She narrowed her gaze on him, studying his response in order to judge his truthfulness.
When he finished chewing and set down his fork, his expression was the essence of honesty. Even before he spoke, Kelly was beginning to feel like the slime of the earth.
“I’ve always been straightforward with you, Kelly.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Besides, you gave me your permission to date other women if the need arose.”
“You’re right. I’d forgotten.”
She would bet her last nickel he hadn’t been with another woman, but jealousy rose up inside her at the idea. She’d never felt that way before, and it scared her.
“I’d never ply you with alcohol.”
“I know that. I apologize, Mike.”
A wounded look drew his mouth down. “You keep accusing me of having ulterior motives. I’m hurt, Kelly.”
“I’m sorry. How many times do I have to say it? What else can I do?”
“I’m not sure. Give me time. I’ll think of something. Later,” he said.
There was a gleam in his eyes that Kelly wasn’t sure she liked. In the past, pizza and burgers had been the extent of their commingling at mealtime. Mike was a nice guy, but an expensive French restaurant was pushing things, even for him.
She wasn’t worried that he would hurt her. He wouldn’t, at least not deliberately. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that he had something up his sleeve besides a powerful bicep.
“So what do you think?” Mike asked, watching her as she stared at the valley below them.
“It’s breathtaking,” she said.
Kelly knew better than to go up to Sunset Point with Mike Cameron, but the magic of the night had cast a spell that seemed to rob her of the ability to say no. The baby was fine; Susan was fine. She couldn’t think of a reason to deny herself a little more free time. The fact was she hadn’t wanted to say no. As soon as he’d mentioned the idea, she couldn’t wait to get there.
And here they were, standing in front of his Bronco, looking down at the Santa Clarita Valley all lit up like a Christmas tree. A pleasant breeze lifted the hair from her neck and cooled her flushed cheeks.
Mike’s shoulder brushed hers as he pointed.
“There’s the high school, and the house is over in that direction.”
“The whole world looks different from up here.” It was spectacular, she thought, studying Mike’s handsome profile in the moonlight. She sighed. Life would be so much easier if only he looked like Quasimodo. But Esmeralda had seen past Mr. Q.’s grotesque exterior to the generous person underneath. Mike had a heart as grand as the view that stretched before them and looks to match. A lethal combination as far as Kelly was concerned.
“How did you know about this place?” she asked, a slightly breathless quality in her voice.
“From the guys. It’s the local make-out spot.”
“Aha. I knew you were up to something.”
“I never guessed that you were so suspicious. The only thing I’m up to is giving you a short rest from motherhood. You know what they say about all work and no play.”
Mike looked down at her, and something smoldered in his eyes. It set off sparks deep inside Kelly, and suddenly she wanted very much to play. A warning buzzed through her like a smoke detector in a hazy room. She tuned it out. She would worry about everything later. Right this minute she just wanted to feel.
He reached over and threaded his fingers into her loose hair, cupping the back of her head. Kelly knew he was going to kiss her, and if it meant saving her life, she knew she didn’t have the will to stop him.
When his mouth tentatively touched hers, she sighed with contentment. She felt as if she had been drifting in an open sea and the Coast Guard had just towed her back to port, and home.
Gently he moved his lips over hers, letting her feel the soft, warm sweetness. Flutters started in her stomach, like a flurry of hummingbirds. Suddenly he was in front of her, his arm around her waist pulling her snugly against his muscular length. Her breath caught as she slipped her arms around his neck and felt her breasts pressed to the hard wall of his chest.
Yearning, as powerful and elemental as the need to breathe, welled up inside her, squeezing out everything but Mike. His heat, the heady fragrance of him, his heart beating the same wild rhythm as her own.
As if they were one.
When his tongue gently nudged the seam of her lips, she opened to him eagerly. He slipped inside and caressed her, setting off a tingling that started in her chest and worked its way down to her toes, making her feel as if her legs wouldn’t hold her weight. But Mike would never let her fall.
He pressed his mouth to her cheek and trailed kisses along her jaw and touched a spot just beneath her ear that drew a moan from her. She heard his labored breathing and felt the rapid rise and fall of his chest.
She pulled away from him, just far enough to look into his eyes. “You promised not to kiss me like that again,” she said. She whispered so softly, so seductively, that the disapproval she’d tried to put in her words just wasn’t there.
“I promised not to kiss you in the bed.”
“You’re splitting hairs.”
“I’m sorry. But it’s your fault,” he said.
“Mine?”
He leaned back against the car and tugged her in front of him, settling her between his legs, his hands loosely holding her waist. “You’re so beautiful.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever told me that before.”
“Sure I have.”
“Well, maybe when I was dressed up for a special occasion you might have said something, but not just out of the blue. Why now?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I thought it, so I said it.”
“But I don’t look any different than I ever have. What’s going on, Mike?”
He shrugged. “Must be motherhood. It agrees with you.”
“I think you’re imagining things. Besides, the discussion is pointless. We have to stop this right now.”
“Define this,” he said.
