Yours to Keep (12 page)

The cash was Ana’s college fund. She had almost enough to take four courses online through Fitchburg State. It wasn’t much, but it was a beginning. Slow and steady and all that. She’d been planning to save a little more then start this spring.

Now she opened the box, pulled out her ziplock. She counted out a hundred dollars in tens—it was almost all tens, because that’s what her ESL students gave her for each session. Then she counted out a hundred more. On their first date, Walt had taken her to a crazy-expensive restaurant and they split the check. Afterward, when he suggested that they stay out and get drinks somewhere, she lied to him, told him she had to be up early the next morning. Because she had exactly two dollars left in her pocket. And that wasn’t something you could explain, that you were the last cash-based economy on earth—no credit cards, no ATM card. Maybe Walt would have offered to spot her, but she’d been too proud to go there.

She counted out fifty more and prayed that she wouldn’t have to spend that much.

She returned the ziplock to the box and the box to the freezer, and gently shut the door.

Chapter 11

She hadn’t reckoned on arriving at the train station ahead of him and standing around in her fabulously sexy outfit while Beacon’s mothers exited the Boston train with their two-point-five children and handsome Beacon husbands. That was hell, because what seemed like sexy on a date looked an awful lot like slutty when you compared it with the staid L. L. Bean outfits that were getting off the train. Why hadn’t she brought a jacket? When she got dressed, it was sixty degrees, Indian summer, and it seemed crazy enough at that moment to wear cashmere and high-heeled boots with her skinny jeans. Now it was cooling off and she felt her nipples harden against her strapless black lace bra. She resisted the urge to look down to see if they were poking out.

She waited for him to drive up and rescue her. She held her head up and told herself that she had as much right to stand on that platform as they did. Well, almost as much.

When the silver Audi A4 pulled into the parking lot, she knew it was going to be him, and for a moment she had a sense of fairy-tale dreaminess. Then he pulled right up beside her, got out, and opened her door for her. She slid in, the leather seat warm and supple under her thighs, and he closed the door and walked back around. He wore black slacks and a heather-gray merino V-neck over a white T-shirt. Classy.

He slid in and shut his own door, then turned to look at her. “Wow!” His eyes took in every inch of her. “You look amazing. And you’re dressed perfectly for what I had in mind.”

That made her grin. “And what is that?” She let her voice drop, turning it into a suggestion.

Which wiped the smile right off his face. Color rose, slightly splotchy, in his cheeks. “Hmm. Lost my train of thought right there.”

“You were about to tell me—”

“Just how good you look?” he murmured, leaning slightly toward her.

“Where we were going,” she corrected. Laughter bubbled in her chest, but she made herself give him a stern look.

He sat up, his gaze catching briefly on the exposed tops of her breasts, and met her
eyes. “Right. Where we’re going. I was thinking burgers and pool at Hawthorne Brewing?”

She wondered if that was really what he’d been planning or whether he’d decided on the spur of the moment to suggest it to make her feel better about being too exposed for the date he had in mind. She decided that she wasn’t going to question it. She’d believe, for tonight and tonight only, that he was a fairy-tale prince and that every move he made was calculated to delight her.

If the spell had to lift at some point, she would not let herself dwell on it.

They sat in a corner of the brewery, in a booth with red leather benches. A faux tea candle lit the table, beside a drinks menu in a metal stand and a Heinz ketchup bottle. “How old were you when you came to the U.S.?” Ethan asked, munching on a sweet-potato fry.

He was asking her the bad questions now, but it felt good. Right. She liked the way he looked at her, as if what she was about to say next might be the most important thing he’d ever had the pleasure of hearing. Maybe that was a trick he’d learned from taking thousands of patient histories and humoring thousands of mothers, but it was sexy.

“We came here in 1990. I was seven.” She hesitated. “It’s kind of a boring story.”

“I’m sure it’s not.”

“It’s not a good date story. It’s kind of dark.”

“Tell me anyway. I want to know more about you.” His green gaze was warm on her face.

