That First Special Kiss

by Gina Wilkins

  He could take a hint. No more stolen kisses between him and Kelly. Definitely a sensible plan.

  But damn, that had been a good kiss.

  Kelly was so tired Monday afternoon that all she planned to do that evening was crash in front of the television and try to lose herself in totally mindless entertainment. She didn’t want to see anyone or talk to anyone or even think about anyone in particular. She just wanted to escape the tension that had gripped her ever since Shane kissed her.

  She knew exactly what that tension was rooted in. Fear. She was terrified that something would change. Something that would threaten the happy contentment she’d found since moving to Dallas and making a home for herself here.

  After a dinner of canned soup and a green salad, she had just settled onto her couch with a paperback romance and the TV remote when her doorbell chimed, disturbing her solitude. She groaned, and her chest clenched. She was afraid she would find Shane on the other side of her door. For the first time since she met him, she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to see him.

  But when she looked through the peephole, it wasn’t Shane she found on her doorstep. The relief she felt was tempered by a faint disappointment that made no sense to her at all.

  “Amber,” she said, opening the door. “What are you—what’s wrong?”

  Tears streaming down her face, Amber hiccuped on a sob. “Cameron...Cameron...”

  Her voice broke.

  Kelly knew immediately what had happened. She had been expecting this, she thought sadly. Her heart twisting in response to Amber’s obvious pain, she reached out to take her friend’s hands. “Come in,” she said, tugging gently. “Sit down. I’ll make us some tea. Then we’ll talk.

  Shane was in the barn with Molly, both of them bent over a horse’s swollen fetlock. “It’s looking a lot better,” Shane assured his worried little sister. “He should be completely recovered in a couple of days.”

  Her pretty young face creased with a frown beneath a wispy fringe of red bangs, Molly looked anxiously up at him. “You’re sure? He’s really going to be okay?”

  “I’m sure.” He reached out to give her a bracing, one-armed hug. “He’s already a lot better than he was yesterday.”

  Reassured, Molly beamed up at him. And, as always, Shane was warmed by the sight of her bright, beautiful smile. “I’m glad he’s going to be okay,” she said.

  “So am I, Little Bit.” He brushed his lips across the upturned tip of her gold-dusted nose. “Now you’d better go in and get busy with your homework. I’ll finish up out—”

  “Hey, Shane.”

  Both Shane and Molly turned quickly toward the door. Shane lifted his eyebrows in surprise when he saw Cameron North standing in the doorway of the barn. “Hey, Cam. What’s up?”

  Cameron’s smile was only a faint shadow of his usual grin. “How’s it going, beautiful?” he asked Molly, evading Shane’s question.

  “Hi, Cameron.” As susceptible to Cameron’s charms as most other females, Molly broke away from her brother and almost skipped across the barn to greet his friend. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”

  “Neither did Shane. It’s a surprise visit.”

  Shane noticed with fraternal disapproval that there was a hint of experimental flirtation in Molly’s expressive green eyes when she smiled up at Cameron. “It’s a very nice surprise,” she said. “I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

  He tugged affectionately at one of her braids. “Blame that on your busy social life. Seems like every time I come to visit, you’re off on a big date.”

  Molly giggled. “Not a date. Daddy said I can’t date until I’m fifteen.”

  “Dad said you can’t date until you’re thirty,” Shane corrected her. “Your mom said fifteen. Maybe.”

  Molly rolled her eyes. “That’s still three whole years away.”

  “Don’t be in such a hurry to get started on that path,” Cameron advised her, his smile looking forced. “Trust me, it’s a lot more fun being friends than trying to turn it into something more.”

  Shane grimaced. He knew now why Cameron had shown up, looking so uncharacteristically morose.

  “Molly, you’d better head inside to get busy with that homework,” he said, patting his sister’s shoulder. “I promised Cassie I’d send you in before dark. Tell Dad I’ll talk to him later, okay?”

  “Okay. Bye, Cameron.”

  “See you later, gorgeous.”

  Blushing and giggling, Molly hurried away. Looking after her, Cameron shook his head. “She’s growing up too fast, Shane.”

  Since it seemed like only yesterday that his little sister had been a diapered toddler, Shane nodded gravely. “Dad and I have done everything but put a brick on her head to keep her from growing any faster, but I guess we’re losing the battle.”

  Cameron pushed his hands into the pockets of his fashionably loose khaki slacks. “You got much more to do tonight?”

  Shane latched the stall door behind him as he moved toward Cameron, leaving the injured horse to loudly munch grain. “No. I was just finishing up out here.”

  “Do you have any plans for the evening?”

  “I was thinking about grilling a steak and crashing in front of Monday Night Football. Want to join me?”

  Cameron nodded acceptance to the casual invitation. “I’d like that.”

  “Okay—but you have to cook your own steak.”

  “I can handle that. Maybe,” Cameron added with a wry smile.

  They fell into step as they left the barn side by side.

  “I just want to die.” It was about the tenth time Amber had said that in the hour and a half since she’d shown up on Kelly’s doorstep.

  Kelly handed her friend another tissue. “No, you don’t,” she said for at least the tenth time in return. “You’re in pain, but you don’t really want to die.”

