Wanted: One Mommy (7 page)

“And other days…?”

“Occasionally, I have a client who is a pain.”

Like me, Jack thought.

She looked at the take-out sack in his hands. “What do you have there?”

Trying not to think about fulfilling his most recent wish and kissing her again, Jack set the bag down next to her. He had promised her he would pay her back for her generosity
this morning, and he was. “The rumor is you are wild about Southwestern chicken salad for lunch.”

Caroline peeked playfully at the plastic-topped containers. The two salads looked generous and wonderful. They were also identical. She grinned. “Does it have guacamole-ranch dressing and tortilla strips?”

Jack offered her a hand up. “You betcha.”

Caroline tightened her fingers in his as she rose graciously to her feet. A tingle of awareness swept through him as soon as they were eye to eye. “That’s really sweet.” She flashed a grateful smile. “You didn’t have to do this, though.”

J
ACK, HOWEVER
, seemed to think he did.

Jack picked up his bag and led her through the kitchen toward the deck. “Were you going to leave Bounder to go get lunch?”

“No.” Ignoring the flush of awareness she felt at seeing him again, Caroline stepped outside. She knew this was a way to repay her kindness to his family. But to her, it had that “first date” feel…. Which was ridiculous, really, since she had declared they weren’t going down that road, at least not right now. Not until the wedding was over…

“Raid our fridge?” Jack persisted.

“Uh, no.” Caroline appreciated the beautiful, temperate spring day, the fact that Jack was standing right beside her.

“Then you were stuck,” Jack said, opening the umbrella.

Caroline wrinkled her nose, not willing to concede the point, or allow herself to be vulnerable to him in any way. “Unless I ordered something delivered,” she said back, maintaining a casual tone.

Jack held out her chair, paused. “Did you?”

Trying not to think how handsome Jack looked, with his dark hair gleaming in the April sunshine, Caroline took the seat offered. “I hadn’t gotten around to it yet,” she admitted, glad the open umbrella offered respite from the bright midday sun.

“Good.” The spring breeze ruffled Jack’s hair as he laid out the packets of napkin-wrapped silverware next to their plates. “Because I should have told you earlier I’d bring lunch. Would have,” he amended with his innate protectiveness, “if I’d thought of it at the time.”

Caroline shrugged, unwilling to admit how glad she was he had shown up to liven up her day. “You had your hands full just getting Maddie out the door.”

Jack conceded ruefully, “She can be a pistol.”

Caroline lifted the salads and two bottles of water out of the bag, and then set it aside. She pressed her index finger against her chin in a parody of thoughtfulness. “Hmm. I wonder who Maddie takes after,” Caroline teased.

He clapped a hand to his chest, pretending to be wounded. “Surely you’re not insinuating…?” He mugged comically.

Caroline grinned back. Still holding his eyes, she allowed facetiously, “Your mom
may
have told a couple stories.”

Jack settled in the chair opposite her. Their knees brushed accidentally as he attempted to get comfortable, sending another wave of heat soaring through her. “Such as?”

Caroline spread her napkin on her lap. “Your quest to keep your dad working at his job as long as possible after he got sick.”

Jack looked momentarily taken aback she knew that. He shrugged, as if it were no big deal. “The school district wanted to force my dad into an involuntary sick leave
slash early retirement as soon as he was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease. They thought he wouldn’t be able to teach senior high science anymore with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. So I rallied the student body and started petitions, and made enough of a ruckus that parents and the local press got involved. Eventually, the school board and the attorney representing the district reconsidered their initial decision, and let my dad stay in a classroom, where he continued to teach for several more years. Some of it in a wheelchair, but he loved his work.”

Caroline’s admiration for Jack grew. She reached across the table and gently touched Jack’s arm. “And you and your mom, apparently.”

Jack nodded slowly. “He was a good man who suffered more than he deserved at the end.”

Caroline understood enough about the debilitating disease—which was hallmarked by a slow-moving paralysis that eventually affected speech, swallowing and breathing—to know it was devastating, not just to the patient but to everyone around them. She sent Jack a compassionate glance. “How long was he sick?”

