True, it’s only a rough draft, but what more do you want for a first novel written in pencil between the printed lines of a paperback called Passion’s Destiny?
It’s a romance. Why? I needed to write a book with a happy ending, and since I’ve read nothing but these three romance novels in the past eleven months, I figured it was a good place to start.
And I promise in the next draft I’ll change my heroine’s first name from Kelly. She is you, though—beautiful and strong and proud.
I read my book over and over. Reading between the lines suddenly has a real meaning for me.
It has been nearly a year.
I pray that someday, somehow I will see you again. I live for that day.
I love you.
Love, T.
Chapter 6
Kelly went into the crowded lecture hall, scanning the auditorium for an empty seat. As usual, there were chairs free in the front, so she went down the sloped aisle and sat down in the second row on the end.
It wasn’t too long before the representative from the college lecture series came out onto the stage and, after testing the microphone, introduced bestselling author Jayne Tyler.
Kelly joined the enthusiastic applause, but then stopped suddenly, staring in disbelief at the woman who had walked out and now stood behind the podium.
It was Stefanie Winchester.
T. Jackson’s sister was Jayne Tyler?
Why not? thought Kelly, laughing to herself at the irony. She knew Tyler was a pen name.
She spotted T. leaning lazily against the wall in the front of the lecture hall, his arms casually crossed. He was looking out over the audience, occasionally glancing up at the stage, at his sister.
But then his eyes met hers. He straightened up, staring at her, frowning slightly as if he couldn’t figure out what Kelly was doing here.
She heard Stefanie introduce herself and her brother and agent, Jackson.
Brother and…
Agent?
Kelly looked back at T. Jackson. His gaze was fixed on her, and he smiled slightly.
Jackson wondered what Kelly was doing here, as she gave her full attention to his sister. He glanced at his watch. Stef’s speech would take another forty minutes, then there’d be a question-and-answer period, during which he’d make an attempt to take control. Stef didn’t like answering questions, and he couldn’t blame her. People tended to ask the damnedest things.
He glanced up at his sister. She looked calm and collected, and her speech had been well rehearsed. She was doing fine. He stopped paying attention to Stef’s words. He’d heard this speech too many times; hell, he’d written the damned thing.
He let his eyes drift back to Kelly. She hadn’t put up a fight today when he’d told her he was taking her to dinner.
He wanted to hold her in his arms tonight. Quickly he ran down a mental list of posh Boston restaurants, trying to remember which places had a band and a dance floor. The last time he’d danced with Kelly, she had felt so good in his arms, and they’d both been so optimistic about the future….
The junior prom had been held in the high school gym. The lights had been down low, and the room had been decorated with crepe streamers and helium balloons. It had looked about as romantic as a badly decorated gymnasium could be, but Jax hadn’t cared. Just holding Kelly in his arms had been nearly an overload of romance.
From the number of curious stares he and Kelly were getting, Jackson knew he was the object of much discussion among both the other students and the teachers. It was obvious that he was much older than Kelly.
He wanted to pull her close, closer than he was holding her, but he was afraid to. He was afraid of attracting even more attention. But most of all, he was afraid of what people would think. Not about him—he didn’t care about himself. But he did care about Kelly, and he was afraid people would assume that since he was dating her, she must be sleeping with him.
She still had another year to go in this school, with these kids. It wouldn’t be easy for her if she were labeled, tagged with that kind of reputation.
Jax looked down to see her smiling up at him. He smiled back, but concern instantly darkened her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He laughed, shaking his head. “I can’t hide anything from you, can I?”
Her fingers were twisted in the hair that went down over the back of his collar. She shifted her weight so that her body brushed against his. He could feel her long, firm thighs against his, the softness of her breasts against his chest. It felt like heaven, but he had to make her stop.
“Kel,” he said, unsure how to explain. “Have you noticed the amount of attention we’re getting?”
She glanced around the room, then smiled back at Jax. “I think it’s because you’re the most handsome man here.”
“The key word is man.” Jax took a deep breath. He had to just say it. “Kelly, I’m afraid if we dance too close, people are going to think we’re…involved.”
“We are involved.” She watched him steadily. “Aren’t we?”
He gazed into her lovely face for several long moments. She was so beautiful, so mature in so many ways, yet still such an innocent. “I meant…intimately involved.”
A tinge of pink crept across her cheeks, but she didn’t look away from him. “I don’t care what other people think about me.”
“But I do,” he said softly. “I care very much. Once people give someone a label, it’s almost impossible to change it. Trust me, I’m speaking from experience.”
Kelly didn’t say anything. She simply gazed up at him, waiting for him to go on.
“You know that I graduated from public high school out on Cape Cod,” he told her. “Out in Dennis.”
She nodded.
“I only went to that school for the end of my junior year and my senior year,” he explained. “Before that, I went to prep school. Lots of different prep schools.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Jax moved with her across the dance floor to the slow rock ballad. Every few minutes he had to remind himself to loosen his hold on her, because every few minutes he forgot his resolve and his arm tightened around her waist, drawing her closer to him. “Yeah.” He had to clear his throat. “By the end of my junior year, I’d been kicked out of so many prep schools, there weren’t any left that would accept me.”
