Shelter in a Soldier's Arms (8 page)

And he hadn’t belonged with her. In the end, nothing about their life together had been able to touch him. It had been easy when she’d walked away. Or so he’d thought until tonight. Until the laughter of a child and her mother made him wonder what it would have been like if things had been different. If he’d been different.

An ache formed inside of him. Deep and dark, it filled him until he couldn’t breathe without the emptiness threatening to suck him into a void. He gripped the edge of his desk so tightly, he thought he might snap the sturdy wood

or perhaps a bone in his fingers.

“Uncle Jeff?”

The soft voice made him look up. Maggie stood in the entrance to his study. She wore a pink nightgown under a purple robe. Snowball held the place of honor in her arms. The little girl was freshly scrubbed from her bath, her curls fluffed around her face.

Uncle Jeff. He’d offered that as a substitute for “Mr. Ritter”, which had seemed too formal for their present circumstances. Now he questioned the wisdom of claiming a connection where none existed. She would get the wrong idea. Or perhaps it was himself he had to worry about. Perhaps he would be the one to presume affection where there wasn’t any. He must never forget who and what he was.

“Are you ready for bed?” he asked, forcing himself to smile at her as if nothing was wrong.

Ashley stepped into the doorway, her hand resting on her daughter’s shoulder. “Sorry to disturb you, but she wanted to say good-night.”

“Neither of you are interrupting. Sleep well, Maggie.”

She bounced free of her mother’s restraining hand and raced over to where he sat. Before he knew what she was about, she flung her little arms around his neck and squeezed tight.

She smelled of baby shampoo and honey-scented soap. She was warm and small and so damn trusting. Awkwardly he hugged her back, trying not to press too hard or frighten her in any way. She released him and beamed, then scurried from the room. Ashley lingered.

“Do you mind if we talk for a second?” she said. “After I get her in bed.”

“Whenever you’d like.”

He tried not to notice how the heat from the bath had flushed her face, nor the way her sweater hugged her feminine curves. He doubted she had all her energy back, but she no longer looked sick.

“Thanks. Give me about fifteen minutes.” She turned and left.

Desire filled him. Desire and sexual need. They were both primal and difficult to dismiss. Most of the time he could use work to distract himself from a difficult situation. But not with Ashley. She haunted his thoughts at the office and at his house when he was home. He couldn’t forget about her when she walked the halls of the house, leaving proof of her presence in a sound, a scent, a discarded sweater or an open textbook. He had no place to retreat.

However, time and practice had taught him that bodily needs were easily controlled. He’d learned to function without sleep, food or water, while in pain, under stress or physically compromised. Surely he could figure out a way to survive the presence of one woman, regardless of how much she appealed to him. If nothing else, imagining her horror when she figured out the truth about him would be enough to keep his thoughts and actions under control.

*

Ashley forced herself to take a deep breath before entering Jeff’s study. Her sudden attraction to him hadn’t gone away over dinner. The only thing she could figure was that she’d been so sick when she’d first met him that she hadn’t noticed the appeal of the man or her own weakness where he was concerned. Now that the virus was under control, she was able to feel the pull. Which made for a great science experiment, but didn’t help her current situation: how to get through a conversation with him and not act like an idiot.

Practice, she thought desperately. Maybe this was a case of practice making perfect. That decided, or at least hoped for, she tapped on Jeff’s open door and walked into his study.

The room was large, with beautiful bookcases on two walls and a bay window on the third wall, overlooking the garden. His wood desk was big enough to double as an extra bed, and two leather club chairs faced the imposing barrier.

Jeff looked up as she entered. He was still wearing his suit, although he’d taken off the jacket and loosened his tie. A few strands of hair fell across his forehead. They should have softened his appearance, but he was as formidable as always.

“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to one of the empty club chairs.

She sank into the dark brown leather seat and tried to relax. She had an agenda and a purpose. She would do well to remember both and not think about how his gray eyes made her think of the sea during a storm or the way his long, strong fingers had looked as he briefly touched her daughter’s hair. She wasn’t sure if he was a kind man, but he was capable of kind acts. Did that make him any safer for her?

