Lover's Knot, page 31
“Right before they sold you a couple?”
“Six big ones. And a pot of basil.” She headed for the house, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll yell when the lemonade’s ready.”
In the house, she changed into denim shortalls so she could hook her hand hoe to the belt loop and fill the deep pockets with other gardening paraphernalia. In the kitchen, she prepared a pitcher of lemonade, cheating by using a mix and squeezing only two lemons. She sliced the last one and added half the slices to make the pitcher more appealing.
Isaac didn’t seem to mind that the lemonade wasn’t one hundred percent authentic. After washing his hands, he joined her on the porch and finished a glass before she’d taken more than a few sips of her own.
“Hot work.” He smiled his apology.
“That’s why I made a pitcher. The pond’s going to be beautiful.”
“We’ll see.”
Throughout their marriage, they had avoided household projects. In their first apartment they’d hardly taken the time to unpack and fill the closets. She wondered if she’d just been waiting to make sure her marriage survived. Had she subconsciously determined that the odds weren’t good enough for much of an investment?
Isaac reached over and pulled the bib of her shortalls away from her chest so he could see the T-shirt underneath. His fingertips brushed a breast as he did, and fire streaked through her.
“Farmer Taylor? A Toms Brook fashion statement?”
She gazed down at his hand. “Aren’t I cute?”
“I was just thinking that.” His hand slid up to her neck; his thumb caressed her chin. “You can hoe fields and pick cotton for me anytime.”
Her eyelids drifted shut. “Corn. We’re too far north for cotton.”
“I’ll take whatever you give me.”
She wondered.
She felt his hand move away, and she opened her eyes.
“Right now you can give me a refill,” he said. “But later will be a different matter.”
* * *
Kendra weeded a new patch of the garden and got the plants in the ground before she called it quits for the afternoon. Inside, she took a long shower to ease the knots in her neck and back. Every day she seemed to grow stronger. The physical therapist she now saw biweekly was pleased with her progress. The irony of using a garden once filled with healing herbs as a way to restore her own health wasn’t lost on her. Leah would have approved.
She set out fresh towels for Isaac, and he arrived soon after, sweaty and dirty and altogether appealing. She was standing in front of the refrigerator, taking stock, when he emerged from the shower wearing clean shorts and his favorite generic green shirt. Isaac shopped for clothes with only two criteria. Easy care and no advertisements.
He stood behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “Hoping the ingredients will assemble themselves?”
“I should have done some shopping. I guess we’ll have to go out for dinner. I’m afraid I eat very simply.”
“Example?”
“Sandwiches. Yogurt. Fruit. Sometimes a salad, if I’m feeling energetic after an afternoon in the garden. I don’t eat a lot of salads.”
“I have groceries in the car.”
She faced him. “Really?”
He turned her toward the open refrigerator again. “And there’s something in there behind the milk and orange juice.”
She pushed aside a milk carton and saw a bag. “I didn’t notice.”
“You’re going to relax, and I’m going to take care of everything.”
“What have you done with my husband?”
“What have you been hungry for since you got here? Something they don’t have right around the corner.”
She chewed on her lip. “Nothing you have in a bag in your car, I’m afraid.”
“What?” he repeated.
“Thai food.”
“How does shrimp pad thai sound?”
“You brought takeout all the way from D.C.?”
He rested his hands on her shoulders when she faced him again. “K.C., you’re refusing to get it. That’s a pound of Gulf shrimp in the fridge. I’m going to make shrimp pad thai. Right here, in your kitchen.”
“You don’t cook.”
“I do now.”
She tried not to smile, but she wasn’t successful. “Since when?”
“Since my wife moved away. The Food Network keeps me company late at night.”
“You’ve started cooking? Food Network recipes?”
“More like I’m going to start right now. How hard can it be? I did the shopping. I’ve seen it made. I have the recipe. I have the perfect victim.”
“You’re experimenting on me?” She leaned over and kissed him. “I’m enthralled. Cook away. Can I help?”
“You can pour the wine. I brought a very good merlot. I’ll bring it in.”
She was still mulling over this miracle when he returned with two brown grocery bags and set them on the table. “A large glass for the chef, please. I’ll be chopping for a while.”
She found the corkscrew and took down two glasses from the cabinet. Then, as he got out what looked to be half the wares of an Asian market, she opened the wine to let it breathe. The vintage was indeed a good one. Wine important enough for serious seduction.
Isaac examined everything he’d laid out. “Looks like I’ll be chopping for, oh, about three days. Stay nearby and talk to me.”
Part of her wanted to rescue him, and part of her wanted to see exactly what he had in mind. She could feel anticipation stirring. Anticipation of the wine, of the conversation, of the meal...of the aftermath.
He filled the teakettle and set it on a burner, turning on the heat beneath it. “Tell me what you’ve been doing since the last time I was here.”
She lounged against the counter and eliminated Dusty as a topic. “Trying to lure Ten out from under the sofa.”
“He came out to see me.”
“He didn’t!”
