Victoria Pade - From Boss to Bridegroom p.04

“Why not?”

He laughed again. “Because you ruffle me up inside.”

“Remember you’re under oath,” she reminded, her tone dubious.

“I remember,” he assured. “The whole truth and nothing but the truth. The truth is that you ruffle me up inside.”

“How do I do that?”

“Just by walking into a room. Or looking at me with those big blue eyes. Or giving me a run for my money intellectually. Or by smiling, or laughing or tilting your head the way you do when you’re intent on something. You ruffle me up inside just by being you.”

“What does that mean exactly? That I ruffle you up inside?”

“It means that my heart beats a timpani. That my blood runs faster in my veins. That I’m suddenly aware of every nerve, every sensation, every smell and taste and touch in ways I’ve never been aware of before. Sometimes I think you’re spiking my coffee with love potion or something.”

“You’ve found me out,” she said to make light of what was actually the same reaction she had to him.

His eyes met hers and they suddenly seemed somehow darker, deeper than normal. And when he spoke, his voice was more solemn, too. “What are you doing to me, Lucy Lowry?”

“The same thing you’re doing to me,” she admitted in a near whisper.

“Do I ruffle up things inside you?” he asked almost as quietly. “Terribly.”

“I haven’t been the same since the day I met you.”

“Neither have I.”

“Maybe we should do something about it,” he said on a breath that heated her ear before he raised his head to look down at her again. “Like what?”

He just smiled. A warm smile that said she could trust him. That opened him up to her in a way she’d never seen before, that let her know he was as vulnerable to her as she was to him.

He kissed her bare shoulder. Then the sensitive L of shoulder into neck. Then the side of her neck.

Soft kisses that enticed, that entreated, that gave her the opportunity to tell him to stop before he reached her mouth.

But Lucy didn’t tell him to stop. Instead she angled her head to one side to allow him free access, and lifted her chin when she knew her mouth was what he sought.

They were still swaying there in her living room as his lips took hers, swaying and kissing and holding each other.

And Lucy knew where this was going. She knew it as surely as if he’d drawn her a map. But tonight she didn’t care about getting hurt or about incompatible lifestyles. Tonight Rand was hers and she was his and for that moment in time that was all that mattered. He was all that mattered. And that she wanted him. That she wanted to let this take her wherever it might. Just this once.

“I promised myself I’d be careful,” she confided when one kiss ended and before another began.

“Does that mean I have to leave or that you’ll just let me protect you?” he asked between nibbles of her earlobe.

Leave? Oh no, she didn’t want him to leave and she told him so.

“Then trust me,” he said in a voice that had grown gravelly, kissing her again.

Wisdom went out the window at that moment and nature took over.

Wide-open mouths were hungry, urgent, as tongues did a mating dance that replaced the swaying that had drawn to a close. Both of Rand’s hands were in her hair, cradling her head against the onslaught of kisses she was returning with equal force.

Lucy’s hands were busier, loosening his tie and taking a firm tug of both ends to hold him close while they kissed before she slid it from his collar and unfastened the top button of his shirt.

Without ending the play of mouths and tongues, she kicked off her shoes. Rand followed her lead, doing the same as his hands moved to her back so he could pull her closer.

She was thinking about taking him upstairs, about the fortuitousness of Max being gone for the night, when out of the blue something else occurred to her.

“Frank!” she said, breaking away from their kiss.

“You should never call out another man’s name, Lucy. It’s poor form,” Rand deadpanned without missing a beat.

“He’s outside waiting for you.”

“Yes, he is,” he agreed. He searched her eyes with his and then said, “Shall I send him home?”

He was giving her one more chance to opt out of what was happening between them. But Lucy didn’t need to think about it again. She’d made her decision and now her body, her emotions, her needs, were in control.

“Yes,” she answered in a breathy voice caused by Rand nuzzling her neck. “Send him home.”

Rand let go of her only to take her hand in his and bring her with him to the phone on her corner desk. After punching in a number and waiting a moment he said, “That’s it for tonight, Frank,” and hung up.

There was something slightly embarrassing—and deliciously wicked—about taking that step. And now that they’d gone that far Lucy thought she was ready to take one more.

Without saying anything she led Rand up the stairs to her room.

Of course there really wasn’t anything she needed to say. Or could say once they got there and Rand swung her back into his arms to recapture her mouth with his.

If there was hunger and urgency in those kisses before, it was nothing compared to this. All inhibitions, all hesitancy, all timidity seemed to vanish as wild abandon sprang to life.

That abandon made Lucy bold enough to yank at his shirttails to free them from his slacks. Bold enough to unbutton his shirt completely and then slide her hands inside of it to slip it off, to discover the glory of his bare skin.

And glorious it was. She let her palms travel over broad shoulders, down iron-hard biceps. She explored the steely expanse of his back, the rise and fall of muscle, the tautness of tendon.

That was when he started to lower the zipper down her spine and she was only too willing to have it done. Only too willing to let the little black dress fall around her ankles.

Their pace picked up even more then and off went what remained of Rand’s clothes and then hers, until they were both unfettered by anything.

His hands came to her breasts, teasing, toying with them. Hands that felt new and familiar at once, lighting embers inside her that made a moan of pleasure echo in her throat.

Then as quickly as those hands had reached her breasts they were gone again as Rand scooped her up into his arms and took her to the bed. He laid her down on it, lying beside her to capture her mouth with his once more, to cover one straining orb with one blissfully adept hand again in a kneading, thrilling caress.

He abandoned her mouth to leave a trail of soft kisses along the side of her neck, on the sharp ridge of her collarbones, down to that same burgeoning breast his hand had made ready for more.

Her back arched and there was no hiding the fact that he’d just lit fire to those embers inside her as his tongue circled the tight kernel of her nipple. As his teeth tugged. As he drew it farther into the warm wetness of his wonderful mouth.

While he was at that his hand went on traveling. Down the flatness of her belly. To her hip. To her thigh and back up again to stop at the juncture of her legs.

Lucy’s shoulders rose completely off the mattress and her head fell back at that first touch, that first tender entry of stroking fingers.

