A Father At Last (14 page)

He heard drawers opening and shutting and could well imagine what she might have found.
Of course, there’ll be condoms in a romantic studio suite, Kelly.
But he wasn’t interested in the bathroom or its contents.

His eyes were on the big soft bed through the open door beyond the cosy little combined sitting room‐kitchenette where he was standing.

The bed’s covers had been turned down, and there were candles on both the bedside tables.

Say goodbye and go now, before it’s too late.
Kelly had been hurt enough. She didn’t need a man—him—to give her a night of love and then disappear. If things went wrong, as they could at any time, that’s just what he’d have to do—scoot the country at a moment’s notice and lie low for months or even years. He couldn’t,
wouldn’t,
do that to her.

“Ben? What are you thinking?” She came out of the bathroom and walked slowly towards him. The candles lit her face in a soft glow, accentuating the hollows of her cheeks and the sweep of her brows above the almond shaped eyes. Her lips, those pliant, sweet lips that had tantalised his with such dexterity, were tilted at the corners in an almost‐smile.
As
if she knows exactly what I’m thinking.

His gaze traversed the tender planes of her neck, downward past the very kissable hollows above her collarbone, then further on down to the wickedly sexy curves under the pretty blue top.

Julie Mac

She stopped in front of him and reached out to cup his face with cool hands, her eyes wide, mesmerising blue pools.

“Thank you, Ben,” she said. “Thank you for everything.”

Then she swayed even closer, and he knew that if he let her embrace him, body to body, he wouldn’t be leaving.

So he moved first, stepping to one side, saying, “I need to check the windows before I go. I need to make sure the place is properly secure.”

His voice was husky and his hands trembled with the effort of not taking over where his eyes had left off.

Without waiting for her response, he set about his task, glad of something to keep his hands—and mind—occupied for a couple of minutes. He was pleased to find the windows all had solid security catches and deadlocks.

The lock on the wooden front door met his approval too. Good. Now he would say goodnight to her and get on his way.

The rustle of silk caught his ears, and he turned to see her in the bedroom, near the foot of the bed. She’d pulled the blue top up over her head and was tossing it on the floor.

Her creamy skin was gilded honey‐gold in the candlelight, smoother than the silk of the garment she’d abandoned and a thousand times more enticing. His gaze drank in the beauty of the woman in front of him; the lovely swell of breasts above her bra and the hollowed shadow between, the distinctly female indentation of her waist and the seductive flare of her hips above the three‐quarter pants she still wore.

His heart—his primeval caveman’s heart—took on a life of its own, as did the rest of his body. As she released fastenings and wiggled her hips to get rid of the three‐quarter pants, he knew he was lost.

Oh, Kelly. Sweet, wicked Kelly. Do you know what you’re doing to me?

She moved towards him then, slowly, her lips curving up in a smile, her hair a fiery mantle on her shoulders. She wore the same bra she’d worn at the beach the other night, all lace and ribbons, with briefs to match, and his mind was filled to bursting with images of the delicious secrets the sexy little garments hid.

She walked right up, wrapped her arms around him and tilted her face to his.

“Don’t go,” she murmured.

Sometime, much later, she woke. For a moment she struggled to remember where she was, and then she felt his body pressed along the length of hers, skin on skin, warm, strong and exciting, and the memories flooded back.

A Father at Last

Memories of his whispered endearments and tender caresses; of his mouth and his hands weaving their magic spells; of their bodies moving as one in the age‐old ritual of love.

She lay on her side and he was behind her, his big body curled protectively around hers, his arm draped over her ribs, his hand firm and sure on the soft skin beneath her breasts.

He was deeply asleep, the steady in‐out of his breathing told her as much, and as she listened, a silent tear slid down her cheek. What would it be like to sleep every night for the rest of her life like this in Ben’s arms, her body at peace after their loving? And to wake up in the morning and share tea and toast and a quiet chat about the forthcoming day?

What would it be like for Dylan to have a dad to take him to soccer and help him with his homework?

Such thoughts were pure fantasy. She knew that. But for tonight, this precious snatched fragment in time, she could dream.

