Into His Keeping (4 page)

Holdin chuckled in a deep rumble. His hazel eyes crinkled with new lines around them that Jill had never seen. She was fascinated. Lean cheeks had always creased with his grin, but the changes of time hadn’t detracted a thing from his heart-stopping good looks. It’d just added to it.

“Whatchamacallits?” he asked Drifter.

“You know, that stuff talk-show people are always bleating about. Issues. Discussing those seems to take way too much time. Getting to what needs doing is more important. The deal is, we came here to meet you. That looks to be done. The reasons for doin’ it are on the table. Mom has to have the surgery and she’s scared of forgetting again so now I know who you are and there’s nothing wrong with my head. I’ll remember. I’m taking her to the motel so she can rest. The damn issues will be the same when she wakes up. No need to sling them around now.”

“Agreed, your mother needs some rest. The ranch is twenty minutes away.” Holdin stood up. “And you can meet your grandparents while she naps.”

“No.” Drifter slid out of the booth and stood to face Holdin. Almost six feet already, Drifter still had to look up to his father. “She wants the motel. That’s where she goes. In case you hadn’t noticed, she’s already stressed. Goin’ out to your place will add to that.”

Identical hazel eyes sized each other up. The younger set in a defensive face while the older one’s bland expression was a mask. Jill almost held her breath. The unexpected confrontation between these two was a bit surprising. She’d known there would be tension, but the maturity of her son’s arguments was unexpected.

Holdin nodded curtly and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. Looking out the soda fountain window and down Main Street, he obviously dialed the motel’s number off the huge sign clearly visible from there.

“Mrs. Parkman?” he said politely as someone answered. “This is Holdin Powell. Is the room on the end, farthest from the road available? Excellent. Does it have two beds? Good. Please open it and leave two keys on the dresser. I’ll be up to fill out the paperwork. Yes I know. No, of course not, ma’am. I have a friend in town and she’s feeling ill. It will be her and her son staying. Correct. Yes. See you then.”

Drifter turned and held out a hand to help Jill out of the booth. “Let’s go, Mom.”

Jill scooted out. “You’re still doing the ‘take charge’ thing, Holdin. I can rent my own room.”

“Oh Lord, get over it, Mom. He compromised. Don’t you know anything about guys?” Drifter asked in mild male disgust.

Holdin’s brows went up and he grinned at Drifter. Jill snorted and turned to exit the soda fountain and stopped abruptly. There were at least eight people standing near the entrance watching them. Some of the faces she vaguely recognized and names flashed through her mind but mostly embarrassment washed over her.

“Geez,” Drifter murmured beside her.

“Time to go.” Holdin stepped up between them. He slid an arm around Jill’s waist, his other hand rested on Drifter’s shoulder as he stepped forward. They swept through the little throng with Holdin nodding and smiling as if it were nothing to see him walking out of the department store with a boy who matched him feature for feature and the woman who’d disappeared fifteen years ago.

The motel was a long strip of rooms that opened to the parking lot. The garish orange and teal paint was a bit more faded now and still begging for a new coat. When it was new, the hotel court was supposed to have a tropicana feel to it. But the planters had been dirt holders and nothing more for quite some time. It was exactly the same as Jill remembered.

Jill pulled her Taurus into the parking space in front of the last room. Holdin’s big Dodge king cab had been on her bumper and he pulled in right beside her. He was at her car door before she could put her feet down on the cracked pavement. Her head was pounding and she smiled tightly as he took her elbow as if to steady her.

Drifter was already at the room door, opening it. They’d all heard Holdin instruct the motel owner to leave it open. “Any bags to bring in?” Holdin asked Drifter as he gently steered Jill to the bed along the far wall.

“Sure, I’ll get them,” Drifter answered automatically, unaware the man was directing them all.

Holdin flung the spread back and Jill sank down on the cool sheets. Her eyes closed immediately. “I’d have lain down without the strong-arm treatment, Holdin.”

“Yeah, but I feel better now,” he answered her mild protest as Drifter came back in with two small bags. “You guys weren’t planning on staying long.” Holdin accusingly eyed the bags.

Jill could hear it in his tone. “We don’t have much time.”

Neither male had flipped on the lights nor opened the drapes. As Drifter kicked the door shut, the room was suddenly plunged into a murky twilight. Jill opened her eyes a crack to find Holdin looming in the narrow space between the two double beds, hands on hips, frowning down at her.

