Daddy on Demand / Déjà You: Daddy on Demand / Déjà You

“You’re making it so easy for me. I thought since you’re so slender, you might be concerned about them gaining too much weight.”

“Those two take after me. I burn triple-digit calories just breathing. That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about. If they tell that you they’re hungry, feed them.” Cassie added, “I would love not to look like a boy going and coming. Please tell me yours aren’t a boob job?”

Sabrina gasped. “Why, no!” She couldn’t imagine what her family’s reaction would be if she did such a thing. “With a B-cup, I’m considered the flat-chested one in my family.”

“You’re from Wisconsin? Your family is Scandinavian?”

“On my mother’s side. My father’s people are English.”

“Ever curious to see the old family haunts?”

“If it wasn’t so cold. I hate being cold.”

“I’m with you there. So where am I going? The mountains of Afghanistan—during the winter, no less.”

“Make a snowman, Mommy, and send us the picture,” Addison said returning to the kitchen.

“I will, my glass-half-full girl.”

Sliding Sabrina a wry look, Cassie started pouring the children’s drinks. “What will you have, Sabrina? I do have beer or wine if you’d prefer.”

“Oh, no, thanks. That and the long drive back to Dallas will put me to sleep.”

“I’ll have a glass of that wine,” Collin told his sister returning with the tray of grilled food.

“You’re driving,” Cassie sang, gently reminding him.

“Actually, we’re staying the night at a hotel just down the road,” he sang back.

Cassie glanced at Sabrina’s startled face. “Would have been nice if you had told her that.” Then she concentrated on getting the rest of the food onto the kitchen table.

As Collin poured himself the wine, Addison studied him with furrowed brow and pursed lips. “I don’t get it,” she began.

“Well, if you don’t, love, I’m sure the experts at NASA haven’t got a clue. Tell me what the problem is.”

“What do we call you when we live by you, Unca Colon? You can’t be Daddy Colon?”

Collin had taken a sip of the chardonnay and launched himself for the paper towels. Cassie and Sabrina covered their mouths and had to turn away.

Seeing no adult corrected her sister, serious Gena took over. “He can’t be our Daddy, Gena. He’s our Uncle Daddy.”

It was dark by the time Sabrina and Collin left the base. After a picnic-style lunch, and a tour of the base, they went through photo albums and then snacked. Afterward, she helped Cassie give the girls their baths, learned how they liked their hair dried, listened to prayers and tucked them in. She was exhausted and told Collin that she didn’t know how Cassie did all she did and fulfilled her military responsibility.

“I’m more impressed than ever with her,” Sabrina said as Collin navigated the crowded Saturday-night streets of San Antonio as expertly as he drove in Dallas. “She wasn’t kidding when she said she burns calories like a grand prix racing car did fuel.”

“What pleased me is that you two got along famously,” Collin said.

“Thanks, but who wouldn’t? She’s smart and funny, and radiates charisma.” She almost added, “Like someone else I know,” but she wasn’t about to swell his head more than it already was. His nieces clearly adored him and had taken full advantage of his presence to ask for repeated piggyback rides and sleight-of-hand tricks with his pocket change that always became theirs. “How’s your back?” she asked him instead.

“As soon as we check in, I plan to nurse it with a single malt. I did the math and I almost toted around the equivalent of a side of beef today.”

Sabrina glanced at the next hotel they drove by. That made three quite nice, executive-type inns. “Where exactly are we going to stay?” she had to ask.

“The Hilton on the River Walk. I made reservations the evening after I spoke with Cassie about coming down. Please don’t scold. Blame it on my need for creature comforts.”

“Wouldn’t think of it, but that’s way over my budget,” she told him. “Why don’t you drop me at the place we just passed and pick me up in the morning?”

“Not on your life. I have your room reserved, as well. Business expense. Besides, I want you to join me for dinner. I need real food, not toddler munchies.”

“Please don’t ask me to do the bag-lady-at-the-steak-house act again.”

Collin scoffed at her protest. “You look terrific. If you insist, we’ll stop in the hotel lobby store and pick you up a glitzy pair of earrings.”

“You’re kind to think that’s all it would take. Surely you know people in the city? You know half of Texas. Wouldn’t you rather touch base with them?”

