Red Dust Dreaming (6 page)

Luke nodded against her shoulder as he calmed down. “You smell good,” he said. She patted his back in soothing circles and rocked him gently from side to side. Caden had to hand it to her. She didn't try and lie, didn't try to tell the kid his mum had never been sent away by her parents. But did she have the power to protect him from the same fate when push came to shove? With no will in evidence Angela's wishes could only be guessed at. Still, he was pretty certain she wouldn't have wanted that for her son.

“How about you go and clean your teeth and get ready for bed? I'll come and read you a story.” Thelma had been silent during the exchange. She began to stack the dishes indicating the meal was over.

“But Caden always reads me a story.” Luke looked up with reddened eyes to plead his case.

“Well tonight you get me so you better pick a good yarn.” No one argued with Thelma when she used that tone. Even young Luke knew better.

Elizabeth took Luke by the shoulders and held him at arm's length. “New York is fun no matter what anyone says. We can roast marshmallows at bonfires on the beach. We can go ice skating in winter. We can eat hot dogs at a baseball game.” She stopped and looked over at Caden. “And you can go to school with boys your own age and make lots of friends.” Caden refused to take the barb in front of Luke. Once the boy was safely in bed he intended to say his piece to Ms. Langtree, no doubt about that.

“Really?” said Luke. “We can do all that? I've never been to the beach and I've never seen snow. I don't even know what baseball is but I think I'd really like a hot dog. I do have lots of friends now…”

“Yes but you can play with your new friends every day and whenever you like because they'll live nice and close. Won't that be nice?”

Luke nodded enthusiastically. She had him, hook line and sinker. Offering him things Caden never could. He hated her in that moment as Luke slipped a little further away from him.

“Come on, Champ.” Thelma made to shepherd Luke to bed. “Give everyone a kiss and off to bed.” Luke did as he was bid, first kissing Elizabeth then coming around to kiss Caden who hugged Luke a little harder than usual.

“Let's go,” said Thelma. “The grownups have to talk and you owe me a story.”

“But you're reading me a story not the other way around!”

“Who said?”

“You did just before…”

Their voices disappeared down the corridor the argument in full swing. Thelma would miss Luke as much as he would. How much longer did they have with him? Caden had to find out what Elizabeth and her family were planning. He'd turned the place upside down after Angela's death looking for a will and found nothing. Were the Langtrees busy doing the same thing or did they already have the will? He had to know.

“You know it's wrong to put those ideas into Luke's head, don't you?” Elizabeth hissed at him from across the table.

“Don't look at me.” He raised his hands in mock surrender. “All of that came from your sister.”

“New York smells and there are no horses?” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him with those blue eyes.

“Okay, so that bit was me,” he admitted.

“And I bet you think it's all very funny, don't you?” She glowed with a strange kind of beauty when she was fuming.

“You've got that wrong, sister. This isn't a joke to me. This is war. You're trying to take Luke away from the only home he's ever known to give him to people who his mother spent her life trying to get away from.” He leaned towards her, palms pressed flat against the table.

Elizabeth pushed her chair back and stood up. “You're the one who's got it wrong, buddy. And if you cared so much for my sister and her son why didn't you marry her and adopt him?”

Caden's chair scraped loudly on the floor as he rose to his feet. “My relationship with Angela is none of your business. She lived her life the way she wanted to.”

Elizabeth gasped in outrage. “What are you implying?”

“Implying? Nothing at all. I'm not implying anything I'm saying it plainly. She ran away from your dysfunctional family and made a new family here with us. We're Luke's family, maybe not by blood but sometimes blood just doesn't matter.” He noticed he'd walked around the table to face her. When had he done that?

“I live my life the way I want to.” She narrowed her eyes, her fists were balled up at her sides. Unless he was mistaken she was sizing him up.

“Right, sure you do. You did whatever Mummy and Daddy wanted. I bet life is just peachy. Well it wasn't, to hear Angela tell it.” Caden really hadn't meant to start this fight. If he could take it all back he would but the words just kept pouring out of his mouth uncensored. He had to stop before they both all went too far.

