The Mommy Makeover

by Kristi Gold

  “That’s not on my diet,” she said. “But if it was, I’d love to have one.”

  He pulled a bottle of Bordeaux from the cabinet beneath the counter. “It’s a red, and red wine’s good for you, as long as you use some moderation.”

  “In that case, I’ll have one glass, but don’t fill it up since I’m driving.”

  While Kieran uncorked the bottle and poured the wine, Erica moved to the floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the length of the room. “What a great view. Do you have the same view in your bedroom?” She looked back and smiled sheepishly. “Not that I’m suggesting I should check out your bedroom.”

  Luckily, he managed to carry the wine without dumping it all over the floor as he crossed the room and set the glasses on the coffee table. He started to say he had no problem with her checking out his bedroom, but quickly reconsidered. If he couldn’t control his tongue—literally and figuratively—they could end up in an extremely compromising position. Asking her to join him on the sofa seemed the better part of valor, but before he could make the offer, she slid away the band binding her ponytail, causing her hair to cascade down her back. It dawned on him that he’d never seen her hair down before, and the sight was shredding what was left of his self-control.

  He watched the sway of the deep copper-colored locks as she shook her head, like she held a pocket watch, bent on hypnotizing him. Frankly, it was working. And when she gathered her hair to pull it back up, he was at her back in a flash. “Leave it down,” he said, causing her to drop her arm to her side.

  He ran his hand over her hair and followed the waist-length strands down to their ends. Silk came to mind. Silk draped over his body when he made love to her. And damn it, he wanted that more than anything at the moment, even if he couldn’t have it. But he had to have something, anything, which was the reason why he pulled her hair to one side and kissed her neck.

  She shivered slightly before saying, “Kieran, your ethics—”

  “I know.” He took her by the shoulders and turned her around. “Right now, I don’t give a damn about ethics.” A sorry excuse for a man who prided himself on strength of will, even in the toughest situations. His will disappeared the moment he lowered his head and covered her mouth with his.

  He backed Erica up against the window, not leaving even an inch of space between their bodies. She wrapped her arms around his neck while he rested his hands on her hips. And that’s when the kiss became almost desperate—a mouth-to-mouth explosion that left nothing unexplored. When he’d kissed her before, and even when she’d kissed him, she hadn’t gone full throttle. But now she gave as good as she got, and what she gave him could easily encourage him to start dispensing with the clothes. If she hadn’t known the extent of his erection during the massage, then she sure as hell knew it now.

  Kieran broke the kiss long enough to tell her, “I’m about to come unwound.”

  Erica blinked twice, as if trying to clear the mental fog. “This is insane, Kieran.”

  “Certifiably,” he said as he attacked her neck again. “Crazy.” Chemistry, the strongest he’d ever encountered.

  Bracketing his jaws in her palms, she forced him to look at her. “We can’t.”

  “I keep telling myself that, but I’m not listening.” Unwilling to break all contact with her, he took a step back without dropping his hands from her waist. “But if you don’t want this, you have to tell me now.”

  A sigh drifted from her lips. “Yes, I want this, right or wrong. But I have to pick up my daughter, remember?”

  Hell, he’d be lucky to remember his name right now. “What time is it?”

  “According to your clock, I have less than twenty minutes to get there.”

  “Twenty minutes wouldn’t be nearly enough time to do what I want to do with you.” When he noticed a glimpse of wariness in her eyes, he wondered if he’d gone too far this time. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m just wondering why I always have my butt to the window for the entire world to see when I’m with you.”

  Leave it to her sense of humor to lighten the mood, only one of her many appealing qualities. “The windows are tinted, so you don’t have to worry.”

  “At least that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about.” She closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath. “I am concerned over the way I behave around you. As much as I want this, I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to handle the sex part.”

