Redemption's Kiss

by Ann Christopher

  “Why else?”

  “Why should I have to go to Miami for this test of Jillian’s?”

  “Why else?”

  “Because I’m…a little, ah…scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of discovering that I miss the city or the excitement or something.”

  “Not the women?”

  Beau thought of the nights in Jillian’s arms, of the unspeakable pleasure and the addictive need for more pleasure from that one source only. “No,” he said, the top edge of his anger leaking away. “The one thing I’m not worried about is the women.”

  “Why else are you angry?”

  “Because when the hell is she going to trust me?” Beau didn’t mean to roar like a snared lion, but he was beyond self-control, and this had been bottled up inside him for too long. “Why does my entire life have to be defined by my infidelities? When is she going to stop judging me?”

  Dr. Desai considered his fingers, which were folded in his lap, for a long time before he spoke. “This is interesting. You’re very critical of Jillian’s inability to get past this one thing, but I’m wondering, how good are you at forgiveness?”

  “Me? What the hell are you—”

  “You haven’t forgiven Jillian for her doubts, have you?” Beau nearly gagged on his surprise.

  “You run a foundation that gives people second chances and yet there’s a young man who’s a lot like you—”

  What? That Dawson Reynolds guy? “He is not like—”

  “—and you have the unique opportunity to mentor him and change his life. Are you being a model of forgiveness to him?”

  “This is your best advice, Doc? That situation has absolutely nothing to do—”

  “Isn’t the principle the same?” Dr. Desai asked. “When we’re talking about second chances and redemption?”

  Beau struggled, unable to answer.

  And then Dr. Desai dropped the nuclear bomb on him. “Or maybe your biggest issue is that you haven’t forgiven yourself for not being the perfect man you hoped you were.”

  Beau ran his Range Rover through the car wash on his way to the airport. It didn’t take him long to find who he was looking for.

  Dawson Reynolds stood at the far end, drying the cars as they emerged from the automated wash. The dude looked truly sad on this sweltering morning, hot, wet and miserable, his T-shirt and khakis damp with what was probably an unholy combination of sweat and soapy water. His back pockets were jammed with towels, and he worked on a shiny BMW, putting some elbow grease into it and taking care to buff a couple of hard-to-reach spots.

  Then the car’s owner strode up, climbed into the driver’s seat and drove off, paying Dawson as much attention as he’d’ve paid a passing ant on the sidewalk. No tip, no thanks, no nothing.

  Dawson glared after the man, swiped his wet face with his forearm and turned to the next vehicle. Which happened to be Beau’s.

  The poor guy cringed, probably thinking that an unfortunate coincidence had brought Beau here to see him at his lowliest. Beau felt a twinge of discomfort. Maybe he should’ve called ahead, but then he wouldn’t have the pleasure of seeing the brother’s face when he told him the news.

  Dawson wheeled around, nostrils flaring, and went to work on the Rover, looking so furious he probably wanted to take a swing at Beau.

  Beau took his time about walking over, drawing out the moment. “How’s it going?”

  Dawson grunted, now drying the rims.

  “That gig at the circus didn’t work out?”

  Dawson straightened, narrowed his eyes at Beau and stretched out over the hood, drying it.

  “You’re not very angry today.” Beau slid on his sunglasses and turned his sarcasm up a notch. “Did those sessions with Dr. Desai finally do you some good?”

  That did it. Dawson straightened and squared his shoulders, his skin vibrating with rage and threatening to split his clothes down the seams, like the Hulk. “What the hell do you want, Governor?”

  Beau shrugged and flashed his most innocent look. “Can’t a brother get his car washed? And anyway, I thought you wanted an interview.”

  Dawson gaped. “An inter—”

  “This is it,” Beau told him. “But you’re not doing too hot so far. I’m not real impressed.”

  Dumbstruck, Dawson stared off at the next car emerging from the wash, then looked back to Beau, his lips twitching in what might have been the beginnings of an uncertain smile. “How did you find me?”

