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He leaned forward, his eyebrows raised high. “Which part don’t you understand? Joe gave me permission to go on location to Sun Mountain for a long weekend. I want to take pictures of the babies outside with Mount Bachelor in the background.”
Her stomach clenched. “No way,” she intoned, shaking her head. She absolutely, positively did not want to go anywhere with Aiden. Being around him had always threatened her vow to stay unengaged, to keep her heart safe. She knew from past experience that Aiden was as far from safe as she could get.
He unfolded his big body and stood, towering over her. She slowly looked up at him and fought to keep her jaw from falling at his imposing, utterly masculine presence. Her heart expanded in her chest, bringing forth the absurd desire to stand up and walk over and bury herself in his warm, comforting embrace, to soak up all the love he’d been so willing to shower on her.
The love she’d had to walk away from.
Sadness weighing her down, she saw the new lines in the skin around his eyes, the shadows under his eyes and the slight hollows in his cheeks she’d noticed earlier. His face reflected a hardness she’d never seen before, a weariness that seemed to go bone deep, as if he’d gone through hell. What had happened during his years overseas to cause those changes?
She shook off her curiosity, determined not to get caught up in Aiden again. Nothing had changed; she still wouldn’t know how to love him. Not that he’d ever want her again.
He leaned down and placed his hands on her desk. “Yup, pack your bags, sweetheart. We’re going on a trip together.” His eyes glinted with cold, hard determination. “Soon.”
She sagged back in her chair and an absurd kind of panic rose in her, almost choking her. She’d spent years recovering after walking away from a wonderful man like Aiden. She was finally in a place where she was fairly happy, a place where she’d accepted that she was destined to be alone.
Now she felt as if she was in a frightening time warp, starring Aiden. In the last fifteen minutes, he’d marched back into her life and turned her stable, carefully crafted world upside down and made her feel things she didn’t want to deal with.
To make matters worse, he hadn’t just stepped back into her existence for an afternoon. Oh, no. She had to go away with him for a whole darn weekend.
Damn fate, anyway.
Chapter Two
Aiden tried not to stare at Colleen’s pink, open mouth, tried not to let her wide-eyed, horrified expression cut too deep. Obviously she thought going away with him was akin to taking a vacation with Charles Manson. Searching for levity to break the thick tension that had sprung up between them and calm the dull pain knifing in his gut, he said, “A fly will get in if you leave your mouth hanging open like that.”
She clamped her mouth closed and glowered, drawing her perfectly arched, dark blond eyebrows together, presumably to look stern. “Very funny.” Obviously she didn’t appreciate his attempt at humor.
“Hey, whatever works,” he said with forced lightness, determined not to dwell on the fact that he had to work with the woman who’d crept under his skin eight years ago and dismantled his heart like a one-woman wrecking crew.
“You think this is amusing?” She began to quickly shuffle through the masses of papers covering every square inch of her desk, nervously jumping from pile to pile. Odd, she’d never been the twitchy sort before.
He let out a heavy breath. “No, not amusing. But not the end of the world, either. C’mon, Colleen, lighten up.” If he could deal with this after she’d cut a hole in his heart she damn well could, too.
She yanked out a sheaf of papers and began to thumb through the stack. “I wish that were possible.”
“Why isn’t it?”
Her worry-studded gaze flicked up and held on him for a long moment, then darted back down to peruse the papers in her hands. “I told you. I don’t want this assignment.”
“Why not?” he asked before he could call the words back, irritated that he cared about her reactions at all. Nothing but trouble there.
“I just don’t.” She shot to her feet, turned away and opened a file cabinet, ignoring him again.
He stood in silence, staring at her narrow back and blond, curly hair. A memory of her on the beach, smiling at him, the blue sky behind her, her hair blowing in the ocean breeze, popped into his brain—
He stopped the image in its tracks. Those were the memories of Colleen that had tortured him while he huddled against bombed-out buildings in the dark during cold, endless nights. Funny how those memories had also kept him warm deep inside, encouraging him to go on when scenes of death and starving children and leveled villages had cut across his heart and soul and branded themselves in his brain forever.
