Adele glanced down at the page, then back up into Zach’s brown eyes. Her swelling heart ached, and she felt as if she were being slammed up against something bigger than she. Bigger than her ability to stop it. She wrapped her arms around his neck and fell into that something bigger. “I love it. Thank you.” She closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of his skin. I love you.
He tossed the book on the small desk in her dorm and turned his face into her hair. “You’re welcome.” He ran his hands up and down her spine and she lifted her mouth to his. She poured everything she felt into the hot, hungry kiss. Her heart. Her soul. The love pounding through her veins.
He groaned against her lips as he slid his hands down her back to her behind and pressed his erection into her. “You make me so hard,” he said, just above her mouth. “I want you.”
She knew the feeling and pulled her T-shirt over her head and tossed it on her twin bed. She reached for him, but his hand on her bare stomach stopped her. His gaze lowered from hers, down her chin and throat to her breasts cupped in a sheer white nylon bra. Her nipples made hard points in the center of each cup. He stared for so long she raised her palms to cover herself, but he grabbed ahold of her wrists. He looked at her as if he’d never seen a naked girl before, but she was certain he’d seen more than his fair share of breasts.
“Zach. You’re making me self-conscious.”
“Why?” He glanced up into her face, then back down again.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
He chuckled, low in his throat. “I’m thinking that you’re a beautiful girl, and I’m a lucky guy. I’m thinking that after all this time, I’m really looking at you.” A sexy smile curved the corner of his mouth. “At least that’s the cleaned-up version of what I’m thinking.” Then he kissed her, working his way down her throat until his hot wet mouth covered her nipple through the sheer nylon. His hands moved to the hooks at her back, and the bra fell to the floor. He whispered something unintelligible as he sucked her naked flesh.
They’d never gone that far before, and this time he’d been the one to stop it. He hadn’t wanted her first time to be in a dorm room with thin walls or in a house filled with football players. The next day, he rented a room at the La Quinta and made it so good, she’d fallen even harder. He’d been the one with all the experience, and he’d taught her what to do and where to touch him. He’d taught her what good sex felt like. Later, she would learn that sometimes there was a difference between hot sex and making love. Zach had given her both. She would learn that hot sex without strings could be very satisfying, but that the best heart-pumping, mind-numbing, rock-you-like-a-hurricane sex, involved both.
She would also learn that if something burned too hot, it burned out too fast. But even if it hadn’t been for Devon, Adele doubted her relationship with Zach would have lasted past graduation. It had all been too much. He’d been too much. Sooner or later he would have broken her heart.
With Zach, it had been sooner rather than later. Her one true love, the guy who she’d thought was it for her, left her after two months. The night he’d told her that Devon was ten weeks pregnant, Adele had been devastated beyond words. He’d ripped her heart from her chest and made a mess of her life. She’d loved him with every aching cell of her body, and getting over him had taken her years.
It’s going to happen, Adele, he’d said earlier. If not now, another time.
Adele stood and turned back toward Sherilyn’s condo. She was only in Texas for a few months, but even if she lost her mind and moved back for good, the last thing she was ever going to do was get involved with Zach Zemaitis.
Chapter 7
Monday morning Adele worked on the outline for her latest futuristic series. She’d worked out the plot lines for the first three books, but the fourth and fifth weren’t so clear. She wasn’t too worried about it though. By the time she sat down to write those books, she’d know the direction each was meant to take. Hopefully.
After lunch she e-mailed her friends in Boise. Writing in a room by yourself was solitary and often lonely, and she needed contact with the outside world. Within an hour they returned her e-mails, and she learned that Lucy was diligently writing and that she and her husband, Quinn, were busily working on having a baby. Clare was leaving to travel with her freelance journalist husband, Sebastian, to Russia. Maddie had just inked a deal with Hollywood to have her latest book made into a film, and she was planning her wedding.
