Getting It Right This Time (10 page)

“Just because I was crying, sweetheart, doesn’t mean I’m not happy here,” she said softly.

“Why were you crying then? Because of Daddy?”

Guilt shot like a bullet through Kate’s gut. She hadn’t been crying because of James--she hadn’t cried over James for a long time and whenever Jessica mentioned him, it made her feel terrible for not still mourning her father. But as much as she wished he was alive and well, he wasn’t and before he died, she and James were over in every sense of the word. Divorce would have come sooner rather than later.

48

Getting It Right This Time

Kate swallowed, forced a small smile as she brushed aside a tendril from Jessica’s temple.

“I was crying because I saw someone last night who knew Daddy and me a long time ago.”

“A lady?”

Heat seared Kate’s cheeks. “No, a man.”

“And he made you cry?”

Kate smiled. “No, he brought back a lot of memories, that’s all. It’s hard to explain, sweetheart… it’s difficult seeing certain people again. People you knew well but don’t anymore.

Do you understand?”

Jessica frowned and looked deep into her eyes. Kate focused on staring straight back, giving her daughter the reassurance that all was fine and normal in their lives. After a long moment, Jessica gave a curt nod.

“Like when Barney told the children about grown ups having disappointments just like us.”

Kate smiled and blinked back her tears at the lisped adult word she’d used. “Exactly.

Disappointments. But do you know something?”

Jessica tilted her head. “What?”

“Well,” she said slowly. “Mummy is very happy right now because I’m here in the sunshine with you.”

Jessica grinned. “Me too.”

Kate enfolded Jessica into her arms and squeezed, inhaling her unique scent like a soothing balm. Nothing was as important as Jess, absolutely nothing. Closing her eyes, Kate sent up a silent prayer of gratitude for the blessed gift of her child. James’s child. She and James may not have had the passion, the bond Kate thought she once had with Mark, but at the beginning of their relationship, he’d been a good and generous man. Maybe things slowly changed until he and Kate barely spent more than half an hour in the same room together but he did love Jess more than anything and Jess loved him.

When he died Kate vowed to do her best to fill the void in her baby girl’s heart and she would continue to do so. So that meant above all, she must protect Jess from any further heartbreak--or disappointment.

* * * *

“Bath, pajamas, bed,” Kate murmured as she pulled the car to a stop outside their house and killed the engine. She looked into the back seat. Jess was fast asleep, her head tilted against the side of her car seat.

“Hmm, just me for the bath then,” Kate murmured. “Straight to bed for someone else, I think.”

Turning back around, she glanced through the windshield. And saw him.

“No,” she whispered, shuffling down in the seat. “No, no.”

Rachel Brimble

49

It was useless. Kate knew he’d seen her. She stared at him. His eyes locked on hers by apparent tracker beam as he casually leaned against the lamppost outside her front gate. His smile was tentative yet distressingly sexy. Her toes curled inside her shoes. What was he doing here?

His dark hair shone beneath the lamplight, and even though his eyes were in shadow she knew from the way his shoulders were bunched below his ears and his fists stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, Mark Johnston was nervous. Which equated to a potentially lethal blow to her defense of the man being an arrogant know-it-all.

Kate’s heart picked up speed and her hands turns clammy. Why the hell didn’t he follow the course of action she’d anticipated? Tell him about Jess and protect herself against the G force when he pummeled away from her at forty miles per hour. Yet there he was. Outside her house--

looking unbelievable cute and sexy all at the same time.

“Bugger, bugger, bugger.”

Sliding her bag from the dashboard, tension jangled along Kate’s nerves endings. She reached for the door and he immediately straightened, walking toward the car.

Once she’d opened the door, she took his offered hand without meeting his eyes and attempted to exit the vehicle with as much grace as her trembling legs would allow. But as was typical in her life, elegance and poise failed to rear their heads and instead, her long auburn hair became entangled in the buckle of her discarded seat belt. Pulling her hand from his, she desperately tried to maintain an ounce of composure as she struggled to get free. A couple seconds of battle time ensued before Mark placed his hands over hers.

