A Tempting Engagement Part 4

Emily's heartbeat skipped. "He can't have gone that far," she murmured, hopeful, hoping.

Mitch didn't answer. He was already striding into the lengthening shadows, toward the eucalypts that loomed tall and dark in the graying light of dusk. Emily rubbed her hands up and down her arms to ward off the sudden chill. How much more menacing they must appear to one small boy.

Alone.

The tide of panic rose again, lapping at her confidence, flooding her senses. Until her gaze fixed on Mitch's broad, straight back. The man with the most at stake still managed to radiate strength and purpose and calm determination.

The panic receded as she released a long pent-up breath and hurried after him. Index fingers to tongue, she whistled the long-two-note, short-note call that Digger recognized. That was her purpose to find the dog that would lead them to the boy.

"You should wait with the others," Mitch called over his shoulder.

"What others?"

He turned then, narrowed gaze scanning the small search party. TheAndersonstracked a wide arc to his left,Quade trod a diagonal path to his right. No one had waited; they had all taken their lead from him. Something flickered in his eyes recognition?renewed resolve? then he gave a short, sharp nod and continued.

But when they reached the fence demarking forest from farmland, still with no sign of boy or dog,Quade stopped his brother-in-law with a hand on his shoulder. "The Rescue Squad is five minutes away. They know this place bushwalkers get lost here every other month. Let them do their job, mate. They'll have searchlights."

As if on cue, the sun commenced its slide behind the hills, signaling the approach of night. Darkness. Fear. A muscle jumped in Mitch's tightly clenched jaw, and when he rested his hands atop the solid timber stile, Emily saw their fine tremor.

Beneath the stoic facade, the determined stride, Mitch Goodwin was terrified.

That knowledge hit hard, winding her for a moment. Her peripheral senses registered the activity around her Quade cursing the lack of cell phone coverage; the Andersons striding back the way they'd come, waving directions to an approaching truck while her heart ached to rea.s.sure the man at her side, to soothe his anguish.

Mouth dry, heart thumping, she touched a hand to his ramrod-straight back, felt his tension, the jump in his nerves, and had to say something, anything.

"Do you think he would have come this far?"

"If the dog chased a rabbit, if he followed the dog." Heshrugged, a short, sharp movement. "Yes."

Herdog. She'd thought him the perfect companion for Joshua, lively and mischievous and adventuresome if only she'd considered the other side to those qualities. This outcome. Her fault. If they found him ... no,when they found him, she would make it up to them both.

"We'll find him, Mitch," she whispered.

For a moment he said nothing, just stood there staring into the darkening bush. Then slowly he turned to look right at her. "I shouldn't have lost him. I shouldn't have failed him again."

The haunted pain in his eyes, the bleak bitterness of his voice she had experienced those before. His failure to save his marriage, to talk his beautiful, runaway wife into returning, had consumed him, Emily knew, but did he feel he'd failed Joshua, too? Because he couldn't salvage his marriage, because he'd struggled with child care arrangements? Because a nanny had lost her headstrong charge in a city mall?

The last time, she had tried to comfort him with words, words that seemed like tired old plat.i.tudes. Now only one thing needed saying, one certainty. "You won't fail him, Mitch. You never have."

"You know that for a fact?"

"My heart does," she said simply, holding his gaze, wanting so badly to wrap her arms around him, to hold him, to ease his anguish.

Denial burned in his eyes, but before he could speak, a distant shout broke the intense intimacy that bound them. More voices, then lights crested the hill and cut across the field. Caught in their artificial brilliance, his face looked harsh, his torment so sharply hewn that she started to lift a hand, to reach out, but a flicker of caution in his eyes stopped her.

The searchlight moved on, past them, and he wheeled away,hurdling the stile in one smooth leap. Emily had only clambered halfway over the rough timber structure before he disappeared around the first curve in the fire trail that snaked into the trees.

"Mitch. Wait up!"

