Tender Loving Care

“A wonderful lady,” Zoe agreed instantly.

“But not for me. It was never any more than a casual relationship. She knew that, and so did I. There was a time when we could fill a few needs for each other, and that’s all it amounted to.” He added, “I talked to her this morning.”

What he talked to her about Zoe didn’t want to know. She also didn’t want the mug of coffee in her hands, or to be alone in a softly lit kitchen with him. She set the mug down. The whole problem with being close to Rafe…was being close to Rafe.

She said nothing for a moment, because she couldn’t think of a thing to say, and then a crash interrupted that silence-a glass-splintering, explosion-type crash. The lights went out.

She collided with Rafe on the rush for the door.

Chapter Five

As soon as Zoe reached the living room, she was surrounded by darkness and two frantic boys. An acrid odor of smoke permeated the room. “Good Lord! What were you two doing!”

She couldn’t tell one voice from another in the pitch-black room, and they were both talking at once. “The lamp just fell all to pieces; I didn’t mean to-”

“What’d you expect to happen when you threw the book at it, stupid?”

Rafe clamped a hand on her shoulder from behind. “Keep them away from it, Zoe. I’ll unplug the lamp and change the fuse.”

Grabbing the little ones, she tried to soothe and calm and at the same time determine just how the disaster had happened. Both boys were safely stashed on the couch next to her when the lights snapped on again, and then her eyes widened in shock at the wreckage. Rafe’s huge porcelain lamp was in shards on the floor, its shade bent grotesquely. A leatherbound textbook lay in the center of the mess.

“All right. Who threw the book?” Rafe hadn’t taken long to return from the fuse box. Standing in the doorway, he looked like ten feet of cold male fury.

Total silence, then “Me.” Zoe stood up, but Aaron wrapped his arms around her hips in a viselike grasp.

“You know what’s going to happen to you, don’t you?” Rafe said sternly.

“Yup,” Aaron said sadly.

“And right now.”

“Yup,” the little boy agreed again.

“Now, wait a minute,” Zoe said frantically. “Rafe, I’m sure it was an acci-”

“Aaron, upstairs,” Rafe ordered.

“Yup.” Aaron quietly pried his fingers away from Zoe’s hip. Her arm tightened protectively around his shoulders.

“You haven’t even heard what happened!” she yelled at Rafe.

His voice was as calm and cold as the ocean in November. “I don’t need to hear a darn thing. I can see the book. He admitted he threw it. Upstairs, Aaron.”

“Yup.” Resigned to his fate, Aaron lowered his head, ducked out from under Zoe’s hold and headed for the stairs. He climbed them as heavily as if he were old and weary.

Zoe rushed after him, but Rafe reached the landing first.

“Stay out of it,” he said quietly.

“I won’t. Darn it, you can’t mean this! You’re angry, Rafe. You can’t deal with him when you’re this mad-”

“I sure as hell can.”

“It was an accident!”

“It was deliberate. And he knows it.”

“He’s only four years old!” They were at the door to the twins’ bedroom. Startled, Zoe noted Aaron had already bent over the bed, bottom up. One might almost think he’d been through this before. She flashed a look at the child, and then at Rafe.

His eyes were blue-black, and his jaw like iron. He was too big a man, too powerful, too strong…and all that patience he’d been famous for was gone. Rafe was flat-out furious.

With some vague thought of protecting Aaron, she hurled herself over him. Firm hands settled around her waist and lifted her off the small trembling body.

The trace of humor in Rafe’s voice came from nowhere. “Read that in a book, didn’t you?” he asked amiably.

“You are not going to spank him!”

“Seems to me I read that same book in a lit class my junior year in high school,” he continued gently. “The guy was a Canadian Mountie or something? Only these aren’t quite the same circumstances. I’d know that little boy’s fanny anytime over yours, and I’m not about to lay a hand on you. On him-you can bet your sweet petunias.”

“The heck you are!”

“Zoe. Try to relax.” He set her gently, firmly in the hall, and then quietly closed the door in her face.

Both boys were in bed by nine. A half hour before they went upstairs, Zoe had watched Aaron climb on Rafe’s lap and regale him with a story about a lost puppy. She’d watched Rafe listen, and she’d watched Aaron laugh. Rafe had toted both giggling boys upside down to bed and nobody was stingy with the good-night hugs.

Which was all very well. The urchins might take spankings for granted, but Zoe certainly didn’t, and nothing was about to subdue her growing fury.

When the kids were finally asleep, Rafe went for a walk, and Zoe settled in the living room, stiffly turning the pages of a book she had no interest in. Another half hour passed before she heard the back door opening.

He was rubbing cold hands together when he appeared in the living room. His dark hair was glistening with snow, and his cheeks were ruddy from his walk. He sent one quick look in her direction, and then crossed to the fireplace. He wasn’t smiling, but the patient expression on his face was darn near enough to make her want to hit him.

He bounced down on his haunches and started stacking logs on the hearth. “I had major hopes you’d cool down, but I can see that you’re still mad. Okay, let’s hear it,” he said quietly.

“You bet you will! I think that was one of the most cruel, insensitive, heartless, unfair-”

“Honey. I laid three quick ones on his backside. I realize from his yells you must have thought I was killing him, but you can’t seriously believe I would have harmed a hair on his head.” Rafe held a match to the fire and then turned to look at Zoe.

“That’s not the point. He was crying! And you didn’t even let me go in to him afterward-”

“There’s no point to a spanking if someone cuddles him two seconds later.”

His calmness only further infuriated her. “How could you? He just lost his parents. He’s having a terrible time believing they’re even gone. So he threw a lousy book. We’re all he’s got, and he goes and makes one tiny little mistake-”

Rafe shook his head despairingly. “Little? That was a three-hundred-dollar lamp, he could have set the house on fire-and we’re really going to have to do something about this cold-blooded streak of yours. Want some wine?”

“No.”

He sighed. “Look, honey. I loved Janet like a sister, but she coddled those kids way too much. Jonathan was my best friend, and there’s no question that he took his role as father very seriously. But haven’t you noticed that the monsters are a teeny bit spoiled?”

“I don’t care if they’re spoiled. They need love,” Zoe said furiously.

“I agree with you, but that doesn’t answer my question.”

“You have to consider what the kids are going through right now!”

He nodded. “I did. I thought they needed to know that in a world turned upside down, there’s still somebody in control. There are still rules they can count on. I wanted to give them the security of knowing that some actions are acceptable and others are dead wrong.”