“I haven’t seen her, Mom,” he was saying. “Want me to go find her?”
Lee hurried forward. The last thing she needed was to be alone anywhere with Chad. He had a girlfriend now, and she had better get over him real fast before her heart broke any more. Being alone with him would only tempt her to do something foolish, something that would no doubt humiliate her and embarrass him.
“Give it a few more minutes, love,” Charlene answered, “and then I’ll go see if I can’t find her.”
Lee had been worrying in the past month or so that Charlene suspected that the reason she was leaving for a college in London, rather than the one in the neighboring state that she had sworn up and down was her number one choice all through senior year, had something to do with the slender young woman now sitting demurely in the chair upon whose arm Chad rested, her hands in her lap, her pretty features composed in such a way that Lee knew at once that she felt out of her depth and was scared. Lee knew that look, because she had also mastered it.
She rounded the corner, and Charlene saw her immediately.
“Where did you disappear to, sweetie?” she asked, coming towards Lee with concern in her eyes. “Is everything all right?”
Lee forced a smile, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just had a bit of a scare. After last night, I decided maybe I should take something.”
It secretly appalled her that she was lying to Charlene, but she was glad she had a ready excuse in the stomach upset that had sent her up to bed early the evening before. No one would suspect a thing, and she could probably, if she was careful, pull off a complete disappearing act in about an hour, and not have to be around to watch Chad and his girlfriend. As it was, she gritted her teeth, and steeled herself to an hour with her rival and the boy -- no, he was a man now -- she would never have.
From the very beginning, Chad had stolen her heart. He and his mother had moved into their home on the river a year after Lee’s mom had died when she was still in junior high. She had entered high school with the biggest crush on her new sibling, but he had been entering his senior year, while she was just a freshman. He had been kind to her, sweet, even, but nothing more. And every day she had fallen more and more in love with his happy-go-lucky charm, his winning smile, his kindness to her, and his absolute beauty. And he never knew she existed as more than his newly-acquired kid sister.
He’d never made a pass, he’d never flirted with her, he’d never showed her anything but brotherly affection. And even that was sometimes cool and almost distant. Lee suffered in silence, having no one she could talk to, not even her stepmother, who was as sweet to her as she could be. Lee’s rather larger proportions often made her a target in school, and Charlene had become her champion, so much so that by the end of her freshman year, Lee was more confident in herself, and no longer bullied by others. But she hadn’t been able to talk about her feelings for her stepbrother, which she also worried might be wrong, because they were related, sort of. Weren’t they? She worried about it until he left for college, and she could relax.
Except when he came home that first Christmas, the feelings had swamped her, and she had almost made a fool of herself. As she was about to do again, if she didn’t get her head in the game. She didn’t need anyone noticing that she was distracted, because she couldn’t answer the inevitable question about why without lying again. One lie for the evening was quite enough; she couldn’t handle more. So she stopped thinking about her feelings and listened to the talk around her, hoping no one would try to involve her, but prepared to participate if they did.
That was the last time she had seen Chad before she went away to college. She had managed to be away when he came home for Easter, and by the beginning of the summer break, before her parents were even used to her being a high school graduate, she was on her way to London, to the University of London, Royal Holloway and Bedford College. Her love for music and her interest in psychology would be the basis for her time there, as she planned to double major in Psychology and Music. She would forget Chad. She would get over her doomed love for him, even if it took forever.
CHAPTER ONE
“Ms. Wilding, please report to the headmistress’s office. I’ve been sent to relieve you.”
Lee looked up in surprise at the woman who stood smiling at her. What on Earth could be the matter? Her heart leaped in her chest. What if something had happened to her dad? Charlene had just been on the phone with her the night before about his condition. Had he gotten worse? The surgery to repair his damaged heart valve had only been a week earlier. She tried not to let her fear show. The girls were doing a test, and she didn’t want to frighten them.
“Thank you, Ms. Williamson. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Lee hurried away to the office on the right of the imposing foyer, and knocked on the massive mahogany door. A faint “Come in!” greeted her, and she walked in, praying the news would not make her lose her breakfast. And then she promptly passed out at the sight that greeted her. When she came to, she was reclining in a firm leather chair, her legs raised on a matching ottoman, and a glass was being pressed to her lips.
“Have a sip, Lee,” Chad said, and held the back of her head gently in his hands as she obediently sipped the golden liquid. She turned her eyes to his face, but everything was a blur before the tears that welled in them. She closed them again, and heard her boss say,
“Mr. Donnelly, perhaps a cup of tea would be good for all of us just now?” She didn’t wait for a response, but picked up the telephone and called the kitchen, requesting a large pot of tea and some sandwiches. Lee surreptitiously wiped her eyes, and then swung her legs off the ottoman. Somehow she felt much less vulnerable if she were sitting up, her feet planted firmly on the floor. She took a couple of deep, calming breaths, and then turned to her boss, ignoring Chad and the stranger who sat beside him.
“I’m sorry, Sister Maureen Claire. I’m not sure what just happened. You sent for me?”
