A Man for Mom

by Gina Ferris Wilkins

  He twisted in his seat until he was facing her. “Did anyone ever tell you your eyes are limpid pools?” he murmured in an exaggeratedly oily voice.

  She giggled. “No,” she admitted. “No one ever told me that.”

  “Or that your laughter is the sound of fairy bells tinkling?” His green eyes glittered in the darkness, reflecting amusement, and something more.

  Rachel tried to cling to the teasing.

  “No, I don’t think I’ve heard that one, either.”

  Seth leaned closer, brushing his lips lightly across her cheek before he breathed, “That your skin is as flawless as fine porcelain, as soft as velvet?”

  Her eyelids grew heavy as he tasted the sensitive skin at her temple. “Seth?” Her voice was little more than a breathless whisper.

  He kissed the hollow beneath her ear. “Mmm?”

  “If these are the lines you used on your dates, it’s no wonder you didn’t get very far.”

  “Is that right?” He kissed the corner of her eye, the side of her mouth. His hand slid slowly up her thigh to her waist. “You mean they aren’t working on you, either?”

  She was melting into his arms like warm caramel, but she was able to say with total honesty, “No. They aren’t.”

  It wasn’t what he was saying that was weakening her willpower as rapidly as her knees; it was what he was doing with his all-too-practiced-and-talented mouth and hands. She swallowed a moan when he lowered his head to nuzzle at her throat. She arched her back instinctively to give him better access.

  He nibbled his way up her throat to her chin, then nipped lightly at her lower lip. “I’m really sorry to hear that.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about. She’d lost all track of their teasing conversation the moment his left hand settled warmly over her right breast.

  He didn’t seem to mind her sudden speechlessness. He took immediate advantage of the situation, covering her mouth with his own. He kissed her with an intensity that momentarily startled her. She realized for the first time that he’d been holding something back in the kisses that had come before. And she knew she was lost, her resistance defeated.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. And for the very first time, she held nothing back, either.

  Seth sensed the difference as quickly as she had. He groaned his approval and deepened the embrace, dragging her as tightly against him as the console between them would allow.

  Time and purpose faded from her mind, lost in a blur of kisses—long, sensual kisses, short, hot kisses, hard, hungry kisses. The fingers of his right hand moved at the back of her neck, and suddenly cool air caressed her shoulders, her chest, as he slowly lowered the front of her silk dress.

  She felt the need to protest. “Seth,” she whispered when he moved his head to kiss the upper swell of her breasts above her lace-and-satin bra. Her fingers threaded into his hair, tightening to hold him against her even as she said, “We shouldn’t be doing this here.”

  He nudged lace aside and tasted the soft skin he’d revealed. “Why?”

  Why? Surely there was a reason. “The, uh—” She gasped when he ran the tip of his tongue over her rapidly hardening nipple. “The other car,” she blurted, seizing on the first excuse that came to her. “They’ll see us.”

  Seth’s breathing was ragged, his muscles tense with need. “Trust me, Rachel, they have other things to do than to watch us,” he assured her, his voice gruff.

  He pulled her nipple into his mouth, and she arched back with a choked cry of reaction. The sensations were so strong, so powerful that she trembled with a need that was rapidly growing to match his. She ached, she throbbed, she gasped with desires that she wouldn’t allow herself to examine too closely. For just a moment, she wanted to savor. For just a moment, she wanted to be free to revel in these feelings, in this man.

  Seth brought his mouth back to hers, his tongue plunging between her lips to mate with hers. He moved closer, rising slightly above her—and then stopped with an exclamation of frustration when the console brought him up short.

  The sensual spell shattered with an almost audible snap. Rachel stiffened, then pulled back, pressing against the door behind her.

  Seth resisted her withdrawal only for a moment, then dropped his hands. He tried to smile. “Come to think of it, this is about as far as I ever got here,” he said in an obvious effort to lighten her sudden tension.

  She managed a shaky smile of her own, though she was sure it was a pitiful attempt. She pushed nervously at her hair, which she’d left down that evening just because she knew he liked it that way. “It’s getting very late, and we still have an hour’s drive ahead of us,” she reminded him. “We’d better be going before Granny Fran starts to worry.”

  Seth looked at her for a long moment, sighed almost inaudibly, then nodded. “All right. Don’t forget to refasten your seat belt,” he added as he turned and did the same before starting the engine.

  Rachel had to refasten her dress first. Her cheeks were flaming as she snapped the seat belt buckle securely into position. She couldn’t believe she’d lost control like that!

  She was painfully aware that she had never done so before. Not like that. Not with anyone.

  She turned her head and stared out the window beside her as Seth guided the car down the hill toward home.

  * * *

  The drive home was a quiet one, their conversation, what little there was, centered around dinner and the play, Granny Fran’s departure the next day—anything but what had passed between them. Rachel kept her hands in her lap, her fingers twisted so tightly together that she could see her knuckles gleaming in the darkness inside the car.

  Seth walked her to her door. The house was quiet, the bedroom windows dark, letting them know that her family was in bed. Rachel didn’t ask Seth in. “Good night,” she whispered, one hand on the doorknob.

