The Gift of Love

by Lori Foster

  Lindsay sat up straighter and morphed right into a fake therapist role. “You need to stop mourning a bad marriage. Ned was a loser, all buttoned up and pompous.”

  Shock stammered through Serena, stealing her words for a second. “But … but I thought you liked him.”

  Lindsay shook her head. “No. No one did.”

  “That’s not true.” Wait, was it? Before her parents retired to Arizona, things were strained, but that was because Serena missed so many holidays. Ned preferred staying in town and dining with colleagues to family outings. He wanted … that was the point. Back then her life centered on what Ned wanted to the exclusion of everything else.

  “If you think back, you’ll realize I went out of my way to be in a separate room from the guy. You moving out of the state helped, but it ticked me off that you did. Philadelphia.” Lindsay rolled her eyes. “Typical Ned insisted you follow him no matter what. The guy was a self-important loser. And you were out of your mind for agreeing.”

  Memories crashed in on Serena. Her mother’s clipped tone on the telephone. Lindsay’s repeated refusals to visit. The swiftness with which her family descended on her Philadelphia condo and moved her back to Glen Ridge when she said her marriage was over. It was as if her life played out with everyone else seeing the truth and her being lost in denial.

  “I had no idea.”

  Lindsay waved in dismissal. “But we’re not talking about Ned. He’s over and not worth our time. We’re talking about Heath.”

  “I’m thinking we absolutely need to talk about this,” Serena said, enunciating each word as the reality of her wrecked marriage settled in on her. Being with Ned touched and destroyed more than she realized.

  “He’s gone and you’re better off. Heath is a different story.” Lindsay leaned in closer. “Want to know what I think?”

  “I’m afraid to say yes.”

  “You should let yourself fall for him again, even if it’s a short-term thing.”

  An affair? Her baby sister had been pushing the Heath agenda forever but always as a long-term option. This no-commitment thing had to be a new tactic.

  “Why are you so pro-Heath all of a sudden?” Serena asked, knowing she was going to hate the answer.

  “It’s not sudden. While you were off playing in Philadelphia, I was here. Scoping him out for you.” Lindsay pretended to bow. Almost bounced her forehead off the table in the process. “You’re welcome.”

  The visions of Lindsay stalking Heath flowed through Serena’s head like a horror film and scared her witless. “Please be kidding.”

  “He’s the perfect fling.”

  Uh-huh. Not kidding. “Who says I want one? Or that he does?”

  Lindsay shot her a you-poor-thing look. “I think your cluelessness is cute.”

  Serena suddenly felt every minute of her thirty years on the planet and then some. “What does that mean?”

  “Next time you have one of your professional talks about Nate and his schoolwork, or whatever boring thing you do to waste time instead of making the move on Heath—”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Yeah, well, take a minute and grab a good long look at the man.”

  Oh, she did that just fine without any coaching. That was part of the problem. “Because?”

  Lindsay smiled over a mouthful of food. “You’re going to figure out that you’re the only one in the room with business on your mind.”

  three

  Heath heard Serena’s angry voice before he saw her. He sat crouched on the roof of a townhouse checking the new tile job. She stood on the ground shouting at one of his workers over the mind-numbing sound of the saw.

  “I need him now.” The construction noise stopped just in time for her words to blare out over the construction site and echo through the trees.

  He peeked down over the just-installed gutter and saw his men freeze in place. Burly men who threw out profanity every other word, whether or not the resulting sentence made any sense, stared with mouths hanging open.

  It wasn’t hard to spot her. The red stain on her cheeks lit up the cloudy afternoon. Looked like perfect and professional Serena Davis stood on the verge of losing her cool.

  “Uh, Serena?”

  She glanced around, as if trying to detect the placement of his voice.

  He sighed, admitting defeat. “Up here.”

  “What are you doing on the roof?” With her fists slammed on her hips and her head tilted to the side, she sounded furious to find him above her.

  “Working.”

  Something about the word deflated her. She glanced around, more sheepish and less commanding this time around. Could be she noticed the fifteen men surrounding her, waiting to see what she would do or say next. “I need you to come down here for a second.”

  “So I heard. Everyone within ten miles did.” He immediately regretted the comment when he heard his men chuckle. Embarrassing her was not his plan. He’d done enough of that to last a lifetime. “Okay, that’s enough. Everyone back to work.”

  By the time he slid down the ladder and landed at her side, his workers had cleared out and she had launched into full pacing mode. Her wide eyes searched the grounds and stared down the men hovering at the outskirts of the work area and not doing anything to hide their eavesdropping.

  “I shouldn’t have come here.” She mumbled the comment, but he heard it anyway.

  He caught her by the shoulders before she could storm off. “Who.”

  “You’re working.” She motioned around her. “There are all these people.”

  “It’s okay.”

  In a town the size of Glen Ridge, news traveled with the fury and speed of a raging wildfire. He knew she’d lived through a tough divorce and returned from Philadelphia shaken and a good deal poorer thanks to her high-powered divorce attorney. Ned something was her husband. The guy’s name didn’t matter. Heath hated him on Serena’s behalf for having taken something from her. Something important in the form of self-esteem that she was only now struggling to regain.

