Love in Bloom

by Alison Kent

  "I suppose so. I don't think about it like that. It's just ... what I do. Balancing work and family." She lifted one palm, then the other in a leveling sort of gesture. "Isn't that the way it is for most parents?"

  Carson didn't know about most. He knew about his. And the scales had been wildly tipped toward anything but family. "I wouldn't know. I'm not a parent."

  Eva pulled in a sudden breath, then let it out. "True. Guess that limits your balancing act to work and, well, knowing you, work. No PTA and not much of a personal life."

  "Appears we have that in common." Silence, then, "Why haven't you remarried? It can't have been easy raising Zack alone."

  "Remarrying to give Zack a stepfather is not exactly the most romantic of reasons."

  "No. But it seems like a practical one."

  "You think it's better to bring up a child with both a mother and a father? Even though one loving parent might actually provide a more stable home?"

  "Like I said, I'm not a parent." Not only that, he'd had no example of how parenting should work in a perfect world. But then, was any child's world perfect? Or any adult's, for that matter—no matter how hard one strove to make it so?

  "What happened to Zack's father?"

  Eva kept walking and, for what seemed like an eternity of several minutes but was probably no more than half of one, Carson wondered if he'd gone too far, if thinking of Zack's father was more than Eva could bear—even this many years later.

  He was curious, though, and interested. About the man who'd won Eva's hand—and her heart. Eva talked often about Zack's losses, but she never focused on her own. She'd been alone for ten years. Her life couldn't have been easy, raising a young son on her own.

  Yet there wasn't a sense of bitterness about her. The realization failed to surprise him, but it did raise his esteem and appreciation for the woman Eva had become.

  Finally, she stopped, and gestured toward a wooden bench with enough room for three people. She sat to the left and Carson made sure to take the seat to the far right, leaving enough room for their past in between.

  "It was such a freak accident," she began, smoothing her palms over the thighs of her black jeans. "Bobby and his dad had a wholesale greenhouse operation. A dozen employees. Enough equipment to run an operation twice the size."

  "Sounds like a profitable venture."

  Eva nodded and her smile was tender with memories. "Bobby had the greenest thumb I've ever seen. He grew exotics for a hobby. Incredible hothouse flowers."

  A lot like the one he'd married, Carson thought, but said nothing. Being a man and knowing the truth of a man's thinking, well, unless Eva's husband had been blind, Carson couldn't help but wonder whether Bobby's passion for exotics extended beyond the greenhouse.

  "The fire marshal never did determine a definite cause of the fire. But the part of the greenhouse where Bobby worked with the exotics was older than the rest of the building. There were all those chemicals. And it was a first-class obstacle course inside. Bobby kept meaning to clean it up."

  Her voice broke before she went on. "The smoke was so thick. He couldn't find his way out. Out of a room he'd spent so many hours working in. And then he couldn't breathe to keep trying." Her voice grew soft. "Or at least that's the best we could figure."

  "And Zack was only five?"

  "Yes. Still such a baby."

  A breeze kicked up through the trees surrounding the alcove where they sat, sending pine needles and seed pods fluttering down and the scent of fertile earth and new growth to follow. Carson wasn't sure what to say. Etiquette demanded platitudes. But this was Eva, and what he felt for her suffering needed more than a simple, "I'm sorry."

  "I am sorry, Eva," he said anyway, because his tongue was tangled and if he wanted to come up with something more they'd be there for the rest of the day. "I'm sure it helped to have your mother close."

  Eva nodded, raised her chin, and Carson saw that her eyes, her beautiful eyes, were watery and sad. "I had her for another eight months. She'd been sick a long time, you know."

  Damn. He had known. He'd known as well that the cancer her mother had battled had had a lot to do with Eva being in New York at seventeen years old.

  As much as other girls of seventeen had longed to win the Montclair Agency's model search, Eva had needed to win. The income would've been impossible for a teen to earn by babysitting or checking groceries. It had kept both mother and daughter from losing all that they had.

