The Proposal & Solid Soul (31 page)

“I have to set an example for my daughter. Why can’t you understand that?”

He frowned. “And not having a real life, not having a man around to show her how two people can share a loving relationship is setting an example for her?”

“There’s more to life than people getting involved, Chance.”

“What about people falling in love? Would it mean anything if I were to tell you that I love you? That I fell in love with you probably the first time I saw you that day?”

Kylie’s eyes widened and then she shook her head and felt the tears that stung her eyes. “No, it wouldn’t matter because I could tell you the same thing, Chance. I love you, too. And I probably fell in love with you that day, as well.”

“But then—”

“No. You loving me and me loving you won’t make it okay. We still have to put our kids first. They think they’re in love, too, and we can’t downplay their feelings just because we’ve discovered ours. Just think of how it will look. The father loves the mother and the daughter loves the son. How dysfunctional can that be?”

His frown deepened. “So what are you suggesting? That we wait to see what becomes of our kids’ romance before seeking our own? Well, I don’t plan to do that. If you love me, and I mean truly love me, you’ll know that we’ll work things out together. But you have to be willing to step out on love and believe it.”

She bowed her head and took a deep breath and then she looked back at him. “No, it won’t work, Chance. Please try to understand. There are times in life when sacrifices have to be made.”

“Well, if you’re willing to let your love for me be the sacrificial lamb then it must not be the real thing, Kylie, because I can’t think of anything that will ever stop me from loving you and wanting a committed relationship with you.”

Without saying anything else he walked out of the room, and moments later Kylie heard the door slam shut behind him.

“M
OM
?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Kylie pulled two bottles of apple juice out of the refrigerator before turning to her daughter. “I’m okay, sweetheart. What makes you think I’m not?”

Tiffany lifted one shoulder in a dainty shrug. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have. Every since you picked me up from the airport yesterday you’ve been quiet.”

“Well, I guess I have a lot on my mind, but I’m okay.”

“Why are you still wearing that scarf? You usually don’t wear scarves.”

Kylie’s hand automatically went to the scarf around her neck, the one she was wearing to hide the two hickeys that Chance had placed there. “My throat had gotten sort of scratchy with the changing of the weather, I guess. I thought I’d take all precautions. The last thing I need to catch is a cold.”

“But you’re wearing it in the house.”

Kylie gave Tiffany a pointed look. “I’m aware of where I am Tiffany. Is wearing a scarf in the house a crime?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Okay, then.”

The kitchen got silent and Kylie regretted having gotten upset with Tiffany when she was only showing her concern. With a mantle of guilt on her shoulders, Kylie crossed the room and sat down at the table opposite her daughter. “Hey, how about you and I go to a movie this weekend?” she asked, trying to reclaim the easy camaraderie they’d started recently, at least before this past weekend.

Tiffany smiled. “Oh, that’ll be neat. Will it be okay to invite Marcus and his dad?”

Kylie’s body tensed with her daughter’s question. The last person she wanted to be around this weekend was Chance. “I was hoping we could make it a girls’ thing. We could even invite Lena to come with us.”

“That sounds like fun, Mom, but I was hoping I could get to see Marcus this weekend.”

“Didn’t you see him at school today?”

“Yes.”

“And won’t you see him again tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“And the next day and the day after?”

“Yes, Mom, but you and Mr. Steele promised that we could have supervised outings and it’s been almost three weeks since we went camping.”

Kylie sighed. A part of her regretted having made that promise but at the time both she and Chance had known it was the best thing to keep the budding romance between their offspring under control. “Okay, then I’ll take the both of you. There’s no need to bother Chance this weekend and—”

“Mom, if you take us, it’ll seem as if you’re babysitting us. If both you and Mr. Steele go then it will be a foursome and it won’t be so obvious that you’re there to spy on us.”

Kylie rolled her eyes. “I’d be there as a chaperone, Tiffany.”

“Same difference.”

Not wanting to get into an argument with her daughter, Kylie stood and said, “Have Marcus check to see if his father is free this weekend. Chance is a busy man and might have made other plans.”

Later that night Kylie lay in bed and every so often she would glance over at the phone. Chance had made it a habit to call her around this time every night, but she knew after Sunday chances were that he wouldn’t be calling anytime soon, if ever. And a part of her thought maybe it was for the best. He thought he had all the answers, but he would never understand the guilt trip her parents had placed on her shoulders after she’d gotten pregnant.

