Transference (10 page)

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Allison closed the door without a sound and crept across the room to the bed. It had been nearly an hour since Brad left. For the first half hour, she'd sat on the porch, just in case he came back. He wasn't coming back though. She knew that.

She accepted that.
 

Her life was in Costa Rica now. With Adam. And Brad's baby.

While it was too soon to really be sure, Allison knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was pregnant. She'd been pregnant once before, in college, but had lost it before getting to tell anyone the news. The way she felt right now was just the way she felt then. Ironically enough, the father back then had taken the news of the loss with the same level of stoicism as Brad.

Adam stirred when she curled against him. "Everything all right?"

"Yeah. Markenson left. I told him goodbye and then spent some time stargazing. They're clear out here."

"If I'd known I would have come out with you." He reached over to stroke her face. "Are you crying? What's wrong?"

She took in a hasty breath and started talking before she knew what to say. "It wasn't so long ago that that man nearly killed me and now..." Not the direction she needed to take this conversation if she'd be able to do what needed to be done tonight. "He's the reason I'm here with you. It's just a lot to process. You know?"

"I know." He gathered her into his arms, making her feel safe in ways so similar yet so different from Brad. "You can take all the time you need to adjust to things here." He hesitated. "I was thinking we could go out tomorrow night, just the two of us. There are so many things we need to discuss."

"Like why we're even in Costa Rica?"

"They don't extradite their citizens."

"How you came up with a million bucks to pay for my rescue?"

"A very long story that involves a government bailout, of sorts."

"Hmm. You do still owe me dinner." Despite all the time they'd spent together while on the run, they'd never truly been alone before.

"There is that."

How was it possible to feel so comfortable lying in bed, in Adam's arms, bantering with him so soon after losing Brad? It didn't feel right, but it was still the most natural thing in the world. Could her heart actually belong to two men at the same time?

Though she didn't remember doing it, Allison was the one to make the first move. The skin of Adam's lean muscled torso was warm against her fingertips. "I think you owe me a lot more than just dinner, Barrows."

His hands skimmed her waist, just under the hem of her nightshirt. "We don't have to rush this."

Yeah, they really did. "I don't want to waste any more time than we already have." Her heart was pounding all the way to her ears. "Make love to me, Adam."

Wordlessly, Adam coaxed her to sit up and lifted her shirt over her head to discard it to the floor. His hot gaze swept over her nearly nude form before returning to meet her eyes. He reached out to tangle his hand into her tousled auburn hair. "I've wanted you for so long that I've lost count of how many times I've thought about this moment." He let his lips hover just out of her reach. "I love you."

Allison was undone.
 

The words she would have given anything earlier to hear – to be able to say – Adam gave freely. So much tenderness was mixed with the desire in his steel green eyes. It simultaneously made her want to be honest with him and forever hide the truth. Whatever bad he'd done by her in the past was replaced with the knowledge that he would never again hurt her. With Adam Barrows, she would be safe and loved for the rest of her life.

She just had to trade her love for Brad – and her very soul – to have him.

Without waiting for her to return his declaration, Adam laid her back onto the bed. This should have been an intensely romantic moment, but her brain wouldn't let her enjoy it. Pulling her mind here and tossing it there, Allison was plagued by the gravity of all that had transpired.

The feel of the sheets transported her back to that first angry night in bed with Brad and she could all but feel the cheap material bunching in her fists. Adam's lips trailing down her heated skin until they came to a lengthy stop at her core made the memory of Brad's stubble scratching against the sensitive skin on the inside of her thigh come alive.
 

How could the feel of Adam thrusting inside her be so satisfying and so unfulfilling at the same time? It wasn't fair. The man quite clearly knew exactly what he was doing so she should be wild with boundless ecstasy, not held captive by her thoughts.
 

Did she want to be biting back Brad's name each time she thought she'd fly apart with the sensations building inside? No. Allison didn't want to have anything clouding her eyes when Adam looked at her so she buried her face against his neck, praying for a clear head so that she could enjoy this moment alone, without Brad being in the bed with them.

But he was there, whispering about how there wouldn't be a single thought in her head, how she wouldn't even be capable of thought, if he were the one inside her. She could nearly see the smugness in his smile as he told her she would have come already if he were running this show; that her throat would have been so hoarse from screaming his name that the whole house would be awake and beating on the door to make sure she was all right.

The kicker of it all was that he was right. About all of it.

By now she would have been swimming in contented oblivion with Brad; he would have seen to that. In bed, he showed her no mercy, forcing her over the edge – again and again – leaving her no choice other than to be swept away to the places he wanted her to go. An orgasm from Brad Markenson was like being thrown off a cliff into a bottomless pit, only to find that there was a bottom and then being thrown off that.
 

Adam, on the other hand, was gently coaxing her to completion, vocal in his own enjoyment. He was unhurried in his rhythm, seemingly content to go on just like that until the sun broke across the endless Central American sky. When the climax finally spread through her, it was like being a leaf caught in a lazy summer breeze, drifting, lost.

She felt his arms pulling her into his embrace at some point later and she rested her head on his chest. There was something calming about the sounds of his heartbeat and breathing beginning to slow back to normal. On some level, she knew the silence had gone on for far longer than was good. She should say something, but there was nothing for her to say.

