Living Nightmare (35 page)

She wanted to. She wanted to fall into bed with him and never get out. “I can’t. My father—”

“Take me to meet him. Maybe we’ll hit it off. You won’t know until you try.”

Her resistance was crumbling, no match for the pleasure she knew John could give her. “If he meets you, he’ll know how I feel.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“No. He needs me right now. I can’t abandon him.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“You don’t understand. He’ll push me away. He’ll think he’s robbing me of my future.”

“He is.”

“It’s my choice.”

John pulled away, regret lining his face. “I understand,” he said, then turned and walked away.

Meghan watched him go, feeling like he was taking something vital with him—something she’d never be able to survive without.

 

Torr couldn’t believe how fast he was recovering. It was like a switch had been flipped, and the feeling in his limbs was coming back to him all at once.

Only two hours ago, he hadn’t been able to lift his own head, and now he was sitting on the edge of his bed. Granted, he was still wobbly, but even that seemed to be fading fast.

There was some kind of commotion going on inside Dabyr. He could hear tense voices and hurried footsteps outside his door. The woman who had brought him food earlier hadn’t known what was going on.

Torr had hid from her how much he’d improved. He didn’t want anyone spoiling the surprise for Grace. He wanted to see the look on her face when she saw him.

There was no longer any question in his mind that he could greet her on his feet. In fact, if all went well, he was going to be able to do more than just greet her. He’d be able to make love to her the way he hadn’t allowed himself to think about except in the deepest reaches of his dreams.

He was sure as hell thinking about it now. If she didn’t come back soon, he was going to have to do something about his nearly constant erection. Clearly, his body was making up for lost time.

Using the bed for support, Torr pushed himself to his feet.

He almost crumpled under the weight of his own body, but managed to stay standing. After a few seconds, he’d gained his balance and reached out for a nearby chair to steady himself. He took a step, then two, before his legs could take no more and he had to slide down into the chair.

Elation made him feel light and his jaw ached from grinning so much.

Grace was going to be so surprised. Finally, her tears would be ones of joy.

He thought about calling her and asking her to come home, but she deserved her break. She’d spent way too much time keeping his sorry ass clean and fed. She needed a little time to herself.

Instead,he dialed her seventeen-year-old half brother, hoping he’d know when she was getting back.

Blake Norman answered the phone with a distracted, “Hello.” In the background, Torr could hear the sound of laser guns being fired and the excited shouts of other boys in the room.

“You have company?” asked Torr.

“Yep. Playin’ games. Whatcha need?”

“Do you know when Grace is coming back?”

“What do you mean? She’s with you, isn’t she?”

“She couldn’t travel dragging me around with her.”

“Travel? She’d never leave this place, not after what happened to us.”

Torr was struck silent for a moment. “She didn’t go on a trip?”

Blake made a bunch of shushing sounds until the room he was in went quiet. “She said you were getting worse and that she was going to be staying in your suite for a few days. She’s not with you?”

A bad feeling began creeping up Torr’s spine. “She’s not with me.”

“Then where the hell is she?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

Torr dialed security, hoping to get Nicholas, but instead he got one of the Gerai who helped when Nicholas wasn’t available.

“Hey, Nate,” said Torr. “I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

“Sure.”

“Can you find out if Grace has left the compound recently?”

“Hold on a sec.” There was some clicking of keys; then Nate said, “She didn’t check out a car and her security card hasn’t been used at the gate. She could have gone with someone else, I suppose.”

“Do you keep track of when she uses her key card?”

“Yeah, all that stuff is logged.”

“Can you see when the last time she used hers was?”

“Around noon yesterday.”

“Who has left since then?”

Nate read off a list of names. It was short.

“Can you check to see if the cameras showed her in any of their cars?”

“What’s going on here, Torr? Is she in some kind of trouble?”

“I don’t know. She told me she left town. She told her brother she was staying with me. I have no idea where she is.”

“Okay. Give me a few minutes and I’ll go through the security footage. Our face-recognition software will find her and tell me the last place she was seen. Call you in a few. Will you have someone there who can pick up the phone?”

“Yeah,” he said, feeling cold and more afraid than he had in a long, long time.

Now that he thought about it, she had been acting a little odd the last time he saw her. He’d chalked it up to stress, but maybe she’d been trying to tell him she was in some kind of trouble. Maybe the toll of taking care of him had worn her out and she’d had some kind of breakdown.

Ten million things went through his head, each one worse than the last.

His phone rang, and he scooped it up, his weak fingers clumsy on the plastic. “Did you find her?”

“It’s kinda weird, but she went into a vacant suite and hasn’t come out again. I can’t leave, but I’m sending someone to check it out.”

“What room number?”

Nate told him, then said, “I’ll call you back as soon as I know what’s going on.”

Torr didn’t tell him not to bother. He was going to go there himself and find her and then give her hell for sneaking off like that and scaring him. She didn’t have to lie and tell him she was leaving town to get a break from him. All she had to do was tell him she needed some time off. He would have understood.

He grabbed his sheathed sword, knowing he was going to need some kind of cane to keep from falling on his face. The suite was only one hall away, but as wobbly as he was, it was going to feel a hell of a lot farther.

 

John refused to give up on Meghan. He couldn’t imagine that any man capable of raising a daughter like her would also be capable of keeping her from living her own life.

There was only one way to find out.

Like some kind of creepy stalker, John followed her back to her home. As soon as she pulled into the garage, he hurried to the front door, hoping her father would be the one to answer so she wouldn’t have the chance to slam it in John’s face.

The man who answered the door came up only to John’s nose. He was thin, but not sickly, and peered up at John with a clear, questioning gaze. “Yes?”