As she cuddled under the covers she thought about the weekend she had spent with Chance. There was no denying that it had been a fantasy come true, and heat flooded through her just thinking about all they had done. In fact, today at the florist when she’d been alone her body actually trembled with the memories that were so vivid in her mind.

Their first date had been everything a first date should be, and what he probably hadn’t even realized was, although it had been their first date, it had been her
first
date period. She and Sam had been too young to actually date and she hadn’t gone out to dinner with any other man. So in reality, Chance had been her first in a lot of ways.

Tears blurring her eyes, she glanced over at the phone. She might as well get used to him not calling her ever again.

C
HANCE THREW ONTO HIS
desk the document he’d been reading and glanced at the clock. Not that he was counting, but it had been three days, sixteen hours and forty-five minutes since he had last seen and talked to Kylie.

After what she had said to him on Sunday evening, she should have been the last person on his mind. She had decided that love or no love, there would not be a future for them.

Chance leaned back in his chair and hooked his hands behind his head. Dammit, he didn’t want that. He wanted a life with her, a life that included marriage. Kylie was being more than stubborn. She was being downright difficult.

He couldn’t help but remember their weekend together, and the days and nights they had shared. Those memories would sustain him in the coming months. He would need them.

He walked over to the window and stared out at Charlotte’s skyline. It was almost two in the afternoon. Kylie would be at her shop. Was she thinking about him the way he was thinking about her? Probably not.

But she had admitted that she loved him.

He should have known that when a woman gave herself as completely to a man as Kylie had done to him this past weekend that love was involved. One thing was for certain: there was still Marcus and Tiffany to deal with, and because of their kids, Kylie couldn’t put distance between them, regardless of how much she might want to.

Whether she liked it or not, she hadn’t seen the last of him.

“I
DON’T KNOW WHAT,
but something happened this weekend between our parents, Marcus,” Tiffany whispered.

Marcus, who was sitting across from her in the library, glanced around to make sure Mrs. Kennard, the librarian who had a strict no-talking policy, wasn’t anywhere close by. “Yes, I know,” he whispered back. “This weekend was supposed to get them to together, not pull them apart. What do you think happened?”

Tiffany shook her head. “I don’t know but I do know they spent time together this weekend.”

Marcus lifted a brow. “And how do you know that?”

“Because Carly Owens said she saw them together at the grocery store.”

“The grocery store? What were they doing at the grocery store?”

“Carly said they were actually shopping together. They didn’t see her but she saw them. She said my mom had her cart and your dad had his, but they had come together in the same car.”

“And she’s sure it was
our
parents?”

“Yes, she’s sure. She’s met the both of them before but at different times.”

“Umm, I find that interesting. If they were friendly enough to go grocery shopping together then what happened?”

Tiffany sighed. “I don’t know. And there’s also something else.” She leaned in closer to make sure the students sitting at the other table didn’t hear her. “My mom had a hickey on her neck and I think your dad put it there.”

Disbelief flickered in Marcus’s eyes. “You’re kidding.”

“No. She’s been wearing a scarf to hide it, but I saw it anyway when she took the scarf off thinking I wasn’t around.”

Marcus nodded. “That means they had to have kissed.”

“Right.”

“Then what happened to make them start acting funny?”

Tiffany shook her head. “Who knows? Adults can be weird that way. Did your dad say that he would be available to go to the movies with us on Saturday?” Tiffany asked.

“I haven’t asked him yet. He hasn’t been in the best of moods since I got back.”

“Neither has my mom. If after this weekend at the movies they’re still not getting along, then we have to do something. I know they really like each other, but now I’m worried because your dad hasn’t been calling at night like he used to do. I’ve been checking the caller ID every morning but your phone number isn’t showing up.”

“So what do you think we should do?”

Tiffany scrunched her forehead and then moments later a smile touched her features. “I have an idea but we may have to get an adult to help us pull it off.”

Marcus glanced around again for Mrs. Kennard, and then turned back to Tiffany. “An adult like who?”

Tiffany thought about her godmother and decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to solicit her help. “How about one of your uncles? The one you said who likes to have fun.”

Marcus sighed. “That’s Uncle Donovan, and this sounds serious.”

“It is. We’ll see how things go with them this
weekend, but if they still aren’t on the best of terms, we go to Plan B.”

“What’s Plan B?” Marcus asked.

Tiffany leaned in closer. “Here it is, so listen up.”

