Facing It (18 page)

It seemed a strange thing for him to say, yet somehow she understood. God only knew what pieces Stephen had slowly chipped away from her. She lifted her shoulders in an easy shrug, unable to keep a rueful smile from her lips. “I don’t care.”

“But—”

“You know, Chris, we’ve talked about all the reasons why not. What about the reasons
why
?”

His gaze burned into hers. “I don’t know why. I just know I’m drawn to you, to your strength and serenity, and none of the rest, none of the shit that came before, matters. I think all that matters is us, you and me, and the way I feel whenever I’m near you.”

“I’m a package deal.” She made herself smile, although even she could hear the deadly seriousness in her voice. “A four-for-one deal.”

He shrugged. “So am I. Except your package deal doesn’t shed everywhere.”

She laughed. “I don’t know about that. Ainsley is discovering the joy of being messy.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated. “I can’t walk away from you, Ruthie. God knows, I tried. I told myself it was done and over, and I needed to just let you move forward. I told myself it was too soon after your marriage. Hell, I told myself a lot of stuff, and the only thing I kept coming back to is that if I walked away, I knew I’d regret it.”

She let go of the countertop. Maybe she could let herself reach for him. Maybe if she reached for him, he’d be real and warm and solid, nothing like the mirage Stephen had been. “I’m glad you didn’t. Walk away, that is.”

“Knew I was right when I said we couldn’t be only friends.” One corner of his mouth lifted in the lopsided smile that always warmed her.

She took a step toward him, feeling her own version of that draw he talked about. “So where do go from here?”

He watched her advance, a light blazing in his blue gaze. “No clue. But I’m all for slow and easy, Ruthie. Rushing isn’t a good idea.”

“Slow and easy is good.” She tucked her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, remembering too late that she probably still had flour on her palms. “The last time I went rushing into things I ended up with a heap of trouble.”

“Been there, done that.” His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips, then to the curve of her breasts, slightly thrust forward by her position, for the briefest of seconds before settling on her mouth once more. She sizzled under that look.

“I want it too,” she whispered.

He blinked, as if her words had brought him out of a dream.

Or maybe a fantasy.

“You want what too?” he asked.

Oh, the answers to that question. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted his hands on her. She wanted…the visions tumbling through her mind brought heat to her cheeks and that long-forgotten thrill of desire to her belly. Naked skin and heated whispers. His long, muscled body taking hers. Her body taking his, making him writhe and groan beneath her.

Her mouth dry, she slipped the tip of her tongue out to moisten her lips. “I want…I want you to kiss me.”

The corners of his mouth hitched up in a warm grin. “I think I can handle that.”

With a step forward, he tangled a hand in the hair at her nape and drew her in. His lips met hers, and the tingle of desire and attraction was immediate. Ruthie shifted her hands up, to rest against his hard chest. Tilting to her head to one side, she parted her lips and he made a noise of approval deep in his throat. Rather than a rough tangle of tongues, the kiss involved a clinging of mouths, the exchange of warm breath, an exploration of taste and texture. She sucked his bottom lip between hers, the rich tastes of chocolate and amaretto lingering.

Slow, easy, devastating in its intensity.

He released her mouth, a hoarse chuckle rattling from him. Ruthie dared to turn her head, pressing small open-mouthed kisses to his throat and jaw. Again, he rewarded her with that throaty noise of pleasure and linked his arms about her waist, thumbs kneading the small of her back. His long exhale stirred the hair at her temple before he dropped a kiss there.

“Damn, slow and easy is hard with you.” Self-deprecating humor colored his whisper.

She smiled into the curve of his neck. “But it has its rewards.”

He lifted his head. A new emotion glittered in his blue eyes and squeezed her chest tight. He smiled, his eyes intent on her face. “Oh, yeah. It definitely has its rewards.”

Chris let himself in the house, nose still stinging from the cold outside, sweat-dampened T-shirt clinging to him in a clammy mess. He felt good, the endorphins released by the long run he and Troy Lee always scheduled for their shared Sundays off zapping through his system. He caught his reflection in the mirror over the hall table and grinned.

