Wanting What She Can't Have Page 3

  She nodded, unsure of what to say about Bree’s things. Or even if she should say anything about them at all.

  “The baby’s quiet now. Is she all right?”

  “Ruby’s down for the night. Catherine tells me she usually goes through until about six-thirty, or seven, so as long as she isn’t unsettled by sleeping somewhere unfamiliar, you shouldn’t hear from her again until morning.”

  “How do you know she’s okay? You’re not with her right now.”

  Alexis tapped the monitor on her belt loop. “I have the monitor. As soon as she stirs I’ll know, trust me.”

  “Hmm, are you sure it’s working?”

  “It looked pretty new when I removed it from the packaging and I put fresh batteries in this unit myself before Ruby arrived.”

  He flinched slightly and Alexis took a moment to realize why. Of course, he and Bree would have bought all the things in the nursery in readiness for when they brought their infant home for the first time. Bree was likely the last person to have touched that monitor before Alexis.

  “They might be old. I’ll get you new ones. Make sure you change them immediately.”

  Alexis fought the urge to salute at his command. Instead she merely inclined her head. He was showing concern, which was a good thing even if she wished it came with a less imperious tone.

  “Is there anything else? I thought I might start getting our evening meal ready. Ruby obviously ate earlier but now I have time to put something together for us. Will you be joining me?”

  “No.” His response was emphatic. “I’ll see to myself.”

  “It’s no bother. I may as well cook for two adults as for one. I’ll leave your meal warming in the oven.”

  His body sagged, as if he was giving up in this battle—perhaps choosing to shore up his strength for another time. “Thank you.”

  “If you change your mind about eating with me, feel free. It’d be nice to catch up. Or, if you’d rather, have breakfast with Ruby and me in the morning. It’d be good for her to spend more time with her dad, and good for you, too.”

  Raoul sighed and swiped one hand across his face. She saw his jaw clench before he spoke again.

  “Look, I know you’re determined to do what you think is the right thing, but you and the baby being here is a complication I can do without. Don’t make it any harder for me than it already has to be.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Alexis. I mean it. If there had been any other alternative to this, believe me, I would have chosen it. Once Catherine is mobile again I expect things to return to normal.”

  “Normal? But this isn’t normal, is it? Not by any stretch of the imagination,” Alexis protested. “Bree wouldn’t have wanted you to be so distant from your own flesh and blood.”

  He paled as if he’d been dealt a mortal blow. “Don’t,” he said brokenly, shaking his head and backing toward the door. “Don’t throw that at me. You have no idea—” He shook his head once more. “Just do what you were hired to do, Alexis. End of topic.”

  He was gone in an instant and Alexis wrapped her arms around herself in a vain attempt to provide some comfort for herself where there was none. So, it seemed she couldn’t even mention her best friend without making Raoul run. That he’d loved her deeply was patently obvious. But how could that love not extend to their little girl?

  Three

  Raoul lay in bed unable to sleep any longer. It was time he rose anyway, time to escape to the winery before Alexis and Ruby took over the house. No longer was his home the quiet sanctuary contained by the boundaries of his property. No longer was coming to the house a peaceful pilgrimage to the past. No longer was it his safe place where he could be alone with his memories.

  They’d been here a week—a hellishly long time, in his estimation—and since Alexis’s and the baby’s arrival he spent as little time as humanly possible in the house. And since he still wasn’t ready to face the world at large, that meant he spent as much time as he could in the winery where he wasn’t constantly being distracted by the presence of two very unsettling females.

  Just yesterday he’d caught Alexis shifting things in the sitting room—raising the tide line, she’d called it—because Ruby was pulling herself up on the furniture and starting to walk around things, grabbing for whatever she could reach. While he understood the necessity of keeping Ruby safe, the idea of changing anything from the way Bree had left it was profoundly unsettling.

