Redemption's Touch (Kimani Romance)

by Ann Christopher

  So it was with utter astonishment that he raised his head and saw Andrew—Andrew!—swiping at wet eyes, his nostrils flaring. And then it got weirder.

  “I missed you, man,” Andrew told him.

  Yeah, he’d missed Andrew, too, even with all the jealous rivalries they’d had over the years. But since he didn’t do emotional stuff of any kind, other than his old pals Anger and Bitterness, it was far easier to lapse into sarcasm.

  “Back off, all right? I think marriage has put you a little too in touch with your feminine side.”

  That broke them up. They laughed and it was all good, until Andrew threw him another curveball. “I know you’re my brother. We’ll do the DNA testing, just to dot all our Is and cross our Ts and make it legal and official, but I know it. I accept it. Okay?”

  Floored, Dawson stammered out a hoarse, “Yeah. Ah…thanks.”

  After nodding with unmistakable satisfaction, Andrew grabbed his face and planted a big one right on his cheek. Christ. The unexpected acknowledgment and affection meant so much to Dawson and were such head-spinning surprises that, for one terrible second, his lower lip quivered and he actually feared he’d start to bawl for the first time in about a hundred years.

  Andrew—praise holy God—seemed to realize what was going on and took pity on him. He gave that same cheek a hard pat, just enough to clear Dawson’s head, and then shoved him away.

  They laughed again and hung their heads, shuffling their feet.

  “Arianna, huh?” Andrew said.

  Even the name did crazy shit to his insides. He shook his head, wondering what’d happened to him since he came back to Heather Hill, since he met that woman. Why couldn’t he recognize himself anymore? “There’s something about her, man.”

  “If you make her cry, I’m going to have to kill you. I don’t care who the hell you are. Brother or no brother, I’ll slice you up.”

  “Dude. I’m getting the picture.”

  “Especially since she’s so vulnerable right now. I’m thinking this isn’t the time for her to get into another relationship, but I know I don’t get a vote.”

  “I understand. She mentioned a bad breakup but didn’t give any details.”

  Andrew stilled, except for his eyes, which widened with surprise. Whoa. There was a story there, a big one, and Dawson wasn’t sure he ever wanted to hear it.

  “Ah,” Andrew said, his gaze shifting away. “If she wants to get into it with you, she will. When she’s ready.”

  Two days later, Arianna ran into Andrew in the driveway as he was throwing his overnight bag into the trunk of his car.

  “Hey.” His face was set in the kind of stern and concerned lines that told her he wanted to have a Very Important Talk. “You got a minute?”

  She paused, taking longer than necessary to walk her bike across the gravel and lean it against one of the doors to the umpteen-car garage, while she gathered her thoughts.

  Having just spent the last hour cranking her legs on the bike trail, she was hot and sweaty and not in the mood for any talk about Dawson/Joshua, which was probably what Andrew wanted. Why had she ridden her poor thighs to a burning cinder of quivering flesh? Because she’d been eating everything in sight and needed to expend some calories so she wouldn’t end the week by weighing eight hundred pounds. Why was she eating everything in sight? Because she was obsessed with a certain not-good-for-her bad boy and needed to drown her sorrows in chocolate. It was either that or consume a bottle of champagne per night, and she really didn’t think her inhibitions needed to be any lower where he was concerned, thanks.

  And how could this situation get any worse?

  With a suspicious Andrew on their tail, that’s how.

  Ever since Andrew saw them in the hall the other day, he’d been studying them with speculative eyes, and she could almost hear the wheels turning in his shrewd little mind, the connections being made. Andrew probably wanted to warn her against the resident bad boy, and she didn’t even want the topic opened up for discussion. With her luck, Andrew would see her blush or something and realize she’d already slept with Dawson.

  And wouldn’t it be fun to hear Andrew’s views on that?

  Not.

  “Ah,” she began. “I probably should take a shower.”

  Andrew cracked a wry smile. “And by the time you’re finished with your shower, I’ll be on my way to the airport, and you won’t have to listen to me.”

