Sealed with a promise (22 page)

  Although she didn’t think she went in for casual sex, apparently, men she’d been with didn’t have the same opinion of her. Viewed objectively, she could see that she had let men think she’d be around any old time without believing anything was required of them. She had drifted into relationships based on mutual professional goals and drifted into sex that was based mainly on proximity. Never again.

  Not being in the background was darn uncomfortable though, and she was sure she was going about it all wrong. “Why don’t we quit talking about it? I’m sure you want to forget I said anything as much as I do.”

  “You haven’t weirded me out, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh. Sexual congress means-”

  “I know what it means.” He growled between clenched teeth, then visibly got ahold of himself. He relaxed and put on his good-ole-boy smile. She was starting to recognize it. “Sounds like you’re talking about commitment. I can do that. Just tell me what you want.”

  “Exclusiveness, for starters.”

  “Okay.”

  Emmie blinked in surprise. “Just like that? ‘Okay?’ We live in separate towns-separate states, and no offense, but you’re… um a…”

  “A what?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “A SEAL? A sailor?” His grin shaded into cocky. “A stud?”

  “I don’t get the feeling you’re taking this seriously.”

  For a second his eyes turned hard and flat in that cold distant look she’d seen before, but it was so quickly supplanted by a bad-boy gleam, Emmie wasn’t sure she’d seen it. “Now that’s where you’re wrong, Miss Emelina,” he drawled. “Just how serious do you want me to be, darlin’? Marriage?”

  Her heart rate, which had finally settled down, doubled. It was a dare. She knew it was. And just for a second she had a vision of herself as a gum-popping, curl-twirling, pouty-lipped chick who could be dared into doing outrageous things and double-damn-dare him right back.

  And for one don’t-look-down moment she wanted to say
yes.
She was
that
curious to see what he would do
then.

  But, of course, she didn’t. Cliff-walking just wasn’t her style. She took a step back. “No… no, I’m not ready to say ‘’til death do us part.’ I might not ever be.”

  Honesty, just in case he
wasn’t
kidding, compelled her to add, “If I’m not ready, I certainly don’t expect
you
to be.”

  “What are we talking about then?”

  What had been missing in the past? What galled her was that she hadn’t even noticed anything was missing, until she mentioned a department dinner, and Blount told her he’d accepted an invitation from one of her colleagues. A woman. And been surprised when Emmie was upset. It was true they hadn’t made any formal declarations, but didn’t she at least get first dibs? “I guess you could call it loyalty,” she told Caleb. “Yes, that’s the word. For as long as we’re together, I want loyalty.”

  Caleb nodded, almost as if he approved. “I’m pretty good at loyalty. That’s not a problem. Anything else?” His dark, slightly gritty voice felt like it lapped at her skin.

  “No.” Actually, there were
lots
of other things-if only she could think of them. Somehow, in the couple of weeks since she’d seen him she’d forgotten-or maybe discounted was a better word-the effect he had on her senses. The trouble was she hadn’t expected to have this conversation on the first date, heck, before the first date got off the ground! All her brain synapses were scrambled from sensory overload.

  Do- Lord waited for her to say more, and when she didn’t he said, “Okay, you want commitment? You got it.” And the funny thing was, he wasn’t lying. He didn’t think there was a snowball’s chance she’d want anything long-term, but if she did, he could be up for it. Set aside the pyrotechnics that exploded every time they touched, life around Emmie was interesting. She had a focused dynamism he could respect. He’d always been able to set a goal and then do whatever it took to reach it, and he suspected she could too. Even the dull clothes hadn’t completely hidden her dry, subversive sense of humor. Being able to call her his, even for a little while, satisfied some primal desire for possession he hadn’t known he had. “This commitment to be faithful and loyal-it goes both ways, right?”

  Emmie pushed her hand into her hair and pulled the long strands through her fingers as if she relished their silky softness. It was a wholly feminine, utterly sensuous gesture he’d never seen her make before.

