Mermaid (11 page)

A picture flashed across his mind of Jillian in his open car with the wind in her hair. As if remembering, too, she reached up and pushed the green scarf higher around the base of her ponytail, her gaze locked with his.

He longed to snatch the scarf off her hair, let it flow free, feel it in his hands, on his face, on his chest, on his...Oh, cripes! He had to control his thoughts. Amber and Chris might be blind to what was happening to him, but Jillian wasn’t. He sensed that she was very much aware, however hard she might try to pretend otherwise. In her gaze he saw a flare of excitement that matched what was surging through him, before she lowered her eyes and hid behind her mascaraed lashes.

“I think I’d really rather go in a boat that bounces, thank you,” Amber said politely.

Jillian sighed so softly that Mark barely heard her, and he reached out to take her hand in his. She refused to look at him again but squeezed his hand in acknowledgment of his offered comfort.

Amber must have heard the sad little sigh, too, because suddenly she hugged her mother around the neck, and Jillian hugged her back tightly.

L
ATER, AS A WORN-OUT
Amber took a nap on a blanket in the shade, and Chris wandered along the far bank of the creek, picking berries, Jillian sat quietly beside the stream, lifting handful after handful of sand, letting it slowly sift out between her fingers like time slipping away. “What is it?” Mark asked quietly. “Ever since Amber asked to be taken out in a real boat that bounces, you’ve been blue. You shouldn’t be, you know. She’s a smart little kid. She knows she can’t have everything she wants.”

“Yes. But it’s not just the things she wants that I can’t give her, that I haven’t been giving her. There are so many other things she needs.”

Such as a father, she thought. The matter hadn’t come up until Amber started kindergarten and saw that most kids had fathers, that even if they didn’t always live in the same house as the mothers and children, they were around.

They did things with their kids. And all Amber had was a mom and a grandma.

Oh, she had an aunt and an uncle who lived in Oklahoma, and another uncle who was a long distance trucker, but she was lucky to see them three times a year.

Seeing her respond to Mark really had brought home the fact that single parent families weren’t what nature had intended for children.

Mark slipped his arms around her from behind, and she let her head fall back onto his shoulder for a moment or two, since Chris had gone temporarily out of sight, though they could still see a tall huckleberry bush whipping around as he plundered its bounty.

It felt so good to be held. Mark turned her face to his and brushed his lips lightly over hers, making her heart pound heavily inside her chest. He looked deeply into her eyes, so deeply that she felt a moment’s fear and closed them, as if hiding her soul from him—hiding her building desire. She would have to control it soon, but at the moment she had no strength to lift her head from his shoulder, to move the hand that was stroking her face and neck.

“There are many things I need, too, Jillian,” he said softly. “And first among them is you.”

Her eyes popped open. He didn’t hesitate when there was something he wanted, did he? Even when there were two kids either of whom could pop up at any second.

“Mark. This isn’t a good time—”

“Is there ever going to be a good time, Jillian?” His gaze was so intense that she couldn’t look away, and she didn’t have an answer for him.

She could only say helplessly, quietly, “Don’t. Please don’t. Chris—”

“Chris is quite happily attacking that huckleberry bush on the other side of the creek. He isn’t even in sight. And Amber is sound asleep. Besides, I only want to hold you and talk to you. Jillian, we have to make some kind of plans.”

“But—” Her words were cut off by a kiss she was unable to move away from, and then Mark lifted his head, looking down at her with an emotion in his eyes that had never been there before. “Oh, hell, Jillian, ever since I first saw you, I’ve wanted you.”

She tried to speak, but he covered her lips again with a swift and potent kiss, his hands turning her hair free to spill over her shoulder and his arm as he reached up, tangling his fingers in it. As his lips moved over hers, Jillian shuddered, but she was too aware of the difficulties giving in to him presented to be able to respond the way he wanted her to, the way she wanted to.

