“Didn’t you see how taken he was with you at the pizza place? How he hung on every word out of your mouth? How he tried to endear you to him with the best knock-knock jokes making the rounds of his summer preschool program? Didn’t you see how he looked at you with such awe and genuine happiness? Because I did, and it took my breath away.”
At her quiet gasp, Mark continued, his voice growing raspier by the second. “But that wasn’t all. I also felt his fear when he asked about your illness on the way home that night. It was…crushing.”
She blinked at the tears that threatened to cut paths down her cheeks. “He was afraid? Of me?”
“He was afraid for you. And trust me when I say that kind of fear is worse, far worse.” Mark tipped his head back and looked up at the ceiling, the nature of the conversation, coupled with the countless memories it surely dragged to the surface, sapping him of physical energy. “I don’t care how perfect that smile of his was the other night when he looked at you. It’s not worth watching him hurt the way he did with his mom. Not for me, anyway.”
* * *
IT WAS QUICK. Fleeting, even. But he’d seen it as surely as if a chorus of angels had underscored its presence.
Emily was taken by Seth, too.
The knowledge made Mark pause and search for a softer, easier way to get his feelings across. But before he could utter another word, the moment was gone.
“So why show up now if you didn’t have the guts to call and tell me all of this yesterday morning? Surely you could have popped your precious pamphlets in the mail and saved yourself the trip.”
He looked down at the brochures he’d forgotten he had, and held them out to her once again. “Because I—I wanted to talk to you. To see if I could convince you to let the Folks Helping Folks Foundation help you through this difficult time.”
“There is no difficult time,” she said through clenched teeth before sweeping her hands toward her body. “Look at me. Do you really think I’m having a difficult time?”
“Maybe not now, but down the road—maybe. Probably. But that’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m trying to tell you about the foundation. We can equip your house and your office with the things you might need later, like a wheelchair ramp or a special tub for your bathroom that will protect you from slipping.” Realizing she wasn’t going to take the brochures, he dropped them onto the nearest desk. “In fact, the foundation stands to get a very large donation if we can find a local business owner who can benefit from our work. And since this—” he spread his arms and gestured around the room “—is your business, we thought maybe—”
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh. I get it now.”
He rushed to soothe away any misunderstanding. “Wait. It’s not like that. You know I wanted to help you the other day, long before I knew a thing about this donation.”
“Right. Only now it’s even more important to pressure me into something I don’t want because my…my disease helps you and your precious foundation put a checkmark in some stupid little box.” She pivoted and paced across the room, stopping when she reached the far wall. “I’m fine, Mark. Just fine. Find someone else to help you tick off your boxes.”
“But you have a debilitating disease. You said so yourself.”
For the briefest of moments he actually thought she was going to come back and smack him. Instead, she raised her hand and beckoned to him.
Scooping up the brochures, he followed her from the classroom and down the same corridor as two days earlier. When he reached her office, he stepped inside.
She grabbed an overstuffed album from a nearby shelf and slammed it onto her desk. With a flick of her wrist, she snapped back the cover to reveal page upon page of news clippings and pictures highlighting her many outdoor skills. “Can you climb a tree that looks like that?” she asked, pointing at a photo of her near the top of a blue spruce. “And how about this?” She turned to the next page. “Can you scale the side of a mountain, Mark?”
There was lots more of the same—Emily paddling through stage four rapids. Dangling from the edge of a cliff. Jumping over a series of fallen trees, bareback on a horse. Scuba diving and waving at an underwater camera. And all the while, no matter what she was doing, she was looking incredible.
He swallowed once, twice. “No. I’m afraid I can’t.”
She pushed the album shut and turned to face him, her lips lusciously plump as they parted to dress him down once again. “I may have MS, Mark,” she hissed. “But MS doesn’t have me.”
Reaching out, he cupped his free hand around the back of her head and pulled her close, the intoxicating feel of her soft hair giving way to the reality that was her mouth—warm, enticing and oh so exciting.
When her lips parted to allow access to his probing tongue, he pulled her still closer, their bodies melding against one another effortlessly until the ring of her phone snapped them both back to reality.
She stepped away, her eyes glazed, her voice breathless. “I have to get that. Trish is out today.” Without waiting for a response, she grabbed the receiver. “Bucket List 101. This is Emily.”
Mark took the reprieve offered by the call to get his body under control, the intensity of their kiss making his thoughts run in a direction not conducive to their present setting. Never mind the fact that he barely knew her....
“Oh, hi, Kate. Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Really. I don’t know why you think my voice sounds funny. I was just a little busy, that’s all.”
He tried to give her privacy, to refrain from eavesdropping on the one-sided conversation, but it was hard. Especially when he’d always been sort of good at lip reading, and he couldn’t seem to keep his gaze off her kiss-swollen lips....