  He yawned widely. Sleep had been as elusive last night as it had been since Alexis’s accusation of his behavior being abnormal. Her words had stung. She had no idea what he went through every time he looked at Ruby. Every time he saw a miniature Bree seated before him. He’d almost managed to bring the shock of pain under control, but the echoing empty loss that came hard on its heels unraveled him in ways he didn’t even want to begin to acknowledge.

  And then there was the fear—an awful irrational beast that built up in his chest and threatened to consume him. What if Ruby got sick, or was hurt? What if he didn’t know what to do, or didn’t react fast enough? It was an almost unbearable sense of responsibility lessened only slightly by knowing Alexis was here shouldering the bulk of it. Raoul shoved aside his bedcovers and got out of bed, yanking his pajama bottoms up higher on his hips. Everything slid off him these days. It hadn’t mattered when he was here alone but now, with his privacy totally invaded, he had to be a little more circumspect. Even locked in his antisocial bubble he could see that.

  Suddenly his senses went on full alert, his skin awash with a chill of terror as he heard a muted thump come from the nursery followed by a sharp cry from the baby. For a second he was frozen, but another cry followed hard on the heels of the first, sending him flying down the hallway toward God only knew what disaster. His heart felt too big in his chest, its beat too rapid, and he fought to drag in a shuddering breath as he reached the doorway, almost too afraid to open the door and look inside.

  Ruby’s howls had increased several decibels. Where the hell was Alexis? The child’s care was her job. Reluctantly, he turned the handle and pushed open the door. He winced as Ruby let out another earsplitting yell. Something had to be horribly wrong, he was sure. Fine tremors racked his body as he visually examined the red-faced infant standing up in her crib, howling her throat out.

  His eyes flew over her, searching for some visible cause for her distress. She was so small—miniature everything from the tiny feet tipped with even tinier toes to the top of her auburn fuzzed head—all except for the sound bellowing from her lungs.

  Clearly nothing wrong with those.

  There was absolutely nothing he could see that could be responsible for her upset. Nothing external, anyway. Fear twisted in his stomach as he took a step into the room. It was always what you couldn’t see that was the most dangerous.

  One pudgy little hand gripped the top rail of the side of her crib, the other reached out helplessly...toward what? Looking around, he spotted a toy on the floor. From its position, he’d guess that it had been in the crib with her and she’d flung it across the room. And still she screamed.

  Was that all this was about? A stupid toy?

  He gingerly picked up the mangled black-and-white zebra and handed it to her, avoiding actual physical contact. The sobs ceased for a moment—but only a moment before she hurled it back to the floor, plonked herself down on her bottom on her mattress and began once more to howl.

  “Oh, dear, so it’s going to be one of those days, is it?”

  Alexis bustled past him and toward the crib.

  “Where the hell have you been? She’s been crying for ages,” Raoul demanded, pushing one hand through his hair.

  “About a minute, actually, but yes, I agree, it feels like forever when she’s upset.”

  She competently lifted Ruby from the crib and hugged her to her body. Raoul became instantly aware of how the child snuggled against Alexis’s scantily clad form—in particular Alexis’s full, unbound breasts that we
re barely covered by a faded singlet. She wore it over pajama shorts that, heaven help him, rode low on her softly curved hips and high on her tanned legs.

  A surge of heat slowly rolled through his body, making his skin feel tight—uncomfortable with recognition of her lush femininity. But then he became aware of something else.

  “What is that god-awful smell?”

  “Probably the reason why she’s awake earlier than normal. She needs a clean diaper and she’s very fussy about that. It’s good really, it’ll make potty training so much easier later on. Some kids are absolutely oblivious.”

  Raoul backed out of the room. “Are you sure that’s all? Maybe she ought to see the doctor and get checked out.”

  Alexis just laughed. The sound washed over him like a gentle caress—its touch too much, too intimate.

  “I see nothing to laugh about. She might be sick,” he said, his body rigid with anxiety.

  “Oh, no. Nothing like that,” Alexis replied, her back to him as she laid Ruby down on her change table.