Sleep must have claimed her again because the next time she was consciously aware, the man beside her was gone. She reached around and felt the bed beside her. The sheets were still warm, and then she heard a familiar noise—the click‐click of someone texting.

She slipped from the big bed and pulled on the fluffy robe she’d found earlier. From the door of the bedroom she could see him, standing in the kitchenette, intent on the mobile phone in his hand as he pressed the keys. He’d pulled on his jeans and his torso was bare, burnished like a perfect bronze sculpture in the glow of moonlight coming in through the skylight over the sink.

For a moment, she drank in the view, remembering the texture of those taut, well-formed muscles under her fingers—and her mouth—and then she moved forward.

“What are you doing?” Silly question. He was texting, for heaven’s sake. And why did a man text someone at two o’clock in the morning? Either it was a woman—which she doubted very much, because she believed his assurances that there was no one in his life just now. Or he was up to no good. Which was entirely believable.

He looked at her, putting the phone in his jeans pocket, and her heart leapt when she saw his eyes soften.

“Got to meet someone in the city,” he said, and she understood immediately. She’d ask no questions, because she didn’t want to hear the answers.

But first…she walked across the room to him, her bare feet silent on the polished wooden floorboards. She stopped up close to him and lifted her hands to trace with her fingertips the broad shoulders and the well‐formed muscles of his chest, perfect in their symmetry. His sharply indrawn breath was answered by a sudden surge of little sparks, deep inside her.

Then her hands, as if by their own volition, continued their journey of exploration, down past his ribs and over rigid stomach muscles where they encountered the smattering Julie Mac

of coarse dark hair that arrowed to the waistband of his jeans.

Kelly lifted her eyes to his, saw the naked need there, and almost cried out in agony.

She loved this man.

But how could she love a man who was so wrong for her?

Operating on pure instinct, she leaned into that hard, strong body, kissing the cute little indentation underneath his chin and letting her fingertips dip under his waistband at his hips.

She heard the deep rumbling groan, and then his hands, rough and urgent, were pushing inside her robe to claim her nakedness, and his mouth was hard and hungry on hers.

“Once more, Kelly, my sweet, once more,” he muttered, his lips moving against hers, and then he had her hand and was leading her back into the bedroom.

Presently, their passion spent, they lay on the bed, side by side, their hands entwined. She listened to his breathing; steady and slow now, much lighter than in sleep, or more recently, in the throes of their urgent lovemaking.

Her own breathing seemed suspended in time. Maybe I’ve died and gone to heaven, she thought dreamily and then she knew she hadn’t, because he spoke.

“Wednesday. Late in the day. I’ll see you then, okay?”

“Okay.”

She felt the energy gathering in his body, and then he disengaged his hand from hers and slid from the bed. She watched him pull on his clothes quickly and glance at the bedside clock.

She’d made him late. “You’ll be careful, won’t you Ben, I mean on the road—please don’t speed, and…uh…be careful, you know, with whatever you’re off to do now.”

He grinned, the old cheeky grin she’d once known so well. “No, I’ll be totally reckless.”

He stepped around the bed, still smiling, and bent and kissed her quickly, hard on the lips. She reached up with both hands to cup his cheeks, sandpapery now with dark whiskers, but he took her hands in his and placed them back on the bed.

“Goodbye, princess,” he said. “I’ll call you Wednesday morning.”

She threw back the sheet that had covered them and swung her legs to the floor.

She couldn’t let him go without one last hug, a proper kiss goodbye. She stood in front of him, up‐close, and laid her hands on his shoulders. Obligingly, he folded her body into his.

A Father at Last

“Thank you, Ben…for talking to my father,” she murmured. “Thank you for helping me do this.”

She tilted her head to his, but instead of bending to kiss her, he caught both her hands in his and held them tenderly against his heart. He closed his eyes for a moment, exhaled a long breath and opened them again.

“I understand the pain you felt as a child, Kelly.” His words were strained.

In the soft light filtering in from the other room, his eyes were bleak. And his body was strangely still. “Kids need a father.”

Dylan needs a father.

The words hung between them, unspoken but clear as crystal.