  “When you put it that way, it makes us sound like a pair of hounds.” She laughed, then gave him one of her direct looks. “But yes. I wouldn’t ask you for a promise I wasn’t willing to keep myself.”

  He looked deep into those wide innocent blue eyes. She meant it. He could count on her forever and beyond.

  “Kiss me.” He slid his hand under her hair at her nape again, wanting to relish the silky sweep across the back of his hand, while his fingers stroked the warm softness of her skin and traced the vulnerable little groove at the base of her skull. “
Kiss me.
”

  Emmie pulled back. “Wait. It’s not a done deal that I
will
have sex with you. Only that if we do, a commitment is implied and agreed to by both parties.” She glanced at the clock on the stove. “Now, if we’re going to make it to the open house before we’re insultingly late, we need to leave.”

  For a second, Do-Lord couldn’t reference what she was talking about. Holy crap. When had this gotten completely out of control? He’d been ready to blow off his objectives for a quick fuck. No, he corrected himself. He wouldn’t have made it quick. When he had Emmie Caddington under him in bed he was going to make it last a long, long time. His mistake was that he’d been trying to convince himself that Emmie wasn’t a priority. She was an extra on the side.

  His body disagreed. If he’d never heard of Teague Calhoun, he’d have wanted her. He had two objectives. The good part was that they were compatible, even complementary.

  Two steps took her back to the living room, where she picked up a purse resting on the arm of an easy chair, then walked to the door. “Ready?”

  Her lipstick was blurred from his kisses, her dress was partly unbuttoned, and the smooth fall of her pale, silver-washed hair was hanging over her cheek in a way he didn’t think it was supposed to. In other words, she looked like he’d had his hands all over her.

  As far as he was concerned, she looked just right, but it was clear she hadn’t given a thought to her appearance and whether she could go out in public like that.

  She’d obviously gone to a lot of trouble to get all dolled up for their date, yet her concern for her looks was only skin deep. There was a simplicity about Emmie, a clean, transparent innocence that made him ache for her in tender amusement.

  “Emmie, Emmie, Emmie.” Do-Lord shook his head. “Go look at yourself in the mirror.”

  She threw him a questioning look, but obligingly made the short trip to her bedroom.

  When he heard the soft “eeek” he let himself laugh, but quietly, so she wouldn’t hear him, while he brushed crumbs from the desk blotter into an empty coffee cup and carried the cup to the dishwasher. In spite of her lawyerly little speech, whether they would make love was a done deal. The thought warmed him clear to his toes.

  “Uncle Teague’s house is only a few blocks away in the direction of the river,” Emmie said. When she returned to the living room, her hair and makeup had been restored to their former perfection, and the flap of that flirty red dress was buttoned, but it still threatened to open with every step. “It’s a beautiful day, and it will be easier to walk than to find a parking place.”

  Their walk took them through the historic section of Wilmington, where block after block of lovingly tended nineteenth-century houses, many restored to the ebullient reds and blues the Victorians had favored, faced the street with gracious porches and hid their interiors with lace curtains. Every door boasted a wreath, and lampposts sported red bows and sprays of greenery.

  Sidewalks that buckled over roots of ancient oaks presented a hazard to someone unaccustomed to high heels, and after Emmie stumbled the second time, Caleb took her arm and kept it. He did it just right. Not holding on to her or making her feel fettered. He simply offered her his strength and stability, while adjusting his steps to hers. Her heels tapped the concrete with every step. His made not a sound.

  The sun was warm and the bare branches of immense oaks threw a graceful tracery of shadows on houses, lawns, and streets. “I love to walk these old neighborhoods when the shadows look this,” Emmie remarked.

  “I like to fancy that the ancient trees have drawn delicate lines between things to point out to us that everything connects everything to everything else.”

  “I’m surprised a biologist would be prey to the anthropomorphism of believing trees have intentions, much less a philosophy.”

  Emmie gave him one of her dry looks, only this time she did it out of the corner of her eyes. Holy crap. Where had she learned to do
that?