Kissing her on the top of her head, he whispered, "I could do that every night for the rest of my life and die a happy man."

"Well..." She wet her suddenly dry lips. "Maybe you should plan on that."

His fingers trailed down her spine in unhurried movements. "You'd just get tired of me."

"Never."

There was a hint of a smile in his voice. "Promise?"

"Yeah." She propped herself up to face him. "Promise."

"I love you, Allison."

She let her smile travel freely over her lips. "I love you, too, Adam."

Goodbye, Brad.

EPILOGUE

"ALLISON, ARE YOU okay in there?"

The sound of her tears was unmistakable. "I'm fine, Adam. I'll be out in a few minutes."

After spending the last nineteen years with her, Adam didn't pretend to have a clue what was really going on when his wife was like this. At least her tears had a reason this time. It wasn't every day you had to say goodnight to your son knowing that in the morning he'd get in his car to drive off to college.
 

It certainly hadn't helped matters that he'd chosen to go out with his friends instead of spending his last night at home with his parents.

Leaving his vigil outside the bathroom door, Adam flipped on the light to Mark's room and sat on the bed. All around were the various academic accolades and sports trophies he'd earned over the years. While the idea of his son leaving in the morning to go off on his own into the world was coated with sorrow, he knew that it was time for him to finally stretch his wings to become the man he was meant to be.

And since everything had finally come unraveled six years after they went into hiding, they'd been able to bring Mark back to the US, allowing him to have all the academic and career opportunities he could want spread before him.

Adam could still remember the first time he'd held his son in his arms. He was born a little prematurely, but he was a fighter, like his mother, right from the start. Never in his wildest imagination had he thought Allison would get pregnant from their first night together in Costa Rica – and it would have to be that night since he'd been more diligent about using protection after that. Right up until the point she told him she was pregnant. But he wouldn't change it for anything. He wouldn't wish for more time married to Allison before starting their family if it meant not having that amazing young man in his life, filling him with boundless love while continually surprising him with his caring heart.

In truth, Adam couldn't be more proud of him if he were really his son.

Never once, in all the years they'd been together, had he doubted Allison's love for him. Nothing would ever change the way he felt about the child he'd raised as his own. But the nights like this, the nights when Allison was inconsolable and chose to lock herself away from him...

He knew.

It wasn't as though Allison was particularly good at hiding things. Her insistence at naming the baby Mark after some obscure family member was flimsy at best. The Internet searches logged in their computer's history were telling. Eli's cool attitude towards Allison after her first night in Costa Rica spoke volumes since his brother was all about family.

But what was perhaps the biggest clue was the fact that after nineteen years of making love to his wife, they'd never conceived another child. So many times he'd considered getting himself tested to determine if he were the reason they couldn't have another child. He didn't though. Finding out would only confirm what he knew.
 

And he truly didn't want to know. Not for a fact anyway. Finding out he was sterile would break his heart – not because he would know he'd been lied to - but because he would have his son ripped away from him.

He couldn't cope with that any better than he could the knowledge that he'd raised Brad Markenson's son as his own.

Out of curiosity, he'd asked his sister-in-law to use her connections to track him down four years ago. Even being out of the business for nearly a decade, Jane was still capable of getting her hands on anything. On this one it had taken all of her skills since Markenson had spent years crisscrossing the globe, taking jobs with militant forces here and engaging in guerrilla warfare there. There'd even been a minor incident involving a sniper's bullet killing Vice President Stafford as she was on a goodwill trip to the Middle East during her presidential bid that could never be tied to him. He'd apparently been busy right up until the moment a car bomb took him out in Argentina.

His wife and three kids were devastated.

Even though Allison still googled him, searching for his whereabouts each and every summer, Adam never told her about Brad's death. He wasn't strong enough to watch his wife fall to pieces over a man she claimed to hate. Knowing the tears were over him would be the final straw and then he'd have to let himself acknowledge that his life was built on a series of lies – lies he'd let her spin right from the beginning for his benefit.

A shadow fell over him as Allison crossed in front of the lamp and sat beside him. "I'm sorry, Adam."

You should be, he wanted to say.
 

At times, he wanted to lash out at her and tell her he knew everything, that Brad was dead, just to hurt her. But he didn't. And he never would. He loved her too much to hurt her that way.

"I know, honey." He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. "Everything's going to be all right. I promise."

And after six thousand, nine hundred and thirty-five days with Brad Markenson's memory hanging between them, perhaps one day things really would be all right.

THE END

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For Farah Evers

In addition to being an amazing graphic artist, you're also a great friend. Thanks for creating a cover that made perfect visual sense of this story.

Sydney Katt has been writing books for as long as she could string words into sentences. Today, her books are more complex and feature romance, murder and mayhem, all subjects her grade school teachers frowned upon.

Happily married since before the beginning of time, Sydney and her husband live in the Dallas area, where three demanding cats rule their lives. When they aren't slaying video game dragons, the five of them keep a watchful eye for the first signs of the zombie apocalypse.

For more information about Sydney's adventures in Dallas, new book projects and upcoming releases, visit
www.authorsydneykatt.com
if you dare.