Celebration's Family (Celebrations, Inc Series Book 5)

by Nancy Robards Thompson

  She let him undress, aware that there was no place to hide even in the soft candlelight. It wasn’t her nakedness that gave her pause as much as it was her emotions. Because surely he could read the hunger in her eyes as clearly as she could read it in his. But he put her at ease when he began placing gentle, unexpected kisses on her body—on her neck, the ticklish spot behind her ears, trailing his way down until he’d reached the sensitive insides of her thighs.

  His tongue found its way to her center, and he worked his magic until she cried out in pleasure that was so intense it radiated off her in waves.

  He settled between her legs as she looped her arms around his back and pulled him down on top of her.

  His gaze locked on hers, Liam thrust gently to fill her. She raised her hips to take him all the way in. His breath escaped in a rush, and he held stock-still for a moment as if he were afraid to break the fragile moment of their joining. Looking into his eyes, Kate reveled in the sensation, in the wonder of his manhood inside her.

  His eyes were the deepest shade of blue she’d ever seen. The candlelight flickering off the tent’s white walls picked out golden strands in his brown hair, and she ran her fingers through pieces that had curled defiantly in the heat of their passion. She pushed them off his forehead.

  It had been a long time since she’d been intimate with a man, but Liam had been worth the wait.

  “You feel even better than I imagined,” he whispered, before he lowered his mouth to hers for another kiss.

  She pulled him closer, giving herself time to explore the muscled feel of him and taste the deliciousness of his mouth—red wine, strawberries and a hint of honey.

  When finally she smiled up at him, he began to move. Slower than she expected, each movement driving her mad, making her crave more. Kate rose to meet him halfway, her arms still tight around his back. As he thrust again, he slipped his hands beneath her bottom and shifted her so that he could go deeper. Her body ignited with a passion, fanning a flame from the inside out.

  Soon he began pumping his hips with urgent intent. Kate wrapped her legs around his hips at the liquid warmth gathering and radiating outward. Each stroke, deeper and deeper, nudged her closer to release. Her muscles shook from the sheer want of him as she focused on every sensation of every movement. Liam increased his rhythm, and his breathing was heavy and raspy against her ear. His torso was tight as if with the effort to restrain himself for her sake.

  When the wave of pleasure crested, a quiet moan escaped her lips. His mouth found hers again. Her release hovered, suspended for a moment that seemed to stretch on into eternity before breaking over her. Liam’s kiss caught her cry of pleasure and seemed to fuel his own.

  “God, Kate,” he groaned, and she arched her body to meet his final powerful thrust.

  His eyes closed and his neck tendons strained as the orgasm shook his body. Kate slid her hands along the rock-hard muscles of his arms to end up with her fingers curled into his hair. He swayed above her for a moment before she pulled him down on top of her, and he collapsed, but not before kissing her again as if drawing a sustaining life’s breath from the final moments of their coupling.

  She curled into the curve of his body and was amazed by the heat radiating from his skin.

  “You are so hot,” she said.

  He smiled at her. “Hey, you stole my line.” His voice was raspy, and he was still breathing hard. His was hair mussed, and he looked sexy and beautiful and satisfied. Especially when he planted a gentle kiss on her lips, then pulled her in closer with a possessive arm so that her head was resting on his chest.

  His sweet line brought a smile to her face that she didn’t even try to hide. Instead, she ran her palm over his chest, spreading her fingers through the sprinkling of curly dark hair in the valley between his pecs.

  On the physical level their lovemaking had depleted every ounce of her energy; yet their joining and the way he continued to hold her replenished and restored her soul.

  “I can hear your heartbeat,” she murmured, closing her eyes as a satisfied weariness relaxed every muscle in her body. He responded by pulling her closer, and she buried her nose in his neck, reveling in the smell of him.

  The piercing sound of a telephone cut through the air, and she felt Liam tense. Gently he disengaged and propped himself up on one elbow and rifled for his pants. “I’m so sorry, but that’s my nanny, Rosalinda’s, ring tone. I need to take the call. If it were anyone else, it would’ve gone straight through to voice mail.”

