“Okay,” he said softly. “What are we talking about?”
Her hands rose. Fell. “I don’t know,” she practically wailed. “What are you doing to me?”
“Ah, Izzy,” he murmured. “What have you already done to me?”
Then he finally, finally lowered his head, and his mouth found hers.
No more knees or legs at all. Just water where joints and bone used to exist.
Her fingers curled into his shoulders, grasping for support.
He tasted warm. And so welcoming that she yearned to curl into him and never think again.
When he lifted his head, she sucked in a deep breath, aware that all he’d really done was slowly brush his warm lips over hers.
Nothing overwhelming.
Nothing deep.
Nothing overtly sexual.
And she realized it would have been far less disturbing if his kiss had been exactly like that.
Sex—just good old-fashioned sexual chemistry—would have been so much easier to deal with than the strange tangle of yearnings he made her feel. Yearnings for things she’d never known.
The closest she’d ever gotten was with Jimmy. And even he hadn’t made her feel this way so easily. As if she were almost whole...from nothing more than the brush of a hand. Or from a faint, crooked smile that showed far more clearly in a pair of violet eyes than it ever did on a pair of mobile lips.
Which made her feel as if she were losing Jimmy all over again.
She snatched her hands away from Erik’s chest as if she’d been caught doing something horrifying.
“I can’t do this,” she said hoarsely and slid around him, yanking open the car door and collapsing shakily onto the driver’s seat. She fumbled with the car keys, trying three times before she was able to fit the key in the ignition, only to gasp when Erik reached past her and pulled the keys right back out again before she could start the car. “What are you doing? Give me back my keys!”
“You’re not driving when you’re this upset.”
“I’m not upset.”
“You’re shaking life a leaf.” His voice had turned flat. “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have kissed you. It was out of line.”
Tears burned in the corners of her eyes. What on earth had Erik ever done but show kindness to her and Murphy? “It’s not you,” she said thickly. She curled her hands around the steering wheel. Even though she wasn’t going anywhere. Literally or figuratively. “Erik, you don’t want anything to do with me. I’m a mess. You—” Her throat constricted even more. She stared hard at the steering wheel. Struggled with the churning inside her. “You deserve more.”
She heard him let out a long breath. Then he crouched next to the car door, looking in at her. “Isabella.” His voice had gone from that horrible, flat tone to soft, deep gentleness that slid over her as warmly as a caress. “Just tell me. Tell me what you’re feeling. Let me help you.”
She pressed her molars together hard. How could he possibly help when he was the problem? “You don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to be afraid of moving on.” His voice was still soft. Steady. “It doesn’t mean you didn’t love Murphy’s dad.” He slid a lock of hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “You know that, don’t you?”
An ache too deep for words filled her. “I can’t be part of your world, Erik.”
His head cocked slightly. She didn’t look at him, but she could feel his gaze on her face all the same. “What world is that?”
She let out a humorless laugh. “Everything. Caring parents. Big family barbecues. People who are there for each other. Who don’t hesitate to stretch out a hand to someone in need, even when they’re a virtual stranger. Laughter...and hugs...and kisses and—” Her throat closed off but the word love ran around inside her head.
“And you can’t be part of all that because you don’t want to be?”
Her lips opened. Closed. She couldn’t make herself answer. Who wouldn’t want to be part of all that? A world that was larger than just the sum of its parts. A world unlike anything she’d ever known but had always dreamed of. “What happens when it ends?”
His palm slid along her cheek. Turned her face until she was looking at him. “Ah, sweetheart. Who says it has to end?”
“It always ends,” she whispered.
“No. Not always.”
She couldn’t bear this. “For me it does. I took a chance. Once. And now I’m trying—badly—to raise that man’s son without him.”
“You’re not doing anything badly. And I’m not going to die.”
“That’s what Jimmy thought, too.” She swallowed hard. “I need my keys, Erik. I have to pick up Murphy.”
For a long moment he didn’t move. But then, after a moment, he slowly eased his hand away from her face. He pulled the keys from his back pocket where he’d stowed them and settled them in the palm of her hand. He was still crouched alongside the car, his head on a level with hers. “I’m going to follow you,” he warned. “Nothing more. I just want to make sure you get home safely.”
“You don’t have to do that.” She wished he wouldn’t. But she could see by his expression that it didn’t matter what she said. He was going to do exactly what he said he was going to do.
That was just his way.
So she carefully fitted the keys into the ignition. But she didn’t start the car engine. “I’m sorry, Erik.”
“Don’t be sorry, Isabella.” He finally straightened, but still looked in at her. “Just don’t let a fear of what the future holds keep you from living life right now, either.”
Then he pushed her door closed and walked around the car to his truck. He started it up. His headlights came on, but he didn’t budge. Not until she finally started her own car and drove out onto the street.
He didn’t tailgate her. Just followed a circumspect distance behind, his headlights a steady presence in her rearview mirror as she drove out to the counselor’s office. No point in stopping at Shop-World now. She had no time left.
As soon as she pulled up in front of the office building, Murphy pushed through the door. He didn’t look right or left as he ran to the car and threw himself down into the passenger seat, automatically pulling the safety belt across his body.
