“We’re still on for tomorrow night, right?”
“For our date?”
He smiled.
“Of course,” she murmured, suddenly feeling ridiculously shy.
“Good.” He reached up and brushed back her hair, briefly touching her cheek with a gloved finger. “I already thanked your mother and said goodbye to your family, so I’ll say good-night. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
She nodded. He leaned down and kissed her—brief and electric. Her frustration turned to acute disappointment as she watched him walk out the door. Things weren’t turning out exactly the way she’d planned. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him so soon.
“Mom, did you pack my iPod?” Brendan asked her from the hallway.
Colleen sighed and realigned her brain into Mom mode. “Yes, it’s in your duffel bag.”
“Good, ’cuz Riley is already asleep, and Jenny is going to be, too, as soon as we get in the car. I’ll have to be quiet on the way to Chicago,” Brendan mumbled.
Everyone gathered in the hallway and foyer, putting on coats and giving hugs. Colleen solemnly charged her children to do whatever their Uncle Marc and Aunt Mari said, not to sulk and to pick up after themselves. She gave them both some spending money and huge hugs.
“I’ll be calling you over the weekend,” Mari said when she came to say goodbye. Her significant glance told Colleen loud and clear that Mari wanted the entire scoop about Eric. They hadn’t really had a chance to talk privately all day.
“I might be busy,” Colleen whispered. Mari’s eyes went wide in increased interest before she gave Colleen a hug. Soon Marc, Mari, Riley, Brendan and Jenny were backing out of the driveway, only to be followed by Liam and Natalie. She and her mother stood in the foyer, the overhead light on, waving goodbye.
“Do you want to spend the night here, honey?” Brigit asked after Liam’s car had disappeared down Sycamore Avenue.
“No. I can imagine you’d like some alone time, after all the hard work you did. Thanks, Mom. For everything,” she added.
She felt strange a few minutes later as she backed out of the driveway. It was odd, not having Brendan and Jenny with her. Yet she didn’t feel lonely, necessarily. She felt…excited.
She shivered uncontrollably. The temperature had plummeted and the car heater seemed to be having no effect. It wasn’t until she turned left, not right, on Travertine Drive and drove west—in the opposite direction of her house—that she realized she wasn’t trembling from cold, but from anxiety.
And excitement.
It took Eric only seconds to answer her knock, but it felt like tortuous minutes to Colleen. The entryway light switched on and the door opened. She froze when she met his gaze through the outer glass door pane. He was wearing only a pair of black sweatpants. A towel hung around his neck. He was swiping one end of it across the damp hair at his nape, a slightly puzzled look on his face.
His expression stiffened when he saw her standing on his front stoop. Her gaze swept down over his naked torso. Moisture gleamed on taut, olive-toned skin.
He dropped the towel and whipped open the door.
“I’m sorry. You were in the shower. I should have called—”
Her apology was cut off short when he reached for her elbow and drew her into the house. The sound of the door shutting behind her sounded like a gunshot in Colleen’s oversensitive ears.
“You’re shivering,” he murmured, chafing her back and upper arms. “It’s freezing out there.” He backed up and started to unfasten her coat. “Come on inside. I’ll start a fire.”
She laughed. He paused and glanced up at her face, the ends of her belt in his hands.
“What’s funny?” he wondered aloud.
She shook her head as if to clear it. “You didn’t even ask me what I was doing here.”
He resumed unfastening her coat. Colleen tried to ignore the feeling of his long fingers moving down her chest and belly, working the buttons through the holes, but it was difficult. “I guess I was too busy being happy to see you to question why you were.” He glanced toward the door as if something had just occurred to him. “Where are the kids?”
“On the way to Chicago.”
He froze in the process of peeling back both sides of her coat.
“They left tonight?” he asked, clearly stunned.