First Choice, Second Chance

by Lynn Rae

  She answered, and her sprits sank as soon as she heard the regretful tone in Paul’s voice.

  “Hi, Emily. Bad news. My daughter took, well, borrowed, my car while I was out, and now my truck won’t start.” He sighed, and she realized he was probably very embarrassed about the malfunction, considering his degrees and experience.

  “You want to cancel?”

  “I don’t want to but—”

  Determination filled her. She wanted to see him, spend time with him. “I’ll drive.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You didn’t ask me, I offered.”

  “I’m the one who asked you out.” His voice had lightened enough that she smiled.

  “I said yes then, so you say yes now. It’s more equitable that way.” Emily hadn’t pushed this hard for something in recent memory, hadn’t wanted something for herself so much. Hope and anticipation warmed her cool and cautious heart.

  “Is that how it works?” Paul chuckled.

  “Yes. Shall I pick you up at the same time?”

  “Sure.” Paul’s voice softened and lowered on that one word, and her knees weakened. Thankfully, she was close to the bed and could fall against it, dislodging a small avalanche of corduroys and slacks. “I’m looking forward to it.” So much.

  “Me too.”

  “Good. I better get dressed.”

  Paul made an inquiring sound. “What are you wearing?”

  “You mean right now?” Emily glanced at herself. “Not much, truth be told.”

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean for you to, ah…” He stuttered, and she almost laughed. He was nervous, maybe as nervous as she was. “I just wondered what you were planning to wear, so I could make sure I didn’t wear something, ah, incompatible.”

  Of course that’s what he’d meant. Emily wasn’t used to dealing with a gentleman. “I’m not sure what I’m wearing. If you could see all the clothes piled up around me, you might reconsider going out with me. It looks like the Tasmanian devil went through my bedroom.”

  “Whatever you wear will be great. You’ll look…great.” She warmed at the unpracticed compliment and pulled a few pairs of pants into her lap to hug close. Paul sighed. “I guess I need to work on my adjectives. I don’t need them when I’m working, so I’m a little rusty.”

  “You mean you don’t call your diagrams and wires nice names? Like sweet little circuit?”

  “I don’t. I should. Things might go better then.”

  They were quiet with each other for a few seconds as her throat tightened, filled with all the things she wanted to say.

  “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Good. Wear a dress, if you want. I like dresses.”

  “Hmm, we’ll see,” Emily responded. She shouldn’t agree to everything so quickly even though she wanted to rush to her closet and pull out the pretty, mint-green dress she’d impulsively purchased at Strawberry Hill the other day. Her checking account was indeed now hollow, but an empty space in her closet was filled with a spring dress for walks along a garden path. As pretty as it was, that dress wouldn’t work for the cold weather of late October. Did she even have a warm dress? “What are you wearing?”

  The line was quiet, and Emily’s heart thumped as she wondered if he was taken aback by her boldness.

  “I, ah, was planning on a suit, but if that’s too stuffy—”

  “No, that sounds great.” He would look so handsome, and the fact that he’d decided she was worth the effort made her feel light inside.

  “We’ll see.” He sounded so doubtful she had to laugh.

  “You’re right, we will see. If I can get dressed and get over there in time.”

  “I won’t turn into a pumpkin if you’re running late.”

  “Then I should go.” Emily curled her head around and rested it against the pile of clothes in her lap, the phone trapped by her cheek. She wondered what Paul was doing while he talked with her. Sitting in a chair, standing in his kitchen, staring in his closet in confusion?

  “You should. Unless you want to stay on the phone with me until you actually arrive at my door.” He sounded okay with that idea.

  “It’s kind of hard to button up one-handed,” she said, all while thinking he just might unbutton some of her clothing tonight.

  “And you shouldn’t use the phone and drive.” Despite his assertion, he didn’t make a sound about hanging up.

  “I’ll go first.”

  “Go where?”

  “I’ll hang up first.”

  “Oh, so that’s what we’re doing.”

