Waiting for Your Love (Echoes of the Heart)

by Anna DeStefano

  Clair felt the blood drain from her denial-riddled brain. “She’s called his mother already?”

  Julianna Lancaster was out of town for the holiday weekend and had begged off attending the barbecue. Clair had taken comfort in knowing Conrad’s mother wouldn’t be in the line of fire.

  Rachael sipped from a cut-glass flute of lemonade. “She and Mom are meeting for tea next week. To have a nice, long, neighborly visit.”

  “Oh, God, Ra.”

  “Exactly.”

  Barbara Summerville didn’t do tea simply to while away a slow afternoon. Tea meant…

  “She’s campaigning.” Clair snatched her sister’s drink and chugged it, wishing there were something stronger in the glass than lemon juice, water and a pound of sugar. “But Conrad’s only here to—”

  “Throw Mom off the scent?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Good.” Rachael crossed her arms under the perfect breasts her perfect banker husband had paid to have lifted and separated by the perfect surgeon in New York, after Ra had delivered her twins. “I wouldn’t want you to wake up one day and find yourself ten years entrenched in a situation you don’t know how to dig yourself out of.”

  Like your marriage? Clair didn’t ask.

  Their mother had orchestrated the right introduction between Rachael and ten-years-her-senior Glenn Boroughs. Barbara had then progressed to coaching Ra through making just the right impression on the fabulously wealthy Boroughs family, as well as Glenn’s friends and business associates at the bank. And then, once the most perfect proposal of all proposals had been secured during a romantic wine tour around Napa, Barbara had staged the flashiest wedding Chandlerville had ever seen.

  Within two years she’d received her reward: two beautiful grandbabies to see after with the same devotion and expertise.

  No doubt about it, Clair thought.

  Rachael’s marriage was as ideal as their parents’. On the surface, anyway. Which was all Barbara Summerville seemed to focus on these days.

  They watched their mother cross the sea of people milling about her manicured lawn. She approached Conrad, who’d plucked Buster out of the flower bed. Barbara greeted Clair’s date with an effusive hug. Then, curse her, she tickled Buster under his chin—and the woman loathed dogs.

  Rachael gave Clair a side-hug of commiseration before heading off. “Good luck.”

  Ra’s rising third graders, Robbie and Rosie, ran up to their mom. They were dressed like an ad for Ralph Lauren Kids. The three of them joined Barbara and Conrad. The kids immediately demanded to hold and gush over an appreciative Buster. Rachael, her hair as dark and shiny as her children’s, smiled, watching Barbara slip her arm through Conrad’s.

  Conrad laughed at something. His gaze skimmed the yard teeming with Clair’s relations. When his attention snagged on her and held, she gasped.

  It was as if last night’s lightning had waited until broad, sunny daylight to zap her. And by the looks of the lazy smile on Conny’s face, he’d noticed her reaction. Her mouth went dry as desert sand. As if another one of his kisses might be the only way to quench her thirst.

  She shook her head.

  Knock it off!

  He was just helping out a friend in need, the same way she’d always be there for him.

  He extricated Buster from her niece and nephew, snuggling the ridiculously groomed poodle against his chest. Slipping his other hand in the side pocket of his pressed khakis, he headed Clair’s way.

  “We should go,” she insisted when he was close enough to hear her whisper, and for Buster to insist on jumping back into his carrier.

  Conrad’s smile made Clair’s head pound. Her hangover was getting absolutely zero time off for good behavior.

  “Your mother just invited me to stay for drinks after the barbecue,” he said.

  “She’s set on making us a couple, Conrad. For real, Rachael thinks. Babs’s meddling in my relationships has been a pain in the past, but it was relatively harmless. I have the sinking suspicion she’s fighting with live ammo this time.”

  He smoothed a wisp of hair away from Clair’s cheek. His thumb brushed her top lip.

  “You really have to stop doing that,” she warned him.

