Every Minute

by C J Burright

  She trailed Garret up the steps to the Sullivan residence, swiping her clammy palms on her jeans. She shouldn’t be nervous. Bob wasn’t exactly a friend, but in all the times she’d interacted with him at school events, he’d been nice. Tatum definitely wasn’t the cause of her racing heart and she got along with Bryan. Even Baby G seemed to like her. But she’d never met London.

  It shouldn’t matter. London was just another parent, another person she’d keep at a distance upon meeting. But for reasons she didn’t want to dissect, she wanted London to at least approve of her.

  Without knocking, Garret opened the door and swung it wide for her, releasing a warm draft tinged with home-cooked fare. She recognized the smell because the same aroma still lingered in her kitchen from Garret’s cooking. Muffled giggling and the clanking of cookware drifted from somewhere inside, life happening out of sight.

  Adara hesitated on the threshold. She didn’t want to do this. A step backward and she could be on her evening run, where she belonged, alone and safe, beyond the dangerous reach of interacting.

  Garret grabbed her hand and tugged her close, pulling her inside, beyond the point of no return. “I know it’s scary.” His whisper stirred the hair close to her ear, carrying a tease. “But, with any luck, Tatum hasn’t consumed any sugar, Bryan isn’t sulking and the spawn still slumbers in his shadowed cave. Any trials will be worth it. London makes the best lasagna and Bob whips up a mean salad, straight from the bag.”

  Bespelled by his magic, her traitorous mouth curved.

  “Chara, I love it when you smile,” he said in a choked voice. He suddenly stopped and crowded her back a step, against the foyer wall beside a family collage. Caging her, his palms pressed on either side of her head, he studied her, the intensity in his dark eyes paralyzing. “I’ve spent the last three days trying not to think about all the terrible things that could happen to you, what could’ve happened while you were alone, oblivious to the unstable intruder hiding in your house.” His forehead bunched. “I’m not usually a worrier. I entrust my life and those I love to God because the alternative is to go insane, but the reality is I can’t stop harm from happening. I can’t even control a classroom of children, let alone what the future holds.”

  The way his tone rasped stirred a nervous whirling in the pit of her stomach. Drowning in him, Adara couldn’t look away, couldn’t speak, even knowing this conversation headed toward her list of taboo topics.

  His gaze raked her face, hot and possessive. “I can’t and I won’t apologize for being protective. The thought of you hurt or gone freezes me. I can’t keep this inside any longer without imploding.” His voice was hardly more than a snarl. “I’ve fallen madly, irreversibly in love with you, Adara, and I won’t apologize for that, either.”

  The fluttering inside went wild, and before she could recover, his mouth was on hers. He kissed her with savage hunger, as if he starved for her. A challenge pulsed underneath, an insistence that she acknowledge the flames raging between them, and he growled, low and deep, a sound of pure, masculine arousal.

  A thrill glided down her back. She couldn’t move even if she’d wanted to. Desire burned a quick cadence in her heart, tingling through her bloodstream. Piece by piece, he took her apart and reshaped her until she drowned in longing. Resistance thinned to a sheer, fragile veil. Her sudden ache for him was fierce in its magnitude, terrible in its futility, and she latched onto his shoulders, needing to be closer, even while she knew she should push away. He was like a drug, and each moment with him, each laugh, each kiss, brought her closer to addiction.

  He slipped his tongue into her mouth and she moaned, not meaning to. Crushed into the wall, his hips pressing into hers, not a shred of shy band geek remained. He’d switched to sexual coercion, a down and dirty tactic, shameless and unshakable. Every sense hummed into a building storm of want, strong enough to ride into an alternate world, an alternate life where pain and memories held no power.

  “Uncle G!”

  The kiss ended as unexpectedly as it had begun.

  Tatum stood in the hallway, her hands on her hips, glowering. Donning a yellow princess costume and antennae headband, she looked like a demented fairy ready to cast a curse. “Stop kissing Miss Dumont. Gross.”