“This,” she answered, taking his hands from her waist. “Kissing.”
“We were necking like a couple of teenagers. What do you suppose the kids would say if they saw us?”
“There won’t be anything to see, because we’re going to stop. Right now. We can’t do this.”
“Why?” he asked; tracing the thin strap of her dress.
She pulled her shoulder back, away from his fingers. “Because when you do things like that I can’t think straight—”
“You think too much.” She started to say something and he gently touched his index finger to her lips, silencing her. “You were about to tell me that I don’t think enough. Maybe that’s true. But I know for a fact that you talk too much.”
Before she could retort, he lowered his mouth to hers, this time quieting her with a kiss. The words on the tip of her tongue were forgotten, like always when he touched her. Her body had a mind and language of its own. As she nestled in the circle of his arms, she knew his body was carrying on the same conversation when she felt his arousal.
Her breath caught Like sudden lightning in the sky, the thought struck her. Mike Cameron wanted to make love. With her. Then the thunder rattled her. She wanted him, too.
“Kelly?” he said, his voice breathless and husky.
“What?” she answered.
“Remember that promise I made about kissing you like this—”
“What about it?”
“You forced it out of me,” he said, nibbling her ear.
She shivered. “I know.”
“I think I have to take it back.”
“According to the rules of friendship—”
“No.” He stopped kissing her neck, and his hands tightened at her waist. Straightening, he stared down at her, a dark intensity making his features almost harsh in the moonlight. “Stop hiding from life behind the word friendship.”
“That
’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? There’s something going on between us, and you’re refusing to acknowledge it.”
“No, I’m not. I’ll even give it a name. It’s called lust,” she said, trying to be flippant.
“It’s more than that. I want you, Kelly. I think you know that. But I care about you, and it’s different—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Why not? Because you want me, too?”
“I do. But—”
“I know it’s too soon after the baby. And when we make love it won’t be in the back seat of a car like a couple of teenagers. It will be in our bed—”
“We can’t, Mike.” She stepped away from him and went to the passenger side of the Bronco. She opened the door and climbed inside.
Mike got in beside her. “Why?”
“We have an agreement. When the, marriage ends, we go our separate ways. If we give in to our hormones, that will just muddle up everything.”
He let out a long breath as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Not everything in life is neat and tidy, Kelly.”
“There’s one thing that is.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Our friendship.”
Chapter Nine
The day after Mike crashed and burned in the romance department, he picked up his video camera and started filming everything in sight. He told himself it was just to fill the time until football started up again, and to practice his photography skills for taping the games. But the reality was that someone else filmed the games, and he wasn’t looking forward to the season as much as usual. On top of that, the end of summer was approaching and he couldn’t stop it.
When school started again, Kelly and Sammi would be gone.
It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. You knew it would be bad, you just didn’t know how bad until it smacked you.
He had spoken to the lawyer about the custody hearing, which Kelly knew nothing about. With luck she would never have to know it had even been scheduled until the whole thing was dropped. Tim was setting the wheels of a plan in motion that would force Hammond to put up or shut up. Mike was betting on the latter. That was the good news.
The bad was that when that happened, Kelly would hold him to their agreement, which meant she would leave with the baby and file for divorce.
The D-word sounded so ugly when it involved Kelly. Divorce was no more than Carol had deserved. When his pro career had ended, he had told her he wanted to work with kids, to teach and coach. She had suggested sportscasting or something in the media. She’d said he had the looks for it and should use what he had.
But Mike knew if it hadn’t been for the Walker family, he would have wound up a loser. They had taken a mixed-up kid into their home and set him on a positive path, using sports. He wanted to give back, to help kids. When he told Carol, she laughed. She assumed he was kidding. He wasn’t
His glory days were gone and so was she. He didn’t like losing at anything, and he had gone into the relationship with every intention of making it last. In the end he’d had to admit he hadn’t been hurt. In fact, he hadn’t missed her or given her absence more than a passing thought.
With Kelly everything was different. He laughed more, he felt more, he talked more. He had jokingly told her that he was lonely. After knowing what a family was like, he had found out that it was no joke. The idea of life without Kelly and Sammi seemed hollow and empty.
He heard Kelly running water upstairs and knew it was bath time. He knew the drill. Afterward, Sammi would take her morning nap. He grabbed the video from the bar in the kitchen and took the stairs two at a time.
On the tile countertop, Kelly had set up a small, inflatable rubber tub and filled it with water. She was just lowering the baby into it when he started filming.
Kelly met his gaze in the mirror. “Look who’s here, Sammi. It’s your Uncle Mike.”
He gritted his teeth. It really fried him when she called him that. In the days since their nondate, she’d been doing it more frequently. That whole evening had really backfired. Kelly was looking for romantic love, and that fiasco had no doubt convinced her that he wasn’t the man who could give it to her. Instead of the thrill of victory, he kept having his nose rubbed in the agony of defeat.
The towel bar dug into his back as he shifted to the side a bit to get a better angle of the baby. “Kel, can you lower your shoulder a little and lift her so Uncle Mike can get a better shot of her face?”
