He forced those thoughts aside to ask, “Does Ava spend a lot of time with Shane and Quinn?”
Kelly took a deep frying pan out of the cupboard and set it on top of the stove. “She likes to play big sister, and the twins don’t seem to mind her bossing them around.”
“They might not be siblings, but they could be her cousins—by marriage, if not by blood.”
She nodded, confirming that she’d already considered the possibility. When she’d told him that Ava was his child, he’d only thought about how that revelation affected him. He hadn’t considered that his daughter would be a niece to each of his brothers.
Obviously the situation was a lot more complicated than he’d realized—and that was before he’d kissed Kelly.
* * *
On Saturday, Kelly took Ava shopping. She wanted to make sure that her daughter had everything she needed to start the new school year and, even more importantly, she wanted to spend some time with her. Ava still wasn’t happy about the move, and although she kept in frequent contact with Rachel and some of her other friends online, she was feeling a little lonely.
Kelly knew from personal experience that it wasn’t easy to move to a new town and start over again. She’d been a couple of years younger than Ava when she’d been dumped at her grandmother’s house in Pinehurst because her father was a long-distance trucker who was gone more than he was home and her mother couldn’t handle full-time care of a child on her own. What was originally supposed to be a few weeks had somehow turned into months, and then into years. On her first day of school, she’d been absolutely terrified. And it hadn’t been so long ago that she couldn’t remember the tangle of knots in her stomach that had made her want to throw up the cereal she’d had for breakfast.
She’d stopped at the corner and stared at the crowd of students already milling around outside of Parkdale Elementary School. Other kids moved past her, most of them in groups, talking and laughing, their friendships established over the years that they’d been together. She didn’t know how long she stood there, trying to ignore the churning in her stomach and summon the courage to move forward, when she saw Jackson and Lukas coming toward her.
The Garrett brothers lived next door to her grandmother, so she’d gotten to know them a little bit over the summer. Lukas was her age, Jackson was three years older, and Matthew was two years older than him and in high school already. But she didn’t know much more than that, and she was more than a little surprised when Lukas stopped beside her. Jackson scowled and mumbled something under his breath, but Lukas just waved him on.
“Trying to decide whether to go forward or back?” Lukas asked.
Though her cheeks had flushed with embarrassment that he’d been able to read her thoughts so easily, she nodded.
“If we had Mrs. Vanderheide, I’d tell you to go back. I’d even go with you,” he said. “But Miss Ellis isn’t too bad.”
It was all he said, but he stood patiently, waiting until she was ready. And when she was confident that the Frosted Flakes were going to stay in her stomach, she turned toward the school and he fell into step beside her.
She’d lucked out that day, and she was keeping her fingers crossed that Ava might be half as lucky with the friends she made at her new school—or maybe even before then. Though her daughter wasn’t looking forward to camp (“summer camp is for babies”), Kelly was hopeful that she would meet some kids there who would be in her class at Parkdale when school started up in a few weeks.
But for now, mother and daughter were focused on shopping. Of course, Ava complained that all of the stores at the mall and even the more upscale shops in the village were completely lame. Despite that fact, however, she managed to find a couple of pairs of jeans, a skirt, several T-shirts, three sweaters, various accessories and a new backpack. The only real dissension occurred when they passed Gia’s Salon & Spa and Ava decided that she wanted more streaks put in her hair. Kelly nixed that plan but suggested that, after several hours of shopping, they both deserved to pamper their feet.
By the time they left the spa, it was almost seven o’clock. Since they were already out and just down the street from Mama Leone’s, Kelly decided to treat her daughter to dinner out.
As they made their way to the restaurant, Kelly realized she was smiling. It had been a good day, with only a few minor bumps along the way, and she was thrilled that she’d had the time to reconnect with her daughter.
Her smile slipped when the hostess led them to the back of the restaurant and they passed the table where Jackson was seated across from a beautiful blonde with glossy red lips and fingernails to match the spandex dress that emphasized her impressive curves. His gaze never wavered from his companion, for which Kelly was grateful. She didn’t want him to know that she was there, and she wasn’t thrilled about the possibility that Ava might spot him, either.
So she made sure that Ava was seated with her back to them, which meant that Kelly was facing their table. And while Jackson flirted with his date, she couldn’t help but remember that he’d been kissing her less than twenty-four hours earlier.
It was one kiss, but that one kiss had unleashed a tidal wave of memories that kept her tossing and turning through the night. It wasn’t fair that he should still be able to affect her. It wasn’t fair that he could kiss her like he’d kissed her yesterday and move on to seducing another woman tonight.
But that was Jackson. She’d known his reputation all those years before, but she’d chosen to overlook it. She’d believed—in her youthful naïveté—that once he was with her, he would realize he loved her as much as she loved him. He would forget that he’d ever wanted anyone else, and they would be together forever.
Obviously things hadn’t gone according to her plan. For Kelly, the weekend they spent together in Chicago only cemented her feelings. For Jackson, it was merely a brief interlude in his life—she was merely one of numerous women who had shared his bed.
