The Secret Wedding Wish

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Janey seemed pleased. “I’ll help you after work.”

  “Uh…thanks, Mom, but—” Chris slanted a look at Thad, before turning back to Janey, “I, uh, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. You know what happened the last time you helped me with integers,” Chris continued while Janey flushed a telltale pink. “I flunked the assignment. And this next section is all about well—never mind.” Chris waved his hand back and forth, as if erasing a blackboard. “There’s no sense in me trying to explain. ’Cause you won’t get it anyway. But that’s okay.” Chris grinned at his mom affectionately. “Uncle Mac and Uncle Fletch said they’d help me when they get off work at five. I’m meeting them at Downtown Pizza, if that’s okay with you.”

  “As long as you’re going to be there,” Janey said, going to her purse, “bring us home a pepperoni pizza when you’re through.”

  “THAD—I MEAN Coach Lantz—really knows his stuff,” Chris told Janey that evening as he simultaneously set a pizza box on the kitchen table and dropped his book bag on the floor. “Even Uncle Mac and Uncle Fletcher were impressed.”

  Janey got two plates down from the cupboard. Chris held up his hand. “I don’t want any. I already ate with the guys. Well…” He had second thoughts as Janey lifted the lid and the delicious smell of pepperoni and green-pepper pizza wafted into the room. “Maybe just two pieces.”

  Janey poured Chris some milk, some spring water for herself, and sat down opposite him. “I don’t understand how Thad ended up helping you with your math tonight.”

  “He came into Downtown Pizza. And while he was waiting on his take-out order he came over to talk to us, and realized my uncles were explaining it all wrong. So he helped me out. He also told me how important math is for hockey players.”

  “He did, did he?”

  Chris nodded soberly. “I gotta pay a lot more attention to what’s going on.”

  So did Janey. For completely different reasons.

  Bad enough that she was wildly attracted to Thad Lantz. So much so that she still couldn’t forget the sweet, scintillating intensity of his kisses. Without Chris going ga-ga over him, too.

  She knew Chris missed his dad.

  That he was looking to fill the hole in his life left with Ty’s death. His uncles had all tried to be there for him, but Chris wanted a real dad again. And Janey had the sinking feeling she knew exactly who he had picked out for that position.

  THAD HAD JUST SETTLED down with the latest copy of The Sporting News when he heard a loud pounding on the front door. Wondering who was making that kind of racket, he put down his magazine and headed for the foyer. A sheepish-looking Janey Hart Campbell was standing on the stoop. She looked different somehow. Maybe because of the way she had dressed, in a turquoise summer sweater set and stone-colored above-the-knee skirt and sandals. It was a very pulled-together look, the kind of thing she’d wear to a PTA meeting. Her hair, too, was different. Usually, she wore the heavy length of it up in a clip. Tonight, it was flowing in tousled waves over her shoulders. It looked so soft and touchable he longed to run his fingers through it. But knew if he did that he’d just end up kissing her again. Kissing her and not wanting to stop…

  “Sorry for banging so loud but your doorbell seems to be broken,” she began in a bright, overly cheerful tone.

  “I keep meaning to have it fixed,” Thad explained, his eyes still fixed on her face. Damn, but she looked pretty—even at nine o’clock at night on a Monday evening. And she smelled fantastic, too. Like expensive perfume.

  “I wanted to drop this off for Chris.” She handed him the camp application and a personal check.

  His heartbeat sped up as their hands touched. “It could have waited until morning.”

  “I know, but what I have to say to you can’t wait.” Janey glanced cautiously behind her at the row of exclusive new half-million-dollar homes, so unlike her own neighborhood of small, homey abodes.

  Was that why she had dressed up? Thad wondered. Because she had driven over to his part of town?

  Or was there some other, more subtle, more important message she was trying to impart to him?

  “Mind if I come in for a few minutes?” she asked.

  Mind? Hell, it was what he had wanted in the first place, as he recalled, though he couldn’t exactly deem this a date. “Be my guest.”

  He ushered her inside, but when he attempted to show her into the living room where he had been sitting, relaxing, she dug in her heels. “Really, this is fine.”

  Obviously, she wasn’t staying. Thad put the camp application and check down on the hall table beside his keys, so he wouldn’t forget it when he left the next morning. Then he did his best to disguise his disappointment as he waited for her to say what she had to say.

  “Chris told me you helped him with his math this evening.”

  Guilt flooded him. Ah, hell. Was that what this was about? She didn’t trust the bond growing between him and her son, either? Thad nodded, showing his best poker face. “Bright kid. He catches on fast.”

  “He’s also very enamored of you.”

  Thad had noticed—it was a reaction he got from a lot of twelve-year-old boys who were interested in hockey. But Janey wasn’t happy about it. Maybe because she feared what would happen if Thad took her son into his heart or become a father figure to him. But that wasn’t what was happening here, Thad thought. He was a friend to Chris, a role model. Nothing more. And Janey needed to know that. “I wouldn’t worry about his mild case of hero worship. It’s likely to fade quickly as soon as he gets to know me,” Thad teased.

