by Dana Corbit
Before he’d held her hand across the table, and now Dinah reached for his. “I’m sure they wanted to tell you. Maybe they didn’t know how.”
“They should have found a way instead of leaving me to find the adoption papers after they were gone.”
She pressed her thumb gently into the back of his hand, offering support. “You’re right. They should have. Now you have to decide if you can forgive them.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It’s anything but simple. Still, you have to find a way to put the issue to rest, or you’ll never find peace.”
“That’s just the thing. I can’t. Put it to rest, that is. Ross Van Zandt, a private investigator working with Tiny Blessings Adoption Agency, informed me that my adoption records were some of the ones that Barnaby Harcourt falsified.”
“Oh, Alex,” she said, squeezing his hand. “That had to feel like another betrayal. Not only the parents who loved and raised you and the people who gave you life but now those who doctored the records, as well.”
Alex could only stare at her. She’d so succinctly described feelings he hadn’t been able to put into words. More than that, she’d understood him when he’d felt for so long that no one ever would. Lately, he’d been trying to compartmentalize his reactions to and feelings for Dinah, but it was becoming harder to tuck them into their appropriate places when they loomed large all around him.
“If Ross contacted you, does that mean he has answers for you or just that he knows the documents were falsified?”
He drew his hand out of her grasp as the waiter delivered their entrées. Though the Chicken Cordon Bleu on his plate looked delicious, he found he wasn’t ready to sample it. He waited until the waiter backed away from the table to answer her question.
“Ross has the name of the woman who probably is my birth mother. It could be a maiden name, and he hasn’t located her or anything, but he has a name to start with.”
Dinah took her time chewing a bite of her chicken, swallowing and wiping her mouth with a napkin before she spoke again. “You told him not to go any further, didn’t you?”
Alex couldn’t keep the surprise off his face. “How did you know?”
“It makes sense.” She shrugged, stirring the sauce on her plate. “You’ve hardly had time to digest the fact that your adoptive parents kept the truth from you, and now you’re expected to jump at the chance to find the woman who was willing to give you away?”
“Ross sure didn’t see it that way.” He stared again at the woman who easily viewed the situation through his eyes.
“You’ll have to forgive Ross. His work is all about puzzles and solutions, and he’s been working so hard to help Kelly repair the damage at Tiny Blessings.” She held her hands wide. “It’s probably hard for him to see each of those files as an individual set of lives when he’s so focused on the puzzle.”
“I still can’t believe someone bashed in his windshield last night.”
“And we thought those sirens were for us.” She chuckled over the irony before becoming serious again. “I’m worried about Ross and Kelly, though. With those threatening letters and now this, I worry about the risks they’re taking to find the answers for Tiny Blessings.”
“That must make Ross even more frustrated with people like me who aren’t interested in the truth of their birth.” He shifted in his seat, settling his forearms on the edge of the table. “He offered to search for my birth mother, and I told him I would think about it, but I don’t know if I’ll ever want to go there.”
“You don’t have to, either.” The vehemence in her voice must have surprised her as much as it had him because her hand flicked to her mouth. She coughed into her fist before trying again. “It’s up to you. It’s your life. If you choose never to search for your birth mother, then you don’t have to.”
“I’m glad to have your permission, anyway.”
He winked at her to let her know he was joking. In truth, he didn’t know what to make of this woman who sensed his feelings and even seemed to feel anger on his behalf. Her empathy touched him in a way he couldn’t explain.
Dinah put her fork aside. “You’ve had a lot to deal with lately, from caring for Chelsea and Brandon to worrying about Karla and Mike and now this.”
“Let’s not forget a rash of false alarms at the local elementary school.” The side of his mouth lifted.
“No, we can’t forget that.” She smiled back at him. “Anyway, thanks for sharing your secret with me.”
He tilted his head, studying her. He hadn’t confessed his need to keep the information regarding his adoption to himself or his strange feeling that he was an imposter in his own life, but again she seemed to understand. “I’m glad I told you.”
He was glad and relieved. Telling Dinah felt like taking a step forward when he’d been in what seemed an interminable pause since he’d discovered the truth about his birth.
Their conversation moved on to more pleasant subjects—to Dinah’s announcement of how much more settled Chelsea had been in school and to Alex’s report on Karla’s improving health—and then on to memories from the carnival the night before. Neither mentioned their kisses or the literal and figurative fireworks that followed, but it was on Alex’s mind, and he sensed it was on hers, as well.
In the glow of candlelight, Alex continued to watch Dinah as she spoke and as she laughed, her eyes crinkling at the sides. He’d thought she was attractive the day he’d met her, but she’d never looked more beautiful than she did that night. Something had changed about Dinah, but he suspected it wasn’t anything specific in the woman herself but how he saw her. He had the disconcerting suspicion that he was seeing her not as the woman who’d intrigued him the last few weeks but as the woman he loved.
Chapter Twelve
D inah stared up into the dark sky, striped with white stratus clouds, and breathed in the cool breeze coming off the Kanawha Canal as she walked alongside Alex on Richmond’s Canal Walk. The well-lit walkway led all the way from Fifth Street to Seventeenth Street past park areas, grandstands, restaurants and shops.
