Abiding Love (12 page)

His fingers itched to trail through those silken tresses, and the need he felt jolted him. Wait a minute.
Friendship
was the key word here. And that had nothing to do with where his mind had just strayed. Nothing at all.

T
hree hours later Xandra dismounted near Stable Two, giving Dauntless a loving pat. Somewhere along the dark deer track through the woods on the way back from Boyerton, apprehension had burrowed it self into her heart. And so she’d begun analyzing the situation and facing the truth. The ride had been a mistake. A huge mistake. She’d had no business going along at all. She was Mark’s counselor and nothing more. And father and son no longer needed her.

And she certainly didn’t need them.

She looked back at the practice ring where they were talking to Beth and Jack and C.J. and Cole Taggert. Adam stood out from the other two men in a way she couldn’t quite grasp. It wasn’t his height, since Jack was the tallest of the men in the group. It wasn’t his lighter hair, though it did glint with a golden light in the bright sunshine. Perhaps it was his
military bearing, the authority he exuded even when relaxed.

Whatever it was, she told herself, it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. He was filtering into her thoughts too often, and that had to be a bad sign. She couldn’t let this opportunity to escape pass her by. She had to put Dauntless away and get out of there.

Georgie, a grizzled man in his late sixties, ambled out of the stable at the moment of her decision. She knew he’d worked at Laurel Glen when Ross Taggert, the current owner, was only Mark’s age. And she knew Georgie dreaded retirement. Jack gave him all the easiest chores to keep him feeling useful; putting Dauntless away and rubbing him down was right up his alley.

Xandra sent the old man a happy, if false, smile. “Georgie, how are you today?” she asked, genuinely interested in spite of her hurry—okay, near panic—and needful of his help.

“Miss Xandra,” he said, tipping his baseball cap. “I’m fine. Just fine. Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“Fantastic. I wonder if you have the time to do me a huge favor? I just remembered something I’d forgotten I have to do, and I don’t have time to take care of Dauntless.”

Georgie smiled, his much-lined face wreathed in joy. “Well, sure thing, miss. It’s no trouble at all. I was just going to ask Jack what he needs me to do next. You saved me the walk.”

“You’re terrific,” she told Georgie, then checked the group across the yard. They were still talking and
laughing, not looking her way. “Next time I come by, I’ll bring you some of my chocolate-chip cookies. Beth says they’re your favorite kind.”

“Sure are. But that isn’t necessary. Working with Dauntless is a pure pleasure.”

“You have no idea how important this is. Thanks so much,” she told the old handler. She turned Dauntless’s reins over and gave the horse’s neck another quick pat, then took off toward the door to Stable Three, her plan of escape fully formed.

She knew the rear door of that stable opened from the inside onto the parking lot where she’d left her car. This way she bypassed the small knot of people gathered in the yard next to the neighboring stable. With a sigh of relief, she stepped out into the sunlight again only yards from her car.

If she could just get away from Laurel Glen today, she reasoned, there was no need to see Adam again. He and Mark were on the right track, and guidance counselors only saw the parents of their troubled students. Sure, Beth was her friend, but it really looked as if she and Jack might decide to give living in Colorado at the Circle A a try. She could visit Beth there. And, as much as she hated to do it, if seeing Adam at Laurel Glen grew too uncomfortable, she could move Dauntless to another facility.

Relief flooded her as she opened her car door, but a split second later she froze at the sound of her name.

“Yes?” she asked turning around, trying not to look like a kid with a cookie jar in hand.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” asked Adam.

“Home. There are several reports waiting on my desk that I have to get ready for tomorrow.” It wasn’t a lie, except that she was only an hour from completing them.

“I was hoping to take you to dinner. I wanted to thank you for all you did for us.”

Dinner? She swallowed. She liked Adam…more than she should. More than she could handle. “No thanks are necessary, really. And dinner certainly isn’t—I was doing my job. Besides that, Beth is my friend. I wanted to help her nephew. Why don’t you take Mark to dinner and celebrate your break through?”

“Jack asked him if he wanted to work with C.J. learning English tack and maybe get his feet wet with a little jumping. So you see, I’ve been deserted,” he said, trying to look pathetic and missing by a mile. He was just too devastatingly handsome for his own good. And hers. She had to get out of there!

