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“I shouldn’t have pushed you, Colin,” she said. Her eyes were huge. “Just don’t let go of life. You are much too wonderful to do that.” She turned and left the room, and he watched her go. His pulse pounded. He had not kissed a woman since Danielle.
He hadn’t felt alive since that explosion, but he had drifted through pain and daily living, not caring if he was numb to everything, not caring if he was only half alive and in danger or about anything else that came his way. Only this past year had he decided he wanted out of Washington, away from the military and all authorities. He wanted peace and quiet, and a simple life. He didn’t want to hurt his family further or to bring danger to them.
The last thing he’d planned to do before going into his isolation was to warn his buddies of the danger they might be in.
Now he was on fire with longing he hadn’t felt in years. This kid sister of Boone’s had stormed into his body, making his heart pound harder, awakening him to needs that he thought were dead and over. Little Izzie. But she wasn’t “little” Izzie any longer. She was a beautiful, desirable, stubborn woman.
He didn’t want to be on fire with longing. He didn’t want to think about her kiss that had all but melted his insides.
But Colin suspected he wasn’t going to be able to forget her kiss anytime in the near future. He wiped a hand across his mouth, wishing he could erase her kiss, wishing they hadn’t goaded each other into such a heated confrontation.
She was like a miniature tiger. There should have been warning signs. Do Not Surprise Or Taunt. Big blue eyes and hair in a pigtail. Deal With At Your Own Risk. She should have been sweet and pleasant and afraid of him as most young women were.
Maybe that gutsy daredevil blood in Boone ran in his whole family. Boone. Isabella was his kid sister. “Just keep reminding yourself,” Colin whispered to himself. He needed to keep his hands off Boone’s sister. He would never have thought this would be a problem.
Instead it was a monumental dilemma—one that kept his pulse racing even now, long after she had sashayed out of the room with that sexy walk of hers.
He groaned, raked his fingers through his hair, then rubbed his knee. His old injuries were acting up after the earlier struggle with Isabella. But he also ached in places he hadn’t hurt in years. And the desire, hot and elemental, angered him.
She had brought him back into life like igniting a fire—Could he put out the flames? Could he go back as he had been, numb, unemotional, not caring? He swore under his breath and walked through the downstairs of Mike’s mansion.
Colin switched off lights until the entire lower floor was bathed in darkness. His eyes adjusted, and he strode to the window he had broken, gazing outside. But his mind was still on Isabella and her kiss.
She was the first woman since Danielle to get through to him. He didn’t want Isabella Devlin clouding his thinking or stirring him to yearnings he thought were long dead. He wouldn’t be here long. He was here to pass on a warning and to vanish once more.
From what she had told him, she didn’t know anything about love. She knew plenty about kissing. And fighting. And shocking him into awareness.
“Dammit, get out of my thoughts!” he whispered. Raking his fingers through his hair again, he remembered combing his hand through her long, silky hair. She had smelled delectable…tasted luscious…and he wanted to forget every second he’d spent with her tonight. He heard a thump overhead and looked up. Everything had to be all right.
Uneasy, he turned and went to the foot of the stairs. All was dark at the top and he climbed slowly, carefully, not making a sound. In seconds he could see the upstairs hall where one small wall lamp burned. Doors opened off the wide hallway in both directions. He knew there was a third floor to the mansion. He hadn’t asked Isabella where she was sleeping.
He climbed a couple more steps and saw a door open a crack, light spilling out. He moved to the top of the stairs.
“Isabella?” he called quietly.
The door opened wider and she stepped into the hall. She was wearing a pale pink cotton nightgown and he could see her figure outlined through the backlighting from the bedroom. He inhaled deeply.
“Are you all right?” he asked, unable to prevent the husky note in his voice.
“I’m fine,” she replied, sounding puzzled. “Did something disturb you?”
Before he could answer, a baby started crying and Isabella hurried to the room next to hers, opening a door. He walked down the hall, every step telling himself to turn around and go back downstairs, to keep distance between himself and Boone’s sister.
He paused in the open doorway. She was holding a little girl in her arms. The baby’s arm was around Isabella’s neck as she tried to comfort the crying child.
As she patted the little girl’s back, the child stopped crying and snuggled closer to Isabella. Isabella turned around and her eyes widened.
“Is she all right?” he asked.
“She’s fine. She’ll go back to sleep. This is Jessie. Jessie, love,” she said softly, “this is—What rank are you, Colin? The last I heard was Colonel Garrick.”
“Colin is enough for a baby to deal with. She doesn’t talk yet anyway, does she?”
“Yes, she talks,” Isabella replied with a smile. “She has a limited vocabulary, but she talks. She’s seventeen months old now.”
Isabella looked beautiful in the nightgown, her hair tumbling over her shoulders, the baby in her arms. He was staring and had momentarily forgotten they had been talking.
“Did something disturb you?” she asked.
“I heard a thump,” he replied, telling himself to leave her alone. Yet he could only stand and stare.
“We’re fine. I dropped my book. Maybe you heard that.” She looked down at Jessie who had gone back to sleep. “See, she’s fine.” She put the toddler back into the crib and turned to go. “She’s gone back to sleep.” She looked up at him. “Shall we go?”
