Sweet but Sexy Boxed Set (51 page)

Pat led Rival out of the stall into the aisle and held his head while Kelly pulled up a sturdy plastic stepstool near to the bay horse
’s left side.

“
Rob, hold Kelly’s stirrup, will you?”

“
I’d rather give her a leg-up.” His voice carried a teasing quality, but his eyes spoke his serious intent.

“
Not on your life!” Kelly stepped on the stool, gathered her reins, and with hands gripping the front and back of the saddle, stuck her boot into the left stirrup.

On the other side of the horse, Rob held her right stirrup to keep the saddle in place as her weight shifted it to the left.
“At least I’m good for something,” he quipped.

Kelly glared at him and swung into the saddle longing to just accidently kick him in his handsome face. But she resisted the impulse and settled into the saddle instead. Getting the feel of the leather beneath her, she picked up the double reins adjusting them between her fingers.

“You know what you’re doing,” Pat commented after observing her actions. “I won’t worry about you.”

The praise raised Kelly
’s spirits. Maybe she could survive the trail ride after all. Who knows, it might even be fun.

Riding Spook out of the barn into the bright afternoon sunshine, Rob fought to control his high spirits. Did agreeing to the trail ride mean Kelly was slowly coming around? He had seen a spark of interest in her eyes and wanted to press his advantage.

Turning in the saddle, he placed a hand on the horse
’s rump and looked back at Kelly. She followed on Rival, another retired Saddlebred with a shiny chestnut coat. Her red hair was hidden by the helmet, but her coloring complemented that of the horse. She was relaxed in the saddle, as if born to ride. Her denim jodhpurs, extending longer than the heel of her boots in back and covering the arch of the foot, made her legs appear long and elegant.

He loved the look of her in the saddle. He loved the look of her all the time. Rob
’s heart warmed, and he knew he wanted more from Kelly than she was probably willing to give.

“
The trail runs along the outside of Pat’s pasture and goes down to the creek. Just follow me,” he told her, deciding he’d do something about her reluctance.

“
I wouldn’t think of doing anything else.” Her answer was glib.

He laughed as he turned around. Rob also loved her testiness. He loved her spunk. She might believe herself to be shy, but there was a steel quality underneath everything. How else had she survived the heartache life had thrown at her? God, he admired her for that.

They walked their horses along the back fence row. Rob found the rhythm of the slow gait and the crunch of dry grass under the horses’ hooves soothing. He relaxed in the saddle, always mindful of Kelly behind him keeping pace.

The trail led down to a lower pasture, always following the outer fence. Inside the pasture, horses grazed. Overhead a black crow cawed from the top of a maple tree as if standing watch over them. Fifteen minutes into the ride the trail dipped toward the creek. Rob gave Spook his head going down the rocky embankment. Low from lack of rain, the creek made a lazy path winding its way along the back of Pat
’s property.

Stopping at the edge of the creek, Rob let Kelly and Rival catch up. They halted beside him. Kelly rested her hands on the pommel of the saddle.

“This is pretty,” she said looking out across the shallow water.

“
Not as pretty as you.”

“
Rob!”

“
What? You don’t like a compliment?”

“
I don’t like you pressing me,” she replied as she set her jaw in anger.

“
Pressing? I’m just stating the obvious.” He turned Spook to the left and circled around, coming in alongside Rival so close that his knee brushed up against Kelly’s thigh. “I’ve always thought you beautiful, Kelly.”

She studied him a moment and then looked away.

With his left hand, Rob reached across his body and touched Kelly’s chin. Gently he urged her to turn her head. When she did, he saw a mixture of anguish and longing in her eyes.

“
I’ve missed you, Kelly.”

She wet her lips.
“What am I to say to that?”

“
Don’t say anything.”

He cupped her chin and pulled her face toward him. Leaning nearer, he angled his head to the side and then covered her mouth with his. Her lips were warm and wet. He devoured their softness, hungry for more, asking for more, not expecting anything.

Parting her lips, Kelly raised herself in the saddle, tilting toward him, and kissed him back.