  “Oh.” She widened her eyes and tried to channel the pure innocence of a newborn bunny. “Are you leaving?”

  “You know we’re leaving. This was only supposed to be a quick overnight trip until Bishop got sick. Nice try, though.”

  So much for that plan. Sighing, she planted her hands on her hips and prepared to be lectured, warned and browbeaten. “What is it?”

  “You know what it is.” His voice was so gentle she could almost believe he understood something about her situation. “What’s up with you and Joshua?”

  The obligatory denial rose right to her lips. “There’s nothing—”

  Andrew stopped her with a fly-shooing wave of his hand. “Let’s pretend you’ve already given me that whole speech, and skip ahead to what I need to say. Before I miss my flight.”

  Crossing her hands over her chest, she glared and waited.

  “You’re into Joshua, and he’s into you. Am I right?”

  She twitched her shoulders in an irritable shrug.

  “He’s got a lot of baggage. A lot of bitterness. A lot of things he needs to work through.”

  “Golly gee,” she interjected. “I hadn’t noticed. Are you sure?”

  Andrew ignored this, except for a narrow-eyed warning look. “But the thing is, he’s a good guy. If you can crack through his hard shell. And…I think he probably needs you.”

  Wait—what?

  Arianna pretended this information was only marginally interesting, when what she really wanted to do was grab Andrew by the collar and shake the whole story out of him. “Hold up. Did you just say…‘a good guy’?”

  His cheeks dimpled with poorly hidden amusement, probably because he knew he had her, the smug SOB. “I thought you said there was nothing—”

  “Spit it out,” she snarled.

  “I want to tell you a little story that illustrates everything you need to know about Joshua.”

  Arianna was all ears.

  “My—our—father was—” Andrew’s jaw tightened and flexed “—well, I hate to speak ill of the dead, so let’s just say he was a flawed human being.” He paused. “A severely flawed, hateful and destructive human being. God rest his beloved soul.”

  Arianna snorted back a laugh.

  “He considered himself a philanthropist, though, so he sent all of us, including Joshua and some of the other servants’ kids, to nice private high schools. But he liked to lord it over us. Remind us that everything he had was either by the fruits of his labors or his good graces. Point out that we’d probably never amount to much and would certainly never achieve his godlike greatness. Are you getting the picture?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “When Joshua got into Duke, dear old Dad would have paid for it, but Joshua had had enough of the second-class status. So he told the old man thanks but no thanks. Then he went on to get a scholarship and work two or three jobs—a full-time load—while being in school full-time and getting great grades. And Duke ain’t cheap. You feel me?”

  She nodded.

  “Me? I happily took the Warner money and gave the old man the finger behind his back. Joshua? He wore his pride like a giant chip on his shoulder, but he’s always been his own man. Even when he was eighteen.”

  Arianna filed all that away, to be examined later and added to what she already knew about Dawson/Joshua and his flawed but oh-so-fascinating character. “Why are you telling me this?”

  Sighing, Andrew rubbed the back of his neck and stared off in the distance for a couple beats. Then he turned back, a smile in his eyes and a charming flu
sh in his cheeks. “Because I was my own worst enemy once, too. And then I met Viveca. She made me want to do better. And I think you make Joshua want to do better.”

  Wow. With all that honesty and vulnerability on the table, she felt safer about opening up, just a little. “I can’t fix him.”

  “Of course not. But you can inspire him.”

  “Being with him…it’s a little scary. In a good way, I mean.”

  Andrew nodded with infinite understanding. “I get that.”

  “I’m afraid…he could really hurt me. If I let him.”

  “I get that, too.”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready, Andrew.”

  “I know.” He hesitated. “You should tell him about Carter.”

  Okay, then. There was a limit to what she could talk about without her head exploding, and that was it. “I’ll think about it. Now take your family home.”

  “You should listen to me. I’m always right.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled.

  “And take care of Bishop.”

  “Will do.”

