The Heart of the Matter (11 page)

As though she
needed
lessons in how to love Jason Warfield. All evidence so far seemed to prove that as a father, a friend and a flirtation he was just about perfect. But perfection was always just a little worrisome.

She filled a bowl with cream and tried to lure Sergei out of his carrier with it by placing it far enough away from the carrier that he had to come out to lap it up. He did, then went right back in again.

She knew he was coming out of the carrier when no one was around because he used the litter box she’d put in the service porch. But she was beginning to worry about his ability to adjust.

The boys were home in time for supper, which was soft tacos Laura made with highly seasoned ground white turkey meat, corn niblets with peppers and other spicy things, and virgin strawberry margaritas.

Exhausted from the day’s activities, the boys and the dog were all in bed and asleep by the ten o’clock news.

Jason found Laura at the table in the kitchen, newspapers spread out under some project that involved paint. He went to look over her shoulder.

Spread out on the newspaper was a red sweatshirt Patsy had given Matt and that he loved to wear because it had a Power Ranger on the back.

Laura was painting smaller figures on the front of the shirt, her red hair aflame under the overhead light.

She glanced up at him and smiled, then turned back to her project. “Matt stained this in a couple of places,” she said in a distracted tone of voice. “So I told him I’d try to cover the stains with paint so he can still wear it.” She put the finishing touch on one figure right in the middle, then leaned back to assess her work. “What do you think?”

With one hand on the back of her chair and one on the table, he leaned over for a closer look. The figures she’d copied from an open book at her elbow showed that the creative flair she displayed in the kitchen could apply to many other talents, as well. And what was most important, Matt would be delighted that he could wear the shirt again.

“About you,” Jason asked quietly, “or about the shirt?”

He was close enough to feel the tension sharpen in her, to feel her subtle intake of breath. She was still for a moment, then reached a steady hand out for the small bottle of paint and the cap and took her time putting it on.

“The shirt,” she replied finally.

Jason put both hands on the newspaper and pushed shirt, paints and brushes to the far end of the table. Then he perched on the edge beside her. “I think the shirt looks great,” he said. “That was clever of you and will make Matt very happy. And…” He hesitated, wondering if this would hold the import for her that it did for him. “It makes me very happy. Every time I turn around you’re doing just the right thing for one of the boys.”

Then to his complete and utter surprise, she put the jar of paint down and gave him a smile that was at once sweet and seductive. All he could do for a moment was drink it in.

“Then that makes
me
happy,” she said, putting a hand on his knee. Everything inside him began to race.

He was suddenly spurred to action and used that hand to pull her to her feet as he stood.

Laura turned away from all her fears and concerns about what could and couldn’t possibly work between them and accepted that she simply had to be in his arms again. She’d done her best to keep a circumspect distance from him when the boys were around, but he was so kind and warm and charming that that was growing increasingly impossible.

So, there seemed to be nothing else to do but see where this could lead. It didn’t seem possible that it could turn out badly, despite her previous experience with relationships.

She stopped thinking about it when his head came down to block out the light and he covered her mouth with his. She felt a sigh expelled from deep inside her as his arms closed around her. She wrapped hers around him, drinking in his kiss, offering her response with all the open-hearted love she’d come to feel for him.

This was the sense of belonging she’d been trying her whole life to recapture.

Jason felt the change in her, the yielding of suspicions, the extension of trust. And he accepted it for the gift it was.

He lifted her into his arms, hesitating a moment to allow her to protest if she chose to. But she looped her arms around his neck, rested her head on his shoulder and whispered, “Yes.”

He carried her up the stairs and turned toward his room.

Laura had been in it only once to retrieve something Matt had left there and thought it comfortably messy. There’d been notes, probably from his work, strewn
across the dresser along with a ceramic openmouthed whale in which he tossed extra change and his watch.

But the watch was on his wrist now, ticking madly near her ear as he put her on her feet and framed her face in his hands.

Or was her heart ticking? She couldn’t be sure. Every pulse in her body was beating out of control, marking the seconds until they finally came together.

“I’m in love with you,” he said quietly to the lively rhythm her body played.

But she heard every word sharply and clearly and let the sound bathe away her loneliness and fill all the empty places.

“Jason.” She wrapped her arms around his middle and leaned into him, her cheek against his chest, and just let herself absorb the moment. “I love you, too. Desperately. Enormously.”

