Loving You (21 page)

“Wow, thanks, Nick.”

“No problem,” he said, though there were several that he could think of at the moment.

“There's the bus.” Alex hitched his backpack higher onto his shoulder and raised one hand in a half-assed salute to Jonas. “I'll call you later. Bye, Nick.”

Dave and Alex raced off toward the school bus, disappearing into the crowd of kids jostling for position at the head of the line.

Overhead, the clouds thickened and thunder growled, a little closer now. Nick shot a look at the sky and was silently thankful he'd stopped on the way here to put the top up on the Vette. He shifted his gaze to Jonas. “Hop in.”

The kid's face went neon bright. “Cool!”

Jonas clambered into the car and had already buckled up by the time Nick got in. He snapped his seatbelt into place, fired up the engine, and listened to the throaty roar for a second or two before sliding the car into gear and steering carefully through the stream of kids.

“This is a great car,” Jonas said, and ran one hand across the cream-colored leather seats.

“I like it, too.” Nick felt like he needed a dozen pairs of eyes to make it out of the lot without flattening a herd of running, laughing children. There were hundreds of them, each one of them determined to get a quick start on freedom. Jesus, he remembered the joy of being set free for the day. The world was a wide-open treasure, just waiting to be explored, and there were hours to go before having to report in for school again.

“It's way better than Tasha's van. I mean, her car kinda smells like flowers, ya know? Real girl stuff,” Jonas was saying, and Nick listened with half an ear, too intent on escaping the parking lot to pay close attention. “It's kinda old, too, and sort of coughs when she starts it, like this.…” He instantly went into a gagging choking sound that was way too realistic.

Out on the street, Nick glanced at the boy beside him, then stepped on the gas. He wasn't really sure how to gently introduce the question that was tugging at the edges of his mind, so rather than beat around the
proverbial bush, he just said what he was thinking. “What were you and your friends doing out under that tree?”

Jonas shot him a quick look, then let his gaze slide away, to the passenger window, where he stared at the passing houses as if watching a fascinating movie. “What d'ya mean?”

“Stalling tactic,” Nick said, nodding. “Pretty good. I used it myself a lot.”

“Huh?” The boy turned to look at Nick and widened his eyes until they were practically shouting
innocent
. And that was almost enough by itself to convince Nick he just might be the kid's father after all. That ability to look sweet as pie
had
to be genetic.

“Save it for Tasha,” Nick advised, giving the kid a slight smile. “I
invented
that ‘who, me?' look.”

A second or two ticked past before the boy gave it up with a sigh that fluttered the hair hanging over his eyes. Then he shrugged and fiddled with the strap of his backpack, sitting on the floor between his knees. “I was just selling Dave that picture.”

Okay, relief really could feel almost like a good stiff drink. It poured through Nick's veins and pooled in the pit of his stomach. Not that he'd actually thought the kid might be buying or selling drugs, but these days you just never knew.

Nodding, Nick hit his right turn blinker, steered the car around the corner, and flashed the boy a quick look. “You mean you were selling your friend the pictures you got for free.”

“Well …
yeah
.…”

“Why?”

That shrug again. A really annoying gesture, Nick
thought, and wondered why he'd never noticed that before.

“I needed the money.”

“For what?” And before the kid could do it again, Nick ordered, “Don't shrug. Talk.”

Jonas caught himself in the act, then swiveled his head to look up at Nick. Squinting past the hair in his eyes, he said, “Tasha's birthday's comin' and I wanted to get her something and I figured you could get me more pictures if you wanted and then I could make more money and get her something nice, you know?”

Jesus.

The kid hadn't even taken a breath.

He knew he should stop the boy from selling those publicity pictures. It wasn't fair to sell what any fan could get just by writing a letter. But at the same time, he remembered what it had been like when he was a kid trying to get money to buy Mama a present. He'd worked for the neighbors, washed cars, done whatever he could, trying to get something nice. Could he really blame Jonas for doing the same things?

