Kat Cantrell – Triplets Under The Tree (страница 8)
Faster now, ingrained drills, disciplines and defense strategies exploded in his mind. Why now instead of in his gym, surrounded by the relics of his former status as a mixed martial arts champion?
The headache slammed him harder than ever before and the groan escaped before he could catch it.
“It’s okay,” Caitlyn said and jumped up to retrieve the spoon. “You don’t have to feed her. I just thought you might like it.”
“No problem,” he said around the splitting pain in his temples. “Excuse me.”
He mounted the stairs to his bedroom and shut himself away in the darkened room, but refused to lie on the bed like an invalid.
Instead, he sank into a chair and put his head in his hands. This couldn’t go on, the rush of memories and the headaches and the inability to do simple tasks like stick a spoon in a baby’s mouth without becoming irrational.
But how did he change it?
Coming to LA was supposed to solve everything, give him back his memories and his life. It had only highlighted how very far he had yet to go in his journey back to the land of the living.
An hour later, the pain was manageable enough to try being civilized again. Antonio tracked down Caitlyn in the sunroom, which seemed to be her favored spot when she wasn’t hanging out with the babies. Her dark curls partially obscured the e-reader in her hands and she seemed absorbed in the words on the screen.
“I’ll visit a doctor,” he told her shortly and spun to leave before she asked any questions. She’d been after him to see one, but he’d thus far refused, having had enough of the medical profession during his months and months of rehabilitation in Indonesia.
No doctor could restore his memories, nor could one erase the scars he bore from the plane crash.
But if a Western doctor had a way to make his headaches go away, that would be stellar. He had to become a father, one way or another, and living in a crippling state of pain wasn’t going to cut it.
“I’ll drive you.” She followed him into the hall. “Just because you have a driver’s license doesn’t mean you’re ready to get behind the wheel. We’ll take my—”
“Caitlyn.” He whirled to face her, but she kept going, smacking into his chest.
His arms came up as they both nearly lost their balance and somehow she ended up pinned to the wall, their bodies tangled and flush. His lower half sprang to attention and heat shot through his gut.
Caitlyn’s wide-eyed gaze captured his and he couldn’t have broken the connection if his life depended on it. Her chest heaved against his as if she was unable to catch her breath, and that excited him, too.
“Caitlyn,” he murmured again, but that seemed to be the extent of his ability to speak as her lips parted, drawing his attention to her mouth. She caught her plump bottom lip between her teeth and—
“Um, you can let go now,” she said and cleared her throat. “I’m okay.”
He released her, stepping back to allow her the space she’d asked for, though it was far from what he wanted to do. “I’m curious about something.”
Nervously, she rearranged her glossy hair, refusing to meet his eyes. “Sure.”
“You said that you introduced me to Vanessa. How did you and I meet?” Because if he’d ever held Caitlyn in his arms before, he was an idiot if he’d willingly let her go.
“I was Rick’s accountant.” At his raised brows, she smiled. “Your former manager. He’d gone through several CPAs until he found me, and when I came by his house to do his quarterly taxes, you were there. You were wearing a pink shirt for a breast cancer fund-raiser you’d attended. We got to talking and somehow thirty minutes passed in a blur.”
Nothing wrong with her memory, clearly, and it was more than a little flattering that she recalled his clothing from that day.
“And there was something about me that you didn’t like?” Obviously, or she wouldn’t have matched him up with her sister. Maybe she’d only thought of him as a friend.
“Oh, no! You were great. Gorgeous and gentlemanly.” The blush that never seemed far from the surface of her skin bloomed again, heightening the blue in her eyes. “I mean, I might have been a little starstruck, which is silly, considering how many celebrities I’ve done taxes for.”
That pleased him even more than her pink-shirt comment, and he wanted to learn more about this selfless woman who’d apparently been a part of his life for a long time. “You’re an accountant, then?”
“Not anymore. I gave up all my clients when...Vanessa died.” She laughed self-consciously. “It’s hard to retrain my brain to no longer say ‘when Antonio and Vanessa died’.”
The mention of his wife sent an unexpected spike of sadness through his gut. “I don’t remember being married to her. Did you think we’d be a good couple? Is that why you introduced us?”
All at once, a troubling sense of disloyalty effectively killed the discovery mode he’d fallen into with Caitlyn. He had no context for his relationship with Vanessa, but she’d been his wife and this woman was his sister-in-law. He shouldn’t be thinking about Caitlyn as anything other than a temporary mother to his children. She’d probably be horrified at the direction of his thoughts.
“Oh. No, I mentioned that she was my sister and you asked to meet her. I don’t think you even noticed me after that. Vanessa is—was—much more memorable than me.”
“I beg to differ,” he countered wryly, which pulled a smile out of her. “When I close my eyes, yours is the only face I can picture.”
Apparently he couldn’t help himself. Did he automatically flirt with beautiful women or just this one?
More blushing. But he wasn’t going to apologize for the messed-up state of his mind or the distinct pleasure he’d discovered at baiting this delicate-skinned woman. He’d needed something that made him feel good. Was that so wrong?
“Well, she was beautiful and famous. I didn’t blame you for wanting an introduction. Most people did.”
“Famous?” Somehow that didn’t seem like valid criteria for wishing to meet a woman.
Caitlyn explained that Vanessa starred on
He’d heard everything she’d said, but in a removed way, as if it had happened to someone else. And perhaps in many respects, it had. He didn’t remember being in love with Vanessa, but he’d obviously put great stock in her as a partner, lover and future mother of his children.
Part of his journey apparently lay in reconciling his relationship with the woman he’d married—so he could know if it was something he might want to do again, with another woman, at some point in the future. He needed to grieve his lost love as best he could and move on.
Perhaps Caitlyn had a role in this part of his recovery, as well. “I’d like to know more about Vanessa. Will you tell me? Or is it too hard?”
She nodded with a small smile. “It’s hard. But it’s good for me, too, to remember her. I miss her every day.”
Launching into an impassioned tribute to her sister, Caitlyn talked with her hands, her animated face clearly displaying her love for Vanessa. But Antonio couldn’t stop thinking about that moment against the wall, when he’d almost reached out to see what Caitlyn’s glossy hair felt like. What might have happened between them all those years ago if he hadn’t asked Caitlyn to introduce him to Vanessa?
It was madness to wonder. He would do well to focus on the present, where, thanks to Caitlyn, he’d forgotten about his headache. She’d begged him to allow her to stay under his roof and, frankly, it was easy to say yes because he needed her help. Incredible fortune had smiled on him since the plane crash, and he couldn’t help feeling that Caitlyn was a large part of it.
Instead of taking Antonio to the doctor, Caitlyn arranged for the doctor to come to the house the following afternoon. Antonio needed his space for as long as possible, at least until he got comfortable being in civilization again—or at least that was Caitlyn’s opinion, and no one had to know that it fit her selfish desire to have him all to herself.
As a plus, Caitlyn wouldn’t have to worry about wrestling Antonio into the car in case he changed his mind about seeing a doctor after all. Not that she could have. Nor did she do herself any favors imagining the tussle, which would likely end with Antonio’s hard body pinning her against another wall.
Recalling yesterday’s charged encounter had kept her quite warm last night and quite unable to sleep due to a restless ache she had no idea how to ease. Well, okay, she had