Secrets Of The Heart (Book 1, The Heart Series) Read online

  With her short hair tousled, no trace of makeup on her beautiful face, and his sweatshirt skimming her mid-thigh, revealing her shapely legs, Nick had never seen a sexier woman in his entire life.

  He bet she wore nothing under his favorite shirt, he figured as he watched, mesmerized at the gentle sway of her full, unbound breasts as she walked to the breakfast table. His middle twisted in a tangle of knots, a myriad of desire.

  “Can we really?” Sydney asked, her voice filled with hope.

  He turned back to the frying pan, flipped the blueberry pancakes, and then chanced a glimpse over his shoulder.

  No, Carletti, you weren’t delusional, she’s still one hot woman. Just like when she was lying beside you in bed last night, sleeping soundly as you memorized every nuance of her features, heard every soft breath, and slowly drove yourself insane.

  Bree’s chuckle sent a flare of heat shooting through his veins. “Sorry, sweetie,” she said. “I’m not half as good as you and Nick when I sing. You certainly don’t take after me in that regard.”

  “It must be in the Carletti family,” Sydney said.

  “Ah…yeah, that must be it.”

  Nick heard the hesitation, his years of training easily detecting the brief, uncomfortable pause. What could have caused it? Did Bree want her daughter to have nothing from his side? Or was it his direct link to her child that irked her so?

  Irritated at the thought, Nick spoke a little more harshly than he intended. “You owe your mother an apology.” He glanced at Sydney, urging her on after his discussion with her minutes before Bree arrived. His chest clenched as Sydney’s smile vanished, her lower lip trembling.

  “I’m sorry, Mommy, for being a brat last night.”

  Bree scooped up her little girl, wrapping Sydney in a big hug and placing a kiss on her temple. “You weren’t a brat, just a tad crabby after a very long day. You’re forgiven.”

  Nick’s heart contracted, wishing she’d forgive him as quickly, wishing he could follow Bree’s lead and do the same to her. But he couldn’t. For Vinnie’s sake, he needed to press onward, uncover the secrets, and shed some light on this woman, on his doubts. Maybe then Nick could cut some slack on his tortured soul.

  “Anyone hungry?” He broke the awkwardness.

  Fifteen minutes later, sitting opposite Bree, Nick smiled inwardly at the woman’s ferocious appetite.

  “Mmmmm. This is so good.” She closed her eyes as she savored a morsel. Nick conjured up erotic images of her.

  With a great deal of difficulty, he swallowed his last bite of blueberry pancake.

  “See, I told you she makes noises when she likes something,” Sydney said, and then popped a fork full of pancakes into her tiny mouth.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, recalling Bree’s moans when he kissed her, long and slow.

  Opening her eyes, Bree sought his. Hers widened and shifted to green, clearly telling him without words they both thought the same thing. An answering awareness hummed in his middle.

  “Just wait ’til you see what’s in the picnic basket, mommy.”

  Bree averted her stare, turning to her daughter. “Picnic basket?”

  Was it his imagination or did her voice sound deeper, huskier? “Unless you have any objections, I thought we could hike around the lake, eat lunch, and go for a dip,” he explained.

  “Poppa promised he’d teach me how to swim today.”

  “Well, tell me about what you’ve packed and maybe you’ll sell me on this hike,” Bree said teasingly, returning to her food.

  “It’s a secret.”

  She pointed her fork at Sydney. “Now, that makes me want to know even more, young lady.”

  “You’ll just have to trust us.” Nick swore her neck cracked from the speed she’d twisted to face him.

  All signs of amusement evaporated. Sober now, she frowned. “Trust you, hmm? Can you do the same so easily if I asked you?”

  He heard, as well as felt, the tension, stretched to unbearable lengths. She’d thrown down a challenge she knew he couldn’t, wouldn’t accept. He had to diffuse the strained situation fast. “Okay, you can pack the next surprise picnic basket.”

  He witnessed the momentary hurt that slashed across her expression. It disappeared just as quickly as it had shown itself, making him wonder for a second if he’d seen it at all. The steel band tightened another notch around his chest, telling him he had without a doubt.

