Out of Sight

by Michelle Celmer

  “I’m usually a beer drinker, but wine is a nice change every now and then.”

  “Me, too.” She grabbed a second wineglass from the cupboard above the sink and set it at the table.

  He poured both glasses as Adam walked slowly to the table, a plate, fork, and knife balanced precariously in his arms.

  “How about I give you a hand with those, sport?” Will said.

  Adam shot him an indignant look. “I’m not a baby. Setting the table is one of my chores.”

  He put both hands up in a defensive stance. “My apologies. I’ve never known a three-year-old who could set a table.”

  “I’m almost three and a half,” Adam said.

  Will grinned. “I guess that half a year makes a difference.”

  Adam set the plate on the table with a thunk, dangerously close to the edge, and Will tried not to cringe when he imagined it dropping to the floor and shattering. The silverware clattered to the table beside it. “See, I know how.”

  “You sure do.”

  “Great job, kiddo,” Abi said, rumpling his hair. “Now go wash your hands.”

  If Will hadn’t thought Abi was beautiful before, that changed as he watched her with her son. When she looked at Adam, an aura of pure love and happiness glowed around her. He’d never known happiness like that, never known such an unconditional love. Adam was one lucky kid to have a mother like Abi.

  Maybe Will had been wrong. Maybe Adam could be content living at the retreat. The kid appeared happy and well-adjusted. So what if it was a little out of the norm. What was normal these days anyway?

  When Adam disappeared into the bathroom, Abi slid the plate more securely on the table and arranged the silverware neatly beside it. “He’s very independent,” she explained. “He looks so proud when he helps me, I figure it’s worth a few chipped dishes.”

  “He seems like a really good kid.”

  “He is. Don’t get me wrong, he has his moments. He can be stubborn and demanding. If he doesn’t like the way something is being done, he’s not shy about speaking his mind.”

  Adam bounded back into the room waving his hands in the air. “All clean!”

  “Did you use soap?”

  “Yup!” He climbed into the chair with the booster seat strapped to it and banged on the table beside him. “Sit by me, Will.”

  “Demanding, huh?” Will said and Abi smiled.

  “A tad, yes.”

  Will sat in the seat beside Adam and across from Abi. He and Abi scooted their chairs in at the same time and their feet collided under the table. They said, “Sorry” simultaneously, then she laughed nervously and bit her lip. “It’s been a while since we had a dinner guest. I mean, we have other staff over all the time. Just not…”

  “Strange men?” Will asked.

  “Yeah,” she admitted.

  “It’s a little unusual for me, too,” he said. It had been a long time since a relationship with a woman had resulted in a shared home-cooked meal. Generally he took women out to eat. He liked to keep the playing ground neutral. If dinner went well, they might end up back at her place or on rare occasions in a hotel. He didn’t bring women to his apartment. He didn’t give out his home number either, only his cell. He liked to be in control at all times, keep the upper hand in a relationship, in the event a quick escape was needed.

  “We hafta say grace,” Adam said, holding out his hands for Will and Abi to take. “Or God will make the food taste bad.”

  Will gave Abi a questioning look.

  “Last session Adam ate dinner with a family who said grace before every meal. He decided he and I should do it, too. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.” He folded Adam’s small, slightly damp hand in his own. “I was raised Catholic.”

  “And I didn’t see the inside of a church until a friend of mine got married. And that was a Vegas chapel, so it probably doesn’t even count.”

  The call they’d received implicating Vince Collucci in Ryan’s death had originated from Vegas. Will wondered if that was where Abi had met Maureen.

  He filed away the information for later.

  “Mommy,” Adam groaned. “You and Will gotta hold hands, too, or God won’t hear.”

  “Sorry, I forgot.”

  Will reached across the table to take Abi’s outstretched hand and saw that she was actually blushing. She always seemed a bit uneasy when he touched her. Maybe she just wasn’t used to the physical contact.

  He, on the other hand, relished it. Probably due to a lack of it in his childhood. When his father hadn’t been around, his mother had hugged and kissed him, but when his old man had been home—which had been most of the time since he’d retired when Will was ten—she hadn’t dared. Physical affection hadn’t been tolerated. It turned boys into sissies, he’d said. In all the years his parents were married Will had never seen them kiss or embrace. They’d never even held hands.

  “Now you gotta close your eyes,” Adam instructed. He closed his eyes, lowered his head and said in an earnest voice, “Dear God, thank you for the spaghetti. It’s my favorite. Amen.”

  Both Abi and Will said amen, then she dished out the food. If Will had thought he and Abi would have a chance to talk during the meal, he’d been wrong. Adam chattered nonstop. He talked about his new friends, the project they had done in art that afternoon, the picnic they’d had on the beach. He told Will about the counselors and how Susie in the office always gave him a piece of candy and that Maureen had a huge TV with Nickelodeon.

  Adam seemed to know a little bit about everyone and was brutally honest. A few times Abi scolded him for revealing things he’d heard people say—private things Will was sure had never been meant for his ears, but the kid didn’t seem to miss a thing. He was like a sponge. Will wondered if he might be able to get some information about Maureen from Adam, then instantly felt guilty for the thought. Pumping a three-year-old for information was low even for him. He wasn’t that desperate. Not yet. But if Adam just happened to mention something and Will were to inquire further, that might be different.

