Dare to Hold (14 page)

She’d taken a long shower first, and now she walked around his kitchen in one of those silky short outfits she preferred, this one in soft beige. The kind that showed everything and gave him a permanent hard-on. If he hadn’t caught her wearing something similar when she’d believed she’d be alone, he’d have thought she was deliberately torturing him.

After dinner, they moved out to the patio, relaxing on adjacent lounge chairs. He stared out at the pool, enclosed by a fence for baby and child safety, remembering the time and effort he’d put into designing the yard after he’d bought the house. The yard had been a priority, and he’d started on the back immediately because suddenly he’d been looking forward to a whole different kind of life. Leah hadn’t been.

He tilted his head and glanced at Meg. She studied him in silence, serious brown eyes taking him in. Waiting.

“I guess it’s time,” he said.

She lifted her shoulder, which had the bonus effect of raising her breasts beneath the flimsy top. Her nipples, tight from the slightly cooler night air, peaked against the sheer tank, and Scott bit back a groan. There was way too much to come for his mind or body to consider that kind of detour.

“Only if you want to. I’m not going to force you to bare your soul,” she said. Her little tongue darted out, moistening her bottom lip, and he was tempted to say fuck it, straddle her on the recliner, and forget all about his past.

But she’d hold it against him if he didn’t talk or tried to distract her. He got it. Her life was an open book for him. He’d made himself a part of hers. Fair was fair. No matter how much he hated revisiting that time in his past, he would.

He leaned his head back against the cushioned headrest but kept his gaze on hers. “You know about my family. My father never being home, finding out about his other kids and his mistress. I guess you could say it left a very sour taste in my mouth about marriage.”

She lay on her side and curled her knees in, getting comfortable. “I guess a crappy childhood leads you to go one of two ways. You search for something better or you decide never again.”

Meg wanted better. Scott knew that without asking. For all her talk about standing on her own—and he believed that’s what she wanted—deep down inside, she also desired the happily ever after you only read about in books. Which begged the question: What was he doing getting so involved with her now? Any way he sliced it, she’d be having a baby and settling into a domesticity he’d never envisioned for himself before or after Leah.

“Go on,” Meg said into his extended silence.

He blinked, her voice bringing him back to the present. He cleared his throat. “You’re right. I had no intention of getting married.”

“So what happened?”

He shrugged. “Hurricane Leah. I met her at a Thunder Christmas party. She was a model and had come with one of the players, but they weren’t getting along and broke up before the night even ended. He left her there; she was stranded…”

“And you stepped up. Scott Dare, to the rescue.” She waved her hand through the air.

He heard the bitter irony in her tone, but he couldn’t deny it. Apparently he had a pattern, or at least he’d done the same thing twice. Seen a woman in trouble and stepped in to save her.

Instead of addressing Meg’s comment, he merely went on. “We seemed to want the same thing out of life, which, back then, was a good time. And I liked having someone to come home to. We moved in together pretty quickly. I won’t deny that I knew she liked the status of being with a Dare. She wanted the perks that came along with having my brother as president of the Thunder and my father owning a string of luxury hotels. To be honest, it didn’t bother me at the time.” He glanced at Meg.

“That’s almost as sad as me dating men, hoping they’d change, and keeping them around long past their expiration date so I wouldn’t be alone,” she said.

Wow. That hurt, he thought, letting her words bounce around his brain. But… “You have a point there. And if I’d had my brain in the right place, I might have realized it was inevitable that the relationship would go south. Instead, I listened to my—”

Meg laughed before he could finish the sentence. “I get the point.”

“Right. But I really did think I loved her at the time. I knew she wanted to get married, what we had was fine, fun … so I agreed. And it remained fun until about a week after the honeymoon when she started pressuring me to leave the force and take a job with Ian or my father.”

