by Cara Colter
And somehow he told her all of it. And with every single word it felt like a chain that had been wrapped hard around his heart was breaking apart, link by link.
Somehow, when he was finished, she had moved from the couch across from him to the place right beside him. Her hand was in his. And she was silent for the longest time.
“But why didn’t she come?” she finally asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t remember.”
“Was it just that once that she didn’t come?”
Here she was dragging more out of him.
“No, it was all the time.”
“Because she couldn’t care about anybody but herself,” Molly said sadly. “Did you think it was about you?”
As she spoke those words Houston knew a truth he did not want to know. Of course he had thought it was about him.
It was not his father he had never forgiven. Not entirely.
Somewhere in him, he had always thought the truth was that he was a person no one could care about. Not if tested. Not over time. If his own mother had found him unworthy of love, that was probably the truth.
It was not his mother he had not forgiven, either.
It was himself he had never forgiven. For not being worthy of love. For not being a person that his mother and father could have at least tried to hold it all together for.
Molly reached up and guided his hand to her face. It was wet with her tears. It was such a tender powerful gesture, without words.
Something in him surrendered. He allowed himself to feel something he had not felt for a very long time. At home. As if he belonged. As if finally, in this world, there was one place, one person who could accept him for what he was.
He contemplated the temptation to tell her more, not sure if a man could put things back the way they used to be after he had experienced such a thing as this.
And it felt like a weakness that he could not fight and that he was not sure if he wanted to.
Damn it, he wanted to. He could not give in to this.
But then, his hand that rested on the wetness of her cheek went, it seemed of its own volition, to the puffiness of her lip. He traced the fullness of it with his thumb, took in the wideness of her eyes, the gentle puff of her breath touching his thumb.
I’m going to kiss her, he thought, entranced. Dismayed.
He snapped back from her, dropped his hand from the full and exquisite temptation of her lips.
But she wasn’t having it. When he pulled away, she stretched forward. She had clearly seen what he would have loved to have kept hidden. In every sense.
Her lips grazed his. Tender. Soft. Supple.
Sexy.
It took every ounce of his considerable discipline to pull away from her. He got to his feet, abruptly, aware if he stayed on that couch with her he was not going to be fully in control of what happened next.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” he said gruffly.
“Why?” she said softly.
She knew why. She knew she was crashing through his barriers faster than he could rebuild them.
“It was inappropriate. I apologize.”
“I think it was me who kissed you. And I’m not apologizing.”
“Molly, you have no idea what you are playing with,” he told her softly, sternly.
“Maybe I do.”
As if she saw him more clearly than he saw himself! Just because he had told her one thing. He didn’t like it that he had told her that. That brief moment of feeling unburdened, not so damned lonely, was swiftly changing to regret.
“I have work to do,” he said, hardened himself to what these moments had made him feel, turned and walked away, shutting the door firmly behind him.
But he didn’t go back to Second Chances, despite his claim he had work to do. He also had no work at home, not even his laptop. He didn’t even feel compelled to check his BlackBerry. Life could go on without him for one evening.
He was sitting out on his terrace, overlooking Central Park.
The terrace was as beautifully furnished as his apartment, dark rattan furniture with deep white cushions, plants flowering in a glorious abundance of color under the new warmth of the spring sun.
Houston was sipping a glass of wine, a Romanée-Conti from the Burgundy region of France. The wine was so rare and sought after it had to be purchased in boxes that contained a dozen bottles of wine, only one the coveted Romanée-Conti, the other eleven from other domains.
For as spectacular as the wine was, it occurred to him this was the kind of wine that seemed as if it would lend itself to romance.
Over the sounds of the traffic, he could hear the pleasant clip clop of the hooves of a horse pulling a carriage.
For the second time—unusual since Houston was not a man given to romantic thoughts—his mind turned to romance. He wondered if young lovers, or honeymooners, in New York for the first time—were riding in that carriage.
He wondered if they were full of hope and optimism, were enjoying the spring evening, snuggled under a blanket, the world looking brighter because they were seeing it through that lens of love. He resisted an impulse to go give them the remainder of that exquisite bottle of wine.
Houston realized, not happily, that he felt lonely. That the merest touch of Molly’s lips had unleashed something terrifying in him.
He realized, too, that he usually kept his life crammed full enough that he could avoid feelings like that—a sudden longing to share a moment like this one with someone else.
Molly Michaels if he wanted to get specific. The truth was they had shared some moments that had forged an instant sense of bonding, of intimacy. It was hard to leave it behind. That was all. It was natural to feel this way.
But it wasn’t natural for him to feel this way.
He realized he still had Molly’s camera in his pocket, and he took it out, scanned idly through the pictures.
He stopped at the one where Princess was kissing his cheek.