  With that, she went into the house for her shower, wondering if that bubbling feeling of hope in her chest meant that she was already on her way to giving Dawson another chance.

  Chapter 11

  “Another bite?” Arianna asked.

  Bishop, who was sitting at the banquette in the massive kitchen, a napkin tied around his neck, with a spoon in one hand and a bowl of grits in front of him—salt and butter, no milk—glared.

  Arianna locked her cheery smile in place, refusing to be cowed by either Bishop’s attitude or the demoralizing process of helping him eat. Several little skills had been temporarily lost thanks to the TIA, and in addition to sessions with his occupational, speech and physical therapists, Bishop was practicing things like putting his socks on and buttoning his clothes. Members of the family helped.

  Today’s eating exercise had been, in her unprofessional opinion, an unmitigated disaster.

  Bishop understood what the spoon was for and what he needed to do with it; he just couldn’t make himself do it. So far, he’d grasped the spoon upside down, backwards and sideways. Then, when they finally got the spoon in his hand properly gripped, he couldn’t dip it into the bowl. When she helped him with the dip, he couldn’t get it into his mouth. They’d been at it for about twenty minutes now, and although they’d jointly deposited grits on the table, his lap and the napkin on his chest, few of the grits had actually made it to his mouth.

  It was possible that some other activity in the world, like, say, finding a needle in a haystack while blindfolded and wearing gloves, was more frustrating, but she doubted it.

  They were both a little irritable, but she’d be damned if she’d show it. She was going to help Bishop back to one-hundred-percent health or die trying.

  Or kill him while trying.

  She smiled; he glared.

  “Would you like me to feed you a couple bites?” she chirped. “You must be—”

  Bishop pursed his lips and made a sound suspiciously like a raspberry.

  “—really hungry.”

  He scooted to the edge of the banquette and started to get up, his frowning brows so low over his eyes it was a wonder he could see anything.

  “You can’t just quit. Are you quitting? Come on, now. Give it one more—”

  Without a word, Bishop reached out, picked up the spoon and bent it in half.

  Her jaw dropped. She was still gaping and Bishop was still glaring when the door swung open and Dawson strode in. The room’s tension got to him pretty quickly, because by the third step he was slowing, and by the fifth he was looking like he wanted to divert into the wine cellar and hide there for the rest of the day. Still, he kept his game face on and Arianna awarded him silent points for trying.

  “What’s up, people?” he said in exactly the same falsely cheerful voice she’d been using for the last twenty minutes. “What’d I miss?”

  Arianna ignored her heart’s little skitter. Tried to ignore it. They hadn’t seen much of each other for the last week or so, during which she’d resumed studying for the bar exam on top of helping Bishop, and she had the feeling he was giving her a wide berth in the huge house. Maybe he’d decided to stop pressuring her.

  Why wasn’t that possibility a relief?

  She, meanwhile, was haunted by Andrew’s words of advice.

  Dawson looked good, and that didn’t help. Today he wore a dark T-shirt and baggy shorts, a plain ensemble that he made unspeakably sexy. His gaze warmed at the sight of her, and something in the region of her chest (surely not her heart) tightened in response.

  He seemed more peaceful lately, a little less angry, and that was also problematic. A harsh and moody Dawson was attractive enough, but a relaxed Dawson hovered right on the border of enchanting and devastating.

  Taking the bent spoon, she held it up for Dawson to see. “Your father was just giving up on using utensils. Apparently he’s decided to eat with his fingers for the rest of his life, so brace yourself. It’s not pretty.”

  Scowling, Bishop ripped the napkin off his neck and threw it on the table. Then he jammed his hands on his hips in the biggest gesture of defiance she’d seen since that lone protestor faced down a tank in Tiananmen Square all those years ago.

  “Is that true, Pop?”

  Bishop said nothing, but his “screw you!” expression wavered for the first time.

  “Hmm.” Dawson reached out and put a hand on Bishop’s neck, giving what looked like a reassuring squeeze. Arianna eyed that muscular arm sadly, thinking that Bishop would probably rip it out of its socket with his teeth, but both men surprised her.

