by Cara Colter
She let him force her face up and opened her eyes, but she wouldn’t look at him. Instead she looked at the blue sky just above his right shoulder. “Please tell me. Please—”
“What? Anything,” he promised her.
“That I didn’t accuse you of flirting with me by sending me to Morton’s for the morning. Or … no, worse … accuse you of thinking you could buy my affections with a trip to Morton’s.”
He laughed, just a bit, then took a breath and let it out ever so slowly. “You want me to tell you that you didn’t?”
“Yes, please!”
“Okay. It never happened,” he said, looking as agreeable as could be and very un-Simonlike.
She looked away, definitely not needing to see him looking like that or spend her time trying to figure out what it meant.
But she accused him of those things, and she couldn’t forget it.
She most certainly couldn’t throw her arms around him.
“I am so sorry,” she said.
“Why?” He sounded puzzled.
“Because, you weren’t flirting. You weren’t even thinking of flirting. You were just being … you. Like you said, you do this. It’s no big deal. It didn’t mean anything.”
Especially not that he wanted her.
Not that a part of her didn’t really love the idea of him wanting her.
She just couldn’t have that.
Him.
Wanting her.
She couldn’t.
She’d had enough trouble with men in the last year to last her a lifetime.
“I wanted you to have a nice day,” he said. “And not to work so hard in the future. And to say I was sorry.”
“I know. Thank you. It was lovely there. Just lovely.”
“Good. I’m glad,” he said, still too close and coming closer as he spoke. “And maybe I shouldn’t say any more because you were so worried about it, or maybe I should say this because you were so worried. Or maybe I’ll say it just because I want to say it ….”
“Say what?” she said, instinctively wary.
“I’m sorry, Audrey. Really, I am, if this makes things harder for you. I know I’m not supposed to do this, and I tried not to. I really did. But if you thought I wished this morning that there was something between us …”
Oh, no.
His nose brushed past her hair, his warm breath on her ear. “You were right.”
Chapter Seven
Audrey thought about slapping Simon out of sheer frustration. Then she just stood there, mouth hanging open, unable to say a thing.
He backed away, studying her face, then said, “I really am sorry. I don’t want to make things difficult for you—”
“Difficult?” she finally got out.
“Yes,” he whispered.
“Difficult?” she yelled.
Dammit, she was yelling at him again.
“Yes,” he said, even more quietly than before.
For a man known to have a temper, he was coming off looking as if his was better than hers.
“Oh, Simon,” she said, and then the tears really started to flow.
She hated that.
Just hated it.
Simon looked completely baffled, as if he wasn’t sure whether to flee or grab her and hang on to her and wished she’d give him a clue.
“You don’t understand!” she cried.
“Then explain it to me, Audrey,” he said, coming back to her and very carefully, very slowly, wiping her tears away. “Because I want to understand. I want to help, and I want to make things better for you. Tell me what you need, and I’ll do it.”
“I just need this job. I need it so much—”
“And no one’s going to take it away from you, no matter what happens or doesn’t happen between you and me.”
She nodded, then got to the hard part. “And I need for nothing to happen between you and me.”
“Why?”
He didn’t make it sound like a command.
Anything but that.
Just a quiet request for understanding.
“Because I want my daughter back. I want that so much, and she lives five blocks away from here. So it means everything to me to be here, to be that close to her.”
“And you can stay. I told you that. But, the rest of it, I don’t understand. You can’t be with me, even if you want to? Because I think you want something to happen—”
“I want my daughter back,” she said again, more forcefully this time. “That’s the most important thing.”
“And you think us being together would interfere with that?”
“I know it would.”
“Audrey, you’re a grown woman, you’re not married anymore, and yet for some reason, you’re not allowed to have a man in your life—”
“You don’t know,” she told him, crying again. “You don’t know what I did. You don’t know how awful it was. How much I hurt so many people, and I just can’t do that again, Simon. I can’t.”
He appeared to want to argue more, but then all the fight went out of him. He put his hand to the side of her face, as if it hurt him to see her this miserable, and then he folded her into his arms and held her so gently it made her want to weep all the more.
He was so big and solid, his body so reassuring against hers.
For a moment she felt safe again, as she hadn’t in so long, as she’d longed to feel ever since her marriage fell apart.
What was wrong with her that she thought she needed a man to feel truly safe, when the truth was a woman wasn’t truly safe with any man, only herself? Surely she’d learned that by now. And yet there she was, sobbing against his broad chest, enveloped in the warmth of his arms.
“You shouldn’t be so nice to me,” she protested.
Laughter rumbled up from deep inside him, and she was sure she could feel a smile on his face, which was bent down low over the top of her head, his hold infinitely gentle and reassuring.
“But I so seldom am nice,” Simon said.
“No. You are. You just try to hide it.”
She snuggled a bit closer, if that was possible, trying to pull herself together. Trying to make herself let go.
It was so hard.
