by Gina Wilkins
“This place is fun,” she assured him with a smile.
He should have known Kelly would enjoy this noisy mall eatery as much as an elegant restaurant. He had always liked her naturally unpretentious manner. Watching as she chatted with Molly, he admired the way the twinkling, multicolored Christmas lights reflected in her fair hair and sparkling eyes. She looked like a Christmas sprite, he thought fancifully. Her green-and-gold sweater added to the illusion. It occurred to him that he wouldn’t mind finding her under his tree on Christmas morning.
He realized abruptly that his feelings for Kelly had undergone a radical change in the last few weeks. He wasn’t even trying now to convince himself that he thought of Kelly exactly the same way he thought of his cousins. He knew she wouldn’t want to hear that—she’d made that perfectly clear when he had kissed her on Thanksgiving—but somehow it had happened.
Now he wasn’t sure exactly what to do about it.
She glanced his way, saw him watching her, flushed a little and quickly turned back to Molly. And Shane was left to consider the possibility that Kelly didn’t think of him quite as a cousin, either.
Shane was staring at her again. Kelly glanced at him from beneath her lashes as they finished their meal with fried ice cream for dessert—another of Molly’s suggestions. She looked quickly down again after confirming her suspicion that Shane was watching her.
She wished she knew what was going through his mind.
“Can we walk around the mall for a little while after lunch?” Molly asked eagerly.
Though Kelly knew shopping wasn’t one of Shane’s favorite pastimes, she wasn’t surprised when he agreed. He didn’t refuse Molly very often, and after her upset earlier, he was in a particularly indulgent mood.
Molly seemed to have almost forgotten about her earlier distress. Whether because Kelly’s words had meant something to her, or because she was enjoying this outing—or whether her adolescent hormones had simply settled down for a while—Molly was in a particularly sunny mood now. She seemed enthralled by all the Christmas displays, and couldn’t seem to take it all in fast enough as she craned her head from side to side, looking at everything and everyone around them.
Molly was much too old to visit Santa Claus, of course, but Kelly saw her smile and wave at the bearded guy, who gave her a friendly wave in return. Molly lingered for a few minutes in front of display of new CDs, but politely declined Shane’s offer to buy her one. “I have CDs on my Christmas list,” she explained. And then her face lit up again. “Hey, there’s an arcade!”
Minutes later, Shane, Molly and Kelly were lined up in front of Skeeball games, trying to roll their wooden balls into the high-score slots. Molly and Shane had a fierce competition going, bragging noisily about their Skeeball skills and predicting victory in the points battle. Both seemed surprised when Kelly ended the game with the highest score and the greatest number of prize tickets.
“Way to go, Kelly,” Molly said, laughing at the startled look on her brother’s face. “You beat Shane—and he thinks he’s the Skeeball champ.”
“I demand a rematch,” Shane declared, plugging another token into his machine. “I was blindsided.”
She smiled sweetly at him and inserted her own token. As the wooden balls clattered noisily into the chute, she murmured, “Let’s just see who’s the real Skeeball champ.”
Shane’s eyes lit with the fire of competition. Molly clapped her hands and cheered Kelly on, choosing to watch rather than play this time. And at the end of nine rolls, Kelly once again had the high score.
As Molly laughed in delight, Shane planted his fists on his hips and studied Kelly with narrowed eyes. “So how are you at shooting targets with Ping-Pong ball guns?” he demanded, motioning toward another game.
“Adequate,” she replied vaguely, and pushed the sleeves of her sweater higher on her arms.
She soon proved she was more than adequate. Ping-Pong balls whooshed steadily out of her air-powered “gun,” and stuffed targets fell swiftly, one by one. When the game ended, she had tied Shane twice and beaten him once. Handing the prize tickets to Molly, Shane challenged, “Let’s see how good you are at air hockey.”
