Tender Loving Care

Chapter Seven

“Go on, you big ox. Swim! Get out of here. Scram. We’re your enemies, remember?” Zoe’s Institute for Orca Research had three mammoth saltwater holding tanks. At the moment the underwater gates were open on one of them. Tattered Lady and her calf were free to go, and the Pacific and freedom were waiting for them.

Five weeks before, Zoe had been a member of the institute crew that had brought in the wounded humpback. The name Tattered Lady had been a natural. The dorsal fin had been so chewed up that the whale had been weak from loss of blood and unable to care for her young one. During Zoe’s absence, Tattered Lady had been successfully nursed back to health, but the honor of freeing her had been delayed until Zoe’s return…only the lady was not all that excited about reentering a cold, cruel world.

Zoe had spent more than half of her first day back at work underwater in a wet suit. Dressed in street clothes now, she was weary and freezing under a typical Puget Sound mist. She crossed her ankles and all available fingers as the whale once more breached and dived in a graceful arc toward the gate. Just as smoothly, she turned and headed back inland.

“That’s freedom out there, you big jerk,” Zoe hissed with frustration. “Where’s your pride? You want to be on welfare the rest of your life? You’re as healthy as a horse, you big lummox. Go get your own plankton.”

“You tell her, Zoe.” Sandy, next to Zoe, was chuckling at Zoe’s scoldings. With the ink on her bachelor of science diploma barely dry, Sandy was the youngest member of the oceanographic team. A brunette with a shy smile, she’d found a mentor in Zoe from her first day on the job. “Good to have you back,” she said affectionately.

Zipping up her jacket, Zoe grinned. “Good to be back. I hear you did a terrific job while I was gone. No more horrendous teasing about being our institute rookie?”

Sandy shrugged her slight shoulders. “I expected that when I started here.” She motioned toward the water. “Want me to leave the gate open overnight?”

“No. I only made that mistake once, about two years ago, and ended up with two sharks, a ray and a school of jellyfish prepared to set up house here permanently. Tomorrow we’ll bait the water outside the gate or, if worse comes to worst, lead the calf out and hope the mother follows.” Zoe sighed, giving one more possessive glance at her humpback whale before grabbing her shoulder bag. “She’s healed well. I had my doubts she could make it when we brought her in five weeks ago.”

“Ralph says you bully them into surviving.”

Zoe sent her a wry glance in shared understanding of their boss’s character. “Ralph’s always free with compliments, but he keeps us in the water and himself dry and warm in the lab.”

“You mind if I stick close tomorrow? I’d like to help you on the echolocation project.”

“Sure.” Minutes later, Zoe was inside her car and headed toward home. It was barely five, yet the mist was slowly turning into a downpour that Zoe knew would mean a full-fledged fog by morning. A wildlife sanctuary bordered the institute’s property. Spring was busting out on both sides of the coastal road, and any other time she would have slowed to admire the burst of violet star thistles clustered so spectacularly on her left.

Tonight she hardly noticed nature’s wonders; her foot was steady on the gas pedal. She was busy feeling relief that her first day back at work had been everything she’d hoped-absorbing, challenging, satisfying.

You didn’t even miss them, she told herself as she passed another car that seemed to be dawdling. She was equally certain that the three males in her life had survived beautifully without her-probably a thousand times better than if she’d been there. The boys had Rafe, they didn’t need her, and heck, she’d felt as though she were being let out of prison when she’d gone to work this morning. Freedom. Lunch when she wanted it. Work she could concentrate on. Driving with both hands on the wheel instead of one adjusting a seat belt that a four-year-old had wriggled out of. Uninterrupted conversations between adults, spoken in adult language to people who’d never heard of X-Men. What more could a woman ask for?

Frustrated at a red light, she took a thorough look in four directions, discovered no other cars and guiltily ran the light. Three blocks later she jammed on the brake in her driveway, tugged her purse strap over her shoulder and hurled herself out of the car. Noting that Jay was offering a friendly wave from his second-floor apartment, she waved back. She knew she should stop to thank the older man for taking care of her place while she was gone, and she would…soon, but not now.

