Redemption's Kiss

by Ann Christopher

  “I’m glad.”

  Yeah, he looked it. It was hard to tell him to quit with the charming routine when his expression was bright with unmistakable pleasure at her accomplishments, almost as though someone had turned a spotlight on him when she wasn’t looking.

  He took advantage of her distraction by springing another question on her in an attempt to keep their little chat fest moving along. “What do you do after breakfast? Do you oversee the—”

  This had to stop. They could be pleasant, but they would not be best friends forever. Period. “I’m not going to discuss my day with you, Beau.”

  This line in the sand did nothing to throw him off stride. “Does that mean I can’t discuss my day with you?”

  “Why would you want to discuss your day with me?”

  “Because,” he said, pulling a pained face, “it’s going to be a real bitch.”

  This got her, as he’d surely known it would.

  Glancing around at her guests, all of whom were chattering and eating like happy little pigs at the trough, she thought about the rest of her morning chores and her paperwork. Then she wondered if Barbara Jean had yet managed to strap Allegra down and get her dressed. And then she wished any of these subjects interested her half as much as Beau did.

  Part of the issue was that he’d always been the strong and silent type, sharing little and shouldering everything. A severed limb was a minor injury to Beau, a catastrophic moral failing merely a challenge for growth potential. Still waters ran way deep with him. Yet now here he was, offering to open up and share.

  And she was too weak to flash him the peace sign and wish him a nice day as she went about hers. “Make it quick.”

  Act bored, Jill. Don’t look too interested.

  “I’m having physical therapy and a counseling session—”

  Oh, God. So he was serious about healing himself, wasn’t he?

  “—and I’m going to interview grant applicants.” Wow. Any one of those things would be difficult. All three together were nothing short of a full-blown nightmare day. You can do it, Beau.

  The words were right on the tip of her tongue, and how stupid was that? In the old days, the really old days, they’d supported and encouraged each other, and old habits that should have been moldering in their graves by now died hard.

  They would die, though. She’d see to it.

  So she swallowed the kind words and backed away from the intriguing man. Keeping her voice flat and her expression blank was much harder.

  “Well,” she said. “You’d better have some extra eggs for protein, then, hadn’t you?”

  It just about killed her to walk off.

  Jillian was standing at the sideboard a little while later, refilling the coffeemaker, when Allegra finally appeared, trailed by Barbara Jean.

  The girl twirled out, a Tasmanian devil of energy, her purple tutu flowing around her and creating a faint cloud of sparkles that shone in the morning light. “Mommy!”

  “Where have you been, pumpkin? You know I need your help—”

  The girl squealed and raced away, captivated by something over Jillian’s shoulder. With a sinking heart, feeling like chopped liver that’d spoiled two days ago, Jillian pivoted in time to see another joyous reunion between father and daughter.

  Allegra wove through the tables—they were mostly empty now, thank goodness—and into Beau’s arms. Lifting her high overhead, he gave her a loud and wet kiss and then plunked her down on the table right in the middle of the newspaper he’d been reading. Seinfeld, looking on from his shady spot under the tree, barked and waggled.

  Jillian scowled at this show of domestic bliss.

  Blanche appeared at her elbow. “Don’t let him rattle your cage, honey.”

  The automatic denial bubbled right up. “Oh, I’m fine.”

  “Fine?”

  “Yes.” Jillian caught herself gritting her teeth. “Fahn.”

  As always, when Jillian mimicked her accent, Blanche rolled her eyes but otherwise ignored her. Instead, she stared at Beau, who was now feeding Allegra muffin remnants and grinning indulgently while she talked nonstop. Jillian thought she heard something about Allegra’s favorite peach-scented body wash.

  “Speaking of fine,” Blanche muttered.

  Jillian snorted. Yes, yes, yes. Beau was fine. They should just have a moment of universal female acknowledgment—everyone, from young women who barely made the cutoff to vote to elderly women who should be spending their time studying knitting patterns, wanted Beau—and be done with it.

