“It sounds like Toby was trying to entice you to come home when he dropped by the other day.”
He shifted in his seat and his face closed. “I wish it were that easy.”
“I know it’s a big trip,” she said. “But maybe you could take a long weekend. I’m sure Mr. Jamison would understand.”
As Christopher looked at her, she could see him choosing his words. “It’s not the distance. I could fly there and back in less time than it would take to get to the airport. I’m just not in a very good place with my father right now.”
“I know there’s more going on between you and your father than what you’ve told me, and I understand if it’s a private thing. You don’t have to tell me. But logic does dictate that he must be a pretty good man to have raised such great kids.”
Again Christopher shifted in his seat. This time he moved away from her and turned his attention to his beer.
“Christopher, nobody’s perfect. But please take my advice. Sometimes it seems like the people who have taken care of us will be around forever, but the truth is life is short.”
Her mother had been just forty-six years old when she’d died. Way too young. It sounded ridiculous to say—she couldn’t even say the words out loud, and she could barely admit them to herself—but it never occurred to her that her mother could die. Her mother, the one who had always looked out for her, the one who had thrown herself between Kinsley and that horrible man who just happened to be related to her by genetics.
Kinsley had been far too wrapped up in her own life, in getting out of the abysmal, abusive situation she was born into and starting the life she knew she was meant to have.
What she wouldn’t give to go back and do everything differently. She would’ve insisted that her mom come with her. The man who had abused them both and cheated on her mother could’ve rotted in hell for all she cared.
Surely he was burning there now.
But there were no do-overs. She could only look forward and hope that she might be able to honor her mother’s memory by helping some other unlucky woman who was caught in an unfortunate situation. More immediately, maybe she could help teenage girls realize that they didn’t have to settle for someone who treated them poorly. That by the virtue of being born they were princesses—even if they never had a father to tell them so.
“Hey,” said Christopher. “Where’d you go?”
She blinked at him, unsure what she had missed.
“You were somewhere far, far away,” he said. “Would you care to share?”
This was one instance when she was glad she had never been able to cry about her mother and the whole sorry situation. She had always worried that if she let down the floodgates she might never stop crying. At that very moment, she vowed that she would never put her theory to the test.
The way Christopher was watching her she had a feeling that because he had shared his story, he was going to expect reciprocation from her. That was something else that wasn’t going to happen.
The music changed to a medium-tempo Blake Shelton tune.
“I love this song,” she said. “Dance with me.”
She was on her feet and headed toward the dance floor before Christopher could refuse and before she could change her own mind.
By the time she’d wedged her way into a spot on the dance floor, Christopher was right there next to her. Only then did it dawn on her that he would probably hate this song that talked about red dirt roads and doing manual labor.
Oh, well.
The dance floor was small, hot and crowded, forcing them into close proximity even though it wasn’t a slow dance. But that was okay because the music was even louder over here, and it seemed to keep Christopher from asking questions. Some couples tried to do a slow two-step around the perimeter of the close confines, but Christopher kept his hands to himself and didn’t try to pull her into that kind of dance.
Given the kiss they’d shared, he’d proved himself unpredictable enough that she wouldn’t have been shocked if he had pulled her close, but this was fine.
Really, it was.
After three glasses of wine, she would probably melt in his arms. She wasn’t drunk, just nicely loosened up. Once they had established their dance M.O., she let herself be swept away by the pounding rhythm of the music. It felt good to let her hair down and lose herself.
Christopher looked as if he was enjoying himself, too, moving unselfconsciously to the beat. Maybe it was the wine talking, but suddenly she wondered why she didn’t go out more often. Christopher smiled that endearingly cheeky smile as he moved next to her. It struck her that it was a pretty darn attractive quality for a guy to be willing to dance. So many of the guys she’d known had refused to let go like this.
As she took in Christopher’s subtle moves, she couldn’t help but wonder what he would be like in bed. She hadn’t had that much experience, and really none of it was notable, but she’d always heard that the way the guy danced gave a lot of clues as to how he would make love.
If that was the case, Christopher seemed to be proving himself quite capable.
Lord have mercy.
She was glad the music was so loud because she felt a giggle bubble up and escape. It must have come across as a smile because Christopher beamed at her.
The two of them got into the spirit, communicating with only their eyes and expressions.
Again, this guy, who she’d been so quick to dismiss, was showing her another side. Here he was in his white dress shirt with the sleeves pushed up past the elbows getting down as well as any of the cowboys in the place. She was tempted to tease him about his ranch upbringing coming out on the dance floor, but that was for later.
This was now.
This was fun.
This was a high she wished would last...and last...and—
An overzealous couple two-stepped right into Kinsley, knocking her into Christopher. He caught her, holding her close in his strong arms. The two of them stood breast to chest, staring into each other’s eyes, vaguely swaying to the song’s refrain.