“Allow me.”

Heat warmed her cheeks as she concentrated on a spot above his shoulder rather than having to look into his doubtlessly laughing eyes. If she knew Mark Johnston at all, he was biting down on his bottom lip in an attempt to stem a belly laugh of momentous proportions.

“There you go,” he said, releasing her hair.

Kate immediately scrambled from the car as though the seat burned her backside. “Thank you.” He turned around and she finally met his gaze. She crossed her arms. “Okay, Mark. You can laugh now.”

And he did, they both did. They stood facing each other on the deserted street, laughing until tears shone in their eyes. After a long moment, Kate wiped at her cheeks and looked at him. His smile was charming, his eyes captivating, but she could not forget the promise she’d reinforced to herself. No more disappointment. No more heartbreak.

Taking a step back, she opened a safer gap between them. She didn’t know how they came to be standing so close in the first place. So close she could make out the flecks of gold in his hazel gaze and smell the slightest hint of musk…

She cleared her throat. “Why are you here?”

His boyish smile slowly dissolved. “You know why. I told you last night. I still love you.”

“Mark…”

50

Getting It Right This Time

He glanced over his shoulder toward the car. “Is your daughter in the car?”

Kate’s panic struck quick and deep. She swayed back on her heels. “What?”

His gaze bore into hers. “I’d like to meet her.”

She swallowed. “You can’t.”

“Why?”

Her mind raced, her palms turned clammy. “I…um…you…”

He lifted an eyebrow and a small smile twitched the corner of his mouth in the most devilish, infuriating and totally challenging way. He knew she could no sooner refuse to admit her fear anymore than he could. He was as terrified of seeing Jessica as Kate was of revealing her. She knew it and so did he. But at least he was there. At least he knew she had a child and if he wanted to be part of her life…

She tilted her chin. “Fine. You meet her and you go. If she’s sleeping--”

“I’ll meet her another time. I’ll stay for one drink and then go. Promise.”

She stared at him. “Who said anything about a drink?”

“Surely you’re not afraid to let me in your house for half an hour when you’ve a sleeping child upstairs?”

Knowing that meant no ensured safety whatsoever, Kate found herself saying, “One drink and then you go.”

She brushed past him, her fear beating a tattoo against her chest as she strolled toward the car purposely delaying the inevitable. Pausing with her hand on the door handle, she drew in a breath and opened the rear car door.

“Okay, baby,” she whispered. “You stay asleep for mummy, and he’ll be out of here before we know it.”

Gently extracting Jessica from her seat, Kate lifted her into her arms. When she stood up straight, Jessica flopped her head down on her mother’s shoulder, oblivious to the strange man watching her in stunned silence. Kate turned and her heart kicked painfully in her chest. Mark’s gaze was glued to the top of Jessica’s head as he leaned around Kate and pushed the door closed.

“Mark, meet Jessica.” Kate smiled. “She’s three years old and the most important person in my life.”

Even in the semi-darkness, she saw the color drain from his olive complexion. Yet the expected horror wasn’t in his eyes. Instead blatant fascination, protective concern and even tenderness shone there. Her breath caught and her arms tightened around Jess when he gently lifted the hair from her face. He stared for what felt like minutes before he dropped the strands and finally met Kate’s eyes.

“She’s beautiful.”

Her mouth was so dry all she managed was, “Thank you.”

He smiled. “We’d better get her in. It’s getting cold.”

Rachel Brimble

51

Kate pointed the keys at her car and locked it before turning and heading toward her front door on legs trembling like lengths of jelly. With the expert flexibility of a mother, she put the key in the lock, opened the door and stepped inside without evoking as much as a murmur from Jessica.

She looked at Mark, who continued to concentrate his gaze on Jessica. “I’ll take her up, there’s a bottle of red in the rack in the kitchen. End of the hallway.”