At his tone she raised one eyebrow, but did as he’d asked. The corners of her full mouth lifted, and she grinned broadly at the baby. “Smile into the camera, Sammi.”
“Isn’t she a little young for that?”
“She’s just starting to.”
“It’s gas.” He couldn’t resist baiting her.
He knew it worked when her gaze met his in the mirror. But when she spoke, her voice was teasing. “That’s most unladylike. This little girl gets bubbles.”
“That turn into smiles.”
“No. I can actually get her to smile. It’s exhausting, but if circumstances are just right, I can get one out of her.”
Mike kept the camera going. With a wide smile plastered on her face, and talking in a singsong voice, Kelly coaxed a fleeting, toothless grin from the baby.
“Did you get that?” Kelly asked excitedly.
“You bet I did,” he answered.
“Oh, Mike. Her first real smile. I can’t wait to see it again.”
“When you finish her bath and put her down, I’ll set this up on the TV.”
“This water’s cooling off. I’ll have her out of here in a jiffy. Right, Little Bit?” she said, her expression soft and loving as she stared at the baby. “I didn’t know it was possible to feel this way,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion.
“What way?” he asked.
“So much love. When she’s quiet and content, it makes me ache inside. And when she’s fussy I just want to make everything better. I want to make her world a perfect place. If anyone ever hurt her—”
Mike pressed the camera’s On button and captured the look on Kelly’s face. He had never seen anything like it. Simple and soft, yet powerful and profound. It was proof that love really existed. He couldn’t remember seeing anyone look at him like that. The closest he’d come to knowing affection was when he’d lived with the Walkers. That family knew how to care.
Because of them Kelly believed in love and was looking for it. Everywhere but with him.
She expertly cradled the baby’s head in the crook of her elbow, leaving both hands free to hold a cloth and put soap on it. While Mike filmed, she washed the infant, who stared contentedly, blissfully unaware of the tension around her.
“What are you going to do with all the film you’ve been taking?” Kelly asked him.
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“I’d like to have it, or a copy if you want the original.”
“I’ll make you a copy.”
“On my first date, my mother embarrassed me with naked baby pictures. I wouldn’t do that to Sammi, but just think of the motivational possibilities. Clean your room, or your boyfriend sees you on TV, in the flesh.” She glanced over her shoulder and grinned.
The beauty of her smile caught him unexpectedly, like a blindside tackle. Instinctively he kept filming, partly because he didn’t want her to see the look on his face. If it was anything like the feeling in his gut, she would know he didn’t want her to take her copy of the film and go.
Without telling him straight-out to butt out, Kelly was letting him know that she planned to raise Samantha by herself. He had captured the baby’s first smile on tape. But when that little girl took her first steps, said her first words, went to school on the first day, or had her first date he wouldn’t be there.
God, he hated the thought of that
He wanted to be there. He wanted to protect, her, guide her, watch out for her. He realized that blood ties didn’t ma
tter a tinker’s damn. He wanted to be a father to Sammi, in every way that counted. But Kelly seemed to think that was an imposition, and she had to do it on her own. And she was stubborn and proud enough to do just that.
Unless he could somehow convince her to extend, or even better, annul their agreement and stay.
That would give them time to explore their feelings, give them a chance to see if this relationship thing could work. He refused to call it love. One corner of his mouth lifted wryly. Would Kelly call that a four-letter word? Or would she think of it that way only if it referred to him? He didn’t like labels. He didn’t want to put the whammy on what he felt for Kelly by naming it.
He lowered the camera. She called it friendship, neat and tidy. He planned to find out if it was more than that.
After bathing and feeding Sammi, Kelly put her down for a nap. She smiled as the baby grinned in her sleep. That probably was gas. It reminded her of Mike’s comments as he’d videotaped. It warmed her heart that he had taken the time to record her hard-won smile. Since Sammi’s birth, he had been Kelly’s idea of what a perfect father would be. He hadn’t let her down once.
Why that would make her uneasy around him, she couldn’t say, but she had been since the night they’d gone to Le Chêne. The words “nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs” came to mind. It was a cliché, and as a teacher she encouraged her students to be fresh and creative. But just the same, the saying was appropriate.
Mike was trying to change the rules of their friendship, of their agreement. He hadn’t told her straight-out, but she sensed a tension between them that she’d never felt before. The worst part was that she was tempted to let him change things, go along with him and see where it would lead. If she were a fly-by-theseat-of-her-sweatpants type of person, she might. But she wasn’t. She was the outline and execute type. Stick to the plan.
Mike had been married before. He’d fallen out of love with his wife and divorced her. Now he never even mentioned her name. Kelly knew it would break her heart if they took that step into an intimate relationship, then she had to watch helplessly as it fell apart She didn’t think she could stand it if he put her out of his life that way. Maybe he was right when he’d said she was hiding behind the word friendship. But she wasn’t willing to take it over the line. Losing Mike wasn’t part of her plan.
Wedding Rings and Baby Things Page 11