Iris in Bloom: Take a Chance, Book 2 (12 page)

They munched happily for a few minutes.

“I hope my students didn’t embarrass you the other day asking personal questions.” He had to speak up so she could hear him over the falls.

“No. They were honest questions. I liked their openness.”

“I don’t want to pry, but did it happen the way you described in the story?”

She smiled wryly. “As I believe I mentioned in your class, I was writing fiction. We’re supposed to make stuff up.”

“And did you?” His face was ruddy from the fresh air and exercise, his eyes more gray in this light.

“Yes and no. The story is metaphoric.” She let herself drift back to that awful time when she’d hoped for so much and learned such a bitter lesson. “My parents, Jack and Daphne I mean, always told us that when we were sixteen we could ask them anything and they’d tell us. Until then, no dice.”

“I was seventeen when I started fighting with my mom. Usual stuff. I wanted more freedom, thought I should get the car more often, felt like I had too many chores to do. The usual. We’d been really at each other’s throats one day and I decided I wanted to know who my real parents were. When I found out I was adopted, first of all, I felt triumphant. Like I was right all along – you know all those fairy tales where some poor hard-done-by maiden finds out she’s really a princess. Anyhow, they’d made this deal with us and, even though I could see they didn’t want to do it, they shared the information they had.”

“Were you adopted through an agency?”

She snorted. “Not hardly. As you may have noticed, it’s kind of alternative around here. Back then, I think there were a couple of communes. People who had babies and didn’t want them could bring them to the Chances. That’s what happened to me.”

She took a long drink of her water. Strange how it still hurt to remember.

“I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t have to tell me. I’m as bad as Rosalind.”

She shook her head. “It’s okay. They had my mother’s name and her last address. I contacted her. She lives in Seattle now. She seemed delighted to hear from me. We met at a restaurant.” She could still smell the oily smell of fast food when she thought of that place. “I was too nervous to eat. I had tea. Mostly she talked about how much she and my father were in love and how much she regretted having to give me up.”

She glanced up and saw the understanding in his eyes. “Everything I’d wanted to hear. She told me how beautiful I was and how proud she was of me.”

He nodded.

“Then she shoved the contact details for my father at me. Said he’d be delighted to hear from me.” She pushed half her sandwich back in its wrapping.

“Not so much?”

She shook her head. “Not so much. He’s married. He was married back when he slept with my birth mother. Has another family. His ‘real family’ as he called them don’t know anything about me. He answered some questions about his health background and made it clear he doesn’t want to know I exist.”

He reached out and grasped her hand. “In the story, he’s in jail.”

“That’s how I saw him. Imprisoned in this lie he lives.”

“The mother in the story’s an alcoholic.”

“I think my birth mother hoped she’d be able to get back with my birth father or maybe she simply thrived on the drama. I’m not really sure. Once she saw I wasn’t going to get her what she wanted she lost interest.”

“What awful people.”

“And I share their DNA.”

“You have an amazing family. That trumps genetic material in my view.”

She chuckled. “You should hear Jack on the subject. He was a foster kid. He’s all about taking responsibility for who you are and who you want to be.”

“I like the person you turned out to be.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

It had been growing increasingly cloudy as they sat eating their lunch but she’d been so caught up in her story that she hadn’t noticed how bad it was getting until she heard the first crack of thunder. They both glanced up at the darkening sky.

“I think ‘possible shower’ in the forecast has been upgraded to ‘storm,’ she yelled. “We should head back before the rain hits.”

He nodded and they swiftly packed up. She pulled out her rain jacket and was pleased to see he had one too. Like hers it was lightweight, meant to be kept stuffed in a pack for emergencies like this.

Their jackets were both meant for sudden squalls not for a pounding downpour that would challenge Gore-tex.

They reshouldered their packs and headed out, striding swiftly back to the main path that would lead them out of here.

The rain caught up with them before they reached the trail and it was the kind of rain the Pacific Northwest is famous for. The kind of rain that grows rain forests with evergreens hundreds of feet high.

The kind of rain that pounds the ground to slop and soaks through clothing to skin in minutes.

They marched out, but the rain drove down, soaking her hair and through her rain jacket to the layers beneath. Her feet stayed dry because she had excellent waterproof boots but they were the only part of her that did.

The storm wasn’t right overhead and there wasn’t much lightning and only a few booms of thunder. Mainly, it was a rainstorm.

By the time they’d half jogged, half slid their way to where the car was parked, they were both sodden.

“We need to dry off,” he said as they threw their packs in the back of his Jeep and got inside. Water was running in rivulets down his face.

“If I go home my dad will get me involved in renovations I don’t want to do.”

“Then we’ll go to my place. It’s closer anyway.”

The windows steamed almost immediately from their wet clothes. She felt water drip from her hair onto her soaking shoulders.

He cranked up the heater but even so they shivered. Rain bounced off the road surface, puddling in every dip. The windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the downpour.

He pulled up in front of his building and they sprinted for the door. Rain was bouncing off the asphalt, drumming into puddles.

They ran up the stairs and into his apartment.

“Ladies first,” he said, pointing to the bathroom. “Clean towels under the sink.”

She glanced down at her soaking clothing. A small lake was forming under her feet. “I have no dry clothes.”

“I’ll grab you some sweats. I’ve probably got something that will work.”

“Thanks.”

