Exposing Alix (30 page)

Gunther had said she had mixed up love and sex and was
terrified of both. She was starting to think he was right.

“So the bunny closed his eyes and fell asleep dreaming of
his mother.” Alix continued reading, forcing her lips to form words even as her
mind raced in a very different direction. She flicked a glance at him through
her lashes.

He still wanted her.

She had seen it in his eyes and in his body just a few
minutes ago. Nothing was stopping them from being together. She stared blankly
at the book, her mouth suddenly dry. Fifi opened her mouth to begin another
squeal, and Alix took a long sip from a glass of water before continuing.

“During the night, all the creatures of the forest visited
the bunny. The wind wrapped him in a blanket, and the stars watched over him.
The trees cast their leaves on him to keep away the dew.”

Gunther said she needed to take a risk. This would be the
biggest risk of all.

“When the bunny woke up, he found his mother cuddled
beside him. ‘Where were you?’ the bunny said sleepily. ‘I couldn’t find you.’

“‘I’ve been with you the whole time,’ his mother said. ‘You
only needed to stop looking outside and feel inside your heart.’ And the bunny
went back to sleep, knowing he was safe and would never lose his mother again.”

“Mama,” Fifi said happily.

Alix stared at the soft, watercolor drawing of the two
bunnies. She cocked her head and examined the page more closely. Then she drew
back, her mouth falling open as she realized the true meaning of the book. On
one level, the bunny might merely have been lost and then found by his mother.
But it could also mean something quite different. When she looked closer, she
saw that the bunny mother’s outline was blurred, and her body appeared soft and
light.

The damn bunny’s mother was dead.

She flipped over the book to look at the cover, which
showed the bunny and his mother snuggled side by side by the green rock. They
looked peaceful and happy. What kind of rotten trick was that? Just looking at
it made her throat feel tight and thick.

With an enormous grin, Fifi grabbed the book from Alix’s
open hand and threw it triumphantly on the floor. “Ry!” She jumped off the couch
and held up her arms to him. “Up! Up!”

Ryker’s gaze drew her eyes to his. He held out his hand
impatiently. “Give me that book.” He flipped through the pages, reading
quickly.

“Does that mean, er, what I think it means?” Alix asked.

Ryker lingered on the last page. Remarkably enough, when
he looked up, she thought she could see something in his eyes—some sheen
of moisture, just for a minute, before he shook his head and frowned. “That is
a horrible book,” he said distinctly.

Alix let out a long, uneven breath. “I heartily agree.”

#

“Thanks again,” Maria said, giving Alix a one-armed hug as
she headed toward her car. Fifi snuggled, asleep, on Maria’s neck and shoulder.

“I enjoyed it,” Alix replied, heart already racing with
anticipation as Ryker loomed behind her. Once Fifi left, she’d be alone with
Ryker.

The prospect was as terrifying as it was exciting.

The evening had flown past in a haze of painful, guilty
pleasure brought on by the inescapably intimate act of caring for a child with
Ryker. There had been no repeat of the moment that afternoon when Ryker almost
kissed her. In fact, Ryker had seemed slightly distracted, drifting off
occasionally into a silent reverie, broken only by Fifi’s boisterous demands
for attention.

Alix attributed it to their earlier unexpected visit from
Rosalia. Knowing Maria could walk through the door at any moment had certainly
quelled some of Alix’s ardor. She hoped the same was true for Ryker, and it wasn’t
that he’d managed to convince himself he wasn’t attracted to her after all.

“I owe you twice,” Maria called to Ryker. “Once for
picking her up and once for sparing me a lecture from Rosalia.”

“You don’t owe me a thing,” he said. “Alix picked her up,
and I’d do anything to spare you Rosalia’s wrath. You know that.”

“Maybe someday I’ll have the chance to repay the favor. I
am a heck of a babysitter, you know,” Maria said with a wink.

Alix didn’t turn to see his expression but could imagine
the horror on Ryker’s face at the thought of having a child of his own.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” he said, the barest hint of
irony in his voice. “And by the way, that book needs to go.”

“Which book?” Maria asked.

“The one with the bunnies,” Ryker said with disgust.

