“I try,” he said thoughtfully, and took another mouthful of lobster roll. After he’d swallowed, he said, “It’s hard sometimes knowing if what I’m doing is right. Normal guidelines don’t fit when it comes to J.J. He’s a special child.”
Eating her own lobster roll, she waited for him to go on. As curious as she was, she didn’t want to sound nosy. Surprisingly the silence wasn’t awkward. She ate patiently, wondering about all those ways in which J.J. might be special.
Finally John raised his eyes to hers. “What have you heard about him?”
“Just that he has vision and hearing deficiencies.”
“That’s pretty much it. He wears glasses and hearing aids.” With the words, John looked momentarily in pain. “God, it hurts to see him sometimes. My heart aches for the poor little kid. He didn’t ask for any of this.”
“What caused it?”
He thought about that for a minute, then shrugged. “No one knows. He was born that way.”
“Did you know right then?”
He shook his head. “Things seemed fine at the beginning. By the time he was six months old, I could tell that he wasn’t responding to sound. It was when I brought him in to be tested that they detected the problem with his eyes. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a medical nature that they could do about either. They wouldn’t even fit him for glasses until he was close to a year. He’d have just dragged them off.”
“They must help.”
He nodded. “A lot. He reads.”
“At four?”
John shot her a quintessentially parent-proud grin. “Nothing’s wrong with his mind. He’s a bright little kid.”
“I’m sure,” Nina said.
“I wasn’t. Given all the other problems, I’d been told there was a possibility that he’d be retarded. Thank goodness that isn’t so. I mean, how much should the child have to take?”
“But you’ll be putting him in a special school.” That was what she’d been told, the major reason John had invested in Crosslyn Rise. Handled wisely over the years, the profit he stood to make would cover the high cost of that special school.
“I have to. What hearing he has is negligible. He has to learn how to sign, how to read lips and how to talk.”
“That’ll all start next year?”
“It all started as soon as we diagnosed the problem. He and I work with a therapist every morning, and in the afternoon he’s in a play group with children like him. Their parents are trained like I am. The learning for these kids has to be continuous.” His eyes widened and he shot a hurried glance at his watch. The abrupt movement, coming from him, took Nina by surprise. Seeing the time, he let out a breath. “I’m okay. He’s with one of those other families today, but I still have a few minutes.”
“Oh, John, I feel guilty. It can’t be often that you get a free afternoon like this, and to blow it away unpacking my things. I’m really sorry.”
He regarded her strangely. “Don’t be. If I hadn’t wanted to do this, I wouldn’t have. You didn’t exactly invite me.” He paused. “You didn’t exactly want me. I inflicted myself on you, so you don’t have anything to feel guilty about.” He paused again. “Besides, I got a lobster roll out of it. And some interesting conversation.” His voice lowered. “I like you better when you’re talking books than when you’re talking real estate.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” Nina said, then regretted it the moment the words were out because, behind his glasses, John’s eyes darkened. “You’re not as bad as I thought you’d be,” she added quickly, lest he think she was being suggestive in any way, shape or form.
His eyes remained dark. They dropped to her mouth.
“I think,” she babbled on, “that when you only see a person in one context, say for matters involving a business deal like Crosslyn Rise, you get a very narrow view.” Her voice seemed to be fading, like the rest of her was doing. Fading, weakening, feeling all warm and trembly inside. “It’s nice to know you like lobster rolls.”
John’s brows drew together in a brief frown before he managed to drag his eyes back to hers. “I do,” he said quietly. “But I’d better go, I think.” He stood.
Simply so that she wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed, Nina stood, too. “Thanks.” She waved a hand in the vague direction of the food, then broadened the gesture. “For everything.”
He walked slowly to the door, one hand deep in his pocket reaching for his keys, his head slightly bent.
Nina was suddenly nervous. “John? I didn’t upset you, asking about your son, did I?”
“No, no.” He pulled the keys from his pocket, but he didn’t turn.
She moved closer. “I was curious. That’s all.”
They keys jangled in his hands. “People are.”
She moved closer still. “You must be a very good parent. I’m beginning to feel a little humbled.”
“That makes two of us.”
She frowned. “Two?”
Slowly he turned, and what she saw in his eyes took her breath away. His voice was low, still slow but nowhere near as smooth as it usually was. “I thought I was immune to women like you. I thought that there was no way a woman with a fast-driving career could turn me on, but I was wrong.”
A tiny voice inside Nina told her she ought to be angry, to either lash back or turn in the opposite direction and run, but that voice was drowned out by the sound of her pulse beating rapidly, hammering her feet in place on the floor.
His hand shaped her cheek, then slid along her jaw until his fingers were feathered by her hair. “Tell me not to want to kiss you,” he said.
But she couldn’t. As outlandish as it seemed, given that John Sawyer was the antithesis of the kind of man she usually liked, she wanted his kiss. Maybe, deep down inside, she’d been wanting it since he’d shown up at her door that afternoon wearing a T-shirt that made his chest look heart-stoppingly hard and broad. Maybe she’d been wanting it even longer, since the night she’d shown up at his store and seen him sweating. There was something about sweat that blew the intellectual image. Sweat was earthy and honest. Sweat was intimate. Given the right chemistry between a man and a woman, it was a powerful aphrodisiac.
