Passionate History (8 page)

Bree got a quick buss on her cheek from her mother and took the seat next to her sister. “Hey, Tess. You got dragged along, too?”

They had not been particularly close growing up, but now they no longer fought over Barbie dolls and whose turn it was to empty the dishwasher, they got along better than most sisters.

Tess smiled. “Family road trip. I turned in my last final on Friday, so it’s actually nice to get a change of scene.”

“I can’t believe you still live with Mom and Dad. Don’t you want your own place?”

“Of course I do, but it’s convenient to school and the price is right.”

Tess was notoriously cheap and determined to graduate law school debt free. Bree mentally applauded her but didn’t understand how she could stay sane living under the same roof as their parents.

“You’re interning at the law firm again this summer?”

“Yeah, actually, I wanted to talk to you about something,” Tess said, her voice lowering. The waiter arrived, and Bree’s father ordered for the table. The ice water Bree had been served soothed her frazzled nerves.

“What is it?” Her younger sister was the model student and child, and the tone of her voice said maybe something interesting was finally afoot.

“Um, I’m not sure this is the best place,” she said, nodding toward their parents.

“Okay, later,” Bree replied. Perhaps she should run the whole Aidan situation by Tess. Lena’s take had thrown her. Tess might have something more encouraging to say.

But for sure they would have to talk out of earshot of the parents. Their mother peppered Bree with questions about her friends and reunion and her flight and every other thing she could think of. Bree was in the middle of a rundown of what all her old college friends were up to when the door to the restaurant opened with a cheerful tinkle and her words dried up.

Aidan stood at the hostess stand, flanked by Professor Woodlawn and two other professors Bree recognized but couldn’t name off the top of her head. He hadn’t seen her, and she was struck by how handsome he was. He looked as good to her as a Michelangelo sculpture or a sunset over Puget Sound. What was he doing here?

“Bree?” Her mother’s voice called her back to earth. “You say Lena’s engaged?”

“Um, very nearly,” she said, looking away from Aidan as the hostess led his party to a table across the room. What was she supposed to do now? Go say hi? What would she say? How would she explain this to her parents?

“Exciting,” her mother said. “Oh, dumplings!”

They were served, and Bree checked out Aidan’s table. He’d been seated with his back to her, so it wouldn’t be too hard to finish the meal and get out of there without having to deal with seeing him right then.
Coward
.

Why was he here anyway? Weren’t they supposed to be meeting up? She couldn’t dwell on the thought because her plate was being piled high with dumplings.

“You have to try the shrimp ones, they’re fantastic,” her father said.

“Dad, stop!” she said, shooing him away from her plate.

Her parents were dears, but they still treated her like she was thirteen years old.

“Fine, but don’t sulk if they’re all gone by the time you want one,” he said with mock sternness.

She managed to eat and answer the myriad questions thrown her way. She even got caught up on the doings in Midville, Connecticut. A suburb of Hartford, Midville had been a lovely place to grow up, but if she’d been able to talk her parents into letting her go to college at Oxford or Tulane or Anchorage, she would have. The most she could manage was Weston, a two-hour drive to an adjacent state. Now having been to England, and Alaska, as well as a half dozen other exotic places, she had to admit there was something homey about Weston Village; even Midville had its charms when she was there for the holidays, ensconced in the warm glow of her family with snow drifts piled high outside.

She wondered if Aidan was ever homesick. She’d never been to Scotland, though she had Scottish ancestors on her father’s side. The Ross tartan had hung on the living room wall for as long as she could remember. She’d always meant to visit. She wondered if she’d go there with him, to meet his family. They could hike the West Highland Way all the way from Glasgow to Ben Nevis. It would make a fine honeymoon.

Yikes. Where had that idea come from?

She was all mixed up, and the amazing sex and then seeing her family made her long for a future she hadn’t even known she wanted a few days ago. Why was she all of a sudden ready to settle down and give herself over to this new life?

Because he’s worth it.

She’d never met anyone who made her heart sing and her blood rise and her body respond the way he did.

She wouldn’t let him slip away from her, and she wouldn’t be afraid to take what she wanted.

