Abiding Love (14 page)

“S
o, what do you think of Beth’s news?” Xandra asked Adam a week after that first momentous date. She looked around as she stepped out of the stable. The sun was setting, casting a golden glow over Laurel House’s Pennsylvania fieldstone facade. The grass was now a cheery green and the trees and bushes had begun to thicken and green up with tender little leaves or pretty pink or white flowers, the way they always did in mid-April.

“I think she’ll be a great mother,” Adam said with a quick smile. Glancing over at Xandra he added, “I’m going to miss her.”

“You can visit her in Colorado,” she said, and leaned back against the practice ring fence. A lonely shadow seemed to dim his bright eyes. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen it. “Are you sorry you moved back here only to have her move away?”

He looked over her head for a moment, taking in
the scenery. Then his gaze lowered to hers. “I have Mark. That’s more than I’ve had for a long time. What about you?” he asked as he braced his arm on the fence above her head.

Having him standing so close made her pulse go haywire. “What—” she swallowed “—about me?”

He moved closer, his eyes slightly hooded, his breath warm on her cheek. “Do I have—?”

She’d never know if he meant to end with “you,” because his lips touched hers, and the word he breathed was muffled. The world spun away in the space of a heartbeat. The feel of Adam’s arm wrapping around her waist and the hard wall of his chest under her hands became her world. Lost in the wonder of his kiss, of having him hold her so gently and firmly at the same time, she wasn’t prepared for the sudden end. Suddenly Adam moaned and backed away, letting go of her as if she were electrified.

“I—” He took a shaky breath, misery invading his eyes. “I should go. I’m sorry. I have to find Mark. I have to leave.”

“Adam, what—”

“No. I can’t— I have to go. We’ll talk. Later.” He held out one hand in a gesture that said he was helpless to explain what was wrong. “Later,” he said again. “Right now, I really have to go.”

And he did. Had he not been so deliberate about the gait that carried him toward the golden sunset, she would have said he ran. Ran away? Adam? What had just happened?

Xandra stood staring after him until a scuffing
sound drew her attention. She whirled toward it. Mark approached from the shadow of the adjoining barn.

“Your father went to find you.”

“I know. I, uh, I sort of hung back so I could warn you. My dad’s great, but he isn’t a good bet, Ms. Lexington.”

“Not a good bet?”

Mark shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe how many nice ladies have tried with him. It’s my aunt Sky, you see. You should see them together. He loves her but he won’t admit it. She looks just like Mom, see, so he won’t get involved with her. You can’t trust the things he says and does sometimes. I just don’t want you to get…you know, hurt.”

Xandra regarded Mark. What was he up to? Adam had talked about Skyler James, Mark’s aunt, and he’d never indicated more than an in-law relationship with his ex-wife’s sister. But he had talked about Mallory Beecham and the helpless love he’d continued to feel long after her betrayal. Maybe Mark was right and Adam was a hopeless case, but Skyler as the reason just didn’t ring true.

“Do you object to my seeing your father socially?”

Mark shrugged. “Like I said, I just don’t want you getting your heart broken. You’re my friend, too, so I figured I had a right to protect you.”

She tried to smile reassuringly but wasn’t sure she’d pulled it off. Adam, not Mark, had her very confused. “Thank you, but you don’t have to worry. I won’t get hurt. I’ve put my trust in God, Mark. I
promise, He’ll protect my heart. I think you’d better go find your father. He seemed to be in a hurry to leave.”

A week had passed, and as Xandra sat in her office filling in her regular Monday report, she paused, wondering if Adam had any concept of time. Did he know what “later” meant to most people?

She’d put her trust in God and that was the only thing that kept her from calling Adam. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand that their kiss had been something out of the ordinary. Or that he’d been hurt and treated abysmally by his former wife. But she missed him!

As if she’d willed it, Xandra’s phone rang from an outside line. The number displayed in the caller ID window set her heart pounding. It was Adam.
Calm down,
she ordered herself silently.
He could be calling about Mark.
After a week of silence and Adam’s unmistakable evasion of her, she was more than a little reluctant to get her hopes up.

“Xandra, it’s Adam. Please don’t hang up,” he hurried to say before she could even greet him. His voice was tinged with desperation.

