Home is where the heart is?
Could the woman be any more blunt and bullheaded? He dragged the saw across the wood, the satisfactory rasp of metal teeth blocking the sound of her footsteps. Pushy. That was Lauren Taylor. Couldn"t accept he"d never have a home or a family, or want either.
Heels clicked a staccato beat on the nearly completed deck. Heels? He slanted a look from under his cap. Crimson-tipped toenails poked out of strappy, high-heeled sandals, leading to slim ankles, leading to slender calves, leading to a silky red fabric skimming shapely thighs-holy h.e.l.l! His head jerked up.
Lauren stood, fist on c.o.c.ked hip, in a dress that made his jaw sag. It flowed over her, hugging every curve, barely concealing skin he yearned for. He didn"t dare open his mouth in case he uttered something idiotic. Like a plea to touch.
"You"re done for the day." Her hand appeared from behind her back, white fabric dangling from her fingers.
"Hmm?" His eyes spurned his brain"s suggestion to shift off her delicious curves. Would she be furious if he reached for his camera? Stunning, absolutely- "Nate!"
She thrust the white fabric under his nose. He spotted a collar and slowly made the connection.
Oh. One of his shirts.
He let go of the saw handle, the blade still wedged in the timber. "What"s this for?"
"You can"t come to Christmas dinner in a grubby tee shirt."
His stomach muscles tensed. "I already told you and your brother earlier; I don"t do Christmas."
She clicked around the sawhorse and shoved the shirt into his hand. "You don"t do this and you don"t do that. Well, newsflash, Nate-you"re doing Christmas this year, even if it"s only to eat for an hour. Drew and Sophie look like two hound dogs, and Todd"s hen-pecked and miserable."
He snorted but took the shirt, weighing it in his hand. "One hour. Only one hour."
He"d already worked off some of his mad by the time her car rolled up. Had in fact planned to stop by Todd"s place with a few beers later, perhaps staying awhile if an offer arose. Shoot the breeze with Todd and Kathy. Maybe watch Todd"s little sister from the corner of his eye.
But Nate didn"t want Lauren to get the wrong idea about him-about them. He"d seen her misty-eyed look from the doorway as Drew crouched beside the toolbox, slapping tools into his hand like a surgical nurse. "Happily-ever-after" didn"t figure into the equation, but there could be a happy-for-now if Lauren would play on less-permanent terms.
He wanted her. She wanted him.
It should be straightforward.
But the emotions squeezing his solar plexus at the sight of her in that red dress? They were anything but straightforward.
One hour had turned into two, then three and four. Nate had been unable to politely excuse himself at Todd"s place, and truthfully, he hadn"t made much of an effort. Greeted like an old friend, he"d tucked into the plate of steaming lamb and vegetables prepared by Kathy"s extended family in a hangi.
Kathy had spotted his camera bag earlier when they"d arrived and encouraged him to shoot some photos of the day. He"d wandered into the back garden where the men raised the hangi and caught the explosion of steam as the baskets were hauled from pits in the ground. Then he"d snapped a group of kids rough and tumbling like exuberant puppies, found a group of elderly women fanning themselves under the shade of the trees. They giggled and flapped their hands girlishly after he asked to photograph them but happily let him click away.
Capturing laughter, camaraderie and tradition, rather than the frantic and terrifying panorama of a war zone, was disquieting. Yet strangely exhilarating.
After the meal, he found Lauren in a hidden corner of the garden on a swing seat, Drew tucked sleepily on her knee, her bare feet pushing them gently to and fro. Relaxed and unaware of him, she was so lovely it made his chest ache. The camera around his neck urged him to capture this image forever. But instead, he shoved his fingers into his pockets and turned away.
"Hey."
He glanced back. "Hey, yourself." He pulled his hands out, spread his palms wide. "I didn"t take any photos of you, pinky-swear."
Her smile wavered then solidified. "You"ll have them lining up for free family portraits the way you"re going today."
"How about a portrait of you and Drew?"
"Nate." Her voice held a trace of warning.
"The only photos you have on your walls are of him. Don"t you want Drew to have at least one of the two of you for when he"s older?" He couldn"t pinpoint why he needed to convince her. He just had to get this shot.