But in this, too, she would not be outdone and so she let her own hand follow a path down his lean, hard body, grasping the hot, thick, sheathed length of him, savoring the power, the feel, the intimate knowledge of this man who had awakened so much in her.

He rose above her then, insinuating himself between her welcoming thighs, finding just the right spot and slowly pressing himself into her with agonizing care until she held him fully.

All on their own her hips reached up to him, accepting, relishing the union of his body with hers, eager for every sensation, every nuance, every flex of his muscles above her.

When he pulsed those first few pulses, Lucy gave herself over to him entirely, matching his pace, his rhythm, meeting him thrust for thrust on a magic carpet ride of the most perfect pleasure. Pleasure that grew and grew, that swelled within her like a beautiful balloon, filling her, completing her, lifting her higher and higher until every nerve, every muscle, was stretched to its limit. Until the balloon reached its holding power and burst into glittering glory that held her suspended for one timeless, extraordinary moment.

Only as she began to float back to earth by tiny increments did Rand tense above her, within her, melding them together in one final climax that was as magnificent to behold as it was to feel.

And she did behold it. She watched his bulging biceps and massive shoulders strain as they lifted his striking upper body skyward. She watched his handsome face freeze in a mask of pleasure that almost looked like pain. She watched him held in that moment of ecstasy as powerful wave after powerful wave washed over him, engulfed him, satiated him just as he had satiated her.

Then he, too, relaxed, muscle by muscle, settling atop Lucy in an exquisite weightiness, breathing heavily into her hair.

Minutes passed but she didn’t have any idea how many before he propped himself up with a forearm on either side of her head and kissed her again, a rich kiss that threatened to start everything all over again for her.

Except that the kiss didn’t last long before he ended it to look down into her eyes, to study her face as if committing it to memory.

“Tell me you’re okay,” he said in a passion-raspy voice.

“I’m definitely okay. I’m better than okay.”

That made him smile a satisfied smile. “Good. Me, too,” he said on the gust of a sigh.

He rolled to his back then and pulled her to lie close beside him, to use his chest for a pillow.

“You’re not like anyone else, Lucy,” he said quietly and she could tell he was drifting off to sleep.

“Neither are you,” she whispered back, unable to fight the lure of slumber herself, held there in the perfect cocoon of his arms.

But as drowsiness began to drug her, Lucy realized that the trouble with allowing herself this night was that she knew it would be over when she woke up.

And this one night had opened a floodgate of longing for more than just one night.

More of Rand and more of the things she knew she couldn’t have…

Nine

Rand was awake before dawn the next morning as usual. What was different was that Lucy was beside him, that it felt like paradise, and that he had no desire to get up and charge into his day the way he did every other morning.

No, all his desires were aimed in another direction, but she was sleeping so soundly, so peacefully, he couldn’t bring himself to disturb her.

What he could let himself do, though, was enjoy the sight she presented.

Sometime during the night she’d rolled to her other side, away from him. Now she was lying with her back to him, her head resting on his outstretched arm.

The top sheet and blanket had slipped down to offer him a peek at her smooth porcelain skin, perfect shoulders and the beginning dip in the small of her back, a spot he wanted badly to kiss right at that moment.

He resisted, knowing that would surely wake her, and instead pulled the covers up around her shoulders to keep her warm.

Her hair was a wild mass of curls all around her head, spilling over onto his biceps, and he reached his free hand to a mahogany coil of it, caressing it as if it were satin, committing the texture to memory, letting it coil from his knuckle to his fingertip.

He wasn’t sure how long he was lost in that simple study of her hair. But it was long enough to make him wonder at himself.

It wasn’t like him to be content with something like that. Content with lounging in bed. Content with watching someone else sleep. But he was content and he began to realize that the reason for it was that the someone else he was watching sleep was Lucy. And even when he told himself he should probably slip his arm out from under her, ease himself out of bed and go home, he couldn’t make himself do it.

Sure he should. After all, it was Sunday. He usually called the ranch to talk to his family then. This Sunday he was particularly curious to learn if his father had received the anonymous note he and Lucy had sent about Emily. Curious to know the reaction his mother—if she really was his mother—had to the note.

But not even curiosity and family obligations could budge him out of that bed. Not when he was so happy just lying there, picturing what other Sunday mornings must be like there in Lucy’s homey little town house.

He imagined that Max probably got up pretty early, too. That the little boy would be itching to wake Lucy, just the way Rand was—although for entirely different reasons. He pictured Max climbing into bed with his mom in hopes that he might jostle her out of sleep. Or maybe bringing his dinosaurs in and playing with them until he accidentally-on-purpose roused her.

She’d be patient with her son, Rand was certain of that. She’d probably grab him and hug him and laugh about him not letting her sleep in. Then she’d go downstairs and make him breakfast and the two of them would begin their day together.

But what would that same scenario be like if he was in it? Rand wondered, letting his mind wander a step further. What if he was in bed with Lucy when Max came in, holding her as she slept after a night of lovemaking like the one they’d just shared?

Maybe he and Max would nudge Lucy from slumber, teasing her, playfully ganging up on her until she opened those beautiful blue eyes of hers and bathed them both in that smile that was as sweet as warm honey. And maybe he and Max would go downstairs ahead of her and set the table, waiting for her to join them so that the three of them could begin their day.

Rand was astonished by how appealing that second fantasy was. All the more astonished because it wasn’t something he would consider appropriate unless he and Lucy were married. And he wondered what had gotten into him to think such a thing.

But in truth he knew.

Lucy had gotten into him. Into his blood. Into his heart. Into his images of the future.

And that gave him pause.

Lucy and a future together? Was that really what he was thinking about?

It was, he realized.

She might not be a permanent fixture in his office, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be a permanent fixture in his life.

Although he had to question whether or not it was a good idea.

Sure, it felt good to mentally place himself in Lucy’s home, in Lucy’s bed, in Lucy’s and Max’s Sunday mornings. But what about the rest of the time? he asked himself. What about Monday through Saturday when he was working abnormally long hours and preoccupied with cases and clients and trials? That was a whole different story.

