Claimed by the Rebel: The Playboy's Plain Jane / The Loner's Guarded Heart / Moonlight and Roses

And then she kissed him.

Her lips were unspeakably tender, they invited him to tell her everything, they called to the place in him that he had been so fierce about guarding, that he had revealed to no one.

It was a place of burdens and loneliness, and the burdens felt suddenly lighter, and the loneliness felt like it was fog that sun was penetrating.

“If you want to go for coffee sometime,” she said, hesitantly.

He reeled back from her. “I have to go out of town for a while,” he said, and saw her flinch from the obviousness of the lie.

But he felt as if it was better—far better—to hurt her now than later. The fabric of life, and especially of love, was fragile after all. He could not trust himself not to damage what he saw blossoming in the tenderness of her eyes.

Love. He could not trust himself with love.

CHAPTER FIVE

KATE took up her post beside her window, glanced at the clock. Nearly one o’clock and no Dylan. Just as there had been no Dylan for the past three days. No dropping by her shop, no teasing, no exotic invitations. Ever since she had accepted the tickets from him—and made the mistake of telling him she was available for coffee—it was as if he had dropped off the face of the earth.

The chase was over. For a guy like him it was all about the chase. She knew that from sending his flowers.

He had told her he had to go away, but she could see his red sports car parked right up the street. He certainly didn’t have to let her know his schedule!

Still, this feeling inside her should serve as a warning. She missed him coming by. Each day she chose an uglier outfit in anticipation of it. Today she had on a pair of daisy-printed culottes and had her hair tied with a matching bandanna. It was a lot of trouble to have gone to if he wasn’t going to come by and appreciate it.

For all that she had thought she was winning this game of cat and mouse they had been playing, she now realized she hadn’t been at all.

She’d been kidding herself, falling more in love with him every day. The tickets to the Tac Revol reading had finished her really, swamped her with tenderness for the man she wanted—no, needed—so desperately to hate. And when he had choked up, at the mention of his own mother, it was like the armor around her heart had been pierced irreparably.

And then he’d stopped coming, proving her instincts had been correct. Saying yes to him, inviting him for coffee, was the beginning of the end. Except her end seemed to have come without the stuff that was supposed to come in the middle. Ridiculous to feel regret.

Probably Dylan had seen something in her face that day she took the tickets that had frightened him off. Girl who cares too much, feels too deeply, capable of sappy behavior over small gestures.

Good, she tried to convince herself. Good that he had lost interest in his game. She had no hope of coming out the winner in any kind of match with him.

It was five minutes past one. He wasn’t coming. He wasn’t running today, or if he was he was avoiding her shop.

She felt her heart drop, hated it that she felt her throat close and her eyes prick as if she was going to cry! She would not cry. Her assistant, Mrs. Abercrombie, was working today. People came in all the time!

Stop it! She ordered herself. She’d known all along this was the danger of dancing with a man like that. That is what they had been doing, the last weeks, dancing, circling around each other, jousting.

A dangerous dance, because how could you spend any kind of time with a guy like that and not want more?

Not more of the good looks and charm, not more of the fun-loving playboy persona.

No, more of the other things, the more subtle qualities, the ones he tried to hide. Depth. Gentleness. Compassion. Intelligence.

More of the look in his eyes and on his face when he had said his mother was gone. She had seen who he really was then: a warrior who somehow felt he had failed, who was looking at his arsenal of weapons helplessly, not understanding how they had not worked to hold back the flow of life, to keep pain at bay from those he loved. In that moment, when he had mentioned his mother, she had seen how furiously and fiercely he loved, and she knew just why he was intent on pursuing the superficial.

And she knew just why she wanted to be the one he finally chose to lay down his weapons for, to come home to.

Her heart wanted it so badly. Her head said, pragmatically, never going to happen. Katie pulled her shoulders back and shoved out her chin, tucked her hair neatly behind her ears.

She was a divorced woman, not a schoolgirl. She already knew about the daggers hidden in the cloak of love. She had known all along she should not let her defenses down, and she had thought she was succeeding. Now she saw her defenses had started to come down the first day she had given in to the impulse to watch him run.