Belatedly aware that she was rushing hell-bent for leather for no reason at all, she slowed her pace to a sedate gallop. It’s that man’s fault. Before he came into your life, you were a sane, competent, rational, sensible…

…surprised woman, she qualified fleetingly as she opened the front door. At first glance, she wondered who was moving. Her four Tiffany-style lamps were grouped on top of the bookcase, along with her pewter candlesnuffers, her crocheting bag and every ornament she’d ever collected-some of which she hadn’t seen in years. Pillowcases were draped over her cherrywood tables like giant doilies. Her afghan was meticulously folded over a hanger in the front hall closet. The apartment hadn’t looked so neat since the last tenant had lived there. No noise, no chaos…no Rafe, no children…

Tossing her yellow felt hat on the rack, Zoe ran a hand through her hair and wandered through to the kitchen. “Where is everybody?”

Two angels with freshly brushed hair instantly scraped back chairs to barrel toward her. “Snookums!”

Her renegade heart turned over. She hadn’t exactly missed them all day, she’d just…missed them. Terribly. Still, one good look and she could see who was the better caretaker. No sticky fingers, no signs of tears; Rafe had found a miracle cure for little boys’ cowlicks, and their shirts were even tucked in! If her own particular failures at mothering assaulted her at that moment, she didn’t care. She could still be an aunt, couldn’t she? She could still love them.

Wet smacks delivered, they chattered thirteen to the dozen. She nodded gravely at intervals, and finally snatched a moment to look at Rafe.

Standing by the stove, he had a towel slung over his shoulder and a wooden spoon in his hand. “Good day?” he mouthed, and she nodded her reply with a sparkle of laughter for his efficient house-husband appearance, but then her smile wavered. His shirt was hanging out; he must have spent the day acquiring bags under his eyes; and his color brought to mind a man who’d just crossed a desert without food or water.

When the twins left the room, she straightened. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Just sit down and relax. Dinner’s ready and waiting.”

It was. His meat loaf wasn’t bad, and the bakery-bought cheesecake was delicious. If Rafe didn’t say much, the two boys more than made up for his reticence with steady dinner-table conversation. Aaron only tried to climb on the table once, and Zoe watched in amazement as both boys took their plates to the counter when they finished. His control…she’d never once had that kind of control over the children, and when dinner was over he insisted she not help with the dishes. “Look, for a few weeks, our roles are reversed. While I was working, you had time for that stuff. Now you’re working, I’m the one with time to take over the house. You think I can’t handle it just because I’m a man?”

“Of course not.” She just wasn’t used to that belligerent tone, not from Rafe, nor could she keep her eyes off his ravaged face. It seemed politic to cart the kids out of his sight for a bath, which naturally turned into a long, wet, noisy process. After that, she read them a story and tucked them in.

Once the kids were in bed, she wandered back out. Noting that Rafe wasn’t in the kitchen, she poked her head into the living room. At first glance she saw no one there either; but then, at first glance, she hadn’t thought to look down.

Six feet three inches of spread-eagled man lay prostrate on the carpet. Wasted was the first word that came to her mind, and laughter her first reaction, but no smile touched her lips as she looked down at him. A nameless emotion welled inside her-something vulnerable and potent and fragile.

She reminded herself of the outstanding job she’d done over the past two weeks in avoiding physical contact with him. She reminded herself that it wouldn’t kill him to be a little tired. She reminded herself that his contact with the boys was exactly what was needed to create an emotional bond between them. She reminded herself of a lot of things, and then she quietly slipped off her shoes and tiptoed toward him.

Kneeling beside him, she leaned forward and gently applied her fingers to the nape of his neck. Contrary to appearances, the man was not dead. He groaned, quite loudly. She didn’t find tight muscles in his neck; she found shafts of ungiving sinew and just shook her head. “All right. So tell me what happened,” she ordered him.

It seemed to require a monumental amount of strength for him even to talk. “I took them grocery shopping.”

“Ah.”

“I will never make the mistake of doing that again.”

“I understand.” She rubbed and pulled and stretched those muscles.

“You know that park a couple blocks away?”

“Yes?”

“Aaron climbed to the top of the monkey bars and couldn’t get down.”

“Hmm.” Who would have guessed that a big, strong man could be turned into bread dough by a simple back rub?

“After we came home, Parker locked himself in the bathroom. I had to unhinge the door to get him out.”

“Hmm.”

“All of your perfumes are now in the medicine cabinet. I bought a lock for it. The key’s in my shoe. I couldn’t think of any other safe place to hide it.”

