Clay dropped down beside his daughter in her booster seat in a booth at Feather Peak Diner and stole one of her French fries. “I’m glad that’s over.”
Celeste knew Clay wasn’t one for the spotlight. He did everything to the best of his ability and didn’t expect an award for it. Celeste had watched the taping of the interview from across the room, and knew every woman in the audience would think Clay was as sexy as she did, and many men would want him to take them into the wild, rafting or fishing. “This interview could be important to you.”
“That’s why I did it.”
Alicia Hancock, the redheaded news reporter who had interviewed Clay, stopped at their table. “Are you sure you won’t let me capture your daughter on tape?”
“Positive.”
The reporter looked pointedly at Celeste.
Clay introduced the two women but didn’t go any further than that.
“In the interview, you said you were a single dad. Is that going to change anytime soon?” Alicia probed.
“You know I want to keep this about what I do for a living, not my personal life.”
“It’s a lot more interesting if you give me something juicy to work with.”
“No.”
The reporter glanced at Celeste again. “I told you I know you’re divorced.”
Clay held up his hand. “Stop right there. If you want to follow me around on my fishing trip next week, we don’t go there.”
She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Okay, I understand. But when I do the lead-in, I’m going to mention your great-grandfather and how he founded Miners Bluff.”
“I have no problem with that.”
“All right then. The crew and I will meet you and your party outside Sedona Thursday morning.”
“You’ve got it.”
“You’re not going to fight me every step of the way while we try to follow you, are you?”
“That depends. You can’t make a lot of noise when I ask for quiet, and you can’t ask questions that don’t have to do with the trip and the guiding business.”
“You are such a tough sell.”
Clay gave the reporter a take-it-or-leave-it expression.
“I’ll see you on Thursday,” she said with a shake of her head and a wry smile. Then she crossed to her crew and exited the diner.
Celeste eyed Clay thoughtfully as Abby dipped another fry in ketchup and offered it to her dad. He took it between his lips, then frowned. “I think I need some hot food. Cold ketchup and fries isn’t my idea of dinner.” He raised his hand to call the waitress.
“Did she ask you other questions you didn’t want to answer?”
When Clay went silent, she knew that had been the case.
Finally he responded, “I had her stop the tape at one point.”
“Why?” Celeste wanted to know.
“We were talking about the demands of the guiding business.”
“Did that get personal because of Abby?”
“She wanted me to step into that juicy territory of the divorce. She asked if long hours and nights away were hard on a family life…hard on a marriage.”
“And you didn’t answer?”
“No.”
Abby wiggled in her booster seat. “Go?”
Clay dropped his arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “If you can color while I eat my dinner, maybe we can stop at the Double Scoop for ice cream afterward.”
Not knowing how long the interview would take, Celeste had brought a bag along with a coloring book, crayons and one of Abby’s favorite puzzles. Now she took the coloring book and crayons from the bag and set them in front of Abby.
“Can I get choc-o-late ice cweam?” Abby asked with a glint in her eye.
“You can have any kind you want.”
The waitress came to the table to take Clay’s order as he helped settle his daughter with crayons and a coloring book.
Afterward, Celeste wanted to return to their discussion. Clay needed to understand the breakup of his marriage wasn’t only Zoie’s fault. “Did you know how much Zoie missed you when you were gone?”
He looked surprised. “She had interests of her own. After we married and she stopped working, she met friends for lunch…went shopping with them. In good weather, she played tennis. In the winter she worked out at the gym.” He ticked off her activities as if he’d gone over them in his head before.
“After you began your guiding service, she missed you, Clay. She’d expected you to have bankers’ hours and a lot more time for her.”
With a frown, he looked Celeste directly in the eye. “Zoie wouldn’t have been satisfied with me being a banker, either. Not here. Her goal for me was to become a financial guru on Wall Street. She wanted to move to New York City. She wanted me to leave everything I loved behind.”
“You both had expectations and dreams,” Celeste returned quietly.
“It took us a long time to realize we were very different. Those years before we married were filled with high school passion. But then adult life hit us and we seemed to break apart because we had very different perspectives on what gave life meaning.” He glanced at Abby and kept his voice low. “But I wasn’t the one who strayed. I wasn’t the one who kept silent and stewed and resented.”
So true. Yet another facet of their relationship was clear, too. “Tell me something, Clay. Were you away as much as you were for the business you were building or because you were trying to escape something in your marriage?”
As soon as Celeste asked the question, she knew she’d gone too far.
With a steely look, he asked angrily, “You’re always going to be on your sister’s side, no matter what she does, aren’t you?”
“That’s not true. I’m just trying to see both points of view.”
“If you want both points of view, I’ll give them to you. I stayed, she left. I accepted responsibility, she shirked it. I remained faithful, she didn’t. Those are the facts no matter whose point of view you’re dissecting.”
Since Clay had ordered the special of the day, his dinner came quickly. The waitress set the platter on the table, telling him to be careful because the dish was hot.
The dish wasn’t all that was hot, Celeste thought, watching Clay attack his meatloaf as if it were the enemy.
