“Nothing to do with me, huh.”
She grinned apologetically. “I put everything I had into getting over you, Chris. After that it was just lack of opportunity.”
“I understand.”
Waitstaff began arriving at their table, which was soon covered with plates holding small portions of the most amazing-looking food. They tasted everything, exclaimed over one dish, held out bites of another to try, and soon they’d relaxed into conversation involving the growth of Matty’s performing career, getting her real estate license, Jameson’s recovery, Kendra and the phone call that morning. Then on to Chris, his hopes and victory over the tenure process and changes in the Pomona faculty and administration and in the town of Claremont.
By that time, their food had been happily eaten, the champagne drained, then quick cups of coffee, decaf for her, espresso for him. The restaurant was closing and it was time to go.
“You okay to drive home?” He took her arm and led her out onto the sidewalk. “Where are you parked?”
“In the lot around the corner. How about you? You have a much longer drive. You’re not going to fall asleep?”
“Not me.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m wide awake. And not just because of the coffee.”
“My show schedule has turned me into a night owl.” She wasn’t going to admit being with Chris still made her giddy.
“When can I see you again?”
“Soon as you turn your head.”
He snorted and pulled her close, put his arm around her shoulders. They still fit together perfectly, their steps automatically syncing. “I’ve missed you, Matty.”
She said nothing, didn’t think it wise to push the conversation in that direction now, not when they were both tipsy, it was late at night and they were still under the pull of this remarkable reunion. She needed distance and sobriety to analyze the evening with any objectivity.
They crossed into the parking lot, and Matty felt her tension rising. Good night was coming. God give her strength if he tried to kiss her...
“Where’s your car?”
“Um...there.” She pointed to the far end of the lot.
“Mine’s here.” He gestured to their right. “I’ll walk you to yours.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I know I don’t have to.” He walked with her, humming in his rich, deep voice a tune she vaguely recognized, but couldn’t place. As they approached her car, Matty’s nerves started humming louder than he was.
He’d try to kiss her, of course he would. Would she have the courage to stop him?
With her body so close, absorbing his warmth, memories of what that body had done with hers clouding her mind, she suddenly wasn’t so sure.
They reached her car. She turned to thank him for the evening, telling herself to give him a quick hug and retreat to safety. He drew her into his arms and began a slow waltz. Her mind suddenly supplied lyrics to his humming.
Oh, no. She loved that song. So tender, sweet and romantic, it was nearly gross.
“Why are you singing that?”
“No idea.” He spun her and brought her back to his arms. “It showed up in my head. What is it?”
“‘I’d Fall in Love Tonight.’”
“Were they playing it at the restaurant?”
She laughed, losing the battle to keep at least four inches between them. He was such a good dancer. “Hardly. It’s from a hundred years ago.”
“Then it suits me. What are the words? I can’t remember.”
“I don’t know them.”
“Come on.” He kept dancing, humming when he wasn’t speaking. “You know the words to every song ever written. Tell me.”
She took a deep breath, aware of his arm curving around her back, the warm clasp of his fingers, the way their bodies moved so perfectly together. “It’s about the singer touching a lover and having it feel like the first time all over again, and really right. Then the singer says if he or she didn’t already love the other person, he or she would definitely fall in love with him or her on that night.”
“Uh, Matty?” He stopped, holding her an inch away, looking at her with sexy amusement. “What’s that, the legalese version?”
She opened her eyes innocently wide. “It was a factual and succinct summary. Highly appropriate to the occasion.”
“I see.” He went back to dancing, resting his cheek on her hair. “So you didn’t want to stand in my arms in the dark and recite a love poem.”
“Not really.” She was barely able to make sound. “Given our history.”
“I really liked parts of our history.” He slid his arm all the way around her until their bodies were touching. “It’s probably why my subconscious came up with that song.”
“Possibly. But I don’t think—”
His head dipped. His lips found hers. Lightly, gently, he tasted her, smelling clean, masculine and so, so familiar. Her body responded as if it was finally where it belonged.
Another kiss, deeper; his embrace tightened. She’d forgotten his strength, forgotten how she could feel so cherished and so safe in those arms. But she hadn’t forgotten what his kisses did to her, how no other man had been able to make her feel so much with so little.
She moaned, pressed herself against him, relief she didn’t understand flooding her body, a huge release of some tension she’d been holding since she’d finally walked away from him six years before.
He pulled back, pressed her head to his shoulder and rocked her side to side without speaking. Tears sprang in her eyes; her throat thickened.
Chris.
“I’d like to see you again.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Soon?”
“Yes.”
He unwound her arms from his neck, kissed her again and stepped back.
She blinked at him uncomprehendingly. Her body was screaming for his, naked and sweaty, tangling up sheets, rocking sofas, overturning chairs—what hadn’t they done?
“The only thing I want more than tonight with you is more tonights with you, Matty. A lot more. If I ask to come over now, we’ll be going too fast. For both of us. I don’t want to crash and burn again. I know you don’t either.”