“You’re just fishing to see if I have an old flame lurking in this area code.”

“I am giving you an out if you were only being polite.”

“Look, we are about to spend the next four months inundated with baby talk, kiddie videos and mushy cereal. I would consider it a gift and pleasure if you’d properly dine with me.”

With her resistance to him melting faster than ice cream in a microwave, Sabrina replied, “Well, I know I couldn’t sleep yet if I tried…and I am somewhat hungry.”

Collin nodded and murmured, “Thank you. Pick you up at 7:00.”

In less than an hour, Collin escorted Sabrina to the blissfully dark hotel restaurant. He still wore the black T-shirt he’d had on earlier, but added a matching sports jacket that he’d brought along in his usual “expect the unexpected” way. With delight and even amusement, he discovered that Sabrina not only didn’t need help from his plastic, but she’d been delightfully creative. Responding to his soft knock, she emerged from her room wearing the same tunic sweater, but now it was worn over sexy black leggings that she’d picked up in a shop in the lobby. She’d cinched her trim waist with a black leather belt and had slipped into sparkly slides, things also picked up there. There were no glittery earrings, just the delicate hoops that seemed to be a staple with her; however, the added mascara and lip gloss had her looking absolutely glamorous and sexier than ever.

“My, you’ll spawn several thoughts among diners this evening, but none of them will have anything to do with bag ladies.”

“Thank you…I think.” She self-consciously ducked her head, and tucked her hair behind her right ear. “Isn’t the decor nice? That hunter green on the walls is cool and soothing.”

“I honestly hadn’t noticed.”

Sabrina continued noting the decor until they reached the restaurant where they were greeted warmly by the maître d’.

“We have your table ready, Mr. Masters.”

As they approached it, a handsomely dark waiter eagerly pulled out a chair for Sabrina, who demurely thanked him. Collin was seated by the maître d’. He couldn’t fault the younger man for his admiring study of Sabrina, but if it continued through dinner, it was going to get on his nerves.

“A cocktail before dinner, sir?” the maître d’ asked. “Or may I show you the wine list?”

“Both, please,” Colin replied. “A cosmopolitan for the lady, a double Chivas on the rocks for me. Perhaps you can recommend your most mellow Cabernet with dinner?”

“Excellent. I will see that our wine steward finds exactly what you desire. Thank you, sir.”

As he and the waiter left them for the moment, Collin glanced up to see Sabrina’s wide-eyed stare. “Yes?”

“You remembered.”

Soon after he’d hired her, she’d mentioned having watched Sex and the City on reruns and listening to them go on about drinking cosmopolitans. She’d yet to taste one. “I hope it proves worth the wait,” he said, pleased to surprise her.

Leaning closer she whispered, “But you’re ordering wine, too?”

“I promise to get you to your room with dignity intact.”

“What’s the special occasion? Your birthday isn’t until July and mine is in August.”

“How about a salute to your own loss of freedom? Well, at least until nearly spring?”

“I’m getting paid. Your sister is taking all of the risks.”

Collin could see he was not making himself clear. “After watching you with Cass and the girls today, I realized all that we’re asking of you. You won’t have much opportunity for a night life—or any form of personal life.”

“In all honesty, I didn’t have much of one anyway.” Sabrina looked everywhere but at him. “I worked. That was it.”

It was disconcerting to feel something akin to relief. What a rat to not want her to have someone special in her life when he knew perfectly well he could never have her. “What about your parents? Won’t they and your brothers be disappointed if you don’t come home for at least one holiday?”

“I wouldn’t have been able to if I’d stayed at the warehouse job, either. From Thanksgiving to Christmas is the busiest time. No one gets time off. Oh!”

“What?”

She gave him a sickly smile. “I need to tell my parents that I moved and give them your number.”

Collin could almost imagine their reaction. Seismic waves would probably be recorded as far south as Galveston. “Thanks for the warning. I should check in with my health-care provider and beef up my policy.” Where were their drinks?

“I just turned twenty-eight, not eighteen.”

“That still makes me thirty-eight and the single man you’re living with.”