  He was only playing his part in his role as her date. But the soft, adoring way he gazed down at her very nearly had Clair drooling. The man was entirely too good at making her and everyone else believe she was the center of his universe.

  He shrugged. “What does it matter what Barbara thinks at the barbecue? You’ll make her understand tomorrow. It’s not as if you’ve never broken up with a guy before.”

  “I’ve seen her like this, with Rachael and Glenn.” Clair pasted on a smile for their audience, while trying to convey horror with her eyes. “She’s on the hunt.”

  “So, I’m prey?” Conrad playfully scratched the side of his chin. “Kinda makes me feel manly.”

  “It’s not funny. Don’t you get it? Because of whatever my mother’s told them, no fewer than a dozen people who used to diaper my bottom are staring at us right now. For all I know, Babs has already picked a wedding date and invited them. I miscalculated how desperate she is to marry me off to a local guy who’ll settle me down in a Chandlerville zip code, before…”

  Conrad’s expression lost its teasing sparkle. The way it had once or twice over the last couple of weeks—when Clair had pulled back from telling him about PetClub’s interest in merging ALL PAWS, PAWSMatch and Clair into their operation.

  He uncurled her fingers from the fists she’d made. When he kissed her palm, every emotion but need drained from her body. There was a molten spark in his gaze that she tried to believe was just for show. But she could only stare in awe as his hands settled on her shoulders, on either side of her sundress straps. Then he swept her up to her toes.

  Oh, my God.

  She gripped his forearms for balance—and to keep herself from kissing those lips she’d been obsessing about since that morning.

  “Why does it feel,” he asked, “as if you’re pulling away from me more every day?”

  “I…I’m right here.” Right there in his arms, where she’d been that morning in her dreams. “But what’s the point of egging my mother on?”

  “Maybe she’s not the only who believes there’s something between us besides putting on a show for your kinfolk.”

  “Wh-what?”

  Clair glanced around them. She caught a flurry of heads pivoting quickly in the other direction. Her family was genetically incapable of subtlety.

  “Is it really that shocking an idea?” Conrad asked. “Folks here seem to think we’d be a good fit. Bethany and Mike enjoyed helping us fake hook up.” And he didn’t sound the least bit fazed by the notion. “Why not lean into it a little and really give everyone something to talk about?”

  “Because…”

  Her heart was breaking open, pooling between them and begging him to stop, not to tease her, not about this. She tried to wrench away, but she couldn’t move. He wouldn’t let her go.

  “Because,” she said, “we’re talking about you and me.”

  “And you and me—dating—would be a bad thing?”

  “If it’s not real, if we let things go too far and then realize after it’s too lake that we’ll never be able to go back to the way things were, yes!”

  “Wow.” His eyes crinkled in their corners as he smiled. “You’ve given the idea a lot of thought for someone who’s supposed to be shocked.”

  She swallowed, caught. But didn’t he get it? “Do you really want to mess with what we have? You’re my best friend in the world, Conny.”

  Except it was a would-be lover gazing down at her now, his expression transformed with the same need she felt, and the same trepidation.

  Suddenly, he wasn’t playing any more than she was.

  “What do you want, Clair? For no reason I can think of, you’ve been
dodging me for a while now. And I keep asking myself why. Maybe it’s because of how much we’re both working. But I can’t help wondering if you’ve been feeling this”—he grazed her cheek with the knuckles of his left hand—“spark between us, too.”

  “Spark?” she sputtered.

  “Look at what happened in my Jeep this morning.”

  “But…”

  She shook her head.

  This morning had been a blip. A non-event. A sleep-induced fantasy played out when neither of them had been awake enough to do the sensible thing and back off. She’d spent the hours since convincing herself that she could navigate the barbecue with Conrad—and not desperately need to be right back here, in his arms.

  “This morning was…” she tried again. “We were dreaming together. I mean, in the same place. It wasn’t real.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  He led her away from her family, to where they’d be less likely to be overheard. He dropped his hands to his sides, leaving her free to get away.