  “I’ll help,” Sydney offered. “I’m real good at picking stuff for the basket. Right, Poppa?”

  He smiled at his beaming granddaughter, her lips shiny from maple syrup. “Right, Princess.”

  “Well now, it sounds like I’ll have to scavenger the cupboards to outdo you.” Bree directed the last at Nick, obviously playing along for Sydney’s sake.

  “You’ve got plenty to choose from. My caretakers stocked up for me, so much so I doubt we’ll get through half of it before we leave in two weeks.”

  “Don’t be too certain about that, Carletti, Sydney and I love to eat.”

  Chuckling, he looked at the empty platter in the center of the round pine table. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  A comfortable silence settled over him as Nick sipped his rich black coffee. The pungent liquid hit the spot, the perfect way to end a good meal.

  “Can I have a baby?” Sydney asked.

  Chapter 9

  Nick choked as he set down his mug. He grabbed for his napkin, coughing into the stiff paper. “Wh…what did you say?” He barely managed the words through his raspy throat.

  Bree’s fork clattered to her plate. The noise resounded in the now taut atmosphere. “A baby? Don’t you mean a puppy?”

  “Nope.” Sydney gulped down the last of her milk, and then set the glass near the edge of the table. A big white mustache remained which she promptly scrubbed off with the back of her hand.

  “A baby doll?” Bree’s tone sounded hopeful as she moved the precariously placed glass to a safer spot.

  “Uh uh. A baby baby. Sherrie’s mommy and her new daddy gave her one. It’s a boy.”

  Somewhat under control once again, Nick crumpled the paper napkin in his hand as he gazed at Sydney. Her innocent expression told him she was dead serious. “Just because your best friend has a baby brother doesn’t mean you have to have one.”

  “Oh no, I don’t want a boy. I want a girl.”

  “A baby,” Bree whispered.

  The mention of a child stroked memories in Nick, mingling grief and joy. A long ago buried dream to have a large family rose to the forefront of his mind and poked at the bruised part of his heart.

  Deep-seated sorrow slashed through his gut, razor-sharp and just as painful. Dorthea’s lies robbed him of any more children; she’d been using birth control behind his back.

  But it was the last ultimate betrayal that lacerated the thin thread left of his blinded view of their hideous marriage; she’d died with another man’s baby in her womb.

  Slowly, he turned to Bree. A dreamy look clouded her eyes and a smile played around her rosy lips. A fistful of longing slammed into him.

  An image of Bree, round with his baby, stole his breath away. Instantly, fear for her health overshadowed his poignant musings. She’d nearly lost Sydney several times while carrying her. And Bree’s own life had teetered in the balance. How could he ever place a dried up illusion ahead of Bree, jeopardizing her?

  He came back to Earth, focusing on a list of valid excuses. “I’m too old to be raising babies, Bree. I’m forty-two and have twenty-plus years on the force. By all accounts, I could retire right now.” With each lame reason he gave she withdrew by degrees, until she closed herself off to him.

  “Of course,” she said stiffly, wringing his heart in the process.

  He couldn’t yank away all her hope. “We can always talk more about this. Later. Nothing’s definite yet.”

  “Sure.” She pushed back from the table, her chair scraping along the hardwood floor, grating along his nerves.
“Well, if we’re ever to get on with that hike, then I better get changed. Finish your breakfast, sweetpea, I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  “’kay, but I still want a baby.” Sydney stuffed a crispy piece of bacon into her mouth.

  Nick rose. Throwing down his napkin, he realized he needed to make some attempt to gain Bree’s forgiveness at his abrupt, uncensored, selfish remarks. As she walked away, he made one last bid to patch up the damage. He caught up with her at the end of the stairway.

  “Bree,” he called softly.

  She stopped, twisting back to him with a puzzled look on her face.

  “I never took a baby into account.” He groaned inwardly as she sank deeper into herself.

  “I know that, if you had you’d have put it in our prenuptial agreement.” The brittle tone cracked his composure.

  Nick advanced. Bree took a step in retreat, stopping when her back collided with the wall. Crowding her, Nick halted less than six inches away.

