Well, that made two of them making stupid verbal slips tonight, Hope thought in chagrin.
Drawing a deep breath, she tried to pretend her mind hadn’t immediately gone in the same direction as his the minute bedtime had been mentioned. When the racing of her pulse, the innate desire to make up for their little tiff earlier in the sexiest way possible, said otherwise.
Aware he was still assessing her intently, Hope forced a smile. “I have several more hours of work to do, minimum, before I call it a night. But...” Being careful not to dislodge the bottle of formula from Max’s mouth, she handed over her son. “If you want to feed Max for me, I really would appreciate it.”
Garrett shifted the little boy against himself and settled on the sofa, one brawny arm resting on the cushioned end, Max snuggled against his chest. “No problem.” His mood just as purposeful as her words had been, he continued giving her son the bottle.
Was he just doing this to make up for how short he’d been with her earlier? Maybe. He was a mature adult. He knew she was just doing her job. That she was who she was, just as he was who he was. They would never share the same view about how necessary appearances were in life. Never mind whether or not they should be manipulated to secure an outcome.
She’d never be as blunt as he was.
And he sure as heck was never going to be anywhere close to discreet.
It didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends, Hope rationalized, doing her best to protect both their hearts.
And interim lovers...
All she and Garrett had to do was accept that whatever was going on with them was only temporary, and take it day by day, moment by moment.
That would certainly lessen the overall stress of the situation. And wasn’t that what she was all about? Choosing the path of least conflict? For everyone?
* * *
OBLIVIOUS TO THE tumultuous nature of her thoughts, Garrett looked up at her as Max’s feeding slowed down. Seeming no more anxious to revisit their earlier tiff than she was, he asked curiously, “What was Max drinking earlier? When I came in?”
When Max had still had frothy white bubbles on his lips. Once again, Hope had to work not to appear self-conscious. “Breast milk.”
“Then, if he was just fed a few minutes ago...?”
“I didn’t have enough.”
His glance went to her breasts.
Her nipples immediately tingled, but not because she didn’t have enough milk.
Funny, he hadn’t noticed the loose fit of her blouse. But then, he’d been too busy looking deep into her eyes...as if trying to figure out what to do about the hopelessly intimate situation they’d let themselves get into.
Hope swallowed. “I could have put Max back to bed, but I knew he was still a little hungry, so if I had gone ahead and put him down he would be up again in two hours. On the other hand, if he gets as many calories as he needs now, even if takes a little longer to feed him since he’s not as intensely interested as he was a little while ago before he had the edge taken off his hunger, he will probably sleep a good six hours.”
“Six hours? Really?” Once again, Garrett looked as interested as any proud daddy.
But he wasn’t Max’s daddy.
And would never be.
She needed to keep reminding herself of that.
Hope moved away from the compelling sight of Max snuggling up to Garrett.
So Garrett was not just strong and protective, he was also laudably tender, too. So what? It didn’t change anything between them. Couldn’t. And if she let herself imagine otherwise, they’d both be in big, big trouble. “He slept that long last night,” she reported, trying to distract herself by tidying up the kitchen, emptying out the plastic bowl and putting it in the rack to dry.
“But, again, that’s what is on the developmental schedule.” Hope paused to dry her hands. “I think the only reason Max wasn’t doing it before this was because he was growing and wasn’t getting quite enough nutrition from my breast milk alone to help him sleep through the night.”
Garrett’s eyes tracked her every movement as she walked around the breakfast bar. “So you’re okay with combination feeding now?”
Hope settled in front of her computer once again. “I’m beginning to see the beauty of it.” She pulled her chair up. Elbows on the table, she rested her chin on her folded hands. “I also realized I don’t have to be so hard on myself. As a mom, I don’t have to do everything perfectly. I just have to try to do my best.”
The upward curve of his masculine lips was as encouraging as the gleam in his eyes. “I’m glad.”
Once again their glances meshed, held. Once again Hope wished she wasn’t working for his mother and the foundation. That the two of them could put everything else aside and just be together like this.
But she was working for the Lockhart Foundation.
And she had a job to do if she was going to protect Lucille and the family’s reputation the way she had promised. So, without another word, she turned her attention to the computer screen and went back to work.
* * *
GARRETT HAD BEEN wondering if a formal apology for their earlier disagreement was warranted.
