Just One Kiss (7 page)

For a moment, sweet memories rushed through him as he thought of the instant his son had come into the world, lustily squalling and waving his tiny hands like a prizefighter.

“Bobby weighed seven pounds six ounces and had a full head of dark hair. I thought he was the most beautiful child ever born.” He raked his hand through his hair and continued, “Every day I asked Sherry to marry me, but she kept refusing. I thought it was important that we get married, but she didn't see it that way.”

Jack got up and walked to the window where Marissa had been standing when he'd first come into the kitchen. He stared out unseeing, his mind's eye focused on the distant past.

“I knew Sherry wasn't happy, had begun to realize she was a better lover than mother. She said she hated my job, so I quit the force and became an investigator. I figured maybe if I was home more often, things would be okay. But she was restless, went out most evenings while I baby-sat Bobby. I knew things were going to change, but I was determined that no matter what happened with me and Sherry, I would remain a big part of Bobby's life. One morning I kissed her and Bobby goodbye, and when I got home from work that evening, they were gone.”

“Oh, Jack.”

He turned from the window and faced Marissa, saw the sympathy that darkened her eyes and softened her features. “She left me a note, told me it was time for her to move on, that the routine was getting to her. She told me not to try to find them.”

“Did you?”

“Did I try to find them?” A sharp, bitter laugh exploded from him. “I did nothing else. I spent every waking moment, used every resource I could think of, but it was like the air had swallowed them whole.”

“And how long ago was that?”

“Five years ago. Three years ago I found out that Sherry was killed in a car accident in Miami and Bobby was swallowed up in the system.”

“What do you mean?” She stood and took a step toward him.

“Apparently the state took Bobby and placed him in foster care. I contacted a social worker in Miami, but it turned out to be a dead end. The official record showed that Bobby was listed as ‘father unknown.'”

Bitterness tore through him. “That's when I discovered Sherry hadn't even listed me as the father on his birth records. Legally, I have no rights to him at all.”

“So, what happened?”

“What happened? I came back here and waited for the social worker to contact me. I hounded her, but kept getting the runaround. So I spent the next year drunk, and then about a year ago I got tired of
getting drunk.” He shrugged his shoulders. “And that's the end of my sad story.”

He suddenly was exhausted, as if the telling of his past had both physically and mentally depleted him. His leg and his hand ached more acutely than they had in the past two days.

“And the things in the bedroom?” she asked.

“Stuff for Bobby. Every April fifth, every Christmas I buy something for him. I don't know why I do it. It's some sort of perverse compulsion,” he confessed.

Marissa moved closer to him and reached up and placed her palms on his cheeks. Her hands were warm and her gaze held his. She stood so close to him her breasts pressed into his chest and her body heat warmed him.

“I'm so sorry, Jack. I can't imagine loving then losing a child.” Her breath was warm on his face, her lips so close that if he bent his head slightly he could capture them with his own.

“And I hope you never experience it,” he replied. The pain the assault of memories had evoked lessened as desire stirred inside him.

He knew she was attempting to comfort him, and he wanted to fall into that comfort, allow his desire for her to sweep away the last of his pain. Without hesitation, he lowered his mouth to hers.

M
arissa had wanted to comfort, but as Jack's mouth came crashing down to hers, the need to comfort was swept away by an even stronger emotion.

He gave her no chance to breathe, no opportunity to think as his lips plied hers with a hungry heat. His arms encircled her and drew her more intimately against him.

She placed her hands on his chest, thinking she might push against him to protest the kiss. But of their own volition her arms moved her hands up from his chest to wrap around his neck and her fingers played across the breadth and strength of his shoulders. Helplessly, she gave in to the sensual assault.

Someplace in the back of her mind she realized
she'd wanted Jack to kiss her, had known that he would kiss with passion and depth. She hadn't been mistaken.

He deepened the kiss, his tongue entering her mouth and swirling with hers. At the same time the fingers of his good hand moved beneath her T-shirt to caress the bare skin of her lower back.

The gentle warm touch on her skin, coupled with the fire in his kiss, shot a sweet heat of desire through her. Her head filled with the scent of him, the masculine fragrance of cologne and soap.

Jack Coffey might not be her Mr. Right, but he definitely knew how to kiss.

His mouth finally left hers and trailed down the side of her neck. She knew the smart thing to do would be to step back, distance herself from his bewitching touch, the magic of his lips.

However, she didn't want to be smart, and she didn't want to distance herself. She wasn't even sure if she was physically capable of stepping back, with her legs so weak and her body trembling with desire.

She dropped her head back, allowing him access to the hollow of her throat. She tangled her hands in his hair, vaguely surprised to find it silky soft.

“Marissa,” he whispered against her ear, then captured the lobe in his mouth. “I want you.”

The words, husky and filled with desire, sent a shiver of excitement racing up her spine. But along with the shiver came the first whisper of common sense and rationality.