  Awareness tingled in his abdomen, tightening the knot. He bit back on the bubbling desire. “Damn it, Bree.” He expelled a heated breath, praying for control. “I’m thinking of you.”

  “Me? You didn’t even ask. You didn’t consider my side of things.”

  “Like hell.” He clenched his jaw. “I relived every damned moment of you carrying Sydney. All the problems, the worries, the pain, the blood…” he trailed off, shying away from that awful time when he and Nana found Bree bleeding on her bathroom floor, too weak to get to a phone. “I can’t put you through that kind of hell again.”

  “Nick,” she said, raising a hand to his face, and then caressing his cheek. Grabbing her soft hand, he turned his head, kissing her palm. He held fast to her. “Why didn’t you ever tell me how much you suffered?”

  He drank in every detail on her lovely face, noting the pain shared memories brought. “And scare you even more than you already were? I couldn’t do that to you, not with everything else you had to handle.”

  She blinked back the moisture clinging to the tips of her long lashes. “My Rock of Gibraltar.”

  The way she said it, the way she gazed at him, made Nick feel ten-feet tall as if he were some special man and not the flawed one he actually was.

  Warmth crept into the tiny crevices in his fractured heart, sweeping away the chill that resided there. “Don’t give me too much credit, sweetness. Believe me, I was shaking in my boots more than once.”

  That drew a trembling smile from her. “You coulda fooled me.”

  “My motto is: Never let them see you sweat.”

  “It worked. I never suspected for a minute you were just a mound of mush inside.”

  “Damn, you found me out.”

  She chuckled softly, sending delightful little tingles tripping along his nerve endings. “Nick, about the baby…”

  He brushed his knuckles over her soft cheek. He’d never gamble with her health, never take the risk of losing her. For Sydney’s sake, he tacked on quickly. “Yeah, a baby.” He couldn’t stop the wistfulness from coloring his words.

  “I’m older, stronger, healthier, and I’ve been through it once already. Plus, by letting Tessa and Jewel buy into the beauty shop I won’t be working so hard anymore. Maybe it won’t be that bad the second time around.”

  Hope teased his battered soul. Would creating a baby heal them, mend their broken parts? The cynical side of him doubted it very much, doubted the deep, jagged scars could ever be buffed out of his core.

  He pulled back, capturing her eager gaze. How can I even consider having a baby with a woman I don’t even trust? I did it with Dorthea and look where that landed me? “It’s probably too much of a chance to take,” he said as much in response to her as to his own inner musings.

  Raw hurt flashed in her eyes and she wrestled her hand away from his. She quickly extinguished the telltale emotion, carefully schooling her expression. “I’ll go see a specialist when we get back home. I’ll submit to every test known to mankind if it will convince you of the outcome.” Her stubborn streak emerged full force.

  Nick smiled inwardly; this was his Bree, feisty, determined, never a quitter. Sobering, he thought the result of a medical exam couldn’t offer him the answer he needed, the ironclad assurance to believe in Bree. Only she could give him what he wanted, but he sensed her reluctance to reveal her soul, her secrets.

  A vision of his son rose in his mind, clear and sharp, poking at his age-old guilt. How could Nick even toy with the idea of conceiving a child with his late son’s wife? Wouldn’t continuing on as if Vinnie never existed be the ultimate betrayal?

  “I don’t think I can even consider having a baby with you, Bree.”

  All the color drained from her face, leaving her a ghostly shade of white. “Am I so terrible? Am I such a horrible mother?”

  His middle clenched. Nick swallowed back his self-disgust. He hated himself for hurting her. “No one can replace Vinnie.”

  She winced visibly. Shrugging, she whispered, “For a moment that did cross my mind. I mean, giving you back what you’d lost.” She sucked in a deep breath, and then said, “I guess that’s just my guilt talking. I can’t even begin to imagine what losing Sydney would do to me. But I do…did want to have more children. And I know how much you value family. I thought it might be a way to bring us together.” Hugging her arms tightly, she waited for him to reply.

  “The only thing that will ever do that is if you come clean with me. There’s still so much about you I don’t know, still too many hidden parts.”

