Package Deal (23 page)

Then s
he
pushed
him
away, her hands gently easing his mouth away from her breast
.
“Marcus. W
e
have to slow down,
” sh
e
murmur
e
d
.

“Why?” H
is
uneven
br
e
ath
ing
matched
her
s
,
urging him
to bring her closer
.
“W
e
’r
e
going st
e
ady
—w
e
’r
e
g
e
tting to know
e
ach oth
e
r
. It’s what p
e
opl
e
do
who ar
e
going
together
.”

“Th
e
n y
ou must know
why w
e
hav
e
to stop
,
or
at least slow down
.”
Wherever she touched him
—on his arms, his chest, his back, the sides of his face—
left trails of heat.

“I’ve read enough women’s bodies to know what yours
is saying
,
and it’s
not what you just
told me.
”
He was a
war
e
of th
e
catch in h
e
r br
e
ath wh
e
n h
e
touch
e
d
h
e
r
, the glow on her cheeks
, the hunger in her eyes
, the way her nipples had hardened against his hands
.

But
Amanda
turned her face away
before she
replied
, as if doing so would cool him down
.
“There’s usually no going
back once we’ve taken that step.
” Her
finger
s fluttered
against his chest.“
What if this
…
going steady
as you call it
,
is a mistake
? I
—it will change our relationship
—at work
. It might get in the wa
y of what you asked me to do,
that writer’s workshop, for instance—
our
professional relationship
.”

Why had he talked about work when what he wanted to concentrate on was her, them, their relationship?
“You’re thin
king too much.” H
e dismissed her concern, not wanting to acknowledge it
, wanting to get back to what his body was demanding
.

Amanda
was sil
e
nt.
When
she
turned toward him again
, he
riv
e
t
e
d
his gaze
on h
e
r fac
e
, daring
h
e
r to
look
a
way.

He
kept
his
voice low
, his desire obvious even
as
he challenged her.
“You’r
e
not a virgin, Amanda. You know what making lov
e
is all about.”
His
hands caressed her face
, encouraging her
, too aware of how tight his pants felt. Could she tell?

Sh
e
nodd
e
d
. “That’s why w
e
have to slow down
. I hav
e
to b
e
absolut
e
ly
sure
it’s what I want,
that it’s right
.”

“And
with th
e
right p
e
rson
?”
Make it me.
I
could be
that
person
—if you’ll let me
.

Sh
e
nodd
e
d
. “That, too.”
One hand traced a finger from his chin down to the middle of his chest.

Would she move her hand lower?
He held himself in check when what he wanted was to grab her and hold her tight.
“Don’t you trust me?
”
I’m trustworthy.
Touch me.
Try me.
“
A
r
e
you afraid of g
e
tting pr
e
gnant
again
?”

The corners of her mouth curved upward with the hint of a smile, but she remained
silent
for a long beat
. “With my history, you’d think that.”
Her hands deserted him and smoothed her blouse over her beautiful breasts
. “No. I
’m
protected. I
—”

“I won’t tak
e
advantag
e
of you, Amanda.
I
wouldn’t do that
.”

“
That isn’t it.
I’m
just
not r
e
ady
in my head—in my heart
. N
ot y
e
t
.”

Not yet? Then she i
sn’t ruling out the possibility?
“
Mayb
e
lat
e
r?”
How
long
do we
hav
e
to wait
—for the rest of you
to say yes
?
Especially your heart
. I need to know that, too
.

“Mayb
e
. And t
here’s
something else
.”

“What’
s that?”
He loved
how she looked at him, her head slightly cocked to one side,
the way her eyes shone back at him
.
What was she thinking when she suddenly smiled?

“
If I’m going to sl
ee
p with som
e
on
e
,
I’d pr
e
f
e
r a comfortabl
e
b
e
d
rath
e
r than
th
e
backs
e
at of
a car
.
”

He nodded, relieved.
“Und
e
rstood.”
Was she thinking of his big four-poster?
I can take care of that.
H
e
grinn
e
d
back at h
e
r
, letting one hand cover hers, the one that had been moving nervously in her lap
. “
You
hav
e
n’t answ
e
r
e
d
my qu
e
stion.”

“Which on
e
?”

“Does this mean you will
—or won’t—
go st
e
ady with m
e
?”
He willed his pulse to stop racing.

“That s
ee
ms such an arcan
e
conc
e
pt.”
Her hand stopped moving, and slowly grasped his.

“Spok
e
n lik
e
an
E
nglish major—answ
e
r th
e
qu
e
stion.”
He watched as she tucked her b
l
ou
se back into the waistband of her skirt
.

“Y
e
s.”
Her voice was quiet as
Amanda
slid away from him and sat primly in th
e
pass
e
ng
e
r s
e
at
, only her hands betraying her tension
.

What is she thinking?

“Marcus
, will you pl
e
as
e
tak
e
m
e
hom
e
?”

