Something About Joe (21 page)

Allison
stopped, astounded Peter should talk about his childhood. Those
words came from the heart.

For a moment
she could see the lonely little boy Peter had once been. His
parents had run an isolated cattle ranch and had sent him away to
boarding school when he was only seven. And now he’d bought his son
the same toy that had brought him comfort.

Maybe—just
maybe—
he really had changed, she thought,
as she climbed the stairs.

Mitchell was
standing up in his cot, hanging on to the railings. “Hungy, Momma,
hungy.”

“
Of course
you’re hungry, my angel. You’ve been very sick,” Allison
said.

She reached
down and swept Mitchell into her arms, kissing him on the forehead,
both cheeks and in the delicious little hollow of his throat, not
caring about his sodden diaper. She was very conscious of Peter
standing behind her. Turning, she faced him.

“
He’s grown
a lot since...
since you last saw him,”
she said, her voice choked with emotion at the thought of Mitchell
finally getting to know his father. Peter had only seen Mitchell
once before, when he’d been six weeks old.

“
He
looks like me,” said Peter, his pale eyes
glowing with something that looked like pride, “how about
that.”

He stepped
toward
Allison and Mitchell, awkwardly
holding out the elephant. Allison held her breath. Mitchell looked
unblinkingly at his father and then buried his face in Allison’s
neck.

“
This...
this is your daddy,
Mitchell,” she said, her voice shaking. How she’d longed for this
moment. Prayed for it.

From the safety of her arms Mitchell stared
at Peter. “No,” he said.

Allison
laughed nervously. “He is your daddy, sweetie.”

Mitchell’s
bottom lip curled mutinously. “Want Joe. Want Joe
daddy.”

Peter’s face
didn’t give away what he was feeling, although his lips tightened.
He thrust the elephant at his son. “This is for you,
Mitchell.”

Mitchell
burst into tears and
started wailing.

“You’ve frightened him. The toy is so big,”
said Allison. She felt overwhelmed with disappointment at
Mitchell’s rejection of his father, and sadness at his unwavering
love for Joe, the man who didn’t want to be a father to him.

“
I’m sorry
Peter, he’s shy with strangers,” she said, raising her voice to be
heard above Mitchell’s crying. She patted her son on the back.
“Come on, baby, it’s okay.” Mitchell’s sobs subsided.

“Who the hell is Joe?” Peter asked at the
same time his eyes lit on the leather jacket laid out on the
folding bed. Allison had slept with it clutched to her breast.

“I get the picture,” he said, answering his
own question. “Joe’s the guy you were with last night. Someone told
me he was Mitchell’s nanny.”

She nodded.
“Mitchell...
he’s very fond of
him.”

Peter’s eyes
narrowed. “T
hat’s going to change. I’ll
damn well make Mitchell fond of me,” he said, dumping the elephant
in the cot.

“
That’s not
how it works with kids,” Allison protested. She felt sorry for
Peter but at the same time remembered, with a shudder, his ruthless
competitiveness. “You have to earn their love.” And yet it had been
love at first sight for Mitchell with Joe.

“
You can try
again to make friends with him after I’ve changed his diaper. It’s
very wet.”

Peter looked so revolted at her words that
she laughed. “Want to help?” she asked.

He wrinkled
his nose fastidiously. “I think that’s my cue to go.”

Allison
wanted to laugh again, but she sobered at the memory of how Joe
looked after Mitchell: changing diapers, mopping up messes,
sponging his feverish little face.

Peter didn’t
fit in a nursery. He seemed all wrong here. All wrong in her house,
which had been stamped with the warm, generous presence of
Joe.

“I’ll walk you down to the door,” she said.
She might be beginning to believe Peter had changed, but she didn’t
want him alone in her house, checking out her possessions with
those calculating eyes.

“
What about
the...uh
...” Peter eyed the offending
diaper.

“
That can
wait for a few minutes.”

“
Good,” he
said, not hiding his relief.

She picked
up the elephant and brought it with her, balancing it on the other
hip from Mitchell. Maybe Mitchell would show some interest in the
toy before Peter went.

At the front
doorway Peter turned to her. Allison thought he was going to kiss
her and she stepped back from him. But he didn’t.

“
Don’t
forget, Allison, I want you to think about us getting back
together. For Mitchell’s sake.”

“Don’t try and force me into decisions just
yet, Peter. I need time to think about this,” she said, wanting him
out of her house.

Peter didn’t
try and prolong the discussion. He turned and left. It wasn’t until
he was halfway down the pathway that Allison realized he hadn’t
said goodbye to Mitchell.

J
oe stopped in his tracks as he
saw Allison’s ex-husband Peter letting himself out of her front
gate. He could scarcely believe what he was seeing. A sick feeling
of anger and betrayal churned through him. So that’s why Allison
wanted to finish things with him—she’d decided to go back to hubby.
Yet she’d told him she never saw Peter.

But women
could so easily lie about things like that.

Joe’s hands
clenched into fists. He’d thought Allison was different.

Allison was
halfway up the stairs with Mitchell when she heard a knock on the
door. Had Peter forgotten something? She was tempted not to
answer.

Peter wanted
her to think. Well, he’d given her plenty to think about. But she
didn’t want him around while she was trying to puzzle out his
strange reversal of attitude. She wanted to believe, for Mitchell’s
sake, Peter had changed. But, after all she’d been through with
him, she found it difficult to trust him.

Her heart
leaped
when she opened the door and saw
it was Joe, holding his helmet by his side like the day she’d first
met him. Black jeans and a black T-shirt outlined every muscle. He
hadn’t shaved, and the dark growth shadowing his jaw made him look
unbearably sensual. Allison couldn’t suppress a shiver of
desire.