  He cupped her face in one hand, his eyes searching her expression. “You’re okay?”

  She managed a better smile this time, though she wasn’t sure how she did it. “Of course,” she assured him briskly. “Just a bit tired.”

  He nodded. “Get some rest then. I’ll call you.”

  “All right. Good night, Seth.”

  “Good night, sweetheart.” He brushed a soft, tender kiss across her rather bruised-feeling lips. “Sweet dreams,” he added with a smile.

  She let herself inside without saying anything else. She locked the door behind her. She was still standing beside it when she heard Seth’s car drive away.

  She didn’t want sweet dreams that night, she thought bleakly. She didn’t want to dream at all.

  Dreaming could be so very painful.

  Chapter Nine

  Rachel helped her grandmother pack the next day after lunch. Cody had volunteered to drive her home, claiming with a grin that he supposed it was his turn to hear the get-a-wife-and-kiddies lecture.

  “You’re sure you have everything?” Rachel asked for the third time.

  Frances glanced around the neatly cleaned guest room. “Yes, I have everything.”

  Rachel sighed. “I hate to see you leave. We’ve enjoyed having you here.” It was true, she had enjoyed sharing a home with her grandmother. And it wasn’t just because Frances delighted in cooking and cleaning and baby-sitting; Rachel loved her grandmother and enjoyed being with her. “Do you really have to go so soon?”

  “Rachel, dear, I’ve been here for three weeks. And I’ve enjoyed every day of my visit. But it’s time for me to go home.”

  “You’re really happy living alone in Malvern, now that all your family has moved away?” Rachel couldn’t help asking.

  Frances smiled gently. “It’s been my home for longer than I can remember. My friends are there, and my church and my seniors’ group. There may come a time when I can’t live on my own, but for now I’m getting along just fine.”

  “If that time ever comes, you’ll always have a home with me,” Rachel told her, and m
eant every word.

  Frances kissed her cheek. “Thank you, Rachel. You’re a very special young woman, a very dear granddaughter.”

  “And you’re a wonderful grandmother.”

  “Then maybe you won’t mind another little bit of advice from me?”

  Rachel tried not to tense. She suspected she knew exactly what her grandmother’s advice would be related to. “Of course I don’t mind your advice,” she said brightly. “I welcome it.”

  Frances laughed softly. “You don’t have to take it quite that far. I know how you young people feel about advice. I once felt the same way. But I offer it only because I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Granny Fran.”

  “I know you do. You have a great capacity for love within you, Rachel. Don’t let it go to waste.”

  Rachel crossed her arms at her waist and gripped her forearms as though warding off a chill. “I—er—”

  Frances shook her head. “You worry too much. You should allow yourself to have more fun. You need that—and so do your children.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened. “I try to make sure the children have fun,” she protested. “I spend as much time as I can with them and—”

  Frances held up both hands, palms outward. “Rachel, you’re a wonderful mother,” she interrupted firmly. “Your children are happy and healthy and bright and well behaved. I’m very proud of them, as I know you are. And I’m sure they want you to be as happy and content as they are.”

  “I am happy,” Rachel assured her. “I really am.”

  “And are you having fun?”

  Rachel started to say yes but had to hesitate. She couldn’t exactly say her life was fun, though she enjoyed her children and her family and friends, sometimes even enjoyed her work. As for fun—it seemed fun had been something she hadn’t experienced much in the past few years. Until...

  She thought of Seth, and the way he could make her laugh with only a wry look or dry comment.

  “I’m very content with my life right now,” she protested, though she wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince herself, her grandmother, or that persistent image in her mind.

  “Contentment is nice,” Frances said, patting Rachel’s hand. “But you deserve so much more.”

  The doorbell chimed faintly through the house. Rachel welcomed the interruption almost as much as she resented it. “That’s probably Cody.”

  “Probably,” Frances agreed, then smiled. “I’ll bet you thought I was going to give you advice about Seth, didn’t you?”

  Rachel was startled into a laugh. “Well, yes,” she admitted.

  “I think Seth is quite capable of pleading his own cases,” her grandmother said, looking pleased with the pun on his career. She started for the door, then paused to look over her shoulder. “But, in case you’re interested, I think Seth Fletcher would be the place to start if a certain young woman was looking to have some fun.”

  “Mama, Uncle Cody’s here,” Paige called out from down the hall.

  “I’ll keep your advice in mind,” Rachel promised hastily.

  “You do that, dear.”

  Rachel followed her grandmother out of the bedroom, wondering darkly if Seth had personally requested that little endorsement from Granny Fran.

  * * *

  Seth didn’t go to Rachel’s house on Sunday. He thought of calling, but kept stopping with one hand on the telephone, unable to make himself follow through. At ten o’clock that evening, he walked away from the silent telephone for the dozenth time that day and cursed himself for being a coward.

  He’d been fighting a major panic attack all day. It had started during the middle of the near-sleepless night after he’d left Rachel at her door. In fact, it had probably started at the same time it had occurred to him that he was falling in love for the first time in his life.

