She took a sip of her diet soda and tried to smile. “You’re absolutely right. This isn’t the time or place to talk about feelings and I don’t expect a passionate embrace at your place of work. But you didn’t touch me at all. I’m not angry, I’m simply pointing out the obvious. We don’t touch anymore. We haven’t for a long time.”
He sighed heavily, the world-weary sound of a logical male about to be exposed to the irrational thinking of a female. Cassie promised herself no matter what, she wasn’t going to lose her temper.
“Don’t,” she told him. “Don’t say anything, just listen.”
He frowned, then nodded. “If you’d prefer.”
“I would.” She took a deep breath. All right. She had his attention. Now what was she going to do with it?
In the car on the way over she’d discarded a couple dozen ways of telling him the truth. She wasn’t sure of the correct tone, or proper sequence of the words that would explain what was going on with her. Despite the practice, all she could think of was a bald statement of the facts.
“Working for Ryan has become a problem,” she said. “It’s not him, it’s me. I have feelings for him.” She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, so she stared at the hard plastic table. “It’s just a crush. I mean what else could it be? I barely know the man. But it’s there and it doesn’t seem to be going away.”
“Is that it?” Joel asked.
Cassie raised her head and met his steady gaze. “What do you mean, ‘is that it?’ Isn’t that enough? We’ve been together for nine years, I confess to having feelings for another man and that’s all you can ask me?”
“Oh, honey, you’re making too much out of this. Of course you have a crush on Ryan. What young woman in your position wouldn’t? He’s older, he’s successful, he’s sophisticated. I’m sure he can be quite charming. If you hadn’t noticed him I would have worried about you. It doesn’t mean anything.” Joel’s smile was warm and friendly. “Is that what all this is about? Have you been worrying yourself over nothing? That’s so like you, Cass.”
She couldn’t speak. She could only stare. Maybe it was her hearing. Maybe some connection to her brain had malfunctioned and words were getting messed up or turned around.
“You don’t care,” she managed between stiff lips.
“Of course I care. You mean the world to me. But I’m not worried about your crush on Ryan. As soon as he’s out of your life, you’ll forget all about him.”
He was taking this way too calmly, she thought. Maybe he was the one with the broken brain. “There’s more,” she told him.
“I’m listening.”
“We kissed.” She waited, but there was no reaction. “It was just once. I mean it was just one event, but during those few minutes we kissed several times.”
Still no reaction. Joel nodded as if to show he was listening, but there wasn’t any obvious anger or displeasure on his part. For all she knew he was thinking about his problems with the housewares department.
She set her forearms on the table and leaned toward him. “It wasn’t like when you and I kiss, Joel. There was no holding back. I felt…I felt things I’ve never felt before. I wanted him…passionately.”
She paused, then realized she was done. What else was there to say? Except maybe the obvious. “I’m sorry,” she added in a low voice. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Ah, Cass.”
He glanced at his watch. She blinked. His watch? Like he was late for something more important? “Joel, I’m telling you that I kissed another man and that it turned me on. I wanted to be with him. Do you want to say something about this?”
“I’m not surprised,” he told her calmly. “The situation was bound to occur. Frankly, I expected it sooner, but I’m glad it’s finally here. We can deal with it and put it behind us.”
One of them was crazy. “What are you talking about?”
“When we started dating, you were only sixteen,” he said.
“I’m well aware of that.”
“I was seventeen.”
She felt as if she’d been dropped into a conversation already in progress. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’ve dated other women, but you never dated other guys.”
He was comparing his few dates in high school to her kiss with Ryan? “Joel, you don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you.”
“Of course I understand.” His smile was kindly. “I’ve been there. When I dated before, I kissed those girls and…well…” He flushed. “We did some things together. My point is I’ve experienced life. I know what’s out there in the world. You haven’t done that. I’m pleased that you had the opportunity to sow your wild oats and get all this out of your system.”
Okay, so they weren’t talking about the same thing at all and Joel didn’t get it. Now what? “This is more than wild oats,” she said. “A lot more.”
“I know you believe it is, but don’t worry. It’s done and now we can get on with our lives.” He reached out and placed his hand over hers. “I love you, Cass. You’re the one that I want to be with. I still trust you. Isn’t that what matters?”
It should, she thought sadly. It should matter a whole bunch, but it didn’t.
She studied his familiar face, the shape of his jaw, the curve of his lower lip. Light brown eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. He was so honorable, she thought. So willing to believe the best of her.
“It’s not that simple,” she said. “I don’t want to go back to what we had. It’s not enough.” She pulled free of his touch, and stared at her fingers. The promise ring glinted in the overhead lights. “I can’t keep this anymore,” she told him and slipped the slender band from her finger.
“What are you doing?” Joel asked, the first hint of concern filling his voice.
“What it looks like. I’m sorry.”
“I see.” Joel picked up the ring. “I hope you’re not making the mistake of thinking he’s going to want you.”
