Home to Laura

chapter TWENTY-ONE



OLIVIA CAMERON STEPPED out onto Main Street in the driving snow, leaning into the wind. She needed to get across the street to pick up some lunch. She hadn’t brought anything to work today, it was after two and she was starving.

A gust blew snow against her. Every January, she swore she was going to sell the house and the gallery and move to Florida. Year after year, she stayed put. She turned her face away from the stinging cold, trying to keep her makeup dry, and hopped over a small bank of snow onto the road.

She landed wrong and lost her footing.

Tires screeched and a bumper hit her hip. She screamed and fell, landing on her other hip.

“Olivia, what the hell were you thinking?” Lester Hughes ran from his car to her where she lay on the wet pavement in dirty snow. “You don’t step into the road without looking both ways.”

Olivia tried to breathe, but the fall had knocked the wind out of her.

Lester crouched beside her. “How bad are you hurt?”

She finally caught her breath. “My hip...hurts.”

“Which one?”

“Both.” One from the bumper and the other from hitting the road.

“Are they broken? Can you stand?”

They weren’t broken. Standing was painful. She was stiff. She managed, though.

“I’m okay,” she said.

“I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“No.” She took a few steps. “I’m fine. I’ll be bruised tomorrow, though.”

Tyler Jordan appeared beside them. “I heard the squealing tires. What happened?”

Lester explained and Olivia agreed, “It was all my fault, Sheriff. I didn’t watch for cars when I stepped out.”

“Tell her she’s gotta come to the hospital with me,” Lester said. “I want her x-rayed for internal injuries.”

“He’s right,” Ty said. “You need to get checked out.”

“Okay.” Olivia sighed. She’d have to call Monica Accord in on her day off. “You go on about your business, Lester. I’ll drive to the hospital myself.”

“That ain’t right, Olivia. What if you conk out on the drive?”

“I didn’t hit my head when I fell. I’m fine to drive.”

“But—”

“I insist.”

“In that case,” Ty said, “I’ll follow you to make sure you arrive safely.”

“Give me a few minutes. I have to call Monica in from her day off to cover at the gallery.”

“I’ll wait for you out front.”

Back in her office, Olivia sat down and put her head between her legs. She hadn’t hit it, didn’t have a concussion, but the incident had scared the daylights out of her and had left her dizzy and shaken.

She raised one hand. It shook so badly she couldn’t use her phone. What if Lester hadn’t been able to stop? What if he hadn’t had the presence of mind to jerk the steering wheel so she got only a glancing blow rather than being hit head-on?

If she’d been hit squarely by his car, would she be dead now instead of able to drive herself to the hospital?

Or worse, would she be crippled or unable to lead a normal life, the life she took for granted?

In those few precious moments suspended between life and possible death, she’d seen a lot. It had happened so quickly, but not so fast that she hadn’t had immediate disgust for herself.

How much time had she wasted in her life? How much had she let fear rule her?

Tyler entered her gallery and called her name.

She left her office and handed him her phone. “Please,” she said. “Call Monica.”

Five minutes later, she was on the road and Tyler was following her.

X-rays showed neither internal nor permanent damage.

She sent Tyler home. She had a stop to make before returning to downtown Accord.

She was fifty-eight years old and deathly afraid of aging. She was a coward. A man loved her, had told her he wanted her exactly the way she was, flaws and all, and she’d thrown it back in his face.

All it took was one brush with her own mortality to set her head on straight. She wanted Aiden, her age be damned.

She turned down the road to his home. Her cell phone rang, but she ignored it, her mind on one purpose, one goal, and nothing else.

She dashed through the snow to his door and rapped on it hard with her knuckles. Please be home. I need you, Aiden McQuorrie.

He opened the door, opened his mouth to set her down with something scathing, something she probably deserved, but then saw her face and stopped.

“What happened, love?”

