Steve could’ve sworn she blushed, very prettily, too, before she slipped into his embrace. He brought her close and sighed, reveling in the feel of her.
“I’m not very good at dancing,” she murmured.
“Hey, don’t worry. All we have to do is shift our feet a little.” He laid his cheek next to hers.
He’d never had the time or the patience for romance. Or so he’d believed. Then he’d met Meg and his organized, safe, secure world had been turned upside down. Nothing had been the same since, and Steve suspected it never would be again.
Even Gary Wilcox seemed to recognize the difference between Steve’s attitude toward Meg and his attitude to the other women he’d dated over the years. Steve didn’t know how his foreman had figured it out, but he had. Of course, inviting Meg and Lindsey to the shop might have given Gary a clue. The idea of letting Lindsey see him at work had been an excuse; in reality he’d been trying to impress Meg, show her how successful he was. Prove to her that he was worthy of her attention.
Steve had always kept his personal life separate from the business. His personal life—that was a joke. He’d worked for years, dedicating his life to building a thriving business. He’d been successful, but that success had come at a price. There was very little room in his life for love.
But there was room for Meg and Lindsey.
Meg’s lithe body moved with the music provocatively, seductively, against his. He wanted to hold her even tighter, kiss her, caress her …
They stopped moving, the pretense of dancing more than he could sustain. “I want you so badly,” he whispered.
Meg sighed and raised her head so their eyes met in the dim light. “I want you, too. It frightens me how much … “
He ran his fingers up through her hair and held his breath as he slowly lowered his mouth to hers. “Oh, Meg.” He kissed her over and over, unable to get enough of her.
The sound of a throat being cleared suddenly penetrated his brain.
Lindsey. Again.
Steve groaned inwardly. Slowly, reluctantly, he loosened his grip on Meg and eased his body away from hers.
She resisted. “Don’t stop.”
“Lindsey’s back,” he whispered.
Meg buried her face in his sweater.
“Hello, again,” Lindsey said cheerfully from the stairs. “It looks like I returned in the nick of time.” She pranced down the steps, walked over to the wine bottle and sadly shook her head. “You didn’t even open the wine.”
“We didn’t get a chance,” Steve muttered.
“I gave you twenty minutes,” she said. “From what I can see, that was about five minutes longer than I should’ve waited. You’re a fast worker.”
“Lindsey,” Meg said, in what was obviously meant to be her sternest voice. Unfortunately, the effect was more tentative than severe.
“I know I’m making a pest of myself—and I apologize, I really do. But we’ve been talking about this stuff in my sex-ed. class, and there’s a case to be made for abstinence.”
“What’s that got to do with your mother and me?” Steve made the mistake of asking.
“You don’t really want me to answer that, do you?” Lindsey asked. “Mom’s flustered enough as it is.”
“I guess not.”
“We could discuss safe sex, if you want.”
Steve watched in fascination as Meg’s face turned a deep shade of red. “Lindsey!” This time her mother’s voice was loud and clear. “You’re embarrassing me.”
“Sorry, Mom, but I figured we should raise the subject now instead of later.” She dropped down on the sofa, then reached for the wine bottle and examined the label. “It’s a good month, too. September. Brenda’s uncle bought it for us. He said it wasn’t a great wine, but it’d get the job done.”
Steve’s hand gripped Meg’s shoulder. “It was, uh, thoughtful of you.”
“Thanks.” She smiled broadly. “But we were going for the romantic element.”
“Now,” Steve said, “would you mind if your mother and I talked? By ourselves? We didn’t get much of a chance to do that earlier.”
“I suppose that’d be all right—only I need to know something first.” She set the wine bottle down and looked intently at Steve. “Are you going to marry my mother?”
Meg made a small mewling noise that suggested she was mortified beyond words. She sank onto the ottoman and covered her face with both hands.
“Well, are you?” Lindsey pressed, ignoring her mother entirely.
Steve couldn’t very well say he hadn’t been thinking along those lines. There’d been little else on his mind for the past few days. He loved Meg. When he wasn’t with her, it felt as if something was missing from his life. From his heart.
Steve had never imagined himself with a ready-made family, but he couldn’t see himself without Meg and Lindsey. Not now.
“I believe that’s a subject your mother and I need to discuss privately, but since you asked I’ll tell you.”
Lindsey got to her feet and Meg dropped her hands and looked up at him.
“You’re going to marry us, aren’t you.” Lindsey’s words were more statement than question. A satisfied smile lit up her face. “You’re really going to do it.”
“If your mother will have me.”
“She will, trust me,” Lindsey answered, looking gleeful. “I’ve known my mother forever and I’ve never seen her this gaga over a man.”
“I can do my own talking, thank you very much,” Meg said. “This is the most humiliating moment of my life—thanks to you, Lindsey Marie Remington.” She stood, hands on her hips. “Go to your room and we’ll talk when I’ve finished begging Steve to forgive you.”
“What did I do that was so terrible?” Lindsey muttered.
Meg pointed to the stairs.
It looked as though Lindsey was about to argue; apparently she thought better of it. Her shoulders slumped forward and she moved slowly toward the stairs.