His anger told her something important—that the wounds from his marriage weren’t healed.
Did the two of them even have a chance?
Chapter Nine
Clay knew he had too much pride. That was why he hadn’t been able to let go of a failing marriage. It’s why he’d stayed with Zoie after her accident, recovery and confession of her affair, why he’d suffered through sharing details of their marriage in counseling sessions. He’d had to prove something and live up to his vows. But pride had driven him. Tonight his pride had possibly hurt Celeste, and he regretted that. But he didn’t know what to do about it. They’d gone for ice cream and taken a walk in the park. All that time, unresolved feelings had pulled taut between them.
Now Abby was in bed, Lulu and the doll Celeste had given her tucked under her arm, her eyes already closed. Celeste had left the room so he could say a final good-night.
“Good night, ladybug.” He kissed his daughter on the forehead, wishing life was simpler for them all.
When he exited Abby’s room, he heard Celeste moving around in the guest bedroom. He headed that way and stopped at the open door.
“What are you doing?” Her overnight bag was on the chair, and she was packing the few things she’d brought along and hung in his closet.
“You’re home and I think it’s time I go back to Mikala’s.” She didn’t meet his gaze as she answered him.
So she had a healthy dose of pride, too. Why not? A man had trampled her self-esteem recently, and she wasn’t going to let Clay do it. He applauded that. But damn it, he didn’t want her to leave.
After he stepped deeper into the room, he stopped beside the antique rocker. “Abby likes having you here.”
>
“I like to be here with her. But I don’t think you really want me here, and I don’t want to create conflict for her.”
She hadn’t stopped packing, and now he took hold of her arm, relishing the silk of her skin against his fingers. “You’re wrong.”
She faced him, toe-to-toe, defiance in her green eyes. “Why do you want me here, Clay? For Abby? To make life easier for you?”
“Easier? You’ve got to be kidding. Every time I look at you, I get turned inside out. Something sparked between us the night of the reunion and I’m trying not to react to it. But I guess some things we simply have no control over.”
“We always have control,” she maintained stubbornly, but he could see from her expression that she didn’t fully believe that, either.
“Not always. Do you know why I was so sharp with you tonight at the diner?” He released her arm.
“Why?”
He guessed she’d already asked herself that question and come up with several answers. “Because I don’t like to think about my marriage and my divorce. I’m tired of rehashing and analyzing it. Do you think I don’t know that I’m to blame, too? Do you think I don’t know that by trying to prove to both Zoie and my father that I could be successful, I broke us apart? When we went to counseling, she never blamed me but she did say she was lonely. She did say our marriage wasn’t what she’d expected it to be.”
Celeste waited, and he knew what she was waiting for. “I made a mistake asking Zoie to marry me. I was caught up in young male lust and our marriage wasn’t what I expected it to be, either.”
“I’m sorry,” Celeste said.
So many emotions rose in him, he didn’t think he could name any of them. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to forget you’re Zoie’s sister. I want to forget that I was in a marriage that felt more like a prison than a partnership. And I want you to forget that pilot and what he did to you and go back to being the trusting girl I once knew.”
“I’m not a girl anymore,” she said so softly he almost missed it.
“Like I don’t know that,” he muttered with a humorless laugh as his body reacted to her, to the scent of her, to the desire in her eyes.
Slipping his hand under her hair, he nudged her to his body, lifted her chin with his other hand and settled his lips on hers. He’d missed her while he’d been gone. When he’d returned, seeing her again had been like a kick in the gut. It had been a blow that had startled him. This was Celeste, a woman unique in her own right. While he’d lain in his cabin, he’d dreamt of her, awakened sweating and wanting her. Now he wanted her even more. He forgot about the past and the future, and gave in to the need that had been building since their dance in the high school cafeteria. He needed a woman’s touch—Celeste’s touch—and he needed to touch her in such an elemental way that a kiss couldn’t begin to express it.
He felt the same deep fervor from her as her tongue sought his, as they played back and forth, as their kiss became deeper and longer and wetter. He’d meant to apologize to her, but now instead, he wanted to give her pleasure like she’d never known. He meant to satisfy them both so this desire was slaked, so they wouldn’t have to deal with it again, so they’d know what coupling with each other was like and they wouldn’t have to think about it. Reaching for her blouse, the silky material slid under his fingertips. He could hardly manage the buttons but finally they were undone, and he was pushing it from her shoulders. Celeste’s hand smoothed over his upper arms, then ran down the center of his polo shirt and stopped at his belt.
She hesitated.
Breaking off the kiss, he asked roughly, “Do you want to stop?”
“No. Do you?”
“Hell, no,” he said on a breathless sigh that told her how stirred up he was. Then he swore. “I don’t have any condoms.”
“I have an IUD. I never…I never had it removed.”
Had she thought the pilot would come back? Would she have wanted him if he’d abandoned a child? But he didn’t want to think about that now. He didn’t want to analyze anything. He just wanted to bury himself inside of her and savor the moment. Maybe in that moment, he could shuck responsibility and just enjoy being alive.