Something had changed for him, Houston acknowledged, in that exact moment. Because at that moment, he had surprised himself. He had surprised himself by so clearly seeing—no, not just seeing, knowing—the need in those children. But the biggest surprise had come when he had embraced that need instead of walking—no, running—away from it.
Everything had become personal after that.
It hadn’t been about helping out Beebee and Miss Viv anymore, doing his civic duty, get in, get out, goodbye.
Those kids in that daycare, wistful for the fathers and mothers they didn’t have, had hurt him, reminded him of things long buried, which made the fact he’d embraced their need even more surprising to him.
They called to who he had once been, and he wondered if there was something in that self he had left behind that had value.
“I doubt it,” he muttered, wanting a beer out of a bottle being a prime example. The fact that, even though he was doing nothing else tonight, he was avoiding answering the letter from his father, being another example.
Houston wished, suddenly, wearily, that he had delegated the whole Second Chances project to someone else. It was bringing things to the surface that he had been content to leave behind for a long time.
He scanned through more pictures on the camera, stopped at the one of Molly that he had taken in the garden. She was leaning on the shovel, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, her hair wild around her, her eyes laughing, the constant wariness finally, finally gone from them.
Some tension she always held around him had relaxed in that garden. The playful part that he had glimpsed the first time he had seen her—in a bridal gown at work—had come back out at the garden. And at the preschool.
People loved her. That was evident in the next picture, her in the very middle of a line of ancient grandmothers, unaware how her youth and vitality set her apart, how beautiful she looked with her head thrown back in laughter as she kicked her leg up impossibly high. And in another of her at Sunshine and Lollipop
s, of her laughing, unaware there was salad dressing in her hair.
Ah, well, that was the promise that had been in her eyes all along. That she could take a life that had become too damned serious and insert some fun back in it.
What would she add to an evening like this one? Would she be content to sit here, listening to spring sounds? Or would she want to be out there, part of it?
Houston thought of the taste of her lips beneath his—raindrop fresh—and felt a shiver of pure longing that he killed.
Because the bigger question was what price would he pay to know those things? Would it be too high?
“Ah, Houston,” he said. “The question isn’t whether the price you would pay would be too high. It’s what price would be asked of her, and if it would be more than she was willing to pay?”
Because to satisfy his curiosity by inviting her into his life would only invite trouble. Eventually she would want things he could not give her.
Because you could not give what you did not know. What you had never known. Though he felt how disappointed Beebee would be to know that even her best efforts had not taught him the lesson she most wanted to give him. That a life well lived was rarely lived alone.
And certainly not without love.
She had really come along too late. He’d been fourteen, his life lessons already learned, his personality long since shaped.
He tossed back a wine that was meant to be savored. He did not want to even think the word love on the same day he had told her things he had never told another living soul.
Told her? Ha! Had it dragged out of him!
He got up abruptly, went inside, closed the French doors on the sounds of spring unfolding relentlessly all around him.
He thought of her guiding his hand to the tears slipping down her cheeks, and something happened that hadn’t happened to him since he had learned his mother was dead.
A fist closed in his throat, and something stung behind his eyes.
That’s what he needed to remember about love, he told himself sternly. It hurt. It hurt like hell. It could make a strong man like his father weak.
Or a strong man like him.
A man needed to approach these kinds of temptations with a plan, with a road map of how to extricate himself from sticky situations.
And so when he saw her next, he would be coolly professional. He would take a step back from all the lines that had been crossed. He would not think of chasing her with a worm, or dancing with her, or holding her and telling her one small secret. He would not think of how it had felt to open his world just a little bit to another human being.
He steeled himself against the temptation to go those few steps down the hall to her office, just to see her, make small talk, ask about the stupid budgie.
So, when she arrived in the doorway of his office just before lunch the next day, he hardened himself to how beautiful she looked in a white linen suit, a sunshine-yellow top, her hair already doing its escape routine.
He had one more week here, and then he was never going to see her again. He could suck it up for that long.
“They finished painting my office yesterday,” she said, cheerfully, as if her lips had not touched his. “The ochre isn’t that bad.”
“That’s good.” Apparently she had decided she could suck it up for that long, too. Keep it professional, talk about paint, not revisit last night. Is that why it had taken her so long to come and see him today?
“I was at the Suits for Success auction this morning.”
As if he had asked why he hadn’t seen her!
“How was it?”
“Great.”
They stood on a precipice. Were they going to go deeper? Were they going to remember last night or move on?
She jumped off it.
“My bird likes you,” she said, and then she smiled. “He doesn’t like everybody.”
Her bird liked him? Wasn’t she thinking about that kiss? Had it been a sympathy kiss, then? Good grief!
“That’s good.” How ridiculous was it to preen slightly because her bird liked him? And didn’t like just anybody? Houston fought the urge to ask her if the bird had liked Chuck, as if he could use that to judge the bird’s true skill.