  They'd needed the money. And suddenly he was sorry he hadn't made sure the two women had been well provided for. That they hadn't wanted for anything once Eva had left New York. He shook his head in self-disgust. As if he'd been able to think of anything but himself once Eva had left New York. He'd really been a first-class jerk.

  "I'm sorry," he said a second time, because nothing more brilliant came to mind and he truly felt regret. "You shouldn't have had to go through all that alone."

  "Oh, I was never alone," she hurried on to say. "I always had Zack. And Bobby's family."

  "Yeah. I hadn't thought about that." He hadn't been thinking much of anything except that he should've been there for her. But he'd never been anywhere for anyone in his life.

  Until now.

  Because now he was going to be there for Zack. He saw too much of himself in the boy who wasn't, but could so easily have been, his son. He knew the type of nurturing Zack's talent needed. And, yes, arrogantly felt he could provide what Eva couldn't.

  So what if he took a year out of his life to devote to this boy, see him off to college. The idea was no crazier than many of the wild assignments that had sent him trotting across the globe.

  He wanted Eva to see that the man he was now was not the boy she'd left behind. And then maybe, just maybe, once Eva had forgiven him for not being the man he should've been, he could forgive himself.

  Chapter Seven

  The Hornets walked away with Saturday night's game. The win had been such a no-brainer, Zack gloated. Three up and three down through all nine innings. Piece o' cake. At least for Lake City High. The opposing team hadn't had it quite so easy.

  But, hey. What did they expect, going up against a team on its way to the state playoffs?

  Zack loved this part of the night almost more than fielding at shortstop for Lake City High. Chowing down on pizza after a game was as much a tradition as the food fight to come. The baseball season and the pizza parties had been even more fun this year because he had Katie cheering him on during the first and hanging out with him during the second.

  Win or lose she was always there. She helped make the losses easier to take and made winning that much sweeter. Of course, he wasn't about to admit any of that to Katie. Or to Aaron or Ben or any of the guys.

  He didn't even mention it to his mom, though she'd always been real big on talking about feelings and all that stuff. Lately, though, the things he'd been feeling—about Katie especially—weren't exactly things he wanted to tell his mom.

  Right. He could just see that conversation. Talking to his mother about sex.

  And he didn't mean talking in a general birds- and-bees sort of way, like how she'd told him about sex when he'd been eight and he'd asked her what a condom was. Or in the teasing way she ragged on him and the guys when she'd catch them snickering during Victoria's Secret commercials.

  No, he meant real talk. About sex. And about Katie. He wanted to talk to someone, even while his thoughts were so private that he didn't want to share them at all. He wasn't even sure he wanted Katie to know what he was thinking.

  "Zack?"

  "Hmm?" He glanced from the untouched slice of pizza in his hand to the side and into Katie's blue eyes.

  "You all right?" she asked, and smiled up at him like she really wanted an answer. Like she cared whether or not he was okay. "You're staring at that pizza like you can't decide whether or not to eat it."

  Zack growled and gnawed off half the slice. He got most of it down, enough of it anyway, then said, "There. That
make you feel better?"

  Katie nodded, and brushed flyaway strands of hair from her face. "It's more like you, anyway. I've never known you to meet a pizza you didn't like."

  The uproar around them rose considerably as a player at the other end of the huge group sloshed his Coke across the table in a tide of fizz and ice.

  Chairs upended. Pads of napkins blotted. Soggy pizza slices were dumped into the bucket the passing bus boy provided.

  "Way to go, TJ!"

  "Smooth move, moron!"

  "Next time see if you can hit the ball that hard." Zack knew he really oughta keep his mouth shut, considering his history with the other kid, but TJ had screwed around enough during tonight's game that if it had been a real contest, he could've cost the team the win.

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very funny." TJ took most of the ribbing in stride, blowing off his harassers with a mocking bow. He was such a conceited prick. But he wasn't playing with Zack. "Hey, Shelton. Next time I'll be sure to call my swing. And I'll aim it your way."