  For Kieran, it wasn’t only about sex. If that were the case, then he could easily call any one of a select few female friends who’d be glad to put him out of his misery with a wild night and no commitment attached. Amazingly, he found that prospect unappealing, thanks to Erica—the only woman he wanted to spend the night with.

  He pushed her hair behind one ear and pressed a kiss against her cheek. “Maybe we’re making it more complicated than it has to be.”

  She lowered her hands to his chest but remarkably didn’t push him away, at least not physically. “It is complicated. I have to consider Stormy and how she would feel about me being involved with a man. I need to seriously think about that.”

  Suddenly the earlier conversation with Candice came back to Kieran, illustrating how complicated it could get. Reinforcing why he shouldn’t consider any personal involvement with Erica, aside from the ethics issues. “You’re probably right. There’s one major problem neither of us counted on.”

  Now she looked almost alarmed. “What problem?”

  He could barely think, much less communicate coherently, unless he put some space between them. Reluctantly releasing her, he strode to the sofa, collapsed onto the cushions and rubbed his temples. Apparently the blood flow had been redirected to his primary brain because he was getting one hell of a headache. After Erica claimed the chair across from him, he continued. “Candice stopped me when I dropped Stormy off. She asked me a few disturbing questions.”

  “Define disturbing.”

  “Disturbing in as she wanted to know if we were sleeping together.”

  Erica grabbed up a glass and took a long drink before setting it back on the table. “You did set her straight.”

  “Yeah, I did. But I don’t know if that will discourage her from making assumptions.” Assumptions that came close to being true a few moments before. “She could cause some problems.”

  “Including damaging your reputation.”

  He downed half of his wine in two gulps. “She could, but without proof, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on. I’m more worried about you and Stormy. She might spread some rumors that could be tough to deal with.”

  When she didn’t respond, he sat forward and draped his arms on his knees. “Look, Erica, the last thing I want to do is hurt you or Stormy. I could resign as your trainer and walk away, but I don’t want to do that unless I have to.”

  She looked slightly panicked. “I don’t want you to do that, either. I’m finally beginning to feel like my old self again, but I still need your help.”

  “Then let’s finish what we started.” After realizing how that might sound, he added, “In regard to your fitness program.”

  She rimmed the edge of the glass with a fingertip. “I realize that’s what you meant. And the answer to our obvious inability to control ourselves would be to make sure we’re not alone together.”

  He didn’t necessarily like that proposition, but he’d have to live with it. “Good plan. No more alone time.”

  “No more massages, either,” she said.

  He couldn’t deny his disappointment over that prospect. “Fine, and we’ll make sure the kid is always around when we’re together.”

  “Speaking of the kid.” She finished off her wine and stood. “I’m anxious to see how the party went.”

  He saw the anxiety reflecting from her eyes. “You’re still worried about the boy factor, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. Hopefully she showed more restraint than I did tonight.”

  On the drive home, Stormy’s unwillingness to t
alk in anything but clipped sentences greatly concerned Erica. Her daughter’s continued silence while she readied for bed only increased those concerns. “What happened at the party, sweetie?”

  “Nothing happened, Mom.”

  She tucked the covers under Stormy’s chin and perched on the edge of the bed. “You’re awfully quiet. Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”

  Stormy wrested from the sheet and sat up against the headboard. “I don’t like the way boys act sometimes.”

  Erica swallowed back the dread. “What did R.J. do to you?”

  Stormy gave her the usual you-need-to-chill stare. “We didn’t hook up or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about, Mom.”

  Hook up? “Do you even know what that means, Stormy?”

  “Well, yeah. It means have sex.”

  As if Erica needed another reason not to sleep well tonight. “How much do you know about sex?”

  Stormy lifted her chin. “I know what happens because Lisa’s mom gave her a book and we read it together.”

  Erica had planned to purchase a similar book to give Stormy in the near future. Clearly she should have already done that. “Then you probably know that sex can be wonderful in a committed relationship, and that it can also be dangerous if you’re not prepared, both emotionally and physically, for the responsibility.”