  Blanche’s sharp gaze swung to Jillian’s face and zeroed in with laser precision. “You over him, honey?”

  “Yes.”

  The excessive vehemence was not lost on Blanche, who looked skeptical. “Just like that?”

  “No—not just like that. After he cheated on me and broke my heart, we got a divorce and I took years to work through my feelings. Just like that.”

  Blanche said nothing, her body all but humming with doubt.

  Jillian fumed, mostly at herself.

  That little speech hadn’t come out the way she’d meant it. She didn’t sound aloof and mentally healthy. She sounded strung out and hysterical, like a nervous breakdown waiting to happen. She cleared her throat and backtracked, trying to clarify.

  “What I meant was—”

  Blanche dimpled with grim sympathy. “Save it, honey. I understand perfectly.” She paused long enough to let Jillian’s face heat until it felt traffic-light red. “Even if you don’t.”

  Well, that was hitting the nail right on the head. Jillian didn’t understand her feelings for Beau at all, but she didn’t want Blanche or anyone else pitying her. “There’s nothing to under—”

  Blanche took a sharp breath, her attention diverted by something behind Jillian. Judging by her sudden smile of mischievous glee, it was nothing good. Only dread kept Jillian from turning to see what it was, because, really, how much worse could her morning get, short of an outbreak of food poisoning?

  “Well, lookie here,” Blanche whispered in Jillian’s ear, practically incandescent with delight. “If it isn’t your new man, come to meet your old man.” She paused. “If things keep up like this, we’ll be able to cancel the satellite TV service. Your love life is so much more entertaining.”

  Jillian’s heart nosedived down to her toes. Adam? Adam?

  Wait—no. It couldn’t—

  Apparently it was. With a tiny wave, Blanche swept off, leaving Jillian to turn and stammer a greeting to Adam through lips that suddenly felt numb and oversized, like kielbasa sausages.

  Smile, Jill. You can do this. Just smile, dammit.

  Her mouth couldn’t manage it. The best she could do was a lopsided grimace that didn’t seem to slow Adam down any. Climbing up the veranda steps and coming straight to her with the unwavering trajectory of a heat-seeking missile, Adam smiled as though she planned to share the secret of a twenty-four-hour orgasm with him.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  There was no further warning. Apparently drunk on his success from last week, he cupped her face, leaned in and kissed her, absorbing her surprised peep into his mouth.

  She immediately broke the kiss, flustered into speechlessness.

  Did Beau see that? He was probably watching; she had zero hope that he’d been so enthralled with, say, Allegra’s recitation of her favorite lotions to miss the sight of another man kissing his ex-wife.

  Don’t look, Jillian. Don’t—Oh, God.

  A quick glance over Adam’s shoulder at Beau’s thunderstruck and murderous face was all she could take. The angry heat blazing off him felt like a dragon’s fiery blast, enough to incinerate both her and her ashes, and she knew that her morning was about to get a whole hell of a lot worse.

  Chapter 8

  Why did you look at Beau, dummy?

  With her skin feeling tight and hot now, as though it might peel off in curled strips, Jillian took a step away from Adam.

  “Hi.”
Pausing to get her quavering voice under control, she frowned up at him and watched his postkissing glow evaporate. “I wish you wouldn’t do that in public. My daughter’s right over there and—”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  Adam followed her line of sight to where Allegra was now petting Seinfeld, clearly oblivious to her mother’s romantic travails. Then he saw Beau, and his face turned thundercloud dark.

  “Is that—”

  Give the man ten points. “Yes.”

  They watched as Beau stood, tossed some money on the table and collected his cane and Seinfeld’s leash. He was heading in their direction with Allegra trailing behind, his expression now implacable, when Adam recovered from his shock and turned to Jillian.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  Okay. Now wait a minute. This man was getting on her nerves. In fact, men as a gender had, in the last several days, gotten on her last nerve. After three years of an empty bed and relative peace and quiet, now her cup was running over, and she didn’t like it. At. All.

  Still, she tried to be gentle because Adam was a nice man and he did seem to care about her.

