She cupped his face, his scratchy cheeks in her palms, and just held on.
“I’ve cut myself off from caring since then. So I’m not good at it anymore. I don’t want to be.”
Oh, Reed. Not good at caring? “What about the tattoo? Can you tell me about that?”
He sat back on the cushions and rubbed his hand on his neck, beneath the layers of hair. “It’s a red-tailed hawk. Ben found the feather of one and it was his most treasured possession. One of the guys in our company was Native American and said the feathers show up when you need to pay attention…when you should look for an underlying truth.”
Glancing at her, his lips curved a little. “Now don’t laugh.”
“I would never laugh at you.”
“When I was older, I read that the red-tailed hawk is a creature of both the seen and unseen worlds, able to move freely between both. I like to think that Ben is able to do that now, soaring high above all the pain and misery and able to appreciate the beauty that eluded him when he was here.”
Tears stung the corners of her eyes. “Wow. It’s like you’re a writer,” she said, trying to keep it light. But one hot droplet rolled over her lid and slid down her cheek.
Even in the darkness, Reed saw it and he captured it with his thumb. He rubbed it into her skin like a salve.
Cleo knew it wouldn’t heal her wound.
Because he’d done that, wounded her. With talk of monsters and regret, his despair, as a boy, of not being able to help another one, that tattoo of a hawk flying between two worlds. Of not being good at caring.
God! If someone asked her right now, she’d say she was in love with him. That despite all her talk about him just affecting her at skin-level, he’d gone ahead and made a place for himself deep in her heart.
It was weird how comfortably he rested there.
Chapter Twelve
When Cleo walked into the kitchen the next morning, Reed decided she didn’t look much older than Eli. Her gilt hair was pillow-mussed and her eyes were at a drowsy half-mast. Her long robe hung loose to reveal the knee-length night shirt she’d worn to sleep.
Blinking at the sight of him sitting at the table with her sons, it seemed to take her a minute to absorb there were plates in front of each of them and syrup on the table. Obie shoved a bite of pancake into his mouth. “Hi, Mommy.”
“Hi, baby,” she said, and rubbed at her eyes with her fists. “You’re eating.”
“Reed made breakfast,” Eli said.
“I think I see that,” she murmured, looking around her. Sunlight streamed through the French doors and the brightness seemed to dazzle her. “I smell coffee?”
Reed hid his grin. “On the counter. Shall I pour you a mug?”
She shook her head. “I never sleep this late,” she told the carafe of dark brew.
“You were up late.” His fault. His nightmare had brought her into the living room and he’d wound up laying out his demons for her. Now that it was morning, he felt…he supposed he still felt it was the right thing to do. While he didn’t talk about that year at Oceanview much, and only had made vague noises about Ben to people who asked about the tattoo, his reasons for sharing with Cleo held true.
Working for Bing and Brody—and since she’d become friendly with Cilla and Alexa as well—would likely mean that once she moved out of his neighborhood they’d run into each other from time-to-time. If she read too much into this interlude of togetherness, that might prove awkward in the future.
He sure as hell didn’t want her leaving a good job because she’d gotten too attached to him. Now she knew the score—that he would never attach back—and anything they enjoyed in the short term she wouldn’t build false hopes upon.
Eli wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “Reed said he’s taking us all to the beach today.”
Cleo frowned. “What?”
He focused on his plate. “The compound can feel a little…close.” Locked within its walls with Cleo and her boys, the forced togetherness might begin to feel—falsely—too intimate. “I thought we would appreciate an outing in the ocean air.” When she didn’t say anything, he glanced up. Her expression didn’t give her thoughts away.
“It’s a beautiful day,” he added. And didn’t that sound defensive?
“You can go,” Cleo offered. “We’ll be fine here.”
Obie dropped his fork to his plate with a clatter. “Reed said we all get to go to the beach!”
“Sorry,” Reed said, grimacing. “I should have checked with you first.”
“Mom—” Eli started.
She held up her hand. “We shouldn’t trouble Reed.”
“It’s no trouble,” Obie said. “I’m no trouble.” He shot Reed a winning smile. “I’m good as gold.”
Eli rolled his eyes, then folded his arms over his chest, his expression mutinous.
