Loving You (23 page)

She wanted to push him out of the house. Out of their lives. Out of Jonas's heart and out of her mind. But Nick Candellano was damn near immovable. He was staking a claim on her world and he didn't even
really want it. He was doing it because it was easy. God, the hardest thing she'd ever done was keep her world together. And without even trying, he was destroying it.

“Just to be clear,” Nick asked, his voice low and dangerous, “I told him to do his homework and I'm the devil?” He turned around to look at her again.

“Yes,” she blurted. “No. Hell.”

“Well, as long as you're sure…”

Tasha's gaze snapped up to his and she saw the smile in his dark brown eyes.

But she wasn't appeased. It didn't help. His charm was just a balm on an open wound. And the pain squeezed her chest until she heard herself whisper, “You're taking him from me.” Oh God, just saying the words tore at her heart and made her eyes burn with tears that shimmered up from her soul. “A piece at a time, you're taking him,” she continued brokenly, “and I can't fight it. I don't know how. Or even if I should.”

A single tear trickled from the corner of her eye and arrowed straight into Nick's heart. Jesus Christ. Watching a strong woman cry was enough to kill a man. Knowing he'd caused it just hammered the nails into his coffin.

“Christ, Tasha,” he said, keeping his voice low, soft, in a sad attempt at soothing her. “I'm not trying to take him from you. I'm just trying to do the right thing.”

She angrily swiped the tear away with the back of her hand. “That doesn't make me feel any better.”

“I've never been in this position before,” Nick said, and knew it for a gigantic understatement. “And I'm not even sure what the right thing is anymore.” She opened her mouth to say something, but he hurried on and cut her off before she could get started. “All I know
for sure is, I've let down a lot of people over the years. And I don't want Jonas added to the list.”

She swallowed hard. “I'm glad of that, anyway. But don't you see? You're only here because you
might
be his dad. What if you're not? What then?”

“I don't know.” He reached for her, dropping both hands onto her shoulders. So narrow, he thought. So fragile to be carrying so many burdens. “And you're right. Jonas was the first reason I came here. But now, he's not the only reason.”

“Don't,” she said softly, but her heart wasn't in it. Her eyes darkened despite the haunting shadow of pain and he read a quickening there that set off sparks inside him.

“Tasha…” He slid his hands up and down her arms, rubbing, caressing, soothing. What the hell was he supposed to say? He wasn't interested in her? He didn't want her so much he could hardly breathe? He was sorry for fucking up her life? He had a feeling she wouldn't want to hear any of it anyway.

Damn it, there was no win here. If he was Jonas's father, then he and Tasha—not to mention the long-missing Mimi—were going to have to decide where to go from here, together. If he wasn't Jonas's father, then this was all for nothing. He wouldn't have any reason to come back here. To spend time with the boy.

With Tasha.

He looked down into those grass green eyes and suddenly couldn't stand the idea of never seeing her again.

When had that happened?

When had Tasha become important enough to
really
matter?

“What?” she whispered as he continued to stare at her.

“I'm just…” He shook his head, then shifted his hands, sliding up the length of her arms, along her shoulders, and up to cup her face in his palms. “You keep surprising me, Tasha,” he said.

She reached up and covered his hands with her own. She tried to pull his hands away, but he wouldn't budge. The warmth of her skin beneath his palms was something he didn't want to surrender just yet.

“Nick…”

“You know when I kissed you before?”

“It was a mistake.” She swallowed hard, her gaze locked with his. Her eyes shone in the lamplight and dazzled him with a beauty that was soul deep.

“It was too short,” he said, lowering his head slowly, inch by inch, toward hers. “Too quick, too soft, too good to not repeat.”

Her breath came fast and furious and as he dipped lower, closer, her breath fanned his cheeks and fueled the flames within. His thumbs stroked her damp cheekbones, sliding across her smooth, pale skin with a touch so light, it was almost the
promise
of a touch.