  When she stayed, he smiled as if she’d made his day.

  “What do you say, Clair Bear. Wanna give being a real couple for a while a try?”

  Chapter Five

  “What do I say?” Clair repeated in a whisper, her arms gesturing on either side of her body like she was a cartoon caricature of herself. “You charm yourself into coming to my family reunion. And then you do this—finally—today of all days?”

  “Charmed myself?”

  No way could Conrad let that juicy rationalization slide. Even if he had no idea how things had gotten so completely out of hand.

  Actually, he did know.

  He’d kissed her that morning. Or she’d kissed him. He couldn’t clearly remember their sleep-induced, uninhibited response to each other. But the sexual chemistry that had exploded between them still hadn’t let go. And it had most definitely short-circuited the logic center of his brain.

  Wanting to kiss Clair again, knowing that she’d likely want to as well, had owned his thoughts all morning. Hers, too, from the look and sound of it.

  “I offered to help you out,” he reminded her.

  “By deflecting my mother’s disappointment in my dead-end love life!” Clair’s voice had risen to its losing-it octave. She cleared her throat and leaned in to say more calmly, “Not by making things worse.”

  “Would it be so bad?” Something powerful had grabbed hold of both of them that morning. He was certain of it. “Us being more than friends?”

  She inhaled, crossing her arms as if to fend him off.

  “Why now?” she wanted to know.

  He looked around them. “Why here, at your mother’s?”

  She shook her head. “Why after all this time, when we’ve been something else our entire lives?”

  Because you’ve cast a spell over me?

  Because it feels as if I only just woke up, after years of sleepwalking through my life?

  “Why not now?” he countered, keeping things light. “Why not make each other feel good and see where that can take us? You make it sound like we’d be risking our friendship.”

  She squinted as if her world were spinning.

  His most definitely was.

  He’d lost years of his life to the grueling numbness and denial and anger, and then to the rebuilding that it had taken to get over losing Amanda. To raising their baby without her. Now it felt suddenly as if everything else were rushing back into focus. And yet Clair was all he could see.

  She was the best friend any man could have. She’d been the first crush he’d buried deep. Decades deep. Now there seemed no limit to the life he could imagine them exploring together.

  “Out of nowhere?” She poked a just-to-be-sure finger against his chest. “You want to date. Like really date and kiss and”—she air-quoted—“…whatever?”

  She hadn’t answered his question, and warning bells began to chime. But the insanely naughty images galloping through his mind drowned them out.

  “Oh, I’d most definitely be interested in”—he air-quoted back—“whatever. Is that so impossible to believe?”

  “Yes!”

  Clair dragged him closer to the fence that separated Barbara’s backyard from his mother’s.

  They were standing beneath the magnolia tree where he’d helped her bury her beloved cat, a blue point ragdoll named Bella. After Winston, Bella had become Clair’s confident and the keeper of the secrets she hadn’t shared with another human besides Conrad.

  The beautiful creature had died at the ripe old age of fifteen, the year Clair and Conrad were seniors in high school. A week after he’d received his acceptance to study pre-med at Duke University.

  It had felt that day as if he and Clair were burying a part of themselves, too. She’d decided to stay in Chandlerville after high school and start her own business. Soon he’d be living hours away. And she’d already seemed to be distancing herself from him.

  The prospect had terrified him.

  He’d longed to ask her to come away with him to school, to love him as more than the friend she’d depended on since they were kids. But at eighteen, she’d already been adamant about not shaping her life around a man. Any man. Not after the shallow, all-for-show example of love her parents had set for her and Rachael.

  Now, beneath the shady sunbeams peeking through their giant magnolia’s draping foliage, Conrad aligned their bodies, determined to stake his claim and snag her agreement to a do-over.

  “Kissing in our sleep…” he said. “It was as amazing for you as it was for me, right? Or am I reading you wrong?”

  “It was…magical.” She gazed at him with the same craving for more he felt. “Because we were dreaming.”

