His for the Taking

Eight



Cole got up and turned off the light. Unable to face returning to the bed where Maddie slept when he didn’t know if her warmth and sweetness were real, he remained in his dark office and shut his eyes.

What was the truth?

Were the people in Yella right about her after all?

Unsavory as the subject was, Cole had to dig the whole story out of her. Why the hell had she run away with Turner? Why did she turn white and look scared every time his name was mentioned? Had her mother lied?

Not that the answers to any of those questions mattered nearly as much as Noah.

What the hell was he going to do? How would he ever make up for six lost years?

Cole must have fallen asleep because he jumped when he heard a soft footfall in the den. When a woman’s slim hand pushed the door ajar, and the narrow beam of a tiny flashlight fell on his dangling keys, he froze.

Where the hell had she gotten a flashlight?

Swiftly, Maddie, who was swathed in white from head to toe, entered the office and knelt beside the drawer. She’d been as silent as a ghost until she found the drawer open…and empty. Then she let out a strangled scream.

He snapped on the lamp beside him with a hard jerk of his wrist. “Looking for these?”

When he held up her letters, her slanting eyes widened. Then she dropped her flashlight and it rolled under his desk.

“Give them to me,” she whispered, her exotic face going even whiter as she leaned down to retrieve her flashlight.

“Sure!” When he laid them on his desk, she snatched them away. “Why not? I already read them,” he said.

“You had no right.”

“Really? You claim we have a son together, and I have no right? Tell me something. Did you come over here today just to get these letters? When you failed to find them while my mother was here, did you stay and sleep with me just so you could stay a little longer and sneak back down here and try to get these letters?”

“You can believe that if you want to. You’ve believed worse of me.”

His dark eyes were probably as lethally fierce as he felt, because she quickly averted her gaze.

“I wonder why?” he asked, hating it when she paled further. “I want the truth this time, damn it.”

“No, you don’t. Nobody in this town has ever wanted that from me. All of you want to despise me. So go ahead! I should be used to it by now.” But her eyes were wild and her voice caught on a raw sob.

“I want to know if my mother’s right, if you used your beauty to play me for a fool! And I want to know if you used your beauty when we were kids. Did you chase me because you thought I was rich and you’d be bettering yourself? You are, obviously, by your own admission, ambitious.”

“I never chased you, if you’ll remember! You chased me. And then…when I realized you’d never really wanted me for more than sex, I walked away.”

“With Vernon?” he snarled.

She gasped. “I let you go.” She paused. “But yes, I am ambitious. Yes, I want to give my child a better start in life than I had back then. And not only my child…but to give other children a better start. I don’t want any child to have to grow up like I did!”

Something earnest and heartbroken in her eyes tore at him, but he ignored it.

“Right—you’re the saint now, and I’m some entitled, arrogant demon from hell who got you pregnant and then callously rejected you and our son after I married another woman!”

Despite her stricken expression, she notched her chin a fraction of an inch higher.

“All I know is that tonight…coming here…what we did…was a mistake,” she whispered. “I should never have confided in you at the pool, or slept with you.”

“Well, you did, damn it!”

“Can’t we just please forget tonight ever happened?”

He stared at her pale, forlorn face in disbelief. No! he wanted to yell.

Forget he had a son? Forget how seeing her again, how having her in his arms again, had made him feel so complete and so connected to her on a soul-deep level that his loneliness of six years had fallen away? Forget that despite everything he knew about her and everything people said about her, she looked defenseless and stricken and so damn innocent he wanted to take care of her? Forget he’d begun to trust her again and she’d disappointed him? Hell, furious as he was, she had him crazy with desire. How could he feel this way about her even now, when he’d just learned they had a son she’d planned to conceal from him forever?

She was as unscrupulous and selfish as her mother, but, on some level, he didn’t care.

Why the hell did his heart and body refuse to believe what his mind knew about her? Fool that he was, he still wanted her.

Not that he was about to let on how much power she had over him.

“Once I would have given anything to hear you say you wanted Noah, anything…. I couldn’t believe it when your only response was my two self-addressed, green postcards that came back with your boldly scrawled signature. After that there was nothing. No phone call. No letter. No email. Nothing. I kept waiting to hear from you. I went through hell. So, no—I don’t care how you feel now because I can’t trust you. Don’t you see? I can’t let myself care. I’m a mother. I have to do what’s best for Noah.”

“Right,” he growled. “You’re the trustworthy one. You were going to keep your son from ever knowing his real father. How do you think he’d feel about that if he ever found out?”

Clutching her letters against her breasts, which were covered by a long sheet, she squared her shoulders and backed toward the door. “I’m going to get dressed. I want you to drive me back to Miss Jennie’s.”

The finality in her tone cut him like a blade. But he refused to react, refused to let her see how her indifference shredded him.

“Sure. But we talk tomorrow. Don’t you dare even think about leaving Yella before we talk. Because if you do, I’ll make things worse for you. I could come to Austin, meet the do-gooders who pay you, tell them what people here think about you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Noah is my son, too.”

“Why are you doing this? Surely you can’t want Noah!” she whispered.

“Wrong!” He sprang to his feet, truly infuriated now. “I didn’t know about him! Now that I do, you’re going to have to deal with it, the same as I am! I could do a lot for Noah, you know. And for you.”

“I want you out of my life!”

Heat engulfed him.

Her words pushed him over some dangerous edge, because he wanted her in his life as much as he wanted Noah. Even now, knowing that she’d probably slept with him for the sole purpose of remaining in his house long enough to get her letters so he would never find out about Noah, he wanted her.

