He still held her hand and squeezed again. Gently. “I’m so sorry, Emma.”
“Thank you. Anyway, I was terribly foolish and cowardly and avoided my house. My job required I travel, but I traveled a lot more than I needed to. I just couldn’t go home and face his things. But to make a long story short, last weekend I did. I was in the attic packing his books to give to charity when my friend found my old yearbook.” From her purse she pulled out a single piece of folded paper and his heart started galloping in his chest. “This fell out.” She looked up at him, finally meeting his eyes, hers full of honest anguish. “I never saw it, Christopher. I never knew. I’m so sorry.”
He took the paper. Carefully unfolded it. Reread the words he’d agonized over so many years ago, a thousand thoughts struggling for center stage in his mind. She’d never read it. She was telling the bitter truth, of that there was no question. She hadn’t rejected him, blown him off like he was nothing.
She’d never read it. But what might have been if she had?
She cleared her throat and he looked up, met her eyes once more. “When I saw the letter, I knew I had to make things right. My best friend was with me at the time and made me promise to make sure you weren’t married or engaged or anything, because an old friend, even a platonic one, could wreak havoc on an existing relationship. That’s why I hired the detective. I wanted to make sure you knew the truth in a way that didn’t jeopardize the life you’d built for yourself.”
Without her. The life he’d built without her. Because she’d never read his letter.
He moistened his dry lips. Screwed up the courage to pose the question that screamed to be answered. “And if you’d seen it, Emma? What would you have done?”
She blinked once. Twice. “I don’t know how things would have turned out, Christopher. We can never know, after all. But I know I cared about you. And I wondered . . .” She dropped her eyes to the tablecloth, her cheeks heating in a blush. “I don’t know what I would have said.” She lifted her gaze bravely, pinning him. “But I would have said something. I thought when you dropped our class . . .” She shrugged, shyly now, and looked away. “I thought you didn’t want to be around me anymore.”
His mind had wiped completely blank and he wasn’t sure he’d ever breathe again. “Emma.” It was the only word that his brain would provide. The only one that mattered. She’d wanted him too. She wanted me.
Maybe . . . just maybe she still did. Or would again. Either way, this was a chance people didn’t get every day. To go back and correct a cruel twist of fate. He’d let her slip through his fingers once. But smart men didn’t make the same mistake twice and Christopher Walker was a very smart man.
“Emma.” He reached across the table and took both her hands in his. They were cold, her hands, and trembling. She was here. She came to me. What courage it must have taken to come, to say she was sorry for something she’d never even known she’d done. To admit that she really had cared, that was even braver. “Please look at me.” He waited until she did so, dragging her eyes upward until they met his probing gaze. “I left that class because I couldn’t stand sitting next to you every day knowing I’d never have you. I know I said in my letter that friendship would be enough, but I found out that wasn’t true. If I’d known, if I’d had any inkling you felt the same way . . .” He let the thought trail, squeezing her hands, hard.
And watched her eyes widen. Change. Sorrow and apology became awareness. And heat. Her cheeks grew rosier still as her lips parted, just a hair. And it took everything he had to stay in his chair, not to leap across the table and crush her in his arms and kiss those lips the way he’d dreamed countless times.
“Two seafood platters,” the waitress announced and two large plates were unceremoniously deposited in front of them.
Their hands jerked apart with a jolt, a shiver racing down Emma’s spine. Dear Lord, it had taken every ounce of discipline she possessed not to leap across the table and kiss him. She hadn’t experienced any kind of desire in more than a year. But I still can, she thought. After a year of lonely solitude, she felt like a woman again. And how could she not, sitting across the table from a gorgeous man with broad shoulders and eyes so blue she could drown in them. That’s how she’d felt, like she was drowning. There’d been a moment of panic, but it quickly became thrill as she let herself wonder what it would be like to be held by those strong arms. From the look on his face, he’d been wondering the same thing.