Adele looked around the small bedroom where she worked in Sherilyn’s home and sighed. While her friends were happily living their lives, making a baby, traveling, and planning a wedding, she was stuck in Cedar Creek. She was cursed with bad dates, vexed with a former boyfriend who gave her hot little tingles despite her desire to feel nothing, and annoyed with playing her sister’s gofer.
On the small desk next to her laptop lay a notebook filled with Sherilyn’s notes and to-do list. Adele looked forward to the day when Sherilyn was home and able to take care of herself and her children, but each time she thought about that day and looked forward to it, she felt guilty. It wasn’t her sister’s fault that she was in the hospital. If anything, Sherilyn hated not working her to-do list and playing gofer more than Adele hated working it. Still, each time Sherilyn added yet one more thing to the list, Adele fought an urge to grab the pencil and snap it like a dry twig. And that made her feel guilty and selfish.
Adele closed her laptop for the day and glanced about at the boxes of baby furniture and bags of baby clothes and diapers and baby…stuff littering the room. Number five on Sherilyn’s growing to-do list was: Paint and set up the baby’s room. Adele figured she had a few more months to get it done and was busy concentrating on the everyday wants and needs of a thirteen-year-old. Although really, she wasn’t sure what those wants and needs were because they seemed to change day by day. Sometimes minute by minute.
Just yesterday morning Adele had made Eggos for breakfast. Kendra had looked up from her plate as if she’d been served freshly toasted crap and had insisted that she hated Eggos and only wanted Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Then just this morning she’d thrown a fit because she got up too late to have an Eggo.
“I thought you hated Eggos?” Adele had reminded her.
Kendra frowned and shook her head. “No. I love Eggos.”
A pain had stabbed Adele’s forehead as she’d stared across at the niece who looked like a regular girl but was obviously an alien pod person who’d been sent from another world to drive Adele crazy.
You think you’re cursed, she reminded herself. Okay, crazier! She scrubbed her face with her hands and let out a deep breath. She was out of her element. She and Kendra weren’t all that much closer now than they had been the day Sherilyn had picked her up at the airport, and Adele didn’t have a real clear idea of how to rectify the situation. She supposed she could ask her sister, but she didn’t want Sherilyn to stress out about her and Kendra. Besides, it wasn’t as if they didn’t get along. They did; it was more like they were two people living in the same house who didn’t talk about anything important. Adele would like to know Kendra better before she left, and she could think of only one way to make that happen.
A month ago when she’d packed her suitcase, she’d anticipated a trip of no more than two weeks. As a result, she hadn’t packed all that many clothes and was getting really sick of the things she had packed. She needed to do some serious shopping, and she’d thought that maybe she and Kendra could do a little retail girl time. All teenage girls liked to shop, didn’t they? Maybe she and Kendra could bond at Dillard’s in the new mall downtown.
Adele stood and walked into Sherilyn’s bedroom, where she had moved her things. With Sherilyn in the hospital until she had her baby, Adele didn’t see any reason to sleep on the hide-abed sofa. The queen-size bed was covered in a simple red duvet made of cotton. On her bed at home, Adele had a puffy silver silk quilt with real silver threads woven into it. Adele didn’t consider herself materialistic, b
ut she did love good bedding.
She gathered up the laundry and was again amazed at how much wash a teenager generated in one week. At three, she left to pick up her niece from school. As she pulled the Toyota to a stop in her usual place, Kendra and Tiffany walked toward the car.
“Can you give Tiffany a ride home?” Kendra asked as she opened the door and stuck her head inside. “Her daddy can’t get away from his football practice over at the high school.”
“Sure,” Adele answered, and both girls climbed into the car. As she pulled away from the curb, Tiffany buckled herself in and asked from the backseat, “Would you mind taking me home the rest of the week? My daddy is really busy, and I don’t want to get stuck waiting around for him.”
Adele looked in the rearview mirror. With Zach at football practice, it wasn’t likely that she would run into him. “I don’t mind.”
“And maybe next week too? It just depends on if the Cougars win their game Friday night.” Tiffany zipped up her hooded sweater and rearranged her backpack. “I don’t want to ask any of those stupid moms to take me.”
