Wanting What She Can't Have by Yvonne Lindsay Read Free Book Online Page B

of a tidal wave and she covered the short distance between them as quickly as she could.
    Ruby sat on her little padded butt, chewing on something she’d picked up from the ground. A small stick by the looks of it, Alexis thought as she reached her.
    “What’s that she’s got?”
    Raoul appeared beside them to stand over his daughter, an expression of distaste on his face as he reached down and extricated the twig from Ruby’s fingers. The baby voiced her disagreement with his action, loudly.
    “I thought you were supposed to be watching her,” he accused, holding the stick out for Alexis to see it.
    “I was. I—”
    “Not closely enough, it seems. God only knows what else she could have picked up and put in her mouth while you weren’t looking.”
    “Raoul, you’re overreacting. It’s just a twig, and off a nontoxic plant at that. Babies learn by putting things in their mouths. Don’t worry, she’s fine.”
    “And if it had been a toxic plant? Or if she’d toppled over and the stick had gone into her throat? What then? Would she learn that you can die from something like that?”
    There was a note of harsh censure to his voice that made her blood run cold in her veins. She should have kept a closer eye on Ruby, she knew that. It still hurt to hear Raoul speak that way to her. She reached down and gathered the little girl close to her, taking comfort from Ruby’s closeness as she soothed the baby’s cries, rubbing her back and automatically rocking gently from one foot to the other until she settled. Raoul threw the offending twig onto the ground with a sound of disgust.
    “I knew this was a mistake. We’re leaving now,” he said, and turned on his heel to stride away before Alexis could answer.
    “Are you okay?” Laura said as she came up beside Alexis. “I don’t mean to pry but I couldn’t help overhearing. Protective, much?”
    “Yeah, he’s right, though. I should have been keeping a closer eye on Ruby.”
    “He’s paranoid about losing her, isn’t he? I mean, we’re all a bit off the scale when it comes to our own kids, but with him it’s more, isn’t it?”
    Alexis sighed as she watched Raoul say goodbye to his buddies and then gather their picnic bag and Ruby’s diaper bag together. His movements were short and jerky, a clear indication of his foul temper.
    “Yeah, it’s definitely more.”
    “He’ll come around. Y’know, we all thought that maybe he didn’t, or couldn’t, love Ruby after Bree died. That maybe he blamed her somehow. But after seeing that, I think he possibly loves her too much—that he’s afraid he’ll lose her, too.”
    “I was thinking the same,” Alexis agreed. “Hey, thanks for asking us along today. Sorry it kind of ended on a sour note.”
    “Don’t worry about it. We’re just glad you managed to talk him into coming. Maybe we can all get together again sometime soon.”
    Alexis gave her a thin smile and said her goodbyes to the others before joining Raoul over by the picnic table where he waited with ill-concealed impatience.
    “We need to talk,” he said as she drew nearer.
    “When we get home,” Alexis conceded.
    Yes, they did need to talk, but she had the feeling that Raoul wasn’t going to listen to her opinions no matter what she said. She flicked a glance at his stony face, lingering on the pain that reflected in his eyes. Pain that made her heart twist with longing to put things right for him. But she couldn’t do it on her own. He had to meet her halfway.
    As they drove back to his house she stared blindly out the side window doubting, for the first time since she’d come here, her decision to try and help out. She was in way over her head with this situation and she lacked the objectivity she needed to get through it.
    How on earth could she be objective when all she wanted to do every time she saw him was to obliterate his grief with sensation, with her love?
    * * *
    Raoul turned the Range Rover into the driveway at home with