She could allow herself to fall completely into the spell of desire he was weaving around her, throw caution to the wind and let him make sweet love to her. But what could possibly come of it?

At best, he'd be a vacation memory to take home with her, an unwanted souvenir of passion spent with Mr. Wrong. He wasn't her Mr. Right, and she wasn't about to make a mistake as she had with Bill.

Besides, their emotions had been running high just before the kiss. She didn't trust that what Jack felt for her, what she was feeling at the moment, was true.

They had known each other for only a couple of days. This whole thing was madness…sheer madness.

“Jack…” She pushed gently against his chest.

He released her immediately and stepped back from her. “Sorry.” His eyes blazed with blue flames. “It's been a while since I've held a woman in my arms. I allowed myself to get out of control. It won't happen again.”

He sat at the table and began to serve himself some food from the containers. Marissa sat, too, her body still tingling from the sensations he'd stirred inside her.

“It's been a while since I've been held by a man,” she said. “I allowed myself to get a little out of control, as well.”

He handed her a container of sweet and sour
chicken. “You haven't been with anyone since Nathaniel's father?”

She felt a blush warm her cheeks. “No.” She couldn't help herself—she had to ask. “What about you?”

“There've been a few ships passing in my nights, but not many and not for a long while. Finding women who understand the score is difficult.”

“The score? What do you mean?”

He speared a piece of chicken with a chopstick and chewed thoughtfully before replying. The blaze in his eyes was gone, leaving them a familiar cold, cynical blue.

“Most women want the whole routine—candlelight dinners, soulful glances filled with meaning, sweet words that mean nothing and, worst of all, commitment. All I'm interested in is a healthy physical interaction with no emotional strings attached.”

If Marissa had entertained any regret at stopping their kisses and caresses, that regret fell away beneath his words. His statement of what he was looking for underscored the enormous differences between them.

She liked Jack, and she was incredibly physically drawn to him, but she would never be a ship passing in the night with him. She knew her body and her heart were intricately tied together, and making love for her was far more than mere physical interaction.

For a few minutes they ate silently. As Marissa
enjoyed the excellent food, she worked to process everything she'd learned about Jack.

He'd had a son…a son he'd obviously loved and lost. Her heart ached for his loss. There were times when Nathaniel could be a pain, when he got cranky and wasn't as pleasant to be around, but Marissa couldn't imagine her life without him.

To love a child, as Jack obviously had, for almost three years. To watch a child grow from baby to toddler, see him learn and experience new things, to hold him, then to lose him had to be beyond wrenching.

A cry from Nathaniel interrupted both Marissa's thoughts and their meal. She excused herself from the table and went into the living room to see Nathaniel sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Hey, big guy,” she greeted him, and he grinned and raised his arms for her to pick him up. She grabbed him to her chest and hugged him tightly, empathy for Jack's loss slicing through her.

Nathaniel squealed his displeasure at her too-tight embrace and she eased her hold on him.

“I'll bet you're hungry.” She carried him into the kitchen and placed him in a chair between hers and Jack's.

“Does he eat Chinese?” Jack asked, the familiar scowl once again on his face.

“He eats almost anything.” Marissa returned to her chair and handed Nathaniel a piece of sweet and
sour chicken. He took a bite and grinned at Jack as if to prove his wide range of culinary experience.

“Just don't give him a chopstick,” Jack said. “I shudder at the thought of what damage he could do.”

Marissa started to make a teasing retort, but one look at Jack's face stopped her. Silence fell between them. Jack wore his scowl like a shield of defense, as if daring her to breach the wall of silence he'd erected.

And again, as the silence lengthened, Marissa found herself thinking about his little boy. According to what Jack had told her, she calculated that Bobby would now be almost eight years old.

She couldn't imagine what had driven Sherry to cut Jack out of her son's life, nor could she imagine why the woman hadn't named him as Bobby's father on the birth certificate. She guessed that Jack didn't want to pursue the subject, but she couldn't help herself. She wanted to know more. “Jack?”

He looked at her, his gaze wary. “What?”

“Why didn't Sherry put you on the birth certificate? Is it possible Bobby isn't your child?”

She was almost sorry she'd asked, as pain immediately darkened his eyes. She thought for a moment he was going to get angry, tell her to mind her own business and get out of his house. Instead, he set down his fork, took a sip of his drink and frowned thoughtfully.

“Bobby is my child. I'm absolutely certain of
that. Everyone commented on how much alike we looked. Other than Bobby getting Sherry's brown eyes instead of my blue ones, he was the spitting image of me.”

“So, why didn't she put you on the birth certificate?”

He took another sip of his water and leaned back in his chair, the same thoughtful frown remaining on his face. “I'm not sure. I can't know what was going on in her mind at that time, but I've done a lot of speculating.”

“More.” Nathaniel held out a sticky hand for more chicken.

Marissa gave him another piece, then focused her attention back to Jack. “And what have you speculated?”

“I think Sherry knew at the time of Bobby's birth that she didn't intend to stay with me. I think she left my name off the certificate so there would be no legal ties, no hassle over custody, nothing to bind her to me.”