He simply held her for a moment, his lips in her hair. Then his hands went into the back of her shirt and pulled it up. She took a step away from him to raise her arms and let him pull it off.

He reached behind her again to unhook her light sports bra and toss it at the chair. He covered her breasts with his hands, and she felt a ripple of sensation all the way to her toes.

Needing desperately to feel him against her, she pulled his T-shirt out of the waistband of his jeans and pushed it up. He yanked it off, dropped it at his feet, then sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her toward him with a finger hooked in the belt loop of her shorts.

In an instant, they were unbuckled, unbuttoned and unzipped, and sliding down her legs. He held her hand so that she could step out of them, then drew her to him with it as he lay backward on the mattress. She landed on top
of him, sprawled over him, and he made a sound of such contentment that she immediately dismissed any thought that her weight made him uncomfortable.

His hands explored her spine, her waist, the mounds of her hips and the lengths of her thighs.

She rubbed her upper body against him, the gentle abrasion of his chest hair against her nipples causing another shudder of sensation. She nipped at his earlobe, his chin, his collarbone, then sat up astride him and unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans.

He could die a happy man now, Jason thought, as she pushed herself backward on him to draw down his jeans and briefs. Except that he had so much to live for.

The moment he’d kicked off the clothes, he pulled her back to him so that she landed in the crook of his arm. She looked up at him, eyes bright and love-filled in the darkness.

He stroked her from chin to toes with a slow, gentle hand, tracing and adoring every curve, tenderly exploring every hollow. He loved that she was now drawing shallow breaths and held tightly to him, as though she couldn’t bear to be out of contact with any part of him.

Laura wondered if a woman could faint from being the focal point of a man’s attention. She felt as though she were no longer in control of her body, but that it answered only to him. Muscles fluttered and skin heated where he touched, and the feminine heart of her felt heavy with waiting.

Laura ran kisses over his chest, ran loving hands over his back and hips, then dragged her fingernails lightly over him as she brought her hands up again. His groan brought a smile to her lips.

She wedged a small space between them and eased her fingernails down the front of him. He groaned again, then
the sound stopped abruptly and she felt him tense as she approached his manhood. But she changed direction, raking lightly over his thigh.

In retribution he dipped a finger inside her. She gasped with the magical perfection of that contact.

She closed her hand over him, wanting him to share the wonder. She whispered his name as her body began to pulse for him, and he said hers in a kind of stunning surprise as he entered her and erupted inside her. She tightened around him, and he felt her tremble with climax and bury her face in his throat.

They shuddered together for what felt like an eternity. She thought it was like flying through space, and he thought he’d never felt so connected to the earth as he did at that moment—as though he were composed of all the elements that made up trees and mountains—as though he’d stood forever and knew every secret known to man.

Jason finally rolled onto his back, tucked Laura into the crook of his arm and yanked the top of the quilt over them.

She kissed his bare shoulder and wrapped her arm around his neck.

“I can’t believe you happened to me,” she said softly.

He laughed. “You make me sound like an accident.”

“You are, kind of.” She kissed his chin in apology. “I mean, you’re not a jock jerk, or an arrogant doctor, or some holistic hypochondriac who wants me for my expertise. You’re an anomaly.”

“Oh-oh,” he said, playing with her hair, “when Captain Picard talks about anomalies, it’s never a good thing.”

“Those are ‘sub-space anomalies,’“ she quoted one of the “Star Trek—The Next Generation” captain’s favorite
explanations for the unexplainable. “You are a male anomaly.”

“I didn’t know they came in male and female.”

She pinched his earlobe. “Jason, I’m telling you that you’re wonderful.”

“Oh.” He caught a fistful of her hair and tugged gently until she tipped her head back to look at him. “Well, let’s hear it louder and in plain English.”

She hiked up on an elbow and grinned down on him. “If I say it any louder, I’ll wake the boys.”

He put a hand over her mouth. “Don’t say that even in jest,” he whispered. “I can’t believe nobody needed anything.”

She listened to the quiet. “Just lucky, I guess, but you’ll have to be happy with the whispered news that you’re wonderful.”

He pinched her chin and kissed her. “Actually, you once told me that I was able to be quite eloquent without words.”

She bit back a smile. “Did I?”

“You did. As I recall, you said that sometimes actions say what words cannot.”

