She did smile then. Right against his finger. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
Ellis groaned louder and put a few more inches between their bodies and lowered his hand. “I think we both might be a little bit vulnerable right now, Sydney.”
Vulnerable! “What in the world are you talking about?” She wasn’t vulnerable. The last time she had been vulnerable was when she was ten years old and stuck in a foster home with a foster father who had made her extremely nervous. She was never going to be vulnerable again.
Ellis took another step backward. “To be honest with you, I haven’t been with a woman in a very long time.” His gaze skimmed the front of her blouse before jerking to a spot somewhere over her left shoulder. “Between Trevor and my business, I really haven’t had time for a relationship.”
She slowly nodded as if she was understanding what he was saying. She didn’t. “Are you trying to tell me you aren’t involved with anyone at this time?”
“No, that’s not what I’m trying to say, but for the record I’m not.”
She was glad to hear that. She didn’t know what she would do if Ellis had a lover tucked safely back in Jenkintown. “So what exactly are you trying to say?”
“I consider myself a pretty good judge of character.”
“If that were so, you would know my father was telling you the truth about him and your mother.” She refused to feel guilty for some of her own doubts. They weren’t talking about her, they were talking about Ellis.
Ellis shrugged that comment off. “What I meant was, I don’t think you are the type of woman who jumps into bed with every man who might be interested. If that was true, your feet would never touch the floor.”
“Was that suppose to be a compliment?” Lord, she hoped not, for if it was, then Ellis needed more than a quick Emily Post refresher course.
“Yes,” snapped Ellis, sounding frustrated. In a move so totally uncharacteristic of the confident and calm man she had come to know, he thrust his fingers through his hair. An unruly cowlick sprang up. “What I’m trying to say in a very backward and awkward way is that I can’t stay, Sydney. In a few days, as soon as the results are in, I’ll be gone. I’ll have to go. Trevor needs me at home.”
Now she knew why Ellis had called a halt to their kisses. He was afraid of hurting her when he went back home to his son and his business. Not only was his gesture incredibly sweet, he was right. She would have been hurt. Ellis Carlisle had been touching more than her body, he had touched her heart. She didn’t know if she had it in her to make love to a man and then sit quietly by as he walked out the door and got on with his life. She didn’t think she did.
“I see your reasoning.” She saw more than that, but she didn’t comment on any of the heartbreak that might have been in her future. Instead, she stepped to the side and tucked in her gold blouse where it had been pulled free of the waistband in her jeans by Ellis’s stroking hands. There wasn’t going to be any heartbreak because there wasn’t going to be anything to cause it. She stared at the toe of his shoe. “The kiss was a mistake, Ellis, it won’t happen again.” Self-control was such a terrible virtue at times.
“Kissing you wasn’t a mistake, Sydney.” Ellis reached out and touched a curl teasing her shoulder. “Making love with you and then leaving you would be a mistake. You deserve a man who would stick around for more than a few days.”
“How do you know what I deserve?” She took another step away from him. Ellis didn’t know her at all. If he did, he would have never kissed her. Deep down inside her soul where the dark things lived, she was praying with all her might that Thomas wasn’t his father. Her prayers had nothing to do with Trevor and his chance for a bone marrow transplant. She hoped Ellis would find his biological parent and be able to save his son’s life—as long as that parent wasn’t Thomas.
Her prayers had more to do with her own fears. All her life she had never been good enough. Her biological parents hadn’t been killed in some freak accident or died from some mysterious disease as she had been led to believe. They gave her away to the state. They signed a piece of paper and away she went. It was the horrible truth and she had faced it many years ago. Ever since she’d learned her adoption history, she’d been left with the belief that she had to have done something terribly wrong for her parents just to sign her away like that. She hadn’t been good enough. The string of foster homes she had managed to work herself through only reinforced that knowledge. When Thomas and Julia took her in and legally adopted her, she had been the happiest little girl except for the doubt that was still planted deep inside her. She always expected that one day her new family would discover she wasn’t good enough to be their daughter and send her on her way.
