Falling for You

by Becky Wade

  “Probably because it’s delicious.”

  He pulled a face. “You’re not allowed to take a picture of me drinking this girly drink. My reputation will be ruined.”

  “I have no intention of taking a picture of you, Football Star.”

  His caterer had thought of everything. Utensils, napkins, plates.

  “So . . . about your dad,” Willow said once they’d filled their plates and started on their meal.

  “How about we talk about any other subject? Look at this setting.” He gestured.

  “It’s a fabulous setting,” she conceded. “I happen to think a fabulous setting is exactly the right backdrop for a difficult topic. Why did your mom leave?”

  He leaned back on the blanket so that he was propped up on his good elbow. “I think she left because she couldn’t deal with being responsible for both a young child and a husband who was battling bipolar disorder. I think she regretted pretty much every choice she’d made up until that time in her life and simply wanted to start over.”

  Willow took a bite of potato salad, tasting creamy mayonnaise, mustard, dill. She attempted not to notice how Corbin’s shirt had hiked up when he’d levered himself back. Now his belt and an inch of golden skin were showing.

  “Why did your mom leave?” Corbin asked.

  “As you know, my parents weren’t married when they had me. They met when my mom was traveling through the States on an around-the-world tour. They were both in their early twenties, and they’d only been dating for a short time when my mom got pregnant. I definitely wasn’t planned. After I was born, she left me with my dad and continued on her tour. She’d never wanted to be a mother and definitely never wanted to be a conventional mother. How did your parents meet?”

  “They met at a bar after my dad moved to Detroit in search of work. They were young, too, at the time. Neither went to college. Both liked to blow off steam by drinking heavily on the weekends. They fell in love and married six months later. I have no idea whether I was planned or not. Honestly, I’d be surprised if I was.”

  “How often did you see your mom after she left?”

  “Almost never. She gave my dad full custody.” He helped himself to another pickle. “A few years later, she married a rich guy twenty years older than she was who had two kids who were in college at the time. He and my mom never had children together. They’re still married and they seem happy.”

  “Do you see her much?”

  He shook his head. “Once every couple of years. I talk to her on the phone now and then. I just . . . I don’t feel toward her what sons feel toward mothers who raised them. I’m not obligated to her. There’s not a lot of admiration or respect there.” He plucked a blade of grass and tossed it. “I don’t have many memories of her, and I don’t want to make new ones. Is that how you feel about your biological mom?”

  “Somewhat. Sylvie’s been in my life more than your mom has been in yours. But I definitely don’t feel toward her what daughters feel toward mothers who raised them.”

  They ate for a few minutes in silence. Willow had always imagined that children whose parents had been married and who’d desired a baby had it better than she’d had it. Corbin’s parents had been married. But that hadn’t translated into “better” for him. “What was the hardest moment you faced as a kid?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer right away, so she glanced at him and found him watching her with a somber expression. Wind blew a section of Willow’s hair in front of her face. Before she could set aside either her plate or fork in order to dash the hair away, he reached up and brushed it aside with two blunt fingers.

  Her lungs stilled as physical desire curled within her. She broke the moment by looking away and taking two careful bites of potato salad.

  “The hardest moment came when I was in the third grade,” Corbin said, voice level. “My dad was going through a rough patch at the time. That’s what he used to call them. He’d say, ‘I’m sorry, son, I’m going through a rough patch.’”

  “The rough patches were periods of depression?”

  “Right. But I didn’t know the term depression then. I just knew there were times when my dad seemed steady. And there were rough patches when he was down and sad and tired. And there were times when he was full of energy. He called his manic periods ‘good patches.’ When I was really young, I loved his good patches. We’d go to the park to throw a football in the evenings, then he’d take me out to dinner or to the movies or for ice cream. He’d laugh and joke and slap the back of everyone we came into contact with. He’d tell me about his plans to win the lottery and talk about the sports bar he was going to open. Sometimes we’d go on spur-of-the-moment trips to places like Atlantic City and Disney World.”

  Willow waited.

  “As I got older, I realized I couldn’t trust his good patches. They didn’t last. And both the rough patches and the good patches were too extreme. I could only relax when he was in-between.”

  “What happened when you were in the third grade?”

  “I’d been worried about him for a week or more. Several mornings in a row, I had to get him out of bed when my alarm went off. Even so, he missed a few days of work.” He picked up a kettle chip, studied it, ate it. His attention settled on the lake. “One afternoon, I got off the bus and let myself into the condo just like I always did after school. When I walked in, I found him there, in the chair he sat in to watch TV, wearing the clothes he’d slept in.” He pushed upward with a frustrated move.

  Willow lowered her plate to the blanket and adjusted to face his profile.

  “At first I thought he was asleep, but then I couldn’t wake him no matter how hard I tried. He was white. And he wasn’t moving. I was sure he was dead.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I had a friend named Ryan who lived in our complex. I ran to his apartment and banged on the door. His mom came back to our place with me and she called 9-1-1.”

  “And?”

  “He’d overdosed.”

  Willow exhaled gradually.

