Changed by His Son's Smile (9 page)

Chase was her son’s father. They might not be spending much time together in the future, but the emotion on Chase’s face tonight proved she needed to understand better what made the man tick.

CHAPTER NINE

C
HASE
LAY
ON
his bed, his hair still wet from his shower, and stared at the cracked ceiling. He hoped everyone went ahead and started dinner—he and Dani had arrived back much later than they’d expected as it was. But he needed a few more minutes to deal with the overwhelming feelings that had unexpectedly swamped him after the birth of the baby that afternoon.

Damn it, he’d never wanted this. Never wanted to be susceptible to the same kind of pain he’d felt when his brother had died. Never wanted to feel vulnerable to his whole universe being crushed in an instant.

But when he’d brought that baby into the world, the moment had taken away his breath.

In his career he’d delivered more babies than he could possibly guess at. Had always appreciated the miracle of birth, the joy of the mother, the pride of the father. Had enjoyed gently passing a healthy infant to suckle at its mother’s breast, and sympathized with the loss when a baby hadn’t made it.

Never had it felt personal. Until today. The first baby he’d delivered since he’d found out he had a child of his own. Seeing the baby’s tiny body, hearing his first cries, watching him looking with wide eyes at the world for the very first time had clutched at his heart like nothing before.

And the mother. She’d suffered so much with the baby’s birth and yet, barely escaping death and in tremendous pain, she’d smiled through it all when she’d first seen her son.

He’d missed that with Drew. Missed being there to help Dani. And he hated that he’d never even thought to ask her if it had been an easy birth or a hard one. Even with all the modern technology in the U.S., not all babies were born without complications.

He scrubbed his hands over his face. He never wanted to feel the cold terror for Dani and Drew that had gripped him as he’d worked with mother and infant today. The sudden fear that if something happened to either of them, his entire world would be ripped to pieces. How did people cope with that? Did they just refuse to see the dangers? The risks?

Inhaling a shaky breath, he swung his legs off the bed and sat up. The past couldn’t be changed. Andrew had been conceived and born healthy and he was the most beautiful child Chase had ever seen. And Dani was a very special woman. An incredible woman.

He’d do whatever he had to do to keep both of them safe.

As he stepped through the doorway of the kitchen, it looked like everyone had finished eating but Dani. The scene was much livelier than usual, the room filled with Spud, Trent, Dani, his parents, and Drew, who obviously enjoyed being the center of everyone’s attention. Laughter at his antics bounced off the walls of the room, but Dani’s big smile faded as he walked in, her blue gaze seeming contemplative.

He hoped like hell she hadn’t sensed how disturbed he’d felt. He also hoped he had all those feelings under control.

“Daddy!” Drew grinned and raised his arms toward Chase, his fingers gooey with mashed yams.

Chase’s chest felt peculiarly heavy and light at the same time. He couldn’t believe how quickly Drew had accepted him as his dad. How he wanted to be held by him. To be played with by him. He had to swallow hard to shove down the emotions that had swamped him earlier.

“Hey, lizard-boy. What have you been up to today?” He grabbed a wet towel, partly to give himself something to do, and wiped Drew’s hands before sitting next to him.

“Your mother and I showed him the technique for shinnying up a palm tree today,” Phil said. “He’s a natural. Even better than you when you were that age.”

“Yes,” Evelyn agreed with a proud smile. “He made it up at least three feet. With us spotting, of course. Pretty soon he’ll be getting all the way up to grab a coconut or two.”

“Little did I know this was a Bowen family tradition,” Dani said with a smile. “When Chase first showed off how he could climb a coconut tree, I thought it was just a macho thing he did to impress women.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Chase asked. He conjured up a smile and took a swallow of beer, hoping it would help him relax and feel more normal. Last thing he wanted was to have anyone guess at his feelings. Or, worse, ask.

“A few of the places we lived actually had palm-tree climbing contests. Chase and his brother even won occasionally,” his mother said.

Chase stiffened and glanced at Dani. He’d never mentioned Brady to her. Or to Trent or Spud, for that matter. What were the chances they wouldn’t ask questions?

“Chase has a brother?” Dani looked questioningly from his mother to him, her eyebrows raised.