She told herself he hadn’t meant the statement as cruelly as it came out, but she wasn’t sure. “I don’t pretend to know what Ryan wants in life, but I’m reasonably confident it isn’t me. Our kiss was just something that happened. It didn’t mean anything.” At least not to him. Unfortunately for her, it had not only been a wake-up call about her relationship with Joel, it had also embedded itself in her mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about those few moments in his arms.
“I’m not breaking up with you because of Ryan,” she continued. “I’m doing it because of me. I’ve experienced passion. I know what it’s like to want someone so much it hurts.” She drew in a deep breath. “Maybe I’m setting myself up for heartbreak. Maybe I’m reaching for the stars. I don’t know. But what I am sure of is that I want to find this again. I want that kind of passion in my life on a permanent basis.”
“It’s that important to you?” Joel asked.
“Yes.”
He picked up the ring and stared at the tiny diamond. “We could do that,” he said without looking at her. “If you wanted to.”
If she hadn’t been so close to tears, his lack of enthusiasm would have made her smile. “I appreciate the offer, but no thanks. It’s been nine years and we’ve never even tried heavy petting. It was too easy not to become lovers.”
She swallowed. “I’m sorry, Joel. You are a wonderful man and I adore you. In some ways I love you. I’ll always have feelings for you, but they’re not the kind of feelings that a woman should have for her husband. I can’t see you anymore.”
He closed his fingers over the ring. “Just like that? It’s been nine years.”
“I know. It’s what I want. If you look deep inside, I think you’ll find it’s what you want, too.”
“All right.” He slipped the ring into his shirt pocket. “
If you need time, I’ll give you time. We’ll put the relationship on hold for a few weeks. I’m sure once you’ve had a chance to think about it, you’ll come to your senses.”
She didn’t know whether to scream or cry. Anger, sadness, frustration and pain from the thought of never seeing Joel again all welled up inside of her.
“I don’t want time,” she said. “I want it to be over. I want you to walk away from me without any regrets. I want you to find someone else and experience a little passion of your own. It will change your life forever.”
She slid out of the booth and tried to smile. She had a feeling she failed pretty badly. “Goodbye, Joel. Good luck.”
Then she turned and walked away.
* * *
A KNOCK AT his office door interrupted Ryan. He called “Come in,” without turning away from his computer screen, then remembered that Cassie had left for the afternoon an hour or so before. He glanced up in time to see an attractive fiftysomething woman step inside.
She was about Cassie’s height, with sleek dark hair pulled back into a fancy bun. Tailored clothes emphasized her trim body.
“You must be Cassie’s aunt Charity,” he said, rising to her feet.
“Yes. I just thought I’d poke my head in and say hello.”
She crossed to his desk and handed him a cup of coffee. As she held another mug in her hand, he figured she was expecting an invitation to join him for a few minutes.
“Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the empty chair next to her. Like Cassie’s sister, her aunt wanted to check out the man Cassie worked for. He appreciated that her family was so concerned about her well-being.
“Thank you.”
Charity sat down and set her coffee on the desk. He did the same.
“Is Sasha asleep?”
“Yes. She was a little hyper from playing,” Charity said as she crossed her legs and picked up her mug. “I supposed a game of tag in the backyard wasn’t a clever idea right before her nap, but I wasn’t thinking.” Her easy smile returned. “It comes from not having had children of my own. By the time I moved in with Cassie and Chloe, they were far too old to play games or need naps.”
“You’re their aunt on their father’s side?”
“That’s right. So I don’t have any connection with the town of Bradley.” She took a sip of coffee. “Has Cassie told you that one of her relatives actually founded the town?”
“She mentioned something about it.”
“It’s quite extraordinary for me to imagine having roots that go down that deep. I’ve always been something of a wanderer.” Her well-shaped eyebrows drew together. “Come to think of it, I’ve lived in Bradley longer than anywhere else in my adult life. I came here when the girls were nearly eighteen.” She paused, then gave a small gasp of surprise. “That was more than eight years ago. Time does get away from us all, doesn’t it? Eight years. Who would have thought?”
“There is something pleasant about Bradley,” he said. “I’d planned to be here a month or six weeks at most, but now I find myself considering a longer stay.”
“Really?” Dark brown eyes regarded him thoughtfully. “There’s a lot to like here.”
He wondered if she was still talking about the town or something else. Had Cassie told her aunt about what had happened the previous night? He studied the older woman sitting across from him, but he couldn’t be sure.
Charity set her mug on the desk. “I moved in with the girls as soon as I found out about my brother’s death. Unfortunately, I’d been in remote sections of the Far East, so it took the family lawyer three years to find me. I couldn’t imagine staying in a small town where the neighbors knew one another. Living with two teenage girls was also a shock. I couldn’t wait to leave.” Her expression softened. “But slowly, the town and the girls worked their magic. Cassie and Chloe have both urged me to resume my travels, but I find I miss them less and less with each passing year.”
