Far North: Hide Your Heart Part 23

Lauren's tongue glued itself to the roof of her mouth. A glance at the handwriting confirmed it was Nate's. She wiped her fingers on her ap.r.o.n and tore the flap off the envelope. A cascade of photographs slid into her hands.

The first one caused her lungs to cease functioning. Framed with diffused, golden light, a mother laughed with a little boy who'd reached up a finger to press against her lips. Joy and love radiated from the woman and simple trust from the child. The photographer captured the scene with such tenderness that the image sent a flood of scalding tears over her lashes.

She shuffled through the remaining photos. Christmas Day shots of whnau laughing, playing and celebrating their togetherness. A picture of her, embarra.s.sed and defiant, on the day Nate kissed her. Other close-up shots she never knew he'd taken.

"You sneak," she muttered on a half-smile, swiping away the wetness on her cheeks. Her shoulders slumped, and she leaned back against the counter.

"Mummy, when're you gonna be done with the m.u.f.fins?"

Lauren glanced down at Drew. How long had she stood there crying over a bunch of photographs? She shuffled the pictures together.

"Look!" Drew s.n.a.t.c.hed up one that had slipped to the floor. "Look, it's you!" He giggled and bounced on his toes. "I took it on Nate's camera, 'member?"

She plastered on what she hoped was a cheerful smile. "Yes, it's a good one, isn't it? We can buy a frame, and I'll hang it-"

"You looked mad in that picture. Were you thinking about my daddy?"

Lauren shoved the rest of the photos back into the envelope, her gut clenching in an iron fist. "No, I was just a bit embarra.s.sed because I was hot and dirty."

"Oh." Drew c.o.c.ked his head. "Why are you crying? Are you still sad about Daddy and the bad place?"

She sighed and scooped him up, rubbing her nose against his. "I'm not sad about New York or Daddy."

Drew wrapped his arms around her neck, and she drank in the little boy smell of him. "He didn't love us."

Lauren clamped her jaw shut, desperate to keep the sob in her chest from escaping. She swallowed it down and tried to force the quaver from her voice. "Why do you say that, sweetie?"

"He hurt you and made you cry. He made me cry too. Why didn't you run away?"

"I wasn't brave enough to do the right thing," she whispered.

Drew pulled back and stared at her with wide eyes. "How did you get brave enough?"

"You, Drew. You made me brave enough to run away, so your Daddy wouldn't hurt us again."

Drew's smile was like sunshine. He smeared his grubby hands across her cheeks, wiping off the tears. Then his small eyebrows drew together. "Did Nate hurt you? Is that why he went away?"

For a moment, Lauren couldn't think of what to say. She hadn't considered that a four-year-old could come to these sorts of conclusions.

"No, my darling. Nate would never hurt either of us. He was one of the good guys."

The enormity of what she'd lost smashed into her soul with the devastation of a train wreck. Again. G.o.d, she loved him with a fierceness that turned her insides to a pulpy mush. But it hadn't been enough, and she had to accept it. Nate had gone, and the photos were his way of saying goodbye.

She lowered Drew to the ground when he wriggled. "Run along and play with Uncle Todd; I'll be finished in a little while."

Drew tugged on the pocket of her ap.r.o.n. "I hope Nate comes back soon, Mummy. I want him to come home." Then he skipped outside, bopping along to some internal soundtrack that convinced him all would be well in his world.

The phone on the counter tempted her to punch in Nate's number, as it did at least thirty times a day. But she refused to be weak. She couldn't continue pining for a man who didn't love her in return. Not if she ever wanted to completely shed the dead skin of Alexandra Knight and s.e.xy Lexy. She would fight for her ident.i.ty, fight for a new life in Bounty Bay for her and Drew.

Taylors never give up the fight.

"You're in love with her, aren't you?" Savannah's voice slammed down the phone line hard enough to leave a bruise. "What're you going to do about it?"

