Love in Bloom

by Alison Kent

  Carson cocked one brow. Obviously she'd been thinking about it too long for his liking. She sighed. "You don't have to do this. I'll be fine with a bowl of cereal."

  "I know I don't have to. I want to."

  Eva stopped herself from asking why. She circled the bar into the kitchen, and squirted a dab of liquid soap into her palm. The warm water felt good to her chilled skin, and it was so much simpler to concentrate on washing her hands than to analyze the best way to get Carson out of her life.

  Some days she didn't even have it in her to turn life's lemons into something to drink.

  She'd left the kitchen light off, so when he moved in behind her his body blocked the illumination thrown by the breakfast nook's fixture. The bar bordered her right, appliances flanked her left.

  From behind, Carson's shadow covered her, surrounded her, painted the kitchen wall above her in shades of dove and gunmetal gray. Her bare arms tingled, her breasts tightened. And the room, cast in Carson's shade, grew strangely cold.

  Slowly, she shut off the faucet, grabbed two paper towels, and turned. He filled her kitchen. And he still smelled the same. It was a subconscious recollection, but the years hadn't dimmed the accuracy.

  He smelled like tenderness and sweet nights. And made her think of the promises he'd never made. She struggled to breathe, struggled to remain impassive, when every part of her wanted to strike out.

  Why was he here? What did he want? And why couldn't he have left well enough alone?

  Because there isn't anything well enough about it. Neither of us has let go of the past.

  Carson leaned one shoulder against the freezer door. She crossed her arms over her chest. The counter edge cut into her back, but it wasn't as sharp as the sense of expectation humming in the air. "What do you want, Carson?"

  "I want to take you to dinner."

  Eva bit down on her lower lip. Funny how familiar exasperation felt. "No, I mean why are you still here. In Texas. In Lake City. In my house."

  "Why shouldn't I be?"

  "Lake City is not a vacation paradise."

  "It's as good a place as any other."

  "It's a small town, Carson. There are a lot of secrets and lies, but none of them are in this house." She squirmed when she said it, but lifted her chin anyway. "I told you yesterday that Zack is not your son. That's the truth."

  "And I believe you." He said it without a hint of hesitation or doubt. "But I can't stop thinking how easily he could have been."

  Eva refused to move. She was afraid if she started shaking she'd never stop. She was equally afraid she wasn't going to be able to keep her voice steady. "What do you mean?"

  Carson straightened and advanced into the kitchen. One step, one limp. One step, one limp. He stopped.

  A baby-fine buzz of nerve endings prickled along Eva's nape; her mouth grew dry, her heartbeat frantic. The dampness on her skin smelled sharp and metallic, redolent with the first stirrings of psychological fear.

  This time his smile was up close and personal. "We weren't very careful, Eva. Ever."

  "We were young."

  "We were irresponsible and stupid."

  Her neck ached from the combination of a tight jaw and tighter spine. She couldn't move when he stood so close. "Yeah. You're right."

  "Bitter?" he asked.

  "Then? Or now?"

  "Either one. Both."

  "No," she answered honestly. "You made it clear that your plans did not include having a family. I should have insisted we use protection every time."

  He moved closer, his body large, his presence larger, his aura an insidious fog seeping into her judgment. His gaze burned like blue ice. Or green fire. Eva couldn't decide which. She tilted her head to look up. The color was kaleidoscopic, a hypnotizing whirl of untamed heat.

  "Do you really think we could have stopped, Eva? All those times in dressing rooms. Bathrooms. Any room with a door ... and a few without." His laugh was wicked, sinful, laced with erotic images, but not a bit of humor. "Yeah, we were young and stupid, but what was between us was old. And went a lot deeper than bodily hunger."

  The room had grown too small. The air too precious. The hum of energy attuned to the rough rhythm of her heart. It was a wonder she could still talk. "Getting rather philosophical with age, aren't you?"

  Hands stuffed in his pockets, he lifted one shoulder. "Maybe I'm finally old enough to realize that what you and I had wasn't an average affair."

  Eva swallowed past the lump growing to the size of a baseball in her throat. "An affair?"

