When Lightning Strikes Twice (10 page)

Rachel felt something that had been dormant within her all her life stirring, blossoming, unleashing tendrils of heat that streaked through her. She could almost feel her common
sense abandon her as if melted by the fiery, deliciously erotic sensations surging through her.

She had never felt this way before, and she didn’t know how to fight against it. She didn’t even know if she wanted to.

Quint used his other hand to turn her toward him, bringing her fully against the long hard length of his body. She leaned her forehead against his chest, feeling helpless and weak as he smoothed his hands over her in slow, sexually explicit caresses. As if of their own volition, her arms slipped around his waist and she held him.

He lowered his head to nibble sensuously along the graceful, almost painfully sensitive curve of her neck. “Not now,” he whispered, nipping her skin with his teeth, then soothing it with his tongue.

She shivered and clung to him more tightly, arching her neck to give him greater access.

“Later, baby,” he said raspily, and reluctantly but firmly removed himself from her embrace.

Rachel, who’d never been drunk in her life, experienced intoxication of a purely sexual kind. She couldn’t have walked a straight line; she was so shaky, she could barely walk at all. Her head spun, but the dizziness was pleasurable. Exceedingly so.

Quint kept his arms around her, half-walking, half-carrying her toward the bathroom.

She had never been handled in such a proprietary manner, but instead of aversion, she felt exhilarated. And unnerved. How could Quint Cormack, of all men, make her feel this way? Even more disturbing, she strongly suspected that
only
Quint Cormack could make her feel this way.

They arrived on the threshold of the bathroom. Brady was ambitiously removing his clothes. He’d managed to discard his sunsuit, socks, and shoes but was tugging at the adhesive tabs of his disposable diaper.

“Off,” he insisted.

“What on earth are you wearing, Brady?” Quint released
Rachel to kneel in front of his son. “There are pink bunnies on this diaper.”

Rachel swayed and propped herself against the door-jamb. Freed from the overpowering sensual effects of Quint’s touch, she found herself able to think again, though it was slow going. Her thoughts were muddled and fuzzy, and she had to concentrate to string them together in a coherent fashion.

“I didn’t have any diapers for him, so I used ones that belonged to my niece.” Her voice was thick and quavering, and Rachel winced at the sound of it. “Snowy is potty-trained but Laurel, my sister, still had a box of diapers on hand.”

“Brady’s diapers have trains or planes or firetrucks printed on them,” Quint grumbled as he pulled the offending diaper from the child.

“Bunny,” Brady exclaimed, pointing to one of the adorable pink figures.

“Never again,” promised Quint. He reached over and turned on the taps. Water rushed to fill the big white bathtub. “Barbie dolls and pink bunnies,” he muttered under his breath. “Brady is a boy, Rachel.”

“He is only two years old.” Rachel looked from the toddler’s childish form to his father, that all-masculine hunk of strength and muscle. It was impossible to believe that sweet, lovable little Brady would grow into a man like his father.

Rachel swallowed hard. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t. There weren’t too many men like his father around, or if there were, she hadn’t been aware of them.

Her eyes grew larger and rounder as she stared at Quinton Cormack. She took notice of the breadth of his chest and the hard bare muscles of his arms revealed by his navy T-shirt.

Her gaze compulsively lowered to study the jeans he was wearing and the way the well-worn denim conformed to his powerful thighs. To the straining bulge pressing against the metal-buttoned fly. He made no attempt to conceal his
erection, not even when he caught her gaping directly at it.

He arched his dark brows at her, but instead of triggering her temper—her usual reaction to that particular gesture—it sparked an entirely different response. A sharp piercing stab deep in her abdomen that she felt again and again.

“I said later.” Quint read the hunger in her eyes and smiled a seductive promise. “After we bathe Brady and put him to bed. Come here,” he ordered, moving to make room for her alongside the tub.

Rachel froze. Memories of her behavior in the hall a few minutes ago swamped her. She had been clingy and dependent and now he fully expected her to jump to his command.

And take her to bed? That was what he meant by “later,” wasn’t it?

She quivered. He had called her “baby,” a term as sexist and condescending as “sweetie” which she’d expressly forbidden him to use earlier today. Except hearing him call her “baby” didn’t infuriate her
as it should
It made her feel sexy and desirable. Rachel was horrified.