Nate grunted into the handset and propped his bare heels on the coffee table, knocking off a stack of old pizza boxes and aluminum cans. He pawed at the couch beside him and found the remote. The screen buzzed to life, casting shifting flashes of light around his apartment. G.o.d, how pathetic was he, sitting alone in the dark?

"Don't make me come over again, do you hear me? Traffic's a nightmare."

"How's the single life treating you?"

"And don't change the subject."

d.a.m.n. "I'm not doing anything about it. I didn't sell the property to Martin Davis, so she and her kid won't have to deal with the dreaded paparazzi showing up on her doorstep-I've done enough."

"You didn't sell to Davis because it would mean completely cutting your ties with Lauren." Smugness oozed through the phone.

How the h.e.l.l did she figure that out? "Bite me, Sav."

Savannah chuckled. "I got the photos you sent. It's the most gorgeous hidey-hole I've ever seen." Her tone dropped and went syrupy. "If a certain cousin of mine lived close by, say with a pretty mechanic and her little boy, I might be tempted to take it off your hands."

He bolted upright, his feet smacking the floor. "You'd what?"

"You heard me. A girl needs a bolt-hole in the bush to hide from the world every now and again."

"You love the world. You'd go crazy up there by yourself in two days."

"Which is why I could visit my dear cousin and his lady next door, if he ever pulls his head out of his b.u.m and gets her back."

"I don't need to get her back. I walked away from her."

She made a clicking noise with her tongue, and he could all but see her roll her eyes. "And look how well it's working out for you. You're miserable."

"I am not miserable. I'm right where I want to be." He shut his eyes, refusing to glance around his darkened living room at the takeout bags and clothes strewn across the floor because he couldn't be bothered picking them up.

"Are you?" Savannah's voice was oddly gentle. "Nate, contrary to what your pal Steve always told you, contrary to what you keep telling yourself, you aren't meant to be alone."

Nate folded in half, his forehead dropping onto his palm. Alone. Without Lauren by his side. Without Drew bouncing on his shoulders. Without the people who'd become his family.

h.e.l.l. He even missed the d.a.m.n dog.

Don't choose my life, boy. He shook his head, trying to dislodge Steve's voice, but the memory of those last harrowing days was too strong. Steve's eyes rimmed red, the glimmer of life oozing away like air seeping from a punctured tire, as he shrank into the hospital bed. Don't repeat my mistakes. Don't die alone with only the pity of an old friend to see you through to the other side.

"She's getting on with her life without me." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I caved and called her sister-in-law last week. h.e.l.l, she's gone from social recluse to a social b.u.t.terfly. Kathy says she's knee deep into organizing Drew's preschool carnival."

"And that's a bad thing...?" Savannah's voice trailed off.

"No. It's a great thing. She's finally stopped hiding in the shadows."

"Shadows, huh? I could bet you a thousand bucks you're sitting there in the dark, moping."

What was she, psychic? He stood, walked to the wall and slapped the switch. Harsh, white light splashed across the wreckage of his living room onto the single photo he'd kept from the stack he'd sent Lauren. Onto Drew's Superman picture stuffed into his laptop bag. Onto the cross-st.i.tched sampler poking out from under a jumble of paperwork. G.o.d, what a reality check. "I don't mope."

"Cousin, you're a moron. Now answer my first question-do you love Lauren?"

Nate slumped against the wall, cradling the phone to his ear. "Yeah."

"And she loves you?"

He closed his eyes. Saw her curled in his arms, smiling up at him, heart in her eyes. The look on her face before he walked away that last time. "I think so."

"Do you want to spend the rest of your life with her and her little boy?"

Warmth p.r.i.c.kled up his spine, curled around his heart. "Yes. But what is this, twenty questions?"

"I've just one more." Her voice turned snippy. "Have you told her this?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm a moron." He shoved his hand into his hair and grimaced; he hadn't combed it in days. "But I'm a moron with a five hour drive ahead of him in the morning, so I'd better go to bed."

