by Neesa Hart
And then she’d settled on the couch with the very grim feeling that she should never have allowed things to go so far. She knew that—had even warned herself countless times since the day she’d met him.
But he’d laid bare his soul to her last night. And his vulnerability had battered the walls of her resistance into oblivion. He’d needed her. And she’d needed him. So she’d allowed that night to happen, despite the very high price that came with it.
Now, she felt like they were living on borrowed time. He may not fully understand the ramifications, but she did. She could never be the woman Jackson Puller needed. Watching him with Amy, seeing the easy rapport the two enjoyed, helped reinforce the growing sense of despair she felt when she considered the future. She had only to consider the dreadful strain of her parents’ marriage to see the futility of her relationship with Jackson.
He’d argue. She knew that. All that well-intentioned talk of lashing himself to the mast, and waiting until she was ready. Right now, he could probably convince himself that he’d never resent her for the things that lay ahead. But time would take its toll. He’d want children, and she couldn’t give them to him. He’d want security, and she couldn’t offer it. Sooner or later, he’d condemn her for that. He wouldn’t think so now, but she’d seen it happen before. Eventually, he’d realize the sacrifices he’d made. And he would come to resent her.
She’d spent a lifetime enduring resentment. She could never bear it from him.
In her mind, she could see the angry looks and rebukes that had marked the final years of her parents’ marriage. Laura Glynn’s anger, she knew, was part imbalance, but another part, perhaps even the greater part, came from years of repressed anger and disappointment. Durstan and Laura had destroyed each other. Cammy had witnessed most of that slow descent. For the better part of her life, she’d accepted a generous amount of the responsibility for it.
Years ago she had promised herself that she could never let that happen between her and another person. Yet she’d crossed a very definite line with Jackson, and the longer she allowed things to go on between them, the more damage she’d inflict when she ended it.
The thought depressed her as little else could. Belatedly, she realized that tears had begun to roll down her face. Angry, with herself and at the terrible unfairness of it all, she swiped at them.
And gathering the suit jacket he’d left in her apartment more closely around her, she curled into a tight ball and gave herself permission to cry herself to sleep.
Tomorrow, she promised, she’d be strong again.
The donuts weakened her resistance. She’d always been a sucker for chocolate glazed donuts. His smile didn’t hurt any, either. It never did. That smile could probably disarm a terrorist.
Still groggy from her mostly sleepless night on the couch, she pulled the door open a little wider just to look her fill. “Hi.”
“Good morning.” He didn’t wait for an invitation before he stepped into her apartment. As usual, he filled the space, overwhelming her. Clad in jeans and a sweatshirt, he had a rumpled look about him that suggested he’d just rolled out of bed. “I brought donuts. I got everything chocolate that they had.”
She was charmed in spite of herself. “A man after my own heart.”
“You guessed it, babe.” He dropped a light kiss on her mouth. “Sleep well?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“Is that why you have circles under your eyes?”
“That’s rude.”
He rubbed one with the pad of his thumb. “Sorry. You’re teaching me to be more blunt.”
“Lucky me.”
Tilting his head to one side, he studied her closely. “Tell me that I didn’t make a colossal mistake last night by leaving.”
“No. I needed the space. I’m a little overwhelmed.”
He grinned again. “That’s the best news I’ve had in days.”
“Don’t sound so proud of yourself,” she grumbled as she led the way to her kitchen.
“Are you always cranky in the morning?”
Pulling two clean plates from the dishwasher, she considered the question. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No one’s ever asked.” He captured her gaze as a silent current of understanding passed between them. No one in her life had been interested enough to pursue something as subtle as her moods. She shrugged. “The chocolate will help.”
His gaze probed a few seconds more, then shifted to the coffeepot. “You want me to make coffee?”
She wanted to scream. The sheer normalcy of the conversation was wearing her out. Why couldn’t he see the impossibility of it all? She was torn between a deep desire to shout at him and an equally intense one to throw herself into his arms. “If you want some.”
When his hand covered hers, she started. She hadn’t realized he’d moved so close. “What I want,” he said, his voice a low rumble in her ear, “is to go back to bed and feed you a donut.”
A shiver raced through her. “How can we go back to bed? We weren’t in bed.”
“Let’s pretend.” He nuzzled her neck.
Why did he have to make this so hard? “Jackson—”
He lightly bit her earlobe. “I can tell you all the dreams I had about you last night if it will make it more real.”
The roaring in her ears drowned out any message her brain might have sent. “I don’t think—”
He turned her lightly in his arms, buried his lips in hers. His mouth glided over hers with easy familiarity, shaping and molding the curves of her lips with knee-melting thoroughness. When he finally lifted his head, her glasses fogged. She squinted at him. He gently removed the glasses, then tucked her cochlear earpiece into place. “Come to bed and feed me, Cammy. I’m starved.”
Tell him no, her mind urged, but her heart begged for one more day, a few more hours of this unalloyed bliss. She shuddered, torn between fear and desire. “I can’t—”
His lips glided over her eyebrow. “Chris called this morning,” he mumbled. “I’ve got to leave for London tonight to cover the summit.”
