“Apologizing,” he echoed. “Why?” Simon asked. “Why would I be apologizing?” He came up with the only answer he could. “Was it that bad for you?”
“No!” she cried.
How could he even think that? He’d rocked her whole world, not once, but three times, each better than the last, a feat that was uncanny in itself. She’d never felt that wondrous before, that ready to literally sprout wings and fly up to the heavens so that she might touch the sky.
Because she could see he was waiting for an explanation, she stumbled ahead, searching for words, for a way to make him understand what she didn’t fully understand herself. Fear was a paralyzing force.
Kennon picked her way carefully through the minefield. “I was afraid that maybe what happened last night between us was just a matter of time and place and conditions—”
He stared at her, trying to make sense out of what she was saying, and getting nowhere. Finally, he asked, “Do you come with subtitles, because I’m really not following this.”
She sighed. If she’d had any sense at all, she wouldn’t have let things go as far as they had last night—for as many times as they did. A true survivor would have left at the first hint of a kiss, not hung around, waiting to get her hair curled.
But what was done was done and she had to make the best of it.
“Look, I talked to Edna when I first started working on your house. I know you love your wife—your late wife,” Kennon amended, “and I don’t want you to feel guilty, or worse, get angry at me for being in the right place at the right time or the wrong place at the wrong time, or however you want to think about what happened between us.” She could see that he wasn’t following her any better than he had been a moment ago. She tried again. “And if you want to know the truth—”
“Please,” he stressed with feeling.
She forced herself to look into Simon’s deep blue eyes. “I don’t want to be dumped again.”
“So you’re dumping me in order not to be dumped?”
“Not dumped,” she cried. “I wasn’t ‘dumping’ you, I was just…slipping away,” she finally said, but even saying that didn’t feel right to her. But it was what she’d felt, what had motivated her. “Look, last night was wonderful. Maybe almost too wonderful,” she admitted. “I don’t want anything to take away from that. I’d rather just end on a high note and not have it degenerate into something less perfect.” She wanted no recriminations, no memories of him haunting her mind the way Pete’s last act had haunted her for the longest time. “I gave you a way out.”
She paused for a second, trying to pull herself together, to focus on her words and not the horrible, sick feeling they created within her.
“So just take it, will you?” Her mind scrambling from point to point, she thought of what had brought her to him in the first place. He was paying her for a job. “I know I’m not quite finished decorating your house, but Nathan can take over.”
For a second, Simon had no idea who she was talking about. And then he remembered. “Nathan being the tall, skinny guy with the large ears?”
She nodded. “He’s very good,” she told him, then with effort, added, “You won’t be disappointed.”
He looked at her for a very long moment that seemed to melt into oblivion.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” he told her, his voice so low it was almost inaudible.
He didn’t know what else to say. He’d come here, feeling like a man who was trying to cross over an expanse of quicksand, wanting to either straighten things out or permanently set them aside. Simon felt as if he’d done neither. If anything, he was more confused than ever. But pushing matters right now, especially with a woman who seemed determined to flee from him, didn’t seem like the way to go.
She needed time and so did he.
So, without another word to her, Simon turned away and walked out through the door. The final click echoed endlessly over and over in her brain.
Kennon stood there, staring at the door after it had closed. Feeling as if she had just been punched hard in the stomach and was unable to breathe.
This was what she knew would come to pass, what she had tried to precipitate early because then, she’d told herself, it wouldn’t hurt nearly so much as it would down the line. Like a preemptive strike.
But there’d been a part of her that wanted—desperately wanted—Simon to negate all her fears, to effectively blast them out of the water by sweeping her into his arms, telling her that she was being ridiculous and that she was the one, the only one, who could make him feel glad again that he was alive.
But he hadn’t.
Instead, Simon had taken the out she’d given him and just walked away.
Taken it? Hell, he’d fairly grabbed it, pressed it to his chest and all but run out the door. Everything but shouting “Hallelujah!” as he made his getaway.
A getaway she had handed him on a silver platter.
She felt her eyes tear up and she clenched her fingernails into her hands, squeezing them hard, hoping that would somehow squeeze the tears back so that they wouldn’t fall.
“I do not have big ears.”
She swung around to see Nathan all but marching into the showroom.
Upset, frustrated, Kennon redirected everything that she was feeling at her assistant. “I asked you to go to the storeroom.”
His face was the picture of combined indignation and innocence. “I did.”
“Then how did you hear him say that?” she demanded angrily.
In response, he pointed to the wall just behind her. Specifically, to the upper portion close to the ceiling. “Vents,” he told her simply. “There are vents here, in your office and in the storeroom. In case you don’t know, voices have a tendency to carry unless you’re whispering.” Obviously perturbed by Simon’s cursory description, Nathan looked into the black-lacquer-framed mirror. Angling his head first one way, then the other, he frowned critically, displeased by what he saw. “Maybe I should grow my hair long to cover them.”