She’d quietly indicated it wasn’t.
Now, as she immersed herself fully in her work, he had to wonder if he’d read her mood correctly, after all. Frustration formed a knot in his gut.
How was it he had just ended up in the confusing morass of his youth? With everyone surreptitiously working to protect each other’s feelings, appearances of civility reigning supreme and no one saying what they really meant or felt?
Suddenly, the idea of reenlisting in the military, where everything was short and to the point, seemed a lot more appealing than it had just twenty-four hours before, when he’d been wrapped in Hope’s arms.
Maybe his earlier self-assessment was right.
He just wasn’t cut out for this.
With a decisive frown, Hope picked up her laptop and brought it over. She settled beside him, close enough so he could see the screen while still giving their tiny chaperone his bottle.
She picked up a throw pillow and wedged it between the two of them. So she could rest her elbow on it while she worked? Or to ensure they wouldn’t physically touch?
He didn’t know the answer to that.
However, he did know she still smelled like lavender baby powder and the vanilla-scented hand soap she favored.
They were both, he noted, very soothing fragrances.
Max, opening his eyes to grin up at his momma, seemed to think so, too.
Hope spared her son a sweet smile, causing Garrett’s heart to lurch painfully in his chest, then went back to the task at hand, explaining, “I’m still trying to put together the backstory on the foundation. Not the abbreviated one that’s on the Lockhart Foundation website, which tells us virtually nothing about your parents except that they are rich and want to do good.”
“Wow. That’s harsh.” But true in a way he never would have expected an exceedingly tactful woman like Hope to come out and say.
“I know. It doesn’t begin to cover how the foundation came about. And I need that.”
“Why?”
She scooted as close as the pillow wall she had built would allow. “Because of this.” She clicked the split-screen function. Eight different windows popped up. He read the titles of the stories out loud: “‘Lockharts Try to Get Ahead of Potential Lawsuits.’ ‘Too Late to Do Good?’ ‘Boxed Into Giving, as Charities Revolt.’” He exhaled roughly, a muscle pulsing in his jaw. “Wow. I thought you said that leaking the information about what my mom is doing ahead of the eleven o’clock news would diminish the bad publicity.”
“And it has.” Hope clicked on another screen of multiple headline windows. “This is where we started.”
He continued to read. “‘Lockhart Foundation Stiffs Charities.’ ‘Lockhart Foundation Turns Its Back on Needy.’ ‘Nonprofits Tell the Ugly Truth about Lockhart Foundation Largesse.’”
Looking more accepting of the situation than he felt at that moment, Hope explained, “We went from all bad publicity to a press that is doubting whether your family and the foundation is bad or not. The next step is to take those doubts as an open window or door, and give the public another glimpse of who your parents really were when they started out and how their largesse all came to be.”
“Makes sense.” Noting Max had pushed the nipple all the way out of his mouth, Garrett set the bottle of formula aside and shifted Max upright, so the baby could look over his shoulder while working up a burp.
Hope tucked an errant strand of honey-hued hair behind her ear. “So I’ve asked your siblings, and now I’m asking you as well, to tell me what you know about the family history. Sage sent me photos from her computer, of the ranch as it was when your mom and dad were growing up here in Laramie County.”
Frank and Lucille stood in front of what then had been a sturdily built split-rail fence. The barn, painted red at the time, was behind them. Grazing cattle and horses could be seen in the distance. “They look so young.” So...Western. Both were clad in worn jeans, plaid shirts, boots and straw hats.
Hope clicked on the keyboard. A new image appeared on the computer screen. “Here’s another of them in their first home in Dallas. One of them standing in front of the Lockhart Asset Management office. Another of them with all five of you kids when you were in elementary school.”
He nodded.
Their clothes were sophisticated, haircuts just as perfect. And yet...
“None of you look very happy in these pictures.” Hope pointed out with a frown. “Which is why I asked Sage to find me some more photos of you-all having a good time.”
Garrett reflected on that. Noting Max was starting his baby push-ups again, he slid his palm a little higher, to rest between the little fella’s flexing shoulders. “I’m not sure there are any.”
Hope’s elegant brow furrowed. “That’s what she said. Can you tell me why that is? So I don’t accidentally open up a can of worms?”
“You want to know what it was really like when I was a kid?”
She nodded.