And here he was again now, with another woman, proving to Kelly that he hadn’t changed at all. He was still a player. And so what? That one kiss aside, she had no intention of resuming any kind of relationship with him. His personal life wasn’t any of her business, but she did worry about Ava and how she might respond to the parade of women through her father’s life.
Right now, though, she was going to put Jackson out of her mind and focus on her daughter. She wasn’t going to watch Miss Scarlet feed him bites of her cheesecake. She didn’t care that the blonde then put the fork to her own lips and slowly licked the tines, obviously savoring his flavor even more than the dessert. Instead, Kelly dropped her gaze and stabbed her own fork into a wedge of tomato.
Ava had already finished her salad and dug into her seven-cheese ravioli with enthusiasm. Kelly forced down a few more bites of lettuce and wondered again if she’d made a mistake in coming back to Pinehurst.
She’d been certain that he would have changed in the past thirteen years. But seeing him here tonight, she realized that was her mistake. He wasn’t the man she wanted him to be, and the fact that she was disappointed by that realization was her fault more than his. She hadn’t been hoping for any kind of reconciliation with Jackson when she decided to come back—but she had hoped that he could be the father her daughter deserved. Now she knew otherwise.
He finished his coffee and signed the check. Then he offered his hand to the blonde, and she stood up, tottering a little on her skyscraper heels. And when she smiled at him, the curve of her lushly painted lips was full of promise.
Jackson momentarily shifted his attention away from his date—and his gaze collided with hers. She saw the range of emotions cross over his face: recognition, surprise, guilt. It was Kelly who broke the connection, deliberately looking away to prove that she didn’t care, that his presence didn’t matter, that he didn’t matter.
But as she poked at her angel hair pasta, she knew it was a
lie. The truth was, he’d always mattered to her. Too much.
“Mom—is something wrong?”
Kelly glanced up, forced a smile. “Of course not.”
Ava gestured to her plate. “You said you were starving, but you haven’t even touched your meal.”
“I guess I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”
“I’m still hungry,” Ava told her.
“Did you want some of my pasta?”
Her daughter shook her head. “Can I have dessert?” she asked hopefully.
Kelly was grateful to realize that some things in life were still simple, and her smile came more easily this time. “You can absolutely have dessert.”
“Can we get it to go? There’s a movie on TV tonight that I thought we could watch.”
Her daughter was actually initiating a plan to spend more time with her? Kelly couldn’t have been more pleased. “Sounds good to me.”
When they got home, they put their pajamas on and snuggled on the couch together. While Ava watched her movie, Kelly’s thoughts wandered. Nothing had gone as she’d planned so far. She hadn’t expected Jackson to immediately embrace the fact of fatherhood, but she hadn’t anticipated an outright rejection of the claim, either. And while he seemed to be coming around to accepting the truth, Lukas wasn’t even talking to her.
She had no intention of going back to Seattle. All of the reasons she had for leaving were still valid. But maybe she should have considered moving somewhere other than Pinehurst, somewhere where she wouldn’t be haunted by memories of the hopes and dreams she’d had so long ago. Except that no other place had ever felt like home. Pinehurst was where she wanted to raise her daughter, and she was confident that Ava would make friends quickly and be happy here.
She didn’t realize the movie had finished until she saw the credits rolling on the screen. Pushing her questions and uncertainties aside, she nudged her sleepy daughter up the stairs and tucked her into bed.
“Mom?”
“Hmm?”
“Thanks for today. It was kind of fun—hanging out with you.”
And with those words, the last of Kelly’s reservations was obliterated. Because she knew now that, regardless of what happened with Jackson, she had done the right thing by bringing Ava to Pinehurst. She brushed the hair away from her daughter’s face and touched her lips to her forehead. “Me, too.”
She and her daughter had each other and that was enough—neither of them needed Jackson Garrett.
Unfortunately, that didn’t stop Kelly from wanting him.
Chapter Five
It was a sign of how complicated his life had gotten in the space of a single week that Jack left a willing woman on her doorstep Saturday night and went home to his empty bed to dream about another.
He woke up alone, aroused, and cursing Kelly Cooper.
She’d turned his entire life upside down with the proclamation that he was the father of her child. Actually, she’d turned his entire life upside down simply by walking back into it. Because even after thirteen years, she was the one woman he’d never been able to forget.
If he’d been a romantic, he might have thought she was “the one who got away”—except that he’d purposefully sent her away because he’d believed it was the right thing to do. When she’d been a kid hanging out with his younger brother, he’d sometimes caught her looking at him with something like hero worship in her eyes. He’d been flattered and amused by her attention, but when he’d gone off to college, he hadn’t thought too much about her harmless infatuation or her.
And then he’d come home for Christmas that first year to discover that Kelly Cooper wasn’t a kid anymore. Somehow in the four months that he’d been gone, she’d grown up. The skinny kid with a mouthful of braces had become a stunning beauty with interesting curves in all the right places. And suddenly that infatuation wasn’t quite so harmless anymore, not when he was experiencing feelings he shouldn’t be experiencing for his little brother’s best friend.
