Four Reasons For Fatherhood

He ran a hand gently between her shoulder blades. “And I thought this was just a very bold seduction,” he teased.

She raised her head long enough to give him a scolding look, then lightning flashed and she buried her face against him again as the harsh sound followed.

He noticed she was trembling and felt sure it was due as much to her mid-thigh-length nightshirt as it was to her fear of the storm.

He swung her up into his arms and carried her to the sofa bed in the family room. He sat down with her and pulled the blanket over her.

“You’re probably thinking,” she said in a frail voice, “that it’s ridiculous for a grown woman to be afraid of thunder.”

“No,” he said. “I was just wondering if you’re warm enough.”

She sighed and let her head fall against his shoulder. “I’m fine. You’re very warm.”

“Mmm.” Actually he was getting a little hot. Hotter than was really safe under the circumstances.

“I can’t believe this hasn’t awakened the boys,” she said. “They were sleeping soundly when I checked, but it wasn’t this bad then.”

“I’m sure they’ll come looking for us if they wake up.”

“Are you comfortable?” she asked.

That was a tricky question. His body was comfortable. The blanket covered him, too, warding off the nighttime coolness of the house. But the softness of her in his lap, the loop of her arms around his neck, the silken skin of her cheek against his throat was making him decidedly uncomfortable.

She wasn’t his type; he’d concluded that already. And she considered him a failure at familial relationships.

But his traitorous body seemed unaware of that. It was reacting to a scenario going on in his brain that involved stretching out on the soft sofa and making the best of a promising situation.

Then she lifted her head off his shoulder and looked into his eyes at the same instant that lightning lit the room. He saw that complicated need in her worried gaze.

And he realized he’d been wrong earlier when he’d thought that she needed him out of the way.

It wasn’t that at all. It was that she’d wanted him out of the way for some reason he didn’t entirely understand, but she really needed him to stay. He felt it in the arms around his neck, in the trusting inclination of her body against his.

Suddenly he had a clearer understanding of her. He seemed to be feeling the very same things, only in reverse.

Whatever this was between them, he didn’t need it. But he realized now in the quiet darkness that he wanted it.

He really wanted it.

Chapter Four

Aaron felt Susan’s heart beating against him. She seemed to be looking for something in his eyes. Or perhaps she’d found it and was trying to understand it.

He sighed, accepting the inevitable.

“Yes,” he said, brushing away a strand of hair caught in her eyelashes. “I’m staying.”

Pain shot into her eyes. “I don’t want you to stay,” she whispered, her voice halfhearted and completely unconvincing.

“Yes, you do. You don’t want to want me to, but you do.”

She repeated that to herself, then frowned at him. “And how would you know that?”

“Your heart’s beating against mine,” he replied. “It’s calling my name.”

She rolled he eyes. “Hearts do not call. I don’t hear anything.”

“It’s not a sound,” he said. “It’s a readout. In your eyes.”

She closed them then and groaned, leaning into his shoulder again. “You’re misinterpreting,” she insisted softly. “It’s just because I’m afraid the boys won’t ever respond to me the way they do to you. They’re guys, after all. Hard to understand.”

He chose not to tell her that entangled in her need for him because of what he could do for the boys, he’d read a need that was for her alone.

He laughed. “We’re not that complicated. We just want to be loved, obeyed and fed deli sandwiches.”