“You just going to stand there?” she asked.

“Yeah, I think so.” Holdin ran a hand through his hair and shut his eyes briefly in a squeezing motion then he was gazing down at her again. “If I take my eyes off you again, you might disappear. So I can’t.”

What he’d really been doing was resisting the urge to wrap his body around her in some useless effort to protect, shield, somehow take the weight he could feel her carrying. The emotions that this encounter had generated were all fierce. Anger was pushed to the bottom of the pile because he couldn’t afford it right now. The two he was having trouble suppressing were possessiveness and protection. Those were the ones she’d always triggered in him. Not the gentle civilized versions that would have been acceptable either. These were primal responses to Jill. They always had been.

Drifter flopped down at the end of the other bed, his long legs dangling over the end as the huge yellow mums on the orange bedspread seemed to explode around him. Even in the dim light, the mums glowed. His hands stacked behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. “Are you two going to fight?” he asked in a deceptively disinterested tone.

Holdin sat down on the yellow and orange bed behind his knees and relaxed back in the same position. The two of them only fit on the thing because they were at right angles to each other. “No.” Holdin sighed. “This isn’t fighting. This is issues. Fears. All that junk.”

“You have fears?” Drifter asked in the same bored tone.

“Yep. I was in love with your mother. One evening she was gone and I couldn’t find her. It hurt me bad. Now she’s back and I’ve met you. I guess I’m sorta terrified that if I let you guys out of my sight, I’ll not be able to find you again. Does that make sense?” Holdin asked his son conversationally.

Drifter grunted a male sound then after a few minutes’ silence asked, “So you minded that she left?”

“Big time,” Holdin confirmed. “Hired a private detective once. All I found out was that whatever her real name was, I didn’t know it. Made me mad as hell. But I always wanted to find her.”

Jill listened in silence as Holdin exposed his soul to their son in fearless honesty. The abbreviated sentences and blunt expressions males used with each other were so stark. It was a nakedness women always wanted to dress up with explanations.

She suspected Holdin was doing it deliberately. Letting Drifter ask whatever he wanted was not only bonding with the boy but explaining to her as directly as he could. Covering ground it’d take the two of them hours to go over because she was not brave enough to ask.

“You’re not pissed? At us showing up, I mean.” Drifter sounded slightly amazed but he still managed to inject a tone of boredom with the whole subject into his voice.

Holdin’s tone didn’t elevate or drop, he answered as calmly as the question was asked. “Hell yeah, I’m pissed. Royally. But not at you or your mom. It’s hard to tell what I’m more ticked about right now. I guess your grandfather, who I knew as John Taylor. Whatever he was running from stole your mother and you from me. How ‘bout you? You angry?”

“Yeah, guess I am.” Drifter acknowledged the question Jill couldn’t believe Holdin had asked. “I’ve been angry at you for a while. I might have been wrong about that.”

Holdin grunted, neither agreeing nor arguing, simply a male acknowledgment of fact.

Holdin’s acceptance of Drifter’s emotions without judgment made a tear slip down Jill’s cheek. She was pretty sure they couldn’t see it. Her eyes were closed and she’d almost stopped breathing as the quiet conversation beside her unfolded.

“So you married or anything?” Drifter asked.

“No,” Holdin answered bluntly. “What else you pissed at?”

“Well, the accident and all. I’m pretty sure Mom thinks she might change if she has the surgery. The doc says if she doesn’t, it could kill her. I’m glad she remembered everything and all, but I don’t want her to change or lose her.” Drifter heaved a sigh. “No offense, but I don’t wanna be shipped off to you either.”

“None taken. You don’t know me.” Holdin helped Drifter clarify his thoughts.

“The whole thing sorta screws with a guy’s head.” Drifter went on. “But you seem kinda cool. I was expecting an uptight bast….geek.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well,” Drifter paused, “she’s not exactly a player. I figured anyone she’d go for had to be like her. You act all cool in public, but I didn’t expect much from meeting you.”

Holdin chuckled. “Did you just call me a player and your mother a geek?”

“Ah, no. Well, maybe. She’s sleeping, right?”

“Not likely.”

“I’m resting,” Jill informed them. “When did I become a geek?”

“It’s not like you’re a terminal geek, Mom. You’re cooler than most guys’ moms.”