Cleo remained silent seven seconds, then she caved. “All right, all right,” she grumbled. “But I expect your best behavior.”
The kids did a damn fine job in that respect, as far as Reed was concerned. They helped clear the breakfast dishes from the table, dressed themselves, and didn’t exhibit too much impatience while their mother readied the group for the outing, which included slathering sunscreen on any inch of her boys’ available skin.
When she turned to him, more of the white stuff in the cup of her palm, he backed away. “Oh, no.”
Something sparked in her eyes. “This trip was your idea. You don’t want to set a bad example for Eli and Obie, do you?”
Revenge for painting her into a corner, he realized. So instead of bitching, he obediently leaned down so she could slime his face with the lotion. But instead of just tolerating the process, the feather-light strokes of her fingers on his face became a different type of retaliation as his body reacted to the simple pleasure of her touch. Even with two impatient kids in the periphery of his vision, blood was rushing south.
Christ.
When she began to work the goop down his arm, he grabbed her hand. “Enough,” he said, his voice gruff.
Their gazes met, and she flushed. Backing away, she spread the excess on her own shoulders, bared by the tank top she wore with shorts.
He kept his eyes off her legs. Those long, slim legs.
Once they reached the beach, he congratulated himself on the great idea. It was still 70-plus degrees by the surf and the gentle breeze was only slightly cooling and smelled salty and clean. Eli and Obie raced along the hard-packed sand, raced back, then went to their knees, using a pair of plastic cups they’d found as digging implements.
Cleo frowned. “I should have bought them beach toys.”
“They don’t need anything special.” To prove it to her, he trolled the beach for other implements he could offer them. After a few minutes he was able to hand over shells, an abandoned metal fork, and a wide, flat rock that made a fine trowel.
Then he found he couldn’t resist joining in. Soon enough he was on his ass beside them, using his hands to scoop a moat for their half-constructed castle. Together, they decorated the turret with broken shells and made a drawbridge from a piece of driftwood. Cleo looked on from a distance, a bemused expression on her face.
Reed decided he didn’t want to know what she was thinking.
Then Obie looked up. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
Glancing around, Reed saw a cinderblock set of restrooms beyond the next lifeguard tower. “It’s over there,” he said, pointing.
“I can’t go by myself.”
Oh, right
. Cleo had wandered to the surf line and was gazing out at the horizon. He opened his mouth to call out to her, when Obie spoke again.
“You’d better take me now.”
That sounded dire, so Reed jumped to his feet. Eli followed. “I better go too.”
As they began trotting down the sand, Reed raised his voice to get Cleo’s attention. “Nature’s calling! We’ll be right back.”
Business taken care of, their return trip to the castle was more leisurely. Eli chased some sandpipers while Obie stayed by Reed’s side. “I like the beach,” the kid said, slipping his hand into Reed’s.
“Uh, me, too.” He stared down at where they were linked and waited for the connection to feel odd and uncomfortable.
Obie gave a little skip. “I like you.”
“Um…”
Before he had the chance to reciprocate, the boy let go of him and ran toward his mother, about twenty feet away. As her arms went around her son, her gaze was on Reed. She didn’t look any less beautiful and tantalizing in her role as mother, he realized.
Hell.
To insert more buffer into their circle, he suggested they move on to the playground that butted up against the sand. A dozen kids and about that same number of adult family members were gathered there, and he stood behind the bench where Cleo sat observing the boys. They sped from the slide to the climbing dome to the teeter totter, and then finally climbed aboard the landlocked “pirate ship.” On its gangplank both paused side-by-side to wave at Cleo.
For some reason, Reed waved back too.
“Good-looking sons you have there.”
He glanced over, noting another man about his age was focused on the playground as well.
“I have girls,” the stranger continued. With a finger, he indicated two small, dark-haired girls wearing pink and purple.
“Uh…nice,” Reed said. He was going to follow that up with something about the boys not being his, but that seemed like too much detail to bother with.
“My wife’s pregnant with number three,” he said. “It’s going to be estrogen overload at my house. You two thinking of trying for another?”
Reed stared at him. “We’re not…I’m not…” In Parent World, did people who didn’t know each other ask such nosy questions?