“I want you to know it meant a lot to me. The whole day yesterday. Letting me show you the soul of Second Chances.” Her voice dropped lower. “And then showing me a bit of yours.”
“I don’t like pity, Molly.”
“Pity?” She looked genuinely astounded, and then she laughed. “Oh, my God, Houston, I cannot think of a man who would inspire pity less than you.”
And he could tell that she meant it. And that the kiss had not been about pity at all. And she was so beautiful when she laughed.
Houston knew he could not spend another day with her. She made him too vulnerable. She opened something in him that was better left closed. He could not be with her without looking at her lips and remembering.
The research portion of the job at Second Chances was done. He knew exactly what each store brought in, he knew what their staffing and overhead costs were, he’d assigned a management team to go in and help them streamline, improve their efficiency, develop marketing plans.
One week left. He could suck it up for that long if he avoided her. If he stayed in Miss Viv’s newly revamped office with the door firmly shut and the Do Not Disturb sign out.
Houston Whitford had built a career on his ability to be in control.
But this week was showing him something different about himself. And that version of himself could not refuse what she was offering.
One week. There were really two ways of looking at it. He could avoid her. Or he could engage with her.
Why not give himself that?
Because it’s dumb, his more reasonable self said, like playing with fire.
But he felt the exquisite freedom of a man who had just ripped up his plan and thrown away the map. Like he could do anything and go anywhere.
For one week.
“Do you want to go for lunch?”
Molly was beaming at him. The late morning light was playing off her hair, making the copper shimmer with flame and reminding him what it was like to play with fire, why children were drawn to sticks in campfires. Because before fire burned, it was irresistible, the temptation of what it offered wiping out any thought of consequences.
Molly didn’t taste one single bite of the five-star meal she had ordered. She didn’t think of Miss Viv, or Prom Dreams or what the future of Second Chances was going to look like with him as the boss.
When she left him after lunch, she felt as if she was on pins and needles waiting to see him again, dying to see him again. Thinking uncontrollable thoughts of how his lips had felt beneath hers.
Was he feeling it, too?
When her phone rang, and it was him, she could hear something in his voice.
“I noticed that boys’ soccer team we sponsor are playing on the Great Lawn fields at Central Park tonight. That’s close to home for me. I wouldn’t mind going.”
With me?
“With you.”
There was a momentary temptation to manufacture an exciting full schedule to impress him, to play hard to get, but she had played all the games before and knew they were empty. What she wanted now was real.
“I’d love to join you,” she said.
And that’s how they ended up spending most of the week together. The soccer game—where she screamed until she was hoarse—led to dinner. Then he said he had been given tickets for Phantom of the Opera for the next evening. Though it was the longest running show in Broadway history, Molly hadn’t seen it, and was thrilled to go with him.
After, she was delighted when he insisted on seeing her home. And then said, “If I promise to be a perfect gentleman, can I come in and see Baldy?”
He came in. She made coffee. Baldy decided to give him a chance. She was not sure she had ever seen anyone laugh so hard as when Baldy began to peck affectionately on
Houston’s ear.
Being with Houston was easy and exhilarating. She found herself sharing things with him that she had rarely told anyone. She told him about the pets that had preexisted Baldy. She told him things from her childhood, anecdotes about the long chain of step-fathers. Finally it was he who remembered they both had to work in the morning.
He hesitated at her door. For a moment she thought he would kiss her, again, and her life as she had known it would be over because she knew they were reaching the point where neither of them was going to be able to hold back.
But clearly, though the struggle was apparent in his face, he remembered his promise to be a gentleman.
At work the next day, she appreciated his discipline. It was hard enough to separate the personal from the professional without the complication of another kiss between them.
But even without that complication her life suddenly felt as if it were lit from within.
They had gone from being combatants to being a team. They were working together, sharing a vision for Second Chances. Houston could make her laugh harder than she had ever laughed. He could take an ordinary moment and make it seem as if it had been infused with sunshine.
There was so much to be done and so little time left to do it as they moved toward the reopening of the office, the open house unveiling party set for Friday afternoon. The personal and the professional began to blend seamlessly. They worked side by side, late into the night, eating dinner together. He always walked her home when they were done.
She was beginning to see how right he had been about Second Chances, it could be so much better than she had ever dreamed possible.
And her personal life felt the same way. Life could be so much better than she had ever dreamed was possible!
It seemed like a long, long time ago, she had tried on that wedding dress, and felt all that it stood for. In this week of breathtaking changes and astounding togetherness, Molly had felt each of those things. Souls joined. Laughter shared. Long conversations. Lonely no more.
Was she falling in love with her boss? She had known the potential was there and now she evaluated how she was feeling.