“More than that and you know it,” he said aloud. He stripped the shirt over his head. It was more than the exercise high. Wasn’t hard to pinpoint the source of his good humor either. The way his brain kept circling back to Ruthie’s smile, the way she felt in his arms, the fact she wanted him too? Yeah, that was hard to figure out.

The new-message light blipped on his answering machine and he punched the playback button.

“Chris, it’s Ruthie.” Her voice held a hushed excitement, an almost breathless note. “Mama suggested we invite you to Sunday dinner, since we effectively ruined your vacation—”

He rolled his eyes. How many times did he have to tell her she hadn’t ruined anything?

“—and I don’t know if you have plans already, but I’d love to see you, if you wanted to come that is. We’re going to eat about one-thirty, but if you wanted to come earlier, that’s fine. Um, I guess that’s it, then. I hope to see you later. Bye.”

The line went dead with a soft click. He hit the button, for the sheer pleasure of hearing her voice once more. A chuckle worked up from his throat. This was sad. He’d given Troy Lee hell for how into Angel he’d been at the beginning—heck, for how into Angel he still was—and now here Chris was playing a message over and over because listening to Ruthie made him feel good.

He scrubbed a hand over his damp hair. He needed a shower, then he needed a way to keep himself from showing up over there way too early.

Somehow, he made himself stay away until one o’clock. Cars filled the parking area near the house and he cringed inwardly. How had he managed to forget this part, that all of Lenora Calvert’s children and their families tended to show up for Sunday dinner? Easy answer there—he’d been focused on seeing Ruthie and hadn’t thought about how being surrounded by her entire family left him overwhelmed and off-kilter. He blew out a long breath and slid from behind the wheel. He was here now; he’d simply treat it like a nerve-wracking domestic and focus his way through it.

Refusing to swipe his damp palms down his jeans, he crammed both hands in his jacket pockets and strode around to the back door. Ruthie met him there, pushing open the screen before he could knock.

“Hey. You came.” She stood one tread above him, her face flushed, although he couldn’t know for sure if it was from pleasure or the heat of the kitchen.

“I did.” He kept his hands in his pockets. Pulling her into his arms was, for one, moving too fast, and for another, probably not smart when the noise emanating from the rooms beyond the screened porch confirmed that the entire Calvert clan was present.

“I’m glad.” She cast a swift glance over her shoulder, and when she looked back at him, her eyes sparkled with the same happiness that curved her mouth. “Rather loud, aren’t we?”

“That’s one way of putting it.” He suppressed a wince as a little-boy yell reverberated through the house. He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. “Something tells me that isn’t John Robert.”

“Probably not. Chuck’s youngest, I think.” Her smile turned rueful. “Give them time, though, and they’ll have him inducted into the noisy-Calvert-boy club.”

“I’m sure.” He couldn’t quite see it, as reserved as John Robert was, but maybe, with enough security and confidence. Silence fell around them, and he lifted his gaze from her mouth to her eyes. The sparkle there shifted, not dimming, but morphing to a slow burn he felt along his nerve endings. He leaned in.

“Mama!” Ainsley’s plaintive voice echoed from the kitchen and Ruthie jumped. A blush played over her cheekbones and she smoothed loose strands of dark hair behind her ear.

“I’m being summoned.” Her small laugh trembled and she took a step back. “Besides, it’s rude of me to keep you on the steps like this and I have to check on the…on the…” She touched her lips and shook her head. “The ham. I don’t know where my mind is today…”

She was completely flustered now and probably the most adorable thing he’d ever seen. He grinned and gestured toward the kitchen, where Ainsley’s voice grew louder and more petulant. “Come on.”

The female domain of Lenora Calvert’s kitchen provided a whole new set of challenges. Ruthie’s mother was absent, but the remaining Calvert women filled the room with movement and easy conversation. Inside the door, he tensed, nerves jangling with strain. He was good with Tori, could tolerate Tick’s brothers’ wives because he really didn’t know them, but the quick, cool examination Caitlin Falconetti slid over him set his teeth on edge, just like always.

