“So here’s your present, Doc,” Ed said, and crossed the room to hand Daniel the vase.
He peered inside and saw envelopes. Envelopes with checks in them, and cash. When he picked up an envelope that appeared to be filled with change, he recognized Nick’s handwriting.
Stunned again, he gazed out at the assembled group. Several long, painful seconds went by before he could say, “I don’t know how to say thank you in a way that will tell you how much I thank you,” he said. He knew Nick’s entire net worth in allowance savings was probably in that envelope. He held back his emotions. “A Maserati, fully loaded, couldn’t make me as happy or as grateful as these gifts have made me.”
He got himself out of the limelight, clutching the precious vase, and worked his way toward Ed. “Thanks,” he said. “You’re doing a great job for the center.”
Ed didn’t exactly beam. He looked at the floor and shuffled his feet. Same thing as beaming, when you were talking about Ed.
Virginia Galloway bustled her way through Daniel’s well-wishers, dragging Reverend Galloway behind her and then thrusting him in front of her. “We’ve seen the light,” the reverend said ponderously. “We’re one hundred percent behind the project.”
“Virginia,” Daniel said, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the work you’re doing.”
Then he caught Lilah’s eye. She was watching him in the way she often did, trying to read his emotions. He crossed the room toward her.
“This is the best thing anyone has ever done for me,” he said softly. “Especially the present.”
“You needed a vase really badly,” she said with a mischievous smile. “I’m glad you like it.”
But her face shone with pleasure. She had no idea how much she’d already done for him. Turned his life around, that’s what she’d done. He had a sidekick now, somebody to share things with. She’d offered Daniel the possibility of living a normal life, of finding a woman he loved enough to marry her.
In fact, he thought he’d found her.
“THERE WEREN’T ANY LEFTOVERS,” Jason complained. He and Maury were doing KP duty, and the younger boys had been sent to bed.
“Just a few,” Lilah said. “Aengus got a stingy-looking plate, and for some reason we have half a rhubarb pie, about a cup of sautéed brussels sprouts and a half cup of the celeriac remoulade.”
“Clearly,” Daniel said, “I’m the only one who liked those things. How did you know what I liked?”
“Jesse, Mike—especially Mike—and Ian. You think we didn’t cook enough?” She looked worried.
“No, if we’d had any more food, everybody would still be here,” Jesse declared. “I’m glad there weren’t any leftovers. Made it easier to clean up. Daniel, get away from that pan. We said you couldn’t help and we meant it.”
Lilah noticed how gently Maury removed the pan from Daniel’s hands. Looking resigned, Daniel sat down at the kitchen table.
“Thank the powers that be for paper and plastic,” she said. The kitchen actually looked pretty neat. The dishwasher was already on its second load. The rest of the pans and serving dishes were rinsed and stacked on the counter, taking up the least amount of space possible, ready for the next dishwasher load.
“We’re quitting,” Jesse said. “I’ll get up in the middle of the night and load the dishwasher again.”
“I’ll come over early and do it,” Lilah said.
“You’ll find it done,” Jesse said, staring her down. He gave Jason and Maury a sharp salute. “Dismissed!” They fled, and then Jesse said to Lilah, “You, too, young lady.”
“I’ll walk you home,” Daniel offered.
THE IDEA OF BEING ALONE with Lilah had been simmering in his mind all evening, and now it was at full boil. A minute alone with her was all he needed to show her how he was coming to feel about her, how he felt about her after she’d done this for him, organized the party, which was so…what should he call it? Kind? Affectionate? Caring?
Loving? He had a hard time even thinking the word.
He still knew nothing about her past. He’d made many attempts to draw her out, which had netted him only a too-bright smile and zero information. Maybe she was hiding from the law. Jamison might not even be her real name. She might be a professional crook with a forged driver’s license. She’d renewed hers just after she’d arrived, and he’d have given anything to see the old one, read the address on it.