“Thank you, brat. Good to know I’m not a killer geek. What makes him so cool anyway?” Jill wanted to know.

“His truck. It’s got a Hemi. Way cool,” Drifter informed her solemnly.

Holdin chuckled again while Jill gave a mock moan. “I should have known. The two car freaks have been united.”

“Sounds like we share an interest.” Holdin sat up slowly to face Jill on the other bed. “Jill, since you’re obviously not sleeping, can you tell me a little more about exactly what’s wrong with you?”

“If I spoke big-word Latin I could,” she murmured with a smile on her face. This was nice. The quiet conversation was relaxed, calm. Much as she’d imagined things could be.

“The English version is I tripped and fell. Hit my head in exactly the same spot that had been weakened before and a tiny bone chip fell into my brain. They say it could have been there before and the other hospital missed it. No one knows. In any case, I passed out. Drifter found me when he got home from basketball practice. We think I was out for a couple hours. I woke up in the hospital and had full recall.”

“Okay.” Holdin scrubbed a hand down his face. “So why the reaction to light in the soda fountain? Is the chip pressing on something? What happens if it moves?”

“Stress,” Jill answered succinctly. “I’m pretty sure the headache would have happened without a chip in my brain. Come on, Holdin. I know this has been an overwhelming shock for you. Think of it from my point of view. Meeting you could have gone better if you hadn’t shown up at the soda fountain this afternoon. But it still wouldn’t have been easy. I’ve been stressing about it and the other issues since I woke up in the hospital. That’s the main reason the doctors agreed to this trip. My stress level is too high.”

Drifter sat up at the end of the bed, rubbing his face in an unconscious mirror of his father’s move. “Yeah, another reason I was expecting a geek or worse. The doctor wants her calm and relaxed, confident is the word he used, before he does the surgery. She’s been stressed off the chart over you.”

“This whole deal is off the charts. I doubt it’s all me.” Holdin glanced at his lanky son. “Your mother is worried about a lot of things but the biggest is you, son. She’s trying to make sure you’re okay, no mater what happens to her.”

“I know.” Drifter shrugged. “She obsesses about junk.”

Chapter Two

“Yeah, junk.” Holdin looked at the woman lying on the bed in front of him and dragged in a deep breath. Not that he expected it to help much. From the moment he’d glanced at “the booth” his world had shifted. It’d gone on shifting like a fucking Transformer figure. Each new configuration of facts came with a kick to the gut.

In the last fifteen years, every time he’d walked into the department store he very carefully avoided looking at the soda fountain. This time he’d gone in there to look at it. It was time to let it burn through him and be done with it. It’d still taken him twenty minutes to prepare.

If he looked at the booth, he was looking for her. Damn, he’d grown to hate it. Hate the desperate, helpless need to look for her. Fifteen years and then this sucker punch. He’d looked up over the selection of nails in the elaborate, old-fashioned display trays and there she was.

She’d sat in the booth, her back almost turned to the window behind her as if she huddled in the shadow she made. His teeth had snapped in a hiss of indrawn breath as he stared at her. Could it really be Jill? Her head was tilted down as she gazed at the floor but it didn’t matter. He knew those honey brown locks, the curve of her skull, the way she sucked all the air out of a room. Jill.

Holdin blinked, trying to clear his head. Looking at that booth was supposed to erase its significance from his soul. It was supposed to be empty like every other time he’d looked at it. For the first few minutes he really believed his mind had conjured her. What convinced him differently was the furnace blast to his soul.

His feet had felt the flames first. He couldn’t stop those feet from moving. When he was standing beside her at the booth, he’d felt the fire lick up his legs with her gaze. Still unable to believe it was her, he’d almost been shocked when she didn’t shimmer and evaporate as she lifted her face. That’s when the backdraft caught him and the world as he’d previously known it burned away. Whatever happened next would put an end to his questions, hopes, fantasies and the millions of explanations he’d made up for her. Answers. Answers would probably rip away the sweet angel in his memories but he had to have them.

Not even in his darkest fits of rage had he come up with what had happened next. Her answers had hit him like a mammoth defensive line, one after another. The center of that line had been his son. No, nothing could have prepared him for that.

There would be DNA tests for legal reasons but Holdin had no doubt who the boy was. Or rather “whose boy” he was.

