What Mattered Most (20 page)

His hands spread over her back. She opened to him, drawing his tongue into her mouth with a soft, sucking motion. The groan that rumbled in his chest vibrated through her, sending a thrill along her nerves. She’d missed this, missed
him
. An ache of desire swirled in her and pooled between her thighs. She moaned and pressed closer still, wanting him all over her.

One second he was kissing her, and the next his hands were at her hips, putting her away from him. He glared, chest heaving. “What kind of game are you playing now?”

She flattened her hands against his chest, his heartbeat thudding under her palms. “I’m not playing anything.”

He backed up a step and pushed a hand through his hair. “Thought you said you didn’t want anything from me.”

Confused, she shook her head. Why was he doing this? Wasn’t she offering him the one thing he’d always wanted from her? “I want you.”

His strained laugh assaulted her ears. “You could’ve fooled me. You know, Lanie, I don’t think
you
know what you want.”

Stepping around her, he headed for the foyer. Stunned, Lanie stared after him for a moment. Anger and rejection washed through her. He couldn’t just walk away, could he? She followed him, her fingers closing around his on the door knob. “That’s it? You’re just leaving?”

She felt his shudder before he jerked his hand out from under hers. He straightened, his bad temper crackling, seeming to fill the small area. “Yeah, I’m leaving.”

“John, don’t go.” Angry desperation trembled in the words. If she let him walk out, she was afraid it was all over—he wouldn’t be back.

“Give me a reason,” he snapped. He waved a hand toward the living area. “And not what you were offering me in there.”

The words hurt. She narrowed her eyes at him, fighting off the urge to screech in frustration. “It never bothered you when I offered you that before.”

He jammed his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, well, I didn’t know then what I know now. Are you going to get the hell out of my way or not?”

She leaned forward, in his face. “What do you think?”

“Don’t start with me, Lanie. It’s not a good idea right now.” A tense warning lurked in his voice.

“I tried starting with you. You weren’t interested.”

His hands shot out and closed on her shoulders. He pushed her against the wall, his lower body in intimate contact with hers. He was erect, and Lanie gasped, staring into navy eyes so dark with frustrated arousal they seemed black. “That’s how interested I am, Falconetti. I could take you right here, right now, but I want more than just sex between us.”

“What do you want?” Her voice emerged a raw whisper, her gaze still locked on his. A different ache spread through her body, a need for something more than his possession.

He shifted closer, until she didn’t know where he ended and she began. “I want all of you. I want everything. I want you wrapped around me, but I want it to be because we love each other, not because we’ve got an itch. I want you to trust me.”

Her harsh laugh bounced off the walls in the small area. “You want me to love you? To trust you? I don’t even know you.”

“But you were willing to screw me anyway, weren’t you?” He released her shoulders, hands resting against the wall on either side of her neck. “Or were you going to get me all tied in knots again before you pushed me away and blamed me for it? I make a hell of a whipping boy, don’t I? Am I standing in for your father? Paying because he didn’t love your mom?”

She stiffened, everything turning to ice. “You bastard. Why don’t we talk about your mother?”

He paled and dropped his hands, stumbling away from her. “I’m out of here. I don’t need this.”

The piercing cry from upstairs raised the hair on Lanie’s neck and sent dread racing through her. John’s face reflected her own fear. He sprinted for the stairs, a mere step ahead of her. Lanie stumbled in the heels and cursed, stopping to rip off the offending shoes.

When she reached the nursery, John already had Sonny Buck in his arms. The baby screamed, arms and legs jerking. John looked at her, his face white with fear. “He’s burning up.”

“I’ll call Dr. Ridley.” She dashed for the cordless phone in the bedroom, hearing him moving about in the nursery. One hand holding her address book open, she punched in the number and almost screamed when the all-night pizza joint downtown answered. She hung up without an apology. Fighting down frustrated tears, she rushed back to the nursery.

John had the baby care book open on the dresser, Sonny tucked against his shoulder. The screams had stilled to shuddery sobs and sniffles. He looked up as she entered the room. “What did he say?”

The tears overflowed. Filled with an urge to throw herself into his arms and sob out her fear and inadequacy, she held out the phone. “I can’t even dial the number.”

Comprehension dawned on his face, and he groaned. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t think. Here, take him, I’ll call.”

He shifted their son into her arms and took the phone. Lanie cradled the baby close, and he snuffled into her shoulder, his tiny head hot against her cheek. Fear curled through her. He had to be all right. She couldn’t bear it if anything happened to him. Her arms tightened.

“All right. Thank you.” John dropped the phone on the dresser and looked at her. “Answering service. They’ll have the doctor call us. We’re supposed to take his temperature.”

Lanie nodded, panic gripping her throat. “There’s a digital thermometer in the changing table basket.”

John went for it. Straightening, he motioned at his ear. “We don’t have one of those ear ones?”