“Came out, ate his fill, then went back to hide. But it’s a start.”
“Then he’s alive, and it’s not mice eating his food.”
“More likely Ten’s eating the mice.”
“I saw Black Beauty yesterday. He hasn’t abandoned the cabin. He just leaves earlier every morning. Before the men arrive.”
“You’re blessed with pets.”
More than Isaac knew, of course. She wondered how her three living, breathing charges would get along when they finally confronted one another. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be there.
“I went to that meeting I told you about,” she said. “Over in Luray.”
“I wondered.”
She was encouraged by his tone. Had there been even a note of censure, she wouldn’t have continued. But Isaac sounded almost...interested?
“I met a man who knew your grandmother as a girl. And your grandfather.”
Isaac looked up. “Really?”
“Aubrey Grayling says he was your grandfather’s best friend. It’s pretty amazing.”
He took carrots and a red pepper to the sink. She wondered if he knew the carrots needed to be scraped. He returned to slice the pepper, and she was impressed with how well he managed it. How many television chefs had he seen?
“Do you think he’s for real?” Isaac asked.
“I do. He’s in his nineties, but he remembered so many details. Your grandfather was named Jesse Spurlock. His family owned apple orchards in Lock Hollow, the biggest and best. Leah’s family, the Blackburns, had fewer acres, but Aubrey said the Blackburn farm was a gem. They grew corn, mostly, and vegetables. They had animals, a two-story log and frame house, a chestnut barn. They weren’t rich, but they had a good life. Both families were well thought of.”
Isaac finished chopping the pepper into matchstick-thin slices before he spoke. “I’ve spent my whole life trying not to think about my birth family. Now I’m imagining the Waltons.” He paused. “The Waltons with inconvenient secrets.”
“Aubrey’s story brought them to life for me. Leah had hair the color of yours, Isaac. He said she was particularly pretty, with green eyes and a slender figure, but she was the picture of sturdy good health. Not like her sister.”
“Sister?”
“That’s right. Birdie. She was dark-haired and blue-eyed, very delicate featured. He said in some ways she was even prettier than Leah, who was younger. But Birdie was frail and in constant pain. She had polio as a child and nearly died. She was also so nearsighted that she had to squint to see anything more than a few feet away. Aubrey said both disabilities gave her a narrow focus, that she was content to live her life no farther away than the circle of her arms.”
“Aubrey sounds like something of a poet.”
Kendra went to pour the wine, and waited until Isaac had scraped the carrots—he had learned a lot from television—before she handed it to him. “He didn’t say too much after that. He got tired, or so he said.”
“So he said?”
“I don’t think he was being completely straight with me.”
“Maybe he likes the attention and wants you to come back.”
“I didn’t get that impression. In fact, he pointed me toward the daughter of Leah’s best friend. He said she might be able to help me.” She peeked over his shoulder. “Are those shiitake mushrooms?”
“You’re going to love this.”
She watched with awe as he wiped the mushrooms clean with a damp paper towel. The kettle whistled, and he turned off the burner, measuring water and pouring it slowly over rice noodles he’d placed in a bowl. “Five minutes,” he said. “Time them for me?”
“You bet.”
“So that was the end of your conversation?” Isaac asked.
“He did say the marriage of Jesse Spurlock and Leah Blackburn was as expected and natural as the coming together of two royal families.”
“Except they all didn’t live happily ever after...”
“Maybe that’s the next installment.”
“You’re going on with this?”
“I’m hooked.”
He diced tofu. Tofu? She wouldn’t have guessed he even knew where to find it in a store. He minced garlic, chopped peanuts, sliced green onions on the diagonal, squeezed a lime into a cup. Her mouth was beginning to water.
She watched as he combined a variety of things, all aromatic and wonderful, in another bowl and set it aside. She issued a warning. “If you have anything else to combine, you’re out of luck. You’re now officially out of bowls. And it’s been five minutes, by the way.”
“Drain the noodles, K.C., and let me cook.”
She laughed and did, setting them aside in the colander.
Isaac stood back and raised his hands dramatically, as if he were about to conduct a symphony. “Now you get to watch the real fun. Master chef at work.”
“I am just so impressed.”
“Tell me about the fair.”
She did, ending with the story of Caleb and the camera. Isaac had heated two kinds of oil in her largest saucepan, and now, with one last flourish, he added shrimp.
“The camera was a good idea. How are his photos?” Isaac began to stir as the shrimp sizzled.
Over the noise, she explained about his lack of a computer on which to view the photos. “But I invited him here to use mine. Meantime, he might have made a start on finding friends today. But it was hard to watch him with the other boys. He’s so quiet. He hardly said a word.”
“Do you think he enjoyed himself anyway?”
She watched as he dumped all the vegetables he’d assembled into the pan with the shrimp, which had turned a lovely pink. “I hope so. Leon and Noah were friendly. Maybe Caleb will loosen up eventually.”
“I was just about that quiet.”