“Kicked out?” Kelly was surprised. “You?”
He released her to point to the tiny scar on his left cheekbone. “Remember that fight I was in?” He put his arm back around her. “Well, I won the fight, but I got booted out of school. And that didn’t win me any points with the folks,” he added with a grin.
“You never told me what you fought about.”
“Freshman hazing. The seniors were merciless. I watched one kid after another get hurt by their supposedly harmless pranks, and when they went too far, I…um, went a little crazy.”
“What did they do?”
Jackson grimaced. “They put something in the food and made the entire freshman class really sick. I was late to lunch that day, and when I walked into the mess hall and saw all the seniors standing around laughing at all the freshmen—and some of them were violently sick—I got upset. When I found out who had masterminded the scheme, I broke his nose.” He shrugged. “Apparently making fifty kids blow groceries is good clean fun, whereas breaking a senior’s nose is not.”
The band segued directly into another slow, pulsating song. Jax could feel perspiration forming on his forehead as Kelly rested her head on his shoulder. He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to hold her tightly, feel the length of her slim, soft body against his. But she was only sixteen. It was good that they were here, with all these people watching. If there ever were a time he needed a chaperone, it was right now.
But even after tonight, he’d have to endure a year and a half of wanting something he couldn’t have. He looked down into Kelly’s eyes and he was overcome by a rush of emotions. He loved h
er, and he wanted to be near her all the time. Sex only played a very small part in the way he felt about her—
Who was he kidding? He would come damn close to selling his soul for a chance to make love to her. It wouldn’t be easy to live through the next few years. In fact, if Kelly managed to remain a virgin until she was eighteen, they would both deserve sainthood.
“That was the first prep school,” Kelly said, breaking into his thoughts. “Why were you kicked out of the others?”
“I kept getting kicked out because I went in with a bad reputation,” Jax told her. “At the second school, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone set fire to the athletic supply shed, and because I came in pegged as a troublemaker, I ended up taking the blame. By the time I was a junior, I was at my fifth boarding school. I went in on probation, and managed to get asked to leave simply because I dropped my tray in the dining hall one morning.”
“That’s awful.”
“It happens. Once you’re labeled, it’s all over.” He shook his head. “I don’t want that to happen to you, Kel.”
“T., somehow I don’t think my connection to you is going to hurt my reputation.” Kelly laughed. “It just might help it, if you want to know the truth.”
Jax looked down into her sparkling eyes, feeling his heart expanding in his chest. He loved her. Good God, he’d loved her for years, but he’d refused to admit it, even to himself, because she had been only a child. All that time, he’d wondered what was wrong with him, why he never dated any of the women at school for more than a week or two. He’d led himself to believe that he was simply not cut out for long-term relationships, that one woman simply didn’t have the ability to hold his attention for very long. He’d come to the conclusion that marriage and a family were simply not in his future.
But the real truth was, he was more monogamous than most men his age. Kelly owned his heart and soul, had owned it for years. Jax knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was going to love her until the day he died.
She reached up and touched the side of his face, catching a bead of perspiration that threatened to drip down past his ear. “It’s warm in here,” she said, her low voice husky.
“Yes,” Jackson agreed, his eyes never leaving her face. “It is.”
In silent agreement, he led Kelly off the dance floor and out of the gym. The air in the lobby was much cooler, and they moved toward the refreshment table.
“Want a soda?” Jax asked and Kelly nodded.
“Thanks. I’ve got to go, um…What’s the correct euphemism?” She smiled. “Powder my nose? That’s as obsolete as dialing a phone, isn’t it? I’ll meet you out here.”
She pulled away from him, but Jax didn’t let go of her fingers until the last possible moment. He watched her walk down the hallway. She was elegant and poised, full of the self-confidence that made her so unique among her peers. The heels she wore on her feet made her hips sway slightly as she went, and he didn’t look away until the girls’ room door closed behind her.
But then he turned and came face-to-face with an older man who had silently moved to stand at his side.
“Kelly looks lovely tonight,” the man, obviously one of the teachers, said. He was smiling at Jax, but that smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I didn’t realize she was dating a college…boy.”
It was obvious to Jax that this teacher didn’t consider him a boy at all.
But he returned the smile, holding out his hand. “I’m Jackson Winchester,” he said easily. “I’ve been a friend of Kelly’s for some time now.”
“Ted Henderson. What school are you going to?”
“I went to Boston College,” Jax replied.
“Went?” Henderson’s cold brown eyes probed for more information.
“I’ve graduated,” Jax explained.
“You’re out of college.” Henderson made sure he got it straight. “Isn’t Kelly a little bit young for you?”
“I don’t see how that’s any business of yours, Ted.” Jax spoke pleasantly, but the older man’s eyes darkened with disapproval anyway.