Jack worked the top off his salad. “Eleven years.”

Caroline added guacamole-ranch dressing to hers. “And you were how old when he was diagnosed?”

Jack sprinkled on the thinly sliced tortilla strips. “Fifteen. Twenty-six when he died.”

Bounder came to the glass door. Jack got up and let her out so she could join them on the deck. “It must have been hard for you.”

Jack’s expression turned brooding. He sat back down. “It was a lot harder for my dad. My mom endured a lot, too. She really loved him and it was hard for her, seeing him suffer.”

Caroline imagined that was so. “She said that was when she started her perfume business in a big way.”

Jack nodded. “She had always mixed up fragrances for herself and for friends on a part-time basis, but with Dad no longer working and medical costs mounting, she had to do something that would bring in money and still allow her to be home and near him. So she started drumming up business by advertising and writing articles for newspapers and magazines.”

Caroline recited what Patrice had told her. “Which in turn is how
you
got into electronics.”

Jack chuckled, embarrassed by what he obviously sensed had been a glowing recitation, and ran a hand through his hair. “Mom really
has
been talking.”

“What can I say?” Caroline teased. “She’s proud of you and your success.”

Jack chuckled. “Dad wanted to set up a laboratory for Mom in the walk-out basement of the home I grew up in, which was unfinished at the time. We didn’t have the money to have it done professionally, and he couldn’t help, so he talked me through the layout and instructed me on all the wiring and lighting. We added an intercom system so he could communicate with her, even when she was downstairs working.”

Caroline took a bite of spicy chicken. “Sounds fascinating.”

“For a kid still in college?” Jack laughed as the memories took a positive turn. “It was incredibly exciting and satisfying. Anyway, from there we moved on to installing satellite, upgrading the interior wiring, putting together computer networks, linking our home computer and my mom’s business, and trying to set up a home security system, which had a ton of bugs but was eventually successful.”

“And all that led to you starting your own company when you graduated from college.”

“Dad helped me with that, too.” Jack’s mood became peaceful, reflective. “My dad was gone by the time I really became successful.” Jack looked reverently toward heaven. “But I think he knows what I was eventually able to build in terms of my business because of him and all the time he gave me.”

Caroline imagined that was so, since she, too, believed the spirits of loved ones lingered on. Once again, their glances held. “You really loved him.”

“I really did, and do today.” Jack made no effort to quash the wealth of sentiment and affection in his voice. He paused. Looked away for an emotion-filled moment. Finally, he continued in a rusty-sounding voice. “So did my mom.” He sighed, shook his head. “Which is why I find her relationship with Dutch so…unexpected.”

Caroline could see that this was hard for Jack. Maybe she could help. “You don’t think it’s possible to love twice?” she asked gently. She gave him a moment to reflect. “I mean, it sounds like she was a pretty great wife.”

“She was.” A pensive silence fell. Jack took a long sip of spring water. “I used to watch them together, particularly after my dad got so sick he couldn’t move anything but the muscles on his face.” He turned to Caroline. “There was such deep abiding love between them. I was envious.” He paused again, slowly spearing a bite of salad with his fork. “I’ve never seen her look at Dutch like that.”

Caroline knew dreams came in varying intensity and complexity. It did not make them any less potent or satisfying in the end when achieved. Once again, she reached across the table and lightly, empathetically, touched Jack’s arm. “Maybe your mom doesn’t feel about Dutch the way she felt about your dad. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t love
Dutch, or won’t be happy with him.” Happiness came in all forms, too.

His disapproval obvious, Jack sat back and muttered, “I can’t see how, having had one great love in your life, you could ever be satisfied with anything less.”

Caroline returned ruefully, “That’s only a problem for people who’ve been lucky enough to experience that. I never have.”

Jack scoffed. “Me, either.”

Together, they released mutual sighs of heartfelt resignation. Which was something else, Caroline thought, they had in common.

Finally, Caroline offered one small shred of hope. “Well…maybe someday.”

Finished with her lunch, Caroline stood and placed the take-out containers into the sack for disposal.

