The Housekeeper's Daughter (15 page)

“But it could be true.”

“Then you believe me?”

“Of course,” she said, giving it no further thought.

He stopped in front of her. “Thank you. Sometimes it seems as if we must be crazy, that no one could carry on a charade for ten years.”

“Unless you were an identical twin.” She considered her studies of personality types. “Con artists are very good at insinuating themselves into people's lives. They're like chameleons. They take on the protective coloring of their surroundings. How can I help?”

A muscle moved in his jaw. “Just by being here,” he murmured, his eyes boring into hers.

She didn't move when he slipped his hands behind her neck and, using his thumbs, held her face up to his. She knew his intention, but she stayed still.

The kiss was gentle and sweet, so sweet. It flowed into her like warm syrup, soothing a place in her soul. She breathed deeply of him, drawing his scent into her lungs, filling herself with him, this man.

Drake. Beloved.

Lifting her arms, she held on to his shoulders, feeling the strength he kept in check as he pulled her closer. For some reason, she was reminded of their first kiss last summer, the tenderness of it, the questioning of the emotion behind the kiss, the hunger that went deeper than the mere physical.

“I need you,” he whispered, pressing her cheek to his chest and planting kisses along her temple. “It's always there, an ache that won't go away.”

She could have wept at the despair in his voice. “I don't want to hurt you. I want you to be happy,” she told him, clutching his shirt.

He cupped her face again and nibbled at her lips in little hungry forays that didn't near satisfy her need for the taste and feel of him. “You are my happiness.”

She shook her head, knowing the darkness still possessed his soul, sensing it even as he touched and caressed her. She held him tightly, as if to give him her warmth, as if her love might brighten that dark area.

“Maya,” he said, his voice hoarse with intensity. “My sweet lover, my dream come true. Let me hold you, just for a while. I've missed you.”

The hunger swept up from that deep well of need that only he stirred. “This is no good,” she tried to tell him, even as she caressed and stroked. “We have to think—”

He lifted his head, his eyes haunted. “Perhaps that's been our problem. We think too much, you and
I. I need to touch you, to remember how you feel in my arms.”

“Why? We can't go any further.”

“Shh,” he said. “I just want to hold you, that's all. It's enough for now.”

Shaking her head helplessly, she let him enfold her and felt the bitterness of the past few months fade from memory. She lifted her face to his, the sweetness of the moment filling her whole being.

He kissed her deeply, with passion held carefully in check, his hands roaming her back, his strong fingers massaging her flesh as if finding the reality of her through his touch.

Sensing his longing, she returned the kiss, satisfying her own yearning for him.

“I miss those little cries you used to make,” he told her, nipping at her lips, her ear, her throat. “I wake at night, thinking I can hear you, and realize it's only a dream. Lying in a tent in the jungle, I think of you. On maneuvers in the desert. Parachuting onto an ice floe. It doesn't matter. You go wherever I go.”

“But only in your dreams,” she reminded him, feeling the hurt of his leaving all over again, even as she returned his kisses. “It's never real.”

“It was real last summer. We created a child.”

Pressing her forehead against his chest, she swallowed painfully. “We were both foolish. We shouldn't be again.”

He opened a button and trailed kisses downward. Another button. More kisses. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on breathing.

“I've told myself the same thing. But holding you doesn't feel foolish. It's good, so good.”

The husky passion thrilled her now as it had in June. When he sat on the bed, she went with him willingly, settling in his lap as the hot passion built between them.

“So strong,” she whispered. “I never knew this could be so strong, the need so compelling.”

“I know. It's the same with me. Nothing, no one else, can begin to satisfy it.”

“Yes,” she said on a gasp when he finished unfastening the buttons and pushed the blouse off her shoulders.

“I need to feel you against me, skin on skin.” His eyes were molten, his expression one of intense wonder.

Hands trembling, she helped him slip out of his long-sleeved shirt, an old flannel one he'd had for ages. He eased them gently down on his bed, until they were lying side by side, his arm under her head.

