Harlequin Superromance November 2014 - Box Set 2 of 2: Christmas at the Cove\Navy Christmas\Until She Met Daniel (8 page)

His jaw tightened. “Then we’re halfway there.”

Halfway where? Why did he seem so settled about all this when she was a bundle of nerves? It should be him floundering around, unsure of what happened next, not her.

She glanced at him. “Do you know anywhere private we can talk? I get the impression Templeton’s residents like to be in other people’s business. I’d much prefer us to be alone.”

“We could head to the beach. It’s a nice day and they have a hut down there that sells coffee and hot chocolate.” He turned and met her eyes. “I know a spot where no one will find us.”

The insinuation in his tone stoked her irritation. “I bet you do. I’m sure you know plenty of places to take women so you’re alone with them.”

He lifted his shoulders. “Maybe I do.”

Feeling foolish and immature, Carrie ignored the tension that scored like sharpened claws across her shoulders and smiled. “I’m not afraid of you, Scott.”

He frowned. “You say that as though I’d like you to be.”

“You seem more self-assured than yesterday.”

“And that worries you.”

It was a statement rather than a question and the confidence in his tone sent Carrie’s apprehension soaring. “What’s changed?”

He halted and looked directly into her eyes. “If I have a child, I want to know everything about her. This stopped being about you and me the moment Belle entered the equation.”

Dread knotted Carrie’s stomach. “Meaning?”

“Meaning it’s her at the forefront of my mind right now. Nothing else.”

He turned and continued walking, leaving Carrie momentarily paralyzed. What the hell did he mean by that? Blinking, she hurried forward and fell into step beside him, her nerves stretched to breaking. They walked in silence. The street was busy with parents and children and people laden with bags and boxes decorated in festive reds and greens. The scene provided a picturesque and welcome excuse not to talk. Every now and then she stole a glance at Scott, expecting his jaw to be set and his brow furrowed as it had been for most of the time they’d been in each other’s company. Instead he was smiling softly.

Does he know something I don’t? Why is he so happy all of a sudden?

They left the sidewalk and joined the boardwalk. Scott extended his arm to encompass the sand that stretched over a mile each way. “Welcome to Cowden Beach.”

Carrie turned to her first sight of the Cove’s sands since she’d arrived. She smiled. “It’s gorgeous. The last time I was here I was in a bikini and slathered in sunscreen, but even in December it looks amazing.”

She met his gaze. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were toe-curling and sexily dark.

She frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head and looked to the refreshment hut farther along the beach. “Coffee or chocolate?”

“Hot chocolate would be great.”

“Good choice. Bart’s cabin is by no means Marian’s bakery, but he still makes a great hot chocolate. Follow me.”

They descended the sand-covered steps onto the beach and when he put a hand to her elbow, Carrie pretended not to notice. Once they were on the sand and his hand didn’t move, she continued to ignore it. They approached a hut painted in a faded pink that Carrie imagined was once bright red. It appeared to act as a beacon to any beach dwellers and the line was four or five people deep.

At last, he released her elbow and nodded toward the ocean. “Enjoy the view. I’ll be right back.”

He left her alone and she ran her gaze appreciatively over his strong, broad back hidden under leather, down to his taut butt and thighs in blue denim. She sighed and dragged her gaze to the blue-gray ocean in the distance, inhaling the salty air and drawing on her emotional armor for what was sure to be one of the hardest conversations of her life.

She would be entirely honest and answer Scott’s questions as fully as possible. He kept their agreed meeting and was clearly willing to listen. The question was, where and how to start?

His apparent new state of mind indicated he had things he wanted to share too, but God only knew what he could possibly have to say to make him so damn cheerful. If he thought he got to decide what happened from there on in, he had a shock coming. Belle was her child...and would remain solely hers until she got to know Scott and his intentions.

She glanced toward the hut. He chatted with a man she assumed was Bart, laughing and smiling; the scene was entirely too reminiscent of the first time she’d seen Scott chatting with a bartender on that fateful night they met. She turned back to the ocean and toyed with her wedding band. His comment about Belle being at the forefront of his mind was worrying. Did he mean to claim joint custody? Would this turn into a battle she hadn’t anticipated rather than the possible reunion she stupidly came here to explore?

Carrie pressed a hand to the nerves jumping in her stomach and prayed she and Scott quickly found their way to a mutually satisfying agreement. If the tension simmering beneath the surface flared between them again, it would end in certain disaster.