Matty nodded mutely, holding back tears as hard as she could. He was doing the right thing for the right reasons. Someday they’d have to talk more about Clarisse. He’d need to go over it again. And maybe again after that, until she trusted he was telling the truth. But he was right, they needed to rebuild that trust slowly after it had been so thoroughly smashed the first time.
She got into her car, feeling a different kind of relief, this time mixed with longing and wistful regret. “Good night, Chris.”
“Call or text me when you get home.”
She smiled. Chris had always insisted. Even if she was just walking the few blocks back to her dorm. “I will.”
“Sweet dreams.” He tapped on the door and stepped back. She backed out of the space and drove off, waving, glancing at him occasionally in her rearview mirror.
Just before she lost sight of him, he tipped an imaginary hat.
10
JAMESON LEANED HIS elbows back on the ancient quilt he and Kendra had spread on Rat Beach—so named not because of rodents, but because it was the beach Right After Torrance. The day was chilly but the sun was warm, and as always the beach was not at all crowded. Frankly, if he could lie next to Kendra on a blanket he would do so even in Antarctica. She was leaning back in the same position he was, her hair a thick curtain between her head and the quilt, making him want to put his hands into it, feel it spreading across his chest...
She’d picked him up after her last appointment and they’d gotten takeout and brought Byron to the beach. They’d been chatting pretty easily during di
nner, but there was still underlying tension. There probably would be until they settled into the rules of phase three of the Kendra-Jameson relationship—from grade school enemies to counselor and client to...whatever this was going to be.
Jameson was hanging back until he found out. The chemistry between them had made it pretty obvious maintaining a professional relationship wasn’t going to work. He couldn’t see her without wanting to touch her, kiss her and...yeah, um, a lot more than that. Hell, he felt that way about her even when she was out of sight.
But this was more than a simple working out of male-female urges. He liked Kendra a lot. He respected her. He wanted to find out more about her life since high school, how she’d weathered the tragedy of losing her parents and what she wanted for her life in the future—whether that could involve a long-distance relationship. And lately he’d found himself wanting to protect her. To keep her safe from the big bad guys of life. To be the one she turned to for advice and support.
Not great ingredients for a casual two-week fling. Yet the thought of ending whatever this turned out to be was nearly as ridiculous as thinking about waiting twenty years to live with her again in the same town.
Behind them Byron let out an impatient woof. Kendra groaned and dragged herself to sitting. “I should let him run around. Why didn’t you stop me after I’d eaten enough for three people?”
“I was too busy eating for seven.” Jameson surveyed the wreckage strewn around them. Thai food. Decimated. The battle had been long and delicious, starting with tom yum kai soup, a spicy flavorful broth brimming with shrimp, straw mushrooms and cilantro; then fiery, rich red curry with beef; and finally pad thai, rice noodles slightly sour from tamarind juice, rich with peanuts and egg and refreshed with lime and bean sprouts.
“C’mon, Byron.” She got to her feet and untied his leash, then headed for a corner of the quilt. “I have a present for you, Jameson. Want it now?”
“A present?” He pretended childlike eagerness. “Where? What is it?”
“Here. Wait.” She reached into her bag and came up with an old chewed-up dog toy.
“Ooh, slobbery tennis ball, thank you!” He grinned at the look she sent him.
“That would be for Byron. This...” She pulled out a sketch pad and a variety of pens, pencils and charcoal. “...is for you. While I let Byron go nuts off leash, you go nuts on paper.”
“Kendra. Wow. Thank you.” He took the art supplies from her, admiring the thick sheets of paper, the sharpened high-quality drawing implements. She must have made a special trip to an art store to buy them for him. More touched than he should be, he pretended sudden suspicion. “Wait, this is therapy. I thought you weren’t treating me anymore.”
She stood with Byron’s leash, making the dog shoot to his feet, wiggling all over with excited anticipation. “You don’t think friends should help each other?”
Friends? Was that what she’d decided they were? He couldn’t blame her, given that he had nothing to offer her but the next two weeks. Yet he couldn’t help a sharp jab of disappointment. “I don’t want you to do your job and not get paid.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, I want you to draw me something.” She staggered as Byron pulled in the direction of the water. “Then I think we need to take a long walk and burn off one or two of the sixty thousand calories we just ate. If your knee is up to it.”
“Absolutely.” His knee had been improving rapidly. Sometimes he wondered if Kendra had affected its recovery as positively as she’d affected his attitude. He only had minor pain now, though he was still careful and did his home exercises diligently, lengthening his stationary bike and treadmill sessions gradually and sensibly, even while his body was yelling at him to push to the limit or he’d fall behind.
But Dr. Kornish had told him horror stories about doing too much too soon. No, thanks.
Speaking of Dr. Kornish, his nurse had called that morning to check on Jameson’s progress. When Jameson had praised the work Kendra had done on Dr. Kornish’s behalf, the nurse had had no idea what he was talking about.
