A Home for Adam

by Gina Ferris Wilkins

  “Adam—”

  “Melissa and I are going to watch TV until dinner’s ready,” he said, turning toward the door.

  He heard Jenny sputtering behind him. He didn’t pause to find out what she was trying to say.

  * * *

  Dinner was eaten with cool civility. Neither of them mentioned the night classes. Adam told Jenny a little about his day; she mentioned a problem she was having with the clothes dryer. He promised to have someone out to look at it the next day.

  They cleaned the kitchen together. Afterward, Jenny took the baby upstairs, nursed her and put her down to bed in the bedroom next to her own. Adam had moved the crib in there a few weeks earlier, when Jenny had decided Melissa would sleep better in a room of her own.

  Jenny paused before going back downstairs. It wasn’t even nine yet, and she didn’t want to spend the rest of the evening in her room, reading or watching television alone. But she didn’t want to get into another quarrel with Adam, either.

  In the end, she decided she’d rather risk another quarrel than to spend the evening without him.

  He was sitting on the couch in the den. The television was on, but the volume turned down so low Jenny couldn’t hear it. A book lay on the end table, but he didn’t seem to be interested in reading it. He looked lost in thought. So very far away.

  He looked up when Jenny came fully into the room. His expression cleared, and he smiled. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back down this evening,” he said.

  A bit self-consciously, she shrugged and slipped her hands into the pockets of the comfortable, purple fleece slacks she wore with a matching fleece top. “It’s a little early to turn in,” she explained.

  He patted the couch. “Come sit beside me.”

  She hesitated, then walked slowly to his side. She sat as far away from him as space permitted.

  He reached out and hauled her closer. “We can’t talk when you’re sitting so far away,” he explained when she gasped at his unexpected action.

  “What—what did you want to talk about?” she asked, noting that he kept his arm around her shoulders.

  “I want to apologize,” he said gravely. “I was out of line earlier, and I’m sorry.”

  She certainly hadn’t expected an apology. “You were rather brusque,” she admitted. “I couldn’t understand why my taking night classes seemed to annoy you so much.”

  “I know.”

  “Is it because I didn’t talk to you about it before I looked into it?” she asked hesitantly, the only reason she’d come up with on her own. “I know you like to help with things like this, but I really am capable of making decisions on my own, Adam.”

  He nodded, then said, “That wasn’t it.”

  “Was it because you’re worried about Melissa? That isn’t necessary, either. I wouldn’t leave her with anyone I didn’t trust. Surely you know that.”

  “I’m not worried about Melissa. I’ll be keeping her myself,” he said.

  She sighed. “Adam—”

  “Let’s not get into that argument again,” he said quickly. “That wasn’t what was bothering me, anyway.”

  “Then what was bothering you?” she asked, bewildered.

  “I don’t like to think about you leaving,” he said simply. “And I hadn’t realized you were getting so impatient to do so.”

  She stared at him. “You think I’m impatient to leave here?”

  He nodded, his gaze focused broodingly on her face. “Aren’t you?”

  She shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “I like it here. Very much.” And wasn’t that an understatement! “But—”

  Something sparked in his eyes. “But?”

  “I know we can’t go on like this indefinitely. I have to start preparing myself to leave—to find another job,” she added quickly, in case he thought she meant an emotional preparation.

  “As far as I’m concerned, you have a job, and a home, here for as long as you like,” Adam told her, his voice deeper than usual.

  Her throat felt tight. “That’s very kind of you. But—”

  “I’m not being kind, Jenny. I’m being as selfish as always. I don’t want you to leave. Haven’t I gotten that through to you yet? And it has nothing to do with your skill as a cook or a housekeeper, though you’ve done an excellent job with both.”

  She twisted her fingers in her lap, achingly aware of the weight of his arm on her shoulders. She didn’t quite know what to say, what, exactly, he was implying.

  He seemed to sense her confusion. “I want you, Jenny. I’ve told you before. Maybe you didn’t believe me. But it’s true. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another woman. I care about you. I don’t want you to leave me.”

  Jenny swallowed hard and looked down at her fingers. Her vision was blurred by unshed tears.

  “Am I making you uncomfortable?” Adam demanded. “If you don’t want to hear this—if you don’t feel the same way I do—tell me now. You’ll still have your job and your home, but I won’t bother you again personally. Or at least, I’ll try not to,” he added wryly. “I can’t promise the subject won’t ever come up again. I’m only human.”

  “You—you aren’t making me uncomfortable,” she murmured. “But—”

  “But?” There was a quick note of hope in his voice.

  “I’m scared.”

  He went very still. “Of me?” he asked after a moment. “Surely you know I would never hurt you. Not deliberately.”

  How could she explain what really frightened her? That she’d heard words like these before, from men who looked and sounded as sincere as Adam. That she’d been hurt before, badly hurt.

  But not as desperately hurt as she would be if Adam pulled away from her the way those other men had.

  She had given her affection before, but she knew now she’d never truly lost her heart. Her feelings had been hurt, her ego crushed—but her heart had remained intact.

  Adam could shatter it.