  Stormy blew out a breath of frustration. “I’m not going to have sex for a long time, so stop worrying, okay?”

  At least that was something positive. Very positive, and a large load off Erica’s mind, at least for the time being. “I’m glad to hear that, sweetie. But you still haven’t told me what happened with you and R.J.”

  Stormy slapped a palm against her forehead, a sure sign she believed her mother was being obtuse. “When I said nothing happened, Mom, I meant nothing happened. Those dumb boys just stood around and stared at us all night.”

  Hard to kiss or “hook up” under those circumstances, thank heavens. “R.J. didn’t talk to you at all?”

  “He pretended he didn’t even know me. Dumb, stupid boys.”

  Erica secretly celebrated the dumb boys on one hand, but hated that her daughter had been so disappointed on the other. “I promise there will come a time when they won’t admire you from across the room.” Someday soon, they would saunter across the room to garner her daughter’s attention. She wasn’t fond of that prospect, even though it was inevitable.

  “And to make the night even worse, Lisa cried.”

  “The boys made her cry?”

  Stormy folded the edge of the sheet back and forth. “She cried because her dad doesn’t live with them anymore. I told her at least she still had a dad. I don’t think that was the right thing to say to her because she cried even more.”

  Erica’s heart went out to both her daughter and Lisa. “You did the best you could, sweetie. Just remember, it’s going to take some time for her to adjust.”

  “She also said if her mom starts dating men, she’ll run away from home. I told her that wasn’t smart.”

  A good opportunity to pose the question that had plagued Erica since she’d left the health club. “What would you do if I decided to date again?”

  Stormy looked totally shocked by the question. “Are you gonna date someone?”

  “There isn’t anyone right now.” A bit of a white lie. If she did consider it, only one man came to mind, and he wasn’t necessarily the right man. “But if I ever did decide to see someone, I’d like to know how you feel about it.”

  “If it was someone like Kieran, that would be okay.”

  If her daughter only knew how much she’d foolishly begun to want that. “Kieran’s my personal trainer, Stormy, and that’s all. As soon as I’m finished with my fitness training in a couple of weeks, he’ll move on to someone else who needs his help.” And as soon as she and Stormy accepted that, the better off they’d both be.

  “He promised to help me with softball until tryouts,” Stormy said. “He even told me he’d ask his sister to teach me how to pitch.”

  Erica didn’t doubt Kieran would honor his promises, and that worried her because like it or not, her daughter had begun to view Kieran as a father figure, something she would have to discuss in detail with Stormy another time. The semi-sex talk had already drained her of the last of her energy.

  “Time for bed, sweetie pie.” She leaned over, kissed Stormy’s forehead and stood, pausing a moment to relish the sight of her child, fresh faced and innocent, before that childhood was completely gone. “Sleep tight.”

  Before Erica could turn off the light, Stormy stopped her cold by saying, “I’m scared, Mom.”

  That sent Erica back to her child. “Scared of what, Stormy?”

  Stormy looked as though she might cry. “I’m scared someday I won’t remember what Daddy looks like.”

  Reclaiming her place on the bed, Erica blinked back her own tears. “That’s why we have all the pictures, honey. So you don’t forget.”

  “Do you still remember, Mom? I mean, do you remember how he sounded? I used to, but I don’t now.”

  “Yes, I still remember.” She remembered the sound of Jeff’s laughter, although he hadn’t laughed all that much during the years after Stormy’s birth. Neither had she. She remembered the harshness of his tone when he’d been frustrated and the gentleness of his voice when he’d spoken to his baby girl. She recalled how hard the times had been. How they’d become virtual strangers before his death, and how much she’d hated the emotional berth that had developed between her and the man she’d always considered her best friend.

  Yet tonight, when she’d been in Kieran’s arms, she’d forgotten it all, and that’s when the guilt hit her like an unexpected slap in the face.