  The amusement he had hoped to see in her eyes was nowhere to be found. “In any case, I don’t want him going to you that way,” Janey continued soberly.

  Now it was Thad’s turn to take offense at what was going on between the three of them. “He didn’t come to me for help,” Thad explained. “I approached him.”

  “You know what I mean,” Janey said, her hands twisting into fists.

  “Yeah, I think I do,” Thad agreed, stepping closer. “And your pique has nothing to do with my tutoring your son.”

  Janey’s mouth dropped open.

  “It has to do with me,” Thad asserted confidently, knowing finally why she had really come over there to see him, with all her emotional armor on. “And the fact I kissed you and you kissed me back.”

  JANEY HAD KNOWN it was a mistake to come over, but she hadn’t been able to help herself then, any more than she could keep herself from putting up the emotional defenses that had served her so well in the past. Thad lifted a goading brow, waiting it seemed, for her to make that first verbal mistake. “You’re putting too much on a kiss,” she stated archly. And so for that matter was she.

  Thad grinned at her. “Or two or three or four.”

  He was looking at her as if he wanted nothing more than to make love to her then and there, Janey noticed. She hitched in a breath as her pulse jumped and skittered and tried again to get the upper hand in this conversation. She regarded him sternly. “A kiss is just a kiss.”

  “Ah. There are kisses,” he said, taking her abruptly into his arms, and pressing her close, so they were touching in one long electric line. “And then,” he said, even more softly, as the seductive smile curving his lips spread to his eyes, “there are kisses. And what we have, Janey Hart, are kisses.”

  Ignoring her soft gasp of surprise, he delivered a long, breath-stealing kiss that quickly had her middle fluttering weightlessly and her nipples aching. Feelings swept through her, passionate, intense and true.

  She surged against him, and he kissed her again and again and again, so thoroughly that her knees went weak and she moaned low in her throat, despite herself.

  It felt so good to be held and touched and kissed like this. So good to be wanted. To have the barriers between them start coming down. She melted against him, need pouring through her. She felt his arousal pressing against her, hot and urgent, his heart pounding against her chest, every bit as strong and erra
tically as hers. And she knew if she did give in to the yearning inundating her heart and soul and make love with him she would never be the same again. Never see him or herself in the same way. Panicking a little at the fierceness of her emotions, she pushed him away, drew in a shuddering breath. “Please, Thad—”

  He held her eyes with his mesmerizing ocean-blue gaze, making her feel even more hot and bothered inside. “Please what?”

  She turned her gaze away from his brawny chest and powerful shoulders. “Please don’t hurt my son.” Or me, she thought, well aware she did not have to give in to his easy southern charm or boundless determination. Just because he was more inherently sexy and deeply chivalrous than anyone she had ever met did not mean they were meant to have their lives entwined in even deeper and more meaningful ways. It didn’t mean she had to keep fantasizing about what it might be like to actually make love with him.

  She hitched in a tremulous breath and forced her eyes to his. “Because I don’t think I could bear it. You have no idea how much he adores you and looks up to you, and if Chris were to get even the slightest wind of this flirtation that’s been going on between us, he’d jump to all sorts of conclusions.”

  Just like I’m starting to jump to conclusions. Like the one that has you falling for me every bit as hard and irrevocably as I am starting to fall for you.

  Thad lifted a curious brow. “You think he’d figure we were sleeping together?”

  Shock permeated her brain. “Of course not! He’s knows I’m not that kind of woman!” Even if you make me feel like that kind of woman.

  He regarded her with an unrepentant half smile and goaded gently, “The kind who has a love life?”

  Janey flushed. “The kind who sleeps around!” she corrected with a haughty toss of her hair.

  The humor left his eyes. “Trust me, Janey, no one would ever think that about you.”

  Doing her best to keep a level head, Janey stepped back a pace and folded her arms in front of her. Suddenly, she wished he didn’t hold her in such high esteem. It would be so much easier to resent him if he saw her as an easy conquest. “Why do you say that?” she challenged quietly.

  His expression turned all the more serious. “Because you don’t put out that kind of vibe,” he told her with so much gentleness that it nearly made her weep. “You’re a hearts and flowers, have to be in love kind of woman. And I suspect your son knows that even if he’s too young to be able to articulate it.”

  His matter-of-fact words were reassuring to Janey. Still, she had come here for a reason, and she had to follow through on that. Had to make Thad see that it wasn’t just their feelings involved here. “Chris is starting to want to see me married again.”

  Finally, Thad looked a little surprised. “He said that?”

  “He’s been dropping hints.” She pressed her lips together firmly. “He misses having a dad in the house with us.”

  Finally, Thad seemed to be getting the reason behind her reticence to get romantically involved with him. His brow lifted. “And you think—?”

  “I think he’s very young. And impressionable. And he really worships you and you seem to sort of like him—”

  “More than sort of like, Janey,” Thad interrupted. “He’s a great kid. A man would be lucky to call him son.”

  “You see what I mean?” she countered emotionally. “That just makes it worse!”

  “How?” Thad frowned in frustration.

  Janey shrugged. “You really like Chris. Chris really likes you.”

