The Surprise of His Life (16 page)

"Don't
expect a miracle," Walker repeated.

Through
the darkness, Lindsey's eyes found his. She saw concern in his, concern that
she'd expect too much and, in the end, wind up hurt. His protectiveness was
endearing.

She
smiled faintly. "I told you once before that, if you don't expect a
miracle, it won't happen."

"I
don't want to see you disappointed."

"I
know you don't," she said softly. "And that's really very
sweet."

Sweet.
Walker wasn't certain that anything he was feeling for Lindsey would fall under
the heading of sweet. What he wanted, and he'd wanted it all evening, was to
touch her—and it wasn't for any sweet reason. Then again, maybe it was for the
sweetest reason of all. Damn! he thought. Just walk her to the door, see her
safely inside and get the hell out of here. The irony of the situation did not
escape him. He was keenly aware that he was protecting her from himself.

Cutting
off the headlights and the engine in seemingly one motion, he reached for the
door handle. He had just unlatched it when he felt and heard Lindsey.

"Wait!"
she called quietly, her fingers banding about his forearm.

Walker
hesitated—lost in the velvet of her voice, the satin of her hand. His gaze
merged with hers. She was leaning forward, her hair tumbling about her
shoulders, the curves of her breasts just barely visible as the scooped neck of
the sweater fell gently forward.

"It's
late," he said, the words sounding as if they'd been polished with
sandpaper.

"It's
not that late. It's only ten-thirty."

"But
I have to go to work in the morning."

"You
shouldn't work on weekends," she said, loosening her fingers and beginning
to seductively trail them up his arm.

He
lowered his gaze to her hand, studying it as though he'd just arrived from
another planet and had never seen such an appendage—long slender fingers, a
pearl ring where she'd once worn an engagement ring, prettily manicured nails.
Walker dragged his gaze away and back to hers.

"Lindsey?"
he whispered. He hadn't intended to whisper. The word had just come out thus.

"Yes?"
she said, her voice sounding like lace and silk. By now her fingers had made
their way to the inside of his elbow. The sensitive inside of his elbow. They
stopped there. She felt him tremble beneath her touch.

"What—"
he swallowed "—are you doing?"

"What
do you think I'm doing?"

Driving
him mad, he thought, but he answered, "I don't know."

Lindsey
brushed her knuckles against his cheek, whose stubble felt wickedly sexy to
her, and whispered, "You really are working too many weekends if you don't
know what I'm doing."

Walker
reached for her hand, ostensibly to stop whatever feel-wonderful something she
was doing to his face, but he managed only to take her hand in his. Once he'd
done so, he seemed unable to turn loose. Warm. God, her hand was so warm!

"Lindsey..."

Her
fingers entwined with his.

"...this
is not..."

She
leaned forward.

"...a
good idea."

Her
breath fanned against his mouth milliseconds before her lips brushed his.

Walker
moaned, then told himself to stop this... while he could.

"Lindsey—"

"You
talk too much, Walker," she whispered, grazing his lips yet again. Then
once more, before sensuously settling her mouth on his.

A
part of Walker tried to resist, but the part of him that had resisted kissing
her earlier in the evening could resist no longer. He wanted this kiss. He
needed it. And if it meant paying the devil with his soul, he'd have it. On a
deep, shattered groan, he tugged her to him and buried his hot mouth in hers.

H
eaven.

He
might well be on his way to hell, Walker thought dimly in some far recess of
his mind, but he'd made a pit stop in heaven. Nothing in all of his life had
prepared him for the sweetness, for the sensualness of Lindsey's kiss, nor for
the effect it had on him. He felt as though he'd shattered into a million
crystal shards of sensation, each possessed of a rainbow of lights. He felt as
though he were racing in a star-studded sky, flying high, flying low, flying
without any net to catch him, which made the experience more exhilarating
simply by dent of the danger. In a word, he felt alive.