Obviously, no chance. Chase gritted his teeth. The last thing he wanted to talk about was Brady. Not ever and especially not today.

“Had.” Evelyn’s eyes shadowed. “He—”

“Dani said she’d find some pictures of Andrew when he was a baby,” Chase interrupted. He wasn’t hungry anyway, and stood to gather empty plates, with Spud following suit. “I know you two proud grandparents want to see them as much as I do.”

Dani looked at him for a long moment before speaking. “Yes. I had more downloaded than I realized.”

She stood to retrieve her computer from a kitchen shelf, and Chase drew a deep breath of relief. Not that she wouldn’t ask again, but at least he’d be prepared to give the most basic account possible, without his parents around to embellish it, before changing the subject.

Everyone crowded around as Dani gave a slide show on her laptop. Drew had been so damned cute as a baby, with a shock of dark hair sticking up around his head, his brown eyes wide, his cheeks round and pink. Sitting on the floor amid a pile of blocks, a big grin showing just a few teeth, drool dripping from the corners of his mouth like a bulldog. She even had a video of him crawling up to the hearth in her little house, pulling himself to his feet then yanking to the floor the houseplant perched there, scattering dirt everywhere.

It was a hell of a thing that he’d missed it all.

Amid the laughing and
aww
s echoing in the kitchen, and Drew’s delight at his photos, Chase found himself looking at Dani between nearly every picture. The love and tenderness in her eyes as she looked at the captured moments in time. Not so very different from the expression on her enchanting face when they’d shared so many intimate moments in Honduras.

Her smiling gaze met his more than once, warm and close, and he almost blurted out the words right there in front of everyone. Almost asked why she was being so stubborn about marrying him when they had this beautiful child between them. The closeness they’d shared before and could share again. Why? Did she still honestly not believe him, or trust him, when he promised they could make it work? Was it her feelings for that Matt guy?

“That’s it, I’m afraid.” Dani shut her laptop with a smile at Drew. “I need to remember to take more pictures while we’re here in Benin. You seem to grow bigger every day.”

“The good news there is that Drew has grandparents with a very nice camera who now have a new favorite subject,” Phil said. “We’ve taken so many of him it’s a good thing I brought an extra memory card. Too bad we have to leave in a couple days.”

“Perhaps you and Dani can bring Drew to Senegal,” Evelyn said to Chase. “How much longer are you here in Benin?”

“Not sure.” He wasn’t about to go into that potential problem right now. He didn’t know if Dani knew he’d be leaving soon, and the last thing he wanted to give her was another reason to think they shouldn’t make things permanent between them.

Drew yawned, and Chase grabbed the excuse to get out of there. “Looks like a certain tree-climbing monkey needs to go to bed,” he said, lifting him into his arms. Drew snaked his arms around Chase’s neck and he held the child’s little body close. Would he ever stop feeling the amazement, the joy that nearly hurt at having this little guy in his life?

“I a lizard, not a monkey,” Drew said with another yawn.

His eyelids drooped and Chase headed for the door then stopped to look at Dani. He realized he didn’t know Drew’s bedtime routine, and that had to change. “You coming?”

She nodded, saying her goodnights to everyone before following him down the hall to her room.

“I’ll get him ready. You don’t have to stay,” Dani said as she pulled Drew’s Spiderman pajamas from a drawer.

“I want to know what’s involved in getting him ready for bed,” Chase said. He gently sat a half-asleep Drew on the edge of the bed and took the pajamas from Dani. Afraid the child would conk out before he’d even had a chance to change him, Chase quickly pulled Drew’s little striped shirt over his head and finished getting him into his PJs.

“We usually read a book after using the bathroom, but I don’t think he’s going to stay awake for that tonight,” Dani said as she put Drew’s discarded clothes away.

Together, they took him down the hall to take care of bathroom necessities before tucking him into bed.

“’Night, Daddy,” he said, lifting his sweet face for a kiss.

“’Night, Drew. Sleep tight.”

Drew did the same with Dani, and as Chase watched her soft lips brush their child’s cheek, saw her slender fingers tuck her unruly hair behind her ears, saw her tempting round behind as she bent over, he knew he couldn’t play the hard-to-get game any longer. Not just because it hadn’t seemed to work, he thought wryly.

