by Gina Wilkins
They stretched the kiss out a very long time. When it ended, Jamie was sitting on Trevor’s lap, his arms around her, hers locked around his neck. “Funny,” she said. “I seem to keep ending up here.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“Neither am I.” She rubbed her nose against his, as amused as she was aroused. Even when he was teasing with her, he seemed so delightfully serious.
He caught her chin in his hand, pressing another kiss on her smiling lips. “I always get the feeling you’re laughing at me,” he murmured, displaying that unnerving mind-reading talent again.
“Only in the nicest way,” she assured him, and kissed him again.
“What is it about me that amuses you so much?” he asked some time later.
Sliding a hand down his cheek, she laughed softly. “The way you’re so serious all the time. The way you look at me sometimes as if you think I must come from another planet. The way your forehead creases when I say something that perplexes you. Shall I go on?”
“I think that’s enough.” His tone was dry.
“You’re very seriously cute, Trevor McBride,” she said, running her fingertips through his thick, dark blond hair. “You always have been.”
“Cute?” His forehead wrinkled—exactly the way she’d just described. The way she found so endearing. “It’s been a long time since anyone has called me cute.”
She smiled. “Maybe you just haven’t been listening.”
Cupping his hand behind her head, he pulled her face toward him and traced her smile with the tip of his tongue. “I’m listening now.”
She’d been waiting for so many years to get Trevor McBride’s attention. Now that she had it, she intended to make the most of it—before he drifted away again. She covered his mouth with hers and kissed him exactly the way she had wanted to kiss him for so very long.
He moved with a speed that took her by surprise, shifting his weight until she was lying beneath him, pressed into the deep cushions of her jewel-tone couch. His mouth ravaged hers, tongues seeking, meeting, mating. Taking his cues from her, his hands raced over her with a boldness he hadn’t shown before.
Jamie felt the fine tremors in his fingers, and she realized he was still holding back. He’d made it clear enough that he’d been living a monk’s life for the past year. She didn’t want to think he was with her now because she was convenient; she preferred to think of herself as the woman who had drawn him out of his self-imposed exile.
He shifted restlessly, and she felt the hardness pressing against her thigh. Whatever the barriers that had come between them in the past, they were together now and he wanted her. She couldn’t guess how long it would last, or even if they would ever be together again after tonight. But she had no intention of missing this one chance to fulfill a fifteen-year-old fantasy.
She slid her hands down his back, relishing the ripple of muscle beneath his clothing. He was still exploring her mouth so thoroughly she was sure he had memorized every centimeter. She knew she would never forget the taste or the texture of his.
She felt his right hand sliding upward from her hip to her rib cage—suddenly tentative, as if he wasn’t quite sure of her reaction. She arched into his touch, mutely letting him know her reaction was decidedly positive. She almost felt the surge of heat rush through him when his hand closed finally over her left breast.
He wanted her, she thought again, every nerve ending vibrating with reciprocal excitement.
Trevor slid his mouth from her lips to her jaw, moved to the shallow indention in her chin, then buried his face in her throat to measure the pulse beating so rapidly in the hollow there. She shifted to accommodate him, sliding her fingers into his hair, lifting herself more firmly into his embrace.
A sudden shrill buzzing pierced the intimate silence between them, causing Jamie to gasp in surprise and Trevor to lift his head with a start. She was so disoriented that it took her a moment to identify the sound as a cellular telephone. By that time, Trevor had already pulled a flip-phone the size of a deck of playing cards out of his pocket. Giving her a look of apology, he straightened, opened the phone and lifted it to his ear. His voice was admirably composed when he said, “Hello?”
Resigned to the inevitable, Jamie wriggled into an upright position, straightened her clothes and smoothed her hair. “I hope it wasn’t a crisis,” she said when Trevor completed the brief call and slid the phone back into his pocket.
“Not a crisis, but I have to go,” he said, regret in his voice. “Abbie’s running a fever and she keeps crying for me. Mother tried to handle it, but she doesn’t think Abbie’s going to settle down unless I’m there.”
“Then you should go. Are you going to take her to the emergency room?” The word fever had already made Jamie nervous; she wondered how Trevor could sound so calm about it.
With just a hint of a smile, he shook his head. “It’s just a cold. She’s been coming down with it for a couple of days. She seemed to be feeling better this morning, so I thought we’d be okay, but apparently she’s feeling worse again.”
“Poor baby. I hate to think of her crying for you.”
He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry our evening is ending so abruptly.”
“So am I,” she said, but she smiled to show that she understood. “I had a great time, Trev.”
“So did I.” He stood, and she rose to follow him to the door. He paused with one hand on the doorknob, his gaze searching her face. “Jamie—it isn’t easy for a single father to find time for a personal life.”
“I’m sure it isn’t.”
“I work long hours and I don’t want to spend a lot of time away from the kids when I’m not at the office.”
“They need you,” Jamie agreed simply, admiring his dedication to his children.
He nodded. “My mother’s been trying to convince me that one evening a week isn’t too much to take for myself. And she likes having that time to bond with her grandchildren. To be honest, I still feel guilty about taking any time at all away from them, but I’ve about reached the conclusion that she’s right. I need some time for myself.”