Belle’s disaster.

There couldn’t be a time when Carrie stood in front of her daughter and was forced to confess it was her failed relationship with Scott that had robbed his presence from Belle’s life. If anything happened between her and Scott and it didn’t work out...

When Scott turned and walked toward her, Carrie straightened her spine.

“Here you go.”

He held out a steaming paper cup and she smiled. “Thanks.”

“Why don’t we find a sheltered spot on the rocks? I wouldn’t have thought anybody would be around there this time of year.”

They walked the short distance to a black, gray and brown tumble of rocks that stretched tens of feet from the sand to the bottom of a huge hill dotted with houses high above the beach. He led her to a rock smoothed flat and shiny by years of the tide’s assault. He shrugged out of his jacket, folded it and put it on the rock. He sat beside it and patted the jacket, his blue eyes steady on hers. “Take a seat.”

She smiled at his show of chivalry. “Thank you.”

She settled on his jacket and lifted the cup to her lips. Silence came down between them and Carrie slowly counted to ten, knowing she should be the one to start the conversation. She sipped her drink and then held it in her lap. “I’m sorry it took me so long to come here.”

She could practically feel his gaze boring into her temple and she dragged her study from the horizon to his eyes. They were somber but calm, and a relieved breath whispered from between her lips. “I was wrong to keep Belle from you.”

“Tell me about your husband.”

She stiffened. “What?”

The skin at his neck moved as he swallowed. “Your husband is as much a part of this as you, Belle or me. I see that now.” He briefly closed his eyes before opening them. “It was a shock, learning you got married.”

She looked away. “Why?”

“It was something you said to me...that first night.”

Had parts of their brief conversation ebbed back and forth in his memory as they had in hers? Had he replayed their words and touches as she had? She inhaled a shaky breath. “What did I say?”

“You asked me to make love to you and then leave.”

She nodded as the smell of the hotel room—of him—crashed into her senses. “Yes.”

“You said you had things you wanted, things you needed to do.”

She faced him and his gaze met hers.

“You said you couldn’t give or promise me anything.”

“I couldn’t.”

“Yet you got married.”

Their eyes locked for a long moment before Carrie faced the ocean. “I loved him.”

“You could’ve loved me.”

Her heart twisted. Why was he doing this? She shook her head, her defenses slamming into place. “Neither of us knows that.”

Silence.

He would not make her feel bad or fully responsible for never returning to Templeton after that week. She turned. “You were there too, Scott. You said you didn’t want a relationship. That you had enough stress in your life. How was I supposed to imagine for one minute you wanted me...let alone Belle?”

His jaw tightened. “Well, I lied. I lied for my own protection. I didn’t have a clue what was happening when I was in bed with you. From the moment I saw you, touched you, I thought my head would explode. The minute you walked into the garage yesterday...” He swiped his hand over his face.

Panic hurtled through her. She couldn’t deny her body yearned to be against his in that moment—couldn’t deny she wanted to kiss him and experience the all-powerful sensation that heated her heart and soul when she was with him before, but things were so different then.

She took a sip of her drink. “Everything’s changed. I’m a mum now. A widow. I don’t believe your life hasn’t changed or moved on, either. It’s impossible. I’ve already heard about your reputation with women, and I’ve barely been here two days. You’ve hardly been waiting for me to come back.” She shook her head. “Don’t paint me as the one entirely to blame that we’re in this situation. You could have found me, too.”

Their eyes locked and Carrie’s heart beat fast from the frustration in his eyes. God, even in anger he was handsome. She looked away. “A child changes everything.”

“I know that.”

“Good.”

Carrie stared into the depths of her cup, her body aching for him and who they were that night. Free and young; passionate and entirely alone. To be looked at the way Scott had looked at her, his eyes wide with passion and desire, would be flattering to any woman, but when the man was as strong, masculine and self-assured as him, it was cruelly irresistible. She met his eyes. “That week was about sex, having a good time and enjoying ourselves. Sex is easy. Raising a child is anything but easy.”

“That doesn’t mean I couldn’t have loved you.”

Perspiration burst icy-cold on her nape.
God, he means it. He really thinks he could’ve loved me.
Why couldn’t she fight the feeling of missed chances? That all along she was destined to be with this man? Gerard was so good to her, yet her pull to Scott was still there and as strong as ever.