In
spite of the beauty of what he was feeling, however, his conscience was
troubled. What was happening shouldn't be happening. He knew that. He just
didn't seem able to stop it. But he had to. He had to....

Lindsey
moaned at the way Walker's mouth slanted over hers, at the way it melded with
hers. In response, she parted her lips, bringing their mouths into even more
intimate contact. Somehow she'd become wedged between Walker and the steering
wheel. Somehow she'd ended up partially draped across his lap. She could feel
his hard thighs. She could feel his taut stomach. She could feel his
masculinity growing strong. He wanted her. His kiss told her so. His body told
her so. And yet, she could feel him holding back. She didn't want him to hold
back. She'd waited too long for this moment. Guided by instinct, emboldened by
feelings that had been too long denied, Lindsey sent her tongue forward. The
tip, nimble and eager, touched Walker's.

He
tumbled from his high-flying flight, falling downward into a sea of sensuality.
He groaned, grinding his mouth more desperately against hers, shoving his
fingers deep into her hair. In proportion to his desperation, in proportion to
his growing need for this woman, so, too, did his conscience flare. The
intimacy of the kiss, the feel of her in his arms, the way his body was boldly
responding to her—each and all appealed to his sense of right and wrong. Along
with one brazen question: How in hell could he explain this to Dean and Bunny?

"No!"
Walker cried, wrenching his mouth from Lindsey's at the same time he pushed her
from him.

Startled,
Lindsey simply stared. To have gone from the fullness of his arms to the
emptiness of nothing left her bereft of all feeling. She felt nothing but
loss—a grievous, soul-gouging loss. She thought it the worst she'd ever felt.
She was wrong, however, for into the void slowly crept a cheek-reddening
embarrassment.

He
had rebuffed her. She'd obviously misinterpreted his actions, read the wrong
meaning into them. Yet how could she have mistaken the way, the man-woman way,
his mouth had moved over hers? How could she have mistaken the masculine
response of his body? Dummy, she answered herself, throw yourself all over a
man and he responds... whether he wants to or not.

Feeling
like a fool, wishing the earth would split wide and swallow her, Lindsey threw
open the car door and, without once looking back, slammed the door behind her
and ran toward the house. She didn't give her pedicure the first thought.

"Lindsey,
wait!" Walker called, pushing wide his door, too.

She
ignored him, digging instead into her purse for the house key. She found
it—though heaven alone knew how with her trembling fingers—jammed the key into
the lock, and, flicking on the lights, fled inside the house. She sent the door
sailing shut. Walker caught it in midswing.

"Lindsey?"

Again
she made no response. She just headed for her bedroom. This time the door
closed with a deafening bang. Right in Walker's face. Dragging his hand to his
waist, he closed his eyes, lowered his head, and let out a long, frustrated
sigh.

Dammit!
he thought, how could he have let things get to this point?

Turning
the knob, he opened the door slowly and entered Lindsey's bedroom. She stood
staring out a window with her back to the door. In the dim glow of a single
lamp, Walker could see that she clutched something to her. He suspected that
something was a teddy bear. As though the thought made him ultra-aware of his
surroundings, he made a quick scan of all the stuffed bears in the room. Each
pair of eyes stared back accusingly. He deserved their censure.

Walker
looked back at Lindsey. Remembering her womanly kiss, he thought she looked
incongruous in the youthful setting. He also thought that she was crying
because, even as he watched, she swiped at her eyes. Fancifully, he wondered if
the teddy bears knew that she was crying, just the way she knew when they were.
Not at all fancifully, he wanted to take her in his arms. God, how he wanted to
take her in his arms! To comfort her, to hold her, to kiss her lips once more.
He forced himself to settle for calling her name. Softly. As softly as her lips
had felt against his.

"Lindsey?"

