Now and Forever (85 page)

"I am neither," she said, her voice husky. She tried to ignore the way his big strong body felt covering hers. "I'm nothing to you at all. Once I leave here, you'll never see me again."

His expression softened and he touched her cheek in a spontaneous gesture unlike the calculated kisses and caresses of moments ago. She felt as if he'd somehow reached into her heart and discovered a place no one knew existed, the secret place where she kept her dreams. His hold on her wrists loosened, until it was more caress than bondage and she wondered if—

"Papa, is it true?" Abigail's voice shattered the spell.

They both jumped, startled to find the little girl standing in the open doorway with a tattered Lucy clutched to her chest. Her eyes were huge in her narrow face as she stared at the sight of her father and Dakota entwined on the feather bed.

Devane rose easily from the bed as if his daughter found him lying on top of a woman every day of the week. No doubt about it, the man was one cool customer. Dakota, on the other hand, felt as if she'd been caught swinging naked from a chandelier. She couldn't have felt guiltier if they'd actually been doing something—which they hadn't been, but that fact somehow seemed beside the point.

She sat up and tugged at the bodice of her gown, praying the rolled-up sleeves of her dinosaur T-shirt didn't choose that moment to make an appearance. That would really put a lid on what was turning out to be the weirdest day of her life.

Devane stood in front of his daughter. His back was ramrod straight, in marked contrast to the rumpled look of his shirt and waistcoat.

"How long have you been standing there, Abigail?" he asked the child.

If Dakota hadn't known better, she'd have thought he was talking to a stranger rather than his own flesh and blood.

"I saw you kissing her," Abigail said with the alarming directness most kids lost around puberty. The child approached the bed where Dakota sat with her feet on the floor and her hands primly folded on her lap. "Cook says you're my new mama."

Dakota felt as if she'd been hit in the stomach with a two-by-four. She looked toward Devane, whose face had gone ashen. His spur-of-the-moment statement to the young soldier had come back to haunt them both. Why hadn't Devane realized the impact it would have upon his daughter?

"You can answer this one," she said to him, thankful for the opportunity to pass the buck.

"Did Cook say anything else to you, Abigail?" he asked in that same maddeningly bland tone of voice.

"She said it was time that a woman warmed your bed. But I told her grandmama's quilt was in the—"

"Oh, God…" Dakota sank back onto the mattress and wished she could disappear beneath the covers.

Abigail's steady gaze pierced her heart. "Is that why you and Papa were lying here together, to warm the bed?"

Dakota could count on the fingers of one hand the times she'd been struck speechless in her life. The glib remarks that usually flowed from her lips like mineral water at a trendy restaurant dried up and disappeared. She wasn't given to saccharine displays of affection toward children, but there was something about the little girl that inspired the oddest emotions. She didn't particularly like kids, but she wanted to gather this one into her arms and make her smile.

Go figure.

Abigail climbed up onto the bed and looked Dakota in the eye. "Tell me!" she demanded in her childish voice. "Are you my new mama?"

Dakota met Devane's eyes. The warm fire she'd noticed before in their indigo depths had been extinguished. His expression was as cold as the bitter winter winds that rattled the windows and whistled down the chimneys.

What do I do?
she pleaded silently.
How can we lie to her about this?

Devane nodded curtly, a quick dip of the head, and her heart sank. He actually expected her to say something to Abigail.

She tried to speak but the words wouldn't come. They were trapped behind a wall of regret so high and wide she wondered if she would ever be able to break through.

She cleared her throat, praying that whatever she said wouldn't hurt the child any more than life had already hurt her.

"Your papa and I—"

"Yes," Devane broke in, reaching for Dakota's hand and clasping it in his. "Dakota is your new mother." He paused, meeting Dakota's eyes with a glance that warned her not to disagree.

Abigail's light brown brows slanted toward the bridge of her tiny nose.

Smart kid,
thought Dakota, squirming beneath the weight of the child's scrutiny.
I wouldn't believe this bilge water either.

The child spoke up again. "Cook says she'll make a wedding dinner or know the reason why."

"No!" Dakota suddenly found her voice. Both Devane and his daughter looked at her in surprise. "These are difficult times," she explained swiftly. "Certainly a big party would not be proper in light of the hardships we are all facing from the enemy."

Abigail's braids bobbed as she shook her head vigorously. "Cook says all the best houses have parties." She lowered her voice to a mock whisper. "Cook says it will be scand'lous if you do not."

"Maybe Cook should mind her own business," Dakota muttered sourly. "This place is worse than
Knots Landing
."

#

Patrick's attention was snared by her words.
Knots Landing
. He wondered if that was near to Philadelphia. It was the first true nugget of information Dakota had provided for him, although he was certain she did not realize he had heard her words. He would peruse his maps of the colonies later on and see if he could find the town.

"Go downstairs, Abigail," he said, dismissing the child.

"No" Her lower lip protruded much as Susannah's had when she didn't get her way.

"You will do as I say."

"I want to stay here." A dangerous glint flickered in her eyes, as if a storm were gathering in the grey depths.