What next? she wondered. Was she on the verge of turning into one of those addle-brained women who fantasized to gooey romantic songs? Who cried whenever the man in her life spoke sharply to her or ignored her? Her sister Laurel was like that, a romantic daydreamer whose state of mind at any given moment was dependent upon the whims of the man she loved.

Laurel had completely bought into their mother’s belief that life for a woman without a man was useless misery, that men are stronger and smarter, and women should always acknowledge a man’s superiority in all areas. Even if it wasn’t true!

Rachel had rebelled against that doctrine early on. By third grade she’d discovered that her aunt Eve believed that women were equal to men in every way, that it was quite possible for a woman who had a man to lead a miserable life while an unattached woman could be blissfully happy on her own.

Rachel eagerly signed on for Aunt Eve’s particular brand of feminism. She aspired to her aunt’s cool independence and sharp tongue, she tried to emulate Eve’s aura of confidence. She would not be a fool over some man!

She had been successful in her goals. Until tonight, when Quint Cormack single-handedly shattered her illusions about herself. Rachel did not feel so cool and sharp and confident right now. And she had a sinking feeling that she could be a world-class fool over Quint Cormack.

“I have to go. I—oh!” Rachel’s voice ended with a gasp as Quint’s arm snaked out and he fastened his fingers around her ankle.

“You promised Brady you would give him a bath,” Quint reminded her. With his free arm, he scooped up the little boy and deposited him into the half-filled tub.

Brady squealed with delight and began to splash. A flotilla of toys were bobbing up and down in the water.

“You have the situation well in hand,” Rachel said tersely. “Let me go.”

“No.”

The flat, unnegotiable reply inflamed her. “You can’t keep me here!”

“You don’t think so?” he challenged. “Just watch me.”

Quint turned his attention to his son, soaping him with one hand, talking to him, listening to the two-year-old chatter, all the while imprisoning her with his manacle of a hand around her ankle.

For a few minutes Rachel was too stunned to react, let alone rebel. Never before had anyone physically restrained her! It was outrageous, unbelievable. She tried to imagine what Aunt Eve would do in this situation.

Press charges? However, she would have to escape first.

Rachel gave her leg a tentative tug. Quint’s grip tightened. The harder she pulled, the tighter his hand clamped. It was like one of those dreadful Chinese cylinder puzzles Wade had tormented her with when they were kids. Driven mindless with rage, she would invariably try to yank her finger out of the straw tube which would only make the
sides tighten more. Wade would howl with laughter while she shrieked with frustration.

Quint Cormack would undoubtedly behave the same way were she to resort to yanking and furious yells. Rachel glared balefully at him. How could the man who was so lovingly and competently tending to his child hold her prisoner like this?

“I can kick you with my other foot, you know,” she threatened triumphantly, when the idea finally struck. “My sandal might not be as forceful as, say, a jackboot, but I can still inflict some damage.”

Quint remained undaunted. “If you try it, you’ll hit the ground hard because I’ll pull this leg out from under you.” He squeezed her ankle as he gave her a smug smile.

“Mommy, bath!” squealed Brady. He held up a plastic tugboat. “Boat. Pay boat.”

“He wants you to play with the boat with him,” Quint translated.

“I know. He communicates very well, and I have no trouble understanding him. I spent the day with him, remember?” Even to herself, she sounded like a prissy scold. Rachel winced.

“Come here, Rachel.”

She told herself that this time he sounded as if he were making a reasonable request, not ordering her around. She reminded herself that she’d made a promise to little Brady, and she was not the type to disappoint small children. With Quint’s hand still shackled around her ankle, Rachel inched her way to the edge of the tub and knelt beside him.

Quint immediately released her. She felt his hand glide over her, from her ankle to the nape of her neck, before he removed it. Rachel tried to ignore the glowing warmth that surged through her. She pretended to be oblivious to Quint’s presence as she leaned over the tub and grasped a bright orange toy boat. She bumped it against Brady’s red, white, and blue tug.

“Crash!” Rachel and Brady chorused together.

She laughed. She’d learned from watching him play today
that Brady considered toy collisions hilarious and exciting.

At his demand, she played boat crash with him over and over and over again.