Love. Was there a more perfect word in the English language or a more perfect man for her on the face of the planet? Without another word, he took her into his arms. She wrapped hers across his back to hold him tightly, to savor every muscle and sinew of his vibrant body.

“Make love to me,” she whispered and he slammed the door and pulled her down the hallway.

God, it had been so long. Her body throbbed with unrelieved sexual tension. She hadn’t been with a man in ten years and, during the years after her husband’s affair, their lovemaking had been spotty, impeded by grief, resentment and distrust. She was growing older by the minute, and drying up by the second.

She wanted to know love again.

Her body ached.

There’d been a time when she’d been crazy about sex, she and John active as young lovers well into their marriage, even after their three children had been born.

Since then? Next to nothing. Her body cried out for release. She wanted vitality flooding her veins.

They entered a bedroom and she barely had time to register an enormous king-size bed before Aiden pulled his T-shirt over his head then closed the blinds.

What she’d seen before the room went dark dried her mouth. He was beautiful. Hard. Lean. Sculpted. Muscular.

And she was soft and wanting to accept, to take.

He found her in the darkness as though she were phosphorescent. His fingers worked quick magic, divesting her of her clothes.

Then they were on that massive bed and he was on top of her, his big body pressing hers into the mattress, and kissing her and licking her neck and breasts and running his hands in places only she had touched for years, and he smelled, touched, felt like quintessential Man. Then he was inside of her and she was climbing a golden mountain.

He filled her, stretched her, and quickened her blood. She spread her legs wide and put her hands on his behind to hold his body hard against hers, to savor him inside of her, to cherish the filling of a space empty for far too long. He moved and she wanted more. Her hands urged him deeper, harder, faster.

More.

More.

He touched her between her legs and she sang. Flew. Shattered.

Still, he moved inside of her and their bodies ran with sweat and her spirit rose again, to fly, weightless, timeless, without context.

This.

Only this.

Aiden roared then collapsed onto her, his weight crushing, heavenly. Essential.

Rolling to his side, he took her with him, threw one heavy leg across hers and wrapped his arms around her, as though he would take her into his core.

Her heart pounded. Eased. Drifted back to earth.

In this divine darkness, she was only a woman. She was not age, or society, or business. She was only a sensual, tactile creature.

Aiden’s lovemaking was a revelation, a balm to a body in need and to a soul aging too quickly.

Finally, he pulled away from her and left the bed. He returned with towels. They cleaned themselves, then he tossed them into the corner.

He did something at his dresser and music filled the room, classical and moody.

When he returned to the bed, he pulled her back against him, spooning with her, kissing her neck, nibbling her earlobe. His arms came around her and he took her breasts into his hands, calluses abrading her nipples and threatening to make her orgasm again.

“No condom,” she whispered. How utterly freeing to be a woman her age and no longer have to worry about birth control.

“I haven’t been with a woman in a long time. I’m clean.”

“I only ever knew one man and it’s been years.”

She felt him smile against her neck. “It’s only us in this darkness. Man. Woman. Flesh and bones.”

Aiden’s lips trailed down her spine, kissing each and every bone, all the way to her ankles and back up, spending time on the backs of her knees, nearly sending her through the ceiling.

“So soft. Every part of you is silk.”

But she wanted more than his homage. She wanted to explore. John had been strong, but slim. There was so much more of Aiden. She ran her hands and lips over all of him, loving the feel of him, the contrasts between his body and hers.

When he could wait no longer, he turned her to spoon again and entered her, with his hand to her belly to arch her back so he could go deeply.

Her body opened to him, spread wet warm petals to enfold his bulk.

Olivia murmured, hummed, whispered then cursed when she nearly came but he drew back.

“We have all day.” His voice, lazy and deep, laughed at her. She smiled. She had ideas of her own and set about torturing Aiden the way he was torturing her.

He hissed and lifted her to her hands and knees and continued to rock inside of her with his hands holding her breasts.