  What he felt for Serena was the real question. They were so different. Where she thrived on education and intelligence, he’d dropped out of college having gone to only a handful of classes in the two and a half years he’d spent there. She knew every book, every author. He struggled to read. Hell, keeping up with his seventh-grade son’s work proved difficult most days.

  Despite all that, he wanted to kiss her, hold her … make love to her. Something in her sad green eyes tore at his insides. Her scent, her smile, they stayed with him long after she passed him by. Spending almost a year working on a way to break through to her had been a challenge. The idea of apologizing and starting over kept him going.

  Every other part of her worked on him, too. Her dark brown hair fell in waves past her shoulders. And her curvy frame, nothing like the stick-straight blondes with plastic boobs that had followed him through college. No, Serena had always been different. Pretty and smart, her body and mind maturing well before her head could catch up. But her days of being jailbait and off-limits were long over.

  “This is not what I had planned for today,” she said.

  That sounded ominous. “Let’s go inside.”

  She looked around. “Where exactly?”

  He slipped his hand under her elbow, careful not to scare her since her hands shook. She acted jumpy and uncharacteristically out of control, and he didn’t want to add to her distress. “The rooms are only roughed in, but we can have some privacy.”

  She stared at the front door of the townhouse ten feet away from her as if noticing the building for the first time. “Oh.”

  He guided her through the would-be family room and to the very interior of the house. From that position, none of his men could sneak a peak. But his biggest concern was her. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m not convinced.”

  “I want to move Nate to honors English class.” The words rushed out of her so fast, running to
gether as she went, that Heath barely understood her.

  “What?”

  She inhaled deep enough for him to see her chest rise and fall.

  He forced his gaze back up to her face. Leering at her struck him as the wrong call at the moment.

  When she started talking again, her voice returned to a normal decibel level and the racing rhythm slowed. Worse for his nerves, that sexy, husky tone of hers returned full force. “He’s smart enough. He’s way ahead, and reading well above his grade level.”

  Well, damn. Of all the things Heath thought she might say when she stepped onto his work site, something about an English class wasn’t even in the top hundred. “Honors English?”

  “Of course.”

  She actually made that sound reasonable. “You’re saying you’re really here about Nate?”

  “Why else would I be here?”

  Yeah, why. The woman was determined to drive him crazy. No question.

  “Do you come to the workplace of all of the parents?” he asked, knowing the answer was no.

  “Yes.”

  Oh, come on. “Really? If I asked around, I’d find out this is a habit for you?”

  “Please pass the invitation on to Nate.” She turned and bolted for the door.

  He waited until she got five steps away from her final escape to stop her. “No.”

  She shifted around nice and slow. When she finally faced him, her mouth drew down in a severe frown. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re the teacher. You should ask him.”

  “You’re the parent.”

  No matter how many hints he dropped, she continued to run from him both emotionally and physically. “Believe it or not, I’m aware of how Nate got here.”

  The spark returned to her eyes. “Why are you making this difficult?”

  “Why are you pretending you came here to talk about Nate and not us?”

  Silence filled the wall-less room.

  Careful not to spook her, he took a step toward her. She glanced down, watching his feet, but didn’t run screaming out into the yard. He took that as a sign of progress. A small success, maybe, but still movement in the right direction.

  When he stood in front of her, close enough to keep anything from squeezing in between them, he stopped. “I was hoping you came here today to take me up on my offer.”

  “What offer?”

  Doubt tugged at him until her intense stare gave her away. She knew exactly what he was talking about. The knowledge and understanding played across her face and in direct contrast to her words.

  After a quick wipe against his pants to get rid of the dust and slime, he slid his hands up her arms and felt her tremble in response. “The one about us.”

  “I told you—”

  “Let’s try not talking for a second.”

  He leaned in, giving her plenty of time to pull back, slap him, scream for reinforcements, or show him a red light. When she stood there, her body stiff but her eyes dark with need, he went for it. Lips against lips, he kissed her. Not a gentle test. No, this was firm and searching. He wanted to learn her secrets and show her that the man in him appreciated the woman she had become.

  With a soft groan, she slowly lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck. “Heath.”

  When she whispered his name against his lips, let him taste the words as the smell and feel of her hit his senses, he lost his control. No longer holding back and giving her time to adjust, he fell into her. His mouth slanted over hers, showing her how far past friendship and professionalism he had raced. The guilt he felt over his youthful idiocy gave way to a very adult desire to know her as she was now.

  Just as the kiss built and his hands started touring down her back, she broke contact. She moved away, putting a few inches of unwanted air between their heated bodies. “We have to stop.”

  His mouth trailed to her neck. “Because?”

  “Heath, you know.”

  Her stern teacher voice broke through the sensual haze winding around him. His head shot up. “What is it?”

  “This can’t happen.”

  If he reached out, he could pull her back in his arms, cuddle her close, and tell her all those things he kept locked inside, but she had moved away from him in her head. Thrown up the “no sale” sign and relegated him to the stupid jock part of her brain. None of this happened out loud or in the open, but he saw it. Felt it race through every muscle and vein.