Nick sighed. “When's Tasha's birthday?”

Jonas smiled. “Next week. It's the eighteenth. And I wanna get her something really nice this year 'cause she's been so worried about—” He broke off and shifted his gaze away from Nick's.

“What's she worried about?” Nick asked, surprising himself with just how much he cared about the answer to the question. “Me?”

“Kinda. But there's other stuff, too.”

What could possibly scare that woman? Nick wondered. With all she'd accomplished and overcome, what would have the power to worry her? And why
did it bother him so much to know that she was frightened?

The light turned green and Nick moved with the traffic and changed lanes to take the freeway entrance.

“Where we goin'?” Jonas asked.

“My house,” Nick told him, making up his mind just as the rain began to fall. In the rain, the Marconis wouldn't be working. No one would see Jonas at his house and ask questions he wasn't prepared to answer yet.

He didn't know if he could be everything the boy wanted him to be, but he could at least help him buy a present for a woman who was fast becoming as important to Nick as she was to Jonas. “If you want to earn money to buy Tasha a present, you can do some chores for me.”

*   *   *

The pot of stew at the back of the stove bubbled gently, sending clouds of richly scented steam into the air. The windows overlooking the backyard were fogged over and rain pelted at the other side of the glass. Alone, Tasha wandered from the kitchen, through the empty dining room, and into the quiet living room. Her footsteps echoed and sounded overly loud in the cavernous house. The Victorian was like a mother whose children had all grown up and left her.

Abandoned, silent, filled with memories.

Tasha let her gaze sweep across the familiar rooms and she realized with a shudder that she could still lose Jonas. That she might be here, alone in this house, trying to remember the sound of his too-big feet clambering up the stairs.

When her heart ached at the thought, she pushed it
away, not wanting to torture herself. Instead, she walked to the front door, pulled it open, and stepped out onto the porch.

Wrapping her arms around her middle, she shivered slightly and turned her face into the wind. Rain hammered the yard and puddled at the foot of the steps. The leafless trees along the front of the house swayed like naked dancers and rattled their limbs to keep time. Tasha stepped to the edge of the wide porch and squinted into the windblown wet as she watched for a set of headlights that didn't come.

She never should have let Nick pick Jonas up from school. “Of course, you never should have told him about you living on the streets, either,” she muttered, more to hear the sound of her own voice in the quiet than anything else. Tasha grimaced tightly and let her head fall back. Staring up at the porch roof, she whispered, “Then you let him kiss you. Real smart. Tell the enemy that you used to be a homeless person, then play tonsil hockey. Really smooth.”

Okay, not quite tonsil hockey. The kiss had been too … gentle for that. But there'd been hints of what could happen. Promises of more to come in that tender brushing of lips. And it didn't make Tasha feel any better to silently admit that she
wanted
more. She shouldn't. But what a person
should
want and what she
actually
wanted were usually two very different things.

She hadn't even been able to lose herself in work, either. Once the rain had started, her clients had called one by one to cancel their appointments. So Tasha'd had most of the day to wander through the big empty house and analyze everything she'd said to Nick. And every second of that so-brief kiss. She knew it was
nothing. Just a kiss. Nothing special. Nothing life-altering.

To a man like Nick Candellano, kisses were just appetizers. And she wasn't about to be anyone's main course, so that left them exactly … where?

Straightening up, she walked over to the rail and leaned on it, tempted to stick her head under the steady runoff from the roof. Nature's cold shower. But she had a feeling it wouldn't help.

The phone rang. Swiveling her head, she glanced at the open front door and the slice of lamplight spilling through it. The phone rang again, shrill in the silence. Somehow, she knew it would be him. Heading into the house, she picked up the portable phone on the third ring. “Hello?”

“It's not six yet,” Nick said, “so I'm not officially late.”