"Abigail, you will—"

Dakota reached for the child's hand. "Why don't you go downstairs and ask Cook for needle and thread," she suggested in an even tone of voice. "I have figured out the perfect way to repair Lucy and I can't find your mama's sewing basket anywhere."

"But I told you where it is," Abigail protested. "In Papa's cabinet."

Dakota shot him a fierce look of triumph. "I looked where you told me to look, Abby, but it wasn't there."

"It is!" Abigail started toward the chest of drawers, but Patrick placed a hand on the child's fragile shoulder.

"Go downstairs," he said, aware of Dakota's steady gaze upon him. "I will find the bloody sewing basket myself."

Still the child stood there, tiny feet planted like the roots of an oak tree.
I was stubborn like that once as well,
he mused, then banished the thought for the foolishness it was.

Dakota turned from him and spoke to the child. Abigail nodded, then, with nary a look in his direction, ran from the room.

"Children respond to kindness," Dakota said "It's probably an alien concept to you, but you might want to try it some time."

"Refrain from giving advice on child-rearing, madam," he said, "until you know what a child needs to be happy."

Her cheeks reddened at his words. "I don't need to be a parent to know what a child needs to be happy."

"And where did you acquire such profound knowledge?"

"I have a brain." Her implication was quite clear.

"Speak your mind, madam," he invited dryly. "Do you mean to say I lack the same?"

"No," she said, "you have a brain. What you don't have is a heart."

"And upon what do you base your observations," he asked, "when you have known me less than one full day?"

"Have you looked at your daughter's face?" she asked, her anger a third presence in the room "She adores you and you cannot give her the time of day."

"She is well cared for," he said, wondering why he found it necessary to explain himself to a stranger. "When the storm ends, she will leave for Boston—"

"Where she will be somebody else's problem."

"Where she will receive an education."

"You can lie to me all you want, Mr. Devane—I really don't give a damn—but don't lie to yourself. You're too smart for that and she's too important."

He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up until she was kneeling on the soft feather mattress. She used the language of a man to make her point, with little regard either for his sensibilities or her own. It should not have excited him but it did.

"What business is it of yours, madam?" he demanded, his fingers pressing deep into the soft flesh of her shoulders. "What care you if I love the child, so long as she is not ill-used?"

Tears pooled in her dark eyes, then spilled down her smooth cheeks. "She loves you so. Doesn't that matter to you?"

"Yes," he said, despite himself. It mattered more than she would ever know.

Chapter Thirteen

"You have nothing to say? At least you should—" Dakota stopped in midsentence as the vision rose up before her, clear as the view outside the window.

The room was in shadows. Muslin curtains had been drawn across the wide, leaded-glass windows, but the faintest rays of dawn were beginning to seep through the loosely woven material. From the kitchen came the spicy, sweet smell of apples cooking for breakfast. The pine cradle rested next to the big feather bed, piled high with quilts and knitted coverlets in soft whites and blues.

Inside the cradle the baby slept, her eyes pressed tightly closed against the coming of morn. She had a thick head of silky light brown hair and fingers that were surprisingly long and graceful for someone less than one month old.

But it was the man who drew Dakota's eye. He was bent over the cradle, his tall, strong form looking absurdly masculine in the gentle room as he looked down upon the sleeping child.

How he loved her!

Emotion flooded the darkest corners of his heart with golden light. He would fight lions with his bare hands to keep her safe from harm. Lasso the stars and hang them from the ceiling to make her laugh.

She was every good thing he'd ever done, every dream he'd ever dreamed but didn't believe would come true. She was his miracle.

She was his daughter. . . .

Dakota opened her eyes and found herself cradled against Devane's strong chest. He was looking down at her, an expression of concern on his normally unreadable face.

She felt disoriented and strangely sad, as if she'd awakened from a dream she couldn't quite remember. "Wh-what happened?" she asked, pushing away from him as she struggled to regain her composure.

"I hoped you would tell me, madam."

"I didn't faint, did I?" She'd fainted all the time around Andrew McVie; his force field had been that strong.

"You swooned," he said in a careful voice. "Is that a common occurrence?"

She snapped her fingers in a nonchalant gesture that was at odds with the turbulent emotions raging inside her chest. "I do it all the time."

"There is no cause for alarm?"

"Not the slightest."

"You are not with child?"

She almost choked on her own saliva. "Absolutely not!"

He arched a brow. "You are a married woman," he noted.

"I'm a widow," she corrected him.

"Mayhap your stays are too tightly laced."

"Are you implying that I'm fat?"

"I did not say those words."

"Maybe not, but you thought them."

A damnable twinkle appeared in his deep blue eyes. "And you are privy to my innermost thoughts, madam?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," she muttered darkly.

"Is it so unusual for a lady to overzealously tighten her stays in the service of vanity?"

She hesitated, once again reminded how different this world was from the one where she belonged and yet how little things had really changed. Here the women cinched their waists with stays. Back home they did it with Lycra spandex.