She wasn’t sure where, exactly, he was leading with this, but she nodded. “Of course you do.”
His grimace let her know that he wasn’t satisfied with the way his words were coming out. “I’m trying to say that I want to see you again.”
She smiled. “I’d like that, too.”
“Next Friday?”
“I have no plans for next Friday.”
He leaned over to plant a quick, firm kiss against her lips. “You do now. I’ll call.”
“Do that. I hope Abbie feels better soon.”
“Thanks. G’night, Jamie.”
“Good night, Trev.” She watched him walk to his car, but closed the door before she could be tempted to watch him drive out of sight.
With a bemused sigh, she turned away from the door as the sound of his car engine faded into silence. Her gaze fell on the couch, where the throw pillows, scattered on the floor and scrunched at one end, reminded her of exactly what his phone call had interrupted. She sighed again, this time in wistfulness.
He wanted to see her again.
She spared a fleeting thought for her old rule—no men with children. Tonight was a prime example why she’d made that rule in the first place. She’d always considered herself too selfish to share a man’s time with his kids, especially since she knew she would always come second in his priorities. Which was the way it should be, of course—she certainly couldn’t be interested in a man who put his children second.
Shaking her head at her own inconsistencies where Trevor McBride was involved, she crossed the room to straighten the pillows. She would see Trevor again in a week, she thought. Now all she had to do was figure out how to entertain herself in the meantime.
ABBIE’S TOO-WARM little face was buried in the curve of Trevor’s throat, her sleep-limp body curled snugly into his arms. She’d dropped off almost as soon as he’d pi
cked her up, having fought sleep as long as she could. He sat in his mother’s dimly lit kitchen, a cup of herbal tea in front of him, while Bobbie sipped her own tea on the other side of the table. The house was quiet, with everyone else having gone to bed before Abbie’s fretful outburst.
“I’m sorry I had to cut your evening short,” Bobbie said. “I didn’t know what else to do with her. She refused to let me comfort her. She wanted her daddy.”
“It’s only because she doesn’t feel well.”
“I didn’t take it personally,” Bobbie assured him. “I just regretted having to spoil your evening with Jamie.”
Trevor made a production of straightening Abbie’s nightgown. “No problem. We were only having coffee and talking.”
“Mmm.” Her tone made him feel like a teenager whose protestations of innocence weren’t quite ringing true. “You like Jamie, don’t you?”
Now she was talking to him as if he were that same teenager. He gave her a look over his daughter’s head. “Yeah, Mom, I like her. I thought I would ask Wade to ask Emily to ask Jamie if she likes me, too.”
She frowned at him. “There’s no need for sarcasm.”
“Well, what do you expect? I’m thirty-one, and you’re quizzing me as if I were sixteen.”
“I wasn’t trying to pry. I just think it’s nice that you’re getting out. You’ve been so isolated and withdrawn since you moved back to Honoria. It’s time for you to start living again.”
“I’ve hardly stopped living since I moved back. I’ve been kind of busy. Starting almost from scratch in private practice, learning Dad’s business, taking care of the kids…”
“But you haven’t had much fun,” Bobbie broke in. “I think if anyone can bring plain old fun back into your life, it’s Jamie Flaherty. I’ll admit she’s a little eccentric—one could hardly expect otherwise considering her raising—but I’ve always liked her. Even when she went through her rebellious stage—that would have been after you left for college, I suppose—I knew she was really a nice girl with a good head on her shoulders. I wasn’t at all surprised when Ellen told me Jamie was coming back from New York to take the drama position. I knew she’d only moved there to get away from home. Playacting was always her way of escaping, and she was good at it.”
“I’ve never seen her act,” Trevor admitted, “but I would imagine that she’s very good at it.” He suspected that Jamie was good at anything she tried—and a few of those things he was becoming very impatient to find out for himself.
“You are going to see her again, aren’t you?”
“Next weekend. But, Mom, Jamie and I are just friends, okay? Don’t start making more out of it than that.”
“But, Trevor…”
“I mean it, Mom. Jamie and I aren’t a couple. I don’t want you getting carried away.”
“But I’m sure Melanie would have wanted you to—”
“And don’t bring Melanie into this!” Roused by Trevor’s sharp tone, Abbie stirred and fretted. He already regretted his outburst—for the baby’s sake, and for his mother’s. Rocking Abbie back to sleep, he spoke more quietly. “I’m sorry, Mom.”
She didn’t look offended. In fact, he thought he saw sympathetic understanding in her eyes. “Someday,” she said, “when you’re ready, you’ll talk to me about what happened between you and Melanie. In the meantime, just know that I’m here, all right? I won’t pry into your business, I won’t interfere between you and Jamie, and I’ll gladly watch the children for you whenever you need me to. I only want you to be happy again, Trevor.”
Feeling somewhat akin to a slug now, Trevor managed a faint apologetic smile. “I know. It’s all you’ve ever wanted for any of us.”
She nodded, then glanced at the clock on the stove. “It’s getting very late.”
“You must be tired. Why don’t you turn in? I’ll take Abbie home and put her to bed, then I’ll come back tomorrow to get Sam.”
