by Leanne Banks
“Yes, I know her,” he admitted. “Her name is Sherry Conniff.”
Recognition dawned in Kaitlyn’s eyes. “She’s the girl who was in the accident with you.”
He glanced around to make sure no one was listening.
“Yes,” he said simply.
Kaitlyn didn’t ask any more questions. He didn’t supply any more information. More coffee came and went. Jase and Sara picked up the conversation. Soon he couldn’t abide sitting there any longer. He stood.
“So when’s your date?” Sara asked before he could leave.
“It’s tomorrow night.”
As if she were assuring him she kept her obligations, too, Kaitlyn said, “I can keep Erica at your place. What time do you need me there?”
He wanted to say, I’ll get any other babysitter but you. You don’t understand this at all though you think you do. Kaitlyn, stop being so afraid and make love with me again. But he didn’t say any of those things. He said, “If you can be there at six-thirty, that will be great.”
After Kaitlyn nodded, he said his goodbyes, then left, feeling as if he had tumbled down a rabbit hole and couldn’t find his way out.
* * *
Kaitlyn brought plenty of work along to keep her occupied while Adam was on his date. Good thing, too, because Erica had gone to sleep after her dinner feeding and Kaitlyn didn’t want to think about what had happened between her and Adam here.
Now, however, she pushed those thoughts—along with her laptop—aside and rubbed her eyes and closed her computer.
Adam had said all the right things before he’d left on his date—call him if she needed him, call him if Erica wouldn’t settle down. She had his cell phone number, of course, but he’d also given her the name and number of the restaurant where he expected to be. It was upper-level expensive, just the kind of place a bachelor auction date would require.
So why did she get the feeling this was more than a date? Why was she almost queasy with the thought of him gazing into Sherry Conniff’s eyes across a table for two? Just what did she want from Adam?
That was the question she most certainly didn’t know the answer to. She just knew she shouldn’t be so attracted. She shouldn’t want to melt into his arms. She shouldn’t want him to make love to her all over again.
When she heard the key in the lock shortly after ten o’clock, she was surprised. That was a short evening. Maybe he was bringing Sherry Conniff back here. Wouldn’t that be awkward?
She tried to prepare herself for any eventuality as the door opened and Adam came in. At first she could read nothing from his expression.
After a quick glance around, seeing the portable crib wasn’t anywhere in sight, he remarked, “I guess Erica’s sleeping in the bedroom.”
“I stayed in there awhile with her after she first fell asleep. I didn’t want to pull her in here and change her usual routine.”
“When she falls asleep, she usually doesn’t care where she is. It’s getting her to sleep that’s the trick. What time did she go down?”
“About an hour ago. She had a fussy spell but we played and walked through it.”
“I’m going to check on her,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
Kaitlyn slipped her laptop into its leather case and zippered it.
By then Adam was back. He’d discarded his suit jacket and tugged down his tie. A few curling hairs peeked out from his open shirt collar. He was as sexy tonight as he’d been at the bachelor auction. He was sexy any night. In spite of her desire to lock the memories away, she could remember touching him so well. She could remember tasting him even better.
Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, remembering he’d been out with another woman, she asked, “How was your date?”
His answer was slow in coming, but told her nothing at all. “We had a great dinner.”
“So this date was just about a great dinner?”
“You’re going on a fishing expedition, Kaitlyn, and you’re using an awfully long line. Do you want to shorten it a bit?”
She couldn’t tell if he was annoyed, angry or impatient. “I was just wondering how long it had been since you’d seen Sherry.”
Her heart beat three times until he said, “It’s been eleven years.”
Now that she hadn’t expected. “So her bid at the bachelor auction was a complete surprise?”
“Yes, it was. Almost as much a surprise as your not bidding at all.”
Whoa. What did she hear in his voice? Disappointment? “Adam, I didn’t know how to react after what happened. I was confused and upset.”
He pounced on that last word. “Upset?”
“I’m a doctor, for goodness’ sake. I know I need to use protection.”
“Unless you were so involved in passion and desire, protection was the last thought on your mind for the first time in your life.”
Was that what had happened to him, too?
They seemed to be breathing in unison. They seemed to be gravitating toward each other when Adam’s cell phone beeped. As he shot it a dark look, Kaitlyn suspected he was thinking about letting the call go to voice mail. But when he lifted it from his belt to check the screen, she saw hope flare in his eyes.
“It’s Tina,” he muttered. He answered the call with “Tina?”
Kaitlyn thought he might go to the bedroom for privacy, but he stayed right there. “Don’t hang up,” he ordered her.
This was big brother Adam taking charge and Kaitlyn wondered if that would work. She hoped it would.
He listened for what seemed like a long while, even though it was probably only a couple of minutes. Kaitlyn found she was almost as worried about his sister as he was.
Kaitlyn’s heart cracked a bit when he said, “Please don’t cry. Tina, everything’s going to be all right.” There was a pause and then in a firm voice he said, “I won’t give up on you, and I won’t let anything happen to Erica, either.”