He thought he wanted to know more about her. Well, they’d see about that. “We came first, my mom and the three of us kids. My brother, Ricky, is the oldest. He was fifteen. My sister, Cara, was twelve. I was seven. My dad was supposed to follow in a few weeks. We came straight to Hawthorne and started school. I did okay, because I was so little, but Cara and Ricky had a really hard time.”

“Why?” If he wasn’t totally fascinated, he was the world’s best actor.

She salted her fries and ate two. “They were older, and the whole time they were trying to catch up on learning English they fell further and further behind in their actual subject work. It happens a lot with kids who emigrate as teenagers.”

“But you did okay?” Still that intent green focus of his, trying to work something out about her. She could sit here for hours and let him look at her like that. Except that when he
looked at her like that it made her want to lean close and brush her lips over his skin. It made her want to bare her throat and close her eyes and take her clothes off so that he could warm her whole body with his gaze.

He’d said he wanted to kiss her, touch her.
Have
her. Could she let him?

He made her want to toss a lifetime of caution away.

“Ana?”

What had he asked her? Right. “I was fine. Because I started in kindergarten and learned English fast.”

He was almost halfway done with his hamburger and she’d taken only a bite or two. She picked it up and bit into it.

“How long had you been here when your mom died? Oh, sorry. Finish chewing.” He took a bite of his own burger.

“Just under two years. The first bad thing that happened was that we found out my dad wasn’t coming.”

“Not coming at all?”

She hated her father all over again, telling the story. “He’d met someone else. And I hate to say it, but it’s the easiest thing in the world, having a family in two countries. So many people do it, you wouldn’t believe it. And some of them go back and forth. At least my dad chose. Even if he didn’t choose us.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, it did. Anyway, my mom kind of flipped out. First we were going to go back to D.R., then we were going to stay here, back and forth—she couldn’t make up her mind. Then she got stomach cancer, and we ended up staying here because she was too sick to travel.”

“Jesus.” His eyes were sympathetic.

It wasn’t quite pity, but she had to look away. “Yeah, it was pretty crazy. And then she died, and Ricky took care of us. Up until that point, he’d pretty much done nothing but watch Dominican baseball, and he’d only hang out with Dominicans and speak Spanish. But after my mom died he turned into an adult overnight.”

The waitress came by to check on them. When she’d left with their requests for refills, Ethan asked, “So how old was Ricky when your mom died?”

“Sixteen. He started working every job he could find, and bossing me and Cara
around. He didn’t cut us any slack. He didn’t understand three-quarters of my homework, but every night he made sure I got it done, and he’d ask me a million questions to try to make sure I’d done it right and understood it.”

“That’s really impressive.”

“He’s amazing. He’s got his flaws—” She looked across at Ethan.
Like the fact that he’d flip out if he found out I was out with you.
“But without him? I don’t know what would have happened to us.” Dammit, she wasn’t going to cry on a first date. She picked up her burger and took a big bite, forcing back the tears.

“What about Cara? When you’re done with that bite.” He grinned.

There was an asymmetry to his smile that only increased its appeal. When he grinned like that—at her—she had trouble with her train of thought. With some effort, she snapped her attention away from his mouth and back to his question. “Cara went into free fall when my mom got sick. She got pregnant with Marco when she was sixteen. Her kids have three different fathers—Marco’s dad’s white, Angel’s dad is a Dominicano, and Leta’s dad is Mexican.”

She’d led perfectly up to the moment when it would make sense to tell Ethan what had happened to all of them after her mother’s death, how they’d discovered that sometime during their mother’s illness their visas had expired.

It would be so easy to tell him. A relief to have it out there.

Only when she tried to actually form the words, it turned out not to be easy at all. Her mouth wouldn’t move.

“Are you so good with Theo because you both lost your moms young?”

She was surprised and flattered. “Am I so good with Theo?”

“Better than I am.” He laughed dryly.

“Fifteen is a hard age. My nephew Marco is fifteen, too. He thinks he knows everything. He makes Ricky completely crazy. Of course, Ricky makes Marco completely crazy, too.”