“My childhood wasn't so great either but I made the best of it. Angela rebelled every inch of the way and look where that got her!”

“What exactly are
you
implying?”

“I'm not implying anything. I'm calling it as I see it. She ran away to hide in this godforsaken place and left me to face our parents on my own.” Her hands were on her hips and her cheeks were flushed. Damn she looked pretty! And that particular fact only fuelled his anger.

“I can't stop you from taking Luke to New York. Believe me if I could I would. Just ask yourself this question, if New York is so damned good why did Angela run so far? Why did she deny your parents their grandchild? Why didn't she tell you she was dying? She had a choice and she exercised it. She chose freedom. Do you really want Luke to wind up as uptight and miserable as you are?” He'd gone too far now. His words whirled about their heads like a flock of startled sparrows. Caden's heart pounded in his chest. In some strange way he was having Angela's argument for her, the one she never got to have. He'd heard her side of the story a thousand times and part of him justified his cruel words in defence of Angela.

Elizabeth looked as shocked as if he'd slapped her, and in some way he had — verbally. His bravado evaporated as he looked into her eyes. Fury and pain lurked in their blue depths. He'd ignited both tonight.

“I am not uptight,” she bit out between clenched teeth. She looked so angry, so small and alone in his kitchen there was only one logical thing to do.

He took a step closer, inhaling her scent of sultry summer flowers. “Oh really,” he said before crushing her to him and kissing her with everything he had.

One minute he was yelling at her, the next he was kissing her. Elizabeth stood stock still as the heat from Caden's hands seared her skin through her linen shirt. His fingers threaded through her hair, one hand cupping the back of her head as the other drew her closer until she pressed against the entire length of him. Heat came off him in waves as his lips covered hers. There was nothing gentle in his kiss, instead it spoke of pent up frustration, a need to possess. Elizabeth's mouth opened like a flower, her knees weak with shock. Her hands clutched at his shirt while his tongue plundered her mouth winning the argument his words could not. She could feel his heart pounding or was it her heart? No longer able to tell where she stopped and he began she held on for dear life. All the anger she'd felt towards him dissipated to be replaced by a raw desire which ran through her veins like quicksilver. The sweetness of a hard male body pressed against hers awoke a need in her long repressed. Just as she allowed herself sink into the moment he released her, stepping away.

She stood blinking in the kitchen light, dazed and confused. What on earth had just happened? Elizabeth looked up into Caden's face only to see his hooded eyes shuttered, his face closed. He was cut off from her completely. It was as if the kiss, still warm on her lips, had never happened. She gripped the back of a chair to steady her legs. Her head whirled, dizzy with desire, and she closed her eyes for a brief moment to regain some equilibrium. When she opened them again he was gone and she was alone.

With shaky hands Elizabeth pulled the chair out from the table and sat down, grateful for some stability. She rubbed her face with her hands, embarrassed at the way she'd responded to Caden's kiss. Ashamed at the desire he'd evoked in her. He belonged to Angela and while she was no longer there Elizabeth would be damned if she was going to provide a handy replacement. And if he thought for a single minute he could seduce her into leaving Luke with him then Caden Carlyle had another think coming! She clenched her fists on her knees as anger re-emerged to take centre stage. Damn it! What did the man think he was doing?

She stood up again and began pacing the length of the kitchen. Just who did he think he was? What gave him the right to pass judgment on her anyway? Repressed, weak and cowardly is what he'd called her. Okay, so he hadn't used those exact words but he'd certainly made his feelings about her clear. So why kiss her? To shut her up? Probably. He was the kind of man to whom actions were better suited than words. So completely opposite to any other man she knew.

Elizabeth stopped pacing and stood for a moment, her hands resting lightly on the back of the chair. The feel of the old wood beneath her fingertips grounded her even though her emotions threatened to carry her away. Taking deep breaths she waited until her heart rate returned to something approaching normal. While calmer her anger still simmered away.

