Straight From The Heart (8 page)

With a twist of her wrist, Kim turned the engine. Her little compact started up eagerly. Putting the car into reverse, her toe touched the accelerator. The engine revved but nothing happened. She tried again. The memory of that loud
ka-bang
when she arrived made her nose wrinkle.

“Are we stuck?” Stephen asked.

“I’m stuck,” Kim answered shortly.

“Oh.” He rubbed his nose with his finger, and Kim eyed him suspiciously. Was he hiding a smile? A moment later, he asked, “Want to try my Jeep?”

I’d rather walk!
“Yes,” Kim muttered with ill-grace, which seemed to strengthen his need to rub his nose. He
was
smiling. No, he was flat out grinning!

“Let’s leave your suitcase for now and just check it out,” he said reasonably, and Kim, who knew she’d been behaving badly, nodded and followed him to the red Jeep.

He started the engine and slowly backed away from the cabin. Rain washed the windshield, the wipers flailing wildly in an attempt to keep the glass clear. In silence they slowly worked their way down the rutted, muddy track to the two-lane road that was the main highway down the mountain. Stephen turned on the radio, and before they’d traveled one mile they heard the report: The roads were still closed.

In silence, he brought the Jeep to a standstill. They sat in the middle of the road, wipers beating furiously, news reporter blabbering on about the weather. Stephen turned to her and arched his brow in silent query.

There was nothing to do but head back.

Kim felt like an utter fool. Nothing seemed to be going right. Worse, as they approached the cabin, it felt like fate was leading her inexorably into a romantic trap.

“When do you think the roads will be open?” she asked.

“Anybody’s guess.” He pulled the Jeep up next to her compact, climbed out, and started around the back to open the passenger door.

Kim pushed open her door, avoiding his efforts to help her from the car. Why all these tiny things should matter baffled her a bit, but instinctively she knew she was fighting the battle of the sexes.

Or maybe her own rampant desires
 . . .

He watched her tiptoe around muddy puddles. The rain had abated to a light drizzle, but Kimberly felt it soaking her nonetheless.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he leaned inside the Jeep.

“Gotta get something.”

She could see him digging in the glove box. With a shrug she hurried to the cabin door, dodging the worst of the rain puddles. In the safety of the threshold she glanced back.

He was carrying a cell phone.

“What?”
she demanded as he eased past her, pushing a series of buttons. “You had that all the time!” She followed him inside.

“I think the battery’s dead.”

“Was it dead yesterday when the lines went out?”

“Probably not,” he conceded, unruffled.

“I can’t believe you! All this time we could have been in touch with civilization!” Kim was beside herself.

“What was the point of calling then? We’d gotten hold of Betsy. Nobody could do anything about us being here.”

His reasonableness drove her crazy. “I could have talked to Bobby,” she said.

That remark struck home. He seemed about to say something, then clamped his lips shut. “Maybe the battery isn’t completely dead,” he said after a moment, attempting to dial.

She waited in silence. She was fast losing patience with him and herself and
everything.
Normally she was so much more in control, but these were not normal times.

After a couple of minutes he shook his head and put the phone on the mantel. His serious face made her wonder if he were growing as anxious to leave as she was. The idea bothered her a great more than it should.

The silence stretched uncomfortably. Kim traversed the room several times before flopping into the overstuffed chair and picking at a loose thread on one of the pillows. Stephen spent a great deal of time stoking the fire until the room was absolutely sweltering. Kim determined she would not complain no matter what, so they both suffered in the heat.

Eventually Stephen took the tub of water into the bathroom and poured it into the bathtub. “You can use it, if you want,” he said, and Kim, deciding to take him up on it, grudgingly thanked Stephen as she locked the bathroom door behind her.

It felt wonderful to luxuriate in the warm water. Downright sinful. A half hour later, when the temperature had cooled too much, Kim stepped from the tub and brushed her hair in front of the misty mirror. She eyed her reflection and wondered what to do. Dragging on a pair of denim cut-offs and a cream sleeveless Polo shirt, she stepped back into the living room.

Stephen was nowhere in sight, but she heard an engine running outside. Looking through the window, she was amazed to see that her little compact was turned nose out.

“How did you fix it?” she asked when he came back inside, rain- and mud-spattered.

“It was really just stuck. You were just afraid to punch it.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” A glint of humor lightened his eyes.

Once more they fell into silence. Kim debated about fixing something to eat but couldn’t think of what that might be. Finally, she could stand it no more. She opened her mouth to say something, but Stephen beat her to the punch.

“Do you believe in fate?”

She stared at him in surprise. “Do you?”

“On the whole, no. I think you make your own opportunities.”

“I’d say I feel the same way.”

“But once in a while, something happens. Something unexpected. An unexpected opportunity,” he clarified. To Kim’s continued silence, he added, “And when that happens, I think you should grab it, go with it.” He shrugged. “Some people might call that fate.”