  Erica automatically touched the silver chain she wore around her neck, the one that held her wedding band, and vowed to remember, no matter what the future held. Vowed to remember all the good times, not the bad, because there had been many good times before Stormy’s illness had stripped them of their youthfulness. Before fate had cruelly ripped Jeff from their lives before he could enjoy his child’s return to health. Before they could set their marriage back on solid ground, as it had been in the beginning.

  Simply stated, life wasn’t always fair. And the most unfair part of all—like Stormy’s own father, eventually Kieran O’Brien would be out of their lives for good. But until that time came, she would enjoy the moments they spent together and deal with the possible fallout later.

  Over the next week, Kieran and Stormy settled into a routine, traveling to the batting cages in the afternoons while Erica was still at work, playing catch in the evenings before they all went to the club for Erica’s workout. Kieran had also fallen behind on some of his responsibilities, but it had all been worth it, if only to witness Stormy’s pride over her accomplishments. If only to see Erica, even if he couldn’t touch her. He still wanted to touch her, even after he followed Stormy into the house one day and found Erica sitting on the sofa, the cordless phone clutched in her hand, a troubled look on her face.

  For a minute he worried that he’d done something wrong to contribute to her distress when she didn’t bother to look up after Stormy proclaimed, “I hit six balls in a row, Mom!”

  “That’s great, sweetie.”

  Stormy frowned. “Are you okay, Mom?”

  Erica sent her a weak smile. “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

  “Can I call Lisa and tell her what I did?” she asked, apparently satisfied that her mother was okay, although Kieran knew better.

  Erica leaned over and set the phone back on the charger on the end table. “Dinner’s almost ready, and you need to finish your homework before you make any phone calls.”

  “I hate homework. Homework should be outlawed.” After strongly stating her opinions, Stormy strode out of the room, leaving Kieran and Erica alone for the first time since the week before in his apartment.

  Erica looked up at him and sighed. “I’ve had a really bad da
y. Do you mind if I skip the gym tonight? I’ll make it up tomorrow.”

  Kieran took a seat beside her, raked the baseball cap off his head and draped one arm over the back of the couch. “What’s wrong?”

  She seemed almost startled by the question. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Don’t hand me that, Erica. I noticed the minute I walked into the room.”

  She tipped her head back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling. “I had a phone call from Jeff’s mother right before you got here. She wants us to spend Thanksgiving weekend with her in Tulsa. Since Jeff’s dad passed away three years ago, she refuses to drive long distances, so she hasn’t seen Stormy in almost two years.”

  “Sounds like a nice way to spend the holiday.” He put as much enthusiasm as he could muster into his tone, even though he was less than enthused about her four-day absence. Her fitness goals would suffer. He would suffer from not being with her, although he wasn’t going to own up to that.

  She shifted to face him. “I can’t go. I have appointments scheduled for Friday after the holiday and half the day Saturday. I can’t afford to cancel them.”

  Kieran couldn’t quell his relief. “I’m sure she’ll understand.”

  “She still wants Stormy to come even if I can’t. If I give the go-ahead, she’s willing to buy her a plane ticket, and she has limited income. That’s how badly she wants to see her. But then, Stormy’s the only grandchild.”

  As much as he wanted to discourage her from taking the trip, he couldn’t do it. “Are you sure you can’t reschedule your appointments?”

  She picked at a random thread jutting from the sofa’s arm. “It’s not only the money. It’s difficult for me to be around Nancy. I practically grew up in that house, and she’s turned it into a shrine, understandably so, since Jeff was their only child. But it’s not easy, dealing with all the memories, and that’s incredibly selfish on my part.”

  Kieran wasn’t immune to selfishness, since he wanted her to stay in town. He wasn’t impervious to jealousy, either, something he realized when he experienced envy of the former man in her life. A man who was no longer alive but still had a strong hold on her. He wondered if her husband had appreciated Erica’s remarkable qualities, her devotion. If he had made her happy.