“We lay like this the first time, remember? I was inside you, and we stayed together like this.”

“Yes, I remember,” she said softly, lost in the past and all the wonderful misty dreams she harbored about them. “Being together…so new and wonderful.”

“And magic. All that magic.”

“I didn't know you felt it.”

“Every time I looked at you, touched you, it was the same. You glowed from inside, like some kind of fire I couldn't ignore.”

“It was the same for me,” she told him, spellbound all over again.

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Propping himself on an elbow, he drew smaller and smaller circles on her breasts, first one, then the other. Two tiny damp spots appeared on the satiny material of her bra.

Slowly, carefully, he peeled one nursing flap open. A drop of milk appeared on her nipple. He bent and touched his tongue to it. “The stuff of life,” he whispered. “It's in you, part of you, of the magic. No wonder we made a child.”

She stroked the hair from his forehead. “It's part of you, too, Drake. The spark came from both of us, not me alone. It took both of us.”

“I know. I still can't believe it.”

“I can. You have so much goodness inside you. I've always known it.”

“How?” he asked, pain in his eyes. He shook his head as if he didn't understand. “How can you see goodness when I see only darkness?”

She had no answer. Pulling his head down, she held him close, needing to comfort his lost, questing heart.

Bending, he kissed her exposed breast tenderly, then laved up the drops of nourishment. Closing the bra, he kissed along her neck while he held and explored her with the greatest tenderness she had ever known.

“You're the one good thing,” he told her, “the only good thing in my life, you and the baby.”

She wanted to ask why he wouldn't let them be part of his life, but she didn't. This moment was spe
cial, and they'd had few of those during the past month.

“Hold me,” she whispered.

“I will,” he said and it sounded like a promise.

The moments flew past. Thirty minutes. An hour. And still he held and caressed her, taking them no farther than deep kisses and playful explorations of her mouth with his.

He cupped his body around hers, laying her legs over his thighs as he'd done the last time they'd made love. Still propped on one arm, he touched her over and over—breasts, waist, thighs—as if he couldn't get enough of the wonder of her.

“You make my heart sing,” she said at one point. She lightly ran her fingertips through the wiry patch of hair on his chest.

He smiled, his gaze peaceful, as if these stolen moments together had soothed something in his soul, although there was still tense passion in his body.

“We need to marry,” he said.

“Not yet.”

“When?”

“I don't know.”

“We can work it out.”

His words conveyed confidence, but she shook her head. “You're not ready.”

“Promise me something.” He traced the outline of her lips, making her mouth burn for more of his kisses.

“What?”

“That in six months, whether you think I'm ready or not, you'll accept my proposal.”

She tried to ignore the clamor of her too-eager heart. “If you ask again at that time, then I'll accept.”

“Shall we tell our parents we're engaged?”

She wasn't that sure of the future. “I'd rather not.”

For a moment, he didn't say anything, then he nodded and rose. Holding out a hand, he helped her up. They fastened their clothing and left his room.

“I still want to help with the mystery about your mother,” she told him. “If there is a mystery.”

“Something will break soon. I have a gut feeling about it. Austin or Thaddeus or someone will find a clue we've overlooked. Then we'll know.”

A shiver went down her spine as they walked to her room to check on Marissa. Her mother was there, rocking the baby and singing quietly in Spanish.

Inez smiled benevolently at them as she stood. “She's been an angel. I just wanted to hold her.”

“Thanks,” Drake said. He took the baby and settled in the rocker. “Rocking a baby is relaxing, isn't it?”

Inez looked from him to his daughter, then laughed softly. “Yes, indeed.” Still smiling, she left them.

Maya caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her hair was mussed, her lipstick gone, her cheeks rosy. “Oh, dear,” she murmured.

Drake gave her a glance filled with obvious male satisfaction. “You look like a woman who has recently been rather thoroughly kissed.”

Seeing his smile, she realized he looked the same with his hair tousled and half his shirt still unfastened.