K
YLIE CHEWED THE CORNER
of her lip as she watched Chance and Marcus get out of the SUV and begin walking toward her front door. That deep fluttering in her heart and the sensations that rolled around in her stomach whenever she saw Chance made her release the breath she’d been holding. She could only stand at the window and stare out at him, providing irrefutable proof of just how much she had missed seeing him these past few days, missed talking with him…making love with him.

A part of her questioned the sanity in not giving in to the love she felt for him. Even Lena had raked her over the coals during their lunch meeting that week when she’d told her best friend that Chance had admitted his love and she had admitted hers. Lena staunchly refused to agree with Kylie that this was one of those no-win situations where love wasn’t enough.

“Mom, are Marcus and Mr. Steele here?”

Kylie turned away from the window upon hearing the excitement in her daughter’s voice. “Yes, they just arrived.”

“Good. I’ll go open the door for them.” And then Tiffany raced off.

A few moments later Kylie could hear the deep sexiness of Chance’s voice all the way from the foyer, and the sound sent sizzling heat all through her body. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed her coat off the back of the sofa and left the living room to join everyone in the foyer.

The moment she rounded the corner she felt Chance’s gaze on her. And the moment her eyes locked with his dark brown ones, she almost forgot to breathe. For some reason she couldn’t look away.

“Hi, Kylie.”

“Chance.”

“You look nice.”

“Thanks.” Kylie inwardly sighed. Holding a conversation with him used to be so easy and now she was finding it too hard.

“Hi, Ms. Hagan.”

Her gaze moved from Chance to Marcus and for a second she thought she saw a worried glint in his eyes. She smiled affectionately. “Hello, Marcus. How was your trip to Busch Gardens?”

“It was fun. I was telling Tiffany about it. Maybe the four of us could go there this summer.”

Kylie nodded, although she doubted it.

“Is everyone ready to go?” Chance asked. “We don’t want to be late for the movie.”

Marcus and Tiffany rushed out the door leaving their parents alone in the foyer. Chance turned to her. “I meant what I said earlier, Kylie. You look nice in that pantsuit. That color looks good on you. But I think any color looks good on you.”

“Thanks.” She had decided to wear a lime-green linen pantsuit and instead of pinning her braids up she let them tumble about her shoulders.

She stared at the floor for a second and then glanced back up at him. “You look nice, too.” She decided not to tell him that she’d always thought he looked suave in a suit, but sexy as hell in a pair of jeans.

“Thanks. Are you ready to go?”

“Yes.”

“And, Kylie, no matter what’s going on with us, let’s make sure the kids have a good time tonight, all right?”

“All right.”

They then walked out the door to join their kids in the SUV.

T
HEY SAW THE NEW
H
ARRY
Potter movie.

Kylie was certain it had been a good movie but she hadn’t fully concentrated on what was happening on the big screen. Instead her concentration had been on the man who had sat next to her. They had barely exchanged a single word but all during the movie she could feel the weight of his heavy stare. More than once she had glanced his way in the semidarkened theater to find him watching her.

Too often she had been tempted to reach out and slip her hand in his, filled with an intense desire to touch him, to feel his heat. It didn’t take much for her to remember that heat, how he had consumed her with it whenever he touched her, kissed her or made love to her.

“Wasn’t the movie awesome, Mom?” Tiffany said with enthusiasm in her voice as they left the theater and walked through the parking lot back to Chance’s truck.

“Yes, it was nice.”

Then Marcus and Tiffany got into conversations about all their favorite scenes and left Kylie and Chance to do nothing but remain silent. He didn’t seem inclined to make idle chatter and neither did she. He opened the truck door for her and when their hands brushed she felt him tense the exact moment she did.

“Can we stop for ice cream?” Tiffany asked when everyone was inside the truck and buckled up.

“No,” Kylie and Chance called out simultaneously, and then glanced over at each other. Chance cleared his throat and said in a more subdued voice. “I’m going out of town on Monday and there’s a lot I need to do to get prepared for the trip.”

“And I need to look over my accounting books tonight,” Kylie added.

Both Chance and Kylie heard the disappointment in Tiffany’s and Marcus’s voices but decided that a movie had been enough. There was no way they could sit across from each other and eat ice cream without remembering what had happened the last time they’d done so. It had been the cause of their “lick me all over” party.

All it took was a memory—of Chance stripping her naked in her kitchen, licking sticky caramel sauce off her body—and Kylie’s palms started to tingle. Her breasts suddenly felt heavy, her nipples tight, and erotic sensations built up inside of her, settling right smack between her legs. She forced a deep breath of air into her lungs thinking that this was definitely not the time nor the place for arousal.