His smile grew. “Perfect. I’ll pick you up around nine tomorrow morning.”
Thrilled that he’d committed to spending a good chunk of the next day with her, she gently pulled on his hand. “Ready for more?”
He grinned. “With you, always.”
At the end of the evening they drove back to Kyle’s house. After helping her out of his truck, he took her hand. “Do you want to come in for a while?”
She knew what he was really asking, and she reminded herself that she needed him to make a clean break from Melanie before she was willing to give herself to him in the way she knew he wanted. “I’m actually really tired.” She smiled to soften the blow. “Plus I need to get my rest so that I’m ready for our hike tomorrow.”
If he was disappointed, he hid it well. “Okay.” Then he walked her to her car. They stopped next to the driver’s door, and with her back to the car, he put his hands on either side of her face, holding her in place while he kissed her. Heat and desire pulsed through her, and she felt her resolve slipping, but when she pictured Melanie and Kyle together, she knew she couldn’t give that part of herself to him as long as he was torn between her and Melanie. No, it had to be with the knowledge that he was one hundred percent hers. No doubts.
After a moment he pulled back, and his eyes showed his feelings. “I love you so much, Jess.”
His words made her soul sing with joy. “I love you, Kyle. So much.”
He pulled her against him, and after he released her, she climbed into her car. “Text me when you get home,” he said. “So I know you made it okay.”
She nodded. “See you tomorrow.”
When she got to Ellen’s house she went inside, excited to tell Ellen how her evening had gone. But it was late, and her aunt had already gone to bed. Jessica sent a quick text to Kyle to let him know she’d made it home, then climbed the stairs to her room, her heart full of love and happiness.
Over breakfast the next morning—cold cereal in disposable bowls—Jessica told her aunt about her evening with Kyle.
“Sounds like it was a rousing success,” Ellen said.
“Yes. I’m so glad you convinced me to go to his house.” She chuckled. “I think I got there just in time too. He told me he was planning on spending the evening with Melanie.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. He even told me he cancelled on her.” She grinned. “Can I tell you how happy that makes me?”
Ellen smiled, then put a spoonful of cereal in her mouth. After a moment she asked, “Have you made more plans with him?”
Jessica sipped her orange juice. “We’re going hiking today. In fact, he’ll be here in half an hour to pick me up.”
“Well, good. I’m happy for you, dear.”
Forty-five minutes later she got a text from Kyle.
Kyle: Something came up. Can we postpone until tomorrow?
Jessica frowned, having a feeling this involved Melanie and some emergency with Avery. All the good feelings she’d had from the night before vanished. She typed a reply.
Jessica: Are you sure nothing will come up tomorrow?
A moment later, her phone chimed.
Kyle: I’m really sorry, Jess. I promise we’ll do this tomorrow.
There was nothing she could do about it.
Jessica: Ok
Frowning, she set her phone down, then went to find Ellen, who was in the backyard pulling weeds in the flower bed.
“It looks beautiful out here,” Jessica said.
“Thank you,” she said as she placed several weeds in a container next to her. “I always find it somewhat therapeutic to pull weeds.”
“Maybe I should help, then. I could use some weed-pulling therapy just now.” She knelt on the grass next to her aunt and wrapped her fingers around the thin green weeds poking up from the dirt. Giving them a firm tug, they slid right out of the soft soil. “You’re right. That does feel good. Kind of like yanking out the bad things in my life, roots and all.”
“Yes, now you’re getting it.” Ellen sat back on her heels. “Why the sudden need for therapy? Did something happen since we had breakfast?”
“Yes. Kyle cancelled our date.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Did he give you a reason?”
“He just said something had come up. And he promised we’d go tomorrow.”
“Hmm.”
Jessica pulled another weed. “It’s got to be Melanie.”
“You can’t be sure of that, but after all that’s taken place, I can’t say that it’s not a possibility.”
Sighing, she put the weeds in the container. “I don’t know what to do now.”
“Poor Kyle,” Ellen said as she reached for another weed.
“Poor Kyle?” Jessica was aghast. “He has two women fighting over him. How can you feel sorry for him?”
Ellen glanced at her and smiled, then focused on her task. “I seem to recall a young woman who was trying to choose between two men not long ago. One man was quite persistent, and the other seemed out of reach.” Ellen’s smile grew. “How do you think that young woman would have felt if she loved both men, and both men loved her? And both were aggressively pursuing her? If that young woman knew that her choice would break the heart of one of the men whom she loved . . .” Ellen gazed at Jessica. “How would that young woman make a choice?” Then she went back to pulling weeds.
Jessica was quiet as she imagined how torn Kyle must be feeling, trying to choose between her and Melanie. Of course it would be difficult, but life was full of difficult choices. It had been easier for her to choose Kyle over Alex, because she knew her feelings for Kyle were stronger. Even so, it had been hard to break the news to Alex that she wouldn’t marry him.
She hadn’t given much thought to him lately, not wanting to dwell on the heartache he might be feeling. She had to believe he would get over her sooner rather than later, because imagining that she had hurt someone as badly as Kyle had once hurt her made her sad.
