Colby had spent the morning working on a golden retriever who had eaten rat poison and was near death when brought in. Luckily a dose of vitamin K and a transfusion saved the dog’s life. It had been a stressful case, and Colby had planned to spend the afternoon relaxing. But she couldn’t very well leave Phoebe stranded. “Sure. Lena’s at Millie’s for the night, so I don’t have anything to do for the rest of the day.”
“Great. Can you be here around five so I can finish cleaning up?”
“No problem. See you then.”
The drive out to the lake was a pretty one, but it gave Colby too much time to think. Too much time to wonder what Ian and Rachel were doing. Too much time to remember how painful it had been to see them together last night.
After she’d left Ian on the deck, she’d been miserable for the rest of the party. As soon as she could do so, she’d said goodnight to Frank and Phoebe, all too conscious of the knowing look in her friend’s eyes. She knew she had no right to feel as she did, but the feelings were there, nonetheless.
She almost passed the turnoff to the lake house and swung in quickly. She parked in the driveway and got out. She knocked twice, and when no one answered, rang the doorbell. “Phoebe?” she called out.
She knocked again. Still no answer.
A car engine sounded from the end of the driveway. Colby turned around. Maybe that was Frank. But a second later, Ian’s car appeared in the bend. Her stomach dropped.
He parked behind her truck and got out, looking as startled as she felt. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said, a note of uncertainty in his voice.
She did her best to mask her feelings, even though the wound still felt raw. “Phoebe called and asked me to pick her up, but she’s not answering the door.”
“That’s strange. Frank called a little while ago and asked if I could pick her up.”
“Oh. Well, maybe we had some kind of misunderstanding, but no one seems to be here.”
Ian jogged up the steps and pushed the bell again. Still no answer. He turned the knob and opened the door. “Phoebe?” he called out.
They stepped inside the house. The lamps were on, and music played, soft and alluring. A wonderful aroma drifted toward them. Someone was cooking.
“What’s going on?” Colby asked. They went into the kitchen, where a bucket of icy champagne sat on the island in the center of the room, an envelope propped beside it.
With a sinking feeling, Colby pulled out the card and read it in silence.
Just so you know, Frank refused to participate in this. So if it works, he gets none of the credit. If it fails, I guess I’ll take all the blame. I’m hanging up my matchmaking hat after this, Colby. Really. I promise.
The Jacuzzi’s off the master bedroom. Dinner is in the oven. The champagne is right in front of you.
No need to worry about Lena, since you said she’s spending the night at Millie’s. And, Ian, I’ll make sure Luke knows where you are.
Phoebe
Colby closed her eyes and sighed. “This time I really will have to kill her.”
“What is it?” Ian asked.
She handed the note to him. He read it, then looked up and said, “Frank must have told her.”
“Told her what?”
He paused and then, “Rachel and I aren’t getting married. I told him when he called to see if I could pick up Phoebe.”
Surprise ricocheted through her. “You’re not?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Why?” she asked, taken aback.
Ian put the card on the counter and looked at her for several long moments before answering. “When I asked her to marry me, it wasn’t for any of the right reasons. After Sherry died, I guess I stopped believing in fairy-tale love. What Rachel and I had always seemed like more of a merger than anything else.”
“Oh.” She felt hot and cold at once. This was the last thing she’d expected to hear.
“But then I met someone who made me believe again.”
“You did?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
“Yeah, I did. She’s incredible, this woman. She’s smart and funny and warm, and man, does she know how to kiss. . . .”
“She does?” Colby managed to whisper.
He nodded, a smile touching his lips. “And as much as I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She’s the kind of woman a man waits his whole life for, and when he finds her, he just knows it’s right, no matter how much he tries to deny it.”
She wanted to believe him. But the old wariness still warred inside her, questioning her, torturing her with what-ifs. What if this was just temporary? What if his feelings changed, the way Doug’s had changed? What if—
“I can read your doubts,” he said softly. “I know how much he hurt you. And I know how hard it’s been for you to put that behind you. But I think that’s one of the things that drew us together. My hurt was different from yours, but it had the same effect. We’ve both refused to really let ourselves feel anything all these years. Somehow, someway, I was waiting for you.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “Ian—” she began, unable to go on. She couldn’t believe they were really here. That he’d said these things to her. But he had. The armor with which she’d shielded herself from him these past months fell away, and she stood before him now, fully aware of how desperately she needed to hear those words. How very much she wanted him. She could no longer pretend otherwise. To herself or to him.
She slipped into his embrace, her arms locking around his neck, her cheek to his chest. His arms secured her to him. In that moment, she felt as if she’d been headed here all her life. She knew, without doubt, that all these years, she had been waiting for this one good man to come along. This man who found such satisfaction in simple things, in laughing just for the sheer joy of it, in kissing. Ah, in kissing. This man with whom and from whom she wanted so much more.
“I wanted to call you this morning,” he said, his voice low and uneven. “But I didn’t think I should so soon—”
“Phoebe’s never been known for her patience.”
Ian smiled. “Right now, I’m glad about that.”
“I won’t admit it to her, but so am I.”