That was the reason he’d avoided making any commitment to any woman, let alone to a woman with a child. The resentment and neglect he’d felt during his father’s single term in the Senate when Joe had been away from home so much was something Rand had never allowed himself to forget. Something he’d sworn he would never inflict on anyone.

So what was he thinking now? That he would?

No. He wouldn’t take on a wife and child the way things were. He still believed that was unfair.

But there was another possibility that occurred to him: he could make adjustments.

Wary of that notion, Rand mentally tiptoed around it.

Was he ready to make an adjustment like that?

He wasn’t sure. But if he wasn’t, if he didn’t, what was the alternative?

Losing Lucy. And that wasn’t easy to swallow. Especially not when lying there with her, wanting her again, wanting not to leave her, also made him realize that he didn’t want to lose her.

It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment just how much his life before Lucy had been lacking. How increasingly empty, shallow and unsatisfying it had seemed. That that was why he’d felt the way he had.

Yes, he’d been as busy, as harried as he had been since he’d set out to be a lawyer in the first place, but where early on that had made him feel fulfilled, somewhere along the way it had stopped accomplishing that.

Then Lucy had walked through his office door and he’d fallen victim to her beauty. To her special charm, her keen intelligence, her wit, her confidence. And he’d been rejuvenated. Not to mention turned on.

Now the thought of having her walk back out was unbearable.

So that left him with a choice, he thought. Either return to the way things were, to the ruthless determination to succeed without finding any joy in it when he did, or make a change. A big change. A change in favor of family.

Was it possible that after all these years of a high-powered, high-speed, workaholic lifestyle he had arrived at a point where family—having a family of his own—could suddenly be what he wanted? Could it be the key to his happiness?

That idea took some getting used to.

But once he had, he decided that it wasn’t just any family that was the key to his happiness. It was the family that included Lucy and Max. The family in which Lucy would be his partner. Making the change was worth it for her.

Because the bottom line was that being with Lucy, making a life with Lucy and Max, had somehow become more important to him than work or money or acclaim or power. How else could he explain that when he weighed the life he’d been living and the discontent he’d been feeling against the contentment he felt at that moment, against the way he felt about Lucy, about Max, there wasn’t a question that being with them won out?

Suddenly he knew that he was willing to do whatever it took to accomplish that.

Being a part of their lives would be better than any day’s work, better than winning any high-profile case, better than anything he’d ever done before.

No wonder his father had been willing to give up a Senate seat to come home to his family, Rand thought then. As a child he’d been glad about it but had taken it for granted. As an adult he’d wondered how his father had done it, how he’d given up something he’d worked so hard to accomplish, something that meant so much to him.

But now he understood it. He understood what was genuinely of value, what he genuinely valued, and that was family. That was Lucy. That was Max.

The sun was barely up and he knew it was still too early to wake Lucy but he couldn’t resist anymore. He couldn’t just lie there having had the revelation of his life and not share it with her. He couldn’t just lie there and not put into motion what he now knew was the answer to everything.

But what he could do was slip out of bed, go downstairs and make a pot of coffee, he told himself. Then at least he’d have a nice way to lure her out of her dreams.

And when he did, he had no doubt that she would fulfill all of his….



The smell of hot coffee was not something Lucy usually woke up to, and her first thought was that Max had done something he wasn’t supposed to.

Her second thought was that maybe her aunt had come over.

It was only her third thought that recalled last night and the man she’d spent it with. She couldn’t help the Cheshire-cat smile that stretched her lips even before she opened her eyes.

“Good morning,” Rand said softly, beckoning her from sleep.

“It feels awfully early,” she responded, still with her eyes closed.

“It is awfully early.”

“Why aren’t you asleep?” she asked much the way she might have inquired of Max.

“Couldn’t sleep anymore,” Rand answered with wholly adult mischief in his voice.

Lucy finally opened her eyes as Rand sat on the edge of the mattress. He was definitely a nice sight to wake up to. His hair was sleep-tousled, his face was shadowed with beard, he’d put on his slacks but left his incredible chest bare, and he looked so sexy it was hard for her to think about anything but pulling him back under the covers with her.

“How are you doing this morning?” he asked then.

Holding the sheet across her bare breasts, Lucy eased herself up against the headboard. “Any day that I have someone serve me coffee in bed I’m doing pretty well,” she said, accepting the cup and taking a cautious sip. “How are you doing?” she countered, setting the cup on the nightstand to let the coffee cool.

“I’m doing stupendously.” He nudged her over and sat beside her on top of the covers. “I’ve just had the revelation of a lifetime and I couldn’t wait any longer to talk to you about it.”

“The revelation of a lifetime, huh?” she said as if playing along with a joke. “I can’t wait to hear it.”

But maybe she should have waited. Forever, she thought as he laid out for her what he’d been thinking. Because the further he got into explaining that he thought he’d come to the point where he was ready for a family, for her and Max to be his family, the more panicky Lucy felt.

“No!” she said before he had finished.

“No what? I haven’t asked you anything yet.”

“No, don’t go on. I don’t want to hear this.”

“Why not?”

What he’d said had agitated her so much she couldn’t remain sitting still. Taking the sheet with her to wrap around her naked body, she scooted off the opposite side of the bed and put as much distance between them as she could manage.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she insisted.

He was perfectly calm in the face of her storm, the preeminent attorney waiting to hear her argument. “I always know what I’m saying,” he said reasonably.

“I know you’re attracted to me as a novelty—”

“A novelty? You’re putting yourself in a category with blow-up dolls?”

“I’m putting myself in the category I belong in—single mother. Those women you avoid, remember? Those women you don’t even want as your secretary.”

“Lucy—”

“No,” she repeated, stopping him before he could go on because she didn’t want to hear his reasoning. “You said yourself that you weren’t sure you’d ever want to be a father because you can’t give the kind of time and attention to a child that it deserves. You live a child-free life. A fast-paced, high-pressure life that has no place in it for kids. Look at your apartment, your clothes, your car—it’s only a two-seater. Being around me and Max is nothing if not a novelty. But that doesn’t make it something you could do with any kind of longevity.”

“You think you know me better than I do?”

