Читать книгу Bring On The Night - Sara Orwig - Страница 10

When Jonah looked at Kate, he saw the truth in her eyes and realized why she had been so stunned to see him. Throughout those years, he’d had a son, and she had kept that fact from him.

The truth and all its implications, plus his first reaction of riveting shock, began to transform his emotions.

A slow, burning fury started in the pit of his stomach and spread until he had to clench his fists and struggle to contain his rage. Never in his life had he yelled at a woman or touched one in any manner to cause hurt, but he wanted to shout at Kate now and he wanted to shake her. Instead, not trusting himself to speak, he held his temper and inhaled deeply.

Someone jostled him, and he realized they were partially blocking the aisle. He caught Kate’s arm, careful to not grip her tightly, knowing he had to keep a check on the anger boiling within him.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said through clenched teeth, turning toward the door and leaving the camera, candy and magazine behind.

She took the child’s hand and all three of them went outside into the hot sunshine. Jonah moved to the shade of a tree, away from the drugstore entrance. He dropped her arm and looked again at the child and then back to Kate.

“How old is he?”

“He’s four. In a few months, he’ll be five,” she replied, and Jonah flinched as if hit. Five years ago was when Kate had walked out.

“You knew when you left me,” he said, thinking about the divorce and the battles they’d had. “You knew, Kate! Dammit, how could you!”

“Please,” she whispered, “not here.”

He wanted to shout that they would talk here and now, but he had to think about his child. “We have to talk,” Jonah declared.

“I know that,” she answered, and glanced at their son. Jonah realized she didn’t want the little boy to overhear the conversation. “But not here and not now. This is my son, Henry,” she said. “Henry, meet…” Her voice trailed away. When words failed her and she looked stricken, Jonah realized she had been unprepared to ever cross paths with him.

“It’s Jonah,” he said to the boy, extending his hand.

Jonah took the small hand offered to him, wanting to pull the child into his arms and hug him. But he knew he couldn’t. It took great effort to keep from staring at Henry. Jonah scanned every inch of the little boy, memorizing forever the child’s straight black hair, slender frame and wide, thickly lashed eyes. His slightly full lips and that hawkish nose that had been passed down to nearly every male in Jonah’s family, and more than a few of the females.

“Hello, sir,” the boy said politely.

Jonah tried to smile as he released the child’s hand, but failed.

“I’m staying at a motel. I can give you my phone number—” Kate began, but Jonah shook his head. He wasn’t giving her a chance to disappear again.

“No, Kate,” he interrupted. “Let’s go to a park and talk right now. Henry can play while we talk. C’mon. I have a car.”

Wide-eyed, she stared at him and slowly nodded. “We have to get Henry’s booster seat from my car. I’d drive, but with the car packed with our belongings, there’s no room.” He linked her arm in his, trying to ignore the jump in his pulse when he touched her. She took Henry’s hand, and they got the booster seat and then walked to Jonah’s rental car, where Jonah held the door while she climbed inside. As soon as Jonah secured the booster seat, Henry got into the back and buckled himself in.

They drove in silence to the park, and Jonah wondered whether Henry was an extremely quiet, shy child or if he had picked up on his mother’s anxiety.

After they parked in the shade of an elm, the three of them walked to a wooden park bench that was close to swings and playground equipment. As Henry ran off to climb on a wooden structure, Jonah and Kate sat on the bench, leaving a wide space between them. As soon as they were settled, he turned to her.

Gazing at her profile, he realized she had changed. She was far thinner now, her skin drawn tightly over those prominent cheekbones. His gaze drifted down to her long, shapely legs, which stirred his desire even when he didn’t want them to.

“Are you married?” he asked bluntly, and she shook her head.

“No, I’m not.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about my son?” he demanded, still trying to control the fury that burned in him.

She turned to look at him, gazing steadily, with a lift of her chin. “It wouldn’t have mattered if I had told you. You wouldn’t have left Special Forces just because your wife was pregnant.”

“I had a right to know,” he said, each word clipped with suppressed anger that he struggled every second to control.

She flinched as if he had struck her. “I know you did,” she said, looking away and watching Henry. “But it would have made it harder to separate, and I wanted out of the marriage. And you had your life, the life you wanted more than anything else.”