Sated quickly the first time around, they went slowly now, loving thoroughly. Completely.

Time’s relentless march halted and stood still, preciously, blissfully still.

* * *

NICK STOOD AT the window on the third floor of the B and B.

Two days ago, Gabe had called. Callie had given birth to a baby boy. Caleb. Nick had flown down and had seen them all at the hospital.

Caleb looked like a newborn. What else was there to say? Babies looked like babies.

He received a call in the middle of the afternoon.

“You screwed up, Jordan.” Mort’s words were slurred. Had he started drinking again? Why?

“What are you talking about?” Nick gripped the windowsill.

“She’s gone.”

Nick stilled, afraid that he knew what Mort meant, but hoping that he was getting it wrong.

“Emily’s moved to France to live with her mother.”

Nick’s blood turned to ice. Was there a better word for how his body felt? Gelid, maybe. Glacial, even better.

Emily, he thought, misery painting her name dark. He’d been so afraid of this. He felt the edges of his world turn black. What would he do without Emily?

She’d come home after Christmas and things had been fine, but as January progressed and he’d worried more about Laura, the more sullen Emily had become.

Nick needed to be in Accord when Laura gave birth. He had felt compelled to be here, ironic given that he didn’t want another baby. Laura’s baby was costing Nick his daughter.

Before he had left for Accord, Emily had cried. “Dad, don’t go. She doesn’t need you.”

“She might. Honey, I don’t know what else I can say or do to convince you that I love you.”

He’d left two days ago. Neither last night nor the night before would Emily take his phone calls.

“I tried to stop her,” Mort continued, bringing Nick back to the present, his words uneven but every one driving a nail into Nick’s heart. “Nothing I said made a difference.”

“She’s a minor. You could have prevented her from getting a plane ticket.”

“Not when she had her mother’s permission.”

Nick swore.

“You really hurt her this time. She doesn’t believe your promises anymore.”

“I can’t leave here. Laura could have the baby at any moment. Yesterday was her due date.”

“I know. Emily thinks that baby is more important to you than she is.”

“That’s absurd. I couldn’t love Emily more.”

“Your history led her to believe otherwise.”

Nick cursed all of those times he had said he would be there for her, but hadn’t been. He cursed his needs and his drive. So what if he’d made less money? So what if they’d lived in a smaller house? So what if the world hadn’t seen Nick as a huge success?

None of that mattered now. When he went home, Emily wouldn’t be there. It hurt too much to think about.

He stared blindly through the window of the B and B. He hadn’t wanted to stay out in the country at Ty’s, had needed to be close to Laura.

While he stood there, she emerged from the alley beside her bakery. In one hand, she carried an overnight bag, moving carefully in the snow.

While he watched she stopped beside Lester’s cab and handed him her bag then grasped her belly. Her face scrunched up in pain.

Jesus. She was in labor.

Jesus.

For one terrified moment, Nick was frozen, his feet nailed to the floor. Then he grabbed his car keys and flew from the room. When he got outside, the cab was already gone and there was nothing for Nick to do but drive to the hospital.

When the nurses would have stopped him from following Laura in a wheelchair at the far end of the hallway, he called her name.

She turned, surprised to see him.

“I told you I’d be here. Let me come with you.”

She looked calm, composed, but a trace of wistfulness peeked through her confident exterior. She didn’t want to be alone.

She wasn’t.

He approached.

“I called my mom,” she said, “but she isn’t picking up.”

Nick had a few thoughts about Olivia Cameron and her self-centeredness, but then, who was he to judge?

“I’m here,” he said, defiant in the face of her composure, but buoyed by that trace of need he’d seen in Laura. “I’m not leaving, so you might as well let me into the delivery room.”

She stared at him for long moments that left him unsure. He couldn’t force his way in. He wanted to be there, though. Needed to be there for her.

She saw something she must have liked because she smiled with the serenity of a Madonna and nodded.

