One Step Away: Once Upon a Proposal

by Sherryl Woods

  What a mess, she thought with a miserable sigh. Two years of isolation, two years of hard-won contentment, all shattered because she had foolishly dared to believe that she could separate passion and love, and then, when that had been proved wrong, had dared to believe that love was possible for her, after all.

  Well, it wouldn’t happen again, she resolved. Never again. She even allowed herself to feel some satisfaction over having gathered her composure so quickly, over making the only possible decision given her track record.

  By the time she made her way into her house, she was icily calm. Resigned.

  Then she went into her bedroom. The sight of her bed, the sheets still rumpled from the previous night’s love-making, was her undoing. She sat down on the edge of the bed, drew a pillow into her arms and finally allowed all of the hot, bitter tears of anguish to fall unchecked.

  As the emotional storm finally subsided, she was left feeling empty, far emptier than she had been at the end of her marriage to Peter. Because this time she knew, without a single shred of doubt, that this terrible, terrible sense of loss would remain with her for the rest of her life.

  Chapter 10

  The next morning, just to get herself back out to the Grady place—the Hutchinson... Oh, forget it, she thought irritably—required a stern lecture on professionalism and so much coffee Beth felt sure she could have single-handedly painted half the quaint little shops on Main Street before the buzz wore off.

  She ran nearly a dozen unnecessary errands en route to her job. She lingered over one more cup of coffee at the bakery, evading Lou’s worried looks and hoping Gillie would turn up so she could strangle her. She had called her periodically the night before, but hadn’t reached her. She would, though. And when she did, the woman was going to get an earful.

  When Beth finally gave up on confronting the traitorous Gillie, she headed out of town, driving the rest of the way at a snail’s pace, far slower than the road conditions called for. She drove miles out of her way to take a look at a house she was considering taking out an option on for her business. She told herself it was because she’d forgotten to note whether there was an automatic garage door opener. She knew better. She was never slipshod in her note-taking. More important, not one thing in the house had been modernized since much after the turn of the century.

  Even when she could prolong the painful meeting with the Hutchinsons no longer, she lingered in her car in front of the house while more minutes ticked away. Lethargy seemed to have stolen her will. She couldn’t seem to get herself to budge. The sight of a lopsided snowman wearing a Redskins helmet and an old football jersey didn’t help. It was too much of a reminder of what she could expect to find inside—a family, of which she would never be a part.

  Finally she was able to convince herself that no matter how long she sat where she was, nothing would change. Ken would still have a family he hadn’t mentioned. She would still be heartsick and miserable. And she would still have a job to do. The sooner she got to work, the sooner the house would be finished and the sooner she could begin banishing Ken Hutchinson and his devilishly wicked touches from her mind.

  Finally she made her way around back, hoping she could slip into the kitchen unnoticed by anyone except the crew working to enclose in glass the previously screened-in back porch. She waved to them as she opened the door and stepped inside, where she immediately came face-to-face with the person she had most wanted to avoid.

  “Good morning,” Ken said, his expression determinedly cheerful. “I was worried about you. I thought you’d be here earlier.”

  “I had things to do.”

  “And last night? I called several times.”

  “I was...out,” she said, stumbling over the lie. In reality, she had unplugged the phone and turned off her answering machine.

  Now, standing just a few feet away from him, Beth found she had a hard time clinging to her outrage. For one thing, he didn’t seem the least bit guilty. For another, he looked sexy as hell with his cheeks darkened with a faint stubble and his hair rumpled. He was wearing faded jeans and no shirt, despite the fact that the temperature outside had dropped to just above zero the night before. Obviously the heater was very efficient or the man had a metabolism that could have boiled water. She couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from his chest. She wanted—

  She stopped her straying thoughts with a sigh. What she wanted she couldn’t have.

  “Coffee?” he asked, and held up the pot.

  Still somewhat taken aback by his cavalier attitude, but determined not to let him see for one instant how he’d hurt her, Beth fell in with his game, whatever it was. She shook her head. “I’ve already had more than my quota.”

  “I didn’t know it was being rationed.”

  The quip didn’t draw so much as a smile. “Where’s your wife?” she inquired bluntly, unable to hold her tongue, after all. “Still in that king-size bed we were about to test yesterday afternoon?”

  To her bafflement, he didn’t so much as flinch at the sarcasm.

  “She’s probably on location for some low-budget film by now,” he replied without missing a beat. “And, for the record, she’s my ex-wife.”

  “Oh.” For what seemed like the first time in the past miserable hours, she felt her heart begin to beat again. A tiny ray of hope slipped through her anger.

  And then she remembered Chelsea. Wife or no wife, Ken Hutchinson was not the man for her as long as that little girl would be living under his roof. “Are you keeping your daughter, while her mother’s working?”

  He shook his head, his gray eyes regarding her watchfully. “I have custody.”

  “Oh,” she said again, knowing how dismayed she must sound, but unable to hide her still-raw feelings.

