Unleashed

“Well, I think you bought entirely too much frilly pink,” he teased in the car on the way back to the hotel.

“Hey, Lisa did have a girl.”

“So? My daughter will wear camouflage. She’ll be tough. I’ll take her hunting. She’ll whip all the boys.”

“Yeah, right,” Kelsey laughed. “I didn’t see too much camouflage back there. I bet one thing is for sure about any daughter of yours: she’ll have her daddy wrapped right here.” She held up one pinky finger.

“Can’t argue with that.” He flipped the blinker to turn into their hotel parking lot. “Did you and Todd ever talk about having kids?”

“Not really. It was one of those topics that, when it got brought up, the subject was changed pretty quick.”

“I don’t suppose I have to guess who changed it.”

She shrugged. “You can’t fault someone for not wanting to have kids. It’s a personal choice.”

“Courtney didn’t want kids, either. I didn’t find this out until I’d already asked her to marry me. We went around and around about it. Not that I wanted them right away, but you know. Someday. I hated to break off an engagement over something I hoped she’d change her mind about eventually.”

“Sounds like they’re a match made in heaven, then. Or some other, hotter place,” Kelsey grumbled, facing out her window. “Can I ask you something? You don’t have to answer.”

“Shoot.”

“I’ve seen you get pretty serious about a few girls. What was so different about Courtney that made her the one you asked to marry you?”

He seemed to debate for a moment, so at least he wasn’t going to shut her down. She just wondered if he was going to evade the question. “I don’t know if it was so much that she was different, or if I was.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Established, getting older, tired of playing the field……ready to settle down, I guess. She just happened to be the one that was there.”

“It had to be more than that.”

“Well, yeah. We had a good time together, got along for the most part, families liked one another…” He trailed away as he pulled into an empty parking space. Once stopped, he turned to look at her. “You’re really wanting to ask if I was in love with her, aren’t you?”

She shrugged, her cheeks starting to burn. “It’s not my business. But yeah.”

“I can’t say that I was. I had feelings for her, of course, but I see what a huge mistake I’d have been making to marry her. I think I knew already, in the back of my mind, before it all went to hell. I’d have been doomed to contentment. Nothing more.”

Evan was one of the lucky ones, to dodge that bullet. If only she could have been so fortunate.

“Hey.” He reached over to stroke her hair. “Didn’t mean to dredge anything up there.”

She turned to look at him, at his beautiful, precious face. The glow of the sunset sparked in his eyes. She had to take a breath. “No, it’s fine. I’m the one who asked. You’re right. I need to move past it all.”

He toyed with her fingers, slowly rubbing each in turn with his thumb. “You really haven’t, have you?”

She shrugged, her gaze on their joined hands. “It was such an upheaval. My mom begged me to move back home, and I couldn’t. I told her I thought one more huge change in my life would break me down completely.” He continued his caresses, letting her go on. “And all the cruel words that got thrown around. It was a rollercoaster, civil one minute, hateful the next. I have only one thing good to say about it: thank God we didn’t have kids.”

“It probably was for the best,” he said soothingly. Damn him, he was using his prosecutor voice. The one he used with distraught victims on the stand. He must think she was a regular head case.

“I know I’m not the only woman in the world who’s gone through a divorce. I’m not the only woman who’s ever been cheated on. I wish I could shake it off like other people seem to.”

“From the eye that doesn’t know any better, you have. Whenever I see you around, you’re always smiling, dealing just fine. So maybe everyone else isn’t as together as you think they are, either.”

She sniffed, proud of herself that she wasn’t crying. She didn’t want to start now. “You are.”

“You think so, huh? I have my pain, too.”

“You hide it well, then.”

“My point exactly.”

“I must be terrible at hiding mine. At least I have been this week.” She looked at him, feeling as if there were a crack in the door to his soul and she wanted to open it wide. “Tell me what hurts you?”

He blew out a breath. “I can’t, honey. Maybe someday.”

“Why not? I’m an open freakin’ book here, and—”

“A lot of things hurt me. What they did…yeah, it hurt like hell. I got Courtney home that night and I couldn’t get near her. Not that I was afraid I’d hurt her or anything crazy like that, but I couldn’t stand to have her anywhere close to me. She was following me around begging me to listen to her and I couldn’t even deal with the sound of her voice.”

She nodded. She understood completely. Except Todd had never begged. Evan wasn’t telling her everything, but she wouldn’t press the issue. It hurt her to know there was something he didn’t trust her with, but she’d done the very same thing to him last night.

“There is one thing I need to tell you, Kelsey. It might matter to you and it might not, but it’s not right for me to keep it from you.”