Just when he figured he had about enough deep cleat marks up his back from being trampled, the killer answer rolled over him. That one came armed to the teeth and looking for blood. Jill. She could be taken away from him again and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing. Again.

Discipline, control, none of it mattered. The person he’d made of himself in the last fifteen years, all of it useless. She lay there with her eyes closed in this dark room like a wraith from the past, and yet her power over him was now tenfold.

She’d never been that model thin he detested. Her lush little body had always fired him up. Now its curves shouldn’t have moved the man with the same ripping intensity. Shouldn’t have made him grit his teeth and struggle to control the physical signs so her son wouldn’t notice the monster boner he was getting over the boy’s mom.

Her heart-shaped face was pale. The skin around those closed eyes seemingly paper-thin as dark lashes partially hid the shadows there. Her pert nose rose above those sensual, full lips that formed a perfect bow he’d never been able to resist. When she was eighteen, her angel face had been an almost shocking contrast to the lush body below it. Those curves were made for sin and he’d been no saint.

She hadn’t grown much taller, he realized. Her face had matured but not changed. Or was it stress written across it now? He couldn’t be sure. She was still an angel face but now it seemed the angel had peeked into the devil’s den. Innocence was missing.

Her body appeared richer, an opulent playground for a man who knew what to do with it. Full breasts had matured into an impressive bustline. Where she’d had a tiny waist and rounded hips, she now had undulating lines that tempted him to touch. Soft and lush, she looked like a Rubens’ angel who could take a hardened male and make him beg for mercy. It wasn’t a weak softness he saw in her. No, that would have been easy to deal with. This was a fully developed woman’s strength. She was decadent temptation tucked into a neatly conservative T-shirt and loose jeans as if she had no idea how effective her charms were.

Her masses of golden brown hair were now cut to feather around her face in a charming frame for those huge eyes. It had been longer back then. He loved to run his fingers through it. When they made love, she had reacted strongly to his fist in her hair. He’d enjoyed that bit of caveman play and was glad she liked it. Sometimes he hadn’t been able to control the fierceness of his response to her.

He’d always known why she had liked it and he knew why he’d needed it. Question was, did she? He’d never fully explained it to her, thinking he had time to show her how sweet her needs could be. He hadn’t wanted her to be afraid of her spirit. Had she learned without him? Did she know herself as he knew her? That question moved through his mind, leaving an acid taste in his mouth.

As a young man, he’d been very aware of the sweet submissive living in her soul. He’d also known she hadn’t had the benefit of a parent who understood her. Holdin’s father had known his son’s nature very early. His guidance had sometimes seemed harsh but as he reached adulthood, Holdin had understood exactly what his father had been so carefully teaching him. His nature made him strong in ways that could be dangerous if Holdin hadn’t been completely aware of it.

Jill’s father was not an insightful, nurturing sort who could help his daughter understand herself. No, he was a blunt man. One who expected Jill to be a good daughter but seemed to have little to offer beyond that. There was no mother present in the house and Holdin had never pressed for the reason.

Holdin had been sure he was doing the right thing by going slow and showing Jill how stunningly beautiful she was to him as the submissive she needed to be. He’d actually enjoyed the control it required of him to gently lead her down a path she often wanted to rush. He’d been so careful with her, believing they had a lifetime to make that journey.

When he turned sixteen, his father had been very direct about what was the wrong way to treat a woman. Honor and responsibility were the most important things about being a man. Rushing to gain his own satisfaction was being a selfish boy and Holdin had understood that lesson. His dad had made him read several books on his nature as a dominant, impressing him with both the dangers and the responsibilities of being who he was.

The fear that some clumsy fool had found the precious spirit in Jill and crushed her was crippling.

A seething wave of heat rushed up from his toes at the thought. Through the years, when he was in the middle of a bout of trying to forget her, he’d imagine her with another man. The outcome was always the same. Something in the room around him met its end and Holdin took out the remaining aggression by physically exhausting himself in a workout.

Holdin leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Hands clasped, he took a few minutes to gaze down at the threadbare carpet. He needed to stop looking at her. No, he needed to think, and that involved not looking at her. It was damn difficult to look away. Irrational fear washed over him. He glanced up. She was still there. This was ridiculous.

“Drifter, let’s give your mother a few minutes’ peace and go take care of things at the motel office. There’s a Dairy Queen across the road. Feel like something from there?” Holdin asked casually.