  He’d always thought this would happen to him someday. He’d vaguely envisioned a wife and children in his future. His distant future. After he’d gotten his law practice firmly established, and somehow resolved the emotional problems his estrangement from his family had caused him. He hadn’t expected it to happen now, when he was still adjusting to life in a small town. Still a long way from financial security with his practice. Still trying to decide exactly who he was and what he wanted from life, rather than trying to conform to his parents’ expectations of what he should be and want.

  He wasn’t ready. But it seemed to have happened, anyway.

  He was falling hard for a woman still grieving the loss of her husband. A woman with full responsibility for two young children. A woman who spent too much time and energy running her late husband’s business. A woman who considered him too young for her, and apparently had doubts about his stability and responsibility. A woman who’d almost forgotten how to laugh.

  But even as he mentally listed the drawbacks, he was aware of the qualities he most admired in Rachel. Her loyalty to her children, her extended family, her employees—hell, even to her late husband. Her competence. Her self-sufficiency. Her courage.

  He enjoyed watching her with her children, whom she so obviously adored. And they were good kids. She’d done a great job raising them alone for the past three years. He was already very fond of Paige and Aaron, though he was realistic enough to know he’d seen them primarily on their best company-manners behavior. Children, even kids as well behaved as Paige and Aaron Evans, were go- ing to cause probslems at times. Major problems as they grew older and were suddenly exposed to the parents’-nightmares aspects of life—drugs, sex, fast cars, the lures of gangs and dares and defiance of authority. Seth shuddered just to think of it. Was he really ready to face those responsibilities, especially as a stepparent?

  Even should he decide he was ready for parenthood, would Rachel accept anyone else’s intrusion into her relationship with the children? During several of the divorce cases he’d handled, he’d heard distasteful stories of family power struggles, “real” parents played against “steps” by cleverly manipulative children, bitter disagreements on discipline, household rules, monetary responsibility. He’d never quite understood the aversion so many of his single male friends had to dating women with children, but now he could at least acknowledge that there was a basis for their concerns.

  He shook his head as he realized just how far ahead his thoughts had taken him. He and Rachel had hardly progressed beyond the getting-acquainted stage and he was already worrying about raising her children. They were a long way from permanent commitments and those long-range plans she was so fond of making. And yet he was aware that the children had to be considered from the beginning. They were as much a part of Rachel as that funny little frown that so often creased her forehead, which invariably made him want to tease her and kiss her and make her smile.

  He really should call her, he thought again, glancing at the telephone. He checked his watch. Ten-twenty. The children would have been in bed for a couple of hours, probably. Was Rachel in bed? Was she wondering why he hadn’t called her that day? Had she even noticed that he hadn’t?

  He groaned. Now he was moping around like a lovesick schoolboy, unable to concentrate on anything but the girl who’d caught his interest.

  He had some very serious thinking to do before this thing went any further, he decided gravely. And it was time he started thinking with his head instead of his hormones where Rachel Carson Evans was concerned.

  * * *

  Rachel sat in her office Tuesday afternoon, staring blindly at a stack of invoices in front of her and trying to remember what it was she was supposed to do with them. Her concentration had been shot all to hell this week. Though she longed to deny it, she knew it was because she couldn’t stop thinking about Seth. Couldn’t stop herself from replaying those fervent, heated caresses in his car Saturday evening. Couldn’t stop wondering why he hadn’t called her since.

  Had he lost interest already? Was this his way of letting her know that it wasn’t working out? That he was backing off before they went any
further? That he’d decided that she wasn’t worth the trouble she caused him?

  Or was she only being paranoid again?

  As though from a great distance, she heard the computer keyboard clattering in the other room. Martha was hard at work, as Rachel should be. Martha had even commented earlier on Rachel’s unusual distraction, asking in concern if she was feeling all right, if everything was okay at home with the children. Rachel had made vague excuses about a sinus headache. She couldn’t tell the truth, of course. Couldn’t admit to anyone but herself that she was brooding about Seth and vacillating about whether she should be the one to make the next move.

  Maybe that was all Seth was waiting for.

  The telephone at her elbow startled her with its flat buzz. Rachel all but fell upon it, snatching the receiver to her ear. “Evans Industries,” she said, trying to sound professional, just in case it wasn’t Seth.

  “Is this the trash people?” a rather nasal female voice inquired.

  The disappointment was immediate, and dismayingly deep. She struggled to push it aside so she could focus on her job. “We are a commercial waste hauling company,” she explained in response to the unfortunately familiar question. “May I help you?”

  The caller explained that she wanted to rent a Dumpster on a temporary basis. “My husband and me are tearing down an old house,” she added. “We’ll have some lumber and shingles and concrete blocks and stuff like that to be hauled away.”

  Rachel swallowed a faint sigh. This, too, was a familiar problem. People assumed anything would go into a regular-size trash container. Building materials, however, were much too heavy for the average Dumpster, which had to be hydraulically lifted high into the air for emptying into the back of the front-loader trucks she used. The larger containers, which were actually loaded onto trucks and carried to the landfill, then returned to the site, were quite expensive in comparison to the smaller boxes.

  The customer was shocked by the price Rachel gave her. “Oh, I can’t afford that,” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know it would cost so much.”