“Thank you.”

“The yarn in that bag…They figured it would be a neat idea to turn the entire living room into a huge spiderweb and-never mind. I’ll buy you some new yarn. See, when I told them it was okay, I had no idea…Zoe. I had no idea-”

“It’s okay.”

“I read them this story about a choo-choo train at least forty times. Want to hear it? Because by now I’m pretty sure I’ve got it memorized.”

“Not necessary,” she assured him.

“Zoe?”

“Yes?”

“I love them. But they’re animals.”

“Now, Rafe. Your first day was bound to be a little tough, but I think it’s possible they’re just normal four-year-olds.”

“Maybe. But they lie. I asked them why the curtain was down.” He motioned vaguely to the curtain which was now back up. “They said it was an ‘awesome miracle.’ I asked them why your room smelled like a perfume factory. They said a little man with green hair had come into the house and done it. And they talk, Zoe. They talk all day. They never stop talking.”

“I know,” she murmured. And at that exact moment, she knew something else: it was really too late to talk herself out of loving him.

She pushed up his shirt-the material was only in the way, anyway-and let her palms roam possessively over his warm skin. Her conscience registered all the warnings she already knew. A short-term intimate relationship was impossible because of the children. And a long-term relationship was equally impossible, not just because Rafe hadn’t mentioned marriage, but because marriage for the sake of the children had died out in medieval times. When and if she sought a long-term relationship, she would have to be absolutely certain that she mattered to him. However selfish that was, she simply couldn’t survive failing in another relationship because of expectations about children that she couldn’t fulfill.

So all relationships were impossible, but her hands kept kneading, and that feeling of love started in her toes and slowly filled her, engulfing her in its glow until her throat felt tight. It was the strangest thing. Sex should have been part of it. A bewilderingly strong sexual attraction had been part of her feelings for Rafe from the beginning, but hormones didn’t explain that welling in her throat, the way her eyes felt tight, the sensation of soft sweetness spreading through her in lazy tentacles.

“Not there. It hurts there.”

“Does it?” But she worked specifically around that vertebra where he was obviously sore.

“Zoe. I’ve been to Vietnam. I spent a month camping in freezing weather on a mountain in the wintertime. I was in China during the earthquake. I really don’t have a major problem coping with the elements.”

“I know you don’t.”

“So how could two small four-year-old boys-”

“I really think it’s time you took me to bed,” she said gently.

“-completely reduce a man to-” He stopped talking abruptly. His eyelids flew open, and he rolled over onto his back.

In time, his right hand languidly reached out and captured her wrist. He tugged her down, slowly, as if terrified of setting off a box of TNT. Just as carefully, he leaned over her, pinned her legs with one of his and cleared his throat. Such machinations might have been enough to make Zoe smile, except that she couldn’t.

A groove of a frown marred his forehead, and his eyes searched hers, roaming with intense concentration over her fragile features. He wrapped a strand of her hair around his fingers, then let it spring free…then did it again. “I must have heard you wrong,” he said finally.

No man should have such blue eyes. “I’m pretty sure there’s nothing wrong with your hearing.”

“So am I.”

“Of course, you could have it checked tomorrow. There’s a doctor in town-”

“Look at me, Zoe.”

But what she saw in his eyes made her heart pound and her hands feel shaky. He wasn’t going to settle for a light and breezy tone from her, and she suddenly didn’t know how to tell him that she was afraid. His lips brushed hers with the tenderest of kisses, just one. And then he lifted his head, looked at her and reached for her hand. “Come on.”

The hallway that led back to the bedrooms was really very short. Just then, it annoyingly lengthened into a long mile and a half. Still holding her hand, he popped his head into the kids’ bedroom for a minute and closed their door. By then he must have been able to tell she was having a sudden attack of nervousness, because her palm was damp, but he didn’t let on. In her room, without releasing her hand, he punched the lock on the door and pushed a chair in front of it. He was making so sure the kids couldn’t interrupt them that she tried another smile.

All smiles seemed to be locked on the other side of her head. Her heart had been suddenly replaced by a trapped butterfly, her lips were parched enough to crack, and air was having a problem getting in and out of her lungs.

