This Heart Of Mine

by Susan Elizabeth Philips

  “You think that’s all you have to do to get me back?” he scoffed.

  “Yes. I do.”

  He jerked his head toward an old velvet couch that hadn’t been here last time. “Lie down.”

  She wondered if he’d posed another model on it, but instead of feeling jealous, she felt a stir of pity. Whoever the woman might have been, she hadn’t possessed Lilly’s powers.

  With a slow, certain smile, she made her way to the couch. It sat beneath one of the studio’s skylights, and light showered her skin as she lay upon it.

  She wasn’t surprised to see him grab a palette and tubes from the case. How could he resist painting her? Resting her head against one of the rolled arms, she settled with perfect contentment into the soft velvet while he worked, squeezing out the paint. Finally he gathered brushes and came toward her.

  She’d already noted his quickened breath. Now she saw the fire of desire burning behind the genius in his eyes. He knelt before her. She waited. Content.

  He began to paint her. Not an image on canvas. He painted her flesh.

  He drew a soft brush fat with cadmium red across her ribs, then added Mars violet and Prussian blue at her hip. He dappled her shoulder and belly with orange, cobalt, and emerald, clamped a discarded brush between his teeth like a pirate’s dagger and stippled her breast in ultramarine and lime. Her nipple beaded as he swirled it with turquoise and magenta. He pushed open her thighs and adorned them with aggressive patterns of viridian and blue-violet.

  She felt his frustration growing along with his desire and wasn’t surprised when he tossed the brushes aside and began to use his hands on her, whorling the colors, claiming her flesh until she could no longer bear it.

  She sprang to her feet and pulled at the buttons on his shirt, smearing it with the stigmata of Renaissance gold he’d dabbed in her palms. No longer content to be his creation, she needed to re-create him in her image, and when he was naked, she pressed against his flesh.

  The hot pigments blended and fused as she imprinted herself upon him. Once again there was no bed, so she pulled the cushions from the couch and kissed him until they were both breathless. Finally he drew back far enough so she could open herself to him. “Lilly, my love…” He entered her as fiercely as he created.

  The paint made her inner thighs slip against his hips, so she gripped tighter. He plunged harder and faster. Their mouths melded with their bodies until they stopped being two people. Together they tumbled off the edge of the world.

  Afterward they played with the paint and exchanged deep kisses along with all the love words they needed to say. Only when they were in the shower did Lilly tell him she wouldn’t marry him.

  “Who asked you?”

  “Not right away,” she added, ignoring his bluster. “I want to live together for a while first. In perfect bohemian sin.”

  “Just tell me I don’t have to rent a cold-water flat somewhere in lower Manhattan.”

  “No. And not Mexico either. In Paris. Wouldn’t that be lovely? I could be your muse.”

  “My darling Lilly, don’t you know you already are?”

  “Oh, Liam, I love you so. The two of us… an atelier in the Sixth Arrondissement owned by an old lady in ancient Chanel suits. You and your genius and your wonderful, wonderful body. And me and my quilts. And wine and paint and Paris.”

  “They’re yours.” He laughed his great lusty laugh and soaped her breasts. “Did I remember to say that I love you?”

  “You did.” She smiled the depth of her feelings into those dark, intense eyes. “I’ll hang a set of wind chimes under the eaves.”

  “Which will keep me awake, so I’ll have to make love to you all night.”

  “I do love wind chimes.”

  “And I do love you.”

  With a sense of detachment Kevin watched the indicator on the Ferrari’s speedometer climb. Eighty-seven… eighty-eight. He shot west on the tollway past the last of Chicago’s suburbs. He’d drive all the way to Iowa if he had to, anything to make this restlessness go away so he could concentrate on what was important.

  Training camp started tomorrow morning. He’d drive until then.

  He needed to feel the speed. The sizzle of danger. Ninety... ninety-one.

  Next to him the divorce papers that had arrived that morning from Molly’s lawyer slid off the seat. Why hadn’t she talked to him before she’d done this? He tried to steady himself by remembering what was important.

