Interrupted Lullaby. Valerie Parv
2
Zeke took his time clipping his notes and Tara’s handouts into his folio while the room emptied around him. The journalist and the photographer had left, disgruntled by his refusal to be interviewed. Now only one other man remained. Todd Jessman, Zeke thought, his brain automatically supplying the name. Tara’s foundation had helped him and his family, he recalled. From old journalistic habit, he tuned his ear to their conversation.
“I’d love you to send me photos of the baby,” he heard her tell the man. A slight catch in her voice made Zeke frown. Didn’t she know she shouldn’t get emotionally involved with the people she was supposed to help? Zeke had always prided himself on his objectivity. Emotional involvement was a weakness that clouded judgement. Another point they disagreed on.
“I’ll be sure and send some. Thank you again.” The man touched her arm and Zeke tensed, surprised by the force of his instinctive reaction. The man was married with a kid, for pity’s sake. On the other hand, maybe he needed reminding of the fact. If he wasn’t getting enough attention at home, he could mistake Tara’s professional concern for something more.
Before he had completed the thought, Zeke was at the front of the room, coming between them physically. He was a big man and while he didn’t deliberately use his size to his own advantage, he didn’t mind if it occasionally had that effect. His actions annoyed Tara, he realized when he saw her take a step back. From him? He didn’t like that, one bit.
“I have to go now,” she said to the young man, and Zeke swore he heard a tremor in her voice.
The young man looked from her to Zeke and swallowed, getting the message at last. “Okay, I’ll be in touch.”
She raked Zeke with a look. “Do you enjoy intimidating people?”
“It never worked with you.”
“Perhaps you should keep it in mind.” She began to gather up her things. “You didn’t say much to the magazine people.”
So she had noticed. Good. “I told them this was your show and they would have to get their quotes from you. What did you expect? A hatchet job?”
She tried to keep the pain out of her eyes and suspected she failed. “Isn’t it what you came to do?” He couldn’t deny it, she saw as his expression fleetingly revealed the truth. She pushed files into her briefcase. “I have to go.”
“You promised we would talk.”
It was out before she could stop it. “Why am I the only one who has to keep promises?”
He took a deep breath. “I never made you any promises I didn’t keep, Tara.”
It was true, he hadn’t. He had promised she would be the only woman in his life and she had been, while they were together. He had promised her the sun, the moon and the stars and she had found them all in his arms. But he had never promised her forever because he didn’t believe in it.
She understood that his upbringing argued against it, creating a barrier around his heart that he allowed no woman to penetrate, least of all her, but it didn’t lessen the hurt. Had Lucy managed to break down the barrier? Tara doubted it.
She had always suspected that if Zeke let her into that secret place deep inside him that he guarded so fiercely, he would be a lover without equal. He very nearly was already. But his reserve remained as a silent warning to come close but no closer.
“Why did you come back to Australia?” she asked, hearing herself sound hollow with the strain of the evening.
“You sound regretful.”
Probably because she was. “We hardly parted on good terms.”
“Your terms,” he said with sudden coldness. He looked around the empty room and beyond it to the corridor where a janitor was turning off lights. “You’re right, we do need to talk, but not here. I could use some coffee.”
“And I could use some sleep,” she shot in quickly before he could suggest going to a café. “We can talk on the way to my car, then I have to go.”
“Kind of you to offer me a lift,” he said, although they both knew she hadn’t. “I sold my car when I left the country and haven’t replaced it yet. I live at Neutral Bay so it’s on your way if you still live in the same place.”
How had she ended up driving him home? she wondered as he shadowed her to the lift and down to the basement car park. Her compact car looked lonely in the cavernous space and she was unreasonably glad Zeke was with her, although she refused to recognize any reason other than security. “I hate these places at night,” she admitted, not sure why.
“When I’m not around, you should have a security guard escort you in future,” he instructed.
It was good advice, but she had trouble thinking past the first part of his statement. “What do you mean, when you’re not around? You haven’t been around for a year and a half and I’ve coped perfectly well. Isn’t it a bit late to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do?”
“I never could tell you what to do,” he said as he folded himself into the passenger seat. Normally she loved her car with its reminders of a similar model she had purchased in her late teens. Now she wished for something more spacious to put greater distance between herself and the man beside her.
When she reached for the hand brake, she couldn’t help brushing against him and a riot of sensual thoughts raced through her head, none of them the least bit welcome. Or so she told herself. Convincing the parts of her that suddenly ached for his intimate touch was another matter.
“It didn’t stop you trying,” she snapped, throwing the car into gear with less care than usual and steering on autopilot.
“I never stop trying,” he said so softly that she wondered if she had heard correctly.
Concentrating on easing out into the traffic, she kept her startled glance to herself. “Two confessions in one night? Working in America can’t have changed you that much?”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about what’s important in my life. I want us to try again, Tara.”
It was just as well she had both hands on the wheel, giving her something to hold on to, she thought. The traffic streaming along Military Road made it impossible to do what she really wanted, and that was to pull over and demand what in blazes he thought he was doing. She couldn’t simply pick up where they left off.
He sensed her resistance. “Leaving was a mistake. When you said you couldn’t go with me, I should have turned the offer down and stayed in Australia.” As soon as the words were out, he knew they were the reason he was here. The real reason.
Her heart ached. Nineteen months ago, hearing him say that would have made all the difference in the world. It wouldn’t have saved their baby. Nothing could have done that. But it would have meant everything to have his support through the nightmare of losing their child and facing life afterward. At the same time, she had recoiled from using her pregnancy to blackmail him into staying when he hadn’t wanted to for her sake alone.
Pain fueled her anger. “So you made a unilateral decision to return and claim what’s rightfully yours. Did it occur to you that I might not want to be claimed?”
He chuckled ruefully. “I’ve never been stopped by a challenge before.”
“I’m not a challenge, Zeke. I’m part of your past, as I’m sure you told the magazine reporter.”
“I didn’t tell them anything except that it was your show and I was there to observe.”
She glanced away from the traffic long enough for him to register her surprise. “And are you?”
“I’m not the enemy, Tara. You may think I am because of my exposé on charities that help themselves more than other people, but so far your foundation doesn’t seem to be one of them.”
It