“Do you want to be a father, Ben?” The words were out before she’d had time to think about them.

But it would be okay, she knew that now. This was a conversation they had to have.

Tonight, something had changed within her. A veil had lifted, a door had opened, and beyond she sensed a better place for her. Sure, it might not be as safe as the world she’d crafted for herself. There would be black sinkholes and pain, sometimes—of course there would—but there’d be joy and light, too.

And she could work it out with Ben, figure out times he could be with Dylan, even if they could never be a normal, full‐time family. Well, not at the moment anyway, not while he was caught up in his criminal underworld. But maybe, sometime in the future, she could help him forge a new life. It would take work, it would take time, but she could do it. Or at least try.

“No.”

For a moment, she thought he’d misheard her question. Then he shook his head infinitesimally, his eyes unspeakably sad and she knew there was no mistake.

Ben Carter, father of her child, love of her life, didn’t want to be a father. The first black sinkhole in her new world gaped beneath her.

When he spoke, his words ripped at her heart.

“I don’t want to be a father, can’t be a father.”

He still held her hands against his chest, but there was nothing tender in his touch now. She felt his pain, coursing through his body, through his hands, pouring into her own body.

“My father was a bastard—a wife‐beating, child‐beating bastard.” He spoke in a harsh whisper but there was an awful intensity to his words. “I carry his genes. His violence is in my blood.”

He dragged in a rough breath. “I’m sorry, Kelly. I’m scared I’ll end up the same. I’d Julie Mac

rather die than put a child—or a woman—through that. I can’t be a father.”

He looked down at her, his eyes still bleak, but in them she could see a desperate plea for understanding. And she knew his pain was a thousand times greater than hers at this moment.

“No, Ben, you’ve got it wrong.” She pulled one of her hands from his grasp and moved it up to lay gently against his cheek. Dylan liked her to do that when he was upset.

“I know your father. Remember, I used to go around to your house after school and in the holidays? All the time, for years. He was the kindest man. He loved your mother, I saw that. And he was kind and loving to you and your sisters. I can’t believe he’d do anything like…like…that.”

Her job had taught her to be a good judge of character. She would have sworn on her son’s life that Ben’s father was a good man. Had Ben misread something he saw in childhood, blown it out of proportion? Had his dad reacted badly to his son’s trouble with the law?

“Your dad…he’s a good man at heart, I’m sure.” She held his gaze with hers, willing her eyes to convey to him the truth in what she said.

But he shook his head, and reached up to lift her hand from his face and take it down by his side. Still he held on to it tightly.

“Charlie Carter, the dad you knew, the kind one, he’s not my father. He’s my step-dad.” He gripped her hands, almost too hard, but seemed unaware of the pressure he was applying.

“He’s one of the world’s good blokes. You’re right, he wouldn’t harm a fly, let alone his wife or kids. Mum knew him before she got married to my father, and after she left him—left Smith—she met up with Charlie again and they married. Charlie adopted me and my sister, and then they had the two younger girls together.”

He looked away from her then, focussing on something in the room behind her.

“We moved up to Auckland from Wellington soon after and everyone just accepted that we were a family and always had been. Including that bastard Smith—he never bothered with us again.”

“Smith?” She guessed his answer, but still she had to ask.

“Smith, my father, my
blood
father. Evan‐bloody‐Smith. My mother chucked him out when I was five, after a thrashing that left me with so many bruises and broken bits of skin that I couldn’t go to school for two weeks in case someone guessed. When Mum tried to stop him, he punched her and she lost consciousness.

“He left both of us in a heap on the floor. I tried to wake her up, but I couldn’t. My little sister was there, too. She was only three. She didn’t understand what was happening.”

He was weeping, silently. In the muted moonlight she saw that his face was a rigid mask, but tears glistened in his eyes.

A Father at Last

His black grief became hers and sorrow weighed heavy in her heart.

“It wasn’t the first time,” he continued, his voice a soft, sad monotone now. “Once, when Mum was out, he got mad and tried to strangle me. Fortunately, the phone went and he let me go. Afterwards, he told me if I ever told Mum what had happened, he’d have to hurt her as well. And my sister.”