Ravensong (15 page)

She shut the door and moved to the
next room. It was a guest room as masculinely decorated as his own
bedroom. She shut the door and headed for the stairs, descending as
quickly as she could. She found her clothes folded neatly on the
fireplace bricks and slipped into them, only discarding Joshua’s
shirt when she was fully dressed.

The sliding glass door was open and
she wandered to it, wondering where Joshua had got to. She stepped
out on the balcony and breathed deeply of the ocean air. God, she
could get used to waking up here.

Then her eyes spotted Joshua and her
entire predicament came home with a staggering blow. He was rough
housing with his dog on the beach. He looked up at her and waved.
She waved back, pulling her hand in against her breast.

He ran up the beach toward the house,
trailed by Wolf. As he ascended the stairs, she turned, swallowing
at the lump of anxiety in her throat. Wolf greeted her first,
covering her with wet, sandy kisses. She ruffled his fur and then
looked up at Joshua.

He’d stopped coming toward her, a look
of concern on his face. She quickly took in his sweat pants and
tank top, which accentuated every taut play of muscle. He wore his
hair tied back to keep it out of his eyes and sweatbands on each
wrist. His chest was rising quickly and sweat shown on the bare
flesh of his chest and his shirt. He was gorgeous.

“
Been running?” she asked,
surprised by the catch in her voice.

He nodded, still studying her
intently.

She pushed Wolf aside and held out her
hand to him. “Joshua, we need to talk.”

He reluctantly accepted her hand and
allowed her to pull him toward the two chairs at the far end of the
balcony. They sat down, facing each other, and Wolf pushed between
them for attention.

“
Lay down,” said Joshua
firmly and the huge dog dropped. Then Joshua returned his attention
to Elena. “Why do you look like you’ve lost your best
friend?”

Elena frowned. “I hope I haven’t,” she
said. “I was hoping you’d take me home now.”

“
Now? But I thought you’d
spend the weekend here with me...”

She looked up in surprise. She’d
expected him to say many things, but that just wasn’t one of them.
“The weekend?” Her voice caught again. “Don’t you think that would
make things a little difficult?”

He shook his head. “Difficult? I’m not
following.”

“
Joshua.” She reached out
and took his hand between hers. “Last night was wonderful, but it
can’t happen again.”

He rose swiftly, pulling his hand
away, and walked to the rail, leaning against it. “After what
happened last night, you’re going through with this asinine
marriage?”

She shifted toward him. “No.” She
paused, shaking her head. “Actually, I really don’t know. I just
know I want my job and if Julian knew what happened last
night...”

“
To hell with Julian,” he
said, turning back to her. He shook his head. “Didn’t last night
mean a damn thing to you? How can you bring up Julian after what we
shared?”

She leaned back in
surprise. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you the one who
told me you prefer one night stands, that you weren’t a
hold me ‘til morning
kind
of guy?”

Joshua exhaled in frustration. “And I
told you it had never been like that with anyone else, Elena. Did
you think I was lying? Hell, I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a
liar.”

“
No, I thought you were
caught up in the heat of the moment.” She rose to her feet and
moved close to him. “Come on, Joshua, you know this job is
important to me. I want to earn enough money to take time off and
travel. I’ve worked too hard and too long for this opportunity, and
I’m not going to blow it.”

“
Then we’ll keep what we
have private - just between you and me.”

For a moment, she almost relented. The
look in his face was so desperate and she felt just as desperate
herself, but it was still wrong. No matter what he was saying now,
once he had his fill of her, and she didn’t doubt for a moment he
would, he’d be off to the next woman like he’d done with every
other relationship he’d ever attempted. Except Elena knew she stood
to lose a hell of a lot more than a sleeping companion.

“
How long do you think that
would work? And there’s still the little matter of my engagement.
Even if I decide to break it off with John, I’ll have to do it in
person, and he won’t be back for another four months.”

Joshua stared at her a moment
intently. She met the probe of his eyes, but said nothing. He
reached up and pulled the tie off, raking his fingers through his
hair.

“
Fine,” he said, without
looking at her. “Let me get a quick shower and I’ll drive you
home.”

Before she could recover
from the brutal tone in his voice, he’d stormed into the house. She
leaned against the railing to steady herself, her heart
pounding.
Oh lord
,
she thought,
what have I done?
At that moment she wasn’t so sure it was the right
thing, but more so, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep her
distance like she’d demanded of him.

CHAPTER 7

Joshua stood on the back
porch of his mother’s home, looking down over the canyon. His twin
half-brothers, Jeffery and Joseph, were stalking each other in the
dense underbrush and Joshua smiled at the sound of their childish
voices. At ten, they were nearly as tall as he was with their
mother’s black hair and Adam’s brown eyes. Joshua sighed, missing
his own daughter.

He looked up when Adam
leaned his elbows on the rail next to him. “Your mother sent me to
find out what’s wrong.”

Joshua turned, placing his
back to the rail, and looked through the kitchen window where his
mother was making a pretense of washing dishes. “She tell you to
tell me that’s what you’re doing?”

“
Are you
kidding?”

Joshua chuckled, folding
his arms over his chest. “Why does she think something’s
wrong?”

Adam shrugged, clasping his
big pale hands before him. Joshua had always marveled at his
step-father’s hands. They were so large, yet so very gentle. His
own father had rather small hands, but they were anything but
gentle.

“
She’s your mother, need
any other explanation?”

“
No,” said Joshua, shaking
his head.

“
So what’s
wrong?”