Their food had arrived at a fortuitous moment. They were flying on memories of adolescent desire and the high of healing a painful misunderstanding. Time to step back. To be an adult. “Tell me about yourself, Christopher.”
His tanned cheeks stained with a dark flush as he visibly got control of himself and lifted a dark brow. “Your PI didn’t tell you?”
“Only that you’re not married and you have a daughter. That’s all I wanted to know.”
“I’m divorced,” he said, then smiled warmly. “My daughter’s name is Megan. She’s thirteen and the best thing that ever happened to me.” And she listened as he talked about Megan, his obvious love for his daughter warming Emma’s heart. He’s a good father, she thought. I knew he would be. He talked about his teaching and the University and his grad students, a shadow crossing his face as he told her about the student who had recently died. Who the police thought might have been murdered. He hadn’t accepted it yet, that his friend could have been killed, and she understood that, too.
“I’m sorry, Christopher,” she said simply. “I know how hard it is to lose someone you care about.”
“I guess you do,” he murmured. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I didn’t mean to depress you with my problems.” He resettled himself in his chair, pushing aside his empty plate. “Tell me about Emma. Your PI said you were Dr. Townsend.”
“I got my Ph.D. in psychology,” she said and he blinked in surprise.
“Really? I always thought you’d major in chemistry like I did. We used to have such good times in that class and you always had the best grades.”
“Second to yours,” she replied, smiling at the memory. “I did major in chemistry. I’d planned to be a doctor but I did some volunteering at the local hospital and found I was more interested in the people’s emotions than in their anatomy and physiology.”
“So you switched majors?”
“No. I was almost done with the chemistry degree. It didn’t make sense to abandon it, so I just added psychology as a second major. After I got my doctorate I started a private practice focused on grief counseling. Now I travel, lecturing.”
“Grief counseling,” he said thoughtfully. “We’ve heard a lot about that in the last week. The University’s counselors have met with all of us. They left me with a list of support groups and this book they said was the latest rage in coping with grief.”
“Did it help?”
He grimaced, thinking of the session with the University shrinks. He didn’t put much stock in therapists, but he wouldn’t say that to Emma. He did, however, put even less stock in books. “I’m not much on those self-help books. How to diet. How to quit smoking. How to find your inner child, for God’s sake. I’ll miss Darrell like hell, but I can’t see how any book can help me any more than just the good old-fashioned passage of time. And work. I keep busy. It helps more than any book.”
Emma tilted her head. “Do you remember the title of the book?”
“Baby something. No, that’s not it. Bite . . . Bite-Sized. Why, have you heard of it?”
Her lips twitched. “Kind of. I wrote it.”
Christopher’s jaw dropped and he felt his cheeks go hot. “Oh, hell.” But she was chuckling good-naturedly so he did the same. “Open mouth, extract foot.”
She shook her head, sending her blond hair swinging across her jawline. “Self-help books aren’t for everyone, Christopher. Some people they do help. Others manag
e via different avenues. You sound like you have a wonderful natural support network, with your daughter and all your students. Go with that. Do what makes you happy.”
He stilled, realizing she meant her words one way, but taking them another. At this moment he couldn’t think of anything that would make him happier than exploring this second chance she’d given them both. “I will.” He pushed back from the table. “Now, how do you feel about a walk on the beach to work off all that fried shrimp?”
“I’m wearing high heels,” she said, her expression doubtful.
He stood up, looked down into her eyes. “Take them off.” He’d meant it to be a teasing command, but his voice emerged raw and husky.
She swallowed hard and again his body responded to the sight of her. To the very thought of her. “I’m . . .” She faltered, her eyes wide. She was nervous, he realized, and the knowledge should have been sobering, but instead it thrilled. “I’ve got stockings.”
“Take them off, too.”
She hesitated for a full minute, then stood up. “All right. Let’s take a walk.”
* * *
Saturday, February 27, 8:30 p.m.
