by Kim Law
“Tell me about growing up,” she urged. “What were you like as a kid? What made you want to be a lawyer?”
“You’re asking a lot of questions tonight.” His hand flattened under hers, and his fingers and palm now rested on her knee. She held her breath. The heat from each of his fingers touched her through her jeans.
She slowly let out the breath. She liked him way too much.
“I just like to know things,” she said. She swallowed, thinking she’d like to know what his hands would feel like on her bare skin. “I like to learn. Asking questions is one of the best ways to find things out.”
He didn’t answer at first. Instead, his thumb moved in a tiny arc against her leg. She tried not to let it get to her.
Which was laughable. The man’s breathing got to her.
Of course his thumb stroking her leg would.
“I was on the debate team in high school,” he finally began to talk. She ignored his thumb and concentrated on his words. “I was the captain. My dad made the statement after one of my debates that I would make a good lawyer.” He turned his hand over so that their palms touched. Her nipples beaded. “So now I’m a good lawyer,” he finished.
She nodded. Good lawyer. Got it. She was losing focus fast. “What else?” she whispered. “What were you like before that? In elementary school. Junior high.”
She could picture him in little dress pants and jackets. He would have stolen her heart.
His fingers closed over the fleshy part of her palm and held her hand trapped in his. “I was picked on, actually.”
“What?” Her heart thundered at the admission.
He nodded. “No friends. Glasses. Boys called me a nerd. Girls giggled behind my back.”
“Why?” The word came out as shock. “I can’t imagine . . .”
She trailed off. She couldn’t imagine everyone didn’t want to either be him, or be with him. But she couldn’t say that out loud. It might make her sound needy.
“I was smart. I was different. Adopted, you know. Not that that was such a weird thing, but something they could point out. And my mom likes to dote.” The corners of his mouth slid into a sexy arc. “You’ve seen it. Can you imagine what it was like when I was ten?”
“Ah, geez,” she whispered.
“But that was okay. I was special. Mom and Dad told me that from an early age. They chose me to adopt, and they wouldn’t have had it any other way. So I loved her doting. I loved the attention.” His thumb slipped between their hands and slid over the center of her palm, and the edge of his tongue briefly touched his bottom lip. “Only, I had no friends. And yes, I was lonely.”
She’d accused him of being lonely the other night. “Are you still lonely?”
She was certain he wouldn’t admit the truth.
The man made it a point to never miss Sunday lunch with his mother. He may play the loner card exceptionally well, but she was no longer buying it. He needed people in his life.
At least a few.
Ones who honestly cared about him.
She swallowed, her throat tight. Because she cared about him.
His hand moved once again, and this time his fingers ended up twined between hers. His eyes shifted to her mouth and she held her breath.
Then he lifted his gaze and he arched a brow. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “But not tonight.”
This was it. He was going to kiss her.
She was certain of it.
And she was going to let him.
His gaze once again swept over her lips. Her heart raced.
And then he untangled his hand from hers and started his car.
“I get the impression you’re trying to delay taking me to your cabin,” he teased.
Her entire body wept at the loss of the potential kiss. It was a fight not to physically cry at the calm, unconcerned tone of his voice.
Had he seriously not been thinking about kissing her? At all?
She had issues.
She needed to quit fixating on this man. Who would be leaving her in a matter of days.
Without expressing anything she really wanted to say, she directed Zack back to their property and pointed out the one-lane road that would take them to her cabin.
Zack exhaled silently as he pulled the car to a stop in front of Holly’s log cabin. Everything went dark when he turned off the engine. The glow from the moon came into focus, as well as the sounds of the night.
The river not far from them, the mating songs of insects. He even heard rustling in the woods behind them.
Yet generally speaking it was quiet. Near silent. Including the woman by his side.
My God, he’d almost kissed her.
And if he had, he would have done more.
Right there in his car, he would have pulled her into his lap and done his very best to get her out of her clothes.
Holly was the last person he wanted to hurt, though.
So he’d reminded himself that she was looking for a husband. Not a one-night stand. And he’d started his car and driven away.
“Some reason we’re not getting out?” Holly asked beside him.
He hadn’t even looked in her direction.
Because he still wanted to stretch her out and feast on her body.
Forcing casualness to his voice, he gave her a teasing wink. “Just enjoying the quiet. We don’t get nights like this in Atlanta.”
“I’m sure that’s the truth.”
She shoved her door open and he followed suit. He couldn’t help but watch as she moved ahead of him. She was mostly a silhouette in the dark, but the moon was almost full. It picked up on the pale skin of her cheeks and throat, making them glow in the night.
He could imagine his mouth tasting the very spots the moon landed on.
When he didn’t move toward the house, she looked back. “You still want to see, don’t you?”
