Craving a Hero: St. John Sibling Series, book 3 (20 page)

"It's not like I could have snuck her out of the room without him seeing her," her mother answered in a low voice.

"But you let him in, Mom," she went on, cooing a smile out of her daughter while she examined her fingers and toes as if some monster might have taken pieces of her daughter.

"He showed up unexpected," her mother said. "Your father invited him in."

Dad, who had
not
promised to keep her secret from Dane.

She glanced at her father's empty chair. "Where is Dad?"

"Napping." Alma nodded toward the little room in back of the kitchen where they'd converted Frank's office into a bedroom so he wouldn't have to deal with the stairs.

"They had a nice chat, Dane and your father. Really cheered your father up."

"And just what did they talk about?" Kelly asked, struggling to keep the panic from her tone.

"Dane wants to use the snowmobile up at camp. Him and Dad talked about what needs to be done to get it back into running shape. Dane even promised to take dad for a ride when he has Big Blue up and running."

"He thinks Dad is up to riding a snowmobile?" Her voice rose in spite of her attempts to contain it for Angel's sake. "There's no way he's in any shape for snowmobiling."

Angel patted Kelly's lips, reminding her how easily little ones picked up on tension while Alma defended Dane's invitation. "It's the only thing other than Angel I've seen your dad get excited about since his stroke."

Kelly winced. Dane's visit might have been a good thing for her dad, but it was dangerous for Angel and her for more than one reason.

Even though panic screamed through her, she tempered her voice. "Dad didn't say anything about Angel, did he?"

"Nothing Dane could understand. You know how jumbled your dad's speech gets when he's excited."

Some of the panic eased from her, but she still had to face the possibility Dane had recognized himself in Angel's eyes. Over the lump forming in her throat, she probed, "Did Dane ask any questions about Angel? Did he seem suspicious?"

"He thinks she's Carrie's baby."

Hope surged through Kelly. "Is that what you told him?"

"It's what he assumed," Alma said.

Kelly stroked Angel's silky, blond hair, frowning. "So, he just looked at her?"

Her mother sighed. "And held her a while."

"And you let him?" The question came out strident and Angel lifted her head, her little brow puckered. "Shhhh," Kelly soothed.

"He asked if he could," Alma said.

Kelly frowned, suspicious and confused. "Why?"

"He said he liked babies and they like him."

"Had a lot of experience with babies lately, has he?" she asked, barely containing her sarcasm.

Angel's fingers covered Kelly's lips as though reminding her she had no right judging Dane.

Alma sighed. "He talked about spending a week with his newest niece."

Kelly kissed Angel's fingertips, murmuring, "So, Dixie and Sam had a daughter, too."

"He said her and Angel couldn't be more than a month apart in age."

"Roman's and Tess's daughter must be about a year old," Kelly said, wishing they could have stayed friends given how well they'd hit it off the day of Dixie's and Sam's wedding. But circumstances had gotten in the way of that. "He no doubt stopped and visited them on the way up here."

"He also said his leading lady brought her baby on set," Alma said.

"Got himself a baby fix right on set, even. How nice for him."
But not with his own daughter.

There she went, automatically blaming him, even feeling jealous when she had no right to. He didn't
know
he had a daughter. She'd seen to that.

"So, how'd Angel take to him?" Kelly asked, more curious than she wanted to admit.

"She's a sweet-natured baby."

"So she took to him," Kelly said, dying a little inside, knowing what it was to long for a father who wanted nothing to do with you, wondering if Dane could be a different kind of father.

#

Kelly tossed and turned that night, sleep eluding her. Had he seen his eyes in Angel? Could he even now be adding up Angel's age and coming up with one particular night of unprotected sex? Even though Mom had assured her he couldn't know exactly how old Angel was, guessing her age wouldn't be a stretch.

Then there was her name. How long before he figured out the connection to Angel Point where she was conceived?

Maybe Dane had figured it out and was playing dumb to avoid taking ownership. Could a man who doted on kids the way he did turn his back on one of his own? Could the man she'd fallen in love with two summers ago really be that shallow?

She kicked off her blankets and padded barefoot across the nightlight-lit bedroom to the crib occupying the far wall. She stroked the wispy blond hair of the child in question, a halo for an angel. Her Angel sleeping like an angel, not a worry in the world. She'd give anything to insure every night of her daughter's life would be so peaceful, that she'd never have to live with the pain of knowing her father had rejected her.

That's why it was better that Kelly not tell him—that no one told him and forced Dane into making a choice. Better for Angel to grow up with the hope her father would have chosen her had he known about her.

If only he hadn't come back and risked her daughter's happiness?

Then there was the argument she used to keep everyone quiet about Angel's parentage, that fear that had wormed its way under her skin ever since he'd returned. If he knew he was her father, he'd take her away.

She wanted to pick up Angel and hug her to her chest—hug her so close nothing and nobody could ever separate them. Was that the real issue she faced—that Dane would try to take Angel away from her?

That wouldn't—couldn't—happen, could it? No court would take a child from her mother…even a mother who'd denied the father knowledge of his child, right?

Arms folded against the crib rail—folded against taking up her daughter and running off into the night with her, Kelly looked out the dormer window between the crib and her desk. Huge snowflakes fell outside the window, gilded by the streetlights. It was the kind of snowfall that turned streets slick and dangerous for fleeing vehicles.

It was also the kind of snowfall that turned a landscape into a wonderland. The kind of snow that invited an adventuresome man to play.