“Joe!” she said, and was echoed by
Mitchell’s joyous cry.

“
Come in,”
she said.
“I’m so glad you’re here. Last
night, I—”

“
Hello,
Tiger,” said Joe gruffly, ruffling Mitchell’s hair. Mitchell
gurgled in delight.

“
How is he?”
Joe asked,
without looking at
her.

“Good. Better. He’s even over the cough that
brought on the fever.”

They were
talking like polite strangers. Joe made no move to kiss her.
Allison was disappointed—until she remembered what she’d said to
him last night. Why would he want to kiss her?

But she wanted to kiss him.

She saw
Joe’s gaze go to the toy elephant, where she’d put it on the
sofa.

“
Did Peter
bring that?” he asked, his voice grim.

“
How did
you—
?”

“I saw him leaving,” he said. “I thought you
had nothing to do with him.”

“I don’t.”

“
So how did
he hear Mitchell was sick?”

“He didn’t.” She couldn’t think of anything
else to say.

“
He just
came? A guy who doesn’t give a damn about his child appears on the
doorstep with an expensive toy?”

“
That’s
right.
It was a surprise.”

“I bet it was.”

Allison was stunned at the cold set of his
face. Mitchell looked from her to him and back again, sensing the
hostility from his beloved Joe. His face puckered up.

“
Please,
you’re upsetting Mitchell.”

Joe’s face softened. “Sorry, little
guy.”

“
Mitchell
needs a diaper change and he’s hungry. If you...if we...want to
talk we’ll have to look after him first.”

“Let’s do it then,” he said, without meeting
her eyes.

What a
contrast to Peter who wanted to run a mile at the sight of a wet
diaper. And yet Peter wanted to be a father to Mitchell; Joe did
not.

She took
Mitchell upstairs to change his diaper. When she came down, she
found Joe had prepared toast and a beaker of milk. He was tapping
the beaker on the benchtop. The milk was threatening to spill over
but he didn’t seem to notice.

“
I’ll put
Mitchell in his playpen and let him watch
Sesame Street
while he eats
his toast,” she said, her words stilted.

Mitchell was
happily distracted. Allison turned back to Joe, dreading his harsh
expression. Her mouth was dry and her stomach churned. The tension
between them was palpable.

“So what did Peter want?” Joe asked, an
unfamiliar hard edge to his voice.

“He wants to be a father to Mitchell.”

“That’s what you want.” It was a statement,
not a question.

“Yes. You know that.”

Joe’s mouth was a grim line and a nerve
flickered at the edge. “And what about you? Does he want you back,
too?”

Reluctantly, she nodded.

“How can you look so cool about it?” Joe
looked anything but cool.

“
Cool? I’m
still in shock. I didn’t expect it.”

“
Didn’t you?
Did he take you in his arms? Did he kiss you?”

Before she
realized his intent, Joe had pulled her to him. She resisted. She
didn’t want this now. Not like this.

Then his
mouth came down on hers—hard and possessive and demanding. She
couldn’t stop her response. Her nipples tingled and hardened and
she longed to press her body wantonly against him.

She fought
her own desire; struggled from his grasp, her breath coming in
short gasps, her heart pounding against her ribs.

“
Stop it! I
don’t want you...
touching me.”

His eyes
were dark with passion and something more, an anger that made her
shiver at its intensity.

“Since when?”

She
knew
he was remembering last night, the
hot kisses, the thrilling caresses, and the mind-blowing sex. Sex
like she’d never before experienced.

Her heart
contracted with pain. “Since...since I decided Mitchell having a
father is more important than anything else. Peter is his father.
And—”

“And?”

“
And I told
Peter I...
I’d think things
over.”

Joe’s eyes
hardened
.

“Tell me that again?”

She started
to shake at the contempt in his voice. “I said, I—”

“
You’re
going to consider going
back to a man who abandoned you when you were pregnant with his
baby? A jerk who has had nothing to do with you or his
son?”

She quailed at the force of Joe’s
animosity.

“
I didn’t
say I was going back to him—only that he asked me to consider it. I
don’t love him. He didn’t kiss me. But Peter is Mitchell’s father.
You know I’ll give him access to him. He wants to change. Said he’s
made a mistake.”

Surely Joe
realized how desperately she wanted Mitchell to know his family,
his roots. He had Bill and Nancy now, but grandparents had a
different role to a father. And would Mitchell accept Peter while
Joe was still part of his life? “Peter wants to be a father to
Mitchell.”

“
What kind
of a father do you think he’d make? Look at his track
record.”

Secretly,
Allison agreed with him. Joe wasn’t the same type of man as her
adoptive father—the care he showed Mitchell proved that. Joe would
make a far better father to Mitchell than Peter would, in spite of
the fact he’d had nothing to do with his conception. But Joe didn’t
want to take on another man’s child. And Peter had said he would
change. She had to think of what was best for Mitchell.

“Peter says that’s in the past now. He’s a
gambler but swears he’s got over that. He wants to spend time with
Mitchell. He wants to try.”

Shakily, she
spoke those words out loud but inside she screamed:
Tell me now you do, too, Joe. Tell
me you love me and you love my baby. That you want to be a father
to Mitchell. Please.

But Joe just
uttered an ugly expletive. “And you believed him?”

“Peter is Mitchell’s flesh and blood.”

“
He doesn’t
have the right—
”

“
And you do?
What gives you the right to criticize me? You’ve made your views on
step-parenting clear.”

Her voice
broke and it was a struggle to keep it even. She still hadn’t had
time to think about Peter’s proposition, to explore her own doubts.
She didn’t want to be with Peter, but she might have to establish
some kind of platonic relationship with him for Mitchell’s
sake.