Megan's Mate

Chapter 11

She was pale as ice, and struggling to be calm. The idea of her little boy running away was so absurd that she continued to tell herself it was a mistake, a prank. Maybe a dream.

“No one's seen him,” she repeated, bracing a hand on the doorknob to stay upright. “Some—some of his clothes are gone, and his knapsack.”

“Call Suzanna,” Nathaniel said quickly. “He's probably with Alex and Jenny.”

“No.” She shook her head slowly, side to side. Her body felt like glass, as though it would shatter if she moved too quickly. “They're here. They're all here. They haven't seen him. I was sleeping.” She said each word deliberately, as if she were having trouble understanding her own voice. “I slept late, then I checked his room, like I always do. He wasn't there, but I thought he'd be downstairs, or outside. But when I went down, Alex was looking for him.” The fear began to claw at her, little cat feet up and down her spine. “We hunted around, then I came back up. That's when I saw that some of his things... some of his things...”

“All right, dear, now don't you worry.” Coco hurried over to sh'p a supporting arm around Megan's waist. “I'm sure he's just playing a game. There are so many places to hide in the house, on the grounds.”

“He was so excited about today. It's all he could talk about. He's supposed to be playing Revolutionary War with Alex and Jenny. He—he was going to be Daniel Boone.”

“We'll find him,” Nathaniel told her.

“Of course we will.” Gently Coco began to ease Megan along. “We'll organize a search party. Won't he be excited when he finds out?”

An hour later, they were spread throughout the house, searching corners and hidey-holes, retracing and backtracking. Megan kept a steel grip on her composure and covered every inch, starting in the tower and working her way down.

He had to be here, she reassured herself. Of course, she would find him any minute. It didn't make sense otherwise.

Bubbles of hysteria rose in her throat and had to be choked down.

He was just playing a game. He'd gone exploring. He loved the house so much. He'd drawn dozens of pictures of it to send back to Oklahoma so that everyone could see that he lived in a castle.

She would find him behind the next door she opened.

Megan told herself that, repeating it like a litany, as she worked her way from room to room.

She ran into Suzanna in one of the snaking hallways. She felt cold, so cold, though the sun beat hot against the windows. “He doesn't answer me,” she said faintly. “I keep calling him, but he doesn't answer.”

“It's such a big house.” Suzanna took Megan's hands, gripped hard. “Once when we were kids we played hide-and-seek and didn't find Lilah for three hours. She'd crawled into a cabinet on the third floor and had a nap.”

“Suzanna.” Megan pressed her lips together. She had to face it, and quickly. “His two favorite shirts are missing, and both pairs of his sneakers. His baseball caps. The money he'd been saving in his jar is gone. He's not in the house. He's run away.”

“You need to sit down.”

“No, I—I need to do something. Call the police. Oh, God—” Breaking, Megan pressed her hands to her face. “Anything could have happened to him. He's just a little boy. I don't even know how long he's been gone. I don't even know.” Her eyes, swimming with fear, locked on Suzanna's. “Did you ask Alex, Jenny? Maybe he said something to them. Maybe—”

“Of course I asked them, Megan,” Suzanna said gently. “Kevin didn't say anything to them about leaving.”

“Where would he go? Why? Back to Oklahoma,” she said on a wild, hopeful thought. “Maybe he's trying to get back to Oklahoma. Maybe he's been unhappy, just pretending to like it here.”

“He's been happy. But we'll check it out. Come on, let's go down.”

“Been over every bit of this section,” Dutch told Nathaniel. “The pantries, the storerooms, even the meat locker. Trent and Sloan are going over the renovation areas, and Max and Holt are beating the bushes all over the grounds.”

There was worry in his eyes, but he was brewing a pot of fresh coffee with steady hands.

“Seems to me if the kid was just playing and heard all this shouting and calling, he'd come out to see what the excitement was all about.”

“We've been over the house twice.” Nathaniel stared grimly out the window. “Amanda and Lilah have combed every inch of The Retreat. He's not in here.”

“Don't make a lick of sense to me. Kevin's been happy as a clam. He's in here every blessed day, getting under my feet and begging for sea stories.”

