Nathan's Child (5 page)

Carin's eyes flashed. “I blame her for not following the rules!”

“I remember when we didn't always follow the rules, Carin.”

Their gazes met. Locked. Dueled. Minds—and hearts—remembered.

“Carin—” He tried once more, said her name softly this time.

But she tore her gaze away. “Good night, Nathan.”

And she hurried down the steps and almost ran up the drive after their daughter.

“H
E'S SO COOL
,
Mom,” Lacey said over and over as they walked home.

As soon as she was sure that her mother wasn't furious anymore, Lacey hadn't stopped singing Nathan's praises. All the way over the hill and along the narrow road through the trees and into Pelican Town she chattered on.

“He told me about Zeno. The wolf Zeno,” Lacey qualified, because the mongrel dog she had taken to feeding a few months back and who now slept on the porch was, amazingly enough, called Zeno, too.

“Did he?” Carin responded absently.

“And he liked my photos! He said they were good. Did you know he has to throw out a lot of his, too?” Lacey hopped around a pothole and grinned over her shoulder at her mother. “He says he throws out way more than he keeps.”

“I'm sure that's true.”

She wasn't really listening to her daughter. She was busy cringing at how frantic she'd sounded and feeling furious that he had sided with her so willingly—even though, she acknowleged, she'd have been even more furious if he hadn't.

“He even said I could help him pick photos for his next book.” Lacey opened the gate to their tiny front garden. “D'you want to see which ones of mine he really liked?”

“Tomorrow,” Carin said.

“But—”

“Tomorrow, Lacey,” Carin said in her she-who-must-be-obeyed voice. “Go get ready for bed. It's nearly eleven o'clock.”

She could see that Lacey was humming with energy and the desire to talk till dawn. But Carin needed peace and quiet and she needed them now. Apparently, one look at her face and Lacey must have figured that out. Heaving a theatrical sigh and grumbling under her breath, her daughter went up the stairs.

Carin sank onto the sofa, stared at the slowly whirling ceiling fan, drew a deep breath and felt the adrenaline fade. She was spent, frazzled, completely shot.

Was this what having Nathan back in her life was going to do?

Dear God, she hoped not.

She'd thought she was ready to deal with him. But she hadn't expected this.

The Nathan she'd expected would have railed at her about not telling him about Lacey, but would actually have been relieved that she hadn't. He would have gruffly offered her financial assistance, would have complimented her on how well she had raised their daughter, and would, after a few hours—or at the most, a few days—have taken off for parts unknown.

That Nathan she could have dealt with.

This Nathan made her nervous.

This Nathan seemed both implacable and reasonable. She'd expected Lacey to be charmed by him. What woman between the ages of three and ninety-three wasn't?

But she hadn't expected him to plan to take their daughter fishing!

Of course she was sure it had been Lacey's idea. But Nathan would enjoy it. They would bond.

Hadn't she herself bonded with him under similar circumstances? Carin remembered well the times he had taken her fishing. His quiet competence and serene enjoyment out on the water had put her at her ease, and his patience as he taught her everything she needed to know had calmed
her at the same time it had caused her to fall even deeper under his spell.

It was his patience that worried her now.

What if he really did intend to stick around? What if she had to see him day after day, week after week?

Dear God. It didn't bear thinking about.

Lacey finished brushing her teeth, and Carin heard the floorboards squeak as her daughter crossed the hall to her bedroom, so she climbed the stairs to act sane and sensible and calm and maternal—and hope she convinced Lacey even if she didn't convince herself.

Lacey was in bed, covers tucked up to her chin. Carin hoped she wasn't going to start in again on how wonderful Nathan was.

She didn't. She said instead, “I was afraid he wasn't going to come.”

All the bounce was gone now. This was the reflective Lacey. Usually her daughter was eager, cheerful and fearless—much more outgoing than Carin, so that sometimes she forgot that Lacey had insecurities, too. Sometimes it seemed as if she didn't.

Now she realized that Lacey might just be better at masking them. Lacey wasn't one to talk about her fears, and she'd certainly never before confided this concern about her father. She'd asked lots of questions about Nathan—especially since Dominic had appeared last year—but she'd never seemed to fret about him.