  Adara’s cheeks burned as Garret rested his forehead on hers, both of them breathing hard. This was so bad. By tomorrow, the entire class would hear about this, and by first recess, every staff member would know too. She was hanging onto a cliff by her fingernails while a dark wind ripped at her tenuous hold. It was only a matter of time before she fell, and the drop might never end.

  “I was simply communicating to Miss Dumont how much I admire her.” Garret straightened, gently smoothed Adara’s hair behind her ear, and smiled at his niece. “Without words.”

  “Mom sent me to tell you dinner’s ready.” Tatum still looked like she’d stepped on a slug. She crossed her arms and waited, a self-appointed chaperone.

  “How did they even know we were here?” Like the relationship coward she was, Adara steered away from the extreme subject a few seconds before. Love. He frickin’ loved her. How was she supposed to balance his confession with the solitude she needed to survive? She couldn’t even consider the full impact, what it meant for her. For him. For them.

  There shouldn’t even be a them.

  “Porch camera.” Garret looped her arm through his and held it tightly, probably suspecting she’d try to escape. “Monitor’s in the kitchen.”

  At least London wouldn’t be privy to their make-out session in the foyer. If Gia had done that with Joey, she would’ve placed Gia in the skank category, no questions. Then again, after Garret’s impulsive delivery of the L word, London’s opinion fell a dozen spots on her concern list.

  “Hurry up-uh.” Tatum stomped a foot and her scowl morphed to impatient. “I’m hungry.”

  “Me too.” Garret patted his stomach, not releasing his hold on Adara’s arm. “Lead the way, princess.”

  With a final glare at her favorite uncle, Tatum spun and marched away.

  Adara dragged her feet, tugged relentlessly forward by Garret’s shackle. She didn’t want to be a piece of his family dynamics, even for a night. She didn’t want to care about earning London’s approval, didn’t want to complicate her already-tangled connection to this man who refused to leave her in solitude and had slipped seamlessly beneath her defenses. This man who claimed to love her.

  Love. She should break his hold now, run fast and hard until only darkness and silence surrounded her.

  Too late. The hallway opened into a family dining room. Six cushioned chairs surrounded a walnut-wood table, a highchair in the corner. Plates, silverware and glasses set slightly off-center of the chairs, proof that little hands had helped. It was a room well-loved and lived in. She swallowed hard.

  Tatum squeezed into the chair on the end, closest to the single window frosted by night and a hint of moonlight. “This is usually my spot, so I can do this.” She pulled her mouth into a monster face and wriggled her eyebrows, staring into the cabinet mirror behind the opposite chair. “It makes mom mad sometimes, but dad tries not to laugh.” She slid out and offered Adara the seat. “You get to sit here, since you’re our guest.”

  Adara forced herself to breathe carefully, her seams stretched and fraying. She couldn’t freak out and fall apart, not with an audience, this one in particular. “Thanks. I’ll try to refrain from upsetting anyone by making faces in the mirror.”

  The little girl grinned, her blue eyes sparkling. “You could, you know. Mom doesn’t get mad at guests.”

  “I’m sure Miss Dumont will be too busy making faces at me to spare any.” Garret ruffled Tatum’s hair, dislodging her antennae headband.

  She latched onto the subject with something dangerously close to desperation, keeping her focus on Tatum. If she looked at Garret right now, she might unravel completely. “So true. Your uncle’s insufferable.”

  “Lies.” Garret sniffed. “I’m
utterly sufferable. Just ask my favorite niece.”

  Tatum rolled her eyes and squished herself between her chair and the table, which was apparently easier than pulling the chair out. “I’m still mad at you. You know I wanted cymbals.” She huffed and crossed her arms, an almost violent move. “Cowbell is not cymbals.”

  “Cowbell requires more play-time and more technique, which I knew you could handle.” By the smile in Garret’s voice, she’d bet his dimple was showing. She refused a confirmation look. “If Billy misses his cymbals cue, it won’t matter much, but the cowbell? Disastrous. I needed someone I could count on.”

  Dang, the guy was good at smoothing feathers, no matter who wore them. The exchange loosened a knot in her neck, feeling so much like her familiar, safe classroom. Maybe she could pretend this was just another day at work and squeak by unscathed, unaffected.

