Page 35 of Shielding his Legacy
If he kept looking like a proud papa to their baby girl, Eva’s panties might slip right down her legs. She worked to calm her galloping heart. “She does. Are you going to tell them she’s yours, or just wait for them to figure it out?”
“I haven’t really thought about it.”
Eva lifted her chin, her momentary joy all but forgotten. Denying Abby was so far removed from anything she would ever do, she couldn’t even comprehend his response. “But you might not.”
“I said I haven’t thought about it. I’ve barely gotten used to the idea that I have a daughter.”
She said nothing, her brain working to untangle the emotions his words knotted up inside her.
He clucked his tongue. “Now you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry. I don’t know what I am. I realize this is a lot to make sense of in a short period of time, Gavin, and I’m not trying to pressure you. I just don’t want you to be ashamed of her, that’s all. Because that would kill me.”
“I’m not ashamed. I’m just shellshocked.” He took her hand across the seat. “But I would never be ashamed of our daughter, or of my relationship with you.”
Our daughter.Hearing him say that nearly made her heart burst. It was one thing to get pregnant during a riotous weekend of sexual pleasure. It was another thing entirely to have the man you’d been emotionally bound to for nearly a year lay claim to the child you’d created during that time.
“I want to be a part of Abby’s life,” he said. “I never thought of myself as father material, but I’ll be the best dad I can be, no matter what happens. You have my word on that much, at least.”
Something in his tone made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. There was a “but” coming, she could feel it, and she waited for the bottom of her good mood to fall out through the floorboards of his truck like so much mud being flung from the tires. “But?”
“You and me…” He ran a hand through his hair. “You know I’m attracted to you. But Eva…” his voice trailed off.
An unexpected numbness spread through her mind while she waited for the inevitable blow. “You’ll be a father to Abby, but you don’t want to be with me.” She didn’t know where the strength came from to articulate the words.
He glanced at her, then back at the road. “I want you every bit as much as I wanted you in Phoenix. More, if that’s possible. But the stakes are higher now. There’s more to loseif I fuck up. There’s your safety, first and foremost. I can’t be distracted and still keep you safe. Then there’s Abby. I have to figure out how to be there for you and her without screwing this up.”
The road straightened out near a lake. Small houses and cabins dotted the opposite shoreline, considerable space between each one. She bit her lip, uncertain if she wanted more information and finding she couldn’t keep herself from asking. “Not screw what up?”
“You and me. Us.”
Her stomach clenched even as her lungs expanded with excitement.Us. Could there really be something long-term between them? After wanting him so intensely, feeling like she was dying inside without this man, was it really possible they could have a relationship? A smarter woman might have quit while she was ahead. Instead, she said, “That weekend, you said it was just sex for you.”
He slowed the truck to a crawl and turned to her. “Yeah well, I lied.”
“Oh.”
“Oh,” he repeated. “I’ve thought of you every day since we met, and I’ve dreamed of you damn near every night. And when I started this conversation, I was going to say we should cool it, which we probably should. I’m sure it would turn out better for you that way. I keep telling myself that, over and over again. That you deserve better than me. But I can’t stay away from you any more than I can stop breathing, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”
Pulling in beside a small log cabin, he turned off the engine and took his duffel and the diaper bag out of the backseat while Eva unhooked Abby’s car seat from its base. The baby had slept for a long time and wasn’t likely to stay asleep much longer.
Eva followed Gavin to the door. The distant sound of water lapping at the lakeshore punctuated the whisper of a breeze. There was a crispness to the bitterly cold air that highlighted their remote location, and Eva considered that the Adirondacks might not be so terrifying after all.
Perhaps it was a magical place.
The moonlight illuminated the landscape more than she would have thought possible. He lifted a rock beside the front door and withdrew what must have been a key, then unlocked and entered the cabin. She followed him inside, gently putting the baby’s carrier down a few feet inside the door. The air held the faint scent of pine sap and disuse, but what struck her most was an atmosphere so cozy, it felt warm inside despite the frigid temperatures.
She turned at theflickof a lighter to see Gavin lighting an old-fashioned oil lamp, the warm glow bathing his skin in golden relief. Her appreciation for him had moved far beyond the physical, so much so that she’d almost forgotten the heavy balance of his muscular arms and shoulders, the chiseled lines of his face and brow. Gavin DeGrey was a beautiful man, and she was so attracted to him in that instant she literally felt weak in the knees.
She turned back toward the room, needing to steady herself, and looked around the space. It was a single room with a refrigerator, a small bank of old-fashioned kitchen cupboards, a table and chairs off to one side, and a stone fireplace and sofa on the other. A tarnished brass bed was farther from the fireplace against the back wall—making her stomach dip with hopeful anticipation—and a door led to what must be the bathroom.
Gavin walked by her, the scent of his body a subtle intimacy. “Home sweet home. I’ll get a fire going. Once it’s warm, I can turn the water on. Make yourself comfortable.”
Sudden concern had the corners of her mouth pulling down. “Where are the HERO Force guys going to stay?”
“There’s a bigger cabin on the other side of the property, a few hundred yards away behind some trees. You can’t see it from here.”
Walking into a small living area, her breath caught as a picture window came into view and Tupper Lake spread out before her, its surface almost completely covered in ice that glistened pure white beneath the moonlight. Beauty extended as far as the eye could see in vivid swaths of brightness and shadow, and she knew she’d never seen a more beautiful place outside of pictures. “I can’t imagine the main house has a better view than this one.”