Heart pounding, she raced after him, wide eyes scanning the ground for branches or exposed roots that might trip her up. Ahead she heard the occasional crack of a twig beneath his boots or caught a glimpse of his pale-blue sweater between the dark columns of stringy ironbark. She thanked the Lord he wasn't wearing his dark coat.

Fifty yards farther she wished her heavy, constricting coat to perdition. She paused, lifted her fingers to her lips, but needed to quiet her labored breathing before she could whistle effectively. Then she trudged on at a slow jog, determined to catch up with him, surprisingherself by doing so around the next curve in the trail. Stock-still, he stood straight and tall, listening.

"Did you hear something?"

"Shhh," hecautioned, a hand on her sleeve. Then his eyes narrowed. "Hear that?"

All senses straining, she listened, one pounding beat of her heart, two ... then she heard it, somewhere to their right. A low, whimpering sound, almost as soft as the darkness. Mitch's grip on her sleeve tightened for a millisecond the time it took him to breathe "Joshua" and then he ploughed into the undergrowth like some human bulldozer.

Emily wavered. Should she race back for the others or follow him? One sharp yap absolutely Digger sent her crashing into the bush in Mitch's wake. Thick, hot tears of blessed relief blurred her vision, and she tripped over a log, felt herself falling and grabbed for the spindly branches of a low-growing shrub. Needle-sharp spines bit into her palms and a loose branch lashed her throat as she went down in a heap. Around her the silence seemed eerily complete.

"Mitch?" she called, her voice rising on a slight note of panic.

"Over here."

Clambering to her feet, she saw him ahead, off to her right.

"We're both over here."

At first she wondered if she'd misunderstood that simple p.r.o.nouncement, but when she hunkered down in front of Mitch she realized that father and son were bound so closely in each other's arms that she'd missed the small body. The pain of relief ached in herchest, the effort of holding back her dammed-up tears scalded her throat.

At her feet Digger whined, a low, keening call for sympathy, and Mitch opened his eyes. They appeared uncannily dark, still haunted, still pained. One large hand was splayed against his son's fair head, holding him tightly against his chest as if he might never let him go.

"Is he all right?" she managed to mouth.

Mitch nodded. Then he released a long whoosh of residual tension and fear. "Thank you, G.o.d."

He allowed Joshua to cling a moment longer, then eased him back enough that he could look into his face.

"You're just fine, aren't you, bud?"

Joshua scrubbed a fisted hand across his face and sniffed loudly. Then his small face crumpled and he burrowed back against his father's broad chest.

The expression on Mitch's face shifted. A new determination sculpted his mouth in a firm line. The stubbornness in his jaw intensified, fire burned in the depths of his dark eyes as they met Emily's. "You'll start Monday."

He didn't ask, he stated the bald fact, and Emily didn't say a word. Didn't even nod. She knew the answer was written all over her face, had been ever since Joshua went missing. She would start right now if that's what he wanted, but Monday gave her two days to steel herself. Two short days when six months hadn't been nearly enough.

Heaven help her.

The next day Mitch learned that nothing with this new, quixotic Emily was that easy ... not with his little sister, the champion negotiator, in her corner. Yes, she would start on Monday, but on a trial basis.

"And if this trial fails?" he'd asked.

"I won't leave you in the lurch. I'll stay until you finish your book or find a suitable replacement." Which sounded fair enough, except her cool, uptight tone reeked of Chantal's coaching how else could she have known he was writing a book? and he couldn't stop himself retorting in a similar tone.

Less than two minutes later the employment negotiations had lapsed into a ridiculous game of one-upmanship. He insisted she live in. She chose the smallest, least comfortable of the three unoccupied bedrooms. Since it was the farthest from his, Mitch gritted his teeth and let it be ... after informing her that he would be teaching her to drive.

Ten days later, as he prowled the verandah in a restless after-midnight ritual, he could still see the fiery spark in her eyes as she swung around to deliver her comeback. And as for the comeback itself ... he shook his head, remembering. "Fine. You can try and teach me to drive providing you forget about what happened that night. No more questions, no more demands."

What the h.e.l.l possessed him to agree? Sure, he'd been caught off guard by her audacious demand. He'd laughed at its twisted irony she wanted him to "forget" a night he didn't, largely, remember.

