“Technically, yeah. Our dad, if you want to call him that, took off back to Colombia when Nicky was only a few months old. We never heard from him again.”
“You don’t know what happened to him?”
He shrugged. “I barely remember him, if you want the truth. We didn’t miss him much after he left. I tried to find him years ago when I was stationed in that part of the world. I’m not sure why. Stupid curiosity, maybe. Or maybe just to tell him off for abandoning his kids.”
“You couldn’t find him?”
“Not a trace. The trail went cold.”
Judging by the little he knew of the man, he had probably come to some violent end while trying to screw somebody out of money or drugs, but he decided not to mention that.
“What about your mother?”
She wasn’t going to stop until she heard the whole grim truth, he sensed. He rarely talked about his parents but something about the night and the woman seemed to wrest the words out.
“She wasn’t really much of a mother. She was in the life, you know? Drugs, alcohol. The whole thing. Nicky and I were in and out of foster care from the time I was ten until I turned eighteen. Not always together, though I tried.”
“What happened when you were eighteen?”
He remembered that time, both the determination and the fear. “I found a compassionate judge who gave me custody of him.”
“How old was your brother?”
“Fifteen. The biggest smart-ass you could ever meet when he was a kid, but now he’s a hotshot attorney with a great wife and a couple kids. He just got a job in Belgium working for an international company there.”
He wasn’t sure how, but he and Nick had somehow made it work. He had done odd jobs for two years, until his brother graduated high school at seventeen, when Sam had enlisted. With his army wages, he had managed to live on nothing, saving every penny to help Nicky through school.
“You sound proud of him.”
“I am. It’s amazing that he came out of what we did and became somebody.”
“So did you.”
He shifted, uncomfortable with her words. Before he could find some way to deflect the conversation—and before he quite figured out what she intended—she leaned in and kissed him, her mouth warm and soft against his.
He sensed the kiss was completely spontaneous, that she hadn’t given it much thought ahead of time and probably wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t acted on impulse, but he wasn’t about to argue.
She was here, touching him, kissing him, and that was the only thing he cared about.
After that first delicate brush of her mouth against his, as soft and sweet as butterfly wings, she started to ease away, as if she believed he would be content with that little taste after he had savored so much more than that the other day.
Knowing only that he couldn’t let her go yet, he grasped her hands in his and tugged her closer. Her fingers fluttered in his like that butterfly but after a moment’s hesitation, she opened them and twined them together with his, all while her scent—vanilla and spices and delicious female—made his head spin.
So much for good intentions. He forgot all the reasons this wasn’t wise. With the sparkle of stars overhead, the sprawl of lights from the town below and the cold mountain air that smelled sweetly of spring wrapping around them, the moment was perfect. He didn’t want it to end.
He kissed her, tasted her, until they were both breathing hard, until his body ached, until he wanted nothing so much as to find a soft patch of grass somewhere and explore every warm, curvy inch of her....
She was the first to pull away and he realized she was practically on his lap. He wanted her to stay exactly there.
“You are one fine kisser, Sam Delgado.”
He smiled against her mouth. “I’m good at a lot of things.”
Her body trembled, ever so slightly, but before he could stop her, she slid out of his lap and gave a light jump to the ground, reaching for the leash she had dropped in the midst of their kiss. The dog hadn’t gone far; he was curled up on the ground looking far more comfortable than either of them right now.
“I like you very much, Sam,” she said, “and I would be lying if I didn’t admit I find you incredibly sexy, but I’m not going to sleep with you. I suppose it’s only fair to tell you that up front.”
He managed a rough laugh, dangerously close to falling hard for Alexandra McKnight. “Just because a woman happens to enjoy the way I kiss her doesn’t automatically mean I expect her to fall into bed with me.”
In the pale moonlight, her features looked almost fey. “Then you are truly a man among men. Come on, Leo. We should probably be heading back.”