Just before they drove into the parking lot, Kirk gave her an odd look. It made Rachel feel that perhaps he hadn’t been as oblivious of the way she felt about him as she had believed.
She felt a blush climbing up her neck, reaching for her cheeks.
Kirk parked close to the restaurant, then pulled up the hand brake and looked at her. He made no effort to suppress the smile on his lips. “Either the heater is suddenly going full blast on your side of the van, or you’re turning pink.”
She waved a hand at his comment, ready to dismiss it. At the last moment, she thought better of it. “Just a tinge of embarrassment.”
“Don’t.” He said the word so sharply as he got out of the car that Rachel looked at him in surprise. She was still staring at him as she got out herself. “Not around me.” Realizing how he must have sounded, Kirk cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, less intense. “Not even if it does look rather appealing.”
Rachel rounded the hood to stand beside him, not knowing exactly how to respond to that. Part of her was confused, but another part was reacting to the compliment he’d handed her, however cavalierly. That small kernel of a glow was beginning to grow, like a long-overlooked ember that suddenly found itself near a source of heat once more.
She gestured toward the restaurant. It always looked better at night. In the light of day, all the work that needed to be done was evident. Night hid faults. And secrets.
“Well, here it is.” She smiled as she looked at it and remembered the first time he had brought her here. She’d felt so daring, sneaking in on a faked ID. “A little older, a little scragglier than you remember, but still here.” On impulse, she took his hand in hers and tugged gently. “C’mon, let’s go inside. They’re not going to serve us standing out here.”
He wasn’t given to touching or holding. He wasn’t demonstrative at all, so when Rachel took his hand, it sent him back across the years to when she would grab his hand, squealing in excitement as she dragged him off to see something she had done or discovered.
Like an annoying, endearing little sister, Rachel had always sought him out. For his approval, for discussions, and just for the joy of sharing things with him. And he had always gone.
Memories and warm thoughts from the past fought with an entirely different set of parameters generated by the same light touch of her hand. Feelings that had nothing to do with those between brothers and sisters. Or even close friends.
Surprised, annoyed, angry with himself, Kirk drew his hand away.
Rachel turned to look at him, a step away from the front door. He’d pulled his hand away as if he’d been burned by something. It made her wonder again about what was bothering him. Why was he acting so strangely?
He could have sworn there was almost a hurt look in her eyes. “I’m supposed to take your hand,” he pointed out quietly.
She was accustomed to taking charge these days. It probably offended some manly bone in his body. But she could live with that.
With a laugh, she held her hand up to him like an offering. “Then do it,” she urged.
Kirk wrapped his fingers around hers. The somber look had eased again. “Thanks for not changing too much, Funny Face.”
She smiled at the nickname, and at the man who had given it to her. “My pleasure. Now feed me.”
Kirk opened the door and waited until Rachel had stepped inside before following.
“Be gentle,” he cautioned. When she raised a brow, he tapped the pocket with his wallet in it. “I haven’t used my credit card in a long time. I’m not sure it’s still in force. Bosnia doesn’t have many boutiques.”
Rachel stopped at the hostess’s desk. She could see a rather minimally clad woman in the distance, coming toward them. Rachel turned toward Kirk. “Was that where you were last?”
He shrugged off her question the way he wished he could shrug off the last few years of his life. “There, among other places.” They had different names, but the atrocities, the inhumanities, had all been the same. As had the despair.
Rachel thought of the stories she had read, of the carnage she had watched on the nightly news. There was no way to suppress the shudder that swept over her. She laid a hand on his arm in mute sympathy. The horrors he must have witnessed firsthand....
“God, Kirk, when I think of you being there—”
“Don’t.” Again the word came a little too quickly, a little too fiercely, propelled by his own denial. “I don’t,” he said, more easily. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I think of myself exactly where I am at the moment.” He purposely looked around, though the darkened atmosphere did not lend itself to close scrutiny. “In Scanlon’s, with an old friend.” He watched as amusement tugged at her mouth. “A gorgeous old friend.”
She blew out a breath. She knew a retreat when she heard one, but for now she would let it alone. “Well, I guess I won’t argue with that.”
He laughed softly to himself. “Probably one of the few subjects you wouldn’t argue.”
Toward the end, before he left, they had gotten into some very heavy philosophical debates, the way only adolescents on the verge of adulthood could. “I’ve gotten better.”
She had been a rabid optimist, in contrast to his dogged pessimism. He found himself yearning for the innocent past. “That I’ll have to judge for myself.”
You will, she promised him silently. You will.
“Well, since you’re planning to stick around for a bit, I’m sure you will. By the way, I intend to fill you with a lot of good home-cooked meals during your stay.”
The platinum-haired hostess, in a black spandex skirt that could have doubled as an armband, gave Rachel an amused look as she approached the desk.
Obviously not a domestic, Rachel thought, returning the shallow smile.
“Two,” Kirk told the woman. The latter gave him a very inviting look before she turned on four-inch heels and led the way to a table.
“An economy of words,” Rachel murmured as they followed in the hostess’s rather provocative wake. Rachel wondered how the woman managed to sit in that skirt. “Nothing’s changed.”