“Something's got him running.” There was a prickle at the back of his neck. Rubbing it absently, Nathaniel looked out toward the cliffs. “Why does a kid run? Because he's scared, or he's hurt, or he's unhappy.”

“That boy ain't none of those things,” Dutch said staunchly.

“I wouldn't have thought so.” Nathaniel had been all three at that age, and he believed he would have recognized the signs. There had been times he ran, too. But he'd had nowhere to go.

The tickle at the back of his neck persisted. Again, he found his gaze wandering toward the cliffs. “I've got a feeling,” he said almost to himself.

“What?”

“No, just a feeling.” The prickle was in his gut now. “I'm going to check it out.”

It was as though he were being pulled to the cliffs. Nathaniel didn't fight it, though the rocky ground jarred the pain back into his bones and the steep climb stole his breath. With one hand pressed to his aching ribs, he continued, his gaze sweeping the rocks and the high wild grass.

It was, he knew, a place that would draw a child. It had drawn him as a boy. And as a man.

The sun was high and white, the sea sapphire blue, then frothy where it lashed and foamed on the rocks. Beautiful and deadly. He thought of a young boy stumbling along the path, missing a step, slipping. The nausea churned so violently he had to stop and choke it back.

Nothing had happened to Kevin, he assured himself. He wouldn't let anything happen to Kevin.

He turned, started to climb higher, calling the boy's name as he searched.

It was the bird that caught his eye. A pure white gull, graceful as a dancer, swooped over the grass and rock, circled back with a musical call that was almost human, eerily feminine. He stood, staring at it. For one sunstruck second, Nathaniel would have sworn the gull's eyes were green, green as emeralds.

It glided down, perched on the ledge below and looked up, as if waiting for him.

Nathaniel found himself clambering down, ignoring the jolts to his abused body. The thunder of the surf seemed to fill his head. He thought he smelled a woman, sweet, soft, soothing, but then it was only the sea.

The bird wheeled away, skyward, joined its mate— another gull, blindingly white. For a moment they circled, calling together in something like joy. Then they winged out to sea.

Wheezing a bit, Nathaniel gained the ledge, and saw the shallow crevice in the rock where the boy was huddled.

His first instinct was to scoop the child up, hold him. But he checked it. He wasn't altogether certain he wasn't the reason Kevin had run.

Instead, he sat down on the ledge and spoke quietly. “Nice view from here.”

Kevin kept his face pressed to his knees. “I'm going back to Oklahoma.” It was an attempt at defiance that merely sounded weary. “I can take a bus.”

“I guess so. You'd see a lot of the country that way. But I thought you liked it here.”

His answer was a shrug. “It's okay.” “Somebody give you a hard time, mate?” “No.”

“Did you have a fight with Alex?”

“No, it's nothing like that. I'm just going back to Oklahoma. It was too late to take the bus last night, so I came up here to wait. I guess maybe I fell asleep.” He hunched his shoulder, kept his face averted. “You can't make me go back.”

“Well, I'm bigger than you, so I could.” He said it gently, touched a hand to Kevin's hair. But the boy jerked away. “I'd rather not make you do anything until I understand what's on your mind.”

He let some time pass, watching the sea, listening to the wind, until he sensed Kevin relaxing a little beside him.

“Your mother's kind of worried about you. Everybody else is, too. Maybe you ought to go back and tell them goodbye before you leave.”

“She won't let me go.” “She loves you a lot.”

“She should never have had me.” There was bitterness in the words, words that were much too sharp for a little boy.

“That's a stupid thing to say. I figure you've got a right to get mad if you want but there's not much point in just being stupid.”

Kevin's head shot up. His face was streaked with tears and dirt, and it sliced through Nathaniel's heart.

“If she hadn't had me, things would be different. She always pretends it doesn't matter. But I know.”

“What do you know?”

“I'm not a baby anymore. I know what he did. He made her pregnant, then he went away. He went away, and he never cared. He went away and married Suzanna, and then he left her, too. And Alex and Jenny. That's how come I'm their brother.”

