Storybook Dad (Harlequin American Romance) (9 page)

Chapter Nine

It was a full ten minutes or so before Mark opened his
eyes, the fleeting confusion in his face at her empty spot in the bed giving way
to a smile that warmed her the moment he spotted her standing in the bedroom
doorway, wrapped in a bath towel, watching him.

The thin cotton sheet slipped from his chest as he rose on his
elbow to give her a more thorough and appreciative once-over. “How long have you
been standing there?”

She held her hand to the opening of her towel and picked her
way across the clothes-littered floor, her other hand clutching the skirt and
halter top she’d rescued from the hallway. “Not long. I—I took a shower in your
guest bathroom. I hope that was okay. I got up about an hour ago and did some
exercises that made me a little sweaty.”

She could feel his gaze as she bent to retrieve her panties.
“Exercises?”

“Uh-huh. Sit-ups, push-ups, that sort of thing.”

“Naked?”

The huskiness of his voice warmed her face, rendering her
unable to answer with anything more than a nod.

“Wow.” He dropped onto his back and laced his fingers behind
his head, a mischievous smile playing across his lips. “I’m getting worked up
just thinking about that.”

She glanced at the part of his body still covered by the sheet,
the sudden elevation of the fabric just below his waist confirming his words.
She swallowed.

Mark patted her side of the mattress. “Get back in here. I miss
you.”

“But my hair’s all wet,” she protested.

“Get back in here.”

She set her recovered clothing on his dresser and made her way
around the edge of the bed. “If you’re sure.”

He rose on his elbow a second time, the sheet slipping farther
down his well-toned body. “Oh, I’m sure. Trust me. But lose the towel,
okay?”

She paused, a sudden burst of self-consciousness making her
apprehensive about granting his wish.

“Oh, no, don’t go getting all shy on me now. Your body is
exquisite.”

Slowly, she peeled away the soft blue towel and slipped into
bed beside him, where he coaxed her onto her side and pulled her back against
his chest. She snuggled there, keenly aware of his still-hard length pressed to
the base of her back. “It might not always be that way, you know,” she murmured
in a voice that was suddenly sleepy.

He kissed the top of her wet head a few times. “What?”

“My body. It could change in lots of ways.”

The pressure of his lips ceased temporarily. “You’ve got a long
way to go until you’re old enough to worry about body changes. And even then, I
suspect those worries will pass you by, with good reason.”

She rolled over and planted a kiss on the tip of his chin. At
his happy moan, she kissed him one more time and then looked up at the ceiling.
“I’m not talking about age-related changes, silly. I’m talking about
disease-related changes.”

At his silence, she continued, transported back to countless
nights and mornings over the past few months when this exact topic had played
its way through her thoughts. With no one next to her to hear her fears.

“There are the obvious ones, of course, that most people think
of when they hear the words multiple sclerosis. You know, wheelchairs, walkers,
a funny lilt to your walk, that sort of thing. Then there’s the chance that I
could wake up one day and be temporarily blind, or unable to feel my legs or my
arms or even both.”

On a roll, she kept talking, the need to say everything out
loud far stronger than she’d realized. “Sure, I know the meds I’m taking three
times a week are designed to help stave off the disease as long as possible, and
I’m grateful for them. But even those bring their fair share of issues. When I
have to take a shot, I try to do it just before bed so I can sleep off the
flulike effects. And if I don’t get enough sleep on those nights, I pay for it
with aches and pains in the morning. If I fail to take it before bedtime, as was
the case last night, then I have to take it in the morning and basically deal
with feeling lousy all day.”

She drew a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “And then
there’s the bruising and stuff at the shot site.” Shifting ever so slightly, she
guided his gaze to the back of her arm, her abdomen, her hip and upper thigh,
tapping a small red spot some eight inches above her knee. “You might not be
able to see the marks a whole lot right now, unless I just took one, like I did
before my shower. But over time, after months and years of injecting myself in
the same places again and again? Well, they’ll be impossible to miss regardless
of how toned I might—”

A quick, yet persistent buzz cut her off midsentence.

