The Playboy (25 page)

“We’ll keep her for the night,” Charlotte called over her shoulder as they guided the young girl out the door. Hannah complained until the door closed behind them.

Kendall exhaled a sigh of relief. One problem down. Another to go, she thought, turning back to Lisa. It didn’t escape Kendall’s notice that the rest of the town stood eating and drinking and gaping as if they considered Lisa’s behavior a part of the evening’s entertainment. For them it was.

For Kendall it was an awful revelation and she refused to give Lisa the satisfaction of knowing she’d gotten to her. Not even when Lisa turned back to Kendall.

“You’re probably the only one in town who didn’t know that Rick’s birthday coincides with the day he married his pregnant friend. Not that it matters since she dumped him for the baby’s father. But he never got over it. Never got seriously involved again. So don’t think you’ll be the one to change that—”

Rick grabbed the microphone out of her hand while Chief Ellis walked up to Lisa. “Sorry, Rick,” the chief said through a mouthful of food. “I was in the kitchen sampling Izzy’s petit fours or I’d have been here sooner. This lady invited?”

“Hell, no,” Rick muttered.

“Trespassing, disturbing the peace . . .” Chief Ellis rattled off a list of violations and along with Rick, they propelled Lisa to the door.

Meanwhile Kendall’s mind whirled with words she couldn’t assign a meaning to. Anniversary. Pregnant. Baby. She’d wanted insight into Rick’s mind, his past. She’d just been handed that information in spades. And she’d rather have heard it from him.

Kendall’s stomach twisted as she tried to process what being left by a pregnant wife would do to a man like Rick. A man with a strong honor code. A man who’d been willing to marry a pregnant friend. She rubbed her aching temples with her hand. No wonder he steered clear of relationships. No wonder he was wary of women. And no wonder he was probably even more wary of Kendall, because she’d told him from the beginning she was leaving.

“Okay, folks, show’s over.” Chase clapped his hands and murmurs of assent rose from the crowd. Then he turned to Rick. “You sure do know how to throw a party.”

“If you’ll recall, I’m the guest of honor. If it was my choice there wouldn’t have been a party.” He rubbed the muscles in the back of his neck that had grown tenser by the minute.

“And I now know why that is.” Kendall came up beside them. “Why you never mentioned your birthday . . . or your anniversary.”

Chase cleared his throat. “Do I see a lovers’ quarrel coming on?”

“None of your business,” Kendall and Rick replied at the same time.

Chase laughed. “Just like an old married couple. I can remember when Mom used to finish Dad’s thoughts.”

“We’re out of here,” Rick said, grabbing Kendall’s hand.

“I’m only leaving if you promise to talk to me,” she whispered in his ear.

“I’ll talk if you’ll listen,” Rick promised.

Kendall took his words as a challenge. After all she’d heard tonight, she had no doubt listening to him retell his past would be as difficult for her to hear as it had been for him to live.

Rick wasn’t much of a talker. For all his joking ways, for all the people he befriended, serious discussion about his life was something he avoided. He’d never realized that particular piece of information about himself before now. But as he led Kendall into his apartment, a sense of claustrophobia overtook him and he broke into a sweat.

He tossed his keys on the counter and inspiration struck. “Come with me.”

“Where?” Kendall asked. “I thought we were already here.” She gestured around the apartment. “Four walls and the bedroom, which I refuse to enter by the way until we’re talked out.”

Rick walked to the set of windows leading to the large fire escape and lifted one high enough for even a tall person to bend and get through. He waved his hand outside. “Come join me on the terrace.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope. When Charlotte rented this place, she used the fire escape as a deck of sorts. It’s secluded and it seats two.” He ducked and stepped outside, then held his hand out to help Kendall do the same.

He waited until she’d settled as comfortably as possible on the hard iron surface and sat, knees bent beside her. “It’s not paradise, but it’ll do.”

“Actually it’s pretty close.” She lifted her face toward the direction of the warm breeze and let out a contented sigh. “I take it you were feeling claustrophobic inside?”

He stiffened. “What makes you say that?” Mind reading wasn’t a game he was familiar with and they’d been in synch twice already tonight. After Chase’s married couple crack, it was enough to make him damn uncomfortable.