  “Of course, please,” Kate said. As he answered the phone, she grabbed her dress and covered herself with it, reminding herself that Liam was a good dad. Children should always be able to get in touch with their parents...no matter where they were—

  “Is she okay?” Liam said, sitting all the way up. “Okay, I’ll meet you at the hospital as fast as I can. Please tell her I’m on my way.”

  “Liam, what is it? Is everything okay?”

  His face looked pale and drawn. “My daughter Calee had an accident tonight during her dance rehearsal. They’ve taken her to the hospital. I need to get there as soon as possible.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Kate went to the hospital with Liam. She’d planned on taking a cab home while he reunited with his family. However, when they arrived, Liam’s housekeeper, Rosalinda, and his daughter Amanda met them at the emergency room door. It soon became clear that Amanda would either have to spend the night at the hospital or go home with Rosalinda, who had to watch her grandson that night while her daughter worked.

  Before Kate could think twice about it, she offered to ride to Liam’s house with Rosalinda and Amanda, and stay with the girl, whose wide frightened eyes were red and sported dark half-moons of exhaustion. Liam declined her offer at first, but when she and Rosalinda pointed out that it wouldn’t serve anyone for Amanda to hang around the emergency room at this hour, and Kate’s offer to stay with the girl was the only way that Amanda would be able to go to sleep in her own bed, he reluctantly agreed.

  As they started to leave, Liam motioned Kate aside. “Thank you for offering to stay with Amanda. I appreciate it. I should’ve realized from the start that being in her own home in her own bed was the best thing for her.”

  “I’m happy to help. Is there anything I need to know or should do for her? Has she eaten?”

  Liam raked a hand through his hair, frustration written all over his face. It was strange to see the worried parent of a patient rather than the usually stoic doctor.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll ask her and Rosalinda. We’ll figure it out. Are you going to be okay? Do you need anything?”

  He shrugged.

  She reached out and touched his arm. “We’ll be fine. You focus on Calee.”

  His injured daughter was already getting X-rays. Apparently she had landed wrong after performing some sort of pirouetting leap—or whatever the correct ballet term was. It certainly hadn’t turned out well.

  As Kate turned to join Rosalinda and Amanda, who were waiting near the emergency room exit, Liam said, “I had a different ending planned for our evening.”

  Kate’s cheeks heated as she remembered how it felt to lie naked in Liam’s arms. She redoubled her resolve. She was a grown woman; they were consenting adults. She needn’t feel ashamed for partaking in the pleasure of intimacy with this attractive man. However, she couldn’t help but wonder if the different ending Liam had in mind meant that he hadn’t planned on them making love or that he hadn’t planned on ending up at the hospital. He surely hadn’t planned on the hospital. No good parent would ever want that. So she had to wonder if he was already having regrets. But this wasn’t the place to worry about that.

  Like Cinderella running out of time, the metaphorical clock was striking midnight on this much-anticipated date. Her coach had become the nanny’s car; her dress was... Well, it was still beautiful. But her Prince Charming had other subjects to tend to, and it was time f
or her to return to her life.

  “It was a great night, Liam. Thank you for everything. Now it’s time for you to focus on Calee. I’ll take care of Amanda.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  For a moment, she thought he might lean in and kiss her, but then his gaze zagged off to an unknown spot over her shoulder. Kate turned and saw Amanda standing there watching the two of them with a deadpan expression.

  “Get back to your daughter,” Kate said, and she turned and walked away.

  * * *

  During the ride to Liam’s house, Amanda was silent, but Rosalinda had an idea.

  “I will call my daughter and see if she objects to me bringing the baby over to Dr. Thayer’s home. He is an infant. He can sleep anywhere. However, it would probably be best if I dropped the two of you off first. I will need to get his things together and load his portable crib into the car. If you don’t mind,” she spoke to Kate, “you could be there while Amanda takes her shower and prepare her a snack. She is always ravenous after a long rehearsal.”