Savannah's smoky laugh rolled down the line. "With any luck, you won't be sleeping alone tomorrow night."

Nate disconnected the call with his cousin and walked to his coffee table. He picked up the photograph he'd taken of Lauren and her chainsaw. He'd often thought of Lauren's home as a self-imposed prison that kept her safe and separate from everyone. Ironic that the whole time, he was the one locked up and isolated, because he hadn't understood home wasn't a place, it was a person. Moron was too kind a description.

"I never want to sleep alone again," he said and tossed the photograph back onto the coffee table.

Home is where the heart is.

And his heart had found its home with Lauren.

Lauren gunned the Cadillac as it hit the open road, and Lizzie, sitting beside her, threw back her head with a whoop.

"Your best idea, ever," Lizzie yelled, hair whipping around her face.

Lauren grinned as they roared back to Drew's preschool, where her next paying customer would contribute ten dollars to the carnival for a ride in her dad's convertible.

"We're like Thelma and Louise!" Lizzie threw her hands up into the slipstream, slanting over a glance. "Except prettier and in your case, blonder."

"Angelique did a good job." Lauren tossed her newly dyed-back-to-original blonde hair over her shoulder, slowed and signaled to turn through the wide gates onto the field where the carnival was held. "It's the new me."

Lizzie reached across and squeezed Lauren's knee. "I told you you'd be Bounty Bay's five-minute wonder, and then life would get back to normal."

"Guess I was worried about nothing." She peeled her lips up into another smile, as painted on as a clown's. Would life ever feel "normal" again? She'd changed-blossomed, even, though the word made her cringe-since she'd met Nate. How could life without him be normal?

A small crowd gathered by a row of safety cones. Stretched between two garden stakes was a hand-painted sign: $10 for 10-minute ride. Keeping an eye out for any sugar-drunk kids who might decide to charge across the gra.s.s, Lauren slowed the Caddy to a crawl and parked at the head of the line.

"n.o.body seems at all interested in the new me."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that."

Lizzie's tone p.r.i.c.kled Lauren's nape and she glanced up at the other woman's dimple-creased grin. "Huh?"

"There's someone who's very interested in you."

Lizzie pushed herself back, flush against the caddy's seat, so Lauren had a direct view of the man at the front of the line.

A man with piercing green eyes, his gaze trained on her face like a laser.

She could only stare, her throat locked tight, her heart slamming an erratic tattoo against her ribs.

Nate was here. Nate was in Bounty Bay.

Lizzie cranked open the door and hopped out.

Nate leaned down to rest a forearm on the corner of the car's windshield. "That's some car you've got, Ms. Taylor."

"Nothing beats a '67 Cadillac DeVille in Flamenco Red." She slid her arm along the back of the bench seat and hoped the V8 engine's grumble would cover the tremor in her voice. "They knew how to make cars in the sixties."

"So they did. And it's good to see it's no longer shrink-wrapped in protective plastic and hidden away."

She swallowed, desperate to wet her dust-dry throat. "A life is for living and a car is for driving."

He reached one long-fingered hand into the pocket of his jeans and drew out a crumpled bank note. "Take me for a drive?"

Her eyes flew open-the note was red. "For a hundred dollars?"

"A long, long drive."

His voice rolled over her skin like sun-warmed silk, sending delicious shivers skittering up and down her body.

"I don't know if I can. I'm shaking too much." Shaking in a good way, because surely, surely him being here meant something?

With a chuckle, Nate slid into the pa.s.senger seat and shut the door. "Didn't you once say you could outdrive me on any road?"

She withdrew her arm from the back of the seat and slotted the Caddy's column shift into drive. "I did say that, didn't I?"

They rolled slowly across the field and out of the gate. "Anywhere in particular you want to go?"

"Where do teenagers go around here to make out?"

His voice was cool, but she caught a quick flash of humor as his gaze skimmed over her.

"You want to make out?" Her heartbeat skipped, and she pressed her thighs together.