  She swallowed hard and avoided his direct stare. “I’m not the only one who does that, Nick. How much longer can you keep all that grief bottled up inside you? And for how much longer will you take it out on me?”

  He cursed under his breath, feeling the truth of her words as if she’d sprayed him with bullets. Avoiding a full blown argument, he said, “If I remember correctly, the subject was about babies. We’ll shelf that crazy idea for the time being, all right? Let’s focus on us, for now.”

  “Fine.” Her voice croaked, and then she cleared her throat. “You, me, and Sydney, a real family, right? Isn’t that why we got married in the first place? And isn’t that why we should strive for a real marriage, in every sense of the word?”

  With that said, she nudged him away, and then turned toward the stairs.

  Dawning hit him hard. He heard her barely concealed meaning. He’d demanded husbandly rights, yet refused to initiate his own rules.

  Always build a strong foundation first, Nana’s words on long lasting relationships haunted him now, reminding him of his resolve to form a union with Bree based on honesty and mutual respect.

  Bree brushed past him. Mesmerized, he watched as she climbed the stairs. Her round bottom stretched the fabric of his sweatshirt, hiking up the material to give him a tantalizing view of her shapely thighs and fantasies of what little remained covered.

  Lord, she’s testing all my good intentions, Nick figured as a tornado of impure thoughts whipped him into a frenzy.

  Halting in mid-step, she twisted around. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

  He cocked an eyebrow, sending her a half smile. “Nope. Not a thing.” He paused, scanning her slowly from head to toe, then back again. His blood pressure rose to dangerous heights. “I sure hope you didn’t forget to pack that sexy little red bikini of yours.”

  ***

  Golden sunlight basked Bree’s bikini-clad body as she lay face down on the soft blanket. Delicious heat replaced every cold fiber in her being, spreading warmth.

  The coconut scent of sunscreen mingled with pungent pine and an array of blossoming flowers. The combined sounds of Nick’s deep laughter, Sydney’s giggles, and splashing water nearby sent a surge of joy straight to Bree’s heart.

  Five days of married life brought similar sensations to her. The last days of the dying summer created unlimited opportunities to swim, fish, hike, and picnic for her new family. Nothing but fun and happiness ru
led the sunlight hours.

  Over the last four nights however, with Sydney tucked safely in bed, the tension between Nick and Bree grew steadily. The strain rose to unbearable heights with each passing night.

  Bree heaved a sigh, thinking the daytime kindness, concern, and sometimes tenderness Nick displayed toward her were only an apparition.

  And the nighttime remoteness, distance, taut silence, and sporadic heated discussions were more true to his natural instincts toward her.

  You should be used to that by now, she scolded herself. Hadn’t her first husband stayed away? Financially Vinnie had provided for her, although she’d been too independent to rely completely on any man.

  But, physically and emotionally, he’d abandoned her. Somehow, she’d never suffered at the absence of the essential components of marriage. Maybe because she’d never loved him like a wife should love a husband.

  She’d dismissed it, thinking of a union based on friendship and caring could sustain a relationship. But it hadn’t for her first one. And for her second, she had much less than that to depend on.

  Awareness, attraction, desire, her mind ticked off what she and Nick did possess. It seemed strange to Bree she had lacked all these fundamental ingredients with Vinnie and still assumed the marriage would survive anything. How wrong she’d been.

  “Use what you have to work with,” she murmured, triggering a tantalizing thought. Could she seduce her own husband? Could Nick remain immune to her enticements? Did she have the nerve to try? And would that be the answer to her dilemma?

  One thing Bree acknowledged. She must do everything in her power to halt Nick from burrowing into her past, something he’d attempted on far too many occasions in the last few days.

  “Hey, don’t nod off or you’ll burn to a crisp,” Nick said as he bent to grab a towel at her side.

  Turning slightly, she held a hand to her brow and looked up at him. Her heart kicked in her chest at the long expanse of damp, bare flesh. Whorls of dark matted hair peppered his tall, broad body, causing her to fantasize on how he’d feel against her. In nothing but navy swim trunks, he stole the breath from her lungs.