  “They took him away in an ambulance. I stayed with my dad’s mom, my grandmother, while he was in the hospital. Each day, we’d go to visit him. He was full of regret. He’d cry and apologize and tell me how much he loved me. But he’d just tried to kill himself. So I had to wonder how much he loved me if he was willing to do that and leave me behind. It was then that I decided to keep his attempted suicide and his condition secret from everyone in my life. I didn’t want my friends to know.”

  “Did things change for your dad after his hospitalization?”

  “Yes. My grandmother hadn’t known the extent of his illness. Once she found out, she made sure that he went to doctor’s appointments and therapy sessions and stayed current on his medicine. Until the attempted overdose, he’d been too stubborn to admit he needed treatment. It took the doctors a while to get him on the right medications at the right dosages, but once they did things leveled out. There were still plenty of bad times. But never as bad as that day again.”

  She couldn’t imagine a child, any child, shouldering the weight of a sick parent by themselves. The stress of that had to have been crushing.

  “I don’t like to talk about the past because I want to protect my dad. But also because I know that it sounds like I’m blaming him. I’m not blaming him.” He set his jaw. “Should he have gotten treatment before he overdosed? Yes. But I don’t blame him for the depression that led to the overdose. Or the manic periods. Or any of it. He didn’t ask for bipolar.”

  “No. He didn’t.”

  “He tried his best to be a good dad. He gave it all he had.” An edge of emotion roughened his words. “I’m thankful to him.”

  Willow could say the same about her own father. He’d done his best. Her circumstance was different than Corbin’s in big ways, though. Her dad hadn’t dealt with mental illness. He’d married Kathleen when Willow was young, so she’d had the comforting influence of a mother for decades. She had sisters
in her corner.

  Corbin only had his dad.

  “What was the hardest moment you faced as a kid?” he asked her.

  She sipped blackberry soda through a straw. “Probably the day Nora’s mother died. After my mom left, my dad married Robin and she became my mother. I don’t remember the day she was killed. I was only two and a half. But my dad says that I walked around the house crying and calling for her for days afterward. I used to ask him when she was coming back. They say that early childhood trauma leaves a mark, and I believe it.”

  “What’s been your hardest moment as an adult?” he asked.

  “Maybe the day I saw a picture of you leaving a nightclub with another woman.”

  A hush blanketed the meadow. “The day I saw the picture of you and Derek Oliver was my worst adult day.”

  “The day of your shoulder injury was your worst day,” she corrected.

  “The shoulder injury was bad, but I felt like I might be able to find a way to live with it eventually. Losing you has never felt that way. It’s never felt like something I could live with.”

  A tense silence ensued. “Why haven’t you ever married?” Willow asked. He was one of America’s most eligible bachelors. The subject of his love life had been much discussed on entertainment TV shows, in celebrity magazines, during interviews he’d given. Since their breakup he’d been linked with one pop singer, two actresses, and an Olympic athlete.

  “Isn’t it obvious why I haven’t married?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Because none of the other women I dated was you.”

  The words impacted her chest like a ball of starlight. Willow had to work to absorb them and then file them in their proper place. And also, not to swoon. “Corbin,” she whispered. “Don’t say things like that.”

  “Why haven’t you married?” he asked, a dimple digging into his cheek.

  “None of my boyfriends have been the one.”

  “You’re half right. None of your other boyfriends were the one.”

  ———

  Corbin watched her blush. Emotion gathered in his chest, overpowering.

  He loved her.

  He loved both her feistiness and her peaceful spirit. She was the place he’d been wanting to rest his head all his life.

  He’d come out of a blue-collar background. She’d come out of an American castle. Yet they were both levelheaded, responsible decision-makers. Both independent. Corbin had his life together, but so did she. She didn’t need anything from him. She didn’t require him to take care of her or to increase her fame or to pay her bills.

  When he was with her, it was like a vacation, because he didn’t have to be the dependable one. Here, they were both dependable. She was strong in her own right.

  He leaned across the blanket to steal a kiss.

  A conflicted groove notched the skin between her brows. She put out a hand to stop him.

  Immediately, he stilled. Watched her.

  Her face knit with concentration as she lifted a hand and ran a fingertip over his lips. Her thumb along his jaw. She caressed his ear lobe, then traced her touch down his neck. It was a focused, leisurely exploration, and it caused need to rock him.

  Get yourself in hand, Corbin. Good grief. She’s just touching your face and neck. So innocent.

  His breath turned jagged.

  Not innocent. Because this was Willow. The simplest thing she did had the power to tie him in a knot.

  She pulled on his shirt to bring him closer to her. Stopped.

  She met his eyes as if trying to weigh and measure what was in his heart. She neared so that their profiles were only two inches apart. Stopped again. He could feel the sigh of her exhale on his lips. Then she kissed him, slow.

  It took extreme control to hold himself immobile. The kiss tasted wildly delicious. Like the future. Like liquid passion.

  She pulled back. “This isn’t a good idea,” she said breathlessly.

  “It’s a very good idea.” He rose in one fast motion and reached down for her with his left hand. She put her fingers in his and he pulled her to her feet. Then he wove his hands into her hair and kissed her. He walked her backward, never breaking the kiss, until he’d settled her against the bare, low-reaching branch of a tree.