It had been decided a long time ago that she didn’t deserve anything special in life.
“I can only guess that you deserve something more than I could give you, Syd. I would rather be wrong than to see you get hurt.”
She could see a lot more written in his eyes than the fact that he would be heading home in a couple of days. She knew he was thinking about the future and praying for a miracle. Ellis was worried how she would react if they did become lovers and then it was proven he really was Thomas’s son. He had the right to be worried about that, because she didn’t know how she would react. Thomas had never lied to her before.
“It’s okay, Ellis. I understand.” She moved to the doorway. Her escape to the stairs and the privacy of her bedroom was only a couple of yards away. She needed to get away so she could work out the conflict of emotions assaulting her mind. “Turn off the lights when you are done in here. I’ve already locked the doors.”
She made it out the doorway, but not to the stairs before his voice stopped her. “Sydney?”
“What?”
Ellis stepped out of the kitchen and joined her in the living room. “I said it would be a mistake if we became lovers.” He gave her a small smile that strained the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t say anything about not kissing you again.”
She felt a traitorous flush of pleasure stealing up her cheeks and hurried toward the stairs. The cad still wanted her kisses, even though they weren’t going to be making love. It was outrageous. It was scandalous. So why was a rush of excitement sweeping through her body and making her feel lighthearted? She felt his intense gaze on her as she climbed each step. She couldn’t resist stopping at the top of the stairs and softly calling down, “We’ll see about that, Ellis. We’ll just see.” Without waiting for his response, she turned and walked to her bedroom.
Ellis glanced around the main building of the Ever Green Nursery in wonder. Sydney owned all of this! The place was amazing. It was truly magnificent. It was so colorful that it nearly hurt his eyes. The main building consisted of the cash registers, rows of colorful flowerpots, clay pots and windowsill planters. There were miniature mountains of potting soil, wreaths, birdhouses, hoses and so many brilliant silk flowers that a person would need half a day to inspect them all. Two huge greenhouses filled with row after row of tables overflowing with trays of flowers joined the main building on the east and the west.
The south side of the building opened into another greenhouse. This one was decorated with working fountains, garden statues, palms, plants and outdoor furniture. It made a person want to relax and just soak up the atmosphere. It made him think about adding a sunroom to his own house. Of course it would be on a much smaller scale and he would have to be very insistent with Trevor not to leave his animals all around the room. It could be done, but he would want a fountain of some sort in it. One that could hold some goldfish. Trevor would love the fish.
“May I help you, sir?” asked a young saleswoman.
He glanced at the name tag pinned to the woman’s dark green smock with the Ever Green Nursery logo embroidered above it. A yellow silk daffodil and a pink curly ribbon was pinned behind her name. “Hello, Cindy. I’m looking for Sydney St. Claire.”
“She’s busy right now. Maybe I could help you?�
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Cindy, an average-looking blonde with a sunny smile and sparkling blue eyes, appeared quite enthused about helping him. Helping him what, he didn’t know. In fact, he didn’t want to know. “I’m Ellis Carlisle. I’m staying a few days with Sydney and her father.”
“So you’re Ellis.” Cindy’s gaze skimmed him from the top of his head to the tips of his shoes. Her gaze measured, sorted and categorized him in a matter of seconds. “You’re not what I expected.”
“What were you expecting?” He liked Cindy’s honesty and he was especially thrilled that Sydney had apparently mentioned him to one of her employees. He just prayed Sydney hadn’t said something too horrible about him.
“I don’t know. Someone who’s a cross between a movie star and a millionaire. I was picturing a cross between Tom Cruise and John F. Kennedy Jr.”
He felt as if someone had just slammed him in the gut. “Excuse me, but why would you think that?”
“Syd said you drove a brand-new top-of-the-line Mercedes and that you were gorgeous.” Cindy grinned. “I just put the two of them together.”