  “Because we wanted it. We’ve wanted it for a long time. At least I have, in case you’re under the delusion that you somehow took advantage of me this morning, and I had no choice in the matter. It’s just…”

  “It’s just that I’m trying to make up my mind which of us has become more unhinged.”

  She leaned into him finally, as if she couldn’t help herself. Her sweet lips brushed his neck before she buried her face in his shoulder.

  “Now, Conny? After all these years. It’s really not a good idea.”

  He tilted her chin up and kissed her soundly. The way he should have years ago, before he’d met Amanda and had Harper. And then had lost so much that he couldn’t have imagined ever wanting anything again. Even something as perfect as having Clair Summerville for his own.

  She hesitated, and he cursed himself for pushing her so quickly, in such a public place. But then she was kissing him back as if she couldn’t help herself either.

  “Best idea I’ve had in a long time,” he teased.

  He smiled into their next kiss. But then he tasted her tears. And the misery in her expression gutted him.

  He flinched away.

  It’s really not a good idea.

  “Clair? What’s going on?”

  She stared at the patchwork of grass thriving against all odds beneath the enormous tree.

  “Tell me.” Something still wasn’t right. Something more than the suddenness of his proposition. “Just don’t try to make me believe that you don’t want me. You’ve been fighting your feelings for me for a while, right?”

  The fight leaked out of her. She rested her cheek on his shoulder. “I had no idea you were wanting me back. Not like this. And it’s amazing, Conny. This morning felt so good. And standing here with you now, knowing that what’s happening between us isn’t just you helping me out of a jam with my mother… It’s another kind of dream. The real kind. But…”

  She allowed him to circle her in his arms, the way he did his son when Harper was upset and needed to believe that Conrad would always be there to help make things better.

  “But?” he prompted.

  “But it’s too late,” she said.

  It took him a full ten seconds to realize she was serious. “Too late for what?”

 
“To start something like this.” She gestured between them. “If I’d thought there was any chance… If it hadn’t been for Amanda’s death and everything you and Harper have been dealing with starting your lives over in Chandlerville, maybe you and I could have had time to try.”

  He captured her hand and kissed it. Of course she was skittish. She’d watched her parents’ empty relationship rock on for decades after they’d fallen out of love with each other.

  “We’ll make time to figure everything out now, Clair Bear. It’s not too late.”

  She shook hear head. “I’ve been approached by this massive pet concierge company based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. PetClub’s looking to expand into Georgia. They researched the success of my PAWSMatch app and got in touch about that first. Plus, they’re eager to expand into storefronts in the North Georgia market. They made an offer in late June to buy PAWSMatch outright, and to merge ALL PAWS into their corporate structure. I’d go in as a full partner—on top of their purchasing the rights to the app. Their offer is so ridiculously over the top, they must think I’m crazy for not immediately jumping at the chance.”

  “That’s great!” Conrad twirled her around. She’d worked her ass off for an opportunity like this.

  “Is it?” She wound her arms around his neck, clinging. She stayed that way even after he eased her body down until her toes touched the ground.

  “I know the app is your baby,” he commiserated, “and it’ll be hard to turn it and control of the rest of your business over to someone else. But you’d be part of the merger, and I presume involved in the decision making for how to blend what you’ve created into their business model. You’ll make it work. You’ll make even more of a success out of all of it.”

  Didn’t she know he’d be cheering her on, every step of the way?

  “I’d have to move,” she said.

  A knot of dread lodged directly over his heart. “What?”

  “To Charlotte,” she explained. “Once I oversaw transitioning the ALL PAWAS grooming and pet care storefronts and kennels and customers into PetClub locations, the deal is I’d relocate as part of the merger to their North Carolina corporate headquarters. To work with their teams on expanding the PAWSMatch concept and app, and then training PetClub associates to implement my approach in their existing markets. I’d be traveling back and forth until then, whenever I’m not here making sure we don’t disrupt the customer base I’ve established around Atlanta.”