“Right!” Harper cheered.
“Right,” Clair agreed, trying to match Conrad’s lightheartedness.
Neither of them had used that word yet—love—not in a romantic way. They were nowhere close to being ready to. She inhaled, the epic turn they were taking in their relationship hitting home again.
“So, I’ll keep bringing Buster and Matilda for visits,” she promised Harper, “every time I sit for them.”
The little boy cheered again. As he did, her cell phone sounded from somewhere beneath Buster—from the depths of the ridiculously high-end pet carrier still draped over her shoulder.
She rolled her eyes at Conrad. “Our absence from the post-barbecue cocktail hour has been noticed.”
“You think it’s your mother?” he asked.
“Or my sister. We did the right thing, leaving while there were still enough people around to keep Barbara and Ra otherwise engaged.”
She and Conrad needed some alone time, even though she had a ton of things to do this afternoon before she headed to Charlotte in the morning.
She set Harper and Buster down. Buster jumped into the little boy’s eager arms, pedigreed tail wagging, tongue licking, a normal dog making a child deliriously happy. For animals who’d known only security and belonging all their lives, giving and receiving love was as effortless as breathing. Clair envied them that.
“How long a reprieve will Babs give you before demanding more details about us?” Conrad asked.
Her phone rolled to voice mail. “A day. Maybe. It doesn’t hurt that I’m flying out tomorrow to meet with PetClub.”
Her and Conrad’s gaze held at the reminder of the ticking clock they faced. Harper wandered off to play with his set of DUPLO: a collection of oversized, colorful building blocks that perpetually consumed his playroom like a wave of kudzu.
Clair picked up Buster, resettling the poodle in his carrier. Conrad led her away, down the hallway toward the front of the house. They entered the living room, their fingers linked, his pinkie snuggled around hers. The caress felt intimate, though they were barely touching.
Bethany and Mike had made themselves scarce not long after Clair and Conrad returned to his house. Their friends had already been brought up to speed on the goings-on at the barbecue, either by email or text or social-media red alert. On her way out the door, Bethany had whispered to Clair that she’d call later to get the dish.
“So…” Clair settled on the couch.
She’d helped Conrad pick it out along with the rest of the room’s furniture. He’d arrived in Chandlerville with very little. He’d said he hadn’t been able to bear living with the things he’d purchased with Amanda.
She tugged him down beside her.
“What now?” she asked. “We made quite a display of ourselves at my mother’s. There’s no dialing that back, not without some serious damage control.”
Conrad quirked an eyebrow. “You mean the way we kissed like we’re lovers, for everyone to see?”
His words sounded like velvet, falling from those strong lips. They tasted like Conny, when she leaned in to do some more damage.
“Like we’ve been lovers for a while,” she said between kisses, “and we’ve been hiding it from everyone.”
“Ourselves most of all?”
She nodded, wishing they hadn’t waited so long, that love was an emotion she could feel and say and embrace without worrying how long a man’s feelings for her would last.
“I appreciate the assist getting my mother temporarily off my back,” she said. “But if you don’t want to…”
“Keep you forever?” he asked, calling to mind Harper’s begging to have Buster for his very own.
Conrad settled them deeper into the cushions while she nibbled on the corner of her bottom lip, battling back a fresh wave of doubt.
“I meant what I said, Clair. I don’t want to waste a second I can have with you. I may not know much else about what we’re doing.” He kissed her, and then kissed her again. “But that much I’m certain of.”
Time expanded, stretched, and snapped back as Conrad waited for Clair to respond. He watched her eyes dilate, the way they did when she was excited about some new adventure.
Now her next adventure could be him. Them. But she was clearly still troubled. Unsure of her heart and his. She wouldn’t be his Clair Bear if she wasn’t.
“Is this what you really want?” If she could trust him, just this little bit, they had a chance. “Being here with me right now, alone, with no one else to see or care?”
Buster released a doggy snore from the depths of his elitist tote. Harper laughed in the back of the house, content for the moment to entertain himself.
“I want…” Clair strained closer. Her sundress rustled between them.
“Whatever it is,” Conrad promised, “I’ll move heaven and earth to make it happen.”
He kissed her as if he’d never hold her again, cherishing and savoring and loving the way she gasped. He curved his hands beneath her, filling his fingers with her softness, her sweet curves.
“Damn,” he whispered, keeping his voice down for Harper’s sake. “It would be so easy not to care right now, not to think, just to feel. But I know you, Clair. You over think, over worry, everything. It’s your superpower, and because of it you’re a business mogul in the making. But with love… There’s always going to be a reason to talk yourself out of trusting it. Even between us. Maybe especially between us.”
“Especially us?” she repeated, more statement than question.
“I think…” He’d been working it out in his head while he drove them back from Barbara’s. “Was this easier when you thought there was no chance of exploring anything romantic between us? Did wanting me feel safe, only as long as you thought you couldn’t have this?”
“This?”
She made an approving sound while her hands roamed his back and headed south. Conrad swallowed a curse. He lifted her arms over her head.