“Where is this leading?” she questioned, voicing her worries.

“You know,” he said quietly.

M
aya woke slowly. She stretched luxuriantly, feeling truly rested. And happy in a way she hadn't been in a long time.

She and Drake and Marissa had spent every waking moment together over the weekend. Drake had been attentive, teasing her, playing with the baby and generally making himself useful. A couple of times he'd stolen a kiss, his hands and mouth gentle and enticing. Drake as smitten lover and supportive father was hard to resist.

How wonderful everything could be, if…

She wasn't sure what the “if” was comprised of, only that she felt the implied doubt of the word. For a second, she was saddened, then glancing out the window, she saw the sky was bright. Morning. She'd slept all night.

Throwing the covers off, she rose and went to the bassinet. The baby still slept, looking as sweet as an angel. Marissa hadn't awakened for the usual five-o'clock feeding.

Aware of her full breasts, Maya headed for the bathroom. She washed and dressed, then went to the kitchen. Her heart knocked a bit at finding Drake there. So was her mom and a new girl who was helping out for a few days.

Her mother introduced Maya to Elaine, a college student who was taking some time off her studies to explore the country. This was her first trip to northern California.

“Welcome to our end of the world,” Maya said, pouring a cup of coffee and a large glass of milk.

“Thanks. Drake has been telling me about the coast along here. It's scary to drive Highway One, all those twists and turns and ups and downs.”

Elaine looked like a California girl—all long legs and waist-length blond-streaked hair with the fresh-scrubbed, tanned face of an outdoors person—but her accent was pure Southern magnolia. She was from Kentucky.

Listening to the girl, who was about her age, talk about the adventures she'd had while traveling around the States, Maya suddenly felt her own provincialism. She'd never been anywhere farther south than San Francisco and north up to Ashland, Oregon, for the Shakespeare plays. Once her family had gone to Crater Lake to picnic and admire the scenery on a day trip.

When Inez left the kitchen and went to her own
house, Maya felt very much the outsider as the other two continued chatting about their adventures.

Drake laughed at Elaine's stories and, at her urging, told of some of his own travails in his trips around the world. The two yakked like old friends catching up with each other's lives while Elaine washed pots and cleaned up the kitchen after breakfast for the house staff and ranch help.

“Excuse me,” Maya murmured after eating half a bagel. She was aware of Drake's quick glance as she put her dishes in the dishwasher, then retreated to her own room.

There, she slumped into the rocker and faced the truth. She was jealous of the young woman who'd traveled all over, carefree and confident that she would be able to make her way anywhere she went. Drake had obviously found Elaine interesting and entertaining.

Maya pressed a hand between her aching breasts. She no longer felt young, and she hadn't been carefree since she was a teenager and started sitting with the youngest Colton boys. With a grimace at her own insecurities, she rose and went to the sleeping baby.

A child certainly changed one's perspective. Marissa was barely three weeks old, but Maya acknowledged the loneliness of responsibility and knew she had only herself to blame. She and Drake could have been married by now.

Would she then have been jealous of the lovely, carefree woman who roamed the world as she wished?

There's no place in my life for a wife…

She swallowed the searing agony that rose to choke her. In truth, he hadn't wanted
her,
but that didn't mean he might not meet someone—Elaine or a young woman like her—at a future date and want that person for a wife.

Drake knocked, then entered the room when she called, “Come in.”

His keen gaze searched her face. “What's wrong?” he asked quietly, coming to her. He glanced at the baby. “Is Marissa all right?”

“Yes. I was just…”

She couldn't think of an explanation for what she was doing—standing by the bassinet and feeling miserable.

“Just feeling sorry for myself, I think,” she admitted with wry honesty.

He looked puzzled. “Why?”

She shrugged. “It sounds fun, traveling about and having adventures.”

Understanding dawned. He shook his head, his gaze surprisingly tender. “You aren't that kind of person. You belong here. I imagine Elaine's parents worry about her a lot. She admits she rarely thinks of calling them. You would never do that to the people you love.”

