Love's Deception (5 page)

His massive hands swallowed hers. “It’s nice to officially meet you, Ms. Carnes.”

Perfect rows of white, even teeth flashed her. Their sudden appearance transformed his masculine features into something breathtaking. She never thought a man could be described as beautiful before, but that is how she thought of Nathan Edwards now. Simply beautiful.

He held her hand longer than necessary before finally releasing it.

Remembering her wild appearance, another rush of embarrassment burned her face. “I know I look a fright. I got caught out in the rain.”

“You look fine.”

“You’re a good liar.”

“Now that’s the first time I’ve been accused of that. Most of my friends call me Honest Abe.” His rich laugh accelerated her heartbeat and she knew then that she was in trouble. There were too many things she found fascinating about him, too many things that made her body respond. She reached for her cup. “Thank you again for the coffee.”

“Again?”

This time, she laughed, and it felt good. “All right, you win. Thank you.”

“I don’t know you, but I have a feeling that was probably the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”

You have no idea
. Smiling, she sipped her coffee.

“So—” his voice turned serious “—just how
do
you know my father?”

Carissa choked.

N
athan leaned forward to help Carissa, but stopped when she held up a hand. “I’m okay.” She cleared her throat, then wiped her eyes. All the while, her mind raced for a response—or rather a lie.

“Are you sure?”

Avoiding his dark gaze, she nodded. “It probably just went down the wrong pipe.”

He watched her, then shook his head in bewilderment. “I’m not quite sure what to make of you.”

“What do you mean?” She welcomed the change of topic.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “One minute you come across as a strong, independent woman. You don’t need anything or anyone. I bet you’ll chal
lenge anyone to prove otherwise. Then, you flip mode.”

“Flip mode?”

Nathan smiled. “Yeah, flip the switch, change gears and appear childlike—insecure, vulnerable. I’m not sure what to make of it.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How old are you?”

His head drew back with a bark of laughter. “Since when is that a politically correct thing to ask?”

“You have it all wrong. I’m well within my legal bounds. A man can never ask a woman that question, but it’s okay for us to ask.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” She smiled as if it made perfect sense. “I mean, I’m just curious. You have the manners of a two-year-old and you talk like a Generation X wannabe.”

“You sound interested.”

“And apparently you’re a hopeless daydreamer.”

He laughed and couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed someone’s company this much. “You know you have a wonderful gift,” he said, meeting her gaze.

“What’s that?”

“Helping me forget my worries.”

“Now that’s the first time
I’ve
heard that one.” She lowered her gaze and struggled to swallow the lump of guilt lodged in her throat. Her confession edged to the tip of her tongue, when he reached across the table and covered her hand with his.

“Thank you.” Thick, raw emotion layered the two simple words. “I’m glad you’re here. It’s apparent that you really care for my father or you wouldn’t be here at this hour.”

Tell him the truth
. But she couldn’t. The pain in his eyes and its intensity prevented her. She placed her free hand atop his. “I had to come.”

The ensuing silence hugged the couple and consoled their troubled thoughts. It was wrong to lead him on this way. Since when was she scared of the truth? Why was hurting this man such an abominable thought?

“Do you know what I keep thinking about?”

His question was so low she barely heard it. She shook her head.

“My mother.” He squeezed her hand. “I was devastated when I lost her.”

Orphaned by death herself, she drew in a shaky breath and winced at the sudden constriction of her heart muscles. “When?” she whispered.

“Three years ago—on a Sunday.”

Her vision blurred.

“How about you?”

“Sundays.” She wiped away a tear before it escaped her eyes. “How did you know?”

“I sensed it.”

“Your father is going to pull through,” she confirmed with a nod. “I just know it.” Like hell she did, but the thought of the alternative left a rancid taste in her mouth.

A bond had formed between them. She couldn’t pinpoint when or how it happened, but she felt it, and she was surprised by its strength.

She watched him struggle with his next question. “Has he ever told you about me?”

Treading on dangerous ground, and still unwilling to risk causing more pain, she continued to weave her deceptive web. “Only that he loves you.”

His hand went cold and Nathan pulled away.

She’d crossed the line and a heartfelt apology tumbled from her lips.

“It’s all right. It’s not your fault.” He dismissed her ramblings with a firm head shake. “I’m just fighting with one hell of a guilty conscience. I’m sure you know I’ve refused to have any contact with my father. Mainly because I thought it was too late. Like a he-made-his-bed-and-now-he-has-to-lie-in-it sort of philosophy.”

Their eyes met again and Carissa was drawn in by more than his words.
Oh, God. What am I doing?