She felt his lips brush against the side of her face, which was wet with tears. Felt him kiss her cheek, then the corner of her mouth, slowly, giving her plenty of time to object and to move away.
And like a fool, like a woman who hadn’t learned a thing in the past year, instead of moving away, she turned her face up to his, her mouth opening beneath his, welcoming the intoxicating pleasure of kissing Simon Collier, slowly, sweetly, as if they had all the time in the world.
He groaned, a hand at her waist pulling her body closer to his, his lips, his tongue teasing, arousing, promising all sorts of pleasures.
Audrey wrapped her arms around his shoulders, arching her back and pressing her body against his big, powerful one.
Kissing him was sheer bliss, she found.
And it had the power to push every single thought out of her head.
Andie was at the ice cream shop Saturday afternoon, looking around warily to make sure her mother was nowhere nearby.
She hadn’t talked to her mother since the day they’d run into each other here, her mother with that dog, but Andie knew her mother was around. Half a dozen so-called friends of Andie’s claimed to have seen her running through the neighborhood regularly or at the nearby park, again with the dog.
Could her mother really be working as a dog sitter?
And even if she was, how much time could that take? What kind of a living could a grown-up possibly make taking care of a dog?
It didn’t make sense.
Which had Andie thinking it was probably just another lie.
Not that it really mattered.
She heard a car pull up to the curb in front of her and saw that it was Jake. He had that goofy grin he always wore around her, and she tried very hard to ignore how silly it made her feel.
Happy and warm and tingly inside.
Honestly, it was ridiculous.
He was a man, after all, and not to be trusted.
Neither should the feelings he brought up in her, because Andie was sure they wouldn’t last.
“Hey, need a ride home?” he asked.
“I was going to walk,” she said.
Actually, she was just killing time, trying to stay out of her house. Barbie and her father had been fighting, and she just didn’t want to be there.
“Come on, I’ll drive you,” he urged, that grin simply huge now.
Andie got up, telling herself she was going to turn him down just because it was the smart thing to do and she was trying so hard to be smart.
Jake really was cute, but honestly he was like an overgrown puppy—big feet and too much hair and still awkward inside his own skin, as boys his age tended to be. Still, he’d been really nice to her these past awful months, despite the mess he’d gotten into because of her and her mother.
She still felt awful about that.
“Come on,” he said, pushing open the passenger door to let her in.
“Well,” she said, “I guess it would be better to get out of here. This is where I ran into my mother, and I certainly don’t want to do that again.”
“Yeah? I saw her here again the other day,” Jake said.
“You didn’t tell me you saw her again,” she said, as if accusing him of something awful, but she got into the car anyway.
“I thought it would only upset you, so I didn’t say anything.”
“Well, what did she say? What did she do? You can’t let her get you into trouble again,” Andie said.
“She didn’t say much of anything, and she didn’t try to talk me into anything,” Jake said, pulling out of the parking space and into traffic. “Actually, I had to talk her into letting us help her. She’d hurt herself while she was running with this dog, and we drove her home.”
“We?” This was worse than Andie thought.
“I was getting a ride to school with Jordan and a couple of his buddies. It was no big deal, Andie. She was in the car for like two minutes,” he claimed. “You didn’t really want us to let her limp home, did you?”
“I don’t care what she has to do, as long as I don’t have to see her or talk to her,” Andie told him.
Still, she hurt herself?
Andie pushed that thought away.
Instead she asked, “So you saw where she’s living?”
Jake nodded. “Place looks like a mansion.”
“Of course, it would. She’s obviously found some man to take care of her again. It’s all she knows how to do.”
“She said she’s working there,” Jake claimed.
“Well, you can’t trust anything she says. You know that.”
“I’m just telling you what she said.” He sighed, shook his head, then stopped the car in front of Andie’s house.
She sat there, not wanting to go in. Not wanting to do anything, really.
“They’re fighting again?” Jake asked.
Andie nodded.
“Want to come to my house? You know my uncle and Lily don’t mind.”
“I know,” she muttered.
She did like being at Jake’s house. It was nice there, and everyone in it was nice. It was just that they knew all about her mom and all the bad things that had happened, and she hated getting those looks from people. The smirks, the whispers, the laughter were one thing, but the kindness and understanding were almost worse.
As if they felt sorry for her.
She hated that.
Still, she hadn’t been at Jake’s in weeks, hadn’t let herself go there.
“Andie, what’s the big deal? We’ll look over the AP Bio stuff. I can’t wait and do it Sunday night. I promised I’d baby-sit the girls for Lily, so she and my uncle could go out,” Jake coaxed.
“Okay,” she said finally.
It took only a couple of minutes to get from her house to his. Andie got out of the car to follow him inside but ran into Mrs. Richards on the sidewalk. She hoped the woman would walk on by, but no such luck. She’d once been someone Andie’s mother considered a friend but was now someone who seemed to revel in every bad thing her mother did.