Mark rolled to his left and reached toward the nightstand,
retrieving his cell phone from beside the lamp. He looked at the display screen
and sat up, flipping the phone open. “Good morning, little man. How’d you
sleep?”

For the briefest of moments, Mark’s lack of response to what
Emily had shared stung ever so slightly. She’d kept everything to herself for so
long it had felt good to know someone else was listening. To go from that to a
phone call without so much as a squeeze or nod of acknowledgment was
disconcerting.

Then again, he hadn’t asked for the phone call to come at that
exact moment, and it was Seth, after all. The same little boy who’d managed to
grab hold of her heart with barely more than a smile. Yes, Seth Reynolds was a
sweet boy, of that she was sure. She’d seen it in his devotion to his sand
castle and the careful thought he’d given to the life he’d have inside its walls
if he were truly a prince. She’d seen it in the way he’d listened so intently to
his father’s inquiries about her job and her clients while they ate,
interjecting a few well-thought-out questions of his own on occasion. She’d seen
it in the way he’d hopped down from his chair to retrieve a slip of paper a
passing patron had dropped on the ground. She’d seen it in the way he’d shared
tales about summer camp and his favorite times with Mark. And she’d seen it in
his eyes when she’d first told Mark about her diagnosis.

Kids like Seth didn’t become that way all by themselves. They
were shown how by someone who was like that, too.

Stealing a glance in Mark’s direction, she felt a warmth spread
throughout her body that had absolutely nothing to do with physical desire and
everything to do with genuine affection and admiration.

Maybe she really could frame that final drawing one day....

Maybe there really was a prince who could love his princess no
matter what....

Content for the first time in a very long time, she rolled onto
her side and drifted off to sleep, the sound of Mark’s voice as he spoke to his
son the best lullaby and postinjection anti-ache ointment she could ever
imagine.

* * *

“S
O
TELL
ME
WHAT
YOU
DID
with Gam last
night. Did you get pizza?”

“Yupper doodle! And ice cream, too.”

Mark closed his eyes at the happiness in his son’s sweet voice,
allowing it to soak into every pore of his being, and feeling his shoulders and
neck muscles relax as it did. He was grateful for the result, but perplexed by
the need.

He’d had an amazing time with Emily last night. She’d been both
fun and funny at the barbecue, patient and encouraging on the climbing walls,
and beyond his wildest expectations in his bed. They’d made love several times
throughout the night, her enthusiasm and passion elevating the encounter into
the best-ever category. And even when he’d awakened to find her watching him,
he’d been happy. Truly happy.

Yet here he was, sitting inches from her sheet-covered body,
and feeling the tension roll in all over again. It was subtle in nature,
residing primarily in his upper body and temples, but it was present,
nonetheless.

“And you wanna know what else we did, Daddy?”

Why on earth was he tense? It made no sense at all.

“Daddy?”

Mark shifted his focus from Emily to the dresser on the
opposite wall. There, beside the pile of clothes she had placed on top, was the
picture of Seth and Sally that greeted him each morning. It had been taken on
their last outing together before the cancer had confined his wife to bed. Their
smiles, so like one another’s, still brought one to Mark’s lips, too. Yet today,
unlike all the other times he’d looked at that same picture and experienced the
same reaction, the joy was fleeting.

Because there, on his son’s face, was something he’d overlooked
each of the other thousand or so times he’d stared at that photo.

Seth’s mouth might have been smiling—a by-product, no doubt, of
having spent a special day with his beloved mom—but his eyes weren’t. In them
there was sadness—the kind of sadness only those who’d witnessed the suffering
of a loved one could ever truly understand.

Mark swiped at the tears he felt forming, and willed himself to
concentrate.

“Daddy? Are you still there?”

He tightened his jaw in determination. “I’m here, Seth.”

Focus…

“Gam and me had
two
whole bowls of
ice cream!”

