King of the Mountain (16 page)

“I don’t know anything about being a father.” The admission came from the deepest part of his soul.

She laid a reassuring hand on his thudding heart. “Everything you need to know is right here.”

His hand joined hers. “Then Jessie is already mine.”

She swallowed back the tears in her throat. “I love you.”

He kissed her forehead. “And I love you.”

They nestled closer under the comforter.

“What will your relatives think?” Her words were
simply spoken, but he sensed the lingering insecurity behind them.

“That I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”

She sighed contentedly.

He gave her a squeeze. “What will
your
relatives think?”

“That you’re the luckiest guy in the world.”

A log hissed its last on the fire.

“I love you, Kitty Reardon.”

“I love you, Ben Cooper.”

The hurting was over.

And the healing began.

Paper valentines of pink and red and purple decorated the gym, the Booster Club was selling candy hearts faster than popcorn, and Ben proudly joined the other fathers on the floor waiting to receive their roses.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the other men—most of whom would be working with him instead of for him in the near future—he was, in every sense, at peace.

He’d reached an agreement with the union that was unprecedented in the industry. The miners had overwhelmingly approved a three-year contract that would base their wage partly on incentives and partly on future stock in the new power plant.

Even though the miners’ hourly wage would
remain unchanged through the duration of the contract, they stood to gain more than they ever could have bargained for when the power plant went on line. Other owners were beginning to examine the incentive program, and it was being touted as the wave of the future with regard to labor relations.

His personal life couldn’t be better, either, he thought as he zeroed in on the spot where Kitty was sitting. Not only had he married a woman who never ceased to amaze and delight him—not to mention turn him on—but he’d gotten a humdinger of a daughter in the process. He really loved Jessie, and he only hoped that any children born of his blood instead of his heart proved half as joyful.

Kitty saw him looking at her and waved to him from the bleachers, thinking it had been a championship season in more ways than one.

The Cooperville Cougars had won their division and were headed to the state tournament at the end of the month. Jessie had been elected to the all-star team—and little wonder. She practiced constantly on the small cement court Ben had had poured just east of the driveway. He’d surprised her with it the day before the wedding, calling it her “welcome home” present and encouraging her to invite her friends for a pickup game anytime she wanted. The mansion on the hill hadn’t been the same since.

Kitty spotted Carol sitting by herself a few rows
over and decided to join her. Jamie’s brothers were spending the night with Carol’s mother, she knew, and Jamie was coming home with Jessie after the ceremony.

“You look nice,” Kitty said as she sat down next to her friend.

“Thanks.”

“Is that a new dress?”

“First one in five years.” Carol’s voice had a new note of confidence in it. She ironed an imaginary wrinkle out of her skirt with her hand. “When Bob picked me up tonight, he said he’d forgotten I even had legs.”

Between her own wedding over the Thanksgiving weekend and moving into Ben’s home, Kitty had talked to Carol only in bits and snatches. She knew that Bob had successfully completed his counseling program and had gotten his job back, but they’d both been too busy to visit about any of it.

“How’s it going with you two?” Kitty asked now.

“Like I told you when I called to ask if Jamie could spend the night, we’re still separated, but we’ve started seeing each other again.” She crossed her fingers. “We’re both determined to make it work, and thanks to the counseling, I think we can.”

“I take it you’re going out with him tonight?”

Carol’s face pinkened. “We talked about going out to dinner, then we just decided to spend the night at home. Alone, thanks to my mother taking the boys and you taking Jamie.”

“I owe you one,” Kitty reminded her.

“Two, if you count your wedding night,” Carol teased.

It was Kitty’s turn to blush, and she did so quite becomingly as she reflected briefly on her first night as Mrs. Benjamin Cooper. If they’d missed a room in the house or a spot on each other’s bodies, it was news to her.

Her tummy fluttered with remembrance of the sensual use they’d made of the marble whirlpool tub and their slick, soap-covered hands. The suede sofa in the sun room, the luxurious savonnerie on the library floor, the kitchen table … they’d all served as beds of mutual pleasure.

“By the way,” Carol said, bringing her back to the present. “I want to do some volunteer work at the women’s shelter.”

“Great.” Kitty had used the proceeds from the sale of her house and its contents and a hefty donation from Ben to buy and furnish a long-abandoned two-story house on the edge of town. They’d already spent several weekends converting the second floor into a dorm for women and children, and were finally ready to begin renovating the first floor.

“Have you decided on a name for it yet?” Carol asked.

“We’re going to call it Hope House.” Kitty didn’t add that Hope had been Ben’s mother’s name.

“Hope House. I like it.”

“We thought it spoke to the future.”

They lapsed into silence then as Coach Brown lined the team up on one side of the gym and the fathers on the other. Each girl held a long-stemmed rose; each man wore an expectant smile. Then the middle-aged woman stepped up to the microphone at center court and gave a brief explanation of the ceremony’s special significance.