  Bishop took a deep breath and eased down, just a little.

  And Dawson told her a story.

  “Did I ever mention how I learned to ride a bike?” he asked her.

  “No.”

  “The old man here, and Mama, gave me a bike for my seventh birthday. It was smooth, too. Blue, with those long handles and a banana seat—”

  Arianna clapped a hand over her mouth. “Please don’t tell me you had a banana seat.”

  “—and a crazy little horn that sounded like it belonged to an Edsel or something. Ah-ooo-gah. Like that.” He sighed, lost in the memories. “Man, that was a sweet bike.”

  Bishop grunted, the edges of his mouth working at a grudging smile.

  “Anyway,” Dawson continued, “I wanted to put training wheels on it, because it was a big bike and looked like Mount Everest to me, you know, but this one—” he jerked his thumb at his father “—wouldn’t hear of it.”

  Bishop held up his index finger and waggled it. “N-no wheels.”

  Dawson gave him a scathing sidelong glance. “Easy for you to say, old man. You already knew how to ride a bike, didn’t you?” Bishop shrugged, somehow managing to make the gesture as smug as a smirk. “He threw me on that bike, ran along beside me, holding the seat to help me balance, and watched me fall onto the grass about two-point-four million times. And this was before kids wore helmets.”

  “Sad,” Bishop said, and Arianna laughed.

  “Hell yeah, it was sad. I was bruised and bloody, sweaty and stinky. I was cursing like a sailor, too, using all the bad words that Andrew taught me—”

  Bishop shook his head. “Scooter. N-no good.”

  “—but by dinnertime, guess who knew how to ride a bike? Guess who was the proudest seven-year-old kid in the world?”

  Bishop studied his son, the look in his eyes unreadable now. But then his chin quivered and his Adam’s apple bobbed in a rough swallow. Dawson, meanwhile, never took his gaze off Arianna.

  “And guess what Pop said when I scraped my knees and kicked the bike and said I’d just ride my Big Wheel instead.”

  Spellbound, Arianna shook her head.

  “He quoted Napoleon to me: ‘Victory belongs to the most persevering.’ And so I kept getting back on that monster bike.” Here it seemed to become significantly harder for Dawso
n to speak. Blinking furiously, he cleared his throat and took a minute to collect himself. “Napoleon has gotten me through some tough spots. He helped me keep my chin up when I was in prison, and he helped me build my real estate business.” His voice dropped a notch, becoming huskier with a message Arianna knew was for her alone. “Anytime there’s something I want—something I really want—I think about Napoleon and I work harder. And I wait until it’s time.”

  Decoded message: he wanted her and wasn’t giving up.

  Oh, man.

  Arianna stared at Dawson, slowly becoming unraveled. How was she supposed to stay away from this man when he was so endlessly fascinating and complicated?

  The moment went on for too long and probably would have lasted longer, but Dawson came out of their mutual trance before she did. With a last shoulder squeeze and a clap on the back, he let Bishop go and headed back to the door from whence he’d come.

  “So I don’t think Pop’s giving up on you,” he said before he disappeared. “Why don’t you see if he wants to try it again?”

  They stared after him for a minute, and then Bishop turned that sharp-eyed gaze on her. She hunkered down, trying to get smaller, like a mouse in the grass, but she couldn’t hide her burning face.

  “Y-you like Josh-a?” Bishop asked.

  “Yeah,” she admitted. “I like Joshua.”

  Bishop nodded with clear satisfaction, resumed his place at the banquette and looked around for a new spoon. “Again try. No. Try…again.”

  “What’ve you got for me?” Dawson said into his cell phone a couple hours later.

  He’d developed the habit of coming into the library after lunch, when it was usually quiet, and getting some work done at Arnetta’s huge desk. Normally, he got a lot done. Today, he felt as though someone had sucked all the brains out of his head and left soggy macaroni in their place.

  Arianna. All Arianna, all the time.