by Leanne Banks
“Oh, Andie, you know, your hair hasn’t grown back all the way yet,” Sam said with a halfhearted smile.
Feeling a wave of turmoil rise inside her again, Andie lifted her fingers to her chin-length hair. She remembered when it had hung halfway down her back. A week after she’d broken up with Paul, she’d cut it off. At the time, she’d insisted her motivation for cutting it was merely that she needed a change. Looking back, she realized it had been an outer symbol of what was going on inside her.
The silence lengthened and Samantha’s face turned serious. “Are you sure about this? I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”
Her heart caught. When she thought about Eli she wasn’t sure of anything except that he drew her as no man had before. “I’m not sure, and I don’t want to get hurt again, either. But it’s not as if I’ve made any long-term plans that include Eli, and I certainly haven’t promised eternity,” she told Samantha with grim determination. “It’s just a cocktail party.”
The rest of the week passed in a blur. With summer vacations, the hospital was running short-staffed, so Andie pulled a few extra hours Wednesday morning after her Tuesday night shift. When she arrived home, she slept like a zombie until dinner time, then gave a presentation for a local community association. The next morning, her youngest brother, Drew, drove up from Wilmington to look at North Carolina State University. She led him on a walking tour and took him to lunch before sending him home.
By late afternoon, she was ready to crash again, but from past experience she knew she’d wake up at 3:00 a.m. and want to do something impossible like go shopping.
The sun was warm, but a gentle breeze and low humidity lured her outdoors. Still wearing her white cotton sundress from her earlier outing, she stretched out on a chaise lounge on her patio and dozed for a while. She awoke to the sound of a loud whisper.
“Do you think she’s asleep?”
“Maybe,” Eli said in a low voice.
“She looks like she’s asleep,” Fletch whispered.
With amusement, Andie wondered why a five-year-old’s whisper had such an attention-getting capability. “She’s not,” she told them, opening her eyes. “She’s just being lazy.” Sitting up, she swung her legs around and smiled in surprise when she saw what Eli and Fletch had brought. Fletch held a bunch of daisies in his fist. Leaning against the big old maple tree, Eli carried a single red rose. Her heart clutched and she shook her head. “What’s this?” she asked, standing.
“It was Fletch’s idea,” Eli said, his gaze traveling over her in warm masculine appreciation. “He wanted to bring you flowers as an apology.” He glanced down at his rose and his mouth quirked in a wry grin. “We just had different ideas about what kind we should get you.”
Fletch stepped forward and thrust the flowers in her hand. “I’m sorry ‘bout what I did to your clock.” He shifted from one foot to the other and bounced his fingertips against one another. “We got you a new one, and I put it on the porch. Dad says it’s better than your old one.”
Andie bit her lip at his frankness. At the same time she was incredibly touched. “That was very nice of you. You didn’t have—”
“We wanted to,” Eli said, his expression indicating there’d been a major discussion about this.
“Do you like the flowers?” Fletch asked, his face eager.
“Oh, I love daisies,” she assured him, reaching down to hug his sturdy little body. The way Fletch snuggled against her plucked at her heart. She blinked at a sudden burning sensation in her eyes. Noticing a few of the stems still had clumps of dirt on the bottom of them, she tossed an inquiring glance at Eli. “They look freshly picked.”
Eli cleared his throat. “That’s another story.”
Fletch gave her another quick squeeze and wiggled free. “Mizz Grandview said I could have ‘em, but she made me promise to ask before I pick next time. Where’s Stud?”
Andie pointed to a shady spot, and Fletch immediately took off.
Eli pushed away from the tree and walked closer. “We’re fortunate Mrs. Grandview has a sense of humor.”
Andie nodded and laughed softly. “I think she has a few grandsons who’ve helped her with pruning at one time or another.”
“You’ve had a busy week,” he said, and Andie felt his mercilessly thorough gaze clear to the bone. “You look—”
“Oh, please,” she protested. Flustered, she pushed back her hair, suddenly realizing she was probably a mess. “I can imagine how I look.”
