he couldn’t help grinning. “Gosh, and I’m such a big eater, too.”
Jamie’s face was straight as she looked back up at him, taking him in from the glasses across the bridge of his nose to his jeans and bare feet. “I wouldn’t know,” she finally said.
“You would have, though, if you’d hung around long enough to find out,” he said softly. He’d promised himself to move slowly, to stay away from accusation.
But patience wasn’t one of his strong suits.
“Hung around?” Her blue eyes were confused. “Where?”
“In the hotel room.”
Head bowed, she studied the receipts she held. “I did hang around. All the way till morning.”
“Dawn was more like it.”
“It was long enough.” She raised a hand to lift the hair off her shoulders. He thought her fingers were shaking. “When I woke up, you were gone.”
“Only to get breakfast.” Kyle took her hand, held it as he stepped behind her. “I came back with two sacks of goodies and had no one to share them with.”
She was trembling. He could feel it as she turned slowly to face him. “You came back?”
Gazing down into the only pair of eyes that had ever taken his breath away, he nodded. She thought he’d abandoned her? Was that why she’d run away? Was that all the past five years had been about?
“Why’d you come back?” she asked.
“You had me under your spell.”
“The sex was good.”
So she’d felt it, too! Kyle breathed a huge sigh of relief. He’d nearly driven himself crazy the past twenty-four hours wondering what he’d done wrong, what he’d done to scare her away.
He moved closer to her, rubbing his thighs against hers. “The sex was great.”
“What about electric and phone bills?”
“What?” His body was on fire, his head filled with visions of...
She pulled away from him, flinging out her arm to encompass the room, her voice cold. “You have a home office. Electricity and phone are deductible for that portion of your home.”
Kyle would have said goodbye and good riddance then and there if he hadn’t noticed the slight trembling at the corners of her lips. She wanted to pretend that what they’d shared wasn’t special. That it meant nothing. But it was; it did. Deny it all she wanted, she still felt the connection.
Somehow, somewhere, he had to come up with the patience to wait for her to be as happy about that fact as he was. But first, he was going to find out why she was so adamantly against taking up where they’d left off. She’d given herself to him that night five years before. Not just her body, but the person she was inside.
Their conversation had been unusually frank. He’d attended Tom Webber’s party at the invitation of an old college buddy, to avoid thinking about the woman he’d buried that day. The mother he’d never loved. More emotionally vulnerable than he’d realized, he’d told Jamie things he’d never told anyone before—or since. Dreams, hopes, emotional stuff a man spent most of his life avoiding. He’d told her how lonely and empty his childhood had been. Without needing any of the details, details he’d been loath to give, she’d known exactly how he felt—because she’d grown up lonely, too. Was still alone, inside, where life really happened. He’d always loved reading, had always escaped into books. So had she. She wanted to be a mother—and have a house with a white picket fence. He hoped to write a classic someday.
But more than the words they’d said were the things they’d understood without words. They’d connected in a way he’d never known was possible, an intimate, intuitive way.
The sex had been an unexpected bonus. She’d given herself to him joyfully. Willingly.
And Kyle didn’t turn his back on what was his.
THE NOTE FROM Ashley’s teacher was a total shock. It came home with Ashley two days later, just after Jamie had hung up the phone from leaving a message for Kyle Radcliff. His taxes were done. All she needed was his signature in the appropriate places and she could mail them—and him—right out of her life.
“Miss Peters wants you to have this,” Ashley said, running into the house. Karen and Kayla were right behind her.
Jamie’s eyes met Karen’s over the girls’ heads. Opening the envelope, she frowned; Karen just shrugged and mouthed the words, “Don’t know.”
Ms. Archer, Jamie’s hand trembled as she tried to read the letter she held.
I’m sorry to have to report that your daughter, Ashley, had some trouble at school today involving one of her classmates. Please call me at your earliest convenience to discuss...
“Ash?”
“Yes, Mommy?” The little girl left the toy she’d been showing Kayla and came over to Jamie’s desk.
“You have some trouble at school today?”
Ashley shook her head, auburn curls bouncing with the force of her denial.
“Miss Peters said you did.”
“Pro’bly means that dumb Nathan,” Kayla muttered, not looking up from the different-sized squares she was fitting one into the other.
Karen’s raised eyebrows and shake of her head were the only help Jamie got from that direction.
“What happened with Nathan?” Jamie asked her daughter, taking Ashley’s hands in her own.
“He says dumb stuff ‘cause he’s dumb.”
“That’s not a nice word to use, Ash, especially when you’re talking about someone else.”
“But it’s true, Mommy, he is dumb.” Ashley’s pretty gray eyes were somber yet completely sincere.
“And I’ll bet you told him so, didn’t you, Ash?” Karen asked, still standing in the doorway. Her gaze was compassionate.
Ashley nodded and Jamie let the little girl go. Ashley’s thumb promptly found her mouth.
Jamie would have her talk with Miss Peters first, and then, when she had the full story, she’d have a heart-to-heart talk with her daughter. Ashley needed to learn to be a little more accepting of other people’s shortcomings.
“How about some lunch?” she asked.
Karen nodded, but her smile was forced. “I made some chicken salad this morning,” she said. “How’s that sound?”
“Great.” Standing, Jamie ushered the two energetic children next door.
But as she helped Karen make sandwiches and pour juice, Jamie felt increasingly worried about
