Chapter 24 #2
“They’re sleeping on the other side of the house.” Flashing a teasing smile, he added, “We’ll close the bedroom window so you can make as much noise as you want.”
“I don’t know about this, Ian. What will they say when they see my car here?”
“They won’t say anything. We stay out of each other’s crap. Otherwise, I wouldn’t live here.”
“Why do you? Live here?”
“It helps to keep my expenses down so I can work less and spend most of my time with Rosie.”
Admirable, she thought but didn’t say it.
“If it makes you more comfortable, I’ll move your car out to the street, okay?”
“That would be better. Thank you.”
“Go on up.” He pointed to a flight of stairs. “Door’s unlocked.”
“Take it easy on my clutch. She’s sensitive.”
“Like her mama.” He kissed her cheek and nudged her out of the car.
With a mixture of trepidation and curiosity—and another glance at the big dark house, the close big dark house—Cat went up the stairs. Inside, her first impression was one of neatness. Yes, there were toys, and yes, a guitar was propped in the corner, but everything was neatly stowed.
She had expected a bachelor pad, but instead she found a home where Rosie was front and center. Her pictures from infancy to the present hung in frames on the wall along with her artwork. Cat studied the progression of photos. She really was a cute kid, if you were into kids, that is.
Ian came bounding up the stairs.
Cat spun around to shush him. “You’ll wake up the dead making all that racket!”
“They aren’t going to wake up, babe. Don’t sweat it.”
She shouldn’t have liked him calling her that quite as much as she did, but the sexy, proprietary way he said it appealed to her even though she knew it wasn’t wise.
“Beer?”
“Sure.”
He opened two bottles and brought them with him to the sofa. “Hungry?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
Reaching for her feet, he surprised her when he knocked off her flip-flops, swung her feet into his lap, and began rubbing them.
Cat had no choice but to let her head fall back against one of the oversized pillows.
He pushed his thumbs into her tense arches. “Feel good?”
“Mmm,” she said. That urge to purr again!
“You must get tired being on your feet all night.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, frantic to remind him—and herself—that they weren’t about this caring and sharing thing.
They were about one thing and one thing only.
She would remind him of that. Really she would, just as soon as she got enough of the divine foot massage.
The man had amazing hands, and as he had proven a few times already, he knew how to use them.
“I like doing it,” he said, surprising her again by pressing his lips to the sole of her foot.
In danger of losing her equilibrium, Cat took a long sip of her beer, closed her eyes, and gave herself over to the pleasure. She hadn’t even known she liked having her feet rubbed until Ian Caldwell rubbed them. “Nice place,” she said a few minutes later.
“Miss Priss is the queen of this roost, as you can see.”
“She’s lucky to have you.”
He seemed taken aback by the unexpected compliment. “I’m the lucky one. She’s by far the best thing in my life.”
“How’d you end up raising her alone?”
“I’m not doing it alone. I’ve got a huge village around me.”
“I’ll rephrase the question. Where’s her mother?”
“I don’t know. Last I heard she was moving to North Carolina.”
“She has nothing to do with her? With Rosie?”
He shook his head, but his jaw pulsed with tension she might have missed if she hadn’t been looking so closely. “She hasn’t seen her since the day she was born.”
Cat watched, waited, and wondered if he’d say more.
“You really want to hear this?” he asked warily.
“Yeah, I guess I do.” Why she wanted to know was something she’d think about later.
He rolled his head as if to relieve tension in his neck. “She was a waitress at one of the clubs where I worked in the summer. She was young—too young for me.”
Intrigued, Cat realized he was ashamed that he had dallied with a younger woman.
“We started hanging out, one thing led to another. She told me she was on the pill, so I was sketchy with the condoms—stupid on a number of levels, I know. I discovered later she was on the pill, but more often than not, she forgot to take it.”
“How’d you find out she was pregnant?”
“When she asked me to pay for an abortion.” He took a drink of his beer. “I went nuts. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not a holy roller or anything, and I’m all for a woman’s right to choose. But not when it’s my kid and not when I was willing and able to give the child a loving home.”
“So she agreed to have the baby?”
“Hell no. I had to beg and plead and cajole and give her all kinds of money. It got really ugly really quickly, which made for a long nine months. She was so pissed at me, we were hardly speaking by the time Rosie was born.”
“Were you there for the birth?”
For the first time since the conversation began, he brightened.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “It was the most amazing moment of my whole life. When Rosie came out, her mother refused to even acknowledge her, so the doctor handed her to me. I took one look at my daughter and knew that all the fighting had been worth it. Rosie’s mother told me to fuck off.
I said, ‘Gladly,’ and I walked out with my little girl.
We’ve never seen or heard from her again. ”
So much to admire, so much to respect. Be careful, Cat. Be very careful. “What does Rosie know?”
“That her mother wasn’t ready to be a mom and her whole family loves her.”
“Will you tell her the rest someday?”
“I don’t want to, but I suppose I’ll have to at some point.”
“It’s an amazing story.”
“It seems like a bad dream now. I never think about it anymore.”
“Thank you for telling me.” What she thought but didn’t say was here’s a man who doesn’t take the easy way out.
Here’s a man who stands up, who does the right thing.
He was honorable, just as she had suspected.
The realizations, one on top of the other, sent her reeling.
If he touched her now, if he took her to bed and made love to her, she’d be lost.
Clearing her throat, she said, “Ian?”
“What, babe?”
“Will you play for me?”