She kissed the base of his throat. “I’ll be happy to,” she said, looking up at him with bland innocence. “But this action…would also require some action on your part, and, well, you’ve already put in quite a performance.”

He nodded modestly. “Yes, well, I’ve been taking an aerobics class and I have a personal diet consultant who’s quite extraordinary.”

“So you’re saying….”

“I’m saying,” he interrupted, pulling her astride him and wrapping his hands around her thighs until he had her right where he wanted her, “speak to me, Laura. Shout.”

I’ve become an outdoorsman. Not by choice, nor by accident, but by coercion.
She’s
an outdoors woman. How the mighty have fallen. And the sluggardly.

—“Warfield’s Battles”

L
aura awoke to the sounds of a great commotion downstairs. There was loud conversation, laughter, the clink of crockery, then the sounds of running footsteps on the stairs and Buttercup barking as he followed. The Warfields had company.

For a moment she wasn’t sure where she was. She looked around at the rich gray walls and the blue-andgray furnishings and still wasn’t sure. Then she caught the scent of Jason’s cologne on the quilt she’d pulled up to her chin and was suddenly deluged with memories of a long and delicious night.

Her clothes were mussy but they would have to do. She could hear Adam and Eric shouting at each other excitedly from their rooms, so she doubted she could run around the gallery to her room without being seen.

But if she went down the stairs on this side, the boys wouldn’t know she’d come from their father’s room.

So the company, whoever they were, would have to see her in mussy clothes.

She dressed, combed her hair and tied it back with a clip Jason had pulled out of her hair last night. She went downstairs, trying to school her features into a look of dignity, so that whoever was visiting wouldn’t be able to read in them that she’d just spent a wild night with her host.

She followed the sounds of laughter in the kitchen where Jason’s sister Patsy sat at the table opposite a thickly built man with graying hair and glasses.

Someone, she noticed, had placed a beaten egg in front of Sergei’s carrier, and he was lapping it up greedily.

Jason carried what looked like a fresh pot of coffee to the table and winked at her as Patsy rose effusively to introduce her to her companion.

“Laura,” she said, giving her a hug, “I’d like you to meet my husband, Ben. Ben, this is Laura, Jason’s friend.”

Ben got to his feet and offered his hand. Jason caught her eye and grinned.

Ben was tall and big and seemed to have a friendly nature that matched his size. He pulled out a chair for Laura.

“I hear you’ve got the big guy here off of ribs and pizza and bacon burgers,” he said when they were all seated again. “Do you walk on water, too?”

She laughed. “If it’s Perrier,” she said, and held her cup out as Jason poured coffee.

Ben guffawed. “Quick as you are, too, Jase. I don’t know. I think you’re in trouble.”

“Yeah,” Jason replied with a lingering look at her that did nothing to hide what he was thinking from anyone. “Me, too.”

Laura saw Patsy and Ben exchange a look, then scolded Jason with her own.

“What are the boys all excited about?” she asked, trying to divert any discussion of their relationship as a subject. Mostly because it didn’t seem wise to talk about it when she wasn’t sure she understood it herself. “There seems to be frantic activity going on in their rooms.”

“They’re packing,” Jason replied. “Patsy and Ben are on Lake Winnipesaukee with their boat for a few days, and they thought the boys might want to spend some time with them. It’s only about thirty miles from here.”

“But…Matt?”

“He’ll be fine,” Patsy assured her. “Ben and I are old hands at this. We won’t let anything happen to him.” She smiled at her with a fondness that was very sisterly. “Jason told us how good you are with the boys. And that they’re crazy about you. Matt, particularly.”

Laura nodded, fighting back a rush of color into her cheeks. They knew. She was sure they knew. Jason probably
told
them. “Well, I fell in love…with them myself.”

It was a regrettable choice of words for someone trying to be secretive about her relationship, and she closed her eyes the moment the words were out of her mouth.

Patsy smiled innocently. “With
all
the Warfields?”

There was a little shuffle under the table. Ben, she guessed, had kicked Patsy. Patsy seemed not to notice and waited for an answer.

All right. Laura sighed and met Patsy’s gaze. “Yes. With
all
the Warfields.”

Patsy punched both arms into the air. “Yes!” she cried triumphantly. “Hallelujah!”

Jason, calmly drinking his coffee, turned to Ben, who watched his wife with a shake of his head. “Didn’t I tell you to volunteer her for the space program?”