  The smile was back in his eyes, the come-on curve to his lips. “I really like you, too,” he murmured.

  Janey swallowed and moved away from him, pacing the length of the foyer. When he followed her a bit too closely, she walked into the masculinely appointed living room. She moved behind a dark tan wing chair and wrapped her hands over the back of it, struggling to remain strong. “What happens if that interest fades?”

  He edged closer, his lips taking on a sober line. “And I lose interest in you?”

  Janey held her ground with effort. “Right.”

  “Where does that leave you and Chris?” he guessed, eyeing her with a depth of male speculation she found very disturbing.

  “You can see how awkward it would be. I wouldn’t want Chris to start to look to you for things, and you not want to be around me—and by association him—and he not understand why you walked away.”

  Thad stood with his feet braced apart. He jammed his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes. “You’ve got this all figured out, don’t you?” he said, not seeming at all pleased by her conclusions.

  “I’ve been—” Hurt before, Janey almost said, but didn’t.

  Thad paused, looked her up and down from the top of her tousled chestnut hair to the tips of her toes, before returning his glance ever so slowly to hers. And she knew then he wasn’t giving up or bowing out, not without a fight.

  Chapter Five

  “What was your relationship with your husband really like? You never said how Ty treated you during the years you were married.”

  “Why is it important?” she asked as she walked away from him, not stopping until she reached the other side of the living room.

  Thad lounged against the back of the sofa, his hips resting on the top edge, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Continuing to scrutinize her with unremitting interest, he crossed his arms in front of him. “Because somehow what happened then is affecting what’s happening with you and me now,” Thad said quietly. “And I want to understand why you’re so mistrustful of me and my motives. It can’t be anything I’ve done.”

  Guilt wound its way into her heart. “You’re right.” She drew a stabilizing breath and tried to slow her racing pulse. She could tell by the way he was looking at her a lot was riding on her answer. “It’s not.”

  “So?”

  Telling him the truth meant breaking down the illusions that had so defined her life for so long. And yet for reasons she didn’t completely understand, Janey found herself wanting to confide in him, even if it meant sacrificing her pride.

  “You have to understand,” she said softly, as she raked her teeth across her lower lip and plunged on, “I wanted our relationship to work. I tried to be a good wife.”

  “And—?” Thad’s handsome face was tinged with compassion.

  Janey shrugged, embarrassed by how miserable she had been then, how devastatingly alone. “He just…wasn’t interested. Every day that passed, particularly after my body began to change with pregnancy and Chris was born, he adored me less and less until—I don’t know—I guess we were more roommates and coparents than anything else.”

  Thad closed the distance between them with easy, sensual grace. He took her hand and held it tenderly. “You stayed because of Chris.”

  Janey nodded, her mood turning as grim as her life back then. She looked down at their clasped hands. His palm was so much larger and stronger. And yet her smaller, more delicate one fit into it perfectly.

  “And my sense of responsibility,” she continued ruefully, lifting her gaze back to mesh with his. “My mother and brothers had all disapproved of my foolish marriage from the start. I couldn’t come back here and tell them they were all correct in their assumptions that Ty would not make me happy or love me the way I needed to be loved. No matter how much I regretted what I had done.”

  There would have been way too many I-told-you-so’s. Way too many lectures on the innate recklessness she was still battling to this day.

  “And you did regret the marriage,” Thad surmised seriously, tightening his fingers on hers.

  “Yes.” Janey took his other hand in hers, too, and rested her fingers snugly in his. “Within two or three weeks, I realized I had mistaken passion for love. But by then it was too late. I was already pregnant. I had to think about the baby and what was best and that was a two-parent family.”

  “In your situation I probably would have done the same,” he told her candidly, understanding da
rkening his deep blue eyes. “As for the rest…” He paused. “I think you’re being way too hard on yourself. So you made a mistake in selecting a mate. So what? So did I the first time around.”

  “What happened?”

  “In a nutshell? Money meant more to her than me. The point is, Janey, one bad marriage doesn’t mean you’re consigned to spend the rest of your life celibate.”

  How like a man to make a mistake, forget it, and move on without ever looking back. Whereas Janey couldn’t do that. Recalling her errors in judgment and the havoc they had caused helped her to keep from repeating them all over again, and slipping back into the cycle of recklessness and regret that had marked her teenage years when she had been in an emotional tailspin after her father’s death.

  “Passion and fast action made a wreck of my life before, because I didn’t understand that passion like that always fades and actions that aren’t properly thought out and examined beforehand often have dire consequences.”

  “Passion does not always fade,” he countered, looking impossibly handsome and determined in the soft light. “And fast actions are usually the best ones, because they come from your gut before you have a chance to think something to death and somehow muck it up.”

  Janey shook her head, exasperated. “Spoken like a true coach.”

  He winked at her confidently. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “I was sure you would,” Janey retorted drolly, not sure she liked that bold, rapacious gleam in his eyes.

  “And—” Using his grip on her hand, he hauled her against him, then shifted positions, so her back was to the wall, her front blanketed by the steely warmth of his tall frame. “I’ll prove both theories to you the best way I know how,” he promised softly, as her body pulsed with need.