It took Ashley less than forty-eight hours to invade his world. Jeff had always had a biweekly cleaning service that took care of the house and washed his sheets and towels, but now he had a housekeeper.
Ashley took her work seriously. Pieces of furniture that had simply been dusted were now polished. Surfaces gleamed and the scent of lemon filled the air. He found vases of flowers on tables and light filtering in through sparkling windows. His sheets and towels were softer, his cupboards stocked with food and meals had become multi-course and nutritional. When he gave her accounting work, she did it quickly and accurately, returning it to him the following day.
Jeff hadn't realized how careful she'd been to keep to herself while she was simply a guest in his house. Now her presence was everywhere. Her perfume lingered in the hallway. A couple of Maggie's toys found their way to the family room. Schoolbooks stacked up on an end table. It was as if a family lived here.
A family. The concept was unfamiliar. He knew intellectually that there had been a time when he'd belonged to a family. He'd been born to parents who lived in suburbs, just like regular people. Jeff knew he'd been a part of that world once-playing sports in high school, hanging out with his friends. But those memories weren't real to him. It was as if he'd seen a movie about someone's past. A past that happened to be his own. He couldn't relate to those images and he didn't know how to act now that he was no longer alone.
He glanced at his watch. It was late, nearly midnight. Maggie was long asleep, but Ashley was still up, studying in the kitchen. The need to go to her compelled him to rise to his feet, even though he knew he shouldn't bother her. He walked toward the light, knowing he had no right to want to be with her, even when all he expected was simple conversation.
She haunted him. Much like the ghosts of his past, she was a constant presence in his mind. Yet unlike the memories of the dead, she made him feel better for occupying his thoughts. She made him anticipate-something he hadn't done in years. She made him need, which reminded him he was alive. But was that good or bad?
He reached the kitchen and stood in the doorway. The overhead light glinted off her dark hair. She wore jeans and a sweater. Her feet were bare and she'd tucked one up under her on the straight-backed chair.
Several books lay open across the table. She glanced at one, then returned her attention to the accounting paper in front of her.
One curl caressed her cheek. Looking at it made him press his fingers into his palm. He wanted to touch the curl… and the cheek. He wanted to feel the silk of her skin and the warmth of her body. He wanted…
"Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to join me?" She spoke without looking up.
Jeff frowned. He knew he hadn't made any noise. "How did you know I was here?"
She glanced at him and smiled. "It's a mom thing. Internal radar. The same mechanism tells me when Maggie is doing something she shouldn't." She pushed her foot against the chair next to her, moving the seat toward him in invitation. "I'm due to take a break." She pointed at the closest open textbook. "It's cost accounting, so you're doing me a favor by taking me away from it for a while. There are fresh cookies. Want one?"
He followed the direction of her finger and saw a heaping plate of cookies on the counter. "You're always trying to feed me."
She smiled. "That's because you don't eat very much. I'm a compulsive feeder."
"Another mom thing?"
"Probably. I want to take care of the world."
He moved toward the table, but didn't take the seat next to her. Instead he settled across from her-as much to see her as to make sure he wasn't close enough to touch. Something about the late hour made him question his ability to do the right thing. The need inside seemed to grow with each tick of the kitchen clock.
"Not all mothers are compelled to take care of everyone," he said. "It's about being a giver more than being maternal."
"Maybe." She rose to her feet and walked over to the cookie plate. After moving a couple of her books, she set it in the center of the table, then headed to the refrigerator. "What about your mother? What was she like?"
"A homemaker," he said as Ashley poured them each a glass of milk. "She liked to sew and bake. My dad worked for Ford. On the assembly line."
She put a full glass in front of him and resumed her seat. "Let me guess. You played football and were something of a flirt."
"I'll admit to the football."
Ashley had been kidding when she'd asked the question. She couldn't imagine Jeff as a young man. She'd never seen him out of a suit. Even now, despite the late hour, he wore a white shirt and slacks. He'd discarded his tie and rolled up his sleeves, but he hadn't bothered changing into something more casual. Did the man own jeans?