  "Affair. Involvement. Relationship. Whatever you want to call it."

  "Funny, all I remember us calling it was great sex." Oh, how it hurt to say that. Yet, Carson seemed to take it in stride.

  "Be honest, Eva. Tell me you had it as good with Zack's dad. Shelton, right? Bobby Shelton? And yet you still go by Channing."

  Eva bristled. "Leave Bobby out of this. He is not your business. Neither are my reasons for using my maiden name."

  Carson took a deep breath, and his chest expanded to fill her view. "Did Bobby make your body burn from the inside out?"

  Blood rushed from her head, to her head, back and forth, in and out. "Stop it, Carson."

  He moved in closer, trapping her against the L of the countertop. He brushed his nose through the hair over her ear. "You smell like peat moss. I like it."

  All she could see were the stripes on his shirt. All she could feel was the tickle of his breath. And his heat. "I'm surprised."

  "That I noticed? Or that I like it?" The clearance space between their bodies was decidedly slim. There was no room for the slightest error in movement. Or in judgment. "That you like it. As I recall, the perfect blend of patchouli was more your style."

  "Patchouli. Now, that brings back memories." His lips moved over the upper curve of her ear. "It always reminds me of you. Patchouli and vanilla. Do you remember the vanilla, Eva? The candles? The camera?"

  "Stop it, Carson." She jerked back. There was nowhere to go. His hands were braced against the countertop on either side of her. She shoved, but he refused to budge. "This is insane. What do you want?"

  "What do I want?" He moved against her in the dark, shadowy room. His chest grazed hers, a static touch of cloth-covered skin. "What do you want?"

  It was the past all over again. What she wanted had never been a match for his indomitable will. He'd molded her, shaped her, made her into Eva Channing.

  But she wasn't nineteen anymore.

  She lifted her head. "What I want is for you to leave. My house. Lake City. Texas. Zack and I have a wonderful life here. I don't need the past coming back to haunt me."

  "Do I haunt you, Eva? Do you think about what we had when you go to bed alone?"

  She parked her fists at her waist. Her extended elbows brushed his encircling forearms. "Whether or not I go to bed alone is none of your business."

  "No, but it's the right thing. And Eva always did the right thing." His lips lifted, a curious smile of satisfaction. "Going to bed any way but alone wouldn't be appropriate with a teenager in the house. And Zack told me you don't date."

  "You asked Zack about me?" Eva straightened, stiffened, and dropped her arms to her sides. "You questioned my son? How dare you. How dare—"

  He dared with his body … his chest pressed to her breasts, his hands at her wrists, his thighs against her hips. He dared with his mouth … his lips on her cheekbone, his teeth at her jaw, his tongue circling her ear.

  Finally, he dared with his eyes, with a look that spoke of pleasures of the past—a past and a pleasure she hadn't forgotten.

  If absence made the heart grow fonder, it made her body a maniac. It turned her brain to mush. She was in her kitchen, swaying toward the very same man she'd just asked to leave the state.

  His mouth was everywhere ... eyebrows, eyelids, temple, the slope of her neck to her shoulder, the strip of her collarbone, the hollow of her throat.

  She wanted his mouth on her mouth.


  And finally he obliged.

  His tongue slid against hers, slightly rough, decidedly adept, curling and stroking and coaxing and hot. She pulled her hands free of his and threaded her fingers through the length of his hair.

  The silken strands filtered over her wrists. His evening beard abraded the tender skin of her forearms. The contrast exhilarated, excited, heightened her awareness of male and female, and took her worlds beyond the moment into a realm of pure sensation.

  He tugged her T-shirt free from her jeans. Then it was skin on skin, his hands on her back, stroking, roaming, counting her ribs, measuring her spine, creeping down over her jeans to cup her bottom and squeeze.

  She moaned into his mouth, whimpered, moved her hands to his shoulders, his biceps, to his chest and the hard nipples beaded there. He freed the clasp on her bra and caressed her back.

  Her hands found their way back to his waist and beneath his shirt. The muscles of his belly were flat and hard, the skin warm, taut, and dusted with more hair than she remembered. He tore his mouth from hers with a growl and lifted the hem of her top.