  “I think we are.” She hadn’t done something like this since she was in school, but it felt good.

  “All right, you go.”

  “Hanging up now.” She hesitated and waited for the click, which didn’t come.

  There was a soft laugh. “You didn’t hang up.”

  It was hard to talk when she was smiling so hard. “I am now, I promise. I’m getting cold, and I need to get some clothes on.”

  “See you in a bit, Emily,” Paul said in a quiet voice, and she squeezed her eyes shut when the phone went quiet. Oh, tonight just might be a good night. She closed her phone, pressed it to her forehead for a moment as she told herself to calm down, took a deep breath through her nose, and stood up to confront the mess in front of her.

  Emily pulled in to Paul’s driveway two minutes earlier than she was due. She parked near his garage and exited her car, walking along the brick path back toward his front door. She passed his rambunctious plants and noticed the insects were quiet since cool temperatures had arrived. She straightened the neckline of her jersey dress as she stood in front of the black-painted door and pressed the doorbell. He’d left a light on for her, and as she waited, she did a few breathing exercises to calm herself.

  The door clicked open, and there was Paul looking pleased. He gestured for her to enter and she stepped over the threshold into his foyer.

  “It’s good to see you.” He smiled at her and leaned close like he wanted to hug her or touch her arm. Emily found herself moving the same way, and she reached up to curve her hand around his shoulder and leaned up to kiss his smoothly shaven cheek. He smelled like soap and Paul, and she inhaled as deeply as she dared. His arm swung around her waist as he returned the gesture. They drew apart; she didn’t let go and neither did he. A hot shiver of anticipation rushed over her skin.

  “Hi.” Emily stared up at him, nerves forgotten as her body warmed from his close contact. His chocolate eyes studied her as his hands remained steady against her waist.

  “Would you like—”

  “Sure.”

  With a sigh he caught her mouth with his and kissed her as his hand slid up her arm to her neck and cheek. Emily lost consciousness for a split second, and when she came to, she was safely wrapped up in his arms with all sorts of sensitive parts of her body pressed tight to his. Everything thumped in time with her heart.

  “I was going to offer to give you a tour, before we leave.”

  “Sounds great.” Emily was breathless as he loosened his grip, and she placed her feet correctly under herself.

  “Let me take your jacket.” Paul removed his hands, and she spun around as he helped her remove her leather coat, as close as she got to provocative fashion. Paul stared at her, his mouth slightly open. She guessed she’d picked the right dress. It was a cozy, gray knit with a daringly low, draped neckline and formfitting skirt. She’d never worn it before and had decided to stop saving it for that fabulous trip to Europe she’d likely never take.

  “You look, ah, great.”

  “I thought you were going to work on some new adjectives.”

  “I ran out of time.” He blinked and opened up the hall closet to hang her coat on an available hanger. The suit jacket that matched the dark trousers he wore hung off one of the handles, and he moved it out of the way. Emily glanced inside and saw most of the space was empty except for some storage boxes on a shelf, a vacuum, and a few men
’s outer garments. She wasn’t sure why she’d taken a look, other than she was inordinately curious about anything to do with Paul Ellison. “Come on in, and I’ll show you around.”

  She followed him as he led her past a formal living area and a dining room furnished with tasteful Colonial reproductions to a large room along the rear of the house. A beautiful kitchen opened into a dining nook set in a bay window, and a casual living area dominated by a large, glazed-brick fireplace stretched along a long wall made of endless mullioned windows. Soft brown upholstered furniture surrounded a low wooden table backed by bookshelves crammed with a hodgepodge of volumes. A few lamps were turned on to offset the approaching evening; his backyard garden nearly invisible. It was a lovely, comfortable space, and she wondered how much of it had been his wife’s handiwork and then pushed the thought away before she was sidetracked.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Paul rubbed his hands together as he backed away toward the kitchen. He looked so appealing in his pressed pale blue shirt and carefully knotted tie that she decided she wasn’t ready to go out right away. She didn’t want to be interrupted by menus and waiters yet.

