He couldn’t sleep.
At midnight he tossed the covers off and punched his pillow. At twelve-thirty, he stared at the sliver of light coming through his bedroom window and counted backward from fifty. At one o’clock, he swore and sat on the edge of the bed.
He wasn’t going to open the damn package.
Cara had left it on the front seat of the truck’s cab when he’d dropped her off at her cabin. She’d looked so pleased with herself when she’d hopped out of the truck and waved goodbye. The woman was enough to drive any man crazy.
He thought about her lying in bed right now, that long, curvy body, her soft, silky skin. He imagined the feel of her breasts against his chest as he covered her body with his and pressed her into the mattress.
His fists tightened on the rumpled sheets. Frustrated, he decided he was better off thinking about the package than Cara Sinclair.
What could possibly be inside the shoebox-size parcel that would matter to him? Some pictures of people he’d never known? A few mementos that had belonged to a father who had died before he was even born? Or maybe a present, a bribe of some kind to entice him to come to Philadelphia.
He didn’t care if the Queen’s jewels were in that box. He wasn’t going anywhere but back to Washington. His leave was up in six days, and he’d already been assigned to an undercover unit in Cairo. He’d be on a plane a few days from now, then gone for at least three months.
With a sigh he dragged both hands over his scalp. It was his third high-risk assignment in eighteen months. The cell phone company had been his front for the past ten years, since he’d been recruited into the Agency straight from the Marines. As far as everyone in the outside world knew, he was a simple business man traveling overseas.
Strange how ten years could feel like a lifetime.
He wasn’t sure why he did it anymore. Not for the money. He’d never cared about money, and besides, he’d invested well over the past ten years and didn’t have to work another day if he didn’t want to. And he certainly didn’t do it for the rush. The first few years he’d thrived on the adrenaline, the danger, but that honeymoon was long over, too.
Yanking on his jeans, he stumbled to the kitchen and turned on the light. He thought about a beer, but knew that wouldn’t be strong enough to cut the edge off the tension knotting his body. There was a bottle of Johnny Walker in the cupboard. He’d been saving it for the prewedding dinner at Lucas and Julianna’s house tomorrow night—tonight, he corrected himself.
He pulled the bottle out of the cupboard, grabbed a glass, then sat at the kitchen table.
And stared at the package sitting ten inches away from him.
It was harmless in appearance. Brown paper and shiny packing tape; Ian doubted it weighed more than one pound. The return address was handwritten in black pen. The writing was as feminine as it was formal and neat: “Margaret Muldoon. West Third Street. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”
He broke the whisky label and poured himself a shot.
Outside, an owl hooted in the darkness. Inside, the clock over the stove ticked the seconds away.
Dammit to hell.
He snatched up the package, ripped off the paper, then opened the cardboard box.
It was filled with envelopes. Different sizes, different colors. The top envelope, yellowed with age, had the number one on it. The card inside was pale green, with a white kitten and black spotted puppy. “For Baby’s First Birthday,” it read.
A child’s birthday card?
He opened the card, read the generic greeting-card poem inside, then the handwritten inscription. “For my grandbaby, where ever you might be. My love goes with you always. Grandmama.”
Ian quickly glanced through the stack of envelopes. All of them were birthday cards. There were thirty-three.
He was thirty-three.
Bewildered, he stared at the box.
His grandmother, a woman he’d never met, who hadn’t even known if he was dead or alive, had bought him a birthday card every year for thirty-three years?
He downed the shot of whisky, then reached for the second card. There were circus clowns and animals hanging from a large number two. The handwritten note inside the card read, “You must be so big by now, and talking, too. I wonder often if you are a boy or a girl, if you have your father’s eyes, your mother’s hair. If you know you have a grandmama who loves you very much.”
He stared at the words, disbelieving. These were his birthday cards, each one of them meant for him.
The notes inside became longer with each consecutive card. Year five she asked about kindergarten, year seven she wondered about sports and music. Each year asked different questions about school or likes and dislikes, all of them were signed: “With love from Grandmama.”