There were so many things Mark wished he could go back and
change from the moment Sally had received her diagnosis. Things about himself
and the way he’d handled the situation that still haunted him six months after
her passing. But of all the mistakes he’d made, all the regrets that had him
pacing his bedroom at all hours of the night, the one he shed the most tears
over was the one that concerned his son.

Or, rather, the way he’d let his son down during the most
difficult time of the little boy’s life.

“Did you hear me, Daddy?”

Focus, damn it…

“I’m sorry, little man. Can you say it again?”

“Gam and me had
two whole
bowls of
ice cream! With whipped cream
and
candy pieces on
top!”

“You mean one for her and one for you?” he asked.

“No! Two for each of us! And you know what else? Gam’s new
frigerfrator came and it was in a great big box!”

Mark resisted the urge to correct his son’s pronunciation of
refrigerator and addressed his enthusiasm, instead. “Sounds to me like you’re
more excited about the box than you are about her refrigerator.”

“It’s really, really big, Daddy. Bigger than me, and even
bigger than
Gam
if she could stand up.”

Closing his eyes, he imagined the smile that accompanied his
son’s words. He’d taken Seth’s smiles for granted once. Now he knew better.
“Wow. That must be a really big box.”

“It is! And you know what? Gam said we can get out my crayons
and turn it into a castle that I can actually go inside!”

Before Mark could weigh in, Seth chattered on. “And then guess
what, Daddy? Guess what she told me?”

“What?”

“She said we can keep it in the playroom for as long as I
want!”

He made a mental note to have some flowers on hand when his
mother dropped Seth off that evening. Maybe even a box of candy, too.

“I love you, Seth,” he whispered. “You know that, right?”

“Yupper doodle! And I love you, too, Daddy. Bunches and bunches
and
bunches!
”

Long after his son had hung up, Mark held the phone to his ear,
his focus trained on the photograph of Seth and Sally and the haunted look he
was slowly but surely trying to eradicate from his son’s deep blue eyes.

A warm hand on his bare back made him jump, and he snapped the
phone closed.

“Everything okay with Seth?” Emily asked in a voice thick with
sleep.

“Yeah.” He propped his pillow against the headboard and
reclined against it with a quiet sigh.

Emily rolled onto her side and smiled up at him. “So did he
have some more pepperoni pizza?”

“Uh—what?”

Her smile faltered a smidge as he turned his head and met her
gaze. “Seth. Did he have pizza last night?”

“I think so. I don’t really remember.”

Glancing back at the picture of Sally and Seth, he sighed
again, this time more loudly and with a hint of impatience that made Emily sit
up, his sheets drawn around her chest.

“Is there a problem with Seth?”

He looked from the image of Sally to the one of Seth in her
arms, the hurt and loss of innocence in his son’s eyes clawing at Mark’s insides
in a way he simply couldn’t ignore.

And in that instant, he knew what had been nagging at his
subconscious.

The tension he’d been feeling when Seth’s call came in wasn’t a
coincidence. It was a warning bell. One he needed to heed before it was too
late. He owed him that much.

Emily’s hand closed on his and squeezed. “Mark? Is there a
problem with Seth?”

“No.” He cast about for the best way to remove the Band-Aid her
presence had placed across his heart, and finally settled on the tried-and-true
yank method that got it all over in one shot. “There’s a problem with
us,
Emily.”

“Us?” she echoed, all sleepiness slipping from her voice in
favor of confusion. “I don’t understand. What’s wrong?”

He bit back the urge to halt the conversation and pull her into
his arms before he ruined everything, because he had to say it. “I can’t do
this.”

“Do what?”

He forced himself to meet her eyes. “This. You know, with us.”
He moved his hand back and forth between them. “Seth deserves…
better
.”

A wave of self-loathing washed over him as his words hit their
mark, but it was short-lived. His responsibility, his duty, was to Seth. It had
to be.

“Better?” she echoed in confusion. “Mark, I don’t understand
what you’re saying. Please tell me what’s going on. Everything was fine five
minutes ago.”

“No. It wasn’t.”

“Yes, it was. And you know that as well as I do.”