Bounder lumbered to her feet and came over to be petted. Caroline slid her hand into the center of the padded Elizabethan collar and stroked the ailing dog behind the ears, on the face, the top of the head, under the chin. Loving the attention as well as the loving ministrations, Bounder groaned in canine ecstasy.

“One can dream, anyway!” Caroline said.

Jack’s eyes glittered with wry bemusement. “Or in our case, just put off inevitably,” he murmured.

Sensing a thinly veiled criticism, Caroline straightened in indignation. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded of Jack, as Bounder regained her energy and padded down the deck steps and into the yard. She and Jack weren’t the same! Not at all! She lived for dreams. He didn’t appear to have any—personal ones, anyway.

Jack’s eyes shuttered to half-mast. He surveyed her lazily. “You should have a dog.”

Being around Bounder had shown Caroline that, too.

Not about to deny wanting what she desired, she listed all the other things she had wanted for what seemed like forever. “And a daughter and a husband and a house, and a million other things. Unfortunately, I have to be practical. And right now, I’m so focused on building my business—”

“That you can’t allow yourself to dream anything for yourself that you can’t control?” Jack interrupted. He stood and put his arms around her waist. Ever so smoothly, he shifted her close.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Caroline protested. But he thought she did.

“All your dreams—the child, the dog, the business, the house—are things that are within your control. You refuse to dream about a husband or marriage or falling in love again because those things aren’t within your control, any more than they are in mine.” Jack flattened a hand over her spine. Their lower bodies touched. Then their chests.

A flutter of awareness sifted through her. Caroline lifted her palms and planted them squarely on the chiseled contours of his chest. His desire for her was evident and she could feel his heart thundering beneath her fingertips. Suddenly it was hard to catch her breath. And even harder to check the hormones surging to life inside her.

“So maybe,” Jack theorized with growing masculine satisfaction, “you and I aren’t so different after all.”

It didn’t feel like they were at this moment! Upset she could be similar to him in this particular way, Caroline protested softly in the back of her throat. “Jack…”

She did not want to be vulnerable to him or to a romance that, thanks to his resolutely unromantic nature, was bound to turn out badly! But Jack felt no such compunction, apparently.

“Fortunately,” Jack intoned, “this is within our power.”

He grinned, all the more determined, and slowly, deliberately, lowered his head. Behaving as if he had every right to go all possessive on her, to get her interested in making love purely as a way to assuage a deep physical need, he touched his lips to hers. Contact was slow, devastating and oh, so sensual. Caroline’s lips tingled. Lower still, she felt a burning desire between her thighs.

And still, Jack continued his indolent pursuit of her, sliding his fingers through her hair, kissing her lips, her cheek, her hair, and then, ever so deliberately and wantonly, her mouth again.

To the point it was almost as if he were on a mission to make her want to fulfill her own deepest wishes. To make her yearn for an intimacy that included everything but pure romantic love.

“Jack…” she said again.

He chuckled, the sound as warm and inviting as the heat emanating from his body. Still smiling, he took her hand and lifted it to his lips, kissing the sensitive underside of her wrist with his open mouth and the butterfly touch of his tongue.

“Every time we kiss, you say my name.” He emitted a long, lust-filled sigh, then paused to kiss her again, deepening the evocative caress and stroking her tongue with the rough, hot velvet of his. “It’s nice. Almost as nice as the way you taste. And feel.”

Caroline was no stranger to the unexpected—sometimes ill-advised—couplings that invariably evolved out of someone else’s nuptials. As a bridal consultant, she had seen firsthand how the excitement of the happy couple prompted everyone else to look inward. The loneliness always intensified for those not currently romantically involved.
But it was the first time
she
had been caught up in the intensity.

Ribbons of desire swept through Caroline, even as she tried to rein in her out-of-control emotions. “Is this why you came home?”

Jack cradled her cheek in the flat of his hand. Looked deep into her eyes. And kissed her hotly, thoroughly again.

“I came home to check on you,” he related between subsequent caresses. “Make sure everything was all right, that the dog-sitting was going okay, that Bounder hadn’t gotten into any more trouble.”