Fortunately he didn’t need memories of Colleen to get him through anymore, to keep him warm. His new, life-affirming job taking pictures of babies would do that.
Dragging his gaze away, he fisted his hands at his sides. He had to concentrate on his work, not how his memories of her had helped him through the darkest hours of his life.
Despite that one and only benefit of his past relationship with her, he couldn’t ever let himself forget that she’d coldheartedly eviscerated him. End of story. He refused to let himself care about her beyond working on this article together.
“Dammit, Colleen.” He reached out and tugged on her elbow. Her soft, peachy scent assaulted his senses. “We have to work together.”
She spun around and the papers in her hands fluttered to the floor. She jerked away. “Do you mind?”
He dropped his hand. She was right. He shouldn’t be touching her. “All I want to do is talk—”
“We’ll talk about the story, nothing more.”
“Hey. Cool. That’s exactly what I was going to say. So you’re going to find a way to work with me so we can collaborate on a quality piece?”
She froze, staring, and a whisper of naked vulnerability flashed in her eyes. She looked down and slowly turned back to the file cabinet, shutting him out again.
He opened and closed his fists, determined not to let himself wonder or care about her vulnerability—or anything else about her. “I’m not going to let you ruin the spread. This is too important to me to let you do that.”
She twisted back around and met his gaze, then opened her mouth to speak, but clamped it tightly shut. She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them, a studied blankness assailed him.
To his irritation, right on cue, as if he’d been plunked down in the past, his chest pulled tight. He ignored the tugging sensation, determined not to give a rip about Colleen again. He’d seen that expression before, more times than he could count. Thankfully her utter blankness, so familiar, so damn steadfast, didn’t matter anymore.
He wouldn’t let it.
“I…uh, I need to get something. I’ll be right back.” She walked from behind her desk and left him standing alone in her cube.
He swore under his breath, looked at the ceiling and rubbed the back of his neck. Casting a glance around her tiny cubicle, he again noticed the mounds of paper covering every inch of her desk and most of the floor. A yellowing, half-dead plant swimming in water sat in one corner, and its brown, dried-up twin sat on the corner of her desk. Stacks of file folders and empty office-supply boxes crowded the top of the file cabinets. The place was an absolute mess.
He frowned. He remembered Colleen as being pretty neat and well organized, and her appearance today was polished and put-together. Why was her office so filled with clutter? Was she just too busy to straighten up once in a while? And why was she so damn fidgety?
He shook his head. He had to admit, she seemed different. The glimpse of vulnerability he’d seen in her eyes earlier was totally unexpected and so unlike what he remembered about the confident, wisecracking Colleen he’d fallen in love with.
And why was she so bothered to be working with him? She’d seemed to escape absolutely unscathed by their breakup. He’d seen her in a bar the night before he’d left for Afghanistan, happily dancing up a storm with every guy in the place. Stuff like this didn’t usually bother her.
Yeah, Colleen had changed. Despite that observation, she was as much a mystery as she’d always been, a mystery he would solve only for the sake of “The Baby Chronicles” and his career as a baby photographer.
As much as he hated it, to build the new life he wanted, he had to discover a way to work with her effectively.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, Colleen dropped into a chair in the small room that served as the break/lunch area for the employees of the Beacon, thankful lunchtime was over. She needed a few minutes alone to get a hold of herself.
To find a way to keep Aiden from getting to her.
She plopped her chin in her upturned palm and looked around the room. The light blue walls were adorned with gold-framed copies of old issues of the Beacon. One wall held a new white refrigerator, shiny black dishwasher, gleaming chrome sink, speckled blue counters and white wood cabinets. Newspapers and magazines covered the surfaces of the three small, round metal tables, and unwashed coffee cups sat on the counter between the sink and microwave oven, along with an assortment of plates, empty junk-food containers and pop cans. The place was a disaster.
Kind of like her. Looked good on the outside, a mess on the inside. Mercy, she was such a product of her loveless childhood, spent first with her neglectful, flaky parents, and later, in a verbally abusive foster-care home. She shuddered, remembering the terrible, lonely place where her only purpose had been to act as a live-in baby-sitter for the rest of the younger kids and as a verbal punching bag for her alcoholic foster mother.
