she was smart, all right, even in shock. “Only you can access Emily’s files, talk to the hospital staff where you gave birth, and put your name down with the relevant organizations to find her.” With unthinking bitterness he added, “I have no power to search for my daughter, or ask about her as things are—and only you, her mother, can give me those rights.”
After a quiet moment she said softly, “I wanted to keep her, Jirrah. I would have put your name on the birth certificate.”
“Gee, thanks, princess.” He gave her a wry look. “But right now, ‘would have’ don’t count a hill of beans. She’s my daughter—my flesh and blood—and I’m ‘father unknown.’” He tried to stare her down, but she held his gaze, her lissome body taut with defiance; and he hated the ache building in him just watching her. “I want that wiped from the record. I want my name on her birth certificate. I want to claim my daughter.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not alone in that. She’s my child, too!” Her momentary gentleness was gone: she was flashing fire, a streak of lightning in a dark sky—the woman of blazing passion beneath her shy cover. The girl he’d always known in bed. “I’ll try to give Emily your name, or mine, if we can find her—if she wants it—but don’t expect too much help if Cameron or Duncan block it. I had therapy after I lost Emily. I talked of killing myself, and was labeled depressive and suicidal. No sane woman would want to escape Cameron, so of course I’m nuts. If they get wind of what we’re doing, I’m as sunk as you are! You might go back to prison, but I’ll be in a mental institution!”
“So get a second opinion, or a third,” he retorted, thrown by the fact that she had as much to lose as he did—thrown that the vivid passion of her fury only turned him on more. “And could any institution be worse than the cage you’re in now? For God’s sake, look at yourself. You might have left him, but you’re still in a cage! You have to live beyond running from him. You have to start trusting people again.”
“And who do you trust, David-Jirrah?” she said softly, her eyes still glittering with the fierce passion hidden deep inside her. The incandescent glow from a once loving heart that, even locked deep inside her, illuminated her from within, making her unique, radiant, so alive she made others want to be with her, to experience that soul-stirring intensity in living. “The police? Your family? Your many friends? Your wife?”
The heat of need she’d engendered in him silenced him as much as her home questions. His luminous Tess…
As if she’d read his thoughts—or seen what she’d done to his body—she pressed her lips together. “I’m tired.” She got to her feet. “Thank you,” she said simply. “I realize what you did for me today. You didn’t have to save me. But you did.”
“I’d never have got this far without you.” Knowing she’d left something unsaid. Some indefinable emotion filled her heart, dousing the flame inside her. Tess was hiding something.
And you’re not?
She shrugged. “Just a car.” She finally dropped the blanket and walked to the bedroom door. There she turned, standing in the shadow of the flickering firelight. Her hair, half-spilling from its roped plait, glowed ebony; her proud face warmed in the golden light. Light and shadow, past and present, goddess and woman, her quiet dignity and inner beauty evident in her simple shorts and knit top—and she left his throat dry and his chest a ball of pain. “He stole your life and our child, yet you left me with him, knowing how I feel about the sanctity of marriage. You left me thinking I was married to him, that I had to stay.”
He had to tell her the truth now or lose her help in finding his long-delayed justice. “You’d left by the time I made parole. I asked the neighbors. You left him four weeks before I got out.” When there was no response, he added, “You saw the parole papers. You left him late August. I was paroled September 20.”
Her voice drifted to him through the warm, flickering darkness. “Did you keep looking for me?”
He nodded. “I remembered your dream of teaching kids in the Outback. I found out where you were a while back, and kept a few feelers out. When I heard Beller was sniffing around I came to Lynch Hill to make sure you were safe. That’s all.”
She said softly, “You hated me, but still looked out for me?”
He shrugged, unable to understand his own motivations, or to explain how he felt about her. Only one thing came to mind, and he stated it simply. “You’re the mother of my child.”
Her eyes darkened in the play of firelight and shadow. An ancient goddess: Athena in bronze. Diana in marble.
He felt like a fool standing in her presence, almost like he should kneel before her. Seven years from his first sight of her, and Tess still stunned him, still left him speechless.
When she slanted him the smile so uniquely hers, lighting her one dimple, warming her glowing amber eyes with molten honey, her whimsical face came as close to beauty as it ever would. But to him, she’d always be so damn beautiful it hurt—and never more so than at this moment. He could see the metamorphosis happening before his eyes. The woman of fire and passion had begun her slow, reluctant emergence from her frozen chrysalis.
It started a chain reaction inside him, as well. He could feel it happening—the vaguest hint of warming around the outer layer of thick, encrusted walls of ice he’d been building around his heart since the day he was put in lockup.
Damn it, he couldn’t do this. The one thing he didn’t want—the thing he could least afford to happen. But when he was near Tess, choices weren’t something he had in his armory. One look from those amazing eyes, and he was on his knees before her.
Damn you, Tess, for always doing this to me!
She reached out, almost touching his face for a brief moment. He held his breath, waiting, half-hoping—
Then her hand fell, and the gentle memory of the forgotten caress lingered only in his damaged heart. “Thank you for helping me today. Thank you for telling me about Emily. I’m glad you’re alive.” Her smile was gone, leaving him so cold it sent a shiver down his spine. “I wish I felt happier about it. I wish I could forgive you for what you want to do to my family—what you want me to do for you. I wish I knew it was right, even for Emily’s sake. But I can’t—and I can’t forgive you, either. I just can’t.”
She vanished into his room, closing the door, and he ached with the void she’d left behind.
Chapter 5
He lay in a fevered sweat on the lounge, in thrall at the visions of his mind. Faces. Illogical faces from the palette of Picasso. Black faces, brown faces, white faces. The accusing faces of his parents, Matt and Annie Oliveri. The baffled fury and terrible fear of Keith and Duncan Earldon. The thwarted lust and warped love in the handsome yet repellent face of Cameron Beller. His brothers, sisters and cousins, unsure yet willing to believe the worst. The face of his lover as she lay dying a year before. The faces of the children who had suffered, would continue to suffer until he could clear his name. The leering faces of his fellow prisoners, men he hated yet were the only ones who understood his bond, his cage.
And every face chanted words, the litany that burned in his brain for seven long years. You’re not good enough for her, and she’s no good for you…
And in the center of this bizarre tapestry of faces was the one they all warned him against. The unforgettable face, the