“Then let’s go at this full tilt, no-holds-barred.” Her eyes opened wider, and he saw the acceptance of a fire inside of her that matched the one in him.
Without hesitation now, she pulled his shirt from his cargo pants and reached underneath it. He’d watched her hands before as she’d administered to Abby, as she’d fixed dinner, as she’d pushed her hair away from her brow. Now he felt them on his hair, on his skin. The pads of her fingertips were so soft and light, so erotically teasing as she swirled them around his navel, up the center of his chest, around his nipples. He groaned, feeling as if he was going to explode. How was he going to hold on through this? How was he going to give her the pleasure she deserved?
Focusing on her, instead of on what she was doing to him, he convinced her to stop so he could rid her of her blouse. She stood before him as he reached around her and unhooked her bra, letting it drop to the floor. Kissing her again, he palmed her breast until she was rubbing against his hand.
When he bent his head, took her nipple into his mouth, teased and licked, she breathed, “Clay, please.”
Lifting his head, he arched his brows. “Please, what?”
She laughed, a free sexy laugh he hadn’t heard from her before. “Please let’s get naked.”
He laughed, too, and set about doing just that. Yet he didn’t want to hurry it. He wanted everything to be prolonged and erotic and satisfying.
As his thumb slipped back and forth across her waist, he kissed the hollow at her neck, her shoulder under her hair, took her earlobe into his mouth. Had foreplay ever been this heat-filled, this exciting, ever been this necessary for whatever came next? He was going to follow his instincts with Celeste. What else could he do? He didn’t want any of it to be the same as it had been with Zoie.
He could hardly stand the anticipation, yet he didn’t want to stop it, either. His self-restraint was taxed to the limit as he let Celeste unbuckle his belt, unsnap his pants and unzip them. She dragged her fingers along his waistband, teasing his navel with her index finger. She slid her hands over his briefs to help his slacks fall to the floor.
“Just you wait,” he groaned.
“I’m waiting,” she returned with a challenging smile that was so unlike the Celeste he’d known in high school that he had to take a second to really study her. She was beautiful with her face flushed, her hair mussed, her eyes bright and sparkling. How had he missed this kind of beauty that began on the inside and radiated out?
Too involved in desire to answer questions, he pulled her to the bed and tugged her down with him. They fell onto it, laughing. It felt so good to laugh with her, to be so in sync with someone. They reached for each other with exuberance and heat and the desire to please. It only took moments to shed the rest of their clothes. Then they were holding on, kissing, caressing, breathing rapidly and prolonging the inevitable. When Clay tangled his fingers in her hair, she reached for him and stroked him.
“We’re going to have a quick ending if you do that for very long,” he rasped, right before he kissed her brow and lips once more. He couldn’t seem to get enough of her soft skin, her sweet scent, her silky hair. He rolled on top of her and then remembered another woman…another time.
Celeste must have sensed something. “What?” she asked.
“Am I too heavy for you?” Zoie never liked him stretched out full-length on top of her like this.
“Of course not,” she answered, looking genuinely surprised. “I love the feel of you all around me.”
Arousal took on a whole new meaning as excitement seemed to fire every nerve in his body. “I want to be all around you…inside you…everywhere.”
Pulling her hands above her head, he intertwined his fingers with hers. As he kissed her, he rubbed against her and she moved her legs restlessly. He kne
w what she wanted. He knew what he wanted. It was time to satisfy them both.
Suddenly his daughter’s voice floated from down the hall. “Dad-dee. Dad-dee! I want a glass of water. Daddee?”
He couldn’t believe it. He absolutely couldn’t believe it. But he’d forgotten to put a glass of water on her nightstand tonight.
For a moment he rested his head against Celeste’s, then he rolled off of her. After a few very deep breaths, he called, “I’m coming, baby. Just a minute.” He grabbed his pants. “She probably called more than once and I didn’t hear her. The monitor’s in my bedroom.”
“Do you want me to come, too?”
He glanced at Celeste, saw her lips swollen from his kisses, her cheeks bright from their foreplay. “No, it’s okay. I’ll take care of her.”
Seconds later he was striding down the hall to the bathroom for a glass of water for his daughter…wondering if Celeste would still be naked and waiting for him when he returned.
Celeste could have cried. She’d been on the verge of telling Clay she loved him. How foolish would that have been?
Putting her hands to her cheeks, she felt the heat coming off of them and knew her whole body was flushed the same way. She also knew she couldn’t wait here for Clay naked, to resume what they had started, what they hadn’t finished, because now both of them were probably having second thoughts. That passion-filled storm had erupted so fast neither of them had had time to think. The last thing she wanted was for Clay to come back in here and tell her again what they’d been doing was a mistake.
Going into the bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face, even dribbled some of it over her shoulders. She still felt as if Clay’s scent was on her, could feel his kisses on her lips. She shook her head, trying to dispel the illusion, trying to come to terms with the love she was feeling. It wasn’t new. It had begun a long time ago. Yes, it had been in infancy then with a high school crush, but it had grown into adulthood now. It only took her a few minutes to dress. She was zippering her overnight case when Clay returned.
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