  The space she stuck between them made his blood simmer. “What’s the problem?”

  “I am your son’s teacher.”

  A thought popped into Heath’s head. A sneaking suspicion that refused to go away. “Do you teach honors English?”

  She bit her lower lip. “Well, no.”

  Just as he thought. The honors program was a ruse. Should he call her on it or not? He waffled. Finally, he went for the home-turf advantage. “We’ll expect you around six.”

  “Why? For what?”

  “Dinner and to talk to Nate about the class.”

  Her eyes widened with a look that could only be described as terror. “That’s not necessary.”

  Since she was such a big fan of logic, he turned it back on her. “You said you’re in the habit of dropping in to deliver this type of news.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Well, that’s what I heard.” He took his gloves out of his back pocket and tugged them on. “We’ll see you at six.”

  HEATH made it home by four. He knew his workers would talk about his rush off the lot for weeks. The ribbing had started before he even got to the car. Two of his most loyal, toughest men had asked if he planned to paint his toenails before dinner. The boisterous laughter still rang in his ears.

  Yeah, falling for a woman in full view of a construction crew did not count as Heath’s idea of a good time. And that was exactly what was happening.

  Maybe following her for months had started the process. Watching, learning, studying. The painfully shy and strikingly beautiful girl who offered him her virginity before she was old enough to know he didn’t deserve it had become a stunning woman full of life and sunshine she tried hard to tamp down and hide. But in those quiet moments during a school assembly or standing at the front of her class talking with a child, her face would light up with a smile and his world tilted.

  With all her outer strength, he saw her fractured core. He possessed one, too, and could recognize the beast. Losing everything— his dreams, his family, his security—taught him rough lessons that even now left him raw. There were very few people he could count on. Very few he’d risk loving. For so long Nate and Stan had pretty much filled the list. Then Serena came along all haughty and determined to ignore him, and he found her irresistible.

  The fact that after all these years she let a long-abandoned teen crush humiliate her in his presence clearly made her feel silly, but to him it showed a soft, vulnerable side. Beneath all the bluster and claims of professional conflict, she felt something for him. He saw it in her sweet eyes and felt it in the kick of her pulse. When he kissed her, every doubt faded away. They had something they could build on and nurture.

  But he had to break through her protective shell first and wrestle a few of his own demons in the process. Demanding trust from her was one thing. Giving it back was another. The latter had proved impossible for years, but he wanted to let her in. To trust her with his shame and share the burden.

  “Why are you home?” Nate asked the second Heath walked in the front door.

  His son put him in his place without even knowing it. Amazing how kids could reach right inside you, find that one insecurity, and twist. “I’m thinking I’ve been working too many nights lately. The plan is to get home earlier from now on.”

  “Okay ”

  Heath took that for the desperate teen plea it was and mentally rearranged his schedule. He could take a little less pay, cut some expenses at home, and give the hours to guys who needed some cash. Nate needed time, not more video gam
es.

  Heath plopped down on the couch next to Nate. “What’s that?”

  “A book I have to read for Ms. Davis’s class.”

  Heath reached over and turned the spine toward him. Never heard of the title before. Not a surprise since Heath couldn’t remember the last time he read anything except a sports page. School had come hard for him. Processing the words and information had proven impossible, so he hid his inadequacies under a heap of sports trophies. The stumbling attempts to comprehend something other than a playbook stuck with him. Even now Nate would mention a book or some random fact every adult should know and Heath had to fake it.

  He feared his son would discover the problem and find him lacking. Those worries had him thinking about Serena and wondering if she could help without judging him. Seeing disapproval in her eyes would kill him.

  “Is it any good?” Heath asked.

  Nate’s eyes bugged out. “You haven’t read it?”

  “No.”

  Nate flipped the book around in his hands, rolling his eyes and sputtering as he went. “Come on, Dad. Everyone’s read this.”

  Nothing like feeling like an idiot in front of the one person you always wanted to impress. “I’m not a big reader.”

  Nate snorted. “Whatever.”

  Heath tried to remember a time when he felt so small, so insignificant, that his chest ached with it. The minute when the university told him he’d lost his scholarship and dropped too many credits to remain as a full-time student, the fight with Lucy when she called him worthless—it all paled in comparison to the pain that shot through him with his son’s dismissive look.

  Heath vowed that would be the last time. If that meant telling Serena about his failings and having her tag him as a loser, so be it. When his son talked about school and his work, Heath wanted to understand. Needed to understand.

  four

  Serena stood outside the Sanders home for a full ten minutes before knocking. Heath’s kiss still lingered on her lips. His sexy smile played in her head until his face swam before her all the time.

  She had gone to his job site that afternoon to set the record straight. To let him know her crush had disappeared long ago, thank you. Because of Heath’s behavior all those years ago, she knew how Lexy felt. Serena had experienced rejection and cried into her mattress, sure her heart would never mend. The adult in her knew the extreme reaction came from a mix of teen hormones and exaggerated grief, and that the ache faded as other boys came sniffing around. But back in that moment, being ignored had meant everything. So, Heath needed to get his act together and not pass his macho crap on to another generation.