Ian smiled at number twelve. There was a photograph of a grinning orangutan on the front of the card, its big hairy hand holding a dozen brightly colored balloons. Inside, under the simple “Happy Birthday” wish, Margaret wrote, “How grown-up you must be. A handsome young man, or a stunning young woman. I miss sharing these years with you, but you are in my heart always. I can only pray that one day God will smile on me and bring us together.”
Confused, he stared at the stack of cards piled on the table and rubbed at the tightness inside his bare chest. He didn’t understand why Margaret had done this, or why she had continued year after year, when the hope of ever finding a grandchild—a child that might not even exist—had proven so futile. If nothing else, Margaret Muldoon was tenacious.
He downed the lump in his throat with another shot of whisky, and unbidden, the thought of another woman, equally tenacious, came to mind. One considerably younger, one that had him in chaos since the first moment he’d laid eyes on her.
Cara, with her smiling green eyes and sassy mouth. He remembered the kiss he’d given her that first day, a simple kiss meant only to keep her quiet. But there’d been nothing simple about it at all. Even now he could feel the soft press of her lips under his, he could still taste the sweetness of apricots.
Dammit, anyway!
He sent the cards flying with a sweep of his arm. She’d brought all this aggravation into his life. Aggravation he didn’t need, and sure as hell didn’t want. No woman had given him sleepless nights before or intruded endlessly into his thoughts. No woman had ever left him wanting or tied him up in knots so tightly he couldn’t think straight.
He jumped, then swore when the phone in the living room rang. It had to be Jordan. No doubt she was more than annoyed with him for not calling her, and the fact that it was almost two in the morning wouldn’t matter even remotely to her.
He grabbed the phone on the third ring. “Dammit, Jordan, get off my back. I’ll call you when I’m good and ready.”
“It’s not Jordan,” a feminine voice whispered. “It’s Cara.”
“Cara?” His hand tightened on the phone. “What’s wrong?”
“Ah, if you aren’t too busy, could you come over here?” There was a sharp intake of breath. “I think there’s someone trying to break in the front door.”
Cara stood behind the door in the pitch-darkness, a castiron skillet in her hands. The scratching sound she’d heard only a moment ago had stopped. Except for the pounding of her heart, now there was only silence.
Breath held, shivering in her thin cotton tank top and boxers, she waited.
The doorknob creaked, then turned.
Her hands tightened around the handle of the heavy frying pan; she sucked in a breath as the door slowly opened. When the dark shape stepped into the room, she raised the pan over her head.
“Cara?”
Ian? Too late to stop her swing, she brought the pan down, though not as hard as she would have. It landed with a solid hit, and she heard a hard object scoot across the wood floor. An explicit string of swear words filled the quiet.
“Oh, my God, Ian!” The frying pan slipped from her hands and clattered to the floor. “Are you all right?”
“Sure I am,” he muttered irritably. “You just cracked my skull in half, why wouldn’t I be?”
“How did you get here so fast? I just called you.” She reached out into the darkness, made contact with his head. “I thought you were a prowler.”
“Ow!” He jerked away. “What the hell did you hit me with, a slab of concrete?”
“Frying pan.” She closed the door, then took his hand and carefully dragged him to the living room sofa. “I think I broke it.”
“My head or the frying pan?” he grumbled, but let himself be pulled down on the sofa beside her. “Where the hell is my gun?”
She flipped on the lamp beside the couch. Soft light spilled over them. “You brought a gun?”
“No, I was wondering where my gun at home is.” He dropped his head into his hands. “Of course I brought a gun. You said someone was breaking in.”
“I just didn’t realize you had one, that’s all.” She spotted the pistol on the floor by the coffee table and shivered at the sight of it. She hated guns. “Is it loaded?” He turned his head sideways, glanced at her with a look that told her it definitely was. She shivered again.
When his eyes closed in pain again, she reached for him. “Here, let me look at your head.”
“You’ve done enough for one night.” He jerked away when she touched his head.
She frowned at him. “Stop acting like a baby and come here.”