Yes, she could understand why her aunt felt sorry for Kyle, but that didn’t change much. Jessica still believed that she was the one for him, not Melanie. She had known him, and been engaged to him, years before he’d ever met Melanie. Didn’t that give her some sort of claim on him? Kind of like seniority? She smiled at the ridiculous thought. As much as she would like to believe the seniority theory, in reality, she knew that didn’t matter, when all it really came down to was his heart.
She replayed their date from the night before, and the feeling she’d had that he was hers, at least for the evening, but that warm and wonderful feeling was immediately replaced by despair when she imagined him sitting with Melanie, right that second, maybe even wrapping his arms around her, while she sat here, digging in the dirt.
Any empathy she’d dredged up for his predicament evaporated when she focused on her own sorry state of affairs. She sighed, then turned to Ellen. “I might as well make use of my free time and do that cleaning you asked me to do.”
Ellen smiled. “That would be lovely. Thank you.”
Back in the house, Jessica took out the vacuum, which put Hudson into a mild panic. To ease his fears, she let him go out in the yard with Ellen. As she cleaned the floors, then moved on to dusting the furniture, then scrubbing the bathrooms, she let her mind wander to what Kyle was doing right then, but she didn’t like the images that insisted on forming in her mind—Melanie draped across his shoulders, telling him how wonderful he was with Avery, telling him what a fantastic father he’d be, telling him how she couldn’t live without him.
As the scenes went on and on in her mind, she found herself scrubbing the sink harder and harder until her arms ached. When she realized what she was doing, she frowned, then muttered, “At least I’m getting this thing sparkling clean.”
Chapter Fifteen
When Kyle was late for their date the next day, Jessica worried that he was going to cancel on her again. Trying not to obsess over it, when she heard her phone chime, indicating a new text message h
ad arrived, she felt her heart sink. But when she didn’t recognize the number, then read the message, she became uneasy instead.
You’d better watch your back
Her thoughts immediately went to the black roses she’d gotten just over a week before. Was this related? Did the same person who sent the flowers send her the message? Then she remembered that she was going to get in touch with the detective who she’d talked to after Douglas Harrington’s attack, to tell him about the flowers. But she’d forgotten.
Maybe I should call him now, she thought, and report both the flowers and the text.
Briefly forgetting about Kyle and their date, she dug the detective’s card out of her purse and called his cell phone.
“Barnes,” he answered briskly.
“Hi, this is Jessica Stevens. We spoke after the Douglas Harrington thing?”
“Sure. How are you?”
“Okay, but a little concerned.”
“Why’s that, Ms. Stevens?”
“Please, call me Jessica.” She paused. “A couple of strange things have happened, and I thought I should let you know.”
“Okay.”
“A week ago I received some flowers. Some black roses. There was no card, and the flower shop didn’t know who’d ordered them. Then today, just now in fact, I got a text from a number I’m not familiar with. It told me to watch my back.”
“Hmm. Can you give me the name of the flower shop, as well as the phone number who sent you the text?”
“Yes.” She gave him the information he asked for.
“Good. I’ll see what I can find out, and I’ll let you know.”
“Thank you.”
After she hung up, she felt lighter, like she’d passed the burden on to him, although the message still gave her the creeps. Trying to think of her more immediate concerns, her thoughts went to Kyle. He was twenty minutes late now. She went to the front window and looked out, and when she saw his truck pulling up the road, she smiled, relieved that he’d come, and unhappy that he’d made her doubt him.
Ellen was in her room getting dressed, so Jessica called up the stairs, “See you later, Ellen.
“Bye, dear.”
Jessica stepped onto the porch and waited for Kyle’s truck to come to a stop. After his engine cut off, she walked down the porch steps, but before she had a chance to reach him, he climbed out of his truck and walked towards her, meeting her at the bottom of the porch steps.
“I’m really sorry about yesterday,” he said as he pulled her into a warm embrace.
When she was in his arms it was much easier to let her anger drain away, but she still wanted an explanation. “So what was the emergency?”
He pulled back and looked at her. “At first I thought it was just a problem with my dishwasher, because there was a big puddle in front of it on my kitchen floor. But after I pulled the dishwasher out, it turned out there was more to it than that. It took me half the day to fix the plumbing issues that I found.”
“Oh.” Her eyebrows drew together. “So you weren’t with Melanie?”
He hesitated. “She did come by when I was almost done fixing the plumbing.”
She felt her earlier upset feelings returning. “And?”
“And she wanted me to spend some time with Avery.” He smiled, but he seemed embarrassed. “She told me that if I was serious about adopting her, I needed to spend time with her.”
“Uh huh.” This did not make Jessica feel better. “So you were babysitting her?”
“Well, no. Melanie was there too.”
She frowned and looked away. “That’s what I figured.”
Kyle put a finger under her chin and turned her head so that she faced him. “It’s you that I love, Jess. It’s you that I want to be with.”
She gazed at him a moment, and a disturbing thought came to mind. “Is that what you tell Melanie? That you want to be with her?”
He dropped his hand from her face. “No.” His offended tone sounded genuine, and she wondered if he was telling her the truth, or if he was just a good actor.
“You do realize that she wants you to marry her, don’t you?” She watched his reaction.