  He had only five or six good years left…

  Playing for the Stars was all that counted…

  He couldn’t afford the distraction of a high-maintenance woman…

  On and on he went, until he was so tired of listening to himself that he pressed the accelerator harder.

  It had been one month and four days since he’d seen Molly, so he couldn’t blame her for the fact that he hadn’t stepped up his workouts as he’d planned or watched all the game film he’d intended to. Instead, he’d gone rock climbing, run some white water, done a little paragliding. But none of it satisfied him.

  The only time he’d felt remotely content was when he’d talked to Lilly and Liam a few days ago. They’d both sounded so happy.

  The wheel vibrated beneath his hand, but he’d felt a bigger rush going cliff diving with Molly.

  Ninety-five. Or what about the day she’d flipped the canoe? Ninety-six. Or when he’d climbed the tree after Marmie? Ninety-seven. Or just watching the mischief flash in her eyes.

  And when they’d made love. That had been the rush of a lifetime.

  Now all the fun was gone. He’d gotten more thrills riding a bike at the campground with Molly at his side than he was getting going ninety-eight in a Ferrari Spider.

  Sweat trickled under his arms. If he blew a tire right now, he’d never see her again, never have a chance to tell her she’d been right about him all along. He was exactly as afraid as she’d said.

  He’d fallen in love with her.

  Just like that the empty spaces inside him filled up, and he took his foot off the accelerator. As he sagged back in the seat, he felt as if his chest had caved in. Lilly had tried to tell him and so had Jane Bonner, but he hadn’t let himself listen. Molly was right. He’d secretly believed he couldn’t measure up as a person in the same way he measured up as a player, so he hadn’t tried. But he was way too old to keep living his life underneath leftover shadows.

  He slipped into the right lane. For the first time in months he felt calm. She’d told him she loved him, and now he knew exactly what that meant. He also understood what he had to do. And this time he intended to do it right.

  Half an hour later he rang the Calebows’ doorbell. Andrew answered wearing jeans and an orange inner tube. “Kevin! Do you want to go swimming with me?”

  “Sorry, buddy, can’t do it today.” Kevin slipped past him. “I need to see your mom and dad.”

  “I don’t know where Dad is, but Mom’s in her office.”

  “Thanks.” He ruffled Andrew’s hair and made his way through the house to the office in the back. The door was open, but he knocked just the same. “Phoebe?”

  She turned and stared at him.

  “Sorry for barging in like this, but I need to talk to you.”

  “Oh?” She kicked back in her chair and extended her chorus-girl legs—longer than Molly’s but not nearly as enticing. She wore white shorts and pink plastic sandals printed with purple dinosaurs. Despite that, she looked more formidable than God, and when it came to the world of the Stars, she was just as powerful.

  “It’s about Molly.”

  For a moment, he thought he saw speculation in her expression. “What about her?”

  He stepped into the room and waited for an invitation to sit down. It didn’t come.

  There was no way to ease into this, and no reason he should. “I want to marry her. For real. And I want your blessing.”

  He didn’t get the smile he expected. “Why the change of heart?”

 
“Because I love her, and I want to be part of her life forever.”

  “I see.”

  She had a perfect poker face. Maybe she didn’t know the way Molly felt about him. It would have been just like Molly to try to protect him by hiding her feelings from her sister. “She loves me.”

  Phoebe didn’t look impressed.

  He tried again. “I’m fairly sure she’s going to be happy about this.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she will be. At first anyway.”

  The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. “What do you mean by that?”

  She rose from the desk, looking much tougher than someone wearing plastic dinosaur sandals should. “You know we want a real marriage for Molly.”

  “So do I. That’s why I’m here.”

  “A husband who’ll put her first.”

  “That’s what she’s going to get.”

  “The tiger’s changing his stripes awfully quickly.”

  He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. “I’ll admit it’s taken me a while to figure out that my life needs to be about more than playing football, but falling in love with Molly has readjusted my viewpoint.”