“I know that a man ensconced in his own life—a life that makes the world adapt to it rather than adapting to the world—is not a man who would ultimately be happy with the demands of a ready-made family. It’s not a man who can take on a ready-made family without that family sacrificing everything to him. It’s a man who would eventually want out, want back into his well-ordered life.”

“We’re not talking about me, are we? Now we’re talking about the law professor who left you pregnant and in the lurch rather than alter his agenda in the slightest.”

“We’re talking about what I know from experience with Max’s father and with you.”

“I’ve adapted to several changes while we’ve been working together.”

“No, you haven’t. You’ve juggled and rearranged my life to get what you’ve needed out of the bargain. I’m not complaining, I agreed to it all. But only because it was temporary. I can’t have a whole lifetime of that. I’ve only spent a fraction of the time I should have with Max since the moment I met you. That’s not the kind of parent I want to be to him. It’s not the kind of parent I will be to him. I’ve set our course and it’s a course where Max comes first and I won’t let anything or anyone distance me from him.”

“The last thing in the world I would want is to distance you from Max. I’m not talking about taking you away from him. I’m talking about adding me to the mix.”

“Why? So he can start to see you as his father, fall in love with you, depend on you and then watch you bolt back to your office, to your other life when you tire of the demands of a family and want out?”

“Let me see if I have all this straight. You think I’m some kind of male prima donna who, on nothing more than a whim, would swoop in, take you away from your son while insinuating myself into his affections, and then drop you both like a hot potato at the first sign of a scheduling conflict or a smear of peanut butter on the arm of the sofa?”

The cool, calm lawyer was showing signs of anger. He was on his feet now, too, facing off with her in a dauntingly arousing sight.

“My view of you is hardly that disparaging,” she said, trying not to stare at the magnificence of his naked chest. “You’re a good man, Rand. A great one. But you’re a man who lives a life so completely different from mine that we might as well be on separate planets.”

“I’m not from another planet, Lucy. I grew up in a household full of kids and family. I know what it involves. I’ve avoided it myself because I know what it involves and I knew I couldn’t have the kind of career I’ve had and a family, too. But I’ve had the career I wanted and it’s falling short for me lately. It’s not enough. Then you got dropped into my lap and I suddenly found myself feeling good again. Happy. Content. What I realized is that I’ve devoted enough time to my job and now I want to put it second to my private life. Now I want to make whatever changes need to be made to accomplish that.”

A part of her would have liked to believe that. To believe that he could actually pull it off. But she was afraid—no, terrified—that it was the same part of her that had believed Marshall would welcome the news of her pregnancy with Max, ask her to marry him and give her happily-ever-after.

But she’d learned that happily-ever-after was too good to be true, that she couldn’t listen to that part of her that wanted to believe otherwise, no matter how much she might want to. That it only got her hurt and in trouble.

“No,” she repeated once more.

“No what?” he said again.

“I know you mean what you’re saying right at this moment. I really do. But I can’t trust it. I have Max to think about and I can’t take the risk with him, with his feelings. He already likes you too much and—”

“I wouldn’t hurt Max. I wouldn’t hurt you,” Rand said in a deep, quiet, sincere voice.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t do it on purpose. But I truly believe that even if you put effort into cutting back on work, little by little it would creep in and take over the way it ended up taking over since I became your secretary. And Max would suffer. He’d suffer every time he expected you here and something came up at the office to keep you away. And he’d suffer more when you finally admit that cutting back isn’t something you can actually do. That you thrive on the constant work, the pace, the world you’ve built for yourself, and that that really is where you belong.” And she would suffer, too. Just the way she had when Marshall had turned his back on her.

“I’m not a boy, Lucy,” Rand said very, very seriously. “I know myself. I know what I can and can’t do. I know what I want. And what I want is not just a novelty or some passing fancy. It’s you.”

“But I don’t come alone. That’s the problem.”

“I want Max, too.”

She shook her head, fighting the sting in her eyes. “It just wouldn’t work out.”

“I’ll make it work out.”

It was so tempting to trust in that. And if it had been her heart alone on the line she might have. She might have thrown caution to the wind the way she wanted to and just hoped that he honestly did know himself well enough to know he was capable of taking such an about-face with his life.

But she wasn’t a woman alone. She was a woman with a child. A child she loved too dearly to ever put into any kind of risk at all.

“No,” she said yet again, firmly and with finality.

“You won’t even give us a chance?”

“No.” She brushed the wetness from her cheeks with the back of one hand, wishing Rand was anywhere but there so she wouldn’t have to fight to keep herself from running into his arms, from giving in to that naive, younger self who still yearned to believe everything he’d said and take the chance after all.

“I think you should go,” she whispered, her voice cracking traitorously and letting him know how close she was to breaking down completely.

“Lucy,” he said, taking a step toward her.

“No,” she said one final time, holding up a hand to stop him from coming any nearer. “Go,” she added, but just barely because her throat was so full of tears she could hardly speak.

And then the phone rang. Of all the bad timing, the phone rang.

Lucy pressed a hand to her mouth in an attempt to gain some control, but before she did, Rand answered it.

She could tell by his clipped, curt questions that something was wrong. Very wrong. And another, different sort of panic took hold of her careening emotions and made the tears evaporate.

“What?” she demanded the moment the phone left Rand’s ear.

“Max is hurt,” he said, his own face blanched white. “He fell off the top bunk bed and hit his head. He’s unconscious and on his way to the hospital in an ambulance right now.”



Rand insisted on going with Lucy to the hospital, on driving her car because she was in no shape to be behind the wheel. They arrived at the emergency room twenty-five minutes later, both of them in clothes they’d thrown on without regard to anything but decency so they could get out in a hurry.

Max had already been taken for a CAT scan and before Lucy located the parents of Max’s friend, one of the emergency room doctors came out to let her know what was happening.

Max had regained consciousness in the ambulance and exhibited no signs of concussion. But the CAT scan was for safety’s sake. Of more concern was the fact that his left arm was badly broken and would need surgery to set it properly. Beyond that, he had a few bumps and bruises but he was fine and his prognosis was good.