  The aroma of roasted garlic preceded London’s entrance by a heartbeat, and the rock in Adara’s stomach shifted. London paused in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, her dark eyes sharp and aware, delving the soul with one glance. Must be in the Ambrose genes. That’s where the sibling similarities ended. Where Garret was fair, tall and sturdy, London was dark and barely made five feet, her delicate appearance saved by a gymnast’s lean muscles, made all the more apparent from the heavy lasagna load in her hands.

  As if done with gauging Adara’s past and future, intentions and fears, London hit the play button and bustled forward. She laid the pan on awaiting potholders and wiped her smooth brow with the back of her oven-mitted hand. She zeroed in on Adara again and smiled. No teeth. “Since my brother’s too busy slobbering over the lasagna to introduce us, I’m London.”

  Garret straightened from his lasagna-looming pose. “I was being polite and waiting for you to set the food down.”

  “Sure you were.” London’s smirk was so much like Garret’s that it was impossible not to like her. “So that fork in your paw is merely coincidence?”

  He stuck the fork behind his back. “Adara, this amazing creature is London, the best sister in the galaxy. She’s beautiful and I’m not. She’s talented and I’m not—”

  “He’s a suckup and I’m not.” London reached across the table for Adara, her oven mitt still on. “You endure Monday through Friday with my brother’s ego and twenty-five other kids and you still agree to join us for dinner. I can’t decide if you’re a masochist or some sort of superhero.”

  “My code name is Ultramoron.” Adara shook London’s mitt with a grin, the rock in her stomach shrinking from a mountain to a boulder. “Tatum talks about you all the time.”

  Tatum bounced up and down in her chair. “And I told Miss Dumont all about our girls-only Pride and Prejudice nights.”

  “Which is so cool, by the way.” Garret was right beside her, but Adara used the table for support instead. “Tatum’s the first eight-year-old I’ve met who uses the word ‘indeed’ on a regular basis.”

  London’s smile widened to brilliant, and her adoring gaze fell on her daughter. “I try to bring her up right.”

  Bryan slouched into the doorway. “If we’re going into Pride and Prejudice-land again tonight, I’ll eat in my room.” He lifted his chin at Adara. “Hey, Miss Dumont.”

  The addition of another Adara supporter eroded the rock in her gut a little more, and when Bob entered with bread tucked in one hand, a salad bowl in the other, his familiar smile on, the weight shrank to barely there. If she played her part right, kept her teacher mask on and ignored Garret as much as possible, maybe she’d survive the night.

  Garret shifted and casually hooked her free pinkie with his. The quick squeeze sent a trembling warmth through her.

  Who am I kidding? She was going down in flames.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Told you dinner would be fine.” Garret stuffed a last bite of peach cobbler into his cakehole.

  While tempting, Adara resisted a pudgy kid joke. The moment was too serene, too fragile to ruin. “I’m impressed. Only one pea and carrot fight.”

  “Bryan should know better than to insult Tatum’s sacred cowbell skills.” He looked at his plate as if he might lick it clean. “But I think it might’ve been Tatum’s creative way of not eating her vegetables.”

  Even with the other chairs vacant, the room felt full, the lingering effect of an overabundance of food, family and life. Tatum and Garret had prattled enough for everyone during dinner, sparing Adara the awkward hell of small talk. Dinners with Joey had never been like this, maybe because neither of them had Ambrose cooking skills.

  “I need an excuse to move.” She nabbed the plate from Garret and dodged his reach, barely. “I don’t know how you people eat so much and still function.”

  “It’s a gift.” Garret patted his flat stomach. “Hurry back, neshama.” His dark eyes flashed with a hunger that definitely wasn’t aimed at food. “Bob and London will be cleaning up, the kids are banished for the unfortunate vegetation smack down and I intend to use the alone time with you wisely.”

  Heat curled down her back and she retreated to the kitchen before she surrendered to the urge to leap over the table and onto him, no matter the emotional danger. Typical. Whenever Garret was around, all her rules and rationality bent.

  She paused at the kitchen doorway. Bob and London faced the sink, working at clean-up, the clank of dishes and running water a noisy backdrop to their voices.