  Reality hit with the brush of cool air on her skin. It was just like before. No thinking. Bodies acting. Crazy. Insane. Stupid. So very stupid. She wasn't nineteen. She had no excuse. This was sex. Nothing more.

  With both fists on his chest, she pushed him back and cried out. "Damn it, Carson. What do you want?"

  Breathing hard, he swiped both hands down his face, then braced his arms on either side of her. His eyes demanded. His body trembled. Wave after wave of male sexuality heated her overheated skin.

  "One question. One answer." He blew the words against her forehead.

  "What?" she bit off, defiantly lifting a shaking chin.

  "How do you know for sure Zack is not my son?"

  Chapter Five

  Parked in Eva's driveway, Carson twisted uncomfortably behind the wheel of his Jeep. He'd been way outta line. He should've pursued his question differently, approached the subject from a more analytical angle instead of attacking Eva's honesty. She deserved respect; he'd offered none. He'd known that even as the words left his mouth.

  But he'd never thought of having a son until Zack had walked into the storeroom that morning and called Eva "Mom." If there was the slightest chance Zack was his, he wanted to know. So he'd asked. Eva had answered. And here he sat, his cheek stinging, the pain on his face doing nothing to take his mind off the one in his pants.

  He'd been so close to her, so close, and touching her had seemed the most natural move to make. When she'd run her hands through his hair, held him against her mouth, he'd come undone. The ache had begun like a hum in his blood and then the fever had risen.

  He'd absorbed her, taking more than she offered, reaching into his memories of Eva and the past and imprinting them on the present. Carson rubbed his cheek. Eva had seemed to realize they were reliving their foolishness about the same time he did.

  Damn it to hell, but she'd done it again. Proved for the third time in less than a week that he'd never be rid of her. His life was inextricably linked to a ginger-eyed, russet-haired woman-child.

  He'd always thought of her that way because of her slender build. At five feet eight, she'd been the shortest of Judith Montclair's models. Her long limbs and fluid movements had added the appearance of height. But it was her eyes, innocently seductive, childishly beguiling, that had convinced the world to buy what she was selling.

  Her eyes had convinced him, too. Convinced him that he might have a chance at happily ever after. Carson blew out a disgusted breath. He'd been so young and stupid. Now he was just old and stupid.

  "Damn." He lifted his cast across the console, leaving enough room to shift from "P" to "R" to "D." Driving left-footed was a pain in the butt, but it relieved the boredom of the automatic transmission. He bit off a self-deprecating laugh. So far, the transmission was definitely the only part of this assignment-turned-quest that qualified as boring.

  What do you want, Carson?

  How many times since he'd seen her had Eva asked him that question?

  Easy answer, Brandt. Almost as many times as you've changed your answer.

  Seeing Eva at the concert in New York had been the catalyst in a decision a long time coming. This trip to Lake City had started out as a ritual exorcism. He'd traveled to the ends of the earth without managing to expel her from his thoughts.

  As much as he needed a change of pace, he needed to free himself of the dangerous distraction, the sick fascination with a woman he had known for two years out of the thirty-nine he'd been alive.

  In that instant in Blooms, when she'd turned the corner into the aisle where he'd stood, the tails of her flannel shirt flapping behind her, the cuffs of her jeans bunched over tan work boots, the smoldering obsession had ignited.

  Jolted, he'd turned and walked away, into the humid storeroom that smelled of earth and nature, of all things unpretentious and pure. And surrounded by life's elemental basics, his fixation with Eva had come into focus.

  Because he'd never learned why she'd left him, she would always, always be a part of his life. Plain and simple. Black and white. The connection had been easy to index once simplified and defined.

  So, leaning back against bags of compost, breathing deep of humid, still air that smelled of flannel and leather and sun-warmed skin, he'd ignored the pull of Eva's eyes, and decided to walk away and live with the reality.

  Until he'd seen Zack.

  He'd been stunned, strangely excited, and so damned sure Zack was his son. Even after he'd accepted the truth, some small part of him ached to believe the lie. Zack was a great kid. Eva had done a good job, and she sure as hell had more to show for the past seventeen years than Carson did.