  With one hand gently on the baby’s tummy, she reached for a packet of wipes, the movement making the already short hemline of her pajama shorts ride even higher and exposing the curve of one buttock. The warmth that had previously invaded his body now ignited to an instant inferno. He turned away from the scene before him, as much to hide his stirring erection as to avoid watching the diaper change.

  He turned back a minute later, almost under complete control once more, as Alexis dropped the soiled packet into the diaper bin, one Raoul distinctly remembered Bree ordering in a flurry of nursery accessory buying the day they discovered she was pregnant. He didn’t even remember when it had arrived or who had put it in here. He should probably have given it to Catherine but here it was, being used in a nursery he’d never imagined being used at all after Bree’s death.

  “Raoul? Are you okay?”

  Alexis’s voice interrupted his thoughts, dragging him back into the here and now as she always did.

  “I’m fine,” he asserted firmly, as if saying the words could actually make them true.

  “Good, then please hold Ruby while I go and wash my hands.”

  Before he could protest, she’d thrust the baby against his chest. Instinctively he put out his arms, regretting the movement the instant his hands closed around the little girl’s tiny form. His stomach lurched and he felt physically ill with fear. He’d never held her before. Ever. What if he did something wrong, or hurt her? What if she started crying again? He looked down into the blue eyes of his daughter, eyes that were so like her mother’s. Her dark brown lashes were spiked together with tears and to his horror he saw her eyes begin to fill again, saw her lip begin to wobble. He couldn’t do this, he really couldn’t do this.

  “Thanks, Raoul, I can take her back now if you like?”

  Relief swamped him at Alexis’s return and he passed the baby back to her with lightning speed. But the moment his arms were empty something weird happened. It was as if he actually missed the slight weight in his arms, the feel of that little body up against his own, the sensation of the rapidly drawn breaths in her tiny chest, the warmth of her skin.

  He took one step back, then another. No, he couldn’t feel this way. He couldn’t afford to love and lose another person the way he’d lost Bree. Ruby was still small, so much could go wrong. He forced himself to ignore the tug in his chest and the emptiness in his arms and dragged his gaze from the little girl now staring back at him, wide-eyed as she bent her head into Alexis’s chest, the fingers of one hand twirling in Alexis’s shoulder-length honey-blond hair.

  “Are you absolutely certain she’s all right?” he asked gruffly.

  Alexis smiled. “Of course, she’s fine, although she might be a bit cranky later this morning and need a longer nap than normal thanks to this early start today.”

  “Don’t hesitate to take her to the doctor if you’re worried.”

  “I won’t, I promise.”

  Her voice softened and his eyes caught with hers. Was it pity he saw there reflected in their dark brown depths? He felt his defenses fly back up around him. He needed no one’s pity. Not for anything. He was doing just fine by himself, thank you very much. And that was just the way he preferred it.

  Except he wasn’t by himself anymore, was he? He had Ruby and Alexis to contend with, and goodness only knew they both affected him on entirely different levels. Feeling overwhelmed he turned around and strode from the room, determined to keep as much distance between himself and them as possible.

  * * *

  Alexis watched him go, unable to stop herself from enjoying the view, finally letting out a sigh and turning away when he hitched up his pajama bottoms before they dipped any lower. He’d always been a beautiful man and it had almost hurt her eyes to see him nearly naked like that. His weight loss had only given his muscled strength more definition, particularly the long lean line that ran from his hip down under the waistband of his pants. Oh, yes, he still pinged every single one of her feminine receptors—big time.

  She’d been glad for the distraction of settling Ruby or she might have done something stupid—like reach out and touch him. She might have followed that line to see what lay beneath it. To see whether she’d imagined his reaction to her own body before he’d so valiantly controlled it back into submission. Her mouth dried and her fingertips tingled at the thought. She closed her eyes briefly in an attempt to force the visual memory of him from her mind but it only served to imprint him even deeper.