Garrett sighed heavily. “Dad was wrapped up in building up his hedge fund. He worked constantly—he was almost never home. My mom was always on the board of some charity or organizing some black-tie gala to help further the family’s social connections.” None of whom were apparently rallying around his mother now, he couldn’t help but note. “All us kids were enrolled in private schools only the most elite of the elite could get into.”
Garrett flicked a glance her way. “I always liked the academic challenge of school. Especially science and history.” Which had led to his career in the military and medicine.
“Were you happy?” she asked quietly, her eyes lighting up with interest as she held his gaze.
Yes and no. “I wish there had been more of a connection between us,” he admitted finally. “In the military, you work as a team. There was no teamwork in my family growing up.”
“I see that now.”
He wished she didn’t look so beautiful in the late-night light of the bunkhouse, wished he still didn’t want to make love to her quite so much. “We all became closer when my dad was diagnosed with his heart problems. We had time to reevaluate our lives before we had to say goodbye to him.”
Max lurched and let out a loud burp.
Hope’s proud grin matched his own.
A little amazed at how quickly he had become adept at feeding and caring for an infant, Garrett turned Max back around and settled him against his chest.
Enough with the questions about his childhood.
“What about you?” he asked Hope softly. “Your family? You’ve never said much about that.”
He wanted to know all about her, too, he realized.
For a moment, he thought she wouldn’t answer.
Head ducked down, so he couldn’t see into her eyes, she watched him offer Max the bottle again. “I was an only child. My parents own an extended-stay hotel for the very wealthy.”
“In Houston,” he remembered.
“From an early age, I was expected to keep out of the way and, when I got older, to work as hard as possible to keep our well-heeled guests comfortable. Most of them were in some sort of personal crisis, due to relocation, home renovations that were lasting forever, nasty divorces, stuff like that.”
“That doesn’t sound...pleasant,” he sympathized.
She shrugged. “I saw how people could ‘spin’ things, which in turn made their lives better, their crises a little less daunting.”
“That’s when you decided to go into public relations.”
An accepting smile turned up the corners of her lovely lips. “It wasn’t that hard of a leap to make. I already knew how to deal with highly emotional and volatile people, and not lose my own cool.”
She was certainly good at handling the members of his family; they all adored her. In fact, they seemed willing to do anything for her. As would he. “Are you close to your parents now?”
Another short intake of breath. Hope fixed her stare on a painting on the wall. “I love them.”
“That’s not the same as being close.”
Hope turned her glance to Max, who was drowsily sucking on the bottle. She reached over and tucked her little finger into his tiny fist.
The action had her forearm resting against Garrett’s chest. He liked the feel of that. Even better was the fact that she didn’t immediately pull away from the cozy physical contact.
“Do you and your parents not get along?” Garrett asked.
He could understand that, too.
There were times when he and his mother still irritated the heck out of each other. Usually because his mother was surreptitiously pushing him to do what she wanted him to do, not what was right for him, in his view.
Hope sighed. “My parents were always extremely critical.” She shook her head, the pain in her eyes matching the pain in her voice. “There was simply no pleasing them.” Her shoulders rose, then fell. “I disappointed them even more when I didn’t join the family business.”
“They must be proud of your success now.”
“Yes.” Seeing Max had, indeed, gone to sleep, she put her laptop on the coffee table, gathered her son into her arms and carried him into the bedroom.
When she returned, she settled on the sofa, removing the pillow she had previously put between them. Looking as weary as he expected her to be, at that time of night, she stretched both long, lissome legs out in front of her and propped her slipper-clad feet on the coffee table. Her head fell to rest against the back of the sofa. Noting how exhausted she seemed, how in need of comforting, he stretched an arm on the sofa behind her, and pulled her closer, into the curve of his body. Sighing blissfully, she rested her head on his shoulder, then she picked up the conversation as if no time had elapsed. “Yes, my parents are proud of my professional success,” she said.
“But...?” he sensed there was more.
Her slender body tensing, Hope snuggled closer. His pulse took another leap at the effortless way their bodies aligned.
Hope sighed. “They didn’t like the fact that I had a baby on my own. Or the fact that I got fired for being involved with a British reporter, after the scandal with the ambassador’s son was resolved. They wish I’d move back to Houston, take a place nearby and raise Max there.”
“I’m guessing that doesn’t fit in with your plans?”
Her expression wistful, she admitted, “I do want him to have family. More than just me.”