“Yes, I did, Ms. Wilding. But before we discuss any business, I must insist that you have something to eat.” She turned a stern eye on Lee, whom she had taken under her wing six years ago and with whom she had forged a kind of mother-daughter relationship. “I know you haven’t been eating properly since your father’s surgery, so I’m not surprised you can hardly keep your feet.”
She turned to Chad and the other man and said,
“Our school is very small, and the girls are more than students here. Ms. Wilding has become an invaluable member of our team, because she gives so much of herself to the girls. I have had to admonish her on more than one occasion about stretching herself too thinly.” There was pride in her boss’s voice, despite the words of admonition, and Lee’s heart warmed at the compliment. She tried to ignore the fact that she was proud to be so well-spoken of to the one man she realized she had never forgotten. “Fortunately, I was able to persuade her to take up residence off campus, or I’m sure she would be even more stressed out than she is already.”
Chad turned to look at Lee for a moment, something shining in his eyes that she could not read, and then he turned his megawatt smile on her boss.
“Lee was always a warm and caring girl, Sister, so I’m not surprised that she has continued to be the same as a woman.”
Happily for Lee, whose cheeks were turning red, a knock on the door heralded the arrival of light refreshments, and she sat demurely while Chad served her tea and delicate cucumber sandwiches on a tray. He and the other guest sipped tea but refrained from eating. The silence was broken only after she had eaten two of the little sandwiches and had drunk half her tea. Seeming satisfied that Lee was not going to pass out again, Sister Maureen Claire said, resting her teacup delicately on the saucer,
“Mr. Donnelly tells me you and he share a familial relationship of a sort, Ms. Wilding, which is the only reason I have not sent him and his friend packing.” Here she turned her stern eyes to Chad and his friend. “I thought you should hear what he and Mr. de Graaf have to sa
y with me present, and since we have the concert this evening, I thought it better to relieve you of your testing duties for today. You can make it up to Ms. Williamson tomorrow.” She clasped her hands on the desk and waited for Chad to speak.
“I didn’t want to say anything when I saw you last Christmas until I was sure that the plan was a go, Lee. And Xander and I have been working on this for two years. We’ve finally gotten the permits and the legal issues out of the way, and Xander has ensured that we will never have to worry about funding, so I can tell you now.”
Lee waited impatiently for him to continue. She couldn’t imagine what he could possibly want with her, or what this stranger had to do with it, though from the sound of things, he was a rich man. She looked at the man for the first time properly and realized with some surprise that he was very tall, very blonde, and very, very good-looking. Turning her gaze back to Chad, she asked,
“Tell me what, Chad?” She kept her voice cool and distant. It would never do to let anyone in the room, least of all Chad, know how much she still felt off balance by having him there.
“Xander and I have set funding in motion for an institution for homeless and abused girls. But it’s an institution that will use music as a large part of their therapy.”
“By institution, you mean a school, or merely a counseling facility?”
“It’s a school, but it will now also house a clinic. We’ve acquired it, and expanded it to in
Lee’s eyes shot up to his face, shock evident in her expression. Frankly, she was speechless. No one spoke, waiting for her response, but it took her a good minute to marshall her scattered thoughts into some kind of coherent response.
“I already have a job,” she finally managed to reply baldly, saying the first thing that came into her head. “Aren’t there other candidates for the position? Have you posted it? I’m sure you’ll find there are a number of other people who would be suitably qualified to run your school.”
The look on Chad’s face made shivers run up her back, and she suddenly found herself with a case of the tremors.
“I know you didn’t think I was listening to you two years ago when you first mentioned your dream of running a music therapy center for abused and homeless girls, Lee, but I was paying close attention. As I always do when you speak.”
She remembered the first time she had mentioned that to her family, that Christmas she had gone home for the first time in years, and had found it so hard to be in the same room as Chad for more than a few minutes at a time. He had not had a girlfriend with him then, but it didn’t matter. There had been too much water under the bridge, and she had left on Boxing Day, citing an urgent call from her headmistress to help with a crisis for one of the girls. Sister Maureen Claire would have been appalled had she known her name had been used in a lie, and Lee had found herself having to lie because of Chad far too often. Her stepmother and her dad would not have understood if she had kept missing Christmas and family times.
“What exactly do you want me to do that someone else can’t do?” she asked sarcastically, because she needed to keep her distance from him.
“Nothing,” he replied, as sharp as she had been. “What we want is someone we know, someone we can trust. Someone with knowledge and skill, with passion and integrity. That someone is you.”
For the first time, the stranger who was Chad’s friend, Xander de Graaf, spoke. His voice made her shudder with a physical response she didn’t understand. It was deep, like Chad’s, but hoarse, where Chad’s was smooth velvet. It sounded as though someone had sanded his voicebox but left the surface rough.
“Of course, we know that you will need to complete your contract here, and you will certainly wish to discuss this opportunity with your headmistress and anyone else you trust. We do not expect an immediate reply.”
His accent was barely there, his English impeccable, and his expression solicitous. She found herself grateful to him for giving her space, and she turned a small, tentative smile his way.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I appreciate the consideration.”
