Hearts in Motion (18 page)

This time, he wasn’t going to make snap decisions. For a deliberate man, he’d made two very bad decisions in his personal life. He couldn’t take the chance of doing it again. Especially now that Cara might be hurt as well.

Though he could swear that Abby was the most genuine person he knew over the age of ten, he was going to date her for a long time before making any commitments.

***

It’s an odd day,” Abby told Grace.

“There are so many of those.” Lying next to Abby on a blanket spread on the sand by Angel Lake, Grace announced this with all the drama of a diva—or a teenager. And despite all the ups and downs of her day so far, Abby had to hold back a laugh. Teens were so dramatic.

Besides, the sun beat down on them. Boys were watching her sister in her blue bikini. A few men had ogled Abby, too, though most of them were with their families or too young for her.

None of them made her heart beat faster. Only one man did that.

“What was wrong with the angel’s mom?” Grace asked.

“He didn’t say. I think she’s sick.”

“I hope not,” Grace said. “For your angel’s sake, of course, but ours, too. If his mom dies or is in serious trouble, he’ll be grieving and won’t want to think about investing in your company.” She sighed dramatically. “Do you ever think that God doesn’t love us?”

Abby stared at her. “Don’t even say that. Sure, not everything will come together, but that’s how life works.”

“How it works for
us
.” Grace’s lower lip pouted, and Abby’s belly tightened.

“Don’t talk that way. It’s how it works for most people. Life is like one big puzzle.” She gestured widely. “With millions of pieces, and no box top with a picture to show you how to put it together.”

“So with every piece, we’ve got to figure out how it fits in?”

“Pretty much.”

“And I’m supposed to spend my life putting pieces together.” Grace wrinkled her nose as if something smelled bad.
 

Abby resisted an urge to hug Grace. A hug on the beach would embarrass Grace. “No, you’re supposed to spend your life enjoying as much of it as you can. And loving as many people as you can.”

Grace stared at her, and Abby laughed shakily, tears springing to her eyes. “I don’t know where that advice came from. I think I’m channeling something from our mom. She’s sending words of wisdom from heaven.”

Moisture gleamed in Grace’s eyes. “It’s not Mom. It’s you. That’s something you would say.”

“Really? Guess what? This is definitely something Mom would do.” And she looped her arms around Grace’s shoulders and hugged her tightly. With a laugh that sounded a lot like a sob, Grace hugged her back. Grace’s skin was warm, and she smelled like sunscreen and sunlight.
 

When they pulled apart, Grace wiped away tears, and Abby sniffed and blinked her tears away before they fell. Then she shook her finger at Grace. “And when I say ‘loving many people,’ I don’t mean sex.”

“Abby!” Grace rolled her eyes and put her hands over her ears. “You’re embarrassing me.”

“Good. That’s my job.” She stood, aware of gazes on her. She sucked her stomach in. “I’m hungry. Let’s go and eat dinner.”

“Can we order pizza tonight?” Grace grabbed one corner of the blanket; Abby grabbed another.

“I can make pizza,” Abby said.

Grace frowned then smiled determinedly. “Your pizza is always awesome.”

Abby took the blanket from Grace and folded it herself. The least she could do, since Grace lied about her pizza, which was nowhere near awesome, but it was cheap and not awful.

As they walked to the car, she wondered if Holden would call her. Now that he and Portia were no longer engaged, he had no reason not to call her.

This morning she’d been hurt, but she could understand. And she was sure he wasn’t the kind of man who would use his penis like a burglar with a gun—shooting and running.

She’d expected to hear from him earlier, but maybe he was busy with something else....

***

Holden was on the patio, furiously painting when the call came. He didn’t want to stop to answer, but the ring snapped him out of his creative frenzy as quickly as if someone had dropped a bucketful of ice onto his head. He studied his newest painting of Abby, wrapped in a cloud, only her shoulders, neck and face showing, her eyes slumberous, her smile satisfied.

The phone rang again, and he reluctantly set down the paintbrush and headed into the living room. He picked up his phone, and the display showed one name.
Juliana
.

His muscles tensed, he pressed Talk but couldn’t say anything. If he did, it would be cutting and angry. The Juliana he knew would hang up on him, and that wouldn’t be any help to Cara.

“Holden?” Juliana’s voice sounded weak and thin. If not for her name on his display, he wouldn’t have known it was her.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” he said, and his tone was gentle, though two seconds ago he’d been ready to verbally obliterate her.
 

“I know you have Cara. I’m sorry. I talked to my mother.

He took a seat on a chair that faced the sunset falling over the lake. “Did you tell her—”

“I can’t.” Her voice wavered. “Please don’t make me tell her.”

“Your parents ignore Cara. You’re...”
A terrible mother.
But he clamped his lips together, unable to say it.

“Sick,” she whispered. “I’m sick.”

“Are you in a hospital?”

“Not that kind of sick. It’s rehab.”

“How long have you been there?”

“Six weeks. I’m at the halfway point.”

“And then what?”

“I’m thinking of spending time at a meditation center in Arizona. I don’t know how long. I can’t go back to my parents.”

“Neither can Cara. She’s six now. When I first got her from your parents, she was afraid to talk. She’s opening up now.”

Sobs came from the other end of the phone.

He took a breath and went on. “It’s not me who’s helping her feel better, it’s her caregiver. She raised her sister after their parents died. She has cats and a dog. Cara’s already adopted a white kitten that Abby was fostering.”

“She can’t take the kitten to my mother’s house. My father is allergic to pet hair.”

“Your father rarely sees her.”

“Yes, but kittens get loose. I tried to hide one in my room when I was Cara’s age. I was very careful to keep the door shut all the time, but it snuck out anyway. My parents took it to the pound.”