  “Not that it’s your concern,” she said, “but Beau bought the house at the end of the street to be closer to Allegra.”

  Adam’s lips twisted into a cynical smile. “Closer to Allegra. Right.”

  “What brings you here, anyway?”

  “I came to talk you into having dinner with me tonight.”

  “I don’t—” she began, but Beau had arrived.

  Looking at him just now, especially at close range, wasn’t a brilliant idea, but she couldn’t help it. Some little demon inside wanted to see how he, Mr. Unfaithful, liked these apples. Was he jealous? Did he appreciate the delicious irony of seeing her with another man after he’d cheated on her and torn her guts out on more than one memorable occasion? Could he swallow this taste of his own medicine?

  Did it hurt, Beau?

  With sudden defiance, she hitched up her chin and met his gaze with dark triumph in her heart, daring him to say one thing. Just one small thing. He had no rights as far as she was concerned, and she’d be damn sure to rub it in his face if he had the balls to complain.

  Only, to her bewildered disappointment, he didn’t complain.

  He wasn’t happy; there was no question about that. His turbulent eyes had gone a dark, muddy green, a sure sign of turmoil, and there was feverish color in his cheeks, two high arcs of red that were always a dead giveaway that he was upset about something.

  But his expression was…resigned. Not defeated, though, and not despairing. He simply looked as though he knew this wasn’t his day and was determined to be a man about it.

  And, underneath that, she sensed his fierce determination to make sure his day came real soon. Pretty much the way she imagined Tiger Woods would behave if he lost the Masters—he’d suffered a defeat today, yeah, but tomorrow he’d be back on the course at the crack of dawn, ready to practice his swing until his palms blistered and his back seized up, prepared to do whatever it took to win. No one was going to outwork, outfocus or outstrategize Tiger—or Beau. No one wanted the prize—and the prize was Jillian—more than Beau did.

  Deep inside her chest, Jillian’s heart fluttered with terror.

  Beau looked to Adam, which was good because Jillian couldn’t breathe when he focused all that fierce attention on her. Tucking his things under his arm, he stuck out his free hand.

  “Beau Taylor.”

  “Adam Marshall.”

  They shook while Jillian tried not to compare them and then, when that didn’t work, tried to pretend that it didn’t matter that Beau set her skin on fire and Adam didn’t.

  Adam was attractive, but Beau was devastating. Adam’s brown skin was smooth, but Beau’s was living gold, as irresistibly warm as the sun’s glow. Beau’s silky sable curls demanded touching and at this impossible moment she couldn’t even remember if Adam had hair.

  And Beau’s eyes—

  “You’re dating Jillian?” Beau asked.

  Well, hold up. Dating was putting too fine a point on it, for one thing, and Jillian didn’t like being talked about as though she weren’t there, for another, and—

  “Yes,” Adam said without hesitation.

  “Then you’re a lucky man.”

  Jillian stared at Beau, shocked by his graciousness.

  “I know,” replied Adam.

  What the hell?

  This was wrong. All wrong. These men shouldn’t be standing around like generals staring at a map of a conquered country, divvying up the spoils. She shouldn’t be standing quietly by, watching it happen. Worst of all, she should not, in the tiniest, darkest corner of her heart of hearts, be feeling so excruciatingly feminine.

  Stop it, Jillian. Right now. Put an end to this disgraceful display.

  “Excuse me.” She kept her voice frosty, her eyes flinty. “I do not appreciate—”

  Naturally, they both ignored her.

  Beau wasn’t quite done. “There’s something you should know.”

  Something about Beau changed in that one-second pause. Not his expression, which remained implacable, or his voice, which was quiet and even. But both she and Adam stilled, and Jillian sensed a new…thing emanating from Beau, an unyielding power that she’d never felt before.

  His features seemed clearer, somehow, his cheekbones sharper, as though Beau was, right now, just this moment, more of himself than he’d ever been in his life. An unstoppable force to be reckoned with.