She shook her head, recoiling from those terrible memories, focusing on the here and now, which, unfortunately, was inevitably intertwined with her past.
Was that why Aiden had thrown her into such a tizzy? She frowned and pinched the bridge of her nose, taking control of her spiraling, disconcerting emotions. Tizzies, she’d discovered at an early age, were useless and only brought on someone else’s anger, targeted at her. She always made sure that she managed herself well enough to avoid them. But not today.
She’d run from her office like a frightened little girl, letting Aiden take control of her emotions.
What was wrong with her?
She didn’t have the answer to that important question, just as she hadn’t had the answer eight years ago. Aiden’s ability to open the door to her wants and desires and her inability to fight that power had scared her to death and forced her to break up with him.
But that was then, and this was now, and Aiden was back in her life for the next few days. She had to find a way to keep an even keel, to keep herself under protective control.
A startling thought occurred to her. Had he deliberately sought her out?
No, he’d been genuinely surprised when he’d discovered he was going to be working with her. It was just an odd coincidence they’d been thrown together again. Though not all that odd when she thought about it. She and Aiden were both journalists. Also, most of Aiden’s huge family probably still lived close by in Oak Valley; it made sense he’d return to Portland to be near his four siblings and parents. Just another reason she’d run, having been unable to deal with the prospect of being around his big, traditional family, light-years from her horribly dysfunctional one.
And whether she liked the current situation or not, she had a job to do. She was going to have to go away with him to complete the article. It was time to buck up and do her job without letting Aiden bother her.
Standing, she paced around the small room, forcing herself to fall back on the things that had helped her survive her childhood. Be analytical and rational. Review the situation and formulate a plan.
One. Aiden was in as photographer. Bad news, but unavoidable.
Two. They were going to go to Sun Mountain, a resort in central Oregon about four hours from Portland, for a long weekend. Again, too bad, but a done deal.
Three. Four babies and their parents, all strangers, would be going along, but she and Aiden would be the only other adults there. They would be spending long hours together, working on the article. Just the two of them, for an entire weekend…
That would be torture.
Nervous dread twisted her stomach into a knot. How could she do her job but spend as little time with Aiden as possible?
She stopped pacing and gazed into space for a long moment, her brain humming.
An idea materialized in her head. She smiled. Yes. She needed a friend to accompany her who would act as a safeguard between her and Aiden, someone she could hang out with to avoid having to deal with Mr. Gorgeous Green Eyes.
And her neighbor Maggie was just the person she needed. She was a single mom with a baby the right age. Colleen would have to pull some strings to get Maggie’s daughter, Laura, included in the spread, but that was a manageable detail. She was sure she could persuade Joe to include Laura, and knew she could talk Maggie into agreeing, even though Colleen deliberately hadn’t spent much time with Maggie since Laura had been born. Being around Laura, who drew Colleen’s attention like a fly to sugar, was just too hard to take. And while she would have to spend more time with little Laura this weekend, which would be a test in itself, it would be worth it to have Maggie act as a buffer.
Feeling better, she clenched her hand into a fist and pumped it in the air. “Yes!” she mock whispered. Score one for ingenuity.
A male voice startled her. “Wow. You must be feeling better.”
She twisted around, widening her eyes, and met Aiden’s vibrant, emerald-tinged gaze. His large body filled the small room and it was suddenly difficult to drag air in.
She swallowed and pressed a hand to her chest to calm her racing heart and wobbly nerves, then forced herself to smile broadly and spread her arms wide. “I guess I am.”
He hoisted a lone eyebrow. “What gives?”
A valid question given the hasty exit from her cube. “I’ve been thinking, and I’ve decided to bring a friend and her baby along on the shoot.”
“Because?”
I need protection from you. “Well…because the baby is adorable, and I’d like to include her in the spread.”
He moved closer, shaking his head. “I’ve already approved the four kids I need for the shoot. Five won’t work.”