"You"ll come across a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take a once-in-a-lifetime shot, once," Steve had said early on in Nate"s career. "Make sure your b.l.o.o.d.y camera"s ready."
Lauren planted a kiss on the boy"s tousled hair. Two fine lines deepened between her eyebrows. "Okay. But I"m the only one who sees it."
She turned her head to a three-quarter profile, tilted her chin slightly, familiar with how to position her face for the best possible shot. His stomach pinged, recalling their earlier conversations about her life in New York. How easy to forget her modeling experience when dazzled by her unaffected, natural beauty.
He shook his head and fired off a couple of quick frames. Not quite the one.
"I"m going to walk around a bit; forget I"m here."
He stepped away, smiling at her murmured, "As if."
Drew asked a sleepy question, and a myriad of expressions crossed her face. Something in her whispered reply made him giggle, and the pure sunniness of Lauren"s smile as the boy"s fingers tangled in her hair stabbed deep in the gut, even as Nate"s finger hit the shutter release.
That was it. The million-dollar shot.
He walked back to her, holding out the camera.
Her smile was tentative, but heartfelt. "Beautiful."
"And yet it still doesn"t do you justice."
She shook her head and stood, Drew in her arms. "I"m going to put him down for a nap."
Lauren walked away, and his camera, for the first time, dragged his neck down as if it were cast in lead.
"You"ll miss your life if you only ever see things through that camera."
Kathy"s voice behind him made him jump, and he spun around.
"It"s the only life I know."
"Always on the outside looking in." She clucked her tongue and moved closer, patting the rump of one of her infant nieces or nephews snuffling into her neck. "You need to partic.i.p.ate, not be the fella who watches from the sidelines."
"I don"t know how."
Kathy angled his hand so she could see the camera viewfinder and the shot of Lauren and Drew. She touched his cheek. "I think you do. You just gotta realize relationships are a contact sport, and if you run too fast, n.o.body"ll pa.s.s you the ball."
"That"s a h.e.l.l of a metaphor."
"It"s a h.e.l.l of a game. Be in it to win it, Nate." She winked and left him blinking in the late afternoon sun.
Lauren selected another plate from the dish rack and glanced out the window to where Todd, Nate and four of Kathy"s brothers-in-law had finished a compet.i.tive game of touch rugby.
"Your Nate fits right in here." Kathy scrubbed at a roasting pan beside her. "Got an easy way about him."
Outside, Todd slapped Nate"s shoulder, and they grinned at each other before b.u.mping fists with the others.
Lauren carried the stack of dry plates to Kathy"s sideboard and kept her back turned. "He"s not my Nate. He"s just a neighbor."
Temporarily a neighbor, at that, once the reconstruction of Mac"s place was done. She concentrated on keeping the plates from slipping out of her grasp.
"Funny, that"s what Todd said when I mentioned Nate looked at you the same way Java looked at the hangi this afternoon."
China rattled in her hands. "What"s that supposed to mean?"
Kathy rescued the wobbly plates and stacked them away. "Todd only sees what he wants, and he doesn"t want to see you looking at Nate like that."
If it"d been anyone other than Kathy making that observation, Lauren would"ve flat-out denied it. But Kathy called Lauren "sister" for a reason. Through perseverance and a large dose of tough love, Kathy had bulldozed through Lauren"s protective walls and forged a bond of trust.
"It can"t go anywhere. He said he doesn"t do families, and Drew and I are a package deal."
"Doesn"t do families, pah." Kathy dismissed the notion with a flick of her hand. "He"s like a lot of men, terrified of his own feelings. Why, Todd told me when we first met the only way he"d ever stay with one woman was if she took out both kneecaps with his hunting rifle." Her eyes crinkled as she grinned. "And he"s still walking around, isn"t he?"
"He adores you, Kathy."
"My point, exactly. Aroha changes your heart."
Lauren shook her head. "Love isn"t going to change Nate"s heart about selling his land-and love has got nothing to do with it. We want completely different things."
"So what does he want?"
"Just to sleep with me, I suspect." She narrowed her eyes, waiting for shock to register on Kathy"s face, but her sister-in-law remained impa.s.sive.
