Dance Away with Me(48)

“We know we’ll have to make sacrifices,” Diane said, “but she deserves a stable upbringing, and we’re the only ones who can provide it.”

“You have other options. You could—”

“Tess.” Ian came to his feet and brought her right along with him. “Let’s take a walk and give them some time alone with Wren.”

He practically dragged her outside.

“Stop pulling me!”

He didn’t. Instead, he force-marched her away from the house and across the clearing where, less than a month ago, the rescue helicopter had landed. When they were in the trees, out of sight of the house, he turned on her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m . . . concerned. That’s all.”

His hand gripped her shoulder. “You can’t have her, Tess. She’s not yours.”

“I know that. Don’t you think I know that? But . . . I made a promise. A deathbed promise to watch out for her.”

“Those people are smitten with her. They’re dream grandparents. What more could you want?”

Her heart rebelled against his cold logic. “They’re only grandparents. She deserves . . . She deserves more.”

She knew how foolish that sounded. Wren wasn’t going to get more. Her mother was dead; her father a nonentity. Wren was lucky to have grandparents who were already falling in love with her and who were willing to make sacrifices to raise her.

“I know you want what’s best for her,” he said as she began to walk away from her. “But she needs to be with her family.”

I’m her family. I was the first person to touch her. The one who’s fed her, changed her, held her against my body . . .

She had to stop thinking like this and start thinking like a foster mother—one of the legions of good women who lovingly cared for newborns until they could be reunited with their families.

He fell into step next to her, his tone softening almost imperceptibly. “You’re going to be okay.”

“Of course I am.” She shivered. She’d come outside without a jacket, only her gray cardigan. “And I know I’m being awful.”

“Not awful,” he said gruffly. “You have a big heart. That’s who you are.”

She managed a wobbly smile. “Well, it sucks.”

“I can only imagine.”

They walked for a while without speaking, her sneakers scuffing the leaves on the trail, his silent. They neared the old fire tower. She stopped. Dug a heel into the dirt. Gazed up at him. “Do you love her? Wren? Even a little?”

He looked past her into the woods, speaking slowly, choosing his words. “I care what happens to her.”

“But you don’t love her,” she said flatly.

“The kind of love you’re talking about isn’t possible for me.”

“Sure, it is.”

He shook his head, finally meeting her gaze. “No, Tess. I’m not like most people. I’m selfish. Big emotions get in the way of my work, and my work always comes first. That’s why I need my space.”

“Bianca must have been a real trial for you.” Something she already knew. He started to walk again, and she followed. “So you’ve never been in love?”

“I didn’t say that. There was the typical teenage stuff when I was at boarding school.”

“With a girl?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Yes. With a girl.”

She’d known from IHN4: A Rebel’s Story that his parents had stuck him in a boarding school half a continent away, but it still sounded strange when she contrasted it with how he must have looked when Bianca found him passed out in a doorway.

“The important relationships didn’t happen until I was in my mid-twenties,” he said, “and that’s when things went bad.”

“They broke your heart.” She delivered the right amount of mockery to keep him comfortable.

“No,” he said quietly. “I broke theirs. And neither of them deserved it.”

“Oh.” She tried to process what he’d told her. “You don’t strike me as a callous heartbreaker. You’re fairly decent. When you’re not being a jerk.”

“I appreciate the twisted compliment, but I have enough sins without adding to the list. No more breaking hearts.”

“Jeez. You’re not that irresistible.” As long as she discounted the macho that clung to him like woodsmoke. Or those rugged good looks . . . One of her hairpins dangled at her neck. She tucked it in the pocket of her cardigan. “So you’ve only been with hookers since?”

“Nice try.”

“Meaning you’ve had sex with real women?”

“Yes, Tess. Real women. Now could we talk about something else?”

“Not till I’m done processing. Sex with real women normally involves all kinds of biiiiig emotions. Doesn’t that scare you?”

“It doesn’t need to involve biiiig emotions if you find the right partners. It can just be fun.”

“Back to the hookers, right?”

“Now you’re really baiting me.”

She took a quick detour. “I thought love was supposed to make creative people more productive.”