While She Was Sleeping... (19 page)

“The house looks good. Clean. You must have done that.” She turned suddenly. Alana had forgotten the way she darted and swooped, like a hummingbird. Or a wasp. “Who’s in my old room?”

“Guest room still.”

“Ah, yeah. Okay.” She flew into the living room, stood in the center, seemingly lost in thought. Alana found herself wanting to know what kind of growing-up memories she was reliving, but didn’t want to ask. “I talked to Mom and Dad last night, Alana. We had a long talk. I told them I was coming home to Milwaukee for a while. They said you’re moving down there in a few days?”

“Yes.” Her voice came out husky and she had to clear her throat. “Yes, I am.”

“Melanie says you have a new boyfriend here, though. A serious one.”

“Yup.” She folded her arms across her chest as if daring her mother to bring up any obvious issues or questions. Alana had enough people to discuss her troubles with.

“Getting straight to the point.” She took a quick step toward Alana. “I know I wasn’t a good mother. But I’d like to make it up to you now.”

“Thanks, but…I don’t really need a mother anymore.”

“Everyone needs a mother.”

“I’m leaving in a few days.”

“Alana…” She reached out a hand, took a deep breath. “I’m starting over. I need your help, yours and Melanie’s. I need you not to judge me for who I was, but who I’m trying to become. Melanie said she’s trying to start over, too. She and I…I guess we’re similar. Some things you don’t want to pass along to your kids. I don’t worry about her, though. No matter what crap she piles all over herself, she’ll always find a way to crawl out. But you…”

“Me?”
Mom wasn’t as worried about sister screwup as she was about her sensible, capable older daughter? It just figured.

“I left you in charge. I made you grow up way too soon. You deserve some childhood now, a time to indulge yourself. You don’t need to spend the rest of your youth taking care of your gran and grandad, Alana.”

“So everyone keeps saying.”

“Not because they don’t need you, though I don’t think they do quite yet.” She pressed her lips together as if she were amused, but Alana wasn’t in the mood to ask what was so funny. “Then why?”

Tricia stood straight and tall with her arms at her sides, weight evenly distributed, and it occurred to Alana she’d al ways seen her mom leaning or curving or holding on to
someone or something. She looked alone this way…but also stronger. “After I spend time here getting to know my daughters again, I am moving down to Orlando. Because taking care of my parents is my job, and I think it’s about time I did my job. Your grandparents agree. Don’t you?”

Alana stared, blinked, stared again. There was no way her mother could manage taking care of herself, let alone taking care of Gran and Grandad. The idea was ridiculous. No one could change that much.

I need you not to judge me for who I was, but who I’m trying to become. Your grandparents agree…

If Mom went down to take care of Gran and Grandad, Alana would be able to stay here in the city she loved. Working with artists at a job she already knew she enjoyed. She’d be here for Melanie, too, who needed her even if she’d rather eat rats than admit it. And…there would be nothing standing in the way of a commitment to Sawyer.

Commitment. To one man. Maybe for the rest of her life.

She put a hand to her chest as a rush of emotion nearly lifted her off her feet.

S
AWYER PULLED
his car opposite the house on Betsy Ross Place. His interview had gone surprisingly well. Surprising since half his mind had been on Alana the entire time. He was worried about her, both for her own sake and for his. Her mother planning to stay in the area could easily tip the balance toward Alana leaving for Florida. What if palmetto bugs were more appealing than reconciling with Tricia Hawthorne?

He wanted to meet this woman. Not hoping to become her son-in-law—he’d only been about ninety percent kidding about wanting to work her over for what she’d done to her daughters—but to get a better sense of her and whether the relationship with her daughters was salvageable. Being human was the sad fate of most humans, but the ones who really wanted to could change. Alana was changing, he felt that about
her—she was loosening, relaxing. Maybe even Melanie could change someday.

Or maybe not. But it was possible Mom Hawthorne could redeem herself. He hoped so. By making peace with her daughters, she’d fill a gaping hole in Alana’s life. He knew how much better he felt finding a job solution that would please both himself and his father. Jeremy Kern had for once called Sawyer instead of his brothers to talk about the prospects for the foundation, and then actually backed down on a few points when Sawyer held his ground.