“Oh.” Maria nodded and then laughed sheepishly. “It’s
really for me, not her. It makes me feel better.” Maria shot a look back and
forth between Ryker and Alix. “So, next week is dinner at Rosa’s. I’ll see you
both there?”

“I’m going back to Oregon at the end of the week,” Alix
said.

“Shoot.” Maria sounded genuinely disappointed. “We’ll miss
you.”

Alix couldn’t remember a time she’d been missed at a
family dinner. Even if it wasn’t a bit true, the suggestion was a nice one.
“Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate that.”

Ryker cleared his throat. “I suppose you’re wanting to get
Fifi home, then.”

Maria stuck out her tongue at him. “If you say so.”

“I do. She didn’t fall asleep until eight. She’ll be
exhausted tomorrow.”

Ryker, Alix had found, knew a great deal about his niece.
He knew she had to be in bed by seven, or she would get overtired and cranky.
He knew she liked apples and cheese, and he had plenty of both on hand. He knew
how to give her a bath and how to pat her back until she fell asleep. He even
changed her diaper without drama or protest. It was unnerving, actually, to
watch a man who argued so strenuously against the existence of love prove just
how deeply he could care about another human being.

Maria rolled her eyes. “All right, Rosalia,” she said.

Ryker’s face scrunched into a dramatic mask of pain. “Now
that’s uncalled for.”

Maria grinned. “Nah. You deserved it, Mother Hen.”

Ryker held up his hands. “Wow. So much aggression from
someone who owes me big-time.”

“I thought I didn’t owe you anything,” Maria said.

“I take it back,” Ryker said, glancing at Alix. “Now go.”

“Ah.” Maria gave Ryker a genuine smile. “Well, I guess I
can take a hint. And Daisy, I do hope you’ll come visit the next time you’re in
town.”

“I’ll look forward to that,” Alix said, a warm feeling
stealing over her at Maria’s obvious sincerity.

It had been a long time since she’d made a friend.

Maria started out the door, and Ryker began to push it
shut behind her. Before he’d gotten it completely closed, Maria stuck her head
back in.

“Any chance you’re coming tomorrow?”

Ryker tensed and shook his head. “No. You knew that.”

“But I thought maybe this year—it’s the tenth and—”

“No.”

Maria sighed. “Okay. I should know better.”

“Yes, you should.”

She disappeared then, and Ryker closed and locked the door
behind her. He stared at it a moment before turning to Alix, his eyes dark and
drawn.

“I need a drink.”

Thoughts of seduction melted away as Alix took in Ryker’s
haunted visage. He looked the way he had the night they’d had dinner at
Rosalia’s, only sadder.

“Take a seat, and I’ll make you the best martini you’ve
ever had,” Alix said.

Ryker nodded, then sat down on the couch and gazed blindly
into space. Unsure what she should do, Alix focused on the task he’d given her,
finding a gleaming silver shaker, whiskey tumbler, and deep martini glass in
the spacious cabinet. A small fridge behind the counter yielded club soda and a
bottle of olives. She poured the club soda into the tumbler and sipped it as
she continued.

“Gin or vodka?”

“Gin.”

She studied the labels until she found a bottle and then
poured a healthy measure into the tumbler and added the barest hint of
vermouth. Delicately, she shook the liquid several times, poked two olives onto
a toothpick, and filled the glass.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked carefully.

Ryker’s expression did not change. “My mother died ten
years ago. They go to the cemetery every year on the anniversary of her death.”

“And you don’t go?”

“No.”

She walked over and handed him the glass. He grabbed it
without meeting her eyes and took a deep drink.

“You got another one like that?”

“Sure.”

He drank steadily for the next few minutes. When the first
drink was done, Alix poured him a second and sat down.

“How did she die?” she asked, hoping to distract him, even
if only for a few minutes, from his determined path toward oblivion.

“Breast cancer. Double mastectomy and chemo didn’t make
bit of difference.”

“Were you with her?”

“At the end?” He chewed on an olive. “No. Emilio was
there, and the girls. I tried to visit when they weren’t around. That got hard
at the end, so I stopped coming. I didn’t want her to watch us fight. I had
given her enough trouble when she was alive. I didn’t want to bother her while
she was dying.”