“Now, why would I hang up on a friend?” she asked in as noncommittal a tone as she could manage. She was thankful he wasn’t there, though, or her grin would give her away.

He exhaled. “Because this particular friend has less sense than God gave a guppy.”

She snickered but managed to cover the phone in
time. He sounded absolutely miserable. “A guppy. How the mighty have fallen. So you’re afraid you’ve given SEALs everywhere a bad name, huh?”

He didn’t laugh at her joke. “No. I’m afraid I hurt you. And I miss you. Have lunch with me and I’ll try to explain.”

Xandra glanced at the clock. “All right. How about Leo’s Deli on Walnut Lane?”

A long silence ensued. “Terrific,” he finally said, sounding as if he’d been holding his breath. “I haven’t had any grease since Sully moved in. The man’s become a health nut. My kingdom for a cheese steak.”

She chuckled but knew he was battling as hard as she was to keep things light. “You’d run five miles a day if it meant you could eat a steady diet of junk food. I’ll see you at one-thirty.”

It felt as if the clock moved in slow motion, but at last it was time for her to leave. Adam was already in a booth when she got to the deli. He was staring out of a window, so deep in thought that she had settled across from him before he noticed her presence. Then he just looked at her, his gaze seeming to drink in her features.

“Do I have a smudge on my nose?”

“I was just making up for lost time. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I needed space.”

Xandra slipped out of her coat and stacked it with her purse next to her on the seat. “Space for what?” she asked.

“To get my head together.” Adam hunched over
his coffee. “I asked you out that first time because I like you. And I thought we could be friends. Keep each other company. Then, there we were, standing in the sunset, and I was kissing you. ‘Friends’ was suddenly a little too mild a word for what I felt. And what I felt was something I didn’t think I was ready for.” He paused, leaning back. “There have been women in my life over the years. Several.”

He didn’t sound proud of the fact, but neither did he sound as if he were confessing to plentiful indiscretions. She grinned.

“What?” he asked, his eyebrows dipping in the center as they always did when he was puzzled.

“I’ve heard all about your extensive love life. Several times, now that I think on it.” She sent him a teasing smirk as she lifted the menu, pretending to examine it.

“What?” He frowned fully now. “How could you have heard that?”

“Mark. He thinks you’re a lady-killer and about to break my heart.”

Now his eyebrows rose in shock. “Mark said that? Look, I wasn’t trying to be cruel. I didn’t plan that kiss, and I certainly didn’t expect the way it felt. I backed off to
keep
from hurting you. I needed to get my head around what was happening and to see if time away from seeing you would change anything. It didn’t change a thing.” He snapped the menu he’d been holding behind the napkin dispenser. “Except Sully told me he’d pitch me in the pool if I didn’t shape up.”

“That’s quite a threat. I thought Beth had paid to have that pool drained.”

Adam grimaced. “She did. Sully’s not happy with me at all,” he admitted before taking her hand.

Her pulse took off at a gallop, his touch no less electric than it had been.

“Ten years and no one has ever made me feel what you did when I kissed you,” he told her, and traced his thumb over the back of her hand.

“And has there been any steady person among the bevy of beauties floating through your life in that last ten years?” she forced herself to ask. If Sky James was a factor, she had to know. Now. Before she let her heart become even more involved.

“No.” Adam looked confused and a little worried. “Is my past some kind of a problem for you? You know, the way your divorced status was for you?”

“Not at all.” She couldn’t fight a grin. She didn’t intend to mention Sky James—at least not yet. “Just checking my sources. So where do we go from here?” she asked, not sure where her sense of calm had come from at first, but when she thought about it, she knew. The Lord had her in the palm of His hand.

“Where?” He lifted his shoulders, but it wasn’t a careless shrug. It was a gesture of acceptance. “We spend time together. See what develops.”

She nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

His green eyes widened. “I don’t have to grovel?”

She shook her head. “Nary a bow nor a scrape.”

He took a deep breath and seemed to relax before
a wide grin spread across his face. “
Cats
is playing at the DuPont Hotel. Suppose I get tickets.” He named several well-known actors and actresses who were part of the traveling cast.