Darkness had descended outside, and the lamps in the living room shadowed the kitchen with light.
Ian nodded toward the champagne. “It would be a shame to waste that now that we’re here. Would you like a glass?”
“I’d love one,” Colby said, welcoming the diversion.
He found a dishcloth in one of the drawers, pulled the bottle out of the ice and wrapped the towel around it. He loosened the foil, then the wire and pointed the cork toward the ceiling. “Heads up.” The cork zinged out of the bottle, slammed off the ceiling and whizzed back past them. They both ducked, shoulders colliding, champagne sloshing from the bottle and onto their clothes as their surprised laughter filled the room.
“You could take a girl out with a power shot like that,” she said.
Ian grinned. “Packed a little more punch than I expected.” He reached for the glasses that Phoebe had thoughtfully placed next to the ice bucket. He filled them both, then handed one to Colby and raised his own in a toast. “To meddling, good-intentioned best friends.”
Colby smiled. “Here, here.”
The champagne tasted crisp and cold and glorious. She stood here inches from this man she had fallen for without even wanting to, and this was the only place on earth she wanted to be.
Another song started on the CD player. This one, too, slow and easy, and it flowed over Colby’s skin like the finest silk. Goose bumps danced down her arms.
“Rumor has it you’re a pretty incredible dancer,” he said.
“Well, I’d hate to let Phoebe’s efforts go to waste.”
He put his glass on the counter, reached for hers and set it down, too. And then he reached for her. She moved into his arms, and there, in the middle of the kitchen floor, they swayed and flowed to t
he beat of the music, their steps in perfect unison. Torture of the sweetest, most painful kind. He held her loosely, but with every turn, their knees would brush or his thigh would graze her hip.
At some point, he stopped moving, and from the look in his eyes, she knew he’d found the dancing as intoxicating as she had.
“I think I might die if you don’t let me kiss you,” he said.
“Good. Because if you don’t stop talking about it and just do it, I think I might die, too.”
A smile on his lips, he pulled her to him, his hands splaying across her waist, his palms wide and encompassing and urgent. Her own hands sought the back of his neck and wound through his thick, soft hair.
His head dipped toward her, and his lips grazed the curve of her jawline. Gentle, butterfly kisses at first, soft and easy. Her eyes closed and her breathing quickened as his hands skimmed the length of her arms and cradled her neck while his thumbs brushed the hollow of her throat. He cupped the back of her head and kissed the tip of her chin. She turned her mouth toward his, needing his kiss. But still he evaded her and tortured the soft spot beneath her right ear. His tongue tested and tasted the lobe, and a thousand shivers danced up her spine.
“Ian.” His name slid past her lips, softly pleading.
The kiss, when it came, was worth the wait. Their mouths met and melded, preliminaries ignored in a frantic attempt to know each other completely.
She tightened her arms around his neck, and he gathered her closer against him. This kiss that made up for all the years when she had thought she would never again know this kind of physical chemistry. Dates endured only because it didn’t seem normal for someone her age not to go out once in a while. Kissing should be this, an act of intimacy that signals rightness, that prompts an instant internal awareness that says, This is where I belong.
In his arms, the message felt as impossible to deny as the stars in the sky.
The kisses became more urgent, their body language communicating more clearly than words that it wasn’t enough. He drew back and looked into her eyes. “Are you sure this is what you want, Colby?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m sure.”
To her surprise, he picked her up and continued kissing her while he carried her though the living room and down the hallway. Cradled against his chest, she kept her arms around his neck, one hand laced through his hair.
He stopped at the first door on the left, and they reluctantly pulled apart long enough to give their surroundings a cursory glance. Shadows draped the room, but the enormous bed in the center of the floor was impossible to ignore.
“Candles,” Ian said.
Colby shook her head. “Phoebe thinks of everything.”
He smiled and set her down at the side of the bed. He kissed her again, long and slow, one hand at the base of her spine, massaging, enticing, the other winding through the back of her hair. “Don’t go anywhere,” he said, his voice uneven.
Smiling, she said, “Phoebe probably has a booby trap rigged to go off if I step back out that door.”
He laughed.
Maybe she loved that most about him. The sound of his laughter, a sound she would like to know for the rest of her life. Over the breakfast table. In crowded movie theaters. At night just before she fell asleep.
The enormity of the admission hit her then. She loved him. Loved him as she had never loved any other man. She loved him for his generosity. For changing his life for his son. For passing those grits around at the church breakfast when he’d never even heard of them before. For loving his dogs. He was a genuinely good man, and regardless of what happened here tonight, or how things ended up, she loved him. How simple that was. How profound.
Ian had found a match and lit the oversize candle on the nightstand. The scent of honeysuckle drifted toward her.
Candlelight danced across their skin, and she grew warm with longing. Ian reached for the hem of her sweater and pulled it over her head. Beneath it, she wore a white cotton blouse. He undid the buttons and brushed it open with the back of his hand.
His fingers trailed the length of her jaw, hesitated at the tip of her chin, then made a line down her throat.