Those were stormy seas, Nathaniel thought, that needed to be navigated with care. The boy's eyes, hurt and angry, latched on to his.

“Your mother's the one who has to explain that to you, Kevin.”

“She told me that sometimes people can't get married and be together, even when they have kids. But he didn't want me. He never wanted me, and I hate him.”

“I'm not going to argue with you about that,” Nathaniel said carefully. “But your mother loves you, and that counts for a lot more. If you take off, it's going to hurt her, bad.”

Kevin's lips trembled. “She could have you if I was gone. You'd stay with her if it wasn't for me.”

“I'm afraid I'm not following you, Kevin.”

“He—he had you beat up.” Kevin's voice hitched as he fought to get the words out. “I heard last night. I heard you and Mom, and she said it was her fault, but it's mine. 'Cause he's my father and he did it and now you hate me, too, and you'll go away.”

“Little jerk.” On a flood of emotion, Nathaniel yanked the boy to his knees and shook him. “You pulled this stunt because I got a few bruises? Do I look like I can't take care of myself? Those other two wimps had to crawl away.”

“Really?” Kevin sniffed and rubbed at his eyes. “But still-”

“Still, hell. You didn't have anything to do with it, and I ought to shake you until your teeth fall out for worrying us all this way.”

“He's my father,” Kevin said, tilting his chin up. “So that means—”

“That means nothing. My father was a drunk who used to kick my butt for the pleasure of it, six days out of seven. Does that make me like him?”

“No.” Tears began to roll more freely now. “But I thought you wouldn't like me anymore, and you'd never stay and be my father now, like Holt is with Alex and Jenny.”

Nathaniel's hands gentled as he drew the sobbing boy into his arms. “You thought wrong.” He rubbed his lips over Kevin's hair, absorbed the jolt of love. “I ought to hang you from the yardarm, sailor.”

“What's that?”

“I'll show you later.” He tightened his grip. “Did you stop and think that I might be hoping you'd be my son? That I want you and your mom to be mine?”

“Honest?” Kevin's voice was muffled against Nathaniel's chest.

“Do you figure I've been training you to take the helm just to have you walk off?”

“I don't know. I guess not.”

“I've been looking for you, Kevin, longer than just today.”

With a sigh, Kevin let his head rest in the curve of Nathaniel's shoulder. “I was awful scared. But then the bird came.”

“Bird?” Remembering, Nathaniel glanced around. But the rocks were empty.

“Then I wasn't so scared. She stayed all night. She was there whenever I woke up. She flew away with the other one, but then you came. Is Mom mad at me?”

“Probably.”

Kevin sighed again—a long-suffering sound that made Nathaniel smile. “I guess I'm in trouble.”

“Well, let's get your things and go back and face the music.”

Kevin picked up his knapsack and put his hand trustingly in Nathaniel's. “Does it hurt?” he asked, studying Nathaniel's face.

“You bet.”

“Later, can I see all your bruises?” “Sure. I've got some beauts.”

Nathaniel felt every one of them as they climbed back up to the cliff path and started down the rocky slope toward home. It was worth it, worth every jar and wince, to see the look on Megan's face.

“Kevin!” She flew across the lawn, hair blowing, cheeks tracked with tears. “Go on,” Nathaniel murmured to the boy. “She'll want to hug you first.” With a nod, Kevin dropped his knapsack and raced into his mother's arms.

“Oh, Kevin...” She couldn't hold him tight enough, even kneeling on the grass, pressing him close, rocking and weeping in terrible relief.

“Where'd you find him?” Trent asked Nathaniel quietly. “Up on the cliffs, holed up in a crevice in the rocks.”

“Good God.” C.C. shuddered. “Did he spend the night up there?” “Looked that way. I had this feeling, I can't explain it. And there he was.”

“A feeling?” Trent exchanged a look with his wife. “Remind me to tell you sometime how I found Fred when he was a puppy.”

Max gave Nathaniel a pat on the back. “I'll go call the police, let them know we've found him.”

“He'll be hungry.” Coco swallowed fresh tears and burrowed closer to Dutch. “We'll go fix him something to eat.”