But he, of all people, knew you had to share your secrets in your own time. He hadn’t shared his deepest ones with her, either. Would he be able to someday?
A cool breeze blew her hair around her shoulders. In the moonlight it shone, honey shot through with gold. Her face was sweet. Yep, the perfect profile of a professional crook.
“I know I acted like a grump tonight,” he told her. “But I think every man secretly wishes something like that party would happen for him.”
“I figured that was the case,” she said. She turned toward him, gazed at him for a heartbeat, then seemed flustered by whatever it was she saw in his face. Without a transition, she shifted her gaze to the sky.
“I haven’t traveled much,” she said cheerfully. “Just enough to know the stars are more beautiful in Vermont than anywhere else.”
Daniel laughed at himself. She sounded like a professional crook, too. She’d given him an opening to ask questions about her travels, but suddenly he didn’t want to. He just wanted to be with her, whoever she was.
What he wanted was to step five feet away from the kitchen door, pull her into the darkness and kiss her senseless. But he cautioned himself to go slowly, slowly, not scare her. So he looked at the stars with her. “There’s the Big Dipper,” he said.
“That one,” she said, “looks like The Scales. I wish I knew them all. There’s a children’s book of the constellations I’ve been meaning to give Jonathan….”
“I know a lot of them,” Daniel said, drawing a little closer to her. “There,” and he pointed to a waterfall of stars, “is the Overturned Apple Cart, discovered in the seventeen-hundreds by a farmer with an orchard.”
Her laughter traveled like a bell through the darkness. “I thought the Greeks and the Romans did the naming.”
“No, no, that’s an unfounded rumor. Truth is, most of the constellations were identified and named by sharp-eyed Vermonters who were standing out in the dark looking up.”
Her eyes sparkled at him. “Okay, so what’s that one?” She pointed to the Little Dipper.
He wanted to see that sparkle of fun in her eyes again. “Measuring Cup,” he said confidently, “named by a wife who was thinking about how she had no business standing out here in the dark when she needed to be starting her bread dough.”
“Fascinating,” she murmured. “And that one?”
And then it just happened. She leaned into him, he put his arm around her. He knew what would happen next, knew it would change everything, and he was ready for the change. “That one,” he said softly, “was named by a young man who’d met a girl at a dance that night and couldn’t get her out of his mind. It’s called The Kiss.”
He leaned down to her and brushed his lips against her satiny cheek, heard her sharp hiss of breath, felt her hesitation, and then, with a deep sigh that might have meant anything, relief, resignation, she turned her face to his.
Her mouth was soft, warm and yielding. When she reached up to cup his cheeks, he closed his arms around her, held her tight, kissed her with all the hunger and need in his soul. She responded to him, her breath coming faster, her hands sliding to the nape of his neck to draw him closer.
He pulled her tighter, feeling the length of her body against his. It inflamed him. Hold back, hold back.
IN THE CIRCLE OF DANIEL’S arms, enraptured by his kiss, she floated in the purest pleasure and ached with the deepest agony. She shouldn’t be kissing him. As long as she hid her rapidly accelerating desire for him, she could continue to hide her past. How could she spill out her feelings for him in a k
iss, then deny him the truth about who she was, what she’d hoped to escape when she fled to the valley?
Her heart, her body, had taken over her mind. She wanted him, felt she’d burst if she couldn’t have him, and everything logical and pragmatic had flown away on the wind.
She’d be sorry someday, but she couldn’t seem to feel sorry now. All she could feel was his mouth on hers, the electricity generated by the flicker of his tongue, the ache of his aroused body against hers. She couldn’t breathe normally, couldn’t think sensibly, couldn’t do anything except throw herself headlong into the moment she’d been waiting for almost from the day he’d charmed her and Jonathan into the warmth and comfort of his home.
A dog barked. Aengus. She felt Daniel shift gears just as she was doing; felt him break free of the magnetism that held them together. She was suddenly aware of lighted windows behind them, of a house full of innocent, trusting boys, including her own.