Walker had met a woman. He’d watched him emerge from his house on the canal earlier this evening, all dressed up in a suit and looking ready to go to church. He’d expected him to meet a man. The PI that had been asking about Walker had been male. But instead Walker had met a woman he didn’t recognize at a restaurant. He’d taken a table for one, ordered dinner, and watched them, at the wrong angle to clearly see her face and too far away to hear what they were saying. Whatever it was, it was serious. A paper was exchanged, which Walker folded and slipped in his coat pocket. There had been some light conversation, but mostly heavily serious dialogue. Then they’d abruptly left without waiting for the check, Walker leaving cash on the table.
He got up and followed them, only to be stopped by an even voice by the front door.
“Did you forget something, sir? Perhaps your check?”
He gut tightened as he turned, Walker and the woman disappearing from his view. Dammit. Dammit to hell. “I’m sorry. I thought I saw someone I knew and I got so carried away I forgot to pay the bill.” He pulled out a few bills, pressed them in the waiter’s hand and burst into the parking lot. But they were gone and he panicked.
He found Walker’s car still in the parking lot and sighed in relief. He waited for a few minutes, but when they didn’t come back to the car he assumed they’d gone down to the beach. He scanned the sand but in the dark, all the strolling couples looked the same. He wasn’t sure which way they’d walked and he didn’t want to pick the wrong direction. This woman could just be a date, he thought. But Walker didn’t date. Everybody knew that. And she’d given him a paper, days after a private detective was poking around. It was too much coincidence to be safe. He touched his throat, still raw from the rope. He needed to file a report by tomorrow. He needed the woman’s name before then. He certainly didn’t want to be late. Or wrong.
He’d stay here and wait for Walker to come back to his car.
* * *
Saturday, February 27, 9:30 p.m.
“This will work,” Emma said, pointing at a smooth stretch of sand just beyond a four-foot-high dune. “That dune will block some of that cool wind.” She sat down, tucking her bare feet under her skirt, and looked up at him. “Well, are you going to sit or not?”
Christopher frowned down at her. “Your dress will be ruined.”
They’d walked an hour down the beach, reminiscing, chatting easily about everything under the sun. Or moon, as it were. It was amazing how quickly they’d returned to the camaraderie they’d shared in their high school days. But beneath the conversation ran a current of tension, an awareness that sensitized her skin, making her anticipate the casual brush of his hand against hers as they walked. Making her wonder if he’d hold her hand again, as he’d done in the restaurant. He didn’t and finally Emma took the initiative, reaching up to grab his hand and pull him down beside her.
“Stop worrying about my dress, Christopher, and relax.” She fixed her eyes on the water as he settled on the sand, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “It’s a beautiful evening and I want to enjoy watching the water a little longer.”
His shoulder brushed her upper arm, sending a shiver through her body, and he frowned again. “Are you cold? We should go back before you catch pneumonia.”
Emma laughed. “Christopher, it was twenty-five and snowing when I left Cincinnati this morning. This is like a tropical paradise in comparison.” But he was already shrugging out of his suit coat and wrapping it around her. Another shiver shook her as his hands lingered on her shoulders a few beats of her heart longer than necessary.
Her deep breath drew in his scent from his coat, warm and citrusy. Different from Will’s. She felt a small pang of guilt at the thought, but rationally knew Will wouldn’t want that. He’d have been the first to want her to go on with her life. He’d have been furious with the way she’d locked herself away for a year. Well, she wasn’t locked away any longer. Be it Christopher or someone else in the future, her life had to go on.
Her sigh was nearly lost on the breeze. “I never dreamed I’d end up like this, Christopher.”
“Which part, Em? Your husband dying, you becoming rich and famous, or ending up here with me after all these years?”
She studied his profile, the hard line of his jaw. “All of the above, I guess.”
He looked down and her breath caught in her throat at the expression in his vivid blue eyes. So intense. Compelling. “Would you have changed it if you could?”