"No worries," he'd drawled while her eyes clouded with skepticism. She knew his need-to-know nature needed to know, even if she didn't understand how much that night plagued his mind and body. But that wariness in her eyes ...that had kept him to his promise these past ten days. Hands on hips, he stopped pacing and blew out a ragged breath.

h.e.l.l, some of those days he'd ached with the effort of "forgetting," although mostly it wasn't so difficult they had the perfect, ever-present chaperone in Joshua with his games and television and chatter. But then a seemingly casual remark would resonate with hidden meaning or a casual brushing of limbs or the scent of her freshly bathed skin would catapult him to a different level of awareness: Emily, the woman.

In his house, naked in his shower, asleep between her pristine sheets in the bedroom down the hall.

Sucking in a breath, he felt the bite of winter air in his nostrils, in his lungs, sharp with the edge of citrus but not nearly sharp enough to shut out the hot ache of s.e.xual frustration. His constant companion. Before he started howling at the moon, hehurdled the verandah rail and cut across the lawn. A long hike through the brittle, winter night might not cool his blood, but it would clear his head enough to remember his final rejoinder in that negotiation battle.

"No worries," he'd drawled as her eyes clouded with skepticism. "Seeing as this is a business relationship and I have a duty of care as your employer, it wouldn't be appropriate to ever mention you'd been in my bed. Would it?" Forty-five minutes later the glow of light caught his attention as he crested the last rolling rise and the old homestead came into view. A punch of fear, low in his gut, set him running flat out. Sitting room window, he told himself. No need to overreact. She likely couldn't sleep. Mitch forced himself to get a grip he didn't want to scare thebejesus out of Emily by bursting into the house like a madman but he could have saved himself the effort of slowing down. In the empty room a circular pool of lamplight revealed a magazine set aside and a gla.s.s on the side table. The rest of the house sat in darkness, enveloped in the heavy silence of sleep.

"Emily?"

Pausing outside her bedroom, he tapped lightly on the door, willing her to answer. He sure as h.e.l.l did not want to open that door, to see her in her bed, to carry that image- "Mitch." At the soft sound of his name, he whirled around, saw her three doors down outside Joshua's room and was beside her in less than a second. "Is he all right? What's happened?" With a finger to her lips, she shushed his questions. "Bad dream," she whispered. "But he's gone back to sleep." Mitch needed to see for himself. In the shadows of the night-light Joshua slept soundly, his fair hair mussed as if by her hand. Both arms hugged a teddy bear he'd never seen before. A scruffy bear, he noticed as he bent down to kiss his son's brow, its s.h.a.ggy coat threadbare in places, battle-scarred in others, probably from years gripped in small arms. Including Emily's? He straightened and met her eyes. "Looks like your bear's been through the wars." "That's his job," she said with soft sincerity. "Fighting night-fear battles." For a second Mitch stood speechless, blown away, and then he shook his head. Of course Emily would produce the perfect solution for Joshua's night fears not just a comforting companion, but one who fought the demons and bore the battle scars to prove it.

"Does he have a name?" he asked, guiding her from the room.

"Bruiser." The hint of a smile touched her lips as she pulled the door to behind them. "Thus dubbed around fifteen minutes ago. I thought it suited a lean, mean fighting machine better than his previous Bruce name."

In the hallway he turned her around to face him, but dropped his hands when her eyes widened warily.

"Was he frightened?"

"Disoriented mostly."

"It's been a lot for him, to deal with, all the changes, even before that latest misadventure."

She bit her lip,then pushed a long tress of silvery hair back over her shoulder with one hand, revealing a tangible reminder of that misadventure. A scratch from the spiky undergrowth traced the line of her throat and disappeared beneath the neckline of her thick robe.

Mitch had seen the mark most every day, along with shallower, now-healed p.r.i.c.ks on her hands. But prior knowledge did not stop the violent jolt of reaction deep in his gut every day or the sudden itch to lift his hand and trace the scar its full length.