“You’ve been very good to us,” she said, plunging in when it became apparent he wasn’t going to speak first, which made sense—she’d been the one to request the meeting. “Putting us up, arranging for Maggie to get to school. It’s not that I’m not grateful, it’s just that there are some things I need to do myself.”

He rose. “Are you taking any medication?”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“Are you taking anything for the flu? I was going to offer you a brandy.”

“Oh. No. I’m feeling much better. A brandy would be nice.”

It would also give her something to hold so she wouldn’t have to worry about her fingers twisting together the way they were now.

He opened the doors of a cabinet built into one of the bookcases and withdrew a bottle of brandy along with two glasses.

“Go on with what you were saying. You need to be responsible for some things yourself. Can you be more specific?”

As he spoke, he poured, then handed her a glass. She took it, careful to keep her fingers from touching his. “Thanks. I was talking about the babysitter. When she dropped off Maggie she wouldn’t let me pay her. That’s not right.”

He poured his own drink, then settled on a corner of the desk. Which meant he was closer to her than he’d been before. Which meant her heart had jumped into her throat, making it impossible to breathe or swallow.

“You have a point,” he said.

“I do?”

He nodded.

She forced herself to be calm. Slowly she found herself breathing again. She even managed to take a tiny sip of the brandy. It was hot and wonderful as it burned its way down to her stomach.

“I didn’t mean to take over your life,” he said. “I’ll give you an invoice for the babysitting expenses to date and you can reimburse me.”

“I, ah, thank you,” she said, surprised he’d seen her side so easily. She also wondered how many times she’d thanked the man since meeting him.

“Anything else?”

As in, did she want to talk about anything else, she supposed. She studied him, thinking that despite the beautiful home and the successful business, he was incredibly alone. Before she and Maggie arrived, there hadn’t even been any food in the house. She sensed he lived for work and little else and found herself wondering why.

Of course there could be women, she reminded herself. Maybe it was her own wishful thinking that he spent a lot of time by himself. There could be dozens of girlfriends. But only the kind he didn’t invite home, she thought. The house was too silent. There were no echoes of past voices and laughter.

“Ashley?”

“Huh? Oh, sorry. I was lost in thought.”

“Want to tell me about what?”

“Not especially.” She gave him a false smile, then said the first thing that popped into her mind. “I’m not a widow.”

A slight raising of his left eyebrow was his only response.

She closed her eyes and wondered if that had sounded as stupid as she thought. “What I mean is that based on what I said before you probably think I’m a widow, and I’m not. Well, technically Damian is dead, but we divorced first. He died a few months later.”

“All right.”

She could see he was wondering what possible relevance that information had for him. “It’s just that we’d talked about it before. Actually, Maggie mentioned it. She made it sound as if

well

” She cleared her throat and took another sip of her brandy.

“I, ah, should go now,” she said, rising to her feet. “You have work and I—”

“You’re welcome to stay,” he said. “If you’re feeling up to a little conversation.”

“I—yes, that would be nice.” She plopped back onto the seat and smiled. The man made her nervous, but with a little effort on her part, she was sure she could act fairly normal.

“Tell me about school,” he said, moving around the desk and settling into his leather executive chair. “Why accounting?”

“It suits me,” she said, consciously relaxing in her chair. “I’ve always enjoyed math and I’m basically an orderly person. I wanted a career that gave me flexibility with my time and didn’t tie me down to a big city.”

“You want to leave Seattle?”

“No, but I want the option in case that changes.”

“Makes sense.”

“I started college right out of high school, but with getting married and then getting pregnant, I wasn’t able to finish as quickly as I would like.”

“But you didn’t give up.”

He wasn’t asking a question. His gray eyes seemed to see past her facade of quiet confidence—if that’s what her facade was projecting.

“I’m not the giving-up kind,” she admitted, and took another sip of her brandy.