The room was dark, and that helped, but then he switched on her bedside lamp. The soft glow illuminated him as he carefully pulled down her spread and blankets. When he tossed the pillows on the floor, she felt heat travel slowly up her cheeks. The white-sheeted mattress looked too bare. And then he turned to her, and she saw those blue eyes again.

Gently, he unfastened the first button of her blouse. “So…are we going to be nervous?” he murmured softly.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Do we want to change our minds?”

She shook her head, but she certainly didn’t look down. All of her blouse buttons seemed to be undone. Firm, callused fingers pushed the garment off her shoulders.

“Are there two of us scared witless here, or is it just me?” he asked patiently.

“Blast you, Rafe,” she said helplessly. “Would you stop being so darned reassuring and just kiss me?”

His brows shot up in an expression of comical surprise. That relaxed her as even his touch couldn’t have. Her nervousness reflected how long it had been since she’d made love, but she felt no unwillingness. This was Rafe, a man she loved and trusted. A man she could be honest with, a man she could even be nervous with.

A man she wanted very much to make love to, and his first kiss was dangerously delicious. Hello, Zoe, welcome to earthquake country. Her fingers fumbled with his shirt buttons, even as she returned pressure on pressure of kiss on kiss. She pushed the shirt off his shoulders as he’d pushed off hers. Under her fingertips was a playground of warm, bare flesh.

His palms skimmed her shoulders, her spine. She felt the clasp of her bra being opened, and then that barrier was gone. Air rushed from his lungs when he felt her bare breasts crushed against him. He murmured something. If she didn’t catch the exact words, the intimacy of his tone was enough to make her knees quake.

His knuckles brushed against her tummy when he unsnapped her jeans. His palms slipped inside to bare flesh, and he learned her with his hands as he languidly pushed down the denim fabric. His lips wandered from her throat to the tips of her breasts, and by the time she lay outstretched on the bed, she had no clothes on and neither did he.

When she felt him trace the scar below her navel, her fingers burrowed in his hair. He must have felt that sudden tension, because his head lifted. For a moment, he just looked at her, and then his head dipped down. He branded her right breast with a kiss, then placed another just over her heartbeat; he counted her ribs with more kisses, but that caressing trail aimed relentlessly lower. Her eyes squeezed closed when she felt his mouth on the thin silver ribbon.

The scar had no feeling; she could have sworn it had no feeling, yet when his tongue traced the line of it, she felt a shattering inside, like color exploding, like a fierce ache that was more compelling than pain.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

He heard her. He climbed back up her body, kiss by kiss, and when he was face-to-face with her, he leaned up on an elbow. As if his heart weren’t pounding nor need tearing through him, he played lazily with a strand of her hair. The thick, low whisper came from the back of his throat. “Don’t isn’t a word for lovers, Zoe, and never for us. What’s yours is mine in this bed, and it goes both ways.”

Her skin glowed like ivory under the lamplight. He was aware-too aware-that Zoe was only sure for the moment that she wanted him. Whatever had changed her mind, he didn’t want to know. His conscience pricked him for not asking. It seemed more important-he hoped it was more important-to show her how it could be between them. He kissed the tips of her fingers, then the palm of her hand.

“I read somewhere you should never bring frustrations to bed,” he murmured. “I always thought that was dead wrong, Zoe. This is the worst place I can think of to fake anything. Know that you can bring frustrations to this bed. Or fear. Or old hurts, or a damned rough day. Your scars are mine when I make love to you. I want who you are with me.”

She touched his cheek, mesmerized by the thick fringe of black lashes that softened his eyes. The strain on his features, the sapphire sheen in his eyes, was so clearly for her. She answered him in the only way she knew how, by lifting her head and touching her lips to his.

He offered her honesty. He offered her the intimacy and allure of yielding to a man who needed her, just her. He offered her the fragile sensation that she was precious to him. He offered her the irresistible promise of being wanted without boundaries, beyond sense, above thought, past right and wrong.

She took what was hers. The right to love and be loved. She matched urgent touch for urgent touch, kiss for kiss, the heat of her body with his. Heartbeats clashed and skin kneaded skin, and she’d known from the beginning he wouldn’t be a careless lover. He was never that.