Isabella flicked a glance in her rearview mirror. Erik’s truck was idling across the parking lot. Giving them—her—space.
Her fingers flexed around the steering wheel. She looked at Murphy. “Everything go okay?”
He lifted a shoulder, plucked at the fraying strap of the backpack he’d dumped on the floor of the car between his gangly legs and said nothing.
Isabella wished she knew what he and his counselor talked about. Did he go in there and rail about her each time? Had Hayley been able to get through his defenses enough to help him really deal with anything? The woman might have a doctorate, but she was no older than Isabella, and even though Isabella had her own standing appointment with the woman every other week, she felt more of a mess than ever.
“Are you hungry?”
He shifted. “I ate with Erik and his parents.” He plucked at the backpack strap awhile longer. “His dad runs Cee-Vid.”
“I heard that.”
“It’s pretty cool,” Murphy added. Then he hitched his thin shoulders and looked out the window.
Isabella exhaled, flexing her fingers again as she drove away. “So for tomorrow,” she began in a calm tone she didn’t really feel, “would you rather I take off work and stay home with you, or do you want to spend the day with Erik’s mom?”
He didn’t answer at first. She continued retracing her route back through town, taking a cue from Erik’s book and silently giving Murphy time to come to a conclusion on his own.
“I really get to decide?” he finally asked suspiciously when they turned onto their street.
“Yes.”
His lips twisted. He looked away from her as she pulled into the short driveway in front of their house. “I’d rath
er go to Mrs. Clay’s,” he said and reached for the door to push it open. “She’s hot.”
Isabella sat there blinking in surprise as he headed up the front walk to the door.
He was eleven. What business did he have finding a woman old enough to be his grandmother hot?
She jumped a little when Erik knocked softly on the window beside her head. She gathered her scrambling thoughts together and climbed out of the car. “Murphy thinks your mother is hot,” she blurted.
His eyebrows shot up.
Then he threw back his head and gave a deep laugh. “Well, hell. I guess there’re probably a few around here who think that besides him. My old man would be first in line.”
And despite everything, Isabella giggled.
Erik gave her a quick wink, then waved at Murphy—which Murphy acknowledged with a small jerk of his chin—and sauntered back to his truck.
She watched him go and didn’t even realize she still had a smile on her lips until Murphy called from the doorway, “You gonna stand there all night or what?”
She hid a sigh before joining him on the front step to unlock the door.
“I don’t know why you let him keep hanging around,” he muttered, jostling through it too fast for her to respond.
Not that she’d have known what to say, anyway.
Murphy dumped his backpack on the table and headed down the hall. A second later, she heard the slam of his bedroom door and she looked back over her shoulder.
Erik was sitting in his truck. At her glance, he lifted his hand in a silent wave.
Only then did he drive away.
She was desperately afraid that he might be taking her heart with him.
Chapter Ten
Erik managed, only by sheer grit, not to call Isabella the next evening. He did, however, get some news of her courtesy of J.D. and Jake when he stopped by their place on his way back from Gillette to drop off an aging horse he was delivering. It had belonged to an old codger in Gillette who’d died.
“It’s too bad that Murphy was suspended,” J.D. commiserated as she followed Erik out to his truck after the horse had been unloaded and coddled for a few minutes by his horse-trainer cousin. “Mom was telling me earlier that he spent the day with your mom so Iz wouldn’t have to take a day off work.” She was carrying a covered bowl of potato salad that she wanted him to take, though he’d already refused to let her fix him a plate of leftovers from the dinner they’d just shared. “If it weren’t for showing that knife to Con and Zach—” She broke off and shook her head. “I love my stepsons like they were my own, but that doesn’t mean I’m not well aware of their ability to—”
“Instigate?” Jake interjected as he joined them. He was carrying their rambunctious toddler, Tucker. “Probably the mildest term I can think of to describe my imaginative sons.” He and J.D. shared a rueful smile.
Erik took the chilled bowl from his cousin and set it inside his truck. Fortunately for the twin boys, their enormously wealthy father had nobody sitting around waiting to pass judgment on whether or not he was good enough to keep custody of his kids.
“I need to call her,” J.D. was saying. “See if there’s something we can do to help.”
“The only thing Isabella’s concerned about is Murphy settling in here so she can remain his guardian.” Erik didn’t figure he was breaking any confidences with that. Everyone in town probably knew it, even if they didn’t know all of the details.
“We should have her bring Murphy out here to Crossing West. The boys can chase around and not get into too much mischief.” J.D. lifted a squirming Tucker out of her husband’s arms and set him on the ground. He immediately began a plodding run toward the wooden-railed fence that sectioned off an empty pasture.
J.D. grinned and took off after their son, calling over her shoulder to Erik as she went. “Thanks for bringing down the horse. And tell Iz when you see her that I’ll be calling.”
Assuming that he would be seeing her.
Erik wanted to believe it, but considering the way she’d spooked after he’d done the unforgivable and kissed her, he wasn’t all that sure of anything.