  Amber drew a shuddering breath and made a visible effort to pull herself together. “I guess you’re right,” she conceded in a mumble. “But I don’t know how I’m going to get past this.”

  “You’ll get past it by holding your head up and going on with your life,” Kelly told her firmly. “I have no doubt that you can do it.”

  Amber gave a sigh that seemed to come from the bottom of her soul. “It’s just that I had so hoped Cameron would always be a part of my future.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry it isn’t going to happen the way you wanted it to.”

  Twisting her fingers in her lap, Amber sniffed. “I’ve dreamed of marrying Cameron ever since I was sixteen. For a little while, I thought my dream was going to come true.”

  Kelly hesitated, then asked carefully, “Did you really think that? Did you really believe you and Cameron would be married and settle down for the rest of your lives together?”

  Amber opened her mouth to answer, and then she, too, paused, biting her lip. “Maybe not,” she admitted after a moment. “Even when Cameron and I were together, I knew deep inside that it couldn’t last. He’s just...he’s not...”

  Kelly understood what her friend was trying to say. Cameron wasn’t exactly the home-and-hearth type. Kelly couldn’t really imagine him getting married and mowing a lawn or attending a PTA meeting. The footloose reporter was a confirmed bachelor, and Kelly had never really believed his feelings for Amber—whatever they had been—were strong enough to change him.

  “You knew it wasn’t going to work out, didn’t you?” Amber asked, studying Kelly’s face.

  She chose her words with care. “I wanted it to work. For your sake.”

  “But you didn’t think it would.”

  “I just didn’t know.”

  Amber wrapped her arms around herself and rocked miserably on the couch. “The holidays are going to be so awful. I told everyone Cameron would be there for our family Thanksgiving dinner. You know he isn’t close to his own parents, so I just assumed...”

  Kelly wondered if it was dread of the upcoming holidays that had prompted Cameron to end
the relationship that afternoon. He probably thought it would be entirely too awkward to go through the season as a couple when he knew all along that it couldn’t lead where Amber wanted it to go.

  Amber shuddered. “It’s going to be so uncomfortable seeing him again when we all get together. How am I supposed to play games with him and socialize with him as if nothing happened between us? What will I do if I go to a party and Cameron’s there with a...with a date?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I hate him for doing this to me.” Amber’s mood shifted mercurially from grief to fury. “How could he lead me on the way he did when he knew how I felt about him? He let me hope—and then he just ended it. ‘We can still be friends,’ he said. I don’t want to be his friend. I’m friends with Shane and Scott and Michael. Cameron is different.”

  To be fair, Kelly thought Cameron hadn’t really known how Amber felt about him. Amber had simply decided several months ago to go after him, to take a chance at pursuing her longtime infatuation. She’d somehow convinced him to give them a chance, and maybe for a while he’d really wanted it to work out, but Kelly suspected that Cameron had broken it off as soon as he was certain it wasn’t going to last. “I hope you and Cameron will find a way to be friends again. You’ve known each other so long.”

  “I’ve wasted most of that time being in love with him. And he just let me go on loving him, until he finally decided to temporarily take what I was offering. Then when he got tired of me, he just expected to pat me on the head and have everything go back to the way it was. Now I’m just supposed to smile and say nothing while he goes back to chasing one bimbo after another.”

  That tirade, of course, was quite unfair, since Amber had been the one to initiate the affair—but Kelly bit back her automatic impulse to defend Cameron. “What else can you do?” she asked logically.

  Amber promptly burst into tears again.

  This, Kelly thought, patting her friend’s heaving shoulder, was exactly why she had panicked when Shane kissed her. There was nothing sadder than a couple who ruined a wonderful friendship with romance. She’d seen it happen too many times, and it was almost impossible for everything to go back to the way it had been before. In her experience, it almost always ended in disaster. Just look at how unhappy Amber was now, she thought. And imagine how awkward it would be when they all got together again—if they all ever got together again.

  Nothing, she thought glumly, could ruin a wonderful relationship faster than an ill-advised romance. She had no intention of getting involved in anything that foolish herself.

  “So then I told her there’s no way I’m spending all day Thanksgiving being stared at and cross-examined by her parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors. There really wasn’t any point to it, I said, because I couldn’t see me ever spending more time with her family anyway. That’s when she gave me this sort of wounded look and said something about when we were married...and I guess I lost it. I told her marriage wasn’t an option for us—for me, really—and I was sorry if she had gotten another idea. Then she started crying and calling me names, and before I knew it, doors were slamming and the whole thing was over.”

  Sitting in a chair watching Cameron pace the living room, Shane listened to the tale without an outward reaction, though he cringed on the inside as he pictured how unpleasant the scene must have been. “Sorry, Cam, I know it must have been hard for you.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Cameron growled. “It was sheer hell. I tried, Shane, I really did. But when she started talking about marriage...”

  Shane nodded. This has been inevitable, he thought. He couldn’t imagine Cameron marrying anyone, certainly not Amber. But he hated that it had to go down this way, for both their sakes.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Cameron turned to look at him. “You’re doing it,” he answered quietly. “Thanks for listening.”

