Fortune's Christmas Baby (Fortunes of Texas)

“Crowded. I think the band’s going to be asked back next year.”

Campus was pretty deserted, but the area surrounding it, even this late, had enough holiday revelers about that he felt completely comfortable. The cop car parked close by, and the security officers patrolling, helped, too.

They’d reached a bench by the fountain. She let go of his hand as they sat and he had to say, “I’ve missed you so much, Lizzie. I wish you could know how much. I know it doesn’t seem like it, I know my actions look differently, but I’ve spent this entire year trying to get out from under your spell.”

The streetlights and the lights from the fountain weren’t brilliant, but they illuminated her eyes as he gazed straight into them. Another couple walked close by, milling around the other side of the fountain, and still he felt like he and Lizzie were shut off from the world.

He wished they were.

Raising a hand to his face, she touched his cheek. “You confuse me,” she said softly.

“You are so beautiful,” he told her. If this was his moment, if his truth was going to be heard, it had to start with that which was deepest inside himself.

Leaning in slowly, he touched his lips to hers. Not with forethought. Or any thought, really. It just happened. She allowed the kiss and, seconds later, opened her lips to allow him to reacquaint himself with her more intimately. It was a hello.

Not a goodbye.

The thought infiltrated and Nolan pulled back.

“I’m sorry,” he said, needing to lean his head against hers for a second, but not doing so. He didn’t touch her. “I respect your need for no physical relationship between us.” He wanted to promise it would never happen again, but couldn’t make any more promises he wasn’t sure he could keep.

“It’s...okay,” she said, sounding like the Lizzie he’d known the year before. Her voice was filled with...something... He didn’t know what. But it sank into him and nestled down. “I mean, I still meant what I said, but...it was one kiss and we stopped. We were lovers, Nolan. And, as far as I was concerned, it was pretty incredible. We can’t dance around that fact if we’re going to make this work.”

Pretty incredible. At her words, desire shot through him.

“Making love with you was like nothing I’ve ever known,” he said. “It was so much more than sex. I think that’s why it’s been so hard for me to get you out of my system.”

Whoa with the honesty there, buddy. He couldn’t afford for this to go backward on him.

“I don’t know what to say.” She was still looking at him.

“It’s the truth.”

He couldn’t tell if it was the lights, or if a sudden sheen of tears had come to her eyes. He knew only that her expression changed.

“And now we have to put Stella first,” she said. “We have to handle whatever past business there is between us, put the past behind us, so that we can provide for her. We’re two responsible parents, not lovers sharing a two-week idyll. If we had sex again, so many other feelings would be involved, like I’d start to get jealous when you go home to New Orleans, worry about what women might be there... It would get awful and then where would that leave Stella?”

And there they were, right at the point he’d been dreading. He still couldn’t find a way to ask her for a paternity test.

Maybe they had to build up to that point.

When she shivered, he asked, “You want to go back?”

Nodding, she stood. “Do you mind? It’s colder than I thought. You could come in, have some tea. Carmela knows you might. She won’t bother us.”

At that point, he almost wished her roommate would join them. He’d have to focus on the facts before him, not the woman he so desperately needed.

He didn’t take her hand as they walked back to her place, but he stayed close enough that their arms touched, and their hips bumped a time or two.

He needed this...to be connected to her...sex or not. She was the mother of his child. And so much more.

* * *

Carmela had been right. If Lizzie really loved Nolan, she had to consider him in their mix, too. The realization helped her as they climbed the stairs to her apartment and she let him inside. Fighting her feelings for him, fearing them, weren’t going to make them go away. She had to face them head-on. Deal with them. So that they could find a way to coexist without burning each other to bits.

Parents who hated each other weren’t going to be good for Stella.

Allowing herself to admit she loved him...what a relief. And now she had to find a way to live with her sexual attraction to him without letting it get in the way and ruin them.