She had been realistic from the start, she had known he was not a man any intelligent woman should be pinning her hopes on. She had known all along she was a momentary distraction. She had known all along that some girl would come along who was his type—dumb, beautiful and built, a girl who allowed him to keep his fearless facade in place—and that would be the end of his interest in her.

The day was gorgeous, and she needed to focus on that—on the robin singing in the tree outside her window, in the solace of her flowers. She decided to put some buckets of flowers outside the door.

But when Katie looked at her finished display, she knew she wasn’t as done thinking about him as she wanted to be. To people walking by it would only look pretty. Not a single soul but her would know what it meant. Unconsciously she had chosen larkspur, primroses, yellow lilies. She had lined her outer windowsill with little garden-ready containers of marigolds.

Dylan’s worst character traits were all represented: fickleness, inconsistency, false expectations. The marigolds might have been unfair. She shouldn’t really call him cruel—he had given her the Tac Revol tickets—but it did feel cruel that he had lost interest as quickly as he had gained it. That she had come to look forward to him coming by, anticipate it, live for it, and he had stopped.

At the last moment she added a bucket of gladiolas to her display. The flower of the gladiators, of warriors, representing strength. True strength, not just physical strength, but strength of spirit. She eyed her choice wondering if it represented her or Dylan.

Without warning, his office door flew open, and Dylan stepped out into the bright sunshine.

For a moment Katie hoped he had seen her, fantasized that he would come over and tell her what urgent matter had kept him away for the past few days.

But he didn’t appear to see her at all. Slighted, she went to duck back inside her own door, but something in his demeanor stopped her. He was looking vaguely frantic, his eyes scanning the parked cars, when she could clearly see where he had parked his own car.

Dylan, frantic? She frowned. Something wrong with that picture. He never looked anything but polished—some might go as far as to say perfect—even in his jogging clothes, but he wasn’t in his jogging clothes, and he looked faintly disheveled. His shirt was white and crisp, but his tie was undone, his sleeves rolled up. He had left his desk in a hurry.

None of her business, she told herself, but instead of stepping in to the relative safety of her shop, and away from any kind of engagement with him, some kind of automatic pilot took over. She stepped out, touched his arm.

He started, and that’s when she realized, despite the rather gaudy outfit she was wearing for his benefit, he hadn’t even seen her.

He couldn’t have dismissed her that completely from his life in three short days!

“Dylan, what’s wrong?”

He looked at her, and she knew she was seeing something she might never see again. Dylan was afraid.

He fumbled with his keys. “The hospital just called. Tara was brought in by ambulance.”

Tara. One of his standbys. How had she managed to forget this about him when she was inviting him for coffee?

“They can’t locate Sam.”

“Sam?”

“My sister, Tara’s, husband. They wouldn’t say very much on the phone. Or maybe I didn’t hear much beyond scheduled for surgery.”

“Tara is your sister?” she asked, flabbergasted. And then she saw the look on his face. He had his keys out, and Kate noticed his hand was shaking ever so slightly. She plucked the keys from him.

“I’ll drive you. I’ll just let Mrs. Abercrombie know I’m leaving.”

She expected argument, at least a token protest, but there was none.

“Thanks, Katie,” he said, and then he looked at her. Really looked at her, and she knew she could put out all the buckets of larkspur in the world, it wasn’t going to change how she felt. The whole world could believe he was a daredevil, beyond fear, if they wanted to. In his eyes in that moment, she saw how deeply he cared for those rare people who were close to him, just as the other day she had seen how he cared about his mother. She saw that he, without hesitation, would lay down his life to protect those he cared about.

She saw, clearly, why he was so quick to get rid of women from his life.

Because he was the kind of man who, when he gave his heart, it took every single thing that he had. Caring so much was the place that weakened him, that made him afraid. No one could understand that fear of being destroyed by love as well as a woman who had lost a baby.