Not that it mattered. She was glad she had the cookies and milk to give her something other than Jeff to look at and touch. Otherwise she wasn't sure she could control herself around him. She'd never once in her life wanted to be sick, but right now she couldn't help wishing for a bit of the flu bug to return because it seemed to be the only thing that kept her immune to Jeff's masculine charms.
She hated the way she noticed the strength in his hands and wrists and the shivery sensation in her belly as she studied the stubble darkening his jaw. His voice sent ripples of need dancing along her spine and the darkness of the night made her think of bed and tangled sheets. She tried to convince herself it was a lack of male companionship that made her overreact to her new boss, but she was afraid it wasn't that simple. Something chemical happened when she was around the man and she didn't know how to make it stop.
Conversation, she told herself as her breathing increased slightly. Talk about something normal and maybe he won't notice the sexual tension in the air. "What sent you into the army?" she asked.
"I didn't want to go to college. I liked sports, but I wasn't a big fan of school. I wanted to see the world."
"Did you?"
He picked up a cookie. "I saw a lot of places I didn't want to see."
"Is that where you met your wife?"
He bit into the cookie and chewed. "No. She and I had dated in high school. We married right before I enlisted."
It sounded so normal. A guy marrying his high school sweetheart. Ashley looked at Jeff and frowned. She couldn't imagine a moment of it. "You two were pretty young," she said.
"Agreed. Too young. I'd signed up for four years. From day one I knew I'd found where I belonged. I was sent into special operations almost right away. Nicole and I had thought we would be together after boot camp, but that didn't happen. They didn't allow dependents in the places I went, so we were apart more than we were together. That was hard on both of us."
"Marriage is difficult under the best of circumstances," she pointed out, trying not to notice the intimacy of the night. The overhead light illuminated the table, but the rest of the kitchen was in shadows. Outside, the darkness was silent. There weren't even any cars driving by.
"Things changed," he said. "I had assignments that were…" He hesitated as if searching for the right word. "Challenging. I couldn't talk about most of what I did, and what I could talk about she didn't want to hear. After a while we stopped talking."
Ashley knew he'd seen things she couldn't even imagine. There were horrors in the world that no sane person would want to know about. But what of the people who had no choice but to live through those experiences?
"You changed," Ashley said, making a statement rather than asking a question.
His gaze sharpened. "That's what Nicole said."
"Wasn't she telling the truth? How could those circumstances not change you?"
"You're right." He stared into the distance, as if exploring his past. "In the end she decided it was easier to leave than to make the marriage work."
"Do you regret that?"
"No."
She wondered if he was telling the truth. "Accepting that a relationship isn't going to work is really tough," she said, then nibbled on a cookie. "I had to make that decision when I was married to Damian. When it was just the two of us, his irresponsibility didn't seem like such a big deal, but after Maggie was born, it mattered more."
She sipped her milk. "Some of the reason I resisted the truth was that I didn't want to admit that I'd made a wrong decision. I'd been so sure he was the one. But within the first couple of months, I knew he wasn't. Still, I tried to fix him. I tried to make him see that working hard at a good job was better than all his dreams about getting rich quick. I wanted the marriage to work."
"Wanting isn't always enough."
She sighed. "I learned that one in spades. Finally I saw that the only person I could save was myself. Damian was getting involved in some scary stuff. I couldn't risk that. I had a daughter to take care of. So I left and hoped he would save himself."
She stared at the table, then began pushing around the cookie crumbs. "It's like with my mom. After my sister was killed, Mom just lost it. Physically she was in the room, but her mind was somewhere else. I begged her to stay with me, to get better, but I couldn't fix her or save her."
Her throat tightened. She didn't usually allow herself to think about her past-certainly not the time when she lost both her sister and her mother, albeit in different ways.
"You're strong," Jeff told her. "A lot of people would have cracked under the pressure, but you survived. That's admirable. You kept your head and your sense of humor."
His praise made her flush. "Yeah, well, sometimes that's all I did have. At least until Maggie. Now she keeps me focused on what's important. As long as we're together we'll be fine."