She soon showed him that she was very good at air hockey. As the plastic puck shot past his paddle to clatter into the goal slot, she straightened and absently brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Seven to five,” she announced unnecessarily. “I win.”
“Okay,” Shane growled, moving to stand toe-to-toe with her, “how did you get so good at arcade games?”
She laughed. “I worked at one of those pizza-and-prizes places when I was in high school. After work, the employees would spend an hour or so playing the arcade games, on the pretext of making sure everything was working properly. After working there for two years, I was named the arcade queen.”
“You might have told me that before you accepted my challenges,” Shane muttered.
Her smile widened. “And miss seeing you bust a gut trying to beat me?”
Molly giggled. “She got you good, Shane.”
“Yes,” he agreed, his mouth quirking into his attractively crooked smile. “She got me good.”
Kelly tugged at the high collar of her sweater and looked away. “Does it seem warm in here to either of you? Hey, Molly, do you want to try the claw machine? Maybe we can make it pick up a stuffed animal.”
Easily distracted, Molly headed for the game, her attention already focused on a small teddy bear on top of the rather tightly packed pile of prizes. “Kelly,” Shane said when she started after his sister.
She paused. “Yes?”
“Next time, we’ll choose a game I can win.”
Because she had a nagging suspicion he wasn’t talking about arcade games, she cleared her throat and then hurried over to Molly without coming up with anything to say in reply.
They were leaving the arcade, Molly carrying two stuffed-animal prizes, when they heard someone hail them. “What are you guys doing here?” Keith Samples asked as he entered the arcade.
“Hi, Keith. Do you like arcades, too?” Molly greeted her college-freshman cousin.
“Yeah, they’re cool.” Keith motioned idly to the two fashionably shaggy young men who accompanied him. “These are my friends, Bodie and Matt. Guys, meet my cousins, Molly, Shane and Kelly.”
“Hey,” the guys grunted in unison.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Kelly said, aware that Keith had made no distinction between his relationship with her and the Walker siblings.
Maybe Shane was right, she thought as the two groups parted again. Maybe the younger generation had accepted her as a cousin when they’d taken in Brynn. Maybe they all thought of her simply as family.
All except Shane, of course, she added, remembering kisses that hadn’t been at all familial. She wasn’t sure how Shane thought of her now.
She wasn’t even sure how she thought of him.
They were headed toward the mall exit when Molly pointed to the multiplex movie theater located on the lower level. “They have that Christmas movie I’ve been wanting to see,” she hinted broadly, gazing up at Shane.
Shane looked from Molly to the theater marquis, and then to Kelly. “Kelly might have other plans for the rest of the day,” he suggested.
Molly’s soulful eyes turned immediately toward Kelly.
Molly had been having such a good time on their outing. Kelly couldn’t bring herself to put an end to it just yet. So maybe she and Shane were shamelessly spoiling the girl today; how could they not after those miserable tears earlier? “Actually, I’ve been wanting to see that movie myself,” she fibbed. “And I have nothing better to do this afternoon,” she added, mentally dismissing the rather lengthy list of chores she had planned to tackle on this rare day off.
“Great,” Molly said, breaking away from them. “I’ll go see when the next feature starts.”
“Liar,” Shane murmured to Kelly.
She kept her eyes on Molly. “I don’t mind. Really
.”
“If there are other things you need to do, I can take Molly to see the movie another time.”
“No. I can spare another couple of hours for her.”
“Have I told you how much I appreciate what you’ve done for her today?”
She waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve had a good time, too.”
It wasn’t long before the movie started. They passed that time having sodas in the food court. When they filed into the theater row, they put Molly between them, but when the film began, she whispered that she couldn’t see over the man in front of her. A little shuffling resulted in Shane sitting in the middle, Molly on his left and Kelly at his right. And then the theater went dark and the film began and Kelly tried to concentrate on the plot rather than the way Shane’s shoulder touched hers in the crowded row. He shifted in his seat and his thigh brushed hers. Her spine almost melted.
