Long Time Coming

by Rochelle Alers

  * * *

  Micah waited patiently, a large wicker basket filled with ears of bread-and-butter corn, carrots, snow peas, lemons, limes, Vidalia onions and Granny Smith apples on the floor next to his feet, watching Tessa as she examined every fruit and vegetable in every basket and bin. He wanted to warn her that if they lingered too long, the bridge along the road leading to his house would freeze, making driving hazardous. But the enraptured expression on her face when she’d discovered lesser-known varieties of squash and melons forced him to remain silent.

  Tessa picked up a small, round, seedless watermelon. Turning, she smiled at Micah. “Do you like watermelon?”

  “I like and eat everything,” he said in a patronizing tone.

  Tessa’s gaze narrowed when she noticed he’d crossed his arms over his chest and his expression was undeniably boredom.

  “I’m almost finished here. Give me a few more minutes to get some herbs, then we can go.”

  Micah bowed from the waist. “Thank you, madam.”

  She’d affected an attractive moue. “You’re welcome, sir.”

  * * *

  The sky had turned a slate gray and the sleet changed over into snow, quickly blanketing the road, trees and dry surfaces. Micah downshifted and flipped a switch to increase the wiper speed as he maneuvered over the steel bridge that always froze before the roadway. The first time he’d driven over the bridge in an ice storm he’d spun out, his car stopping within inches of a steel girder. Only his tactical-driving training and quick reaction time had saved him from injury and/or totaling out his car.

  “We’re almost there,” he said to Tessa. She’d gasped audibly when the tires began slipping on the bridge’s icy roadway.

  “What made you decide to buy property up here?”

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he attempted to keep the car steady. “I bought it from a friend who was going through a divorce. Neither he nor his wife wanted it because they said it held too many memories. Unfortunately I bought it sight unseen, and when I came up here the first time the only thing I thought about was dousing it with gasoline and lighting a match. But when I hired an architect to look at it, he said it had a lot of potential.”

  Tessa stared at Micah’s profile, admiring his strong, masculine features. “Did it?”

  He smiled without taking his gaze off the roadway. “You’ll see.”

  A quarter of an hour later Tessa saw for herself the potential the architect had espoused when Micah touched a panel on the wall near the front door and lights from table lamps, high hats and hanging fixtures flooded the first floor with a warm golden glow. Leaving her boots on a thick straw mat, she walked into the dark gray-and-white-trimmed house that originally had been constructed as a barn, while Micah unloaded their purchases from the car’s trunk.

  She was astounded by an enormous stone fireplace that rose to the height of the second-story loft and that the entire first floor was constructed without walls. The living/dining/family rooms blended into an enormous kitchen with top-of-the-line stainless-steel appliances. A bathroom, a pantry, a laundry and a mudroom with a snowblower, rakes and a lawn mower were tucked away in an alcove at the back of the expansive structure. All of the furniture was covered with dustcovers, but the pale oak floors gleamed as if someone had recently dusted them. She opened the side-by-side refrigerator/freezer. It was running, clean and fresh-smelling.

  Micah walked into the kitchen area carrying several bags. Tessa took one from him and set it on the countertop. “I still have to get a few more.” They’d stopped at a supermarket to buy what she needed for the pie, dairy products and meat and poultry from the butcher section.

  She smiled at him. “I’m going to wash the fruit before I put them in the fridge.”

  He headed toward the rear of the house. “Don’t take your coat off until I push up the thermostat.” The indoor temperature registered a chilly forty-eight degrees.

  Tessa followed him. “I’m okay.” She took off her coat and hung it on a wall hook in the mudroom while Micah opened a door to where the heating/cooling system was installed.

  “Who cleaned the house?” she asked.

  “I’ve contracted with a landscaping company to do the grounds, and a cleaning service comes once a month to dust and check for creatures.”

  Tessa halted placing lemons, limes and the apples in one of two stainless-steel sinks. “What kind of creatures are you talking about?”

