‘But financially I could help.’
Again the anger. Was he obtuse? ‘I told you, I don’t need money.’
‘Well, what do you need?’
The man was totally insensitive. What did she need? What a question-when more and more she was starting to think what she needed was kneeling right in front of her.
But he couldn’t know that. He couldn’t see how vulnerable she really was.
‘I need friends,’ she muttered, and then she softened. ‘I can’t be more specific than that, but that’s what I do need-and Sam needs friends, too. People who’ll be there for us.’ She gave him a rueful smile. ‘Not people who jet around the world and are only in Australia one month in twelve. If that.’
Friends. He could do friends. Even if it was only for a month… ‘Then maybe I could see you again? When I’m in the country?’
‘Sam would like that.’ She met his eyes and her expression was a challenge. ‘But we won’t count on it. You promised Sam you’d take him swimming and it’s important-more important than you know-that you keep that promise. And you said you’d bring his frogs back here, and that’s important, too. But apart from that…please don’t make promises you can’t keep, Mr Baird.’
‘Jackson,’ he growled, and she nodded.
‘Okay, Jackson. But, please-’
‘Leave you alone? Is that what you’re asking?’
‘I don’t know.’ But suddenly she did know. This man had the capacity to tilt her world, and the last six months had seen her world tilted quite enough. So there was only one way to answer him. ‘Yes.’
They stared at each other for a long, long minute.
She wasn’t just asking for Sam, Jackson thought. She was asking for herself. Don’t offer what you can’t follow though with. Don’t play with us. Don’t break our hearts.
Damn.
And she was looking at him as if he had the capacity to do just that. It unmanned him. It made him want to make all sorts of rash promises. Promises she knew already that he couldn’t keep.
But still she watched him. The sun had slipped below the horizon and the moon wasn’t yet up. The soft, rose- coloured hues of the horizon were playing over the beach, shifting the colour of the sand, reflecting in the enormity of Molly’s eyes. She was so beautiful.
He couldn’t help himself.
Just once, he thought, and he leant and took her face in his hands. And kissed her.
Well, why not? The child was deeply asleep on the rug beside them. There was no-one but this man and this woman. And what harm was there in a kiss?
None, but if the kiss was a seal on a promise…
And that was what it felt like. It was a promise half made and now met head-on. Two halves of a whole, meeting and merging and becoming their rightful one.
This was their second kiss. The first had been a kiss of triumph-of warmth and laughter and joy. This took it further. This was no light kiss between a man and a woman with common cause for joy. This was a kiss that took one man and joined him to one woman for ever.
For the heat that flooded through them was unimagined-a heat that neither had experienced before. It felt so right. So much a part of them. Because it was what both had been searching for for life, but neither had known until this moment.
The kiss deepened and deepened again. They were kneeling on the sand, the sleeping child beside them. The waves were washing in and out, unnoticed but forming a glorious backdrop for their passion. The moon was just above the horizon, setting its silver ribbon of light across the surf-aimed just at them.
As a blessing…
His hands held her close, exploring her body, feeling the softness and the yielding wonder of her. His mouth tasted her, savoured her, gloried in her…
And for Molly, after that first moment of shock as his mouth met hers, she knew that this was where she wanted to be for the rest of her life. That whatever this man asked of her she was prepared to give. Because, in a sense, she’d given already. She’d given her heart.
He was so large and so male. The feel of his fingers in her hair sent heat surging right through her body. She gloried in him. Her tongue tasted him, needed him, took him, and when his hands slipped down the soft cotton of her bra and caressed the soft curves of her breasts it was as much as she could do not to groan with pleasure.
Dear heaven… Oh, love…
Her fingers moved to slip inside his shirt so she could feel the nakedness of his chest, feel his nipples, feel the muscles across his chest and the way his whole body was taut with desire. Taut with desire for her.
Oh, love…
This couldn’t last. She knew it couldn’t. Jackson Baird was right out of her league. But for now he was kissing her and she wanted nothing more. All she wanted was that this wonder flooding through them both should be allowed to run its own sweet course-to take them where it willed within the kiss itself.
Neither could break the moment.
Molly’s face was in Jackson’s hands again, and her sweetness was threatening to engulf him. Her joy, her love of life, her laughter-damn, even her efficiency. All of her. All of her was in this kiss, and he’d never felt anything so wonderful in his life.
Her body was pliant in his hands. Her sweetness was in his heart. She was a world away from anyone he’d ever met.
She was Molly…
He wanted her so badly. He felt his body stiffen with desire and gave an almost audible groan. Some things weren’t possible. Not here. Not now. Even if he’d brought precautions, there was the child to consider.
As if on cue Sam stirred between them and sighed in his sleep. Not much, but enough. It was enough to break the link-to let reality glimmer in.
And with reality came confusion. They were left staring at each other in the waxing moonlight, neither knowing where to take this. Neither understanding what had happened. Only knowing that it had happened and life itself had somehow been transformed.
The silence lasted into the stillness as the moon rose over the clouds and burst forth in all its glory. The glimmer of silver became a shaft of glorious, shimmering wonder-they were on a knife-edge and it could go either way.
But in the end sense won. Of course sense won. When had it not?
‘I’m…I’m sorry,’ Jackson murmured into the stillness, and he somehow broke away to stand apart from her. It had needed only that for Molly to haul herself together-to banish the confusion she was feeling and replace the sensation with anger. Sorry!
‘You hardly seduced me,’ she muttered, and pulled backwards, gathering Sam into her arms as though the sleeping child was a shield. ‘It was one kiss-and I kissed you right back.’
One kiss does not a relationship make, her tone said, and Jackson took a deep breath and thought, She’s right. There were so many other factors at play here. This was not sensible. It was not even possible!
His future was mapped out. Sensible and settled. Just him and his half-sister against the world…
‘Give me Sam.’ He stooped and lifted the child from her, using the movement to pull himself together. Then he stood cradling the little boy to him and looking down at Molly as she hauled their picnic stuff together. She wasn’t looking at him.
Maybe she couldn’t.
‘Time to go home?’ he said softly, and she shoved the last things in the picnic hamper and rose. She was angry, but it was impossible for him to tell if she was angry with him or with herself.
‘Yes,’ she said briefly. ‘It’s time to go home.’
‘It’s been a wonderful night.’
‘Apart from the past few moments,’ she muttered. ‘And they were just plain stupid!’
Just plain stupid?
Jackson lay awake into the night and thought about those words. Just plain stupid.