“Oh,” she purred. “This is most definitely something I want to explore together. Safe or not.”
He stroked the soft skin of her arms, nuzzling the curve of her neck. “You’re a tease.”
“And you’re blind if you think what happened between us at my mother’s is something I can just turn on and off.” Tears misted her eyes, bright diamonds of emotional honesty. “I might be terrified. And a part of me might still want to escape to my place and my work and head to Charlotte like none of this ever happened. But I’ve wanted you for a long time, Conrad. If you’re still doubting that, then you’ve lost the ability to see anything about me at all.”
“How long have you wanted me?” He was dying to know, to ask how much, to strip away everything still separating them. “How long have you let me think I’m the only one who felt this way?”
Moisture trickled from the corners of her eyes. When he wiped her tears away, she smiled as if he’d slain all her dragons.
“Forever.” She smiled at the shock he would have felt spreading across his face, if his entire body hadn’t gone numb. “It feels like I’ve been falling in love with you forever, Conrad Lancaster.”
She pressed her head to his heart.
“But I think,” she continued, “it was after you left me behind and headed off to Duke to meet Amanda that I really knew. You two fell head over heels and then invited me to your wedding to celebrate beginning your perfect life together.”
“The kind of perfect you’ve never thought you wanted to try for, because your parents’ marriage is such a bust.”
“And then I watched you at Amanda’s funeral.” Clair rubbed her hand up and down his chest. “I’d never seen love that real and deep and honest, not up close. Not in my family. Not in Rachael’s. My sister runs her marriage more like a business than a relationship, just like our mom’s taught her to. Ray provides Glenn with the perfect home that all young bankers on the fast track need, to prove their stability to their board of directors. He keeps the lot of them in
the lifestyle she’s been accustomed to her whole life. But where are their hearts? What’s Rachael and Glenn’s love story going to be years from now, when all the rest falls away and they want a soulmate to grow old with?”
“Some people really do get it right, Clair.”
Conrad and Amanda and Harper had. And after losing that, he’d been certain his heart was done.
“I watched you morn your wife,” Clair said. “And I’ve watched you the last three years making your son’s world okay without her in it: relocating, becoming mother and father and everything else Harper’s needed, while you started over and dealt with your grief on your own.”
“Not on my own.”
Conrad rubbed his fingers along her spine, replaying every pizza dinner she’d brought over, staying to eat with him and Harper. And then to play round after round of Candyland or Sorry! or Lucky Ducks. Then there was the endless stream of clients’ animals she’d made a point of sharing with his son. And the nights Conrad had been at his worst, and he’d been the one who’d called her at some heinous hour, drunk on grief, needing to ramble and babble and talk about the woman and life and family he’d lost.
And Clair had always taken his call. She’d listened straight through the night sometimes, patiently supportive. She’d let him bleed out every bottomless emotion until he could finally sleep.
“You were always there,” he reminded her.
“A lot of other people would have done the same thing.”
“Not like you. I was facing the darkest moments of my life, but I knew it was going to be okay. Because you never let me believe I was alone. Even that first year—once the day was done and Harper was tucked in, and I needed to shut the world out and not feel anything for a while. Sometimes it seemed like the only way I could get through the grief was to stop feeling anything at all. But then you’d call or come over or make time in your day for me and my son, and you’d pull me out of my pity party.”
“Friends don’t let friends brood alone.”
“Best friends don’t.”
“Best friends,” she repeated.
She settled into the nook between his chin and collarbone as if it were her new favorite place in the world.
“No man could be a more perfect husband and father,” she said. “Or love his family more than you do. I just wish it hadn’t taken your moving back to Chandlerville to show me the kind of life I want to make for myself, and the kind of man I want to make that life with.”
He rubbed her shoulder, feeling their heartbeats settle into the same rhythm.
She’d said she’d have to leave soon.
She had an important trip ahead of her and life-changing decisions to make. The last thing Conrad wanted to be was a distraction. And as much as he’d love having her with him all night, there was Harper to consider. Before Conrad allowed his son to think there was something more than friendship between his father and Clair, Conrad needed a firmer hold on what that something might be.
But for this moment at least, he was holding an amazing woman in his arms. And he’d been gifted the chance to win her heart. It was an opportunity he had no intention of squandering. One steady moment at a time, he’d make certain that he and Clair figured this out.
“I know you’ll keep worrying,” he said. “And that’s okay. As long as let me show you what you’ve helped me see. How to face what scares you most, and how to trust that everything will be fine—because you don’t have to go through it alone.”
“You’re not still planning on going to Charlotte,” Barbara Summerville complained the next morning as she watched Clair pack. “You’re still negotiating with those PetClub people?”
From her disapproving tone, you’d have thought Clair was packing for a “Girls Gone Wild” jaunt to Vegas. Instead of flying out in a few hours for a day of meetings at the heart of North Carolina’s tech corridor.
“I’m taking care of my business, Mom.” Clair left the bed to slip her best suit and two casual-but-not-too-casual dresses into her garment bag.