Still, the mention of even the remote possibility that he might not come out of this with full use of his hand and the ominous tone of the surgery release forms did nothing to allay Lucy’s panic. It took Rand’s calming, logical reasoning to keep her from becoming hysterical.

When the doctor left, Rand guided her into the waiting room where Max’s friend’s parents were nearly as distraught as Lucy was. The couple apologized profusely for what was clearly more the boys’ fault than theirs. Apparently the two had decided to play cliff diver off the top bunk bed and, being the guest, Max had gone first. In four-year-old reasoning, they’d been certain that the pillows they’d put on the floor would cushion their landing.

Lucy assured the other parents that she understood but she was in such an emotional state herself that it wasn’t easy to deal with their remorse. She was grateful for the buffer Rand provided, and even more grateful when he convinced them to go home.

But that was only the beginning of the services Rand provided. Throughout the entire day he stayed by Lucy’s side. She was all nerves and he was the calming force she relied on to get through. He brought her coffee. He repeatedly reminded her that her son was going to be all right, and he did it with such confidence she believed him until her own fear crept in again, and then he would reassure her all over again.

He got her to eat a small lunch while Max was being operated on by Washington’s leading pediatric surgeon, a man Rand knew and had called in personally. Rand held her hand. He even managed to make her laugh a time or two. He called Sadie to let her know what had happened and when Sadie arrived at the hospital with a small bag of things for Lucy to use to clean up, comb her hair and stay the night with Max, Rand treated Sadie’s worry as tenderly as he continued to treat Lucy’s.

By late that evening Max was sleeping peacefully in a private room that Rand had arranged for. The little boy had come through the surgery with flying colors and had awakened long enough to prove he could move all five fingers without a problem before drifting off to sleep again.

When visiting hours ended, Sadie kissed the sleeping Max. Then Lucy, Sadie and Rand went out into the hall.

“Anything you need, darling, just call,” Sadie told Lucy, kissing her, too. “Otherwise I’ll see you in the morning when you get our boy home.”

“I’ll be fine,” Lucy answered, accepting her aunt’s hug and letting Sadie know she finally did feel certain things really were going to be okay.

Then Sadie headed for the elevator, leaving Lucy and Rand alone.

“I’m taking your car back to your place,” he explained in a hushed tone so as not to disturb Max through the open door. “I’ll have Frank pick me up there and he’ll be back here first thing in the morning so he can drive you and Max home as soon as Max is released.”

Lucy was weary and worn out by then but more herself. “You don’t have to do that. You can have Frank pick you up here and I can just drive my own car in the morning.”

Rand shook his head firmly. “No. I don’t want you driving. And if you need anything when you get home—prescriptions filled, groceries, anything—send Frank.”

She didn’t have the energy to argue so she just said, “Thank you. And thank you for everything today. I’m not sure I could have gotten through this without you.”

“Don’t thank me. It felt good to be needed. To take care of you. If you’d let me, I’d devote my life to doing just that.”

It was the first reference he’d made to what had been going on between them when the phone call about Max had interrupted them. Lucy had almost forgotten about their fight, about the fact that she’d been in the middle of ending things with him.

But now she remembered it all. Sadly. But with no less resignation. “It would make for a pretty boring life compared to what you’re used to,” she reiterated.

“I think it would be a pretty great life.”

Lucy shook her head. “I meant what I said before,” she whispered solemnly.

“Rethink it, Lucy,” he commanded. “We make a good team.”

“I do all right on my own,” she said stubbornly, even as she knew she wouldn’t have gotten through the day’s ordeal without Rand. But she especially wouldn’t admit that. It was too dangerous to acknowledge that she might need him or anyone else when the last time she’d felt that need she’d been left high and dry by a man so similar to Rand.

“Wouldn’t do any harm to just give some consideration to letting me into your life permanently,” Rand said.

But again she shook her head. “I don’t have to think about it. I know what I’m doing and Max and I are better off alone.”

Inside the hospital room Max stirred and Lucy rushed to his bedside while Rand looked in after her.

But Max hadn’t actually awakened and after a turn of his head on the pillow he settled back into deep sleep.

Lucy didn’t leave her son’s bedside to return to Rand, though. She merely looked his way and said, “Thank you for everything,” just as she might have said it to any stranger.

Rand seemed to get the message and left.

After all the time and distance from the emotions of the morning, after all the other things that had replaced them during the day, Lucy didn’t understand why she felt tears well up in her eyes as she watched him go.

Tears that had nothing to do with Max and everything to do with the feeling that her own heart was breaking in a way no amount of medicine could mend.

Ten

Monday dawned bright and sunny in California and the woman known as Meredith Colton was pleased to have an early morning phone call from the third private investigator she’d hired to locate her sister. She was also pleased to find herself alone in the house for a change so that there was no worry of being overheard.

“Well, what did you find?” she said eagerly into the receiver once the amenities were passed.

“I’m in Monterey. I spent the whole weekend buttering the palm of one of the nurses at the St. James Clinic here and following every lead I could find,” the detective began.

“And?”

“I’m afraid the trail goes cold after the clinic.”

“I hired you to tell me something I don’t know.”

“I can only tell you what I found out and it isn’t much,” he said. “Patsy Portman—who appeared from out of nowhere on the grounds of the clinic in 1992, disheveled, disoriented and mumbling about a car accident—was released after six months. At the time of her release she was still suffering from amnesia. She was, however, having frequent and vivid dreams and fragments of memories that led her doctors to be encouraged that the amnesia might resolve itself before too long. But due to the fact that she’d made a dramatic recovery from her years of anxiety, depression, mood swings, psychotic episodes and anti-social tendencies it was judged to her benefit to leave the clinic and pursue treatment of her amnesia as an outpatient. The trouble is, after her release she never returned to the clinic and there was no current address available,” the investigator concluded.

“That’s it?” the woman shouted.