“Sure. You all right with that, Mom?” Drifter stood.

Jill’s eyes opened to move between them, assessing. Holdin had the uncomfortable feeling she was reading his mind. He needed a few minutes but couldn’t take the risk she’d be gone if he stepped out that door. Taking Drifter was like having her on a tether. She wasn’t going anywhere. She said none of that.

“Thank you, Holdin. That’s very thoughtful of you.”

Holdin held very still to be sure he didn’t jerk in offense. From an early age, control had been drilled into him. His father was very clear on that. Men do not lose control. The stronger his emotions, the more it became his responsibility to control them. Later that control had enabled him to build a career few were capable of. Right now it was all about Jill. Just as it had been from the moment she stepped into his life.

“Glad you think it’s thoughtful that I’d like to spend a little time with my son,” he growled as he stood. It didn’t matter that his motives were not exactly clear. She’d put him on the defensive and he was aware this was a small part of it. This was a sharp, new pain she could inflict by treating him like a stranger.

Okay, he was a stranger to his son but whose fault was that? His brain was pounding as he had to answer himself that it certainly wasn’t her fault. Best just do what he’d suggested.

“We’ll be back in half an hour.”

Holdin suspected there was no amount of time with his son that could make this more real, less surreal. The small measure of relief not looking at Jill gave him was nothing compared to the stark panic that came over him every time he glanced at Drifter.

How did a man become a father at this late date? What made him think he’d have been any good at it even if he’d been there from Drifter’s birth? He would have been nineteen and green as spring grass. His life would have been totally different and he surely wouldn’t have had as much to offer this man-child. Would it have been worth it? Could any part of this actually have happened for a reason?

Pointless questions shot through him in a maddening circle. The time passed too quickly and not fast enough then they were back at the room door.

The woman sitting at the small table in the motel room waiting for them was nothing like the one they’d left. Jill’s small, round body was held erect, her head high. She’d gathered a regal calm about her that Holdin had never seen before. She was a shell of the girlfriend he’d known but so much more. And almost nothing remained of the shocked, pale woman who’d been lying on the bed when he left.

The curtains were open and the retro Fifties, draped in the Seventies, furnished motel room was brightly lit in all its faded orange and yellow glory.

“Ah, I hope both of you are feeling better,” Jill greeted them. Deep in her gut, it felt as if the trembling never quit. Even though Holdin appeared interested in them, she couldn’t trust it. This was too important. All the emotional issues were getting in the way and she would not let her son’s future hang on that hook.

Lord, this was hard. She needed to be direct like a man would be. Managing that seemed monumental. Melting all over the man wouldn’t get her the security she desperately needed. Desperate people had to do the hard things.

Drifter laughed. “Food always works, Mom. You know that. Looks like you’re feeling better?”

“Yes. I should warn you, Holdin, he eats more in one sitting than I do in a week.” Her eyes were laughing with her son when she turned to him. Then she sobered. “We need to discuss a few things. With your success, I assume you’ve encountered a lot of women who claim you fathered their child. We expect you to want a DNA test and will be happy to participate. We don’t expect any support funds. The main issue is my health. If I’m not able to care for Drifter’s future properly, I sincerely hope you would be willing to make arrangements.”

She sat there with her hands folded in her lap and actually smiled at him after that little speech. Holdin’s eyes bore into hers steadily. He’d thought they’d reached seriously fucked up before. He’d been so wrong.

“I think we have issues significantly deeper than my ability to make arrangements for Drifter’s future.” Holdin slowly sat down on the end of the nearest bed. “We need to discus them in private, Jill. As far as a DNA test, we’ll do one to secure his inheritance legally. That’s the only reason. I’d like to acknowledge him as my son now if that’s all right with the two of you. Support is something you and I can work out and I intend to take a great deal of personal interest in your health.”

Holdin paused as he studied her. “Do you think you’re leaving after this conversation? Is that it?”

Jill’s face tightened at his blunt question. “No. But I want us to understand each other. We don’t expect…um…I know you’re used to people wanting something from you. Not that we don’t, it’s just…ah, it’s different…” One of her hands fluttered up to her neck searching for something at the V of her T-shirt. A nervous reaction to his stern tone and her battle to remain focused on her goal. She quickly dropped it back to her lap and resisted frowning at him. The reason for her nerves was his thunderous face.