"You so sure about that?"
Lauren paused, remembering the gentlemanly way he hadn"t pushed for more intimacy at the beach, his quiet consideration when he"d helped around the house. The way she sometimes caught him looking at Drew with baffled affection.
"No. I guess I"m not."
Kathy stepped closer, her brown eyes unwavering. "Then what do you want?"
"I don"t know." Her voice barely rose above a whisper. "I"ve been doing what other people want for so long, I"ve forgotten how to figure it out."
"You"re not s.e.xy Lexy or Alexandra Knight anymore." Kathy moved to the kitchen table to transfer chunks of rich fruitcake to a platter. "It"s about time you let someone in to know the real you."
"He might not want the real me"-a woman too cowardly to leave her husband before her son was traumatized-"or worse, he might try to turn me into his vision of who I should be." Like Jonathan had.
"You won"t know unless you talk to him."
"I can"t talk to him."
"I think it"s more like you"ve decided that you can"t trust him. If you truly believe the man is another sheep in a wolf suit, you"ve no business looking at him the way you do." She slid the last pieces of cake into neat rows and added a wad of paper napkins. "You"d best decide quickly what sort of man he is, because Drew"s already tucked up asleep in Sophie"s room, and you"ve an empty house to go back to tonight."
Kathy shoved the platter into Lauren"s hands. "You"re done hiding in my kitchen. Go and give this to the men; they"ll be starved."
Lauren hesitated, her arms trembling with the effort of keeping the platter level when she badly wanted to droop to the floor like overcooked monkey-roni.
"I"m scared, Kath."
Kathy squeezed her elbow and gave her a gentle push toward the door. "Kia kaha, teina. You have more aroha and courage in your heart than you think."
An hour later, Lauren sat in her parked car and quietly panicked. She and Nate hadn"t mentioned Drew"s sleepover when they"d waved goodbye and set off in their separate vehicles. But the big, smug elephant accompanying her all the way home wouldn"t be shoved out of sight. For the first time, they were alone.
Completely alone.
No interruptions, no lack of privacy, no four-year-old chaperone.
The quiet chirp of cicadas drifted in through her open window, and on the driveway below, headlights cut through the darkness and lit up the garage doors. The Range Rover"s engine died, and the headlights switched off, revving her panic levels up a notch. Maybe if she hurried, she could slip inside the house without drawing his attention.
Lauren, you"re such a coward.
She climbed out of the car and smoothed her dress-the dress that did nothing but draw his attention. For one day she"d wanted to show him she could be flirty and carefree, the type of woman who"d win him over with her wit and Tinkerbell-ish laugh. The cherry-red dress belonged on that woman, not on Lauren. She"d deluded herself, once again rehearsing for a role she didn"t want to play.
She slipped off her heels and padded across the gra.s.s. Java"s claws skittered on the wooden planks, and she braced herself for the inevitable s...o...b..r-fest, but the dog"s deep woof of greeting wasn"t for her.
Lauren stepped onto the deck. Java leaned on Nate"s leg, smiling deliriously while he received a back scratch. The canine traitor. Nate"s long fingers stroked the dog"s coat, and it didn"t take a huge leap of imagination to visualize those same fingers skimming across her skin. No wonder the d.a.m.n dog was smiling like a loon.
Nate looked up as she crossed the deck. He held out a wine bottle.
"Nightcap?"
She wet her lips, fingers tightening around the straps of her sandals. If she invited him in now, they"d end up in a naked tangle.
"Or walk off some of Kathy"s amazing Christmas dinner first?" Nate moved closer, the thread of warmth twisting through his words smothering another reason to keep him at a distance.
"A walk sounds good." She took the bottle from him and set it on the outside table.
"Lauren?"
She paused for a beat then turned back to him.
"Will you tell me the rest? Will you tell me about how you got this?" He traced a gentle fingertip along her scar.
"I think it"s more that you can"t trust him."
"You"d best decide quickly what sort of man he is."
As Kathy"s words drifted through Lauren"s mind, she soaked in the sensation of his touch. Perhaps a little trust was due.