"Your daughter is very lucky. I respect you, Ashley. I know this has been a difficult time for you. I won't do anything to betray your trust in me."
She looked up and met his steady gaze. Suddenly the room was filled with crackling electricity. She felt mesmerized and incapable of thinking for herself.
Jeff stood. Involuntarily she found herself doing the same. Her chest was tight. Her fingers began to tremble. As he moved around the table, she knew with a certainty that she couldn't explain that he was going to kiss her. Right there in the kitchen. Her heart thundered, her breath came in gasps. Anticipation filled her as her breasts seemed to swell and that secret place between her legs grew damp.
Now, she thought desperately as he got closer. The world around them faded. There was only the night and the man.
They stood less than a foot apart. She kept herself from reaching for him because she desperately wanted him to touch her first. She knew how it would be between them. An explosion. There would be nothing subtle or gentle, but she found she didn't mind that.
"Good night, Ashley," he murmured, and then he was gone.
Her lips parted and she gasped a protest, but it was too late. As quickly as it had blossomed to life, the moment died, leaving her feeling cold and incredibly alone.
Had she been wrong? Hadn't he planned to kiss her? She would have sworn he'd been thinking about it as much as she had. Yet he'd resisted.
She wanted to run after him. She wanted to follow him and beg him to take her, to say that they didn't need promises or commitments. She would accept just the moment and expect nothing more. Instead she sank onto her chair and closed her eyes.
She was a single mother-she couldn't afford to live for moments. She had to be responsible. Whatever insanity caused her to think such thoughts about Jeff had to be ignored. Did she really plan to have sex with her boss? Talk about stupid. She was staying in the man's house.
She sucked in a deep breath and forced herself to resume her studying. She had a lot of work to get through before she could go to bed, and the alarm would go off very early. But instead of numbers and text, she saw Jeff's gray eyes. She remembered the fire she'd seen burning there and wondered how she'd ever thought his eyes were cold.
Ashley hovered outside of Jeff's at-home office. She didn't like to think of herself as a person who hovered, but no other word fit. Except maybe lurked and she liked that choice even less.
It's not that she'd been avoiding him in the past couple of days. Okay, maybe she hadn't exactly been around as much, but that was mostly because the kiss-that-had-never-happened had left her feeling embarrassed and stupid. She'd been thinking warm, fuzzy thoughts about Jeff and he'd been thinking less than nothing about her.
So in an effort to keep herself from making a complete idiot of herself, not to mention losing a great job, she'd stayed out of his way. Until now, when she was hovering and trying to gather the courage to step into his office and just ask him.
Finally she simply sucked in a breath and stepped into the study. It was early-only a few minutes after seven in the morning-but Jeff was already showered and dressed for the office. He was putting several folders into his briefcase, which made her wonder how late he'd been working the previous night and did the man actually sleep?
He looked up at her and gave her a slight smile. "Good morning. What can I do for you?"
She thought of about a dozen things, most of which had nothing to do with her reason for being in his office and everything to do with the large bed in his room and the soft feel of bare skin on sheets.
She had to clear her throat to speak. "It's… um-" Her voice failed. What was she doing here? There was no way Jeff would even consider doing this.
"Ashley?"
She sighed. Idiot or not, she was going to have to ask. "I spoke to Cathy, at Maggie's school. Today is their field trip to the zoo and they're short a couple of parents. I'm already going, but Cathy asked if I knew anyone else who would be interested in accompanying the kids and I thought maybe…" She pressed her lips together and stared at the carpet. "You like Maggie and, well, it was a stupid idea."
"Are you inviting me along?"
She nodded then forced herself to meet his gaze. What was he thinking? Please God, don't let him be able to see her uncontrollable and growing attraction. That would be too humiliating to bear.
"Cathy likes to have one adult for every couple of kids, so if you went, we'd be responsible for four. One of them would be Maggie, of course."
"You'd stay with me?" he asked. "I wouldn't have to be alone with the children?"
She couldn't help grinning. "Jeff, they don't bite."
"Sometimes they do." He closed his briefcase. "I'd be happy to come along. Give me ten minutes to call the office and leave Brenda a message, then change my clothes."