“I told you the trail is cold after that. I can keep looking if you want but frankly I think it’s a waste of your money. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence. A lot of mentally ill or unbalanced people who improve in the hospital environment see a resurgence of their problems once they’re out in the real world. If they don’t return for care, some even end up as one of the homeless. That would account for the fact that there’s no record of Patsy Portman from the time she left the clinic on. Those kind of people don’t fare well on the streets. And even if they manage somehow, they don’t last long. A high percentage of them end up dying as a Jane or John Doe and being buried in a pauper’s grave. I can’t guarantee it, but if I were betting on it, I’d say that’s what we have here. Too many years have gone by without leaving a trace of her.”

That calmed down the woman known as Meredith. In fact it was so comforting to her that she latched on to the explanation as if there were evidence to prove it.

“You’re probably right,” she agreed, taking a swift turnaround from her earlier outrage. “And if that’s the case, there’s no reason for you to look any further.”

“Like I said, I can if you want me to, but I think it would be a waste of money. This Patsy Portman is long gone.”

“No, you’re right, there’s no sense spending more money looking for a dead woman. Send me your bill and go ahead and call it quits.”

And with that she hung up the phone, letting a smile play across her face as she allowed herself to believe she was out of the woods, that she no longer needed to worry about her sister cropping up to ruin things for her.

Which meant that now she could concentrate on the more pressing matter of that vile Emily….



Lucy didn’t get Max home until noon on Monday. The recuperative powers of the child were amazing and by then he was bright and alert and, with the exception of the cast on his arm, showing almost no signs of the previous day’s trauma.

Lucy, on the other hand, felt as if she’d been through the wringer. And it didn’t help matters when she discovered on her coffee table a large wrapped package from Rand to Max.

Sadie came out from the kitchen at about the same time and said, “That arrived about an hour ago.”

Once he’d determined it was for him, Max tore in to the wrapping and exclaimed delightedly over the treasure trove of dinosaur movies, picture books and coloring books and crayons.

“Did you see this?” he enthused to his mother and great-aunt. “Did you see what Rand got me? How come he did that?”

It was clear the present meant all the more to Max because it had come from his hero. A stab of pain went through Lucy to think that her son was already so attached to the man that he would miss him when Rand didn’t come around anymore.

But she fought it and said as evenly as she could, “It’s a get-well gift. When people are sick or have accidents and get hurt, other people send them presents.”

“Cool!” the little boy said, his newest word since becoming friends with Mikey, the boy he’d been spending the night with when he’d decided to dive off the high bunk. “Can we call Rand and tell him to come over and play?”

The stabbing pain just got worse for Lucy. “No, we can’t do that. I’m sure he’s working.”

“Then can we call him to come over tonight when he’s not working?”

“I don’t think we’ll be seeing any more of Rand for a while, Max. But you can send him a thank-you picture, maybe one of the dinosaurs you color in the coloring books.”

“But I want to see him myself and tell him thank you,” the little boy insisted. “Why won’t we see any more of him for a while? Is he going away on a trip or something?”

“Something,” Lucy confirmed, distracting her son by pointing out that the plastic dinosaurs had come complete with their own rain forest for him to set up.

But Sadie was not so easily thrown off the track and once Max was occupied with his new toys she said, “Come into the kitchen with me, Lucy, and see if I made Max’s Jell-O the way he likes it.”

Since Max liked his Jell-O plain, Lucy knew it was a ploy but she had no choice, so she followed her aunt into the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” Sadie asked without preamble.

“Right now I’d just like to take a shower and a nap,” Lucy answered, pretending she didn’t know what her aunt was referring to.

But Sadie would have none of that. “I don’t mean what’s going on here and now. I mean what’s going on with you and Rand. Don’t think I didn’t notice at the hospital yesterday that Rand was dressed in the same clothes he picked you up in Saturday night—yes, I saw him, he was arriving just as I was leaving. And you said yourself that the two of you rushed to the hospital at six-thirty Sunday morning. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out he spent the night. Which, by the way, I approve of since Max was out of the house. But then last night in the corridor outside Max’s hospital room I could tell nothing good was going on. Now you tell Max that Rand won’t be coming around anymore. Something happened and I want to know what it is.”

Sadie had always been the person Lucy confided in, even as a child. It was only natural for her to do that now despite some reluctance to rehash what she would rather have been able to put behind her. So she told her aunt the entire story, beginning to end, and waited for Sadie to lend the unfailing support she had in the past.

But that wasn’t what Sadie did.

“You’re wrong, Lucy,” she said instead. “You’re so wrong.”

“About what?” Lucy asked, surprised, defensive, confused.

“About Rand. You’re right that he lives a different life than you do. You’re right that he’s put off having a family because it would interfere with that life. You’re even right that he lives in a place that looks more like a modern art museum than a house and that Max would level it in a week. But Rand is a man who knows himself. He’s a man who says what he means and means what he says. And if he says he’s ready to cut back on work, to have a family, ready to put that family first, that’s exactly what he’s ready to do.”

“He’ll regret it,” Lucy contended, repeating part of the reasoning she’d already given her aunt.

“He doesn’t make decisions he regrets. And he also doesn’t bail out of things because he can’t handle change. You may be talking about Rand but I think it’s Marshall you have in mind.”

“That’s what Rand said. But they’re very much alike.”

“Maybe on the surface. But while Marshall liked a life that didn’t accommodate having kids and wasn’t willing to change, if Rand says he’s willing to change to accommodate having a family, he is. Only you’re not giving him the chance because you’re projecting too much of your past onto the present. Onto him.”

“He didn’t even want a secretary with a child,” Lucy reminded her aunt.

“And he probably still won’t. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to come home to a woman with a child. Or to that child.” Sadie paused a moment as if to let that sink in and then said, “I know things have been hard for you since you got pregnant with Max, darling. I know you’ve made a lot of sacrifices for him. But I honestly don’t think Rand is one of the things you have to give up for Max’s sake. Or for any other reason. I think with Rand you can finally let down your guard and have what you want—and you do want him or I need my eyes checked. With Rand you can have what you deserve. What Max deserves. Trust me, Lucy. Trust Rand. You can, you know.”

Trust Rand…

That was just what he’d asked her to do the night before. And she’d done it. Without regret.

But could she do it again, in the larger scheme of things?