“Don’t say that I wouldn’t have cared about my son,” he said tightly, clenching his fists again.

“I know you would have cared,” she stated quickly, “but it wouldn’t have changed anything.” She shook her head and sunlight caused golden glints in her thick brown hair.

“It might have, Kate.”

“You know it wouldn’t have!” she snapped, then bit her lip and looked away. Henry had climbed into a large sandbox and was digging in the sand, and both his parents stared at him.

“How could you keep silent? How could you keep my son from me?” Jonah asked, pulling on his earlobe.

“I know I shouldn’t have,” she replied in a tight voice.

“Damn straight you shouldn’t have!” he snapped. “It’s not just me you cheated, but his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, and Henry himself! Dammit, Kate!”

She turned, fire flashing in her eyes and color spilling into her cheeks. “We divorced! Even if you had known, I would have tried to get full custody, and since you were out of the country most of the time, I probably would have succeeded.”

“You don’t know that. Would you have kept him from his grandparents?” Jonah asked, thinking about how much his mother and dad loved their grandchildren.

Kate closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

“You cheated me out of knowing my son as a baby and a toddler. Not even a picture, Kate. No knowledge of his existence, and you never planned to tell me! Damnation!” Jonah swore in a deadly quiet voice. He was furious, hurt, close to rage, yet even so, he wanted to reach out and touch her. She still dazzled him, and that angered him even more.

“You didn’t want us!” she snapped, looking him in the eye defiantly. “Your military life was the most important thing to you!”

Jonah took a couple of deep breaths. His pulse was pounding and he felt hot. Standing, he jammed his fists into his pockets and walked a few steps, feeling a pent-up need to move while he tried to calm himself.

He knew he needed to think before he spoke, because every word between them was loaded and could explode into a fiery fight or disaster. He was angry with Kate, angry with himself for still finding her incredibly attractive. How could he want to kiss her when she had done such a terrible thing? Yet when he looked at her lips, all he could do was remember—even through a haze of fury.

“I’m out of the military now, and I want to know my son,” Jonah declared.

She caught her lip with her teeth, looking at Henry and frowning. “You’re going to hurt him.”

“Never,” Jonah replied emphatically. “Do you think knowing his father is going to hurt him?”

“No,” she admitted with a sigh. “I know you would never deliberately hurt any child, much less your own son.”

“What are you doing in San Antonio?” Jonah asked.

“I just got a job here,” she replied.

“Where are you staying?”

When she named a motel that was part of a low-priced chain, he looked more closely at her. Her purse was frayed, her sandals scuffed and worn. She wore a dime-store watch. He wondered what had happened, because when they had been married she had had an excellent job as an account executive with an advertising agency.

“Why did you leave North Carolina? Are your folks still there?”

She looked away and shook her head. “No. Both of my parents died—Dad died in January and Mom in April.”

“I’m sorry, Kate. Their deaths were close together and that’s rough. What happened to them?”

“They were terminally ill, both with heart trouble. After their deaths, I closed things up and found a job here, and we just arrived in town. I have to find a place to live and a day care for Henry.” She looked at Jonah. “So where do we go from here? Do you live here, too?”

“Yes. And I intend to get to know my son.” He glanced at Henry and then back at her, thinking of the future. “I’ll take you to court over this if I have to, Kate.”

She looked away, but not before he saw tears fill her eyes. Her tears didn’t diminish his anger, however.

“Don’t run away, either,” he added tersely. “I’ll find you. I can promise you that.”

“I won’t run. I suppose we’ll have to work out times and all that…. Have you remarried?” she asked, turning tostudy him.

“No, I haven’t.”

She shook her head and looked away again. Wind blew her long hair, and he could remember its softness when he’d wrapped his fingers in it.

“When do you start this new job?” he asked.

“Monday morning.”

Surprised, he arched his brows. “That leaves you just this weekend to find a place to live and a day care. That’s cutting it close.”

“I needed to start work as soon as possible.”

Jonah sat down again on the end of the bench and rested his elbows on his knees, watching Henry in the sandbox. The little boy was digging, carefully building a structure. Jonah’s thoughts seethed, and he tried to think calmly what to do next.

