Into His Keeping by Gail Faulkner Read Free Book Online

responsibility were the most important things about being a man. Rushing to gain his own satisfaction was being a selfish boy and Holdin had understood that lesson. His dad had made him read several books on his nature as a dominant, impressing him with both the dangers and the responsibilities of being who he was.
     
    The fear that some clumsy fool had found the precious spirit in Jill and crushed her was crippling.
     
    A seething wave of heat rushed up from his toes at the thought. Through the years, when he was in the middle of a bout of trying to forget her, he’d imagine her with another man. The outcome was always the same. Something in the room around him met its end and Holdin took out the remaining aggression by physically exhausting himself in a workout.
     
    Holdin leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Hands clasped, he took a few minutes to gaze down at the threadbare carpet. He needed to stop looking at her. No, he needed to think, and that involved not looking at her. It was damn difficult to look away. Irrational fear washed over him. He glanced up. She was still there. This was ridiculous.
     
    “Drifter, let’s give your mother a few minutes’ peace and go take care of things at the motel office. There’s a Dairy Queen across the road. Feel like something from there?” Holdin asked casually.
     
    “Sure. You all right with that, Mom?” Drifter stood.
     
    Jill’s eyes opened to move between them, assessing. Holdin had the uncomfortable feeling she was reading his mind. He needed a few minutes but couldn’t take the risk she’d be gone if he stepped out that door. Taking Drifter was like having her on a tether. She wasn’t going anywhere. She said none of that.
     
    “Thank you, Holdin. That’s very thoughtful of you.”
     
    Holdin held very still to be sure he didn’t jerk in offense. From an early age, control had been drilled into him. His father was very clear on that. Men do not lose control. The stronger his emotions, the more it became his responsibility to control them. Later that control had enabled him to build a career few were capable of. Right now it was all about Jill. Just as it had been from the moment she stepped into his life.
     
    “Glad you think it’s thoughtful that I’d like to spend a little time with my son,” he growled as he stood. It didn’t matter that his motives were not exactly clear. She’d put him on the defensive and he was aware this was a small part of it. This was a sharp, new pain she could inflict by treating him like a stranger.
     
    Okay, he was a stranger to his son but whose fault was that? His brain was pounding as he had to answer himself that it certainly wasn’t her fault. Best just do what he’d suggested.
     
    “We’ll be back in half an hour.”
     
     
     
    Holdin suspected there was no amount of time with his son that could make this more real, less surreal. The small measure of relief not looking at Jill gave him was nothing compared to the stark panic that came over him every time he glanced at Drifter.
     
    How did a man become a father at this late date? What made him think he’d have been any good at it even if he’d been there from Drifter’s birth? He would have been nineteen and green as spring grass. His life would have been totally different and he surely wouldn’t have had as much to offer this man-child. Would it have been worth it? Could any part of this actually have happened for a reason?
     
    Pointless questions shot through him in a maddening circle. The time passed too quickly and not fast enough then they were back at the room door.
     
    The woman sitting at the small table in the motel room waiting for them was nothing like the one they’d left. Jill’s small, round body was held erect, her head high. She’d gathered a regal calm about her that Holdin had never seen before. She was a shell of the girlfriend he’d known but so much more. And almost nothing remained of the shocked, pale woman