“No. I was going to—”

He waved the words away, looking at the baby book again. A grimace crossed his face. “Rectal temperature? You’ve got to be kidding me. I can’t do that to him.”

“You can take it under his arm. I remember that from another book.” Her hair was falling, and she tossed back loose strands the best she could.

John reached for the baby. “Give him to me.”

When John laid him on the changing table, Sonny Buck burst into fresh screams. John winced and lifted the baby’s sack gown. With the thermometer under his arm, they waited. John cupped the baby’s head in his hand and whispered soothing nonsense.

Lanie hovered, glad for his presence. The incident with the phone number unnerved her. What if John hadn’t been here? Insecurity crowded in on her.

After a shrill beep sounded, John pulled the thermometer from under Sonny Buck’s arm. Lanie reached for the baby and lifted him back to her shoulder, rubbing his back in a soothing motion. “A hundred and one point two,” John said, looking ill. “God, that sounds high.”

The phone rang, and John snatched it up. “Hello?”

Lanie listened as he explained the baby’s condition and told the doctor how high the temperature was. He rubbed a hand over her back, a distracted, soothing caress, and Lanie leaned into his touch, grateful for his strength.

“All right. We’re on our way.” Clicking off the phone, John dropped it on the dresser again. His thumb rubbed over her spine, and the corners of his mouth quirked in a tight smile. “Dr. Ridley is going to meet us at the emergency room.”

The short drive and brief time spent in the waiting room stretched until Lanie’s nerves threatened to snap. Sonny Buck kept drifting into an uneasy sleep, only to jerk awake and squall again. She refused to leave him in the carrier and lifted him into her arms. John rubbed his palm over her knee, a quick supportive gesture, and again gratitude for his solid presence suffused her.

A nurse appeared and called them back to a small, curtained area. With smooth, efficient movements, she checked Sonny Buck’s temperature and other vital signs. Lanie watched, keeping a hand on the baby’s head. She glanced up to find John staring at the plaid curtain, jaw clenched, a haunted expression on his face.

“Dr. Ridley will be with you in just a moment,” the nurse said and pulled the curtain behind her.

“John?” Lanie laid her other hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”

He turned anguished eyes in her direction. “I hate this place. I keep remembering you lying in one of these damned cubicles and all that blood…knowing it was my fault you were here, that it would be my fault if you died.”

Beth’s insistence that he was as much a victim as anyone else echoed in Lanie’s head. She tightened her fingers on his wrist. “You didn’t—”

“All right, let’s see what’s wrong with our Sonny Buck tonight.” Dr. Ridley pulled the curtain closed behind him. Lanie dropped her hand from John’s arm, glad the doctor was here for her baby yet aware that some intangible opportunity had just passed her by.

Arms wrapped around her midriff, she watched Dr. Ridley’s quick examination and answered the questions he threw out while listening to Sonny Buck’s heart and lungs, palpated his stomach, and looked in his nose and mouth. The noncommittal noises he made while doing so intensified her worry and impatience. She glanced at John. The tightness of his features reflected her own edginess. He caught her looking at him and sent her a tight, reassuring smile.

“Oh, here’s the problem,” Dr. Ridley said, looking into Sonny Buck’s minuscule ear with an otoscope. “Does he seem more comfortable tonight in an upright position?”

John dragged a hand through already disheveled hair. “Yeah. Every time we had to lay him down, he screamed.”

Nodding, Dr. Ridley clicked off the instrument’s light and replaced it in the rack on the wall. “He has a middle ear infection, and a prone position increases the pressure.”

“An ear infection?” Lanie remembered the heart-rending screams and shuddered. “Are you sure that’s all?”

A smile quirking at his mouth, Dr. Ridley nodded again and pulled his prescription pad from his pocket. “They’re a little more common in bottle-fed babies, and they have an exasperating tendency to come on at night. Acetaminophen every four hours for the fever and pain will make him more comfortable, and we’ll start him on a course of antibiotics to clear up the infection. Make sure he takes the antibiotics for the entire ten days, and I’ll want to see him in the office next week.”

John took the prescription slip, and Lanie smiled at the pediatrician. “Thank you.”

He grinned and pulled the curtain aside. “Anytime. Call if you have any questions or if he gets worse. The nurse will be in with your discharge papers in just a bit, and I’ll have her give him his first dose of acetaminophen.”

Again, the curtain isolated them together. Sonny Buck squirmed, fussing, and John picked him up, whispering against his forehead. Lanie watched them, that funny little ache in her chest again. “I’m glad you were here.”

Over the baby’s head, he shot her an unreadable look. “Yeah, me, too.”

Bats fluttered in her stomach. She swallowed. Was this how boys felt asking a girl out for the first time? “Would you like to stay with us tonight? You can use the daybed—”

He half-turned away from her, shifting the baby’s weight from one arm to the other. “That would be great. I really don’t want to leave him.”