“Fletch said you looked like Sleeping Beauty.”
“Bless him. He can tear apart my clocks any time.”
He handed her the rose. “I agree.”
Her heart turning over at the look in his eyes, Andie ducked her head and smelled the rose to cover her heated cheeks. “Thank you. I really do love flowers.” Feeling uncomfortable, she gestured toward Fletch. “How’s he doing about his mother?”
“He doesn’t talk about her much. I’ve tried, but he doesn’t want to.” He paused. “He still falls asleep crying sometimes.”
Andie heard the restrained grief in his voice, and her heart went out to him, to both of them. The urge to touch his shoulder in comfort tied her in knots. Feeling as if she were fighting an instinct older than time, she swallowed hard. “I know it’s tough right now, but it will get better eventually.”
“I hope so,” he said quietly. He glanced back at her, and his intent gaze was one more battle she had to fight. “We’re going out for burgers in a few minutes. Come with us.”
His directive put her off-balance. If he’d asked, she could have said no. Andie hesitated. “I don’t—”
He studied her. “You’re not still running, are you?”
For a second, Andie held her breath in indecision. A hovering self-protective urge to back away made her second-guess. Then she realized she was being ridiculous. For Pete’s sake, it was just a burger, she told herself in exasperation, and she wasn’t in the mood to cook tonight. “No,” she finally said. “Thanks for inviting me. Just let me put my flowers in water.”
Forty-five minutes later, Eli looked at Fletch’s empty seat and half-eaten burger and shook his head. Not exactly the kind of dinner to start a new romance off with a bang, but when the lady wasn’t cooperating a man had to modify his plans. Even with twenty-five kids screaming in the restaurant playroom. Eli felt a gut level sense of satisfaction that Andie was sitting across the table from him. “Remind me not to let Fletch pick the—” Eli glanced around the fast food restaurant “—dining establishment the next time we eat out.”
“You were being a good father, one who believes in a child developing his sense of power by making his own decisions,” Andie told him with a mock-serious expression on her face.
“Damn,” he said. “And I thought it was because I didn’t want him to whine while you were with us.”
She laughed, and he wanted to absorb the warm, husky sound. It was as seductive as the touch of a feather on bare skin.
“I’ve heard whining before,” she said, waving at Fletch through the window separating the restaurant from the indoor playground. “He was obviously more interested in the playground than the food.” She glanced back at Eli and wrinkled her eyebrows in concern. “Is something wrong with your eyes? You keep rubbing them.”
Eli glanced at the hand he’d just pulled away from his eyes. “I guess I’m doing it without thinking. Nonstop computer time is hell on my eyes. I spent the past three days in front of the computer, and I put in a few extra hours at home after Fletch went to bed.”
“So that’s eight during the day,” she began with a lifted eyebrow.
“Or ten,” he said with a shrug.
“Then three or four at night. Fourteen hours a day.” She winced. “No wonder your eyes are irritated.”
Eli bit back a grin. She sounded irritated, too. “I didn’t have anything else to do,” he said.
“You could watch a movie, especially now that you’ve discovered the Three St
ooges.”
“I’d still be watching a screen.”
“What about closing your eyes and listening to a CD?”
He shook his head. “I’m too restless.”
“You could always sleep. I understand even research scientists need rest.”
His lips twitched at the concern in her voice. God, when had anyone given a damn how long he worked? “Can’t rest,” he told her. “Every time I go to bed, I end up thinking about my next-door neighbor.”
He watched excitement flicker through her eyes before she mustered a chiding look. “You’re being dif—”
“Andie! Andie!” A little girl darted toward her and flung her arms around her.
“Kendall.” Andie’s voice was full of surprise. “What are you doing here?”
Kendall pulled back but still held onto Andie’s arm. “Bobby Richardson is having his birthday party. I got him some slime ‘cause he likes gross stuff.” She lifted her hand to Andie’s hair. “You cut your hair. It’s short now,” she said in dismay.
