he was like a stranger.
Face a blank slate, Elliot held their son in broad, capable hands, palmed the baby’s bottom and head as he studied the tiny cherub features. Eli still wore his blue footed sleeper from bedtime, his blond hair glistening as the sun sent dappled rays through the branches. The moment looked like a fairy tale, but felt so far from that her heart broke over how this should have, could have been.
Finally, Elliot looked up at her, his blasé mask sliding away to reveal eyes filled with ragged pain. His throat moved in a slow gulp of emotion. “Why did you keep this—Eli—from me?”
Guilt and frustration gnawed at her. She’d tried to contact him but knew she hadn’t tried hard enough. Her pride... Damn it all. Her excuses all sounded weak now, even to her own ears.
“You were engaged to someone else. I didn’t want to interfere in that.”
“You never intended to tell me at all?” His voice went hoarse with disbelief, his eyes shooting back down to his son sleeping against his chest so contentedly as if he’d been there all along.
“Of course I planned to explain—after you were married.” She dried her damp palms on her sundress. “I refused to be responsible for breaking up your great love match.”
Okay, she couldn’t keep the cynicism out of that last part, but he deserved it for his rebound relationship.
“My engagement to Gianna ended months ago. Why didn’t you contact me?”
He had a point there. She ached to run, but he had her son. And as much as she hated to admit it to herself, she’d missed Elliot. They’d been so much a part of each other’s lives for so long. The past months apart had been like a kind of withdrawal.
“Half the time I couldn’t find you and the other half, your new personal secretary couldn’t figure out where you were.” And hadn’t that pissed her off something fierce? Then worried her, because she knew about his sporadic missions for Interpol, and she also knew his reckless spirit.
“You can’t have tried very hard, Lucy Ann. All you had to do was speak with any of my friends.” His eyes narrowed. “Or did you? Is that why they brought me here today, because you reached out to them?”
She’d considered doing just that many times, only to balk at the last second. She wouldn’t be manipulative. She’d planned to tell him face-to-face. And soon.
“I wish I could say yes, but I’m afraid not. One of them must have been checking up on me even if you never saw the need.”
Oops. Where had that bitter jab come from?
He cocked an eyebrow. “This is about Eli. Not about the two of us.”
“There is no ‘two of us’ anymore.” She touched her son’s head lightly, aching to take him back in her arms. “You ended that when you ran away scared after we had a reckless night of sex.”
“I do not run away.”
“Excuse me if your almighty ego is bruised.” She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling as though they were in fifth grade again, arguing over whether the basketball was in or out of bounds.
Elliot sighed, looking around at the empty clearing. The limo’s engine roared to life, then faded as it drove away without him. He turned back to Lucy Ann. “This isn’t accomplishing anything. We need to talk reasonably about our child’s future.”
“I agree.” Of course they had to talk, but right now her heart was in her throat. She could barely think straight. She scooped her baby from his arms. “We’ll talk tomorrow when we’re both less rattled.”
“How do I know you won’t just disappear with my son?” He let go of Eli with obvious reluctance.
His son.
Already his voice echoed with possessiveness.
She clasped her son closer, breathing in the powder-fresh familiarity of him, the soft skin of his cheek pressed against her neck reassuringly. She could and she would manage her feelings for Elliot. Nothing and no one could be allowed to interfere with her child’s future.
“I’ve been here all this time, Elliot. You just never chose to look.” A bitter pill to swallow. She gestured up the empty dirt road. “Even now, you didn’t choose. Your friends dumped you here on my doorstep.”
Elliot walked a slow circle around her, his hand snagging the rope holding the swing until he stopped beside her. He had a way of moving with such fluidity, every step controlled, a strange contradiction in a man who always lived on the edge. Always flirting with chaos.
Her skin tingled to life with the memory of his touch, the wind teasing her with a hint of aftershave and musk.
She cleared her throat. “Elliot, I really think you should—”
“Lucy Ann,” he interrupted, “in case it’s escaped your notice, my friends left me here. Alone. No car.” He leaned in closer, his hand still holding the rope for balance, so close she could almost feel the rasp of his five o’clock shadow. “So regardless of whether or not we talk, for now, you’re stuck with me.”
Two
Elliot held himself completely still, a feat of supreme control given the frustration racing through his veins. That Lucy Ann had hidden her pregnancy—his son—from him all this time threatened to send him to his knees. Somehow during this past year he’d never let go of the notion that everything would simply return to the way things had been before with them. Their friendship had carried him through the worst times of his life.
Now he knew there was no going back. Things between them had changed irrevocably.
They had a child together, a boy just inches away. Elliot clenched his hand around the rope. He needed to bide his time and proceed with caution. His lifelong friend had a million great qualities—but she was also stubborn as hell. A wrong step during this surprise meeting could have her digging in her heels.
He had to control his frustration, tamp down the anger over all that she’d hidden from him. Staying levelheaded saved his life on more than one occasion on the racetrack. But never had the stakes been more important than now. No matter how robbed he felt, he couldn’t let that show.
Life had taught him well how to hide his darker emotions.
So he waited, watching her face for some sign. The breeze lifted a strand of her hair, whipping it over his cheek. His pulse thumped harder.
“Well, Lucy Ann? What now?”
Her pupils widened in her golden-brown eyes, betraying her answering awareness a second before she bolted up from the swing. Elliot lurched forward as the swing freed. He released the rope and found his footing.
Lucy Ann glanced over her shoulder as she made her way to the graveled path. “Let’s go inside.”
“Where’s your aunt?” He followed her, rocks crunching under his feet.
“At work.” Lucy Ann walked up the steps leading to the prefab log cabin’s long front porch. Time had worn the redwood look down
