Caitlin's Choice (9 page)

“We sold the house and divided the money between Erik, Leslie, and Mother. Erik used his share to buy into my company. Mother and Leslie came to live with me and used their shares to establish themselves with the country club set.”

Andrew paused to take a deep breath. Maybe the past didn’t excuse his behavior, but it might help Caitlin understand why he had been suspicious of her and Maggie.

“Andrew?”

“Yes?” He shook his head and focused on Caitlin, standing above him. Her expression was impossible to read. Was that sadness or fear he saw in the depths of her eyes?

“I have to feed Ty and get him to bed.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

He held Tyler up. “Here you go, sport. Mommy wants to feed you. Yeah, I’d smile too, if I were you.”

A pink flush washed over her. “Give him to me,” she muttered.

“Stay here.”

Caitlin hesitated.

Andrew could almost read her thoughts. She didn’t want to be feeding the baby when Leslie and Joyce returned. Considering their attitude at dinner, he didn’t blame her. “They won’t be home before midnight. You can bank on that.”

“All right. But I’m going to have trouble keeping Tyler awake. You’ve got him hypnotized.”

She sat on the sofa next to Andrew and opened her blouse before taking Tyler in her arms.

Andrew leaned closer. As his bare arm brushed against hers, she trembled. She inched away to break contact.

“Put your shirt on.”

“Why?” he asked innocent.

She arched a delicate eyebrow in warning. “Put it on or I’m going upstairs.”

“Do I bother you, Caitlin?”

“Yes.”

At least she was honest. Her heart might hate him, but her body reacted to the closeness with the same potent excitement that had drawn them together to begin with.

He chuckled. “Good. Despite your words to the contrary, all your memories of that night weren’t bad.”

“It wasn’t the night, Andrew. It was the morning after.”

He shook his head. She was not going to give him a break. “Will you ever get beyond that?”

“I don’t know.”

Andrew reached for his shirt. He slipped his arms through the sleeves but didn’t button it. “Better?”

She rolled her eyes and sighed at his deliberate attempt to tease her.

“Erik and Maggie are coming by tomorrow,” he said.

Her face lit up. Finally, a smile of pure joy. “Great. I’ll finally get to meet Erik.”

“You’ve never met? But he talks about you as if you have.”

“We used to speak on the phone every month when I was in Singapore. I was supposed to meet him last week at the house for dinner, but someone served me with a subpoena and I had to leave.”

“I didn’t mean to ruin your dinner.”

“Just my life?”

He exhaled deeply. “Caitlin . . .

“It was a joke, Andrew. Lighten up.” She finished feeding the baby in silence. As soon as Tyler fell asleep, she handed him to Andrew. With her clothing back in place, she rose.

“I’m going to turn in myself. I’m tired.”

Andrew stood, cradling Tyler to his chest with one arm. Before she could stop him, he lowered his head and brushed his mouth over her pouting lips. A small gasp of surprise was quieted by the kiss. She tasted sweet, stirring memories of their night together.  He stroked his hand along her cheek, but made no attempt to draw her closer with the baby between them. Like a fawn caught in the headlights, she seemed stunned into immobility. Her breath quickened, warming his face.

“Good night, Caitlin.”

She shook her head and staggered back as if she had just been released from an invisible restraint. When she regained her composure, she glared angrily. “Don’t do that again.”

“You didn’t like the kiss?”

“Yes, I did. So don’t do it again.”

She spun on her heel and started to leave. When she reached the door, she turned back, gestured irritably toward her son, and waited for Andrew to hand her the baby.

Once she disappeared down the hall, he erupted into laughter. He had gotten her so flustered she had blurted out the truth. Perhaps there was hope after all.

SIX

Caitlin settled into the redwood lawn chair with Tyler squirming in her lap. She took a sip of iced tea, savoring the lingering taste of mint as the morning sun bathed her in warmth.

“So do you like living in the Sinclair mansion?” Maggie asked as she plopped down in a lounge chair with her daughter squealing happily in her arms.

Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “About as much as you did.”

Her sister shot her a sympathetic smile. “Got quite a welcome, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. They went out of their way to make me feel at home.”

She glanced at her son resting against her bent knees. If she didn’t remind herself that this arrangement was in his best interests, she would lose her sanity. When she remembered the way she had let Andrew kiss her last night, she wondered if she already had lost it.

“What about Drew?” Maggie asked.

“What about him?”

“How are the two of you getting along?”

Caitlin raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “I haven’t killed him yet.”

“But?” Maggie prompted.

“He’s the most stubborn, arrogant man on earth. Everything has to be his way. He turned back my car to the leasing company without asking me. And then . . .”

Tyler began to fidget as Caitlin’s voice rose. She ran a calming hand over his stomach, then lowered her voice to a soothing whisper. “He leased a Volvo for me. A Volvo. It’s bigger than my first apartment. He knows I can’t afford the payments, so he tells me that he’s paying. Now he’s got something he can hold over me.”

“Maybe he was trying to be nice.”

Nice? Poor deluded Maggie was still caught up in the fantasy. She honestly believed that this arrangement would lead to a declaration of undying love.

“Why would he want to be nice to me?”

“He wants you to see he’s not the same man he was last year.”

“But he is, except when it comes to Tyler,” she admitted somewhat grudgingly.

He fawned over the baby, showing a tender side of himself she wouldn’t have believed he possessed. She shook her head violently to clear the kind thoughts of Andrew.

“Otherwise, he’s a pigheaded, pushy, unyielding thorn in my side.”