“You bring 'em in when she's finished slobbering over him—” Dutch camouflaged the break in his voice with a cough. “Women. Always making a fuss.”

“Come on, let's go in.” Suzanna tugged on Alex and Jenny's hands. “But I want to ask if he saw the ghosts,” Alex complained.

“Later.” Holt solved the problem by hoisting Alex onto his shoulders.

With a shuddering sigh, Megan drew back, ran her hands over Kevin's face. “You're all right? You're not hurt?”

“Nuh-uh.” It embarrassed him that he'd cried is front of his brother and sister. After all, he was nearly nine. “I'm okay.”

“Don't you ever do that again.” The swift change from weeping mother to fierce parent had Nathaniel's brows rising. “You had us all worried sick, young man. We've been looking for you for hours, even Aunt Colleen. We've called the police.”

“I'm sorry.” But the thrill of knowing the police had been alerted overpowered the guilt.

“Sorry isn't enough, Kevin Michael O'Riley.”

Kevin's gaze hit the ground. It was big-time trouble when she used all his names. “I won't ever do it again. I promise.”

“You had no business doing it this time. I'm supposed to be able to trust you, and now— Oh.” On another hitching sob, she pressed his head to her breast. “I was so scared, baby. I love you so much. Where were you going?”

“I don't know. Maybe Grandma's.”

“Grandma's.” She sat back on her heels and sighed. “Don't you like it here?”

“I like it best of anything.”

“Then why did you run away, Kevin? Are you mad at me?”

He shook his head, then dropped his chin on his chest. “I thought you and Nate were mad at me because he got beat up. But Nate says it's not my fault and you're not mad. He says it doesn't matter about him. You're not mad at me, are you?”

Her horrified eyes flew to Nate's, held there as she drew Kevin close again. “Oh, no, baby, I'm not. No one is.” She looked at her son again, cupping his face in her hands. “Remember when I told you that sometimes people can't be together? I should explain that sometimes they shouldn't be together. That's the way it was with me and—” She couldn't refer to him as Kevin's father. “With me and Baxter.”

“But I was an accident.”

“Oh, no.” She smiled then, kissed his cheeks. “An accident's something you wish hadn't happened. You were a gift. The best one I ever had in my life. If you ever think I don't want you again, I guess I'll have to stuff you into a box and tie it up with a bow so you'll get the point.”

He giggled. “I'm sorry.”

“Me too. Now let's go get you cleaned up.” She rose, gripped her son's hand in hers and looked at Nathaniel. “Thank you.”

In the way of children, Kevin bounced back from his night on the cliffs and threw himself into the holiday. He was, for the moment, a hero, desperately impressing his siblings with his tales of the dark and the sea and a white bird with green eyes.

In keeping with the family gathering, all the dogs attended, so Sadie and Fred raced with their puppies and the children over the rolling lawn. Babies napped in playpens or rocked in swings or charmed their way into willing arms. A few hotel guests wandered over from their own feast provided by The Retreat, drawn by the laughter and raised voices.

Nathaniel passed, reluctantly, on the impromptu softball game, figuring one slide into third would have him down for the count. Instead, he designated himself umpire and had the pleasure of arguing with every batter he called out.

“Are you blind or just stupid?” C.C. tossed down her bat in disgust. “A sock in the eye's no excuse for missing that call. That ball was outside a half a mile.”

Nathaniel clamped his cigar in his teeth. “Not from where I'm standing, sugar.”

She slapped her hands on her hips. “Then you're standing in the wrong spot.” Jenny took the opportunity to attempt a cartwheel over home plate, and earned some applause from the infield.

“C.C, you've got one of the best-looking strike zones I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. And that was strike three. You're out.”

“If you weren't already black-and-blue...” She swallowed a laugh, and sneered instead. “You're up, Lilah.”

“Already?” In a lazy gesture, Lilah brushed her hair away from her face and stepped into the box.

From her position at short, Megan glanced at her second baseman. “She won't run even if she connects.”

Suzanna sighed, shook her head. “She won't have to. Just watch.”