This last thought made her think of Dane alone at the cabin. Had he taken out the snowmobile to play tonight? What if he hadn't fixed the sled as well as he'd thought he had and he'd broken down somewhere out there in the beautiful but deadly woods? Or maybe Mr. 'I-Do-Most-of-My-Own-Stunts' hadn't been able to resist pushing the machine to full throttle and he'd hit a tree and…

Her stomach bottomed out. She didn't even want to think how an accident could end the dilemma of Angel being rejected. The idea that Dane could be injured and freezing to death sent a shiver through her. She couldn't leave him to such a fate.

Then there was the CO part of her. That protector-of-all-things-in-her-woods couldn't simply watch the snow accumulate outside her dormer window while there was a chance a man's life hung in the balance.

Dressed in her winter gear, she tapped on her mother's bedroom door, opened it and stuck her head inside. "I have to make a run. Keep an ear open for Angel."

"Be careful," her mother said as she always did.

Even though it had stopped snowing, the drive from town to the camp on slick roads took Kelly nearly twice as long as normal. Palms sweaty, she pulled up to the cabin in her DNR truck, trailered DNR sled in tow. She'd come prepared.

Turning off the ignition, she stepped out into the frosty air.

Silence.

She squinted through the dim pre-dawn light at the footprints outside the cabin half-filled with fresh snow and decided they were mere hours old. Heart pounding, she rapped on the cabin door and walked in.

The place was empty, nothing moving but the occasional flicker of a flame from the embers in the wood stove. She cursed and headed back outside to the storage shed. The tracks—the packed snow still visible through the new fall, pretty much told the story. But she looked inside the shed to make sure.

Just as she suspected, the snowmobile was missing.

"Cowboy," she muttered under her breath and returned to her work truck where she retrieved her night-vision gear. Solo night rides on a decades old snowmobile that hadn't been run in way too long were an iffy bet, worse with a fast sled driven by an adrenalin junky like Dane.

She followed the packed footpath out onto the bluff where she stood in the silence, listening.

Nothing.

She flipped her night-vision gear over her eyes and scanned the terrain below. Nothing out in the open. She thought about the direction the tracks leading away from the shed had taken and scoured the wooded hills to the east for the heat signature of a body. Again nothing.

There was a trail through the fresh snow, though. But, with the trees laden with new snow, she quickly lost it.

She removed the night-vision gear and listened once more, hoping to hear the distant whine of a snowmobile engine. Still nothing but silence.

Where are you, Dane?

With the gray of false dawn creeping in, she stowed the night-vision gear, unloaded her sled from its trailer, and set out on Dane's trail.

She found him a couple miles away on the neighboring camp road beneath a canopy of snow-covered trees end-lit by the promise of a rising sun. He was sprawled out on his silent sled, hands folded behind his head like he didn't have a care in the world. She pulled up beside him and turned off her sled.

"Breakdown or run out of gas?" she asked.

Instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own. "Isn't this just about the prettiest sight you've ever seen?"

She looked down the narrow roadway all but turned into a white tube by the snowy limbs bowing over it. She nodded. "Our winters have their moments."

"And listen," he said.

"To what?"

"The silence. Do you have any idea how much a treasure silence like this is?"

"It's the snow. It muffles sound."

He nodded. "Beautiful."

It was beautiful. She'd always found a fresh snow magical. And she loved the utter silence a layer of the white stuff could create. That Dane St. John did, too, stirred through her. It was almost enough to make her want to snuggle up with him on the seat of that sled and lose herself in the silence…and his arms.

Almost
.

"Pretty but potentially deadly," she said. "You're lucky Mom told me you were fixing up the old machine—that I came checking on you."

He looked at her and grinned. "Were you worried about me, Bright Eyes?"

She wanted to tell him to stop calling her that. But, she didn't want him to know the nickname meant anything to her, and she gave him a CO answer. "I'm responsible for everything in these woods. It wouldn't look good if the guy renting my cabin wound up frozen to death in them."

He studied her as though searching for something. Or maybe he'd already figured out what she was afraid he knew after seeing Angel. Maybe he was contemplating…

What?
How to call her out on not telling him he had a daughter? How to go on pretending he didn't know Angel was his? Which did she want it to be…providing he'd figured it out?

As much to distract him as to distract herself, she nodded at his sled. "Think it's something we can fix or do you need a lift back to camp?"

"I never said there was anything wrong with the snowmobile," he said, mischief glinting in his eyes.

"You've been sitting here since predawn on a stilled sled, and don't deny it. I haven't heard a sound since arriving at the camp."

"Can't enjoy the peace with a running sled," he said. "And peace is what I came here for."

She frowned at him, not quite sure he was talking entirely about escaping the scrutiny of the paparazzi. He righted himself, and with a twist of the ignition key, the sled roared to life.

"Ah," she yelled over the noisy puttering, more than ready to put some distance between them. "As long as you're all right, I'll go see to people who really need my help."

"Race you back to camp," he shouted, revving the engine, the whine all but deafening her.

She rolled her eyes at his boyish challenge but found herself unable to resist. That free-spiritedness had been part of what had attracted her to him and made their affair so fun.

Besides, the competitor in her had turned on her own ignition and was spinning her machine around on the trail before he'd likely even realized he was facing the wrong direction. As an added bonus, her machine was a newer model and in topnotch condition. There was no way he was going to catch her.

She glanced back at the fishtail of snow pluming off her track. She couldn't even see him. Teach him to challenge her.

Lost in the moment, she laughed….but not for long.