He hated that most of all. He hated the parting glance Adam always threw over his shoulder, one last plea in his watery eyes as if Dylan had the power to grant what he wanted most.
But he couldn’t, and staying a few days or the whole two weeks wouldn’t give Adam what he really wanted. A mom and dad who lived together. A mother who was more like the woman he watched on television every week than the woman he met once a year. An angel who cared for him like she cared for the homeless, or elderly, or the orphans she’d saved last week. A mother he could talk about to his friends.
Dylan sat on the end of his bed and pulled off his boots. Neither he nor Julie had intended to keep Adam separate from her life for so long. They’d never intended to make her a subject he couldn’t share. They’d never intended to keep him a secret no one knew about. It had just happened, and now they didn’t know what to do about it.
Adam had been only two when Julie had landed the starring role on Heaven on Earth. Dylan and Adam had already been living in Gospel, far from the spotlight Julie craved. With her beautiful face, translucent skin, and shrewd press releases, the public had instantly fallen in love with her. In a matter of months, her life had risen from struggling nobody actress to heavenly angel. Suddenly she was a frequent guest on mainstream talk shows and a paragon of Christian programming. Everyone believed the angel was beautiful inside and out. America wanted a symbol of good, and they found it in Juliette Bancroft.
Those first few summers she’d spent with Adam, she’d taken him to her father’s small ranch because she’d needed a break from her life, a place where she could focus on him. The home where she’d been raised provided that for her, as well as a nice setting for Adam to get to know the few relatives who still lived in the area.
Now, five years later, she took him there because she had little choice. How could she suddenly tell the world that she had a son she saw only once a year? How would that look? How would that play on the talk shows, and what about the Christian right who endorsed her show? What would that do to her heavenly image?
More important to Dylan, how would the tabloid papers treat the news that not only did Juliette Bancroft have a child she didn’t raise and rarely saw, but she hadn’t been married to her son’s father, either? What would that do to Adam? What would that do to his and Adam’s quiet life together?
Adam was seven now. Old enough to see that his life was different from that of other kids his age. Old enough to wonder why he couldn’t brag about his mother. Old enough to be hurt by the truth, but keeping it from him longer would only hurt him more. He’d have to be told soon. Adam Taber was the illegitimate son of America’s angel. Dylan just hoped Adam would understand, but he wouldn’t be told tonight. Not tomorrow, either.
Dylan pulled off his socks and threw them by his shirt. Within the slice of moonlight spilling through the window, he stripped naked and scratched his chest. Having Hope in town made him realize he needed to talk to Adam soon. Perhaps as soon as Adam returned home. He had a few weeks to figure it out. While he helped out at the Double T, he’d have time to clear his head and think about what he would say, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t already practiced his speech in his head a million times before.
He pulled back the plaid comforter and slid into his bed. The sheets were clean and cool and he stuck his hand under his head and stared up at the ceiling. He’d leave out the part about him not loving Julie the way a man should love a woman and both of them knowing it would never have lasted anyway. Adam didn’t need to know that he was the only reason they’d tried to make it work for as long as they had. All his son needed to know was that he was loved by both his parents. And he needed to be told by someone who loved him-soon.
When Dylan got off work Thursday, he took Adam to the Curl Up and Dye to get his hair cut. While buzzing the back of Adam’s neck, Dixie promised to “drop by sometime next week.” Dylan didn’t bother telling her he wouldn’t be home.
After the Curl Up and Dye, they stopped at Hansen’s Emporium to grab some underwear. Adam chose briefs with X-Men on the behind. The store was filled with a few tourists buying souvenirs, and one or two locals who’d moved inside the air-conditioned store to get out of the relentless heat.
Dylan stood in the toy aisle helping Adam choose a snorkel and ignoring everything around him-until Hope Spencer walked in. As if she reached across the store and placed her fingers under his chin, he lifted his gaze the second she strolled inside. Over a display of Magic Bubbles, he watched her move with that big-city, don’t-mess-with-me stride of hers, keeping her gaze straight ahead. She didn’t look around, and she didn’t notice him watching her as she grabbed two rolls of film and headed for a display of cow-pie candy. Using two fingers, she picked up the candy and read the ingredients.
She’d been out jogging again and her hair was up. Several fine strands fell from her ponytail and she’d pushed them behind her ears. They curled and stuck to the sides of her throat. He knew how she tasted there. Right there where her neck met her shoulder, she was soft and sweet. He knew the smooth creaminess of her skin and the weight of her breasts in his hands. He knew the curve of her behind against his groin. He couldn’t stop the hunger or the wanting any more than he could stop himself from going to her. He left Adam by the rubber spiders and superballs and walked up behind Hope.
“That’s not real cowshit,” he said and figured he probably hadn’t uttered something so impressive since the sixth grade, when he’d tried to dazzle Nancy Burk by telling her she wasn’t as ugly as her sister.
Hope put down the candy and turned to face him. A smile flirted with the corners of her lips and he felt it low in his belly. “I’d already figured that out, but it wouldn
’t have surprised me if it was.”
He let his gaze rest a few irresistible moments on her mouth before he looked away, over the top of her head to a mounted salmon in the fishing section. He was afraid she could read the hunger in his eyes and know what he wanted, that he wanted to reach out and fold her against him. Maybe bury his nose in her hair. Although after Monday night, she probably had some idea.
“Are you going to the Fourth of July celebration next weekend?” she asked. “Are you entered in the toilet toss?”
“No. I’m afraid I’ll miss the excitement.” His gaze traveled across a rainbow of folded T-shirts and ended up back on Hope, on her smooth hair and shiny pony-tail. “I won’t be in town.”
She was silent for a moment and then she said, “Shelly mentioned you’d be gone for a few weeks.”
He looked into her blue eyes, saw the disappointment there, and almost gave in to his urge. He almost reached for her, right there in Hansen’s Emporium. “Yes, that’s right.”
“I need to take pictures of some waterfalls Shelly told me about, and I thought maybe you could take me. But if you won’t be in town…” She shrugged. “I guess I can wait until Shelly feels up to a hike.”
“Are these pictures for the article you’re writing on the Northwest?”
She lowered her gaze to his chest. “Yes.”
He didn’t even want to think about what he would do if he ever found himself alone with her. Completely alone. Just the two of them. No, that was a lie. He did want to think about what it would be like to make love to her. He liked to think about holding her breasts in his hands, kissing her, running his tongue across her hard nipples, and shoving his face into her cleavage. He absolutely loved to think about positions, too-horizontal, vertical, upside down, sideways. He thought about burying himself between her soft thighs all the time, but that didn’t mean he would do anything about it. “Sorry I can’t help you out,” he said. He was in control of his body if not of his thoughts. Still, it was best not to let his mind travel that pleasurable path, especially in Hansen’s.
She returned her gaze to his and pushed the corners of her mouth up into a halfhearted smile. “That’s okay.”
“Maybe if I…” He shrugged. If he what? Waited until his son was out of town to skirt around and hope like hell that he got lucky? Sneak around and hope no one in town noticed their sheriff having sex with their favorite topic of gossip since Hiram Donnelly? He might have been able to figure out a way past the gossip, but there was no getting around the huge fact that Hope was a writer. He couldn’t sleep with her and all the while pray to God she didn’t find out about Adam. And if she did find out, would he read about his life in People magazine? Or worse, in the Enquirer?
He couldn’t risk it, and Hope deserved better. He took a step backward and almost stepped on Adam’s foot.
“Dad!”