Though this late on a Sunday evening most of those shops and restaurants were closed and this far into the fall season the outdoor dining tables and umbrellas were stored away, the walk was still romantic as the moonlight danced in the dark water of the canal.
“I’m glad you suggested this place.” She glanced at another couple, arms linked, walking a hundred yards or so ahead of them.
“Yeah, me, too.” He was looking up at the same sky that only last night had been packed with visible stars. Tonight, only a few insistent spots of light broke through the maze of clouds.
“I’ve only been here with my parents…and in daylight.” She didn’t mention that an outing with her parents tended to trim the romance out of any situation, but she figured he caught her drift.
A chilling wind brushed her skin then, proving how little insulation her brand-new black peacoat provided from the cold, but Dinah only fastened the buttons at her throat and continued walking. Even the cold couldn’t bother her on this night. It was near perfect just because she and Alex were there together. Alex moved the evening one step closer to perfection by taking her hand.
When Alex stopped her and gently turned her to face him, her eyes fluttered closed. Then he grabbed her second hand.
“No gloves again? You have to be freezing.”
“It’s a new coat,” she said with an embarrassed shrug. At least she hadn’t puckered, but she didn’t delude herself that he’d missed what she was thinking. “I haven’t found a good pair of matching gloves for it yet.”
“And we all know how important it is to coordinate.” He was kidding her, but he still gave her hands a brisk rub between his thumbs and fingers, restoring much-needed circulation.
He released her hands and dipped into the pockets of his topcoat, pulling out a pair of leather gloves. “Here. Put these on.”
“Thanks.” She took a glove, pullin
g it on her right hand, and he helped her on with the left. “But aren’t you cold?”
Letting her turn back until they were side by side again, he took one of those gloved hands in his, awkwardly lacing their fingers together, and started walking again. “No, this is just fine.”
“Okay then.” She grinned into the darkness.
For a long time, neither of them spoke as they walked, the whoosh of the water and the rumble of far-off vehicles the only sounds filling the night. Their joined hands moved in a steady rhythm, timing with Dinah’s pulse yet sharing no secrets of the expanding feelings in her heart.
She was warm now, all right, and it had nothing to do with Alex’s gloves. And had everything to do with Alex himself. Could he be the man God had intended for her all along? Had God known that Alex would be entering the picture even before Bill had exited it?
She shouldn’t have been entertaining those thoughts, her good sense warned. It was too soon, too much of a risk. She was naive and vulnerable. Daring to hope was dangerous when her own history told her it was a mistake.
Still, Alex broke through her best defenses, with his silly jokes, his half grins and his gazes that were so intense he had to see straight to her heart. What would he see if he examined it closely? Would the wave of emotions be enough to send him running in the opposite direction?
But nothing frightened Alex Donovan, except maybe facing his own past, and no one would blame him for being cautious there. He wasn’t afraid of a three-alarm fire, a crowd of heckling children or, more intimidating than either of those, her father in Papa Bear mode.
Dinah smiled as she thought of how Alex had earned her father’s respect. Alex had joked tonight that he’d wanted to get on the minister’s good side since he was dating his daughter. He’d said it as if it was an ongoing thing rather than something limited to one chaperoned pizza outing and a single, private dinner date. He’d made no promises for anything beyond that, though he was so wonderful that Dinah was tempted to ask.
No wonder her mother and Ruth had become charter members of Alex’s fan club along with Dinah as the founding member. She had admired him from the first, his heroic qualities as apparent in his attentive care for his cousin’s children as in his job protecting the public. His good looks had appealed to her in the beginning, but it was his kindness, compassion and humor that kept drawing her closer.
“It’s colder than it was last night.” He paused before adding, “Except on the Ferris wheel.”
“Yes, it is.” Dinah swallowed as images of their ride and their kisses flooded her thoughts again. He’d intended on invoking those thoughts, she knew. She didn’t know, though, why he wanted her to remember and what last evening’s events had meant to him.
Alex’s kiss had felt like a promise made without words, and she’d willingly accepted its gift. But had her feelings been one-sided? Had Alex believed that a kiss was just a kiss, and would that be enough for her if he did?
As she was gathering up the courage to ask him, Alex stopped again near a park area, turned her to face him and covered her lips with his own. He didn’t rush but lingered there, testing and coaxing a reaction from her, until her arms clasped at the back of his neck, bulky gloves and all.
She needed to pull away, to put words to an expression that could mean everything or nothing, but couldn’t seem to let go. She felt so safe in his arms. His presence was solid when all else around her seemed fluid.
When he pulled back, it was only far enough that he could still grip her forearms and rest his forehead against hers. “I’ve wanted to do that all night.”
She shivered, only partly from the loss of the warmth she’d found in his arms. Now wasn’t the time to tell him she’d had similar thoughts all through dinner and after. “But why?”