The tentativeness in her voice kicked him into gear. His hesitancy was making her nervous. Fearful that her stuff wasn’t good enough.
He’d seen that in her eyes Saturday morning, and he’d seen it again that afternoon. He’d asked her to show him her work, and she’d tried to run away. She was terrified she wasn’t good enough.
“Absolutely,” he said.
He caught up with her, and they stepped onto the porch together. When she paused before unlocking the door, he slid his hand down the inside of her arm and grasped her hand in his.
“You saw how fast those two sold the other day.” His words were meant to soothe. To let her know how good she was. “I have no doubt we could have pulled the rest out and sold them just as quickly.”
Her face turned to his. She was nothing but a shadow, but he knew it was fear radiating back at him. She didn’t speak, and he was honestly humbled to be standing there beside her.
“Thank you for showing them to me,” he added sincerely. “I know how scary it can be.”
And he did. That’s why he’d told her about being picked on as a kid. Sometimes, the vulnerabilities that have the power to hurt the most need to be addressed.
He had deep scars from his formative years, and he’d wanted her to understand that. He’d been through his own hurts. His own fears. And if she’d been paying attention, she would recognize that he still had plenty of them hanging around.
But for her, he was strong.
She made him that way.
She held up the key. “You do it,” she whispered.
He nodded. He took the key from her hand, and because he couldn’t help himself any longer, he leaned in and pressed his lips to her cheek. He lingered for only a second. “You’re the most amazing person I know,” he whispered.
Then he put distance between them and he slid the key into the lock.
Chapter Fifteen
With one flick of th
e switch, light filled the room from the front wall of the house to the back, and Zack found himself mesmerized by the work hanging around him.
He stood in the doorway feeling Holly inch in beside him, and took in the mirrors on every wall of the space. These weren’t the ones she’d had in the back of her car. They were like the pieces hanging at the store.
But still. They were works of art themselves.
The creativity she held inside her was astounding.
He glanced down to where she stood beside him. Her hands were in front of her, nerves twisting her fingers tight.
“Where are the others?” he asked.
Pleading eyes turned up to him. “You can’t just be satisfied seeing these?”
He shook his head and gave her a soft smile. She might give him a hard time about the mirrors, but he knew she would show him her best. He suspected she was anxious to. “Nope,” he said. “Show me the goods, Marshall. I want to see it all.”
His words could be taken in more than one way, and if the quick glaze that came over her eyes was anything to go by, she had taken them in more than one way.
She wanted him.
He wanted her.
What the hell was he supposed to do about that?
“Show me,” he demanded. He grabbed her hand in his and ignored all those wants.
She licked her lips, glanced at his lips, and then nodded. “They’re in the back.”
With that, the two of them walked through the room together. There was a couch in the living room, as well as a flat-screen, a DVD player, and an oversize recliner. He could picture her taking a break from working and curling up in that recliner with a book, or maybe a glass of wine. The chair was large enough that he could fit in there with her.
They entered the connected kitchen.
Though there was a table in the room, it wasn’t used for eating. Nor was any of the counter space used for normal kitchen jobs. Everywhere he looked, there were bins of items. Every color, shape, and size he could imagine.
And then his eyes landed on the piece on the table.
He took in the work before him. The mirror wasn’t complete. Far from it. But already he could tell it would blow him away.
It was interlocking pieces. And if he wasn’t mistaken, every piece would end up looking like a continuation of another. As if there were no beginning and no end. He’d seen pictures like that. Brainteasers. But never anything done in this fashion.
“You have unimaginable skill,” he told her. She was brilliant at what she did.
“Thank you.” Her words were not spoken timidly. As if in this house, surrounded by all that was her, she didn’t doubt her skill.
When he looked up from the table, he took in one of the most dazzling sights he’d ever seen. Holly, fresh and pure and simple. Standing in the middle of the room, hundreds of mirrors glistening around her, each one standing out more than the next.
The contrast of the explosion of light and color next to Holly’s simplicity was eye-catching. It was beautiful. As was Holly.
And then two small frames caught his eye. They were as original and unique as everything else in the house, but instead of holding mirrors, they held certificates.
“What are those?” he asked. He nodded in the direction of the frames.
They looked like . . .
“Diplomas.” She didn’t even turn to see what he meant. “One from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and the other an MBA from Columbus State University in Georgia.”
He was at a loss for words.
Finally, he shook his brain loose—sort of—and asked, “You went to college? Twice?”
Dumb questions.
“Online,” she said.
“Why?”
That had been the wrong thing to say. He knew it the second it was out of his mouth, and it was only confirmed by the tightening at the corners of hers.
“Why not?” she snapped out.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Seemed he kept saying that with her. “I meant . . .”