Katie understood she had a job to do. She unlocked the doors of his car, and they got in. She had never been in a car where she felt so low to the ground. She looked at the gear shift, tried not to let her trepidation show.

“I think the quickest way to the hospital—”

She nearly stalled the car getting it out of the parking spot. Gamely she gave it gas, and was astonished by how the amount of power sucked her back into the seat. She slammed on the brakes, adjusted the amount of gas she gave it, tried again. A car behind her honked.

“Have you ever driven a car like this?” he asked uneasily.

“A car’s a car,” she said grimly, trying to force it into second. The gears ground, and he winced.

“That shows what you know. Katie, pull over. I’ll drive.” As annoying as it was that her Good Samaritan act had been accepted for less than thirty seconds, at least his preoccupation with her driving was keeping him from being overtaken by worry about his sister.

She wanted to ask exactly what the hospital had told him about his sister, but it seemed like a wiser course just to keep his mind on her driving. And not let him behind the wheel! If she did that, she had no doubt they would be racing through the streets of Hillsboro at record-breaking speeds. He’d probably get pulled over before he got anywhere near the hospital.

“You’re not safe to drive right now,” she informed him, pulling into the stream of traffic on a busier road. Another horn honked.

“Sheesh, and you are? Did you know sometimes you have this holier-than-thou way of speaking that drives me crazy?”

That could be a good thing, too, right? Lots of women would like to be the ones driving Dylan McKinnon crazy. Or just driving him. “At least no one will get hurt if we crash at this speed.”

“There’s that tone again. My sister will be transferred to the old folks’ home before we get to the hospital.”

She decided to keep with her plan to keep Dylan’s mind off his worries. “Tell me about your sister. Are you the only two children?”

“Unfortunately. Tara’s seven years older than me, and I would have liked a dozen other siblings to keep her busy. So she wouldn’t focus so much on me. She’s a menace. Meddlesome. Opinionated. I can’t believe a nice guy like Sam married her.”

Underneath every single word Katie heard pure love. “You adore her,” she surmised.

He glared at her. “She’s a pain in the butt.”

“You love her madly.”

“Whatever.”

“You send her flowers all the time.”

“Yeah, well, mostly to bug you.”

“To make me think you are something you aren’t,” she deduced softly.

“I’m every bit as bad as you think I am, Katie. Probably worse.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You were very smart never to go out with me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“If you don’t believe me, ask my sister.”

“Okay.”

“And quit agreeing with me, for goodness’ sake!”

“Are you afraid of something, Mr. Fearless?” But she already knew. He was terrified of the very same thing she was. Love. He was terrified because he knew it was a force out of his control. His sister being hurt was a reminder of that. That life could best the warrior when it came to love.

He squinted narrowly at her. “I’m terrified of your driving, actually.”

She was a little rusty with the standard, and after a stop at some lights her takeoff was a bit rough. The car bucked and threw Dylan’s head forward.

“And whatever you’re wearing. You look like you’re going to an audition for the Von Trapp Family singers. What do they call those things?”

“Culottes.” Ah, he was trying so hard not to let her see his heart. But she felt as if she could see it anyway.

“Good name,” he muttered. “Terrifying, right up there with blood culottes.”

A good thing to know about a man, that he could keep his sense of humor, even in a crisis. A good thing to know about a man—that making wisecracks was one of the defenses in the armor around his heart. They finally pulled up to the Hillsboro Hospital at the emergency door. “I’ll let you go in,” she said, “and I’ll go find a parking spot.”

“I don’t want to leave my car with you.”

“Too bad. Pretend it’s valet service.”

He looked as if he wanted to argue, but his concern for his sister got the better of him. He got out, slammed the door, raced to the hospital entrance and disappeared.

She parked the car, but way off in a back lot, not close to any other cars. If it got scratched she was going to be blamed. And then she turned the mirror and winced at what she saw. It was one thing to play the flower girl at work, for her customers, and to bug Dylan, but to go into a public building looking as if she had made an outfit out of curtains and was ready to burst into song!

She removed the scarf, ran her fingers through her hair and shook it. There was, unfortunately, not a thing she could do about the culottes, except hold her head up high, something, thankfully, that she’d had a great deal of practice at.

