“Yeah, I can see how fine you are.” He swooped an arm around her, not trying to start anything. He just plain needed his arms around her, while he looked wildly around the room, trying to figure out what had upset her. But nothing was out of the ordinary, except for the old box, and contents from that were strewn all over the coffee table.
He took a second look at the stuff. On top of the heap was a short veil, yellowed with age, so fragile he figured it’d fall apart if he touched it. Stacks of letters had been tied up with ribbons—one of the stacks was open, so Whitney must have started reading them. A high-heeled shoe had tipped out of the box. Red. Still inside the box was something silky—looked like lacy lingerie to him. A long, silky nightgown thing. A scent infused all the contents. A perfume. Nothing he’d ever smelled before. Obviously it was musty, the scent faded...but it was flowery. Nothing like Whitney had ever worn. Nothing he’d ever smelled before.
“Okay.” Until she could talk, he could only try to fill in some blanks. “The contents of the box...that’s what upset you.”
She nodded. Hard.
“It was your grandmother’s. Isn’t that what you told me? That your mom and sister ran across some old records or journals or something, and there was a reference to this box in the attic....”
She shook her head no, then nodded yes. Finally, she sighed, lifted her cheek from his shoulder. “This all started when my mom found some journals in an old dresser of my grandmother’s. When my grandmother first got ill, she made entries about getting to the box in the attic, burning it before she died, before anyone saw it.”
“Which made your sister and mom so curious they couldn’t stand it.”
Whitney nodded, combed a hand through her hair, fumbled on the table for a tissue to blow her nose. “I’m sorry you found me crying.”
He didn’t waste time telling her not to be ridiculous. “So...what does this stuff mean? That made you so sad?”
“Apparently my grandmother was married twice. The first time to a man named Stan. She adored him. He adored her. The trousseau, the lingerie, was from their one-night honeymoon. The day after...he went to Vietnam. He was drafted. So they both knew he was going.”
Red guessed what the bad news was. “He didn’t make it home?”
“He didn’t make it home.” She had to blow her nose again. “But that’s only part of it. She was pregnant. From that one night. The thing was, they’d eloped. Their parents didn’t know. Their parents already violently objected to their relationship, because they were both ‘too young.’ Not counting that Stan had a high number in the draft pool.”
“Which meant he was bound to get called up for Vietnam.”
“Yes. When she found out she was pregnant, she wrote him. She’d just sent it off when she received notice from the Army that he was killed in action.” A new flood of tears sparkled in her eyes like diamonds. “Red, she was pregnant with my dad. And I don’t know exactly what happened then. Apparently she never wrote about Stan in her later journals, because my mom didn’t know about Gram’s first husband from reading those. So all I could do was piece together what happened.”
She kept trying to quit crying.
“I guess,” she said, “that she knew my grandfather, Jack. They were friends. And it’s not as if she had to be married, in those times, but she wanted a man who loved children, who’d be an active dad. A man she didn’t have to lie to. So they got married within weeks of her Stan dying. Made out like my father was premature. Never told anyone. She made all the history with Stan disappear. No one knew about it. But she wouldn’t have kept these things if she ever really stopped loving him.”
“You think—” Red grappled for something to clarify what had upset her most “—that she never got over him.”
“I’m positive she didn’t.” One heave of a sigh, and she started pulling it together, looked at him. “I don’t doubt she loved my grandfather. I saw them together all those years. They had a wonderful marriage. Still. Loving and being in love are two different things.”
He said carefully, “And some people never forget their first loves.”
Weird, but the room suddenly went silent. Even the propane heater stopped its soft hiss. Candles stopped sputtering. He stopped breathing for just that second.
Maybe she did, too.
Out of the complete blue, she suddenly said softly, “No.”
“No what?”
“I missed you, Red. For a long time. And it hurt when you broke it off. For a long time. But I don’t want to know why. Not anymore.”
He didn’t hear a door slam. Except in his heart. Tonight he’d come here, hoping to spill the whole thing, why he’d broken it off, what had happened. “Why don’t you want to hear?”
“Because whatever you did ten years ago...however I reacted ten years ago...there’s no way to wear that size shoes again. We wouldn’t do the same things, say the same things, feel the same things.”
“That’s true,” he said, but his throat felt thick, and his heart started this heavy thud thing. He’d just been so sure those wild kisses had meant something to her. He’d thought, if she still cared, that she’d want to know why he’d called off the relationship. If not, well...maybe that volatile embrace had only ignited forest fires for him.
She suddenly rubbed her eyes, stood up. “I need a few seconds to clean up,” she said swiftly.
“No sweat. Like I said, I brought dinner.”
“I can’t say I’m hungry....”
Yeah, right. That lasted until she returned and saw the meatloaf and the brownies. She dove in, although as soon as she’d swallowed enough to ward off starvation, she said gently, “Red. I’m sorry.”
For not loving him? For not thinking those kisses knocked desire right out of the park? “For what?” he asked, as if he wanted to know.
“For being...thoughtless. The crying, the spill-out. If I hurt your feelings...”
“Hey, you didn’t.” He was pretty sure if he pulled the knife out of his heart, he’d bleed out. But she didn’t need to know that. “You had quite a surprise handed to you.”