“Why what—” he began but stopped himself as realization must have settled. “Why would I want to kiss you? Have you ever taken a look in the mirror?” He chuckled at his own joke at first, but then his gaze narrowed. “I don’t understand. What are you asking?”
He stiffened and took a step back, his hands falling to his sides.
As she stared down at his hands, already missing his touch, she struggled to put her worries into words. “Over these past few weeks, we’ve become friends—good friends—outside of our concern for Chelsea and Brandon.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
She nodded, frustrated that she couldn’t get her point across the way she wanted. “As we’ve gotten to know each other better, our relationship has become more than friendship. At least on my part.”
He was smiling now, but he crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for her to finish.
Dinah cleared her throat to try again. She considered covering her face with her hands as she spoke, but she stared at the toes of her pumps instead. “About the kiss…or…um…I guess…kisses…plural. I don’t know what they meant. Or if they were intended to mean anything at all. I just can’t be casual about—”
“About kissing?”
At Alex’s question, Dinah looked up sharply. “You’re not making this any easier, you know.”
“I’m sorry. You just took me by surprise. Or the irony did.”
Instead of asking what irony, Dinah planted her hands on her hips and waited for an explanation. Whatever he had to say couldn’t be any more mortifying than what she’d already said herself.
Alex took his cue. “You’re right, Dinah. We have more than friendship going on here. On my end, too. You’ve become very important to me.”
He paused long enough to step closer and take both of her hands again. “Don’t you see? Kissing you could be a lot of things. Exciting. Terrifying. Telling. But it could never be casual.” He shook his head. “Not for me.”
She didn’t know which of them moved first, but she was back in his arms again, her heart so close to his, and his hands combing gently through her hair. When he tilted his head so he could touch his lips to hers, she smiled against his mouth. There was a promise in his kiss, and hope and joy.
When he ended the kiss and backed away from her, Dinah felt breathless, her heart hammering in her chest. Her lips tingled, and the skin on her chin had become sensitive, abraded by his five o’clock shadow.
Alex’s breath sounded labored, as well, as he rested his cheek against hers. Turning her head, she kissed his cheek, hoping he would kiss her lips once more.
Instead, he rested his hands on her shoulders and took a step back from her again, lowering his hands to his sides. He must have read the confusion in her eyes because he tilted his head to the side and smiled.
“Take pity on a poor guy, will you? I’m trying to be a gentleman here, and in order to do that, I’m going to have to take you home right now.”
Her cheeks burned. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean…” She let her words fall away, feeling like a silly ingenue instead of a secure woman of twenty-five. She was out of her element here with feelings that were too new, too powerful.
“Why would you be sorry? I’m not. God made you this way—stunning, amazing, effortlessly alluring.”
He shifted and cleared his throat but didn’t say more, as if he’d said too much already. Taking her hand and tucking it in the curve of his arm over his coat, he started back for the car.
As their steps fell into a rhythm, Dinah realized Alex hadn’t answered her question. Sure, he’d responded to the question she’d asked aloud about what their kisses meant, but she didn’t have an answer to the more important, unspoken one: what were his intentions? She hated that she felt like another chip off the old Fraser block, but it was killing her not knowing what Alex felt.
Maybe it was too soon to define their relationship, anyway. He hadn’t stated for the record that he was looking for a wife or a fiancée or even a steady girlfriend, but the things he had said were encouraging. He’d told her he thought of them as more than friends, that he’d visited her church partly because of her and even that kissing her wasn’t casual for him. He’d
said she’d become important to him. Wasn’t that enough for now?
Strange, important didn’t begin to describe what he’d come to mean to her over these past weeks. In her thoughts, he’d started out as the heroic bachelor, and he’d transformed into her definition of masculinity, of kindness, of gallantry. Just now he’d proven himself the kind of Christian gentleman she was privileged to know as he guided them both away from temptation.
Somewhere along the way, her feelings for him had become more than admiration. Those feelings had turned tender, though she didn’t know if she dared call it love. Her chest tightened at just the thought of it, whether with fear or certainty she wasn’t sure. She was convinced of one thing, though: the prospect of a world without Alex Donovan in it was too dark to imagine.
When they reached the car, Alex opened the door for her and closed it once she was inside.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked after he’d adjusted the heat.
“I’m fine. Thanks.”
But was she fine? Her feelings were in a jumble, and her thoughts were racing too quickly to control. Did she want a future with Alex? Was she ready to risk the pain of loss for the chance of a life with him?
Her mind told her to be wary, but her heart longed to throw caution to the wind. If love was this exciting and terrifying feeling of weightlessness that she experienced every time Alex looked at her, spoke to her or touched her, it didn’t matter whether her plans were cautious or reckless. For her heart, it was already too late.
Alex unlocked the front door of his house Wednesday night and shouldered it open, balancing a paper grocery bag in one arm and a stack of junk mail and a copy of the Richmond Gazette in the other. He’d made it through the door, managing to juggle it all, before he tripped on the hall carpet and the mail went scattering across the floor in one direction and cans of green beans and spicy chili rolling in the other. It was just another mishap in a day filled with minor agitations that bugged him more than they would have any other day.