  Micah stuck his head out of the boiler room and winked at her. “Little furry things.”

  She cut her eyes at him. “I’m not staying here if I have to share the space with anything that’s furry, crawls or slithers.”

  “Don’t worry, Tessa. I’ll protect you from all creatures—big and small.”

  But who’s going to protect me from you? she thought. Micah Sanborn was too masculine and much too virile to ignore for long periods of time. She’d only seen him three times, and recalling his image played havoc with her sleep pattern. They’d shared a bed without making love and he’d only kissed her cheek, yet she still found herself thinking about him at the most inopportune times, and on one occasion craving him.

  She’d complained to him about men wanting to get into her panties when that was exactly what she wanted Micah to do. She wanted him in her panties, in her bed and inside her.

  Her lascivious thoughts left her shaking like a sapling in a storm. It was storming outside and inside the house, the latter leaving Tessa weak in the knees. She wanted to dismiss Micah from her head like one erasing a chalkboard or hitting the delete button on a keyboard, but it wasn’t that easy when he stood only feet from her. How, she thought, was she going to get through the weekend without communicating to the man that she wanted him, all of him?

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, the sounds coming from the heating vents competed with the crackle and popping of burning wood in the gluttonous fireplace. Micah retreated to the bathroom to wash his hands, but when he returned to the kitchen he came to a complete stop when he saw Tessa placing large, bright green apples into a glass bowl. She was the first woman, other than family members, he’d invited to his vacation retreat, and seeing the domestic scene evoked an unexpected longing.

  There were times when he’d asked himself whether he wanted to duplicate his brothers’ lives. Did he want to marry and father children? And the answer was always a resounding no. But now he wasn’t that certain. Was it because he was no longer a police officer, required and authorized to carry a firearm? Or was it because at forty-one he realized that half his life was behind him? Or was it because he’d never met the woman who, just being who she was, made him reassess whether he could continue to live out the rest of his life as a bachelor.

  What surprised him most of all was that he didn’t know Tessa Whitfield, hadn’t made love with her, yet there was something about her that drew him to her like moths to a flame, bees to flowers and sunflowers facing the sun.

  Slowly he came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist while easing her back against his chest. “Come upstairs with me. I’m going to give you something to change into so you won’t soil your sweater.”

  Smiling at Micah over her shoulder, Tessa wrinkled her nose. “Is she my size?”

  Micah caught her meaning immediately. “I don’t think I was your size when I was ten,” he said with a wide grin. Tessa sobered as heat flooded her cheeks. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” he teased.

  She lowered her gaze in a demure gesture. “Okay, Micah, you got me this time.”

  Turning her around in his embrace, he smiled down at her. “If it counts for anything, you’re the first woman I’ve invited here.”

  “What about your mother and sister?”

  “They don’t count,” he said in a dangerously soft voice.

  “And why don’t they count?”

  Slowly lowering his head, his warm breath sweeping over her mouth, he whispered, “Because I can’t do this to t
hem.” Micah did what he’d wanted to do earlier. He kissed Tessa with all of the passion he could summon for a woman. He placed soft, feathery kisses at the corners of her mouth, increasing the pressure at the same time his hands came up and cradled her face. The pads of his thumbs traced the curve of her cheekbones, delicate jaw and chin. His fingers committed the shape and hollows of her face to memory. Even in the dark, with his eyes closed, he’d be able to identify Tessa Whitfield in a room with hundreds of other women.

  Her lips parted, and he sampled and tasted the sugary, frothy confection of her mouth. Her mouth was sweet. She smelled sweet and the softness of her body molded to his was luscious. He wanted to put Tessa inside him as much as he wanted to be in her. Within seconds the dictates of his brain were communicated to his body and he was helpless to control the hardening flesh between his legs. Slowly he lifted his head, studying Tessa’s expression for a reaction to his rising desire. He didn’t know what to expect, but he was prepared for whatever would follow. Either she would accept or reject his overture.