  Kate agreed to help in any way Rosalinda needed her.

  “Ai, but how will you get home?” Rosalinda asked. “You do not have your car. I suppose we could load up the children again, but...”

  “No worries,” Kate said. “I’ll call my brother and sister-in-law. One of them will be able to pick me up.”

  Rosalinda made her call when she got to the house—a stately two-story white Colonial-style home with black shutters and a glossy red front door. Rosalinda’s daughter agreed to her mother’s suggestion. After Rosalinda showed Kate to the kitchen, the older woman rushed off to gather her grandson.

  Alone in the kitchen with the family’s mutt dog, Frank, Kate heard water running in another area of the house. She realized Amanda, who hadn’t uttered a word since she’d said goodbye to her father at the hospital, must be in the shower. Kate looked around the expansive kitchen at the granite countertops and island in the center of the room, the expensive cherry-stained cabinets, the bulky commercial-grade appliances. Even though Kate wasn’t much of a cook—who could justify shopping and cooking for one?—she did feel a pang of envy at the six-burner gas range set under the polished copper vent hood. It was a thing of beauty. It shouted home and family—nourishment for the soul...the way to a man’s heart....

  She ran her hand over the range’s shiny surface as she made her way to the refrigerator to make Amanda a plate of turkey, cheese and fruit. It was simple enough. A snack that she certainly could manage to prepare.

  The contents of the refrigerator were so neat and orderly that the fridge looked like it could’ve been featured in an appliance ad. That was a testament to Rosalinda’s handiwork.

  Still, the kitchen felt as if it were haunted by Joy. Not haunted in a creepy scare-you-off way, but in a sense that this room had the feel of being the heart and soul of the house. Joy had probably designed the kitchen, cooked here, communed with her family here, laughed here. She was very much still here—her essence was part of the walls and woodwork.

  As it should be.

  After Kate set out all the ingredients for Amanda’s snack, she went in search of a plate and silverware, opening cabinets and drawers. She had to admit that she was as intent on discovering clues about the woman who had possessed Liam’s heart and soul as she was in finding the dinnerware. But with the exception of a picture of Joy, her hair a riot of strawberry-blond spiral curls, her arms hugging her twin daughters, everything was pretty much standard-issue for an upscale kitchen.

  Kate studied the picture until there was nothing more to glean from it. She made a mental note that Liam was not in the photo with his girls; she bet that’s what he’d called them—all three of them—his girls. But really, what more was there to discover here?

  Joy hadn’t shopped for the food in the pantry; she’d probably chosen the dishes and pots and pans; she may or may not have picked out the dishcloths and towels. But Kate knew that’s not what she was so curiously searching for. The answers to the questions she really wanted to know were probably hidden in other parts of the house.

  She quickly arranged the meat, cheese, strawberries and grapes—the fruit, Rosalinda said, was already washed—on a white plate, which had a raised white grape motif running around the outer edge. She set it on the table at the other end of the kitchen, near an open doorway that she presumed led to the rest of the house.

  Before crossing the threshold into what looked like a family room, Kate stood stock-still, listening to make sure she still heard the rush of the water running in unknown parts of the house. Once she did, she stepped out of the kitchen and into the world of Joy.

  This was more like it. Framed pictures adorned every surface—pictures of the girls, pictures of Liam, pictures of Liam and the girls. The same family portrait that he’d shown her hung in a large frame on the wall opposite of the television set. Quickly Kate looked at each one, hungry to discover something...though she didn’t quite know what that something was.

  It wasn’t in this room, even though Joy had probably chosen the furniture and the accessories, the particular shade of sea-foam-green on the walls and the clean, informal white on the rest of the woodwork. The room had an effortless yet pulled-together comfortable vibe about it. Yes, one could cuddle on the couch or huddle around the large square coffee table for game night. It was definitely a family room.

  Kate glanced back in the direction of the front door, retracing with her eyes the path that she and Rosalinda had taken when the nanny had let them in. They’d passed a staircase.... Good sense told Kate that she had no business venturing upstairs. Not with Amanda showering on the second floor.

