She glanced up, and he stroked his thumb across her knuckles.

"We're not done yet. I want a rain check."

With one final, unreadable stare, she pulled her hands free and dove gracefully under the next wave, swimming away from him with languid strokes.

Low moans, the scent of wildflowers, lush, warm skin beneath his roaming hands. His heart hammering, pounding, barking- Barking? Nate yanked the pillow off his face with a groan. Scratching noises from the garage door, then another volley of deep woofs a.s.saulted his ears. A brief pause and the banging started again, followed by Drew's high-pitched voice.

"Nate. Open the door! It's Christmas, and Santa's been! Hurry up, Nate!"

Dragging a hand down his jaw, which had a similar texture to a baby cactus and nothing whatsoever like his dream of Lauren's smooth curves, Nate swung his legs off the futon.

"All right, all right. I'm coming."

He cracked open an eye. Darkness. His feet were a pale blur on the floor, which meant he should still be dreaming of wildflowers and Lauren's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. h.e.l.l. What time was it? He flicked on a lamp, hauled on his jeans and shirt and picked his way over to open the garage door. Drew jiggled in pajamas and slippers on the other side, his huge grin visible even in the predawn light.

Nate glanced up at Lauren's house, taking in the still-dark windows. "Does your mum know you're up and about at this unholy hour?"

Drew shook his head and tugged on his hand. "Come on, Nate!"

He chuckled. "What's the hurry?"

A forlorn sigh. "Santa's left presents under the tree, but Mummy said no presents until we've had breakfast, and I can't reach the wheat biscuits."

"Ah." He sc.r.a.ped fingers through a severe case of bed hair. "Guess I could help you out. Just let me get something."

Nate retraced his steps to the futon and dragged a bag out from underneath.

Drew pointed to the colorfully wrapped object poking out. "What's that?"

"It's a gift for your mum."

"Oh." He arched his neck to peep into the bag. "There's only one present."

Drew's hopeful expression would've been funny, if it hadn't been a painful reminder of his own childhood, spent wishing for traditions and the little luxuries that were out of the question in most countries his parents served in. He ruffled Drew's soft hair and waited for his natural curiosity to overcome his manners. The little boy stuck his hands behind his back and kept his lips pressed together.

He'd only meant to tease, but silence from a kid who shouldn't think twice about asking for his share caused the combination lock guarding the vault of his heart to click one notch closer to opening.

"I put one for you under the tree before I went to bed."

"You did?" A shy smile lit up his face.

"Sure. We're mates, aren't we?"

Drew nodded slowly.

Nate extended his hand. "C'mon, then. Let's go up before your mum discovers you're gone and flips out."

The smell of bacon frying and Drew's chatter drifting upstairs woke Lauren from a deathlike sleep.

Drew? Cooking? She was halfway to her bedroom door before her brain kicked into gear and started reasoning. Drew couldn't reach the cast iron skillet or the box of matches needed to light the gas element. So someone must be with him.

She paused and c.o.c.ked her head.

A chuckle rumbled up, followed by a deep voice saying, "How many eggs do you think you can eat?"

Nate's presence with her son should've calmed her erratic heartbeat. It didn't. They'd kept a respectful distance apart after their beach encounter, and the flurry of work before Christmas also served as a distraction. But seeing him, talking with him each evening, even sniffing his d.a.m.n shower gel just to catch a whiff of his scent, drove her nuts.

Lauren pulled on shorts and a blouse and hurried downstairs. Dawn lightened the family room through the French doors, the first rays of sunlight sparkling on Drew's glitter-dusted and slightly lopsided tree decorations. She turned on the fairy lights and wrapped her arms around her waist, staring at the gifts beneath the branches. Sniffing the fresh, clean scent of pinesap, she blinked when the colored lights distorted to a soft blur. She wasn't going to get weepy on this, their first real Christmas together.

A year ago she'd ignored the holidays until Todd practically kidnapped the two of them and dragged them back to his house. Surrounded by Kathy's sisters and their husbands and kids, Lauren, thrust into the center of bedlam, had found whnau. Family.

"Mummy, Mummy, you're finally up." Drew launched himself at her legs, sighing with great drama. "I've been making us breakfast for ages."

