He turned, an arm on the steering wheel, cautioning himself even as he spoke. “You’ve known me most of my life, so you know by now that I don’t suffer from any great lack of confidence.”
“That’s certainly true.” The dry comment was accompanied by a grin that hid more than it revealed. She was still Leslie Sanderson, Finance Analyst. Somehow he had to find Leslie Sanderson, person. He needed her to trust him, and according to the counselor he’d seen the day before and all the reading he’d done since, trust was going to be the hardest thing for her to recover.
“You also know I’m not easily daunted when I set my sights on something.”
She wasn’t as quick with a comeback to that one. As a matter of fact, she said nothing at all.
“I’m not out to conquer you, Les, or to force you into anything you don’t want. I’m not out to convince you what’s best for you. What I want is for you to give me a chance—” She started to interrupt and he shook his head. “Just hear me out. And by that I mean really listen, okay?”
Her lips trembled as she watched him in the moonlight and he had a feeling she knew exactly what he was asking. He wanted her to hear, honestly and completely and without defensiveness, what he had to say. “I’ll try.”
Kip opened his mouth, relieved to have made it over the first hurdle, and found he couldn’t speak. The remainder of his life might very well rest on the next few moments.
“I want to marry you because I love you.” They were the hardest words he’d ever said. And in the end, because their truth was stronger than his fear, they were also the easiest. “I’ve held back that part of myself for thirty-three years,” he went on, so stunned at what he was doing, light-headed with the relief surging through him, that he told her exactly what he was thinking. “It’s like I’ve spent that time preparing myself for when it would finally happen.”
“You’re confusing sympathy—probably with a bit of misplaced guilt because you didn’t know about Cal all those years—for love.”
“I’m confusing nothing,” he told her, his expression grim. “And you said you’d really listen.”
Her chin sank to her chest, in acknowledgment he thought, of his point. And then she raised it again, as though inviting him to go on.
“I’ve had everything else, Les. Every kind of man-woman relationship it’s possible to have, within the bounds of law and human decency, of course. I’ve had one-night stands, six-month stands, ten-minute stands. I’ve dated older women, younger women, women who were friends first and I’ve been friends with women after we decided to stop being sexually involved. I’ve been with whores and virgins and even a lesbian once.”
She blinked at that—as he’d meant her to do. If he had to shock her, he would. Maybe he’d crossed over the fair-play line again, but he was playing for keeps.
“I’ve been with women I was so attracted to I could hardly think of anything else. I’ve had girlfriends who made me laugh, girlfriends whose conversation was stimulating, some who lived wild and adventurous lives and others who liked staying home in the evenings. There’ve been tall ones and short ones, skinny ones and even a few who weren’t so skinny. For the most part, I enjoyed all of them.”
She swallowed and her eye twitched, but she said nothing. She turned her head away, gazing out toward the world of twinkling lights beneath them. All the lives down there. All the stories and passion and pain.
Life was confusing.
“The reason I’m telling you about these women is not to brag or because I think it in any way adds to my character, or desirability, or worth. It’s because if there’s one area in which I do know what I’m talking about, it’s my relationships with and feelings for women.”
She was sitting there so proud and determined, and he wanted so badly to hold her until all the pain inside her melted away.
“And what I know is this. In all my experience, I’ve never before felt, even remotely, what I feel when I’m with you. Or when I think about you. Or when I’m walking down the street and someone inadvertently reminds me of you. My feelings go far beyond sex, though I do find you incredibly attractive and think about making love to you. I look forward to coming home at night to hear about your day. The thought of you in the kitchen gets me out of bed in the morning. And the thought of what Cal did to you…” He stopped, waited, and then tried again. “It breaks…my…heart.” The tears he’d held in check until then choked him, but Kip didn’t stop. “In this very short time with you, I’ve discovered a deeper meaning to life and I don’t even want to contemplate living without that.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she asked, “And when did you discover this love, before or after I told you about the incest?”
“I think it began when you heard that my father had forgotten my birthday and you cried.”
“It was your sixteenth,” she said, her voice softening ever so slightly.
“He made up for it with one hell of a nice sports car.”
“It didn’t make up for anything.” She’d turned her head, was looking at him.
“No, it didn’t. Nothing did until I found you again.”
“EVEN IF IT’S TRUE, Kip, even if you do love me, it’s too late.”
He’d played his only ace and after more than half an hour of trying to convince her, he was about to lose the hand, anyway.
The dirt path was barren, as was the road that led to it. In all the time they’d been there, not another car had gone by.
“It’s not too late. It’s never too late.”
“Maybe not for people like you,” she said. “You, Kip, you fall down, you get back up and brush off your knees and figure it was all part of the game, to use that analogy you like. Me, I fall down, I get back up but my knees are scraped and bleeding and I can’t walk as fast and I don’t want to slow down the whole team.”
“Tell me something.” Kip forced himself to see this through. “Do you love me?”
