Had she imagined it or had his eyes quickly turned darker, sharper, hotter?
“Likewise, Cat.”
With a quicksilver movement, she was gone, and he was left standing alone, Mary Alice off to answer the loudly ringing phone.
Their hands had barely touched before she withdrew hers, as if contact with his skin was abhorrent. Or, could it be, he wondered, that she had felt the same jolt of electricity that he had? Had she been shocked that it still existed? Frightened by the implications? Or appalled?
Rory glanced at the door that led to the back room, a smile tilting the corners of his mouth.
Cat imagined that she could still feel the tingling in her skin upon the contact with his. Handshakes. An everyday occurrence that she never even gave a second thought to.
Until today.
Until now.
Until him.
The brush of flesh against flesh had instantly summoned memories of other times, other caresses: his palms skimming lazily along her breast or thigh, a drift of his lean fingers along her neck or over her arm.
But she’d held on to her jolted emotions. Kept her cool.
Pleased with herself, Cat counted and signed for the shipment, happy that she had maintained her poise in dealing with Rory. Cat could never show him that he still had any influence on her emotions.
“Anything going out?” the UPS man asked, breaking into Cat’s thoughts.
“Yes,” she answered, retrieving the package that was being sent to a customer. Her back was to the stockroom door, so she didn’t see the man who entered behind her.
Rory quietly stepped into the room. While he understood that he had been dismissed by his former lover, he wasn’t ready to go. Not yet. Not until he had a chance to talk to Cat some more. He hadn’t come all this way to walk away now, not without a fight. Not without trying to get through to her. He still felt the pull, the burning, fire-in-the-gut attraction. If anything, it was stronger than ever. Hotter than before.
His glance fell on her desk, as cluttered as his own, littered with papers, books, various odds and ends. He stepped closer, picking up an item of stationery, one finger tracing the design of an embossed silver harp nestled in a bed of shamrocks on a notecard. Rory smiled. The artist had taken time, producing a fine product. Like Cat’s store, it was special, one of a kind, much like the lady herself.
He was just about to announce his presence, ask her if she’d consider coming out with him for a drink, anything to prolong the moment, when his eyes fell on a framed photograph on Cat’s desk. Reaching out his hand, he picked it up.
Cat turned around, having locked the back delivery door. She was startled to see Rory standing nearby; then it quickly occurred to her where he was and what he had in his hand. She saw the ready smile fade from his lips, replaced by a dawning comprehension at what he held.
Her feet were rooted to the spot, unable to carry her the few steps across the floor so that she could remove the object from his hand. Cat could only stare at him as he examined the photo. Damn, why hadn’t she thought to hide the picture in her desk drawer? Put it away until he was gone.
Because she thought she was safe. It never crossed her mind that he would follow her in here. Obviously he hadn’t taken her goodbye as final.
Rory raised his eyes from the photograph, meeting Cat’s across the room. “Who is she?” he asked rhetorically as his heart already knew the answer.
“My daughter,” she replied.
His response was immediate, cutting her to the quick. “And mine.”
“Yes.” Cat couldn’t deny the fact, especially since the truth was there to see.
That one word hung suspended in the air between them. It cut through years and memories like the snap of a whip.
Rory’s glance fell back to the photo. His daughter. His child. His fingers glided over the glass that protected the photo inside, as if he could somehow feel the warmth of the little girl underneath. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I had my reasons.” She couldn’t get into this with him here and now.
“Oh, did you?” he asked, his tone cool, shock at this turn of events suddenly invading him like the sharp pricks of a hot needle.
“Yes.” Again that single word crackled in the space that separated them.
Moments passed slowly with no words spoken, like thick syrup poured from a cold bottle, the silence broken only by the measured breathing of two people worlds apart.
Finally, the intrusive brrring of the phone snapped Cat back to reality. While she answered the call, Rory slipped the small framed photograph into his jacket pocket. He waited until Cat put the caller on hold and then said, “We’ll talk later.”
There was no mistaking the surety of his words, nor the determined look in his eyes before he left. Moving on autopilot, Cat went about her task, locating the book her customer wanted from a pile of special orders waiting to be called, and then setting it aside, all the while remembering the look in Rory’s eyes, the set of his face as he discovered the existence of his child.
Her child.
Their child.
“What’s wrong?” Mary Alice asked as soon as she was finished with her customer, following Cat into the back room. “Professor Sullivan walked out of here as if in a trance.” Her eyes shifted to the empty space on the desk. “He knows, doesn’t he?”
“Knows?”
“That he’s Tara’s father.”
Cat lifted her downcast eyes. “How—”
“Did I guess?” Mary Alice interjected, a knowing smile on her face. “It wasn’t all that hard, Cat. Your daughter resembles her father way too much. When you first told me that you were pregnant, I suspected the identity of your baby’s father, and when Tara was born, it was there on her face, the feminine version that decorates the dust jackets of his books.”
“Can’t deny the obvious then, can I?” Cat sank into her comfortable desk chair, idly running one hand through her hair.
“Certainly not the fact that he’s one handsome devil.” Mary Alice’s smile compressed as she asked her next question. “Tara doesn’t know, does she?”
“No. And why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Wasn’t my place to.”
Cat acknowledged her friend’s discretion. “Thanks.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Cat shrugged her shoulders. “I wish I knew.”
“If I can be of any help, you’ve only got to ask,” Mary Alice offered. “I imagine it can’t be easy what with him just showing up again after all these years.”
“Thanks, but I got myself into this quagmire, so it’s my responsibility to get myself out.” Cat stood up, taking a few steps before stopping and perching on the stack of boxes the UPS man had brought. “I’ve been afraid that someday I might have to face this, even though I really didn’t think I’d ever see him again. When Rory left, I figured that that was it. I was safe with my secret as long as he remained in Ireland. It never occurred to me that he would ever come back here.” She stood up again. “But that was just a dream. An illusion that I chose to believe in.”
Cat gave a short snort of laughter. “Well, dreams don’t last, and illusions can sometimes become all too real.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell him about the baby, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Because