“My name’s John Hawthorne. I’m a friend of Meghan’s from Minnesota. Mind if I come in?”

The man’s eyes lit up with interest and he smiled. “Of course. She doesn’t have many people stop by these days. Not like she used to when she was a kid. That girl had people parading through this house back then.”

“Dad, I’m home,” she called from somewhere off to the left.

“Just in time. Your friend’s here.”

Meghan stepped through a doorway and stopped cold. “You followed me home?” she asked in shock.

“I figured you wouldn’t invite me over, so I had to be rude and show up on my own.”

Her father took a protective step toward his daughter. “Is this man causing you trouble?”

“No, Dad. He just doesn’t know when to give up.”

“Can we talk?” asked John.

Sadness tinged her voice. “I’ve already said all there is to say.”

“Please. We can’t let it end like this.”

“Just go, John. This is already hard enough.”

Her father was listening to every word, watching each of them carefully. John hated that there was an audience for this, but that was her choice. Not his. He would have rather discussed this with her in private.

He knew before he said the words that she wasn’t going to like him discussing this in front of her father. “I can’t go until I know whether you might be carrying my baby. We didn’t use a damn thing, and you never said whether you were on birth control.”

Meghan’s eyes went wide with shock, as if she’d just realized what he had realized on the way over here: She might be pregnant. Why he hadn’t even thought about it before, he had no idea. He’d always been responsible. Hell, he had a condom in his wallet. He simply hadn’t thought about using it.

Her hand moved to her stomach in an unconscious gesture.

That was all the answer John needed. He found himself praying to God she was pregnant, because at this point, he was willing to resort to whatever slimy tactics he could find to keep her in his life. A baby would tie her to him and give him the time he needed to convince her she could love him for real—the way he knew he loved her.

The realization was a bit stunning, but it warmed him from the inside out and made his path forward as clear as day.

Meghan’s father crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Obviously, the two of you have things to discuss. I’ll be in the kitchen making dinner. For three.” He directed that last part at Meghan. “You go kicking out the father of my possible future grandkid before dinner and we’ll have words.”

He walked away, leaving the two of them alone in the foyer.

Meghan had gone pale and had pressed her hand to the wall as if to steady herself. “I hadn’t even considered . . . I’m sure I’m not ...”

“Pregnant,” he offered, bothered that she couldn’t even say the word. “You look like you’re going to fall over. Can we sit down?”

She nodded numbly and led him into the next room. She sank onto the couch, but rather than sitting across the room, as she’d probably intended, he sat down next to her.

John wasn’t a man to mince words, so he just blurted out, “I want to try to make things work with you. Come live with me.”

“I can’t. My dad.”

“Bring him, too. I have plenty of room. That cabin is just a spot I go to get away. I have a real house, too—big enough for all of us.”

“It’s too cold for Dad. His arthritis—”

“Will be greatly improved with all the exercise a grandchild will give me,” shouted her father from the kitchen. The man peeked around the corner, grinning like he was already planning what to do with a child they didn’t know existed yet.

In that moment, John decided he liked the man. He wouldn’t mind having him as a father-in-law at all.

“My work is here,” she said.

“I know lots of people up there. I can help you find a good job. Or I can give you one at my company.”

“That’s a horrible idea and you know it.”

“As bad an idea as never seeing each other?” he asked.

Her face crumpled in pain, and he knew then and there that he wasn’t alone in his feelings for her. She felt something, too. Their time together had been more than just great sex, though it had definitely also been that.

“We hardly know each other,” she said.

John cupped her face in his hands. The bruise from her accident was still there, reminding him just how precious she was—how easily she could be taken away from him. Every second counted, and he wanted to spend as many of them as he could with her.

“I know enough to want to know more.”

She covered her hands with his and pulled them away. “I can’t uproot myself and my dad just to see if we can make a go of it.”

John nodded slowly. “Okay. Fair enough. It’ll take me a few weeks to get things settled on my end. I was just getting set to break ground on a new development, so I’ll have to take care of finding someone to take over for me—transfer the contracts to them, or maybe sell the business. I’ll talk with my lawyer and see what makes the most sense. I’ll need to put my house on the market, but I think we should keep the cabin, don’t you? It’ll be nice for family vacations.”

Meghan blinked at him. “You’re going to give up your life—your business, your home, your career?”

“I can have those anywhere. I can only have you here. I’ll have to learn the ropes again—new building codes and whatnot—but I’m good at what I do. I’m sure I can find someone willing to take me on for a while. I can work my way up to the top again.”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

He frowned at her, confused. “Why wouldn’t I? Jobs come and go. There’s only one of you in the whole world. And if we’re lucky, one special little boy or girl who will be coming into our lives in a few months. I’d give up just about anything for the two of you.”

“What if there’s not a baby?”

“Then there’s not. At least, not yet. We’ll have more time alone to get to know each other. But either way, I’ve made up my mind. I want to be with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you.” As he said the words aloud, everything fell into place with a happy little click. The thought of giving up what he’d spent years creating didn’t even bother him.

“You do?” she asked. Her chin started to wobble.

“Don’t sound so surprised. I’m sure I’m not the first man to have fallen for you. I hope to God I’m the last, though.”

Tears shimmered in her eyes. “It’s not possible to love someone so fast.”

“Why not?”

“That’s just not how it’s done.”

She was cute when she got all teary. Her nose was red and her bottom lip stuck out, quivering until John had to fight the urge to kiss it. “How do you propose we do it, then?”

“We need to slow down. This is all too sudden.”

John looked at his watch. “How much time do you need?”