Page 51 of Almost Home
At my door, when earlier I might’ve been contemplating the right angle to tilt my head and get a kiss, I was now scrambling for a way to broach the subject of my divorce. He steered me so I faced him and finally looked in his eyes. Whatever he saw in mine must not’ve fazed him, because he simply said, “Tomorrow.”
I nodded.
He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Lock your door when you get inside,” he said all deliciously gruff, and then he was gone.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
Wilder
Sarah’s nervous energy announced itself before I ever knocked on the door. It nipped at our heels the whole time we walked to town, and it hounded right up to the table as we sat at Basta.
Soon enough, I’d press her on it. She’d clammed up a bit last night, but I hadn’t addressed it then because it hadn’t felt right. While dating Sarah James wasn’t a mission, per se, there was an element of strategy to it. As much as I’d resisted this mentally, I wasn’t about to half-ass it now that we were here.
After watching each of my brothers take their women home, faces besotted with love and wonder when they left the restaurant, my determination to see tonight as a beginning had only grown stronger.
The many logical voices shouting that this couldn’t possibly be a beginning when we’d already faced a brutal ending couldn’t drown the out and out longing plaguing me. Not an unfamiliar feeling, particularly in the last year as I began to allow myself to look ahead to being here and settling in.
But what I’d felt last night was far more than simple longing or determination. The second I registered her next to me on that barstool,hungerhad hit. Something primal and ravenous and jarring enough that I’d almost tasted her right there in the restaurant. I’d almost dipped my head and pressed my lips to her neck, her jaw, her cheek.
That couldn’t be our first real physical encounter—it couldn’t. The animal in me thatneededSarah had to be restrained. So I’d walked her home and avoided whatever crowded her mind on the way to also sidestep the impulse to plaster her against the door and take her mouth like I’d envisioned all along the walk.
I’d gotten myself under control thanks to decades of practice with self-control in high stakes situations and insisted it could all wait until today. Whatever was on her mind would have to wait, and so would my desire to be close to her. I didn’t assume we would kiss tonight—I wouldn’t place pressure on anything between us if I could help it. But I damn wellwantedto kiss her, be close to her, feel her against me and revel in that contact.
The fantasy of collapsing the space between us running rampant in my head leading up to tonight had faltered at seeing her so closed up. So after barely scraping out a handful of responses to questions I’d asked, just after the waiter brought our main dishes, I went in for it.
“Will you tell me what’s on your mind?”
Her eyes darted from mine back to her plate of pasta primavera.
“I’m, um, just enjoying this meal.” She held up her fork and smiled—a limp, sickly thing compared to her usual.
“I don’t buy it.”
“What?”
“I don’t believe that the reason you’re so clammed up tonight is that you’re enjoying the meal so much.”
She frowned. “Well, too bad.”
“No. Tell me.”
The irritated glare was more than she’d given me lately—more real and less nervous than anything I’d seen yet.
“You were always a terrible liar, so just tell me.”
Her lashes fluttered for a minute before she set down her fork. “I realized last night when you knew where I lived that you’d probably seen my background check.”
Ah.I nodded.
“And that means you know basically everything about me. The places I lived and worked and… names I’ve gone by.”
A pang cut through my torso—one sharp, neat slice at the mention of names. She meant the married name listed on her background check, the one she’d used for approximately eighteen months a few years ago. “I do.”
She studied me with an expression that looked a lot like she might be bracing for what I’d say next. “And?”
What could I say? That I automatically hated Aaron Dwight Wilson without setting eyes on him simply because he’d had that part of her life? That I wondered how she’d managed to marry someone while I’d been romantically catatonic for the last twenty years?
None of that would do any damn good.