  No, acting on her ridiculous impulses would only complicate things beyond control. Her attraction to him was just as pointless as it had always been, and dwelling on it wouldn’t do either one of them any good. She was here to do a job and she was doing it well—no matter how often he’d already managed to suggest otherwise in the short time she’d been here.

  She’d taken a risk making him hold Ruby like that but it had given her the answer to a question she’d been asking herself all week. And just as she’d suspected, big, strong, successful Raoul Benoit was scared. Terrified, to be exact. Not so much of his own daughter—although, there was something of that, too—but for her.

  Alexis hummed as she collected a few toys for Ruby to play with while she took the baby to her room so she could get dressed for the day. As she did so, her mind turned over her discovery. It all began to make sense. His reluctance to be in the same room as Ruby, to hold her or to interact with her in any way. His near obsession with her safety. Obviously he’d felt she was secure in her grandmother’s care, somewhere where he could ensure she was out of sight and out of mind. Someone else’s problem.

  But when she was close enough for him to hear her cries, all his fears took over. His instincts as a father had clearly propelled him into Ruby’s room when she had woken this morning, but once there he had hardly any idea of what to do with them. She could help with that, could teach him—if he’d let her.

  “Bree, it’s going to be a hard road getting him back but I think we’ve made the first step,” she said out loud to the photo of her friend that she’d put on the bedside table in her room.

  Warmth bloomed in her chest and it was almost as if she felt her friend’s approval slide through her before disappearing again. Dismissing the thought as being fanciful, Alexis quickly dressed for the day and scooped Ruby back up off the floor.

  “C’mon, munchkin. Let’s go find us some breakfast!”

  She spun around, the movement making Ruby chuckle in delight. Yes, everything was going to be all right. She just had to keep believing it was possible.

  * * *

  Over the next few days Raoul remained pretty scarce, which served as a source of major frustration. Alexis wanted to gently include him in more of Ruby’s routine here and there, but he always managed to duck away before she had a chance. On the bright side, the brief interaction Ruby had shared with her father seemed to have piqued her curiosity about the stern-faced man who hung around the fringes of her little worl
d. Instead of crying every time she saw him she was more inclined to drop everything and barrel forward on all fours toward him if he so much as made a step into her periphery.

  It was both highly amusing to see him realize that Ruby had fixated on him, and a bit sad, as well, that he distanced himself from her again so effectively afterward.

  One step forward at a time, Alexis reminded herself. She and Ruby fell into an easy daily routine, helped in no small part by the fact that Catherine had enrolled the baby into a playgroup down in town where she happily interacted with other children her age and slightly older. It was good for both of them to get out of the house and interact with other people. Despite having been born a little early, Ruby was only marginally behind her peers when it came to developmental markers, Alexis observed.

  One of the young mothers came over to Alexis and sat down beside her.

  “Hi, I’m Laura,” she said with a bright smile. “That’s my little tyke, Jason, over there.” She pointed to a little boy in denim jeans and brightly colored suspenders busily commando crawling toward the sandpit.

  “Alexis, pleased to meet you,” Alexis replied with a smile.

  “Have you heard how Catherine is doing? We all have been wondering but didn’t want to be a nuisance.”

  “The surgery went well. She’s at her sister’s home in Cashmere, recuperating. If you’re heading into Christchurch at all, I’m sure she’d love it if you called by to visit.”

  “Oh, thanks, that’s good to know.”

  Laura sat back and watched the kids playing for a while. Alexis sensed she was trying to drum up the courage to say something but was perhaps figuring out the best way around it. Eventually, though, she seemed to come to a decision.

  “We were surprised when we heard that Ruby was staying with her dad. Especially given...” Her voice trailed off and she looked uncomfortable. “Look, I don’t want you to think I’m prying but is everything okay at the house? We were, most of us, friends with Bree during our pregnancies and our partners and Raoul all got along pretty well. We had our own little social group going. Aside from missing Bree, we really miss Raoul, too. All the guys have tried to reach out to him since Bree died, but he’s just cut ties with everyone.”