Carin had been apprehensive, of course, when she'd had to introduce Lacey to Dominic. But the two of them had hit it off quite well. And while Lacey had asked questions about her father and his family after meeting Dominic and Sierra and, later, Douglas, she'd never asked, “When's my father coming to see me?”

Carin had been pleased and relieved, convinced that Lacey simply hadn't cared enough to ask. Now she realized
that the really important questions might be the ones Lacey didn't ask. Her heart squeezed just a little.

“Would it have mattered so much?”

Lacey levered herself up on her elbows. “Of course it would matter! He's my father! I want to know him. I've
always
wanted to know him!”

The ferocity of her tone cut Carin to the bone. It challenged the most basic decision she'd made—not to tell Nathan about their child.

And yet she knew, given the same circumstances, she would do the same thing again. Given who Nathan was and what he wanted to do with his life, she'd had no choice.

He might think differently now. He might blame her now. But thirteen years ago, keeping her pregnancy a secret had been the right thing to do. If she'd told him, she'd have effectively tied him down to a life she knew he'd hate, to obligations he hadn't chosen. If she'd told him, he might have married her.

But he would never have loved her.

He
hadn't
loved her, even when they'd made love.

She made herself reflect on that for a long moment because that had been the other fact on which she'd based her decision. Even when she'd found out she was pregnant, she knew she couldn't have begged Nathan for marriage—not when she'd given him her heart and he'd only shared his body. It would have destroyed them both.

In the end there had been only one thing to do. And the truth was, she admitted to herself, she had barely considered Lacey's needs at all.

Later she'd assured herself that it would be better for Lacey to have one parent who loved her than have two where one of them might resent her very existence.

Now Carin took a careful, steadying breath and let it out slowly.

“Well, he's here now,” she said with far more calm than she felt as she smoothed the light cotton blanket over
Lacey, then bent to give her daughter a kiss. “So you can enjoy getting to know him.”

“I will,” Lacey vowed, and settled back against the pillows again.

On a normal night, once Lacey had gone to sleep, Carin would have finished up her bookwork from the store, then made herself a cup of tea and taken it out on the porch to sit in the swing and unwind from the day.

Tonight she couldn't settle. She tried to do her bookwork and couldn't concentrate. She made a cup of tea and couldn't sit still to drink it. She paced around the house, picking things up and setting them back down again.

Finally she went outside and flung herself down on the swing, grabbed her sketchbook and tried to funnel some of her restless energy into ideas for her work. But all her drawings became sharp-featured, dark-haired men, and she ripped them out of the sketchbook, crumpled them up and tossed them aside, wishing it were as easy to get rid of Nathan.

A creaking noise at the gate made her look up. A pair of yellow eyes glinted in the darkness. “Ah, Zeno,” she said as the gate was nosed further open. “Come here, boy.”

A dark shape shambled toward the porch. He was a little taller than an Irish setter, a little wirier than a terrier, a little more spotted than a dalmatian, a little less mellow than a golden retriever. He had turned up one day, full-grown, and no one knew which visiting boat he'd come off.

Her friend Hugh McGillivray, who ran Fly Guy, the island transport company, had begun calling him Heinz because he was at least fifty-seven varieties of dog. But Lacey had named him Zeno because he had appeared on their doorstep about the same time Nathan's book,
Solo,
had come out.

“He looks nothing like a wolf,” Carin had protested.

“Looks aren't everything. Are they, Zeno?” Lacey had
said stubbornly, hugging the gangly animal who had grinned and furiously wagged his tail.

“He's not ours to name.” Their house wasn't close to big enough for a dog the size of a wolfhound.

“He's nobody else's,” Lacey rejoined practically. “Not unless someone comes back for him. Besides,” she added, apparently deciding that an outside dog was better than no dog at all, “he doesn't have to come in. He can just come around.”