* * *

LAURA SCREAMED AND YELLED and cursed the day Nick was born. Never mind that there had been two of them making love that night, and that she’d been a more than willing participant.

The pain looked horrendous. Nick didn’t care that it was natural, that millions of women had done this down through the ages. He didn’t want Laura hurting so much.

“Give her something,” he snapped at the doctor.

“She told me not to give her anything.”

“She changed her mind.”

“Laura.” The doctor took her hand. “Have you changed your mind about having an epidural?”

“No!” she shouted.

“Laura,” Nick said, “be reasonable.”

The doctor shook her head as if to say, You poor sod, you don’t tell a woman in labor to be reasonable.

The string of invectives Laura let loose was so inventive, Nick was impressed. Still, there was so much pain.

He opened his mouth, but both Laura and the doctor gave him warning glares. Right. Mother knows best.

Pearl Cameron Jordan was born an hour later at four in the morning.

After the nurses checked her thoroughly then gave her to Laura for a while, they swaddled the baby and handed her to Nick.

He balked. What the hell did he know about holding babies?

The baby was in his arms before he could mount a coherent protest.

He stared at the tiny fingers with perfectly shaped nails, at her tiny face and unfocused gray eyes...and fell in love. Head over heels stupid in love. Drunk in love.

He sighed, long and contentedly. He’d never felt so good in his life.

He heard Laura sigh and said, “You must be exhausted.”

“I’m tired but happy. Isn’t she lovely?”

He studied the exquisite creature in his arms. “She’s beautiful.” He took Laura’s hand, overwhelmed by love, by rightness. “You did it. You kept her safe inside your body and carried her to full term.”

He kissed her forehead and, in that moment, realized how much he truly loved her, how much he’d loved her since his fifteenth birthday when he’d first realized he wanted his brother’s girlfriend, and how much he admired her strength and commitment.

She’d wanted a café and had built up a dated little bakery into the most successful business on Main Street, Accord, Colorado.

She’d wanted a baby and, under less than ideal circumstances, including the baby’s hostile father, had carried her to term, to a healthy, successful birth.

Wasn’t sleeping with a woman without protection a commitment, unspoken, but binding nonetheless? Didn’t a man’s obligation extend to more than just the financial? Didn’t it extend to a lifetime of caring?

He watched Laura smile.

A lifetime of caring.

He realized he was talking about more than just a commitment to Pearl. He was also thinking about Laura—and not in terms of passion or sex or companionship, or easing his loneliness.

He was talking about love.

He was thinking about love even when it wasn’t easy, about giving because it wasn’t easy. Because it was the right thing to do. Because it was the only thing to do.

He stepped closer to the bed. Laura glanced up and her hazel eyes widened when she saw his expression. Everything he felt, the love he hadn’t known had existed for years for this woman, most likely since the first moment he’d seen her in town, when they’d been nothing more than children, poured from him.

Allowing her no time to protest, he leaned forward and set his mouth on her beautiful full lips...and kissed her as though he’d rather do nothing else on earth than honor and worship her.

He pulled back only far enough to look into her eyes. When he whispered, “I love you,” his breath feathered stray chestnut hairs around her cheeks.

“Marry me,” he said.

Laura smiled, sadly, and touched his face. “It’s the baby,” she said. “The birth. This is an emotional time. Ask me again when Pearl has been up all night teething and crying. Today, here in the birthing room, this isn’t real life, Nick.”

“I know. I want it all, Laura. The good and the bad.”

“You’re feeling the euphoria of bringing a life into the world. It doesn’t last. Real life will set in.”

“Laura, I know what I’m talking about.”

“Come back to me in a few months. I need to get my baby home and take over my business again.”

My baby. Not ours.

From the best high he’d ever experienced in his life, Nick came crashing to earth.

He’d never before told a woman that he loved her.

Laura had turned it back on him, didn’t believe he was telling the truth, or that he knew his own mind.