He shoved both hands in his pockets, away from temptation, and noticed her fidgety shift of weight from one foot to the other. Nervous. Of standing here with him in the near darkness? Given the itch in his fingers, she had cause.

"He used to wake often," he said quietly, forcinghimself to relax against the wall at her side and hoping she might do the same. Relax for awhile, forget their tensions and his rogue intentions. "He went through a stage of bad dreams, crying in his sleep, clinging."

"Afraid you might leave, too."

Yeah, Emilywould understand. She'd been in that same place, shifted and shuffled around right through her childhood, and it made her own flight from his apartment that much harder to understand. But he'd promised not to bring it up, not to question, and that agreement was eating holes in his psyche. He buried his hands deeper in his pockets and cleared his throat. "Thank you for being here, for tonight."

Being Emily, she shifted uncomfortably, a little hitch of one shoulder, and he felt the brush of her robe against his sleeve and hip, felt a reactive warmth wash through him.

"Well, night fears are my specialty," she said finally, and although she dipped her head so her hair slid forward to obscure her face, he pictured a wry half smile on her lips. He liked the image, liked the new teasing tone.

"Yeah?" Leaning closer, he nudged her with his shoulder. "You have another lean, mean, fighting-machine bear formy night fears?"

With one finger she slowly threaded that silky fall of hair back behind her ear. In the shadows her eyes looked dark and troubled.

Night fears are my specialty. d.a.m.n.

Already he could sense her withdrawal, and he struggled for a way to wipe that contrite why-did-he-say-that expression from her face. To keep her here in the dark, talking, almost companionable.

"Were you having trouble sleeping?" he asked, remembering the scene in the sitting room. "It looked like you'd been up reading, before Joshua woke."

"I was watching television, actually." She darted him an edgy look. "I hope you don't mind."

"Why would I mind?"

"I know you work some nights." She paused, seemingly intent on studying her toes. Bare, he noticed, nails painted a pearly pink that reminded him of her bare skin. "I didn't want to disturb you."

"h.e.l.l, Emily, your being heredis -" He cut himself off abruptly. Still thinking about her bare skin, he'd almost revealed that her very presence disturbed him, asleep or awake, that even the sight of her bare toes turned him on. He expelled a harsh breath before trying again. "It's not you that's disrupting my writing."

Head bowed, face hidden, she didn't reply. He lifted a hand, intent on tucking her hair back, but at his touch she jolted upright, and the sleek strands slid over his wrist, shockingly cool, seductively soft.

"I should go back to bed," she said in a breathy rush.

And he should let her, except d.a.m.n it he didn't want her gone. He wanted to preserve this mood, this strange edgy intimacy. He'd avoided being alone with her, and now he needed her company. Not quite the old Emily with her quiet, easy manner, but still easy to talk to, to be with....

He straightened off the wall and took a gamble on the changed Emily. "Don't you want to satisfy your curiosity?"

Wariness darkened her shadowy eyes ... warinessand a puzzled sense of curiosity.

Mitch smiled with no small measure of satisfaction. Then winked. "Join me in the kitchen for hot chocolate, and I'll tell you what it is you're curious about."

Chapter 5.

After the concentrated, darkened intimacy of the hallway, Emily found some respite in the brightly lit kitchen and the fact that Mitch was now one island bench and half a room away. Seated on a stool at said bench, she watched him with a fascination that totally eclipsed her curiosity.

He moved with such economy an almost fluid grace that elevated the mundane art of hot-chocolate preparation to an artistic plane. A thing of beauty. The way his long fingers embraced the mugs, the smooth shoulder-nudge that closed the pantry door, the intense focus on his face as he measured out the powdered chocolate. Heck, she even loved the way his sweater shifted with the play of muscles in his shoulders and back.

Her gaze continued down. Jeans, not too tight and shewasn't allowing herself to look too hard, uh-uh and his old walking shoes.Walking? She sat up straighter on the stool. Now she was totally busting with curiosity.

"Were you out walking?"

Obviously surprised, he cut her a quick glance, his eyes glittering gray-green in the fluorescent light.