  He put down his coffee cup and took a step toward her. Beth backed away and wrapped her coat more tightly around her. He sighed.

  “Look, I’m sorry for not telling you I was divorced. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you that Chelsea was coming. She and Delores came a day early. I’d planned to tell you last night.”

  The explanation was too pat to satisfy her thirst for a rip-roaring argument. “There wasn’t a single opportunity before that?” she demanded. “Perhaps when we were in bed together?”

  Finally, she caught the desired flicker of guilt in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry. The subject just never came up. Until just now, I didn’t realize you would meet Chelsea and automatically jump to the conclusion that I was still married. That’s what put you in such a snit yesterday, isn’t it?” He regarded her with obvious regret, then shook his head. “I don’t get it. Did you actually think I would carry on an affair with you, knowing that my wife would be arriving any minute? I thought you knew me better than that.”

  She decided it was best not to respond to that. Instead she said defensively, “I wasn’t in a snit.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  Beth glared at him, her temper rising again. “Look, don’t you dare try turning me into the villain here. You’re the one who—”

  “Daddy?”

  The frightened voice came from the kitchen doorway. Beth whirled around and took a step back. Chelsea, dressed in jeans, a bright red sweater and sneakers, looked as if she were about to cry. Beth locked her hands together to halt the instinctive need to reach out and offer comfort that she knew just as instinctively wouldn’t be welcomed.

  Ken had no such hesitation. He held out his arms to his daughter. “Come here, Shortstuff. Are you warmer now that you’re out of all those wet clothes? I had no idea you were going to manage to stuff as much snow inside your jacket as you got onto that snowman.”

  Perched in her father’s arms, Chelsea kept her gaze fastened on Beth. “Why is she here again?” she demanded rudely.

  Ken shot Beth an apologetic look. “I explained th
at yesterday. She’s helping to fix up the house. She’ll be around here a lot.”

  “You said the house would be ready really fast,” the little girl said accusingly.

  “We’ve already accomplished a lot,” Beth told her, trying not to respond to the child’s antagonistic attitude even though she was experiencing this terrible sense of déjà vu.

  “Chelsea is anxious to have a dog,” Ken explained. “I told her we’d discuss it after the house was finished, which means she’ll probably drive the crew and you wild until it’s done.”

  “I see.” She forced herself to look directly at the child, while trying just as hard to not see her. If she could only manage to stay on autopilot, maybe none of this would affect her. “What kind of dog do you want?”

  “A puppy,” Chelsea said curtly.

  “Obviously the breed doesn’t matter,” Ken said.

  “I had an Alaskan husky once,” Beth said before she could stop herself from making the tiny overture to the child who watched her so warily. “She was beautiful. She had the sweetest temperament you can imagine.”

  “What’s a ’laskan husky?” Chelsea asked suspiciously.

  “They’re the dogs that pull sleds up in Alaska,” Ken explained.

  “They’re black and white and fluffy,” Beth added.

  Chelsea seemed intrigued. “They can really pull a sled?”

  “Absolutely. They’re very strong.”

  “Maybe Beth will go with us when we look at puppies,” Ken suggested.

  The change in Chelsea was remarkable. It was as if a switch somewhere inside had been flipped, preventing her from agreeing with anything that included Beth. Scowling at the two adults, she countered, “I want a spotted dog. And I don’t need any help choosing.”

  Ken looked taken aback by his daughter’s churlish tone. “We haven’t agreed you’ll have any dog yet,” he reminded her sharply. “And if you speak in that tone of voice again, your chances of getting one will get less and less.”

  Beth watched as tears of shock and outrage pooled in Chelsea’s big gray eyes. Clearly she wasn’t used to being reprimanded by her father, something Beth considered to be a very bad sign.

  “Maybe you’d better go upstairs and think about that for a while,” he said sternly, putting her down.

  Chelsea stared up at him for a heartbeat, then turned and ran, her sobs echoing through the house.

  Beth watched the entire exchange with mixed feelings. She could practically feel Chelsea’s pain at being chastised in front of a stranger, but she also felt an odd sense of relief that Ken, at least, had dealt with her quietly, reasonably and immediately. Maybe he wasn’t a father who sent mixed signals to his child as Peter had to Stephanie and Josh. No matter how often Peter had told his children that they were to mind Beth, he undermined her decisions at every turn.

  She could hear murmured words from upstairs and assumed Delores Jensen was consoling her granddaughter. She couldn’t help wondering whether the older woman would provide the leniency that Ken had not in an attempt to make up for the absence of Chelsea’s mother. If so, Beth saw little chance for improvement in Chelsea’s belligerent behavior.

  She reminded herself it was not her problem. She was here to work on the house, not to offer child-rearing theories. She hardly had the expertise for that, she conceded wryly.

  Forcing herself to concentrate on the job, she finally removed her coat and edged toward the doorway, hoping to make a quick escape into Ken’s den where all the materials and plans had been stored.

  “Beth?”