The two women he’d loved most in the world had rejected him. How could this be both the best time in his life and the worst? How could he be so close to heaven, but so far from the women he loved?

Anger flooded him along with determination.

For the first time in his life, he was surer than he’d ever been of what he wanted. When he’d kissed the dust of Accord goodbye after high school graduation, he’d thought he’d known how his whole life would go. He’d thought he’d mapped it out so cleverly.

He’d make his first million by the time he reached thirty. To his credit, he’d succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. True, he’d used Marsha, but she had gone into their marriage with her eyes wide open. He’d never deceived her.

Everything had come crashing down around his ears. Money was fine and dandy, was great to have, was security in a wild and crazy world, but it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

Like the old cliché went, it didn’t keep you warm at night.

Laura would. She would keep a man warm every night, would meet and exceed his wildest dreams.

He had to convince her that he loved her and truly wanted to marry her.

This time around, he was marrying for love.

Except that the woman he loved wouldn’t accept it.

He left the hospital without a game plan, the great and successful Nick Jordan knowing only that he would grovel if he had to.

He returned to the B and B, brushed his teeth and showered. Papers littered every horizontal surface in the room. He used to be neat. He used to need everything in its place. Lately, his world had fallen apart and he didn’t care. He didn’t know where one contract ended and the other started.

He was making a mess of his business and he just didn’t care.

His parents’ marriage, and its disastrous consequences for their sons, had finally loosed its hold on Nick. He was making decisions with a clear head, with full awareness of the consequences to him and those around him, and was willing to take on the responsibility.

Laura had turned his world upside down, had shaken his carefully planned and ordered life to the core, had taught him about what really mattered in life, had given him passion and pleasure.

Considering that they’d only ever slept together twice, wasn’t that extraordinary? With the force of her character, she’d brought color into his life. She’d brought life into his life. She’d shown him what commitment to a better cause looked like, what love looked like, and how much one had to give up for it.

For a woman who thrived on doing, a physical, passionate woman who craved experience and people and life, she’d willingly locked herself away for a month to keep her baby safe.

Yet here, today, the reward was exponentially huge, thrilling, real.

A child existed and would thrive because of the level of Laura’s love and commitment. She would carry that commitment through every day of her child’s life, without fear, knowing that she was doing the right thing.

He knew her well. He loved her.

She’d taught him so much, how to strive for something more elemental and powerful and important than the almighty buck. Had he learned too late?

There was only one way to find out. He packed his carry-on and drove to Denver.

Back in Seattle, he entered Mort’s office.

“Mort, I’m moving to Accord.”

Mort glared at him. “And do what?”

“I’ll run the business from there, long-distance. I’ve been doing it off and on from Accord for the past seven or eight months anyway.”

“And Emily?”

“I’m flying out tonight to bring her home.”

“Home meaning Accord?”

“Yes. I’ll sell the house here and either buy or build in Accord, depending on what Emily wants.”

Mort looked lost.

“You could come, too,” Nick said softly. “You could live in Accord. You like it there.”

Mort stared out of his window to Seattle below. Slowly, he nodded. “Yes, I could.”

“I’ll call you the second I get Emily back.”

He reached for the doorknob to leave, but turned back. “Mort?”

“Yeah?”

“Kick the bottle.”

Mort nodded and smiled. “I can do that.”

“Yes.” Nick grinned. “You can.”

For the next twenty-four hours, he took every last-minute flight he could snag, flying to France by way of Chicago and New York and London and finally Paris.

He needed Emily.

* * *

MARRY ME.

Laura couldn’t believe Nick had said those words, had offered her those beautiful strings that she craved so badly, had dangled in front of her the culmination of her dream.

A family.

So close and yet so far away.

She’d been right, though. Men said things in the heat of passion, in the midst of emotions they didn’t understand and that overwhelmed them, and then took them back later in the calm light of day.