Quint watched them. “I’m curious as to how Sarah and my car ended up on the Garden State Parkway,” he remarked after a while.

“With Matt and a flat,” added Rachel. “Sorry. I’ve read so many Dr. Seuss books to the children today, I’m starting to talk like one. Actually, I have no idea how and why Sarah was where she was.”

“She was where she was and is where she is,” offered Quint.

“Uh-oh.” Rachel felt strangely giddy. “Seems like talking in nonsense verse can be catching.”

“Seems like. Are you ever going to tell me how you ended up with Brady? I don’t think the two are unrelated.”

It wasn’t easy to carry on a conversation with Brady demanding most of their attention but Rachel and Quint managed to exchange some relevent facts. He hadn’t heard about Sarah’s intervention with Austin and the BB gun, but she already knew that Dustin and the dog had been found safe and sound at a neighbor’s. Sarah had relayed that particular good news over the phone, courtesy of Call Forwarding.

Quint told Rachel that Carla and the two boys were now staying with Carla’s mother and that though the fire, smoke, and water had caused significant damage to the Cormack house, it wasn’t a total loss. He mentioned that Frank Cormack still hadn’t been located.

“Dad told Carla he was going into the office today, but he never showed up,” Quint’s tone was neutral enough but his hard, cold expression spoke volumes. “It’s anybody’s guess as to where he is or where he’s been, but his usual haunts have to be considered. Maybe he’s at one of the casinos in Atlantic City. Maybe he’s with a new girlfriend. Maybe he’s hitting the sleaze palaces on Admiral Wilson Boulevard.”

“Poor Carla,” Rachel said quietly.

“Poor Austin and Dustin. Having Frank Cormack for a father isn’t easy. Nobody knows that better than I do.” Quint grimaced. “And his marriage to Carla has lasted longer than any of his previous ones so his influence on those kids is bound to be more pronounced and more pernicious. Of course, it doesn’t help that Carla is so—” He broke off. He turned his full attention back to Brady.

Rachel was uncertain what to say. She knew Frank Cormack’s reputation as a lawyer was poor indeed. The local bar association considered him something of a joke.

She hadn’t known much about his personal life other than the basic facts known to everyone else in Lakeview. That he had married the much younger Carla Polk. That he had been struck while crossing the street by a drunk driver fourteen months ago and suffered devastating injuries, that he hadn’t been expected to live but somehow pulled through. His son Quinton had arrived from somewhere out West to keep Frank’s legal practice afloat while he recuperated.

Rachel remembered that Frank Cormack’s accident hadn’t generated much sympathy; rather it had been regarded with black humor in the area’s legal circles. News of Quint’s arrival in Lakeview initially was met with scorn. It was said that Cormack’s law practice was on life support, just like he was, and it would be kinder to pull the plug on both.

Aunt Eve said it was typical of the luckless Frank to be run over by a drunk who was driving without a license or insurance, and who died penniless of cirrhosis of the liver a few months later. Frank Cormack’s family had no savings, no insurance or no income, and were further burdened by a pile of medical bills. Their future had looked extremely bleak until Quint began to turn things around.

Slowly, but steadily, he’d built the law practice in Lakeview, gaining new cases with every win. His string of successes accelerated the growth of the firm’s client base, boosting the income of Cormack and Son to an unprecedented
level. Now there was the Tilden will. Considering the potential for appeals in that case, Quint’s fee could easily run into the high six figures.

And he would have to share the profits with his father, Carla and the boys. Rachel’s eyes flew to Quint’s face. For the first time she fully appreciated that he was not only supporting himself and his child, but also an entire second family. Frank Cormack certainly made no contribution. He couldn’t even be found when his own house was on fire.

As if feeling her stare, Quint turned his head toward her. Their eyes met and held. Her chest felt oddly constricted and her skin began to tingle as he focused his gaze intently on her. He seemed to be drawing her out of herself, exerting a power that made her body tighten with sexual tension so potent she was helpless against it.

Fortunately, a torrent of water from Brady’s latest collision between a squeaky frog and his beloved tugboat, splashed her cheek and immediately broke the spell she was fast falling under. Rachel was grateful for the reprieve. Shakily, she rose to her feet. “I really have to—”