  “Empirical materialism is as likely to limit understanding as expand it,” she commented quietly. “Now. Before we get to Uncle Teague’s house, tell me what’s going on with you. What’s your interest in him, really?”

  “What makes you think I have any particular interest?”

  “Well, you agreed to help me with the cake after you saw his picture, you steered me toward him at the wedding reception, and you accepted his invitation for both of us before I could say a word. Finally, and most telling, you were willing to put off sex in favor of this open house.”

  
Note to self: Emmie is an astute observer. Don’t be fooled by the wide, innocent eyes and otherworldly air.
“Would you believe I was looking for an excuse, any excuse, to see you again?”

  She peeped at him out of the corner of her eye. She chuckled. “No.”

  He stepped in front of her, forcing her to stop walking so that he could look directly into her eyes. “Well, you’d be wrong, because I was. I want to see you again and again.” She had no idea how close he had come to forgetting his objective.

  “Okay, you have
two
reasons,” she conceded, without backing down one bit. “And one of them has to do with Senator Teague Calhoun. I’m being made a party to something. I’d like to know what it is.”

  He didn’t have a lie prepared, but even if he had, he wanted to tell her. Wanted her to look at the facts with her cool, spacious innocence. “There’s something nobody knows. Something that wouldn’t do either my career or Calhoun’s any good if it were revealed. I believe Teague Calhoun is my father.”

  “You mean-”

  “I’m a bastard, illegitimate, a love child-that’s what my mother said I was.”

  “And Teague Calhoun is your father. Humph! That hypocrite. That anti-birth control, anti-sex education, assistance-for-women and children-program-cutting, just say no, Bible-thumping, moralistic, ‘family values’ hypocrite! Teague Calhoun is a fornicator and a dead-beat dad.”

  “Hey, hey. Calm down.” He stroked her shoulder. She was like a spitting-mad kitten with its fur all ruffled. It wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. A corner of his heart warmed as if the sun had finally reached it.

  “It just infuriates me that men can father children that they take no responsibility for. Pickett and I used dream up ways to make it impossible for men to get away with it.”

  “Like…”

  “Pickett’s idea was to take DNA samples of all males, creating a database-kind of like the FBI’s fingerprint database. The father of any child needing support could be identified. The government would also have his tax returns, and he could be billed on a sliding scale for the child’s support.”

  “What was your plan?”

  “Unless men are in a stable relationship, they can’t connect their actions to a child appearing nine months later-that’s the real problem. Nothing forces them to look at the consequences of their actions
before
they take them. The biological fact is that people can have children regardless of whether they want them, whether they are willing to be responsible, whether they are mature enough, or whether they are healthy enough to raise a child. Biology trumps. Strictly from a biological perspective, people have only one function: to pass on their genes. Left to itself, natural selection would favor the strongest children born to the best parents. Since children are helpless for a long time before they are capable of reproducing, the best parents would have the best chance of having their genes passed on. Society interferes with natural selection, though. We don’t believe children should starve just because their parents abandon them, are too young to have any idea how to raise a child, or are strung out on drugs. I think it’s time human beings loaded the biological dice in favor of society. I would propose that as soon as boys reach puberty, sperm samples would be taken and placed in cryonic storage.”

  “Their sperm would be frozen? Uh-oh. I’m a little afraid of where this is going.”

  Emmie’s head bobbed in a scholarly little nod. “Then they would be given a vasectomy. When they wanted a child, they could go to the sperm bank and make a withdrawal. Society could be as restrictive or as lax as it wanted to be about who would be allowed to procreate. Wouldn’t matter. Natural selection would favor men and women who had at least some good parenting traits. Only people who consciously wanted children and were able to plan for them would have them.”

  “You would do this just to give natural selection a leg up?”

  “There would be other benefits. Abortion, except for medical reasons, would be a thing of the past. No woman would ever be accused of ‘getting herself pregnant’- don’t you love that phrase?-to trap a man into marriage. No woman could get pregnant through rape. No teenagers, boys
or
girls, would find themselves saddled with a child they were not mature enough to be responsible for. Above all, every child born would be wanted and planned.”