  “Well, I checked all the playgrounds in the area and didn’t see you dealing to children, so I thought you might be here.”

  Dawson snorted a quick laugh.

  “Desai told me,” Beau said.

  “Desai. I’ll have to talk to him about client confidentiality.”

  But Dawson didn’t look upset with Desai, and Beau wasn’t upset with the good doctor, either. The man had asked him some hard questions and made him think enough to cause his brain to bleed.

  The bottom line was that Beau was finished with anger—at Adena Brown, Jillian and especially himself. He wasn’t perfect. Big freaking news flash. He was doing the best he could, which was a day-to-day thing, but looking pretty good right now. He had something to offer Jillian, Allegra and the world.

  That was enough.

  And this guy here, Dawson Reynolds. Buried underneath all his anger was a dude who had some promise, if he didn’t let his self-destructive big mouth get in the way.

  Self-destructive. Yeah, Desai had been right about that. Dawson reminded Beau of himself when he was young and stupid. Which wasn’t that long ago, come to think of it.

  “I read your file and application again,” Beau told him. “You’re pretty smart.”

  “Hell, yeah, I’m smart—”

  Beau held up a hand, silencing him. “Let’s work on you shutting up a little bit more. How about that?” Dawson snapped his jaws closed.

  “You put together a good proposal,” Beau continued, “and I think you’d be great at flipping houses. You might have a Donald Trump in there, waiting to come out, and I’m willing to give you a chance.”

  Dawson’s eyes widened, but he kept quiet.

  “So I want you to quit your job here, unless you think you have a future in drying cars—”

  He paused, and Dawson shook his head hard enough to jar something loose.

  “—and show up at my office on Monday. I’m going to train you up, see if I can’t do something with you. Got it?”

  Dawson nodded.

  “You might want to think about it,” Beau warned him. “If you accept the grant, you’ll have an obligation to pay it forward and mentor someone else coming up after you. If you think you can stop flapping your jaws long enough to teach someone else, I’d be glad to have you. Okay?”

  “Oh,” Dawson said. “Am I allowed to speak now?”

  Beau had to laugh as he extended his hand. “Smart-ass punk.”

  Dawson laughed, too, but it flashed by, as though he’d only given himself permission to loosen up for half a second every three days or so. Then he sobered and gripped Beau’s hand, serious and earnest. “You won’t regret it.”

  “See that you don’t make me regret it. By the way, you missed a spot.”

  He pointed to the side panel and Dawson jerked around to see what he was talking about, but Beau laughed again. “Just kidding,” he said.

  He climbed in, slammed the door and adjusted the mirrors. This was a good thing he was doing here with Dawson, and it felt right. It also felt right to feel proud of himself about something, and wasn’t that a switch?

  Pulling away, he kept his muttering voice loud enough for Dawson to hear him. “A man with a degree from Duke shouldn’t have to work in a car wash.”

  Dawson’s joyous laughter followed him as he turned into the street and headed for the airport.

  Chapter 20

  Beau wished he could hate Miami, but Miami didn’t cooperate.

  When the car picked him up outs
ide the airport, the sky was the unreasonable, blazing blue that only the tropics could manage, with fat gray storm clouds on the horizon that promised the usual afternoon rain.

  He breathed deep, realizing that he’d missed this sultry air, fragrant with unknowable flowers, the damp earth and the bay, missed the bustling excitement that came with a big city full of millions of people.

  Yeah, he felt a twinge. Slight, but there.

  “This is it, Governor,” the driver said, pointing to a Mercedes idling at the curb.

  Beau winced. His former title, which was such a vivid reminder of the past, was always like the amplified scrape of a thousand nails across a blackboard, and enough to make his ears rupture.

  “Just call me Beau.”

  Smiling, the driver relieved Beau of his carry-on and swung it around to the trunk, and Beau took a minute to redistribute his weight on his cane. The last thing he needed was to fall on his butt and—

  Oh, shit.