  After dinner Will helped them clear the table and then they sat on the big fluffy rug in front of the couch and played Go Fish. He’d always imagined hanging out with a woman and her kid would be domestic torture. Instead he found himself having a good time. It was…fun, even though Will was pretty sure Adam was cheating. The kid was destined to be a card shark some day.

  At nine, when Abi told Adam it was time to get ready for bed, Will almost felt disappointed.

  “We have company, so only one book tonight,” she told Adam.

  “I want Will to read to me,” Adam demanded.

  Abi frowned. “Adam, I don’t think—”

  “Pleeease,” Adam begged and turned to Will, a pleading look in his eyes. “Can you?”

  “I’ll read you a book,” Will heard himself saying.

  Adam started hopping up and down. “Yeah!”

  Abi gave him a playful swat on the behind. “Go brush your teeth and get your pj’s on, monkey boy.” When he’d hopped out of the room, she turned to Will. “I’m sorry he put you on the spot like that. You don’t have to read to him if you don’t want to.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said and realized he meant it. And not just because he thought he had something to gain. He wasn’t even sure why. It just seemed the appropriate way to end the evening.

  “He’s really been craving male attention lately. He’s just beginning to question why he doesn’t have a daddy.” She gathered the cards and stood. “It’s confusing for him.”

  “I understand.” He stood and tossed the pillows they’d been leaning on back on the couch. “If you’d prefer I didn’t read to him, it won’t hurt my feelings.”

  She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Adam was at an impressionable age. Not that she thought Will would be a bad influence. It was just that since meeting Will in the dining room the other night, Adam had become oddly fascinated with him. He’d asked her a million qu
estions about him, things Abi couldn’t answer. Things she wondered herself.

  She was afraid if Adam knew too much, he might become too attached to Will. Even more than that, she didn’t want to become attached. Though the meal they’d shared couldn’t have been more casual and she’d played Go Fish with Adam a thousand times, there was something so intimate about the three of them spending time together. Maybe because it was a first for her. Adam’s father had been out of the picture long before Adam had been born, and Abi never knew her own father. The men her mother had brought home and the ones she’d married weren’t the type to sit down for a family dinner, even if her mom had known how to cook anything more complicated than frozen dinners.

  But if it made Adam happy, what harm could one little story do? She would just make it very clear to Adam tomorrow that Will was only a friend. And like all the other guests, he would be leaving and they would probably never see him again.

  “I think he’d like it a lot if you read to him,” she told Will.

  “You’re sure?”

  She smiled. “I’m sure.”

  “I’m ready!” Adam called from his bedroom doorway. They both turned to find him standing there in his short-sleeved superhero pajamas. Since meeting Will they were the only ones he would wear.

  That seed of doubt pushed just a little closer to the surface. It seemed that all she did lately was question herself. This time she would just have to follow her instincts and hope she didn’t make a mistake.

  “Would you like me to tuck you in?” she asked.

  “Nope. Will can do it.”

  She propped her hands on her hips and said sternly, “I at least get a kiss, don’t I?”

  He scurried into the room and gave her a quick kiss—so quick his lips didn’t even hit their target—then he grabbed Will’s hand and dragged him toward his bedroom. ‘C’mon!”

  While Will read to Adam, Abi kept herself busy washing the dinner dishes. She stopped briefly and peeked around the corner toward Adam’s room. She couldn’t see them, but she could hear the deep rumble of Will’s voice. Then his tone rose to an unnaturally high pitch, and she realized he was changing his voice to represent the different characters. She heard Adam giggle and she smiled. Then something in her heart, an emotion that was too familiar, had tears burning in the corners of her eyes.

  She felt…cheated.

  Cheated out of a father and a “normal” life, a conventional family. Maybe this was her punishment for all of her sins. And her son—was he destined to feel cheated, too?

  She swallowed the plug of emotion in her throat, wiped away the moisture overflowing from her eyes, then dried the clean dishes and put them away. She was setting the last plate in the cupboard when Will appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “That was a long book,” she said.

  “Three and a half books,” Will said with a grin. “He went out like a light halfway through book number four.”

  “Four books? Either you’re really nice or extremely gullible.”

  “Gullible, I think.” He lifted the wine bottle from the counter. “How about one more glass?”

  She glanced at the clock and wondered fleetingly what the other staff members would think if they knew she’d had a retreat guest in her cabin past nine-thirty—or that she’d had one there at all. Then she decided right now she didn’t care what anyone thought. They weren’t doing anything wrong, anything inappropriate.

  “I’d love one,” she said and watched as Will emptied the bottle into their glasses. He handed one to her and she took a long swallow, the full-bodied liquid making a warm path all the way down. She never had more than two glasses of wine at one sitting. This being her third, she began to get a mellow, languid feeling in her belly. “Why don’t we sit on the couch?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Will agreed.

  She sat with her legs curled under her, and Will settled beside her, his long, tanned legs stretched out in front of him. She wondered absently what it would feel like to touch him, to run her hand up his thigh, through the coarse hair, underneath the leg of his shorts.