Alix’s chest grew tight. “Did you…did you ever get to say
good-bye?”

“Last time I left. We didn’t know when it would be, but we
knew it was coming.” Ryker gulped down the second drink and handed her the
glass. “Another,” he grunted.

She walked slowly toward the bar. “Why don’t you go to the
cemetery?”

“It’s their grave, not mine. They pick the flowers. They
picked the stone. It says
Descanse En Paz
. I had to ask someone what
that means.”

Alix winced. “Were you close to her? I mean, when you were
older?”

“Where do you think Rosalia got her idea for the family
dinners? Mama loved having us all around her. Even when we fought like crazy,
she said it was worth it.”

Alix fixed a third drink with about half as much gin. She
handed him the glass. He held it for a minute, swirling the liquid until it
created a tiny whirlpool. He looked up at her. “I guess you think I’m a monster
for not holding her hand as she died.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You did that for her. It must
have been very hard to stay away.”

“At the funeral, Emilio told me I broke her heart. She
died with a broken heart because I wasn’t there.”

A lump formed in her throat. She sat down next to him on
the couch and put her hand on his knee. “His wife had just died. He didn’t mean
it.”

“Right.” He turned his body toward her. “You should go.”

“And leave you to drink yourself into oblivion?”

“I do it every year. It’s my tradition. They have their
tradition, and I have mine.”

“I don’t think so.” She leaned forward and kissed him
gently on the mouth. Then she pulled back and studied him. “I think I’m going
to stay.”

“I don’t want to talk. I just want to get drunk.”

She touched his face. “You want to forget. I know. I’ve
had days I would give anything to forget.”

“No. You don’t know.” He clenched a fist, staring down at
his hands. “You don’t know what it’s like to regret something this much. To
wonder what it would have meant if you had done it differently. For both of
you.”

“I lost a baby,” she whispered, the word slipping from her
like a fragile breeze. She took his hands between her palms and forced him to
look her in the eye. “I felt him flow from my body. I had been having cramps
for days, but I was too scared to tell anyone. Maybe it could never have been
prevented. But maybe it could. So don’t tell me I don’t know. I
know
.”

For an exquisite moment, they looked at each other,
sharing the pain and regret they had lived with for so long. Then he leaned
forward and molded his lips to hers. They collapsed into each other, Alix
licking and sucking, imagining in some sheltered part of her mind that she
could heal him—and herself—with their kiss.

Finally, he broke the contact, exhaling sharply and
closing his eyes. “Alix, please. Don’t do this to me right now. You can see I’m
in no state to argue.”

She brought his hand to her mouth and kissed each of his
fingers. Amazingly, her nerves had disappeared. There was no longer any
question in her mind as to what she should do. Because no matter how
stupid—no matter how ill-advised and no matter the consequences—one
thing suddenly became painfully clear. She had to stay with him. She had to
comfort him in the only way she knew how. She no longer had a choice.

Because she loved him.

The realization humbled her. Her
defenses hadn’t been nearly as effective as she had thought. She had done the
one thing she had vowed not to do: fallen in love with a man who would never
love her back. It was terrifying and exhilarating, and she couldn’t imagine
there had been a time she hadn’t known the truth.

She loved him with every beat of the pulse that shot
through her body. Loved him with a fierce, angry passion that wouldn’t allow
him to be alone with his grief. Loved him for his scars, his pain, and the
child behind his eyes.

She loved him, and she could heal him—not
completely, not entirely, but a little. And it was enough. Enough to make it
worthwhile.

She stood up, gently leading him toward the stairs. He
followed, the sadness radiating from him in waves.

When they reached his room, he was seized with a sudden
burst of energy. He took her face in his hands and kissed her. Hard. Their
teeth bumped together; his mouth ground into hers. He punished her with his
grief and then pulled away and rested his forehead against hers.

“You should go,” he said hoarsely.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. She pulled her shirt
over her head and bared her breasts. She took one of his large, strong hands
and placed it on her chest. “I’m staying with you.”