Chapter Ten

Thursday morning

“
I don’t understand why you’re so upset,” Rachel said, her voice sounding as if it was next door even though it was coming through Kelly’s iPhone.

“
I kissed a man!”

Rachel laughed.
“You should be doing more of that. What’s wrong with this man?”

“
He’s not just any man,” Kelly said.
No, he’s C.B.’s father.
Her heart caved in her chest crushing her with fear and pain. “I, ‘er, dated him in high school,” she went on to explain to her best friend.

“
So?”

“
So I shouldn’t be kissing him!”

“
Is he married?”

“
Divorced.”

“
Then what’s the problem?” Rachel’s question hung between them like a heavy obstacle. “Oh, I get it. You enjoyed it!”

Kelly licked her lips. God help her. She
had
enjoyed it.

“
Kelly?”

“
Yes.” Her response was a bit too sharp.

“
Are you falling for this guy?”

“
No!” She couldn’t. Wouldn’t. What was happening to her?

“
Take a deep breath, sweetie. You don’t have to marry this man just because you enjoyed kissing him.”

Kelly sunk onto her mattress, putting the death grip on her iPhone. Her stripped bedroom felt cold and impersonal, as if ghosts of childhood past were haunting the room.
“You’re right,” she said, inhaling deeply. “It’s just one kiss.”

“
Then why are you upset?”

Because he may find out the truth and hate me.

When she didn’t speak up, Rachel pressured her again. “You dated milquetoast Thomas so long you’ve forgotten how a real, hot-blooded man behaves. From what I gather, he likes you. Why not let this play out a little? See where it goes.”

“
Because I don’t intend to stay in Lanham,” Kelly shot back. “I’m supposed to be finding myself, remember? I plan to head to Beaufort on Saturday to visit you.”

“
But suppose you
find
yourself in Lanham? Suppose this guy is the one you’re supposed to build your new life around?

“
Because he isn’t.” Kelly was tired of the discussion. It was going nowhere. “If you don’t want me to come, I’ll change my plans.”

“
Of course I want you to come.”

“
I’ll be there Sunday.”

“
Okay.” Rachel paused. “But if you change your plans, all you have to do is call.”

“
I won’t.”

“
Of course not.”

She heard the grin in her friend
’s voice. “Good-bye, Rachel,” Kelly said through gritted teeth.

“
See you Sunday,” Rachel answered. “Maybe.”

Maybe?
There was no maybe about it. She wasn’t sticking around. It was too dangerous. Kelly had no intention of falling under Rob Scott’s spell.

Irritated at herself, she forced down the knot of fear in her stomach. Then her gaze fell on the footlocker setting in the middle of the floor where Rob had dropped it. One last obligation to complete.

If I can find the key.

Kelly thought a minute, trying to recall the last time she had shut the footlocker. Lying back on the bed, her hands behind her head, she stared at the ceiling for a long time, unwinding, breathing deeply, and trying to solve the mystery of the key.

Suddenly she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Following a sixth sense, she stood up and walked to the dresser pulling open the bottom drawer. Reaching underneath it, her fingers touched the key taped to the bottom.

As she opened the footlocker, Kelly inhaled and then exhaled long and hard. She sat down cross-legged on the floor and peeked inside ready to toss the contents—a ragged stuffed bear, a stack of yellowed English composition papers with red
“A’s” emblazoned across them, and aged photographs showing the disaster she’d been in high school with her long-sleeve blouses, long skirts and long hair pinned up in an old-fashioned bun.

Yearbooks from all four years were there. Reluctant to relive unwanted memories, Kelly didn
’t open them. She shoved them aside and beneath them found a blue spiral-bound notebook.

My diary.

A cold chill ran through her chest. Slowly Kelly removed the notebook and placed it on her lap. Staring at it, touching it, she fought the recurring anxiety this trip to Lanham had ignited. In the end, curiosity overcame common sense. She opened the notebook.