“Jonah, I should go,” Kate said, locking her fingers together tightly in her lap. “I can give you my phone number and the number of the place where I’ll be working, but right now, this afternoon, I should be looking for a place to stay. That’s what we’ve been doing all day today.”

She opened her purse and fumbled for a pen and paper. Jonah’s hand closed over hers and her gaze flew up to meet his.

“I’ll take you to dinner tonight and we can plan what we’ll do.”

“I don’t have any time before this job starts. Can we wait until I’ve had a week or two?”

“You’re going to tell him the truth today, right now—here at the park. Or else I will,” Jonah said in a voice of steel, a tone she had never heard before and knew she couldn’t argue with. “I don’t want to be cheated out of knowing my son one more minute.”

She rubbed her forehead again. “Please wait. I can’t deal with all this at once.”

“I’ve waited five damn years!” Jonah snapped. “I’m not waiting another moment.”

She nodded. “All right, Jonah. I guess you have that right.”

“Damn straight, I do. What have you told him about me—about us?” Jonah asked. “Did you tell him that we’re divorced?”

“Yes. I told him that the army was important to you and you were gone most of the time, and we decided it would be best to part. I told him you wanted out of the marriage.”

“Kate, that’s a damn lie!” Jonah said, standing again and pacing away from her, fury making him shake once more. He whipped around. “You’re the one who walked.”

“I know, but I was afraid he would keep hoping you would come back,” she explained.

The anger Jonah was keeping in check tore at him. He clenched and unclenched his fists and took deep breaths, knowing he needed to calm down.

“Children accept life as it comes to them,” Kate continued in a subdued voice, her words running together as she spoke quickly. “My parents were around the first couple of years. Dad wasn’t well the past three years, nor was Mom for the last two, but for a while Henry had a father substitute.” She turned to face Jonah squarely.

“It hasn’t been easy this past year. Mom and Dad were very ill, and I had to quit my job to take care of them. Since I couldn’t give a lot of attention to Henry, he’s learned to entertain himself, but he’s also a little shut off. He’s a solemn child and sensitive, and I think he picks up on what is going on around him. Don’t intimidate him.”

“I don’t intend to intimidate him, Kate. I want to love him,” Jonah said in a clipped tone while he looked at the little boy playing in the sand by himself. Other children ran around the playground together, but Henry kept to himself, and Jonah wondered how solitary the child’s life had been.

“You named him for your dad, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Yes. Henry Neighbor Whitewolf.”

“So you let him keep my name?” Jonah remarked in surprise. “And his middle name is my dad’s? Why did you do that, when you intended for Henry to never know his grandfather?”

“I thought someday I would take him to meet your folks, but then time began to pass and my parents got sick. I had a baby to care for and I just didn’t do anything about it. I never had a quarrel with your folks, Jonah.”

He gritted his teeth and shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. After a long silence, he said, “It was pretty shabby treatment, Kate, to keep the knowledge of their grandchild from them.”

She locked her fingers together. “I suppose you’re right, but if I had gone to see them or called or let them know in any way, you would have showed up and I was afraid of a custody battle.”

“Well, we need to talk about that one.”

She glanced at her watch. “I won’t run away. As of Monday morning, I’ll be an advertising executive for Beckman and Holloway, a San Antonio ad agency, and I’m really looking forward to it.”

“Sounds like a great job,” he said.

“I think it will be. It’ll pay more than the one I left.” She looked at Henry. “Right now, we haven’t had lunch, and I know Henry should eat. I need to try to find an apartment today, and I have an appointment this afternoon with a day care. Can we talk next week?”

“No. You’re not putting me off now. I’ll take you both to lunch.”

“You don’t need to do that,” she argued quietly. “I have a lunch packed in a cooler in my car. Jonah, be reasonable—we can talk tomorrow.”

Jonah shook his head. “Let’s go to lunch and talk. You can look at apartments later. Right now, I want to go tell him I’m his father. I’ve been out of his life for too long already.”

They stared at each other, and he could feel the muscles clenching in his jaw. He hurt as if every bone in his body were broken, ached with longing for the years he hadn’t known his child. Hot anger still consumed him, and to his chagrin, he still found his pulse racing every time he looked at Kate. He didn’t want her to have that power over him, but she did. He just hoped he never let his need for her show. When he thought what she had done, keeping Henry from him, he decided it would be better to keep his basic male reaction hidden from her.