  Her expression of cool skepticism as she came around the side of the desk wasn’t encouraging. “What about the future? Everyone knows how you feel about the team. You once told Dan that you’d like to coach after you retire as a player, and he got the idea you eventually want to move into the front office. Do you still feel that way?”

  He wasn’t going to lie. “Putting the game into perspective doesn’t mean I want to throw it away.”

  “No, I don’t imagine it does.” She crossed her arms. “Let’s be honest—is it Molly you want or is it the Stars?”

  Everything inside him went still. “I hope you don’t mean what I think you do.”

  “Marrying into the family on a permanent basis seems like an efficient way to make sure you eventually get to the front office.”

  The chill that crept through him went all the way to his bones. “I said I wanted your blessing. I didn’t say I needed it.” He began to walk away, only to have Phoebe’s next words slap him from behind.

  “If you go near her again, you can kiss the Stars goodbye.”

  He turned, not believing what he heard.

  Her eyes were cold and determined. “I mean it, Kevin. My sister’s been hurt enough, and I won’t let you use her to fulfill your long-term plans. Stay away from her. You can have the team or you can have Molly, but you can’t have both.”

  Chapter 26

  Daphne was in a very bad mood. It followed her around while she baked her favorite oatmeal-strawberry cookies, and it stuck to her side when she talked to Murphy Mouse, who’d moved into the woods a few weeks before. Even the big pile of shiny new coins jingling in her pink backpack didn’t make her feel better. She wanted to run to Melissa’s house for cheering up, but Melissa was planning a trip to Paris with her new friend, Leo the Bullfrog.

  Most of all Daphne was in a very bad mood because she missed Benny. He made her angry sometimes, but he was still her best friend. Except she wasn’t his best friend anymore. Daphne loved Benny, but Benny didn’t love her.

  She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the strap from her electric guitar. His new school started today, and he’d be having so much fun that he wouldn’t even think about her. He’d be thinking about touchdowns instead, and all the girl rabbits who’d be hanging out by the fence wearing tube tops and trying to entice him with foreign phrases and puffy lips and bouncy breasts. Girls who didn’t understand him like she did, who were impressed with his fame and money and green eyes, and didn’t know that he loved cats and needed entertaining sometimes and didn’t hate poodles nearly as much as he thought, and that he liked to sleep cuddled around her with his hand—

  Molly ripped the paper from her yellow pad. This was supposed to be Daphne’s Bad Mood, not Daphne Does Dallas. She gazed out across Bobolink Meadow and wondered how some parts of her life could be so happy and some parts so sad.

  The sweatshirt she’d spread in the grass had bunched under her bare legs. It was Kevin’s. As she straightened it, she tried to concentrate on the happy parts of her life.

  Thanks to her new contract, she was financially secure for the first time since she’d given away her money, and she was bursting with ideas for new books. The campground and B&B were filled to capacity, and the more responsibility she gave Amy and Troy, the more they were able to handle.

  Their feelings toward the place had become as proprietary as her own, and they’d asked her to consider converting the attic into an apartment where they could live year-round. They wanted to keep the B&B open all winter for cross-country skiing and snowmobile enthusiasts, as well as city people who simply felt like enjoying winter in the country. Molly had decided to let them do it. When Kevin had been searching for someone to run the campground full-time, he’d overlooked the obvious.

  She hated how much she missed him. He probably didn’t even think about her. She knew now that was his loss. She’d offered him her most precious possession, and instead of holding on tight, he’d thrown it away.

  She snatched up her writing pad. If she couldn’t work on Daphne’s Bad Mood, she could at least make a list of groceries for Troy to pick up in town. Amy was baking her new specialty for tea—dirt cupcakes, which were chocolate cup-cakes topped with green coconut frosting and Gummi Worms. Molly was going to miss Lilly’s help with the guests, although not nearly as much as she’d miss her companionship. Her mood lifted a little as she thought about how happy Lilly and Leo the Bullfrog were.