Meg’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “First of all, you would never work for your father. I got that about you pretty quickly. And second, sitting behind a desk with nothing to stimulate you would kill you. You need the excitement of some kind of investigative work. Surveillance, digging into facts, reading motives, going after bad guys, and helping people.” She shot him a look filled with pure disappointment. “I can’t believe you married someone who didn’t understand that about you.”

Scott shook his head, a mixture of emotions filling him as he listened to Meg’s succinct summary. In a couple of weeks, she knew him better than Leah, who he’d been with for a year before they’d married. Meg not only understood who he was, she innately knew what he needed. And holy shit, that blew him away.

“Okay, well, yes, you’re right. I like to chalk it all up to me being young, horny, and stupid.”

“Your words, not mine.” She grinned, and the smile reached inside her, lighting up her eyes with a sparkling twinkle. “I think there’s more though?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, there’s more. Leah and I had agreed neither one of us wanted children.”

Meg’s expression dimmed at that, and Scott felt the loss of that megawatt smile.

Might as well get it over with, he thought. “But then Leah got pregnant, and it was a shock because we’d both been careful.”

“The unexpected does happen,” Meg said dryly.

The sun began to set behind her, the fading rays hitting her hair, burnished auburn and red highlights capturing his attention.

He wished he were free to wrap himself up in her, but this story was having an impact on them both, and he felt her curling into herself. He hated it, but he had to finish and then deal with the fallout.

“It started as shock, but like you, I wrapped my head around the reality pretty quickly, and I started thinking about a life beyond just myself and Leah. And I could see it. The family I never thought I wanted, kids I didn’t think I’d have… I got excited. And invested.”

“You bought this house.” Meg’s gaze fell on the structure behind him.

He nodded. “But Leah wasn’t as fired up as I was. In fact, she was depressed. I wanted to show her how good things could be. So yeah, I bought it as a surprise and started the renovations immediately. Eventually I brought her out here. I figured if she could look at things through my eyes, she’d see what I saw and want the same thing.”

“Except she didn’t?” Meg asked.

Scott shook his head, and Meg wondered what in the world was wrong with the woman Scott had married. Meg’s baby’s father had thrown her against the nearest wall when he’d found out she was pregnant. Scott had bought a fricking McMansion. And his ex-wife still hadn’t been happy.

“What happened?” Meg asked, needing to hear the rest.

“She looked around, asked me why in the hell I’d think she wanted to live anywhere but South Beach, where the parties and the action was. At which point, she informed me she’d already had an abortion and had just been waiting for the right time to tell me.”

Meg sucked in a shallow breath and nearly choked on her own saliva. “Oh my God.”

“Yep. Didn’t even ask me how I felt about it ahead of time. She didn’t give me a choice. Hell, she didn’t give my feelings any thought at all. And I’d already made it perfectly clear that, while I might be surprised, her pregnancy was a gift in disguise. I wanted that baby.”

He pushed himself up and paced in front of Meg’s chair, his agitation clear.

Meg’s stomach suddenly hurt, and she eased back against the soft cushion and wrapped her arms around her knees. “That’s awful.”

He nodded. “It sucked.”

“So you divorced her.”

“Yep. Her behavior and selfish actions mocked my change of heart. I should have gone with my gut instinct after all. My father had taught me a hard-won lesson.”

“What lesson was that?” Meg asked softly, almost afraid to hear.

He let out a harsh sound she couldn’t interpret. “That the whole family thing is for suckers and happily ever after only happens in fairy tales.”

Meg ducked her head, not wanting him to see how much she hurt for him … and for herself. Because like Scott, she’d seen the worst in relationships, but unlike him, she kept wanting to believe in the fairy tale. Even now. And she obviously wouldn’t be finding it with him.

Her eyes filled and she blinked back the tears. Despite having promised herself she wouldn’t hold out any hope for something more with Scott, she knew now that she had. Having him around, so caring and invested in her safety, him looking at her like he wanted to eat her up and come back for seconds… A tiny kernel of hope had taken up residence in her heart. Thank God he’d revealed his past and his feelings about marriage and family now and not down the road when Meg would really have begun to delude herself into seeing what she wanted to see. After all, she was good at that.