  A loud playful chorus of "Ooh!" went up as the table of ballplayers and friends settled down to watch. Heads turned left to right, right to left, like a crowd following a tennis match instead of staring at the two teens squaring off.

  "Whatever." Zack lobbed a pizza crust down the length of the table. It bounced off TJ's chest and onto his plate. More noises followed as the group of twenty-plus kids waited for the food play to escalate into a fight.

  A real fight.

  Zack wasn't going to let it happen. It wasn't a secret around the halls of Lake City High that Katie had dumped TJ last summer. And that TJ'd been working all year to make Zack look like an idiot.

  No way was he going to get into it with TJ. Not here. Not tonight. Not in front of the team and their friends and Katie. Not when they were here to have fun and celebrate. Not when their problem was personal. Katie deserved better. And Zack didn't want her to think she'd made a bad choice. The wrong choice.

  "Zack?"

  He looked down into Katie's worried face. God, she was so pretty.

  "Don't fight with TJ. Please?" she whispered as the noise around them settled back into a more normal roar of teens intent on overloading on pizza, sugar, and caffeine.

  "What? And ruin this fielding hand?" He held up his left. Then held up his right. "Or this throwing hand? No way. Not when we're ten wins from the playoffs."

  Katie's expression changed from pleading to piqued. She picked up her own pizza crust and lobbed it sideways into the center of Zack's chest.

  Unfortunately, her pizza still had pepperoni and cheese and tomato sauce attached, and Zack was still wearing his white baseball jersey, so right beneath the black and yellow hornet and the number eleven on the left, the food splattered red sauce and yellow grease in the shape of Australia.

  "Hey!" Zack yelled, looking down at his shirt. "What was that for?"

  "Because you are so clueless sometimes. I can think of a lot of things you need those hands for besides baseball." She tossed a second, drier crust.

  "Oh," Zack said, feeling more than a little bit sheepish.

  "Go, Katie!" Courtney Gates cheered on her friend.

  TJ leaned against Courtney and draped an arm over her shoulder. He picked at the slices of pepperoni the vegetarian cheerleader had left on her plate. Then he flicked them, one, two, three, four across the table.

  Heads ducked and bodies twisted. One piece flew off to the side. The other red disks struck randomly: a cheek, a shoulder, and even a nose. The food fight was on, but Zack wasn't staying. He grabbed Katie's hand in one of his, threw several folded bills on the table for their share, and headed out to the parking lot.

  Katie didn't have time to object. Zack didn't give her time to say much of anything before they reached the van. And then all she got out was, "What are you do—" before he cut her off with a kiss.

  He'd kissed her before, of course. They always made sure to head home before curfew so she wouldn't have to rush right in, so she could spend a few extra minutes in his company, in his arms, talking, teasing, making out.

  But this kiss was different because of all Zack had been feeling tonight. Before tonight too, though the last few hours had seemed to be the most confusing.

  She was so soft and sweet, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. She seemed to decide that he hadn't gone off the deep end after all, and slowly inched her arms up around his neck.

  Her mouth opened beneath his and he pressed her back against the side of the van with his body, holding the back of her head and running his fingers through her hair, which was the silkiest hair there could possibly be.

  She touched her tongue to his and he groaned deep in his throat. He'd never known a kiss could be so hot, that it could make his mind feel like mush at the same time his body felt like a baseball bat, stiff and hard and ready to swing. This was about to get out of hand. He needed to get Katie home. And if he didn't show up at home pretty soon himself, his mom would probably ground him from going to the lake tonight with Aaron and his folks.

  But Zack didn't want to let Katie go. He wanted to stand there forever and hold her, which sounded like such a lame thing to be thinking when she was pressing up against him and her fingers were walking up and down his spine.

  He should be thinking about getting in her pants ... and, yeah, he was thinking about that because, well, how could he not be thinking about it when she was doing what she was doing with her hands and her mouth?

  But he wasn't thinking about doing it with Katie in the same way he'd thought about other girls. And as much as he wanted to stand there all night, he didn't want to be standing there when the rest of the guys came out. He didn't want to do that to Katie.