  She heard a movement behind her and set aside the notepad. One of the guests had found her hiding place. So far that morning she’d made restaurant reservations, drawn maps to antique stores and golf courses, unstopped a toilet, taped up a broken window, and helped the older kids organize a scavenger hunt.

  Giving in to the inevitable, she turned—and saw Kevin coming around the fence at the bottom of the meadow.

  She forgot to breathe. The frames of his silver Revos glinted, and the breeze tousled his hair. He wore a pair of khaki slacks with a light blue T-shirt. Only as he came closer did she see a picture of Daphne printed on the front.

  Kevin stopped where he was and stood there simply gazing at her. Molly sat crossed-legged in the meadow with the sun shining on her bare shoulders and a pair of yellow butterflies fluttering like hair bows around her head. She was all the dreams he’d lost at dawn—dreams of everything he hadn’t understood he needed until now. She was his playmate, his confidante, the lover who made his blood rush. She was the mother of his children and the companion of his old age. She was the joy of his heart.

  And she was gazing at him as if a skunk had just wandered out of the woods.

  “What do you want?”

  What had happened to Kiss me, you fool? Riiiight… He pulled off his sunglasses and tried a little of the old playboy smile. “So how’s it going?”

  Had he really said that? Had he really said “how’s it going?” He deserved everything she was going to throw at him.

  “Couldn’t be better. Nice T-shirt. Now get off my property.”

  So much for the woman who’d wished him all the best the last time they’d been together. “I, uh… heard you might be selling the place.”

  “When I get around to it.”

  “Maybe I’ll buy it back.”

  “Maybe you won’t.” She stood up, and a few blades of grass stuck to the side of one of those legs he loved to touch. “Why aren’t you at training camp?”

  “Training camp?” He slipped his sunglasses into his shirt pocket.

  “Veterans are supposed to report this morning.”

  “Damn. I guess I’m in trouble then.”

  “Did Phoebe send you here?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what’s going on?”

  “I wanted to talk to you, that’s all. Tell you some things.”

  “You’re supposed to be
at training camp.”

  “I think you already mentioned that.”

  “One phone call and I can find out why you’re not there.”

  He hadn’t wanted to do this yet, and his hands found their way into his pockets. “First, maybe you’d better hear what I have to say.”

  “Give me your cell phone.”

  “It’s in the car.”

  She grabbed a sweatshirt he seemed to remember belonged to him and marched toward the fence at the bottom of the meadow. “I’ll call from the house.”

  “I’m AWOL, okay? I’m being traded!”

  She spun around. “Traded? They can’t do that.”

  “They’re crazy, and they can do just about anything they want.”

  “Not without throwing away the season.” She twisted the arms of his sweatshirt into a knot at her waist and charged toward him. “Tell me exactly what happened. Every word.”

  “I don’t want to.” His throat felt tight and his tongue clumsy. “I want to tell you how pretty you are.”

  She regarded him suspiciously. “I look just like I did the last time you saw me, except my nose is sunburned.”

  “You’re beautiful.” He moved closer. “And I want to marry you. For real. Forever.”

  She blinked. “Why?”

  This wasn’t going the way he’d planned it. He wanted to touch her, but the frown marks between her eyebrows made him think twice. “Because I love you. I really do. More than I ever could have imagined.”

  Perfect silence.

  “Molly, listen to me. I’m sorry about what happened, sorry it’s taken me so long to figure out what I want, but when I was with you, I was having too good a time to think. After you left, though, things weren’t so good, and I realized that everything you said about me is right. I was afraid. I let football become my whole life. It was the only thing I was sure of, and that’s why I got so reckless this year. There was something missing inside me I was trying to fill up, but I went about doing it the wrong way. But there sure isn’t anything missing inside me now, because you’re there.”

  Molly’s heart was pounding so loudly she was afraid he could hear. Did he mean it? He looked as if he meant it—worried, upset, more serious than she’d ever seen him. What if he really meant it?