  “Absolutely. What do you have?”

  She followed him into the kitchen and stood next to him as he opened the refrigerator and studied the contents. Neat ranks of various drinks lined the top shelf, mineral water, ginger ale, fruit juice, a bottle of wine. The rest of the shelves held a carton of eggs, a package of ham, and several half-used condiment jars. Amazingly similar to her own nearly bare fridge.

  “Wine, please.”

  She wandered over to the bookshelves and browsed titles like she normally would but didn’t pay much attention since she kept sending glances back to the kitchen. Paul got out the corkscrew and opened the bottle with little trouble, a slight furrow in his brow as he operated the tool. He poured them each a glass, and she returned to his side for a toast before taking a sip. It was a delicious, dry chardonnay, and she took another swallow before trying for more conversation.

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “Ah, Karen and I bought it twenty-five years ago, just before Courtney was born,” Paul answered readily enough, but his expression sobered. Emily’s heart contracted with sympathy.

  “Paul, it’s okay to talk about her. It’s not going to bother me.”

  “Thanks.” He took a step her way and set down his glass on the granite countertop. “I know tonight is about you, but I might bring her up too much. Most people around here knew her, knew us, so I keep thinking I need to explain things to you.”

  “Don’t worry about it; explain whatever you want.” Emily reached out and placed her hand over his. His skin was warm, and she curled her fingers into his palm and was rewarded with a squeeze. “Do you have a picture of your daughter?”

  He nodded and led her over to the mantle of the large fireplace flanked by bookcases where he pulled down a black-and-white portrait of a smiling girl with long dark hair. She must have resembled her mother, because all she could see of Paul in his daughter was her tilted eyebrows, a mirror of his. Emily complimented her and handed the photo back as she glanced at the other framed pictures lining the shelf. One caught her eye; Paul, a younger Courtney, and a thin woman with short dark hair.

  He must have noticed her attention, because he pulled it down and handed it off. “That’s Karen. We had those pictures taken about six months before she died.”

  “Paul, I’m sorry.” Emily looked away from the family frozen in the past and looked up at the man standing next to her. He wasn’t looking at the picture; instead he was watching her, his features drawn into determined lines.

  “She died five years ago. Courtney was almost through college, and she’d gone down for a visit, a fancy lunch and shopping for the day, and on her way home—”

  Emily, envisioning a fiery crash and a horrible phone call, sucked in her breath and shook her head once. Paul leaned closer and looked down at the picture she held.

  “I got a call from the state patrol about ten minutes before I expected her home. They’d found her in her car, pulled over at a rest area. It was an aneurysm. They told me she probably had a sudden, severe headache, was well enough to pull out of traffic, and then collapsed.”

  Emily ached for him and his daughter. Such a horrible shock and loss had to haunt them both to this day. Karen must have been quite a strong person to have managed not to endanger others as she was dying.

  The lines around Paul’s mouth momentarily deepened as he looked at the photograph, but as he replaced it on his mantel, his expression lightened. “Would you like to keep on the tour? I promise it’ll be more fun.”

  He led her back to the kitchen and demonstrated major appliances and cabinets like a caricature of a salesman as they sipped their wine. He refilled their glasses and led her back down the hallway they’d used before and showed her the formal living room and dining room, all with a slight smile on his face and a humorous lilt to his voice. Then back through the kitchen for more wine. By the time they’d made it to the living area, Emily was feeling mellow and slightly tipsy.

  “Paul, I’m sorry, but I shouldn’t drive. Dinner is going to have to wait.”

  Abashed, he shook his head. “I forgot about going out. I can drive your car, if you don’t mind.”

  “Is the tour over?” The warmth of the wine made Emily wonder about what else the house contained, like his bedroom, for instance.