He narrowed his
eyes
at the change in tone of her voice
.
“Ar
e
you mad at m
e
?” h
e
ask
e
d
, turning th
e
k
e
y to start th
e
e
ngin
e
.

“No.
”
She took
a deep breath before answering
, her voice barely above a whisper
.
“
I
don’t trust mys
e
lf.”

He stopped the car with a jerk.
“You don’t n
ee
d
to trust yours
e
lf. Trust m
e
!
”
He
started to
r
e
ach for h
e
r again
,
certain
sh
e
had
chang
e
d
h
e
r mind.

But
her hands came up
between them and she shook her head
. “No
t
tonight
.
”

When they got back to her house,
he
walked her to her door.
“Amanda, I can wait as long as it takes for you to feel right about this.”

Her eyes held his gaze
for a long moment
before she looked away.

“Than
k you. That means a lot to me.”

She
buss
ed hi
s cheek
before opening the door and slipping inside
, away from where he wa
nted
her to be. With him. I
n his arms
. In his bed.

Chapter 6

It was snowing in Omaha
when Marcus
de
plane
d
.
Mike was waiting for him at the baggage carousel. “
Just
one bag?”

They walked
outside into the blowing snow in the direction of
the parking garage.
“I can’t stay the whole
Christmas break
, Mike
. I need to get back
—sooner than
I told you
.”

“You
said
you had three
full
weeks. Evelyn’
s going to be pissed—the boys, too.”

“I’m still working on the book. I need time to write.”
He zipped up his jacket
. “I forgot how cold it can get this time of year.”

“Are y
ou sure there isn’t another reason you don’t want to stay cooped up with us?” His brother
smirk
ed.
“Watch the sidewalk. It’s slippery.”

“
No
questions, okay?”
Marcus plucked a mound of white fluff off a tree limb on the way to the car and tossed it in
his brother
’s direction.
“
I need to get back—and most of the reason—well, part of the reason anyway, is the book.”

Mike grinned.
“Okay,
I get it
.”
They talked of other things as they drove.

Fifteen minutes later, the car slid sideways onto the icy driveway.

“Go on in and distract the boys,” Mike said. “I have something in the trunk I need to
hide
until the big night.”

Marcus entered the house
and
was tackled within seconds by Mike’s two sons,
dark-haired
Dean,
age
twelve and David, seven
, his hair the same color as Mike’s and
Marc’s
own
.

“Attention, men! Are we going to have a snowball fight tomorrow, or what?”
He hugged each in turn.

“Yeah! And, I’ll win, Uncle Marc,” David predicted.
He reached down to pick up
the
bag
Marcus had dropped near the door
.

“No, you won’t—I will, kid,” his older brother countered
, playfully shoving David away
.

Marcus couldn’t stop
beam
ing at his nephews.
“Hey, Dean, stand up here next to me. Has your dad been sticking you on the rack? You’ve grown at least a foot since last spring.”

The boy
stood up straight
. “He let me do a ride-along last month. I want to join the force after high school.”

“You mean after college, don’t you?” Evelyn
joined them in the living room
and
poked her
older
son’s ribs.

Marcus ruffled his younger nephew’s hair. “What about you, David?
Do you want
to be a cop, too?”

The younger boy shook h
is head. “Don’t you remember? I’m going
to be an architect. I’ll show you my models, if you want.”

“
Good idea.
How about tomorrow?”

“Boys, let’s get Uncle Marc
to the table so he can eat. He’ll beat you both at snow fort fights tomorrow.” Evelyn raised a wine glass in his direction
, the question in her eyes
, as Mike
entered
the house and hung up his coat
.

Marcus nodded.

The boys led him
into the dining room, where the table was already set. Through
out
dinner, he regaled his brother’s family with his
sabbatical
at the Library of
Congress
.
Their questions and laughter warmed him, reminding him of similar gatherings when his parents were alive.

The next day,
more
snow added another coating to the trees. Marcus helped David build a snow fort,
from
behind which they pelted Dean and Mike with snowballs. When Mike
left
to work the evening shift, Evelyn asked Marcus to sit with her while she cleaned the kitchen.

“
Now that the boys aren’t monopolizing you,
tell me more about
your book.
I thought you had it half-done when you went home
last summer
.”

He sighed. “It was,
it is. I’ve been distracte
d—with
new
course work
, and other things.”

“Mike says your distraction has a name.”
She turned toward him between trips to and from the sink.
“What’s she like?”
She smiled and brushed her dark hair off her face.

The hesitation he’d felt earlier
in
talking about Amanda slid away in the warmth of Evie’s quiet interest.
“She’s in the English d
epartment. I’ve watche
d her teach,
she has a real gift.
And, she has a little girl who’
s just like her.”

“What’s her daughter’s name?”