His voice was low and soft and silky and sent shivers along her spine that had nothing to do with the cold wind slipping through the open front door. She glanced at the clock on the VCR. He was late bringing Jonas back and she didn't want to be amused. “It's a quarter to,” she told him, and shut the door before walking into the living room to curl up in one corner of the overstuffed sofa. “So, unless you're driving down our street, you're late.”

“Technically, yes.”

“Just technically?”

“Okay, literally, too.”

She smiled, damn it. The sound of his voice was warm and liquid and she didn't want to be affected by it, but she was.

“You're smiling, aren't you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Nick,” she said on a sigh, “why aren't you here?”

“Jonas isn't finished earning money yet.”

“What?”

“It's guy stuff,” he assured her, and Tasha felt a twinge at the edges of her heart. Guy stuff. Which left Tasha out in the cold. How could she compete with a man who might be Jonas's father? How could she hope to provide everything Jonas needed when she so clearly couldn't even give him “guy stuff”?

It hurt to admit she'd already lost a part of the boy to the man whose attentions Jonas had so needed. Every little boy needed a man to look up to. To emulate. The question was, was Nick Candellano the right kind of role model?

“Tasha? You there?”

“Yeah,” she said, drawing her knees up under her. “I'm here and his dinner's ready.”

“Dinner. Sounds good. What're we having?” Nick asked.

“We?”

“Ahh … Tasha. On a cold and rainy night, you wouldn't let a man leave your house … hungry, would you?”

Had his voice dropped an octave or two? Her stomach skittered nervously and she swallowed hard, reminding herself that one kiss didn't mean anything. That Nick Candellano was a man used to women falling at his feet. That
she
didn't fall at
anyone's
feet.

“Look, Nick, I—”

“I've been thinking about you today,” he interrupted her smoothly.

Her grip on the phone tightened until she thought she might just crumble the thing into dust. “Why?”

“You're the kind of woman who tends to haunt a man's mind.”

She tried to laugh, but the chuckle dried up in her throat and almost strangled her. “Great. Like a horror movie?”

He sighed and she could have sworn she felt the brush of his warm breath right through the phone. “No.…” One word, and so much lay within it.

“Nick…” She had to get him to stop. She didn't want to be attracted to him and wouldn't allow anything to happen between them.

“Don't say it,” he said, his voice scraping along her spine again in a deep rumble that seemed to echo throughout her body. “Don't say something you might have to take back later.”

Tasha shoved one hand through her hair and tried not to notice the tremor in her fingers. He wasn't even in the room with her and still he'd managed to set her blood on fire and stir her nerves until she felt nearly dizzy.

After a long moment or two, Nick inhaled deeply and blew the air out in a rush. “Okay. So. Jonas is about finished sweeping out the garage. We'll be at your place by six-thirty.”

“All right.”

“You gonna feed me?” he asked, and she heard the smile in his voice.

“I'll give you dinner,” Tasha said. “But that's the only appetite that's going to be satisfied.”

“It's a start, Tasha,” he said quietly. “It's a start.”

C
HAPTER
13

Just mom and dad and son, sitting around the dinner table. It was weird. A little surreal.

And
way
too comfortable.

A small voice in Tasha's mind fought against that comfort even as a larger part of her hungered for it. Secretly, in a corner of her heart she rarely acknowledged, she'd been longing for just such a traditional, cozy setting all her life. It didn't make sense. It wasn't as if she'd ever known that kind of simple comfort. And maybe that's why the hunger had remained so strong. If she'd once had it and lost it, at least she could tell herself that once upon a time it had all been hers. She could have clung to the memory. Taken it out and dusted it occasionally. But since she'd never known that little pleasure, a piece of her heart was still convinced that she was owed it. That one day … It was stupid and she knew it, but that didn't seem to stop the feelings that crept through her.

Outside, rain pelted the windows and hammered at the roof. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed in brief, brilliant stabs of light that winked in and out of existence, illuminating the dining room like a spotlight flickering on and off a stage.