Whether she wanted it to be so or not, Nina had to accept that the chemistry between John and her was right. There was no way her body was letting her move away from his touch, no way it was letting her evade him when his head slowly lowered and his mouth touched hers.
He gave her one kiss, then a second, then a third. Each one lasted a little longer than the one before, each one touched her a little more deeply. He seemed to be savoring her, reluctantly, if his words were to be considered, but savoring her nonetheless. His lips were firm, knowing, increasingly open and wet. His kisses were smooth as warm butter and ten times more hot.
By the time the last one ended and he raised his head, Nina’s breath was coming in short, shallow wisps. Her eyes were closed. She felt miles and miles away from everything she’d always known, transported to a place where kisses touched the heart. She’d never been there before.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said quietly.
She opened her eyes to find his face flushed, his eyes serious. “Probably not,” she said softly.
“You’re not my type.”
“Nor you mine.”
“So why did it happen?”
She tried to think up an eloquent answer, but for all the hard selling she’d done in her day, she was without one. The best she could do was to murmur, “Chemistry?”
After a minute’s thought, he said, “I guess.” As though the admission were a warning, he passed his thumb over her lips—moist now, warm and naturally rouged—before letting his hand fall to his side.
“I didn’t come here for this,” he said gruffly. “I hope you know that.”
She did. Somehow, with John, it wouldn’t have occurred to her otherwise. He wasn’t a wily sort of man.
“I’m not looking for anything,” he went on, still in tha
t same gruff voice. “I don’t have time for this kind of thing. Between the store and my son, I have all I can handle.”
“Hey,” she said, taking a step back, “I’m not asking for anything.” It sounded to her as though he thought she was, or would. “It wasn’t me who started that kiss.”
“You didn’t tell me to stop.”
“Because I was curious about it. But it’s no big thing. It’s over and done. Curiosity satisfied. Period.”
He thought about that, then nodded. But he didn’t turn to leave. Instead, he looked thoughtful again. Then, in a low voice, he said, “Was it good?”
She took a deep breath. “You don’t really want to know.”
“I want to know.”
“It won’t help the situation.”
“I want to know.”
“It’ll only make you angry, because the last thing you want is for someone like me to say it was good.”
“Was it?”
“John,” she pleaded, “why don’t you just leave it be?”
“Because I want to know,” he said with the stubbornness of a child. Nina had the sudden fear that he would stand there asking until she told him the truth.
Staring him in the eye, she said, “Yes, it was good. It was very good, and I’m sorry it ended. But it had to, because it wasn’t right. We’re totally different people with totally different wants and needs. You can’t understand why I talk so fast, and I can’t understand why you talk so slow. I want to make money, you want to meditate on the beach.” Her hands went in opposite directions. “Worlds apart, John, we’re worlds apart.”
“Yeah.” His amber eyes moved over her features. “It’s too bad. You’re awful cute.”
She snorted. “Cute is what every woman over thirty wants to be.”
“Over thirty?”
“Thirty-one, to be exact.”
His mouth quirked at the corner. “I wouldn’t have guessed it.”
That quirking annoyed her. She didn’t like being laughed at. “Well, now you know, and since you do, you can understand that I mean all I say about what I’m doing and where I’m going. I’m not some cute little pixie fresh out of college trying to make it big. I’ve had years of training in my field, and now that I’m on the verge of getting where I want to be, I’m not letting anyone stand in my way.” She stole in a breath and raced on. “So if you think that I’m going to think twice about that kiss, that I’m going to look for a replay or want something more, you’re mistaken. I’m off and running, and you’ll only slow me down. I won’t let that happen.”
Having said her piece in a way that she felt was forceful and clear, she stood her ground with her jaw set, waiting for John to do his thinking thing then come up with a rejoinder. Not more than thirty seconds had passed, though, when, with a start, he glanced at his watch.
“Damn,” he muttered, “I’m late.” Raising his arm in a wave, he was fast out the door, taking the stairs at a speedy trot. Nina had never seen him move so fast, but it made sense that if he did it for anyone, he would do it for his son, and she was glad. From what he said, the boy had precious little going for him but a good brain and a loving dad.
Standing there amid the cartons in the living room that didn’t feel quite hers yet, Nina’s mind traveled back in time to when she’d been four herself. She hadn’t had any obvious handicap. Her vision had been fine, along with her hearing, and her mind had been sharp—too sharp, in some respects. Even at that age she had wondered why she didn’t have a father. Even then she had known something was wrong when she’d heard gruff voices coming from her mother’s room late at night. Even then she had known that the bruises on her mother’s face and arms and legs weren’t normal.
She sighed. Ignorance would have been bliss back then, but what was done was done. She’d overcome those things that had darkened her early years and was now well on her way to having the security she wanted. Okay, so once in a while she wished things were different. Once in a while she wished she had someone rush home to her the way John Sawyer had to his son. But life wasn’t perfect, she knew. No one had everything. So if she didn’t have that special someone who cared, she had a growing career and a growing name and lots of respect along the way. She could live with that. She had no other choice.