  There she was, inside the car, waiting for him with the kind of glowing-eyed excitement that confirmed his suspicion that she wanted to resume their affair.

  Adena Brown, the woman he’d turned to for comfort when he should’ve been turning to his wife.

  His stomach pitched, but he kept his expression politely neutral.

  She hadn’t gotten any uglier in the years since he’d seen her. She looked good, in fact, with her skirt hiked up to thigh level to reveal bare legs that were sun-kissed and shapely, shoulders bare and breasts straining against the bodice of her strapless dress.

  He wasn’t quite sure how this sexy little outfit jelled with her go-for-the-jugular business demeanor, but it really didn’t matter. She’d dressed to impress, and he was impressed.

  Shoring up his manners, he got in and shut the door before some lurking airport paparazzo—they were never far away, always waiting for Jennifer Lopez or some other celebrity of the day—snapped a picture of them together.

  “Hi,” she said, her smile widening with obvious delight.

  “Hi.”

  “You look great.”

  He hesitated, but what the hell. He was all about honesty now, and she’d gone to a lot of trouble for his benefit. “So do you.”

  Unfortunately, she seemed to take this statement of the obvious as encouragement, and caught him by surprise as he was resting his cane against the seat.

  Leaning across the leather seat and bringing with her the faint scent of some sophisticated musk that probably cost about a thousand dollars an ounce, she cupped his face in her soft manicured hand and kissed him. Too close to his cheek to be a lover’s greeting, but too close to the corner of his lips to be platonic, the kiss registered with the purely male side of him and made his nerves prickle with awareness.

  He remembered that scent. He remembered that hand and those lips.

  They’d had some fun together, he and Adena. She was an athlete in bed, as enthusiastic and memorable a lover as he’d ever had, and he’d had plenty.

  The kiss lingered for a startled moment, and then she turned him loose, her voice husky now. “It’s good to see you.”

  Yeah. He could see that in her brown eyes, so like Jillian’s and yet not like hers at all because they had sexual heat without any human warmth.

  Since he couldn’t say the same, he decided just to be pleasant. “Thanks for bringing me in.”

  Holding his gaze, she uncrossed and recrossed her legs, to great effect. Old Adena kept herself in great shape; he had to give her that. The driver got in and they pulled away from the curb and merged with the traffic exiting the airport.

  “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “Well…as you know, I almost didn’t,” he told her.

  “What changed your mind?”

  I’d do anything to earn Jillian’s trust once and for all, that’s what.

  “I thought I’d see what you had to say.”

  Adena twisted around in her seat, coming in as close as she could without climbing into his lap, and displaying a pair of breasts that were still spectacular, as she no doubt knew. Why didn’t she just take the dress off and rest her girls on a silver platter for his perusal? Or, better yet, she could have them photographed and run off on business cards to hand out to prospective lovers. That could simplify things for her, right?

  She touched his arm. “I’ve missed you.”

  He didn’t doubt it. She was just that delusional and self-destructive.

  “That’s funny,” he told her, “since our affair ruined both our marriages and our lives. Why would you miss me? If you were smart, you’d have yourself hypnotized to have all memory of me wiped from your mind.”

  Blinking, she gave him the puppy-dog eyes, all wide bewilderment and open adoration. “Don’t say that. You know how I felt about you.”

  “I know how you felt about my penis, yeah. I’m not sure we ever knew each other, though.”

  His cool bluntness didn’t make so much as a chink in her thick ego, nor did it cause her to stop this line of conversation, which disgusted him and would leave them both embarrassed. He hadn’t expected it to.

  “Don’t say that, Beau. I’ve always loved you. You know that.”

  Love. Huh. Yeah.

  Funny.

  Turning away, he stared out the window and absorbed the bitter disgust rising up over the back of his tongue. Took a minute to absorb it, to wallow in it. To imprint this moment—this feeling—on his brain so he’d never forget, even if he lived another sixty years.