With his mind elsewhere—namely on Isabella—he stayed a few minutes longer, shooting the breeze with his cousin’s husband before leaving.
Crossing West, like the Double-C, was located on the opposite side of Weaver from Erik’s spread. Meaning he had to drive through town to get there.
He kept the truck on the main road. Didn’t veer off to the familiar little side street by the park where Isabella and Murphy were living.
He wanted to. But he didn’t.
When he reached Colbys, though, he muttered an oath and pulled off into the parking lot.
It was nearly dark.
Which meant that the lights shining from inside Lucy’s dance studio next door were easily visible. He didn’t know if that meant Isabella was in there teaching or if Lucy was. Either way, he turned from the sight and went into the bar and grill instead.
Seeing Casey there surprised him a little. The fact that his cousin was squared off at the far end of the bar with Jane in some sort of debate didn’t. Then Case turned on his heel, only to stop short at the sight of Erik coming through the door.
“Hey,” Erik greeted, and jerked his thumb toward an empty pool table.
His cousin’s stormy expression cleared a little. He nodded, and they headed to the table together. While Casey racked the balls, Erik glanced back at the bar. There was no sign of Jane. He pulled a few cues from the ones hanging on the wall and handed one to Casey. “So what’s the beef between you two?”
Casey took the cue and ignored the question. “You wanna break or just hand over your wallet?”
Two games later, Erik and Casey were even on the money score, and since neither was particularly interested in changing the status quo, they headed out. When his cousin approached an unfamiliar truck parked in the lot, Erik realized why he’d been surprised to see Case in Colbys. “New wheels?”
Case shook his head and averted his gaze. “Janie’s new wheels. My truck’s parked at her place,” he muttered. Then he climbed behind the wheel and drove off, leaving Erik staring after him.
“Erik?”
He damn near jumped out of his skin and turned to find Isabella crossing the lot toward him. She was wearing those butt-hugging black pants of hers and a pale-colored camisole that announced to God and country all of her shapely assets despite the pink sweatshirt tossed over her shoulders.
“What are you doing here?”
“Realizing that the grapevine doesn’t always know everything.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”
He shook off his bemusement where Case and Jane were concerned and tried not to get caught ogling her. Not easy when everything about Isabella was a vision. “Nothing. I didn’t know you taught on Thursday nights.”
Her lips pressed together in a soft O as she looked back at the studio. The windows were now dark. “I don’t. I met Lucy over here to talk about the new class she wants to offer.”
“More yoga?”
She looked up at him, though her eyes shied away. “Um, no.”
His mind careened from yoga getups to...something sexier. “The belly-dancing thing?”
She nibbled the inside of her cheek. Shook her head.
Strangely enough, he felt the need to sit. Unfortunately, the only thing around was the uneven, weatherworn pavement underneath his boots. So he shifted, shoving his fingers into the pockets of his jeans. “What, then?” But he figured he already knew.
“Pole dancing.” She gave him a quick look. “And it’s only because Lucy took a survey of all the women she knows and that’s what they voted for,” she added almost defiantly.
Even though he’d expected the answer, it almost made him choke. He pinched his eyes closed. “What’s happening to the women of Weaver?” He opened his eyes. “And you’re going to teach it?”
“Yes. We’ll start the first class in a month or s
o.”
“When have you ever pole danced?”
Her chin lifted. “When I was seventeen,” she said flatly. “It was the fastest way to make enough money to get out of my last foster home. I wasn’t a stripper. Or a prostitute. I just danced.”
“I don’t care if you were a stripper,” he said. What she’d done at seventeen was immaterial to him.
“But you’d care if I’d been a prostitute.”
His hands lifted. “You just said you weren’t!”
“And you believe me. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers.
What the hell kind of hole had he dropped into? “Yes, just like that.” He eyed her. “Did you lie?”
“Would it matter to you?” She clutched her hands around her shoulders, and the diamond on her finger winked in the lone parking-lot light. “Make this interest you think you have in me disappear more quickly?”
He heard the door to Colbys open behind them and a few couples exited, talking loudly. He closed his hand around her arm and drew her behind his truck where at least they’d have a semblance of privacy. “No matter what you did or didn’t do when you were seventeen, my interest isn’t going away, so cut the bull.”
She averted her gaze. “Some girls did, you know.”
He wanted to sigh. For her. For women everywhere who felt pushed to such extremes. He was glad for her sake that she hadn’t been one of them. “I’m sure they did. But you and Luce need to understand that having a pole-dancing class, hell, just calling it that is gonna shock some folks in a town like Weaver. Not everyone’s gonna clap their hands in delight.”
“That’s why we’re calling it ‘pole dancing for fitness’ and making sure that men know they can do it, too. In a class for men only, of course. We know better than to spring too much on the good citizens of Weaver, even if pole dancing has pretty much been mainstream fitness for a few decades.”
Now, that did make him smile. “Can’t think of a single man around here who’d pay good money to swing around on some pole, mainstream or not.”
“It’s an incredible workout. You might be surprised.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “I’d rather wrestle cattle and hay bales all day.”
A Weaver Vow Page 13