By the time the movie ended, she wasn’t sure she could have summarized the plot if anyone asked her. But she could probably give the exact number of times Shane had touched her, either accidentally or on purpose. She could have described every time he glanced at her in the pale light filtering from the movie screen. And she could have named the exact moment when she realized in despair that there seemed to be no going back to the comfortably friendly relationship they had before Shane kissed her.
She knew she was quiet on the way back to the ranch. Fortunately Molly chattered so much that Kelly’s near silence wasn’t overly noticeable. The telephone was ringing when they walked through Shane’s door. He snatched it up before the machine could answer. A moment later, he looked at his sister. “It’s for you,” he said. “It’s Kristin.”
Molly took the phone. “Hi, Kristin. Sure, I’m fine. I’ve had a really fun day with my brother and our friend. Oh, no, I didn’t let Amy and Lacy bother me,” she said airily. “If they don’t like me, that’s their problem, not mine.” She grinned and gave Kelly a thumbs-up, which Kelly proudly returned.
Shane motioned Kelly into the kitchen, leaving Molly to babble on about every detail of her day.
“I’d better be going,” Kelly said, glancing at her watch the moment she and Shane were alone. “I still have an hour’s drive ahead of me.”
“Kelly, you and I need to talk.”
She took a step toward the door, having no need to ask what he wanted to talk about. “We’ve already talked. It’s all settled now. There’s no need to bring it up again.”
“I don’t think we’ve settled anything,” he replied, taking two steps toward her. “There are still some issues we should discuss.”
She eyed him warily. “I don’t see any need to rehash a couple of mistakes. It’s not as if it’s going to happen again.”
“Won’t it?” Another step brought Shane to within a foot of her. “Are you so sure about that?”
She pushed her hands in her pockets and lifted her chin in a show of bravado. “I’m sure. Neither of us wants to risk—”
“Don’t speak for me, Kelly.”
She blinked in surprise at his uncharacteristically curt tone. “I’m not....”
“I want to kiss you again. Right now, as a matter of fact.”
She looked quickly toward the kitchen doorway, relieved that Molly was still on the phone in the other room. “Shane, please.”
“Please what? Please pretend that nothing happened? Please lie about the way I feel? I’m afraid I can’t do that anymore,”
“We can’t talk about this now,” she whispered, worried that Molly would overhear.
“No,” he agreed. “Not now. But soon.”
“I...”
“Hey, guys, guess what?” Molly skipped through the door in cheerful obliviousness to the tension between the adults. “Kristin told Amy and Lacy that she thought they were real jerks to me, and if they ever say anything like that again, she’s going to tell everyone at school that they’re jealous losers. Kristin thinks they’re going to apologize to me tomorrow.”
“And you will accept their apologies very graciously,” Kelly instructed. “That makes you look even more superior to them.”
Molly smiled. “Then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
Turning away from Kelly, Shane once again demonstrated his ability to completely mask his emotions. “If those girls start in on you again, tell me and I’ll pound them for you,” he offered, his tone only half-teasing.
Molly giggled. “No, you wouldn’t. But thanks for offering.”
Kelly took advantage of the opportunity to escape while Molly was there to distract Shane. Molly tried to talk her into staying a little longer, but Kelly was able to convince her that she really had to go. “Just remember everything I told you earlier, okay?”
Molly smiled and gave her a hug. “I’ll remember. Bye, Kelly. Thanks for everything.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie.” She paused. “Goodbye, Shane.”
“Drive carefully.”
“Yes, I will.” She left quickly, escaping to her car. She turned the radio up to a high volume during the drive home in a futile attempt to drown out her painful thoughts.
One question was uppermost in her mind during that drive—and the near sleepless night that followed. Why had Shane ruined everything?