Thankfully, the waiter arrived with their drinks, then took their order. Collin didn’t wait for him to get more than a step away before taking a needful sip of Scotch. The burning down his throat was nothing compared to how his stomach would feel as he worried about the entire Sinclair clan appearing in the lobby.

“I am not living with you.”

“They might buy that if I was seventy.” As she opened her mouth to speak, he raised his hand entreating her to wait. “Please don’t point out yet again how completely resistible I am.”

Instead Sabrina took a second sip of her cosmo.

“Do you at least approve of it?” he grumbled.

A smile pulled at Sabrina’s lips. “It’s not on the level of a margarita, but it’s interesting.” When their waiter returned with their salads, she made eye contact with him and her smile was as flirty as his.

“He’s not an hour over twenty-one,” Collin said when they were again alone.

“Maybe I like them that way.”

Collin narrowed his eyes. “You did that to get at me.”

“Did it work?”

“No.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “This is kind of fun.”

“What other unpleasant characteristics don’t I know about you besides your sadistic streak?”

“If you want to be rid of me, all you have to do is suggest to Cassie that I move into her place. This way the girls stay put in familiar surroundings and with their friends. Come to think of it, I might even get a social life with all of those soldiers around.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t be making the salary that you are.” He was not enjoying this conversation one bit. He should never have confessed his interest in her. He should have thought up some other story; he was in the business of lies, for pity’s sake.

“You’ve got me there.” Sighing, Sabrina picked up her salad fork. “Okay, I’ll quit teasing. I don’t know how you do it, though. Being a flirt is work. Were you like that as a boy?”

He didn’t want to talk about his childhood any more than he wanted her to torment him, but at least the past was the past. “Hardly. My parents didn’t divorce pleasantly, didn’t my sister tell you? Mother kept Cass here and my father took me back to England.”

“That much I picked up from office gossip the first time I was your employee.” Intercepting his dark look, she grinned, but said, “Sorry. Go on.”

“There’s not much to tell. It wasn’t a month before he shipped me off to an academy—a fancy rendition of a boarding school. You see, he didn’t have any use for me, he was merely getting back at my mother.”

“That was small of him. I’m sorry.”

“I’m hungry.” Stabbing an olive in his Mediterranean salad, Collin thought the subject was done. He was wrong.

“So you eventually developed the ‘I’m a catch’ persona due to a need to prove your father wrong for pushing you away? Or your mother not fighting harder to keep you?”

“Neither. I was starving for attention and discovered people gave it to me if I flattered them enough. But it also helped to keep people from asking too many questions.” He pointed his fork at her. “Until you.”

“Hint taken. New subject.” Sabrina nodded out the window at the tree-lit canal where a barge was passing full with tourists listening to a guitarist playing for them. “Can we walk off dinner down there?”

“I suppose. I’m certainly not going to leave you on your own.”

“It’s not like I can lose this hotel.”

“I’ve only been there once before and enough time has lapsed to not bore me to tears.”

“Thank you,” she said demurely. “I promise not to keep you out too late.”

Collin could only shake his head.

“I love doing the typical tourist things,” Sabrina said.

It was now almost nine o’clock and the crowd had thinned out some. At least there were fewer children and older folks than when she’d first watched from the hotel restaurant. The temperatures weren’t exactly chilly, but she was glad she had her jacket to tie around her shoulders. Collin had his hands shoved into his jeans’ pockets and remained on the quiet side.

She worried that she had made a mistake and gone too far with him. She couldn’t blame it on the liquor, either, since she’d said those things before she drank—and never did finish the cosmo and maybe had two sips of the wine. But she hadn’t needed the alcohol; she was high on being with him and knowing he’d wanted her company.

When he didn’t remark on her comment, she stopped and gazed up at a lit storefront on the second floor. She liked this open-air-mall type of shopping.

“Oh, look. Tattoos.”

“No.” Collin took hold of her arm just above the elbow and urged her forward.

“It’s my skin.”

“Then respect it more. I’m going to follow an old military custom. You work for me, therefore your skin is my property until we end this contract. You do not mar my property. Not even if you invite me to watch.”

She knew better than to respond to that line. Instead she gazed up at the twinkling white lights in the trees and outlining the arching bridges over the canals. “This is like Christmas 365 days a year.”

