Love in San Francisco ; Unconditionally

by Shirley Hailstock

  “Absolutely, but this one is working. So why would I... We,” he corrected himself, “stop it?”

  “Lack of need. A goal that has no purpose.” She gave him two reasons for gracefully ending the challenge.

  “As I remember it, Ms. Hamilton, you pointed out several reasons for me participating in charity work. The fact that you want to cancel it leads me to believe that you are the one who has an alternative reason for this suggestion.” He gave her a knowing look. “What is it?”

  “Nothing in particular. I thought you might want to make better use of your time.”

  “Better than being with you?” he teased. “What could be better than that?”

  Ellie didn’t smile. She couldn’t tell if he was being facetious or serious. Whichever one it was, she didn’t want to be part of it.

  “We’re not doing this to be with each other,” she said.

  “Our purpose was to see that I understand what a charity is and does. And since today did not qualify, by your standards, I guess we’ll have to keep doing it until we get it right.”

  The last was delivered in a serious tone. Ellie wondered what his real goal was.

  “Why?” she asked.

  He frowned. “Why what?”

  “Why do you want to continue? If you didn’t like charity work before, you couldn’t have changed your mind in the last couple of weeks. So why not cut your losses? Go back to your life and let this go?”

  He looked at her for a long time. Ellie accepted his stare until his eyes changed. They became darker, even in the subdued light. Need was the only way she could describe them. He didn’t bother to try to hide the fact that he wanted her. The thought hit her like the sun exploding. The fact that she wanted him, too, only added to the nuclear fusion that rioted inside her.

  Put the brakes on, she told herself. She needed to find some excuse to leave the restaurant and get as far from Blake as she could. Why would he want her? They hadn’t met that long ago. He couldn’t want her, and if he did and then found out their past, where would that leave her? Ellie knew the right thing to do. She knew she had to control the situation. It was important that she keep her head on the side of logic and not be swayed by the emotions banging at the door and fighting her to abandon it and go with her heart.

  “We need to think more about this,” she said, not defining what she meant by this.

  “I don’t,” he said, again keeping his voice and gaze steady on her.

  “I think we should leave.”

  “I see I’ve made you uncomfortable. It wasn’t my intention to do so,” Blake said.

  “I do have some reservations,” Ellie said.

  “What are they?”

  Chapter 7

  The night was warm when they left the restaurant. Ellie had enjoyed herself. The day had proved to be fun, and she wished they could do it again. But the longer she stayed in Blake’s company, the more apt he was to remember that her name and his together had a significance.

  Ellie knew Blake was waiting for her to answer his question. The waiter had come before she could reply, and after they’d settled the bill, she’d stood to leave.

  “Tired?” Blake asked as they headed for the car in the parking lot.

  “I should be, but I feel excited and exhilarated.”

  “That’s the way Chase would want us all to feel.”

  “I like him,” she said, but Ellie wondered if he was really talking about his friend.

  “He has that effect on most people. He’s invited us to join him anytime for more flights.”

  Ellie stopped, then started walking again.

  “He can’t be one of your reservations,” Blake stated. “Just because we’re not going to charity events at the airport doesn’t mean we can’t return.”

  “It’s not Chase.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Aren’t you...” She hesitated.

  “Aren’t I what,” he prompted.

  “In a relationship? Don’t you have a girlfriend?”

  They’d reached the lot and were passing one of the huge lights mounted on the building. Blake stopped and stared at her, unsure of what she meant.

  “I saw you at the gala and a few nights ago in a restaurant with the same woman. The two of you looked like more than friends.”

  He grinned. “That’s it? That’s your reservation?” He was almost laughing, but seeing the set of Ellie’s jaw stopped him. “I don’t mean to make it sound trivial.”

  “It has been known that people, both men and women, have more than one relationship at a time. Not that we have a relationship,” she stated. “But I wouldn’t want there to be any complications between you and the lady painted on your arm.”

  “Despite what it looks like, Wilson Mathison and I are friends—the best of friends.”

  “I doubt that’s how she sees it,” Ellie said. “Not from the way she looks at you.”

  “We’ve known each other for years,” he said in defense.

  Ellie was shaking her head as he spoke. “You’re wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll show you,” she said. “Walk with me.”

  The two of them began walking side by side.

  “This is how two friends walk. They talk to each other, occasionally look at one another and comfortably debate whatever the conversation may be.”

  He nodded. Then Ellie took his arm. She wrapped one of hers around his and snaked it toward his shoulder. Blake liked where she was going. With her other hand, she secured his arm to her. His biceps touched her breast. Instantly, he went into overdrive. Shifting her body a third of the way toward him so their legs were almost tied together, she was practically restraining his ability to think or walk.

  Blake would have stopped if she hadn’t pulled him along. He wasn’t expecting this close contact. He could smell her shampoo and the faint scent of the wine she’d drank with her meal.

  Blake’s body reacted. He felt himself grow hard, and the need he felt for Ellie increased to an almost-painful level.

