Colleen just stood there, her heart pounding in her chest, as Eric walked toward his car. The kiss had been the height of innocence…friendly, filial, casual.
So why would she have sworn the snowflake that landed where Eric’s lips had just been melted into water in a split second?
She left the parking lot before him. He returned her quick wave as she pulled away. He couldn’t help but smile as he backed up a moment later.
Winning Colleen over was a little like handling a skittish colt. Patience was what was required. Rational skill. Subtlety.
But he’d be damned if being logical and methodical had ever been such a grueling challenge in his entire life.
Chapter Eight
The first night of her Thanksgiving vacation, Colleen went to pick up her children at her mother’s and found the house empty.
She noticed her mother’s car wasn’t in her driveway, but still went to the front door. Now that Brendan was a little older, both Brigit and Colleen were comfortable occasionally leaving him in charge while they ran a quick emergency errand. Colleen figured her mother had needed to pop over to the store for a forgotten ingredient for the holiday meal.
But the lights in her mother’s graceful, Colonial Revival-style white house were off. The kids must have indeed gone with Brigit. Surely there was a message on her cell phone, Colleen thought as she rummaged in her bag.
There were no messages or texts, however. She was in the process of dialing her mother’s number when she saw a piece of yellow paper caught on the porch railing. She leaned down to pick it up and recognized her mother’s neat handwriting. The brisk autumn wind must have whipped it off the door, where her mother usually left notes when she went out.
Colleen,
I tried to call you at work, but you were in session. Meet the kids and me at Eric Reyes’s house.
Mom
Her eyes widened. The kids were at Eric’s house? Her mother was at Eric’s house? She walked to her car, her nerves suddenly jumping with excitement and wariness at once. Thoughts and worries started coming with the rapidity of machine-gun fire. She wasn’t sure it was a good idea for her children to become so attached to Eric. The image of Melanie Rappoport’s wan face as she told Colleen about her adoptive father abandoning them sprang into her mind.
Don’t be paranoid, Colleen scolded herself. She and Eric hadn’t even gone on a date, and she was already jumping to marriage, divorce and abandonment.
Other worries rushed in to replace that one. At last, she was being forced to confront her negative attitude about Eric’s expensive home. Of course her emotions were all tied up in the usually unspoken knowledge that Eric’s status was at least partially a result of her father’s fatal mistake sixteen years ago. That night, the fortunes of both the Kavanaughs and Reyeses had been altered drastically, and not just in a financial sense. Both families had suffered extreme loss and grief.
But it was foolish to deny that Eric’s house on a beach where Colleen was now banned by law symbolized the Kavanaughs’ fall from grace. Maybe most people wouldn’t see things that way, but Colleen admitted to herself on that drive over to Eric’s that it was precisely what she’d been thinking in some vague, unformed fashion.
She recalled Liam’s incendiary words toward Eric in the parking lot of Jake’s Place about Buena Vista Drive two summers ago.
What’s the matter, Reyes? Worried about bruising those delicate surgeon’s hands? Why don’t you just hurry back to that slick house on Buena Vista Drive that my mom’s money paid for?
Colleen winced at the memory. At the time, she’d wholeheartedly agreed with Liam’s taunt. She felt differently now. Very differently.
Pulling into Eric’s driveway, she turned off the engine dispiritedly. She sat in the car, thinking as she stared at the lovely lakefront home.
Was she jealous of Eric Reyes?
She cringed at the thought. His mother had been killed. He’d worked his butt off in order to support himself and his injured eleven-year-old sister. They’d been young, alone and essentially penniless, orphans with nothing but their brains and a willingness to work hard. But Eric hadn’t just done what it took to make Natalie and him survive. They’d thrived.
How shallow could she be to envy him because of his lifestyle? He’d earned every bit of his right to live in this lovely home, to buy his sister a luxurious wedding gift, to occasionally show the staff at The Family Center his appreciation with an expensive catered meal. She knew how smart he was, and not just in his job as a physician. He’d alluded to the fact that he’d done well for himself with investments. In this economy, that showed some real guts and savvy. His financial status might indirectly be related to Derry Kavanaugh’s actions, but Colleen was suddenly sure that the young, intense, hard-working young man she’d known so long ago would have found a way to make a success of his life no matter what had happened to him when he was eighteen.
No…it wasn’t jealousy, what she felt toward Eric. It was something more elemental. It was shame. She’d been putting Eric down in her mind all these years in order to make herself feel better. It was easier to think of him being pompous and arrogant than to face her own guilt, anger and sadness about what her father had done; more comfortable to condemn him than to face how helpless and lost she’d felt as a teenager after the crash.
The profound realization of her selfishness hurt. Colleen was used to being the selfless one with her kids, her family and patients. Tears welled in her eyes.
She was so lost in her turbulent emotions, she didn’t notice anyone approaching and jumped when someone tapped on her passenger window. Her eyes went wide in shock, tears spilling down her cheek when she saw Eric himself through the glass. He peered at her through the window, his facial features tight with puzzlement that quickly morphed into concern. He wore jeans, a white T-shirt and a blue flannel shirt over it. She hadn’t seen him in work clothes since he was a teenager laboring for the landscaping business. Memories of her adolescent admiration of him swamped her consciousness.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his deep voice muffled by the door.
Colleen blinked, and the memory faded. The adult version
of that young man looked at her through the window, even more vibrant and compelling than the boy had been. She just nodded helplessly and swiped at a tear.