"Sure. Great."
She backed out of the office before he could sense the elation that swept through her. He was joining her. They would spend the entire day together. Okay, they would have four rug rats with them and this was more about Maggie than her, but still. A shiver of pleasure rippled through her.
Ten minutes later Jeff walked down the stairs. Ashley was busy helping Maggie into her coat, which meant she was kneeling on the floor. A good thing because she probably would have fallen over if she'd been standing.
He'd changed his clothes. Nothing unusual in that. People did it all the time. But she'd never seen Jeff in anything but a suit, and in jeans and a sweater he was gorgeous. Broad shoulders pulled at the woolen fabric. His chest narrowed to his waist, where his jeans emphasized his slim hips. Soft, faded denim clung to thighs as solid and well shaped as a Greek god's.
Maggie squealed when she saw him. "Mommy said you're comin' with us to the zoo. I wanna see all the animals. And baby kitties. And elephants, 'cause next to the kitties, I like them the best. Because of their ears."
Jeff squatted next to her daughter, which put him way too close to herself. "Not the trunks?"
Maggie wrinkled her nose. "Trunks are silly. But they have neat ears."
Jeff grinned. Ashley's heart froze for a second, before attempting a land speed record in thumps per second. Jeff occasionally joked and he smiled fairly regularly, but he didn't grin much. There were almost dimples in his cheeks and great crinkles by his eyes. If he did that grin thing too much, he could generate enough heat to melt the polar ice caps.
Sensible, she reminded herself as she finished helping Maggie with her coat and rose. She had to be sensible. She wasn't looking for a relationship with a man. She preferred her life to be simple. When she was finally ready to get involved again, she wanted someone who could love her best. She had a feeling that Jeff wasn't in a position to open his heart to anyone. So why go looking for trouble?
"Here you are."
She turned and saw Jeff holding up her coat for her. As she slipped into it, she accidentally brushed her cheek against his hand. Fire burned from the point of contact. She sighed. It seemed like she wasn't going to have to look for trouble. It was finding her all on its own.
Four-year-olds found everything about the zoo endlessly fascinating. Jeff watched in amazement as his charges raced toward the giraffe exhibit. The kids were as excited by the drinking fountains and benches as they were by the animals.
"What are you thinking?" Ashley asked. "Having second thoughts?"
"Never."
"I'm glad, because you're great with the kids."
He risked glancing at her, taking in the perfect smoothness of her skin and the laughter lurking in her hazel eyes. She was endlessly pretty, he thought, and more than appealing. He was finding it more and more difficult to spend time with her and not give in to his need. He'd come close a couple of times, compelled by a desire that grew so quickly, it was difficult to contain.
When he'd first brought Ashley home, she wanted to know who he was and what he was doing in her world. Now he wanted to ask her the same question. Who was this woman who had made a place for herself in his cold and empty life?
"Jeff, Jeff, pick me up so I can see 'em!"
The instruction came from a blond little boy named Tommy. For reasons that weren't clear to Jeff, the boy had latched on to him from the second they'd been introduced.
Jeff bent awkwardly and lifted the boy in his arms. "There you go."
The slight weight shifted as the kid squirmed to get a better look at the giraffes strolling through their compound.
"Are the elephants next, Mommy?" a familiar voice asked.
"Yes, Maggie. In just a few minutes. Aren't the giraffes pretty, with their long necks?"
Maggie glanced at him as if to say her mother simply wasn't getting it. Cats and elephants were the only animals that interested Maggie.
"Can I touch 'em?" Tommy asked.
Jeff shrugged. "Do you want to keep all your fingers?"
Tommy's blue eyes widened. His hands curled into fists. "They eat fingers?"
"No, but they bite. Animals in the zoo aren't pets. We have to treat them with respect because they're wild creatures."
The boy regarded him solemnly. Tommy had a stain on the front of his flannel shirt and a cowlick that sent a lock of hair up toward the heavens.
"Are you Maggie's daddy?"
The question caught Jeff off guard. He lowered the boy to the ground. "No."