How he wished that were true. How he wished he was still the same man he’d been when he left Bedford. Still able to hope.
Still whole.
Kirk held out the seat for Rachel as the hostess let two menus all but drop from her pencil-thin hand. “Some things have,” Kirk told her.
“Yes, you’ve gotten more manners.” Rachel folded her hands together before her as Kirk took a seat opposite her at the tiny table. “And become even sexier-looking—and more mysterious.”
She said the words like an old friend, telling herself that her pulse hadn’t skipped a little when his thigh brushed against her arm as he passed her.
A smile slowly peeled away the layers of somberness around his mouth as he looked at her over a flickering candle that sat in a dim red glass bowl. He reached for a menu.
“You always did have a way of oversimplifying things.”
Following suit, Rachel flipped open her own menu. “That’s because you were always complicating them. Someone had to cut to the heart of the matter.”
Kirk glanced down at either side of the menu and saw nothing. His mind was preoccupied. He wanted to be here with her, yet he couldn’t seem to release the restlessness that had a chokehold on him.
He set the menu aside and looked at Rachel. “So, what’s your pleasure?”
That was easy. “A glass of wine, a rare steak—” Rachel folded her menu and placed it on top of his “—and a long conversation.”
He nodded, looking around for someone to take their order. Someone who looked to be a college freshman was heading their way, an abbreviated apron tied around his waist, a pad and pencil in his hand.
“I’m sure they can accommodate you with two out of three.”
Instinct had her laying her hand on top of his, and smiling when she saw something dark in his eyes. “I wasn’t thinking of talki
ng to the waiter.”
As unobtrusively as possible, he drew his hand away and toyed with his water glass. “You could always talk to anyone,” he recalled.
Rachel shook her head. She remembered a different version of her life. “I was painfully shy.”
Her protest caused a genuine laugh to rise to his lips. “In a pig’s eye.”
“I was,” Rachel insisted as the waiter arrived at their table. “I just learned to mask it with rhetoric, that’s all.”
“You did a hell of a job of it, then.” She could talk the leaves off the trees if she put her mind to it.
Though the tension was still with him, he made an effort to settle back and enjoy the evening. He was with Rachel, and for now, nothing else was supposed to matter.
Chapter 5
The steak was excellent, the wine fair. It didn’t matter. Rachel was far more interested in the man sitting opposite her than in anything on her plate. She retired her knife and fork and thoughtfully sipped her drink while regarding him.
Even in the dim light, with the din emanating from the dance floor and the surrounding area, she could still see that Kirk hadn’t shaken off whatever it was that had been bothering him this morning. If anything, it seemed to have become part of the permanent weave of his life.
She had to find a way to unravel it.
The conversation over dinner had been pleasant, but vague and distant, as if they were two strangers feeling one another out, instead of two friends cemented together by experiences, feelings and time. Whenever he spoke, it had been to reminisce, not to go forward.
It was time to get down to it. Because she cared about him, Rachel felt that she had a right to know what was wrong.
She set her glass down and bracketed it with her hands, sliding her thumb slowly along the stem. Attempting to appear nonchalant, she nodded around the large room. “This must all seem rather boring and tame to you, after all the wars and everything else you’ve experienced.”
The barest of smiles curved his mouth. Kirk finished his drink and set it down.
“Oh, I don’t know. Tame looks pretty good right now.” He leaned back in his chair and watched a couple as they danced in and out of the lights that seemed to spread out over the small wooden dance floor. The figures didn’t seem real. “Be- sides—” he thought of his own personal turmoil “—there are all sorts of wars. They don’t necessarily have to be external.”
He wasn’t looking at her, but she knew he was referring to himself. She also knew that he had never had an easy time of it, but he had never seemed as troubled as he was now.
Rachel leaned forward, raising her voice slightly in order to be heard. “And what sort of internal wars are going on inside of you?”
Kirk looked away from the couple. His eyes held Rachel’s. There wasn’t a thing she could see in them. She only knew that the enigmatic smile on his lips didn’t reach them. “I was speaking figuratively.”
She refused to retreat this time. “I was asking directly.”
He reached over and slid his hand along her cheek. He thought he saw something flicker in her eyes. In another woman, it might have been desire, but this was Rachel. That wasn’t part of the picture. “Funny Face, don’t ruin the evening.”
It was almost a plea, she thought. Oh, God, she wanted to help him so badly. Why didn’t he see that? “I don’t want to ruin it, Kirk. I want to get close to you.”
A genuine smile bloomed and played on his lips. He pushed back his chair. “The best way to do that is to dance.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
About to rise, Kirk stopped and arched a brow. “Then you don’t want to dance?”
Rachel shook her head. He was clearly winning this little battle of wits. She smiled at him. “That’s not what I meant, either.” She rose to her feet, pushing back her chair. “Yes, I’d love to dance with you.”
Not waiting for him to make the first move, Rachel took his hand and led the way to the dance floor, which was already crowded with people.
He lowered his head toward her ear so that she could hear him better. “It’s been an eternity, but I still think I remember how it’s done. One foot in front of the other, right?”