  Now he wanted the rest of the truth. Why she had walked. What had happened during their two years together to turn her away from a life she'd loved. And why she still took him apart with her touch.

  Carson tightened his grip on the steering wheel. Part of him hoped she ached with half of the fierceness burning in his gut. Part of him wished he'd thought before he'd opened his mouth and challenged Eva about her son's paternity.

  He believed her. He knew her well enough to be certain that she was telling the truth. Zack was not his son. Still, Carson wasn't satisfied. He had other questions. And the answers weren't ones he could discover from a distance of three thousand miles. He had to be on the scene—even if that meant vacation time spent observing a kid shoot still lifes for a calendar.

  He didn't like to tutor beginners. But Zack had a good grasp of the art. Better than good. He knew more about photography than a few of the paid professionals Carson ran up against. Zack possessed a brash sort of arrogance that came from knowing he was good at what he did, while still acknowledging that he had more to learn. He reminded Carson a lot of himself.

  And he wouldn't really be tutoring Zack; Zack had his instructor for that. But maybe Carson could pass on experience, tidbits of knowledge Zack would eventually discover on his own but might find helpful knowing years sooner.

  Now to figure out how to involve Eva so he could clear up the final details. With his history tied up in a nice neat package, he could fax his resignation to Bailey, then head across the Atlantic.

  He couldn't put off his book, his own personal photographic study of the world, much longer. He'd always known he'd go back on terms of his own making, to the countries where life depended on bread crumbs and charity, to capture the images of the people who survived. And those who smiled.

  He wanted to know how they endured. He wanted to know why. The pictures would tell him their stories, and maybe help him figure out what it was inside him that kept him going. If there really was a human factor, a mutant cell that kicked in when even stubbornness and gut determination were no longer enough.

  He'd start his photo essay in Iceland, work his way across the world. And maybe somewhere between the North Sea and North Vietnam, he'd find a reason to stop examining the world through a c
amera lens and start living his own life.

  The score was tied at two in the top of the ninth when Carson arrived at Zack's game. The Lake City Hornets were on the field. Zack hovered in the pocket between second and third. Parked along the first base line, Carson hung back from the bleachers and watched the action from the hood of his Jeep.

  Not that he was trying to avoid Eva; he hadn't seen her now for four days since that well-deserved slap in her kitchen, but there was no need to delay the inevitable. Still, she deserved this undivided time to focus on her son. Zack deserved the same. Besides, Carson wasn't exactly dying to drag his cast up those flimsy-looking metal stands.

  The umpire called the final batter out on a low strike, and Lake City headed for the dugout. Carson knew the moment Zack spotted him by the acknowledging lift of the teen's chin. Answering with a brief wave, Carson watched Zack jockey his way into the cyclone-fenced cage.

  The trainer handed Zack a plastic bottle. Stuffing his ball cap in his back pocket, he squirted a stream of water down his throat, then grabbed up a bat and settled a batting helmet on his head. With a grin and a quick thumbs-up aimed in Carson's direction, Zack made his way to the on-deck circle.

  Seconds later, Carson sensed Eva's searching gaze. She was no doubt wondering who dared interrupt her son's concentration at such a crucial point in the game. The thought caused a wicked grin as well as a quickening in Carson's gut, but he refused to glance toward the stands.

  If she caught him looking, she'd be on the ground and in his face. He didn't want to see her alone. She provoked him, and he couldn't afford to let that thing between them flare up again. Especially now that they were going to be spending a lot of time together—even if she didn't know that yet.

  Carson dug the film canister from the pocket of his jeans and bounced it on his palm. No, what he had to tell Eva would work best with the three of them together. And with Zack doing the talking, now that Carson thought back on their earlier conversation.

  He'd stopped by the photography lab that afternoon to talk to Zack about the calendar. When Carson had casually asked if Eva ever worked on Zack's projects, Zack had explained the deal with his mother. She'd agreed to act as model anytime he needed a human guinea pig, as long as the shoots were straight and to the point.