Susan Mallery - Full-Time Father

He led her to one of the chaise lounges pushed off to the side.

“How about some wine?” he said. “There’s some white already chilled.”

“Okay.” Her hazel eyes were dark with confusion.

He went into the kitchen and got a bottle out of the refrigerator. After pulling out the cork, he grabbed two glasses and returned to the terrace. Erin had perched uneasily on the edge of the lounge.

She’d changed for dinner. If he’d known she was going to he would have told her not to bother. Neither he nor Kiki was interested in being formal. Erin wore a soft silky white shirt tucked into beige tailored trousers. A thin belt emphasized her narrow waist.

He poured the wine and handed her a glass, then sat in the chaise lounge across from hers. After setting the wine bottle between them, he leaned over and touched the rim of his glass to hers.

“To Christie,” he said.

“Christie,” she repeated softly, but did not drink.

He leaned back in his chair. “Are you settled in your room?”

“Yes.”

He studied the horizon, the last sliver of sun still visible and the golden glow on the restless ocean. “Why are you nervous?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“I don’t consider myself very observant, so if I noticed, it must be.”

She laughed. “Oh, that made me feel better. Thanks.”

He looked at her. “At least you don’t look so scared anymore.”

The humor faded from her face. She stared at the glass of wine. “The situation is a little awkward. I thought I’d planned everything when I decided to bring Christie to meet you. I was wrong. I didn’t realize all the details to be worked out, or the logistics of two strangers dealing with a child.”

“I’d like you to be comfortable here, Erin. Tell me anything you want, even if you just want to be left alone. I’d like us to be friends.”

She raised her gaze to his. Emotions flickered through her hazel irises. Was she remembering what he’d done to her sister? Did those actions five years ago mean that she would never trust him?

“I’d like that, too,” she said softly.

A last glimmer of sunlight touched her face and highlighted the curve of her cheek. For that moment, her skin was iridescent and she looked like a beautiful creature from another world.

She set her glass on the stone terrace and folded her hands in her lap. “Maybe we should talk and get to know each other. You must have some questions about Christie.”

What he wanted to ask was if there was a man in Erin’s life. He swore silently. No, he didn’t want to know that, because it wasn’t important. Concentrate on the child. She was all that mattered.

“Who named her?” he asked instead.

“Stacey.”

“She had-” He hesitated. “She had time to do that?”

Erin nodded. “Those couple of days are a blur. I remember getting a call from the hospital. I’d just finished my last final exam and was starting to pack to come home. The nurse told me that the baby was doing fine, but Stacey wasn’t. Could I come right away? I was stunned. I didn’t even know Stacey was pregnant.”

“You don’t have to tell me this,” he said.

“Don’t you want to know what happened?”

He didn’t. Hearing the words made the images clear. For now he would just listen, but later he would feel the guilt. Still, there was no way to stop her.

“Tell me everything,” he said, knowing he would pay for that.

Erin drew in a deep breath. She laced her fingers together and stared at him intently. “When I got to the hospital, she was dying. Thank goodness she came home to have the baby, or I would never have arrived in time. I remember how pale she was and all the tubes they had hooked up to her. There had been some problems. They tried to save her, of course, but…”

Her gaze never left his. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. He wondered what she read on his face. Did she know how he blamed himself? Did she know he wasn’t surprised about any of this?

“Stacey whispered that she’d seen the baby for a minute and named her Christie. She-” Erin swallowed hard and looked away. “She said she was sorry for doing this to me, but there was no one else. I asked her to tell me about the father. She wouldn’t say anything except it would be wrong to bother him. You, I mean. Then she died.”

Parker’s gut clenched as the guilt washed over him like an acid bath. It burned him clear down to his soul. He’d known he was responsible for Robin’s death and now he’d killed Stacey, too. How much longer would this go on? Who else would he inadvertently destroy?

“It’s not your fault,” Erin said.

He stared at her.

“It’s not,” she repeated. “Stacey didn’t blame you, and you mustn’t blame yourself. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, it just happened.”

“How can you be so sure?” he asked, standing up and walking to the edge of the terrace. “You weren’t here that summer. You don’t know what happened between us.”

“I know it wasn’t your fault,” she said a third time.

“Yeah, right.” If only that were true. If only the ghosts of the dead would leave him be. He clutched the edge of the balcony.

She followed him, then reached into her trouser pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “Stacey wrote this to you, but she never got a chance to mail it. I think she’d want you to have it now.”

He stared at the paper a long time before he finally took it and turned it over in his hands. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what she’d written, but he didn’t think he had a choice in the matter.

When he’d unfolded the note, he quickly scanned the contents. In his mind he heard her voice speaking the words and realized she sounded different than Erin. Stacey’s voice was higher and faster. More intense, like the woman herself.

She wrote that she was sorry for what she did to him. He wished he could tell her he was sorry, too. For the harsh words he’d hurled at her that morning. If he could he would tell her that he’d been angry with himself, not with her. But it had been easier to direct his rage at someone else.

I regret to tell you that I’m pregnant. He swore silently. That was his fault, too. Not just the baby, but the regret.

He started to hand the letter back to Erin, but she shook her head. “You keep it.”