When she spotted a store with postcards, she asked Collin to wait and dashed inside to buy a handful to send to her niece, Trudy.

“Going to rebuild your scrapbook collection?” Collin asked when she emerged with her bag of choices.

“I don’t do that, but my niece, Sayer’s daughter, does. Like most people from out of state, she thinks Texas is still the Wild West.”

“There’s another gift shop. Want to get some T-shirts for the other nieces or nephews? There’s an Alamo piggy bank.”

“Okay, I can take a hint. I’m done.” She glanced down at her feet. “Besides, these heels aren’t the best idea on this sidewalk.”

“What you women do for fashion.”

“Be nice. I could have gone upstairs and changed into my sneakers, and then I’d be ready to walk the whole length of this place.”

“I promise you that I would have slung you over my shoulder and carried you back to the hotel if you’d tried.”

Seeing his crooked smile, she felt better. He was over being annoyed with her.

In the elevator, though, they were joined by a couple who were unabashedly enraptured with each other and had no interest in waiting until they were in their room to begin getting intimate. Cuddling in the opposite corner, the young woman was leaning back against her partner and the hip action while slow was flagrant. He had his arms around her and his fingers were diving inside her sweater to stroke the sides of her breasts. It was a relief to get out at their floor. The couple was heading several levels up.

Sabrina stopped once the elevator doors closed again and pressed her hand to her chest. “Do you think they’ll make it there?”

“What I do know is that there’ll be no need for them to rent an adult film.”

Continuing down the long hallway, it was strange how they avoided looking at each other. Conversation dried up, too. She was relieved to reach her door.

“Well, thank you again. I did enjoy it.” She concentrated very hard on getting her room key out of her purse. “Um…what time do you want to leave in the morning?”

“Is 7:00 too early for you?”

“Not at all. Good night then.” She knew he was going to be a perfect gentleman, waiting until she was inside with the door safely shut and secured behind her, and that made her self-conscious and clumsy. She missed the slot completely the first time she tried. The second time she withdrew it too soon and the green light didn’t come on. “This is humiliating,” she told him. “Could you at least wait by your own door?”

Instead he took the card key from her and calmly unlocked her door for her. Holding it open with his left hand, he handed the card back with his right, then caressed her lower lip with his thumb. “You are an utter delight. Good night.”

Shutting the door and turning the second bolt, she stood there and waited. Then she heard a brushing sound against the wood and footsteps as he walked to his room. She waited for his door to open and close…and waited. Her heart began to pound anew.

Finally he did retreat into his room.

Sabrina touched her fingers where he’d stroked her and wondered if he would ever kiss her—and would that be enough?

Chapter Five

Shortly after the calendar flipped to November, Cassidy delivered Gena and Addison up to Dallas. Sabrina couldn’t imagine what they were feeling and did her best to put on a bright smile, as did Collin, who had taken the afternoon off to be there, too.

Cass described how excited the girls had acted all the way up from San Antonio. Getting a new room would be like going on vacation. It hadn’t really registered in their three-year-old minds that the cost of that meant not getting to see their mommy for months. As soon as everyone hugged, Genie and Addie ran down the hall to see their room. Squeals of delight quickly emanated from there.

“Sounds like a hit to me,” Cassie drawled. Then she groaned as she lowered their suitcases to the floor and let her shoulder bag slide down her arm. “That stuff weighs more than the backpacks we hauled during training.”

Shoving her purse out of her way, she came to Collin for a hug. “You look almost ashen. Everything okay? Too late to run scared now.”

“It was too late as soon as you told me that you were being deployed,” he said looking none too happy with that memory. He held out his hand. “You and Sabrina talk. Give me your keys and I’ll go get the rest of their things from the car.”

“I’ll go, too. That’s too much to carry in one trip.”

Collin plucked the keys out of her grasp. “There must be a hundred last-minute instructions or girly things you’ll want to pass on to Sabrina, and I’d only embarrass her and annoy you by asking what all that means.”

He was out the door before his sister could say anything else. Cassidy looked from the closed door to Sabrina.

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s anxious for you, you must know that?”