He could understand that. It was a lot to raise a child on your own. Still keeping her tucked in the curve of his body, he reached over and took her hand in his. Gratified, her fingers tightened in his. “But...?” he asked, just as softly, guessing there was a caveat.
She gazed down at their clasped hands, said fiercely, “I don’t want him to ever grow up feeling like he is in the way, or somehow less than people who have more money, or feel criticized at every turn, like I did.”
Garrett understood that. He wouldn’t want that for either Hope or Max, either. “Okay, then,” he said gruffly, bringing her closer still, wishing he had the power to make all their dreams come true.
“What do you want for you and for Max, ideally?”
* * *
WHAT DO I WANT? Hope thought, her emotions getting the better of her once again. You in our life. But aware it was way too soon to say something like that to Garrett, when thus far all they’d had was a tentative friendship and a fling that would likely end when he reenlisted and took the job in DC, she ducked her head and fibbed, “I don’t know.”
Garrett shifted her over onto his lap. Hand beneath her chin, he lifted her face to his so that she could not help but look into the mesmerizing depths of his eyes.
His smile was slow and sensual.
“How about this?” He lowered his head and kissed her in a way that was tender and provocative. Hope’s lips tingled. Lower she felt a burning desire between her thighs. And still he seduced her with his lips and tongue, as if he were on a mission to fulfill her deepest wishes, to provide an intimacy that included everything but commitment and pure romantic love.
She drew back on a long, lust-filled sigh. Doing her best to contain her out-of-control emotions, she said, “I think you know the answer to that.”
She did want to make love with him. Beyond that, she didn’t know. But maybe she didn’t have to think, she realized as he slid his hands to her waist and brought her flush against him.
Maybe she didn’t have to be perfect.
As he had said, he hadn’t hired her, so there was no conflict of interest between the two of them. All he wanted was to make love with her, and all she wanted and needed was to make love with him, too. This time, not as the result of some kind of crisis with Max. Or because they needed to discover if the first time was as good as they thought it had been. But because they were getting closer.
Pretending a great deal more detachment than she felt, she moved off his lap and said breathlessly, “Just to be clear.” Because her legs felt wobbly, she settled on the sofa next to him once again. She turned toward him, so her bent knee nudged his rock-hard thigh. “You know this is still just a fling... That work still takes precedence?”
Was she speaking more to herself or to him? Who was she warning here? Garrett wondered.
His body thrumming with need, he drew her to her feet. He tangled one hand in the spill of Hope’s hair. The other slid down her back, settled against her waist.
“I know we’re headed into forbidden territory,” he whispered roughly against her mouth.
And, as far as that went, it was fine with him. He didn’t care what fibs Hope had to tell herself. As long as they came together like this, found more to life than either had been experiencing. His body igniting, he felt her melt against him.
“I know I want you.” He kissed her again, until her breasts rubbed up against him, as did the rest of her from shoulder to knee. Needing more, he danced her backward to the wall, grinding his hips against hers until the hard ridge of his arousal pressed against the softness between her thighs. She trembled as they kissed. And shuddered even more as he divested her of her shorts and relieved her of her panties.
Her lips softened beneath his and she clung to him, her hands slipping beneath his shirt to caress his shoulders, back, spine. Able to feel how much she needed and wanted him, he opened her blouse and bra, slid between her thighs, pulled both her legs to his waist and set about exploring even more.
Joy pulsed through him. Her head fell back as, eyes closed, she gave herself over to his tender ministrations. And only when she was wet and ready did he step back long enough to drop his trousers and roll on a condom.
She leaned against the wall, their eyes locked, the air between them charged with excitement. She beckoned him close, running her hands over the hard muscles of his thighs, the curve of his buttocks, the small of his back, before coming back around to cup the weight of him in her hot, smooth palms. Stroking, learning, tempting. Fierce pulsing need swept through him as he pressed up against her, lifting her, positioning her as kiss followed kiss, caress followed caress. And still it wasn’t enough, not nearly enough.
Needing to possess her the way he had never possessed any woman, Garrett wrapped her legs around his waist, and smoothly moved up, in, pushing his erection into her trembling wetness, until they fit together more snugly than he could ever have imagined.
She cried out and fisted her hands in his hair. “More...”