With reformed mother and dutiful daughter reconciled, Alana might even be able to eject her baggage about letting him all the way into her life. There was definitely hope.

He reached into the backseat and pulled out the basket of flowers he’d bought impulsively from a florist on his way out of town. The riotous bouquet of blues and greens reminded him of Alana in the dress he’d bought her—and yeah, of the way she looked when she pulled off that dress and flung it across his basement.

Plus he was getting desperate. Maybe she needed several pounds of chocolate? A diamond bracelet?

She wasn’t the type to be swayed by gifts, which was one of the things he loved about her. But getting her to stay would sure as hell be easier if she were bribable.

Grinning in the now-familiar driveway, he got out of the car next to Alana’s Prius and tried to peer through the garage windows to see who else was home. Who knew what her mother drove, or whether she’d taken a cab. Melanie was probably still at work.

He really wanted the chance to talk to Alana alone. Life had been busy since that blissful day at the lake. They’d been all over together photographing and enjoying the city, and when they weren’t doing
that,
he’d been involved in his woodworking class and Habitat one afternoon and a lot of meetings and phone calls, and when he wasn’t doing that, he’d been
researching how much sex two people could cram into each twenty-four-hour period.

A lot. All of it good. All of it pulling him deeper and deeper into certainty that Alana was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

If he could just get her to stay.

He used his key in the back door, pushed it open, listening before he called out, in case Alana and her mother were talking privately and didn’t need to be interrupted.

Nothing. He put the flowers on the kitchen table. “Alana?”

No answer. Was she in the shower? He took off his suit jacket, loosened his tie, poured himself a glass of water and gulped thirstily. Suits should be outlawed in the summertime.

“Anyone home?”

Still no answer. He was disappointed and slightly disconcerted. Maybe she was taking a walk? Though in this heat, he didn’t see the point. Was she on the phone upstairs? The telephone here wasn’t blinking In Use but maybe she was on her cell.

He walked through the kitchen door, down the hallway, up the stairs, peeked into the bedroom that used to be hers but was currently his—the room they’d shared their first night together, heavily drugged.

The shades were drawn, the room dim and quiet. But on the bed, a long Alana-shaped lump under the sheet. Exactly how she must have looked the first night he stumbled in here and didn’t notice her.

He was about to back out, tenderly leaving her to the sleep she obviously needed after her encounter with her mother, when she moved—a leg, then an arm—and made that small sleepy sound that had woken him that first night when the drug had started wearing off.

There was no way he could walk out now. He was drawn
to her like an addict to his fix. At the side of the bed, he sat and watched. The curve of her bare shoulder, the cascade of her hair, the gentle rise and fall of her midsection.

This was one beautiful, sweet and supremely hot woman. If she left him, he’d shrivel like a grape left on the vine, surrendering his full, ripe prime to dried-up raisinhood.

She moved again, made another soft noise, and Sawyer was undone. He leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on the smooth skin of her upper arm, when suddenly the sheet was swept back.

He made a choked sound of surprise.

His sweet soft angel was wearing a black lace bustier, black lace garter belt, black fishnet stockings and, incredibly, black stiletto ankle boots.

“Hey there.” She smiled with the innocence of a woman who’s been around the block enough times to make it dizzy. “I’ve been expecting you.”

He gaped like a fool. A fool whose pants were getting more and more uncomfortable by the second.

“Alana. You were—I mean, you weren’t—Mmph.” She threw her arms around him, caught him in a kiss and pulled him back onto the mattress.

“No, I wasn’t.” Long legs, tanned, muscled, capped with the outrageously sexy shoes lifted, extended and landed, bent and apart, on the bed. “How was your day?”

“Uh…” His voice cracked like an adolescent’s. “Getting better all the time.”

“Mmm, I’m glad. Tell me more.”

“Um…it was…oh, man…wait a second.” He made it off the bed away from her, but only to take off his clothes, unable to takes his eyes off her. That first night he’d compared her to a black-and-white movie star. Now she was a black-and-white version of the best sexual fantasy he’d ever had.