“No decisions yet,” Cleo piped up, saving him.
Then one of the little girls called for her daddy, and the man took off at a lope. On a sigh of relief, Reed came around the bench to drop onto it beside Cleo. “Thanks. I didn’t know what to say.”
“Oh, that kind of stuff is nothing. When I was pregnant people stopped me all the time, telling me they could tell the sex of my baby, or asking me which name I’d picked out, or even putting their hands on my belly.”
For a moment, Reed was distracted by the image. Cleo’s slender body heavy with child. Her breasts would be more lush too, and he’d heard things about a pregnant woman’s sex drive…
He shook the thoughts out of his head. “That’s pretty weird.” Not just what she’d told him, but his own sudden fascination.
“It’s human nature, I think. We’re hard-wired to have an interest in the propagation of the species.”
“Maybe.”
She glanced at him. “You never want kids? This experience?” Her hand waved to indicate the scene: children at play, watchful parents, doting grandparents.
“I suppose I see the appeal, but for myself?” He shook his head. “I’m trying to imagine Hop Hopkins or any of the Lemons watching over toddlers, their groupie-of-the-day by their side.”
Cleo grinned. “You might be surprised.”
Then a cry sounded from the playground, high and pained.
Moms and dads all around him stiffened, but it was Cleo who vaulted from the bench and raced toward the sand. Reed followed, his heart nearly choking him. Ahead, he saw Eli on the ground, cradling his hand.
Blood dripped from his fingers.
Cleo dropped to her knees beside her son. Reed hunkered behind her, and he put his arm around Obie when the little boy came over and clutched his leg.
“Let me see,” Cleo said in a soft voice to her older son. “Do you know what happened?”
“Something sharp.” Eli’s eyes were wide and wet, but no tears had fallen.
His mother took his hand in hers. “Glass,” she said, and glanced up at Reed. “Do you have a first aid kit in your car?”
He would have flown there, but it wasn’t necessary. Antiseptic wipes and elastic bandages were instantly presented from sympathetic bystanders. Already one father had a plastic toy rake in hand and was drawing it through the sand to find any other shards.
The entire event lasted less than seven minutes, Reed supposed, but by the time the boy’s shallow cut was deemed non-critical and cleaned and bandaged, he felt strung out. When he suggested they sit down for some lunch at the nearby beachside café, Cleo and kids agreed.
To prove the boys weren’t worse for wear, they dashed ahead, leaving their mom and Reed to follow behind him more slowly. “You knew it was Eli,” he said. “From that single cry.”
She shrugged. “Instinct. Practice.”
To Reed, who had never known his mother, it seemed like wizardry. So did her almost supernatural calm about the whole thing. “And you didn’t bat an eye.”
Her gaze shifted sideways. “I fake well.” Then she held out her hands, and he saw they were trembling. “It’s silly, I know—”
“It’s beautiful,” Reed said, taking them in his own.
Her head was bent. “He wasn’t seriously injured, I knew that almost immediately. But I get scared, and there’s only me to take care of them.”
“You’re so beautiful,” Reed murmured. Then he gathered her against him. She wrapped her arms around his back and pressed her forehead to his chest.
There was nothing sexual in the embrace or the comfort and warmth he was offering, but the moment felt as intimate as when he’d had his mouth against her sex. As personal as the slide of his cock into her soft, slick channel.
It scared the shit out of him, frankly, but he wasn’t going to let go first. He found he couldn’t.
Then a distinct buzzing came from where they were pressed thigh-to-thigh. He pushed her away a little, smiled. “Is that your phone or is your vibrator happy to feel me?”
“Oh, you,” she said, flushing as she stepped out of his arms. Pulling her phone free of her pocket, she accepted the call. “June! It’s good to hear from you.”
He moved away to give her privacy. The boys circled back to him, chattering about the seagull they’d seen stealing food from someone’s picnic. Their exuberance and interest in everything seemed to…refresh him. He felt lighter.
Cleo came up, telling the boys their grandmother wanted to speak with them. Eli grabbed the cell first.
“Everything okay?” Reed looked at Cleo.
“Mm.” The wind ruffled her hair and she peeked at him through her lashes, her mouth curved at the corners.