She swallowed. “London?”
“I’ll be gone a week. Maybe longer.” He kissed the corner of her mouth.
“Longer?”
“Depends on the summit.”
Gone. The information eased across her jangled nerves. She’d have room to breathe. Time to think. Oh, Cammy, you coward, she told herself, even as her arms stole around his shoulders. “How many kinds of chocolate did you bring?”
“Six. Two of each.”
“Take me. I’m yours.”
With a soft laugh, he lifted her into his arms. “I adore you.”
She pressed a kiss to his throat. “Show me.”
An hour later, she turned into his arms with a soft sigh of contentment. “Still want a donut?” she asked.
His rough chuckle sent a thrill through her. He swept his hand over her bare hip. “I don’t think I can move.”
“I’ll feed it to you,” she offered.
His eyebrows lifted. When he’d carried her to bed, he’d brought the sack of donuts with him. Their morning had begun with Jackson demonstrating just how arousing the act of licking chocolate off an iced donut could be. He’d fed her one of the pastries and intoxicated her with vivid descriptions of just what he planned to do with her afterwards. There were definite advantages, she’d decided, to men with large working vocabularies.
If the look of rough tenderness on his face was any indication, he had been as affected as she by the morning’s play. “If you feed it to me,” he said, “we’ll never leave the bed.”
She could live with that, she decided. “Did you have other plans?”
His head dropped against the headboard. “Lord. I’ve tumbled into paradise.”
She ruthlessly squashed the tremor of anxiety his words caused. Just once, she’d force herself to worry less about consequences and more about the moment. How many times had Mike urged her to enjoy th
e moment, to stop dwelling every instant on what might be, and let herself go? Surely no one, not even the normally unkind fates, would begrudge her these few hours of contentment. “May I come in?’’
His gaze narrowed. “That’s my line.”
She laughed. It felt good. Everything about being with him felt uncommonly good. “Into paradise,” she told him as she threaded her fingers through his chest hair.
“Honey,” he said as he rolled her to her back, “I hate to break this to you, but in case you haven’t figured it out, paradise is anywhere you are.”
As he kissed her, caressed her, and finally joined himself to her, she decided paradise wasn’t such an elusive thing after all. But now that he’d shown her the way, she thought as she watched in wonder when his head arched backward and his body tightened on the brink of his own surrender, what would she do when the time came to leave?
The web of joy he wove around her lasted for the rest of the day, into the evening, and well past the moment when she kissed him good-bye at the airport. He hesitated before he dashed through the metal detector. “I don’t want to go,” he said.
She gave him a sad smile. How could she possibly explain the sense of relief she felt at his departure? He wouldn’t understand that he was giving her a blessed gift of time, a week to bask in the afterglow of his affection. For one more week, she could pretend that the end wasn’t at hand. “I’ll miss you.”
He wrapped an arm around her waist. “Promise?”
“Sure.”
He kissed her again. “I have to go.”
“I know.”
His gaze probed her, seeking answers. “Cammy—”
At his grim look, she smoothed the crease from his forehead. “If I want you, I’ll whistle. I promise.”
The final boarding call for his flight crackled on the airport intercom. “Damn it.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “It’s all right, Jackson. Go save the world.”
“I’d rather save you.”
Her eyes fluttered shut in exquisite pain. “The world needs you more than I do.”
“But I need you.”
“I’m a phone call away.”
“It’s not the same.”
“We’ll make it the same.”
He kissed her a final time, then turned to go. He was halfway to the metal detector when he stopped, then turned to face her. “I’m in love with you, Cammy Glynn,” he announced. “You’d better start getting used to it.”
“Lord.” The following afternoon, Macon Stratton leaned back in her chair at the Coco Loco restaurant and gave Cammy an incredulous look. “And then he just raced off to London?”
Cammy nodded. “Yes.”
“Has he called?”
“Twice.”
“So why do you look so gloomy?” Macon stabbed a fork in her empanadas. “Most women spend months trying to get that out of their guy.”
“It’s different with us. You know that.”
“So you say.”
“It is. Jackson Puller and I can’t possibly have a relationship.”
“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
“A permanent relationship.”
Macon frowned at her. “Cammy, have you told Jackson why you feel this way?”
She shook her head. “It’s not the kind of thing that comes up in conversation. I mean, what am I supposed to say? ‘By the way, I can’t ever give you children.’ He loves kids.”
Macon mumbled something under her breath. “I always find that so terribly unattractive in men.”
Cammy frowned at her. “He’ll want to have some.”
“Maybe he’ll want you more.”
“He’ll think he will. At first, he’ll think he can live with it. He’ll think it won’t matter, but it will.”
“You can adopt.”
“We could. I wouldn’t mind, but he would.”
“And you’re basing this conclusion on? . . .”
“I know him. Family is very important to him.”
“So you’re going to make the choice for him.”