He was astounded that she would try to keep his son a secret. That was a side of her he had never known.

“I’m going to tell him,” Jonah said, finally breaking the silence.

“No!” She gripped his arm and he inhaled, hating the hot tremor that sizzled through him from the touch of her fingers. She yanked her hand away as if she had touched burning metal. “I’ll go tell him right now,” she said, looking at Jonah intently, her gaze searching his features. “You’ve changed, Jonah. You’re a hard man.”

“You’ve changed, too, Kate. And what you did was—” He bit back the word he was about to say. It was over, and from this hour on, he would know his son and his son would know him. And in that moment, Jonah knew what he could do for the future.

“I’ll go tell him, but this is going to be sudden,” she repeated.

“I’m not the one who caused it to be that way. Go tell him.”

She clamped her lips shut, but nodded and turned away. He watched the slight sway of her hips and drew a deep breath. “Damn,” he whispered to himself. She was still beautiful and she could still stir him with a look or even the slightest physical contact. To him, she was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. He couldn’t see her any other way. Not even now, when he was so angry with her.

For too many reasons he ached as he watched her sit down in the grass near the sandbox and talk to Henry. Their son. Jonah couldn’t get over the knowledge. He had a son! Henry Neighbour, named for his dad and her father.

Jonah thought of his parents. His father would stoically say nothing about not being told about Henry all these years, but would simply pick up with the present. His mother would cry buckets over the lost years and pour out her love on this grandson, if Kate would let her.

Children’s laughter floated in the air, along with the whistles of birds. A faint breeze blew, and shadows shifted over him as Jonah sat waiting in the shade of a tall cottonwood tree. While he watched his ex-wife with their son, he thought of his future and the plans he had already made, and now what lay ahead and what he should do.

While Kate talked to Henry, the boy turned and stared at Jonah, who gazed back, aching inside. He wanted to go put his arms around his son and hug him. He longed to hold Henry. Five years and he had never yet held his child.

“Oh, dammit, Kate,” he whispered, and started walking toward them.

Henry got up and brushed off the sand, and Kate took his hand as they approached Jonah. The boy was slender, too quiet and withdrawn, yet there was absolutely no mistaking that Henry was his son, Jonah thought.

As he walked up to them, Kate and Henry stopped. Jonah kept his eyes on the boy, who watched him when he hunkered down in front of him. “I’m your dad, Henry.”

“Yes, sir,” Henry said quietly, frowning at him.

“I’m glad to see you and I want to get to know you.”

Nodding solemnly, Henry stared in silence at Jonah, who had held on to control long enough. He succumbed to impulse, reaching out to pick up Henry, standing and hugging the child, trying to hide the tears that stung his eyes.

“Henry,” he whispered.

The little boy’s arms wrapped around his neck, and Jonah gritted his teeth and squinted, fighting the knot in his throat and the hot tears that threatened to spill. He hadn’t cried since he was too young to remember, but it was all he could do now to hang on to his emotions. At the same time, he didn’t want to let go of Henry. He held his son in his arms, marveling at the miracle that had been given to him. A son. He had a son!

“I love you,” he whispered.

Reluctantly, he set Henry on his feet, knowing he might have been too emotional for the child. When all this was so new to Henry, Jonah had hoped to keep a lid on his feelings and slowly get acquainted with his son.

He glanced at Kate and she turned away quickly, but not before he glimpsed tears in her own eyes. “Come on, Henry. We have to eat lunch,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, falling into step beside her.

“I’m taking you to lunch, Henry,” Jonah said. “Where do you like to eat?”

The boy looked up questioningly at his mom. “If you insist, Jonah, let’s go to a cafeteria so he can eat some vegetables,” she said.

“Sure,” Jonah agreed. “Did you go to preschool, Henry?”

“No, sir,” he replied.

“He starts kindergarten this year,” Kate said.

Wondering about his son’s life, Jonah continued asking questions and getting yes or no for an answer. He held the car doors for Kate and Henry, noticing his ex-wife’s long, shapely legs when she slid into the vehicle.

At the cafeteria Henry stood in the line between them. Fighting the temptation to constantly touch him, as if to reassure himself that Henry was real, Jonah watched him, taking in everything he did, marveling at the child.