Sadie left Lucy alone in the kitchen then, returning to Max with a bowl of the Jell-O she’d made him. Lucy didn’t follow. Instead she crossed the kitchen to the window above the sink and looked out at the courtyard all four of her aunt’s town houses shared.

But it wasn’t the autumn-bare gardens or the tall cherry trees she saw out there. Her focus was all internal, all on what Sadie had said, all on thoughts of Rand.

It wasn’t easy to shake the sense of how similar Rand and Marshall were on the surface. They were both well-respected, feared, high-powered movers and shakers in their own professions. They were both workaholics. They had both reached a point where concessions were made to them rather than them making concessions to anyone else.

Except that maybe that last part wasn’t entirely true of Rand, she admitted to herself a little belatedly, feeling guilty for assigning something to him that might not be strictly true.

Yes, she’d done more adapting to him and his needs during the week she’d worked for him but he’d done some adjusting himself—working at her place, having Max to his, suspending work time while Max was with them so she could be with her son and see to his needs.

No, they hadn’t been big alterations but they had spoken of more flexibility than Marshall would have ever shown.

And maybe there was another difference between Marshall and Rand, too, she realized as she thought about it. Rand wasn’t a selfish man, the way Marshall had been. Rand had been perfectly willing to share her with Max, which was something Marshall had told her point-blank he would never be willing to do. He’d said he had to be the center of the universe for whatever woman he was involved with and a child would only corrupt that. But Rand hadn’t had any problems in that area. In fact he’d joined in when it came to Max. In some ways he’d taken over. It was part of why her son was so enamoured of him.

And Rand did know what being a part of a family entailed, she couldn’t deny that. Not only had he come from a large one but he was so clear about the role a father needed to play in a family that he’d denied himself parenthood rather than come up short the way he’d felt his own father had at one time.

But on Sunday at the hospital he’d done just what a good father, a good husband, would have done, she had to admit. He’d suspended his own concerns to care for her and for Max. He couldn’t have been more selfless, more compassionate, more caring, more helpful, even though they’d come from the discussion they’d had and the rejection she’d dished out.

So Rand had certainly proved that he could be there for her and Max when she needed him, which was definitely different from Marshall.

But could Rand make such a huge change in his lifestyle on a permanent basis?

She didn’t know for sure.

But then, how could anyone know for sure?

Which was where the trust part of her aunt’s lecture came in.

If she was going to allow Rand into her life, into Max’s life, she would have to trust that he did know himself and what he wanted and what he was ready for.

And what he’d said he wanted was her. And Max.

That he’d said he was ready for was a family.

When she came down to that, a bubble of elation sprang to life inside her.

Rand wanted her…

Rand wanted Max…

Should she take the risk for them both?

She wanted to. More than she’d ever wanted anything.

She wanted Rand, and a family with him. She wanted Max to have him as his father.

If that had been what Rand had been proposing the morning before…

It occurred to Lucy that she wasn’t exactly sure what Rand had been proposing. Suddenly that bubble of elation inside her lost some of its air.

What if he had only been proposing that they have some sort of other, uncommitted relationship?

That could put a whole new spin on things. A whole new spin that would put herself and Max more at risk than she was willing to.

But she’d never know unless she talked to Rand.

So talk to him.

She didn’t want to do it over the phone and she couldn’t leave Max right then, when she’d just gotten him home from the hospital.

“But there’s still tonight,” she whispered to herself.

Once she got Max to sleep, she could have Sadie baby-sit while she went to Rand’s apartment.

Tension washed through her.

What if she’d misunderstood what he’d been leading up to the previous morning before she’d stopped him? What if she went there tonight and made a huge fool out of herself?

There was only one way to find out. So tonight she’d talk to him, she vowed.

If she could keep her courage up that long.



The doorman for Rand’s apartment building recognized Lucy when she arrived at nine that evening but he wouldn’t allow her to go up until first calling ahead.

That didn’t help her nerves as she stood in the lobby waiting and imagining that Rand had another woman with him and had left orders with his doorman not to be disturbed.

Within moments she got the okay but the anxiety remained with her on the elevator. She hadn’t only rejected Rand once yesterday, she’d rejected him twice. And now she couldn’t help worrying that, even if he had intended something permanent, maybe after twenty-four hours of thinking about it, he’d gotten angry and would tell her to take a hike.

But she’d come this far and she wasn’t going home without knowing exactly what he’d been suggesting the day before, even if her heart was in her throat and her knees felt as if they were made of jelly.

When the elevator doors opened on the eighth floor, Rand was standing in his open doorway, which cut short the idea of retreating back to the lobby, so she willed her legs to hold her up and stepped off the elevator.

“Is everything all right? Is Max okay?” Rand asked in greeting, clearly concerned that something bad had happened to bring her here.

“Everything is fine. Max is doing amazingly well,” Lucy assured quietly, wanting to allay any worry as she crossed the outside hallway. She appreciated that he cared enough for that to be his first concern, though. It bolstered her decision to do what she was there to do.

From her pocket she took out a page torn from one of her son’s new coloring books and handed it to Rand. Max had colored the picture and had her show him how to write thank you and his name at the top.

“Max wanted you to have this,” she said. “He was about as excited as I’ve ever seen him to get home and find that gift from you. You’ve done enough. You didn’t have to do that, too.”

“I wanted to. But you didn’t need to hand-deliver his thank-you. Especially not tonight.”

Rand’s expression was inscrutable and it didn’t make this any easier for her, particularly since he hadn’t so much as invited her into his apartment. Again she worried that he might have female company. Female company who might have been helping him off with his clothes because he was down to just navy blue suit pants and an untucked, unbuttoned shirt that exposed a mind-numbingly sexy strip of chest and belly.

But again she summoned her courage to go headlong into her purpose for being there.

“I didn’t just come to bring Max’s picture. I wanted to talk to you,” she finally admitted. “But if you aren’t alone…”

“I’m alone,” he said with an edge to his voice that let her know he was reading her thoughts and didn’t appreciate the implication.

He stepped out of the doorway then, though, and made a sweeping gesture with his arm to indicate invitation.