She nodded. “It was. First, to find out that my grandmother had been married before. To the father of my dad. And then...I’m not sure what to say to Jane and my mom. I could tell them there was a box, but it had been destroyed by mold or mildew or something. Or tell them the truth.”
“Which do you think?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to lie. But my first instinct is to do what my grandmother wanted. It was her secret, that she chose to keep. And in that journal my mom found, my grandmother clearly intended to destroy the box before she died or anyone found it.” She motioned with a brownie.
“What?”
“Put tape over my mouth, would you? I’ve been talking about nothing but me. Tell me about the storm, the adventures today. Any news of the little girl? I hope no one’s been hurt.”
She cleaned up the food and collected the debris in the cooler—after he took out a Thermos to share. The contents were hot coffee, with a pinch of whiskey for a warmer. Donated by the emergency crew, he told her. She knew half of them from high school.
“They were always good guys,” she recalled.
He relayed some of the day’s tales, got her laughing at the story of Mrs. Churnon—who she remembered. And the McClelland family rescue. Then how the whole community was still hanging on for any rumor about the missing April.
“Everybody who comes into the shelter, we ask. I still think she’s holed up in someone’s house. Anyone would have let her in. And they might not have been able to tell authorities where she was, with the power outages and everything.”
“And this is the second day. Darn scary. No word at all?”
“Nothing. The only news was about some dog missing in that general area.”
“Really? I thought I heard a dog earlier.”
Once the minor chores were done, he’d crashed on one side of the couch—the side that had had a bad spring for as far back as he could remember. But now, he came to full alert. “You saw a dog?”
“No. I was sure I heard a bark, but I went from window to window, looking for a dog or tracks or any sign of movement.” She shook her head.
“Well, there’s no reason to think there’s a connection between the kid and the dog. But she loves the dog, apparently. Went over to their house to visit it quite often. She wanted a dog, had been begging for one for ages, and I guess that got more intense after her parents told her they were splitting up. Still. The dog’s a total mutt and already has its own family.” He relaxed again. Or attempted to look relaxed. He tried out a tone easier than butter to ask her, “Hey. You never said. Is there a guy waiting in the wings? Fiancé, guy friend, whatever.”
“Don’t, Red.”
“Don’t what?”
She settled on the couch, too—but on the opposite side. Red figured she was trying to make sure no serious body parts could accidentally touch. The couch was older than the hills. Possibly older than the start of the country. But it was a long sucker.
“I’ve slept with half the men in Philadelphia. Found a lot of great guys, but I’m not married. Collected three or four kids out of wedlock.” She smirked. “See? You don’t want to ask me questions where you don’t want to hear the answer.”
Man, she was touchy. He tried pouring her another mug of hooch-flavored coffee. “I’ve got an idea. This time you ask me a question, so I have the chance to get all crabby about it.”
She didn’t want to grin, but she did. And then she cocked her head and turned serious. “I was confused about what you told me yesterday. You said you started working with your dad in the construction business—when you left school your freshman year. But why did you leave U of M? Something must have happened?”
“Oh, yeah.” He was ultrawary of bringing up any heavy material in the memory department, but he sensed—hell, he knew—that Whitney was vulnerable. At least vulnerable about the two of them. She wouldn’t have turned so touchy if the past was easy for her to talk about. And this was history he had trouble getting past himself.
But he tried. Sat up, parked his feet on the floor, elbows on his knees.
“When I started at U of M, right from that first semester, I practiced with the team.” He didn’t have to say the football team. She knew. “I didn’t expect to play. They scout out QBs from high schools, but it’s pretty rare they let a newbie play, especially that first year. Too much to learn. High school ball is way different than college ball.”
She waited while he chugged down a gulp of coffee. She’d always listened.
“But the third game out, the quarterback got the flu. Puked his guts out in the locker room because he didn’t want to tell Coach, didn’t want to be benched. But he was sick as a dog. Anyway, Coach put me in. I got my first shot at some glory, threw a pass that turned into a touchdown.”
She shot him a big thumbs-up with a grin to match it.
“Okay. That was the good game. But the next game—the following Saturday—the ace quarterback was in the hospital with pneumonia by then. Coach had only let me play the week before because we were playing a Podunk team—but this second game was more competitive, so he put the backup QB in. That’s how it should be. Nothing weird. In fact, I had no idea why Coach gave me that shot the week before. But I found out. The backup QB was beyond lousy. He had speed but no brains, no sense for the game. Right off, we lost two scores, and then he caused a fumble because of a rotten pass. Coach benched him. Put me in.”
Any other girl would have made him hurry. He knew how tedious it was for nonplayers to hear the blow-by-blow. But damn. Whitney’d always listened. She knew the game. Probably because he had always loved football so much he couldn’t stop talking about it.
“So I get in there. Guards should have been close, but they bumbled, weren’t where they were supposed to be. I’m stuck with the ball, nowhere to throw it, their big boys coming right at me. So I had to run with it. Two guys took me down, both bigger than horses. Well, one took me down. The other fell on top of him. Just for the record, I kept the ball.”