He darted a glance at the hallway. Maybe finding Tick or Cookie to talk shop would provide an escape. He opened his mouth, intending to excuse himself.

“Did you bring the big puppy?” Ainsley’s whispered question forestalled his getaway.

“Not today.” He shook his head and her dainty brows dipped into a V. With a disappointed sigh, she grasped his index finger.

“Camille and I are coloring Mama’s cookies. Come help.”

That was a command if he’d ever heard one. He swallowed a chuckle and let her tug him to the big farm table where Camille knelt on a chair, applying colored icing to a variety of sugar cookies with painstaking care. Ainsley maneuvered him between Camille’s chair and her own, then clambered to the wooden seat. He glanced up to find Ruthie watching them from her spot at the oven, her mouth slightly open. He grinned and she bit her lip before a smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

The sudden sense of quiet in the previously chatter-filled room prickled awareness down his spine. He shot a quick study around, the way he would upon arriving on scene, and caught a pointed look passing between Tori and Caitlin. Unease shivered over him, bringing with it the familiar claustrophobia and need for flight. He made himself focus on Camille’s low voice offering decorating instructions.

He sucked in a harsh breath. He could do this. Really, he could. So he was surrounded and feeling pushed in a corner. Wasn’t the first time. At least he knew it was all in his head this time around.

With a drowsy sigh, Ainsley rested her head on Ruthie’s lap and curled up. Ruthie feathered her fingers through her daughter’s hair and set the glider into soft motion. Amazing that Ainsley could doze with the pickup football game going on in the yard, but her lashes fluttered once or twice and she stilled. Her lips parted on quiet snores. The chill of morning had faded under the afternoon sun, making a sweater almost too warm. Ruthie could get used to this though, the laziness of Sunday after dinner, having her family enfolding them all.

In a move Ruthie had witnessed dozens of times at long-ago high school games, Tick faked left to dodge Chuck and Mark to make a pass to Del. Chuck’s boys, conveniently forgetting the game was supposed to be two-hand touch, took Tick down in a gleeful tackle seconds after the ball left his hand. Tori, perched on the top patio step with her arms wrapped around her knees, shook her head.

“You know, they’re too old to be doing this. Someone’s going to get hurt.”

“Oh, Tick for sure.” In the wooden rocker, Caitlin shifted Lee, who’d finally slipped into slumber, his face resting on her shoulder. “He’ll want a backrub later. Same as if he had to wrestle a suspect into the car.”

“Well, I can’t watch anymore.” Tori stood and dusted the seat of her jeans. “I’m going to check on Mama.”

She disappeared inside and on the lawn, Tick grimaced and chafed at his shoulder. Caitlin laughed. “Make that a backrub and sympathy later.”

Indulgent affection softened her voice and Ruthie glanced at her. “You adore him.”

“Absolutely.” Caitlin rubbed her palm over Lee’s back and pressed her lips to his dark head. “He’s honest and upright, loyal and intelligent, loving and steady, a good father…what’s not to adore?”

“
Alors, il est un homme bon
?”

Surprise flitted across Caitlin’s face before her eyes sparkled with humor. “
Oui
.”

Ruthie stroked her fingertips through Ainsley’s tresses again. “I’m glad.”

Her gaze wandered to the edge of the yard, where Chris had taken John Robert aside and was demonstrating the fine points of throwing a football. Even at this distance, she couldn’t mistake the worshipful gleam in her son’s eyes as he drank in every word, every moment of Chris’s attention. A rush of warm affection filled her. Chris Parker was
bon
as well.

“Ruthie.” Quiet discomfort colored her name on Caitlin’s lips. “Maybe I shouldn’t say anything, but you have to know…you should understand that you’re very vulnerable to transference, to displaced affection right now.”

“What?” Ruthie turned to her sister-in-law. Should she be surprised or offended by Caitlin’s calm observation?