He had to touch her. Had to kiss those soft lips. Had to satisfy the desire, the longing he’d barely been able to contain since she’d first arrived. Since he’d first seen her silhouetted in the sub-Saharan twilight.

He needed her tonight, and could only hope she’d give in to the feelings he knew they’d both shared, remembered, since finding one another again. Let him show her what she meant to him. Let him show her how good their future could be.

She straightened and stepped closer to Chase in the small room. “He’s already sound asleep,” she said with a smile. “Your parents wore him out. Or he wore them out. They’ve obviously had a wonderful day. Thank you.”

“For...?”

“For bringing them here. For Drew getting to know them. He hardly has any family and yours is...special.”

Her luminous eyes looked up at him, held him, and he closed the gap between them. He pulled her close, hoping she wouldn’t resist, object. “Not as special as you. No one is as special as you.”

Then he kissed her. Slowly. Softly. Not wanting to push, to rush, to insist. He wanted her to want the same thing he wanted. For them to join together and make love in a way that made everything else fade away. All the worries, the fears he’d felt earlier buried beneath the kind of passion only she had ever inspired in him.

She tasted faintly of coffee and vitality and Dani, and she kissed him back with the same slow tenderness he gave her. So different from the spontaneous combustion of their previous kisses. The kisses he fed her, that she gave in return, were full of a quietly blossoming heat. Slowly weakening him as they strengthened his need.

Her hands tentatively swept over his chest and shoulders to cup the back of his head, her tongue in a languid dance with his. He pulled her tightly against him, loving the feel of her soft curves molded perfectly to his body. Made for him.

She broke the kiss. “You are the most confusing man.”

“Not true.” He brushed her lips with his because he couldn’t stand even a moment’s distance. “There’s nothing confusing about what I want right now.”

He kissed her again, and her sigh of pleasure nearly had him forgetting about gently coaxing. Nearly had him lifting her to the bed and yanking off their clothes to tangle their bodies together, to feel every inch of her skin next to his.

She pulled her mouth away with a little gasping breath. “A couple of days ago you wouldn’t stop touching and kissing me then all day today you acted like we barely knew one another.”

“So it did work.” He pressed his mouth below her ear. Tasted her soft throat. Breathed in her sweet, distinctive scent.

“What worked?”

“I was playing hard to get. Trent told me to. Said you’d want to jump my bones.”

She gave a breathy laugh. “I swear, boys never grow up, do they?”

“So, do you?” He slipped his hands up her ribs, let one wander higher. “Want to jump my bones?”

Her lips curved, but she shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We have...issues to resolve without making things harder.”

“Except something’s already harder.”

She chuckled, her eyes twinkling, and he knew he could look into the amazing blue of them for ever. He kissed her again, hoping to make her forget about any and all issues and just feel.

Surely she could sense, through his kiss, what she meant to him. That she wouldn’t stop and pull away and end the beauty of the moment before it began. That she could feel what she did to him through the pounding of his heart and the shortness of his breath.

Dani pulled her mouth from his and untwined her hands from behind his neck. She stepped out of his hold, and Chase tried to control the frustration that had him wanting to grab her and refuse to let her go. “Dani—”

“Shh.” She pressed her fingers to his lips then slid their warmth down his arm to grasp his hand. “Your room is close by, right? Let’s go there. We’ll hear Drew if he wakes up.”

Relief practically weakened his knees. Or, more likely, he thought with a smile, they’d already been weakened by her. “Come on.”

Dragging her behind him, Chase could hear her practically running as he strode the short distance down the hall to his room, but slowing down wasn’t an option. He’d barely shut and locked the door behind them before he grabbed her again.

This time the kisses didn’t start out sweet and slow. He found himself in a rush, his mouth taking hers with a fierceness and possessiveness he couldn’t seem to control. His hands slid over her bottom, up her sides to her belly and breasts, further until he cradled her head. He released her ponytail, and the tangle of her hair curling around his hands took him back to the first time he’d kissed her, when those ringlets had captured his fingers and refused to let go.

“I’ve always loved your crazy curls,” he said. “Love the way it feels, tickling my skin.”