  Maybe Adam didn’t know what he was dealing with here, but Jillian did, and it was thrilling. Terrifying and thrilling.

  This Beau, this man standing in front of her, was the man she’d married, times a million. At the same time, he was as complete a stranger to her as an Aborigine just arrived on a flight from the Australian outback.

  Jillian could only hold her breath and wait.

  Adam, who apparently had a stubborn streak that bordered on foolishness, jutted his chin. “What’s that, Taylor?”

  Beau’s gaze flickered to Jillian, and, Jesus, she felt touched, as though he were claiming every part of her. He wanted it all back, from her heart to her head, her skin, hair and every last drop of blood in her body in between.

  All that naked possessiveness ran over her, and it was like Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay planting that flag on the summit of Everest. If Beau had anything to say about it, all of her was his, or soon would be again—from her hips and butt, nipples and thighs and sex, down to the darkest corner of her soul.

  He was going to win her back or die trying, and she was facing the fight of her life if she wanted to keep him away. Which she did. Even though her skin still hummed when he entered the room, electricity still sizzled between them when their gazes met and, worst of all, she felt as though she’d reconnected with the missing other half of herself whenever she looked him in the eye.

  She would not make the same mistake again. If there were going to be a fight, then she’d fight. Because she couldn’t let this man destroy her again. Not again.

  Beau finally spoke.

  “I want my wife back, Marshall, and I don’t care how many men she has dinner with or dates or sleeps with, and I don’t care if it takes the next thirty years.” He paused, his jaw tight and grim, his gaze, which was still on Jillian, unwavering and unapologetic. “I want my wife back.”

  Beau hurried out of the elevator, through the sleek glass and chrome atrium of his office building and out the revolving door into the hot sludge that passed for Atlanta air in the springtime. A quick glance at his watch confirmed what he already knew: he was late for his first counseling session.

  Dammit.

  He picked up his pace—as much as he could, anyway, which wasn’t much with the cane—weaving through the crowd toward the parking lot and his car.

  This Phoenix Legacies business was no joke. The applicant interviews this morning had run long because there was no shortage of people wanting both a seco
nd chance and money to finance it. There’d been an organic produce farmer who’d declared bankruptcy after last year’s drought and his wife’s bout with cancer; he deserved a serious look. Then there’d been the woman running the after-school program in her basement, which was tough to do now that her house was in foreclosure. The bad economy had hit everyone hard, and—

  “Governor Taylor?”

  Beau stifled a curse and kept going. He didn’t have time for any paparazzi now, and surely there had to be a limit to how many shots they could get of him to go along with their Governor Taylor’s Tragic New Life as a Cripple stories. He was almost to his car—

  “Governor. Can I have a minute, please?”

  Shit.

  He paused, not bothering to hide his irritation. Did this idiot want an official “no comment” from him? Was that it? But when he looked over his shoulder, he realized it wasn’t a reporter or a photographer.

  It was a young brother, as tall as Beau, but bulky enough to play for the Falcons. A quick glance told Beau almost everything he needed to know about this guy. The short dreads, tiny hoops in both ears and unidentifiable tattoo creeping up the side of his neck said he was a rebel, or at least thought he was a rebel. The thin cotton dress shirt, dark pants and unfortunate loafers, which were all clean but cheap, screamed that this guy didn’t have enough money to know where he’d get his meals next week. The keen dark eyes behind the black-rimmed glasses said this guy was intelligent, if not educated.

  The squared jaw was a giant F-you, even though the guy needed something from Beau. He was proud and defiant, and he hated his need, considering it a weakness, but he still needed.

  This guy was mad at the world.

  And Beau didn’t have time for another angry black man. He was doing pretty well in that role himself at the moment. “Can I help you?”

  The guy hesitated, and then stuck out his hand. “I’m Dawson Reynolds.”

  They shook, and the name nudged something loose in Beau’s memory. “You filled out an application for Phoenix Legacies. You’ve just been sprung from prison, right? A sexual assault conviction? The Innocence Program did DNA testing or something and proved—”