A sigh of pleasure escaped Colby’s parted lips. He kissed the column of her throat, his mouth following the same trail his fingers had just taken. She began unbuttoning his shirt, the backs of her fingers grazing the hair-roughened skin of his chest. Halfway down, she yanked the shirttail from his pants, then undid the last few buttons and pushed it off him.
She let her eyes have their fill of him. He was a beautiful man. No other word for it. Fit and finely built. With wide shoulders and narrow hips, the kind made for blue jeans. His skin was still brown from the work he’d been doing outdoors in the fall.
They kissed again, and a wave of sudden self-consciousness assaulted her. It had been a long, long time since she’d been with a man. What if he didn’t find her attractive? What if. . . .
“Colby, you’re so beautiful.”
Under his appreciative gaze, she felt beautiful. Powerful in the way a woman feels when a man looks at her with desire in his eyes.
She kissed him then. Wrapped her arms around his waist, while an orchestra of emotion struck up inside her. Need of the most overwhelming kind lent urgency to their movements and sent them toppling back onto the bed behind them.
The mattress dipped, their clumsiness lightening the intensity between them. They both laughed, breathless. When their laughter faded, they watched each other, assessing, appreciating.
“You scare me, Colby,” he said. “You’re everything I didn’t know I wanted. I’d like to believe that means we were meant to be.”
She pressed her lips to his temple and closed her eyes, tears seeping through her lashes.
He pushed a strand of hair back from her forehead, his fingers lingering in a gentle caress. He walked to the door and turned the lock, and when he returned to the king-size bed, she opened her arms to him.
50
Bummed. Lena had no other word for it.
Millie got sick at the movie, a virus or something. Mrs. Mitchell had driven Lena home, since there wasn’t much point in her staying the night if Millie spent most of it in the bathroom. Ever since Lena confronted her with spreading gossip about Luke, Millie had been working overtime to make up for it. She’d felt terrible about ruining their afternoon. Lena agreed not to hold it against her as long as she kept her word from now on.
Lena arrived home to find a note from her mom on the kitchen counter saying that she’d gone out to the lake to pick up Phoebe. That was just like her. Lena wasn’t even supposed to be home tonight, and she’d still left a note just in case she came by and wondered where she was. How many kids had moms like that? A yearning for things to be like they used to be swept over her. She thought about what Luke said at the party last night. Maybe he was right. Maybe she hadn’t handled things like she should have. Was knowing her father worth ruining the relationship she’d had with her mom?
The question nagged at her as she went into the den and looked for the TV section of the newspaper, not finding it in any of the usual places. She peered out the window and saw the paper sticking out of the box. She put on her shoes and sprinted outside to get it. While she was there, she checked the mailbox and found several letters inside.
Just as she turned to head back up the driveway, she spotted the corner of an envelope sticking up from the edge of the brick flowerbed that served as the base of the mail box. She bent down and picked it up, then threw it on top of the other mail. In the house, she tossed it all on the kitchen table and leafed through the paper until she found the TV section. Nothing on worth watching.
She put down the paper, the letter on top of the pile of mail catching her eye. A plain white envelope, addressed to her mom and marked Personal and Confidential. She held it up to the light. No return address.
It was wrong to open it. The last time she’d read something that didn’t belong to her, she’d wished she’d l
eft the letter where she found it. A strong voice told her to leave the letter alone. But like Pandora, she couldn’t help herself. It was from her father. She knew it.
She got a pot out of the bottom of the stove and put some water on to boil. The minutes ticked by like molasses from a cold jar until finally enough steam rose from the pot to loosen the seal on the envelope. She slid the letter out and unfolded it, her heart thumping too hard, her hands clammy.
Colby,
I know I’m a coward for getting back to you this way. But, as you know, confrontations were never my strength. I’ve gone over and over this during the past weeks, and I keep coming to the same conclusion. Lena is your daughter. I have a family of my own, and I can’t bring myself to jeopardize what I have by telling them that I have a daughter they never knew existed.
I think it’s best if we just leave things as they’ve been. Since Lena has never met me, she can’t be hurt by my decision. I trust you to explain this to her in the best way you can.
Doug
Lena flung the letter away from her as if it had scorched her fingers. It fluttered to the floor like a fallen angel, and she stood staring at it, unable to believe what she’d just read.
He didn’t want anything more to do with her now than he had sixteen years ago. Her stomach heaved. She ran to the bathroom and threw up until dry retching sounds echoed the emptiness inside her. She sat on the cool tile floor, her left arm and forehead resting on the side of the bathtub.
What was wrong with her? What had she ever done to make him hate her so much?
She sat there, miserable and crushed. When she finally got up from the floor, she wiped her face with a cool washcloth and then went into the kitchen and stood staring out the window at the backyard where she’d played and done much of the growing up that her father hadn’t wanted to witness.
The pain inside her loomed so great that she had to find a way to make it go away. If not forever, then just for a little while.
She remembered the bottle of gin someone had given her mother for a Christmas present a year or two ago. She pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and scooted it over to the cabinet above the sink. She opened the door, and sure enough, there it was, in the back, unopened. Lena reached for it, then got down and poured herself a glass.
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