  “This is the way lovers walk,” she said.

  He had to strain to hear her. Her proximity to his emotions affected his hearing. All he wanted was to turn to her and kiss her until neither of them could breathe.

  “This is how I saw the two of you at the gala and when you walked into the restaurant a few nights ago.”

  Blake barely heard her. He felt her, and she felt better than anything he could remember. Turning his head, he gazed at her. Ellie opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. She dropped her eyes to his chest. He waited in silence. When she gazed up at him, something dark and alluring reached out. In less than a second, he faced her head-on. Using his free arm, he circled her waist and pulled her into full contact with him. His mouth clamped down on hers as if he were a dying man.

  Hunger and lust might have instigated his actions, but he felt he needed her kiss as much as he needed to keep breathing. Their arms untwined and he opened his legs, tightening his arms and reducing the circle of space between them.

  Her mouth was firm, yet her hunger matched his own. Their heads bobbed back and forth as if the need to touch, taste and devour the other was a goal that could crush them if they didn’t reach for a place that had eluded them until now. After a moment, Blake raised his head and took a breath. He wasn’t ready to end the kiss. This time, his hunger hadn’t abated, but he wanted to be tender. He wanted to talk to her with his mouth. He kissed one side of her lips and then the other before covering her mouth again. She opened to him, allowing him in. Blake felt as if he could stay there forever, that he could go on kissing Ellie until the sun rose and set again.

  The pressure between them was building, although his hold on her was light enough for her to move if she wished. Still, the touch of her sent a jolt of passion through him that made
him want her more. He wanted to be closer, feel her naked skin, listen to her lovemaking sounds. He wanted everything.

  He wanted to run his fingers through her hair and see her half-closed eyes when they woke in the morning. He wanted to explore her neck and the hot erotic place behind her ear. He wanted to create fire with her, to savor their consummation with the age-old and timeless ritual.

  Ellie finally slumped against him. He held her, breathing hard in the night air. The two of them stood still, each keeping the other upright. He couldn’t say how long they stayed that way, whether for a second or a lifetime. Finally, Ellie pushed herself upright. Blake didn’t know what to expect when he looked at her. It hadn’t been his intention to repeat the kiss they’d shared outside San Francisco. It hadn’t been his intention to see her again or touch her, but her act of showing him how lovers walk had changed that.

  When her body wound around his, he was lost. Feelings he’d buried sprang to life, overwhelmed him, climbed out of the small box he’d put them in and exploded into being like some big bang that needed only a spark to ignite the world.

  “We’d better go,” Ellie said. Her voice was deeper than usual. Sexy and sultry. The darkness helped. They’d walked out of the light when she began the journey that led them to this place in their lives. Her voice took hold of him and pushed the small hedonistic buttons that left him in no doubt that he wanted a lot more from Elliana Hamilton than a kiss in a dark parking lot.

  “Any more reservations, or have I cleared them up?” Blake’s chest was tight and his voice was a note or two deeper than usual. He didn’t know why it was important that she believe him, but Blake was discovering many things had an importance where Ellie was concerned.

  “So, who is she?” Ellie whispered.

  “Who?” Blake frowned.

  “The woman attached to your arm.”

  “You mean other than you?” he said. His joke didn’t come off very well, though. Ellie’s eyes were serious and didn’t change. “She’s a friend. That night she was doing me a favor. In the restaurant, I was doing one for her.”

  “Is she a friend with benefits?”

  He frowned, anger rushing to him so quickly, he felt it could knock him over. “I’m not going to answer that.”

  “That’s fair. I should never have asked it. Since it’s unlikely we’ll see each other except at charity events, I have no right to ask any of these questions. She’s your business, not mine.”

  Blake agreed with her to a point. Wilson was his business. And Ellie deserved an answer. That kiss told him she did.

  Ellie started for the Jeep. Blake used his car remote to unlock the doors. She didn’t wait for him to help her, but pulled the door open and got inside. He took his seat behind the steering wheel and hit the lock button, but didn’t start the engine.

  “Her name is Wilson Mathison. She’s a model. I’ve known her since I took over the store. We are friends and only friends.”

  Blake waited to see if there was a reaction from Ellie. He wanted her to smile or show that she was relieved there was nothing between him and Wilson. But she gave him nothing. She faced the front window, wearing an unreadable mask.

  “The reason she was holding on to me was that her ex-boyfriend was there, and she didn’t want him to think she still had feelings for him.”

  “Or that she was alone. Or that he was a better date than you,” Ellie said. “Don’t give it another thought. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Blake nodded and waited for more. The subject was obviously closed. But only on her part. She was wrong about one thing, though. It did matter. It mattered greatly. While her face was unreadable, her kiss spoke louder than a shout.

  * * *

  The morning mist was heavy. Blake fought to see through it. Using his hands, he pushed it aside, his arms moving in swimming motions as they tried to clear the fog. Then the lights came—bright, brilliantly white and stabbing his vision.

