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If that was the case, she was in for a rude awakening. Although he still was a little hazy on the details, he intended to be an active part of his son’s life.
With that thought firmly in mind, he slowed as he approached the small, rectangular bungalow, still a little amazed that his designer boutique wife was living in such a bargain basement place.
And then he saw the empty spot in the driveway where Annie’s car should have been, and it drove every other thought from his mind. Oblivious to the squeal of protesting rubber, he hit the brake and sent the pickup skidding into the curb.
Alarm splintered through him. Yet even as his stomach twisted painfully, he told himself not to panic, not to jump to conclusions. She’d been on her way out last night. Chances were her car had broken down on the way back, or she’d lent it to a friend, or something.
She had to be here. She’d promised, dammit.
Heart pounding, he scrambled out of the truck. He tried the front door first, knocking hard enough to silence the birds singing in the surrounding trees. When he got no answer, he began a clockwise circuit of the grounds, stopping first to peer through the living room windows.
Inside, everything was dark and still, untouched from the way he remembered it last night.
He forced himself to step away, telling himself that it didn’t mean anything as he vaulted the waist-high fence that enclosed the backyard. The first thing he saw was a small inflatable wading pool. It sat, abandoned, in the ankle-high grass, one lone rubber duck bobbing on the surface.
The sight made his heart clench.
He averted his gaze and strode across the neat concrete patio, up three shallow steps to the small service porch where he tried the back door. It was locked, as he’d expected. He leapt down, unlatched the side gate and started down the drive. It didn’t take long to find that, while the shades were down on both bedroom windows, there was still enough of a gap at the bottom of each to see that neither bed had been slept in.
There was no doubt about it. Annie and the boy were gone.
Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Anger and self-disgust choked him. With a strangled curse, he planted his feet and slammed his fist into the rough clapboard siding, needing some outlet for his anguish.
He cursed the pain that radiated up his arm.
Yet it was nothing compared to the ache around his heart.
Dammit. Despite his tough-guy words, his big brave threat to track Annie down like some modern-day bounty hunter, she’d split. She’d probably taken off the minute he’d cleared the corner last night.
And to think he’d actually felt guilty about threatening her! God! He had to be the biggest fool imaginable. Hadn’t he learned the hard way you couldn’t trust anyone?
Shoulders heaving, he shook his head at the irony of it.
Until he’d seen Annie and the boy in the store last week, he would have sworn he’d made his peace with the past. Two years and ten months in prison gave a man plenty of time to think. Although he would never forgive Max Kinnaird for what the older man had done, Gavin accepted that he had only himself to blame for his own situation.
It had been his decision not to turn in his father-in-law, his decision to allow the older man time to try and fix the mess he’d made. The result had been disastrous, a painful reality he lived with every day.
As for his wife and his brief marriage…Well, that was a different story. For a variety of reasons he hadn’t let himself think about Annie or the life they’d once had from the day she’d raced out of the Colson visiting room.
He’d closed the door on that part of his past.
In much the same way, he’d also resolutely refused to consider the future. Instead, he’d redefined his life by simple pleasures—a cold beer, blue skies, the chance to play a game of pickup softball after work. He’d been thankful for the job provided by an old friend and openly overwhelmed when the same friend had agreed to cosign the loan to get him his pickup. He’d been fiercely grateful for every small freedom, from driving fast on the highway, to taking his morning run, to sleeping in a room without bars on the windows.
He’d been perfectly happy to live in the moment, a survival strategy he’d learned in prison, where it had been all that had preserved his sanity.
Until last week he would have said he was content.
Until last week, when the possibility he had a son had changed everything. Suddenly he’d had a purpose again, a reason for giving a damn.
Had apparently being the operative word, he thought bitterly, so overcome by misery it took a minute for him to realize that the wheezing, sputtering sound he’d been hearing for the past thirty seconds was an approaching car.
He raised his head just in time to see Annie drive up in her ancient Honda. Shock and relief made his head swim. He straightened, anyway. By the time she’d shut off the engine, set the hand brake and climbed out of the car, he had himself under control.
Or at least that’s what he thought—until he saw her undisguised wariness.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
She was still in the same clothes she’d had on last night.
He didn’t want to think about the implication of that. Nor did he want to consider why her hair was mussed, her blouse partially unbuttoned, her baby-smooth skin pale with exhaustion. He took a step closer. “Where the hell have you been?”
She stiffened and lifted her chin, as if she were part of the Royal Family and he was an uncouth peasant. “None of your business.” Stooping down, she reached in and grabbed a grocery bag from the passenger seat, bumped the car door shut with her hip and started along the walkway toward the porch.
Her attitude didn’t do jack for his temper. “The hell it’s not.” He caught up with her at the stairs, which they went up shoulder to shoulder. “We had a deal, Annie—an agreement to talk.”
She shoved the grocery bag into his arms, freeing her hands to work the key in the lock. “I said noon.” She opened the door, snatched back the bag and looked pointedly at him. “It’s not quite five-thirty, Gavin. I’m going to bed. Come back later.”