“Baby? Me? You’re the one who called me, remember?”
“I heard something.”
“And you were scared.”
“I wasn’t scared,” she lied. “I had the situation completely under control. I only called you in case I needed backup.”
“You were scared.” He brought his face close to hers and narrowed his eyes. “Admit it, Sinclair.”
She sighed with exasperation. Admitting weakness to this man was like riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Sooner or later she was going to be sorry.
More than likely it was going to be sooner.
“All right, maybe I was scared, just a little bit,” she admitted. “It could have been a bear out there, or a patient escaped from a mental institution.”
“At least that would be someone you could identify with,” he said testily, then yelped when she yanked on his ears and pulled his head onto her lap. “Hey, that hurt.”
“Be still and keep quiet.”
He closed his eyes on a grimace, tolerating her ministrations. The light from the lamp hardened his features, sharpened his tightly held jaw and firm mouth. Cara thought he had the fierce look of an outlaw being led to the gallows.
“How did you get here so fast, anyway? Oh, that’s right,” she said sweetly. “I forgot they called you Flash. I hope that doesn’t extend into all areas of your life, Shawnessy.”
He gave a low growl as he started to sit, but she cupped his face in her hands and forced him to be still. A coarse, day’s growth of beard rasped against her palms and sent currents of electricity up her arms. She felt disgusted with herself. She’d wounded the man, now she wanted to jump his bones.
Maybe he was right. Maybe she did belong in a mental institution. Sighing heavily, she touched her fingers to his temple. “Now lie still and let me look.”
And she did, though not at his head. Her gaze dropped to his bare chest, and though it was hardly the time, it was impossible not to admire his physique, the strong masculine angles of solid muscle, sprinkled with dark, coarse hair. Her hands itched to slide over that broad expanse of sinew and feel the touch of his skin under her fingertips. Her attention dropped lower, to his flat, hard stomach, then lower still, to the unsnapped top of his jeans. Heat flooded through her, and she jerked her gaze away, thankful that Ian’s eyes were still tightly closed.
The back of his head was nestled across her thighs, his cheek and ear pressed against her stomach. Soft ribbons of heat curled from her waist downward. She willed her hands not to tremble as she lightly skimmed her fingers through his thick hair and over his scalp.
He sucked in a breath when she touched a rising knot on top of his head. “Oops.”
He frowned. “What, oops?”
“Well, the good news is, there’s no blood. The bad news is, you’ll have a bump the size of a Volkswagen.”
“Gosh, I’m so glad you gave me the good news first,” he mumbled, but the edge of anger that had been in his voice a moment ago was gone now. She felt the tension in his shoulders ease as he relaxed his head on her legs.
Cara knew she should move away. They were both half-naked, lying on the couch with the darkness surrounding them. She in her tank top and boxers, Ian wearing only a pair of jeans. Her fingers moved restlessly through his hair, though they both knew she’d already found the damage she’d inflicted.
And still she couldn’t stop herself.
Nor did he stop her.
Her fingernails lightly scraped over his scalp, and he relaxed under her touch. She was certain he could hear the heavy beat of her heart.
“Did you see anyone outside?” she asked quietly. “Or anything?”
He shook his head, inadvertently rubbing against her belly. She had to remind herself to breathe.
He still hadn’t opened his eyes, and she took advantage of the opportunity to explore his face. She discovered a small, jagged scar over his left eye and a long, razor-thin scar under his chin. A dark shadow of a beard covered his strong, square jaw. Transfixed, she stared at his mouth, and just the thought of running her fingers over those firm lips made her hand tingle.
This was dangerous, she knew. As dangerous as it was foolish. She should get up, or at least move away.
She didn’t.
“Something was out there.” She did her best to focus on what had frightened her, instead of the sensations washing through her body at the moment. “Or someone. I didn’t imagine it.”
“Well, whoever or whatever it was, is gone now. Unlike the bump on my head,” he reminded her.
“I’ll get some ice.”
She started to rise, but he reached up and circled her wrists with his hands.
“No.”