“There’s no need for you to do that. Abbie’s crib is already set up in your old bedroom, and I just put fresh sheets on the bed this morning. Sam and Clay are sound asleep in Trent’s room, and your father is snoring away in ours. You might as well sleep over and have breakfast with us in the morning.”
“I—”
“It’s settled, then.” Bobbie stood. “I have a couple of new toothbrushes around here somewhere. I’ll put one in your bathroom. There’s still a bathrobe hanging in your closet, and an extra…”
“I know where everything is, Mom. But I—”
“Don’t argue. It isn’t as if you have any reason to go home.”
He knew she hadn’t meant it the way it had sounded, but her words left him feeling hollow, anyway. His mother was right, he thought as he changed Abbie’s diaper and tucked her into her crib a few minutes later. There really wasn’t any reason for him to go home.
JAMIE HAD JUST HUNG UP her phone late Wednesday morning when it rang again. Still thinking about the last call, she raised the receiver to her ear and said a bit absently, “Hello?”
“Hi.”
The single syllable was enough to claim her full attention. “Hi, Trev. How’s Abbie?”
“Much better, thanks. She felt pretty lousy all weekend, but by yesterday she was completely back to normal.”
“I’m happy to hear that.”
“Have you had lunch yet?”
“No.” She glanced at her watch, noting that it was almost noon.
“I’ve got an hour and a half before my next appointment. How about if I pick up some takeout and bring it to your place?”
“Is this another impulsive action?” she asked, delighted.
“I guess you’re corrupting me.”
She laughed softly. “I haven’t even gotten started.”
“Should I take that as a threat—or a promise?”
“Whichever you like.”
“I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”
Jamie hung up the phone again, then jumped to her feet. Maybe she should put on a little makeup or something, she thought, hurrying toward the bedroom.
It was almost exactly fifteen minutes later when Trevor rang the doorbell. She threw the door open with a smile. “Hi.”
Carrying a couple of aromatic paper bags, Trevor nodded. “Hi, yourself.”
“Here, let me take one of those. We can eat in the kitchen.”
He followed close on her heels as she led the way. “I’m glad you were free,” he said.
Setting the bag on the table, she shrugged ruefully. “I seem to have a lot more free time than I’m used to these days.”
“Sounds as though you’re already getting tired of small-town life.”
She lifted an eyebrow in response to something she heard in his voice. He seemed to be expecting her to agree with him. “Not really,” she said. “It’s just taking me a while to figure out what to do with my time this summer. Actually, something just came up that sounds interesting.”
“Oh?” He dug into a bag and pulled out a paper-wrapped sandwich, his voice casual. “What’s that?”
“Earlene Smithee called earlier this morning. She’s been contemplating starting a community theater group and she wanted to know if I would be interested in sharing my expertise. She has several acquaintances who want to get involved, but they don’t know how.”
“Community theater?” He looked at her curiously then. “Would you really be interested in getting into something like that?”
“Why not? It might be fun.”
“Hmm. And it might be a bunch of aging beauty pageant queens like Earlene who just want a chance to get back in the spotlight.”
“You’ve just pretty well described most community theater groups,” she informed him with a chuckle. “They’re generally made up of volunteers who always secretly dreamed of acting, but never quite had the courage to pursue it.”
“Or the talent,” he suggested, thinking of Earlene.
She shrugged. “That, too, of course. But the right director can put
even limited talent to use with the right script and enough hard work.”
“The right director meaning you?”
“I wouldn’t mind directing a play for them. It wouldn’t be that much different than working with my students.”
“Except that your students are required to do what you tell them. Earlene’s never been very good at following directions. And what if April Penny decides she wants to join? You know she and Earlene hate each other. Could you handle it if they got into a hair-pulling fight over a part?”
“You really do underestimate me, don’t you? Must I remind you I’ve worked in New York? I’ve seen soap opera starlets try to claw each other’s eyes out because one was certain the other was trying to up-stage her. I’ve heard them call each other names that would turn your hair white. April and Earlene are amateurs when it comes to true divahood.”
“‘Divahood’?” Trevor repeated the phrase with a quizzical smile. “Is that what it’s called?”
“That’s what I call it.”
“And do you consider yourself a diva?”
She laughed. “I’m afraid I never qualified. Only the big stars—soap, stage or film—can be considered true divas. I was just that nice young character actor with the big eyes and the funny accent.”
“Is that how you saw yourself?”
“That’s how the casting people saw me.”
She pulled two plates out of a cabinet and set them on the table, smiling to show him that she had long since learned to accept her fate. She might have worked harder, longer, more fiercely, but the chances of her ever becoming a big star had been slim. She could have made a steady, even generous, income in New York, or in Los Angeles, but she’d finally realized that there was an emptiness inside her that could only be filled by coming back here and dealing once and for all with her past.
Trevor McBride had been very much a part of that past, whether he was aware of it or not.
“So you’re going to start a community theater.” He still seemed to find that hard to believe.
“Sounds like it. Want to join? I can see you wearing a torn T-shirt and yelling, ‘Stella!”’
He gave her a look that made her giggle. “I don’t think so.”