  Ken’s quiet tone stopped her. She glanced up at him and saw that he was regarding her with a puzzled expression. “I will make this misunderstanding up to you. I promise.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. Even to her own ears she sounded unconvincing.

  “It does matter,” he insisted. “I want you and Chelsea to be friends. I would hate it if it were my fault that you can’t be.”

  Beth drew in a deep breath and tried to squelch the temptation that raced through her. She couldn’t—she wouldn’t—put herself in such a vulnerable position again. It had been too painful the first time.

  “I think maybe we’d better clear something up,” she said firmly. “You hired me to do a job here. When it’s done, I’ll be out of your way.” She leveled her gaze straight at him and tried to keep her voice just as steady. “As for anything else that went on between us, it was never meant to last.”

  She saw his eyes widen with shock, but she was too anxious to get away to someplace where she could quiet her own trembling to worry about his reaction. She’d made it no more than half a dozen steps when she felt his hand close around her arm. The next thing she knew she was being spun around until she was crushed against his bare chest, the wind practically knocked out of her.

  “How can you say that?” he demanded harshly, his gray eyes stormy. “You know what we’ve shared the past couple of weeks was more than some casual fling.”

  Forcing her voice to remain cool, she said, “Maybe for you. Not for me.”

  She had thought the comment would fill him with indignation or disgust. She had been sure he would release her then. Instead his grip tightened and he studied her even more intently. That slow examination made her increasingly nervous, increasingly worried that she would give away her own tumultuous feelings.

  “You’re deliberately lying to me,” he said with quiet certainty. “What I don’t understand is why.”

  She managed a shrug. “You can believe whatever you like, if that protects your ego. It won’t change the truth.”

  She caught the flicker of anger barely an instant before his mouth came crushing down on hers. It didn’t give her nearly enough warning. The hard, punishing kiss practically knocked the breath out of her. There was no mistaking its intent, either. Ken was determined to make a liar out of her.

  Beth was equally determined that he wouldn’t succeed. She didn’t struggle against the sensual assault. She didn’t do anything. She kept her mind focused on a list of chores she needed to do and willed her body to remain limp. Trying to stay oblivious to that kiss was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do, but she did it, and a small measure of triumph early on kept her strong enough to continue resisting.

  After a few interminable seconds, Ken finally pulled away, looking shaken and confused by her total lack of response.

  Beth bit her lip to keep it from trembling and prayed the tears she could feel gathering wouldn’t betray her by spilling down her cheeks before she could get away.

  “Are you satisfied?” she asked quietly.

  His jaw set, he glowered at her. “Oh, no. I am far from satisfied. You can run from me now, if you like, but I will get to the bottom of this. Count on it.”

  Beth didn’t give him a chance to change his mind. She raced toward the den, slamming the door behind her and leaning against it as the tears cascaded down her cheeks. How in God’s name was she going to survive several more weeks of this? How long would it be before she betrayed herself by melting beneath one of his kisses? How long could she hide the way she trembled at his touch?

  He thought she was only lying to him, when the truth of it was that she was lying even more desperately to herself. She had spent an entire night telling herself she didn’t care one whit for this man, when a few seconds in his arms was all it had taken to prove otherwise.

  In an act of sheer desperation, she gathered what she needed to do her work for the day and raced for the door. “I’ll be working at home if you need me,” she hollered to the crew as she passed.

  She tossed the invoices and samples into the back of the car, then got behind the wheel. Just as she was ready to pull away, she glanced up at the house. Two pairs of gray eyes watched her. Chelsea’s round little face was pressed against the window upstairs. Ken’
s far more disturbing gaze met hers from the living room window. She could practically hear him calling her a coward, even though his lips never moved.

  So what, she tossed back at him mentally. Better to be a coward in this situation than to expose her vulnerabilities. It had taken two long years to begin to feel some measure of self-confidence. She wouldn’t let anyone ever shatter that again.

  * * *

  It took every ounce of self-restraint Ken possessed to keep from running out of the house after Beth. He watched her frantic departure with a sense of absolute frustration and outrage.

  Dammit, he’d made a mistake. He hadn’t committed a felony. There was something going on with her that he clearly didn’t understand. He had a feeling it went far beyond any shock she might have felt over discovering he was a divorced, single parent. Unfortunately, that role was all too common these days.

  When he had held Beth just now, when he had kissed her, she had stiffened as if he were a stranger. He knew with everything in him how much that effort to remain aloof must have cost her. She had been far too responsive a mere twenty-four hours earlier to be so icily cold now without really working at it. That wasn’t ego talking. That was basic human anatomy. What he didn’t have a clue about was why she had felt that was necessary.

  He looked up at a sound in the foyer. Chelsea had crept down the stairs and stood watching him, an oddly satisfied expression on her face. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that look was all about.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said, clinging to her favorite doll.

  He regarded her skeptically. “Really?”

  She nodded, her expression solemn. “I promise I’ll be really good. Can I stay down here with you?”

  He sighed at the plaintive note in her voice. How could he possibly stay mad at her? “Where’s your grandmother?”