Sydney thought he was gorgeous! He was stunned. Pleasantly stunned, but stunned nevertheless. “So which part didn’t meet up to your standards, me being rich or me being gorgeous?”
“It was the rich part that threw me. You don’t look rich.”
Ellis glanced down at the loafers, jeans and old Villanova sweatshirt he had on and grinned. No, he didn’t fit into any millionaire category that he knew of. He didn’t care because he wasn’t just some millionaire. Sydney thought he was gorgeous. “Are you going to allow me to see her?”
“Sure. She’s out in greenhouse number five.” Cindy pointed out a set of doors and down a gravel path to a row of greenhouses. “There’s a five above the door, you can’t miss it.”
“Thanks.” Ellis headed out the doors and down the path.
Stones crunched beneath his feet. He spotted Sydney through the glass before he saw the red enamel five hanging above the door. She appeared to be alone so he opened the door and stepped inside the greenhouse. He now understood why she had taken off the sweater she had been wearing this morning. It was warm in the greenhouse, extremely warm.
Sydney glanced up from the mound of potting soil and cuttings she was planting. “Ellis! Is something wrong with my father?”
“No, your father is just fine.” He stepped farther into the greenhouse. “Stop worrying, Sydney. Thomas can take care of himself.”
“He’s blind.” Sydney brushed her filthy hands down the front of her thighs.
“I know he’s blind. You know he’s blind. He knows he’s blind.” Ellis smiled at the picture she created all sweaty-looking and streaked with dirt. “Your father has lost his ability to see, not his ability to think.”
“You left him alone at home?”
“Yes, I did.” He liked the fire that sparked in her eyes. He especially liked it when it had been caused by his kisses. Those hot kisses they had shared had driven him near-insane all through the night. “He said he’d be fine and I believed him. I asked if he wanted to take a walk over to the nursery and he said no but suggested that I go ahead without him. I couldn’t think of a reason why I shouldn’t, without making him seem incapable of fending for himself for a while. So here I am. Do you have a few spare minutes to give me a quick tour?”
“You want to see the nursery?”
“No.”
“No? If you didn’t want to see the nursery, why did you bother coming?”
He took another step and was close enough to touch her. “I wanted to see you, Sydney.”
“Me?”
“Now that I’ve seen you, I want something else.” Uncertainty was clouding her soft green eyes, drowning out the fire that had been there moments before. He wanted that fire back. He took another step closer and smiled as she backed up against the wooden table behind her.
“What?”
His hand reached out and instead of touching her mouth as he wanted to do, he followed a streak of dirt across her cheek and down her jaw. “A kiss, Sydney. Nothing more than a kiss.”
“You don’t kiss like a man who wants nothing more than a kiss.”
“It takes two to kiss. What does that say about you, Sydney?” He moved in nearer. There was barely an inch between their bodies. He could hear the unevenness of her breath, and see the soft parting of her mouth. Readying itself for his kiss.
“I don’t want to know.” Sydney’s mouth instinctively reached for his.
He saw the fire spark anew in the depths of her eyes and welcomed her, dirt and all, into his arms.
Chapter 6
Two days later Sydney stood in the kitchen preparing dinner, feeling as if she was walking on eggshells. Her world felt very fragile with the two men in her life pulling her in opposite directions.
Her father was living in his own dark, little world, unaware of the conflicts surrounding him. He was unsuspecting of the fact that she had her doubts about his claim of not being Ellis’s natural father. The one nagging question remained: why would Catherine name Thomas if he hadn’t fathered her child?
Ellis tormented her with a whole other arsenal of emotions. Since the morning he had shown up at the nursery wanting a quick tour, she had been besieged with stolen kisses and her senses were now at a frustration level guaranteed to drive every sane thought she had ever possessed straight out of her mind. Ellis had been true to his word. Never once had he tried to take their kisses to the next step. He had otherwise been the perfect gentleman, and she hated it.