“I was just helping,” she said under her breath.
“We’ll talk about that later, young lady.”
Lindsey’s blue eyes met Steve’s as she passed him. “I know I’m in trouble when she calls me young lady. She’s mad. Be careful what you say. Don’t ruin everything now.”
“I’ll try my best,” Steve promised.
Meg waited until her daughter had reached the top of the stairs before she spoke. “I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am about that.” Although her voice was calm, Steve wasn’t fooled. Meg was angry, just as Lindsey had said.
“I’ll have Lindsey apologize after I’ve had a chance to cool down,” Meg was saying. “I don’t dare speak to her now.” She paced the carpet. “I want you to know I absolve you from everything that was said.”
Steve rubbed his jaw. “Absolve me from what, precisely?”
“I want it understood, here and now, that I don’t expect you to marry me.”
“But I like the idea.”
“I don’t,” she flared. “Not when my daughter practically ordered you to propose. Now,” she said with a deep breath, “I think it might be best if you left.”
Steve tried to protest, but Meg ushered him to the door and he could see that this wasn’t the time to reason with her.
“I’ve never been so mortified in my life,” Meg told Laura. She counted the change and put it in the cash register. The store was due to open in ten minutes and she felt far from ready to deal with customers.
“But he said he wanted to marry you, didn’t he?”
“It was a pity proposal. Good grief, what else could he say?”
Laura restocked the front display with the latest bestsellers. “Steve doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’d propose if he didn’t mean it.”
“He didn’t mean it.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Meg wanted to find a hole, crawl inside and hide for the rest of her natural life. No one seemed to appreciate the extent of her humiliation. Steve certai
nly hadn’t. He’d tried to conceal it from her, but he’d viewed the incident with Lindsey as one big joke.
She hadn’t intended to mention it to anyone. Laura knew because she’d sensed something was wrong with Meg, and in a moment of weakness, Meg had blurted out the entire episode.
“Have you talked to Lindsey about what she did?” Laura asked.
“In my current frame of mind,” Meg told her, “I thought it better not to try. I’ll talk to her when I can do so without screaming or weeping in frustration.”
“What I don’t understand,” Laura said, hugging a book to her chest, “is what happened to bring about such a reversal in her attitude to Steve. The last time we talked, you were pulling out your hair because she refused to believe he wasn’t a convicted felon.”
“I don’t know what’s going on with her. I just don’t get it.”
“You’ve got to admit, this romance between you and Steve has taken some unexpected twists and turns,” Laura said. “First, you didn’t even want to meet him, then once you did you agreed not to see each other again. It would’ve ended there if not for the flowers.”
“Which didn’t even come from Steve. He was just glad to be done with me.”
“That’s not the way I remember it.”
“I doubt I’ll ever see him again,” Meg said, slamming the cash drawer shut.
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Laura said.
“I wouldn’t blame him. No man in his right mind would want to get tangled up with Lindsey and me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
Laura sounded so definite about that. Meg desperately wanted to believe her, but she knew better. When she closed the shop at six that evening, she still hadn’t heard from Steve, which convinced Meg that he was relieved to be free of her.
Lindsey was sitting in the living room reading when Meg got home from work. “Hi,” she said, taking a huge bite out of a big red Delicious apple.
Meg set aside her purse and slipped off her shoes. The tiles in the entryway felt cool against her aching feet.
“You’re not mad at me anymore, are you?” Lindsey asked. She got off the sofa and moved into the kitchen, where Meg was pouring herself a glass of iced tea.
“You embarrassed me.”
“Steve wasn’t embarrassed,” Lindsey said. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”
“How would you feel if I called up Dale Kotz and told him you wanted to go to the ninth-grade dance with him? He’d probably agree, because he likes you, but you’d never know if Dale would’ve asked you himself.”
“Oh.” Lindsey didn’t say anything for several minutes.
“But it’s more than that, Lindsey. I was mortified to the very marrow of my bones. I felt like you pressured Steve into proposing.”
Lindsey sat in one of the kitchen chairs. “Would you believe me if I told you I was sorry?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t change what happened.”
“You are still angry, aren’t you?”
“No,” Meg said, opening the refrigerator and taking out lettuce for a salad. “I’m not angry anymore, just incredibly embarrassed and hurt.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Mom,” Lindsey said in a low voice. “I was only trying to help.”
“I know, honey, but you didn’t. You made everything much, much worse.”
Lindsey hung her head. “I feel just awful.”
Meg didn’t feel much better herself. She sat down at the table, next to her daughter, and patted Lindsey’s hand.
Lindsey managed a weak smile, then fell into her mother’s arms and hid her face against Meg’s shoulder. “Men are so dumb sometimes,” she murmured. “Brenda says love is like a game of connect the dots. Only with men, you have to make the dots and then draw the lines. They don’t get it.”
Meg stroked her daughter’s hair.
“Do you love him, Mom?”
Meg smiled for the first time that day. “Yeah, I think I do. I certainly didn’t plan on falling in love with him, that’s for sure. It just sort of … happened.”
“I don’t think he expected to fall in love with you, either.”
The doorbell chimed, and horrified that she might be caught crying, Lindsey broke away from her mother and hurriedly brushed the tears from her face.