Two of the kids pushed to get closer to the fence keeping visitors away from the animals. In the process, one of the kids, a girl in pigtails, landed on her butt. Before she more than opened her mouth to scream, one of the mothers pulled her to her feet and distracted her by pointing out the baby giraffe.
Jeff looked at the group of children and parents. They moved and interacted with a grace and rhythm he couldn't understand or copy. He was very much the outsider, but he couldn't decide if he wanted to be anything else.
"Elephants next," Cathy, the preschool teacher called. "Let's go this way."
The children yelped with excitement and hurried after her.
"Not exactly special ops in the jungle, huh?" Ashley said as she stepped next to him. "So, is this more or less challenging than your last security job?"
"It's different."
"Mommy, Uncle Jeff, elephants," Maggie called as she raced past them.
"Don't run, young lady," Ashley instructed. Her daughter slowed marginally.
The late-morning air was cool. There hadn't been any rain in a couple of days and most of the clouds had blown away to the east. Jeff inhaled the scent of the trees and plants around them and tried to ignore the sweet scent that was Ashley alone.
She made him ache with wanting. She made him want to kiss her and touch her, even though he knew he could never do either. Being with her would destroy them both, because she would eventually figure out who and what he was. Then where would they be? Life was easier when he remembered his limitations.
"Why are elephants gray?" one of the boys asked. "Why do they have trunks? Why are they so big? Do they eat people?"
Ashley laughed. "I'll bet we can read all about the elephants when we get there."
The boy wasn't impressed. "Don't you know?"
She turned to Jeff. "What about it, big guy? Want to take the elephant questions?"
"I had to answer questions in the bug house, and that was a lot harder."
"I don't believe you."
They walked toward the re-creation of a tropical forest for the elephants. Other children from a different school were already chattering about the big mammals. Jeff paused to count heads, making sure the entire group was still together. He could-
A sharp cry cut through the morning. Jeff turned and was moving toward the sound before he even understood what he heard. Tommy had fallen and sat cradling his small hand against his chest. As Jeff approached, he saw the child had skinned his palm. Fat tears spilled from his blue eyes.
One of the mothers got there first. She reached for the boy, but Tommy pushed her away. Instead, still crying, he stumbled to his feet and swayed toward Jeff.
"I have disinfectant and stick-on bandages with me," someone said.
Jeff stared as the boy approached. His small body shook with the force of his sobs. Not knowing what else to do, Jeff picked up the child and held him against his chest. Tommy buried his face in Jeff's neck. His tears were hot. The boy hiccupped.
"Let me see," Ashley said softly, gently tugging on the boy's arm so she could free his hand. Tommy shrieked in protest.
"Come on, big guy," Jeff said, feeling awkward as everyone stared at them. "Let's look over the damage. I'm gonna bet we can fix you right up."
The boy raised his head and sniffed, then held out his hand.
Jeff looked over the wound. It was superficial and barely bleeding. There was a bit of dirt in the scrape, along with a couple of small pebbles.
"It needs washing, disinfectant and a bandage," Ashley pronounced. "Want me to take care of him?"
Jeff wanted nothing more, but at her words Tommy shrieked and wrapped his arms around Jeff's neck. "I'll do it," he said and took the supplies from one of the mothers. He found a sign pointing toward the rest rooms and headed in that direction.
"We'll wait here for you," Ashley called after him.
"I hate elephants," Tommy murmured. "They're bad."
"But the elephants didn't make you fall. Sometimes we fall all on our own and it's not anyone's fault."
The boy continued to cling to him. Still feeling like an idiot, and as if he was doing everything wrong, Jeff gently touched the boy's shoulder. The child was so small and fragile. He could span the kid's back with his hand. Confusion filled him. What the hell was he doing here? He didn't know how to take care of a child.
But there wasn't anyone else around and Tommy was depending on him. Jeff figured it couldn't be any worse than taking out a bullet or setting a bone in the field. Except emergency care for his team had never made him feel strange inside. As if something was cracking. But what he didn't know was if the ice around his heart was letting go or if his wall of protection was being breached. Or were they the same? And how long would it take to find out if the change was going to destroy him?