“Cecelia. S
he’s nine and a whiz-bang soccer player. Reminds me of Dean and how he’s so single-minded abo
ut basketball. She goes to the Campus S
chool. When they practice or have games, I can see them from my office window.”

“She sounds like a love. How is she like her mother—is
she
athletic
too?”

He recalled their last few dates
, how she’d almost beat him
racing
up a hill that last time they’d walked
along the trails behind campus
into the Arboretum
. A
nd how she’d hidden from him in the trees, until a sputter of laugher gave her location away, deliberately, he suspected.
“She offered to help me with some magazine articles—she’s
already
published several. And,
she’s agreed to
do t
he writer’s w
orkshop with me this summer.”
Marcus looked at his sister-in-law
, then put down the spoon he’d been rubbing
.
“Evie, can I ask you something—man to woman?”

Evelyn chuckled and put her arms around him for an impromptu hug. “Of course.”

At times like this,
when she seemed to know what he was thinking, what was filling his mind,
he still felt like Mike’s kid brother, the teen who
’d
lost his parents so young—
right
after
Evelyn and Mik
e were married. Even in his mid
thirt
ies, he still asked
for
her
opinion
.
She’d always had time for him, time to listen, time to offer advice couched in obvious caring, advice he had found easier to take than from his brother, whose annoyance with him had been obvious so many times
, especially
that first year after the accident.
W
as it
advice
his mother would have offered
, something he hadn’
t had since he was
a fifteen, or a big sister’s co
n
cern?
Did it
really
matter
, other than
that
Evie always listened?

“
One of my buddies said
dating a woman with a kid could
get complicated, that maybe it i
sn’t such a good idea. What do you think?”

“
That
depends on the woman and her child. Do they both like you?”

He nodded. “Cecelia and I have fun with guessing games about some of the books she likes. Remember when
I taught
that
summer-school
class
on children’s
literature
when I was a grad student
?
That’s why
I’m familiar with most everything she’s into these days. She’s so open. I don’t have to guess what she’s thinking. She comes right out and tells me.”

“You should be honored. Not a
ll nine-year-olds are like that,
especially a little girl with a man she doesn’t know very well. Didn’t you tell Mike she’s never known her father?”

He nodded. “But I d
oubt she thinks of me that way. M
ore like a big brother, someone to have fun with.”

“That’s what a lot of fathers are with their children. Not all are disciplinarians, you know. What about her mother? Does she approve of your relationship with her daughter?”

“I just took it for granted it would be okay. She watches out for Cecelia. If
that little girl
didn’t like me, I don’t think Amanda would let me near her.”

“T
hen what’s to worry about? I
f you’re serious about Amanda,
and
you and Cecelia get along
, it should work out. The thing you need to remember is k
ids can be v
ery protective of their parents,
especially when it’s just the two of them. You have to think of them as a pair. You can’t have one without the other.”

He relaxed in the warmth of her smile.
“How’d you get so smart, Evie?”

“Life has a way of developing wisdom. And that’s why yo
ur brother married me.” She
peck
ed his cheek before taking a seat across from him.

He smiled
and poured her a cup of coffee
.
“When I picked up Amanda the first time, I overheard Cecelia tell her no kissing on the first date.”

“What I just said—she’s protective of her mother.” Evelyn glanced out of the corner of her eye at Marcus
before bringing the steaming cup to her mouth
. “So
…
did you?”

“What?”

“Kiss her.
”

His heart picked up speed
, remembering
. “Yes, but Cecelia was already in bed.”

Evelyn
chuckl
ed. “How much you wanna bet she checked back with her mother after that date?”

It was his turn to smile. “You’re probably right.”He got up and stretched his legs. “I need to jot down some things I just thought of—for the book.”

He went upstairs and pulled out his notebook. After recording what their conversation had reminded him of, he carried down the presents and put them under the tree.
In the quiet of the house, he sat down and
look
ed
at
the ornaments on the
unlit
Christmas tree
. Many reflected
the light from the
streetlamps
outside the front window
.

You
keep invading
my thoughts, Amanda. Do you know
that? A
m I invading yours?
He thought back on the times they had spent together since she
first
agreed to
go steady
. Except on campus
where
they
maintained
a strictly
professional relationship
with each other
, she was becoming more relaxed with him. That day at the beach when she had kissed him, pushing him against a log, the angle preventing him from getting away—not that he wanted to—had surprised him
, and
later
that
evening
their
embrac
es had heated up rapidly
. He smiled as his heart speeded
in remembrance
.
From her actions, he knew she liked him. Or was it becoming more than like?
Were they getting close to
…?
A soft fluffball of snow hit the front window and slid slowly
down the pane
.
S
omeone outside
was calling his name
.
He looked up.
His brother
,
home from his shift.

Mike
shed his boots in the entryway
and hung up his heavy coat before joining
Marcus
on the couch
. “You look comfortable.”