His sister must have been either crying or telling him something he didn’t want to hear, because he was shaking his head. Suddenly he took the phone from his ear and stared at it. Then he swore. “She hung up.”
“But she called and talked to you this time. That means something, doesn’t it?”
As he studied Kaitlyn, some of the tension went out of his shoulders. “Yes, it does. It means my progress reports are making a difference. It means she’s thinking about Erica every day. It means maybe she’ll come home.”
Kaitlyn studied him then, fully aware of how much he was hurting, of how much he was worried. “So what exactly did she say?”
“She said she needs more time. She’s not sure she can be a single mom. I tried to reassure her. I can tell she just feels...alone. That’s my fault.”
If she told him it wasn’t, he wouldn’t believe her. She took a step even closer, but then she abruptly stopped. She smelled perfume on his shirt as if—
“Kaitlyn, what’s wrong?”
She stepped away from him. “Nothing.”
“Don’t tell me nothing when something obviously is.”
“I can smell a woman’s perfume on you.”
He sighed. “You smell Sherry’s perfume, and because you do, you’re drawing conclusions. I assure you, they’re the wrong ones.”
“Maybe you should enlighten me.”
“Oh, I’d like to, Kaitlyn, I really would. Even more than enlighten you, I’d like to make love to you again. But now you have some cockeyed idea that I reignited old sparks with Sherry and you’re using that as another excuse to back off.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” she shot back.
“Am I close?” he asked with a faint undertone of anger, as if he’d had a very frustrating night and this was just the close of it.
�
�Yes, you’re close. I’m not going to try to hug you or get close to you when you’ve been with another woman an hour before.”
“Been with another woman,” he repeated gruffly. “I was with Sherry, who has felt guilty for eleven years for pursuing her own dreams at my expense. She had decided that I hate her. When I told her I forgive her, she got all teary-eyed and gave me a long hug. That’s the short story and the long one.”
With a studied look and precise determination, Kaitlyn returned, “I don’t think it’s long enough. Tell me what happened that night. Tell me why you were blamed, but she feels guilty. Don’t act as if it isn’t that important,” she warned.
“Oh, I know how important it is.” Then he fell silent, and his expression warned her not to ask more questions.
Kaitlyn was never impulsive. She was never a risk taker. Yet tonight, she was both of those things.
Maybe it was too many pent-up emotions that led her to say, “I might think what happened between us was a mistake. But that doesn’t keep me from wanting to know you. Tell me what happened that night. Tell me why she bid twenty-five hundred dollars on you. Tell me why she feels guilty, rather than you feeling guilty.”
“Why does it matter?”
“It matters because I want to know the man behind the story, the man behind Tina, the man behind the childhood that sucked.”
“All right,” he said warily. “All right.” He sank down on the sofa and she sat beside him.
“It’s a simple story,” he said, studying the carpet. “I’m sure I’m not the first one in this position, nor will be the last.”
“I want to hear it,” she said gently, wanting to touch him yet knowing this wasn’t the time.
“We went to a party on holiday break. Sherry had picked me up, because she’d gotten a new car. She was from Sacramento, a stone’s throw away. I loved that girl as much as a guy could love a girl at that age. Jade and Dad divorced. Tina was lost, calling me for advice and reassurance. Sherry gave me an escape. Only I wanted to escape to Sherry. What twenty-one-year-old with roiling hormones wouldn’t? She was smart, beautiful and sexy.”
He stared off into space as if remembering that time of his life with perfect recall. “She intended to become a lawyer. Although I almost had a B.S. under my belt, I had no idea what I intended to become. I had no burning goal. She did. She was determined to fly through law school, become a partner and build a reputation. She’d talked about it since I’d met her. I admired her. I would have done anything for her.”
“What did you do for her?” Kaitlyn asked, prompting him to confide in her.
“I lied for her,” he said, simply. “We went to that party. I had a couple of beers, but she was doing shots. I told her to slow down, but she didn’t. She got behind the wheel before I could stop her and I hopped in with her hoping...hoping that I could control something. My sin that night was letting her drive. I kept my seat belt off so I could grab the wheel if I needed to, I guess. I don’t even know anymore. The accident happened so fast, in less than a blink of an eye. She took a curve too fast and the car overturned. It was a convertible and we were both thrown from it. I was lucky not to get hurt. She wasn’t.”
Kaitlyn moved closer to him then. Did she think combining their body heat would give him some comfort all these years later? She wanted more than closeness, and that wanting urged her to clasp his arm. “What happened to Sherry?”
“She had a concussion and had to have immediate surgery. The surgeon removed her spleen. She had a broken leg, too, and it was all my fault because I didn’t take her keys.”
“It was her fault because she drove.”
“I can see that now. I couldn’t then. So when the police and paramedics showed up, I said I’d been driving.”
“Oh, Adam.”
“I liked her, Kaitlyn. I would have done anything for her. She wanted to go to law school. Law school. She couldn’t have a DUI on her record. So I said I was driving and there you have it.”