The neck of the nightgown was high, but the top two buttons were unfastened and he couldn’t keep from staring, wanting to reach out and push open the gown. It was cotton and opaque, covering her, but he knew there was nothing under it and he wanted to pull her into his arms.
He turned abruptly and left. “Just wanted to see that you were all right.” He flung the words over his shoulder without looking back. He rushed down the stairs as if a demon were after him; he certainly felt as though one were. A devil of desire. Something he hadn’t had to deal with in so long and that he didn’t want to cope with now.
He stretched out on the sofa. While he had traveled across country for nights on end, he had been going with little sleep and catching it any way he could. Tonight, he had a plush, comfortable sofa and he should have been asleep immediately, but he knew that as long as images of Isabella tormented him, slumber would elude him.
He didn’t want back into the land of the living. He put his hands behind his head, stared at a fixture and blanked out his mind as he had learned to do in prison. He repeated passages committed to memory, going over them without thinking, but keeping his mind blank until sleep overtook him.
Upstairs, Isabella sat in her darkened bedroom, her thoughts stormy as she went back over every minute of the evening.
And Colin’s kiss. They had taunted each other. She shouldn’t have said the things to him that she had, but she was disappointed with the man he had become. If he had been antisocial and mean, she would have left him alone about his future. But he’d once been so alive, the change seemed like a betrayal of the old Colin.
His plans for the rest of his days were grim. Going into seclusion. Giving up love and friends and family.
She touched her lips lightly, remembering his kiss again. She shouldn’t have started that kiss, but what he had said had made her angry. And then after the first startled seconds, he had responded fully. As far as kisses went, his had been devastating. Just thinking about their kiss, she grew hot and ached to kiss him again. Something she couldn’t do—shouldn’t do—impossible.
He had come to life all right, kissing her senseless. Too vividly, she recalled each detail of his arms around her, holding her pressed tightly against him, his tongue stroking hers, his thick shaft pressing against her. And her heart pounding wildly, her breath gone, her pulse racing.
Tomorrow he would be gone forever. How long would she remember tonight?
She hurt for him and knew she shouldn’t. She should let go worrying about Boone’s friend. While she stared into the dark, all she could see were Colin’s gray eyes and somber expression and remember how he had been a brave, idealistic man filled with vitality and enthusiasm. All of that was gone, and she could understand why from what he told her. He had mended physically, now he needed to mend emotionally.
“Right, Isabella,” she said to herself. “Go save him from himself.” She gave a harsh laugh. He was sexy, appealing and lost. And she wanted to save him. What a project!
The man didn’t want to be saved and if she delved much deeper, she might find she had opened a Pandora’s box of problems. Let him go tomorrow. Don’t spend time with him. Leave him for Boone and Mike and Jonah to deal with. That’s what he wants anyway.
Yet—she thought about his kiss and how full of vitality he once was. She inhaled deeply. Did she want to save him or to seduce him?
She shook her head. When had a man tangled her thoughts or her life as Colin Garrick had tonight? Never. Never once had she lost sleep over a man or argued with herself or done anything she was going through now. Even when she’d gone with Drake a year and he had proposed, she had never been tied in knots, never wanted to marry.
Forget Colin, she told herself. Blank Colonel Garrick out of mind and let him go. He’s a wounded sparrow she was trying to save. Walk on by and ignore him. He doesn’t want to be saved. And it wasn’t “walk on by,” it was “run for your life.” He was a threat to her peace of mind.
She closed her eyes and gripped the arms of the chair and wished she could take back the best kiss of her life.
The very best. She inhaled deeply and wondered if she should go work out.
Reluctantly, she got up and dressed and went to the exercise room to pedal and jog, to banish the memory of Colin’s searing kiss.
It was almost dawn when she fell asleep. Jessie’s crying woke her and she went to pick up the baby and change her diaper. Then, slipping into a robe, she took Jessie to the kitchen to feed her.
When she entered the room, Colin was seated at the table. Seeing her, he stood with that lithe ease that indicated how strong and fit he was. Coffee was already brewing and he had made scrambled eggs and bacon. The orange juice was poured, toast buttered. Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, he looked fit, tough and in prime condition. His black hair was combed back. Her heart thudded because all she could remember was standing in his embrace last night as he’d kissed her. And she realized she was only in her cotton gown and robe.
“I didn’t know you’d be awake,” she said, sounding ridiculous.
“I’m here and I can feed her while you eat, if you’d like.”
“You feed her and I’ll dress,” Isabella said impulsively thrusting the child into his arms.
His eyebrows shot up as he surveyed Jessie. “Isabella, I don’t know one thing about a baby. I’ll feed her, but you need to show me what to feed her and how to do it.”
“It’s easy. She loves oatmeal and milk and the oatmeal is in the cabinet,” Isabella instructed before she fled the room to get dressed. Let him cope with little Jessie. If he was a colonel, he was up to the task of getting breakfast for a baby. He needed a baby in his arms. Who could turn his back on life after dealing with Jessie?