When he didn’t receive the expected disclaimer or verbal jab from Kennon, Nathan shifted his eyes to look at her reflection in the mirror. Turning around, he put his arms around her. “Oh, honey, don’t cry. This isn’t over yet, you’ll see.” For a brief moment, Kennon struggled and tried to shrug him away. When she couldn’t, she surrendered, allowing Nathan to comfort her. “He’ll come to his senses,” Nathan promised. “Hopefully, so will you,” he added, supposedly under his breath, but deliberately loud enough to make sure that she heard.
Kennon took a breath and this time succeeded in drawing away. She squared her shoulders. She had no time for self-pity. She’d survived Pete, she could certainly survive this. After all, she’d invested so much more time in Pete.
Her heart hurt so much, she could barely stand it.
Still, somehow she managed to say to Nathan, “We’ve got work to do.”
There were still several outstanding details to address at Simon’s house before she felt her obligations had been met. She’d meant what she’d said about having Nathan take over. But given her assistant’s penchant for allowing his feelings to color his judgment, she knew she would have to supervise Nathan’s choices. She just couldn’t be there to see how it all came together.
Right now she wasn’t strong enough to face that. Or Simon and his daughters.
He was attempting to make sense out of a paper that had just been published outlining a new approach to a surgical procedure that burned away a minimum of damaged heart tissue in order to help control unwanted palpitations. Attempting, but he just couldn’t get himself to focus, to concentrate.
He’d been on the same short paragraph for half an hour now.
With a self-deprecating sigh, he glanced up and saw that Meghan stood in the doorway of his office, her small arms crossed before her even smaller chest.
“What’s up?” he asked her, for the moment setting the paper back on his desk. Maybe he’d absorb more of it later, he tho
ught.
Meghan frowned. “Why isn’t she here, Daddy?” she asked.
It had been eight days since he’d gone to the showroom to see Kennon, gone to see her without really knowing what he would say until it was out of his mouth. Not that anything he’d said had made any sense. He’d come away feeling that maybe he and Kennon really weren’t meant to be together.
He’d done his best to put her out of his mind and go on with his life. But she refused to stay out of his thoughts, refused to fade into the background. When he least expected it, she would pop up in his thoughts to haunt him. And, those rare times when she didn’t, he would catch one of the girls looking at him as if he’d committed some vast transgression.
He’d counted himself lucky that they didn’t press him for details, but apparently, looking at Meghan now, his grace period was officially over.
“Doesn’t she like us anymore?” Meghan asked when he didn’t answer her first question.
Before Kennon had so briefly come into their lives, he would have brushed Meghan off with a comment about how this was a “grown-up” matter not to be discussed with children. But he realized now that that would have been insulting. Meghan and Madelyn were people, same as he, with feelings. Same as he. The last thing he wanted was for his daughters to feel that they were lacking, especially since this was no fault of theirs.
“Oh, no, she likes you,” he assured his younger daughter. When she continued looking at him expectantly, he added, “She’s just busy.”
“Busy doing what?”
“Her job.” He saw that his answer didn’t come close to satisfying Meghan. “Kennon decorates houses, you know that. And she’s finished with ours.” And me, he added silently.
“Can’t we tell her we need something else?” she suggested hopefully.
Yes, like needing to see her face the first thing in the morning, he thought. Needing to see her the last thing at night.
He upbraided himself for allowing his thoughts to stray like that. Nothing would be gained by clinging to a baseless hope like that. It just made a person more miserable in the long run.
“But we don’t, honey, you know that,” Simon pointed out.
“Yes, we do,” Madelyn contradicted. She’d been standing in the hallway, out of sight, listening to the exchange between her father and her sister. But now she stepped into the doorway, determined to get her father to do something about this situation.
“And what do we need her for, Madelyn?” he asked gamely, curious despite himself to hear what she had to say.
Madelyn never hesitated. “You need her to make you not sad again.” Frowning, Madelyn took a deep breath and then launched into her explanation. “Mommy never liked it when you were sad, Daddy. She always wanted you to be happy. Kennon made you laugh.” She glanced at her sister for backup. “She made all of us laugh.” Meghan bobbed her head up and down in fierce agreement. “And that’s a good thing, right?” Madelyn pressed, asking her father. When he slowly nodded, she pushed on. “Mommy would have liked Kennon, I know she would have,” she insisted. “So it’s okay for us to like her, too. Please, Daddy, can Kennon come back? She’ll come back if you ask her to,” she told him, with the certainty of the very young who could still see the world in uncomplicated terms.
He hadn’t been that young in a very long time.
Simon shook his head. “I don’t think she wants to come back.” Both his daughters were staring at him now, and neither looked convinced. “I said some things to make her go away.”
“Then un-say them,” Meghan pleaded.
Madelyn seemed to see that he didn’t believe it was that easy. She added weight to her sister’s plea. “Mommy always said that if you say you’re sorry, really sorry, the bad things you did or said aren’t so bad anymore. If you’re sorry enough, they go away.”