It
was hard to tell whether she'd known that he was in the room before he spoke.
Walker suspected she had. At the sound of her name, she turned. As though it
were her only friend, she clung to a teddy bear—the one he'd given her at the
airport. She was also crying. At least, she'd been crying, for her eyes still
glistened with tears. Her pain crushed him, and he fought, as he'd never fought
anything before, to keep from going to her.

"I'm
sorry," he whispered. It was a paltry, worthless thing to say, but it was
all he had to offer her.

She
smiled sadly, mirthlessly, with lips still swollen from the bruising pressure
of his. "What are you apologizing for? I'm the one who made a fool of
myself. I'm the one who threw myself at you." Before he could respond, she
added, so softly that it was more silence than sound, "I'm sorry."

Her
lips, which had been sweeter than anything he'd ever tasted, trembled, and
Walker groaned inwardly. He rammed his hands deep inside his pockets, because
if he didn't he was going to cross to her and yank her into his arms.

"Don't,
Lindsey," he said. "Please." He wasn't certain what he was pleading
for her to do. Not to cry? Not to apologize? Not to make him want her even now,
because—God, help him!—that was exactly what he wanted!

"No,"
she said, emboldened by what she'd already said. "I have to say this. I am
sorry. I misunderstood. I thought... I thought... I just assumed..." She
clasped the teddy bear closer, garnering the courage she needed to say, "I
thought you were feeling what I was." She smiled again sadly, but this
time so prettily that Walker thought he was going to die from her sheer beauty.
"Wishful thinking plays strange tricks, huh?"

Her
frank admission humbled him. How, though, could she not know that he'd wanted
her, too? Hadn't his body signaled that loud and clear? The thought that he had
wanted her still mystified him, still mortified him, yet he could not deny it.
Not even to her. Especially in the face of her honesty. "You know I wanted
you," he said.

He
could have sworn that her cheeks pinkened. Minutes before, like a siren
extraordinaire,
she'd initiated a kiss, the likes of which he'd never known before and now
here she was blushing. But it was that very dichotomy, the child-woman, the
woman-child, that charmed him so.

"I
know you reacted like any man would have under the circumstances. Reacting in a
biologically prescribed way isn't the same as wanting someone. I mean, it is
and it isn't. I thought... I thought you wanted to want me. I mean, I thought
there was something—" she shrugged "—some chemistry going on between
us. I thought you were feeling what I was. I thought..." She suddenly
looked lost, confused, as mortified as he. Raking one hand through the blond
tumble of her hair, the hair he'd minutes before devoured with his hands, she
moaned, "I don't know anymore what I thought."

Walker
took a step toward her. Only one. It was all he dared. "I felt what you
felt. I wanted what you wanted." He took a deep breath. "I wanted
you," he said hoarsely. His voice was torn and ragged when he added,
"Heaven help me, I still want you!"

Lindsey,
her heart hammering a discordant song, stood perfectly still. She was barely
able to believe what she'd heard. She wanted to shout this wonderful news from
the highest hill, yet, if he had indeed wanted her, she was more perplexed than
ever.

"Then
why—" she began, only to be cut off by Walker, by an emotional Walker who
savagely thrust his fingers through his hair.

"My
God, Lindsey, you're young enough to be my daughter! Which you are in a sense.
You're my goddaughter! Which quite possibly makes what just happened
incestuous!"

"That's
a bunch of bunk!" Lindsey shouted, matching the pitch of her voice to his.
"There's nothing incestuous—"

"Yeah,
well, explain that to your parents!" As though weary to the bone, Walker
plopped down on the side of the bed, gave a deep sigh and buried his head in his
hands. He muttered something about explaining it to him while she was at it.

Lindsey
could see Walker's pain. It was a tangible thing, jagged and serrated and
ripping at his guts. He was just now facing what she'd faced months before. She
remembered the emotional agony she'd endured. She remembered wondering if she
was losing her mind. She remembered thinking that somehow there was something
inappropriate, even downright wrong, about what she was feeling.