“Sounds like me and Theo, all right. I don’t have trouble with the teenage boys in my practice. They love me. They tell me things they won’t tell their parents. Theo’s the only one I can’t handle.”

She could see the pain written plainly on his face, and feel its sympathetic echo in her
chest. “I had an idea for you. There’s this place I know of that has an open mike on Thursday nights for high-school-age kids. You could take him to that. He could play his guitar.”

He looked blankly at her.

Had that been a crazy, terrible idea? He was looking at her as if she’d suggested that they visit the moon together and plant an American flag. “He’s very talented,” she added feebly.

“Talented at what?”

“At guitar.”

He looked very sad and a little angry. Old, older than she’d thought he was. “I think the last time I heard him play guitar was more than three years ago.”

She hadn’t meant to shame him. She’d assumed that Theo played guitar for his dad all the time. How could they live together in that house without Ethan hearing Theo play? Theo must deliberately never play when Ethan was around. She could see from the pained look on Ethan’s face that his thoughts were following the same path as hers.

“You should ask him to play for you.”

Now he wouldn’t meet her gaze. She longed for him to look back up at her, to fix his green eyes, with their wild flecks, on her eyes, her mouth. She wanted to say his name, bring his attention back to her, but she wasn’t sure how to address him. Surely he’d expect her to call him Ethan, not Dr. Hansen—and yet she never called an employer by his or her first name unless she was invited to. But he wasn’t her employer tonight, was he? She picked up her burger and ate with feigned focus.

When she looked at him again, he’d recovered his equilibrium. He smiled. “Tough having a teenager.”

“You’re doing great.” She touched his hand.

He dropped what was left of his hamburger, the pieces falling apart as they landed on his plate.

“I’m sorry!” she said.

“Don’t be.” He wiped his hand clean on his napkin. “You just … instantly fried my brain.” He grinned at her, then reached across the table and captured her hand under his.

The heat of his touch shot through her. She felt it everywhere—in her lips, her throat, her belly, between her legs. She closed her eyes for a second to gather herself, and when she
opened them his gaze was dark and needy. They stared at each other, and heat flared in her, roared up in her face. Her lips parted, and his did the same, echoing.

“You done?” asked the waitress, hands on hips.

Ethan let out a gusty breath. “Yes.”

Even though she’d eaten less than half her burger, Ana nodded at the waitress, who began clearing.

Ethan released her hand. She drew it back into her lap and cradled it for a moment like an injured creature. Then she put it to her face. Her cheek felt scalding hot.

She wanted to be alone with him, now. She didn’t need to know more about him, didn’t need to have more history or background or to understand what made him tick. She wanted to get into his car and have him drive her to his house, and when they got there she wanted him to undress her and lay her back on a surface—any surface—and push inside her without hesitation or preliminaries. He could have her without a hitch; that’s how wet she was already, thinking about it.

There was, of course, no room in this wild fantasy for the presence of a fifteen-year-old boy who might very well not be asleep yet. It wasn’t even nine o’clock.

Ethan’s eyes were on her again, challenging, his mouth curved slightly. He was thinking it, too. The heat doubled and redoubled, a tight clench between her legs.

“You’re messing with my plans.” He said it mildly, even though his expression was ferocious, and something about the conjunction of the two sent another tweak of sensation southward.

“Oh?”

“We’re supposed to go play pool after dinner. But I’ve got … other things on my mind.”

“Me, too.”

She watched his color change and wondered if he was as hard as she was wet. If it would be beyond outrageous for her to reach under the table and find out.

“With tremendous effort and willpower, and because I believe in the positive effects of anticipation, I’m going to stick to the original plan. As tempting as I’m finding you, we should attempt to prolong the civilized portion of this evening and play some pool.”

That made her smile. She loved his dirty talk hiding under a professionalism that he
must have been cultivating his whole life. “That sounds like a sensible plan.”

“Nothing sensible going on in my head,” he muttered.

Her smile grew until it hurt.

The waitress came by with the check. “Can I get you anything else?”

“I’m all set,” Ana said, thinking,
What I want isn’t on the menu here.