She inhaled a shaky breath. “You don’t know that any more than I do. You won’t make me feel guilty for leaving when I thought our time together was nothing more than a fling for either of us. I wanted a career. That was all that mattered. I wanted a career even once I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t plan to fall in love with Gerard. It happened. I didn’t deceive you.” Carrie tilted her chin, owning the moment and all the fear she still carried about their time together. “As far as I knew, you were a player, and I was okay with that. The trouble we have now is, it seems you still are and I don’t want that around Belle.”

His burning hot-blue gaze lingered on hers, before he shook his head and lifted his steaming cup to his lips. Carrie stared at his neck as the stubbled skin shifted and moved as he drank. Her heart raced and her hands trembled around her own cup. “I think it would be better if we just spoke about what’s best for her, don’t you?”

He lowered his cup and stared ahead, a muscle leaping in his jaw.

The tension stretched.

He cleared his throat. “This won’t work if we don’t fill in the gaps.”

She turned. His eyes were dark with determination. “What gaps?”

“Belle came before you married, right?”

“Yes. She was a few months old.”

“So why you didn’t come back when you found out you were pregnant? Why didn’t you at least give me the chance to be there?”

Fire flashed in his gaze. He was rightly confused and angry. She blew out a breath and slumped her shoulders. “I can’t change my feelings, my thoughts or my actions. I’ve apologized, but I can’t keep apologizing. What happens now should be your only concern. Nothing else.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t take things at face value. I need to know it all, not just the bits you’d already decided to tell me when you came here.”

Irritation seeped in and her spine turned rigid. “She’s yours. If you don’t trust me, then we’ll do a DNA test.”

“Trust?” He shook his head. “Don’t you think we’re a million miles away from trust right now?”

He might as well have slapped her. “I made a mistake, but I am trustworthy. I stand by people. I make decisions and stick to them. You have no right to make a judgment about me when I’m here to put things right.”

“No? What else am I supposed to do? God, Carrie, I’m reeling here.”

Their gazes locked and her breasts rose and fell in sync with his chest. If he didn’t want to know Belle, that was fine. She’d done her part by coming here and there was no way she’d go through this agony a second time if he changed his mind about meeting Belle in the future.

Every thread of her many fears about returning to Templeton clung like tendrils of seaweed around her heart. Why couldn’t he accept her truth when she’d told him this was all about ridding herself of her mistakes so she could move on?

“What is it you want me to tell you exactly?” She stared at his hardened profile. “My relationships after I left here have nothing to do with you being Belle’s father.”

He looked at her. “I want to know what led you to marry some guy and let him bring my daughter up as his before trying to contact me.”

Her heart beat fast and her mind spun.
Answer him. Tell him.

Because I was scared I’d always loved you and I’ve lived a lie for the last three years. Because my daughter would one day know I slept with her father and then ran for the hills. Because even though I loved my dead husband, he never made me feel an ounce of the passion you do....

“Because I can’t stand the guilt anymore,” she blurted. “Life can change in a heartbeat and too many heartbeats have passed without you knowing Belle or her knowing you. God damn it, Scott, you don’t need to tell me how selfish or stupid I was to keep her from you.”

His gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth and Carrie inched back. How dare he do that hungry, heavy-lidded thing with his eyes—something she found so damn hard to resist. This wasn’t supposed to be happening.
She
was supposed to be the one in control.

CHAPTER SIX

M
IXED
FEELINGS
OF
fear and longing rushed through Scott as he stared at Carrie’s flushed face. Her huge brown eyes were wide with honesty and apprehension. She flicked out her tongue to wet her lips and his chest constricted. God, he wanted to kiss her so badly, but to do so again would be stupid. She still wore her wedding band, was still grieving.

He shot his gaze to the horizon, battling his need to take her in his arms and instead forced his focus one hundred percent on the sole reason he wanted to meet her today. His child. “You weren’t selfish or stupid keeping Belle from me. You did what you thought was right.” He sipped his lukewarm coffee to ease his dry throat and lifted his gaze to hers. “You might as well accept I won’t walk away from her once I know for sure she’s mine.”

Her gaze darted over his face, uncertainty showing in her eyes. She exhaled. “Good, but this is going to take time. I don’t know you.”

“Do you want to?”

Her attention dropped to his lips. “Yes.”

Scott ran his gaze over her eyes, to her hair, to the soft, feminine curve of her neck, and smiled. “Good. Then we have somewhere to start.” He drew in a long breath. “If I wasn’t so scared of falling in love with a kid I’ve never seen, I’d ask to see a picture of her.”