Smiling, he watched Kendra unhook Byron’s leash and race with him down to the water. A sweetness came over him that he hadn’t felt in way too many years. Self-consciously, he flipped up the cover of the sketch pad, still squinting at woman and dog and water. Jameson hadn’t put pencil to paper since college when he’d designed a publicity poster for a friend’s variety show. However, his incredibly sexy ex-counselor “friend,” whom he desperately wanted as a lover, had requested he draw for her, so he would.
He let his gaze focus, wander, allowing his artistic eye to take over. Cliffs, palm trees, ocean, surfers and an auburn-haired laughing beauty, legs long, body slender, strong arm throwing a tennis ball into the waves for a crazed canine over and over.
His pencil moved swiftly, a few lines for her torso, the curve of her back, catching her bending to the dog in welcome, skirt blowing in the breeze, hair streaming behind her. Horizon, sea, sky—the page went up and over. Again he drew, this time capturing her larger center frame, stretched in the act of throwing, her body a graceful arc, texture for her hair, her clothes. Up and over. Then again, the strong breadth of her shoulders, the contour of her breasts, the sensual flare of her hips. Up and over. Her head in profile, full mouth stretched in a smile, faintly freckled straight nose ending in a sweet point, cheekbone shaded high, long-lashed eye suggesting joy, brow an expressive slash, hair spilling back in a generous tangle.
She was beautiful. He must have noticed in high school. Beyond the few extra pounds, the heavy dark glasses, the serious demeanor. He must have seen her, internalized her features. How else would he be able to draw this face from memory so easily?
“Can I see?”
Jameson started and hid the drawing instinctively. He hadn’t seen or heard her approach. “Not yet.”
“You okay for a few more minutes? I want to put Byron in the car.”
“Sure.”
He watched her walk, hips twisting saucily to gain traction in the sand. His fingers itched to draw her again.
Up and over.
This time he embarked on a full portrait, working the details of a more distant memory. Kendra, cheeks and chin fuller, brows thicker, mouth a line of determination and strength, eyes direct and assessing behind black plastic.
The face he’d encountered many times, most recently after he’d stolen the election from her their senior year. He’d never forget it or how she’d made him feel that day.
A few more details, hair, then the plain collar of a gray shirt.
He glanced over to see her coming back already, down the steep hill from the school parking lot up top. There was no hiding from her. She drew the best from him, goaded him to be his best self. Then and now.
How could he not be falling for her?
She was striding toward him, her smile reaching out. Jameson put away the pad, his instinct to stride over to meet her, scoop her up in his arms and bring her back to the quilt to make love to her. “Can I see now?”
“Later.” There was too much of himself and his feeling in the drawings. He wasn’t ready to share that yet. “After the walk.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Stalling, stalling.”
“Can if I want to.”
Her giggle at his childish chant made his day. He helped her pack up their leavings, then got to his feet, stretching his right leg, flexing it carefully. His knee still became unwieldy when it had been quiet for too long, but his range of motion was nearly back to normal.
In two weeks plus he’d be back on base. Another three to six months before he could hope to restart his specialty training program, depending on his physical performance and what openings they had for him. He wasn’t panicking quite the same way as he used to at the delay. He could probably credit Kendra with that, too.
Trash cleaned up,
shoes left behind, they headed barefoot toward the water where the packed sand would make walking easier, then north toward Torrance Beach and the start of the South Bay bike trail, which he used to ride round-trip all the way to Santa Monica, slightly over twenty miles each way. Stunning ride. He’d like to do it with Kendra someday.
Someday. In the brief pockets of time when he’d be back over the next twenty years? They wouldn’t have the chance for a someday.
He grabbed her hand because he had to touch her, hold part of her as if to keep her with him. She was so beautiful striding next to him, legs swinging freely over the packed sand, hair flowing out behind her, green eyes catching the rays of the setting sun. Her cheeks were flushed pink and her skin looked so smooth and soft his lips ached for it. “I had an interesting phone call today.”
“Yeah? One of your Air Force buddies?”
“Dr. Kornish’s office.”
“Uh-oh.” Her eyes darkened in concern. “What was that about?”
“Just checking on me. Everything seems fine. I thanked his nurse for the fabulous treatment I’m getting from a Ms. Kendra Lonergan they’d never heard of.”
“Oh.” Her lips twisted. She sent him a sideways look. “How about that.”
“Yeah, how about that?”
She wrinkled her freckled nose, looking absolutely adorable but not horribly alarmed, not as though she’d told a horrendous lie and was about to be seriously busted. “I guess I should confess, huh.”
“Might be a good plan.”
“I’m an impostor, Jameson.” She threw up her hands in mock despair. “A fake, a phony, a fraud.”
He tsk-tsked, enjoying her melodrama. “How bad is it?”
“I’m really a grief counselor. I really have a practice in Palos Verdes Estates and beyond. I really do work in conjunction with therapists and many doctors. Just not Dr. Kornish. Or the Air Force.”
“Who sent you?”
“Does it matter?”
A lightbulb went off. He made a sound of exasperation. Who else would know and care enough to meddle? “Okay, which one?”
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