  Instead of climbing the stairs, Kate made her way along the hallway off the family room. She flipped on a light and opened a door that concealed a small powder room. The earrings that Liam had given her earlier glistened in the light, and once again she realized how much she liked them. A little wave of happiness fluttered in her belly as she shut the door and made her way farther down the hallway.

  The sound of her sandals clicking on the hardwood floor sounded like Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” The way they echoed made her feel like a snoop, and they were determined to give her away. She shifted her weight so that they didn’t make as much noise. Not that she was tiptoeing around. She wasn’t trying to be sneaky.

  And if she kept telling herself that, she might eventually believe it. She paused to look at the photographs that were hanging on the wall in the hallway: a series of eleven-by-seventeen-inch black-and-white portraits of the girls at various ages, digressing chronologically, as Kate neared an open door at the end of the hall.

  Her heartbeat kicked up another notch, as if it were a Geiger counter indicating that she might be on to something—or another version of Poe’s story, this one titled “The Tattle-Tale Heart.” She flipped on the room’s light.

  Bingo.

  It was the master bedroom. For some reason she knew it was exactly what she was looking for. Two antique-looking marble-topped nightstands flanked a king-size bed. She couldn’t help herself; she sat on the edge of the bed, wondering which side Liam slept on.

  An expensive-looking dresser graced the wall directly across from the bed. There, in a silver frame, was Joy and Liam’s wedding picture.

  Kate rose from the bed and crossed the room to examine the photo. A much younger and more carefree-looking Liam gazed longingly into his beautiful bride’s eyes. The couple’s love was so obvious the photo virtually hummed. Kate studied it, her gaze flicking back and forth between Liam’s image and Joy’s. It was the same old test to which she secretly subjected most happy couples: who was the one in the couple who loved the most? Usually it was subtle but detectable in a photo. One person leaning in while the other pulled back ever so slightly. Or it might have been one person gazing lovingly, longingly, while the other’s expression was slightly more removed. It was usually in the eyes.

  Hmm... But in this case, it was difficult to discern. In
this photo, they had their heads together, both looking equally ecstatic. Having exhausted all the usual clues, Kate set down the photo. Then she spied a pair of worn ballet pointe shoes, the pink satin frayed at the toes. They were tied together by delicate pink ribbons that were unraveling at the ends and hanging from the mirror above the dresser.

  The sight of them, so delicate and personal to Joy, revealed something. The feeling deepened when Kate spied an antique jewelry box. She tipped up the lid and saw an array of earrings, bracelets, a wristwatch. She closed it and saw a half-full bottle of Chanel No. 5 on the dresser top, next to a silver hairbrush and comb.

  Despite every fiber of good sense that told her not to touch them, Kate couldn’t help herself. She picked up the perfume, took off the lid and inhaled. It was the classic scent of a classic lady. She made a mental note never to wear Chanel around Liam since the smell of it would forever remind him of Joy. Kate replaced the cap and returned the bottle to its shrine.

  Next she picked up the brush and examined the long, curly light-colored strands still caught in the bristles as if Joy had just this morning smoothed her hair with it.

  Carefully, as so not to disturb any of the wisps, she returned the brush to its place. She rubbed her palms on the skirt of her dress as if trying to wipe away all traces of what she’d just learned.

  Liam still loved his wife. He still loved her deeply. Even after two years, he kept the most personal of her possessions out and waiting, as if she were just away and would return any moment to use them.

  Whether or not he was the one who had loved more in his marriage, he still loved Joy. Always had. Always would.

  Kate grew up with the very real-life illustration that the only thing worse than being the one in the relationship who loved the most, was being the one who was in love with someone who loved the most.

  Liam’s biggest complaint about Kimela Herring was that she hadn’t “heard” him when he’d told her exactly the same thing he’d told Kate: he wasn’t interested in a relationship until after his daughters were grown, until they were off at college and well on their way to a life of their own. And who could say if he would be ready to begin again even then?