She could feel Chad’s eyes on her, and she blushed when she realized she had made it sound as though his friend was more considerate than he had been. And she knew her coolness with him had not gone unnoticed by either the headmistress or his friend. She needed to extricate herself from the situation before things got any worse, and do it without stepping on any more toes.
“If you have a card, I’ll be happy to get back to you as soon as possible. But as Sister has said, I have a concert this evening, and I really ought to get back to the girls.”
“Perhaps a breakfast meeting a fortnight from now will give you enough time to think things through?” Chad was clearly not going to give her any more time than necessary, but two weeks was enough time, she knew, for her to decide whether or not she could stand to have anything to do with Chad beyond a day or two at family gatherings once or twice a year.
She stood up, and the men stood with her. Chad handed her a card, and she took it without looking at it. His friend handed one to the headmistress, and they shook hands all round. Touching Chad, even in so innocuous a fashion, sent sparks up and down her arm, and his friend’s touch did not help to soothe the buzzing that settled in her chest. In fact, the double whammy of electricity that arced between them zapped her, making her body buzz wickedly. She turned and walked hurriedly ahead of them out of the room, remembering to ask at the last minute, as her hand was on the door,
“Where will we meet next time?”
“We’ll let you know,” Chad answered. “We’ll be out of the country for most of the next two weeks.”
She nodded curtly and left the room, her legs trembling the further away from it she went. The morning testing period was over, and the girls were being dismissed to lunch when she opened her classroom door. She thanked Ms. Williamson again for stepping in, and sank gratefully into her chair as the door closed behind the woman. What in the world was she to do? What she wanted with Chad wasn’t a working relationship. And if she were foolish enough to accept their job offer, that was all she could have with him, because to become involved with him, assuming that he would even be interested, would be a conflict of interest. Wouldn’t it? And what about this physical response she felt towards the stranger who was his friend? She’d never been interested in more than one man at a time, so this new development was unsettling to her.
Her mind churned with possibilities, with questions...with worry. She had gone back to graduate school to complete a degree in clinical psychology, working and studying, doing some distance learning, and she knew she was qualified to run a counseling program in a school. Part of her work in her job was to facilitate the limited counseling services offered in her current school. They had not been able to do much for the student who had come and left after one term, but that had fired her passion to start her own facility. And back home, there was a school that was in danger of closing for lack of funds, and because the student population, comprised mostly of abused and neglected girls, was suffering from lack of trained professional staff. Those girls would end up in the system if something wasn’t done to help them. And the system could not always be depended upon to do right by them.
Suddenly, she understood what Chad had meant by listening to her when she talked. That was the school he was talking about. She could realize her dream of helping those girls, and expanding the facilities to include service to the homeless. The idea excited her, and she realized she would need to think long and hard about her decision. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a difference and to do so in a place that she had been drawn to for a while. And it would be a chance to see if perhaps, after all these years, and all her cowardice, she and Chad might find some common personal ground.
CHAPTER TWO
The cell phone buzzed insistently next to Chad’s ear, and he reached over to see who was calling.
“Where are you?” he asked, his voice hoarse with sleep.
“I couldn’t wait up any longer.”
The voice on the other end of the line chuckled. “What have you been doing to make you so tired?”
“Waiting,” Chad said, sitting up in bed. “She still hasn’t called back.” He sighed. “Are you almost home?”
“Pulling into the driveway now.”
Xander’s answer kicked his heart rate up a notch. He still couldn’t believe that he was with this man. He had met Xander de Graaf as a sophomore in college, and their friendship had begun like any other, morphing into something more in his senior year. He hadn’t been prepared to discover that he was bisexual, nor had he wanted to find out that he wanted his best friend as much as he wanted his stepsister. Taking Wendy home with him that Christmas when Lee had been a senior in high school was meant to prove to himself that he was not gay, and was also meant to keep him from jumping Lee’s bones.
Only, he had shut her down by being with Wendy. He realized, when it was too late to fix it, that she saw Wendy as the end of anything between them, and she had run away to England to escape him and the pain he had caused her. And he had not been able to find a way back to her...till now. With the help of his best friend, his business partner, and his lover. Finally. It had taken him long enough to let Xander in, once they had found each other again after college. Now he was prepared to fight for Lee, whom he wanted as part of his life as fiercely as he wanted Xander. Luckily for him, Xander was game, and he only hoped his lover would fall for Lee as hard as he had done.
The kitchen door opened, and Chad scrambled out of bed to meet Xander half way. He listened, but there was only silence after that initial sound. His lover had been an operative in the armed forces for a time, and his training in covert ops made him a silent and deadly force. Chad knew, as he walked down the long hallway, that Xander had wanted him to know he was in the house, which was the only reason he had heard anything at all. And as he rounded the corner to the kitchen, Xander’s arms pulled him in. He raised his own to hug the taller man, letting his body relax into the hard planes and warmth of his lover. Xander’s arms crushed him, and then his hands were on Chad’s cheeks, cupping them, pulling his face up. Lips met in fevered kisses, deepening as they devoured each other.
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