without Mother.”
Cal’s big arms swallowed her, drawing her gently down against him, comforting her, soothing her. His fingers worked in her hair in a slow, rhythmic motion, and she could feel the steady, strong beat of his heart against her breasts.
“What was your daughter like?” she asked softly.
His chest rose and fell slowly against her. “Like me, strangely enough,” he murmured. The words came hesitantly, and Nikki sensed that he hadn’t talked about it to anyone until now. Perhaps there wasn’t anyone he could talk to, unless it was his mother.
“Dark?” she prompted.
“Dark hair, dark eyes. Tall, for her age. All legs and big eyes.” He laughed gently. “She liked to climb trees, which horrified her mother. Ladies weren’t supposed to do that, but Genene was a tomboy through and through. I bought her a horse and Penny went up like a rocket, but Genene was a born rider. We’d get up early every morning and go riding before I went to the office.” He laughed shortly. “Once I walked out of a board meeting in the middle of a proxy fight to take Genene to a birthday party.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“I won.” He chuckled. “The deciding votes came from a stockholder who was delighted at the sight of a man willing to give up an empire for a birthday party.”
She laughed with him. “But you didn’t do it for that reason, I don’t imagine.”
“No, I didn’t. Hell, anytime they think I’m not showing enough profit, they can throw me out with my blessing. But that hasn’t happened, and it won’t happen.” His arms tightened. “I had cake and ice cream with the kids. Genene won a prize for pinning the tail on the donkey. You’d think she won the Nobel Prize, the way she beamed.” He drew in a short breath. “A week later she was dead. I’ve thanked God on my knees ever since that I didn’t tell her I was too busy to take her to that birthday party.” He sighed heavily. “If only I’d been at home...”
She drew away far enough to look down into his dark, sad eyes. She laid a finger across his hard, chiseled mouth. “You couldn’t have prevented it if you’d been standing across the street,” she said gently. “Any more than I could have taken my father’s foot off the accelerator, or stopped my mother from getting a brain tumor... Cal, I don’t pretend to know all the answers. But God sees farther down the road than we do. Perhaps He’s protecting people from something we can’t foresee by drawing them to Him.” She smiled quietly. “I like to think of it that way, at least.”
Her fingers traced his mouth; her eyes lingered on the chiseled curve of it. Impulsively, she leaned down and brushed her lips over it, feeling a delicious shiver of sensation at the light contact.
“Do you mind?” she whispered achingly.
His chest rose and fell quickly, heavily. “I need it as much as you do, Nikki,” he replied in a deep, taut whisper. “I need you...”
His arms brought her down to him, and he made a harsh, muffled sound as her mouth opened over his. The action tightened the arms around her bruisingly as he whipped her across his big body and onto her back in the lush, green grass with the weight of his broad chest crushing her down into it.
His mouth was hungry, rough, slow and achingly thorough on the petal softness of hers. She felt the nip of his teeth against her full lower lip before his tongue drew a sensuous path over it, past it, in a sudden, sharp intimacy that dragged a moan from her throat.
Her arms slid under his, her hands easing past the hem of his cotton shirt to caress his warm, bronzed back over his hard, silky muscles. Her fingers dug into his back, tested its strength, as his mouth became more demanding on hers.
He levered away from her all at once, his eyes dark with unsatisfied desire, his jaw as taut as the muscles in his powerful arms as they supported him.
“No more, Nikki,” he said in a husky voice. “We’re getting in over our heads.”
Her fingers lingered on the damp flesh of his back, her eyes mirroring the conflict that was going on inside her. She thought ahead involuntarily, to the end of the day when she’d watch him fly away and she’d stand on the runway and feel an emptiness like death inside. The thought took the