Her pulse rate doubled. “What?”

“They aren’t together anymore.”

Good. Serves them right. “Oh. Why not?”

“She says it’s because he misses you.”

Kelsey scoffed. “That’s unlikely.”

“Do you really think so? Because, honey…” His stroking fingers moved up her bare arm, to her shoulder. “I’d miss you. I’d miss you like crazy. I don’t see how any man with a beating heart and rushing blood wouldn’t.” The fingers of his other hand skimmed her thigh, brushing up just under the hem of her skirt. That barest touch had her wanting to open her legs for him here in the car. His mouth moved swift to cover hers, a sensation she’d been longing for all day. She put her hand on the side of his neck, stroking his flesh, feeling the muscles work as his lips moved over hers with feverish insistence.

“Bed?” she murmured against them, and felt rather than saw his smile.

“No. I think first I’m taking you out to dinner.” And he chuckled at her frustrated growl.

Chapter Eight

Their table was nestled in the corner of the outdoor section, where the wind could caress her bare shoulders and wreak its havoc on her hair. Kelsey didn’t mind. She found she actually liked it. Since last night, Evan couldn’t seem to keep his hands out of her curls. Having it wild and tumbling around her face made her feel sexy. Brash and brazen.

It wasn’t just her hair. It was the way his gaze lingered on her flesh. It was his nearness, the memory of him inside her, taking her to heights never before accessed…she still felt lush and sensitive and wanton. He sat to her left, and she wanted to get her hands on him under this tablecloth. She found herself inching her left knee toward him, trying to find contact with solid muscle. But it was a frustrating effort, so she tried to focus on the scenery.

“This is beautiful,” she said, gazing out at the waves rolling in on the beach, the whitecaps glowing in the moonlight. “I never could have taken a trip like this without you.”

Evan sipped his wine. “Sure you could have.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Oh yeah? How do you figure?”

“You can do anything you want to. I know times are tight for you right now. But it won’t always be that way.”

“You really are a glass-is-half-full kinda guy, aren’t you? I always knew it, but really, sometimes it’s just too much.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t change that about you,” she said quickly. “I love it. But…I don’t think you know what it’s like to have to struggle.”

“Well, if you’re speaking strictly about finances, I guess you’re right. But if you’re thinking it isn’t sometimes a struggle for me to keep my rose-colored glasses after the things I’ve seen on the job, my dear, you’re mistaken.” He chucked her gently under her chin. “Some days it takes everything I am to walk into that courtroom.”

The breeze blew a strand of his hair across his forehead and she reached up to move it away. It was becoming one of her favorite things to do. “Sorry. I need more optimism in my life, I know it. And I know you’ve seen some terrible things. I would never want your job to turn you into a cynic.”

His eyes were distant for a moment, and she knew she’d just conjured up images of gruesome murders and sexual assaults and child abuse. Great job, Kels. “It won’t,” he said. “If it ever starts to, I can always do something else. See? There’s always a way out.”

A little candle flickered in its votive cup in the center of their table. She found herself mesmerized by the little pinprick of light reflected in Evan’s eyes as he looked at her. He must have seen something similar in hers, because he was studying her intently. Then his fingers crept over her bare shoulder, pushing away a curl. She shivered at the touch.

“Do you remember a lot about college?” he asked. “About stuff we used to do?”

The unexpected question made her laugh. “Of course. I think I remember every minute.” Every minute with him, anyway. “It all went by too fast.”

“You must have missed a week of classes to take care of me that week I had the flu. I think about that a lot. I came out of my NyQuil coma to find most of the notes from my classes there waiting for me and an extension on my Constitutional Law paper.”

“I felt so bad for you. You were miserable.”

“Yeah—well, it’s hard to remember a lot, with the angel of death hovering over my bed at the time.” He grinned. “But I had an angel of mercy fighting him off. Shoving chicken soup and orange juice down my throat. Keeping me bundled up and taking my temperature every ten minutes. I swear, Kelsey, I don’t know what I’d have done without you. Imagine how terrible I felt when you caught it the very next week.”

She shrugged, then laughed. “You returned the favor. If you’d left me to rot in my room, then I might’ve been pissed.”

And she couldn’t in a millennium be upset over just how she suspected she’d contracted his death flu. It had been enough to give her shivers for years…and even now. Early on in his illness, she’d been particularly worried about him one night when his fever spiked. She hadn’t wanted to leave him. Whichever girl he’d been seeing at the time had been terrified of catching what he had and refused to come around. Evan had fallen into a fitful sleep watching Letterman, and Kelsey had lain in his bed next to him, watching him toss and turn and groan, until she dozed off.