She inhaled, trying to stave off the heavy pressure on her chest. Why did this conversation seem so tense…so significant. It wasn’t. A guy liked her and she liked him back. It wasn’t brain surgery.
“I…” She hesitated, swallowing convulsively. “I told you at the engagement party. I haven’t dated in a long time. I’m not really in practice.”
“That’s good, because I don’t like practiced. Too predictable. Bores me.” He smil
ed at her droll glance. “I’m interested in you. Not your expertise. Give it a chance, Colleen. Give me a chance,” he murmured, his voice low and earnest.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. He dipped his head in order to hear her. She glanced up at him and managed a weak smile. “I’ll think about it.”
“You will?”
She nodded.
“Will you think about me?” His quiet question struck her as highly intimate.
“I can’t seem to help it,” she admitted grudgingly.
“Good. It’s only fair. Between working on Lucy and thinking about you, a good night’s sleep has become impossible,” Eric said gruffly.
She crossed her arms above her waist and stared at the snow falling on the concrete, a strange mixture of pleasure and self-consciousness surging through her at his compliment.
She cleared her throat. “Are you coming to Thanksgiving dinner, then?”
“Are you asking me to?”
“Yes,” she said, striving for a resolute tone but realizing her voice quavered. She forced herself to look up at him. “I’d like you to come to my mother’s house for the holidays. I’d like it very much.”
His smile caused her to temporarily forget her anxiety. It was like the sun breaking after a storm.
“Then I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. “Good night.”
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.