  Tessa stared wordlessly, her thoroughly kissed lips parting as she struggled to bring her dizzying emotions into some semblance of order. A slow smile slipped through her expression of uncertainty. She hadn’t expected Micah to kiss her—and she hadn’t expected herself to react to the drugging effects of his mouth, his masculine scent and his warmth.

  “You’ve just proven your case, Counselor.”

  Throwing back his head, Micah laughed loudly in relief. He’d thought he was moving too quickly and that he wouldn’t be given a second chance to prove to Tessa that she could trust him. After all, they were alone at his house in the Adirondack Mountains and more than quarter of a mile from his nearest neighbor. The falling snow, like the unexpected blackout, had changed their plans. And if they weren’t able to leave until after the snow stopped, then he wanted to replicate their first night together.

  Reaching for her hand, he gave her fingers a soft squeeze. A gentle smile ruffled his mouth. “Come upstairs and I’ll show you where you can change.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Wearing Micah’s T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that she’d rolled over twice at the waist and hem, Tessa slipped easily into domesticity mode as she peeled, cored and sliced apples for a ready-made crust. She would’ve preferred rolling out her own crust, but when Micah revealed he didn’t have a rolling pin she opted for the frozen variety. He’d also changed out of his cords and sweater and into a pair of sweatpants and a white T-shirt. A pair of tattered leather moccasins had replaced his boots, while she’d elected to walk around in her socks.

  The voice of the newscaster coming from the small television under a kitchen cabinet predicted at least three inches of snow would blanket the region before tapering off to flurries throughout the night and into the morning hours.

  Micah returned from stoking the fire in the fireplace in time to hear the weather report. “Three inches isn’t much of an accumulation, but what do you say we sleep over? In separate bedrooms, of course,” he added quickly when Tessa shot him a look. He’d said separate bedrooms when actually he wanted to share a bed with her again.

  Tessa saw the smoldering invitation in the dark eyes staring at her in a waiting silence. Did he feel what she was feeling or beginning to feel? Was Micah aware of the invisible thread pulling them together against her will?

  “I hadn’t planned on spending the night with you, but I suppose it could be fun.”

  Micah exhaled an audible breath. “What do you usually do on a sleepover?”

  She went back to selecting spices for the pie filling, adding them to the bowl of sliced apples. “Talk about men.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “You talk about men with a man?”

  “No. I’ve only had sleepovers with my sister and my cousin, and invariably the topic of men is always at the top of our agenda.”

  He exhaled again, this time inaudibly. It was apparent Tessa didn’t make it a practice to sleep with men. After all, she’d admitted to having one serious relationship.

  “Well, I assure you that I don’t want to talk about men with you,” he said.

  “Tell me about Micah Sanborn.”

  He went completely still. “What do you want to know about me?”

  “Why were you adopted?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “We’re stuck with each other until tomorrow morning, so don’t forget that you have a captive audience,” she reminded him.

  Leaning over the countertop, his elbows resting on the granite surface, Micah closed his eyes for several seconds to compose his thoughts. “I never knew the man who fathered me and I was abandoned by my biological mother in a hospital clinic in Newark, New Jersey. I’d sat there for hours before a nurse noticed I was alone and called the police. When they questioned me I gave them my name and address, but when they sent someone to check out the address there was no sign of my mother. I’d just turned four, so a social worker placed me in a group home while the police tried to locate my missing parent.”

  “Didn’t you have any relatives who could take care of you?”

  He shook his head. “No. My mother never spoke of her parents, sisters or brothers, and I remember her telling me once that it was just the two of us. The little I do recall about her is that she liked sitting in the dark. Whenever I asked her if she wanted me to turn on the light she’d say, ‘No, baby, I like the dark.’ Once when I tried turning on the light I discovered it wouldn’t come on. I figured she’d done something to the switch, but when I think back I believe it was because she hadn’t paid the bill and the utility company had turned off the electricity.”