He blinked and looked up. “Right. Drink. Okay.”

Kate watched him wander slowly down the hall, steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the warmth spreading through her belly. Even though it jabbed at her heart to see him looking so out of control in his state of shock, Mark knew as much about children as she did about diva actresses.

Nothing. And that spoke volumes about the differences between their lives. Giving her head a violent shake, she walked upstairs. With lightning efficiency, she changed Jessica into her pajamas and the little girl curled underneath her quilt, still fast asleep.

Sitting back on her heels, Kate watched her daughter sleep. A sudden attack of nerves overtook her as she thought of Mark sitting downstairs waiting for her. She’d left Foxton with his best friend. She had a baby with his best friend. What did he think would happen between them?

And if he loved her, why the hell hadn’t he told her years ago when nothing else mattered to her other than him? She squeezed her eyes shut as a tear escaped unchecked down her cheek.

She could not be pulled into the possibility of resurrecting the past--it never worked. People too often went back. Back to a place that didn’t work out the first time round, yet expecting miracles to happen on the re-run. Jessica gave a contented sigh and Kate’s heart ached. Mark was a workaholic who dated women as an occasional distraction--he didn’t know about love and he most certainly didn’t know about commitment. Kate refused to expose Jessica to a man a young girl could quite easily come to love. Everyone fell in love with him. Everyone--and Kate was one hundred percent sure it would be no different for Jessica.

Feeling her resistance to him settle around her shoulders like an armored pashmina, Kate pushed to her feet. Leaning over the bed, she kissed Jessica’s cheek before quietly pulling the door half-closed and making her way downstairs.

When she reached the bottom of the staircase, Kate gave an uncertain look toward the open door of the living room. Her new home was a sanctuary she and Lucy secretly decorated over the last few weeks. Keeping her return to Foxton a clandestine affair had been the only way Kate could carry it through. She knew it would be hard to face people who’d known James, but the need to be back among the people who loved her eventually become stronger than any difficulties she faced.

The joy in her parents’ voices when she’d told them of her imminent return had lessened the heavy burden of guilt of taking Jessica from the only home she’d ever known and gave her the strength to admit she’d settled for second best in her love life.

52

Getting It Right This Time

Blinking, Kate pulled back her shoulders. She’d face Mark head-on. She’d explain her relationship with James and explain how Mark had hurt them--her. She would lay everything she wanted to say to him out on the table and then maybe he would finally have the sense to leave her and Jessica alone. And understand she wasn’t the woman she was five years ago and would never put a romantic relationship above Jessica’s needs.

That Kate died right along with James.

She entered the living room to find him studying his surroundings. With a jolt, Kate realized she actually cared what he thought of her new home, of where she chose to live and how she decorated it. Not because she wanted him to approve it--she wanted him to know she was fine--

living and alive.

“So…” She stepped further into the room. “What do you think?”

He turned and smiled. “It’s great. I can’t believe you’ve been here long enough to do this and I never had a clue.”

She returned his smile. “Who says I’ve done this?”

He took a step toward her, his gaze softening as it darted over her face. “Because this is you.

This is the Kate I know and love.”

Heat burned at her cheeks. “I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that.”

“What? I love you?”

She nodded. “Yes, and the fact you think you know me. You don’t.”

Another step. She forced herself to stay at the same spot. His gaze lingered hungrily on her lips, and she immediately felt a sharp tug between her legs. The memory of the previous night came crashing into her mind, and she squeezed her thighs together to stem the throbbing there. The feel of his lips against hers, the sensation of a male hand at the base of her spine deepened the burn at her face. She tilted her chin, kept her gaze firmly on his.

He smiled. “I know you, Kate. You haven’t changed.”

“I’ve changed. You just haven’t opened your eyes enough to realize it. People change constantly. Especially when they have children.”

He hesitated and took a step back. Kate exhaled. The desire in his gaze immediately cooled, only to be replaced with hot indignation. “I know.”