Most of it was filled with anger at her father and the horrid restrictions he forced upon her.
“Two boys made fun of me today in history class,” she’d written twenty-two years ago. “They called me Amish girl and said I was ugly. I wouldn’t let them see how their words hurt me. Rob was in the class. He didn’t say anything to them, because we had an agreement we wouldn’t talk in school, but I saw in his eyes how angry he was at them. I knew he wanted to defend me.”

Kelly licked her lips, fighting back tears as the humiliation came back full force. She had hated high school. Lanham. Her father. She had wanted to escape from this rotten, miserable little town. She didn
’t regret leaving.

Kelly set her jaw, knowing she had done the right thing.

On the last two pages of the notebook she discovered more. “Rob doesn’t know,” she had written in her scrawling handwriting. “I can’t tell him. His mother may already suspect something. She warned me to lay off. I had to tell him we couldn’t go together any more. I didn’t tell him why. He told me I was breaking his heart.”

Her head bowed, Kelly slumped in despair. Rob had cared about her so many years ago. Had she really broken his heart? She couldn
’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it. She’d done what she had to do to save their child. That was all. The bottom line. The end.

Kelly rose from the floor and ripped the pages from the notebook. She tore them in two again and again until she shredded them into strips of paper, destroying the evidence of that horrible, hurtful life.

Chapter Eleven

Howie’s house

Thursday evening

Her mother was sobbing. Kelly stood helplessly in the living room of Howie
’s house watching her soon-to-be-stepfather envelop her mother into his arms, comforting her like a child.

“
What’s wrong?” Rob came into the room carrying two glasses of wine. He handed one to Kelly, looking about as awkward as she felt.

“
She got a phone call and just started crying,” Kelly said with a shrug. The fact that her stoic, always steady mother was having a major meltdown startled her. She had never before seen such a show of emotion from her mother.

Rob took a sip of wine, observing the scene with a lawyer
’s eye. “My guess is pre-wedding jitters.”

“
I suppose so.”

Howie led Grace to the sofa. She sat down, and he gave her his clean handkerchief. Kelly hadn
’t seen a man with a white handkerchief in years, not since her father. She frowned at the comparison. From what she could tell, Howard Scott was one hundred percent more caring than her father had ever been.

“
It seems there’s a slight predicament,” Howie told them, trying to hide his sympathetic grin.

“
Anything we can do to help, Dad?”

“
I’m not sure. It seems June Hobson broke her arm yesterday and is unable to bake the strawberry wedding cake.”

Kelly rolled her eyes. Was that all?

“I had my heart set on a strawberry cake,” Grace said sniffling. “Now we don’t even have a wedding cake.”

It wasn
’t the end of the world. The wedding party tomorrow was small—only a few relatives. Surely they could get by without a wedding cake.

“
We’ll make one,” Rob said. His gaze bathed Kelly with half-concealed amusement, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

“
What?”

“
Kelly and I will go to the store and buy enough cake mix and icing to make you
two
cakes, Grace,” Rob declared. “We won’t let your wedding day be ruined for lack of a strawberry cake.”

****

Rob wasn’t joking. An hour later Kelly walked through the front door of his home.

“
I still don’t understand why we have to bake the cake at your house.” She heard the childish pout in her voice.

“
Because your mother’s kitchen is a mess and my dad’s house is cleaned up for the wedding.”

“
Something makes me think there’s more to it than that.”

Hands clutching cloth grocery bags, Rob kicked the door shut.
“I can’t deny I wanted to get you alone.”

Kelly was unprepared for the giddy heat that raced through her. This wasn
’t good. What in the hell was she doing here? With him? Was she out of her mind?

He strode across the great room, leaving Kelly to take in the sights and smells of his wonderful log cabin. A bank of tall windows at one end of the great room allowed sunlight to stream into the spacious open area and across dark hardwood floors. The ceiling was vaulted with fans slowly turning overhead in the exposed wooden rafters.