She went in through the sliding emergency room doors, and had to pause to let her eyes adjust from the bright light outside.

And then she looked around.

She saw Dylan, standing by a window, but he was not alone.

He was holding a baby. The breath went out of her. The baby was nestled against his chest, thumb in mouth, his other hand tracing the outline of Dylan’s lips. And if she was not mistaken, Dylan kissed those little fingers, then said something that made the baby lift his head, look at him and smile.

She could see clearly they were related. The child was obviously his sister’s baby, Dylan’s nephew. The baby’s smile showed the promise of being at least as devastating as his uncle’s was. In fact, that baby could have been Dylan’s son rather than his nephew, their appearance was so similar. Both had hair the color of rich, dark chocolate, amazing blue eyes. The baby, though dimpled, already had the cheekbones and the chin that were going to break hearts.

Katie was completely taken by the contrast of what she was seeing: Dylan so strong and so sure, his arm muscles flexed to hold the baby, so pudgy and powerless, so completely trusting of his uncle.

She stared at Dylan’s posture. He was comfortable, relaxed, and yet two things were very evident: his deep love of the child, and the warrior protectiveness he felt toward him.

Again, she could sense how deeply this man loved when he allowed himself to. And Dylan, man least likely to ever make a serious commitment, looked as if he had been born to be a daddy.

But watching them, she suddenly felt her own heartbreak as fresh and as painful as if the wound had happened yesterday.

Once upon a time this had been her dream for herself.

Exactly.

A strong man. A baby. A little house. A swing set. More babies. A sandbox. Cookies baking. Flower beds to supply a home-based fresh-cut flower business.

Only, her dream had died, been shattered, when she had miscarried the baby. A little boy, who would have been just a year or so older than the one in Dylan’s arms.

Months in a gray fog, a place of no feeling. No tears. No laughter. No joy. No sense of having anything to look forward to. Marcus growing impatient, then distant. More distant than he had been before.

As the memories swamped Katie, she watched a nurse approach Dylan, tiny, perky, all smiles and bubbliness.

The kind of girl Dylan always went for—except that, as a nurse, she was probably smart.

Katie wanted to leave. Her heart hurt in ways she had not thought it could hurt.

This was the hurt she always had known Dylan was capable of inflicting. This was the hurt three days of not seeing him had begun to prepare her for. It was the hurt of a woman who wanted something terribly badly—underscored by the picture he made holding that baby—and it was like wanting two scoops of pistachio on the moon. Not just unrealistic. Impossible. Nonexistent.

She drew in a deep breath, and marched up to him, just as the nurse moved away. “Here are your keys,” she said brightly. “I’m going to go. I hope your sister is all right.”

“She fell over some toys on the stairs,” he said, but he was watching her, carefully. He made no move to take the keys. “Her leg is broken, badly. An orthopedic surgeon is on the way.”

“On the way!” she said. “That’s great. Well, I must—”

He took a step in to her. “What’s the matter?” he asked softly.

The baby was reaching for her hair. He smelled sweet, of talcum and baby soap, and of innocence and hope and dreams.

She couldn’t even do the baby bouquets at work. She let Mrs. Abercrombie fill the little blue ceramic boots and the pink stork baskets.

“The matter?” She stepped back from the baby. If he touched her with those little pudgy hands she knew she would shatter into a million pieces, and there would be no putting her back together again. “Nothing.”

But her voice wobbled shamefully. She pressed the keys into his hand. “I have to—”

“Katie,” he said, his voice gravelly, firm, strong, “Talk to me.”

No.

A terrible thing happened. She began to cry. It felt as if every one of those feelings she’d bottled up after the miscarriage had decided to pick this moment, of all moments, not be dammed one second longer.

It was exactly the kind of demonstration that could absolutely be counted on to horrify a man like Dylan McKinnon.

Only it didn’t.

He drew her into him with his free arm, pressed her head against his chest. “Hey,” he said, “Hey, it’s okay.”