She showered and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and took her time brushing her hair and pulling on boots, wondering how Colin was getting along with little Jessie. Isabella hadn’t heard any screams coming from the kitchen.
Finally she returned to the kitchen.
She had to smother a laugh. Jessie was in her high chair and she had oatmeal all over her face and in her fists and her hair. And Colin had oatmeal in his hair, too, on his shirt and face.
“How’s breakfast?” she asked, holding back laughter. Colin turned to look at her and narrowed his eyes.
“You come finish this. I told you I don’t know one damn thing about a baby. I think she’s had about two bites of oatmeal and you can see where the rest went. Dammit, I don’t have many changes of clothing.”
“There’s a washing machine and, as you said, clothes will wash,” she said blithely, getting a wet paper towel to clean Jessie. She turned around as Colin stood and pulled off his T-shirt. His muscled body was lean and fit, but scars covered his back and ran across his shoulders, chest and arms.
Her breath caught in her throat; the scars didn’t change his appeal one bit. They did remind her of what Colin had gone through, how the years had changed him.
“I told you they had to put me all back together,” he said when he turned around and caught her staring.
She looked up and met his gaze. “If you think I’m staring because you have scars, think again,” she whispered. The air crackled with searing heat as his eyes darkened and he inhaled deeply.
“I wouldn’t have admitted that to you except you have a very mistaken notion about your appearance,” she added.
Feeling as if her face were on fire from embarrassment over her admission, she moved to the chair to finish feeding Jessie. Colin stood in her peripheral vision and she knew he hadn’t moved, but she couldn’t face him.
“If I weren’t covered with oatmeal—” He broke off his sentence and left the room in long strides.
She closed her eyes and let out her breath. She fed Jessie, relieved the minute Jessie finished and she could clean the toddler’s face and hands and escape from the kitchen before Colin returned.
Isabella bathed and dressed Jessie in a pink jumper and shirt, carrying her to the nursery and sitting on the floor to play with her, leaving Colin to entertain himself. If she had just looked away, she wouldn’t have had to explain herself. But she hadn’t, and that was that.
“I wondered where you two had gone.”
She turned to see Colin in the doorway, dressed in clean jeans and a T-shirt, leaning one shoulder against the jamb. He held his oatmeal-covered clothing balled in his hand. “Where’s the washer?”
“Come join us,” she said while Jessie clapped her hands and held her arms out to him.
Isabella pointed. “Right through that door in the utility room. As soon as you put your clothes in to wash, come join us. Jessie likes you,” she said, and he shook his head.
“I don’t know why,” he said upon his return. “Unless she hopes to throw some more oatmeal my way.” He didn’t make a move to pick up Jessie and she lost interest in him, turning to play with a ball that was in front of her. He looked around the pink nursery and then back at Isabella.
“You look like you belong in here.”
“I should. I’ve been dealing with little brothers and sisters all my life.”
He crossed the room to pick up a picture of Mike, Savannah and Jessie. “I like this picture. Cute family.”
“Thank you for the first. I took the picture.”
His eyebrows arched and he looked back at the picture again. “You’re talented.”
“I wish you would reconsider and let me take your picture.”
He turned and shook his head. “Nope. I’d make a poor subject.”
She nodded because she could understand his reluctance. She raised her head when she heard a car. Instantly, Colin moved to the window. “What kind of car does Mike drive?”
“They’ve taken the sports car. It’s green.”
“That’s him,” Colin said.
“Want me to go break the news that you’re here? He’ll be a little shocked if you meet him at the door.”
“Mike can stand shock. You did without batting an eye.”
“Come on, sweetie,” she said to Jessie. “Mommy and Daddy are home. Let’s go see them.”
Jessie laughed, repeating Mama and Dada as Isabella carried her downstairs.
“It was interesting Isabella, seeing you again,” Colin said, falling into step beside her. “I won’t forget you.”
She glanced up at him. “I won’t forget you, either, Colin. I think I remembered you better anyway, than you did me.” His gaze lowered to her mouth and her pulse jumped. Was he remembering their fiery kiss? She was and she could barely get her breath. In just minutes he would be busy with Mike and then he’d be gone forever.
Another twinge of sadness gripped her because it seemed such a waste for him to go off to some remote corner of the world to live.
He made his own choices, she reminded herself. He was no part of her life and she shouldn’t worry or care what he did. He certainly wouldn’t give a thought to anything she was going to do with her future.
“You’re certain you don’t want me to tell him?” she asked again. “After all, everyone thinks you’re dead. And you are buddies.”
She gazed into his smoky eyes. They were so striking and unforgettable. Too much about him was unforgettable.
His lips firmed while he mulled over her question. “You may be right. Go ahead and break the news. I’ll wait in the living room.”
He turned and was gone. He moved with the silence and ease of a cat. She shifted Jessie in her arms and went to the kitchen to wait.
She could see the Remingtons heading toward the house and thought they were a striking-looking couple because Savannah was as blond as Mike was dark with his tanned skin and black hair. He was loaded down with bags and boxes and Savannah carried a few boxes, as well.