Andie laughed and touched Kendall’s long brown ponytail. “And yours has grown. It’s beautiful.” She glanced at Eli. “Kendall, this is my next-door neighbor, Eli.”
Eli nodded at her. “Hello.”
Kendall looked at him with shy blue eyes. “Hi.” She glanced back at Andie. “I gotta go back to the party. We’re getting ready to eat cake.” She leaned forward to whisper something in Andie’s ear, then darted away.
Andie looked after her with an expression of regret.
“One of your kids?” Eli asked, curious about the sad expression on her face.
She looked at him in confusion. “My kids?” Her eyes widened in comprehension before he could elaborate. “Oh, from the hospital.” She shook her head and turned her gaze to Kendall again. “No, that was Paul’s little girl. And she looks like she’s grown a half a foot. Seeing her reminds me how much I’ve missed her.”
The hint of longing in her voice clawed at his gut. He couldn’t put his finger on why. Something that bordered on possessiveness trickled through him, but Eli knew that couldn’t be right. He’d never felt possessive about a woman. And there was no reason for him to feel possessive about Andie. He made a steeple out of his hands and rubbed his forefingers together thoughtfully. “Does he call you?”
She looked at Eli, and he watched the war between regret and resolve in her brown eyes. “No. I asked him not to. The breakup was hard for Kendall, too, because I had often taken care of her when Paul—” she hesitated “—worked in the evenings. It wouldn’t have been fair to play seesaw with Kendall’s feelings. Children become attached so easily.” As if she’d grown uncomfortable with the discussion, Andie shifted her attention to the table and stood. She put their trash on the serving tray. “Do you think Fletch will want the rest of his burger?”
“No.” He stood and joined her. “It sounds like you took care of Kendall even after the breakup,” he mused.
She shrugged and crumpled a paper wrapper. “I tried.”
He saw the tension around her mouth and felt a corresponding tightness in his gut. The dark notion that Andie could also be missing her former fiancé burned like indigestion, and that no-way-it-could-be-possessiveness sense infiltrated again.
His mind clicking through the possibilities, he watched her carefully. He was doing what men through the ages had done about women—guess. Eli scowled, and the darkness inside him intensified. Andie took care of people as a matter of course. It seemed like second nature to her. Whom, he wondered, did Andie allow close enough to take care of her?
Chapter Eight
Andie poked a fingernail through her nylons at the same moment a knock sounded at her door. She swore, then glanced at the clock and moaned. “Just a minute,” she yelled, knowing it was Eli. The knowledge did little to calm her nerves.
She shouldn’t be nervous. There was no reason for it, she told herself. But deep inside, Andie felt a hum of anticipation, a buzz of excitement and a top-of-the-ferris-wheel sensation in her stomach. It had nothing to do with rubbing elbows with Raleigh’s elite and everything to do with one man.
The reason she was going to such trouble over her appearance had more to do with the occasion than the man, though, she assured herself, and ignored the mocking hoot from her conscience. She had no illusions about being able to drop a man at fifty paces. She would just like to have him look and keep looking, want and keep wanting. Her stomach twisted at the unfulfilled feminine need and she tried to think about something else.
She took a deep breath and pulled out the only other black stockings in her drawer—a pair of thigh-highs she’d bought, but been too wary to try. She didn’t trust the elastic, and the image of what she would look like if the elastic failed was almost enough to have her reaching for her white support hose.
She chewed her lip as she carefully pulled up the nylons. Relief and irony rushed through her when she finished. Her thighs were indeed sufficient to keep the elastic secure.
She heard the front door open. “Andie,” Eli called.
Her heart raced at the sound of his voice. She pressed her hand to her chest. “I’ll be out in a minute,” she managed, and scowled when she glanced in the mirror and saw that she’d mutilated her lipstick. Her hands shaking too much to risk lip liner, she settled for gloss and a quick spritz of perfume that caught in her throat. Coughing, she stepped into heels, grabbed her purse and walked from her bedroom.