As they started through the line, Jonah leaned down to Henry’s level. “You get whatever you want to eat. Anything.”

Wide-eyed, Henry looked up at Kate, and she nodded, giving Jonah a searching look.

“I want that,” Henry replied, pointing to a bowl of bright blue cubes of gelatin.

Jonah couldn’t resist brushing Henry’s head lightly. When the boy turned to look up at him, Jonah smiled. Henry smiled in return and then his attention went back to the food spread before him. In minutes he had a tray filled with fried chicken, the gelatin, mashed potatoes and gravy. When he pointed to some corn, Kate spoke up.

“Henry, you have enough. You’ll never eat all of what you’ve taken.”

“Let him get it, Kate,” Jonah said quietly, and then he turned to Henry. “I told him to get whatever he wants and I don’t mind. If it’s all right with your mother, go ahead, Henry. Get the corn and whatever else you want.”

Kate looked at Jonah and then nodded to Henry, who took the dish of corn. Next, he wanted a fluffy white roll, and then chocolate cake.

They sat at a table by a window, where they could see across a grassy expanse to cars moving on the busy thoroughfare.

Henry cleaned up the bowl of gelatin first and then started on his fried chicken and mashed potatoes. While he ate, Jonah turned to Kate. “We need to work something out.”

She nodded and gave him a worried glance. “We’ll work out a schedule, but please understand, Jonah, I have to get settled and get him into a day care facility.”

“When are you moving your things from North Carolina?”

“There wasn’t much to move. I sold nearly everything before I left, and we’re sort of starting over now.”

Surprised, Jonah remembered the house he had shared with Kate, a comfortable three-bedroom home in a booming neighborhood. Kate’s parents’ house had been a desirable two-story in a pleasant, older suburb. In the divorce he had let Kate have the house and one car.

She kept her eyes down as she ate, and he studied her again, sure her clothing and jewelry were inexpensive.

“You sold both houses and you didn’t keep any furniture—not what we had or any of your folks’ things?” he asked, giving her close scrutiny.

“I kept a few little things, which I have in the car with me,” she replied, shaking her head.

“Kate, what happened?” he asked, puzzled by her answer. “Even if our possessions gave you bad memories, you loved your parents’ things. I can’t believe you let them go. What did you do with them?”

“I sold them,” she said, busily cutting a thick slice of roast beef. “This is a delicious lunch, Jonah.”

“So you don’t have furniture? Are you going to rent a furnished apartment?” he asked, surprised again, and realizing things must have gone really badly for her to sell both houses and all the furniture. Yet where had the money gone?

“Yes,” she admitted with obvious reluctance.

“Why, Kate? You had a rewarding job and your dad had his own business.”

“I’m sure you remember that Mom and Dad had the roller rink.”

“Sure, I remember. It was a thriving operation,” he replied.

“It was up until the time that we married, but it started slipping then. By the time we divorced, the neighborhood had changed and a bigger, newer rink was built in a better part of town. Instead of getting out, Dad held on. During that time he lost their health insurance because he couldn’t keep up the premiums. Finally he lost the business.”

“Sorry, Kate,” Jonah said tightly, still consumed by anger over Henry, and trying to listen as well as think ahead and make some plans. “What happened then?”

“Dad got a job selling furniture, but it wasn’t an adequate salary and he didn’t have benefits. Then he had a stroke.”

“Sorry,” Jonah repeated, remembering Kate’s father, with his bushy brown hair and his booming voice. The man had seemed so jovial and strong.

“Mom had a part-time job,” Kate continued. Jonah gazed into her wide, hazel eyes, his gaze lowering to her full, red lips. He didn’t want to look at her mouth or recall her kisses, but he did remember vividly, far too clearly. He caught the faint scent of her perfume. Memories from the past mixed with anger from the present, and he had to struggle to focus on what she was telling him.

“…but she had to quit to take care of Dad, and then suddenly I was taking care of both of them. They sold their house and moved in with me.”

“So why don’t you have your things? Surely you didn’t sell them, too.”

She nodded. “Yes, I did. I had to, because of their heart troubles. Without insurance, the medical bills were astronomical, and I had to quit my job to take care of them.”