  He pulled away and she held him closer. He tried to move his mouth from hers and she whimpered. Finally, he broke the kiss, coming back for several quick touches of his lips to hers, then holding her head in the crook of his shoulder while both their racing hearts calmed.

  "We need to go," he whispered against the top of her head. He couldn't think of anything he wanted to do less than let her go and leave. He couldn't think of anything he wanted to do more than open the back of the van and follow Katie inside. What he did was repeat, "We need to go."

  "I know." She breathed the words against his neck, and it was all he could do not to kiss her sweet mouth again.

  Instead, he reached behind her to open the van's passenger side door, then put his hands at her waist and lifted her into the seat. She leaned forward, took his face in her hands, and pressed her forehead to his.

  And then, with their noses close and their mouths sharing the same breath, she whispered, "I love you, Zack Shelton."

  Zack thought he was going to die.

  It was going to be a long drive home.

  Carson was sprawled out on Eva's couch when Zack walked in from his post game night out. The boy didn't look like a kid who'd won a game and partied with his friends. He looked like a kid who'd been dragged through hell and back.

  In fact, he didn't even seem aware of Carson's presence until Carson laid an arm along the back of the couch and swung into a sitting position. "You look like you lost. But I was there. And I know you won."

  Zack dropped down to slouch in the big chair facing the couch. "Where's Mom?"

  "She took the Jeep to Blooms. I was dropping her off after the game when she got a call. That shipment she'd needed to check on today never made it."

  "Texas Turf? Huh. Wonder what happened."

  "Delivery truck broke an axle or something. Anyway, I told her to take the Jeep and go."

  The corner of Zack's mouth quirked upward. "I'm surprised she trusted you to hang out here. You know. By yourself. Considering how she's always trying to get rid of you."

  Carson chuckled. "So you've noticed."

  "You kidding?" Zack arched a brow beneath the baseball cap he wore in reverse. "What's up with you two, anyway?"

  Hmm. Elbows braced on knees, hands laced together
, Carson stared at the toe of his cast. How was he supposed to talk to Zack about his mother? She'd never talked to him about her time in New York. Which meant she didn't want him to know about her affair with Carson.

  But that didn't mean Carson had to remain silent about his part of their past.

  He'd probably get his head bit off for this but ... He looked up at Zack and put into words what he'd needed to put into words for a very long time. "I was in love with your mom once. Years ago."

  "For real?" Zack straightened in his chair. "What, when she was modeling?" He frowned, thinking. "She was, like, a teenager then, right?"

  "Right." Teens in love. Carson was going to have to tread lightly here. He'd seen Zack with Katie. "She was seventeen when we first began working together."

  "How old were you?"

  "Twenty. But barely."

  "Huh." Zack slumped back again. "Did y'all, like, date and stuff?"

  Did the things they'd done together count as dates? Or as ... stuff? "We worked a lot of hours. And your mom couldn't exactly go out on regular dates."

  "I guess she was pretty famous."

  Carson nodded. "Think Giselle Bündchen. Or Heidi Klum. But your mom was also under the constraints of her age. For a while ... anyway."

  "Until she turned eighteen?"

  Carson remembered Eva turning eighteen. Remembered as well the gift she'd given him on her birthday. All he could do was nod in answer to Zack's query.

  Why had he thought talking about his past with Eva would be simple? Or casual? When nothing about their relationship had been either? When their two years together had been so complicated he hadn't known how much of it was real, how much imagined, or if any of it would mean anything once she'd completed her contract with Judith Montclair?

  He hadn't wanted to hear that answer. So he'd never put what he'd felt for Eva into words, never given her a standard to hold him to since he wasn't sure he could ever live up to her ideals, her desire for home and family.

  "I guess it's gotta be weird seeing her again after so long. I wondered why she's been so jumpy since you showed up." Zack pulled his cap from his head, and frowned while he flexed the curve of the brim with both thumbs. "She's pretty much calm and ... motherly most of the time. Not all wigged out like she's been the last few days."