* * *
Come eight o’clock that night, she wasn’t thinking of choices. Having unpacked the very last carton, the only thing on her mind was soaking in a hot, hot bath. Stripping out of her shirt and jeans, she started the water and returned to the bedroom for a robe, when the phone rang.
Absurdly, her first thought was that the phone would also be ringing at her old apartment, jangling through rooms now empty and forlorn. Remembering the good two years she’d had there, she felt a twinge of sadness.
Her second thought was that Lee was calling in to report on any activity that had taken place at the office that day. Shrugging into the robe, she reached for the phone.
“Hello?”
“Nina?”
It was a man’s voice. Though she hadn’t ever heard it before on the phone, she knew instantly whose it was. Thoughts of him had been hovering at the back of her mind since he’d left her house in such a rush.
“Hi,” she said cautiously.
“It’s John.”
“I know.”
The line was silent for a time before he said, “I, uh, just wanted to apologize for leaving so abruptly. Time had gotten away from me and J.J. was due home.”
“Did you get back in time?”
“Almost.”
“No?”
“They were waiting out front in the car.”
“For long?”
“Three or four minutes. I’m usually on time. They were starting to worry.”
“How about J.J.?”
“He was okay.”
“Did he have fun?”
“I think so. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether he had a good time or he’s just real happy to be home. One thing’s for sure. He ate enough. He was wearing mustard, fruit punch and chocolate all over his shirt.”
“Oh, yuck.” She thought about single parenthood, and a sudden fear struck. “Are you the one who has to do the wash?”
“You got it.”
“Oh, yuck.”
“Actually, given all I’ve had to clean up in the last four years, the dribbles from a picnic lunch are a snap.”
Nina found herself picturing those other things. “You changed diapers?”
“All the time.”
“What a good father. And husband. Your wife must have appreciated that.” Once the words were out, she held her breath.
“Actually,” he said after a brief pause, “she took it pretty much for granted. It was part of the bargain we made. I wanted the baby. She agreed to carry it if I was willing to take the responsibility for its care once it was born.”
“That’s awful,” Nina exclaimed without thinking, then she did think and regretted the outburst. If John had adored his now-dead wife, the last thing Nina wanted to do was criticize her. “I mean, I suppose people do what’s right for them. Did it work for her?”
“Not particularly. She went right back to work the way she planned, but she felt guilty, and she resented that.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yeah.” He paused. “Well.” Another pause, then a new breath. “Anyway, I’m used to doing everything for J.J. It’s kind of fun. Gives me a real sense of self-sufficiency.”
Nina thought about that. “Do you cook?”
“Nothing gourmet, but he doesn’t mind that. He’s big on things like BLTs, and PB and Fs.”
“PB and Fs?”
“Peanut butter and fluff sandwiches. Not quite the kind of meal you make, I’m sure.”
Remembering the exchange they’d had over cookbooks in his store, Nina felt sheepish. “I don’t really do that much.”
“Ha,” he scoffed. “I’m the one who unpacked your kitchen today. I saw that wok and that clay pot and that fondue dish.�
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“Those are all for fun. I don’t use them often, except maybe for the wok. When I want a quick meal and don’t feel like a frozen dinner, I stir-fry something up. I’m pretty good at it, actually. I’ve found some good recipes. I’ll make you something sometime, if you’d like.”
For the third time in the conversation, words had slipped from her mouth that she hadn’t consciously put there. The idea that John Sawyer, whom she worked with but with whom she didn’t have another thing in common except a love for reading, should want to come back to her house—for dinner, no less—was ridiculous. Surely he’d see that.
“Yeah,” he said, “well, maybe.” He paused. “So. Did you finish with the rest of your things?”
Feeling as though she’d been eased from a precarious place, she said, “Sure did. I’m feeling it now.”
“Sore?”
“Mmm. I was just about to get in the—oh, hell! Hold on! I forgot about the water!” All but dropping the phone on the floor, she raced into the bathroom in time to watch the first of a steaming waterfall cascade over the edge of the tub. Frantically twisting the taps, she turned off the water, pulled out the plug, then reached for the towels she’d so recently hung on the nearby bar. “Good show, Nina,” she muttered to herself as she mopped up the spillage. When she had the worst of it absorbed, she dropped the sodden towels into the sink, replaced the plug with just enough water left for her bath and returned to the phone.
“I can’t believe I did that,” she said without prelude. “A fine thing it’d be if the first night I’m here, I send water dripping onto my landlord’s head.”
“All cleaned up?”
“Enough.” Thinking of the still-damp floor, she sighed. “I’d better go finish. Thanks for calling, John. And thanks again for your help. It was nice.”
Some time later, lying in the tub with the heat of the water seeping into her tired limbs, Nina realized that it had been nice, both his help and his call. He was a nice man. A sexy man. All wrong for her, of course, and there was no point in even thinking of a repeat of that kiss. Still, he was nice to be with—which was what she told Lee the next morning when she was asked about the car that had been parked behind her car that Sunday afternoon.
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