  Somewhat awkwardly Shane shrugged. “You would do the same for me.”

  Cameron snorted and ran a hand through his heavy gold hair. “Like you’d ever end up in a mess like this. You’ve never made a stupid mistake with a woman. Probably never will.”

  Shane swallowed, thinking uncomfortably of a certain unplanned kiss. “I’ve made my share of blunders.”

  “Maybe. But not like the ones I’ve gotten myself into,” Cameron countered glumly. “You’ve always been too careful and too firmly rooted here with your family and your ranch to waste time in self-destructive relationships.”

  Shane wondered what Cameron would think if he confided that his caution was due more to fear than discretion. Shane had always worried about getting involved in a relationship as disastrous as his parents’ marriage, or his mother’s second marriage. He had seen firsthand how miserable people could make each other. How others could suffer from mistakes made in the name of love.

  He had long since decided that he would never even consider marriage unless he found what his father had found with Cassie. A love so strong, so intense, that it was almost palpable. A commitment so deep and so binding that nothing beyond death could break it.

  Rather embarrassed by the direction his thoughts had taken, and relieved that Cameron couldn’t read his mind, Shane cleared his throat. “So what are you going to do now?”

  Lifting one shoulder, Cameron replied. “I suppose I’ll try to avoid her for a while—until she cools off some. Maybe, after that, we can figure out a way to be friends again. But that’s all. Just friends.”

  Cameron had been successful in the past turning lovers into friends. But this time, Shane wondered if it was possible for Cameron and Amber to go back to a comfortably platonic relationship. The affair had been too hot, too fast, too intense. Too big a mistake from the beginning.

  As Shane sat back and listened quietly while Cameron continued to unload his frustrations, he fervently hoped he would never be so unfortunate as to get involved in something that ill-advised and painful.

  Thanksgiving Day dawned crisp, clear and beautiful. No one could have asked for more perfect holiday weather. Kelly should have been delighted to be on her way to a big family holiday meal, the kind she had always fantasized about as a child. The Walker siblings always had such a good time when they got together. She had enjoyed their get-togethers since the first one she had attended, when she was still in a wheelchair after her accident. She had looked forward to each gathering since, especially when they were held at the Walker ranch, as this one would be.

  But that had been before Shane kissed her.

  She was determined not to let that single incident change anything. As Shane had pointed out, it had only been a kiss, and a brief one at that. There was no reason for them to mention it again—no purpose in even thinking about it. She, for one, intended to act as if nothing had happened.

  “Is anything bothering you, Kelly?” Brynn asked, twisting in the front seat of her husband’s car to look at Kelly, who sat in the back seat.

  Kelly pasted on a smile. “Not at all. Why do you ask?”

  “You seem preoccupied today. You have ever since we picked you up.”

  Kelly shook her head. “I’m fine. But thanks for asking.”

  Tucking a strand of chestnut-brown hair behind her ear, Brynn studied Kelly’s face for another moment, as if she wasn’t quite satisfied with her friend’s denial. Joe spoke before his wife could question their passenger further. “How’s school going, Kelly?”

  “Finals are coming up. And then I’m one semester away from my degree,” she announced with satisfaction. Her education had been hard-won, obtained with unwavering determination and single-minded purpose. She loved the job she would be doing when she finished, working with hearing- and speech-impaired children, and she had already made several valuable contacts toward finding a permanent position.

  Brynn made a face. “I’ll be glad when I can say I only have one semester left toward my degree. I still have two semesters to go after this one—and then at lea
st a year of postgraduate work.”

  It had been somewhat easier for Kelly to attend college than it had been for Brynn. Kelly had had some life insurance money left in a trust fund by her mother, who died when Kelly was thirteen. She’d also received small monthly child support checks from her career-military father, whom she hadn’t seen since she was a child. Those checks had stopped several years ago, but they, along with the trust fund and academic scholarships, had funded Kelly’s college education.

  Brynn, whose teenage father had died before her birth and whose emotionally troubled young mother had left no insurance money behind when she’d taken her own life, had been dependent upon child welfare services to provide for her until she’d turned eighteen. Since then, she’d been on her own, working her way slowly toward a degree in education by taking an occasional evening class and working in day-care centers during the days. When Kelly had been accepted into UT-Dallas, she’d talked Brynn into moving with her, assuring her the job opportunities would be better here for both of them than in Longview, where they’d lived previously.

  Instead, they’d been hit head-on by a speeding drunken driver before they’d even unpacked their bags, and Dr. Joe D’Alessandro, a witness to the crash, had come into their lives. He had operated on Kelly’s mangled legs and had fallen in love with Brynn. And now Brynn was able to attend classes full-time, her goal of being an elementary school teacher finally within sight.

  “How’s Amber?” Brynn asked, changing the subject. “Have you talked to her since Monday?”

  “She called last night. She’s still an emotional wreck, but I made her promise to try to enjoy Thanksgiving with her family today.”

  “And Cameron? Have you heard from him?”

  Kelly shook her head. “No. I’m sure Shane has talked to him, but I haven’t spoken with Shane this week, so I don’t know how Cameron’s doing.”