Lost and Found Groom by McLinn, Patricia (most difficult books to read .TXT) 📗

So like dark waves she’d once felt against her skin, under her hands came the traitorous memory.

Leaning forward with his forearms across his thighs and his hands hanging loose between them, Daniel’s face was set, intense, while his eyes followed Matthew’s every flicker of movement. He’d probably want to hold his son, take him in his arms . . .

Unconsciously Kendra hold tightened around her son.

“No, Mommy. Down! Down!” He arched his back and squirmed toward the floor, and Kendra complied with the demand. Slightly off balance, Matthew reached out to steady himself on the nearest object–which happened to be his father’s thigh.

For an instant she thought Daniel would reach for the toddler. Instead, his hands clenched between his knees, and he remained utterly still as Matthew, unaffected, marched off toward his toy chest by the hallway to the bedrooms. By habit, Kendra watched to make sure he didn’t indulge in one of his favorite activities–Empty The Toy Chest. This time, Matthew took out only three other toys before finding the pull train he wanted.

When she looked back at Daniel, he had his head down, studying his still tightly clasped hands.

As if he sensed her watching him, he spoke almost immediately. “I know this has been a shock, Kendra. My showing up out of the blue. And we’ve got a lot to talk about. But I should go now. Let it sink in. Let you . . . get used to it.”

Get used to Paulo not being dead? Get used to Paulo being Daniel Delligatti? Get used to Daniel Delligatti also being Taumaturgio and a bureaucrat named Tompkins and who knew what else? Get used to Matthew having a father? Get used to this man moving from her dreams to her kitchen?

She had a lot to get used to.

But she wondered if he, too, didn’t have things to get used to. The reality of having a son, for starters.

“Yes, I . . . I have to fix dinner and–” Phone calls to make. “–I have plans this evening.”

“Yes. I understand.” He lifted his head, turning his gaze toward Matthew, and leaving it there as he stood. “I’m staying at the motel out by the highway, beyond the garden center–”

“I know where it is–there’s only one in Far Hills.”

“Okay. I’ll give you some time, but if I don’t hear from you–” This time the brown eyes she met were the dark, intense brown of the man who’d kept her safe from a hurricane, the man whose eyes had sworn he’d return. “I’ll come back on my own. Soon.”

*

Daniel pulled into the spot in front of his motel room and turned off the car. He should get out, take his suitcase in and unpack. Now that he knew he’d found them and he’d be staying here.

He should have touched the boy. Matthew. His son.

From the instant that cameraman who’d worked with Kendra had so casually mentioned she’d been pregnant when she left the network–with a baby due nine months after Aretha–Daniel had known he’d move heaven and earth to protect his child.

At the moment he’d turned and saw the two-and-a-half feet of humanity with the bright intelligence of Kendra in his eyes, the straight-as-an-arrow line of her nose and a miniature version of her independence, he’d have welcomed the task of moving a hunk of hell in addition to heaven and earth.

But simply touching the boy? That had defeated him.

What did you do with a child that perfect?

Not what he’d done, that was for sure.

And Kendra? He’d made even bigger mistakes with Kendra.

Maybe because seeing her left him feeling like a depressurized plane–all the oxygen sucked out of him, with no oxygen mask in sight.

She’d looked so different from the way he remembered her best. When he closed his eyes and saw her chestnut hair tangled under his hands, saw her shadow-spattered body warmed by their love-making, saw her eyes on his mouth and her lips parting to his coming kiss.

She’d looked sleek and sure today. A little pale. A faint shadowing under cool gray eyes lacking the blazing flecks of green he recalled. But beautiful still.

And . . . he searched for the right word . . . fortified.

Fortified by her anger. Fortified by her friends. Fortified by the years.

From that moment when her long, slender hand had rested on his arm, his body had responded like it had been three hours instead of nearly three years since he’d touched her. Outside the consulate. Saying goodbye, though she hadn’t known it was goodbye. Guiding her inside the gate, then merging back into the familiar shadows.

It’s like getting pregnant by a character in a play.

He’d focused so absolutely on finding her. He’d never wondered if he might be a fool to think those hours during Hurricane Aretha were the most real of his life. Had he held onto a mirage?

No, dammit. He knew what was real and what wasn’t.

And he knew what he meant to do about it.

He’d come here to claim his son and his son’s mother.

Period. End of story.

But learning to read people had kept him alive–as Taumaturgio and long before. Today, he’d seen that the woman who’d emerged during Aretha had retreated behind her personal wall, her fortified wall. He’d seen that wall first-hand as the bureaucrat Tompkins watching reporter Kendra Jenner chase Taumaturgio.

It had only dropped for Paulo. When the hurricane had clawed at them. When she’d thought he couldn’t understand what she shared with him. And when they’d shared with each other a need deeper than words.

Now that wall was between them again.

A wall of brick and mortar might be easier to dismantle than the one she’d constructed, but he’d faced worse in his life. Much worse.

*

“So, how did the talk go?” Ellyn asked as soon as they pulled from the Sinclairs’ driveway into the ranch road. They had left Matthew and Emily being entertained by ten-year-old Meg and eight-year-old Ben, with Luke Chandler close at hand as he tried to patch together Ellyn’s old clothes dryer one more time.

Kendra shrugged. “How can I tell?