Maggie giggled. “Sounds like someone I know well.”

“Erik?”

“No. You.”

“Me?” Caitlin asked in disbelief. “I think the fact that I’m here proves I’m not stubborn.”

“Sure. And he only had to serve you with papers to get you to talk to him, when we both know you’ve got it bad for the man. Why else would you have had his baby?”

Caitlin stared at her smirking sister. She opened her mouth to deny the charge, but clamped it shut again when she saw the Sinclair brothers heading across the lawn. She waved innocently as they strode into the pool house.

* * * *

Andrew grinned and waved back. So Caitlin was complaining to her sister about him. He had seen the guilty glint in her eyes. Well, if she was talking about him, it must mean she felt something. Since she went to such lengths to appear indifferent, he wasn’t sure where he stood with her. On those rare moments when she let her guard down, he had a chance to reach her. Unfortunately, those times were few and far between.

“Does Caitlin like living at the house?” Erik asked as he closed the door behind them.

“Sure, as much as Maggie did.”

“Mother and Leslie went all out, I guess.”

“Oh, yeah. They went all out.”

Andrew grabbed his swimming trunks from the closet and slammed the door. The tense atmosphere in the house was not helping his cause. Last night he thought he had made progress, but by this morning, with the family gathered around, Caitlin had reverted to her wary self.

“How’s Caitlin dealing with the situation?”

“She hasn’t buried a knife in my back yet.”

“Well, that’s something, I guess,” Erik said dryly.

“Not much. She won’t give me an inch. Everything’s an argument. I was trying to help her out, so I leased her a car to use. Does she appreciate it?”

“Let me guess—”

“No, she doesn’t,” Andrew continued. “She bites my head off. Like she really wanted to drive around in that tin box she had! She behaves as if I have an ulterior motive for everything I do.”

“Maybe she wants to maintain her independence from you.”

“Why?”

Erik cast him a dubious glance. “Because you’ve never given her a reason to trust you.”

“She won’t give me a chance. Except when it comes to Tyler.”

Andrew thought about how she had left him alone with his son for his own good. She obviously believed his relationship with his son was important, even if she refused to admit it.

“Well, what did you expect?”

“A little more effort on her part. I’ve bent over backward to be accommodating.”

Erik’s jaw dropped.  “Serving a woman with a subpoena is most accommodating, Drew. Threatening to take away her son is really bending over backward.”

“Refusing to answer my calls is reasonable? Not letting me see my son is fair?”

“This isn’t about your son, and you know it. You could have come to an arrangement without moving them here. This is about you wanting time with Caitlin.”

Yes, damn it, he wanted time with her. He wanted to make up for the past. He wanted to prove he wasn’t the man she’d met last year. Hell, he just plain wanted her. Having her in the house, being so close, while she erected an emotional barrier was torture.

“Is that so bad?”

“Not the sentiment, just the way you went about it. If she’s only here because she feels threatened by you, what have you won?”

Andrew didn’t answer.

* * * *

Caitlin watched Andrew’s approach with more interest than was healthy in her present circumstances. The warmth rippling through her body had nothing to do with the sun and everything to do with the view. Royal blue bathing trunks molded his lean, muscular body. His hair shone like copper in the sun. As he came to a halt in front of her, he grinned with the arrogant self-confidence of a man who knew he was being admired.

“I’ll take him for a dip.” He reached down and lifted Tyler from her lap.

“Don’t be surprised if he shrieks like a banshee. He hates the water.”

“Maybe with you. Not with me.”

Caitlin pulled a face. “One day and already he thinks he’s a mother.”

“Speaking of mothers . . .” Erik said as he joined them. “Did Maggie tell you . . .”

Maggie frantically waved her hands to cut her husband off, but Caitlin caught her in the act. She pushed her sunglasses up on her head to better read her sister’s expression.

“What’s going on?” Caitlin asked.

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

Maggie shot Erik a thanks-a-lot glare, and then shook her head. “Mom called last night. Sissy’s getting married.”

“Why were you afraid to mention that? I’m happy for her. Who’s she marrying?”

“Quinton Fletcher.”

Caitlin almost fell out of the chair with laughter. “Daddy finally landed the banker’s son for one of his daughters! He must be over the moon. Why would you think I’d care?”

Maggie’s eyes brimmed with moisture. “Because they invited me to the wedding.”

Caitlin felt as if she’d been sucker punched, but the smile never left her face. “That’s great. You’re going, aren’t you?”

“You wouldn’t mind?”

“Don’t be silly.” Caitlin slipped her sunglasses back onto the bridge of her nose. “I don’t expect you to choose.”

A part of her wished Maggie had refused out of principle. Yet it wasn’t fair to blame her sister for wanting to be on good terms with everyone. Caitlin clenched her fists and took a deep breath. Envy was a useless emotion. Why upset herself over something she couldn’t change? If her parents wanted reconciliation with their oldest daughter, they knew where to find her.

“Is that right, Caitlin?” Andrew’s words broke into her thoughts.

Caitlin’s eyes focused. Andrew was standing in the pool, beads of water streaming down the expanse of his tanned chest. Her breath caught in her throat. He was, without a doubt, the most gorgeous man she’d ever known. And the most dangerous. She shook her head.

“What did you say?”

“I was telling Andrew how you used to get kicked out of all the stores because you’d go in there to sketch pictures of the dresses, then go home and make an exact copy.”

She had forgotten those days. They seemed like a lifetime ago. “That’s true. They hung my picture by the cash register. The Copycat Burglar—the most notorious teenager in Greenbrier County.”