Running her hands through her short, wind-swept curls, Cassie’s lips curved with sardonic amusement. “That I get. It’s the tension that wafted out of here the instant the door opened. And you were hanging back watching him, then refused to make eye contact when he looked over his shoulder at you. My brother doesn’t doubt himself or get worried about women because he simply doesn’t let himself care beyond mutual gratification. I’m getting the feeling that you’re messing with his damaged mindset.”

“He’s been working a great deal of overtime so he can take some days to spend with the girls.”

“And when he’s not at the office?”

“He’s sleeping.”

“Alone?”

“Cass! There’s nothing to tell. At least not what you’re thinking.” And that wasn’t a lie in that what she was waiting for from Collin hadn’t happened. Sabrina gestured down the hallway where the happy sounds continued. “Don’t you want to come and see their room? I want to take your picture in there and then have it blown up into poster size so that the girls will feel you’re not so far away.”

Cass wrinkled her nose. “Darn it all—I wanted him to have at least kissed you by now. You must really have him conflicted.”

Conditions were no easier for her. But what was saving Sabrina some wear on her nerves was the certainty that if she behaved like every other woman he’d known—like the proverbial moth to the flame—she was the one who would be reduced to ashes.

She picked up a pink suitcase with purple piping. “Come see what the fuss is all about. We added a few things since we got to visit with you.”

An hour later Collin watched Cass say a difficult goodbye to the girls, rise from her knees to hug Sabrina as one would a sister and stride toward him where he waited by the elevator. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and urged her to lean on him, even though that made his eyes burn worse and made the lump lodging in his throat all but strangle him.

Only when the elevator doors closed them in the car was he able to mutter, “Well, this sucks even more than I expected it to. You should have flown up. It’s too many miles back to the base with no chatterboxes in the backseat to keep you alert.”

“I’ve got an audiobook to play. It will be novel to indulge in adult fiction for a change instead of reading manuals and course studies, or kiddie books.” But her expression looked anything but enthused about that. “I wish you’d have just given me a hug up there and let me be gone.”

“I want to see you to your SUV.”

“You’re not going to make me cry.”

Not only did Collin do that, but he also pressed his lips to her temple. “If you do something stupid and brave and get hurt, I will never forgive you.”

“I’m shaking in my boots.”

“You damn well should be.”

Cassidy stepped back and studied his face. “I know you’ll take care of my babies, but I hope you’ll take care of this, too.” She pressed her hand flat against his heart.

“I’m trying.”

“Now see—it’s comments like that which worry me. I love you, English.”

“Me, you, Captain.”

When he returned to the condo and locked the door, he experienced such a wave of weakness and loss that he had to lean back against it to stay standing. His heart had just dropped into one of the dark places in his soul.

“Collin?”

He didn’t realize Sabrina had been in the kitchen and had heard him return. Seeing him frozen there against the door, she came to him, her eyes radiating her concern. And then she did exactly what Cass had done, placed her hand flat against his heart and he stiffened and sucked in a sharp breath. It literally hurt, as though she’d reached into his body and physically touched that organ.

He couldn’t bear the raw, naked emotion of need. Despite weeks of iron will and brutal lectures to keep his hands to himself, he crushed her against him and hid his face in the fragrance and silkiness of her hair.

Sabrina gently eased her trapped arms free from between them and wrapped them around his waist. Slowly, she stroked his lean, too tense back. “She’ll be all right,” she whispered to him.

“You can’t know that.”

“But I feel it.”

“How, when this is so wrong on every level?”

The more gravelly and bitter his voice grew, the softer and more tender hers became.

“There’s just an inner peace.”

“Peace.” He exhaled shakily and stroked his cheek against her hair. “I don’t know the meaning of the word anymore. I don’t know that I ever did.” He swallowed painfully. “Thank you for being here…for doing this. I couldn’t—”

“Shh.” She stroked his cheek and then brushed a kiss there. “You don’t have to.”

He gravitated to the source of that sweet caress until his lips were aligned with hers. “Oh, yes, I do,” he rasped and feathered a kiss to her lower lip. “Yes, I do,” he murmured again as he repeated the caress to the right corner of her mouth, then the left. Shifting his hold to frame her face between his hands, he looked deeply into her eyes, then focused on her lips again. “Yes.”