“Us,” Annie repeated, “as in you, and me. She said it hurt her to see how we hated being forced into each other’s arms, on the dance floor.”
“Well, of course we did. Nobody warned us that was going to happen. Did you explain that to her?”
“I did.”
Chase thought back to the moment when Annie had gone into his arms. He thought beyond that, to when he’d suddenly realized how good it had felt to have her there, and he cleared his throat.
“We managed, didn’t we?”
“Sure. I pointed that out to her.”
“And?”
“And, she said it was sad, that—that we’d had to pretend we enjoyed dancing together again.” Annie’s cheeks grew warm. She could clearly recall the instant when being held in Chase’s arms had gone from being an unwanted chore to being—to being... She took a deep breath. “I told her it was nothing for her to worry about.”
“And?”
“And, that was it.”
“What was it? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Annie put her mug on the sill beside her. Then she linked her hands together in her lap.
“That was what triggered it.”
“Triggered what? I still don’t know what—”
“Dawn said she was standing at the airport ticket counter, just standing there, you know, while Nick checked their luggage through and confirmed their seats, and all of a sudden it struck her that what was really so sad about you and me was that once upon a time, we must have loved each other a great deal.”
“She’d have liked it better if we hadn’t?”
Annie swallowed. Her throat felt uncomfortably tight. “She said—she said that she realized, for the first time, that you and I must have felt just the way she and Nick feel. You know, as if we were the only two people on the whole planet who’d ever loved each other so much.”
“Lovers always feel that way,” Chase said gruffly.
“She said that if her mother and father could go from feeling like that to—to feeling the way we do about each other now, then she didn’t want any part of the process that got them—that got us—to this point.”
Chase stared at his ex-wife. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears and her mouth was trembling. Was she remembering, as he was, how it had once been between them? The joy? The passion? After a long minute, he cleared his throat again.
“What’d you say?”
“What could I say?”
“That our mistakes don’t have to be hers, for starters.”
Annie waved her hand in a sad little gesture of dismissal.
“Did you tell her that she was probably tired and jittery, and overdramatizing things?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“I thought so, too.” Annie sighed. “But Dawn said she was just being pragmatic. She said she’d rather end things between her and Nick now, while they still cared for each other, than wait until—until they hated each other.”
“God, Annie. We don’t hate each other. You told her that, didn’t you?”
Annie nodded.
“And?”
“And she said I was kidding myself, that love and hate were two sides of the same coin, that there was no middle ground, once people who’d been in love fell out of love.”
Chase blew out his breath. “My daughter, the philosopher.”
Annie looked up, her eyes filling again. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“Dawn’s heart is breaking. There’s got to be something! We can’t just let her walk away from Nick. She loves him, Chase. And he loves her.”
“I know. I know.” Chase shoved his hand through his hair. “Let me think for a minute.”
“Our daughter’s terrified of marriage, and it’s our fault!”
Chase shot to his feet. “That’s crap.”
“It’s the truth.”
“It isn’t. It’s bad enough we couldn’t make our marriage work but I’ll be damned if I’m going to feel guilty for the failure of Dawn’s marriage. You hear me, Annie?”
“The entire house will hear you,” Annie hissed. “Keep your voice down, before you wake the kids.”
“They’re not ‘kids.’ Didn’t you just tell me that? Our daughter was old enough to decide she was ready to get married even though, according to you, you tried to talk her out of it.”
“According to me?” Annie leaped up, her hands on her hips. “I did try to talk her out of it! But you’d already caved in and given her the ‘follow your heart’ baloney. You told her to do what she wanted!”
“That’s not true.” Chase strode toward Annie, his eyes blazing. “I begged her to think and think again. I said she was too damned young to take such a serious step—and guess what? I was right.”
Annie’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, okay. So we both tried to convince her to wait. So maybe she should have listened to us. But she didn’t.”
“No. She didn’t. She did her own thing. And then she sees us dancing and all of a sudden, she turns into Sigmund Freud and figures out that she’s made a terrible mistake.”
“Chase, please! Keep your voice—”
“She has an epiphany, brought on by seeing us dancing. Why not by a gum wrapper on the floor at the airport, or the electrical energy from an overhead wire?”
“This is not something to joke about, dammit!”
“Maybe it was some guy at a piano, playing a three-handed version of ‘The Man That Got Away.’” Chase lifted his arms to the sky, then dropped them to his sides. “What was wrong with her hearing the day her old man tried to give her some advice?”
“It was advice I’d tried to give her, too,” Annie said coldly. “I keep telling you that.”
“What was the use of my talking,” Chase said, ignoring her, “if she wasn’t listening? She did what she wanted and now she thinks she can lay it off on our divorce?” Chase’s mouth thinned. “I don’t think so.”
“She’s not trying to lay anything off. She’s upset.”
“She’s upset? What about everybody else? Does she think we’re busy yakking it up and having an all-around good time?” Chase’s face darkened. “Do you know what it was like, having Nick turn up at the door to tell me Dawn had run off and he couldn’t find her? Do you have any idea at all of what that kid and I went through?”