Her family’s meal was winding down. She’d try to get them to head home so she could take Aidan aside and really talk to him about all of this.

“So you’ll probably want to get back on the road soon?” she asked heartily.

“We thought we’d spend some more time with you, darling,” her mother said. “You don’t have any plans, do you?”

“Well actually—”

Tess tugged on her arm. “I’m going to use the restroom. Come with?”

The hall to the restrooms was right next to Aidan’s table. “Um, I don’t need to go.” Of course the second she said it she really did need to go, urgently.

“Please.” Tess tugged at her arm again. Bree remembered her sister had wanted to talk to her about something.

Fine. She could be an adult about this.

“Okay, sure. Thanks for lunch, Dad,” she said as he stuck a credit card in the bill folder.

Tess practically dragged her to the back of the restaurant, and Bree had only seconds to figure out how to play this. But when she dared to glance Aidan’s way, his chair was empty, and as they passed by the table, Professor Woodlawn was absorbed in her dim sum and didn’t seem to notice Bree.

She exhaled, relieved until she made the connection that Aidan was probably in the restroom. The only restroom. She and Tess stared at the single door, forming a line of two.

“You can go first,” Tess said. “I don’t really have to go. I wanted to tell you something.”

Bree tested the knob. Locked. “Listen, Tess—”

“No, you listen. I’m trying to tell you I met someone. But you can’t tell Mom and Dad.”

“Okay.” This was interesting. Her little sister had never had a steady boyfriend that Bree could recall. “Why not?”

“Because the guy is—” She broke off when the familiar cacophony of their mother and grandmothers’ voices bubbled up the hallway behind them. “Later,” she hissed.

“We all decided to go,” her mother said. “What, is there a line?”

Then the restroom door opened. Aidan stepped out and froze.

This day was not going well. Aidan had felt a headache coming on from baking outside during the interminable commencement ceremony. The commencement speaker had harped on and on about love, underlining the fact all Aidan wanted was to be with Bree, making love to her, convincing her to stay with him, permanently. But when he’d tried to escape the festivities, Professor Woodlawn had cornered him and invited him to lunch with her and two other members of the tenure committee, and he couldn’t say no.

Tenure meant security, stability, something tangible he could offer to Bree, part of a life the two of them would forge together. He could only pray that was what she wanted, too.

The lunch meeting had gone as well as could be expected. Professor Woodlawn was getting older, and she’d confided in him this year might be her last before retiring. While he’d miss the acerbic, dedicated professor, it excited him to think about steering the traditional-leaning department in a more progressive direction. He had to jump through a few more hoops first. The timing with Bree wasn’t great actually, as he should focus on pushing his tenure through at last.

Maybe it would be a good thing if she went back to Seattle and they tried to be long-distance for a while. But he couldn’t let her leave without telling her exactly what was on his mind. There was no sense in drawing the thing out. He had to be honest.

His rational line of thinking died when he emerged from a quick trip to the washroom to splash cold water on his face and found himself in a sea of women, one of whom was Bree. He had trouble focusing on any face but hers, but he got a sense of the line of Bree’s nose and her dark auburn hair echoed in some of the faces.

“Hi,” she said. Was there panic in her expression? If so, good, because he was feeling a bit panicky himself.

Five females stared at him, and all he could say was, “Hi.”

“Hi.” He was pretty sure she had said that already. What was he supposed to say now?

The youngest of the women who wasn’t Bree eyed him curiously, and he realized he was blocking the way to the restroom. He stepped forward, and the sea of women parted. Maybe he could get through and to the other side and everything would be fine.

No such luck. Another woman appeared. Professor Woodlawn. Bollocks. He sent a desperate glance toward Bree, but she seemed as at a loss as he.

“Bree!” Professor Woodlawn barked. “I thought that was you. Is there a convention at the restroom I wasn’t invited to?”

Bree seemed to find her voice, probably conditioned to respond to questions from the formidable chair. “Hello, Professor Woodlawn. This is my mother, Erica Ross, my sister, Tess Ross, and my grandmothers. They drove in from Connecticut to see me. Um, how was commencement?”

“Long. Hot.”