She smiled and her eyes softened with undeniable pride, as shiny and tempting as melted chocolate. She reached for her bag. “I have several in my purse if you—”

He shot out his hand and covered hers. “Not yet. I need to know...”

“That she’s really yours.” She eased her hand from his. “I understand.”

He stared deep into her eyes. A perpetual awareness he wasn’t ready to be a father, and the fear he wouldn’t go the distance if he was, edged into his conscience. “Do you?”

She nodded and moved her hand from her bag, curling her fingers around the edge of the rock beneath her. “Of course.”

Guilt pressed down on him and Scott steadfastly pushed it away. “You’re leaving sooner rather than later. How are we supposed to do this?”

“One day at a time. You have a beautiful two-year-old girl who is your spitting image. We have to try to make this right. For her.”

Scott inhaled with unexpected pride. “She really looks like me?”

“Yes.” She laughed. “She even acts like you. She’s a fiery pain in the butt eighty percent of the time.”

He lifted his eyebrow. “And the other twenty?”

“She’s kind, funny...” A faint blush darkened her cheeks. “And has a smile that will undoubtedly lead the opposite sex into all sorts of trouble in the future.”

Once again, longing for this gorgeous, sexy woman who’d given birth to his child took off before Scott had a chance in hell of catching it. He needed to taste her. Feel her smooth, silky lips against his. As foolish as it was, the desire was far too strong to resist. He leaned toward her slowly, giving her a chance to move back. She stared at him, her eyes wide. He gently brushed his lips over hers before pulling back. He swallowed. “I’m glad you came back, Carrie.”

She shivered. “Me, too.”

He glanced along the beach. “We should go. You’re getting cold.”

She touched his arm. “Scott?”

“Hmm?”

“I know you want answers, but the honest truth is I made some selfish decisions for my own protection...and then Belle’s. When you walked into the bar that night...” She shook her head. “I had to go with you, and to this day, I have never done anything like what we did again. It’s not who I am, and it scared me to death.”

He clenched his jaw. “But you’re glad you found me again? Glad I was here when you came looking?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

He slid his hand over her clenched fist, resting on her thigh. She moved to pull away and he tightened his grip. Trepidation, fear and desire stormed in her dark brown eyes. He smiled softly. “Whether you like it or not, I could read you like a book as soon as I met you and I can now. It’s in your eyes, Carrie. You’re battling this tension between us as much as I am. We’re strangers...but we’re not. I’ve got no idea where to go from here, but we’ll work it out.”

She hitched her shoulders. “I came to Templeton to tell you about Belle and you’re right, we shouldn’t be thinking about us in all this. We can’t make any mistakes. Belle is too important to me.”

Determination hummed as the protectiveness and need to provide for his family hurtled through him. He needed to be there for his daughter, the same as he did for his family. “I get the feeling you thought this entire trip through on your terms only.”

She pulled her hand from his. “That’s not fair.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Can you honestly say you thought long and hard about how I’d feel when you came back and told me about Belle?”

Her eyes flashed with defensiveness. “It’s taken me three years to get here. How can you say I haven’t thought about this? Maybe I didn’t consider your feelings too deeply because I didn’t think for one minute you’d have any. Maybe there was a chance you might care about Belle, but not about me...and definitely not about us.”

“Then you were wrong, weren’t you?” Tension burned hot and heavy between them, despite the frigid air. “I have commitments here I won’t walk away from. People relying on me to always be here. Whatever happens next is going to be as difficult on them as it is for me. You need to know that.”

She pushed to her feet. “Okay, well, now I know.”

She averted her gaze to the promenade in the distance. He turned to the ocean. Stalemate. Frustration pumped through him. His mother and his sisters were all the commitment he could handle. What if two more people in his heart were two people too many and he ended up failing one, or maybe all of them?

The proof of the possibility showed in the sickness in his gut and the dryness in his throat. What if he let Carrie down like his father had his mother? God, what if he let Belle down and she was forced to be responsible for Carrie like he was for his mother and sisters?

“We should go.”

Her voice cut through his unwelcome thoughts and he turned around. She stared at him, her eyes big and brown, and her blond hair shining like spun gold in the sun. She was beautiful, and all he wanted to do was make the anguish in her gaze disappear. Even now, his attraction to Carrie was out of his control. His body quivered with the effort it took not to take off her coat and whatever she wore underneath, so he could smooth his hands over her skin once more. He wanted her weight against him and her heat straddled over his groin and her lips on his.