Adele suspected there was more to the story, and after they dropped Tiffany at home, Kendra filled her in. “She doesn’t like some of the girls’ mommas.”
“I got that. Why?”
“’Cause she thinks they only act nice to her ’cause of her daddy. I guess after the party last night, some of the mothers hung around, and Tiffany said they were flirting and acting dumb.”
Adele pulled out of the gated community and imagined it was something Tiffany was going to have to get used to. Zach was very good-looking and rich and…well, he was Zach Zemaitis, and this was Texas. “She doesn’t like women flirting with her father?”
“Oh no.” Adele looked across at her niece who shook her head. “She doesn’t like women around her daddy. At all. She says they want to marry him, and she doesn’t want a stepmomma.”
Adele thought of Genevieve and didn’t think the woman’s interest was in marriage. “Not all women are interested in a husband. Some just like to go out and have fun. He’s single and…attractive.” Which was such a ridiculous understatement. Saying Zach was attractive was like saying a hurricane was a slight breeze.
“Yeah, Mr. Z’s cute. For an old guy.”
Adele chuckled. For an old guy. As she drove across town to the hospital, she thought about the brush of his mouth against hers and the seductive pull of his touch. Fourteen years ago, Zach had had moves well beyond his years. He’d known his way around a girl’s body, and she had a feeling he’d only gotten better.
When they walked into Sherilyn’s hospital room, she sat in a chair by the window waiting for them.
“The baby is really active today,” she said, a smile warming the tired lines at the corners of her eyes.
Kendra dropped her backpack on the bed and moved to her mother’s side. She placed her hands on Sherilyn’s belly and waited.
“Did you feel that?” Sherilyn asked.
Kendra nodded and her dark hair fell over one shoulder. “That was a good one.”
Sherilyn lifted a hand from her belly and motioned to Adele. “Come feel.”
“He always stops when I touch your stomach.” She moved to her sister’s other side and Sherilyn grasped her hand. She placed it on her belly and waited. Just as Adele was about to pull away, she felt movement beneath her palm. She paused and was rewarded with a strong kick.
“Oh my God!” She looked up into her sister’s face and grinned. “Was that him?”
Sherilyn nodded.
“What’s he doing? Tae kwon do?”
“Maybe he’s trying to kick his way out,” Kendra suggested as they all three stared at Sherilyn’s belly. Through the thin cotton of Sherilyn’s nightgown, her taut skin warmed Adele’s palm. A new life grew beneath her touch, and for the first time it seemed real to her. He seemed real to her. Sure she’d seen his sonogram images, but they’d looked more alien than human. She’d heard his heart beat dozens of times, but that sounded weird and squishy, not like the beating of a human heart.
“Have you decided on a name?” she asked. They’d talked about names, but now that he was suddenly real, it seemed right that he have a name.
“I think Harris. He’ll have his father’s last name, but I’d like him to have my maiden name.”
“Harris Morgan.” Adele’s smile grew. “I like it.”
Kendra shook her head. “I like Nick.”
“That’s because you like Nick Jonas,” Sherilyn said.
Adele hadn’t known that Kendra liked a boy. “Does he go to your new school?”
Kendra glanced across her mother’s stomach at Adele and rolled her eyes. “Nick is part of the Jonas Brothers. They sing ‘Hold On.’” She didn’t say duh, but she might as well have.
Beneath Adele’s hand, the baby kicked again, and it felt as if he’d kicked something loose that lodged in the middle of her chest. Something she hadn’t really given much thought to lately because there hadn’t been a man in her life for several years.
Yeah, Mr. Z’s cute. For an old guy. Zach was the same age as Adele. She dropped her hand and walked to the side of the bed. She watched Kendra and Sherilyn talk and laugh as they tried to get the baby to move.
“There it was again,” Kendra said through a great big smile.