“I guess I just wanted to hurt him.” Anger flashed in his expressive eyes.

Carissa understood all too well that burning desire to punish the very ones you love. “You wasted your time,” she said. “In the end, you only succeed in hurting yourself.”

Nodding as if he’d already discovered that fact, he added, “I still don’t know what the answer is. What was I supposed to do—forget what happened and let him waltz back into my life with open arms? I don’t understand why this is my burden to bear.”

“I don’t have all the answers.” She attempted to pacify him. “Trust me, I’m the last person you should take advice from. I’ve spent nearly two decades trying to appease my guilt, wishing like hell I could just turn back the clock and erase the pain I caused, take back those angry words I didn’t mean.” Her voice trailed to a whisper.

It felt good to unburden her past, to finally tell someone of the hell she’d been through. “I have to tell you, if anything, I envy you. You still have a chance to set things right.”

“You make it all sound so easy.”

“Maybe it is.”

He nodded at that, then was unable to say anything else.

“It’s amazing how many times the same questions can cross your mind, isn’t it?” she finally asked.

“Yeah.”

She felt, rather than witnessed, him surrender to his inner turmoil, and she was helpless to do anything for him. Glancing at the clock, she was shocked by the time. “I should go. It’s late—or rather it’s early.” Her announcement pulled him out of his troubled reverie.

“Do you really have to go?”

It was those eyes again that tugged at her. “Well, I guess I could stay a little longer.” She wouldn’t leave him now if Congress decreed it as law.

“Thank you,” he said in a voice that had her fan
tasizing of its sound drifting lazily across her ears at the peak of passion. Again, she wondered what in the
hell
was wrong with her.

Nathan studied Carissa and thought his father was a very lucky man. Who was this beautiful woman with the woman-child eyes? Why did the thought of her leaving trouble him? They were kindred spirits. That much was evident—there were too many commonalities between them. He remembered what she’d looked like with her hair down and wondered why she kept it pulled back in that ridiculous bun. What he wouldn’t give to have her in his studio for one day. His camera would love her.

He watched her take a sip of her cold coffee and enjoyed the way her nose wrinkled at the discovery. “Would you like another cup?”

“No, that won’t be necessary. I’ve drunk too much of this stuff anyway.”

“That makes two of us. The difference is I have no intentions of quitting.”

She laughed, and he loved its melodious sound. “Well, the way I see it,” he continued, “it’s better than the other vices. I don’t drink, smoke or do drugs. I’m not even a compulsive womanizer.”

“Why? Do you like men?”

He laughed. “Okay, that’s one for you.”

“Is that a no?”

“It’s a hell no.”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask.”

“Why? Are you still interested?”

“Only if you’re still daydreaming.”

They talked for what seemed like eternity. Nathan appreciated her patience, and he believed she understood what he was going through. Vaguely, he was aware that she remained aloof about details of her own life. However, it was to be expected. They hardly knew each other. Then why was it that
he
couldn’t shut up?

Had years of suppressed emotions finally taken their toll? He wasn’t sure and didn’t really care to question why he was comfortable around her. He just knew that it felt good to finally talk to someone.

When the clock ticked closer toward six in the morning, he watched with amusement as she struggled to ward off her drowsiness. The writing was on the wall. It was time for their wonderful morning to end.

He escorted her to her car, impressed by the make and model. It occurred to him then that he didn’t have the slightest idea what she did for a living.

Carissa unlocked the door.

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to drive home?”

She stifled a yawn behind her hand, then nodded. “What about you? Are you going to get some sleep, too?”

An image of him lying next to her surfaced in his mind. He smiled. “I do need to go home and clean up.”

“There’s that and you can’t live off coffee alone.”

“You’re right. We should have lunch.”

“Not possible.”

He caught the regret in her voice. “Dinner, then?”

She shook her head.

“I would love to talk to you again,” he added before she voiced an answer.

When she hesitated, he gave his best puppy dog expression. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

The rejection bruised his ego, but he shrugged it off. “I understand. I’m probably coming on too strong. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

Nathan shut her door as she started the car. Even now he didn’t want her to go, but he smiled—at least he hoped it was a smile, and felt something akin to hope when she returned the gesture.

She rolled down the window. “Goodbye,” she said, then pulled off.

He watched the utility vehicle until it faded from view, drew in a cleansing breath and wondered aloud, “What in the hell has gotten into me?”

L
iz glanced into the rearview mirror at Darius, who sat secured in the backseat. “Baby, why don’t you talk with the other children?”

He shrugged, then lowered his head and pretended to be fascinated with his hands.

