Right from the Start

by Jeanie London

  Mrs. Spencer resented that Mr. Spencer wanted to end their marriage after fourteen years and two children, who were still relatively young. It didn’t help that they were in that gray period where alimony wasn’t likely, and Mrs. Spencer felt as if she would be left to maneuver the teenage years alone and face the difficult task of getting her children into good colleges without her husband’s support.

  She would be forced back into the job market to make a living. Not only was the economy difficult right now, but as a registered nurse, Mrs. Spencer would be required to work twelve-hour shifts, which created problems with car pools and after-school activities.

  All because Mr. Spencer had decided to value wild monkey sex—Mrs. Spencer’s words—with his massage therapist more than his wife and children.

  Despite that questionable choice, Mr. Spencer was attempting to handle the divorce responsibly. Guilt, most likely, for placing his wants and needs above those of his family. Of course, that was Kenzie’s read on the situation based upon surface observation. The only people who ever knew what really took place in a marriage were the people in it.

  But she also knew that riding the guilt wave wouldn’t last forever. The more Mrs. Spencer resisted negotiation, the more ammunition she gave Mr. Spencer to feel justified in tossing up his hands and saying, “I did the best I could.”

  Kenzie had been mediating long enough to gauge the escalation of frustration. Mr. Spencer was nearly there. Somehow she needed to help Mrs. Spencer refocus her resentment and fear on to the best interests of her children and the needs of her family. So far they’d only accomplished grudging baby steps before Mrs. Spencer remembered how angry she was again.

  Kenzie considered the problem while the printer whirred steadily, spitting out the list of assets they’d successfully negotiated so far. She’d recap their successes before addressing the issues that had been tabled for further discussion.

  Five copies. One each for Mrs. Spencer and her attorney. One each for Mr. Spencer and his attorney. One copy for Kenzie.

  Sinking into her chair, she placed her feet up on the desk and reviewed the tabled discussions. Kenzie needed to get Mrs. Spencer to recognize the good position she was actually in because North Carolina was a state of equitable distribution. A judge would consider that Mrs. Spencer had given up her career to rear children and keep the books for Mr. Spencer’s plumbing business, which involved payroll, accounts payable and receivable. Her contribution to the family and increasing the value of her husband’s business would factor a great deal in the division of assets.

  That was not the case in community property states.

  They’d already addressed a number of the bigger issues such as physical custody, visitation and housing, to name a few, but they hadn’t made much headway because Kenzie couldn’t give Mrs. Spencer the only thing she wanted—her life to remain unchanged.

  Rubbing her temples, Kenzie rested her head back and closed her eyes, reviewing the situation with the hope of finding some detail that might break through Mrs. Spencer’s resentment.

  The next thing Kenzie knew the whirring of the printer had faded to silence. She must have dozed because her eyelids were heavy and, blinking to clear her gaze, she sensed a presence. She glanced up and saw him.

  Will.

  He stood in the doorway of her office as if he belonged there, as if leaning against the doorjamb with his arms folded over his broad chest was exactly where he should be. He watched her. Kenzie only knew she could feel his gaze through her lingering slumber as a caress.

  No, that couldn’t be right.

  A voice in her head argued against the potency of the moment, but Kenzie knew what she felt, an awareness that closed the distance, made a simple glance feel alive.

  Or maybe she only reacted to his presence. She hadn’t seen him in so long, three weeks suddenly seemed a lifetime.

  The absence should have let the memory of him to fade. But it hadn’t. No, absence had only given rise to her imagination, to a thousand tiny expectations every time she drove into the parking lot wondering whether she’d find his truck, every time she finished up with a client or a class to wonder whether he’d show up finally to continue work, every time she turned a corner because he had a key to come and go as he pleased, a key he wouldn’t turn over until renovations were complete.

  And he had finally come. Tonight. Earlier. Now.

  The natural glow from the lamps she favored above the glare of fluorescent lighting played tricks with her still-drowsy gaze, softened Will’s features in an unfamiliar way, cast shadows on the clear eyes that sparked such incredible turmoil inside her.

  She was being ridiculous. Even half-asleep she knew it. Especially when a thought niggled at the edges of her awareness, a thought that urged how much easier it would be to let her inner child run the show. This power struggle was exhausting.

  She empathized with her students, realized how much she complicated their lives—and her own—with her beliefs and her classes and her coping skills. Letting her inner child run rampant then dealing with the fallout seemed so much easier than battling her inner child for control. So much easier to go with the powerful emotion sparked by this man than to constantly remind herself he was off-limits for almost every adult reason she could think of.

  Suddenly Kenzie felt as tired as Will looked.

  And once she could see past her reaction to him, she recognized that he looked exhausted.

  “You’re working late tonight.” Her words were a whisper in the stillness, intruding on the dreamy quality of the moment.