She remembered the feel of his hands and his mouth on her body, remembered how close she had come to forgetting. So many other times his kisses had beguiled her to the point of thinking nothing mattered but making love with him, yet each time she had managed to regain control of herself and the situation. She knew she wasn’t being fair to him, but whenever she told him it had to stop, that they couldn’t keep on like they were, he only agreed and told her that he knew it. But he meant that things were going to have to go farther, when what she meant was that they had to stop entirely.

Yet she didn’t think she had the strength of will to stop entirely. Not to see Mark, not to touch him, to have his kisses, to feel his arms around her, to hear his heart pounding inside his chest was something she couldn’t bear to consider seriously. He was coming very close to melting her every defense, but deep inside she remained afraid that she still wasn’t ready.

She pulled her mouth free, but continued to touch his face with her hands, softly, gently, as if she couldn’t bear to lose contact with his skin.

“Mark! You just said it. Ever since we met you’ve wanted me. But what you met wasn’t real. It was a fantasy. It isn’t me you want, it’s that mermaid you caught.” Part of her wanted it to be true and another part rejoiced when he denied it vehemently.

“That’s ridiculous! We both know I don’t believe in mermaids.” For a moment he thought guiltily of the brief time when he had done exactly that, only now it didn’t seem possible that for even a second he could have permitted his mind to play that kind of game with him. Jillian Lockstead was all woman, and she was the woman he wanted.

“You have to know it’s more than that.”

He moved his hands over her body, shielding what he was doing from the children should either of them look in their direction. Jillian trembled and let herself sink into his warmth. His voice dropped to a low, seductive whisper as he continued. “Jillian, I want you so badly! From the moment you came ashore to me like some exotic creature out of a dream, I’ve wanted you.

“Every time I watch you perform it’s torture. I can’t bear the thought of any other man seeing you like that, wanting you, fantasizing about you. I want to have you exclusively. And I want to give you everything you’ve never had, everything you’ve ever wanted, both for yourself and for Amber. I want you to be able to stop worrying about your mother. I want—” He broke off, curling one leg around her hips, her legs bent so that she sat in the V formed by his. His hands were tight on her shoulders as he gazed into her face. He shook his head as if he didn’t know what else to say to persuade her.

Then he added simply but with an urgency so compelling, she could barely resist it, “Jillian, say yes.”

His hands molded her body, drawing her up against him as he knelt and pulled her with him, pressing their lower bodies together, showing her his heat and his desire and his need.

“Yes to what?” she asked, fighting against the danger of becoming totally lost in the sensuality of his touch. “I don’t know what you want of me,” she said, struggling out of his embrace. And it was only half a lie. She knew, certainly, that he wanted to make love with her. And Lord knew she desperately, achingly wanted the same, hut she was so afraid, and there had to be more than that between them. Much more. She wouldn’t settle for less, ever.

Especially not under the circumstances. He’d have to know and want her anyway. He’d have to...love her.

“I’m not the fantasy creature you seem to think I am, Mark. I’m a flesh and blood woman, with needs and wants that you’re stirring up like crazy, but I also have problems and worries and a mother and child dependent on me. I just can’t turn my back on them. I don’t want to.”

“And I don’t want you to, either. I want you to share your problems and worries with me. I want you to come and live with me. You and Amber and your mother, too, if she wants,” he added, his arms coming around her tightly once more.

“What?” This time she managed to break free completely. “You’re out of your mind!” Ever conscious of her sleeping child, of Chris only fifty yards away on the other side of the creek, she kept her voice low but emphatic. “That’s the craziest notion I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s not crazy, dammit. I’m being practical here, Jillian. I have it all worked out. I can help you with Amber. You’ve told me that there are things she needs that you feel you aren’t providing. I have money. More money than I could ever begin to spend. To start with, I’ll buy a speedboat and take her for a ride. And you say your mother’s not well. I could hire the best doctors in the world, if that what she needs. I could—”

“That’s not what she needs! She’s getting what she needs—they both are—financially as well as medically!” Jillian said angrily, almost in tears.