“Yelling won’t help, Chase.”
“Neither will playing the patsy.” Chase rammed his fist against the wall. “If only you’d put your foot down sooner.”
“Dammit,” Annie said fiercely, “I did!”
“I don’t know what you did. I wasn’t here for the past five years, remember?”
“And whose fault was that?”
Chase and Annie glared at each other, and then Annie blew out her breath.
“This is pointless. There’s no sense bringing up the past. Dawn needs our help. We can’t let her walk away from Nick and her marriage for the wrong reasons.”
“I agree. Damn, if only she’d made do with simply moving in with Nick. Why’d she have to rush into marriage?”
“A little while ago, you were furious because she had moved in with him!”
“Didn’t you teach her any self-control? If she hadn’t let her hormones get the best of her—”
“How dare you? How dare you talk about self-control? If you’d had any self-control at all, we might still be married!”
“I’m tired of defending myself against that old charge, Annie. Besides, if you hadn’t treated me as if I had leprosy—”
“That’s right. Blame it on me.”
“I don’t see anybody else in this room to blame it on.”
“I hate you, Chase Cooper! I hate you, do you hear? And I regret every time I ever let you touch me!”
“Liar!”
“Liar, am I?”
Chase reached out, caught Annie’s shoulders and yanked her to him. “You were like warm butter, in my
arms, right from the beginning.”
“Only because I was so innocent!” Annie set her teeth and tried to twist free. “I was a baby when we met. Or have you forgotten that?”
“You were the hottest baby I’d ever seen. The first time I kissed you, you were like fireworks going up. All I could think of was having you to myself, for the rest of my life.”
“Except when you found out there was more to life than bed.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, his lips pulling back from his teeth, “yeah, you sure taught me that lesson. ‘Not now, Chase. I’m not in the mood, Chase.”’
“And whose fault was that, do you think?”
“You didn’t see me rolling over and turning my back to you, did you, babe?”
“Don’t ‘babe’ me,” Annie said furiously. “And if I rolled away from you, it was for a dam good reason. I didn’t feel anything anymore. Did you expect me to pretend?”
“Is that what you do when you’re with Hoffman? Do you pretend he turns you on?”
Annie’s hand shot through the air, but Chase caught her wrist before she could connect with his jaw.
“You know damn well you didn’t have to pretend when I made love to you,” he growled, “even at the end. You were just too proud to admit it.”
“Poor Chase. Can’t your ego take the truth?”
“I’ll show you ‘truth’!”
“No,” Annie said, but it was too late, Chase had already pulled her into his arms, and brought his mouth to hers.
His kiss was filled with anger and Annie struggled against it, pounding her fists against his shoulders, trying desperately to tear her mouth from his.
And then, deep within her, something seemed to let go.
Maybe it was the stillness of the night, curling just outside the window. Maybe it was the unyielding tension of the endless day. Suddenly anger gave way to a far more dangerous emotion. Hunger. The hunger that had been between them in the past and that she’d believed dead.
Chase felt it, too.
“Annie,” he whispered, against her mouth. His hands swept into her hair, lifting her face to his. With a sigh of surrender, her arms went around his neck, her lips parted beneath his, and she gave herself up to him and to the kiss.
It was like a dance once learned and never forgotten. Their bodies shifted, moving against each other with an ease that came of passion long-ago shared. Their heads tilted, their lips met, their tongues sought and tasted. Annie clasped her hands behind Chase’s neck; he slid his slowly down her body, cupped her bottom and lifted her into him. She whimpered when she felt the hardness of him against her; he groaned when he felt her tilt her hips to his.
For long moments, they were lost to everything but each other. Then, breathing hard, they stepped apart.
Annie’s skin felt hot when Chase cupped her face in his hands and brushed a light kiss on her lips. He wanted to lift her into his arms and carry her into the darkness.
“Annie?” he whispered, and she smiled and clasped his wrists with her hands.
“Yes.” She sighed...
Suddenly the kitchen blazed with light.
“Mom? Dad? What on earth are you doing?”
Annie and Chase spun around. Dawn and Nick stood in the doorway, openmouthed with shock.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS, Annie thought, the question of the decade.
What were they doing, she and her former husband?
Her cheeks, already scarlet, grew even hotter.
Making out as if they were a pair of oversexed kids, that was what. She and Chase had been wrapped around each other as if it were years and years ago, when he’d just brought her home from a date. In those days, not even an hour spent parked on that little knoll half an hour’s drive north of the city, steaming up the windows of Chase’s old Chevy, had been enough to keep them from wanting just one more kiss, one more caress.
“Mother?”
Dawn was still staring at them both. She looked as if finding her parents kissing was only slightly less shocking than it would be if she’d found the kitchen populated with little green men saying, “Take me to your leader.”
And, Annie thought grimly, it was all Chase’s fault
He’d taken advantage of her distress, capitalized on her already-confused emotions. And for what possible reason?
To shut her up.