Joshua studied Adam. He and
his step-father had an interesting relationship. He’d never tried
to take the place of Joshua’s biological father, but he’d done so
just the same. If there was one person Joshua felt safe confiding
in it was Adam, even more so than his own mother.

Right now he needed to talk
with someone. That’s why he’d driven to his mother’s house as soon
as he’d dropped Elena off. The thought of spending the weekend
alone was unbearable.

Joshua drew a deep breath,
crossing his arms over his chest. Again he watched his mother
washing dishes. “How did you know she was the one,
Adam?”

Adam glanced back over his
shoulder, his blunt features softening measurably. “She had this
incredible black hair and this feisty personality. Then I tried her
cooking and that was that.”

Joshua laughed. “I’m
serious.”

“
So am I,” said Adam, then
he sobered when he caught the urgent expression on his step-son’s
face. “I don’t know, Josh. Your mother had this quality about her,
like she could take care of the world and I really needed to be
taken care of, but it was more than that. I needed to take care of
someone myself and there she was, so strong and yet so vulnerable,
and you...hell, I looked into those huge eyes and knew I had to
have both of you in my life.”

Joshua studied Adam’s face,
feeling a swelling of emotion inside of him. Adam had taken in a
terrified little boy and loved him like his own. It was a gift
Joshua could never repay. The fact that he’d hurt and disappointed
Adam time and time again rubbed his conscience raw.

“
Why you asking a question
like that, Josh?”

Joshua blinked, pulling
himself out of his deep thoughts. “Why?” He considered his words
before he spoke. “I’m not really good at the relationship game, as
you know.”

“
The point,
boy.”

Joshua glared at his
step-father. “Why does everything have to be needles with
you?”

Adam laughed and placed a
huge hand on Joshua’s shoulder. “Joshua, you don’t have to dance
around the issue with me.”

Joshua nodded, his eyes drifting back
to his mother. Behind him, the sound of the boys at play only
increased the loneliness of his situation.

“
Terry hasn’t let me see
Tiffany in the last two weeks.”

Adam lifted his brows.
“She’s good at that, isn’t she?”

“
Yeah, but my hands are
tied, Adam. What am I going to do?”

Adam shook his head. “What
if your mother and I challenged her for custody?”

“
On what
grounds?”

“
Abandonment. Doesn’t she
take off with a different man every weekend?”

“
Yeah, but Ethel’s always
there.”

Adam sighed. “She’ll back
off again, once you’ve paid enough or she gets what she wants out
of you.” He looked at his step-son closely. “That isn’t all of it
though, is it?”

Joshua glanced at his
step-father, pushing nervously at his molars with his tongue. “No.”
He took a deep breath. “I’ve met someone.”

Adam merely lifted his eyebrows in
interest.

“
And she’s making me
crazy.”

“
How so?”

“
She’s
engaged...”

He stopped at Adam’s
violent exhalation. “Joshua...”

“
Wait, hear me out. It gets
even better.”

Adam cast him a worried
glance.

“
She’s engaged to a
man old enough to be her father. She doesn’t love him, and not only
that, she works for
Avalanche
under Julian.”

“
And you are attracted to
her. She feels the same?”

Joshua considered his words
carefully. “More than that. She spent the night with me last
night.”

Adam threw back his head
and shut his eyes. “Lord, Joshua, what a mess.”

“
I know, but there’s
more.”

“
More?” said Adam, spearing
his step-son with his eyes.

Joshua turned toward him,
dropping his voice. “She was raped two years ago, Adam. That’s why
she’s marrying this man, because she’s afraid to take a chance. Can
you imagine what she thinks about her attraction for me? Every time
she looks at me I can see what she’s thinking. And I keep telling
her I’m not the permanent kind.”

“
Do you want to
be?”

“
What?”

Adam gave him the same
quizzical stare Joshua had gotten his entire life. “Do you want to
be permanent with her?”

Joshua drew a ragged
breath. Hell, if he didn’t say it now, it was going to eat away at
him on the inside. “I think I love her.”

Adam took a step back in
surprise. “Oh God, Joshua.”

“
I know. It’s a
mess.”

Adam’s hands came down
firmly on his step-son’s shoulders. “A mess you don’t need,
Josh.”

“
I can’t help how I feel,
Adam.”

Adam stared at him a moment
in silence, then slowly shook his head. “No, I guess not. What are
you going to do?”

Joshua looked out over the
canyon. “Give her space, take my time. Before I sleep with her
again, I’m going to make damn sure she leaves the engagement ring
at home.” He drew a deep breath, closing his eyes momentarily.
“Somehow I’ve got to prove to her she’s different, that nothing
like this has ever happened to me before. I’ve got to make her
trust me.” Joshua’s eyes bore into those of his step-father. “Last
night, Adam, I was so damn scared. It was different than it’s ever
been. I lay there for a long time, just holding her, liking the way
it felt with her in my arms, in my house.”

“
Do you know how long your
mother’s been waiting for this to happen?”

Joshua’s upper lip
twitched.

“
We should have known it’d
be complicated.”

“
Have I ever done anything
the easy way?”

“
No, son, you haven’t, but
your mother and I are behind you, and when you need us, we’ll be
there.”

A smile touched Joshua’s
mouth. Before he could thank his step-father, his step-sister
Jennifer burst out of the house, throwing herself in his arms. The
impact of her carried him back into the railing, but he hugged her
just as enthusiastically.

She bussed a few kisses
along his jaw. “I can’t believe you’re here,” she said
happily.

He held her away and smiled
at her. “Damn it, Jennifer, you just get prettier every
day.”