“I’m making it for both of us, Macon. I can’t live the rest of my life knowing that someone resents me for things I can’t control. I can’t go through that again. I’d end up hating him. I don’t want to do that.”
“Have you talked to Mike about this?”
She managed a slight smile. “It’s not like I don’t know what he’ll say. I took the same classes, you know.”
“But with your mother, and now this. I just think you’re under a lot of stress.”
“You could say that.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to talk things over with him.”
“He’d get nosy.” She tilted her head to one side. “Like you.”
“Cammy—”
“Macon, really, it’s all right. I knew what I was doing.”
Macon studied her for long minutes, then shook her head. “You know, you make me crazy.”
“You don’t need me for that.”
“Very funny. I mean it, Cam. I hate it that you’re about to throw this away.”
“I never really had it. It wasn’t fair to him to let him get so involved without knowing all the facts.”
“And you’re so afraid to surrender even a little control that you’ll toss him aside.”
“I think we’re a little ahead of ourselves here. I mean, it’s not like he begged me to marry him, you know.”
“He’s going to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He will.” Macon pursed her lips. “I’ve got more experience with begging men than you do.”
Cammy laughed. “The way I heard it, you begged Jacob, not the other way around.”
“He’s the exception.” Her eyes lit as her expression softened. “He was worth begging.”
“But if you’d thought, even for a minute, that you were going to hurt him, wouldn’t you have let him go?”
“You’re not going to trick me into telling you that you’re doing the right thing, Cammy.”
“Then you’re going to have to trust me.”
Macon exhaled a sharp breath. “I wish you’d let me help you.”
“Liar. You wish I’d do what you want.”
“I’m concerned.”
“And I appreciate it.”
“But you’re going to do it anyway?”
“Yes. When he gets back from London, I’ll tell him I think we need to end it. I’m going to try very hard not to hurt him.”
“How, exactly, do you plan to manage that?”
“I don’t know. I have a week to figure it out, though.” She resolutely changed the subject. “I thought we came to lunch today to talk about the media plan for the Wishing Star fund-raiser.”
“That was before I realized that the stars in your eyes got there compliments of Jackson Puller.”
“I’ve wished on stars before, Macon. I’m older and wiser now. So just be a friend, and let’s talk business. It’s easier.”
He called her twice a day—once in the late afternoon before she left the office, then again at night. He never mentioned his parting declaration at the airport, for which she was endlessly thankful, but he continued to weave a web of intimacy, and her heart ached within its confines.
On Friday, a different phone call struck at the serenity of that web. She replaced the receiver in its cradle with a deep sense of sorrow. Dr. Van Root had returned from his conference that morning. He’d examined Amy’s test results, and called to let Cammy know that he’d concluded the child wouldn’t benefit from implant surgery. The source of her deafness was more extensive than he’d first suspected. He was sorry, he’d assured Cammy, but he didn’t feel the current technology would suffice, and he was unwilling to risk the surgery without a better chance of success.
The news hit Cammy like a blow to the head. She stared at the receiver, frustrated and grieving. Amy, she knew, would be devastated. Despite Cammy’s best efforts to help the child mainta
in perspective on the procedure, Amy believed a cochlear implant represented the key to her future.
Amy wanted to become a professional dancer, and now, Cammy would have to take away a dream from a child who’d already suffered more than her fair share. She dropped her head in her hands with a soft groan. Tears slipped between her fingers to run down her wrists. A voice that couldn’t be quelled reminded her that until Amy had begun attending Cammy’s sessions, she’d never known that cochlear implants existed. She’d seen Cammy’s implant and what it had done for her. She’d asked questions. Cammy had answered them. Because of her, the child had dared to look ahead. And now, because of her, that dream was going to end in bitter disappointment.
Swamped with guilt, and almost overwhelmed with her sense of loss, she stared out the window at the darkening sky. When the phone rang, she turned her reluctant gaze to it. Jackson, she realized. Right on time.
“Hi.”
He sounded out of breath. “Hi. I wasn’t sure I’d catch you.”
“I waited.”
“I’m glad.” She heard the shuffling of papers on his end. “Listen, I haven’t got much time. I’ve got an interview in less than five minutes. I just wanted to let you know that I think I’m done here. If this interview goes well, I should be home tomorrow.”
“That’s sooner than you thought.”
“I busted my butt to finish.” He exhaled a long breath. “Lord, I’m tired.”
“You’re not getting enough sleep.”
“I get up early to call you.”
“I know. You shouldn’t.”
“I shouldn’t—Cammy, is something wrong?”
“Not really.” Except that her entire life was splitting apart at the seams. “Well, sort of.”
“Honey, what’s the matter?”
“You don’t have time.”
“I have time. I’ll always have time. What’s going on? How’s your mother?”
“No change. That’s not the problem.” She swiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “I talked to Dr. Van Root today. He’s concluded that Amy’s not a good candidate for a cochlear. He won’t do the surgery.”
Jackson muttered a soft curse. “I’m sorry. Have you told her?”