She finished peeling and quartering the last potato and tossed it into the pot. The meat loaf she had thrown together after she had gotten home from work was already in the oven cooking. Dinner would be later than normal, but at least she was handling it today. The past two nights Ellis had cooked. He was a wonderful cook, and she really appreciated coming home to find dinner on the table, but she was beginning to feel useless. Ellis had stepped into their home and before she knew it, he had taken over.
It was the same thing with her father. In the five days Ellis had been living here, he had done more good with her father than she had the previous six months. It was maddening. There was no obvious explanation for it. She should have been the one to turn her father around, not some stranger. But she couldn’t begrudge Ellis for it. Her father was doing better.
She walked over to the freezer and started rummaging through the contents looking for a bag of corn. Her father liked corn. As for Ellis, she really didn’t care if he liked corn or not. The man had no right to kiss her the way he did and not follow through with anything! She was so constantly frustrated and aroused that if Ellis talked dirty to her she would probably shatter at his feet.
“Are you sure I can’t help with something.” Ellis’s voice came from directly behind her and caused her to lose her grip on the bag of corn she had just pulled out.
She caught the bag, backed away from the freezer and closed the door. There was something he could help with, but preparing dinner wasn’t it. “No thank you, Ellis. I’ve got dinner under control.” It was about the only thing she had under control and she wasn’t going to let him take it from her.
“How about if I help set the table?” Ellis tried to back her against the refrigerator, but she managed to slip past him.
She saw another frustrating kiss coming and wanted no part of it. “I thought you were discussing the upcoming baseball season with my father?” That had been a close one. One more step and he would have had her blocked and she knew firsthand what Ellis did whenever he had her cornered. He tortured her with his mouth and promises of ecstasy that never came.
“I was, but I heard you puttering around in here and thought to offer my assistance.” He moved up behind her as she stood by the sink. “You’re acting awfully edgy tonight, Syd. Is anything wrong?” His hands gripped the counter on either side of her, but thankfully he didn’t touch her.
Short of climbing up onto the countertop, she was
indeed trapped. She shuddered as one of his fingers reached out and stroked its way down her cheek, over her jawline and down the arch of her neck. It was an intimate gesture; one designed to drive her over the edge. At this point, it wouldn’t take much.
“I don’t want you kissing me anymore.”
Ellis dropped his hand immediately and backed up a step. All the teasing that had been in his eyes slowly faded. “Can I ask why?”
“Your kisses make me want too much.” Her gaze dropped to the floor between them.
Ellis stopped his retreat. “Want what?”
“You.” She raised her eyes and studied his strong jaw, the endearing bump on the bridge of his nose and the confusion shadowed in his eyes. “The kisses aren’t enough any longer and we both know there can’t be anything more.”
“Do we, Syd? Tell me again why there can’t be anything more. I know I was the one to set the boundaries, but somehow I can’t remember why.” He reached out a finger and stroked her lower lip.
She felt his finger tremble against her mouth and closed her eyes. He knew exactly where to touch to make her want. There were reasons, good reasons, why they shouldn’t become lovers. She just couldn’t remember a single one of them when he was touching her.
The sound of her father’s cane tapping against the entryway into the kitchen caused her to jerk away from Ellis.
“Is dinner almost ready?” Thomas asked as he made his way into the room.
She knew a blush was sweeping up her cheeks, but she couldn’t prevent it. Thomas was her father, and even though she and Ellis hadn’t been doing anything wrong, it still made her feel awkward to have her father walk into the room when she and Ellis had been so close. It didn’t matter one iota that her father was blind and wouldn’t have known if they had been dancing naked on the counters. She had known.
Sydney couldn’t bring herself to look at Ellis as she took another step away from him. “Dinner won’t be for another half hour, Dad. Why don’t you and Ellis go sit on the patio and enjoy the evening air. It’s not too chilly out tonight. A light jacket should be enough.”
A Father's Promise (Intimate Moments) Page 9