She thought of the months when he hadn't called or written. His words only made her more miserable. When did love become crazy and exciting like in songs?

Last summer, she answered. Then it had been moonlight and magic. Now, there were the conse
quences. She loved Marissa, but life was more difficult now.

Drake lifted his hand, ran a finger over her chin and lips, then spoke softly, “I realized, listening to her, how selfish and uncaring that attitude is. I thought I was being noble to leave you, but now I wonder…”

“Perhaps you were wise to go,” she suggested, ignoring the terrible hurt his words caused as he stopped speaking and stared at her thoughtfully.

“Or perhaps I was scared,” he corrected, his tone going hard. “Elaine flunked out of school, it turns out, and her parents are furious with her. Maybe, like her, I find it easier to take off rather than face my failures.”

Startled, Maya gazed at him, wondering what in the world he meant. “You've never failed at anything.”

His expression was one of tender remorse. “I've failed with you. I lost your trust. I'm sorry for that. You needed me, and I wasn't there for you.” He gave a snort of bitter laughter. “It's what I'm good at—getting others into trouble while I escape scot-free.”

A sense of responsibility, that was what he felt for her, she realized. He felt he'd failed her as he failed his twin so long ago, running his bike off the road while Michael, riding behind him, hadn't had time to react.

“I'm not a child, Drake. I made my own decision about what happened between us last summer. You didn't seduce or force me into an affair. You're not responsible—”

“The hell I'm not!” He shook his head angrily. “I took part in our lovemaking, then ducked out, leaving a note guaranteed to keep you at bay. I know your pride. I knew my leaving like that would end the relationship. I meant for it to.”

She turned away, unable to look at him while he tore her heart to shreds.

“I thought it was for the best,” he finished grimly. “I was wrong.”

“It doesn't matter,” she told him, weary of emotions and yearning and impossible things. She didn't want guilt and recriminations. She wasn't going to get happiness, so why continue the discussion?

“It does to me. I want to make up for that. I want to make it right between us. Like it was for that one magical week in June.”

The ache was unbearable. She shook her head, denying it, him, all the wild sweet passion they had shared, the love she'd thought they'd found.

“It can't be like that, not ever again. We can't go back, Drake. It's impossible.” She faced him bravely. “It's impossible,” she repeated.

The muscles clenched in his jaw. His eyes were stormy and dangerous, filled with a bitterness that made her ache for him, plus anger and a refusal to accept her words.

“We can't go back,” he agreed in a hoarse voice, “but we can go forward. We have to. There's the child to think of. She needs both of us.”

“I won't deny you your place in her life.”

He spun away and paced the room as if marshaling his arguments, then he stopped by the door. His smile
was raw and unexpected. “So you can't forgive me. I realize now that I was counting on that. You always had the tenderest heart. I think that's the hardest part of all to accept. I hurt my friend…and I'll never forgive myself for that.”

He left quietly, slipping out the door without a sound, like a departing ghost.

Maya breathed out shakily, not sure where they were now or how any of this could work out. Her too-full breasts reminded her that she needed to feed the baby. Bending over the little bed, she called softly, “Hey, little one, your mommy needs you to wake up.”

When she lifted the child, she knew at once something was very, very wrong. Marissa's skin was hot to the touch. Very hot. She opened her eyes, but the action was listless, as if she didn't care if she ever opened them again.

Grabbing the digital thermometer from off the dresser, Maya checked the baby's temperature. Gasping, she clutched the baby to her chest and ran for the door. While she and Drake had been quarreling, their baby had lain in bed, neglected and ill.

“Drake,” she cried, running to the patio. “Drake!”

He was halfway across the lawn to the beach stairs. The wind coldly snatched his name from her lips and tossed it behind her. She clutched the baby and ran desperately toward him, fear lending wings to her feet.

“Drake!”

He turned around, saw her and ran back to meet her.

“The baby,” she said. “She's running a fever.”

“How much?”

