“Yeah, me either,” Harlan agreed. “So, come on, Zachary, my man-where did we leave Beauty?”
A few minutes of reading later, Zachary’s murmuring narration slowed and finally stopped. Stacy smiled at the silence; Zachary had fallen asleep in the middle of reading, as he often did.
After a couple of minutes more, Harlan emerged from the bedroom, looking a little rumpled but smiling. “He reads better than half the guys in my platoon.”
“He fell asleep?”
“And right in the middle of an exciting part, too.” He wandered around the living room for a few seconds in fidgety silence before he finally edged over to where she sat and looked down at her.
“What?” she asked, laying down her pen.
“I wish you’d reconsider pressing charges against Trevor Lewis.” Harlan crouched beside her desk, his dark eyes intense and serious.
“He has more cause to press charges against you than I have to press them against him.” She turned her chair to face him. “I don’t like the idea that he wins this round, either, but I’ve learned in this business, you have to pick your battles.”
“I hate politics,” he growled, pushing to his feet and walking a few feet away. “Politics get in the way of getting things done.”
“Politics help you enact the policies that get things done,” she countered, though the words sounded hollow even to her own ears. So much of what she’d believed her entire life had been challenged over the past few years.
“Maybe in the big picture sense. Maybe.” He crossed back to her, his expression passionate. “I get why there are rules. Hell, I was a Marine. I also get why you have to try to do the best thing possible for the most people involved. I do. But when you’re the guy who falls between the cracks as a result-” He clamped his mouth shut, turning away once more.
“We’re not talking about what happened with Trevor anymore, are we?” She walked over to where he stood at her front window. Outside, night had fallen in earnest, only pale moon glow tempering the inky gloom.
He angled his gaze to meet hers. “Not entirely.”
“You fell through the cracks?”
“Probably not an apt term.” He flexed his right hand.
She caught his hand in hers, turning it over to look at the network of ragged scars marring the skin. “Does it still hurt?”
“Just aches sometimes.” His voice deepened. “Probably the scar tissue pulling or something. There’s a bit of nerve damage, so I don’t have full feeling in that hand.”
The temptation to kiss the center of his scarred palm nearly overwhelmed her. “What did you do in the Marines?”
“Worked hard. Tried not to get killed. Pretty much what every other guy in a uniform did in Iraq.” His lips curved in a self-protective grin. “Sort of like motherhood, huh?”
She returned the smile. “Yeah. But it’s worth it.”
“Zachary’s such a great kid. I’m starting to get why aspies believe it’s the rest of us who have the problems. We’re the ones who lie about our feelings and try to temper everything. Zachary just says what he thinks and lets the chips fall where they may. World might be a better place if more people just told the damned truth.”
He wasn’t just saying that to make her feel better, she realized. He wasn’t trying to play an angle or manipulate her the way Anthony might have done in the same situation.
The tears she’d been fighting ever since the run-in with Trevor burned their way into her eyes. She blinked, trying to keep them at bay a little longer. “I hope he always has people in his life who feel the same way about him. I think if he does, he’ll be okay.”
Harlan lifted his hands to her face, his thumbs brushing over the moisture seeping from her eyes. “As long as he has you, he’ll be okay.”
Unable to bear the gentle sympathy in his gaze, she pulled away from his grasp. “I should get back to work.”
“What’s left to do for tonight?”
Nothing, really. Harlan had helped her out more than he knew by taking care of Zachary while she was tackling the last-minute calls to finalize the arrangements for the party the next evening. “I’m sure I can find something that needs doing-”
He caught her hand as she tried to turn away, his grip warm but strong. “Anything to avoid being alone with me?”
A low groan of frustration escaped her throat. “Why do you have to make it so much harder? I told you how impossible it would be for us.”
“Why?” He caught her other hand, tugging her closer.
The pull of him was like a powerful undercurrent, dragging her inexorably further out to sea no matter how hard she fought against it. “I have to think of Zachary.”
“Zachary likes me.”
“Too much,” she protested. “He’s too attached to you already, and the more time I let you spend with him, the harder it’s going to be when you’re not here any longer.”
“What if I’m not going anywhere?”
Hope jolted through her at his words before she could squelch it. “You won’t be here after the party, will you?” she argued. “You’ll be going back home and Zachary and I will be alone again.”
“I’m not Anthony,” Harlan growled.
“I didn’t say you were-”
“That’s how you treat me,” he shot back, dropping her hands and pacing away from her, his movements quick and full of pent-up frustration. “‘I can’t let Zachary get close to you because you’ll hurt him.’” He whipped back to face her. “Just like Anthony, right?”
She took a couple of quick steps toward him before she could stop herself. “You’re nothing like Anthony.”
Closing the rest of the gap between them, he cradled her face between his hands again. “Then don’t treat me as if I am.”
She tried to remember what it had felt like when she realized her husband of seven years was leaving her because she’d given him what he’d considered a defective son. The pain had been crushing, though in retrospect, she could admit that most of the hurt was for what he was doing to their son.
But all she could remember was the sound of Harlan’s voice, full of affection and appreciation for her beautiful, difficult son. All she could see was the fire smoldering in his eyes right now, as he gazed at her as if she were the most desirable creature in the world.
She closed her hands over his wrists, sliding her fingertips lightly over the muscles and tendons there until her touch elicited a soft gasp from his lips.
Rising to the tips of her toes, she brushed her lips against his, a shaky breath escaping her throat.
Fingers tangling in her hair, he brought her closer, deepening the kisses until she felt drunk and fevered. She felt something hard and flat against her back-the wall, she realized in a haze of heat and need. He’d pushed her up against the wall. And she liked it. The fierce passion of what they were doing, the reckless abandon, the promise of fire and pleasure.
Why had she fought so hard against this? As Harlan’s hands dropped to her hips, tugging her flush against his hardness, she knew she couldn’t keep fighting something she wanted so much.
She dragged her lips away from his long enough to say, “We can’t wake Zachary up.”
Harlan nuzzled his way to her ear to whisper, “Umm, how hard a sleeper is he, anyway?”
Arching her neck to give him better access, she slipped her hand between their bodies and released a soft laugh as he uttered a low groan in response to her touch. “You’re a Marine. You know how to be stealthy, don’t you?”
He caught her hand, threading his fingers through hers and tugging her toward the hall to the bedrooms. “So we’re at war?” His blistering gaze met hers.
She closed the bedroom door behind her and turned to face him, unable to stop a smile of sheer exhilaration. “Not anymore. Now we’re just negotiating the terms of surrender.”
Harlan reached for the top button her blouse. “Who won?”