Kimberly nodded.

“That’s what we have: an unexpected opportunity. Fate. A chance to know each other.”

His gaze was direct, full of promise and expectation. Kim’s heart began a dull, hard beat.

“We’ve got a few hours left here together. I don’t want to waste them.”

Mouth dry, she asked, “What do you mean by ‘waste?’”

A pause. “Don’t you know?”

“Spell it out for me. I don’t want to misunderstand.”

He smiled faintly. “I want to touch you and talk to you and make love to you. I want to spend hours in your arms. I want it so badly that I can’t think of anything else. Is that spelled out enough?”

Kim’s gaze fell to his open shirt neck. She watched his throat work as he spoke. Inside, she quaked with nervousness. He was waiting for her answer. Waiting for her to choose. He was offering her an affair. The start of a relationship. No, a weekend out of time. Completely removed from real life. His voice was an aphrodisiac. She was powerless. She wanted him. She couldn’t speak.

But he was waiting.

“Kim
 . . .
?”

Breath held, Stephen waited for what felt like the proverbial eternity. Kim couldn’t meet his eyes. Her fists were clenched, and her slim body shook a bit. Clearly she was taking his offer as a serious one, which it was meant to be, but he was afraid she would overthink it—something he refused to do. He wanted to run with emotion. He was tired of all the years of pent-up feelings, worry, and doubt.

“Kim?” he asked again.

“It’s so hot in here I can’t think.”

“Come here.” He didn’t wait for her to protest; he didn’t listen when she finally did. He led her to the back of the cabin and a covered porch where rain beat a tattoo on the slightly listing roof, and puddles danced with bouncing droplets.

His hand was on her arm. He ached to pull her close. Shooting a sideways glance at her, he noticed the lushness of her pink lips and the thick curve of her lashes. Her skin shone with health. He longed to reach over and run a finger down the hill of her cheek.

“Tell me about Pauleen,” she said unexpectedly.

“Pauleen?” Stephen hesitated. “There’s not much to tell.”

“Oh, come on.” Kim sniffed in disbelief. “You were the perfect couple.”

“Who said we were the perfect couple?”

“Local headlines. People who knew you.”

“Nobody knew us,” Stephen assured her bitterly. “We were all for show.”

“She’s a very beautiful woman.”

Stephen shot Kim a look of amazement. Kim made a dozen Pauleens. A thousand! She had that wholesome look of a country girl in a denim sleeveless dress picking wildflowers and wearing a floppy hat, yet she had the sass of a waitress used to juggling overeager male patrons.

“Like I said, we were all for show.”

“How did you end up with Jason?” Kim asked in a small voice.

So, that was it. Given her own set of circumstances—and his involvement in them—she couldn’t understand how he’d managed to wrest Jason away from his mother. Pauleen, by virtue of being Jason’s mother, was good; ergo, Stephen was evil.

“Like I always get everything,” he said with a trace of bitterness, “by legal trickery and coercion. How could I possibly win any other way?”

She had the grace to blush. Bending her head, she wrinkled her nose in an entirely enticing way and whispered, “Sorry.”

And right then Stephen knew he had to stop protecting Pauleen. Regardless of the terms of their divorce and custody decision, Kim had a right to know the truth. Keeping the truth to himself hadn’t helped anyone: himself, Jason, or Pauleen.

“You think I had a storybook marriage, don’t you?” he asked, his mouth twisting.

“No
 . . .
if it were storybook, it would have had a happy ending.”

“Pauleen and I got married for all the wrong reasons.” He stopped, wishing he hadn’t used the cliché.

“What were they?”

Kim turned to him, her eyes full of warmth and interest. It stopped Stephen for a moment. He wasn’t used to someone who was so open, so ready to listen.

“We were young and in love.”

Kim’s lips parted. “Those are the wrong reasons?”

“All right. That isn’t quite true. We were young, and we kept telling ourselves we were in love, and Pauleen was pregnant.”

“Oh.”

“Looking back, I realize I was ready to get married anyway, and that sort of made the decision. Then we had Jason. Pauleen didn’t want any more children, so that was it.”

Kim’s brows lifted. “Alan didn’t want any more after Bobby, either.”

“Maybe they should have gotten together,” Stephen suggested with a trace of humor, to which Kim smiled. “Anyway, we stayed married, but
 . . .
there was always something missing. Another cliché, but there it is. I didn’t think about it anymore. I threw myself into my work—earned myself the reputation of ‘shark’—and just kept going.

“Pauleen was unhappy, too. Neither of us addressed it. When the core’s bad, you rot from the inside out. That’s what we did. I handled it my way, and Pauleen handled it hers.”

It was all he could do to keep himself from reaching over and dragging Kim to him. He wanted to hold someone. He wanted to assuage the pain of the past, and he wanted to love someone else. He couldn’t remember ever being so honest and insightful about his own feelings.