  “I don’t think you realize how badly you could hurt me,” she said, looking away from him.

  Very tenderly, he turned her face back to his. “Jenny—”

  One tear escaped to trickle down her cheek. “I’ve made so many mistakes,” she whispered.

  “Not this time,” he promised, drawing her closer. “This time, I’ll take care of everything.”

  So typically Adam. So confident that nothing could go wrong if he were in charge. Even in matters of the heart, Adam considered himself infallible.

  And Jenny found that as frightening as anything else she had to worry about.

  She started to tell him so.

  His mouth got in the way.

  Jenny gave in to the inevitable and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  Adam murmured something that might have been approval. And then he devoted his full attention to kissing her.

  Jenny hadn’t suddenly decided this wasn’t a mistake. She still firmly believed it was.

  She hadn’t come to the conclusion that a happily-ever-after ending was possible after all. She still didn’t believe it was.

  She didn’t even try to convince herself that Adam had fallen as deeply, irrevocably for her as she had for him. She didn’t accept that for a minute.

  What she had decided was that she might as well stop fighting him—stop fighting herself.

  She was in love with him, exasperating and arrogant and bossy as he could be at times. And, even though this was probably the biggest mistake she’d ever made, it was much too late for her to change course now. Had, perhaps, been too late since she’d recklessly agreed to move in with him.

  “It’s not a mistake, Jenny,” he muttered, and she didn’t know if he was reading her mind or repeating what he’d said earlier.

  It didn’t seem to matter just then.

  “Shut up and kiss me again, Adam,” she murmured, sliding her fingers into his hair.

  He grinned briefly. “You just love giving me orders, don’t you?”

  “It’s suc
h a rare treat for me,” she murmured.

  His grin turned piratical. And then he kissed her again.

  And Jenny decided that this was an even more gratifying treat.

  * * *

  The big bed in Adam’s room looked even more enormous that night when he led her to it. Jenny gulped silently and fought down a surge of panic.

  Was she really ready for this?

  Adam raised her icy, trembling hand to his lips and kissed it. “Trust me,” he murmured.

  It sounded so simple when he said it. So natural.

  So easy.

  She trusted him, because she had no choice. She only hoped that this time—just this once—she’d given her trust wisely.

  Still holding her hand, he set the wireless nursery monitor on the nightstand and turned it on. He listened intently for a moment, then turned to her with a smile. “She’s sleeping like a baby,” he murmured.

  She smiled faintly at the lame joke and wondered how she could possibly not trust him. What other man would be so conscientious about her baby at a time like this? What other man could have seen her at her worst, as Adam had, and still want her?

  There simply was no other man like Adam.

  She drew a deep breath and found that she was no longer afraid. She opened her arms to him.

  She hadn’t expected Adam to be a gentle lover. She’d never considered him a particularly gentle man.

  And yet he was.

  She certainly hadn’t expected patience. Not from him.

  Yet she discovered that he had a wealth of patience hidden beneath that brusque, driven facade.

  She hadn’t expected him to tremble. Adam didn’t strike her as a man who was ever unsure of himself. Who was ever in less than full control.

  And yet she felt the tremor in his fingers when he brushed her face, his strong, bare body poised above hers.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured, his voice tight with the control he exerted over himself. “You’re still recuperating.”

  Touched by his concern for her, even when she could see the need that was driving him, she reached up to him. “You won’t hurt me,” she assured him in a breathless whisper. “I’m fully recovered. And I want you. Now.”

  He made a strangled sound deep in his throat and pressed slowly forward.

  Jenny gathered him close.

  This, she thought with her last flash of coherence, was where he belonged.

  She never wanted to let him go.

  * * *

  Jenny had never been happier than she was during the weeks that followed her first night in Adam’s bed. It was March, and the first signs of spring made their appearance—buttercups, forsythia, japonica, pear blossoms, a few early azaleas. The air turned warmer, and it was no longer necessary to bundle up in coats and heavy sweaters to venture outside.

  Adam continued to work a heavy, demanding schedule, but when he wasn’t working, he was with her. Melissa was growing and thriving, a happy, healthy baby who couldn’t have asked for more attention than she received from Adam, Jenny and the members of Adam’s family who had taken to dropping in more often than they had when he’d lived alone.

  Jenny enjoyed all of them. For the first time since she’d broken with her own parents, she tentatively began to feel like part of a family again. Arlene wasn’t pleased when she finally realized that Adam and Jenny had become much more than employer and employee, but she accepted it gracefully enough, if not with as much enthusiasm as Jenny would have liked.

  It could have been worse, she told Adam one evening after Arlene joined them for a painfully polite, though satisfyingly cordial, dinner. Arlene could have made an ugly scene, dramatically threatened to disinherit Adam or something like that.

  Adam had only laughed and assured her that he’d known all along that his mother wouldn’t risk showing open disapproval of anything he did. She wouldn’t risk driving a wedge between her and her son—she depended entirely too much on him. Jenny realized that he was right the day Arlene appeared with an expensive outfit for Melissa that she claimed she’d seen in a children’s boutique and simply hadn’t been able to resist.

