His for the Taking - By Ann Major Page 0,33
his true feelings.
The lower part of the house had been dark when she’d made it down the stairs, so she’d made her way to her purse on the little table by the window and pulled out her tiny flashlight, which she always carried.
Thinking maybe he’d fallen asleep on a sofa, she hadn’t wanted to turn on the lights as she searched for him.
When she hadn’t found him on any of his big sofas or easy chairs, she’d seen his office door ajar. The lower drawer had been open, and she’d let out a little scream after she’d sunk to her knees and realized he’d probably read her letters.
At the realization that he knew about Noah, that the knowledge was why he hadn’t come back to bed, she’d felt confused and scared, crazy. She hadn’t been ready to face him, to talk to him about Noah. No, she’d felt too vulnerable after the sex—sex that had revealed how much she still cared for him. So when she’d found herself suddenly backed into a corner about Noah, she’d reacted to Cole’s righteous anger and accusations defensively. By becoming furious, she’d made a royal mess of everything.
But she wasn’t about to let hot sex weaken her into agreeing to include him in her son’s life when that might not be the best thing for her and Noah. Cole hadn’t been there when she’d needed him the most—when she’d been scared and helpless.
Well, maybe she and Noah didn’t need him now.
* * *
What the hell was she doing up there? Sulking? Plotting? Or just feeling as sick at heart and confused as he was?
With a heavy heart, Cole mounted the stairs and waited outside that closed door until Maddie dressed. When she came out, she rushed past him and down the stairs without looking at him or speaking to him. On the way downstairs he found a tiny red flashlight on a carpeted stair. He kneeled and closed his fist around it. Uttering a low animal sound, he jammed it in his pocket.
Neither of them spoke as his truck ripped through the suffocating darkness on their way to Miss Jennie’s rambling house, but the atmosphere inside the cab felt as charged as one of his gas wells about to blow. When at last he slammed on the brakes in front of Miss Jennie’s and the truck jerked to a standstill, he jumped out and raced around to open her door.
She stayed where she was. Then, without a word, she began rummaging in her purse.
“Looking for something?”
“My flashlight. I must have dropped it somewhere.”
He yanked it out of his pocket and flashed the narrow beam inside her purse.
With a frown she flung herself out of the door and grabbed it from him. “I’m perfectly capable of seeing myself to the door,” she snapped.
Turning her back on him, she aimed the tiny beam on the sidewalk and marched stiffly toward the porch.
She didn’t give him so much as a backward glance as she let herself inside the dark house and bolted the door behind her. Miss Jennie wasn’t one to keep her shades down, so he watched Maddie’s flashlight bob as she made her way to the back, watched when her bedroom light went on. Then her door closed, and the front of the house was dark again.
“Baby, if you think this is finished, you’re very wrong,” he growled softly. “If Noah’s mine, he’s mine. Not Greg’s! I’ll use DNA and the whole damn legal system to get him.”
Nine
Usually, challenges seemed less daunting to Cole the next morning. Not today. Too much was at stake.
As soon as the sun flamed like a red-hot ball of fire against a mauve horizon, Cole dragged himself out of bed and made coffee. Although he had a headache from hell and burned with impatience, he had called Juan about the well. Fortunately, the driller had just arrived, so Cole could vent some of his frustration by blasting that glib, overpaid shirker who thoroughly deserved it. After the call, he went for a run before he drove over to Miss Jennie’s.
Morning doves cooed in the treetops above Miss Jennie’s house. Shadows from her big oaks slanted across her overgrown lawn. The last traces of ground fog hovered at the fringes of the brush where his ranch bordered her property.
For a long moment Cole stayed in the cab of his truck and observed the single light burning in the kitchen window. Maybe Maddie hadn’t been able to sleep very well. He knew