“You have an aunt and uncle and cousins. Didn’t any of them help?”

“No, they didn’t,” she replied, shaking her head. “They have their own families to take care of. But I managed and didn’t have to go into debt, and I have some money saved for us to start out on. Also, I think I have a promising job lined up. This was a temporary setback, and we survived it.”

He gazed into her luminous eyes and knew if anyone could cope with tough times, it would be Kate. There was a practicality to her, enabling her to get to the essentials. He had always admired her for her ability to handle the tough moments, until the tough moment had been her decision to leave him. But then, that survivor instinct of hers might have been what caused her to walk out on him.

“I’m sorry about your folks,” he said, truly meaning it because he had liked her parents.

She nodded. “They were relatively young to have that all happen, although Dad was thirteen years older than Mom.”

“How’d you find the job here?” Jonah asked.

“Through the Internet.”

She wiped her mouth daintily, and he looked at her lips again for a moment, then tore his gaze away. He didn’t want to remember sexy nights and hot kisses and a myriad other seductive moments with Kate.

He watched Henry, who was steadily eating every bite of food in front of him. So was Kate, and Jonah wondered if they had been going hungry. Again he noticed how thin both of them were. Kate’s blouse looked a size too large.

If she had had a hard time, he was sorry, but it angered him to think that his son had been in dire straits. If she had only let Jonah know, Kate could have so easily avoided any hardships. As swiftly as he thought that about her, Jonah realized that Kate was independent enough to shoulder her own burdens and not expect help from others, much less from an ex-husband who didn’t know about their child.

“Who are your friends, Henry?” he asked, turning his attention to his son.

“Matthew and Billy,” the child answered.

While Jonah talked to Henry about his playmates back in North Carolina, Kate savored her potatoes and spinach. For the past few days, during the long drive to Texas from North Carolina, they had lived on peanut butter sandwiches and cold cuts and whatever else she could buy cheaply and pack in the car.

While he talked to Henry, she studied Jonah. He looked even more handsome than when they had been married. Tall, black-haired, with those midnight brown eyes that Henry had inherited, Jonah had an air of self-assurance and command that he hadn’t had before. Eyeing his navy knit sport shirt surreptitiously, she could tell he had filled out with solid muscle.

During their initial encounter in the drugstore, she had thought she would faint. Never had she expected to see Jonah in this part of Texas. She had always known she should tell him about his son, but it was easy to put off contacting him, and at first, anger at him got in the way. By the time they had parted, she had been furious with him for sticking to his wild lifestyle and staying in Special Forces, which trained him for dangerous assignments.

When she had walked out on him, she hadn’t known she was pregnant. She’d discovered that the first week she was on her own, but in her anger, she hadn’t wanted to tell Jonah or go back.

She had intended to tell him about his son eventually, but it got easier and easier to put it off. When she went through childbirth, Jonah was out of the country on an assignment, and by the time he was back home, she didn’t want to tell him at all.

Finally, enough time passed that she didn’t want to face his wrath or the complications he would cause. When their paths didn’t cross for a year, she’d begun to believe they might never cross again. When her parents both became terminally ill, she couldn’t think about anything except their care and looking after Henry. With her excellent job gone, times had been harsh and lean, because every penny went into caring for the three people dependent on her.

With a rush of warmth, she looked at Henry. He was a lovable little boy, an easy child to raise. She knew he was solemn and didn’t have the preschooling he should have had at this age, but he was bright and affectionate, and she loved him with all her heart.

Her gaze shifted to Jonah, noting that imperial nose, his prominent cheekbones and thickly lashed eyes. As her gaze drifted down to his mouth, she remembered too clearly moments of passion and how Jonah’s kisses could turn her to mush.

She was surprised he hadn’t remarried, but then, his career was his life, and it stood in the way of other commitments. Still, he was breathtakingly handsome, and a lot of women were drawn to men like Jonah. He had an old-world courtesy about him that females liked. Kate had been fully aware of the fury he had controlled today when he had learned about Henry.

Jonah had never lost his temper with her—not in their bickering about his career, not even in the last bitter argument when she had walked out on him. He had always kept his voice down, always kept his wits about him. But she had once seen him wade into a fight to save a slender guy who was being beaten by a gang of men, and Jonah had been wild and fierce and frightening. And he had ended the battle in seconds.

