He got a grip on himself as best he could and then headed up the stairs.Right as she was coming out of the nursery.
And then it was just the two of them, standing in the hall, in the moonlit darkness.He could hear her breathing, his own heart beating so hard in his chest, he thought it might explode.
“She’s down,” she said.
“Good.We should both get some sleep.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
She looked at her hands, just for a moment, and he fought the urge to reach out and grip her chin between his thumb and forefinger.To ask her to look at him.He fought the urge that had existed inside him since he was sixteen years old.All the urges he hadn’t been able to follow, and suddenly he was really angry at his younger brother.
Because Ty had taken one of the Parks sisters and smashed her up.
And in doing so he had prevented Clark from ever being able to touch the woman he’d wanted for half his life.
It didn’t seem fair.He’d spent all these years suppressing that anger.
He’d spent all these years trying so hard to be on Ty’s side.To just be his older brother.To love him in the way he ought to.
And it had kept him from this.
He wanted to touch her.
She looked up at him, her eyes meeting his, and he heard her breath catch.
“You’re so pretty,” he whispered.
She froze then, mid-breath, her lips parted just slightly.And he felt an ache bloom in his stomach.Spread outward.He felt his entire body heat.
His heart beating fast and hard, he followed his impulse and lifted his hand, touched her chin.
She closed her eyes, her breath coming out in a shaky gust.
“You’ve always been so beautiful,” he whispered.
She opened her eyes, and it was as if reality slammed hard against his chest.
He dropped his hand, took a step away.“I’m glad I have you,” he said quickly.“Glad she has you.”
A reminder of why they were here.Why they were standing in this darkened hallway?It had nothing to do with them.With their attraction to each other.
He turned away from her and went back down the hallway toward his room.He closed the door behind him, and he locked it.Because he didn’t trust himself.He didn’t trust himself not to take what he wanted.
And the hardest part was that he could see she wanted him too.He didn’t know for how long.He didn’t know if it was a recent attraction or something that had been burning inside her for years, but he knew it was there.And that meant he needed to stay far, far away.That meant he couldn’t let his guard down.
No.He had to be vigilant.He had to protect this new family of theirs.And that meant not trying and failing at having a relationship with her.
He had been strong for a long damned time.He just had to go on being strong.
CHAPTER12
Picnicking with Ellie and Marjorie was becoming a semi-regular event.Today, they’d opted to take their lunch to the petrified forest.Marjorie was lying on her blanket, kicking her feet in the sun, and he and Ellie were sitting on their blanket, eating their sandwiches.
“It’s the strangest thing, Ellie,” he said.“We’ve seen each other in crisis mode all the time.And now we’re seeing each other in parenting mode.What did you do in the years between all of that?”
“I went to school,” she said.“Had a couple of failed relationships.”
“You mentioned the man baby.”