It was not a request, but a command. He opened his eyes and stared at her. She couldn’t breath. Couldn’t think.
The intensity of his dark gaze excited, yet terrified her at the same time. Her previous fear suddenly seemed like nothing compared to what she was experiencing now. She tried to speak, to laugh this craziness off, but her throat felt like cotton. The tension between them felt like a living, breathing creature, an animal coiled and ready to spring from the darkness.
She was hardly a woman of the world when it came to sex, but she wasn’t a virgin, either, in spite of her brothers’ determination that she remain celibate her entire life. They’d been successful deterring her suitors until she’d escaped to college, and by that time she’d been much too curious to delay the experience. She’d chosen her first lover carefully, but with her head instead of her heart, and the relationship was doomed from the start. Not wanting a repeat of that situation, she’d decided not to settle, and had waited for the fireworks she’d heard so much about. And waited and waited.
And now here she was, a regular Fourth-of-July explosion going on inside her, and it was all wrong. He was all wrong.
He brought her hands to his mouth, pressed feather-soft kisses on each palm. Her heart slammed in her chest.
“Ian,” she gasped as his tongue caressed her wrists. “I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
“It’s not.”
He brought her hands to his chest, then slipped his arms around her waist as he turned his head into her stomach and pressed his mouth to her navel. Her head dropped back on a soft moan. Thin cotton was the only thing separating his mouth from her bare skin, and it was all she could do to stop herself from ripping the tank top off.
He took his time nuzzling her. The heat of his mouth and breath stoked the fire building inside her. Her fingers curled over his neck and upper shoulders; his skin was damp, the scent woodsy, masculine. She heard the sound of her own labored breathing, then the low groan from deep in his throat as he pulled her closer to him.
She’d never experienced anything like this before; passion that consumed so completely, so thoroughly. She hadn’t known it even existed beyond the movies and books. Sex had been pleasant enough, but never earth-shattering, never overpowering.
Never devastating.
That thought flew apart when he used his teeth to push the unwanted fabric out of his way and bared her stomach to him. His mouth was hot on her skin; he nipped and tasted the soft flesh as he slowly moved upward. She felt herself melt under his touch, her bones soften like warm taffy.
His hands slid under soft cotton and cupped her breasts. She arched upward on a gasp when his thumbs caressed her hardened nipples. Sensations, as exquisite as they were intense, rippled through her. She burrowed her fingers into his scalp, wanting more of this incredible pleasure.
He gave it to her. His mouth replaced his thumb, and she caught her breath on a soft, low moan. His wet, hot tongue swirled over the sensitive peak, sending hot currents of pain-pleasure through her.
She had to touch him, it was absolutely necessary. Her hands roamed over the solid muscles of his upper arms, slid over his wide, strong shoulders. He felt like a raging river of liquid steel under her, and she let herself be swept up in the current of passion engulfing them both.
“Ian.” His name was a soft, breathless whisper on her lips. “Ian, oh, my—” Her words were cut off as he moved to her other breast and offered the same delicious attention with his mouth and tongue.
It felt as if she were on fire; flames licked at her skin. She needed him closer. Impatient, she cupped his head in her hands, then dragged her fingers over his scalp.
He sucked in a sharp breath and swore, then slowly sat as he dropped his head into his hands.
In her dazed state, it took a moment to realize why he’d moved away from her, then she groaned and dropped her head back against the sofa. His head. She’d completely forgotten she’d bashed in his head with a frying pan. Of course he’d be in pain. And she’d just dug her fingernails directly into the source of that pain.
Embarrassment flamed on her cheeks. Not only because she’d hurt him, but because of what had just happened between them—not to mention what would have happened. She quickly pulled her tank top back into place.
“Oh, Ian, I’m so sorry. I…I wasn’t thinking.”
Still holding his head in his hands, he let out a long, slow breath. “That makes two of us.”
“I’ll get some ice.”
She started to rise, but once again he snagged her hand and pulled her back down. “Cara,” he said quietly. “I opened the package.”