“I’m really sorry,” she whispered.

“At least now you know why I reacted the way I did when you told me Mike demanded you terminate the pregnancy.” His tone softened, as it always did when he spoke to her. “I know how much you want this baby.” He stood in front of her chair, so big, handsome, and at the moment, self-contained.

He’d pulled into himself much the way she had. And that was a good thing, she told herself. Perspective was something she desperately needed.

“I do want it.” Meg pressed a hand to her belly. “And I appreciate you telling me everything. I know it wasn’t easy.”

He rolled his shoulders, stretching as he rotated his muscles. She watched the flex and bend, swallowing hard at the perfect specimen of masculinity he presented.

“It’s in the past,” he finally said.

Not so much, she wanted to tell him. But she didn’t. Perspective, she reminded herself. She eased herself to a standing position, rubbing her arms, suddenly a little chilled now that the sun had set … and reality had dawned with it. Facing the truth was a gift she was determined to give herself from now on.

“I’m going to head inside. I’m cold,” she told him.

And where normally he’d wrap his arms around her and chase away the chill, he merely nodded. “I’ll be up soon.”

“I’ll probably be asleep. It’s been a really long day.”

He didn’t answer and she wasn’t surprised. He was lost in thought, probably somewhere in the pain of his past. She wasn’t as keen on thinking deeply or dwelling on what she couldn’t change. She’d do as she’d told him. She’d turn in and hope she fell asleep. Tomorrow was a new day, and the way things were going, it would bring new challenges. Meg had to be ready to face them.

*     *     *

Scott headed indoors shortly after Meg went upstairs and popped open a cold beer. “What the hell are you doing?” he asked himself. Why had he let Meg go to bed alone when he knew how upset she had to be after his story?
Not the story, asshole
, but his gut reaction to what Leah had done.

That family thing is for suckers, and happily ever after only happens in fairy tales.
What the fuck had possessed him to dump all that on her and in those words?

He rubbed his burning eyes with the heels of his hands. Meg had asked for honesty, and once he’d gotten rolling on what Leah had done, his lingering anger had burst through. He hadn’t been talking to Meg. Sensitive, caring Meg. He’d been furious and still feeling betrayed by his ex-wife.

Scott put down the full bottle of beer. Drinking wasn’t going to help. Neither was attempting to sort through his feelings for Meg, though he couldn’t contain his thoughts.

He’d been unable to stay away from her, attraction and desire overcoming any rational thought. To be honest, he hadn’t had a single rational moment since laying eyes on Meg in that hospital bed. As a result, he’d talked her into a one-night stand, though admittedly he hadn’t had to try too hard to convince her. She’d been right there with him. Except he’d known going in that one night wouldn’t be enough.

And now he found himself acting like her white knight and protector, and he had no regrets about it. None at all. The desire he’d felt for her from the beginning was still going strong, but now he
knew
her. Liked her even more.

Meg was everything Leah wasn’t. Warm, caring, nurturing yet strong. Beautiful and real, inside and out. And she was more independent than she wanted to believe herself. He admired everything about her. But as much as he’d told himself he’d known she was pregnant going in, that it didn’t matter, suddenly it did. She was creating a life for herself that he’d never believed he desired. And the one time he’d allowed himself to want it, everything had been ripped away from him in an instant, leaving him raw and back where he’d started. Convinced marriage, babies, and family weren’t for him.

Except with Meg, a part of him was starting to envision just that, and it scared him to death. He couldn’t pull away from her if he wanted to—and he didn’t. Nor could he tell himself he was staying because she needed protection. He was sticking because he needed her. Wanted her. But Meg made it perfectly clear she preferred to be independent and not lean on any man. Which put him back in the same position he’d unwittingly found himself in with his ex. When this mess with her stalker baby daddy was over, Meg might just decide she no longer needed
Scott
in her life. At all.

Chapter Eight