The ER's Newest Dad

He missed kissing her. Missed the feel of her plump lips pressed to his, the feel of her warm breath against his mouth, the taste of her sweetness.

They had been great together, the best.

No other woman even compared to the one sitting a few feet from him, staring at him with a hundred emotions shining in her eyes, not the least of which was desire matching his own.

And anger that was just as strong as his. She roller-coastered back and forth between the positive and negative between them, just as he had for the past two weeks.

He’d come to Bean’s Creek for her, to rekindle any sparks that remained between them. The reality was that wildfire burned any time they were near each other. Then he’d discovered she’d had his child.

A child she’d kept from him and would have continued to keep from him had he not come looking for her.

He could so easily hate her for depriving him of his son. Just as she could so easily hate him for not being there for her during her pregnancy, during her delivery, during all the days, weeks, months, and years that had followed while she’d cared for their son alone.

“They were great times.” Brielle finally spoke from her perch on the small boulder. She pulled her knees up close to her body, wrapped her arms around her bare legs. ?

??Then you left so perhaps they weren’t so great after all or you would have stayed.”

He was the one who was supposed to be angry, not her. He was the one who had been cheated out of five years of his precious son’s life. She had done that to him.

So why did her softly spoken words gut him? Make him want to beg for forgiveness for leaving her when she’d needed him? For letting her give birth to their son alone when he should have been at her side? Ever since they’d shared the delivery earlier that week, he’d been haunted by the image of her bringing their son into the world alone. Yes, he blamed her, but he also blamed himself. A lot.

He should have been there, should have helped ease her financial burden, her physical and emotional load as she’d struggled with the trauma of a premature baby who had required weeks of hospital care. How had she managed the medical bills? Had Vann lightened her load? Not that she seemed to mind raising their child by herself, otherwise she would have asked for child support.

If only she had.

He’d been such a fool to leave her, but perhaps if he’d stayed his resentment would have festered. He’d like to think not, but he’d been immature in some ways, had had a lot of growing up to do. He wasn’t the same man who’d left her. Not by a long stretch.

He glanced at where she hugged her legs. From his position he had a perfect view up her shorts leg to see the hint of the curvature of her creamy thigh. Nothing more, just a glimpse up her shorts, a cheap thrill really, but that was all it took to make him want to push her back on that rock and rediscover her body, to search out and cherish the changes carrying their son had added to it, knowing that those changes were honored badges of her motherhood.

Noticing his gaze, she glanced down, tugged on her shorts. “Sorry.”

“Brielle, I...” He paused, trying to figure out what it was he wanted to say to this complex woman who held so much power over him. Did she even realize? “I wasn’t telling the truth last week when I said I could sleep in the same bed with you without wanting to touch you. This week has been strained with us in the same house, but, no matter how upset or angry I am with you, I can’t be within ten feet of you without wanting to touch you.”

She tugged on her shorts again, as if she was trying to stretch them over every piece of exposed skin to keep his prying eyes away.

“Why are you telling me this? I don’t want you to touch me.” But she was lying and they both knew it. He could see the truth in her eyes. In the way her nipples puckered through her bra and T-shirt to declare just how much he affected her, just how much she wanted to be touched.

“But it’s not just the wanting that is between us,” he continued. “You make me feel more than any other person I’ve ever known. In a single minute you can take me through every emotion. No one else can do that. Just you.”

She quit tugging on her shorts, stared at him as if trying to decide if he was serious or if he was setting her up some way just so he could knock her down. He hated the mistrust with which she gazed at him, but he supposed only time would heal some wounds.

“You think you don’t affect me just as strongly?” she asked, adjusting her gaze to stare out at the sparkles from the sun on the lake water. “I don’t want you here and yet...” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged.

“You don’t want me to leave?”

She turned, smiled softly, sadly. “No, Ross, I don’t want you to go. I never wanted you to leave. Despite what you may believe, I always wanted you in Justice’s life.” When he started to speak, she lifted her hand to stop him. “Maybe you find that hard to believe since I didn’t tell you. All I can say is that I did want you there and I missed that you weren’t there. Always. More than you will ever know or believe. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”

He didn’t want to leave anything. He wanted her to explain, to make him understand how she’d made the decisions she had and had thought they had been the right decisions when they had meant keeping his son from him. But at the moment he wanted to have a truce with her more than anything else.

“For Justice’s sake,” he said, knowing that at some point they would have to discuss the very things she’d just asked him to leave alone.

“And although we both feel this heat between us, Ross, we have to ignore it,” she continued, her gaze going to where their son was studying a rock he held in his palm. “Justice wouldn’t understand.”

Did she think he was going to do her up against the kitchen counters with their son around? Hardly.

“If we opted to become sexually involved with each other again,” Ross began, “he wouldn’t have to know. Neither should he know, really.”

Shaking her head, she laughed at his comment. “You’ll quickly learn that there is no keeping things from Justice. He’d know something was happening between us. Just as he knows there are negative feelings between us regardless of the fact we pretend otherwise in front of him.”