It was the same old ploy he’d used during the years that their marriage had been falling apart. She’d try to talk about what was wrong and Chase, who was perfectly happy with their marriage as it was, would say there was nothing to discuss. And if she persisted, he’d shut her up by taking her in his arms and starting to make love.
It had worked, but only for a very little while, when she’d still been foolish enough to think those kisses meant he loved her. Eventually she’d figured out that they meant nothing of the sort. Chase was just silencing her, in the most direct way possible, using what had always worked best between them.
Sex. Raw, basic, you-Jane, me-Tarzan sex.
But sex, no matter how electric, just wasn’t enough when the rest of the relationship had gone wrong. It had taken her a while to realize that, but realize it she had.
He was playing the same ugly game tonight. And she’d made it easy. Responding to him, when she knew better. Kissing him back, when she didn’t feel anything for him. Whatever had seemed to happen, in his arms just now, was a lie. She didn’t feel anything for Chase, except anger.
“Mother? Are you all right?”
Annie took a deep, deep breath.
“Fine,” she said, and cleared her throat. “I’m perfectly fine, Dawn.”
A puzzled smile broke across Dawn’s mouth. She looked from Annie to Chase.
“What were you guys doing?”
Annie waited for Chase to respond, but he remained silent. That’s right, she thought furiously. Let me be the one to figure out something to say. He knew, the rat, that she wouldn’t tell Dawn the truth, wouldn’t say, “Well, Dawn, your no-account old man was on the losing end of an argument so he did what he always used to do whenever that happened...”
“Well,” Annie said, “well, your father and I were, ah, we were talking about you. And Nick. And—and—”
“And your mother began to cry, so I put my arms around her to comfort her.”
Annie swung toward Chase. He was standing straight and tall, the portrait of honor, decency and paternalism in his chinos, open-collared shirt and long-sleeved, forest-green cashmere sweater. His hair was a little ruffled and he had end-of-day stubble on his jaw, but on him—she hated to admit—it looked good.
She, on the other hand, was a mess. Old jeans. Old sweatshirt. Hair that had been allowed to dry without benefit of a dryer or a brush, and a face that was painfully free of even the most basic makeup.
“Your poor mother is very upset.” Chase said, putting his arm around Annie’s shoulders and giving her his best “chin-up” smile. “She needed a shoulder to cry on. Isn’t that right. Annie?”
“Right,” Annie said, through a smile that was all clenched teeth. What else could she do? Blurt out that Chase was lying? That the two of them had been standing in the dark, locked in a kiss that had left her knees buckling, because he was a manipulative bastard and she was too long without a man? That was the truth, wasn’t it? The real truth. She’d never have responded to him if she hadn’t been living like a nun.
“Really?” Dawn looked at them both again, and then the faint smile that had been lifting her lips trembled and fell. “I understand. It was foolish of me to think... I mean, when I saw you guys kissing, I thought... I almost thought... Oh, never mind.”
“Kissing?” Annie said, with a slightly wild laugh. She stepped carefully out of Chase’s encircling arm, went to the stove and began making what had to be the hundredth pot of tea she’d made this evening. “Kissing, your father and me?”
“Uh-huh.” Dawn slouched to the table, pulled out a chair and dropped into it. She propped her elbows o
n the table and rested her chin in her cupped hands. “Kissing. Just goes to show how utterly dumb I can be.”
“No,” Nick said quickly. Everyone looked at him. It was the first word to come out of his mouth since he and Dawn had switched on the light. His fuzz-free cheeks pinkened under the scrutiny of his bride and her parents. “You aren’t.”
“I am. Getting married when anybody with half a brain could see it was a mistake, because marriage doesn’t last. We all know that.”
“We don’t know any such thing,” Nick said, hurrying to her. He squatted beside her chair and reached for her hands, taking them gently in his.
“Just look around you, Nicky. Your guardian, your uncle Damian? Divorced. My parents? Divorced. Even Reverend Craighill—”
“The guy who performed the ceremony?” Chase said.
Dawn nodded.
“How do you know that?”
“I asked him. The poor man’s been divorced twice. Twice, can you imagine?”
Chase shot a look at Annie. “No,” he said tightly, “I certainly can’t.”
“Don’t look at me that way,” Annie snapped. The teakettle let out a piercing whistle and she snatched it from the stove. “What has the man’s marital history to do with anything?”
“A minister who can’t keep his wedding ring on ought to consider going into some other kind of work,” Chase growled.
“No,” Dawn said, “he’s in the right kind of work, Daddy. He’s a reminder of reality.” She sighed again. “I just wish I’d been smart enough to realize all this before today instead of being so darned dumb.”
“Sweetheart, stop saying that.” Nick clasped her shoulders. “You were smart to fall in love with me, smarter still to marry me.” He shot an accusatory look at Chase and Annie. “As for thinking you saw your folks kissing when we turned on the light—you were right.”
Dawn’s head came up. “I was?”
“Absolutely. I saw them, too.”
“No,” Annie said.
“We weren’t,” Chase added.
“Not at all,” Annie argued, waving her hand in her ex’s direction. “Dawn, your father already explained what happened. I was upset. He was trying to comfort me.”
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