Lucy went in, swallowing hard along the way and praying she was brave enough to go through with this as they stood facing each other in the entryway.

“Did you get a temp in today to work?” she asked, curious and trying to ease some of her own stress with small talk when he seemed inclined to have them remain in the foyer.

“The service sent over a pretty good one, actually. Sheila. She’ll be back tomorrow and I may offer her the job.”

“Young? Beautiful?” Lucy didn’t know where that had come from and she wished she could call the words back the moment they were out.

“She’s about fifty, slightly plump, not attractive at all. But she’s a great secretary.”

“Good,” Lucy said in a voice she barely recognized as her own.

Rand must have taken it to mean that she wasn’t happy to have been replaced because he said, “I didn’t think you’d be back. Between Max and—”

“No, it’s good you found someone else. You’re right, Max needs me at home.”

Silence fell then as Lucy’s courage flagged.

But after a moment Rand said, “Now tell me why you’re really here.”

There was no hostility in his tone. In fact there was a conservative sort of compassion that helped her to face him and say, “Sadie says I was wrong, and after thinking about it I’ve come to agree with her.”

“What are you wrong about?”

“You.” She took a deep breath and pushed herself to go on. “I’m sorry, Rand. It’s just that Sunday morning when you started to talk about changing your life, I panicked. I had you all mixed up in my mind with Max’s father and… Well, I was just wrong. I know that if you say you want to change your life you do. That you will. That you won’t regret it. That you’ll accomplish that as well as you’ve accomplished everything else.”

“This sounds like an endorsement from an objective third party apologizing for not giving credit where credit is due. But is the punch line that you still don’t want any part of it?”

“I don’t know. That depends on what part of it you had in mind for me. I didn’t let you get far enough to find out.”

“I was casting you as the leading lady.”

“What role exactly does the leading lady play?

Steady girlfriend? Significant other?”

“You’re still thinking of me as that other guy, Lucy. I’m talking about you being my wife.”

Relief washed over her and she smiled for the first time since her arrival. “Oh.”

“That’s all you have to say? Oh?”

“Is the offer still good?”

He took her hand in both of his and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe she was asking that question. “If you’ll recall, I told you to think about it. So yes, the offer is still good. I’m in love with you, Lucy Lowry. I don’t know how you could have missed it, but since you did—”

“A girl just likes to hear the words.”

“Okay. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you so much that nothing is as important to me as being with you, as making you my wife, as making my life with you, as being a father to Max. I’d like it if you’d agree to marry me. And if you do, I promise you that I will never hurt you intentionally, and that I will always put you and Max and any other kids we might have first and foremost.”

“And you’re sure?”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m sure. I’m positive. I’m absolutely certain. So what do you say?”

She didn’t have to think about it. She said, “Yes. I say yes.”

He stared down at her for a moment and she honestly thought he was going to pull her into his arms and kiss her. But instead he said, “I have one condition.”

“You do?”

“I want you to let me be the breadwinner so you can go back to law school. You don’t have to take a full load, just a few classes a semester while Max is in school. But I want you to go. I don’t want to see that mind of yours wasted. And then, once you pass the bar, we can be partners in that, too.”

Lucy laughed. If she’d had any lingering doubts about how different Rand was from Marshall, they disappeared in that instant because there wasn’t a hint of the resentment for her ambitions that Marshall had always shown.

“I think you’re just looking for a way to lighten your caseload,” she joked.

“I’m looking for it all—wife, mother of my children, law partner, lover.”

He finally did take her into his arms, kissing her a few playful, short kisses.

“Is Sadie with Max?” he asked between them.

“Yes.”

“Is Max asleep?”

“Yes.”

“So he wouldn’t miss you if, say, it takes an hour or so for us to get back to him?”

“I don’t think so,” Lucy said, her voice growing deeper and more breathy as his kisses grew deeper and more passionate.

“Think Sadie would mind?”

“She figured out that you spent Saturday night with me and said she approved, so I don’t think she’d mind.”

Rand smiled. “That’s my girl.”

He kissed Lucy’s neck then, just below her earlobe at a spot she’d never realized was so sensitive, so arousing.

“And what about you? Any qualms about sticking around here for a little while?”

“Depends on what for,” she teased, tilting her head to allow more of the feather-brush of his lips against her skin.

“For this,” he said in a husky voice as he slipped off the coat she was still wearing and reached beneath her sweater to massage her bare back while his mouth returned to hers in open, hungry kisses that wiped away all other thoughts.

Even though Lucy had believed she’d given herself over to Rand when they’d made love before, she learned then that she hadn’t. Not the way she did now.

Now, when his hands grazed her flesh, shedding her clothes and his.

Now, when he led her to his bedroom and laid her on the downy comforter, lying beside her, capturing her mouth and claiming her breasts with his wondrous hands. Now, when her own hands claimed him in return.

Now, when she opened to him, accepted him fully into her and rode the wild ride with him that sealed the union they’d finally made, that celebrated it and bound them together for all of eternity.

And when they lay spent and exhausted and holding each other, Lucy finally said the words she’d thought she might never again say to anyone but Max. “I love you.”

Rand chuckled slightly. “I was wondering if I was ever going to hear that from you.”

“I like to keep you guessing. It stokes the fires.”

“I don’t think you’ll have any problem stoking my fires. And by the way, in case you’ve forgotten, I love you, too.”

She knew that. But it was still good to hear again. In fact, she couldn’t imagine ever hearing it enough.

“I should get home,” she told him on a reluctant sigh.

“We should get home,” he amended and it sounded incredibly good to her.

Still she didn’t hurry to move. She allowed herself just a little while to savor being there in Rand’s arms, reveling in his love for her, in her love for him, in the fact that she’d found him just when she’d been certain there wasn’t anyone out there she could trust again.

But there had been. There had been just one man who was perfect for her, who would be perfect for her for the rest of her life. Perfect for Max, too, whom she knew would be thrilled to welcome Rand into their small family.

And a family was just what they’d be, she thought.

A wonderful, loving family.

A family that really could have that happily-ever-after she’d thought was too good to be true.

Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Victoria Pade for her contribution to THE COLTONS series.