She said nothing for a moment, just looked into his eyes. Then shook her head, soberly. “No. I might have missed the pain, but I would have missed the dance.” The song to which they’d danced rumbled through her mind even as she said the words. Garth Brooks’s “The Dance,” haunting and so very appropriate to her life. Then and now.
His eyes flashed. “You remembered.”
One corner of her mouth lifted. “How could I ever forget? It was my first dance, Christopher. My first prom. My first date. I was such a nerd then. I thought you’d asked me out of a combination of pity, friendship and pragmatism.”
His jaw tightened. “For a very smart girl, that was very dumb.”
“Probably,” she said lightly and turned back to the water, unable to endure another second of his intense stare. You’re just vulnerable, she told herself, and needy. Back off, Em. He crooked his finger under her chin and pulled until she looked up. And once again she caught her breath. His eyes . . . smoldered. There was no other word for it.
“Emma, I felt a hell of a lot of things for you then, but pity was never among them.”
She stared up at him, every word in her mind . . . gone. Vaporized like mist in sunlight. Then even that thought was gone as he slowly threaded his fingers through her hair, cupping the side of her head, lifting her face as he lowered his.
And he kissed her.
And oh, it was good. His lips were warm and hard and soft all at the same time. Her heart thundered until all she could hear was the blood rushing in her head, all she could feel was the yearning of her own body, the tightening of her nipples, the sweet tug of desire pooling between her clenched thighs. His coat fell to the sand as she lifted her hands to his face, her palms bracketing his jaws, her thumbs rasping gently against the stubble on his cheeks.
And he groaned.
Setting her tingling body on fire. She opened her mouth, seeking, allowing him entry. His tongue found hers and her hands found their way around his neck. A few seconds later he was pushing her to her back, any residual worries about sand on her dress completely forgotten. His mouth was ravenous, eating at hers like a starving man. Like he’d never get enough.
And his hand . . .
God, his hand was on her breast. And it felt so good. H
is thumb pressed against her nipple, flicking it through the fabric of her dress, and she whimpered.
He lifted his head, breathing like he’d run a marathon. His eyes burned. “I wanted you then, Emma,” he gritted. “Every damn day. God help me, I want you now.” His lips dropped to her throat. Moved lower to her breast. Then his mouth closed over her breast and she moaned. Clasped his head in her shaking hands and held him close while he ravaged, sucking until she thought she’d come, right there on the beach.
She tried to speak, but no words would come. She, a woman who made her living speaking, could not form a single syllable. Emma, stop this. Get a hold of yourself.
She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to get a hold of herself more than she’d ever not wanted to do anything in her life. But because she didn’t, she forced herself to speak. “Christopher, wait. Please.” She tugged at his head. “Stop.”
He went stiff, then still. Lifted his head and met her eyes. “I don’t want to apologize,” he said, his voice hoarse and rough, sending another shiver of electric desire through her body. She was cold without him pressed against her. She wanted to be warm again. She wanted him.
“I don’t want you to apologize. I just think I’m not quite ready for this.”
He swallowed hard. “Your body thinks otherwise.”
“My body hasn’t had sex in a year,” she shot back, then closed her eyes on a soft groan. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.” He didn’t move and she finally opened her eyes to see him staring down at her, not one whit of his intensity abated.
“Mine hasn’t had any in three,” he said quietly. “But that has nothing to do with this. I’ve always wanted you, Emma. Always. And now, you walk back into my life and I have to believe it’s for a reason. I’ve waited for you for more than seventeen years. I can wait a little longer. But be advised, Emma. I will have you.” She shuddered violently, again speechless under his gaze, under the mesmerizing timbre of his voice. “I will have you and your body will know you’re mine.” Her hips lifted of their own volition and he smiled, a tiny little smile of male triumph that did nothing to cool her down. “Your body already knows it. I can wait for your heart to catch up.”