  “It worries me. That’s all.” London rinsed a plate and passed it to Bob. “He doesn’t need another person like Mother in his lifetime, someone who makes him feel like he isn’t enough.”

  Adara’s stomach dropped and tumbled. Over the last year, she’d had a lot of practice catching conversations that magically stopped and switched topics when she showed her face. She didn’t need a flashcard to tell her that she was the subject now.

  “He knows what he’s up against.” Bob stacked the plate in the dishwasher and flung a dishtowel over one shoulder. “I warned him she might be unreachable, even for him.”

  Closing her eyes, she released a shaky breath. Bob had warned Garret about her, and as much as that hurt, she understood. It was the right thing to do. She opened her eyes and cleared her throat.

  Both London and Bob jumped and spun, their expressions identical masks of guilt.

  She handed Garret’s pie plate to Bob. “You’re absolutely right. Garret deserves someone who will make him feel incredible. I hope he finds that person.” She nodded once, abrupt and final. “Thanks for dinner.”

  Bob lifted a hand, as if to stop her. “Adara—”

  Placating words inspired by guilt wouldn’t change anything. She headed for the door. Never slowing, she snagged her coat on the way and shrugged into it once she’d made it outside. The evening air snaked over her hot face as she took off down the sidewalk, the bitter chill a welcome balm. Between scudding clouds, the moon lit her escape route well enough. Her hands shook, and she jammed them in her coat pockets. Overhearing that conversation had been the best possible thing for her, a necessary reminder of the disaster she’d been carelessly skirting since the second Garret crashed her life. He’d made her forget the inevitable pain of relationships, and she hadn’t fought hard enough to remember.

  Her boots clomped on the pavement, a pulsing staccato in the darkness. Her house wasn’t more than a few miles away, and a speed walk session wasn’t as good as a brisk run, but maybe it would be enough to burn everything away. If Garret’s Belgian beauty tagged along, so be it. She’d welcome a scuffle.

  A few blocks farther, her emotions dropping from a boil to a steam, she slowed, a sudden wariness tinging the night. The darkness closed in and the neighborhood held its breath, suffocating. No car headlights or humming motors disturbed the gloom. The windows on each side of the street were black, and the lone streetlamp at the intersection flickered, buzzing.

  Adara slowed even more to muffle her boots, goosebumps prickling her skin. She trespassed in a sleeping boneyard, not a family neig
hborhood. Shadows slithered behind fences and shrubs, midnight wisps that vanished with a direct look. A wind kicked up and rustled through grass and dead leaves, whispering secrets. As it died, a different noise rose up, a pounding. The unmistakable beat of running, coming closer.

  A shiver crackled through her. The night screened everything more than a block away, hiding whoever followed her, but that meant she couldn’t be seen, either. Yet. She darted to a parked pickup and crouched behind it. The cold tailgate bit into her fingers as she waited, every muscle poised to flee.

  The footsteps continued at a fast pace, filling the silence with a steady drum. Adara held her breath. The vibrations echoed through the pavement into her soles. Any second now…

  Garret sped by.

  Her heart convulsed, and she blew out a shaky breath. She almost preferred Bella. Why did he have to unsettle everything? Straightening, she watched him sprint to the cross street. A nicer person would stop him, but best-case scenario he’d keep on running and leave her alone.

  At the corner, Garret skidded to a halt and looked every direction, even behind him. It was too late to duck back into her hiding spot. Sighing, she waited as he barreled back to her.

  He slammed into her, scooping her off her feet before she toppled backward. He pressed his face into her neck, his breath hot on her skin. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”

  “Do you mind?” Feet dangling, she loosened her arms from around his neck. Blast. Grabbing onto him like a lifeline had been a natural impulse. Even her body was in cahoots against her. “You’re slowing my trek home.”

  “London told me what happened.” He set her down, keeping her chained in his arms. He wore his menacing look, the one that said she was in trouble.

  A tiny thrill rolled through her, which she countered with a scowl. She tried to wriggle free of his hold, but he merely tightened his arms. “So you understand why it’s best that I go home.”