Angela had made decisions designed to annoy their parents. True, they had not had a great childhood. Instead of love and a sense of belonging they had received instructions on how to behave properly, a boarding school education and a series of nannies or minders to take care of them on the holidays. All they'd had was each other. Then Angela had dropped out of college, taken up with a soldier, and dropped off the grid entirely. Then stories of Luke had started to surface; a grandson the family had known nothing about. Elizabeth had been left behind to clean up the mess Angela had left. The long diatribes her mother saw fit to deliver on how Elizabeth better not shame them all by following in her sister's footsteps, how if she did she'd find herself excommunicated, just like Angela.

Elizabeth stared at the wall, covered in a vintage wall paper so long out of fashion it had come back in. The edges of the cabbage roses blurred through her tears. Memories, repressed for years, came flooding back. How she longed to go back in time and hug the little girl she used to be, and tell her things would work out. Kind of. That she'd get her parents approval in the end, become the lawyer they wanted her to be instead of the artist she'd dreamed of being. Art didn't pay the bills, Law did. Life wasn't so bad. Her life was far more comfortable than Angela's had been. Even though Angela had found love, had a family she'd had to turn her back on all she knew run to the middle of some godforsaken country where even the grass didn't grow. Elizabeth shook her head to shatter the images crowding her mind. Her throat constricted with unshed tears and she swallowed hard to dislodge them. She would not cry, not here under Caden Carlyle's roof. Worried Thelma might return or worse yet, Caden himself, she hurriedly took herself off to bed.

Slipping into her pyjamas, sensible button-ups with thin blue stripes, she crawled into bed. Her mind refused to settle as it formed and reformed arguments, things she should have said if she'd had her wits about her. Things she would have said if he hadn't kissed her so unexpectedly, if she hadn't completely lost the plot. When was the last time she'd been kissed? She couldn't remember. Elizabeth lay staring at the pressed tin ceiling, her mind chattering away.

Maybe Caden had a point about Luke going to boarding school. Why would her parents raise him any differently to the way they raised her. The difference was Luke would have her there to stand up for him, even though she worried she'd have little say in the way his life would be arranged. Still, he would have advantages in New York he certainly didn't have here. She comforted herself with this logic. It would all work out, she'd make sure it did.

Guilt drove her feet out of bed and over to her handbag which lay crumpled on a chair. She rummaged through it until she located her phone. Turning it on she waited to see if there were any messages from home. She was rewarded with a stream of them, a constant bombardment had occurred while she'd been busy fighting with Caden. She read a few, mostly from her father. They wanted news, an update, and a photo. What was Luke like? Was Caden putting up a fight? Had he located a will? They sounded concerned enough although there was no enquiry as to how she was faring.

Elizabeth flicked the phone off. Her parents weren't to know if there was reception out here or not. She'd simply tell them she'd been too isolated and had no signal. Right now weariness overrode any desire to communicate with home. Caden had upset her more than she cared to admit. He'd stirred long dormant feelings in her. All she wanted to do was go back to New York, back to her job, her dull daily routine and feel safe again. Luke would go to school and he'd survive to go on and do something useful with is life just as she did.

Yawning she crawled back into bed and switched off the bedside light. The darkness soothed her. Her life may not be very exciting but it was a good life nevertheless. She didn't have to defend herself or her family to Caden. All she had to do was take Luke and get out of there. The sooner the better.

Content with her logic she let the tendrils of sleep begin to claim her. Only to be awoken by a sharp knock on the door. She sat up, disorientated for a second, and fumbled for the light. How long had she been asleep, minutes or hours? She slid out of bed and approached the door. If Caden was on the other side waiting to apologise she'd send him away. She was a long way from ready to forgive him for all sorts of reasons. She placed her hand on the door knob and hesitated. Taking a deep breath she pulled the door open.

Thelma stood on the other side with an armful of books. “Hello, did I wake you up?”