“But wouldn't she have wanted Bobby to know, to have a relationship with his father?”

Jack smiled, but it was a gesture void of humor. “I don't like to talk ill of the dead, but the fact is Sherry could be extremely selfish. She wouldn't consider what was in Bobby's best interest, only what was in her own best interest. She didn't like hassles of any kind, and sharing custody of Bobby would have been a hassle.”

“How sad.” Marissa looked at Nathaniel and sighed. “It seems unfair that you want to be a father and can't find your son, and I have a son whose father wants nothing to do with him.”

A cynical smile curved Jack's lips. “Haven't you figured out yet that life isn't fair, that love doesn't conquer all and dreams are merely fantasies life gives you to make you want what will never come true?”

“You can't really believe all that,” Marissa replied, shocked by the vehemence in his words. She pushed her plate aside, finished with her meal and focused all her attention on the man across from her.

“You have to believe that eventually there will be a happy ending for you and Bobby, that you'll find him and be reunited.”

“I quit looking for him two years ago.”

“Why?” Marissa asked incredulously.

Jack stood and carried his plate to the sink. “Because it was no use,” he replied with his back to her. “Nobody could tell me anything and I was just spinning my wheels.”

He turned to face her, bitterness razing her from his gaze. “I'm the best private investigator in the entire state—my expertise is finding missing people—but I can't find my own son.”

“But, Jack—” Marissa stood and carried her plate to where he stood. “There have been so many advances in the past two years as far as networking and record keeping go. You need to go back to Mi
ami, start the process of looking for Bobby all over again.”

“You can be a Pollyanna in your own life, but don't try to make me one.”

If tone of voice had the power to kill, Marissa would have been dead on the spot. She recognized his utter hopelessness and wanted to wrap him in her arms, hold him until he found something positive to believe in.

But of course, that would be foolishness. Jack Coffey meant nothing to her. It shouldn't matter to her if he remained for the rest of his life the most bitter, unhappy and lonely man in the world.

It shouldn't matter to her if he entertained hope or believed in love, or possessed secret dreams. It shouldn't matter, yet the emptiness in his eyes, the cold scorn in his voice tore through her heart. It shouldn't matter…but it did.

“Look, Marissa.” Jack swiped a hand through his hair, his gaze not meeting hers. “You've been an enormous help to me for the past couple of days. You typed up my reports, cooked me a meal and drove me to my stakeout. Why don't we call it even and you get back to your vacation and I'll get back to my life.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Marissa replied. It was obvious to her that he was ready for her to exit his life. She certainly didn't intend to remain where she wasn't wanted or needed.

She pushed back Nathaniel's chair and picked
him up in her arms. He squealed a lusty protest, but she ignored him. He was probably not finished eating, but she'd grab a hamburger or something for him on their way back to the motel.

“Don't forget his diaper bag,” Jack said, his expression unreadable.

“Don't worry,” Marissa replied dryly. “I'll make sure I don't have a reason to come back.” She turned and left the kitchen and went into the living room. She grabbed Nathaniel's blanket and diaper bag from the floor, then started for the door.

“Marissa?”

She turned from the door and gazed at Jack. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your vacation,” he said.

“I have every intention of doing just that.” She slipped out the door and down the stairs to her car.

Marissa settled Nathaniel in his car seat, then got behind the wheel and started the engine. Only when Jack's house had disappeared from sight in her rearview mirror did she acknowledge the ache in her heart.

Surely her heart hurt only because as a nurse's aide she was trained to help people. But as a nurse's aide, she'd recognized long ago that there were some people too sick to be helped. And she suspected Jack was one of those people.

Although not plagued by a physical illness, Jack suffered a soul sickness just as devastating and even more difficult to treat.

Besides, Jack wasn't one of her patients. He was
nothing more than a man she'd met on her vacation, a man who had taken up less than a week of her time. She was certain she wouldn't see or hear from him again, but she had a terrible feeling that thoughts of him would haunt her for a long time to come.

 

Jack had always been comfortable in the silence of his house. He wasn't a man who turned on the television or a radio to fill the silence. But the moment Marissa and Nathaniel left, the quiet of the house pressed against him with suffocating intensity.

He cleaned up the kitchen, stuffed the leftover Chinese food in the refrigerator, then grabbed a glass of iced tea and went out on his deck.

The midafternoon sun was hot, but felt good. He sat in one of the chairs and propped his feet in the other as he stared out to the breaking waves of water.

Bobby had loved the water…loved the outdoors. Even when he'd been a tiny baby, when he'd been fussy, all Jack had had to do was bring him out here, and the breeze wafting off the water and the rhythmic sound of the waves would calm him.

Bobby. Damn Marissa Criswell for stirring up the past, for reminding him of all he'd lost. He'd been doing just fine before she'd stepped into that bedroom. He'd finally managed to put the pain aside, move on and come to terms with losing Bobby.