Then, right there in the middle of the dance floor, he didn’t ask permission; he simply lowered his head and kissed her unapologetically, ravenously. And she kissed him back shamelessly, completely taken by their mutual hunger.
The kiss bypassed slow and soft, immediately igniting into a voracious fire that had her parting her lips and deepening the kiss. Her arms found their way around his neck and her hands fisted into the cotton of his shirt. They leaned into each other as if they depended on this intimate contact for their life’s breath.
The whole world disappeared—Mendoza’s, the dance floor, the music. She didn’t care who was there or who might be watching them. The only thing that mattered was the way he was holding her so tightly against him, staking his claim, in this wordless confession of desire.
The taste of his beer mingled with her wine and merged with hints of the truffle salt from the fries. And then there was that familiar hint of him that she had tasted when they’d kissed in his office. But that was then. Now, she tasted a hint of the forbidden mixed with the temptation of right now.
A moment ago she had convinced herself that this was taboo, and now he was kissing her so thoroughly that she didn’t want to stop. Feelings inside her that had awakened when he’d kissed her the first time were now laced with a passion that threatened to consume her.
She’d forgotten the once logical rationale for protecting her heart. Or maybe she no longer cared. The reasons had shifted and transformed why not into oh, yes were promising to be so worth the risk.
Kinsley had no idea how much time had passed as they held each other and kissed as people whirled around them on the dance floor.
As they slowly came up for air, Christopher held her face in his palms, his forehead resting on hers. Maybe it was t
he liquid courage talking, but this kiss felt right, and the way he was holding her seemed to say he felt it, too.
“Oh, my God, Christopher, what are we going to do now?”
* * *
No matter what Kinsley said today, he wasn’t going to let this go. They couldn’t go back to being purely platonic, not after last night’s kiss. They were definitely in a different place now. And he liked it.
Christopher smiled to himself as he picked up the phone.
His gut told him that after he’d dropped her off at her apartment last night she’d probably overthought everything.
He dialed Red and made a lunch reservation for two at his favorite table, then sat back in his leather chair, glancing at the putting green. One kiss might have been a mistake. But two? There was no denying the fire that blazed between them last night.
Even if she resisted, he was going to prove to her that there was something special between them. Something worth fighting for.
He hadn’t seen Kinsley yet today, but when he did, he wanted her to know beyond a doubt that last night meant something to him. What better way than to go back to when everything seemed to start—that day that Toby and Angie had arrived and he’d asked Kinsley to make a lunch reservation at Red. He hoped she’d see the meaning behind this lunch date.
He started to pick up the phone again to call her and ask her to lunch, but then he thought better of it. He got up and walked to her office.
The door was open, so he rapped lightly on the door frame.
“Good morning,” he said when she looked up from her computer.
“Good morning.” Her tone was neutral. She finished typing whatever it was he had interrupted before she said, “Come in.”
He walked in and sat down in the chair across from her desk.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
He smiled and quirked a brow, but she carried on business as usual.
“I realized this morning that we need to come up with a calendar of deadlines so that we make sure we get everything done in time for the Spring Fling. Do you realize it’s less than two weeks away?”
What?
“That’s not what I came in here to talk to you about, but sure. We can do that.”
Her expression remained neutral, but her voice held the faintest notes of exasperation. “Would you please close the door?”
Christopher complied. When they were safe behind closed doors, he said, “I enjoyed last night.”
She tensed and closed her eyes a blink that was a few beats too long before she opened them again. “About that.... Listen, I appreciate you being so nice about it, but I think we both had a little bit to drink last night.”
“We did and it was a great time. I hope we can do it again. In fact, I made reservations for us to have lunch at Red today at twelve-thirty. Of course, it might not be a good idea for us to drink as much as we did last night, since we have to come back and work on these things that you’re putting on the calendar.” She was sitting there staring at him blankly. “And I had hoped you might catch the meaning in me making the lunch reservation instead of asking you, but...”
He thought he saw her wince ever so slightly as she continued to regard him with that neutral expression. He reminded himself that he had expected her to react this way. See, he knew her. And he had also been prepared for the possibility of having to take things slowly as she came to terms with the fact that this was right—and good.
And very real.
“Okay, so why don’t we discuss this calendar and everything we need to put on it at lunch today? At Red.”
He winked at her. Then promptly realized that was probably not a good move.
“Or if you have a few minutes now,” she said, “we can talk about it and get everything all squared away.”
He saw what she was doing.
He stood. “Sorry, I don’t have time right now. I’ll pick you up at 12:15 and we can discuss everything over lunch.”