The package? The package. She hadn’t thought of it once since she’d smashed him over the head. Her body was still humming from his kisses, and she was finding it hard to think about the package even now that he’d reminded her. Especially with his hand still touching her arm and his thigh pressed against hers.
She had to dig deep, but she mustered up a light tone. “So you caved, did you? How long did you hold out?”
He chuckled at that, then winced from the effort. “Do you know what was inside?”
“Margaret didn’t tell me.” She wanted to brush the hair off his forehead and kiss his temple. Instead, she tugged at the edge of her cotton knit boxers, wishing she’d worn sweats or flannel pajamas. Anything that would have covered her, that would have made her feel less vulnerable.
“They were birthday cards.”
“Birthday cards?”
“She’d bought one for me, every year, from my first birthday on, and kept them all.”
Cara frowned. “But she didn’t know about you, if you even existed.”
“She didn’t know my name,” he said with a sigh, “or even if I was a boy or girl, but she believed that I—her grandchild—was alive.”
The thought made Cara’s eyes tear. All these years, even though there’d never been one shred of evidence to prove that her grandchild had lived after birth, Margaret had clung to her hope, to what she believed in her heart. Every card was a symbol of that hope. And of her love.
“Ian—” she scooted to the edge of the couch and turned to face him “—you’re Margaret’s only grandchild. Don’t you see how important you are to her, how much she needs to see you, if only once before she dies?”
He shook his head slowly. “If I go, she’ll just want to see me one more time after that. Then it will be Thanksgiving and Christmas, long, chatty phone calls every Sunday. Vacations. I can’t give her any of that, Cara. If I go even once, I’ll only end up hurting her more.”
It was the first time he’d acted like he gave a damn at all. If only a little, maybe that whack on the head had softened him, she thought with a smile. She knew he wasn’t going to like her observations on the subject one little bit, but that hadn’t stopped her before, and it wouldn’t stop her now.
“It scares you, doesn’t it?”
Eyes narrowed, he glanced over at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’re afraid that it isn’t just Margaret who might want a relationship,” she said evenly. “You’re afraid you might want one with her, too.”
His laugh was dry. “You’re crazy.”
“You’re safe where you are right now,” she went on, even though she saw his expression darkening. “No serious commitment or responsibility, just a couple of old chums you get together with now and then. But a grandmother, that’s an entirely different story. You might care about her, worry about her, maybe even love her. She might matter to you. And that, Killian Shawnessy Muldoon, absolutely terrifies you.”
A muscle worked at his jaw. “Was this some kind of a setup, Blondie? Call me over here in the middle of the night, then get me in your bed so I’ll agree to go to Philadelphia? Some girls will do anything for twenty bucks.”
His crude verbal blow struck her square in her chest, sucked the air from her lungs. Her impulse was to slap him, but then he’d know how deeply he’d hurt her, and she refused to show him weakness.
She drew in a slow, deep breath and stood. “I apologize for calling you, and for hitting you. What happened between us after that was unprofessional of me, and I assure you it won’t happen again.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Cara, look, I—”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d leave.” She moved toward the front door and opened it. “Now.”
He rose stiffly from the couch, picked up his gun off the floor and moved toward her. When he paused at the front door, she lifted her chin and met his heavy gaze, dared him to speak, to say just one thing. This time she wouldn’t hold back, and she sure as hell wouldn’t apologize.
His eyes went black with a mixture of anger and frustration, then he clamped his lips tightly together and stormed out the door.
It took tremendous restraint on her part not to slam the door after him. She closed it quietly, then leaned back against the cold wood and fought the threatening tears. He wasn’t worth it, she told herself over and over. He wasn’t.
He wasn’t.
She looked down at the doorknob and frowned. Ian had just walked in, but she was certain she’d locked the door before she went to bed.
Hadn’t she?
She didn’t know what she was doing these past couple of days. It was easy to forget things when her mind was so preoccupied with Ian. And now, after what had just happened between them, she’d be lucky if she remembered how to tie her shoes.
With a sigh she locked the door and headed back to her bed, but she had the distinct feeling she wouldn’t be getting much sleep.