Being here with Sherilyn, feeling the baby move and watching Kendra touch her mother’s stomach, it struck Adele that she was watching a family. Yeah, William was an AWOL a-hole, but that didn’t make Sherilyn, Kendra, and the baby any less a family.
Adele wanted that. She’d always wanted a family. When she’d had single girlfriends, she could tell herself that there was still time. But one by one her friends were all married or getting married and starting families of their own. Adele wanted her own family, too. A man to love her and her children. Children who would grow up and demand Eggos one day only to look at her like she was a moron the next and declare they hated Eggos.
“That was huge!” Sherilyn laughed.
It wasn’t as if Adele was standing there, watching her sister, and suddenly hearing the ticking of some biological clock. It was more like a glimpse into her future.
There’s always time, a little voice in her head reminded her. But was there? That’s what she liked to think, but she was thirty-five and hadn’t had a good date in three years. She was either cursed or crazy and what were the chances of finding a man who would marry a cursed or crazy woman?
Good. Crazy people have a way of finding each other. Look at Bonnie and Clyde. Ozzy and Sharon. Whitney and Bobby. Okay, so what were the chances of finding a nice normal man who would marry a cursed or crazy woman?
Not so good. And she didn’t want to purposely raise a child by herself. Some women did and were good at it. She just didn’t think it was for her. Maybe she’d change her mind in a few years, but for now, she wanted the whole package.
“This Thursday night there’s a rally at the high-school gym, and the Stallionettes are gonna dance,” Kendra announced, and pulled Adele’s thoughts from her troubles.
“Why is the junior high having a rally at the high school?” Adele wanted to know.
“It’s the high-school football rally.” Kendra looked across at Adele. “You’ll film it again, right?”
“Of course.”
Kendra removed her hands from her mother’s stomach and bounced up and down on the balls of her feet with excitement. “The high school’s dance team is out of town at a competition, so they asked us. How awesome is it that we get to perform at Cedar Creek the night before a playoff game?”
Watching Kendra dance again—very awesome. Seeing Zach again—not very awesome.
Inside the Cedar Creek gymnasium, gold and green streamers wafted from the rafters. Since the last time Adele had been in the gym, the packed bleachers had been painted green and gold. The wooden floor had a new snarling cougar logo that was very fierce, and a few new championships had been painted on one wall.
&n
bsp; Adele stood just inside the door, Sherilyn’s Handycam in her shoulder bag. The Cedar Creek marching band stood in the center of the gym as cheerleaders jumped about to the blasting horns and thumping drumbeat of the school song. Adele didn’t consider herself a particularly sentimental person, but hearing the old familiar tune hit her with a touch of nostalgia, like thumbing through an old photo album and seeing a picture of her first dog, Hanna.
The band finished on a booming note, then filed out two opposite doors. With the floor cleared, Adele looked for Kendra and found her across the gym, sitting on a bottom row in front of the football team. She wore her black footless unitard, purple sparkly vest, and soft leather dance shoes. Her dark hair was pulled to the back of her neck, and she’d painted her lips a deep red.
Since Kendra had found out that her team would dance at the high school, she’d been extremely nervous. What if she didn’t get her sparkly vest in time? What if she did tour jeté when she was supposed to do a stag leap? What if she didn’t give the crowd “energy”? Evidently, “energy” was big in the dance-team world because Kendra worried about it a lot.
Her gaze moved across the row of football players, all suited up in their team jerseys, to the coach sitting on the far side. Zach wore a black long-sleeved polo and a dark green ball cap that shaded his eyes. He rested his forearms on his Levi’s-covered thighs, and his attention was directed at the center of the gym, where a man with a white cowboy hat and boots took the microphone.
“Hello, Cougars! For those of you who don’t know, I’m Principal Tommy Jackson.” Applause broke out that mostly drowned out a few stray boos. “We’re all here tonight to show our support for our football team and to cheer them to victory tomorrow night.” Adele moved farther into the gym as the principal thanked the boosters and the students and teachers who’d hung the streamers and made posters. Adele found a seat near the middle, three rows up, and sat.
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