“Sweetheart, Mommy’s not angry. I’m just trying to understand. You always talk at home. Do you not like the other children?”

He shrugged.

“Is it your teachers?”

Another shrug.

She hated it when he did that, hated how it made her feel. It was too much. She was already dealing with a full plate: a stressful job, Nana’s illness, her ex-
husband’s missing child-support checks, now Darius’s what? What was this—a game, a cry for help or just an attention grabber?

“Darius, please tell me what’s wrong.”

He remained silent for so long, she thought he wouldn’t answer, but when he did, it was in a voice that was smaller than normal.

“I don’t think they like me.”

His conclusion broke her heart. “Oh, baby. I’m sure that’s not true.”

“It feels like it is.”

What could she do—change day care, again? It was already the fifth one this year. “Tell me why you believe that.”

He sniffed then, and she looked over at him and discovered him crying. And by the time she pulled into the day care, she was crying, too.

Nathan’s battle with exhaustion waned to a close. He needed sleep and soon. “You can’t live off coffee alone,” he quoted Carissa with a smile. Again, he marveled over the strange combination of fire and ice in her personality and concluded that it must be what drew him toward her. Who knew? Maybe getting to know her would help him better understand his father.

And he needed to understand.

Entering his father’s unit, he approached the bed attuned to the steady beep from the heart monitor.

Dr. Peterson had informed him that there were no changes in his father’s condition, which wasn’t good or bad news. It was just what it was—nothing. Nathan
placed his hand against his father’s and hated its coldness.

“I have to be honest with you,” the doctor’s voice echoed in his head. “There’s a chance that he may never recover.”

Nathan shook away yesterday’s conversation, refusing to acknowledge the possibility.

A nurse breezed into the unit.

Nathan blinked his eyes dry and erased any evidence of his emotional torment.

“How are we today?” she asked in an exaggerated Southern drawl. When she looked up to meet his gaze, her expression sobered. “I’ll only take a moment,” she assured him, then changed the IV.

Something flickered in Nathan’s peripheral vision. He stared back at his father and waited for it to happen again.

Travis’s eyelids twitched.

“He moved,” he said, excited.

“Involuntary movements are common for coma patients,” the nurse assured him with a sympathetic smile.

Nathan’s excitement lulled and his heartbeat returned to normal. But he couldn’t help but feel that something was happening behind his father’s lids…

Duc Pho, South Vietnam, 1968

Travis thought he was dying.

The round he took just below his rib cage shot pain throughout his body, making him oblivious to the continuing gunfire that surrounded him.

The past few hours passed before his eyes. He was the battalion S3, the officer in charge of planning operations. Then suddenly rockets and mortars shelled the base. Now, after a cruel twist of fate, he was the action battalion commander.

“Sir, are you all right?” a soldier in his platoon shouted close by. He recognized Tony’s voice instantly.

A native of the Bronx, Tony’s street sense gave him an edge in the bush. He boasted he loved to fight. It may have been true—or it may have been his way of coping.

Travis managed to nod, while gasping for air—for life. He tasted his salty tears, then clenched his jaw when the soldier lifted him and trotted across the field. Each bounce inched him closer to the void spreading in his mind.

“Incoming!”

The scream came from the other side of the perimeter when the unmistakable crack of AK-47 rifles filled the morning air. His earlier speculation was confirmed. This wasn’t harassment fire, but an organized attack. NVA regulars. He expected Charlie and Alpha Company would make heavy contact in the bush, but a direct attack on this position had caught them off guard.

Suddenly, he was airborne, drifting across the field as if defying gravity. Pain ricocheted throughout his body upon first impact and a black haze swallowed him, but he broke through the surface, once again struggling for breath.

Where was Tony? He turned his head and found the young man sprawled across the dirt. His lifeless gaze stared straight at him while blood trickled from the hole in the center of his forehead.

Travis looked away, trying to block the image from his mind. Visions of his wife and his two-year-old son stared back at him through the darkness. He was never going to hold her in his arms again, never see his son grow old.

A sob tore from his throat. His body trembled in anguish. “Please, God,” he prayed, then allowed his tears to flow. The battle drifted off into the distance. His heartbeat, loud and hard, was the only sound he heard. And it soothed him, blossoming a peace he’d never known.

Desire, strong and true, filled him, and he opened his eyes. The strength he’d thought had long abandoned him had returned. That, along with sheer determination, forced him to use his arms and pull his body in a slow crawl across the field, where he’d hoped to find safety.

His vision faded in and out of focus, but he kept going—and believed he would see his family again.