Around them, the night was still. It wasn’t raining and there wasn’t any wind. In the distance she heard the faint sound of a car, but nothing else. While she and Jeff weren’t the only people left in the world, there was an air of solitude in the study. As if they might be cut off from civilization. Oddly, that didn’t seem like such a bad thing.

“Who taught you not to quit?” he asked.

She considered the question. “I didn’t have a choice. If I’d given up, I wouldn’t have survived.”

“Why?”

She hesitated, not sure she was ready, or willing, to tell her life story to a virtual stranger. But, despite his emotional distance, Jeff was easy to talk to. Probably because she doubted she could say anything that would shock him. He’d seen and done so much more than she could ever imagine. Her life would be very small in comparison.

“I had a sister who was four years older than me. Margaret

Maggie. I adored her. My dad ran off before I was born, so it was just us three girls. At least that’s what my mom used to say.” She smiled sadly at the memory. “Mom worked really long hours. She was a waitress. She tried going back to school so she could do something else, but she couldn’t make it. She was always so tired. She kept saying that she should have done it when she was young and that we should learn from her mistakes. Don’t give up on college no matter what.”

“You took her words to heart.”

Ashley nodded. “They made a lot of sense.”

He continued to study her. Was he taking her measure? Did he find her wanting? Lamplight touched his hair, illuminating the light strands. There wasn’t any gold glinting there just pure blond. A muscle twitched in his cheek.

“You told me you don’t have any family,” he said. “Where are they now?”

Involuntarily she looked away, lowering her chin and biting her bottom lip. “Gone,” she said softly. “Maggie was hit by a drunk driver when she was just sixteen. She and a couple of friends were walking home from the library. It was about nine in the evening and they’d been studying for midterms. All three girls were killed instantly.” She hesitated. “It was a difficult time.”

The simple sentence didn’t begin to explain what she’d gone through. The shock—the incredible pain and disbelief. Her sister, her best friend, was gone.

She clutched the brandy glass in both hands. “Mom was never the same. She sort of disappeared into herself after that. A few months after Maggie died, Social Services put me in a foster home and my mom in a mental institution. One of the times they let her out for a weekend to visit with me, she killed herself.”

Jeff didn’t say anything. Ashley figured there wasn’t all that much to say. She’d had more than her share of tragedy. Most of the time she was able to deal with it, but other times it threatened to drag her down.

“What happened after that?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I grew up in a series of foster homes. Most of them were pretty okay. The people tried to be nice and help me fit in. I had some counseling. I managed to make friends and keep up my grades. Unfortunately I had lousy taste in men. I had a series of loser boyfriends. They weren’t mean—they just didn’t get anything right.”

“Including Damian?”

Ashley tried to remember the last time she’d talked about her past. She usually didn’t say anything because there was no way to talk about it without making her life sound like a badly written soap opera. Now she found herself spilling her guts and she couldn’t figure out why. She wasn’t sure Jeff was even interested.

“Damian tried,” she said. “But he wasn’t what I wanted him to be. We met during my senior year of high school and I was so sure he was the one. I believed that he would love me unconditionally and forever.”

“Is that what you wanted?”

The question startled her. “Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”

“No,” he said evenly.

Ashley stared in surprise. Who wouldn’t want more love in their life? She thought about Jeff. He was a man who spent his life alone. Most likely by choice. But why?

She thought about asking, but she wasn’t feeling that brave.

“Damian tried,” she continued, picking up the thread of her story. “He cared about me, but he was too young and too much of a dreamer. He would rather scheme than work. He was always going to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Unfortunately his dreams weren’t practical, and when it came time to put food on the table, he took shortcuts. I don’t know everything he was involved in, but I suspect it was all illegal. By the time I’d figured that out, we were married and I was pregnant. After Maggie was born, I told Damian he was going to have to change his ways or it would be over. It had been scary enough when it was just me, but with a child to consider—” she shook her head “—I couldn’t do it.”