“Kip! I…there’s no point in—”
“You said you’d had a crush on me for years,” he persisted. “And you responded to my kisses when, according to you, you’ve never felt even a hint of desire before….”
“Yes, but…”
“Do you love me, Les?” Everything was on the line now.
“I…”
She tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let her escape, willing her eyes to stay locked with his.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“IT DOESN’T CHANGE ANYTHING.”
She was just wrong about that. Kip was still sitting in the car. So was she. Fifteen minutes had passed since her confession, and he still faced seemingly insurmountable barriers, but he had the determination necessary to overcome them.
“Les, we love each other. That’s all we need to get through whatever lies ahead.”
She shook her head, not budging at all. “Love is not selfish, Kip. What kind of love would it be if I allowed it to trap you?”
“It won’t trap me.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“I know one thing very clearly,” she said, sitting up straight, staring down at the valley. “I know I cannot trust myself to make it work. I know I can try, and that it might be okay. I also know that I’m sensitive and weak, and when I’m really up against the wall, I might not come through.”
He wanted to tell her she was being ridiculous, but one of the things he’d learned in the past two days was that victims of abuse spent plenty of time beating themselves up. What they needed from their partners was building up.
“I saw a counselor yesterday.”
That got her attention.
“He said that as the partner of a survivor of sexual abuse, I’d need to have more compassion, patience, understanding and love than I thought it was possible to have.”
Her eyes filled, but Kip continued anyway, although his voice softened. “When he said that, Les, it was like some kind of confirmation clicked on inside me, val
idating all the new and strange feelings I’ve been experiencing since the day I walked into your office.
“What it all means is that you don’t have to come through. If it takes this whole lifetime and beyond, I have the patience to stand beside you, to be the one you know will be there when you fall.”
“But don’t you see?” she said, tears streaming down her face now. “Cal loved me and I loved him, but my love made me weak and I didn’t take care of him! I didn’t make him get help. I didn’t fight him. In the end, I didn’t even tell him no!”
He understood, sort of, the self-blame she inflicted. She’d been seriously injured at the most impressionable time of her life; she held herself responsible because she hadn’t known how to save herself. The natural order of things had gone sickeningly awry, yet rather than blame fate or her mother or Calhoun, it was as though she’d determined that she was at fault for not being able to prevent those atrocities. And because of that, even now, all these years later, she didn’t quite trust herself to be there for anyone, not even a child. She’d been betrayed by the very person meant to provide safety and security when she was a child, but she also believed she’d betrayed herself.
At least that was his take on it. But what did he know?
He was so much in love he felt her pain as his own.
“Love does not make you responsible for another person’s choices, Les.” He spoke from his heart, not relying on the books or the counselor. “We’re all here to either make it or fail, as the case may be. Love is our chance to get the strength and support we need to make it, but if we choose poorly, we can ruin that chance.”
He’d been willing to adore his father if the old man had given him even a hint that his affection would be welcome—if he’d spent even one evening a month at home with him.
He was afraid of her silence, afraid the fear inside her, the inability to trust, was working up some new case against him.
“What about Kayla?” he finally asked.
“What about her?”
“You love her.”
“I know.”
“And you haven’t turned your back on her, in spite of your fear that your love makes you weak. On the contrary, you’ve agreed to be her primary caregiver, her protector and provider.”
“I had to,” she whispered, but he could see his words had hit a mark. “She’s a vulnerable little girl and I know what can happen…”
“Yes, you do, honey,” he said softly, reaching to brush a curl back from her cheek, not because it was out of place, but because he needed to touch her. “And since you know what can happen, you’ve got a better chance of protecting her.”
“Oh, Kip,” she said, trembling as her tears wet the hand that still rested against her cheek. She turned her face into his palm. “You’re confusing me.”
“Good.”
“It’s not good. You keep talking about how aware I am, and how I make choices based on that, yet when I try to do so, you keep stopping me.”
“I didn’t say all those choices were the best ones,” he told her, trying to smile, to ease her way. “Don’t you see, Les,” he said, completely serious again almost immediately. “You’re already trusting yourself to love a helpless little girl, and that’s a much greater risk than loving an adult who can look out for himself.”
“Did I say—ever—that I trusted myself to raise Kayla?” she asked, her eyes wide and glinting with self-reproach. “I don’t. I worry every day that I might screw up and that she’ll end up being hurt by something I did or didn’t do.”
“And isn’t that how it is for every parent?” he asked. “You’re the one who told me that. There hasn’t been a day since I picked up Jonathan from his nana’s house that I don’t worry about the very same thing. We do our best, Les. It’s all we can do.”
She didn’t speak for a long time. Kip let the silence, the peace of the night, wash over him.
“It’s another reason to marry me, though,” he dropped softly into the night air.
“What is?” There was no defensiveness left in her tone. Just a hint of resignation and a whole lot of uncertainty.