“I think we need to try it again,” he murmured when his mouth was just a kiss away from hers.

“I can't think when you're this close,” she admitted.

Nick smiled. “Good.”

Then he claimed her mouth with his, lips moving over hers at first gently, tenderly. But as she leaned into him, he gave himself up to the want within and took her mouth in a plundering kiss that ravaged him and left her gasping.

He parted her lips with his tongue, sweeping into her warmth, exploring, discovering her secrets. Her
hands came up slowly to wrap around his neck and she held on, her hands fisting in his hair.

He shifted slightly, changing his grip on her, wrapping his arms around her middle and clutching her close. Close enough that the thundering of her heart echoed within him. He felt each clamoring breath rushing in and out of her lungs. Each small sigh that whispered from the back of her throat.

She leaned into him closely, and the hard tips of her nipples pressed into his body and set him on fire.

He lavished attention on her mouth. The mouth that had driven him to distraction from the moment they'd met. And it wasn't enough. He needed more.

He needed
all
.

But a moment later, when she pulled her head back, breaking the kiss and gulping in air like a woman about to drown, he knew he wouldn't be getting it. Not tonight, anyway.

“Jonas,” she whispered the warning brokenly, leaning her forehead against his chest.

He rested his chin on top of her head and fought to steady his own heartbeat. When he thought he could talk without whimpering, Nick tried for humor, saying, “Let him get his own girl.”

“You have to go.” She let go of him, her hands sliding down his arms and then drifting away from him completely, severing a touch that he hadn't known would be so … compelling.

He felt empty, damn it. Without her hands on him, he felt empty.

And that scared the shit out of him.

“Yeah,” he said, and took one long step backward. Better to keep a safe distance between them. A light-year or two should do the trick. “I'd better go. Now.”

He headed for the front door before he could change his mind, throw logic
and
Tasha to the floor, and say to hell with doing the right thing. He damn sure hoped she wouldn't notice that he was walking a little bowlegged. Hell, he hadn't hurt this bad since high school.

He didn't look back. Didn't trust himself to look into those eyes of hers and still be able to leave. Didn't want to know if she was as torn up and on edge as he was. Didn't think he could leave if he knew she wanted him as bad as he wanted her.

Jesus.

He walked out the front door and down the steps, tipping his face up into the cold rain. He scraped his hair back and let the drops hammer against his skin like icy slaps from heaven.

But it was going to have to rain a hell of a lot harder to put out the fire Tasha had started.

*   *   *

From the top of the stairs Jonas watched Tasha close the front door and fall back against it like she was too weak to stand up or something. He moved out of the light and stepped farther into the shadows, so she wouldn't know he'd seen her kissing Nick.

Weird stuff was spinning in his head. Jonas had come out of his room to remind Nick about his next football game, 'cause he'd said he would go, but just in case he forgot … But then he saw Nick and Tasha arguing real quiet, so he couldn't hear what they were saying.

But they looked really mad, so he figured he'd stay there to keep watch, 'cause he really liked Nick, but he had to take care of Tasha, right? But then Nick kissed her and Tasha kissed him back and then Jonas
couldn't leave 'cause it was just too … weird.

He swung his hair back from his face—thought maybe Tasha was right about the haircut thing—and looked at Tasha again. She didn't look mad anymore. She was smiling, sort of. And she looked kind of like Molly looked whenever her boyfriend came to pick her up from work. All shiny-eyed and kind of excited.

And he wasn't real sure how he felt about that.

C
HAPTER
14

“I fired them.”

“Who?” Paul asked.

“Two nanas.” Nick yanked at his hair with enough strength to snatch himself bald. But the accompanying pain didn't quite diminish the guilt chewing at his insides. He'd needed to tell somebody about it. Hell, Nick admitted silently, he'd needed to talk about everything. Which was why he was standing here on his brother's backyard deck confessing to something he still didn't believe himself. “I fired two little old nanas.”