  “This can . . . go no further . . . than kisses,” she said.

  “Agreed.” He pressed her palm against his heart so she could feel the thunder of his pulse and kissed her with endless, drugging kisses. He kissed her like he meant it.

  Because he did.

  Willow functioned inside a sort of pink haze for the remainder of their date.

  After the picnic, Corbin drove her to a zip-line course.

  “Corbin,” Willow said adamantly, craning to catch sight of the lines high above, “you can’t go zip-lining with a separated shoulder.”

  “I’ve been before. The harness will support all my weight. I’ll hold the brake with my left arm.”

  “This can’t be sanctioned by Dr. Wallace.”

  “I won’t tell him if you won’t.”

  “Corbin.”

  There was no talking him out of it.

  They met the two guides he’d booked. The lead guide gave them safety instructions as he outfitted them with equipment. Willow couldn’t concentrate on a word he said. All she could think about were the kisses she and Corbin had just shared. It was as if she’d gotten drunk on them, even though she’d had nothing more potent than blackberry soda.

  For the sake of their guides, she gave her best imitation of sobriety.

  “Have you ever been zip-lining before?” Corbin asked her as their guide made final preparations on the first platform.

  She strongly suspected that she looked ridiculous in her harness and safety helmet, but Corbin, of course, managed to look sexy in his. She giggled. See? Drunk. That question hadn’t been funny. “No. I try to avoid pastimes that might involve me smashing my face into a tree. A smashed face would be bad for me professionally.”

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to your face,” he said, utterly confident. “There will not be any smashing.”

  He went first, and then it was her turn.

  Wind whistled against her cheeks as she sailed through the canopy of lush green. Was this fun? Or was this terrifying? It was both. Terrifying fun. The speed and height were thrilling. But what if the cable snapped? Then she’d hurtle to her death. Was the exhilaration worth the possibility of death?

  If Corbin hadn’t been with her, she might have informed the guides that one zip line was enough. However, Corbin had the ability to make daring things seem doable. Whether daring things—like kissing him—were actually in her best interest was a question to examine later.

  By the time they’d completed the course, the weather had turned chilly. He drove them to a café packed with gleaming walnut surfaces and patrons in the mood to celebrate the advent of Saturday evening.

  As soon as they stepped inside, the owner hurried over and showed them to a table situated next to a multi-paned window. They spent two hours nursing the mochas they ordered and enjoying talking to each other and to the townspeople. The sun slowly set on their grand date in a bonfire of orange and gold.

  The entire time they were in the company of others while zip-lining and at the café, Willow battled an insistent yearning to kiss him or hold his hand. She knew he felt it, too, because the atmosphere sizzled with it. The fact that they couldn’t act on the yearning because they were surrounded by witnesses only made it that much more delectable.

  “It’s almost time for dinner,” Corbin said as he drove her home. “How about I buy us some food? We can take it to Bradfordwood, if you’d like. Maybe watch a movie.”

  “We’ve been together for six hours. I’ve been more than generous with the time I allotted you for our date.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want it to end.”

  She didn’t want it to end, either. Sensibly, though, she knew she needed to give herself time to process
what had happened without him in her space. His presence prevented reasonable thought. She wasn’t going to let herself plunge into anything without plenty of reasonable thought, no matter how much she might want to.

  He brought his SUV to a stop before Bradfordwood’s front steps and shot her an expectant glance. “This is good-night?”

  She nodded. She had self-control in excess.

  “In that case . . .” He leaned across the center console and wrapped his hand gently around the back of her neck, drew her face toward his, and kissed her. Her self-control fled like a sprinter off the blocks.

  “Thank you for going on a date with me,” he whispered.

  “You’re welcome,” she whispered back. Then she grabbed her tote and walked on what felt like clouds up into the house. When she reached the living room, she stopped. The walls of her childhood home and the tasteful, comfortable furniture her parents had chosen surrounded her. All of it seemed to be asking, What are you going to do now?

  She’d agreed to go on one date with Corbin, and that’s what she’d done. She wasn’t beholden to him. She didn’t have to go out with him again.

  Yes, the landscape of their relationship had shifted in a mighty way today. He’d told her things about himself and his family that she’d be willing to bet he’d told to almost no one. His history and his honesty had softened her to him.

  And then the kisses. The kisses. It was safe to say they’d softened her to him further.

  It had gone straight to her head, the way he’d instantly stopped leaning toward her when she’d put out her hand to stay him, there on the picnic blanket. He’d restrained himself then and during the rest of their kisses.

  And there had been a lot of kisses in that meadow.

  She felt somewhat . . . concerned about the kisses. But not regretful, necessarily.

  Great Scott. She was still surrounded by the pink haze.

  Infatuation was one of the very best feelings in the world. She’d forgotten just how good it was. But she hadn’t forgotten that infatuation could lead to one of the very worst feelings in the world. Heartbreak.

  She walked aimlessly to the kitchen and, once there, wondered why she’d come. She washed an apple, sliced it, and peered toward the canal as she ate the crisp, sweet fruit.