Arching against him, her hands slid down to his hips. Once there, she directed him to move with tantalizing slowness. Then faster, deeper. Filling and retreating. Finding meaning in every breath, every kiss, every sweet, hot caress. Until at last everything merged. Passion and need, tenderness and surrender. She met him wantonly, stroke for stroke. Satisfaction rushed through them, and there was no more fighting the free-falling ecstasy that warmed their hearts and filled their souls.
* * *
GARRETT THOUGHT THEY might call it a night and retreat to his bed, to sleep wrapped in each other’s arms until Max woke, needing to be nursed again.
Instead, Hope disengaged herself from him almost immediately and slipped away. When she returned, she was wearing another pair of summery cotton pajamas. Her hair had been pulled back, her makeup washed off.
She was ready for bed, all right, but she couldn’t have been more businesslike as she retrieved her laptop computer. “What was your favorite memory as a kid?”
Garrett strode off to his bedroom. He returned in his own nightwear, a pair of jersey running shorts and an army-issue T-shirt. “Tell me you’re not still working.”
She gave him a look. “You know I am.”
She had warned him.
So why was he surprised?
Aware it was getting harder and harder not to spill his guts to her every time they were together, he went to the kitchen and plucked a crisp apple out of the fruit bowl. “Tell me you’re not going to use any of this in your narrative.”
She watched him take a bite of the sweet, delicious fruit. “Only if you give me permission.”
Their eyes clashed. The closeness they’d felt when they were talking earlier and making love faded.
Garrett strolled closer, persisting, “I get to review everything that pertains to me and my family.”
“Okay,” she agreed from her place at the long plank table.
Garrett took a chair at the end, kitty-corner from her. “When I was a little kid, every once in a while my mom and dad would bring us out to visit my Grandpa Lockhart at his family ranch, the one where my brother Wyatt now lives.”
Briefly, Hope consulted her notes. “The Wind River Ranch.”
“Yes.”
Her head lifted and her green eyes locked on his. “You did a lot of cowboy stuff?”
Exhaling sharply, he found himself wanting to be the stuff of her fantasies. “Yes and no.” Summoned memories came flooding back. “Grandpa Lockhart was career military, so he spent more time showing my brothers and me how to defend ourselves and survive in the wild than how to wrangle a calf. But there was just something about being out in the countryside—small towns, in general. It was so different from Dallas.”
“Sounds like you almost got emotionally attached to a part of the Lone Star State,” she teased.
Garrett kicked back in his chair. “Maybe to all the military lore...it sure made me want to follow in my grandpa’s footsteps. Anyway, Grandpa Lockhart died when I was ten, and my mom and dad sold the Wind River Ranch, the way they had sold my mom’s family ranch, and put the money into expanding Dad’s company. So we never came back until my dad got sick, when they told us they’d been out here, buying property in Laramie County, not just for themselves, but for all of us.”
Hope typed a little more, then paused to look up at him. “It sounds nice.”
He finished chewing another bite of apple. “I guess it was, as far as gestures go.”
Hope rested her chin on her hand. “You think that’s all it was? A gesture?”
He wasn’t sure what she was getting at. “What else could it have been?”
“Chance and Wyatt live here now.”
“Only because they had already been working as cowboys and always wanted to ranch. Zane and I...”
“Are military through and through?”
Two weeks ago, he would have said, yes, he was.
Now...
Now that he’d spent time with Hope, he wasn’t sure what was true.
She went back to typing data into her computer, even more fiercely. Finally, she paused. Narrowed her gaze. Surveyed him, head to toe. As aware as he that he still hadn’t answered her. Mostly because he had no reply to give. Just yet.
“Does this mean you decided not to reenlist and take the slot at Walter Reed in Maryland?”
It means I don’t know. And until I do...
He got up to throw his apple core in the trash, hesitating only long enough to wash his hands and get a drink of water before striding purposefully back to her side.
Decision made, he took her by the hand. Pulled her to her feet. “Enough questions.”
Her breath caught audibly. “Garrett! What...?”
Figuring that the only way he could give either of them any peace at this moment was to make love to her, he wove his hands through her hair, lifted her lips to his. “It’s late,” he told her, kissing her until her knees went weak and she kissed him back just as passionately.
“There’s only one thing we need to do now,” he growled, breathing in the sweet, womanly scent of her and swinging her up into his arms. “And that’s go to bed.”
So they did.