“But that’s not the end of the story, is it?”
He looked directly at her now. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. You loved her. You hoped she’d come forward and tell the truth. But she never did, did she?”
“I don’t think she even thought about it. After the accident, her parents wouldn’t let her see me. I tried calling her, but she wouldn’t take my calls. She didn’t set the record straight. I told myself that was okay. She had goals...I didn’t. But deep down, it wasn’t okay, and I felt more betrayed than I’d ever felt before. If what Jade and my dad shared or what Sherry and I had shared was love, I wanted no part of that, either.”
“And in all these years she never got in touch with you?”
“Nope. Not until she bid on me last night. She told me she felt we needed to settle things. So we made the date for tonight.”
“So did you?”
He shook his head. “It was too late to settle anything. Sherry kept apologizing. She said after the accident and me being charged with reckless driving, she felt too ashamed and guilty to get in touch with me. Her family acted as if it were my father’s duty to pay for her medical bills, and he did. But what they didn’t know was that I worked my tail off to pay a good share of them. What had happened was my responsibility, not his.”
“And for all these years, you couldn’t set the record straight because it would affect her.”
“Exactly.”
“Adam, I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry you felt so betrayed.”
He obviously could hear the sincerity in her voice and that must have prodded him to say again, “You smell her perfume on me because of a hug.”
Had her jealousy been so obvious? “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions.”
“Maybe I’ve been purposely giving you the wrong impression all along,” Adam admitted.
Her throat went dry because the conversation seemed to be a vital one. She managed to ask, “Why?”
“Because getting involved isn’t practical.”
“And we should be practical,” she agreed halfheartedly, seeing the desire in his eyes, feeling it in her whole body.
“Yes, we should,” he said, but his actions didn’t match his words. He leaned down and kissed her.
Adam’s kisses could seduce her in a second. This one was slow and coaxing until anticipation filled her world. Without half trying, his kiss convinced her there was no place else she’d rather be, and no one else she’d rather be with.
In the space of a breath, they needed their bodies as close as they could be. What he’d confided to her was deeply personal and deeply wrenching. It told her better than anything else could why he was restless, why he didn’t stay in one place, why roots and love and a family seemed foreign to him. He didn’t want them because love and bonds and connections brought pain. She’d felt the pain from love and bonds, too. The difference was that she still wanted them.
Adam broke away. But he didn’t let go. Rather he leaned his forehead against hers.
“Any more of that and we’ll soon be naked. Is that what you want?”
Shakily she managed to say, “That wouldn’t be very practical, would it?”
“No, it wouldn’t be practical at all. I can give you desire. I can give you pleasure. I can give us a few short weeks.”
Desire, pleasure and a few short weeks. Would she risk her heart for those? Would she risk her heart for the opportunity to make love with Adam again? That wasn’t a decision she was prepared to make tonight. That wasn’t a decision she was prepared to make in the afterglow of one of his kisses.
“I like you, Adam,” she said breathlessly, as if she were declaring her first crush.
He smiled. “I like you, too. Maybe liking each other has to be enough for now.”
He didn’t look too
happy about that, but she could see his better sense agreed.
“Will you be at Thrifty Solutions tomorrow?” he asked her. “I know a group of volunteers are gathering to unpack boxes and label things. I told Sara I’d help unload the truck. She assured me she’d watch Erica while I do.”
“Yes, I’m planning on helping. I’m glad you volunteered. Sara was afraid it would be too much for Jase to handle on his own.”
“She’d better not let Jase hear that.”
Kaitlyn laughed. “Male egos have to be protected at all cost.”
She remembered Tom and the things he’d said to her at the end, and realized maybe she hadn’t protected his. Maybe that’s the real reason why their marriage had broken apart.
“What’s wrong?” Adam asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she said, almost believing it. “I’m going to go.”
He didn’t say she shouldn’t. He didn’t pull her into his arms again to keep her there.
So she picked up her laptop case and headed to the door. And this time when she left, she wondered if she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life.
Chapter Eight
While unpacking clothes on Sunday afternoon, deciding what rack they would go on, labeling and pricing them, Kaitlyn spotted Adam walk through the door from her vantage point in Thrifty Solutions’ storeroom. He was carrying his niece in her sling.
As if by magnetic pull, Adam’s gaze sought hers across the salesroom. Crossing to the storeroom, he smiled. She got caught up in that smile.
“Have you been here long?” he asked, patting Erica’s back, but keeping his focus on Kaitlyn.
“About an hour.” She shouldn’t feel breathless. She shouldn’t feel as if she wanted to lean forward to kiss him. The intense desire in his eyes told her he might be thinking about kissing her, too.
“Our getting-ready-to-leave routine took longer than I expected.” He dropped Erica’s diaper bag and clasped Kaitlyn’s arm as if he wanted some physical contact. The touch of his fingers on her skin reminded her of everything they’d done together. He leaned close to her and, in a low voice, said, “I want to ask you something. But right now, I’m going to turn Erica over to Sara and help unload that truck.”