“There’s a solution.” He squared his shoulders though she wasn’t there to see him. “She wants to stay with me.”

“But she’s not...” She sucked in a shaky breath then whispered, “Yours. She’s not your child.”

“She doesn’t know that. She was forced on me by your parents, then they ran. They said two weeks, and I thought I could handle two weeks. And I have.” He heard the surprise in his voice. “It’s been going well.”

Soft sobs came from the other side of the phone, and he kept talking. “She needed me. I couldn’t throw her away. She thinks I’m her father. She feels secure here. I think she even feels...loved. Do you want to talk to her? She’s sleeping now.”

“No! I can’t.” Her thin voice rose, and he easily imagined her wringing her hands. “Don’t you see I can’t?”

“I see that, but can you see that you can’t keep her in this limbo world? She needs a home where people care for her.”

“I know, I know, I know.” Her voice wobbled. “I’ll think about it. This woman...the one you said helped her...”

“Abby.”

“Yes! Abby, short for Abigail. Her name means maidservant, you know.”

He smiled. Despite her way with pets and children—and men—Abby was no maidservant. “She’s a wonderful woman.”

Another moment of silence came from the other end of the phone. “Are you emotionally involved with this woman?”

“Yes.”

“In love?”

Now it was his turn to pause. “I think so. It’s too soon to commit to anything.”

She laughed, full-throated with confidence and sensuality. This was one subject she was an expert at—the relationships between men and women. “Look how fast you fell in love with me.”
 

“I was captivated by you,” he said.

“I know. You weren’t my type, but you loved me so much.”

Not love, he thought. Enthralled. She was so lively and ethereal...and needy. He’d wanted to cherish her forever. He’d wanted to make her whole.
 

“Is that how you feel about this woman?”

“No.” Emotion rose in him, a rush of warmth in his chest. Abby was already whole, with so many facets to her it would take a lifetime to discover them all. And there was nothing ethereal about her. What he felt for her was solid and earthy. And it wasn’t sex, though sex was part of it. It was...

“She’s...everything,” he said.

“Everything?” Her voice rose and ended with a quiver. “That sounds like love to me.”

He scratched his eyebrow again then remembered the paint. “Let’s get back to Cara. Legally, I’m her father. I’ll take custody. When you’re well, you can visit with her, and we’ll see about shared custody.”

“You would do this for me?”

“I would do this for Cara.”

His words set off soft sobs from the other side of the phone. He closed his eyes for a second. He should be angry at her, but all he could do was pity her.

“What’s your lawyer’s name?” he asked, gazing at the horizon across Angel Lake, the deep pink bleeding into the gray. The way he thought the world sometimes bled.

Juliana’s lawyer was the same one she’d had for their divorce, a sensible woman who’d been pleased they weren’t going for each other’s jugular. Juliana swore she’d call her, and he hoped she would.

They hung up, and he gathered his paints and his painting, taking them inside to clean the brushes and wash his hands. After that, he looked in on Cara. She was fast asleep. The kitten on her bed jumped to the floor and followed him into the living room. When he sat down, she leaped onto his lap, purring.

“I’m not good with kittens,” he told her. But she didn’t seem to understand as she purred and kneaded his legs. He sat back and fought an urge to pick up the phone and call Abby.

She was...perfectly imperfect. When he was with her, he wanted to smile. To kiss her. To laugh with her.

She seemed to be attracted to him. She even seemed to like him and feel romantic about him.

But when she knew him better, that might change.

The thought chilled him, as if there were ice in his veins.

And it was so soon. Love didn’t happen this quickly. Only mistakes happened this fast and this fevered.

So he kept petting Epic until she stopped purring. By then it was too late to call Abby. It had taken all his willpower to hold back, and he went to bed with one thought on his mind.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow he would see Abby.

21

The humans were not behaving well.

“I’d like to talk to you,” Holden said to Mom in the kitchen, with Cara looking on.

Even before Mom stiffened, Minnie knew he’d made a mistake with his harsh voice. He should pay attention to Quigley and her. When they wanted Mom’s attention, they made their voices soft and melodic. Their way of saying,
Here I am. I’m allowing you to pet me now. I’ll even rub my scent all over you so you’ll know that I marked you as mine.

And then they would dance on her legs, knead her, and purr. Let her know that her attentions made them happy.

But not Holden. He stood back, with his body as stiff as his voice. When Minnie had been a kitten all alone in the city, she’d run into a barbed wire fence that hurt her badly. It had made her cry and bleed.

Holden was a human wrapped inside an invisible barbed wire.

Mom gave Cara a stick with a string with feathers and told her to take it into the living room to play with Epic.

Unable to resist the feathers, Quigley rushed into the living room ahead of Epic. Cara looked back at Mom and Holden with a pucker in her forehead, then Quigley jumped up to grab the feathers and failed, and Epic followed his lead. Neither of them got anything, but they jumped again, and Cara laughed, her attention on the cats.

Minnie turned her back on them, ignoring the tug to run over and grab the feathers in her quick claws. That was play; this was important. Both Mom’s and Holden’s faces were almost mad. Their eyes blazed at each other, and tension snapped in the air like lightning bolts in a rumbling sky.

Holden stepped up to Abby. “Should we sit?”

Mom raised her eyebrows at Holden. “I can talk perfectly well standing up.”

Minnie settled on the floor and wished there was a sunny spot in the room. If only they could understand her, she would tell them what to do:

First, be nice. Talk in beguiling tones. Rub your bodies against each other. That’s important.

If it’s not going the way you want, then talk loudly and long. Make them listen.