  The direction of her thoughts startled her. What on earth had made her think such a thing? In the past, she had only ever been with a man because it served a purpose. She had nothing to gain from Will. No reason to seduce him. Besides, it had been so long since she’d touched a man, so long since she’d felt the need, she wondered if she would even remember how. Yet her fingers itched to try, so she curled her hand into a tight fist instead.

  Will took a sip from his glass, and she watched the muscles in his throat work as he swallowed. His neck was lean and muscled like the rest of him. His face was long and narrow with a hint of dark stubble on his chin and cheek, his mouth wide and inviting, with one corner pulled up into a grin. Her gaze traveled up to the narrow blade of his nose and the eyes that were not quite brown, not quite green.

  The eyes looking right back at her.

  She realized with dismay that she’d been caught staring again and lowered her eyes to her lap.

  “The way you look at me sometimes…” Will said. “What is it you find so fascinating about my face?”

  She felt her cheeks fill with heat. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m not saying that to tease you. I’m really curious.”

  She looked up and realized he was serious.

  “Is it the scars?”

  That wasn’t it at all. “The truth is, I don’t even notice your scars anymore.”

  One brow rose with skepticism. “How can you not notice them?”

  “They’re just a part of your face, I guess. Like your nose or your chin.”

  He turned his body toward her, his knee brushing against her bare leg, and suddenly they were sitting much closer. Closer than she’d sat with a man in a very long time.

  He rested one arm on the back of the couch between them. “So what is it? Why do you look at me that way?”

  “What way?”

  “Like you’re trying to figure me out.”

  Maybe she was. Maybe she was trying to figure out what it was about him that drew her in, what made her want to look. And keep looking.

  She took another gulp of wine. The warm feeling spread to her fingers and toes and made her head feel fuzzy. “I find your face very…interesting.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Not attractive, not devastatingly handsome. Just…interesting?”

  “You don’t need me to tell you that you’re handsome.”

  “Don’t I?”

  She should have been embarrassed, but the wine was making her feel bold. She looked him square in the eye and said, “You know you are.”

  Their eyes locked and held. “Why don’t you tell me anyway.”

  She used to be a master at seduction, at vocal fore-play. Knowing she could slip so easily back into the role, that a few glasses of wine could lower her defenses, frightened and excited her all at once. She’d missed this feeling of sexual power. She’d missed it almost as much as it scared her. She’d been suppressing these urges and feelings for so long, finally setting them loose made her feel…free.

  He reached up and brushed her cheek lightly with the tips of his fingers. Her skin tingled where he touched her, but she didn’t pull away. She wanted him to touch her. They were close, as close as they’d been the night he’d walked her home, when he’d put her hand on his face and she’d wanted so badly to kiss him. The way she did now.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said, stroking her cheek, her chin, her lower lip, making her feel weak and shaky with arousal.

  But she wasn’t beautiful. Not physically anyway. Not anymore. There had been a time when she could stop men cold with her looks. But her soul, that had been dark and ugly. The soul was what mattered. Being beautiful on the inside.

  Maybe that was what he saw.

  His eyes searched her face. “You confuse the hell out of me, Abi.”

  That made two of them, because she was feeling pretty confused
right now, too. Everything in her screamed that this was a bad idea. He was a guest, he was twice divorced, not to mention probably in desperate need of the therapy he refused to participate in. And still she wanted to kiss him.

  She didn’t just want it, she craved it. She’d never desired a man the way she did Will. Maybe she’d never let herself.

  Now wasn’t the time to break that tradition.

  “I don’t understand how a woman so sweet and unassuming can be so damned sexy. It’s like you’re two different people.”

  She was two people, and her other self, the one she’d buried four years ago, was suddenly clawing to get out. But somehow this was different. She wanted nothing from him, had no ulterior motives. This was sexual attraction at its purest, even though what she was feeling right now was anything but pure. In fact, she was feeling downright naughty.

  His head tipped to one side and she knew he was going to kiss her. She didn’t care. She wanted him to kiss her.

  His fingers slipped across her cheek, into her hair, his eyes searching her face. “If you don’t tell me to stop, I’m going to kiss you.”

  She couldn’t make her mouth form the word. Instead she leaned forward, meeting him halfway, until their lips touched. The kiss was gentle at first, barely a whisper, then his mouth rubbed sensuously against hers, tempting her, coaxing her to open up to him. He tasted like wine and passion and something undeniably exciting. Something wild and reckless and dangerous.

  His tongue rubbed softly and slowly against her own in a hypnotizing rhythm. She felt the contours of his face in her hands and realized she was touching him. The puckered skin of one cheek, the raspy roughness of the other. Her fingers took on a will of their own, exploring, discovering. She touched his cheeks, smoothed her thumbs over the creases at the corners of his eyes. She felt his hand cup her check, the other tangle in her hair as he urged her closer.

  She curled her hands over his shoulders. His skin felt hot underneath the thin cotton shirt. Suddenly a kiss wasn’t enough. She wanted to touch him, to be touched. She wanted to feel bare skin and lean muscle. She felt herself leaning closer, melting into him—