She met his gaze. “Because I asked you to talk. To open up. And you’ve gone so far out of your way not to do that, I figured you must be feeling cornered now.”

“And you’d know all about feeling cornered?” He hazarded an accurate guess, knowing she’d spent her life running from whatever it was that prevented her from settling in one place.

“Would you stop doing that?” She smacked her hand against the floor in obvious frustration. “Ouch. Dammit.” She shook her hand out in front of her.

He lifted her palm and pressed a kiss against her stinging flesh.

She yanked her hand back. “Don’t try and distract me. You’re too good at turning the tables on me. I’ll ask you a question and seconds later I’m spilling my guts instead of you.”

He grinned. “What can I say? I’m trained in interrogation tactics.”

“Trained in avoidance tactics is more like it,” she muttered. “You’re the one who’s feeling cornered right now, not me.”

Rick glanced up at the dark night sky. The time had come to either reveal his innermost pain or walk away from Kendall for good, before she walked away from him. Which she’d probably do anyway. He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “Jillian and I knew each other since she moved to town. I was a few years older than her but we became good friends and stayed that way all through high school.”

“Just friends?” Kendall asked.

“Yeah, just friends.”

“But you wanted more.”

He shrugged. “I was a guy. She was a pretty girl. Of course I wanted more.” Rick wanted to get through this telling as easily as possible, no emotion or theatrics involved. “I graduated high school and commuted to Albany for college, trained and joined the police force. Jillian was doing the commuting thing too and had finished her third year of college when she came home that summer.”

“Pregnant.” Kendall lay a hand on his arm and he covered it with his own.

“Four months.”

Kendall sighed.

Even if she had forced the story out of him, her presence and support meant a lot to him now. There was no one else he’d rather share his past with than Kendall. No one he’d rather share his future with either. The thought hit with greater impact and force than a bullet and he sucked in a startled breath.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.”
Yeah right
.

“So finish the story,” she gently prompted.

He gathered the fortitude from somewhere deep inside him. He no longer had feelings for Jillian, of that much he was certain. He wasn’t dealing with raw emotion or lost love when he told this story now. But he was coping with a loss. One he’d never fully acknowledged before. Because Jillian’s leaving represented the end of the life he’d always wanted. The life he’d accepted that he’d never have.

Or thought he’d accepted until he met Kendall. Somehow this wanderer had reignited the desire for family he thought he’d put behind him. Ironically, even as she’d fed the yearning, she couldn’t provide the fulfillment.

But Rick couldn’t blame Kendall, not when she’d been honest from the beginning. Because she’d been deprived of love, caring, and stability all her life, she thought she didn’t have it in her to stay in one place. To trust in someone else’s word and deed. Yet she knew just how to provide and evoke all those wonderful feelings in someone else—in Hannah, and in Rick. She was just afraid to reach out and grab those same things for herself.

“Rick?” She said his name tentatively. “If you can’t do this—”

“I can.” He couldn’t force her to stay, but he could confide in her now and still hope she’d come around on her own. Her honesty with him earlier demanded the same truthfulness now. He regrouped to explain. “Jillian had told the father that she was pregnant but he’d just graduated and wasn’t ready for commitment.”

“Nice of him to inform his sperm of that,” Kendall said in disgust.

“I can’t argue with you there.” He let out a bitter laugh. “She was too far along for an abortion and her parents threw her out of the house. It was a scene out of a television drama, not reality. At least not reality in Yorkshire Falls. But she showed up on my doorstep. I was renting a small apartment near the station in town. She moved in and things progressed from there.”

“Uh-uh. That’s too stark a description. Too black and white.” Kendall leaned against the railing and eyed him skeptically.

She studied him as if she could figure out what he was not only thinking, but feeling. Jillian had known him too, but in a shallow sense. She knew he’d take her in and never let her down. But she didn’t understand him nor had she bothered to get inside his head. Her own needs came first, a pattern that continued even after they were married and the panic of uncertainty had passed.