The door banged shut in his face.
Stunned, he stood there a moment, then nearly ripped off the knob in his haste to get the door open. One quick glance revealed Annie wasn’t in her bedroom. By the time that registered, he was already at the kitchen archway, where he gave a quick look around, this being the part of the house he hadn’t been in last night.
Not that there was much to see. To his immediate left were floor-to-ceiling shelves that served as the pantry and a small Formica table with two chairs and a high chair grouped around it. Straight ahead, beneath a bank of windows that overlooked the tiny backyard, was the sink, centered in a section of painted white cabinets topped by eight feet of pale yellow countertop. The door to the service porch was to the right.
The refrigerator was to his immediate right, followed by another, shorter stretch of yellow counter that made a left turn to accommodate the stove. A little further along the same wall was the door to the bathroom.
All in all, it was like the rest of the house: spotlessly clean but rather worn. By far the most outstanding thing in the room was Annie, who was poised in front of the shelves to his left.
“It must’ve been a real hot date,” he said caustically.
Up on tiptoe to put a box of crackers away, she stiffened, shoved the box into place and sank back down. She turned to the table, delved into the grocery sack and pulled out a half gallon of milk. “Look. I was at work. Okay? I stayed longer than usual because someone was late.” She crossed toward him to open the ancient fridge.
Just as a precaution—he’d had it up to the eyeballs with her fondness for abbreviated conversations—he planted his arms on either side of the archway. “Yeah, right.” He wasn’t exactly sure why he couldn’t let it go. Most likely because it was nothing less than she deserved, after the scare she’d given him. It sure as hell didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she looked as if she’d just climbed out of somebody’s bed. “Unless I’m mistaken, your degree is in art appreciation. What were you doing, Annie—cataloging the paintings on somebody’s ceiling?”
She gave him a long look, gently shut the refrigerator, then marched over, unhooked the receiver on the wall phone, punched in a number and shoved it at him. “Ask whomever answers if I work there.” She ducked under the cord and scooted past him.
“Hey, wait a minute! Where do you think you’re going?”
“I told you,” she said, her voice muffled as she disappeared into her bedroom. “To bed. I have four hours before I have to get Sam. We can talk then.”
Her door swung shut at the same time an impatient female voice snarled into the phone. “Palomino Grill.”
“Who the hell is this?” he demanded.
“The Queen of Sheba—whodya think?” This startling pronouncement was punctuated by a violent crashing sound, followed by the distinctive buzz of the dial tone.
Gavin jerked the receiver away from his ear. He’d been hung up on. Lips pursed tightly, he glared at the bedroom door and cursed. After a moment, however, he grudgingly reached out, pressed redial and waited.
This time a different voice answered. It was a man’s, and it was far more congenial. “Palomino Grill.”
Gavin straightened. “‘Morning. I’m trying to locate Annelise Cantrell. Is she there?”
“Annie? Heck, no. You want Annie, you gotta get up early.” The man chuckled at his own joke. “Call back—or better yet, come in anytime from six in the evening to two in the a.m. ‘Course, you’ll have to wait till Monday, ‘cuz she’s off for the weekend. Too bad, too—she’s one fine little filly.”
Gavin’s voice reflected his shock. “No kidding.”
“Nope. Wouldn’t dare kid. The boss lady doesn’t allow it.”
“Well…thanks.”
“Sure thing.”
Gavin slowly replaced the receiver and walked into the other room. Feeling as if the world had just taken a spin in the wrong direction, he sank onto the couch, staring blindly at the closed door to Annie’s room.
A waitress? Hell. She was chock-full of surprises. First the kid. Then the run-down house. Now this.
Well, what did you expect? She’s her father’s daughter, isn’t she?
Max had been a master of the unexpected, too, he reminded himself acidly. It had been one of the crucial little personality traits of his late father-in-law’s that Gavin hadn’t fully appreciated until it had been too late to protect himself.
Still, even knowing what he now did about Max, Gavin had never dreamed that the old man would fail to provide for his only child. After all, she’d been the light of Max’s life, the epitome of his success, his perfect, beautiful, golden girl. Nothing had been too good for her: not the fancy Eastern schools, the designer clothes, the holidays spent skiing in Gstaad or sunning on the beaches of Tahiti or St. Tropez.
God knew, the old man had wanted more for her than him. Gavin might have been smart enough to work his way up the ranks to become a foreman at Kinnaird Construction, might have been good enough to be considered a trusted advisor, but he’d always known that Max aspired for more than a hardworking, dirt-under-thefingernails construction worker for his high-class daughter.
Only Annie hadn’t agreed…
And this was how she’d paid for it.
He lurched to his feet. Dammit. The past was past. Like Annie had said last night, there was no going back. He’d done what he’d had to, what he’d believed at the time was best for both of them.
She was the one who’d chosen this path. She should have told him she was pregnant, told him about the boy. Like he’d said to her last night, if he’d known, it would’ve changed everything. At the very least he would’ve found some way to provide for her and their child.