“A hundred and four. We have to get to the hospital.”

He nodded grimly. Taking her arm, they both ran. He beat her to his truck. Opening the door, he scooped her inside, then ran around and slid in the driver's side.

“Why didn't you tell me she was sick?” he demanded.

“I didn't know,” she admitted. “I thought she was just sleeping a long time. She missed the five o'clock feeding. When I decided to wake her after you left, I found she was burning up.”

“Could she have gotten hold of something?”

“No. I don't think so. She seemed okay last night. She didn't eat much, but I didn't think— She must have been getting ill then. I didn't notice. I should have checked her temperature. I should have done that when I first woke and realized she'd slept so long. I—”

“Hush,” he said. “Don't go blaming yourself. I didn't notice anything different about her, either.”

Maya was silent for the rest of the ride to the emergency room. She heard Drake's soothing words, but she didn't believe them. She was at fault. She should have noticed her baby was sick.

 

“Strep throat,” the pediatrician said cheerfully. “It can come on fast with babies. She'll be fine. You can take her home as soon as the office finishes the paperwork. The nurse will bring you some samples of
a fever reducer. Use it if her temperature goes up again.”

Maya listened without taking her eyes off the baby. When they'd arrived at the local hospital, their regular pediatrician was making his rounds. He'd examined Marissa, nodded wisely when he'd peered into her mouth—that had made her whimper—then he'd ordered an IV. The drip tube had looked ominous as the nurse attached it to the tiny body. At noon, the doctor had checked her again and said she was ready to go home.

“Thank you,” Drake said to the doctor when he left them alone in the room with its double cribs. The other baby bed was empty.

Maya sat beside the crib, her hand through the railing so she could touch the baby. Marissa instinctively clutched her mother's finger as she slept deeply.

“I've never seen her so still,” Maya said in a soft voice. “It's almost as if she's…” She couldn't bring herself to say “dead.”

“She's resting,” Drake assured her. “She'll be okay.”

Maya closed her eyes briefly, then looked at him. “No thanks to me. I should have noticed she wasn't feeling well last night. She didn't want to eat. It must have hurt to swallow, but I didn't notice.”

Drake put his hands on Maya's shoulders, meaning only to soothe her, but lingering because it felt just plain good to touch her. “Hey, it's okay. Parents are human, too,” he told her, trying for a lighter note.

But watching her as she kept her eyes glued to the
crib, he knew words wouldn't replace the guilt she felt.

“She might have died,” Maya went on doggedly. “And I wouldn't have noticed because I was too busy being jealous of you having fun with some female you just met.”

Her confession hit his heart like individual flaming arrows of pain. He knelt beside her, worry eating at him. He and Maya had been caught up in their concerns, but they hadn't neglected the baby.

“You never have to be jealous of anyone. Don't you know you're the only woman in the whole world as far as I'm concerned?”

She shook her head.

Pain filling his chest, Drake bowed his head and rested his cheek on her temple. He'd hurt her in ways he could only guess at when he'd left her alone, with only that cruel note of explanation, to face the consequences of their brief time together.

He forced himself to face the truth. Because of his fear of loving someone, because he knew how it felt to be left behind with nothing but that love, because love came with hopes and fears and dreams attached, he'd denied any chance of a future between them. He'd run from the greatest happiness he'd ever known because
he
was a coward.

“Forgive me,” he said. “You have to forgive me.”

Giving him a baffled glance, Maya stood when the nurse came in. So did Drake.

“I need a signature,” the older woman said. “Just sign your life away right here.” She handed the forms
to Drake with a bright smile, then checked Marissa. “What a little doll. Is she a good baby?”

“Yes,” Maya said. “She hardly ever cries.”

“My granddaughter had a lot of trouble with strep throat when she was little,” the nurse continued. “We had her tonsils taken out when she was three. Her temperature would shoot up just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “I hope this little one isn't going to go through that, but when they start this early…” She shook her head, then smiled. “It's only the first of the crises you can expect.”