Lilah skimmed a hand down her hip, cast a sultry look back at Nathaniel, then faced the pitcher. Sloan went through an elaborate windup that had the children cheering. Lilah took the first strike with the bat still on her shoulder. Yawned.

“We keeping you up?” Nathaniel asked her. “I like to wait for my pitch.”

Apparently the second one wasn't the one she was waiting for. She let it breeze by, and earned catcalls from the opposing team.

She stepped out of the box, stretched, smiled at Sloan. “Okay, big guy,” she said as she took her stance again. She cracked the low curveball and sent it soaring for a home run. Amid the cheers, she turned and handed her bat to Nathaniel. “I always recognize the right pitch,” she told him, and sauntered around the bases.

When the game broke for the feast, Nathaniel eased down beside Megan.

“You've got a pretty good arm there, sugar.”

“I coached Kevin's Little League team back in Oklahoma.” Her gaze wandered to her son, as it had dozens of times during the afternoon. “He doesn't seem any the worse for wear, does he?”

“Nope. How about you?”

“The bats in my stomach have mellowed out to butterflies.” She pressed a hand to them now, lowered her voice. “I never knew he thought about Baxter. About... any of it. I should have.”

“A boy's got to have some secrets, even from his mother.”

“I suppose.” It was too beautiful a day, she decided, too precious a day, to waste on worry. “Whatever you said to him up there, however you said it, was exactly right. It means a lot to me.” She looked over at him. “You mean a lot to me.”

Nathaniel sipped his beer, studied her. “You're working up to something, Meg. Why don't you just say it?”

“All right. After you left yesterday, I spent a lot of time thinking. About how I'd feel if you didn't come back. I knew there'd be a hole in my life. Maybe I'd be able to fill it again, part of the way, but something would always be missing. When I asked myself what that would be, I kept coming up with the same answer. No matter how many ways I looked at it or juggled it around, the answer never changed.”

“So what's the answer, Meg?”

“You, Nathaniel.” She leaned over and kissed him. “Just you.”

Later, when the sky was dark and the moon floated over the water, she watched the fireworks explode. Color bloomed into color. Waterfalls of glowing sparks rained from sky to water in a celebration of freedom, new beginnings and, Megan thought, hope.

It was a dazzling display that had the children staring upward, wide-eyed and openmouthed. The echoing booms shivered the air until, with a machine-gun crescendo, color and light spewed high in the finale. For a heart-pounding interlude, the sky was bright with golds and reds, blues and blinding whites, circles and spirals, cascades and towers, that shattered into individual stars over the sea.

Long after it was over, the dregs of the party cleared away, the children tucked into bed, she felt the power of the celebration running through her blood. In her own room, she brushed her hair until it flowed over her shoulders. Anticipation vibrating inside her, she belted her borrowed robe loosely at her waist. Quietly she slipped out the terrace doors and walked to Nathaniel's room.

It hadn't taken much pressure to persuade him to stay another night. He'd been tired and aching, and he hadn't relished even the short drive home. But the long soak in the tub hadn't relaxed him, as he hoped. He was still filled with restless urges, and with flashing images of Megan's face, lit with the glow of rockets.

Then he stepped into the bedroom and saw her.

She wore a silky robe of deep blue that flowed down her body and clung to her curves. Her hair glinted, golden fire, and her eyes were as dark and mysterious as sapphires.

“I thought you could use a rubdown.” She smiled hesitantly. “I've had a lot of experience loosening stiff muscles. With horses, anyway.”

He was almost afraid to breathe. “Where did you get that?”

“Oh.” Self-consciously she ran a hand down the robe. “I borrowed it from Lilah. I thought you'd like it better than terry cloth.” When he said nothing, her nerve began to slip. “If you'd rather I go, I understand. I don't expect that you'd feel well enough to— We don't have to make love, Nathaniel. I just want to help.”

“I don't want you to go.”

Her smile bloomed again. “Why don't you lie down, then? I'll start on your back. Really, I'm good at this.” She laughed a little. “The horses loved me.”