How awful! She didn’t want anything from him. If he had asked her exactly what she did want, she wouldn’t have been able to tell him, but she knew it wasn’t this...this “practical” solution to what he saw as her problems. He didn’t have the faintest idea of what her problems might be, what worried her almost to the point of obsession, what kept her from having a good, honest relationship with any man, even one she was beginning to—No. She tried to break the thought off before it could form fully.

But the thought was there. The knowledge was there. The truth was there. She loved him. But it wasn’t love he was asking her for, it wasn’t love he was offering her. It was a practical solution to their need to be together in bed, and she suddenly was furious—with him, with herself, with fate for putting her in such a position. “What makes you think I would even consider moving in with a man I’ve known for three weeks?” she demanded in a hot, hissing whisper, her eyes snapping with anger.

“It took me less than a quarter of that time to know that I want you in my life, Jillian.”

“In what part of your life?” Her voice cracked. “Am I to be part of your weekend retreat? You’ll come to the club on Friday and Saturday nights and ogle me with the rest of the customers, take me out for an early breakfast and...and then what? Back to your place for a little sexual exercise? Or will we giggle and pretend we’re teenagers in the basement at my place and hope my mother doesn’t wake up? Does that turn you on, Mark? Acting like a sixteen-year-old again?” She knew it was a terrible thing to say, but something compelled her to do it, and even when she saw the hurt in his face, she couldn’t retract her words. She shook with fear and fury and pain. She sank down onto the sand again half-turned from him, unable to go on looking at the agony in his eyes.

His voice was a low growl close to her ear as he said, “I want you out of that club, dammit. I want you with me all the time.”

“How could I be with you all the time? Aren’t you forgetting you live in the city and I live up here? I work here. I have a good job that I don’t want to leave. And my mother lives here. I can’t leave her on her own, and I doubt very much that she’d want to move. And what about Chris? How do you think he’d feel if I moved in with you only a few months after his mother’s death?”

“Dammit, Chris knows and so do you that his mother and I were apart for nine years. It isn’t as though her death released me to ask you to live with me. Chris likes you. You like him. We could... Well, be a family, Jillian. Think about it. The four of us together. Five, if you include your mom. But if you’re right, and she wouldn’t want to move, then I could hire a companion for her someone she likes, someone you trust so you wouldn’t have to worry about her. You told me that you only came back home because you’d gotten sick and then after you were better, stayed for her sake. If she hadn’t needed you, would you have stayed?”

Before she could reply, he had grabbed her and turned her, staring into her face again, his eyes blazing as he tried to convince her. He didn’t know why it was so important, but suddenly getting Jillian to agree to live with him, getting her out of that nightclub had become the most important task in his life. He’d do anything to persuade her.

“Or she could just live near us. I could buy her her own—”

“Mark, dammit, you sound as if you’re trying to buy me!” she cried, crouching away from him. Her eyes shimmered, the hair he had untied blew around her flushed face and stuck in the wet streaks that trickled down her cheeks.

“Do you think you’re the first one to come up with that idea? Though I must admit you’re the most inventive so far. Your offer is a lot more detailed than any of the notes that have been sent to my dressing room, offers of money for my services as if I’ve put myself on sale simply by performing in a club. Well, let me tell you, Mark Forsythe, Jillian Lockstead is not for sale!”

He reached for her again, his hands clamping on her shoulders.

“Stop it!” she yelled, startling Amber who sat up and blinked sleepily, rubbing her eyes.

“Mom? What’s wrong?”

Jillian moved quickly away from Mark and drew in a deep, tremulous breath as he finally got to his feet and paced away from her, his head bent, his shoulders slumped.

“Nothing, honey,” she said. “Just a...a hornet trying to sting me. Come on. It’s time to get up now. The picnic’s over.”

Mark turned and looked at her for a long moment before he said quietly, “The picnic, maybe, but not this discussion, Mermaid. Not by a long shot.”

The solution to the problem of Amber’s promised boat ride presented itself on Tuesday evening when Jillian got to work and found both Robin and Jim waiting for her with another offer from the congressional candidate. It wasn’t the extra money that persuaded her to take the job, but the fact that when she demanded a small bonus in the form of a trip in the Zodiac for Amber, all three men readily agreed.