“Andie, honey, imagine running into you today. I could swear I just saw your mother coming out of Morton’s today and getting into some fancy car with a driver to take her away.”
Morton’s?
“That fancy spa next to the Westin?” Andie asked.
Mrs. Richards nodded. “Expensive as can be, too. I guess your mother landed on her feet again. Someone told me she’d taken a job as a dog walker, but believe me, you don’t go to Morton’s on what you earn walking dogs. So, there must be a new man. Have you met him yet?”
Andie shook her head, biting her bottom lip to keep from saying anything. Honestly, what was there to say?
“Well, it was nice to see you, honey. You take care,” Mrs. Richards said, then walked on by.
Andie sank back against the side of Jake’s car. He stood on the sidewalk beside her, waiting, probably trying to figure out what to do.
“Morton’s,” Andie said. “She’s living with some rich, old man in Highland Park and spending her days getting pampered at Morton’s. That’s perfect. Just perfect.”
“You don’t know that,” Jake insisted. “People will say anything about your mother these days—”
“You’re right. I don’t know,” Andie said. “So let’s find out. You drove her home that day? So you know where she’s living. Take me there—”
“Andie, you don’t need to do this. Not right now. You two don’t need to fight anymore. What’s it going to do except make things even worse?”
“Jake, take me there. Right now,” she insisted, going back around to the passenger side of the car and getting in.
He looked for a moment as if he was going to refuse, but he finally gave in. “Just try not to lay into her the minute you see her, okay? Give her a chance—”
“Why?”
“Because she’s your mother and because your father’s a jerk and you hate his girlfriend and you’re miserable living with them.”
“I’m just fine there,” Andie insisted.
“Oh, yeah. You’re thrilled with the whole situation.”
“It’s not like I have a choice, Jake!”
“Yeah, you do. Some of us don’t, but you still do,” he insisted.
And she fell silent, instantly ashamed of herself.
Jake had lost both his parents in a car accident last year. That’s why he’d moved here, to live with his uncle.
“I would give anything—anything—to be able to talk to my mother again,” Jake told her. “To see her. To have her get on my case about something. To live with her. But I can’t. You still can.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Andie, the thing is you might not always have that choice,” he said softly, sadly.
“I’m just …” She couldn’t tell him, didn’t want to tell anyone.
She was terrified of depending on her mother like that again. Of depending on anyone.
Jake, even.
She had to fight hard not to let him any closer than she already had, and yet the relationship still made her uneasy.
Did he not get that?
Hadn’t he learned anything from his parents’ deaths.
Andie was terrified to trust her mother again.
“Will you just take me to that house where she’s living? Please?”
“All right.” He sounded disgusted with her and all her problems.
Fine, she thought.
He was mad. So what?
It was better this way.
He liked her too much already.
Simon wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten to this point—having Audrey in his arms, that luscious body of hers pressed up against him, her arms clinging to him, her mouth open beneath his—but he sure was glad.
/> One minute they’d been arguing, and then she’d been crying, and then she was here. He intended to make the most of it because he had a feeling it would be a while before she let herself be here again.
He held the side of her face to his with one hand, let his other slide down her back and to that sweet curve of her derriere, settling her even closer against him with a groan of frustration and pleasure all mixed into one.
He’d dreamed of having her spitting fire at him one minute and clinging to him the next, but the reality was even better.
She smelled good enough to eat, and her skin was whispery soft, her hair a little bit crazy and sexy as could be. She was trembling in his arms but hungry for him, too, kissing him as if her very life depended on it.
He was wondering if he could get away with carrying her upstairs and into her apartment without anyone seeing—especially his daughter, who was napping on a lounge chair on the back patio with the dog.
If the damned dog heard them, Simon didn’t stand a chance of getting her upstairs alone.
And he very much wanted to be alone with her, behind a locked door, preferably in a room with a bed, because he’d like to stay there for a while afterward, and he feared this was really not the time.
She wanted him, but she was scared.
He wanted her, selfishly despite her fears, whatever they might be.
They could work through them, he decided.
He wasn’t a man who let things stand in his way for long.
He could fix this, and then he could have Audrey in his bed.
“Come upstairs with me,” he whispered urgently against her mouth.
“What?”
“Upstairs. With me. It’s okay. Peyton’s asleep.”
He felt resistance slipping between them, could tell she was trying to summon the will to pull away.
“No,” he said. “Don’t do that. Don’t think of all the reasons why. We’ll deal with those later, and everything will be okay. I promise. I’ll handle it, whatever it is. For right now, just be with me. I know that’s what you want. It’s what I want, too.”
She groaned and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him even more desperately. “Simon, I can’t.”
“Of course, you can—”
She was trying to disentangle herself from his arms when Simon suddenly realized they were not alone. There was a car he didn’t recognize in the driveway. An old Chevy with a teenage boy behind the wheel.