"Oh, have you? Well, it smells wonderful."

She brushed away the slight wetness under her eyes and allowed Drew to tow her through the archway into the kitchen.

With his back to her, Nate flipped a bacon rasher. Once again, he'd tied her pink ap.r.o.n around his waist, but nothing distracted her from his broad shoulders flexing beneath a black tee shirt and a superb "I wanna take a bite outta it" b.u.t.t in faded denim. Saliva pooled in her mouth, and she couldn't just blame it on the crispy bacon.

Heck of a s.e.xy thing, watching a man make breakfast.

"I thought you couldn't cook?"

He looked over his shoulder, and the smile curving his lips hooked her heart straight into her throat.

"Hey, sleepyhead," he said. "Merry Christmas to you, too."

She stared, her tongue gluing fast to the roof of her mouth before she peeled it away and replied, "Merry Christmas."

"Nate knows how to cook. He made monkey-roni, remember?"

Lauren glanced down at her son's earnest expression. Yeah, she remembered. She remembered the tightness that constricted her chest watching helplessly as Nate took over her kitchen, strong-arming his way into her life. She remembered too the inexplicable flicker of s.e.xual awareness that'd burgeoned into something else. Something she didn't dare examine.

Urging a light tone into her voice, she said, "Ah, yes. The memorable monkey-roni."

"I'm redeeming myself with bacon and eggs." Nate opened the oven door and transferred the cooked bacon to a waiting platter. "Even I can cook the basics."

"Another skill set I was unaware of."

He half turned toward her, waggled his eyebrows and drawled, "Lady, I've got many skills you're unaware of."

While she laughed and strolled into the kitchen to the flatware drawer, a shiver swept down her body, tightening her nipples, sending warmth purling through her core. She couldn't get the image of him, the visceral memory of his rough hands caressing her skin, out of her mind.

She kept her back to him and plucked knives and forks from the drawer. "Let's hope you do eggs better than you do a cheese sauce."

After breakfast, which she had to concede was delicious, Nate helped wash the dishes then shoved a gift bag into her hands.

"Here. I'll leave you and Drew to it."

Drew's reaction was instantaneous. "But you gotta stay and watch me open my presents from Santa, Nate, you gotta!" His lower lip pooched out, and his eyes grew shiny. "I want you to."

Lauren looked to Nate in mute appeal. Drew didn't demand anything from men who weren't family members. He wouldn't even approach the male staff at his preschool, always gravitating toward the women. Drew had learned early to rely on the female s.e.x for rea.s.surance and comfort.

Nate froze beside the back door. "I don't want to overstay my welcome."

"We'd both like you to stay." She kept her voice pitched low, trying to prevent her own desire for his company from showing.

Drew wrapped his arms around her thigh.

At the flexing of Nate's hands, she added, "Please. It won't take long."

Seeming to relax in increments, he found a crooked smile. "If Drew lets me have one of those candy canes hanging on the tree, I'll stick around a bit longer."

"You can have two." Drew unwound his arms from her leg and sniffed heroically. "But don't eat them all at once, 'cause you'll get a sugar rush." Then, in a typical four-year-old mood swing, since disaster in his world had been averted, he shouted, "I'll get cushions."

He s.n.a.t.c.hed three off the couch and disappeared through the archway.

Lauren approached Nate, flattening a palm against his chest and brushing a soft kiss across his cheek. She stepped back, reeling a little at the bone-melting scent of his warm skin and swallowing the desire to press her lips to his.

"Thank you. It means a lot to him...and to me."

"You're welcome."

"Come on, you guys!" Drew's shout made her jump.

Nate followed her into the family room. Drew bounced on his toes beside the three cushions placed in a semicircle around the Christmas tree.

"I'll sit on the middle one," he said. "And you sit there, Nate. I'll give the presents out."

Drifts of Christmas-themed paper soon surrounded them. Nate enthused over the painted river rock Drew made him and pinky-swore not to eat the whole tin of iced cookies in one sitting. The box containing a new two-wheel bike from Santa had been oohed and ahhed over, with Drew securing Nate's promise to a.s.semble it. Nate chuckled at Lauren's indignation that her son thought her incapable of helping and then doubled over laughing as Drew announced in all seriousness that, "making bikes is a man thing."