His breath was fluttering down along her ear and neck. Her stomach churned in response. Rachel congratulated herself on maintaining an unfazed expression as she turned to face him. Inside, there was a miniearthquake going on.
“That’s for walking, not dancing.” She held her hands up to him. He slipped his arm around her waist, then pressed her hand against his chest, covering it with his own.
They fit together rather well, she thought, a small shiver passing through her. She was the one who had taught him how to dance, all those years ago, insisting that it might come in handy someday. “Don’t worry—if you get stuck, I’m good at faking it.”
He placed his hand along her spine, lightly pressing her to him as soft, bluesy music enveloped them like a warm fog.
“Are you now?” He glanced down at her. “And what else were you good at faking?”
She had meant it strictly as a quip, but now that he asked, she answered honestly. “Happiness.”
The note of sadness in the single word ripped through him. “Yours?”
Rachel nodded. All those years she had spent married to Don had been such a waste. She had gotten nothing good from their marriage, except Ethan. “Yes.”
His hand tightened slightly at the small of her back. “Why?”
She had long ago given up seeking that special kind of happiness for herself. She gave him the only answer she could. The only answer that mattered. “For Ethan’s benefit.”
Kirk thought of the angry, sullen boy he had met in her living room. “Didn’t seem to work.”
No, not at the end. And not now. But it had for a time. “He wasn’t always like that.”
She said it so fiercely, Kirk could almost feel her emotion vibrating against his chest. He curved his hand around hers in a mute, awkward gesture of comfort. It was the only kind he could offer. He’d been stripped of everything else. “Oh. How was he?”
She sighed as they moved past another couple. “Happier.” She wished Kirk could have seen Ethan then, before the joy had been drained from him.
Without fully acknowledging how it was happening, Kirk felt himself being drawn into her world. “What changed that?”
She lifted a shoulder helplessly. “I don’t know.” That wasn’t entirely true, and Kirk deserved the truth. She had to be honest with him if she wanted him to be honest with her. “No, that’s not exactly right. I do know. Partially.” She was stumbling over her own tongue and hating her clumsiness. “It had to do with Don and me.”
Rachel stopped abruptly. Honest or not, this was painful, and not a subject for a crowded dance floor.
Kirk waited a moment, thinking she was gathering her thoughts together. When she didn’t continue, he prodded her. “Go on. I’m listening.”
Rachel raised her head and looked up into his eyes. He was, she thought, and he would probably listen to her all night if she wanted him to.
“Yes, but I’m not talking.”
Amusement lifted the corners of his mouth as he looked down at her. The tempo of the music picked up, but he ignored it. It seemed too soothing just to sway with her like this.
Soothing and arousing, at the same moment.
Maybe he was going crazy faster than he’d thought.
“Seems to be a lot of that going around tonight.” Suddenly aware of the reaction he was having to her warm, supple body, Kirk moved so that they were not quite as close as before. “We each have brittle little secrets we’re trying to keep under wraps, I guess.”
He made it sound so civilized. So aloof. It brought a chill to her despite the fact that it was warm in the club. “We shouldn’t—not from each other.”
When she looked up at him like that, she brought the past flooding back to him, the part that he’d enjoyed. The part he’d shared with her a
nd Cameron. “All right,” he said, nodding. “You first.”
She regarded him skeptically, clearly on to him. “And then you’ll follow.”
Kirk knew better than to look at her. Instead, he looked over her head as he moved them to another section of the small floor. “Maybe.”
Just as she’d thought. Rachel shook her head. “Not good enough.”
There was humor grazing her mouth, but her eyes were serious. As serious as his, when he looked into them. “Funny Face, it’s the best I can do.”
He meant it, she realized, aching for him. For herself. “Maybe you could do better if you called me Rachel, instead of Funny Face.”
The request caught him off guard. He had always thought of her with that name. “Does it bother you, my calling you that?”
He almost sounded sad, she thought, although she was probably reading something into it that wasn’t there. “No...actually, I kind of like it. But a man can’t get serious talking to someone he calls Funny Face.”
He looked into her eyes, and for just the faintest glimmer of a moment, he had a feeling that things were going to change for him. How, he wasn’t certain, but they would change. And she would be at the core of it.
She already was.
He laughed softly, holding her to him and feeling far from complacent. “You’d be surprised.”
Her breath caught in her throat as he drew her closer. She was aware of every part of his body as it touched hers. Rachel could feel herself reacting, not to the friend she cherished, but to the man she had once daydreamed about.
Rachel turned her face away and laid her cheek against his shoulder. For the moment, that was safer.
“Would I?” she whispered. Her question glided along his arm.
Something in his gut tightened like a fist, and Kirk had to concentrate to make it unclench again. Just as he had to concentrate on his words in order not to give her a clue to what he was feeling right now.
Hell, he wasn’t sure exactly what he was feeling right now.
“Sure. You always did surprise easily.” As he spoke, it became easier for him to delve back into the past. Fondness began to spread through him in tandem with his thoughts. “You had just about the happiest hold on life I ever encountered.” Kirk tilted her head back so that he could look into her eyes. He saw the marks of sorrow there, and felt angry and cheated at the same time. Angry for her, cheated for himself. “What changed that?”
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