“I really can’t take the time.”

“You have to eat sometime.”

“And I will, at my desk. I’m sorry, Adam, I rear ranged my schedule today as much as I can afford to. Tell Mark goodbye and good luck with the lessons. Okay?”

“Sure. I guess I’ll see you around Laurel Glen or town.” He backed away. “Thanks again.”

Xandra watched Adam disappear around the corner of Stable Four. He looked so alone suddenly. What
made her think his being handsome meant he had a full social calendar? He’d been gone a long time and knew very few people in town. She felt small and mean as she stood noticing that his broad shoulders look bowed, as if something—maybe time—weighed on them. They had sagged when she’d finally gotten her point across, she realized now, but she steeled herself against any pangs of conscience.

He is only the father of a student,
she told herself sternly.
The brother of a friend,
she added for good measure.
And that is all he’ll ever be. Ever could be.

So why did she feel so awful?

Xandra almost called him back, but instead forced herself to get in her car and drive home, telling herself she hadn’t just made a huge mistake. It wasn’t easy to do with an ache in her chest and the hollow feeling of loss in the pit of her stomach.

Why do I feel this way, Lord?
she asked, but even she knew she was refusing to listen for an answer. Sometimes she was such a coward it shocked even her.

Mark watched Ms. Lexington’s car as she drove down the drive headed toward Indian Creek Road. He sighed in relief. He didn’t like the way his father looked at her. Or the way she sometimes looked at him. And he didn’t know for sure why his dad had run off the way he had to catch her. Or even why he had asked her to go for the ride with them, for that matter. But Mark had an idea.

He was nearly sure Adam wanted to date her. And that was just so wrong!

Ms. Lexington was
his
friend. Mark did not want her dating his father. That would lead only to disaster. And Mark would lose her. Over the years he’d met and really liked more of his father’s girlfriends than he could count. Every time his father had flown him to California, which had been once or twice a year, he’d introduced Mark to yet another really nice lady. But then when Mark would ask about her the next time they saw each other, his father would make one excuse or another why the nice woman was no longer around.

Now that Aunt Sky had explained about his father still loving Mark’s mother all that time, it made sense. And the anger his father had confessed toward his mother proved Mark was right. That Aunt Sky was right. You didn’t get that mad at someone unless they could still hurt you. Unless you still loved the person.

Every time his dad took him to see Aunt Sky and his grandparents on those California visits, Mark would watch how great his dad and Sky got along. She was so much like Mark’s mother that it made sense now. He was sure Adam would be happy with Sky if he’d just give it a chance. That would be so awesome. They’d be the family Mark had always wanted them to be.

And Ms. Lexington would stay safely his.

Adam saw Alexandra go into the café as he stepped out of the post office onto the high wooden sidewalk
of the little town center. He hadn’t seen her in a week, and he was pretty disconcerted to find he’d missed her as much as he had. Maybe not
her,
but the friend ship they’d begun to build, he ventured.

He was lonely and that was apt to get worse now that Beth and Jack had decided to move to Colorado. Adam’s relationship with Mark was much better, but the kid had his own life and Adam refused to smother him with too much attention.

Sully was company, but their memories were so tied up in killing and death that he wasn’t comfortable sharing old war stories in Mark’s presence. Besides, Adam didn’t want the rest of his life to revolve around the past. He had to build a future away from the SEAL teams and the Navy. But he also couldn’t be only a parent, either.

With that in mind, he followed Alexandra into the café. She was sitting alone, so he walked up to the table. “Alexandra, how have you been?” he asked, standing next to her.

Her eyes were wide with surprise when her head snapped up. “Oh! Uh…Adam. How are you?” Gripped in her hands, she held a paper napkin. She tore it in half. “Uh, I mean…how are you and Mark getting along?” She swallowed, her hands fluttered the ragged halves of the napkin, and her eyes darted around the room.

It was as if she were checking to see who was there to watch them talking. Adam frowned. “Is something wrong?”

“Of course not. I’m just waiting for someone. I’m sorry, Adam, but I can’t invite you to join us.”

