard part for most kids is sticking their face in the water.”

“Evan is scared of getting water on his face. He won’t take a shower.” Malcolm took a moment to savor some memory. “His face was real dirty, though. I bet he didn’t like it when his mom made him wash it, huh?”

“Probably not.”

“Do I hafta hurry? Did Mom say?”

“No, I think I’m early. I doubt if your mom has dinner ready yet.”

“Good, ’cuz I
like
taking baths,” Daniel’s son said happily.

“Uh…Does your mom leave you alone in here?”

“We have a system,” Malcolm told him earnestly. “That’s what Mom says. Mostly, I have to make lots of noise. Like, if you weren’t here, I’d have to yell, ‘I’m okay, Mom,’ or sing or something. ’Cuz if I’m too quiet, she has to come and check on me lots. And then sometimes she burns dinner.”

“Gotcha.” Daniel smiled and straightened away from the door frame. “I think I’ll go talk to your mom now, so you’d better start singing again.”

“Okay. But I’m gonna float first, ’cuz now I have a minute—’cept I don’t know how long a minute is, but that’s what Mom says—before I have to sing.” He happily flipped over, sloshing water.

Daniel was laughing when he left the bathroom. The laugh must have been lingering on his face when he got to the kitchen, because Rebecca looked startled and shy.

“He told me about your ‘system.’ He doesn’t know how long a minute actually is, but he has to sing really often.”

Her mouth curved, too, as she relaxed. “Loudly. And I have to tell you, Mal is a delight in most ways, but…”

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” their son bellowed from the bathroom.

Daniel winced and finished her sentence. “But he can’t carry a tune.”

She turned back to the stove. “Well, I’m not what you’d call musical, so he probably got it from me, but even I have enough ear to know there’s probably not a lot of point in wasting money on piano lessons.”

Daniel leaned one hip against the counter. “Have you ever heard me sing?”

“Uh…no.”

“There’s a reason for that. Apparently he came by his tin ear naturally.”

She might not be able to carry a tune, but her laugh was musical enough to make up for it. “Oh, dear! I didn’t realize. Poor Malcolm!”

“Doomed,” Daniel agreed.

She cocked her head and raised her voice. “Mal?”

“I’m getting out now, Mom!” he called back. “’Cuz I’m hungry!”

“Dinner’s almost ready.” She dumped spaghetti into a large pot and glanced apologetically at Daniel. “We have spaghetti a lot. Four-year-olds like their five or six favorite meals over and over…and over. I thought this was a better alternative than macaroni and cheese or cheeseburgers.”

“Both of which I like, too.”

Either the steam from the boiling water or renewed shyness had turned her cheeks pink. “You aren’t picky, are you?”

“Only about some things,” he murmured, then with the next breath thought,
Crap
. Flirting with her at this point was not a good idea. He was careful to remove all inflection from his voice when he added, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

As if nothing awkward had been said, she set him to slicing French bread. He had no doubt she was glad to leave the kitchen to check on her son. God.
Their
son.

Daniel felt an uncomfortable stirring at the reminder. Maybe it was natural that this knowledge they’d created a child together was somehow sexual to him. Most men got that primitive response out of the way while their wives were pregnant, but he hadn’t had the chance. He was only discovering now that his seed had impregnated her, and, damn it, that made him feel…

His jaw spasmed. Things he shouldn’t feel.

Remember, she stole your son. This is about reclaiming him. It’s not about Rebecca.

Their voices drifted from the bathroom or maybe Malcolm’s bedroom. A moment later she reappeared.

“He’s getting dressed.”

He nodded. “Do you want me to butter this, too?”

“If you don’t mind.” She handed him a tub of margarine from the refrigerator, then put a colander in the sink and dumped the spaghetti and boiling water into it. Then she set down the pan and faced him with an air of resolution. “Tell me, are you involved with someone right now?”

Time seemed to slow as, knife in hand, Daniel turned to face her. “Why do you want to know?”

“I thought she—whoever she is—must be wondering about all this. You coming down here.” She lifted her brows in a challenge. “Or haven’t you told her?”

“There isn’t anyone right now,” he said shortly. Hadn’t been anyone serious since her, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. He hadn’t even been on a date in months. The mild interest he occasionally felt for a particular woman no
longer seemed to justify the elaborate effort courtship—or even seduction—required.

“Oh.” Rebecca seemed taken aback. “I assumed…” She bit her lip, her brown eyes searching his. “I suppose I was worried about whether there’d be someone else involved in taking care of Malcolm.”

“There’s no one,” he repeated.

“Oh,” she said again.

Why the hell couldn’t he seem to look away from her? Why couldn’t he think about anything but her lips and the texture of her skin and the hollow at the base of her long, slender throat? He wasn’t even sure if he was breathing. She was; her breasts rose and fell as if she had gasped for air.

The knife in his hand clattered to the countertop. She jerked, but still stared at him, eyes dilated with panic or with the same desire that was choking him. Had it really been five years since he’d had her?

A chill swept over him. She’d known she was pregnant the last time they made love. No, not just the last time—their entire last
month
together.

And he had been preparing to ditch her.

Very deliberately, he turned away and picked up the knife.

In a flurry, she left the kitchen.

Daniel let his head drop and swore under his breath. So he wanted her; big news there. Maybe at some point he could let go of his anger enough to imagine them trying the marriage road, if only for Malcolm’s sake. Oh, hell, be honest—the idea held some appeal.

It also scared the crap out of him.

He pulled himself together and resumed buttering the
French bread just as she came back into the kitchen with their son in tow.

Malcolm announced, “That smells
great!
”