But he’d kept his wayward emotions in check, at least until her birthday the following summer.
Shirley Lawson had hosted a sweet sixteen party for her granddaughter in the backyard, complete with bouquets of pink and white balloons, miles of streamers fluttering in the breeze and a multi-tiered birthday cake. Jack hadn’t planned on stopping in at the party. He had other plans for the evening already in place—and he was confident that the evening would end with Leesa Webster in the backseat of his Mustang up at Eagle Point Park.
He was on his way to the car when he glanced over and noticed that Kelly was standing alone on the front porch while music and laughter sounded from the back of the house. He tucked his keys in his pocket and walked over to her.
“Isn’t the birthday girl supposed to be at the birthday party?”
She smiled. “I just wanted to take a break from the crowd for a minute.”
“It is quite a crowd,” he noted, climbing the steps toward her.
“Sweet sixteen is a milestone, according to Grandma.”
“Sixteen I believe,” he teased. “But sweet?”
She responded with a sassy smile. “I am sweet,” she assured him. “But I’m not as innocent as you think.”
It was a challenge—and one he couldn’t resist any longer. He tipped her chin up. “Let’s see about that,” he said, and brushed his lips over hers.
Her golden eyes widened momentarily, then drifted shut. Her mouth was soft—softer than he’d anticipated, moist and sweetly yielding. She lifted her arms to link them behind his neck as her body melted against his.
He touched his tongue to the seam of her lips, a question more than a demand, and she answered by opening for him. Her tongue touched his, tentatively at first, then more boldly. She had some experience with kissing, or she was a fast learner, but he would bet the Mustang he’d recently emptied his bank account to buy that she hadn’t done much more than that.
The realization should have succeeded in lessening his desire; instead, her innocence had the opposite effect. He wanted to touch where no one else had touched, make her feel things no one else had made her feel. But for now, he contented himself with kissing her, savoring the flavor of her lips and the softness of her curves pressed against him.
She was sweet...and, his conscience belatedly reminded him, only sixteen.
He eased his lips from hers.
Kelly looked up at him, her eyes dark and silently questioning.
“You’re still too innocent for me,” he said with genuine regret.
She blew out a slow, shaky breath as he took a step back.
“You’re not staying for cake?”
He shook his head. “I have to go.”
She shrugged, as if she didn’t care, but he could see that she was hurt and confused—and more than willing to finish what they’d started. And as much as he’d been looking forward to his date with Leesa, he knew he wouldn’t take her up to Eagle Point Park tonight. He couldn’t be with her when he’d be thinking about Kelly.
But before he walked away, he brushed his thumb gently over her bottom lip, which was erotically swollen from his kiss. “Happy Birthday, Kelly.”
That had been the beginning of the end for Jack. From that moment, all of his best intentions had gone straight to hell.
He hadn’t made another move that summer—he hadn’t dared. Because he’d known that if he put his hands on Kelly again, she wouldn’t stop him, and he hadn’t trusted that he’d be able to stop himself.
And then Kelly had left Pinehurst before the ink was even dry on her high school diploma, heading off to college in Chicago. She’d come back for the summer after her first year, intending to take care of her grandmother while she recovered from a stroke. But a second blood clot interrupted those plans, and after the funeral, Kelly had gone b
ack to Chicago again.
It was two years after that before Jack saw her again, before they spent those three glorious days and nights together.
Three glorious days and nights that had resulted in Kelly having his child.
No wonder she wasn’t infatuated with him anymore. In fact, if he had to guess, he would say that whatever she felt for him now was closer to the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. She might not like him, but she wanted him. It wasn’t arrogance or delusion that made him think so, but a simple assessment of her physical response to his nearness.
She didn’t want to want him, but the chemistry was undeniable. And when he’d kissed her, she’d definitely kissed him back, confirming that she wasn’t nearly as disinterested as she wanted him to believe.
It was his frustration with Kelly that had made him amenable to Norah Hennessey Sinclair’s invitation to dinner the night before. Frustration combined with determination to not sit at home and think about her—or his still-convoluted feelings about her daughter. His daughter.
Those two words still made him break out in a cold sweat, and although his thoughts had finally shifted from denial to acceptance, he didn’t know what would come next. Dinner with a client had offered a welcome reprieve from his own thoughts. He certainly hadn’t given Norah any indication he was interested in sharing anything more than a meal.
He’d been more annoyed than enticed by her drunken and obvious attempt at seduction. Even if she hadn’t been inebriated, he wouldn’t have been tempted. As a client, she was strictly off-limits, and even aside from that, he didn’t do casual hook-ups anymore. Hadn’t in a long time. But mostly it was because, while Norah’s foot had been climbing inside his pant leg under the table, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Kelly.
Then he’d looked up, and his gaze had locked with hers. And the look in her eyes, the cool contempt in her golden gaze, told him more clearly than any words how she’d interpreted the scene. Although it irked him that he even cared what she thought, he couldn’t deny that he did.
His Long-Lost Family Page 7