Lanie closed her eyes against the picture he made with their son. She didn’t want him to leave her, either.

Intending to move the baby to his crib, she crossed the room and circled John’s wrist with her fingers. His eyes snapped open, and she stared down at him in the dim light. Lanie swallowed. “I’m going to put him in the crib.”

He moved his hand, surrendering the baby to her. As she slid her hands under their son, her fingers brushed John’s bare chest. Recalling his heartbeat under her hands earlier and the rejection in his eyes, she stepped away.

Cloth rustled on the daybed behind her. She settled Sonny Buck in his crib and pulled his blanket about him. The daybed springs creaked, and John’s bare feet whispered against the floor. She stroked the baby’s forehead, skin now cool to the touch. “Are you really stashing Christmas presents for him?”

“Yeah.” John’s soft laugh filled the room. “I’m looking forward to him believing in Santa. I never did.”

A picture of John as a little boy with dark lashes and navy eyes like their baby flashed in her mind, and her heart ached. “My mother loved Christmas. She played Santa Claus every year, even after I’d figured out he wasn’t real. I’d have gifts from her under the tree days before Christmas, but my Santa gifts never showed up until Christmas morning. She hid them, but as hard as I tried, I never could find them.”

“Lanie, about what I said earlier, about punishing me because your father didn’t love your mother—”

“He didn’t.” She turned to face him, her hands clenched on the top rail of the crib. Clad only in his boxer briefs, he sat at the edge of the daybed, watching her. She glanced away before meeting his gaze again. “He married her because she was pregnant with me and my grandfather forced him. He’d become engaged to another girl after that summer fling with my mother. He hated being married to her, and he resented me.”

John shook his head. “Why not just divorce her?”

She laughed. “Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? But there hasn’t been a Falconetti divorce in… Well, who knows if there’s ever been one. Grandfather expected him to live up to his responsibility by marrying her, and he expected him to stay in the marriage, whether they were happy or not. The weird thing was, my mother seemed happy. She’d wanted him, and she got him. And me.”

“She loved you.” The statement held quiet certainty.

A smile tugged at her mouth. “She did. I remember being small, and she would come into my room and just hold me close. She always smelled of this rose perfume…and she was always there to do the silly things that little girls want to do. I used to play in her makeup and her jewelry box, and she would let me fix her hair… She had this long blonde hair, almost to her waist.”

He continued to watch her, and she turned away, resting her hand on the baby’s back, his breathing steady under her fingertips. Remembering, she shuddered. “As I got older, I could see she hid a lot of things behind that bright smile. The nights my father didn’t come home, she would sit in the living room and wait. Or he would come home, and I’d lie in my bed and listen to the yelling downstairs. My mother crying. I hated him for making her cry.”

The bedsprings creaked. His hands cupped her shoulders, and he pulled her back against him. The warmth of his skin burned through the thin cotton of her nightshirt. Lanie closed her eyes, soaking in the feel of him. “The summer I was fifteen, he stayed gone more and more. And she just kind of faded. He came home one day… I remember it was in the middle of the afternoon. Cait and I had been playing tennis, on one of those days when it’s so hot you can hardly breathe. We were in my room; the door was open. We could hear them down the hall.”

“Lanie.” His breath whispered over her ear. “You don’t—”

“He told her he was leaving, that he loved Carol, and Mom screamed at him that he couldn’t leave. She was pregnant. And he told her that she’d trapped him that way once, but it wasn’t going to work again. He packed a bag and walked out. The house was huge—the bedrooms were on the third floor, and the master suite had a balcony that overlooked the stone patio by the pool. She jumped. I heard her scream his name and—”

“Oh God, baby, don’t.” His arms came around her, rocking her against him.

Unshed tears dammed in her throat. Lanie covered his wrist with her hand. “It was only July, and she already had Santa presents in the closet. We found them when we were packing her things afterwards. My father married Carol the following spring, and I had to live with them in that house.”

His arms tightened.

She swallowed against the tears. “When I got pregnant… My mother drilled into me that loving a man wasn’t worth what it took from you. She didn’t want me to ever feel the way she did about my father. When I got pregnant, it was like I was living her life all over again.”

“That’s why you wouldn’t marry me.” His voice rasped against her ear.

She nodded, his nose brushing her temple. “I couldn’t do it, trap us into something like that. We’d only been together a few months, and all we had between us was the sex even if we were living together. I couldn’t do that to him. Or us.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His lips brushed her jaw. “So, so sorry.”

“John.” She moved, turned in his arms. Their gazes locked, and she stared up at him. “I know you want more than what we had, but I can’t do that right now. Too much has happened; too much has changed. We don’t even
know
each other.”

He traced the line of her lips with his index finger. “We can change that. Give me a chance, honey. A real chance.”

Possibilities danced before her. A man who loved her. A family. Forever. Squashing the spurt of cynicism that said she was courting trouble, Lanie nodded. “I can do that.”