At the first sight of him today, she had hated how her pulse jumped. When he’d taken her arm to help her into the car, she had felt the contact to her toes. After all this time and even when she didn’t want to, she still responded instantly and totally to him.

She wondered if he was stationed in San Antonio now. Wondered if there was a regular woman in his life. She glanced at him again, to find his dark gaze on her, and as she looked quickly away, she tingled all over.

She was self-conscious about her clothes, which were old and worn, and she hated that she had had to reveal all her problems to him. If they were going to have this chance encounter, she wished it had been a month from now, after she had found a place to live and gotten her first paycheck from what promised to be an exciting job.

“Want some more water, Kate?” Jonah asked.

“Yes, please,” she answered politely, knowing they were both being courteous for Henry’s sake, and that every time Jonah looked at her, his dark eyes still blazed with anger.

She watched as he picked up the large pitcher with ease and filled her glass. She had always loved the shape of his strong hands, his blunt fingers with nails clipped short.

“Thanks,” she said, remembering his touch, knowing how his hands could take her to ecstasy. She looked away and tried to stop thinking about him, to stop memory piling on top of memory. But today had been a shock, one she’d been totally unprepared for.

“Would you like more milk, Henry?” Jonah asked.

“He’s fine—” she began, but when Henry nodded, Jonah got up to cross the room to the cafeteria line. Kate watched his long-legged stride. He was so broad-shouldered, his back tapering to a waist still as narrow as when they had married. He wore jeans and loafers, but she could remember Jonah naked, his warrior’s body fit and virile and breathtaking.

Stop thinking about him, she ordered herself. She looked away before he glanced back and caught her watching him.

He returned, opening the carton and pouring chocolate milk for Henry, who smiled up at him.

Guilt swamped her. It hurt to watch the two of them together, because she had not only cheated Jonah, she knew she had cheated her son. Henry deserved to know his father, whose only crime was to like his dangerous lifestyle and feel it was his mission to save people and help the world, even at his family’s expense.

She looked at her watch and then at Jonah, gazing into his eyes, which snapped with fury.

“I have an appointment in thirty minutes to view an apartment,” she reminded him.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Jonah said. “I want to be able to see Henry.”

“We’ll work something out,” she assured him, rubbing her forehead. “This isn’t the time or place to do so,” she added, glancing at the child. She didn’t want to talk about visitation rights or custody battles in front of Henry, who, now that he had a full tummy, was beginning to turn his attention completely to Jonah. Henry’s big eyes were fixed on his newfound father, studying every inch of him, from the watch on his wrist to the loafers on his feet. Henry scanned Jonah’s features slowly, as if memorizing them.

“If we’re finished here, we can talk as we walk to the car,” Jonah suggested, standing and coming around to hold her chair.

She nodded, wanting to get rid of him before he saw her years-old vehicle, piled high with the only belongings they owned.

Stepping outside into the sunshine, they headed for Jonah’s car.

“If you’ll just take us back to the drugstore, my car is parked there,” she said. “You can give me your phone number. I don’t have one yet, but you know where I’ll work, and I can give you that number.”

“Kate,” Jonah said, taking her arm while Henry hopped on one foot ahead of them. “I think I have a temporary solution for you that would save you money and enable me to get to know my son.”

Feeling weak in the knees at his touch, she turned to face him. Even though she was five feet nine inches tall, she had to look up at him, because he was six-two.

“What are you referring to?” she asked.

“I just inherited a ranch. That’s why I’m here in San Antonio.”

“You’re going to live on a ranch?” she asked in disbelief. “You’re not in Special Forces?”

“No, I’m not,” he answered. “I got out of the military, and yes, I’m going to live on the ranch.”

“You won’t last six months,” Kate remarked swiftly, without thinking, “unless you’re raising and riding wild bulls. You like life on the wild side too much, Jonah.”

A muscle worked in his jaw, and she knew she had deepened his anger, but she had blurted the truth.

He watched Henry while he took deep breaths in an obvious struggle to get his temper under control. “I have a lot of room. Move into the ranch house with me. You can commute to work and I can get to know Henry.”

Stunned, she stared at him, caught unaware by an offer she had never dreamed of getting.