  It was quite obvious that Arlene had bought the gift primarily to please Adam. And it worked. He thanked her warmly for her gesture, and Arlene bustled away with great satisfaction that she was still in favor with her son. Jenny was rather amused by the whole thing. She’d finally come to understand that Arlene lived with a secret, painful fear of losing her adored son the way she had his father.

  That was certainly a fear Jenny could identify with.

  Everything was so perfect that it scared her silly.

  Adam still irritated the hell out of her at times. She supposed that was inevitable. His was just that sort of personality. She loved him, but there were times she wanted to smack him.

  He told her ruefully that he understood. She wasn’t the only one who felt that way about him, he confessed. He’d try to do better.

  He didn’t change. Jenny admitted to herself that she loved him anyway.

  She’d never quite had the courage to say so to Adam. Maybe because he’d never said the words to her.

  He wanted her. He told her that often enough. He thought she was beautiful. He admired her mind, her spirit, her competence in the house and the kitchen, her painstaking care of her daughter, her easy acceptance into his beloved family.

  But he never told her he loved her.

  They argued seriously about only two subjects—her enrollment in the career college, and her stubborn refusal to contact her parents.

  Adam saw no reason for her to “knock herself out” taking night classes in computer usage.

  “You’re working all day taking care of the house and Melissa,” he argued. “Then you take these classes two nights a week and come home so tired you can hardly move. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

  “I want to know how to use computers,” Jenny said repeatedly. “If I don’t, I’ll never get a decent job.”

  “You don’t need a job,” he replied, obviously trying to be patient and logical. “I’ll take care of you, and Melissa. God knows I have plenty of money for all of us.”

  Jenny had squared her chin, narrowed her eyes and informed him that she wasn’t a kept woman and she didn’t intend to be treated as one. “I earn my way,” she told him coolly. “I don’t need anyone to ‘take care’ of me.”

  Though he’d scoffed at her use of the dated terminology, Adam had soon realized that it wouldn’t do him any good to argue. Jenny had no intention of changing her mind. She couldn’t persuade him, however, to allow her to put Melissa into child care. Adam made certain that he was home every Tuesday and Thursday evening in time to watch the baby while Jenny attended her classes.

  No stranger, he said flatly, was taking care of their baby.

  Jenny had found herself unable to remind him that Melissa wasn’t really their baby. She hadn’t been able to say anything at all. She’d been too busy fighting off a wave of longing that Melissa really had been theirs.

  As for her parents, Jenny refused to even discuss them with him. Adam told her again and again that she was being stubborn, foolish, overly proud and willfully obtuse. She told him to mind his own business.

  “You’ll regret it,” he warned her. “Your family is too important to ignore, Jenny. You’ll realize that someday and it will be too late for you to make amends.”

  His words had hurt her, but she’d obstinately held her position. Just the thought of calling her parents and telling them that she’d had a child out of wedlock, and was now living without benefit of marriage with yet another man, was enough to make her shudder. She’d been enough of a disappointment to her parents. She didn’t need another painful reminder of how she’d failed to live up to their unrealistic expectations of her.

  “I can’t call them,” she told Adam quietly, following one of their noisier and more heated “discussions” about the subject. “I know you mean well. I know you don’t really under
stand. But I can’t call them.”

  He sighed, ran a frustrated hand through his hair and then took her into his arms. “We’ll let it go for now,” he promised. “Give it a little time. Maybe you’ll change your mind.”

  She kept her doubts to herself, and gratefully accepted Adam’s assurances that he wouldn’t nag her about it any further.

  She was beginning to hope, she realized. It was a shaky optimism, at best, but she found herself starting to believe there was a chance that a lifetime commitment to Adam was not as unlikely as it had once seemed.

  Other than those few disagreements, they got along so well. They were compatible in so many ways. They were good friends, and passionate lovers.

  She prayed that one day they would be even more.

  For the first time in years, it seemed as though Jenny might finally come out ahead. That she’d taken a risk and hadn’t made a mistake. That everything she desired most in life was close at hand.

  And then, on one particularly beautiful spring afternoon, Adam ruined everything.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It was a Saturday afternoon in April. The sky was cloudless, a blue so brilliant it made Jenny blink. Spring flowers were in bloom, their colors bright and cheerful, and the new leaves on the trees added a background of mint green. Jenny hadn’t seen a more beautiful day in years—or had she simply not stopped to notice?

  It was warm, and a soft breeze caressed the skin bared by the loose, scoop-necked white cotton blouse she wore with a colorful broomstick skirt. A wide leather belt cinched her slender waist. She’d let her hair grow a bit; soft, dark curls bounced around her neck. She felt light, feminine. Happy.

  So happy it was almost frightening.

  She’d been shopping. Melissa was growing so quickly that she’d outgrown all her clothes. Adam had convinced Jenny to leave the baby with him for the afternoon while she shopped for a new infant wardrobe. They’d had a few words about who would pay for that wardrobe. They’d finally compromised. Adam had given her his credit card and had said they’d split the cost when the bill came in.