“For what it’s worth,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be such a bastard.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Parker. We used to laugh together at the odd personality quirk that made her gifted with computers and so completely illogical in her personal life. We lost our parents when we were young and we were shuttled between different relatives. We never had a real home, but we used to dream about one. Oddly enough, your house is pretty close to what we’d imagined. Stacey was intrigued from the moment she arrived.”

“How do you know?”

“Her diary. After she died, I was so busy with Christie I asked one of our friends to pack up Stacey’s things. It wasn’t until a few months ago when I was packing to move that I finally went through the boxes. I found her diary and your name.”

What else had she said aside from his name? He wanted to know but didn’t think he had the right to ask.

The sun had finally set and the sky was that murky color of twilight blue. The first stars glinted in the heavens. Surf pounded against the shore in an age-old rhythm.

“She saw you as the dark prince of her fantasies,” Erin said. “Please don’t be angry with her.”

“Stacey was the innocent in all this, Erin. The only person I’m angry with is myself.” Dark prince. Hell, he didn’t belong in anyone’s fantasy.

“Stop blaming yourself.”

“There’s no one else. Did Stacey ever stop to consider how dangerous a dark prince could be? After all he’s first cousin to the devil.”

“Stacey would have liked that.”

Then Stacey was a fool. But he didn’t say that aloud. Stacey had been foolish and young and inexperienced. He’d been in too much pain to notice. Surviving had taken everything he’d had. Otherwise he could have taken care of the situation before it became a problem.

Erin touched his arm. “Don’t you see? This isn’t about you, it’s about her. She expected something very specific from you. She would have taken your words and twisted them around until they had the meaning she wanted.”

He looked at her. The few lights from the house didn’t reach this far on the terrace and they were both in shadow. He couldn’t see her clearly, but he could feel her heat and inhale the floral scent of her perfume. Her hand was warm and sure on his forearm.

“Why are you defending me?” he asked. “You don’t even know me. You weren’t here. You don’t know what happened.”

“I’ve read her diary. I know what she wanted, and I know my sister. I’m not absolving you of blame. Of course some of this is your fault. It takes two to-” She paused and her hand fell to her side. “I think it’s time to put the past behind you. You feel badly for what you did, but Stacey wanted a relationship with you and she wasn’t going to let anything stand in the way. Not even reality.”

He wanted to believe her. Maybe one day he would. Just not tonight.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to go up to my office. Help yourself to the television in the study or the books,” he said.

“I’ll be fine.” He heard the smile in her voice.

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will.”

He took a single step away, then turned back to her. “I know you didn’t have to bring Christie here. I’m glad you did.”

Without stopping to consider it wasn’t a smart idea, he bent forward to kiss her cheek. At the last second, he tilted his head and brushed his mouth against hers.

She jumped, obviously startled, but didn’t pull away. Neither did he. He couldn’t. The fire that leapt between them consumed his will and his ability to think. He could only feel. Passion swept through him. Passion and desire and need. The parts of him he’d thought long dead boiled painfully to life.

Finally he raised his head and stared at her. In the darkness he could see little more than the shape of her head. He didn’t know what she was thinking. Dammit, he didn’t want to know. He only wanted to erase what he’d just done.

Without a word, he turned and walked away. But even as he climbed the stairs to his office, the fire continued to burn low in his belly. As if it were a slumbering beast who had accidentally been awakened, the need demanded attention and release. He sensed with a growing certainty that this time it would not be ignored.

Erin gave up pretending to sleep at about five-thirty in the morning. She’d done fine when she’d first gone to bed, drifting off with a dopey smile on her lips. Then about midnight she’d awakened suddenly, jerked into consciousness by a frantic dream she couldn’t remember.

Since then she’d tossed and turned. Trying to think soothing thoughts didn’t help. Trying to think about Parker had only made matters worse, because once she’d started recalling the previous evening she hadn’t been able to think about anything else.

Maybe it was the terrace, Erin thought as she stood up and stretched. The worn stones, the vines climbing the side of the house, the scent of the ocean and the sound of the surf on the shore. It was a living, breathing romantic postcard and she was stuck in the center of the picture. So much for being the more logical of the twins.

Maybe it was the man himself, but Erin didn’t want that to be true. If only they’d kept the conversation on Stacey and Christie where it belonged. If only she could stop thinking about him. If only he hadn’t kissed her.

That kiss. That damn kiss. It had been so unexpected. One minute they’d been calmly talking and the next he’d excused himself to go work in his office. On the way out, he’d kissed her. As if it were a common occurrence.

Had he meant to? Did it mean anything?

Yes, it means something, she told herself. It means you’re losing your mind.

She crossed to the bathroom and quickly washed her face. After brushing her teeth and combing her hair into sleek order, she returned to the bedroom and dressed. A quick peek out the curtained window showed her that the sky was still dark. There was no hint of the sunrise so she couldn’t tell what kind of day it was going to be. She walked into the closet and grabbed a pair of jeans. Mornings were usually cool at the beach.

Five minutes later she poked her head in to check on her daughter. Christie was sound asleep, her worn teddy bear tucked under her arm. Erin adjusted the covers, then started along the hallway. The old house seemed to creak with her every step. She crept down the stairs, holding her breath and keeping to the side by the wall. As she passed the second floor, she wondered which room was Parker’s. She hadn’t been with Christie during the tour of the upstairs of the house.