“Our doubts about being good parents. Everyone knows two heads are better than one. Checks and balances and all that. If you marry me, you save Jonathan from me—a guy who knows absolutely nothing about being a parent, not having had a working example to learn from. And you gain a reasonably intelligent, rational adult as a safeguard in case you miss some important clue with Kayla.”
She didn’t say no. Kip noticed that immediately.
“Kayla and Jonathan, particularly Jonathan at the moment, need a solid home, Les. They need security. Permanence. Think how much easier it’ll be for them to bring friends home if they can show a well-kept house with a mom and a dad who are married, as opposed to trying to explain separate parents, separate suites, for separate kids all in the same house.”
“I hate how cruel kids can be,” Les said. “Most of them are just repeating things they’ve heard from their parents and don’t even know how harmful their words can be.”
“Jonathan’s lost so much, Les. And he might be a little guy, but smart as he is, he’s figured out that if we’re married, it’d be a lot harder for either of us to pack up and leave him.”
“Okay.”
“What?” Mouth open, Kip reeled his mind back from the next stage of his campaign and stared at her.
“Okay,” she repeated.
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I’ll marry you.”
HE WANTED TO DO IT as quickly as possible—a trip to Las Vegas the next day. His second suggestion had been in front of a justice of the peace three days later. Leslie had always dreamed of a church wedding. And wanted to buy time to talk herself out of this madness, or at least have time to change her mind if she found she couldn’t go through with it.
They compromised with a plan to speak to Clara in the morning and see how quickly her mother could arrange a church wedding—preferably, according to Kip, before the end of the year. That gave them a week and four days. Her mother was good, but maybe not that good.
And then, apparently having accomplished what he’d set out to accomplish, Kip fell silent.
Leslie had no idea what to do next. Sitting in Kip’s Expedition, she stared out into the night, at the view she’d spent half a million dollars to have at her disposal every night. Generally, the city lights brought her a sense of peace as she imagined sitcom-type families at home, having their dinners, helping children with homework, giving baths, going to school events. And later, when all was quiet, holding each other in sleep.
Tonight she wondered if there was even one house out there with people who actually lived that way. Or did each and every one of those lights represent broken dreams and lost hopes?
Marrying Kip. It was what she’d dreamed of all her life. And now she didn’t know if she could accept it….
Kip shifted beside her and she turned to find him watching her, the warmth of his eyes obvious in the moonlight.
How could she look into those eyes, feel his heat, his kindness, the safety he offered and think that life was cruel?
“Are you ready to go home?”
“No.” She’d have to go to her room and pretend to sleep or risk waking her mother. Both seemed beyond her at the moment.
But he was probably exhausted. “We can leave, if you need to,” she offered. She’d go for a walk. She paid a hefty homeowners’ fee each month to ensure the neighborhood’s security.
And the bobcat that had been spotted in the area was much less of a threat than the emotions racing through her, the thoughts and memories attacking her mind.
“I’d like to suggest something, but I want you to be completely honest with me if you aren’t up for it.”
She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but it sounded ominous. Still, it was probably better than lying sleepless in her bed. Or facing her mother. “Okay.”
“The counselor said something yesterday…”
Leslie’s stomach tightened all over again. Was this the way it was going to be now? Her past being brought up at any time? She’d never considered that, once the secret was no longer just hers, she’d given up control of it. She’d given up her ability to turn off the volume, to close her eyes to the memories. She’d lost her ability to pretend.
Many days, that was all that had saved her.
“…I’ve done a lot of reading, and…”
Kip appeared to be struggling for words. Unusual. Intriguing. And very sweet. In spite of the topic.
“What?” she said, finding a new understanding in that second. She’d had eighteen years to accept what had happened, to come to terms with the fact that the brother she’d adored had been so ill. Kip had had less than forty-eight hours.
“Over and over, I came across the observation that abuse, especially incest, retards the development of the victim beyond the age when the abuse occurred.”
“I don’t know many twelve-year-olds with a seven-figure yearly income.”
“Usually only certain areas of development are affected.”
She had no idea where he was going with this.
“Healing can come if the person’s able to go back and relive those years, or aspects of them, whether through writing, or art, or actual experiences they missed out on.”
“I tried journaling. I developed writer’s cramp and a huge paranoia that someone was going to read what I was writing. And I’m no good at art, so the blotches of color on my canvas were a waste of paint.”
“I’d like to try an experiment.”
“Okay.” She’d tried hypnosis, acupuncture, herbal remedies—not to mention any number of self-defeating behaviors—to find some peace. At this point she was open to just about anything.
Kip touched her lower lip, then met her eyes again. If he didn’t stop, he might distract her from the idea of healing.
And they already knew that his kisses led straight to failure.
Right now, though, she was willing to accept the consequences. He hadn’t kissed her since Friday and, despite everything, she’d gotten used to it.
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