He crossed to the bed, touched her hair, her cheek. “Did you wear silk robes to work the stock?”

“Always.” She eased him down. “Roll onto your stomach,” she said briskly. Pleased with the task, she poured liniment into her hands, then rubbed her pahns together to warm it. Carefully, so that the movement of the mattress didn't jar him, she knelt over him. “Tell me if I hurt you.”

She started on his shoulders, gently over the bruises, more firmly over knotted muscles. He had a warrior's body, she thought, tough and tight, and carrying all the marks of battle.

“You overdid it today.”

He only grunted, closing his eyes and letting his body reap the pleasure of her stroking hands. He felt the brush of silk against his skin when she shifted. Drifting through the sharp scent of liniment was her subtle perfume, another balm to the senses.

The aches began to fade, then shifted into a deeper, more primal pain that coursed smoothly through his blood when she lowered her lips to his shoulder.

“Better?” she murmured.

“No. You're killing me. Don't stop.”

Her laugh was low and soft as she eased the towel from his hips, and pressed competent fingers low on his spine. “I'm here to make you feel better, Nathaniel. You have to relax for me to do this right.”

“You're doing just fine.” He moaned as her hands moved lower, circling, kneading. Then her lips, skimming, whisper-soft.

“You have such a beautiful body.” Her own breathing grew heavy as she stroked and explored. “I love looking at it, touching it.” Slowly she took her lips up his spine, over his shoulder again, to nuzzle at his ear. “Turn over,” she whispered. “I'll do the test.”

Her lips were there to meet his when he shifted, to linger, to heat. But when he reached up, groaning, to cup her breasts, she drew back.

“Wait.” Though her hands trembled, she freshened the liniment. With her eyes on his, she spread her fingers over his chest. “They put marks on you,” she murmured.

“I put more on them.”

“Nathaniel the dragon-slayer. Lie still,” she whispered, and bent close to kiss the scrapes and bruises on his face. “I'll make it all go away.”

His heart was pounding. She could feel it rocket against her palm. In the lamplight, his eyes were dark as smoke. The robe pooled around her knees when she straddled him. She massaged his shoulders, his arms, his hands, kissing the scraped knuckles, laving them with her tongue.

The air was like syrup, thick and sweet. It caught in his lungs with each labored breath. No other woman had ever made him feel helpless, drained and sated, all at once.

“Megan, I need to touch you.”

Watching him, she reached for the belt of the robe, loosened it. In one fluid movement, the silk slid from her shoulders. Beneath she wore a short slip of the same color and texture. As he reached up, one thin strap spilled off her shoulder.

She closed her eyes, let her head fall back, as his hands stroked over the silk, then beneath. The colors were back, all those flashing, dazzling lights that had erupted in the sky. Stars wheeled inside her head, beautifully hot. Craving more, she rose over him, took him into her with a delicious slowness that had them both gasping.

She shuddered when he arched up, gripping her hips in his hands. Now the colors seemed to shoot into her blood, white-hot, and her skin grew damp and slick. Suddenly greedy, she swooped down, devouring his lips, fingers clutching the bruised flesh she'd sought to soothe.

“Let me.” She moaned and pressed his hands against her breasts. “Let me.”

With a wildness that staggered him, she drove him hard, riding him like lightning. He called out her name as his vision dimmed, as the frantic need convulsed like pain inside him. Release was like a whiplash that stung with velvet.

She tightened around him like a fist and shattered him.

Weak as water, she flowed down, rested her head on his chest. “Did I hurt you?”

He couldn't find the strength to wrap his arms around her and let them lie limp on the bed. “I can't feel anything but you.”

“Nathaniel.” She lifted her head to press a kiss to his thundering heart. “There's something I forgot to tell you yesterday.”

“Hmm... What's that?”

“I love you, too.” She watched his eyes open, saw the swirl of emotion darken them.

“That's good.” His arms, no longer weak, circled her, cradled her. “I don't know if it's enough, but—”

He turned his lips to hers to quiet her. “Don't mess it up. 'For love's sake only,' Megan. That's enough for tonight.” He kissed her again. “Stay with me.”

“Yes.”