He forced a wry smile. “Trust me, sweetheart. Nobody who makes that much of a mess in the kitchen is fragile.”
She raised one eyebrow. “If you don’t want me to make a mess, you do the cooking. You always used to, anyway.”
They’d spent more hours together getting from Seattle to Texas than some people spent together after months of dating. He still wasn’t used to the way she sometimes mentioned their past as if she’d never lost her memory at all.
“When you talked to your dad, how was he doing?” He felt cautious bringing it up. “After what happened with your mom?”
“He didn’t tell me again that it was my fault.” She plucked the fringed hem of her denim shorts. “And he helped me get my license. So progress is progress, I guess.”
Adam figured Nelson was still Nelson. “He start insisting yet that you go back to Virginia?”
She exhaled softly. “He called the hospital every single day, trying to whittle me down. But I’m not going.”
“He’ll come here. You prepared to stand up to him when you’re face-to-face?”
“I’m not twenty-two anymore,” she said quietly. “I have a child of my own. A...family...of my own. And if my father behaves, maybe I’ll let him be a part of it.” She pushed herself to her bare feet. “Are you going to be out here for a while yet?”
He looked away from the racehorse-lean legs six inches away from his face. “Why?”
“Because you have a claw-foot tub in your bathroom and Becky—it had to be her, same as the flowers—left a beautiful jar full of bath salts for me.”
No matter what happened, Laurel was still Laurel. He waved his hand. “Go.”
She didn’t dart off, though. “There’s room for two, you know. And just to be clear,” she said, crouching next to him and drawing her finger along his freshly shaved cheek, “I’m not talking about Linus.”
Then she straightened and padded silently into the house.
Adam fell back on the wooden deck until he was staring up at the darkening sky and thumped his head. Once. Twice. Then he gave in and rolled to his feet.
He went inside the house. Checked on Linus. He was sleeping, sprawled on his back and taking up as much of the crib as he could take. He pulled the nursery door nearly closed.
He went into the bedroom. He could hear the water running. She hadn’t closed the bathroom door and he stopped in the doorway.
Her aquamarine gaze met his and she let the blouse in her fingers fall to the floor. The only thing she still wore was the necklace he’d given her all those years ago. He could see her pulse beating in her long, lovely throat, making the gold L glint in the light.
From the day he’d met her, he’d wanted her. “Be very sure, Laurel.”
She held out her left hand toward him. The scars no less red now than they’d been the first time he’d seen them. “I’m sure.”
The water gushed from the tap, plunging through the center of the frothing bubbles. He reached over and turned it off. And then he took Laurel’s hand. He kissed her palm. Her wrist. The inside of her elbow. He kissed the too-narrow point of her shoulder and the pulse beating beneath the necklace he’d given her. His hands shook as he clasped them around her face and he pressed his lips to the scar on her forehead.
When he lifted his head again, her eyes glittered with unshed tears.
“Don’t cry. I told you, I can’t take it when you cry.”
She slid her arm around his neck, pulling him back to her. Her lips—those soft, full lips—grazed against his. “Then take me, Adam.” She slid her fingers through his and pressed them to her breast. “Take my heart. It’s only ever belonged to you.”
He pulled her closer, sweeping his hand down the elegant line of her spine, the indent of her waist, the swell of her hip. A last bit of sanity intruded. “I don’t have any protection.”
“I don’t need protection from you.”
He laughed, growled, caught between aching need and frustration. “And that resulted in the little guy sleeping on the other side of the house, if you remember.”
She’d managed to unfasten his shirt without him even noticing, and her hair grazed his chin as she kissed his throat. Her fingers drifted down his chest and reached his belt. “Is that regret?”
He trapped her hand. “Never.”
Her eyes met his. “Then I don’t see the problem.” She slid her hand free and set to work on his belt. Everything inside him short-circuited when her hand closed around him.
By some small miracle, he managed not to trip over his own clothes as he lifted her against him. They didn’t even make it all the way to the bed before her legs were wrapped around him and he was buried inside her. And when he felt her tightening, felt that quaking and the sound of her gasps filling his ear with some of the sweetest music he’d ever heard, he finally let himself go.
He woke with a start, hours later and stared into darkness.
His arms were empty. So was the rest of the bed.
He pulled on his jeans and left the room.
Linus was still sleeping when he checked.
The four-poster bed in the other bedroom was untouched.
He rasped his hand down his chest, not wanting to feel alarmed, though he did, particularly when he didn’t find Laurel anywhere in the house.
Soon, he’d turned on every light in the house except Linus’s room. He called the guard at the gatehouse, even though he couldn’t imagine Laurel walking all that way on foot. His truck was where he’d parked it.
He was on the verge of calling Callum when he heard a noise outside and he bolted out the door,