“Well, that’s too damn bad! Noah has two parents!”

After she’d left him for Vernon, he’d felt dead. Even when he’d been married to Lizzie, he’d felt dead. For years, he’d buried himself in his work in an attempt to forget her. Lizzie had felt neglected, and rightfully so. When Lizzie had died, he’d chosen booze so he wouldn’t have to face the guilt and the emptiness that ravaged him—or the insane need he’d felt to search for Maddie.

When he’d seen her at the pool this morning, the sun had seemed to brighten and the water to sparkle with a special blinding radiance. Because of her, the whole world had seemed new and fresh. He couldn’t tell her any of that, though, because then she’d know her power and use it against him.

“I don’t like this any better than you do!” he yelled as she ran out of the room and up the stairs with his sheet trailing behind her.

Angry as he was, the knowledge that her voluptuous body was soft and naked under his sheet had him brick-hard again.

When he tore after her, he intended to appease her at least a little before pulling her into his arms, but she turned on him at the top of the stairs. And the words she flung at him through her sobs slammed him like mortal blows.

“I’m engaged to be married! To a wonderful man, I’ll have you know! He grew up poor like me, so he understands me. He’s a teacher, so he’s wonderful with kids. He would never reject and abandon me, the way you did, and he already considers Noah his son. He’s everything that Noah needs in a father.”

“Then why the hell did you just sleep with me?” he thundered.

“Hormones. It was a horrible mistake. Please, just drive me home, and stay out of our lives!”

“You ask the impossible,” he whispered in a ravaged tone. “Where’s his damn ring anyway?”

“We’re…we’re informally engaged.”

She raced into his bedroom and slammed the door.

* * *

Moonlight flooded his bedroom as Maddie sank down on his big bed with its tumbled sheets where they’d made love such a short time ago, where she’d been so happy…so foolishly happy, she thought now.

When she’d awakened from her nightmare filled with doubts and insecurities, he hadn’t been there, and she’d felt rejected and afraid of her own powerful emotions.

She’d felt afraid that he didn’t care about her, that he never had and that he never could. She thought maybe to him she was just a carnal pleasure—and of no more consequence than a coveted toy a spoiled child might enjoy from time to time.

Had Cole come after her when Vernon had hurt her? Had Cole rescued her like a knight in shining armor? Not that she believed in fairy tales, but still… Had he even questioned her mother’s sordid story? Or had he simply believed the worst, like everybody else? Had he ever tried to find her? Or had he already been chasing after Lizzie—a proper girl, Yella’s sweetheart? If she’d mattered to him at all, if she’d had a background he’d approved of, wouldn’t he have found a way to reach her?

All her old doubts and insecurities had torn at her as she’d lain in the dark. Then she’d gotten up the nerve to search for him to determine his true feelings.

The lower part of the house had been dark when she’d made it down the stairs, so she’d made her way to her purse on the little table by the window and pulled out her tiny flashlight, which she always carried.

Thinking maybe he’d fallen asleep on a sofa, she hadn’t wanted to turn on the lights as she searched for him.

When she hadn’t found him on any of his big sofas or easy chairs, she’d seen his office door ajar. The lower drawer had been open, and she’d let out a little scream after she’d sunk to her knees and realized he’d probably read her letters.

At the realization that he knew about Noah, that the knowledge was why he hadn’t come back to bed, she’d felt confused and scared, crazy. She hadn’t been ready to face him, to talk to him about Noah. No, she’d felt too vulnerable after the sex—sex that had revealed how much she still cared for him. So when she’d found herself suddenly backed into a corner about Noah, she’d reacted to Cole’s righteous anger and accusations defensively. By becoming furious, she’d made a royal mess of everything.

But she wasn’t about to let hot sex weaken her into agreeing to include him in her son’s life when that might not be the best thing for her and Noah. Cole hadn’t been there when she’d needed him the most—when she’d been scared and helpless.

Well, maybe she and Noah didn’t need him now.

* * *

What the hell was she doing up there? Sulking? Plotting? Or just feeling as sick at heart and confused as he was?

With a heavy heart, Cole mounted the stairs and waited outside that closed door until Maddie dressed. When she came out, she rushed past him and down the stairs without looking at him or speaking to him. On the way downstairs he found a tiny red flashlight on a carpeted stair. He kneeled and closed his fist around it. Uttering a low animal sound, he jammed it in his pocket.

Neither of them spoke as his truck ripped through the suffocating darkness on their way to Miss Jennie’s rambling house, but the atmosphere inside the cab felt as charged as one of his gas wells about to blow. When at last he slammed on the brakes in front of Miss Jennie’s and the truck jerked to a standstill, he jumped out and raced around to open her door.

She stayed where she was. Then, without a word, she began rummaging in her purse.

“Looking for something?”

“My flashlight. I must have dropped it somewhere.”

He yanked it out of his pocket and flashed the narrow beam inside her purse.

With a frown she flung herself out of the door and grabbed it from him. “I’m perfectly capable of seeing myself to the door,” she snapped.

Turning her back on him, she aimed the tiny beam on the sidewalk and marched stiffly toward the porch.

She didn’t give him so much as a backward glance as she let herself inside the dark house and bolted the door behind her. Miss Jennie wasn’t one to keep her shades down, so he watched Maddie’s flashlight bob as she made her way to the back, watched when her bedroom light went on. Then her door closed, and the front of the house was dark again.

“Baby, if you think this is finished, you’re very wrong,” he growled softly. “If Noah’s mine, he’s mine. Not Greg’s! I’ll use DNA and the whole damn legal system to get him.”