“When I first started coaching girls’ basketball a little over twenty years ago, we had a hard time attracting fathers to our games,” she said somberly. “To put it bluntly, fathers didn’t expect their daughters to excel at sports, so why bother to encourage their participation?”

She smiled at the men on the sidelines. “Obviously, times have changed. And so have fathers’ expectations for the most part. I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for some of you to accept the fact that it’s your daughters, not your sons, who’ll probably go to college on a basketball scholarship.”

Coach Brown paused as a few of the fathers’ faces reddened and laughter rippled through the crowd in the bleachers.

“But the girls and I want you to know we appreciate your support and look forward to it in all the seasons to come,” she continued. “And we hope you’ll accept these roses as a token of our heartfelt thanks.”

A round of applause greeted both her last remark and the first father to meet his daughter at center court.

The girl gave him a rose and a kiss before they
walked arm in arm to the sidelines, and the simple ceremony moved everyone in the gym to tears.

Kitty and Carol exchanged watery smiles when it was Bob’s turn to receive his rose. Jamie had really blossomed of late, losing most of her painful shyness but retaining her endearing demeanor. Her face radiated happiness when she gave her father his flower, then threw her arms around his neck for a hug.

One more father and daughter followed before Ben and Jessie met at center court.

Watching the two people she loved most in the world, Kitty felt as if her heart would swell and burst with its burden of joy. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t count her blessings. And if her suspicions were correct, she thought as she laid her hand over her still-flat stomach, she’d be counting tiny fingers and toes again come fall.

At center court the man they called the king of the mountain put his arm around the preteenager he’d nicknamed princess and headed back to the bleachers, back to the woman who was the queen of his universe.

Happy New Year!

Another year may have slipped on by, but don’t let these romances slip by you! Ring in the New Year with romance starting with an electrifying journey of emotional and sexual discovery that pushes two damaged souls to their breaking point—and beyond in,
RUINED
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. Award winning author, Bronwen Evans, debuts
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A KISS OF LIES
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IN THE DARK
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LIVE
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Ruthie Knox
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BARED
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And, you don’t want to miss these classics:

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THE PASSIONATE ONE
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THE RECKLESS ONE
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THE RAVISHING ONE
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MELTDOWN
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New York Times
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THE SPELLBINDER
. Sandra Chastain’s, Civil War romance,
SCANDAL IN SILVER
, will touch your heart, along with, Linda Cajio’s,
IRRESISTIBLE STRANGER
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AT FIRST SIGHT
. Meet single mom Kitty Reardon in Fran Baker’s heartwarming story,
KING OF THE MOUNTAIN
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DEEP AUTUMN HEAT
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BLAZE OF WINTER
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SLOW SUMMER BURN
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LONG SIMMERING SPRING
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Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher

The arrival of the shiny black SUV in the parking lot startled the fawn into flight.

Ashley watched it bound out of the empty swimming pool, between the two-story rental units, and onto the beach. She tried not to hate the man who had driven it away.

Her chafed wrists were not his fault. He hadn’t pushed her down onto this pile of mulch, nor had he chained her to the palm tree. He hadn’t insisted she launch her protest clad only in a damp bikini and a T-shirt.

No, all of that was Ashley’s doing. She had to place the blame for this harebrained caper squarely on her own aching shoulders.

Even though Roman Díaz was about to destroy the only place in the world that mattered to her, she wouldn’t hate him. Hate was poisonous.

But man, she’d really been enjoying the little Key deer. It had been such an excellent distraction from all the depressing thoughts about her grandmother.

Past the spot where it had disappeared, a slice of sunrise washed the sky in orange, and the dark silhouette of an angular palm tree framed a view straight off a Florida landscape postcard.

Whereas the SUV was like the other kind of postcard—the tacky kind that had a smiling woman shoving her enormous, barely clad hooters toward the viewer over a neon-script tagline like “A Big Hello from Florida.”

It didn’t bode well.

The soft glow of early morning did little to conceal the fact that the eight-unit rental complex spread out around the pool had seen better days. Peachy Keen and Salmon Sunset had faded to a pinkish beige and beigeish pink, respectively, while Turquoise Treasure was a sort of anemic white-blue. The interiors were worse, the carpet grotty and the blond-wood-and-seashell theme of the decor begging for an update.

But for Ashley, Sunnyvale Vacation Rentals retained a timeless beauty—the white railings on the upper and lower porches matching the trim around the windows and along the rooflines; the broad, fringed leaves of the sheltering palms; the ocean beyond, just a short walk to the dock.

The sky, the sun, the light, the breeze off the water. All of it bound up together, indivisibly part of this place she loved more than any other.

The driver’s door opened, and black dress shoes appeared beneath gray slacks. The black
top of his head crested the door, then disappeared as he ducked down to reach into the car—probably retrieving his hooded cape and sickle, just to complete the look.