She slid her lips away from his. “Reality check,” she said shakily.
She could feel his smile against her hair. “A houseful of chaperones.” But he didn’t let go of her.
“It’s even possible that this was Aengus’s watch and Jesse will take over in a minute.”
“Yeah, and Jesse will ream him out for not sensing the danger sooner.” He drew away, then cupped her cheeks and held her gaze with his. “Is there any danger here?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, knowing he had no idea how much danger and still not telling him, unwilling to give up the moment. “And Aengus knows it. Think we could go with his judgment for now?”
For now. If she made love with Daniel, would the dog’s barking—or silence—tell her all she needed to know?
Because it was Daniel’s heart Aengus would be guarding, not hers.
AS HE’D PREDICTED, everything had changed. If Daniel had ever wished for a middle-of-the-night emergency, it was now, and, of course, every animal, large and small, was in great shape that night. Nothing to distract him from his aroused, heated state. He slept restlessly, dreaming of nothing but the feel of Lilah’s body against his. When he made his appearance in the kitchen, he couldn’t just say, “Pancake day!” His gaze met Lilah’s and electricity sparked again, followed by renewed longing, and instead he said, “Hi,” watching her face flush, before she turned back rapidly to the griddle where pancakes were browning.
“Good morning,” she said, sounding short of breath.
“It’s hot standing over the stove,” he observed, moving up beside her. “I’ll flip a few of those.”
His arm brushed hers. He felt a shock wave pass through him, saw her blush deepen.
“Okay, thanks,” she said, but she lingered a moment before she slipped away.
No, it will never be the same.
Jesse stood beside Daniel, turning bacon in the skillet, adding more crisp strips to the pile of them that was rising next to the stove. “You’ve finally come to your senses.” He muttered the words, because the younger boys had just barreled into the kitchen.
“Or lost them,” Daniel muttered back. He was grateful to have an extremely busy day ahead of him.
LILAH DIDN’T KNOW HOW she’d get through breakfast. Her body zinged with nervous energy. All night she’d moved restlessly between her sheets. When she slept, she dreamed of Daniel, of his kiss going on and on until there was only one way to end it, and then she’d wake up flaming with frustrated desire.
Walking to the house, she’d chanted a mantra: I have a job. I have a son. I have a former husband lurking somewhere. I can’t have this man until I’ve tied up the loose ends of my life.
It was a kiss, just a kiss. But one look at Daniel and her mantra had turned into gibberish.
With Daniel flipping pancakes now, breakfast seemed to be under control, so she went to the makeshift office area in the living room, two long, narrow tables Daniel had found, which the boys had dragged down from the attic and placed at right angles. There she’d set up her work for the center. Now she stared down at the many drafts of visuals, at the file on the monitor, at the open DVD drive with the film in position on the disc without seeing any of it. Anything could happen, anytime. She had to have a full presentation worked up for Daniel before her life fell apart again. She could perfect it if the fates gave her time, but she had to give him something. Immediately.
Her mouth twisted. After breakfast. Stoically, she returned to the kitchen, to find breakfast ready and only one spot left at the table—on Daniel’s right.
Chapter Ten
Daniel had never been so relieved to retreat from the breakfast scene to the serenity of his clinic, the comfortable routine of his career. Sitting next to him, Lilah’s body had seemed to throb with heat and her scent had dizzied him. It had been a struggle to be his normal, familiar self.
He couldn’t let the boys see that anything was different between him and Lilah. His life might be changing, but theirs couldn’t. They needed their ordinary routines and the promise of his reliability.
Still, at the high point of his day, his first reaction was to share it with Lilah. At his first break between patients, he burst through the clinic door, pounded toward the living room where he knew he’d find her working and yelled, “Lilah! Great news!”
She leapt from her chair, scattering papers everywhere, closed what she’d been working on with one swift click of the mouse and faced him, her eyes wide and blue.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, kneeling down to retrieve the papers.
“Hey, this is good,” he said, examining a page of the handout.