  On the inherent danger of moments like this one when the boundaries were blurred and reason prowled the edges of thought, unable to get anyone’s attention.

  But her words didn’t shatter the moment in the way she’d counted on. Not when the light caught his hair when he nodded, a gleam that drew her attention to the way it had started to curl at his nape. Sam’s hair. Will needed a trim.

  And definitely not when he replied in that gently gruff voice. “You, too.”

  Except that she hadn’t been working. She’d been sleeping.

  And he’d been watching.

  “I didn’t want to disturb you,” he said. “You looked so peaceful.”

  Was that longing she heard in his voice, as if he didn’t find peace all that much himself?

  “I should be problem-solving, not sleeping.” She gave a nervous laugh, reality rearing its head. There was no denying that what she’d once thought of as Will’s ruthless ambition suddenly looked a lot like determination. Or had it been determination all along?

  Kenzie believed it had, based on what she’d seen with her own eyes, not the impressions she’d had of Will and secondhand accounts. That realization was a dangerous transition, proved she hadn’t been keeping her distance as much as she’d intended.

  She’d been dealing with her reaction by rationalizing, reasoning, attempting to control.

  But beneath the logic and sensibility, her opinion had been subtly shifting. Until his exhaustion looked like determination, and Will didn’t feel nearly as dangerous as he should.

  “What exactly about him isn’t your cup?” Nathanial’s question replayed in her memory.

  In this moment, when Kenzie gazed into Will’s quiet expression, saw the shadows beneath his eyes, she couldn’t come up with one single thing.

  “I just wanted to apologize for crashing your class tonight,” he said. “Totally unintentional. I was on a rol
l and not paying attention.”

  “Oh, no problem. I’m sure you made the students’ night. No one wants to be there listening to me preach for four hours.”

  The corners of his mouth tipped up in a smile. A dimple peeked from its hiding place beneath his five o’clock shadow.

  Nearly eleven o’clock shadow now.

  “Didn’t sound like preaching from where I was sitting.”

  “Hanging you mean?”

  The dimple made an appearance for real. “Yeah.”

  “You’ve been here late a lot of nights recently,” she said, desperate for this conversation to drown out the voice in her head, an awareness of this man the quiet only amplified.

  “Sam’s at camp. Putting the time to work.”

  “How fun for him.”

  Will nodded, his smile thoughtful now, somehow gentle in the soft light. He had such an expressive mouth...she wondered how he kissed. He was such an interesting blend of opposites, a big man who managed to be gentle, a ruthlessly charming man who managed to be vulnerable, an ambitious local politician who could work miracles with his hands.

  Maybe she was seeing him reflected against his interactions with Sam. Or maybe he made her think of kissing because she loved kissing in all its forms, from the exquisite tenderness of shared breaths to the wild hunger of needy exploration.

  And now she was thinking about kissing him.

  Kenzie was in so, so much trouble here.

  “How much longer are you going to be?” he asked, thoughtful as always, a gentleman. “I just dropped by to apologize. And now I’m heading out. We can walk out together.”

  This time, when offered a gentlemanly escort to her car, Kenzie accepted.

  CHAPTER NINE

  AN UNUSUALLY EMPTY HOUSE, a few hours of sleep and a frenzied day spent rushing from one job site to the next didn’t do a damn thing to help Will shake the memory of last night.

  He didn’t even need to close his eyes to see Kenzie the way she’d looked, fast asleep at her desk with her chin resting against her chest and wisps of her hair playing about her face.

  Her hair hadn’t come anywhere close to covering her legs though, which she’d propped on the desk for his viewing pleasure. Gravity had kindly worked its magic on her skirt so he’d gotten a prime shot of those dancer legs, which is exactly how he thought of them—long, lean and shapely. He saw more thigh than this proper miss would have revealed—to him, anyway.

  Maybe not to her not-at-the-moment attorney.

  Just the thought soured Will’s mood. Kenzie was making him remember what he’d forgotten in the crush of his busy life.

  He was a man who hadn’t been with a woman in a long time.

  Okay, well, he hadn’t so much forgotten as he had been too busy and preoccupied to notice anything that could be ignored. Sam. Work. Angel House. City council. Family. Friends even still made it onto the list for holidays and play dates for Sam whenever they found time. He’d pack up Sam and off they’d go to Charlie and Nicole’s or Greg and Ashley’s to watch a game or grill outdoors so the kids could swim.

  But hell no to anything even resembling a woman or a date. There hadn’t been room in his life to even think about someone let alone meet someone and invest the one thing he didn’t have into a relationship—time.

  To date, sex hadn’t made the list and wouldn’t as long as it could be ignored. He wished he could somehow figure out that part of his life, because he hadn’t been wrong about Kenzie. She was aware of him the way he was of her. No question.

  So how long could he go without sex? As he’d already broken his personal record, Will supposed he’d go back to ignoring the situation. Any possibility of sex would be even easier to ignore once Sam got home to keep him focused on what was important in his life.