Simon looked at his older daughter for a long moment. Out of the mouths of babes. His eight-year-old had just put into words what he’d been feeling. Made him face what he’d tried to ignore. Kennon had made him feel happy for the first time in thirteen months. Made him so happy that it had scared him.
Because he was afraid that happiness would be yanked away from him, just as it had been before, when his wife had died. But rather than protect himself from pain, distancing himself from Kennon had only brought it on in spades. It made him realize that a little bit of happiness was better than his current dark, formless state.
Better for him and better for his girls.
They deserved to have a happy father—and he deserved Kennon. If he’d known what lay ahead, he wouldn’t have allowed Nancy to go in his place. And he wouldn’t have gone, either. But Nancy had elected to go and life had dealt him—and the girls—a very harsh hand.
But now life had shuffled the cards again, promising him a better hand for however long he could hang on to it.
Maybe for the rest of his life.
He looked at Madelyn and then smiled at her. “How did you get so smart?”
Her worried look fading, Madelyn puffed up her chest. “Mommy made me smart.”
Rising, he crossed to her and gave the girl a quick hug. Displays of feelings also had come more easily to him after Kennon had entered their lives. They all owed that woman a vote of thanks. And more.
“She certainly did,” he agreed.
“Me, too!” Meghan piped up, not wanting to be left out.
He smiled and nodded. “Yes, you, too.”
The very fact that he could embrace his daughters, laugh with them, was also Kennon’s doing. She’d taught him to be more open with his girls, to listen to them when they spoke. And to treat them like pint-size human beings. He couldn’t just let a woman like that, who could open both his eyes and his heart, slip right through his fingers because of his inability to leap into action.
It was time for him to leap.
“Edna,” he called out to the nanny. Edna had arrived back home three days after he and Kennon had parted company. She’d brought pictures of her brand-new grandnephew and immediately noted the somber atmosphere. “I need to go out for a little while.”
Edna seemed to materialize out of thin air, approaching them. “To see Miss Kennon, I hope.”
He looked at her, taken a little aback. Was everyone part of this conspiracy to bring Kennon and him together? “You, too?” he asked, not bothering to hide his smile.
“Me, too,” she assured him.
“I’d better get on my way, then.”
“I was just thinking that,” she said, all but physically pushing him out the door.
Chapter Sixteen
It wasn’t pressure that finally caused Kennon to rethink her position and surrender.
At least, not outer pressure. This, despite the fact that Nathan had developed the annoying ability to make almost every other comment out of his mouth somehow refer back to Simon. It wasn’t even her mother, who called every day—sometimes twice a day—to “chat” and ask how “things” were going. The “chats” always ended with her mother asking Kennon how much longer she would waste time before coming to her senses.
Though both things very nearly drove her up the wall, neither was responsible for her caving. What finally did it was that she missed Simon. Missed him desperately. Missed him and his daughters far more than she thought humanly possible. The raw ache inside her grew until it all but swallowed her whole and made it impossible for her to concentrate. She was no good to herself or to anyone else in this state and she had to act.
She missed Simon infinitely more than she’d ever missed Pete, even initially. She couldn’t allow herself to endure this self-imposed life sentence of what amounted to solitary confinement. She would break out of jail and make a run for it, back to Simon and the girls. Hopefully, once she’d done that, she’d find a way to work things out, make Simon want her. She was confident the girls were in her corner.
Or would be once she apologized to them for disappearing this way.
Right in the middle of searching for
the perfect accent pieces to go with her present client’s newly added game room, Kennon left the cavernous discount house, got into her car and headed straight to Simon’s house like an arrow to its target.
It had been eight days since they’d seen each other and it felt like an eternity.
The Bedford police department appeared to be otherwise occupied and nowhere in sight, which was fortunate because Kennon had raced all the way there, squeaking through yellow lights by less than a breath at times.
A cauldron of emotions spilled over her the instant she saw his house.
Anticipation swirled through her. Please don’t make this hard, she prayed, parking.
Kennon didn’t see Simon’s car in the driveway, but that was all right. The garage door was closed. She knew from experience that Simon preferred parking his vehicle inside the garage to keep the car clean longer.
For a man, he was incredibly neat—in every possible definition of the word.
Nerves danced wickedly through her as she rang the doorbell. Her fingertips felt clammy as she found herself praying that it wasn’t too late.
Praying that Simon hadn’t decided that she’d been right to create this separation between them.
Edna’s smile was spontaneous and warm, not to mention wide, when she opened the door and saw her standing there. Kennon’s nervousness evaporated immediately.
“Miss Kennon, how are you?” the nanny asked, then urged, “Come in, come in,” before Kennon had a chance to answer her.
The moment she stepped over the threshold, Kennon found herself encircled by two pairs of small arms and on the receiving end of fierce hugs and raised, happy voices. Madelyn and Meghan, drawn by Edna’s greeting, had both flown to the door to see for themselves if their beloved Kennon had returned.
“You came, you came,” Meghan cried happily, hugging her so hard the little girl became utterly breathless.
“Dad did it!” Madelyn declared in triumph. “He did go and get you!”
A Match for the Doctor Page 16