She wanted her dream, but only if it was real. True.

She’d sent him home to get some sleep.

Tomorrow morning, he would see things differently.

She stared down at her precious baby. Her Pearl.

“You’re my miracle.”

Pearl slept peacefully, as though she hadn’t spent hours banging against her mommy’s pelvis to make her grand entrance.

It had all been worth it.

The chance she’d committed to, that she was taking, in vowing to raise this baby alone would be worth it, worth every second of time and energy and passion that she would devote to it.

She kissed her baby’s soft forehead.

A rustle at the door had her glancing up.

“Mom! You heard. Sorry I didn’t call after she was born. I’m kind of tired and dazed.”

“I got your message.”

It must have taken her a while to check them. Laura had left it hours ago. Mom checked her messages regularly, all day long.

Someone else entered the room behind her mother. Aiden McQuorrie. One of her mother’s artists. What was he doing here?

Laura noticed what she hadn’t earlier. Mom was a mess. Her hair was askew and smudges of mascara colored her lids.

Her yellow coat had dirt stains on it, as though she’d been rolling on the ground.

She limped a little.

Under Laura’s perusal, her cheeks turned pink.

Aiden, wild too-long hair unkempt, stepped behind Olivia and placed his palms on her hips, watching Laura steadily, sending her an unmistakable message.

He and her mother were involved. By the looks of the two of them, they’d driven straight over from being involved.

Oh, myyyy. She thought hard, but couldn’t remember a time when she’d ever suspected her mother of being with a man.

The pair looked defiant, maybe with good reason. Laura didn’t know what the age difference was, but knew it was broad and it astounded her.

She grinned.

“Good for you, Mom.”

Olivia let out a breath she’d been holding and rushed to her daughter, wrapping her in a hug.

“Is this what’s been bothering you for the past months?” Laura asked.

“The stubborn woman wouldn’t give in.” Aiden’s dormant Scottish accent took center stage, a testament to his emotional involvement with Mom? Laura hoped so. She wanted more for Mom than just sexual love. “She’s obsessed with age and with what people will think.”

“And you aren’t?” Laura asked.

“Not in the least.” He kissed the back of Olivia’s neck.

Mom looked as though she’d died and gone to heaven. “Let me see my grandchild,” she demanded and Laura became weepy. Oh. Mom was going to be involved after all. She’d been telling the truth at Ty and Tammy’s wedding. Laura had been afraid to believe, but here Mom was making it true.

Pearl might not have much of an extended family, but she would know her only living grandmother.

Aiden was obviously helping Mom come to terms with her age. Thank God.

Olivia’s eyes misted when she held Pearl and Laura knew there would be a loving relationship between the two.

She mouthed “thank you” to Aiden. His grin took her breath away.

Dear Lord, her mother had chosen an inordinately handsome lover.

* * *

NICK DIDN’T RETURN that day or the next.

It wasn’t until she brought Pearl home that she found out he’d left town.

She wasn’t surprised, but oh, she was hurt.

He’d gotten a good night’s sleep, as she’d directed, and had seen that he didn’t care enough, that he wasn’t committed enough, that he didn’t love enough to stay with her and with his baby.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it did. She’d seen it coming, but she was only human and her heart more susceptible to hope than she’d thought.

She’d figured out that men couldn’t be trusted to keep a commitment or to stick around when the going got tough. She’d betrayed the only man she’d known who could be trusted. Gabe.

She’d made her bed and now she would have to sleep in it.

She laid Pearl gently into her crib and touched her tiny perfect cheek. She had no regrets where her baby was concerned.

“It’s you and me against the world, sweetheart, exactly as I’d thought.”

She lay down on her own bed and turned on the baby monitor on the bedside table, determined to sleep while Pearl slept.

The next phase of her life would test her strength and endurance.

She refused, absolutely refused, to think about Nick.

When sleep overtook her, it came swiftly and deeply, without dreams.