  Blake jerked awake, sitting up in bed with a loud shout. His body was flush with sweat, the bed sheets wet, soaked with the heart-pounding exertion of the dream. Flopping back against the pillows, Blake wiped the moisture from his face with his hand.

  Taking deep breaths, he closed his eyes. He hadn’t had that nightmare in years. But it was back. It never truly went away, only lurked at the base of his brain, waiting to spring on him at the oddest moment. What had caused it this time? Was it the fact that his ideas of a future were changing? Blake stared at the ceiling as if that thought had sprung from someplace he’d never visited.

  It had been ten years since the accident that put him in a coma for four days and had killed his girlfriend, Alexis Ferrell. It had been seven years since he had dreamed of the accident. He tried to change the events in that dream, tried to swerve the car, get it out of the way of the oncoming vehicle, but the results were always the same. The impact happened. Blake could still hear the crash of metal, the sound of breaking glass, Alexis’s scream as the protective shell around her folded into a ball of tangled steel.

  Blake had woken up four days later with no memory of the accident. The doctors said it was normal, that his memory could return, and it had...in the form of nightmares. But they had long since ceased, until a few moments ago, when he was nearly propelled from the bed.

  He got up, went to the kitchen and drank a bottle of water, feeling as if the fire in his dream was real enough to parch his throat. It was the feeling he had had when he woke from the accident, the need for water. And Alexis—where was she?

  Blake left the kitchen and went to the guest bedroom. He was determined, searching for something specific, and nothing would deter him. In the second box he found it, the newspaper clippings from the accident. Alexis stared back at him from a grainy photo. It was her high school yearbook picture. She would have graduated that June, in the same class as Blake, but because of him, she was gone.

  Would he ever be free of the dreams, or was this to be his endless penance? Why were they fighting? Why didn’t he take better care to watch where they were going? Where had that other car come from? So many whys. So few answers.

  He looked at the photo again. Time had changed him. There was a gap, a detachment between this time and that. He could look at her photo and not relive the emotions or the feelings he’d once had for her. They hadn’t progressed to the point of being in love. Although Blake had been heading in that direction. He couldn’t help but wonder what their lives would be like today if it weren’t for that one awful night. Would their argument force them apart or grow them closer together? Could they be married now, with a mortgage and their second kid on the way? Would he look at Alexis the way his brother David looked at his wife, Rose?

  Would he be happy?

  He’d never know. Fate had taken that decision from him. Although fate had not left him with something better. He was worse for the wear, and he knew it. Until Ellie had entered his life less than a month ago, he’d been content to keep everything and everyone at bay. She was defying that oath. She was getting under his skin. No matter how much he told himself that the two of them should stay away from each other, he wanted her.

  And by the way she’d responded in his arms, the way her body molded to his, fitted into the grooves and contours of his physical structure, she wanted him, too. It didn’t matter what her mouth said. Her kiss told him more, told him what he wanted to hear.

  * * *

  Blake dressed and got to the store an hour ahead of his normal time. The place was empty and quiet. He knew the House of Thorn was his refuge. It had been like that since he was a boy. He loved running through the floors, hiding between the racks of clothes before he was tall enough to be seen by his parents.

  He spent several minutes walking through the darkened departments, checking that everything was in order. As usual, it was. He could count on the store the way other people counted on family to soothe their hurts. Bl
ake knew his family would always be there to back him, but this was not one of the situations where he could go to them. At least not one where he wanted to go to them. Why hadn’t he taken Ellie’s offer to end this? Why did he refuse, even attack her for merely suggesting that they let the charity thing go? He didn’t have an answer for that.

  After going to his office and pulling up reports on his computer screen, he scanned several pages of financial statements and requests for major acquisitions. Then he saw the email with an attachment he’d requested. Although her name wasn’t there, it shouted Ellie. He’d asked for a report on how many charities the store supported and how many employees took advantage of the day off to do charity work. Blake scanned screen after screen until he came to a statistic that stopped him.

  The list was adequate. He had no problem with it. He noticed that the Purple Cloud Farm was not on the list, and that his family’s charity received a far greater proportion of support than any of the others. He supposed that should be expected if there was no direction to treat it the same as the others. The most appalling statistic was the comparison of the House of Thorn’s employee rates to other businesses in the area. And even worse when compared to competitive businesses.

  Blake leaned back. Ellie had been right. Since he didn’t give community service a priority, neither did his staff and employees. Only 40 percent of the people who worked at the store took the day option. Compared to other area businesses, they were almost at the bottom of the list. Compared to his biggest competitors, they were at the bottom.

  Words his parents had said more than once came back to Blake. The House of Thorn stores need to be part of the community. How could he have forgotten that? He was surprised his mother hadn’t reviewed this area and noticed how poor a showing they had. He was going to have to rectify that. Like Ellie said, the direction came from the top. He would have to lead by example.

  The cell phone lying on his desk buzzed, and Blake glanced at it. For a short moment he hoped it was Ellie, but his brother André’s photo appeared on the screen. Blake answered on the first ring.