Jennifer Greene - Tender Loving Care

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She’d hoped so much that his feelings were at least starting to change. “You know, they behave like angels for you. ”

“Yeah. Because I’m six feet three. Only one of these days, the little devils are going to discover that I’m scared witless of them.”

He made her smile. In fact, he made her smile all through dinner. He never even blinked when a French fry went flying through the air or when Parker let out a burp that sent both boys into fits of giggles. He answered what seemed like four thousand questions beginning with the word why, wiped up a spill and escorted each little boy to the men’s room at least nine hundred times.

With Zoe, he barely exchanged five words. Who could talk? Zoe hadn’t been in a family restaurant in a long time. Mothers were wolfing down their food in the vague hope they’d finish before the kids got antsy. Fathers were radiating patience. The route to the bathrooms needed a traffic light. The noise level rivaled that of a baseball stadium on opening day.

“You’ve been here before?” she questioned Rafe.

He shook his head with a wry grin. “Never. But I figured it had to be reasonably safe to come here from their ads in the paper.”

The place was safe, the man less so. Rafe kept drawing her eyes to him…for his quietness and patience, the way he took charge, the way his mouth twisted in a smile. He repeatedly claimed he didn’t want the responsibility of children, yet nothing threw him where the kids were concerned.

Where she was concerned seemed to be the problem. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel drenched in softness, as though she was special to him, as though in the middle of chaos they were surrounded by an intimate privacy that just had to do with two people.

It was dark when they drove home, and few lights marked the road once they left the small Montana town of Logansville. Under the cover of darkness, Zoe stole pensive glances at Rafe’s shadowed profile. He wasn’t an easy man to understand, and she had to remind herself to be careful. She was alone, far away from her life and job, tossed into an emotional whirlpool because of the children. It would be far too easy to turn to Rafe out of need, but involvement would impossibly complicate both their lives, and perhaps prove detrimental to the twins.

When they arrived home, the kids suggested a bargain: They would promise total peace and quiet if they were allowed to watch television for a half hour. Rafe agreed, and steered Zoe into the kitchen, where he put water on for coffee-decaf and instant at that hour.

“They’ll never let us drink an entire cup in peace,” Zoe warned him wryly.

Rafe took the tinfoil off the huge pan of chocolate-chip cookies and then offered the tray to her.

“They’re all for you,” she said politely.

“Thanks.”

“If they help me with any more cooking projects, we may all starve.”

“I can see that.” He leaned back against the counter and nibbled on one. “They’re not that bad.”

“What’d you get-a tiny burned one or one of those huge ones that still look like unbaked batter?” The kettle was boiling. Zoe lifted it off the burner, turned off the heat and reached for cups.

Rafe figured that was enough casual chatter. Maybe she’d forgotten that she’d treated him like yesterday’s newspaper that morning, but he hadn’t. “Those were Sarah’s black panties you found in the kitchen…but I think you already guessed that, didn’t you?”

The damn kettle spat a drop of boiling water on her finger. She shook her hand and then started pouring. “Forget it, Rafe.”

He wasn’t about to let it go. “I’ve known her for two years, ever since I moved here. I got to know her because I work with her. Her husband left her about a year ago.”

“Which is none of my business,” Zoe said firmly.

Rafe was blunt and his tone quiet. “Our relationship is simply a friendship-but, yes, I’ve slept with her several times. She was lonely as hell, and her ex-husband was a bastard. If you want it clear as glass, she’d occasionally come over here when she wanted a man.” Honesty vibrated in his voice. “I don’t want you to think badly of her, Zoe. She’s a good lady.”

“A wonderful lady,” Zoe agreed instantly.

“But not for me. It was never any more than a casual relationship. She knew that, and so did I. There was a time when we could fill a few needs for each other, and that’s all it amounted to.” He added, “I talked to her this morning.”

What he talked to her about Zoe didn’t want to know. She also didn’t want the mug of coffee in her hands, or to be alone in a softly lit kitchen with him. She set the mug down. The whole problem with being close to Rafe…was being close to Rafe.

She said nothing for a moment, because she couldn’t think of a thing to say, and then a crash interrupted that silence-a glass-splintering, explosion-type crash. The lights went out.

She collided with Rafe on the rush for the door.

As soon as Zoe reached the living room, she was surrounded by darkness and two frantic boys. An acrid odor of smoke permeated the room. “Good Lord! What were you two doing!”

She couldn’t tell one voice from another in the pitch-black room, and they were both talking at once. “The lamp just fell all to pieces; I didn’t mean to-”

“What’d you expect to happen when you threw the book at it, stupid?”

Rafe clamped a hand on her shoulder from behind. “Keep them away from it, Zoe. I’ll unplug the lamp and change the fuse.”

Grabbing the little ones, she tried to soothe and calm and at the same time determine just how the disaster had happened. Both boys were safely stashed on the couch next to her when the lights snapped on again, and then her eyes widened in shock at the wreckage. Rafe’s huge porcelain lamp was in shards on the floor, its shade bent grotesquely. A leatherbound textbook lay in the center of the mess.

“All right. Who threw the book?” Rafe hadn’t taken long to return from the fuse box. Standing in the doorway, he looked like ten feet of cold male fury.

Total silence, then “Me.” Zoe stood up, but Aaron wrapped his arms around her hips in a viselike grasp.

“You know what’s going to happen to you, don’t you?” Rafe said sternly.

“Yup,” Aaron said sadly.

“And right now.”

“Yup,” the little boy agreed again.

“Now, wait a minute,” Zoe said frantically. “Rafe, I’m sure it was an acci-”

“Aaron, upstairs,” Rafe ordered.

“Yup.” Aaron quietly pried his fingers away from Zoe’s hip. Her arm tightened protectively around his shoulders.

“You haven’t even heard what happened!” she yelled at Rafe.

His voice was as calm and cold as the ocean in November. “I don’t need to hear a darn thing. I can see the book. He admitted he threw it. Upstairs, Aaron.”

“Yup.” Resigned to his fate, Aaron lowered his head, ducked out from under Zoe’s hold and headed for the stairs. He climbed them as heavily as if he were old and weary.

Zoe rushed after him, but Rafe reached the landing first.

“Stay out of it,” he said quietly.

“I won’t. Darn it, you can’t mean this! You’re angry, Rafe. You can’t deal with him when you’re this mad-”

“I sure as hell can.”

“It was an accident! ”

“It was deliberate. And he knows it.”

“He’s only four years old!” They were at the door to the twins’ bedroom. Startled, Zoe noted Aaron had already bent over the bed, bottom up. One might almost think he’d been through this before. She flashed a look at the child, and then at Rafe.