She grinned. “Just let me know what night, and I’ll meet you at your house. A certain source needs to learn that manipulation doesn’t pay.
He
can do the bowing and scraping.”

Adam nodded. “Ah, Mark. I should leave him to you, then?”

“By all means.”

The unlikeliest of butlers, Sully, retired Senior Chief Sean Sullivan, opened the Boyer’s door to Xandra the next night. The older man wore tan camouflage pants and a tan T-shirt, sans sleeves. A seal tattooed on his left upper arm had faded to a muted blue-gray, alluding to a long career. Sully was a perfect cross between Mr. Clean and Popeye the Sailor and, from what Adam had said, that described his personality to a tee, as well.

“Come on in, Ms. Lexington. Mark is in the games room. The commander’s running late, but he suggested you might enjoy waiting in there for him.”

Xandra grinned and handed Sully her jacket. She wore a silver-blue silk Yves Saint Laurent sheath she’d picked up at a Main Line thrift shop for a tiny fraction of the original cost. From the expression on Sully’s face, she was sure the older man knew what was coming. She intended to confront Mark. Adam
didn’t deserve to have his life manipulated once again by someone he loved.

“Your boss is right. Show me the way.”

He led her through the wide foyer past the staircase and down a hall that ended at a large room that ran across the back of the house. It was clearly an addition, with Palladian windows, a cathedral ceiling and beautiful hardwood floors. She could see why Adam had chosen this room.

“Ms. Lexington!” Mark gasped, jumping to his feet, forgetting about the show he’d been watching. “Hi. How come you’re here?”

“Your father and I are going to a play. We decided to leave from here, but he’s running late.”

Mark clearly didn’t know what to say beyond “Oh.”

“His being late works out well, since it gives you and me time to catch up. I haven’t seen you around. How are things going here at home?” Xandra asked as she settled on the sofa. It was another leather piece, distressed and masculine-looking but soft and smooth as butter. It sat in the middle of the big room facing away from the hall entrance.

Mark sank to the floor, taking up his previous position but ignoring the television. She knew from what Adam had told her that they’d very nearly reversed roles as far as testiness went. He’d admitted he’d been so grouchy that even Mark had complained.

“I ask how things are going because I understand your father’s been so grumpy and out of sorts, Mr. Sullivan threatened to toss him in the pool. Since the
pool’s empty, I have to assume things have been pretty tense. I wonder why your dad would be so unhappy?”

“I dunno,” Mark replied, and went back to his program. He pretended great interest. He might have pulled it off had a well-played commercial not been running at the time.

“Suppose I tell you why he’s been so upset. He says he missed me. How does that make you feel? After all, you tried to stop me from seeing him. Do you still think I should do as you suggested? Because if you do—” she pointed her thumb over her shoulder toward the front of the house “—I have my car here. I can just leave. He may be disappointed but—”

“But Mark would have his way, and he’d have me all to himself,” Adam said from behind her. There was a definite edge to his tone.

Xandra jumped to her feet as Mark twisted around, thunderstruck at Adam’s sudden appearance. Mark had clearly never expected to face Adam with his little manipulations. She’d thought back over all Mark’s references to Adam’s romantic past and realized that, almost from the first, Mark had been trying to discourage her from becoming close to his father.

She pivoted to face Adam. Was this evening even more important to him than she’d hoped? She prayed it was so.

“That isn’t what I want at all!” Mark claimed. “I want you to finally be happy, Dad. That’s why I called Aunt Sky. She’s trying to find a way to visit.
She’ll cheer you up. I told her how you hate the house and how miserable you are now that you retired. She always makes you happy. If you and her got toge—”

The look that spread over Adam’s handsome features stopped Mark in mid-word. In spite of the delicate nature of the situation, Xandra had a hard time not grinning.
Horrified
was too mild a word to describe Adam’s expression.

“You think something’s possible between me and
Sky?
Mark, I’ve know her since she was your age. She’s like a little sister to me. Yeah, she makes me laugh, but so does Beth. She just isn’t ever going to be more to me. Ever.”

Mark’s lip curled a bit. “And I suppose Ms. Lexington is? Then you’ll get tired of her, or she’ll get mad at you, and I won’t have her for a friend anymore.”