Her stocking foot gave him a short kick. Her smile was rueful, impatient.
“I’m telling you as fast as I can. But this isn’t the fun part. I know how to take a fall. But it was just the way I was hit, the way I went down. Nobody’s fault. But my right knee and ankle were both broken.”
Her expression changed immediately. Her hand shot out to touch his shoulder. “How bad?”
“Bad. The knee was a mess. Ended up at John Hopkins for a total reconstruct. The ankle was just a basic break, but by then it didn’t much matter. That was the end of the athletic scholarship. The end of competitive sports for me altogether. When my dad picked me up, I had casts and crutches and an attitude. Nobody could live with me. Surprised my mom didn’t beat me over the head.”
“Aw, Red.” Her whisper was as soft as a caress.
“My dad never said anything. Just let me stew and do nothing and swear all over the place and watch stupid television. When the casts came off, that was another hell. I’d lost all muscle tone. It was like learning to walk all over again. And it all hurt, which was fine with me, because I wanted to be mad at something. But by spring, my dad came in one day, just told me to come with him. Put me up in a dozer. Pointed me at a cement wall that needed taking down. He said, ‘go have fun.’”
“Did you?”
“I beat the cement wall to smithereens. Went back to my dad. He gave me another project, this one with a back hoe, digging a hole for a new massive swimming pool. He stayed around while I did that one. It had to be right. I knew how to work the dozer, but not the back hoe so much. Dad never asked me if I wanted a job. You knew my dad. He didn’t talk much. He just let me take out a lot of anger and frustration and loss and all that crap. By working. And then...”
“Then what? What happened?”
“End of that summer.” Red shook his head. “Hard to talk about. Even now. Dad and I came home after a really long, really hot day. We’d poured on the coals. Wrapped up a good job, put the check in the bank. Put our feet up on the back porch, and Dad offered me a beer—like he hadn’t had a fit my whole life about not drinking underage. He popped the top on his and fell over. Like that. One minute happy. I mean we were both tired. But he was still happy. I know damn well he loved working with me. We’d never been so close. I almost laughed, thought he was playing some joke—until I realized he wasn’t moving. Wasn’t breathing.”
He had to quit talking. That was all he had to say, anyway. And Whitney said nothing for a moment, just looked at him with something so big and bright in her eyes that he had to look away. Maybe that’s why he didn’t see her move. She’d never been much on athletics, except for gymnastics. When she launched herself across the couch, she wasn’t exactly flying—she was looking right at him—but she did kind of a slow catapult.
Straight into his arms.
She said fiercely, “I hate that story, Red.” And then she kissed him. “I hate it about the injuries.” Another kiss. “I hate it about it screwing up all the goals and dreams you had.” Another kiss. “I hate it that you were badly hurt and I never knew.” Another kiss. “I hate it that your dad died. That you lost him and he lost you. It’s an awful, awful story and I hated every single word of it.”
He had the oddest feeling that he was being seduced. Since all she was talking about was hate, hate, hate, that seemed unlikely. But between kisses, her down vest sailed across the room, then her purple sweater.
In spite of all that aggression on her part, he probably could have stopped this, considering that she was moving slowly. Her vest did a slow sail. Those kisses of hers were melding
soft, melting slow.
He figured he had two choices. To either put a serious stop to this, make sure she was doing something she wanted to do.
Or he could try to catch up.
Back when, she was the one with all As and he was the one who had to work hard for a C. Still, this was a no-brainer. And years ago, he’d understood instinctively that sometimes she needed something from him that had nothing to do with IQ.
Apart from which, he could peel off clothes way, way faster than she could.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHITNEY KNEW SHE was going to get hurt...and didn’t care. Maybe she’d come home hoping to affirm how over him she was. Instead, she seemed to be falling all over again.
But right now, that just didn’t matter. This wasn’t about her. It was about him, thinking about how his whole world had crashed his freshman year, losing his dad, losing his dreams. She hadn’t been there for him then. His choice. But she wanted to be here for him now, even if it was only for a short time during a blizzard, even if she never saw him again.
Maybe she’d never mattered enough to him before.
But he’d mattered to her. He still mattered to her.
Her mouth picked up a tremble. Too much kissing, too much pressure. Too much promise. Clothes stuck and bunched and got in the way. Chilly drafts assaulted bare skin from all directions. But she assaulted those drafts...and so did he. Every stroke, every nuzzle into his neck, his shoulder, against him, created a blast furnace of heat.
He found her breast, cupped it, groaned as if he’d just discovered hunger. That discovery inspired him to explore some more. Even if the couch required him to be a contortionist, he somehow managed to trace the shape of her right breast with his tongue. Then her left. And then he simply nuzzled his face between the two, rubbing his cheek against them, his lips, his tongue...it was a deja vu. But not. He’d always been relentlessly crazy about her breasts.
But he was so much more man now. The look in his eyes was no longer boyish and impatient. It was shiver-provoking. The fire in his eyes burned with knowledge—knowledge that he knew how to please her. Knew how to wring every second of desire and torture from these moments. Knew where and how to touch, in the ways that would make her go wild. Always had. Always would.
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