Aidan was aware he was standing there stupidly. He wanted to reach out to Bree, to kiss her cheek and meet her family, but he was so blindsided by her appearance, he couldn’t.

“Aidan,” Bree spoke again. She’d called him by his first name. He could feel Clarissa Woodlawn stare at him sharply. “I was going to call you—”

“To go over the details of your recommendation, right? Why don’t you e-mail me, Miss Ross?” He hated the stiffness in his voice, the look of confusion in her eyes when he forced himself to meet them. He hoped she would understand he had to play everything very professional in front of the woman who had the power to make or break his entire career.

Bree said nothing. “Ladies,” he said, and shouldered past the rest of the Ross clan to stand next to Professor Woodlawn.

“Ready to go, Aidan?” Professor Woodlawn asked.

“Right,” he said, following her outside without looking back. He could only hope Bree would forgive him.

What an idiot she’d been to think there was any real future for them. Obviously, he didn’t feel the same blinding need for her that she felt for him or he wouldn’t have dismissed her, humiliating her in front of her family. No, that wasn’t fair. She hadn’t been humiliated because they had no idea there was anything between them. But it still hurt. He’d treated her like a pesky freshman, and they’d been sharing a bed less than twelve hours before.

After Aidan and his party had left, she’d followed her parents numbly out to the parking lot and agreed to meet them all at Weston Pond to take a short walk before they drove back to Midville. Outdoor activities were one thing they all agreed upon, even her grandmothers, who’d gone backpacking together in the Berkshires only the previous summer.

Tess hopped in the passenger seat of the dreaded rental before Bree could refuse her company. All she wanted was to be alone, to think over how she was going to salvage the heart she hadn’t realize had been so completely consumed by Aidan until he’d kicked it away.

Now her sister was nattering on about her summer job interning at the Hartford law firm Baker and Roberts. Only every third word was coming through until she tuned in at the word kiss.

“It just happened. One day he was calling me Miss Ross and asking me to make copies and the next he was kissing me at the coffee maker. But, oh, my gosh, you cannot tell Mom and Dad.”

“Wait, who was kissing you at the coffee maker?”

“Mr. Roberts. I mean, Greg.” Tess blushed.

“Mr. Roberts, the partner in the law firm? He’s your boyfriend?”

“He says he feels silly being called my boyfriend since he’s thirty-five, but yeah. We’re in love.”

She took a moment to process this. Her little sister, age twenty-three, was involved with a thirty-five year old who was her boss, no less. It suddenly put her situation with Aidan into perspective.

“Wow, that’s…great, Tess. I’m so happy for you.” She meant it.

“I knew you’d be supportive. Thanks, Bree.” Tess seemed so genuinely content Bree forgot her own turmoil for a moment.

“Why don’t you want to tell Mom and Dad?”

“Don’t you think they’d freak out? And I still want to work there. Mr. Baker is like a million years old, and Greg says he doesn’t think he’d mind, but I don’t want to chance it. I’m learning so much.”

“So you fell in love with another lawyer. Just like Mom and Dad. I think they’ll come around. They know him, don’t they?”

“Yeah. We’re happy keeping it quiet for now, but I wanted to tell you.”

“Thanks.” Bree smiled at her sister, pleased they could have this moment.

“Speaking of guys, who was the hot guy at the restaurant? You obviously knew him.”

“Um, well, he was one of my old professors, Aidan Worthy. He’s in the art history department, and I asked him to write a recommendation for my grad school applications.”

“But there’s something more between you, isn’t there?”

Bree was surprised at Tess’s intuition about this. But maybe being in love made you see it everywhere.

“We sort of hooked up. Last night.”

“What does that mean?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“I mean, was it a one-time thing or what?”

“I’m not sure. I thought he wanted more, and I was ready to give him more, maybe even move here to be with him. But then he completely dismissed me when I ran into him. Maybe I misread him.”

“But wasn’t that woman his boss? Maybe he’s like Greg, not wanting to rock the boat unnecessarily.”

Bree considered this. “He is trying to get tenure. Having a romantic entanglement with a former student might throw a wrench in the works.”