But Kendall was here now, asking about his past, his feelings. She obviously cared about the reasons behind his actions. She wanted his happiness too. In his experience, that quality was rare and he valued her all the more for it. No one had ever known him as well as Rick sensed Kendall already did.

“It wasn’t just a hormonal thing, what you felt for Jillian, was it?” Kendall asked.

Her words confirmed his hunch. She knew him well. Well enough to read his feelings for her? He doubted it, if only because until now he’d hid them, even from himself.

He loved her. And those emotions were out there now for him to recognize, acknowledge, and feel. He wanted her in his future because he loved her. And damned if he knew what he was going to do about it.

As a cop, Rick wasn’t a man used to remaining idle and once he came to a realization, action took over. He refused to look back and say he hadn’t given his all—to any one person, thing or situation. He stretched his legs out as far as the small, confined area would allow and glanced at Kendall.

A humid breeze ruffled her hair and she’d pursed her lightly glossed lips, giving him time to formulate a reply. But as Kendall sat there so stiff and uptight, waiting to hear how he’d felt about his ex-wife then, she had no clue all he could think about was how he felt for
her
now.

“What makes you so sure that what I felt for Jillian went beyond the need to help a friend?”

Kendall shrugged but he sensed more behind the gesture than a casual dismissal. “You’re the proverbial white knight but not even you would give up your life by marrying someone you didn’t love. Favors and goodwill only go so far. Even for Rick Chandler,” she said wryly. “Don’t get me wrong, I believe you’d have helped Jillian out regardless, but for you to have married her you’d have to have cared for her.” She drew a deep breath. “Loved her.”

Rick raised an eyebrow, surprised she’d brought that word into this fragile conversation. “I cared for Jillian as more than a friend,” he acknowledged. “The sexual attraction had always been there. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t make the whole marriage thing easier to do.”

Kendall stared at him, wide-eyed.

If he had to hazard a guess, he’d say she was holding her breath. He stroked a finger down her soft cheek. “With hindsight, I can say I loved the idea of Jillian. The idea of the life we could have together. The perfect family unit.” He shook his head at the memory of how young and naive he’d been. And how messed up his life would have become if the baby’s father hadn’t come to his senses, he realized now. “Mother, father, baby. Hell, I nearly bought us a dog to make the picture complete.”

He turned to Kendall so he was on his knees, towering over her enough to make his point. “I cared enough to convince myself to marry her but I didn’t love her.”

Was it his imagination or did she just exhale a sigh of relief? He wanted to grin, to kiss those still pursed lips, but he refrained, knowing he had more to say first. “That life I thought was so perfect would have been a noose around my neck. One I’d never be able to get rid of.”

Her soft eyes met his. “She was lucky to have you. But you’re right. Two people who marry for the wrong reasons will make each other miserable in the end. Still, she never knew how good she had it, did she?”

“Actually, she did. I got a letter that first Christmas. An apology and a thank you all wrapped up in one. She was living the life she wanted and she was happy. That’s all I ever wanted for her.”

“But you carried the pain around all this time?”

“I carried the idea of losing something around. I never realized until now that Jillian didn’t take anything away from me. She gave me back my chance at life.” Amazing what talking revealed to a man. Talking to the right person, he amended.

Any barriers he’d built crumbled as if they’d never been. He was a man treading in deep water, yet he had no choice but to take the risk.

“So you no longer regret her leaving?” Kendall asked. He shook his head. “Hell no.” If anything, he wished Jillian well and silently thanked her for taking off. “If she hadn’t gone with the baby’s father, what the hell would I have done when you stumbled into town?”

Kendall laughed but there was no real humor in the sound. “You’d have taken one look at me in my pink hair and wedding dress, dropped me off at my aunt’s house, and run the other way.”

“The hell I would have.” He let out a low growl. “Well, you wouldn’t have had any need for a pretend lover, that’s for sure. And definitely no need for me.”

He grasped her face in his hands. Didn’t she know how he felt about her? Couldn’t she read it in his eyes, hear the words even though he hadn’t yet said them aloud?

Or maybe she was just pretending ignorance. He knew her equally well. He knew that if Kendall faced the fact that he loved her or that she might feel the same way, she’d fall into her standard pattern and run.