Not that she’d decided yet whether she’d wear the suit tomorrow, to PetClub headquarters. Or if a dress would be appropriate for the dinner scheduled later tonight with two of the company’s top executives. She’d also packed slacks and a silk blouse with a coordinating jacket, and khakis and a golf shirt, just to round out her options. Once she arrived and knew whether tonight’s destination was an authentic barbecue joint or five-star Italian or something in between, she’d sort out her look.
She headed for the bathroom to root in the bin beneath the sink for her travel hair dryer.
“Work business,” her mom chided. “What about the business of finally doing something with your personal life? You and Conrad looked so happy yesterday. His mother and I are thrilled. And he’s a doctor, honey, with family money coming his way one day. You don’t need to worry yourself to death about business anymore.”
“I don’t need to…?”
Clair tossed the hair dryer into the shoulder tote she’d carry onto the plane. She bit her lip to keep from screaming.
“I won’t have to worry about my business anymore, the life I’ve built for myself?” She faced her mom. She couldn’t remember a single instance of Barbara praising her for the tireless discipline it had taken to grow ALL PAWS and PAWSMatch into what they were today. “Because if Conrad and I stay together, I’ll have what? Snagged myself a successful doctor who’s going to save me from ever again having to decide anything more stressful than what to make for dinner?”
“Why would you want to keep doing things the way you are now? I’ve never understood this compulsion of yours to focus your energy on anything and everything except the people and things that should make a lovely young woman truly happy. Is work really all you think you need? The rest of your life must seem so empty.”
“Because my end-all, be-all should be finding myself a man and becoming compulsive about my life with him? The way you have with Daddy? Is that why you fill your days with playing tennis twice a week at the country club and volunteering for every committee in town? Is all of that making you happier about your empty life?”
Clair loved her mother to distraction, but things between them couldn’t go on like this, not without clearing the air. Especially if Clair was about to move hours away.
“I’m not the one who needs to rethink her personal life,” Barbara said pleasantly.
Pleasant was the way she dealt with everything, from a rainy weather report to why her husband couldn’t make it to yet another family gathering—like how he’d bailed on yesterday’s barbecue because of a last-minute obligation to play eighteen rounds of golf with an investor whose portfolio was one of the largest he managed for the bank.
“I’m not going to apologize for my busy social life,” Barbara bragged. “Or the causes demanding as much of my time as I can give them. Not to mention how I help your sister whenever she needs me.”
“Ra never gets a chance not to need you, Mom. You won’t let her forget how incapable she is of taking care of herself and her husband and kids on her own. I actually think you’re afraid of what you’d do with yourself, if she didn’t need you so much.”
Clair wasn’t certain why she was dragging her sister into this, except maybe to shift their mother’s focus away from Conrad. Earlier that morning, Clair had been on the phone with first Bethany and then Nicole, both of whom had gushed about how obviously perfect Clair and Conrad were for each other. Which had been wonderful to hear—and daunting.
It was terrifying how much Clair wanted to be with him right now, instead of preparing to fly away.
Let me show you what you’ve helped me see. How to face what scares you most, and trust that everything will be fine…
They hadn’t done more than snuggle and kiss last night before she’d headed home. She’d said she needed to get ready for Charlotte, and he’d said he totally understood. He was being amazingly supportive. Why couldn’t her mother make the same effort, instead of spooki
ng Clair even more about everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours?
She and Conrad were going to get together again as soon as she was back in town. To talk, they’d agreed, and to carve out some real time to be alone. To rediscover each other, revel in each other, and see where that led them.
But for how long?
How long did they really have as a couple, no matter how amazing he was being about her PetClub offer and potential move? The merger, if she agreed to it, was about to consume her life.
She realized her mother had been studying her silently from the other side the bedroom.
“What?” Clair asked. “What’s wrong?”
“You tell me.”
Clair was momentarily stunned by Babs actually offering to listen, instead of diving headfirst into giving more unsolicited advice. So stunned, Clair almost lost her mind and blurted out the flood of conflicting wants and desires and fears jockeying for her attention.
“I’m just nervous,” she said tentatively, testing her mother’s sincerity. “The next couple of days are going to be big. My entire work life is hanging in the balance. And there’s no easy solution that would make things right for everyone.”
“Making things right for your non-work life is what I think you should be concerned about.”
“No kidding.”
“This thing with Conrad. Don’t mess it up. You don’t want to be alone forever.”
“No, Mom. You’re the one who’d do anything not to be alone. Even staying in a marriage that’s nowhere near what you deserve. Well, I’m not like you. When it comes to love, I won’t settle for anything less than everything, and I don’t have the first clue about…”
“About what?”
“What else there is, besides what I grew up watching. You and Daddy barely talking to each other, day in and day out. And now Ra’s building the same kind of life with Glenn. And that’s not for me, Mom. It’s empty and lonely. It feels like giving up on love every day. Yet…I don’t know how to do anything else.”
Barbara’s expression tightened. But she was listening still. They were really talking about this, like mother and daughter.
Waiting for Your Love (Echoes of the Heart) Page 6