Lauren laughed with him, but her heart clenched into a bruised fist at the two of them huddled over the bike's instruction leaflet.

You cannot go there. You just cannot hand him your heart and expect him not to break it.

"Aww. Only three presents left." Drew dragged out a small rectangular box and looked to Nate. "Can I open it now?"

At his nod, Drew tore off the paper, squealed, and launched himself onto Nate's lap. Confused helplessness swept over Nate's face as his arms closed around her son. Lauren glanced at the kids' digital camera Drew left on the carpet and bit her lip. Why did he have be the kind of guy to do something so thoughtful, so sweet?

"Say thank-you, Drew." The words were automatic, but she struggled to keep her voice even.

"Thank you," Drew parroted. "Can you show me how to use it?"

"Sure." He patted Drew's back and eased him off his lap. "Now how about you pa.s.s your mum her last gift?" He pointed to the bag he'd handed her earlier.

Lauren's fingers missed the sticky-tape edge three times before she gave in and tore the delicate tissue paper. The wrappings fell away to reveal a statue of a mother cradling her child, carved out of a block of ancient kauri wood and polished with exquisite care.

"It's made by a local artisan, Samuel Ngata. I watched him work for a while. He's got real talent."

She inhaled a shaky breath, ran her fingers over the smooth lines of the woman's head. "Yes, he has. Sam's one of Kathy's cousins."

And she'd never stepped inside his workshop, much as she admired and respected the man himself.

In her mind's eye, she saw Jonathan in his armchair, looking out at the glitter of Manhattan's famous nightscape. Heard the rough, repet.i.tive sc.r.a.pe of his little paring knife peeling off a single coil of apple skin. He'd turned his gaze on her as she'd watched in trembling fascination from the doorway, the bruises on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s blossoming into purple, finger-shaped blotches. No, she couldn't bear to watch Sam work with his blade.

Lauren met Nate's eyes with a forced smile. "It's lovely and so very kind of you to get us gifts. Thank you."

He shrugged, but his eyebrows drew together in a quirked frown.

"Drew, get the last present for Nate."

Drew crawled under the tree and pa.s.sed the flat package out to Nate. "This one's from Mummy."

Nate shot her a quick glance and tore off the paper.

Drew rushed to his side and pointed to each cross-st.i.tched word behind the gla.s.s frame. "Home. Is. Where. The. Heart. Is. I can read it, see?"

"Very impressive reading, kid." A muscle contracted in Nate's throat, and the angle of his jaw turned sharp. "And thanks, Lauren. I'll hang this in my Auckland apartment."

"Why don't you hang it next door?" Drew said. "Uncle Todd says you've got walls now."

Nate's eyes clashed with hers above Drew's head.

"Mac's place is not my home, Drew. I'm not going to live there permanently." He stacked his gifts in a neat pile beside the tree and stood. "I'll help a.s.semble your bike now, but then I've got work to do."

He offered her a tight smile and picked up the bike box. Without a backward glance, he carried it outside, Drew skipping right behind him, once again adopting the position of his little shadow.

Lauren gathered sheets of torn wrapping paper, gaining some satisfaction from twisting and crumpling them into b.a.l.l.s. Well, any illusions about Nate's future intentions had vanished. She'd foolishly allowed dangerous daydreams to blind her this morning. Let herself pretend, for one short s.p.a.ce of time, that they could be a family.

Fat chance.

She stomped into the kitchen and hurled the huge wad of paper into the recycling bin. She and Drew were already a family-they didn't need anyone else. Especially not a man like Nate, who'd made it clear his heart would never find a home with her.

Chapter 7.

Nate gripped the length of two-by-six and rested the saw's teeth on the penciled line. The mid-afternoon sun slipped under his baseball cap and stung his eyes. Lauren's car door slammed. He'd recognized the c.r.a.ppy old station wagon's engine but had defied his need to look as it ground up the driveway.

Demanding woman. What the h.e.l.l did she want now? He'd already constructed a two-wheeler, found batteries and shown her kid how to use his camera for the better part of the morning. No doubt, she'd come to bring the st.i.tched sign to smash over his head. Like he hadn't been smashed over the head unwrapping the thing.