Loving him couldn’t make any difference. She wouldn’t let it. The children had to come first, and the best thing for them was obviously Rafe. Just Rafe. Not Rafe and flawed Zoe.
She wanted to be home. She so badly wanted to be home. In a couple of weeks, she could be there. She’d be able to hear the gulls and smell the sea. In Washington, she’d feel more rational. She’d built a fine life around her whales and her friends and her apartment, a life that so carefully didn’t include children. Or a man who came with kids.
Rafe would have her believe he needed and wanted her. What he really needed and wanted was a strong woman prepared to climb mountains with him. She wasn’t that woman. Once upon a time, yes; once upon a time, she’d had an ego healthy enough to believe she was really something, and that a little curve life threw her was not going to get her down. It had gotten her down, from the time she’d hurt Steven. To risk being less than adequate as a mother-and to risk failing Rafe as a woman-those were risks she simply couldn’t take.
From snow to sea was a heady transition. The jet, the rented car and, last, the ferry, had brought her home to her island in Puget Sound. Zoe’s pulse pounded exuberantly those last miles. If she couldn’t see them yet, she could imagine the grape-winged gulls soaring overhead in search of their dinner, the jeweled colors of a sunset over the roar and pound of waves, the smell and flavor of a Pacific salt wind.
There’d been some question in her mind whether she’d survive the last two weeks in Montana. The answer was obvious. She had, and she was here. Home, where everything would be fine. She stole a glance at Rafe as he whisked a napping Aaron off her lap to carry him up to her door. In a denim jacket, the salt wind tangling in his hair, Rafe looked elementally male, and the tight-lipped look he shot her was unmistakably irritated.
Anger, she thought fleetingly, was really a marvelous emotion. The next best thing to chicken soup for curing a few difficult aches and pains. When a man was angry, he kept his distance. In the meantime, she had absolutely no doubt he was growing attached to the kids, and she was home.
“Come on, Parker. Can you carry this little box for me?”
“This is where you live?” Parker was busy staring all around him. Her place was an old, huge, white-frame house that had been converted to three apartments. Two chestnuts and a fat cottonwood shaded the lawn, and a totally unorganized garden of lady’s slippers and primroses and morning glories sprawled around the edges of the yard. “But where are your whales, Snookums? I’ve been waiting and waiting.”
“They’re a little too big to keep in the apartment, sweetheart.” Par for the course, she had her arms loaded before she thought to take the key out of her purse.
“Where are the mountains?”
“Sorry, love, I don’t have mountains.”
“No snow either?” Parker asked mournfully.
“No snow either,” she had to confirm. It stung, just for an instant, that the boys could never like her place as much as Rafe’s. But then she reminded herself that that was exactly what she wanted, for all three males to realize that they were happier in Montana. “There’s a park a few blocks away, though, and a movie theater. Seawind isn’t a very big town, but we’re close by the water. You can collect stones and shells and stuff…”
At last she found the key and slid it into the lock. Jay, who lived in the upstairs apartment, had promised to take care of her plants and make sure there was milk in the refrigerator when she returned. She’d done the same for him when he’d vacationed, but still, she suddenly couldn’t remember exactly what shape she’d left the place in, and her eyes jumped up to Rafe’s again.
“It’s nowhere as large as your house,” she warned. “You have to remember that when I left here, I didn’t know I was coming back with three extra people. I can’t imagine where we’re going to fit everyone…”
As they all stepped inside, she rambled on. Paying no attention, Rafe took the heavy box she’d insisted on carrying, and then grabbed the suitcase before she could reach for it. The woman was driving him nuts, which she damn well knew. Radiating confidence, wearing a sassy smile, blithe as a spring breeze, she could probably benefit from a slight shaking. The problem was that he could never stay angry with her for long.
Zoe was a master of stubbornness. Arguing with her was like fighting with the wind: The gusts just kept coming, strong, cool and relentless. He’d argued with her when he’d found her rocking Aaron at four in the morning. He’d argued with her when she’d claimed she’d broken the needle on his stereo, when very obviously Parker had done it, and Rafe didn’t care about the damn thing anyway. He’d argued with her over spending part of her life’s savings on children’s books.
She was wearing herself out caring for the twins, but he couldn’t make her see it. She refused to recognize that she was fantastic with them, and she’d done her level best to get out of spending three weeks with them on her turf. Even last night, she’d still been arguing that there was no point in their coming here; the kids obviously belonged with him.
Where the damn woman belonged was with him, where he could protect her and love her and take care of her and love her…and more things like that.
Instead, she figured she had everything all set. He’d be with the monsters all day forming the attachment she was so anxious for him to feel, and she’d be off at her job, busy being emotionally uninvolved. He knew she felt she had to protect herself. He understood about that emotional brick wall she’d built up. He was just at an increasing loss as to how to convince her that he wasn’t going to hurt her. All he wanted to do was love her.
“Hold on, Geronimo!”
Both boys halted in midair with guilty expressions.
“We’re not going to touch anything until we have Zoe’s permission, are we, boys?”
“Rafe, it’s all right-”
“Is that clear?” he demanded of the boys.
It was clear; they even bounded off to explore at a reasonably sedate space.
“I’m afraid they’ll have to sleep in a double bed. That’s all I’ve got in the spare room.”
“It’ll do just fine.”
“I don’t have that much closet space. I’ll move things to make space for your clothes just as soon as-”
“Yes,” he clipped out, but he wasn’t really listening. Tossing his jacket on a chair, he glanced around the room, and every ounce of irritation and frustration slowly faded from his system.
Her living room wouldn’t survive a five-minute assault by the four-year-olds. She had four similar lamps. He thought they were called Tiffany-style lamps; they had stained-glass shades that gleamed like jewels when switched on. A whimsical collection of pewter candlesnuffers sat on a cherry table that had been varnished to a high gleam. Near the door stood a hat rack festooned with a dozen of those crazy hats she loved.
She must have started with a neutral color scheme-at least the couch and rug were of a muted sand color. It had been silly of her, really; bland colors weren’t Zoe. A cluster of peacock feathers waved brightly from a brass umbrella stand in the corner. Fat couch pillows displayed more rainbow colors, so did a handmade afghan crocheted in bright squares. Her bookcase was another catchall for color…polished stones she must have picked up at the beach, a hand-painted cup and saucer, a crystal dangling where it caught the light. Plants hung in the windows. Maybe they’d been tame at one time, but the greenery had long since taken to sprawling wildly in search of every ray of available light. Like Zoe, who so indomitably reached for zest and life, and who was so damned sure she was happy settling for tameness and safety.