When someone rang Kelly’s doorbell later that week, she briefly considered not answering. She had her last semester final the next day, and she had been studying for hours—both because she wanted to do well on the test and because she wanted to distract herself from thoughts of Shane. She was afraid she would find him on the other side of her door, and she didn’t know if she was up to another disturbing confrontation.
The doorbell rang again and she sighed. Giving in to the inevitable, she forced herself to move to the door and check the peephole.
It wasn’t Shane on her doorstep. She blinked in surprise as she realized that it was one of his uncles instead. She opened the door slowly, trying to put a name to him. After more than a year of socializing with them at Walker family gatherings, Kelly still had a hard time telling the twins apart. They were identical, both lean and handsome in their early forties, with golden-brown hair and light blue eyes that could change instantly from warm to frosty. One of them—Ryan, she believed—had a faint, faded scar at his right temple from an old accident. Seeing no scar now, she hazarded, “Joe?”
He nodded, smiling faintly. His manner, too, helped her identify him. Joe Walker was the more serious-natured twin, Ryan the more ebullient. Kelly probably hadn’t exchanged more than two dozen words with Joe since she’d met him. All she really knew about him was that he, like his twin, worked for Tony D’Alessandro’s private investigation agency, and that he adored his accountant wife, Lauren, and their ten-year-old son, Casey.
She couldn’t imagine why Joe Walker was calling on her at six o’clock on a Thursday evening, but she smiled and opened the door wider “Please, come in.”
He was carrying a leather portfolio, she noted as he passed her into the living room. It made the visit seem more official somehow. “Can I get you anything?” she asked. “Coffee?”
He declined politely. “I need to talk to you about something.”
Trying futilely to guess what he might want to talk to her about, she motioned toward the couch. “Please, sit down.”
He settled on the end of the couch, setting the leather portfolio on the table in front of him. Kelly perched on a nearby chair. “What is this about, Joe?”
Opening the folder, he extracted a five-by-seven-inch photograph. “Do you recognize this man?”
The uniformed man in the picture was older than she remembered, his hair a bit grayer, his face somewhat more lined. But she knew him immediately from photographs her mother had left her. “This is my father, air force colonel Jack Morrison. The last I heard, he was stationed somewhere in Europe.”
Joe nodded. “I wondered if you would recognize the photograph.”
“Has something happened to him?” Was that what this visit was about? W
as she being officially notified, as her father’s heir, perhaps, that she was now an orphan in reality, though she had been virtually orphaned when her mother died over ten years ago?
“No, he’s fine,” Joe assured her. “He’s looking for you actually. He wants to see you again, and he doesn’t know where you’ve been living since you moved from Longview.”
Kelly blinked in surprise. “You’re kidding,” she said blankly—her first reaction to the unexpected news.
“I’m not known for being much of a kidder.”
Despite her confusion, she couldn’t help smiling a little at his wry tone. She had always liked Joe Walker, even though she didn’t know him well. And then her smile faded. “How do you know he’s looking for me?”
“He contacted our agency, which isn’t so surprising, considering that we’ve earned a reputation in this state for reuniting families. I happened to take the call.”
“Did you tell him where I am?”
“I didn’t even tell him I know you,” Joe replied. “I told him I would look into it and get back to him.”
“I can’t believe he wants to see me again after all these years.” She pressed her fingertips to her suddenly throbbing temples. “The last time I saw him, I was eight years old. I didn’t even hear from him when my mother died. Do you know about my mother, Joe?”
“Why don’t you tell me about her?”
“She was German. My father met her when he was stationed at Spangdahlem Air Base twenty-five years ago. He married her, brought her to Marshall, Texas—his hometown—and then spent most of their marriage away from her. My father was on temporary assignment in the Philippines when I was born. He thought his family in Marshall would look out for his wife, but they didn’t like her. His father was a World War II veteran who was vehemently opposed to having a German daughter-in-law. My parents stayed married for seven years, and then he divorced her, leaving her to raise their child alone in this new country.”