He seemed to think it over. “Maybe you’re right.”
Her lips compressed into a straight line. “I know I’m right.”
Then he laughed. “It doesn’t matter though, does it? I mean, I’m not ready to marry anyone right now.”
That brought her up short. Not that she’d planned on them getting engaged that week or anything, but in the back of her mind she’d pictured him proposing to her at some point. Some point soon.
His lips quirked into a self-deprecating smile. “My last engagement didn’t end so well, wouldn’t you agree?”
Considering how crushed she’d been when he’d broken their engagement, his words stung. But as she pondered what his words implied, she admitted that she was mildly surprised—and very pleased—that she’d been the only woman he’d been that serious with. “So you’ve only been engaged that one time?”
“Of course.” His tone expressed the ridiculousness of any other answer, then his voice softened as he stroked her face. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever proposed to, Jess.”
His statement delighted her, although she wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t come back to town. Would he have proposed to Melanie by now?
“We should get going.” He looked at her with uncertainty. “You do still want to go hiking, don’t you?”
She wasn’t about to give up now. Smiling brightly, she nodded. “Absolutely.”
Twenty minutes later they arrived at the trailhead, and Kyle strapped a day pack to his shoulders. “I have plenty of water in here, plus a nice little picnic lunch.”
Jessica put her hands on her hips, then closed her eyes and tilted her head back, inhaling the fresh mountain air. “It feels good to be out here. It’s such a beautiful day.” When she looked at Kyle, he was watching her with a smile. “What?”
“You.”
She smiled. “What about me?”
His green eyes seemed to sparkle. “I just love you.”
Jessica’s heart filled to overflowing with love for him, and she walked into his embrace. “I love you too.”
He wrapped his arms around her, then kissed her. After a moment, he pulled away and laughed. “Okay, we’d better get going.” He smiled suggestively. “We can do more of this when we stop for lunch.”
Jessica smiled. “Sounds good to me.”
There were half a dozen cars in the parking lot, so they didn’t expect to see many other hikers as they began their hike. The trail was shady and cool, and they held hands when the trail was wide enough for them to walk side by side.
After half an hour, Kyle stopped and opened his pack. “Are you thirsty?”
“Yeah.”
He handed her a bottle of water, and took one himself. After a short break, they continued on, chatting comfortably as they walked. They passed a few hikers going in the opposite direction, but their main companions were squirrels and birds.
An hour later they reached their destination—a large lake surrounded by green grass.
“I hope you’re hungry,” Kyle said as he spread out a blanket he’d carried in his pack.
“I’m famished.”
“Good. Because I brought a lot of food.”
They settled on the blanket, and he set out sandwiches, crackers, dried fruit, and cookies.
“Mmm. Looks good.” Jessica reached for a sandwich, and after several bites, she said, “Did you make these yourself?”
“Yes.”
“They’re good.”
He grinned. “Did you expect any less?”
“Well, it is just a sandwich. Let me see what you can do for dinner.”
“Is that a challenge?”
She smiled. “Sure. Why not?”
“Tell you what. Why don’t you and Ellen come over for dinner at my place tonight?”
Jessica’s eyebro
ws rose. “Really? Both of us?” She smirked. “Are you sure you want two judges to your cooking?”
He sat up straighter. “I’m confident about my kitchen abilities.”
“Okay, then. You’re on. I’m sure Ellen would love a home-cooked meal.”
“Good.”
She continued eating, thrilled that he wanted to spend so much time with her. Maybe he really does love me more than he loves Melanie, she thought, her confidence growing.
When they finished eating, Kyle packed the trash into his backpack, then set it aside and stretched out on the blanket. “Care to join me?” he asked.
Smiling, Jessica lay next to him, resting her head on his chest. He put his arms around her, and she nestled against him. “This feels nice,” she murmured.
“What does?”
“The sunshine, the fresh mountain air.” She lifted her head and looked at him. “You.”
Grinning, he propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her. She watched him as he leaned toward her and gazed into her eyes. She stared back, feeling an incredible energy pass between them. When his face descended toward hers, her eyes fluttered closed as she accepted his kiss. Their kiss deepened and one of his arms slid behind her waist. It felt so good to be in his arms.
The sound of someone clearing his throat reached her ears. She opened her eyes as a shadow fell across them. Kyle was nearly on top of her, but she pushed against his chest and he pulled back and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Rather than answering, her gaze went to a spot behind him, and he turned his head to see what had gotten her attention. A man stood at the edge of their blanket, staring down at them, and Jessica’s thoughts immediately went to the text she’d gotten that morning.
The man smiled. “Sorry to interrupt, but I was wondering if you happen to have a first-aid kit.” He motioned to the back of one of his bare legs, which had a trail of blood snaking down into his sock. “I cut myself on a rock.”
Kyle sat up. “Yeah, I have a small kit with me.” He rummaged through his backpack and pulled it out, then held it out to the man.
The man took it from him, then sat on the grass and opened it up. He pulled out a gauze bandage and dabbed it against the cut, then held it there as he looked at Kyle and Jessica. “Thanks.”
Second Chances (sequel to Over You) Page 12