  Glancing at the dashboard clock, he cursed.

  Hunger was making him irritable, but he had to abandon his plan of picking up a to-go dinner from the deli to make up for the lunch he hadn’t had. Well, the protein bar and bag of peanuts he kept in the glove compartment didn’t count. Deanne had wanted to meet at the new building at five, and it was already 4:50 p.m.

  Will would rather starve than complain, though. Not when he’d been enjoying the break from dealing with food—the planning of meals, the buying groceries, the meal preparation. A never-ending job on top of all the others. And he still had to tackle gluten free. He had an entirely new appreciation for his mother and Melinda, who had once fed houses filled with hungry guys. And whatever Melinda’s difficulties with handling Sam’s situation now, she’d always made sure there was plenty of food when they’d been together.

  Kenzie’s car was parked where it always was. Amazing how one stupid, midpriced sedan could spike his pulse. He was ignoring that. His crew was still there, too, working on the plumbing and fixtures in the new classrooms from the last phone call with his foreman an hour ago.

  Deanne’s SUV was there already, too.

  Will wound up burning another ten minutes in conversation with his foreman about an unexpected problem with an inspector. It was always something in this business. Rip down a wall to find the wiring fried. Get the inspectors to actually show up when they said they would and they weren’t happy with something.

  Deanne finally hunted him down as he was wrapping up his conversation. She smiled and waved, looking as she always did—focused and frazzled around the edges and somehow amused by it all. She always said she’d never have made it through a day without finding humor in it. She managed to share that gift with everyone around her.

  But her smile seemed forced today.

  “Hey, you. Come on.” He gave Deanne a hug and led her out of the hallway-in-progress where the framed walls didn’t provide any privacy. He wanted to get out the way of his crew, who had to wrap up their day before six otherwise Will would be looking at overtime and a payroll he couldn’t afford to write checks for.

  He led her into a room that would eventually be one of the offices; which one hadn’t been decided yet. “I’ll give you a key if you want to drop by to see how much work we’re getting done every day.”

  “Like I have that kind of time.” Deanne pulled a face as she half sat on a rung of the painter’s ladder—the only piece of furniture in the room. “I just needed to be here, to be reassured. I wouldn’t have even bothered you if I’d realized the crew would still be here.”

  “What’s up?”

  She exhaled sharply and waved a dismissive hand. “I’m being ridiculous. I cut a check for the printer. I had to change the address on the agendas and all the promotional materials for the apple festival, and by the time I finished signing my name I was almost hyperventilating.”

  With money tight, Will understood why writing any check could create anxiety. He experienced his own fair share of that when he looked at his supply bills and the payroll increase for the crew he kept yanking off paying jobs to work on Angel House.

  But he didn’t think that’s what was bothering Deanne.

  “We’re moving along okay. On schedule.” For the most part. Not even he could have anticipated the structural problem with the space the architect had allotted to move several of the mechanical systems into. Not at least until they’d demolished walls. He didn’t share that with Deanne. It was need-to-know information that would only add to her stress.

  “I know, Will.” She sounded apologetic and annoyed at the same time. “I’m being so selfish. I needed to walk around here and see everything for myself. I need
ed to hear you tell me we’re going to make it, and that I didn’t just throw away a lot of money that would have been put to better use giving all our wonderful employees at least a little severance pay.”

  “Deanne,” he said on a long breath. Selfish was one thing this woman had never been in Will’s acquaintance. But he also lived the life Deanne did and could hear everything she wasn’t saying to him.

  Something had rocked her boat. Could be as simple as a tough few days with her daughter, who had outgrown her during the past year, shooting up like teens did and now towering over her mother. Add the accompanying hormones and her daughter had hit a transition point and the need for a new skillset that would take time to learn.

  Or it could be something complicated such as stress weighing on her and her husband, their biggest support system for each another. That part could be really tough. Will knew the toll autism took on a marriage. He’d lost his to it.

  But no matter what had Deanne’s faith wavering today, the reason was personal, hers to share or not as she chose.

  That was an unspoken rule with Angel House parents. They supported one another, no questions asked. Always.

  Sometimes the parents in the support group were all each other had when no one in their lives understood the unique challenges, and the unique joys, of having a child with autism. Not family. Not friends. Not the strangers in the stores who could be well-meaning or really unkind when they witnessed a meltdown for reasons they didn’t understand.

  When kids looked normal, they were expected to act that way, too. People could even be cruel.

  “It’s all good.” Will knelt in front of her and took her hands in his. “We’re making it happen.”

  She nodded, clenched his hands tightly.

  “We haven’t gone through all this work to not move into this building. I didn’t exactly remodel this place, Deanne. I renovated the space to fit our needs exactly. No one’s going to want it after I’m through.” He smiled. “Besides, we’ve got a really long lease and great rent.”