“Yes, yes, I’m still coming.” She glanced in his direction, focusing on his face for mere seconds before taking in the clock over his head. “No, I didn’t realize how late it was getting. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. I’ll see you then.”
Slowly, she lowered the phone to its base, her cheeks crimson. “That was my friend Kate. The one who found all of—” she turned and pointed at the framed childhood drawings that had captivated him the day they met “—those. Anyway, I was due at her house for a barbecue thirty minutes ago and, well, I’m late.”
“Can I come?” he asked, before realizing what he was saying. But instead of retracting the bold question, he let it stand, buoyed by the memory of her lips on his.
“Don’t you have to get home to Seth?” she asked.
“Seth is spending the evening with my mother. He won’t be home until late tomorrow, probably after dinner.”
Emily opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again when he reached for her hand, his voice husky with the kind of emotion he knew he’d have to dissect later—when he was alone.
“Please, Emily? I’d like to go with you.”
Chapter Six
The second they looped around the side of the house and into Kate’s line of vision, Emily knew she’d made a mistake.
To bring a guy who looked like Mark to a barbecue with a heavy concentration of couples versus singles was bound to raise a few eyebrows under any circumstances. Add the fact that it was Kate—a woman who bemoaned Emily’s single status on a regular basis—who was throwing the barbecue and, well, she was doomed.
“Emily! You’re here!” Her friend disengaged herself from a small group of people Emily recognized from the Memorial Day barbecue Kate and her husband had thrown six weeks ea
rlier, and met them just inside the hedge that bordered the east side of the couple’s property. Extending her hand, Kate widened her eyes at Emily and then beamed up at Mark. “Hi, I’m Kate. Emily and I have known each other since our finger painting days.”
His laugh was strong and sure. “And I’m Mark. Emily and I have known each other since she stuck a compass in my hand and tried to lead me astray in the woods three days ago.”
“I didn’t lead you astray,” she protested. “I gave you the same coordinates as everyone else. You just seemed to be a little distracted in the beginning, that’s all.”
He swept his hand in her direction, making her keenly aware of the white skirt and powder-blue tank top she’d donned that morning, knowing her day would be spent in a classroom rather than in the woods or on the lake. “Who knew I had to focus on the compass?” he quipped to Kate with a wink for good measure.
Emily felt her mouth gape, and worked to compose herself even as her friend’s eyes crackled with the kind of excitement that left her own stomach in knots.
Great.
“Come. Come. You have to meet my husband, Joe.” Looping her arm through Mark’s, Kate fairly dragged him across the French patio and over to the pickup game of basketball taking place on the other side of the yard between Joe and an eight-year-old guest. “Joe and I met in high school. He was distracted by me when we crossed paths at the diner.”
Hoping the lump in the pit of her stomach was a by-product of hunger rather than her shortsighted concession in bringing Mark to the barbecue, Emily headed over to the food table, her history with Kate filling in the rest of the story Mark was no doubt hearing. It was one she knew well, considering that she had been sitting at the same table in the now infamous local hangout when Joe had walked in with four of his buddies from the basketball team that fateful day. The second Kate and Joe had spotted one another across the restaurant, their romantic fate had been sealed.
But it hadn’t worked that way for Emily. Ever.
Sure, she’d dated her fair share of guys throughout high school, college and beyond, but none of them had ever quite reached the bar she’d set for someone who would be her life’s mate. No, that person had to be smart, funny, motivated, creative and outdoorsy. He had to enjoy conversation and silence. And he had to look at her as if she was someone special.
Like Mark had just now when he was telling Kate about the orienteering class....
Emily stilled her hand over the bowl of pretzels and shook her head. Oh, no. She would not allow Kate’s you-need-to-find-your-soul-mate-and-you-need-to-find-him-now mantra start playing in her head.
Four out of five goals was good enough. Especially in light of her illness.
“Em, he’s gorgeous. Gor-geous. I am so, so, so happy for you.”
She swatted away her gushing friend with a handful of pretzels before popping one in her mouth and removing herself from the earshot of a few other guests.
“What?” Kate persisted, staying on her heels. “Am I wrong? Is Mark not gorgeous?”
Lifting her hand to block the sun, Emily scanned the backyard until her friend’s outstretched finger pointed the way to the basketball court and the game that had grown to include five men and the eight-year-old. Even from where she was standing she couldn’t help but enjoy the view.
Mark Reynolds was truly a fine-looking man. His hair, which had caught her attention from the start with its rich brown color, was the kind a woman could get her fingers lost in. His smile, whether flashed in her direction over a piece of pizza, or accompanying some good-natured trash talk, as was the case at that moment, was of the knee-weakening variety if she’d ever seen one. And his chiseled jawline…
She closed her eyes, popped a second and third pretzel into her mouth, and then opened her eyes again, this time honing in on her closest friend. “Yes, he’s attractive—I’d have to be an idiot not to see that. But I’m not interested.”