“What do you mean you’ve approved them?” She cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “I haven’t even seen the pictures submitted yet.”
He stepped closer still, bringing his unique clean-air and fresh-water scent with him. “Joe e-mailed them to me this morning, and I chose the four babies I wanted.”
Annoyance rolled through her. Struggling to maintain her equilibrium, she backed up out of his scent’s reach and hit the counter with her back. Aiden had had final say-so on the babies. Apparently he’d been put in charge of the content of the layout. “Well, if you’re in charge, choose one more,” she blithely demanded, trying not to breathe in his smell, scrambling for her much-needed control.
“Can’t.” He checked his watch. “I’ve designed a layout around four babies. Five will mess it up.”
Okay, Aiden was in the driver’s seat, and after she’d treated him so badly today, there was no way he was going to help her out. He’d probably drive her right off the road.
Quelling the tide of hot frustration burning a hole in her chest—she hated standing meekly by, letting him call the shots—she sidestepped away from him, trailing her hand along the messy counter for support, needing space to think clearly. Chewing on her lip, she stalled, scrambling to come up with a way to get what she wanted.
“Of course,” he said, his voice as smooth as silk, “we could cut a deal.”
She snapped her eyebrows together and slowly turned to look at him. “What kind of deal?”
He very casually lifted a broad shoulder. “I give you what you want and you give me what I want.” He smiled, flashing even, white teeth, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Simple.”
“Simple, my foot.” He was coldheartedly manipulating her. “What do you want?” she asked, even though she already had a pretty good idea.
“Your promise that you’ll find a way to work with me.” He stalked closer, pinning her in place with his piercing eyes. He placed his large hand so close to hers on the counter his pinkie touched her finger. “Think you could manage to do that, Colly?”
His slight touch sent sparks shooting up her arm and his use of his old nickname for her almost buckled her knees. No one else had ever called her that. Her parents, who she hadn’t seen in years, had barely been able to remember her real name.
Not that he meant anything by it. He was simply trying to throw her off balance to get what he wanted, darn him. “Hauling out the heavy artillery, huh?” She smiled tightly, moving her hand away from his.
“Whatever it takes to make sure you and I can do this together to produce a fantastic piece.” He looked away, but not before she saw a flash of pain in his eyes. “All I care about is taking pictures of babies.”
Shoving aside her interest in the glimmer of pain she’d seen in his eyes, she asked, “You sure it isn’t more than that?”
He gave her a slight frown. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve always liked to pick me apart. Maybe this is nothing more than your morbid curiosity at work.” He’d always wanted more than she could give, wanted to “fix” things so everything would turn out the way he wanted. But that task had been futile. She’d known from the get-go that she’d never be the traditional fall-in-love-and-get-married-and-have-babies woman he’d wanted eight years ago.
Knowing that, she should have walked away the moment they’d met instead of letting their chemistry keep them together long enough for him to care. To make matters worse, she’d had panic attacks the moment the M-word had come up, not to mention how far and fast she’d run when he’d actually proposed.
He let out a heavy breath and held up a rigid hand. “No way. I have no reason to be curious about you. And for the record, I never tried to pick you apart.” He looked away, then looked back, his eyes now hard and unyielding. “Back then, I was a fool and wanted your love.”
Her love. The nonexistent fantasy item he’d always wanted, the one thing her flaw had made sure she couldn’t provide. “You can’t have what doesn’t exist,” she whispered.
She sank into a chair, stunned to discover that, even now, after so many years, knowing she didn’t know how to love him made her heart weep.
But she couldn’t ignore the truth now, just as she couldn’t ignore it eight years ago. He’d deserved more than a flawed woman. He still did.
He made a deprecating sound. “So you always said.”
Before she could ask him what he meant by that, his cell phone rang, shrill in the quiet of the lunch-room. He answered it and she chewed on a nail and went back to her thoughts, tuning out his conversation.
Once she thought about it, she really didn’t want to know what his comment had meant. Their rocky past didn’t matter anymore. What was done was done. She’d broken up with him, he’d taken off on his overseas adventure, and they’d both gone on.
