“Twins start out identical, but they grow up to have different personalities. Stacey was always more outgoing than me. She was the risk-taker.”
“You took a risk coming here.”
She snuggled closer. “I’m glad I did.”
At this moment, in his arms, she could pretend it was real. That he cared about her, that everything was going to work out. But in her heart, she knew it was just a fantasy. He wasn’t in love with her and he didn’t want her to love him. They weren’t the perfect family. They’d come close, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“Where do we go from here?” he asked.
To bed. But she didn’t say the words. She couldn’t afford the price. “We don’t have to go anywhere. We can stay right where we are.”
“Where’s that?”
She drew in a deep breath. “Friends. We can be good friends. I could use someone like you in my life, and Kiki’s right. You live like a hermit. You need us, too.”
His arms tightened, holding her close. “That sounds great.”
Actually it sounded horrible to her. Empty and cold and not nearly what she wanted. Still it was better than nothing. She couldn’t make him love her. She couldn’t force a response he didn’t want to make. So they would be friends and she would make it enough. Because the alternative was to confess all and risk losing him completely.
She ignored the voice that whispered once again that she was settling and waiting for her turn. She ignored Kiki’s advice of grabbing onto happiness with both hands. Parker wasn’t interested. If she tried to grab for happiness, all she would find was smoke, and all she would get was a broken heart.
Chapter Fourteen
The brisk wind caught the edge of the kite and sent it soaring up in the air.
“It’s flying!” Christie squealed. “It’s flying in the sky.”
Parker grinned. “I knew we’d get it right.”
He released more string, trying to get the kite up above the cliffs behind them on the beach. Once free of the erratic breeze, the kite really could take off for the heavens. So far it had been a losing battle.
Parker moved upwind and let the kite out a little more. The breeze shifted, the kite sputtered and twisted. The long slender tail drooped.
“It’s falling,” Christie said and put her hands on her hips. “You stay in the sky, you naughty kite. You’re ‘posed to fly just like the birdies.”
It pitched back and forth, then dropped suddenly and fell to the sand. The yellow-and-blue lightweight material fluttered and danced at the end of the line, but didn’t rise. Parker coiled string as he walked toward it.
“I can design programs used by millions of people, but I can’t keep a kite in the air,” he muttered.
Christie looked at him and laughed. “Daddy, you’re so funny.”
She flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his legs. He dropped the string, crouched down and hugged her close. She smelled of salt and summer. When she stepped away, he looked at her face. Despite using a sun block, their time at the beach had left freckles on her small nose. Her arms and legs were sturdy and strong, faintly tanned from long hours of play.
When she smiled at him, he knew exactly where her dimples would appear in her cheeks. He knew the sound of her laughter and her moods. He knew which stories she liked at bedtime, her favorite foods and how much it hurt to see her cry. What he didn’t know was how sharp the pain would be when she was gone. It was already mid-August. She and Erin would leave by the first of September. Their perfect summer was nearly over.
He hadn’t noticed the passage of time until Kiki had mentioned it that morning at breakfast. The days had all blended together until he’d allowed himself to believe this would go on forever. But it wouldn’t. Erin and Christie had a life separate from his. When they left, he would no longer be a full-time father. He would also lose his time with Erin. They would become polite strangers greeting each other across the threshold, passing Christie back and forth like a package.
“Let’s do it again, Daddy,” Christie said. “Let’s make it go really, really high.”
“So high we can barely see it,” he said, grabbing the string and straightening. He released several feet, then started to run down the beach. His daughter raced behind him, trying to keep up.
The kite danced along, finding the occasional gust of wind, drifting upward, then falling toward the ground. At the end of their cove, he turned and started running toward the stairs. The sun heated him. Waves pounded against the shore. Parker wondered if he looked as stupid as he felt, jogging up and down the small beach with a kite bouncing along behind him.
The breeze flirted with the kite, taking it up a few feet. Once it nearly cleared the cliffs before plummeting to the shore. When he reached the stairs, he turned again. He met Christie halfway. She was panting.
“I can’t keep up,” she wheezed. “You run fast.”
He slowed to a walk. The kite hit the sand. “Maybe we should go up to the cliff and try it,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to get it flying from here. I’m sure it has something to do with the way the wind acts when it hits land.”
Christie flopped down on the sand. “Okay. Let’s do that next.”
He reeled in the kite and settled next to her. The breeze ruffled her bangs. He studied her face. He saw himself in the child’s features. And Erin. He grimaced. No, he saw Stacey. Erin wasn’t Christie’s biological mother, although she was one in every other sense of the word.
Christie tilted her head, just as Erin would, and smiled. “Why are you looking at me, Daddy?”
“I was just thinking what a pretty girl you are.”
She dimpled. “Mommy says that, too. She says it’s more important to be pretty on the inside, but pretty on the outside is nice, too.” She leaned forward. “Pretty on the inside is about your heart,” she said confidentially. “Not the blood and other stuff inside. It’s about being a nice person. Mommy’s a nice person.”
“She’s the best,” he said, wondering how many other women would have been so willing to share their child with him. Erin had given unselfishly.
He remembered her confession of jealousy and how she’d gotten over it. Those first few weeks must have been hard for her. He and Christie had developed a bond almost immediately. Erin had kept her feelings to herself. She was bright, funny, easy to talk to and just as pretty as her daughter. He wondered why some guy hadn’t already claimed her.
Maybe there was a man patiently waiting for her in Palmdale.
The thought made his stomach clench and his hands curl into fists. Talk about being ugly on the inside, Hamilton. You don’t want her for yourself, and you don’t want anyone else to have her, either. But that statement wasn’t completely true. It’s not that he didn’t want Erin, it’s that he didn’t-
He leaned back on his elbows and shook his head. Hell, he didn’t know what he wanted. One thing was for sure: He didn’t want her and Christie to leave in two weeks. He wanted this summer to go on forever. He wanted Erin back in his bed. He wanted to be the kind of man she could respect and care about. He wanted to let the ghosts go.
But were they willing to let
Christie shifted so she lay on the warm sand and rested her head on his belly.
“There’s a birdie up there,” she said, pointing at the blue sky.
Parker squinted against the sun. “It’s just a speck. It must be very high.”
“Higher than our kite?”
“Yeah, but that’s not saying much.”
She giggled.
He laced his fingers behind his head and relaxed on the shore. Christie sighed as if she were drifting off to sleep. It was a lazy afternoon. She sighed again, then turned, and stretched out across his chest. Her eyes closed