Kate’s left eyebrow rose. “Not interested? Are you nuts?”
“He’s just someone I know. Barely.” At Kate’s foot tapping, she continued. “He stopped by the office today to drop off some, um, paperwork I didn’t need, and I felt sorry for him. So I invited him along. No big deal. Really.”
The right eyebrow rose alongside the left. “And dinner at Sam’s Pizza, what was that?”
Emily pulled her focus back from the basketball court where it had strayed once again, seemingly independent of her brain and the conversation she was trying to have and discard. “He told you about Sam’s?”
Kate grinned so widely that Emily actually found herself glancing at the patio for evidence of any canary feathers her friend may have swallowed. “He did.”
Emily folded her hands across her chest. “And did he happen to tell you the only reason I went at all is because his son was so insistent and I didn’t have the heart to say no?”
“His son?” Kate sputtered. “He has a son?”
“Seth is four and a half. And if you saw him, and he’d asked you to come along for pizza, you’d have gone, too. Trust me.”
Turning her head, Kate looked back at the court. “So he’s divorced, then?”
“No, he’s a widower. His wife died sometime in the last six months or so.”
“He sure seems happy to be here with you.”
She had to laugh at that. “You mean playing basketball with your husband, right?”
“Have you not seen how many shots he’s missed since we’ve been standing here?”
“So maybe he’s not a basketball guy, Kate. Believe it or not, those do exist. Difficult to fathom, I know. But still…”
Her friend made a face. “I know that. But I also know he is a basketball guy, based on what he told Joe when I introduced them.”
“Maybe he lied,” she quipped, shrugging.
“Or maybe he’s spending more time looking over at you rather than focusing on the game.”
“Kate. Please.” She heard the exasperated tone in her voice, saw the heads of several people turn toward them as a result. Gritting her teeth, Emily tried her best to get a handle on her increasing agitation before every eye in the place was trained in her direction. “We’re just friends. That’s it.”
Without waiting for the retort she was quite sure would come, she headed back to the food table and a recently added plate of brownies. She was about to reach for one when Mark appeared at her side, breathing heavily.
“The…game just…ended so Joe could start on the burgers and dogs. So what do you say we…we check out that horseshoe pit…over there—” he gestured toward the back edge of the property “—while he cooks? That way…maybe I can…catch my breath a little.”
For a moment, she considered declining. To accept would mean giving Kate another reason to keep needling her. But in the end, Emily agreed. After all, with any luck, Joe would need Kate’s help at the grill and her friend would finally turn her attention to something else.
One could hope, anyway.
“I’m in,” Emily said, grabbing one last handful of pretzels from the bowl at the end of the table. “Anything to get out from under this scrutiny for a little while.”
“Scrutiny?” Mark echoed. “What kind of scrutiny?”
Oops. She hadn’t meant to share that thought aloud.
She simply shrugged. “Never mind. Let’s go.”
* * *
HE TRIED TO FOCUS on the game, he really did. But it was hard. Damn hard.
Emil
y was the kind of girl who would make cars swerve off roads when she went jogging down a busy street. She just was. But what took his own first swerve all the way into a tree with no hope of recovering was the fact that her beauty was only part of the story. She was also smart and engaging, with a completely unpretentious and slightly self-deprecating manner where her looks and her body were concerned.
Her physical prowess, however, was a different matter. That, she took pride in. Not a boastful kind, but rather a self-satisfied one. As if she’d worked hard to learn certain skills and didn’t feel the need to hide her ability in those areas from anyone.
“It’s your toss, Mark.”
In fact, she was so skilled at so many things, he found himself wanting to start stretching his own limits a little. See what he could do, too…
“Earth to Mark… Come in, Mark.”
The repeated sound of his name brought him back to the moment. “I’m sorry?”
Emily pointed to the horseshoe in his hand. “It’s your toss.”
“Oh, yeah.” He pulled his arm back and then swung it forward, his horseshoe sailing through the air and landing a full twelve inches from its target. “Wow. That was lame.” Her laugh tingled down his spine and brought an answering smile to his own face. “You think that’s funny, eh?”
She held up her hands and gave them a little shake. “I shouldn’t be laughing. Don’t mind me.”
“Like it’s easy to ignore the woman who’s beating your pants off at horseshoes.” Before she could respond, he moved on, tackling a subject he’d been wondering about since they’d arrived. “So tell me…why aren’t you married or coupled off, like most of your friend’s guests seem to be?”
Emily launched her last horseshoe at the target, the sound of metal on metal bringing another smile to the lips he couldn’t seem to forget kissing. “Well, that’s a bit of a loaded question, don’t you think?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to come across as nosy. I guess I just can’t fathom why you haven’t been snatched up by at least a dozen different guys by now.”
Storybook Dad (Harlequin American Romance) Page 6