“They turned me down,” Ben reported dispassionately. “Seems they already have too many monkeys.”

Patsy ignored him and leaned toward Laura. “I know it’s all just beginning for the two of you and that it’s absolutely none of my business, but the very moment you decide you want to make it permanent, let us know. We want to do your wedding!”

“Pat, for God’s sake…” Ben pleaded.

“Ah…” Laura began.

“I know, I know,” Patsy said, forestalling her by raising both hands. “You’re not even close to that stage yet, but when you are, we have the most beautiful garden in Lawrence. And it’s warm enough for it all the way to early October. And we have a maple tree that’ll be turning color…”

Patsy’s planning was mercifully cut short by the arrival of the boys. Adam was carrying Mathew and his crutches, and Eric had three bags. The dog followed, plumed tail wagging.

Laura turned to Ben. “Do you have life jackets for all of them?”

He studied her a moment, then smiled. Laura thought his expression seemed decidedly tolerant and familial. “Yes, we do. I promise you we’ll take excellent care of them. Do you think I want to answer to him?” He jerked a thumb in Jason’s direction.

Jason simply smiled at her indulgently, his expression suggesting that he was well acquainted with the parenting skills of his sister and brother-in-law and that her concerns were groundless.

Laura began to apologize, but Ben stopped her. “I understand. And I’ll bet that at heart you’re more worried about what the boys could do to us.”

Adam came up beside his uncle. “We were planning
not to hurt you, Unc,” he said, patting him on the back. “But if we have to stand around here and listen to all of you talk, we’re going to spill the story about how you caught that girl’s underwear with a Royal Coachman fly last time when we went fishing and Aunt Patsy stayed home.”

“What?” Patsy demanded flatly, pushing away from the table.

Ben rose also. “She wasn’t wearing them at the time,” he explained quickly. “Her bag had fallen overboard and I happened to have a line in the water and brought up a rather impressive…er…”

“Bra,” Eric said helpfully.

Ben cast him a look, then smiled at Adam. “Say your goodbyes, we’re on our way. And any hope you might have had of conning me into letting you watch ‘American Gladiators’ tonight just went south.”

The boys hugged Jason goodbye and listened patiently to all the usual parental precautions. Adam paused to hug Laura and the other boys followed suit. Then they headed for the door. Eric could be heard asking Adam, “Went south? What does that mean?”

“I think it means gone.”

“It isn’t our fault he caught a bra.”

“No, but it’s your fault that everybody knows about it.”

“You said.”

“Shut up.”

The door slammed behind them, and Jason burst into laughter, patting Ben on the shoulder. “You didn’t really think you could get them to keep a secret, did you?”

“Yes, I did,” he returned with feigned indignation. “It cost me five pounds of beef jerky and thirty yards of red licorice.”

“I want to know what happened to the bra?” Patsy asked as they all walked to the door.

“I returned it like the gentleman that I am.”

Patsy rolled her eyes. “You finally catch something I might like and you give it back?”

He hooked an arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple. “You couldn’t have filled it, sweetie,” he said. He pulled the door open for her and hid behind it just in time to miss the swing of her purse.

Patsy hooked an arm in Laura’s as they walked to the car. “Try to get Jason to relax while we’re gone. He always takes these working vacations. And he hasn’t had much of a personal life since Lucy died.”

“I will,” Laura promised. “He’s eating right and he has a NordicTrac here that he’s been working on faithfully every morning.”

Laura stopped at the car door and nodded. The boys waved from the back seat. “That’s good, but there’s more inside him than a digestive tract,” Patsy said. “He’s a wonderful man, Laura. And he hasn’t wallowed in his loss, but he and Lucy were so good together, I know he thought it would be futile to even hope to find that again. So he lived for the boys and for his work, but not for himself.” She smiled and hugged her. “And yet, here you are. And he looks as though he’s come to life again.”

Laura didn’t try to deny anything. “I feel,” she admitted quietly, “as though I’ve come to life.”

The men joined them, Ben and Patsy got into the station wagon, and Jason had to hold Buttercup’s collar to prevent him from trying to join them. He barked in protest as Ben pulled away. Everyone waved from the open windows. Jason and Laura waved until they turned toward the main road and disappeared from sight.

Jason turned to Laura, cupped her head in his hand and
kissed her until she was breathless. “I’m taking you back to bed,” he said, catching her hand and leading the way back to the house. The dog followed dispiritedly.