He flashed his most charismatic smile and was pleased to note that some of her bravado seemed to wither away in front of him.
“Okay. Fine. We can have a working lunch.”
He opened the door. “See you soon.” He left it open, exactly the way he had found it.
As he walked back to his office, he was more determined than ever to make Kinsley see just how good they could be together.
* * *
“Hello, Mr. Fortune. It’s nice to see you,” said the tall, thin, pretty hostess at Red. “A table for two for you and...your girlfriend?”
“Oh, no. I’m not his girlfriend. We’re not... We just work together.”
The hostess regarded Kinsley with a subtle air that suggested she was just being polite and hadn’t been convinced they were even a couple to begin with.
“Well, that’s very good to know.” The hostess smiled and boldly looked Christopher up and down.
Kinsley’s cheeks burned.
How rude and unprofessional.
A little voice in the back of Kinsley’s mind reminded her that it was a lot more professional than she had been when she’d made out with Christopher on the dance floor at Mendoza’s. Anybody in town could have seen them acting like a couple of hormone-driven teenagers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
Even though common sense told her that nobody was looking at them as she and Christopher followed the hostess to their table, it felt as if every eye in the place was on watching them.
Once they were settled and the hostess had managed to tear herself away, Christopher looked her squarely in the eyes and said, “Kinsley, we make such a good team, in and out of the office—”
“That’s why we need to pretend like nothing happened last night,” she said.
“That’s what we said after our first kiss,” he countered. “And we see where that got us. Why are we fighting this? I think we could be very good together if you would just give us a chance.”
Kinsley’s heart pounded an insistent staccato in her chest. It was almost like a finger tapping her chest urging her to do the right thing—to set the record straight with Christopher, to make sure he understood exactly where they stood.
As long as they both worked at the Foundation, all they would be were platonic coworkers. Since she didn’t plan on leaving her job anytime soon, apparently that was all that fate had in store for them.
Christopher would be free to fully enjoy all the perks of being a young, good-looking guy with too much money and a tendency to flash it to get whatever and whomever he wanted—like the hostess who had given Kinsley the stink eye when they’d arrived.
Women like that might throw themselves at him, but Kinsley would not be his conquest, and that was at the heart of why they would never work. The two of them came from different worlds. He might think he’d had it bad off being lost in the chaos of a large family where money had once been tight, but he had no idea what it was like to have lost the only person in the world who had ever shown unconditional love.
Kinsley had witnessed firsthand the pain her mother had suffered at the hands of her womanizing father, who couldn’t or wouldn’t stop himself when it came to the ladies. No matter how her mother had cried and threatened to leave him, he would simply turn the tables on her and somehow manage to blame her mother for his own philandering. Even after her front-row seat for this cautionary tale, in college Kinsley had still been stupid enough to put her faith in a man who ended up proving himself as verbally abusive and faithless as her own father. In her studies she had learned that victims of abuse often unwittingly fell into the trap of falling for abusive partners.
She wasn’t convinced that Christopher had abusive tendencies, but he sure did have an eye for ladies. That was enough to make Kinsley put on the breaks. It was clear that Christopher still had oats t
o sow. She wasn’t going to fall into the same trap that her mother had suffered or repeat the same mistake she’d already made....
Last night was her last dance with Christopher Fortune.
Chapter Eight
Thursday night was ladies’ night at Mendoza’s. That’s why Christopher was surprised his cousin Sawyer Fortune who was in town for the day, suggested that they meet there to discuss a fund-raising opportunity for the Foundation over a beer and a quick bite to eat.
Ladies’ night didn’t officially start until nine o’clock, so even though it was nearly eight o’clock, Mendoza’s still had the air of a restaurant. The lights were a little brighter than they would be later on, and the music was much softer and less honky-tonk than it would be when the clock struck nine. So they had time to wrap up their business before the party overtook the place. Sawyer would be long gone before then, anyway, because he had to fly to Horseback Hollow before it got too late.
Sawyer was happily married to Laurel Redmond, had been since New Year’s Eve. After the wedding, they had moved to Horseback Hollow to open a branch of Redmond Flight School and Charter Service. The operation was headquartered out of Red Rock, so Sawyer still came to town occasionally. Today, Sawyer had been involved in nonstop meetings all day and had suggested that the two of them grab a couple of Mendoza’s famous tacos before he flew home that evening.
Whether they were talking business or not, Christopher was always glad for a chance to visit with his cousin because he hadn’t really had the opportunity to get to know him very well before his own move to Red Rock. This was not only a good chance to spend time with him, but also a chance to discuss a way for the flight school to make a charitable contribution to the Foundation.
Christopher had asked Kinsley to join them, but she had her statistics class tonight and after that, she was attending a Lamaze class with a teenage girl she had agreed to help.
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