For the Sake of Their Son

“All the girls wanted to sign your cast.” She looked sideways at him, smiling. “Even then you were a chick magnet.”

“They just wanted to use their markers,” he said dismissively.

She looked up to meet his eyes fully for the first time since they’d climbed into the limousine. “I knew that your arm was already broken.”

“You never said a word to me.” He rubbed his forearm absently.

“You would have been embarrassed if I confronted you, and you would have lied to me. We didn’t talk as openly then about our home lives.” She tucked the blanket more securely around the baby’s feet as Eli sucked a pacifier in his sleep. “We were new friends who shared a jelly sandwich at lunch.”

“We were new friends and yet you were right about the arm.” He looked at his son’s tiny hands and wondered how any father could ever strike out at such innocence. Sweat beaded his forehead at even the thought.

“I told my mom though, after school,” Lucy Ann’s eyes fell to his wrist. “She wasn’t as...distant in those days.”

The weight of her gaze was like a stroke along his skin, her words salve to a past wound. “I didn’t know you said anything to anyone.”

“Her word didn’t carry much sway, or maybe she didn’t fight that hard.” She shrugged, the strap of her sundress sliding. “Either way, nothing happened. So I went to the principal.”

“My spunky advocate.” God, he’d missed her. And yet he’d always thought he knew everything about her and here she had something new to share. “Guess that explains why they pulled me out of class to interview me about my arm.”

“You didn’t tell the principal the truth though, did you? I kept waiting for something big to happen. My five-year-old imagination was running wild.”

For one instant in that meeting he had considered talking, but the thoughts of afterward had frozen any words in his throat like a lodged wad of that shared jelly sandwich. “I was still too scared of what would happen to my mother if I talked. Of what he would do to her.”

Sympathy flickered in her brown eyes. “We discussed so many things as kids, always avoiding anything to do with our home lives. Our friendship was a haven for me then.”

He’d felt the same. But that meeting with the principal had made him bolder later, except he’d chosen the wrong person to tell. Someone loyal to his father, which only brought on another beating.

“You had your secrets, too. I could always sense when you were holding back.”

“Then apparently we didn’t have any secrets from each other after all.” She winced, her hand going to her son’s car seat. “Not until this year.”

The limo jostled along a pothole on the country road. Their legs brushed and his arm shot out to rest along the back of her seat. She jolted for an instant, her breath hitching. He stared back, keeping his arm in place until her shoulders relaxed.

“Oh, Elliot.” She sagged back. “We’re a mess, you and I, with screwed-up pasts and not much to go on as an example for building a future.”

The worry coating her words stabbed at him. He cupped her arm lightly, the feel of her so damn right tucked to him. “We need to figure out how to straighten ourselves out to be good parents. For Eli.”

“It won’t be all that difficult to outdo our parents.”

“Eli deserves a lot better than just a step above our folks.” The feel of her hair along his wrist soothed old wounds, the way she’d always done for him. But more than that, the feel of her now, with the new memories, with that night between them...

His pulse pounded in his ears, his body stirring.... He wanted her. And right now, he didn’t see a reason why they couldn’t have everything. They shared a similar past and they shared a child.

He just had to convince Lucy Ann. “I agree with you there. That’s why it’s important for us to use this time together wisely. Figure out how to be the parents he deserves. Figure out how to be a team, the partners he needs.”

“I’m here, in the car with you, committed to spending the next four weeks with you.” She tipped her face up to his, the jasmine scent of her swirling all around him. “What more do you want from me?”

“I want us to be friends again, Lucy Ann,” he answered honestly, his voice raw. “Friends. Not just parents passing a kid back and forth to each other. I want things the way they were before between us.”

Her pupils widened with emotion. “Exactly the way we were before? Is that even possible?”

“Not exactly as before,” he conceded, easy enough to do when he knew his plans for something better between them.

He angled closer, stroking her ponytail over her shoulder in a sweep he wanted to take farther down her back to her waist. He burned all the way to his gut, needing to pull her closer.

“We’ll be friends and more. We can go back to that night together, pick up from there. Because heaven help me, if we’re being totally honest, then yes. I want you back in my bed again.”

Four

The caress of Elliot’s hand along her hair sent tingles all the way to her toes. She wanted to believe the deep desire was simply a result of nearly a year without sex, but she knew her body longed for this particular man. For the pleasure of his caress over her bare skin.

Except then she wouldn’t be able to think straight. Now more than ever, she needed to keep a level head for her child. She loved her son more than life, and she had some serious fences to mend with Elliot to secure a peaceful future for Eli.

Lucy Ann clasped Elliot’s wrist and moved it aside. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m completely serious.” His fingers twisted in her ponytail.

“Let. Go. Now,” she said succinctly, barely able to keep herself from grabbing his shirt and hauling him in for a kiss. “Sex will only complicate matters.”

“Or it could simplify things.” He released her hair slowly, his stroke tantalizing all the way down her arm.

Biting her lip, she squeezed her eyes shut, too enticed by the green glow of desire in his eyes.

“Lucy Ann?” His bourbon-smooth tones intoxicated the parched senses that had missed him every day of the past eleven months. “What are you thinking?”

Her head angled ever so slightly toward his touch. “My aunt said the same thing about the bonus of friends becoming...more.”

He laughed softly, the heat of his breath warming her throat and broadcasting just how close he’d moved to her, so close he could kiss the exposed flesh. “Your aunt has always been a smart woman. Although I sure as hell didn’t talk to her about you and I becoming lovers.”

She opened her eyes slowly, steeling herself. “You need to quit saying things like that or I’m going to have the car stopped right now. I will walk home with my baby if I have to. You and I need boundaries for this to work.”

His gaze fell to her mouth for an instant that felt stretched to eternity before he angled back, leather seat creaking. “We’ll have to agree to disagree.”

Her exhale was shakier than she would have liked, betraying her. “You can cut the innocent act. I’ve seen your playboy moves over the years. Your practiced charm isn’t going to work with me.” Not again, anyway. “And it wouldn’t have worked before if I hadn’t been so taken away by sentimentality and a particularly strong vintage liqueur.”

Furrows dug deep trenches in his forehead. “Lucy Ann, I am deeply sorry if I took advantage of our friendship—”

“I told you that night. No apologies.” His apologies had been mortifying then, especially when she’d been hoping for a repeat only to learn he was full of regrets. He’d stung her pride and her heart. Not that she ever intended to let him know as much. “There were two of us in bed that night, and I refuse to call it a mistake. But it won’t happen again, remember? We decided that then.”

Or rather he had decided and she had pretended to go along to save face over her weakness when it came to this man.

His eyes went smoky. “I remember a lot of other things about that night.”

Already she could feel herself weakening, wanting to read more into his every word and slightest action. She had to stop this intimacy, this romanticism, now.

“Enough talking about the past. This is about our future. Eli’s future.” She put on her best logical, personal-assistant voice she’d used a million times to place distance between them. “Where are we going first? I have to confess I haven’t kept track of the race dates this year.”

“Races later,” he said simply as the car reached the airport. “First, we have a wedding to attend.”