Paul laughed shortly, then forced his grin into submission when he caught Nick's dirty look. “That probably didn't do much for your karma.”

“Funny. Thanks. I really needed that.” Paul could make jokes. He wasn't the one who'd had to look two little old ladies in the eye and tell them they were out of a job.

Nick'd gone to the address Travis had left on his answering machine, determined to view the “fan mail machine” in action. But he hadn't been prepared for the truth. He wasn't quite sure what he'd been expecting,
but it sure as hell hadn't been two grandmotherly types, sitting at a long folding table, signing pictures of
him
. They'd offered him tea and cookies, showed him pictures of their grandchildren, then given him a tour of the square, joyless office where they toiled, pretending to be a professional football player.

Ridiculous, he thought now, with a shake of his head. The sight of those two old women writing “Running Backs Rule” was something that would stay with him for a while. The whole damn thing was just so idiotic. Frank Sinatra crooning from a small boom box, tea steeping in a flowered pot beneath a crocheted cozy, and homemade cookies in a Tupperware container. Nanas. That's who had been signing his pictures. Little old ladies making some extra cash by practicing their penmanship, which, he thought, as he recalled the careless scrawls he'd seen, could use some work.

“Christ, Nick.” Paul laughed and reached for his beer. “Relax. It's not like you foreclosed on an orphanage or something.”

“It was like firing Mama.”

Paul shuddered. “That's not even funny.”

“You're tellin' me,” Nick said, disgusted. “Those women were
mad
.”

“You were
scared
of 'em?”

“Damn straight.” Scowling, he added, “Though they cheered up fast when I gave them a hefty ‘retirement' bonus.”

Paul hooted with laughter. “You paid 'em off?”

“You bet. Otherwise I'd have been looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.” He eyed his brother solemnly. “Don't ever piss off a grandma.”

“I'll remember that.”

Nick took a seat in the pine Adirondack chair opposite
his twin brother. Setting his bottle of beer down on the round pine table between them, he propped his elbows on the varnished surface and cupped his head in his hands. His brain felt as if it were expanding, getting too big for his skull. Which would go a long way toward explaining the pounding headache that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.

He'd been batting a thousand since dinner at Tasha's place the night before. Agreeing to a father-son campout. Kissing Tasha and discovering a brand-new world that he'd had to turn his back on—and then capping it all off by waking up bright and early this morning to piss off two old women who had looked like they could have cheerfully murdered him.

Yeah, things couldn't get much better. Oh, wait.

There
was
more.

The letters he'd retrieved from the dueling nanas' office. Before he'd fired them, the two women had shown him three file cabinets where every fan letter received had been neatly tucked away alphabetically. Under “B,” he'd found all four of the letters Jonas had written him. The childish, painfully careful handwriting had tugged at his heart even while it nudged his conscience. If he'd been paying attention to business instead of feeling sorry for himself, he'd have known about Jonas months ago.

He'd already read those letters twice—and now they were burning a hole in his back pocket.

“What's going on, Nick?”

He looked at his brother. Paul was the calm one. The logical one. The one Mama insisted was the most like their father. Paul had always been able to look at any situation and see both sides. It had been a real irritating quality when they were kids. Now it was just
what Nick needed. Besides, Paul was the one person Nick knew he could count on to be completely honest with him. They were more than brothers, they were twins. And that bond went deeper than most people would ever understand.

Reaching for his back pocket, Nick pulled out the four letters Jonas had written to him. He ran his fingertips across the wrinkled papers, then tossed them onto the table, letting them slide across the varnished wood toward Paul. Grabbing up his beer, Nick took a long drink and said, “Read these. Then we'll talk.”

*   *   *

“Tasha, you
can't
run away.”

“Why not?” Tasha looked over her shoulder at Molly, standing in the doorway of Mimi's bedroom. Going up onto her toes, Tasha reached for the top shelf, where Mimi's old suitcase was stored.

“For one thing, Jonas will never go.”

“Of course he'll go, if I say we go.”