When he finally claimed her body, he filled her up, engulfed her with him, with wanting, with long, lean hands and lips and the fierce cadence of heat and desire. Rafe showed no interest in basic satisfaction. He wooed her with abandon, with giving, with the uncontrollable force of an avalanche, with speed and fire and ice. He wooed Zoe, all of her, cells and pores and fingertips and toes. And even when that diamond brightness of release glowed through her on one fierce, sweet cry, she held on to those rights of loving. To that wonder of feeling loved by him, to the awe of loving him. There was the treasure.

Silent as a cat, she’d nearly reached the door when she heard Rafe’s groggy “Where on earth do you think you’re going?”

“Go back to sleep,” she whispered. “It’s three in the morning, Rafe. I’m just going out to the couch.”

They’d both napped after making love. She’d wakened to a second fantasy of swift, strong passion, but then afterward she hadn’t slept, couldn’t. She knew she’d have to move away from the warm circle of his arms and return to the living room; the children would be up at six. She wasn’t about to let Aaron or Parker find her and Rafe in bed together.

“Come back here,” Rafe ordered in a low voice.

She shook her head, undoubtedly a motion he couldn’t see in the darkness. Silently, she lifted the chair away from the door. There was no point in talking about it. For two hours, her conscience had tried to make her regret having made love with him. She regretted absolutely nothing, but the reality was that two small children made a relationship impossible. She was guilty of being foolish, but never of being a fool.

She’d just turned the knob on the door when she felt his arms swamp her from behind. Sleepy and warm, he turned her around and wrapped her up as if she were a fragile present and he were the ribbon. His chest hair tickled like a memory, and his forehead touched hers in the darkness. He hugged her, and life seemed so simple. And then his finger lifted the strap on her nightgown. “I like it better when you don’t wear clothes,” he said sleepily.

“This is my favorite nightgown, I’ll have you know.”

“Still no good, Zoe.”

“No?”

“Bare is better. Your skin is better.” He touched the fabric. “This is just silk.”

She smiled, nuzzling just a moment more in the hollow of his throat. He smelled so sleepy and warm, so uniquely like Rafe. His whiskered cheek scraped against her forehead. “Come back to bed.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t. The children…”

“At the moment, Zoe, the only one I care about is you, and you’re not going out to a cold couch in the middle of the night.” He added, “I’ll stay awake; I’ll get you up before they’re up. But you’re sleeping with me.”

His words both warmed and disturbed her. How many thousands of times had she desperately wished for a man who wanted her more than he wanted children? Only that man couldn’t be Rafe. He had to care about the little ones, and he had to care more about them than about her, because their future mattered so much.

Still, he wasn’t an easy man to argue with at three in the morning. He led her back to bed, and then, like a man, still wasn’t pleased. Her cheek had to be pressed to his shoulder, her leg anchored gently between his, the covers arranged just so. He even bullied her into closing her eyes, but she whispered, “You can’t fall asleep.”

“I won’t. Zoe?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Not that kind of I-love-you. Not the words that get said automatically after making love. I mean I love you.”

She didn’t have to think. She didn’t even have to open her eyes. “No, you don’t.”

“Funny, but I’m damn sure I do.”

“No. It’s just…needing each other right now. Because we’ve been thrown together in this situation with the kids.”

“If I’d been thrown together with a three-hundred-pound battle-ax with warts because of the kids, I assure you I wouldn’t be in bed with her right now.”

“Thank heavens you’re discriminating,” she murmured, but his mood would not be lightened.

“What I feel for you has nothing to do with the children, Zoe. I’ll tell you as often as I have to, until you finally believe it.” Before she could answer, he’d heaved up on an elbow. Dark eyes bore down on her as he stole first one pillow and then the second from beneath her head. “Honey,” he scolded gruffly, “what I would like you to do, just once, is not think about anyone but yourself, what you feel, what you want, what you need. I realize you think you’re a very selfish lady-you certainly keep telling me how selfish and cold-blooded you are-so just try to be that way. Just once.”

“Rafe-” Her nightgown seemed to be skimming over her head.

“I’d better confess right now that three times in a night for an old man like me might be close to a miracle. But we’ll try. Someone’s got to teach you to be selfish, to be greedy, to be just a little bit of a taker. The whole rest of the world mastered those vices a long time ago. It’s not so hard. But you want to pay close attention, because this is a very serious test about what you want.”

“Rafe-”

“Are you concentrating?”

There was just no talking to him.