“No,” Laura said, hurrying to keep up with Jason.

He stopped in his tracks, then pulled her back when her momentum shot her past him. His eyes were troubled. “No? You’re having…morning-after remorse?”

“No.” She slapped his chest. “No. I…” She stopped abruptly and frowned at him. “Why? Are you?”

“Of course not. But why don’t you want to go back to bed?”

She spread her arms to encompass the beautiful day with its brilliant blue sky, with sunlight slanting through the trees and the crystal water of the lake embroidered with it.

“Look at this day! You spend so much time staring at a computer monitor that you forget what the outside world is like. In another few weeks, it’ll be getting too cold for hiking, so we should take advantage of today. And Buttercup would like a walk, wouldn’t you, boy?”

He gave one loud woof that had an affirmative sound.

“Hiking,” he repeated. “As in walking a long distance, or in football parlance?”

She laughed. “I don’t know a touchdown from a hoedown. Does that give you a clue?”

He ran a hand over his face. “Laura,” he said reasonably, “my children are gone for forty-eight hours! I can eat without anybody wanting some of what I’ve got, I can watch TV without anyone wanting to watch something else, I can make love to my woman without fear of interruption. Why would I want to go hiking?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and bit his bottom lip. “Because that’s where your woman is going to be.”

He groaned and leaned into her. “I’ll get my boots. But we’re not talking camping out, are we?”

She smiled eagerly. “Do you have the gear?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Well, the boys have a tent they put up in the back sometimes, but we don’t have a stove or powdered food or anything like that.”

She shook her head at him pityingly. “You don’t need a stove to cook outside. The pioneers didn’t have stoves. They built fires. And they didn’t have powdered food, either. They caught fish and shot game.”

“Okay, you’re getting into the realm of fantasy here,” he warned, folding his arms to express the firmness of his stance, though she still had her arms around his neck. “I am not killing anything, particularly if I would then be expected to autopsy it and cook it.”

She kissed him and grinned. “How you do carry on. Actually, I was thinking of a frying pan and a couple of lean hamburgers, but maybe we could just make sandwiches. And we can be back by late afternoon. There’s a trail around the lake. The boys told me about it. Think you could handle that without going over the edge?”

“And then we make love?”

“Absolutely.”

“All right. I’m in.”

“I’ll lead the way,” Laura said, pointing up the trail that began about an eighth of a mile from Jason’s back door. “Keep me in sight. If I get too far ahead, stop me.”

She wore shorts, T-shirt and a sweatshirt knotted around her waist by the sleeves. Her boot socks were pulled up almost to her knees, and her clunky boots looked enormous against her trim, bare legs, and yet somehow very sexy. Her hair was caught back in a ponytail.

“Okay?” she asked.

“No,” he said, feeling light-hearted and free. And it wasn’t just freedom from the responsibility of children. It was freedom from the shadow of the last few years. He was determined to tease the woman responsible for that freedom. “I know this is your area of expertise and everything, but why do you have to lead? I’m bigger. I’ll lead.”

“It’s traditional in hiking,” she explained patiently and with a certain patronizing tone he mistrusted, “that the smallest member of the party leads. That way the pace is set by the one who would have the most difficulty keeping up.”

That was reasonable, but it still impugned his status as the male. “Well, what if a bear jumps out at you?”

“I’ll happily step aside and let you reason with him. No doubt he reads your column, too, and would be completely charmed by you. Shall we go?”

“God,” he grumbled as he followed her and Buttercup into the trees. “Put hiking boots on you and you develop a real attitude. I’m glad I found out about it before asking Patsy to plan our wedding.”

“Oh, no,” she called over her shoulder with theatrical regret. “Is the wedding off?”

“Of course not,” he replied. “The most satisfying way to pay you back would be to make you marry me and help me raise my kids.”

The trail widened, and she stood aside laughing until he caught up with her, then she hooked her arm in his and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder.

He thought he could get used to this kind of hiking.

When they were forced to hike single file, Buttercup took the lead and Laura assumed a no-nonsense approach to the trail. Jason watched her sweatshirt flap against her
beautifully shaped and muscled backside in her khaki shorts, the muscles in her boot sock-covered calves bunching and stretching as they climbed a small grade. Her ponytail swung from side to side in a manner he found completely erotic.