Kelly pivoted taking in the rustic charm of Rob’s home with its two brown leather sofas and an overstuffed, burnt orange chair. Magazines and books were scattered on the coffee table and on the floor beside the chair. Above the stone fireplace was the only bit of modern technology in the room, a large flat screen TV. The log cabin didn’t fit the picture she’d created of him as a sophisticated Chicago lawyer.

At the opposite end of the room, a metal, spiral staircase led up to a loft that could be seen from the floor below. Behind the staircase was a galley kitchen, perfect for a bachelor. Rob was already there unloading groceries.

“Like my bachelor pad?” he asked not turning around when she came into the kitchen.

Kelly gazed out French doors to a patio and well-manicured yard beyond.
“I must admit I didn’t figure you for a log cabin kind of guy.”

He turned to face her with a knowing look as if her response pleased him.
“Surprised you, huh?”

“
I should say so.” She shrugged. “You didn’t have this house when you were married, did you?”

“
No.” He turned back to the countertop, removed a carton of eggs and folded the cloth bag. “We owned a house in Locust Grove close to my dad. I couldn’t stay there.”

Kelly glanced at him, hearing, once more, the hurt in his voice. What woman would divorce a guy like Rob? His ex-wife must be out of her mind.

Rob pulled a hand mixer and a glass bowl from a lower cabinet. “You’ll have to do the honors,” he said, “if you want this wedding cake to turn out right.”

“
You’re assuming I can cook.” She walked over beside him, trying to ignore the tingle of excitement racing through her body just because of his nearness.

“
I figure you have many talents. I’ve already seen your pitching arm and how you sit a horse.”

The memory of yesterday afternoon rushed back like gangbusters. Kelly felt her face grow warm. As she told Rachel, she had enjoyed that kiss a little too much. The ride back to the barn had been an erotic nightmare as her body felt on fire where it touched and rubbed the saddle. That she
’d been without a good dose of sex for a long time had been all too apparent to her.

“
Well, get out of the way, mister, if you want me to work on this cake.” Kelly bumped Rob, aiming to tease him a little.

He didn
’t move, standing his ground so that their bodies touched. “Do you want my help?”

She swallowed hard.
“No, get out of my kitchen!”

“
My kitchen, remember.” He pulled out one of the chairs from the small dining set by the French doors, turned it around and straddled it, resting his arms on the back. “I’ll watch.”

Kelly
’s body warmed and then throbbed as she struggled to ignore Rob’s gaze upon her every action. She wore sandals and a blue, cotton and spandex sundress with a halter neckline, open at the back. Her legs and body were much too exposed to Rob’s rapt attention.

Kelly couldn
’t remember the last time she’d made a cake, but it was like pitching or riding a horse, something not easily forgotten. Turning on the oven to heat, she greased the cake pans and dusted them with flour. With every move she made, she felt like a clumsy child, but she put her mind to it and slowly, methodically prepared the cake batter and poured it into the round baking pans.

When she picked up a cake pan to place it in the stainless steel oven, Rob jumped up and opened the door for her. He stood there while she retrieved the second pan and put it on the rack. Then he shut the oven door.

“How long?” he asked.

Kelly glanced at the box once more.
“Thirty-five minutes.”

Rob twisted the timer.
“Done. Let’s go sit down.”

Kelly followed him into the great room and plopped down on the sofa, thinking he
’d take the easy chair. Instead he sat next to her and turned slightly toward her with his arm resting on the top of the sofa.

She shot him a questioning look.
“What?”

“
You’re beautiful. You’ve always been beautiful.”

The sincerity in his voice made her feel warm and cared for. She met his concerned gaze.
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” she said trying to make light of his words.

“
Not recently.”

She attempted to change the subject and leaned forward picking up a book from the coffee table.
“So what are you reading?
American Assassin
.”

“
A Mitch Rapp thriller by Vince Flynn.”

Kelly set the heavy hardback book down and glanced at him.
“Do you read much?”

“
Not much else to do in Lanham for a bachelor.”

“
An
eligible
bachelor,” she reminded him.

“
Not many single women to select from until you came to town.”