Which was pretty much what he did. Zeno the dog seemed to have no more interest in settling in any one place than Zeno the wolf had. He moved from place to place, from house to house—life was a movable feast for Zeno—and pretty soon everyone on the island knew him, fed him and called him by the name Lacey had given him. Mostly he divided his time between their place and Hugh's, because Hugh had a mostly border collie called Belle who had apparently caught Zeno's eye.

Tonight, though, Belle must have had other plans as Zeno was looking hopefully at Carin. She scratched his ears and rubbed under his chin. It was soothing, petting the dog. It calmed her, centered her, slowed her down.

“Thanks for coming,” she told him with a wry smile.

Zeno grinned. His tail thumped on the porch. He looked toward the door. Carin knew what he wanted.

“It's late,” she told him. “You must have eaten. Didn't Hugh feed you? What about Lorenzo?”

But Zeno cocked his head and whined a denial.

Carin sighed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. Let me see what we've got.” Giving his ears one last scratch, she went inside to check the refrigerator. She found leftover peas and rice from dinner plus a bit of the fish Lacey had caught. Carin crumbled it into a bowl, carried it back through the living room and started to push open the screen door.

“Here, Zee—”

Nathan was on the porch.

So much for calm and settled. Carin's fingers automatically clenched the bowl in her hand. Instead of going out, she let the screen bang shut between them. “What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

“No, we don't.”

“Yes, we do. Invite me in or come out here.”

Zeno, whining at the sight of the bowl, offered his opinion.

Nathan reached for the door handle.

Carin beat him to it. “Fine. We'll talk out here.” She yanked the door open and stalked past him onto the porch. Zeno pushed between them, his eyes fixed on the bowl, his tail thumping madly.

Nathan reached down and absently scratched his head. “Who's this?”

“A dog.”

“No? Really? I'd never have guessed.” Sarcasm dripped. “What's his name?”

Carin didn't want to say, knowing full well what he'd think. But if she didn't, Lacey undoubtedly would. “Zeno,” she said defiantly. “Lacey's choice.”

A corner of his mouth lifted. “Somehow I didn't imagine it was yours.”

“He turned up about the same time your book did.” She put the bowl down so that Zeno would have to stay between them to eat. Then she straightened up again, wrapping her arms across her breasts as if they could protect her.

“I was surprised Lacey had read my books.”

Carin shrugged. “She was curious.”

“About them or about me?”

“About what you did. Your job.” She turned away from him and stared out into the darkness. Down the hill she could hear the faint sounds of steel drum music coming from the Grouper Bar and Café. The night breeze, which
normally she looked forward to, seemed chilly now, and Carin rubbed her bare arms to ward off goose bumps.

“She seems interested,” Nathan said after a moment.

“I guess.” She still didn't look his way, but she didn't need to in order to know he was there, right on the other side of Zeno. It was almost magnetic, the pull he had over her. She'd never felt that way about any other man. She didn't want to feel that way about this one. Didn't want to fall under his spell again.

“What do you desperately need to talk to me about?” she said when he didn't speak.

“Lacey. Fishing. This parenting bit. How we're going to handle it.”

“I handle this ‘parenting bit' just fine, thank you.”

“Good for you. But you're not handling it alone anymore. There are two of us now. And you're going to have to remember that. We need to present a united front. We don't argue in front of our daughter.”

“Don't tell me how to parent!”

“I backed you up tonight.”

“I said thank you.”

“And I'll expect the same from you when I tell her something.”

“If I agree with you, I will.”

“Whether you agree or not,” Nathan said evenly.

“No way! If you think you can just waltz in here and take over and expect me to back you up—”

Nathan lifted a brow. “Like you took over and never even told me we had a child?”

“You wouldn't have wanted—”

“You didn't let me decide what I wanted!”

“So I'm the bad guy in this? I'm the one everybody blames?” Carin said bitterly.

First Lacey, now Nathan. As if she'd taken on single parenthood for thirteen years to spite them both.

“You're not the bad guy, Carin,” Nathan said gruffly.
“I'm sure you did what you thought was the right thing at the time.”

She snorted. “Thank you very much for the vote of confidence.”

“Jesus, what is it with you? I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt!”