He stopped talking and just looked at her. Her shoulders had pulled in a fraction, and she no longer looked tall and proud as she had just a moment ago. He’d done that to her.
“Hell, Holly. I don’t know what I meant. It just caught me off guard. I had the impression you weren’t interested in”—he motioned toward the diplomas—“that.”
“Why?” The word was not confrontational, but merely sounded as if she really wanted to know. Why did he think she wouldn’t want a college degree?
And he knew he was a snob.
Might as well be honest. He suspected she would call him on it if he wasn’t.
“Because you work for your family, filling in wherever they ask, and you don’t seem to want more. Because you’re happy here. In a town that’s so small a person could almost drive through it and miss it. None of that strikes me as overly ambitious.” He honestly felt bad for his words. “So college never entered my mind.”
He should have known there was more to her.
If he’d been paying attention at all, he would have seen it. Hadn’t she told him she liked to learn new things? To know things?
But then why do nothing with it?
And then he replayed her words. Art Institute of Pittsburgh. MBA.
She had done something with it.
She’d sought her own path. She’d studied and learned, and she’d created something with originality and skill. And if he were to guess, he’d say she had a good head for business as well. She’d negotiated the sale of her two mirrors the other day with skill and finesse. He hadn’t been in on that. He’d simply watched the interplay.
“When I graduated high school, my parents never once asked me what I wanted to do with my life,” she told him now. “Nor did my brothers. I was eight years behind Sean, and everyone just assumed I would stick around and fill in where needed. Mostly they assumed I would be happy at the diner forever. It was as if I was nothing but the accidental little sister.”
“They don’t think of you that way.” He’d met her parents. They were great people. They thought the world of Holly.
“Maybe not consciously, but I felt like an afterthought. It never occurred to them that I might want more.”
“Why didn’t you tell them?”
She shrugged and chewed on her lip, and he saw indecision return. She’d been afraid they wouldn’t believe in her dreams.
“Show me the rest,” he prompted.
She didn’t hesitate. She moved to a door just to his left and put her hand on the knob. Her chest rose and fell with a steadying breath as she paused there. He could see her nerves. He could feel his own.
Whatever was behind that door was something she hadn’t shown to anyone else.
With a twist of her wrist, the door opened.
The full-length windows from the back wall of the kitchen extended into the bedroom, and the moon seemed to hang just outside the glass. Blue light streaked in from outside, bouncing off the more intricate designs that hung on the walls. These were the pieces that had been in the back of her car.
The ones that were her core.
He could see that from where he stood. Everything she was had been poured into them. Originality, shine, and sparkle. They were breathtaking.
She flipped on the overhead lights, and he took a step inside.
There was a bed against the middle of one wall, with a small lamp and bedside table beside it. On another wall were a dresser and a closet door.
Everything else was mirrors.
“Why in the world are these here instead of in a gallery somewhere?”
For the first time since he’d met her, sadness dimmed her light.
And then he got it. His heart broke for her.
“This is why you went to Chicago,” he said.
S
he nodded.
“What happened?”
She paused, just for a second. “I couldn’t even get in the door,” she said. “I went to top-of-the-line boutiques. Big names. I don’t want to be lost on the shelves, I want my name front and center. So I shot big.” Her voice tightened to the point that Zack reached for her. He wanted to hold her in his arms and take on her pain. She shook her head and took a step away. “They wouldn’t even look at them,” she whispered. “They assumed a local yokel like me wouldn’t have anything worth looking at.”
She jabbed a finger at her chest and said, “They sneered at me. Snickered and called me nobody.”
Fury boiled inside Zack. They had no right.
“You don’t need them,” he said.
“I need someone!” she exclaimed so suddenly he was taken aback. Her voice rose higher. “As it is, these are going to remain hidden right here. I can’t stop making them. They’re my passion. I see new designs every time I close my eyes, and often when I don’t. But I can’t do anything with them.”
“Why?”
His single word seemed to let the air out of her.
She blinked. Then she gave him a funny look. “Why what?”
“Why can’t you do anything with them?”
She didn’t answer for a few seconds, but then crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Because they aren’t good enough.”
Translation, she didn’t think she was good enough.
Just like she thought her family didn’t think she was good enough.
So many things suddenly made sense.
“That’s why you hide behind the makeup. You’re hiding your desire to be taken seriously.”
Her face scrunched in confusion, but he could see he had her attention.
“You don’t show people the real you,” he said. “Because you fear you’re not good enough.”
“The shoes are the real me,” she fought back. “I love them.”
He nodded. “I didn’t mention the shoes.”
He loved the shoes too. And he did think they were the real her. They were vibrant and fun. They were happy.