She smiled. “I stayed at first to make sure the girls got through college. Then there was always some excuse to keep me around. Now I want to stay to see Chloe’s baby born. I’m beginning to suspect I’ve lost the travel bug. Still, I saw a great deal of the world.” She paused, and leaned forward slightly. “Is Bradley anything like where you grew up?”
“Not really. My mother, my brother and I lived in different parts of Los Angeles.”
“What about your father?”
“John, my older brother, had a different father. His dad left when John was three or four. My father ran out on my mother when he learned she was pregnant.” Not much of a legacy, he thought grimly. How could any man turn his back on his child?
“That must have been difficult for all of you,” Charity said. “Your mother sounds like a very strong woman.”
“She was. She worked hard. Maybe too hard. There wasn’t a whole lot of fun in our house.”
“I’ve met people like that,” Charity told him. “I can’t remember the exact old saying but it’s something about hard work curing every ill.” She flashed him another smile. “And here I’d always thought only chocolate could do that.”
“I don’t know about chocolate, but there were things I missed when I was growing up. She never approved of me going away with my friends and their families on camping trips. When I was in high school, she didn’t want me spending money on school dances.”
Ryan had nearly forgotten about all of that. He remembered finally getting the courage to ask a girl out, only to have his mother tell him it was a waste of his hard-earned wages. In the end, he’d gone on the date, but hadn’t bothered asking the girl out again.
“It was a relief to get away to college.”
“You went on scholarship?” she asked.
He nodded. “I worked, too, for spending money.” It was as if he’d opened a long-closed door. The past flooded over him. How he’d enjoyed being on his own and how guilty he’d been for those feelings. He remembered phone calls from his mother where she’d reminded him to keep up his grades and warned him not to be frivolous by joining a fraternity or getting involved in extracurricular activities. He’d done a few things, but the guilt had always kept him from enjoying them too much.
“A doctor and a successful businessman. Your mother must be very proud.”
“No,” he said quietly. “She’s gone now, but it wasn’t like that.” He shrugged. “She never said anything except to keep working hard.”
“And then she died.”
Charity said the words as if she’d actually known his mother. Ryan stared at her. He realized how much he’d revealed in the past few minutes. “How did you do that?” he asked.
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “It’s a gift,” she admitted. “People often find me easy to talk with. Plus, with you, I had an advantage. I knew your brother.”
“I didn’t,” he said without thinking, and realized it was true. “He was ten years older and had left for college when I started third grade. He would come home and visit but it wasn’t the same as growing up together.”
“He was a good man. You would have liked him.” She tilted her head and stared at him. “More important to you, I suspect, he would have always liked you. Cassie says you’re doing very well with Sasha.”
“I can’t take any of the credit there. Cassie has been a huge help and Sasha is a sweetheart. We have a great time together.”
“You’re making an effort,” Charity said. “Many people wouldn’t bother.”
He remembered his first few days with his niece. How he’d wanted to avoid her and how desperate he’d been for someone to take away the responsibility. “Cassie had to shame me into doing my part.”
“I suspect it wasn’t all that difficult. You’re not the sort of man who walks away from what’s important. Cassie thinks too much of you for it to be otherw
ise.”
The implied approval made him uncomfortable. He doubted Charity would be as friendly if she knew about the kiss. “Cassie is very accepting. I admire that in her. And she’s a natural when it comes to kids.” He thought about the laughter that always filled the house. “I’ve never known anyone like her. She seems to understand exactly what Sasha is thinking all the time.”
“She has a college degree in child development and works in a preschool. If she didn’t understand children, I would be worried. Yes, some people are better with children than others, but don’t discount the training or years of experience. You wouldn’t expect a new employee fresh out of school to be an expert in your line of work. Why is it different with Sasha?”
“That’s what your niece told me. I guess I should believe her.”
“Of course. We can’t both be wrong.”
“Agreed.” He picked up a pen, then set it back on the desk. “The problem is I don’t have Cassie’s experience or her training. I worry that I’m not going to do the right thing where Sasha is concerned. With her parents gone, I’m all she has.”
“Worry is half the battle,” Charity told him. “It means you care. Too many people don’t. You’ll do your best. Sometimes you’ll get it right, the rest of the time you’ll fake it.” She looked at him with compassion. “Believe me, I understand. I came into a household with two nearly grown young women. I wanted to share my life experiences with them, but I had to balance that with their need to find things out for themselves. Sometimes it was hard to bite my tongue, sometimes I wondered how much I was going to get wrong. But I knew I loved those girls and the loving makes all the difference.”
Ryan knew that six weeks ago he would have discounted those feelings, but now he knew better. Sasha feeling that she mattered to him was half the battle. “I want to do what’s right,” he said. “I owe it to Sasha, and to my brother.”
Knowing eyes darkened. “Maybe you owe it to yourself as well.”
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