  Adena seemed to sense that things were going south on her; he heard the rising desperation in her voice. “Did you ever care for me?”

  That would be a big negative.

  She was beautiful, she reminded him a little of his wife and she’d been able and oh-so-willing to give him some comfort during one of the darkest periods of his life.

  Their affair had amounted to some heated looks, a few frantic screwings that had never made him feel any better and a lot of guilt and scrambling to cover up his infidelity.

  He hadn’t wanted to build anything with her, hadn’t missed her when she was gone and would never have thought about her again in his life if she hadn’t called him.

  She was, in short, utterly forgettable, and he only wished she’d disappear so he could carry on with the forgetting.

  “I’m in love with my wife. She’s the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

  “The tabloids have been saying you’re back together.” Adena’s eyes darkened to black. “But she’s your ex-wife, isn’t she?”

  “I’m working on that.”

  For a minute she didn’t say anything, and he knew she was retooling her strategy, rethinking and refining her approach. Then she eased closer and let her hand drift up his thigh.

  He tensed, but that didn’t seem to bother her.

  “Beau.” She nuzzled his ear. “Please. I know you remember how it was.”

  Yeah, he remembered. It’d been fun, for about thirty seconds. And it’d been the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life or ever could have done.

  It was so obvious to him now, but why hadn’t he seen it then?

  Still, he took a minute to really consider what he was ejecting from his life forever, to really decide.

  It would be as easy as falling off a horse. The car had a divider, and he could have Adena flat on her back, legs spread, screwed and happy by the time they reached the office.

  Or, if he wanted, he could get out of this car, head to the nearest hotel bar on the beach, and find a beautiful and willing woman there. Miami was full of beautiful women. The only things more plentiful here were palm trees.

  He could have one-night stands every evening for the rest of his life. He could have ménages or orgies. Whatever he wanted, the sky was the limit because he was handsome, notorious and had a little money. Endless fun and games were his for the taking. All he had to do was take.

  Except that if he went down that road again, he’d lose the one thing he really wanted and
needed—his soul. Jillian was his everything, and he was finished trying to eke out a bearable existence without her. More than that, he was finished with this sordid scene and Adena. There wasn’t anything remotely tempting about any of it.

  His girls were back home at the B & B, waiting for him, and he had no idea what the hell he was doing here when he belonged with them.

  Clamping his fingers on Adena’s wrist to stop her upward progress, he removed her hand from his body and shoved it back in her lap.

  “Pull over,” he told the driver.

  Adena’s jaw dropped as the car edged to the nearest curb. They hadn’t even made it out of the airport yet, and their little reunion visit had lasted five minutes at the most.

  “What’re you doing?”

  Beau picked up his cane and opened the door, desperate to be anywhere but here, with her. “I’m going back home where I belong.”

  “What?”

  Ah, shit. She looked weepy and shaky all of a sudden, as if she might really cry. It was probably all an act, but even so, he’d hurt enough women in his life and didn’t want to hurt this one any more than he had to.

  “I’m sorry I wasted your time, Adena. I wish you all the best.” He paused and glanced over his shoulder so she could see he meant it. “And I don’t ever want to hear from you again.”

  Her face turned a flaming red, somewhere between hurt, anger and abject humiliation, and she opened her mouth to let him have it, but he didn’t have time for any nonsense.

  Climbing out, he shut the door without looking back. The driver, meanwhile, rushed around and met him at the trunk to hand him his rolling overnight bag, stammering about driving him back to the terminal.

  “No, thanks.” Beau settled his cane in one hand and the bag’s handle in the other. “I think I’ll walk.”

  Why shouldn’t he? His leg wasn’t bothering him too much today, and the weather was nice. The terminal wasn’t that far, and he could use the exercise and the time to clear his head, although his goals had never been in sharper focus.

  If he hurried, he could probably catch the next shuttle back to Atlanta and be home by midafternoon, with his girls and his dog and their new kitten.