Thinking it might be work related, he nodded, perfectly willing to accept her explanation. “Oh, that’s okay. I just wondered if you were free tonight. We never got to have that thank-you dinner.”

Alexandra stared up at him, her blue-gray eyes wide…dismayed. Then one of her seemingly out-of-control hands knocked over her water glass. She swung her legs out of the booth and jumped up to avoid the spreading cascade. As she did she stepped back and bumped into him.

Reflex action had Adam reaching for her upper arms to steady her. He was surprised to find tremors buffeting her body. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?” he asked her, his mouth only inches from her ear.

Before she could answer, a strident voice behind him snapped, “Get your hands off my daughter. I’ve heard what that son of yours said about my Jason.”

He turned and saw Mrs. Lexington standing there. He wondered how eyes the soft color of Alexandra’s could look so hard. This meeting promised to be as annoying and convoluted as the last.

“You warn him not to repeat any more lies,” she went on. “He’s listening to the ravings of an unbalanced woman, just as I’m sure you are. You didn’t know my son. He was a good boy.”

Who did she mean was “unbalanced”? Beth or Alexandra? He’d talk to Mark about repeating private things, but he knew Beth hadn’t spoken of her past
with Mark. So was she talking about her own daughter? He found he didn’t care which woman she meant.

“Lady, if there’s anybody unbalanced in this town, it’s you, and from what I hear, your son was a monster, not a good boy.”

He turned to Alexandra, expecting to see anger at her mother—but he saw embarrassment. At him? At her mother? Or because her mother suspected they were friends? Her reason for turning down dinner seemed flimsier than ever.

“Would I be right in guessing you’d like me to leave?”

Her gaze cut to her mother, then to the floor. “Just go. Okay?”

Adam turned on his heel. It looked as if he’d misread her once again. Helping him and Mark had clearly been only a job and a way to pay Beth back for Mitzy Lexington’s tongue. But now it was clear that she was still influenced by her family, still dancing to her mother’s tune in public.

Alexandra wasn’t the first woman he’d misinterpreted. As he climbed behind the wheel of his SUV, Adam tried to console himself with the fact that at least this time the woman wasn’t his wife.

“Alexandra Balfour, how could you? You have a husband who loves and adores you.”

Lord give me strength and calm,
Xandra prayed as she wiped off the seat of the booth and sat down across from her mother. This was what she’d worried about from the second she’d looked up and seen
Adam standing there. If her mother told Michael she’d seen Xandra with another man, it could set him off again. And she just wasn’t ready for a direct confrontation with him yet. If ever.

“Don’t just sit there staring. I’d like an explanation,” her mother demanded, smiling falsely—a smile never reached her eyes. It was, of course, her way of hiding the confrontational nature of the encounter from prying eyes. Dressed impeccably at all times, she ran her numerous charities with the same precision as she did her wardrobe. But, sad to say, Xandra didn’t think she had a charitable bone in her fashionably thin body.

“I don’t have a husband anymore, Mother,” Xandra said quietly as her mother opened her purse.

Her mother’s piercing blue eyes snapped up and bore into hers. It was all Xandra could do not to flinch. “In the eyes of God—” her mother said, her lips straight and as hard as her eyes.

Something inside Xandra lurched. She wouldn’t listen to a woman who thought she could pay her way into heaven spout off about what she thought God had and had not said. “Don’t presume to speak for the Lord. I’m not the one who broke my marriage vows, as you well know but refuse to believe. And, in case you’ve forgotten, my name is no longer Balfour.

“As far as Adam goes, you are more wrong than you can imagine about what you just saw. I bumped into the man after spilling my water all over. He is the father of a student who stopped to say hello. And for his trouble you embarrassed him.”

Her mother grabbed her hand. “You need help, Alexandra. You should see Lionel Avery. He’d be able to help you.”

“The way he did last time?” When she’d come home with Michael last year for a charity ball her parents had invited them to attend, her mother had seen her nervousness and had called her old friend to the house. Ashamed, Xandra hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell her mother why she was so nervous, but she had told Dr. Avery. He’d given her medication to calm her nerves, and she’d taken it, hoping it would help her cope with her anxiety enough so she could regain some of her fighting spirit. But she hadn’t needed medication. She’d needed freedom and safety.