Instead, she’d chosen to keep it a secret. To cheat him out of two and a half precious years of his son’s life. A son who clearly needed him, he thought soberly, looking around. Although the children’s books and toys neatly stacked on the shelves of the inexpensive entertainment center appeared to be new and of good quality, everything else in the room was well-worn, bordering on shabby.
He thought about that as he walked into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.
He was still thinking about it three hours and forty-nine minutes later, when the bedroom door opened and Annie padded out. Her face was flushed with sleep, her hair a tangled cloud of silver gilt that spilled over her shoulders and down her back.
She was naked except for a pale yellow cotton-knit camisole and a pair of matching bikini panties.
She skidded to a halt when she saw him. “What are you doing here?”
He returned her stare, furious at the spurt of heat that surged through his blood, the sudden stirring in his loins. “I’m waiting for that talk.”
Her eyes widened as she registered the mug clutched in his hand, the proprietary way he was slouched on her sofa with his stocking feet propped on the coffee table.
He nodded toward the archway. “There’s a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen.”
“How…nice,” she murmured. “Why don’t you make yourself at home?”
He settled more firmly into the sofa. “I intend to.”
Alarm mixed with the wariness on her face. After a telling silence, she dampened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “What does that mean?”
He raised the mug and calmly took a sip of coffee before he answered. “It means,” he said coolly, “that I’ve come to a decision about what’s best for our son.”
She went very still. “And what’s that, Gavin?”
“Simple.” His gaze never wavered from her face. “I’m moving in.”
Three (#ulink_21056691-320d-57af-8bc3-e036a2ab31a6)
The room seemed to tilt beneath Annie’s feet. “You’re not serious.”
Gavin set down his mug, settled back and linked his hands across his lean, hard middle. “Oh, yes, I am.”
The way he said it made her skin prickle. He sounded exactly like the old Gavin, the one who’d always gotten whatever he went after.
Yet this—this was unthinkable. “But the house is so small. There’s no spare room…” She raked her hair away from her face, verbally grasping at straws while she struggled to clear her sleep-fogged mind.
His gaze followed the movement of her hand, up, then down, and the strong, masculine line of his mouth flattened out. Before she could divine his intention, he reached toward the rocker, snagged the shirt draped across the seat and tossed it at her. One black brow slashed up sardonically. “Why don’t you put that on? I wouldn’t want you to catch cold or anything.”
Like a slap in the face, the comment brought her completely awake. She grabbed for the shirt and snatched it out of the air, painfully aware not only of the brevity of her attire, but that beneath her clinging camisole, her nipples were tightly, unmistakably beaded.
Heat burned in her cheeks. At the same time a shiver went through her, although, until this moment, she hadn’t been aware she was cold. With hands that trembled, she slid her arms gratefully into the soft flannel, only to still as the sleeves tumbled over her fingertips, the shirttail drifted down her thighs, and Gavin’s scent—soap, fresh air, a hint of freshly milled wood and him—wafted around her.
Too late she realized the flannel shirt was his, the one he’d been wearing earlier over his T-shirt.
Instantly she lifted her shoulders to shrug off the garment, only to stop as she glanced up and found him watching. His expression was as cool as ever, but there was a hint of challenge in his celestial blue eyes. It suggested he fully expected her to reject his offering like the shy, timid little virgin she’d been when he married her, a woman who’d only ever known one lover.
Him.
So, Annelise? scoffed a mocking little voice in her head. That’s precisely what you are.
Yes. But she was damned if she’d broadcast the fact to him. Not after the way he’d tossed her aside like yesterday’s newspaper. Let him at least wonder, insisted her shattered pride.
She forced a smile to her lips, freed a hand and rolled up one cuff, then the other, lifted her arms and flipped her hair free of the upturned collar. “Thanks. That does feel better.” With what she hoped was the air of a woman who regularly entertained men while wearing nothing but their shirt and her underwear, she walked over, curled up in the rocker and tried to appear unfazed. “But you still can’t move in.”
His face might have been carved from stone. Except for a slight pulse visible at the base of his throat, he showed no emotion at all. “Why? Because this place is so small?” He leaned back and shrugged, dismissing her objection with an indolent gesture that made the beautifully curved muscle in his shoulders round. “So we’ll find someplace bigger.”
“No,” she said flatly. “This is my home. I’m not giving it up. And there is no more we. Remember?”
She would never forget. His words were burned on her heart, scored by a thousand tears. It’s over, Annie. You were just a pretty trophy, a way to show how far up I’d come in the world. I don’t want to see you back at Colson again.
She brought up her chin. “I wouldn’t live with you in a place the size of Buckingham Palace.”
His jaw tightened. “Yeah? Well, pardon the hell out of me, but I didn’t think your personal comfort, or mine, was the issue. I thought it was Sam’s welfare we were supposed to consider. With me here, at least he’d get to stay home at night and sleep in his own bed—not get stashed God knows where. Or don’t you care about that?”
Indignation blazed through her. “Don’t you dare speak to me about caring! You don’t have a clue what I’ve gone through to make a home for Sam these past few years.”