Kelly avoided his heavy-lidded gaze and the hint of suggestion in his voice. No one in her family had made her feel loved for herself until Aunt Bess had taken her in. To Thomas she had been a commodity, another teacher whom he let into his bed to satisfy his basic urges. After so many years, he probably had felt obligated to pop the question. She hadn
’t loved him. Once she had loved Rob.

Don
’t do this to yourself.

But her body refused to listen to reason. She settled back feeling the brush of his arm on her exposed back
“I won’t be in Lanham much longer,” she told him in a soft voice.

The muscle in his arm flexed.
“Why not?”

“
I have plans,” she lied. “To start with, I’m going to visit friends in North Carolina on Saturday.”

“
You don’t want to stick around? See your mother settled?”

“
My mother needs no help from me. Your father is taking quite good care of her, better than I could ever do.”

“
How about sticking around to get to know me again?”

Air squeezed out of her lungs.
“No way!” The words escaped from her in a breathless rush before she could stop them.

“
I’m so terrible then?” He touched her bare neck. “Once you didn’t think like that.”

The tingle from where he touched her coursed throughout her body.
“That was more than twenty years ago, Rob.”

She scooted away, but he stopped her with his fingers on her shoulders, pressing her back toward his hard body.
“What happened then, Kel? Why did you run away?”

Kelly tensed, her heart thudding wildly in her chest.
“What do you mean, what happened? I got pregnant, remember? My father wanted me to get an abortion. I wasn’t going to do that.”

Rob caught her chin and forced her to face him. His eyes were filled with curiosity and pain, a mixture of what he must be feeling.
“I admit I didn’t think about it at the time, but later, especially after Jess couldn’t have children, I wondered if I was the father of your baby.”

Her eyes rounded in alarm and a shudder of fear passed through her. She shook free of his touch.
“Of course not.” Her tone was sharp. “You weren’t the only guy, you know?”

“
I thought I was.”

Kelly ignored the hurt she heard.
“Well, don’t kid yourself.”

Rob sat quietly a moment as if absorbing what she had said. Kelly hated herself. Hated the big secret she kept. But there was no impulse to reveal the truth. She
’d kept it so long from her father for fear of what he might do. She’d kept it from C.B. and even Aunt Bess. There was no possible way she could tell her mother the truth especially now that she was marrying Rob’s father. It was her secret to hold, now and forever.

Finally Rob touched her again, pulling her into his arms as they sat there on his brown leather sofa. She was stiff, resisting, filled with fear and determination not to be overcome.

“Okay, the past is over. Let’s forget it. Let’s talk about the future.”

“
Future?”

“
You and me.”

A lump lodged in her throat.
“We have no future.”

“
We could,” he said in an offhanded way.

“
I’m leaving town,” she protested.

“
Not until Saturday.”

There was a promise and a threat in his response. Kelly searched his face. He wasn
’t kidding by the look in his eyes. Rob lowered his head to kiss her.

The timer buzzed in the kitchen.

“Saved by the bell!” Kelly ducked out of his arms and hurried away from him.

Grabbing a pot holder, she opened the oven door and lifted the sweet-smelling strawberry cake from the racks. She placed each hot pan on cooling racks, closed the door and turned off the oven.

Rob was next to her by then, blocking her exit from the kitchen. He removed the pot holder from her hand and tossed it toward the countertop. He missed, and it slid to the floor. Kelly caught the miss from the corner of her eye, but her attention was riveted on Rob. He towered above her, the muscles in his arms visible because he was wearing a short-sleeved blue Polo shirt that matched the color of his eyes.

“
I love you, Kelly.”

“
Rob,” she protested and tried to slide past him.

He grasped her arms, tugged her toward him.
“I’ve loved you, Kelly, since the first moment I laid eyes on you. I married Jessica thinking she was just like you. But she wasn’t. When Dad told me he was marrying your mother, I couldn’t believe my luck. Here was my second chance with you. To have you back, to hold you, to love you once again is like a dream come true.” There was a silent plea in his eyes. “Please, Kelly. Let me show you how much I love you.”