His desire for her was raw and animalistic.

She was back and he was still completely messed up about her and now their child too. He concentrated on a couple walking hand-in-hand along the shore and shook his head. “And to think I only wandered into the bar that night for a quick beer.”

Silence.

He looked at her. Her eyes were bright with tears. She tipped her head back and laughed so infectiously Scott laughed, too.

“What? It’s the truth.”

“Can we please put that time behind us now?” She grinned. “Those weren’t the actions of sensible parents. They were the actions of lust-fuelled maniacs. Come on, it’s cold. Let’s go inside somewhere.”

Their eyes locked for a moment before their smiles slowly dissolved. Scott exhaled. “Can I just ask you one more thing?”

Her gaze shadowed with wariness once again. It had felt so good to laugh with her. To see her smile when so far nothing but fear and worry had been present on her face whenever she looked at him. Yet he couldn’t let their conversation go without asking this one final thing.

“So your husband...Gerard...did he think the baby was his at first?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve known him for years. We dated on and off. I told him about you, about Templeton, and he still wanted the baby and me. We married a few months after Belle was born. He was a good man, Scott. He loved Belle and he loved me.”

The honesty in her eyes was clear. She wasn’t a bad person. She fell in love...Scott swallowed. Just not with him. Time stood still even as the world continued to turn. Who was he to say things could’ve worked out between them? What could he have given her and a child when his anger about his father’s abandonment was a hell of a lot deeper back then than it was even now?

She was a mother. A mother who loved her child...who loved
his
child.

The gathering breeze whipped her long hair about her face and, instinctively, he lifted his hand and brushed it back, its soft floral scent whispering into his nostrils.

She stilled.

He pretended not to notice. “You’re beautiful, Carrie.”

“Scott, please.”

He dragged his gaze from hers and looked toward the promenade running the length of the beach as ominous gray clouds gathered in the distance. “Why don’t we head back to town and grab a bite at Marian’s? I missed breakfast and I don’t think very well on an empty stomach.”

She followed his gaze, uncertainty etched on her face. “Is there somewhere else we can go?”

His smile faltered. Nick. He’d harassed her at Marian’s and it had clearly shaken her. Scott scowled. His friend would damn well apologize to her sooner rather than later. Either that, or he’d drag him through a brick wall. “Sure, but there’s nowhere that serves pancakes like Marian.”

“Okay.” Her chest rose as she inhaled a shaky breath. “Marian’s it is, then.”

He grasped her hand and she stiffened for a millisecond before her hand relaxed in his and he led her from the beach. They had a baby together and, in time, he would learn to curb the urge to yank Carrie’s curvaceous, sexy body to his and step up to what he really needed to do. Provide for his child and her mother.

Once or twice as they covered the distance from the rocks to the promenade, she tugged her hand slightly in his but he didn’t let go. He understood her hesitation, but the lack of conviction in her attempt to instill distance didn’t merit releasing her, and no part of him wanted to surrender the feel of her hand in his.

The circumstances of their reunion were beyond painful. His emotions, and hers, were raw. They reached the promenade and this time her tug was succinct and their hands parted. Scott glanced at her, but her expression was a mask as she stared at the shop facades on the other side of the street.

He had to be stronger than this. He couldn’t lose his head—or heart. He had to think of his mother—if she had a grandchild and he messed this up, she’d never forgive him.

They walked on in silence for a few steps before Carrie gasped and drew to a stop outside the shop beside them. “Wow, look at this. Belle would love this place. We have to go in.”

Scott inwardly groaned, grappling to find an excuse why he couldn’t follow her into the brightly decorated toyshop. He didn’t want Carrie to go in there and come face to face with a part of his past that refused to be put to rest.

The shop was a little girl’s paradise. The lattice window coerced passersby inside with bright, sparkly pinks and reds, dolls and ribbons, satin-covered boxes and glittering costume jewelry. The knickknacks and dressing-up clothes apparently tipped a wink at every female in town, judging by the frequency the shop door opened and closed, welcoming and dispersing chattering females, old and young, with or without kids.

Carrie turned, her smile wide. “Can we go in? I won’t be long.”

He shrugged, feigning indifference. “Sure. I’m right behind you.”

Taking a deep breath, Scott braced himself for the onslaught of the shop’s owner and followed Carrie inside.