Rounding the hall corner, she stumbled over Stud and scraped her finger on a rough place on the door facing. “Well, darn,” she muttered, bending to quickly pet the dog, who regarded her with wounded eyes.
Smooth, graceful, sophisticated.
In another life.
Andie hesitantly looked across the room in Eli’s direction and drank in the sight of him. His shoulders looked impossibly, wonderfully wide in the dark suit jacket. The crisp white shirt emphasized his naturally tanned complexion. His tie was a bright splash of crimson color that could use the slightest adjustment, she thought. Her hands itched to take care of it.
Unnerved and compelled by the tension coiling inside her, she finally met his gaze. His expression was intent, and the look in his green eyes stopped her survey along with her heart.
Eli looked and kept looking. There wasn’t anything leisurely about it. He had too much energy for that. No, he watched her with a knee-melting, resolve-busting thoroughness that had her breath backing up into her lungs. His gaze traced the square neckline of her black cocktail dress and lingered at her breasts. Her nipples tingled. She felt them jut against the lining of her dress.
He traced the curve of her waist and lower until her mind raced to the next step and she could almost swear he’d wrapped his hands around her hips. He studied her thighs with possessive intent, then contemplated the rest of her legs and feet. She didn’t know exactly what he was contemplating, but the mere suggestion had her curling her toes inside her shoes. She sucked in a quick little breath and bit her lip.
Eli’s head turned at the soft sound, and he walked toward her. “I don’t want to take you to this party.”
Uncertainty trickled through her. She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “You don’t?”
“No. I—” he lifted his hand to fiddle with one of her dangling earrings “—I want to look at you without any distractions.”
Her stomach flipped. “You do?”
“Yeah,” he said, wrapping his finger around one of her curls. “Your hair’s different.”
“I rolled it,” she said inanely, standing as still as a statue.
“I like it.” He cocked his head to one side consideringly. “I like it straight, too.”
He dropped his hand to the golden puffed heart pendant resting against her chest and slid it between his fingers. “Pretty. Another gift?”
Despite the warmth of his hand near her breasts, Andie felt a breathless amusement at the slight edge in his voice. “I bought it to celebrate my first nursing job.”
<
br /> He nodded, and as if he couldn’t keep from touching her, he abandoned the gold heart to cup her chin. She felt a swift visceral twist in her stomach at the way he studied her mouth. “Eli, didn’t you say this cocktail party was mandatory?”
He sighed, but didn’t move his hand or his gaze. “Yeah. Dr. Berylman said something about them holding it in my honor.”
If he kissed her, it would be all over, Andie thought, her heart pounding against her rib cage. He could take her against the wall. And Eli looked as if that was just one of many blatantly sexual thoughts consuming his mind. It must have been the one drop of self-preservation she still possessed that helped her find her mental faculties and her voice. “We need to go,” she told him, tilting her chin away from him and taking a step back.
Eli immediately reached for her, but Andie lifted her hand to block him. “We really need to go,” she said as firmly as she could manage when his after-shave suggested he’d be better than turtle cheesecake.
He hesitated, then muttered something under his breath and crammed his fists into his pockets. “How long do you have to stay at a cocktail party?”
“Stay,” she repeated, confused. “You mean how long does etiquette require you to stay at a cocktail party?”
He nodded. “Fifteen minutes should be adequate. Right?”
She looked at him in disbelief. “For a party where you’re the guest of honor?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. You’d better plan on an hour or two.”
“Why don’t they just put me in hell?” he muttered under his breath.
He looked like a cornered tiger. Struck by a wave of commiseration, she stepped closer and adjusted his tie. “It won’t be that bad. They’ll probably fawn all over you and stuff you with hors d’oeuvres and—”
Eli caught one of her hands in his. “I don’t want food.”
His gaze flickered with a checked passion that caused a corresponding burn in her. Feeling the thunder of his heart beneath her hand, she cleared her throat and backed away. “Maybe you’ll change your mind when you get there.”