The baby was too close now. Touching her, squawking at her like a little bird, tangling his fists in her hair.

She waited to break, to shatter, for her heart to burst into a million pieces.

Standing there with Dylan’s arm around her, held fast by his strength, with the sweet-scented baby pulling at her hair and chirping away at her in baby talk, something did shatter. The ice around her heart. Only, behind it was not destruction but warmth. The loveliest warmth burst through her.

She wiped her tears on Dylan’s chest, took a step back. “Can I hold him?” she whispered.

The baby came to her so willingly, gurgling and blowing spit bubbles. Her arms closed around him, and she felt his wriggling, beautiful strength.

She felt life. In all its mystery and all its magnificence.

She met Dylan’s eyes and heard herself saying, her voice brave, “I had a miscarriage. I lost my baby. The marriage didn’t make it.”

He just looked at her. He didn’t try and make it better, but he didn’t try and look away, either. He didn’t try and change the subject. He didn’t offer words that would not and could not help. He just looked at her, and there was something in the look in his eyes that she could hang on to.

“Come on,” he finally said. “Let’s sit down over here.” He guided her to the waiting room, which was blessedly empty, and she took a chair, the baby nestled happily against her. Dylan took the chair beside her, covered her hand with his own.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“Jake.”

“I was going to call my baby Jonathon. It was a boy, too.”

“Jonathon’s a nice name. I think you would have been a good mom. No. A great one.” He did not say she was young and there would be more babies, more chances, as if one child could be replaced with another.

“I took it really hard,” she told him.

“Would there be any other way to take it?” he asked softly.

“Marcus, my husband, seemed relieved.” She had never said that to another living soul before. Had she even said it to herself? The words were tumbling out now.

“He said ‘I’m not sure I was ready for a baby.’ He hadn’t wanted to try again. What he’d wanted was for me to get over it. He didn’t understand how you could grieve for something that had never breathed.” She paused, and said so softly maybe she just said it to herself, “But my dreams breathed.”

Dylan swore under his breath. One word. Not a word anyone else had said, except maybe her in the darkness of night when she had found herself so alone with a heart full of misery.

And Dylan meant it. And she knew he was a man who would never be relieved if something happened to his unborn baby. Never.

The yearning leaped in her, clawed at her, told her, Take a chance on him.

On him? That was craziness! She had looked after his flowers. She knew better. Except what she had seen in his eyes just now was like a beacon that called the ships lost at sea home to safe harbor.

“If Tara’s your sister,” she asked, suddenly, “who’s Sarah?”

He slid her a look, smiled crookedly. “PR manager.”

“Margot?”

“Receptionist at my office.”

“Janet?”

He sighed. “It’s Sister Janet.”

“I think,” she decided out loud, “I’ll move to another country.” Was it even possible to outdistance what was unfolding within her? How far would she have to run to escape the hope that was unfurling inside of her?

“Katie, my lady,” he said, “Oh, Katie, my lady.”

Katie, my lady. Just a teasing phrase, not something that was intended to increase the yearning within her. But spoken with such tenderness, from his heart, that’s exactly what it did. And it made her decide she wasn’t going anywhere. Not just yet.

And then he took his hand in hers, and he kissed the top of it, and sighed, a man who would rewrite the past for her if he could.

But what would he write on her future?

The baby, who had been slurping contentedly, suddenly popped his thumb from his mouth and roared, “JAAAKE.”

She laughed, startled and delighted.

“We’re working on volume control,” Dylan said affectionately. “He only has one setting, loud. And if I put him on the ground, he only has one speed.”

“Let me guess. Fast.”

“How did you guess?”

“Um. I can tell this is one acorn that didn’t fall too far from the McKinnon family tree.”

“Mr. McKinnon?” a nurse called. “Can you come with me for a minute?”

Dylan studied Katie. “Do you want me to leave Jake with you or take him with me?”

Katie struggled to keep her face composed. Yearning, sweet and tantalizing, burned through her. What she wanted to do was bury her face in the sweetness of that baby’s scent and never come up for air again.