“Like I have any room to talk about transference.” With an ironic laugh, Caitlin kissed Lee’s head once more. “I fell in love with a man who was the utter opposite of my father. No surprise in that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the way you look at Parker.” Caitlin lifted one shoulder in an easy shrug. “And the way he looks at you.”

“We’re not…we’re not rushing anything.” Unable to meet Caitlin’s perceptive gaze, Ruthie stared across the lawn. Chris crouched a few feet from John Robert and caught his wobbly throw. A grin flashed over Chris’s face and he tousled John Robert’s dark hair. She was sure those were words of praise moving his lips, just as she was sure her son was drinking it in like a rain-starved cornstalk.

“I didn’t say you were. I simply want you to be aware of the reality that it would be very easy for you to transfer any lingering affection you might hold for your husband onto Parker, especially since he’s been in the role of protector—”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” The words came out a cold, harsh hiss. “Affection? For Stephen? There is none. He killed it, when he threatened to take my children if I didn’t obey, when he took every choice I had, when he tried to take my thoughts, when he…when he…” She shuddered, remembering. Her skin crept under the mere idea of his touching her again. “I hold no affection for my husband, and any feelings I have for Chris come out of the fact that he’s good and decent, that he understands the difference between being controlled and being controlling, and maybe that my children don’t look at him with fear and loathing the way they did their father.”

Silence trembled between them for long seconds after her hushed outburst. Caitlin nodded finally. “He is a good guy, but I think he’s vulnerable too, Ruthie, beneath that controlled exterior of his. A relationship can be hard enough when one person walks around with emotional scars. But two? I can’t begin to imagine.”

“Maybe you help one another heal.” Chris’s quiet laugh tickled her ears as he loped to retrieve the football from John Robert’s wild throw.

“Maybe, but you’ve been hurt enough.” Caitlin shot a glance across the grass at Chris and John Robert. “I believe he has too. Just be careful and go into anything with your eyes wide open. If you don’t, if you go in deceiving yourself, or him, someone’s going to get hurt.”

“I’ve way overstayed my welcome.”

Ruthie smiled at Chris’s wry murmur. He waited at the bottom of the staircase, one shoulder resting against the wall. It was late, after ten o’clock. Her mother had gone to bed much earlier, but it had taken two episodes of SpongeBob, a handful of bedtime stories, one massive search for Ainsley’s bunny, both she and Chris tucking the children in and an act of Congress to get the youngsters, completely wound up from the day’s activities, into bed.

“No, you haven’t. They enjoyed having you here.” She stopped on the second tread. “I enjoyed having you here.”

“Even so, I should…” He jerked a thumb at the door.

“Please stay.” She didn’t reach for him, as much as her hands itched to do so. On the island, he’d jerked away from her sudden touch, and Caitlin’s concerns still rang in her head. Vulnerable, her sister-in-law had called him. He looked anything but, tall and strong and still leaning on the wall with that negligent posture, but hadn’t she seen the truth of that vulnerability in his eyes herself? “Let me be selfish and keep you to myself for a while.”

He only studied her in unsmiling silence for a moment. Feeling that somehow her teasing words had touched some distasteful memory for him, she came down another riser, closer, but not invading his wall of personal space. She found herself wanting to alleviate the strain on his features.

“I won’t ask you to watch SpongeBob.”

With a quiet laugh, he straightened. “Hey, I like SpongeBob. You wouldn’t believe the number of slow nightshifts Troy Lee and I have passed deconstructing the subtext of that cartoon.”

“SpongeBob has subtext?” She left the stairs to stand before him.

“Well, you wouldn’t think so, except then Troy Lee gets started on Squidward as the modern equivalent of the pretentious Renaissance man and SpongeBob as some sort of Everyman. At that point, it starts making sense, even coming from him.” A lazy grin quirked the corners of his mouth and she dared another step closer. “Which is kind of scary in and of itself, Troy Lee making sense about anything but math, I mean…”