“I care about Kelly.” Henderson crossed his arms in front of him, all pretense at pleasantness dropped. “I’m a friend of her father’s—”
“Nolan approves of my relationship with his daughter.” Jax didn’t know if that was exactly the truth, but Nolan O’Brien wouldn’t have let him take Kelly to the prom in the first place if he didn’t want them to date, would he have?
“If that’s the case,” Henderson countered, “then I truly doubt that he’s seen the way you look at that girl.” He shook his head. “You’re a grown man, Winchester. She’s only a child. You have no right to take the rest of her childhood away from her.”
Jax kept his face carefully neutral, taking out his wallet as he turned past the teacher and headed toward the refreshment table. But Henderson followed.
“Kelly should be involved with boys her own age,” he persisted. “She should be having lighthearted romances, she should be having fun. I’m sure she’s flattered by the attention you give her—what young girl wouldn’t be? I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded about your good looks.”
Jackson paid for two cans of soda, then turned back to Henderson. “Have you finished?”
“Just about.” Henderson blocked Jax’s way with his bulk, pinning the younger man against the refreshment table. “I just want to make sure you’re aware of the laws in Massachusetts regarding statutory rape—”
“I don’t need any lectures, Ted.” Jax forced himself to speak slowly, without any trace of his anger evident in his voice. “Like you said, I’m a grown man. I’m well aware of any consequences my actions might bring. But I love Kelly, and I believe that she loves me. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”
“I don’t doubt that you love her, son,” Henderson said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “But she’s only sixteen. You don’t really expect whatever she feels for you will last, do you?”
Jax saw Kelly come out of the bathroom and start down the hall toward him. “Yes,” he said shortly to Henderson, nearly pushing past him. “I do. Excuse me.”
He walked toward Kelly, watching her face break into a beautiful smile as she saw him. He watched her eyes dance with pleasure, watched her dress cling to her body as she moved. But Ted Henderson’s quiet voice trailed after him. “High school should be a carefree, happy time. Your relationship with Kelly can only be a burden, Winchester. If you really love the girl, you won’t do that to her.”
Jax opened one of the cans of soda and handed it to Kelly when they met farther down the hallway. “They didn’t have any cups,” he apologized. “I wiped off the top for you.”
“Thanks,” she murmured, taking a sip of the soda.
He led her back into the dimness of the gym, where they found an empty table off to the side of the dance floor and sat down. He could feel Kelly watching him as he opened his own can of soda and took a long drink.
“You’re not having much fun, are you?” she asked softly.
“I’m having a great time—”
“Someone in the girls’ room told me that Mr. Henderson was giving you the third degree, telling you how wrong it was for us to be here together.” She leaned toward him. “That doesn’t sound like a great time to me. We can leave, T. I won’t mind if you want to go—”
“Are you kidding? I want to dance with you some more.”
Kelly covered his hand with hers, gently lacing their fingers together. “We could go somewhere else and…dance.”
Jax felt a hot flare of desire shoot through him as he met her steady gaze. She wasn’t talking about dancing. She was talking about…He swallowed.
Sixteen, he reminded himself. She was only sixteen.
“I think we’d better stay here,” he said quietly.
“Are you sure?”
Jax laughed desperately. “Kelly, come on. I need you to help me out, not make things harder than they already are.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he real
ized just how full of sexual innuendo they were. To his relief, Kelly didn’t seem to notice.
“While I was in the girls’ room, I heard a little of the gossip that’s going around about you and me,” Kelly said. “And you were right. I have been relabeled.”
“Oh, no.” Jax frowned with concern. “Not already—”
But Kelly was smiling, her blue eyes shining with delight. “They’re calling me…a studcatcher.” She laughed. “You, of course, being the stud in question. It’s a big step up for me from my last label.”
“Which was…?”
“Math nerd.” Kelly made a face. “Hardly flattering and particularly galling since I’m planning to major in language arts when I go to college. I like studcatcher much better.” She grinned. “Wanna dance with me, stud?”
Jax feigned indignation as he followed her onto the dance floor and took her into his arms. “Is that all I am to you? Just a stud?”
Her smile softened and her eyes grew warm as she tipped her head back to look up at him. “Tyrone, I fell in love with you before I knew what a stud was.”
I fell in love with you….
Her words echoed over and over in Jax’s head. She loved him. She loved him!
“Oh, Kel,” he breathed.
Both of her arms had been around his neck, and she’d pulled his head down to her waiting lips.
He’d kissed her. Right there in the middle of the dance floor. A slow, soft, lingering kiss…
The sound of three hundred pairs of hands clapping startled Jax out of his reverie. The crowd of people in the university auditorium was applauding. Stefanie’s speech was over.
Momentarily off balance, he looked for Kelly. It had grown warm in the room, and she had taken off her denim jacket. God, in that outfit she looked good enough to eat.
As if she could feel his eyes on her, she glanced in his direction.
T. Jackson was staring at her with that same hungry look in his eyes. He wasn’t going to give up, Kelly realized with a flare of despair. He wasn’t going to quit until they gave in to the desire that still burned between them, until they finally made love.
Letters to Kelly Page 8