“I’ll get it,” Meg said. She padded barefoot into the hallway and opened the door.
Steve stood on the other side, holding a dozen long-stemmed roses. He grinned. “Hello,” he said, handing her the flowers. “I thought we’d try this marriage-proposal thing again, only this time we’ll do it my way—not Lindsey’s.”
Nine
“Marriage proposal?” Meg repeated, staring down at the roses in her arms. “Really, Steve, there’s no need to do this.” Her throat was closing up on her; she could barely speak and she couldn’t meet his eyes.
“I know exactly what I’m doing,” Steve said.
“Is it Brenda?” Lindsey called from the kitchen.
“No, it’s Steve.”
“Steve!” Lindsey cried excitedly. “This is great. Maybe I didn’t ruin everything after all.”
“Hello, Meg,” Steve said softly.
“Hi.” She still couldn’t look him in the eye.
“I’d like to talk to you.”
“I … I was hoping we could do that,” Meg told him. “They’re lovely, thank you.”
She handed Lindsey the flowers. “Would you take care of these for me?” she asked her daughter. “Steve and I are going to talk and we’d appreciate some privacy. Okay?”
“Sure, Mom.”
Lindsey disappeared into the kitchen and Meg sat down on the sofa. Steve sat beside her and took her hand. She wished he wasn’t so close. The man had a way of muddling her most organized thoughts.
“Before you say anything, I have a couple of things I’d like to talk to you about,” she began. She freed her hand from his and clasped her knees. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and … and I’ve come to a few conclusions.”
“About what?”
“Us,” she said. Dragging in a deep breath, she continued. “Laura reminded me this afternoon that our relationship has taken some unexpected twists and turns. Neither one of us wanted to meet the other—we were thrown into an impossible situation.
“We wouldn’t have seen each other again if it wasn’t for the flowers your sister sent me. From the moment we met, we’ve had two other people dictating our lives.”
“To some extent that’s true,” Steve agreed, “but we wouldn’t have allowed any of this to happen if we hadn’t been attracted to each other from the beginning.”
“Maybe,” she admitted slowly.
“What do you mean, maybe?” Steve asked.
“I think we both need some time apart to decide what we really want.”
“No way!” he said. “I’ve had thirty-eight years to look for what I want and I’ve found it. I’d like to make you and Lindsey a permanent part of my life.”
“Ah, yes. Lindsey,” Meg said. “As you might have noticed, she’s fifteen going on thirty. I have a feeling this is what the rest of the teen years are going to be like.”
“So you could use a gentle hand to help you steer her in the right direction.” Steve leapt to his feet and jerked his fingers through his hair. “Listen, if you’re trying to suggest you’d rather not marry me, just say so.”
Meg straightened, keeping her back stiff. For a moment she couldn’t speak. “That’s what I’m saying,” she finally managed.
Steve froze, and it was clear to Meg that he was in shock. “I see,” he said after a long pause. “Then what do you want from me?”
Meg closed her eyes. “Maybe it’d be best if we—”
“Don’t say it, Meg,” he warned in low tones, “because we’ll both know it’s a lie.”
“Maybe it’d be best if we—” she felt she had to say the words “—didn’t see each other for a while.”
Steve’s smile was
filled with sarcasm. “Let me tell you something, Meg Remington, because someone obviously needs to. Your husband walked out on you and your daughter. It happens. It wasn’t the first time a man deserted his family for another woman and it won’t be the last. But you’ve spent the past ten years building a wall around you and Lindsey.
“No one else was allowed in until Lindsey took matters into her own hands. Now that I’m here, you don’t know what to do. You started to care for me and now you’re scared to death.”
“Steve … “
“Your safe, secure world is being threatened by another man. Do you think I don’t know you love me?” he demanded. “You’re crazy about me. I feel the same way about you, and to be fair, you’ve done a damned good job of shaking up my world, too.
“If you want it to end here and now, okay, but at least be honest about it. You’re pushing me away because you’re afraid of knocking down those walls of yours. You’re afraid to trust another man with your heart.”
“You seem to have me all figured out,” she said, trying—without much success—to sound sarcastic. To sound as if her emotions were unaffected by his words.
“You want me to leave without giving you this diamond burning a hole in my pocket, then fine. But don’t think it’s over, because it isn’t. I don’t give up that easily.” He stalked out of the room and paused at her front door. “Don’t get a false sense of security. I’ll be back and next time I’m bringing reinforcements.” The door closed with a bang.
“Mom,” Lindsey asked, slipping into the room and sitting down next to Meg. “What happened?”
Meg struggled not to weep. “I … got cold feet.”
“But you told me you were in love with Steve.”
“I am,” she whispered.
“Then why’d you send him away?”
Meg released her breath. “Because I’m an idiot.”
“Then stop him,” Lindsey said urgently.
“I can’t …. It’s too late.”
“No, it isn’t,” Lindsey argued and rushed out the front door. A part of Meg wanted to stop her daughter. Meg’s pride had taken enough of a beating in the past few days. But her heart, her treacherous heart, knew that the battle had already been lost. She was in love with Steve Conlan.
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