  “It doesn’t have to be.” He gestured for her to precede him down a hallway, past the sunroom she remembered from the backyard and into a mudroom with a futuristic-looking washer and dryer. It was neat, and she wondered if he had someone come in and clean for him or if he was naturally this tidy. It was somehow sexy to contemplate him sweeping the floor.

  “What’s through here?” A large door led toward what she thought was the backyard. Her light-headedness had thrown off her sense of direction; it could have led to the garage into another part of the house for all she could tell.

  Paul opened his mouth and closed it soundlessly as he glanced from her to the door in question.

  Intrigued, Emily narrowed her eyes and gave him a sidelong look. “Is it your man cave?”

  “In a way. It’s my bedroom.”

  At those simple words, Emily’s skin prickled, and she closed her mouth as well. Was he going to show her or not? Paul appeared equally unsure as he shifted his feet. They were crowded into the narrow confines of the mudroom, and she couldn’t really go forward or back until Paul either opened the door or stepped aside for her to walk past, back to the rest of the house.

  He reached out and turned the handle and pushed the door open. As she stepped over the threshold, Emily shivered. She wasn’t cold; she vibrated with new nerves and misplaced anticipation. They were going to dinner very soon; in fact, her momentary tipsiness was dissipating with every step she took. Paul wasn’t the type of man who’d try a seduction on the first date.

  The room was paneled in a dark wood and had narrow, stained-glass windows set high on the two longest walls. A low dresser with a mirror was against one wall, and the bed pressed up against the other. The plain, masculine space made Emily feel like her feet weren’t quite touching the wool knotted rug beneath her feet as she contemplated Paul sleeping here.

  “It’s nice.” It seemed her adjectives weren’t up to the task either.

  “The bathroom’s through there.” Paul pointed at a matching wood door concealed in the paneling, and she nodded. “It was originally a game room, built for a pool table and there was a bar at the opposite end. I remodeled it a year and a half ago.”

  Now the shape and placement of the windows made sense. “Can you see out of these?”

  Emily walked over to one of the openings and raised herself up on her toes but she wasn’t tall enough to get a view. Paul came up beside her and peeked out at the dark surrounding them. She was closer to his height in her heeled boots and their shoulders brushed. “Not really, but the plus s
ide is that no one can see in either.”

  “Convenient.”

  “Emily.”

  At the sound of her name, she turned to face him and found he was frowning, his dark eyes peering past her at the wall, at nothing. “Dinner. We should get going, shouldn’t we?”

  She nodded once, agreeing in theory, but not heading toward the door. Paul didn’t move either, instead his gaze caught hers; the room was so quiet she could hear his steady breathing.

  “I haven’t done this in a long time.”

  “You’re doing fine,” Emily reassured him, not sure if he meant small talk, house tours, dating, or foreplay. In her recent experience, he was proficient at all of them. She reached out to pat his arm, and he grasped her hand, drawing it up to place a kiss on her knuckles. A bolt of heat speared through her, and she swayed. Closing his eyes, he placed her hand on his cheek and lowered his head. She lost her breath and took the final step toward him, wrapping her other arm around him as he grasped her tightly.

  “I like that. I want—” His voice was low and rough, almost a growl.

  “What?”

  “I want to do this right.” Paul breathed in her ear, and Emily’s toes curled at the sensation of his warm lips on her skin. “We should go out to dinner. That was the plan. It’s the right thing to do. To take our time.”

  Now his mouth was on her neck, and Emily wanted to claw her dress away from her shoulders so he had more to touch. A burgeoning ache of desire swelled, and she pressed her nose against his hair, unable to find any skin to kiss. He whispered her name again, and she shifted her body, desperate to see his expression, to understand what he might be thinking. She could feel the hard planes of his body through the thin material of her dress as he moved. She didn’t want dinner. She wanted him.

  He drew back and gave her an inscrutable look. “Are you hungry?”

  “Not really.” Emily pushed herself up and gave him a cautious kiss. His hands slid down her shoulders and grasped at her waist as he responded to her.

  “Should I cancel the reservation?” he murmured.