She rolled to her side, her breasts pushed tantalizingly to
gether in the dark lace cups of the bra, and blinked sweetly. “Think you’ll get the job?”

“Uh. Don’t know yet.” His shoes were gone. Socks: gone. Pants: gone. Brain: half-gone. Bed and candles had been fabulous, he had no problem whatsoever with bed and candles, but whatever had gotten into her today worked fine for him, too. Just fine.

“Well.” She stroked her fingers up and down the valley of her cleavage. “Be sure to let me know of any new developments.”

He made an incoherent sound and threw himself back onto the bed, stroking every inch of her smooth curves. “I think there’s going to be a new development in about thirty seconds.”

She grinned wickedly, produced a condom from somewhere, who knew, at this point he could barely see, then pushed him on his back and straddled him, lowered herself slowly.

There would never be another woman for him. He knew it as surely as he knew he was going to last an embarrassingly short time, because her hotter-than-hot outfit and lack of inhibition was making any attempt at control beyond him. She started to move, up and down, swinging her hair, arching her back.
Oh, man. Oh, no.

He tried to say his five-times table and couldn’t remember a single one. Five times Alana equaled…Alana. Five time sex equaled…more sex. He needed to slow down, make this good for her.

She closed her eyes, raised her arms, crossed them behind her head, riding him with new possessive confidence that was as much of a turn-on as the way she looked.

Gone. He groaned and came in bursts that made his whole body shudder.

Oh, no.
Not since he was a teenager…“Alana. I’m sorry. You were so incredible, I couldn’t hold back.”

She grinned languorously, collapsed onto his chest, breathing hard, eyes closed, hair tumbling, cheeks pink. “Yeah, gee, Sawyer, I’m really annoyed that you found me so sexy.”

“Damn, woman.” He wiped his hand over his forehead, filmed with sweat. “Where did you get those shoes?”

“They’re Melanie’s.”

“Ah.” He grinned, still slightly out of breath. “So you
are
more like her than everyone thought.”

She looked at him oddly. “What do you mean?”

“Your gran said you two were more similar than you knew.”

“Hmm…maybe.” She kissed him, kissed him again, dragged her tongue across his lower lip. “Except for one ver-r-ry important difference.”

His body felt as if it had weights on it; he’d been pretty sure his drive was spent by that atomic blast of an orgasm, but the more she kissed him, the more he became conscious again of those miraculous black-lace-clad breasts against his chest and those hot-as-hell shoes, and the more he thought round two wasn’t out of the question after all. “What difference?”

“
Melanie
is afraid of commitment. It’s why her relationships are all disasters.”

He pulled back, trying to pay close attention, at the same time he couldn’t help running his hands up and down her gorgeous firm—

He suddenly heard what she hadn’t said.

“You’re not afraid of commitment?”

“Nope.” She nuzzled his neck, bit gently, then soothed the spot with her lips and tongue. His libido definitely noticed that. “To prove it, I plan to commit myself immediately.”

“Alana.” He was split in three—his head was paying attention to her words, his heart was paying attention to their meaning, his other head was paying attention only to her beautiful body. “What are you saying?”

“I love you.” She grinned at what must be the same stunned
look she was wearing at Bradford beach when he used the same words. “And I’m not going to Florida.”

“You’re—” He could barely believe that what he’d wanted for what seemed like years but was only a little over a week—God, could that be right?—was about to come true. “You changed your mind?”

“I’m staying here.”

“Alana.” He crushed her to him, had to loosen his grip when she made suffocation noises against his shoulder. “What finally persuaded you?”

“Mom. She’s planning to stay awhile for the whole reconciliation project, then
she’s
going to Florida to take care of Gran and Grandad. When she told me, I felt the most amazing relief. And I realized that I wasn’t afraid of what was between us, I was afraid of not holding up my end of family responsibility.”

“Alana, you’ve been doing that your whole life.” He shook his head. Too many sacrifices, too hard and serious a life. If she’d let him, he’d spoil her rotten. Maybe even if she didn’t let him.

“I know. But I’m ready to stop.” She made a face. “Okay, well, I might have to help steer Melanie away from Stoner first.”