She unlaced and pulled off her boots, then peeled away the damp socks beneath. The pedicure she’d treated herself to on her birthday was still in great shape so her toes flashed like ten ripe cherries.

She hung her jacket on the hook by the door and stood dripping on the welcome mat until he returned with an armful of gray.

She grabbed the soft sweats and ran for the bathroom.

Her wet clothing clung as she undressed, hanging on with damp fingers. Even her underwear was soaked.

Naked and shivering, she ducked under a hot, hot shower and let the heat penetrate. She washed with his soap, shampooed with his shampoo, feeling absurdly intimate to be using the same bath products on her naked body that he used every day on his. As the water pounded down on her bare skin, she imagined for a second that he was in here with her.

Stop it! She kept the shower as short as she could knowing he was out there getting pneumonia waiting for her.

She toweled herself off swiftly with the fluffy blue towel she’d found under the sink, then took a moment to wring out her things. She’d put them in a grocery bag and take them home to wash.

She slipped into a gray T-shirt, gray sweat pants that, if she drew the drawstring as tight as it would go, didn’t fall off her hips, and a sweatshirt that concealed the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra, which the T-shirt pretty much broadcast.

She finger combed her wet hair and emerged from the bathroom. “Your turn.”

“That was amazingly fast,” he said, looking impressed. “I was going to make coffee.”

“I’ll finish it,” she said. “You shower.”

He had a sack of coffee, the stuff he’d bought from her café, and he’d dragged out a French press. The kettle was close to boiling.

While he showered, she finished the coffee. He’d unearthed his sound system and she had to assume he’d put it on shuffle as Queen segued into Timberlake.

While the coffee was brewing, she wandered over to the living area. He’d managed to finish unpacking his boxes and the place looked a lot more settled.

There were a few photos on the wall, a guitar leaned in a corner.

The rain was not slowing. When she looked out the windows it was like being inside a cloud. Gray everywhere. If gray had a sound it would be and the steady beat of rain on roof, on window, on the outdoor balcony. She felt the beat of it in the music, in the shower.

As she wandered by his desk, she saw his briefcase on the floor and assorted papers on the desktop. There were essays to be marked and a well-thumbed copy of
King Lear
sat out. She smiled. The poor kids. Lear again.

A lined piece of foolscap caught her attention. Hand written in ink and not in a student’s hand, but his own.
How do I tell her
, it began.

With a start she realized this was his ten minute exercise from her class visit. She was already half way through before it occurred to her he hadn’t given her permission to read his piece.

He’d told her in email, though, that he’d written about her.

How do I tell her that I think of her every morning? That I long for her the way I long for that first cup of coffee? I think of how she’ll smile at me and as I walk in and the metal sunflowers chime their greeting. I’ll smell the coffee and the cinnamon and nutmeg from her baking. All those scents are part of her. When I brush my lips on her cheek I feel the softness of her skin and smell all the love that goes in to her work. How do I tell her that I want to taste her and touch her and feel every inch of her? How do I tell her?

She heard the bathroom door open and turned. As he stepped out, wearing a terry cloth bathrobe, she saw him start to say something and then realize what she was reading.

“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to see—”

But she was already striding toward him, her gaze fixed on his and she didn’t stop walking until her body was pressed against his.

“Tell me,” she said and kissed him.

Chapter Twelve

“I want you,” he said simply when they pulled apart to breathe.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I want you in my bed.”

“Yes,” she said, kissing him again.

“I want you every morning when I see you in the coffee shop. I want to drag you in the back and make love to you in your kitchen.”

“Oh, yes.”

“When I had you in my classroom, I wanted to bend you over my desk and take you.”

A rush of lust punched through her.

“Yes.”

He took her hand and led her into his bedroom. The room was pretty much all bed. A gray linen duvet covered a brand new bed. On either side sat the tables she’d helped build. Amazingly, they were both still standing.

He kissed her long and slow, easing the sweatshirt over her head. Since the T-shirt clung to the gray fleece she let him peel the whole works off at once, thinking the rain had done half of the work of undressing her for him.

She pulled at the tie on his robe, as anxious to get him naked as he was to get her that way.

Mmm, he was nice. Broad shoulders, lean hips and a taut belly told her that he kept himself in shape.

He seemed as enthralled by her upper body as she was with his.

He flipped back the duvet and eased her down onto the bed, kissing her deeply. Once she was there, he reached for the waistband of the loaner sweats, tracing a fingertip along the line and untying the drawstring with slow, sexy care. Slowly, he eased them down her legs and pulled them off her.

“Oh, you are beautiful,” he said, looking down at her stretched out naked before him.

His hair was still wet and it clung darkly to his head. The look in his eyes was everything she could want in a man perusing her naked body. He looked wowed, reverent and deeply lustful.

The combination had her skin heating up, her body feeling restless with need. It had been too long.

“Take off your robe,” she commanded and with a swift grin he complied, dropping the garment to the floor with more speed than dignity so she was greeted to the sight of all of him, rock hard and eagerly jutting.

He climbed onto the bed with her and began to kiss her, his hands roving everywhere while their kisses deepened, grew hotter and wetter.

In fact, she was getting hotter and wetter in all the best places. Her hips began to dance in place, rubbing against him shamelessly until he groaned and pulled slightly back.

“I want to stretch this out all day,” he panted, “but I don’t think I can.”

He reached for the drawer of the new night table she’d helped assemble and removed an unopened box of condoms looking a tad sheepish. “I bought these after you called.”