  “The police never found her?”

  Micah’s expression hardened, becoming a mask of stone. “No. I went from a group home to various foster homes for three years until I was adopted by Edgar and Rosalind Sanborn. Rosalind, who at that time had become New Jersey’s youngest family court judge, couldn’t have any children, so she decided to adopt.”

  “Did your parents decide in advance that they wanted to adopt a child of color?”

  “Not at first. The waiting list for white babies sometime took years, and Rosalind Sanborn may be many things, but patience is not one of her virtues. I’d been assigned to a social worker charged with failing to remove a battered child from a family who’d been investigated for physically and sexually abusing several other children.

  “Rosalind did something that was unprecedented at the time—she ordered an investigation and interviewed every child on the social worker’s caseload. She asked me if I’d ever been hit or denied food and I told her no. Then she asked me if I were granted one wish, what would it be? I just stared at her for a long time, thinking about a bicycle I saw in a toy store window, but changed my mind when I said I wanted a real family.

  “She smiled and told me that she would make certain my one wish would be granted. Three days before I celebrated my seventh birthday my adoption was legalized and I became Micah Edgar Sanborn, son of Edgar and Rosalind Sanborn.”

  Tessa’s eyes shimmered with excitement. “Had you known Rosalind wanted to adopt you?”

  “Not at first. She’d come over to see my foster parents and we’d spend Sundays going to church, then either to the zoo or an amusement park. Even though we looked nothing alike, something told me she would become my mother. I was ten when I became an older brother. William was born with a deformed left foot, and when his unmarried teenage mother was discharged from the hospital she left him behind. Although most childless couples want infants, they weren’t willing to accept those with special needs. Rosalind and Edgar became the exception.”

  “Your brother’s foot appeared normal to me,” Tessa said as she squeezed fresh lemon into the bowl. The aroma of the lemon mingling with the scent of cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar filled the kitchen.

  “That’s because Mom and Dad took him to every pediatric orthopedic specialist in the country until they found one willing to perform a series of op
erations that would enable him to walk without a pronounced limp. Will went to physical rehab several times a week and wore a special shoe on his left foot until he was about fifteen. Most girls didn’t know about his foot because he’d practiced walking in a way that gave him a slight swagger, so they referred to him as the brother with the sexy walk.”

  Picking up a large wooden spoon, Tessa stirred the pie filling as Micah talked about Abram and Bridget’s adoptions. Again, as with Micah and William, Abram and Bridget, who were born to drug-addicted mothers, were older children, left to languish in the foster care system until the Sanborns adopted them. With four children, two of them teenage boys, Rosalind finally decided to give up her career to become a stay-at-home mother.

  Reaching into the bowl, Micah pilfered an apple slice and popped it into his mouth before Tessa could react. “That’s really good,” he mumbled, chewing the slightly tart sweetened fruit.

  She slapped at his hand. “Why don’t you wait for me to fill the pie shell, and if there’s any left over you can eat them.”

  He reached for another piece. “I can’t wait. I’m hungry.”

  “How can you be hungry? You just ate breakfast.”

  He kissed her cheek. “I’m still a growing boy.”

  Tessa rolled her eyes at him. “I’m sure you’re over forty—and I don’t believe you’re still growing.”

  Micah sobered, frowning under lowered brows. “Why do you have to say it like that?”

  “What are you talking about?” she countered.

  “You said my age like it was an expletive. And for your information, I’m only forty-one.”

  Tessa patted his shoulder. “Don’t get bent out of shape, because I’m only ten years behind you.”

  Tugging gently on her ponytail, he eased her head back. “It looks as if I’m going to have to teach you to respect your elders,” he said teasingly.

  She gave him a sassy smile before blowing an air kiss. “Promises, promises,” she chanted.

  “Remember, I don’t make promises,” Micah said, reminding her of what he’d told her earlier that morning in her kitchen.