“Forget the handout. What’s the news?”
She sounded too cool for his comfort. He looked up to find her standing with her feet apart, her hands on her hips.
“I shouldn’t have blown in here like that.”
“You certainly blew my concentration,” she said. “You owe it to me to tell me what’s happened. Right now.”
He was momentarily distracted by thinking how cute she was standing there pursing her lips. The heat rose stealthily inside him as his gaze skimmed over her cocked arms, slim and tanned in her simple white sundress. He picked up more of the scattered papers in an effort to remember why he’d stormed in here in the first place.
“I got a phone call today,” he said. “Someone has volunteered to be the chief financial officer of the center.”
“Volunteered? He’ll do it for free?” Her hands went to her mouth. “Who is this saint?”
Daniel smiled. Her fit of pique had vanished, and she’d embraced his excitement. “He told me he ‘did well,’ that’s the way he put it, in the construction business and had decided to take a few years away from that and use his skills to ‘benefit others,’ his words again.”
“Daniel, that’s wonderful!” She came around her desk, her eyes shining now. She was even more beautiful, more desirable than before. “What’s his name?”
She was so close to him, and he was so distracted, that he stammered, “T-Ted Hilton.” He cleared his throat, which also seemed to clear his head. “I told him I’d call him when we had the board’s approval and knew it was a done deal, then I went to the Web site he’d listed on his card. He’s just what he said he was. The owner and CEO of Hilton Construction Company in Philadelphia.”
“When can he come onboard?”
“Ten days or so, if the ship floats, so to speak.”
“Wow!” She shone a brilliant smile at him. “No wonder you’re so excited.”
Their gazes locked. Her lips parted and her smile changed into one that was more personal, more for him than for his good fortune. Drawn beyond his resistance, he reached out to her. She tilted her head toward him.
“Doctor! Celia Hennessey is here with Otis.” It was Mildred, yelling from the clinic door. He resented her timing.
Lilah drew back, her mouth curved in a wicked smile. “Thanks so much, Dr. Foster, for dropping by.”
He regarded her gloomily. “Take two aspirin and call me.” Then he smiled. “A
ny time, day or night.”
“YES, I SHOULD BE WORKING,” Lilah told Jesse, “but if I don’t get out of the house for a while, I’ll mildew.”
“Okay,” Jesse said, resigned in the face of Lilah’s determination. “Here’s the grocery list.” He handed her two full handwritten pages he’d been about to take to the supermarket.
“We eat a lot.”
“You noticed.”
“So here I go. I’ll be back by lunchtime.”
She set off in her own car for the local supermarket in a lovely, shivery, anticipatory mood. She’d been on The Kingdom Dispatch Web site when Daniel surprised the heck out of her, and once again she’d seen no mention of Bruce, nor had there been an obituary for Mrs. McDougal. She could relax again, and however short these relaxed periods were, she appreciated each one of them.
But it had been the sight of Daniel popping in that had created the shivery, anticipatory mood. If only, if only…
Churchill being a small town, she hadn’t had much time to agonize over the “if onlys” before she’d parked and prepared herself to empty the grocery store. Fortunately, the local supermarket was usually stocked for the frequent Foster onslaughts.
She snagged a cart and set off for the meat counter. Ground beef, tons of it. A stack of juicy chuck roasts that Jesse would turn into pot roast and a hefty stew. Pork country ribs. The boys loved them. Chicken.
She eyed the cart and wondered if she should leave this one by the checkout and start on another one. Daniel’s household seemed to revolve around food.
She was sailing past the lamb, which Ian had banned from Daniel’s menu and heading toward the bacon and sausage when she saw the florist poised over the cooler.
“Lilah!” the woman bubbled. “I’m so glad to see you. I should have called, but you know the flower business.”
“Um, well…”
She shook her finger at Lilah. “What I wanted to tell you was that you forgot to sign the card when you sent those flowers. But don’t worry. I did it for you.”
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