Isaac always seemed comfortable in social situations. He was reserved, but he always contributed. And the fact that he didn’t chatter worked well for him. When he spoke, people hung on his words.
“Were you?” She moved closer to inhale what was now definitely the aroma of excellent pad thai. “You’re so confident now.”
“Confidence took a long time and a lot of work.” He flipped vegetables and stirred like a pro. Finally he turned off the heat under the pan and, in a surprise move, put his arms around her, pulling her close. “Maybe I haven’t done enough work, K.C. Maybe I still keep too much to myself.”
“Like what?” She could barely find the breath for the words.
“Like not telling you how much I miss you. Not telling you how hard it is to have you so far away.”
“Then why haven’t you come to see me more often?”
He touched her cheek. “Did you want me to? You came here without me. You’re making a home without me. You’re making a life I have no part of.”
“You’re a part of everything I do, Isaac. Whether I want it that way or not. Whether you’re with me or somewhere else.”
“Did you come here to change that?”
“I came here to see if I could live without you.” She saw the pain in his eyes. She leaned closer. “Because I thought it was inevitable.”
“Thought?”
“Now I think we’ll both suffer if we let this relationship die without a fight.”
His arms tightened. “But I don’t want to fight. Not tonight.”
She looked into eyes as dark as the doubts that had tormented her since the shooting. She had always found them nearly impenetrable. For too long she had wondered what was behind those eyes, what feelings were hidden there. Now she knew better than to wonder. She knew she had to be sure.
“If we make love tonight, I want it to be a new start, Isaac. That means both of us have to try to find our way to something better. I’m not sure how we do it, but I know we have to make that commitment.”
He smiled a little, and suddenly she had no trouble reading his thoughts.
“I know how we can find our way to something better,” he said. “But not right here.”
“And what about my special dinner?”
He scooped her into his arms, as if she were a new bride about to cross a threshold. “I told you I’ve watched a lot of cooking shows?”
“Isaac...”
“Reheating is going to be my specialty.”
CHAPTER 22
KENDRA LIKED TO sleep with Isaac. Awake, he was energetic but contained. He had learned to be careful about the space around him, only allowing his restlessness to boil over into prolonged bouts of exercise. In sleep, there were no restrictions. If she happened to be in the way, he incorporated her easily, pulling her close, wrapping arms around her, settling her against him. She liked to think that the affection he felt for her was most in evidence then, that in sleep he could express his longing for intimacy.
On the nights they’d slept together since the shooting, he had stayed on his side of the bed. Kendra had told herself he was afraid of hurting her, but the distance had stretched more than inches. In the end, she had been hurt because of him.
Early Sunday morning, she awoke with Isaac’s arms around her. Last night he had been careful when making love, still clearly afraid she was too fragile for more energetic sex, but once they were asleep, he had relaxed into old habits.
Viva old habits.
She snuggled deeper into his arms and felt him kiss her hair.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
“Not as good as I could be.” She turned, her nose just a fraction of an inch from his.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m thinking last night was a practice session. To make sure we remembered what we were here for.”
“How’d I do?”
“You still seem to have the hang of it. But I think you need another session, just to make sure.”
“You’re okay?”
“Better than that.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to get up and have a big country breakfast? Seems to me you were half starved last night. You ate every bit of your pad thai.”
She pushed his hair off his forehead and wiggled her arms around his neck. “And some of yours.”
“I wasn’t going to bring that up.”
“Did you learn to cook a big country breakfast from the Food Network?”
“Not yet.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to settle for this.” She nudged his head down, his lips toward hers.
“K.C....”
“Uh-huh?”
His hand slipped between them, sliding over her abdomen and up to her breast. “I love you.”
He said those words so rarely. She knew what they cost him. Her breath caught. Her throat seemed to close. She cleared it. “It’s mutual. You know that.”
“How do things get so messed up?”
“Let’s just spend some time straightening them out.”
“I like the sound of that.” Then he kissed her.
* * *
An hour later, Isaac was sleeping so soundly that Kendra was able to slip out of bed and shower without him so much as moving. She grabbed her keys and went out into the clearing to her car.
When she returned half an hour later, coffee was brewing in the kitchen, and judging from the discordant rattle of the old water pipes, Isaac was in the shower. She set the table, and laid out the coffee cake and newspaper she’d purchased. When he came in, hair wet and shirt unbuttoned, she was lounging at the table, reading the headlines.
“Not the New York Times,” she said. “I know you need the comics.”
He kissed the top of her head before going to the counter to pour his coffee. “The Post?”
“Uh-huh.”
“My favorite journalist hasn’t written anything in a while.”
“Nor has she had much desire to.”
“Six big ones. And a pot of basil.” She headed for the house, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll yell when the lemonade’s ready.”
In the house, she changed into denim shortalls so she could hook her hand hoe to the belt loop and fill the deep pockets with other gardening paraphernalia. In the kitchen, she prepared a pitcher of lemonade, cheating by using a mix and squeezing only two lemons. She sliced the last one and added half the slices to make the pitcher more appealing.
Isaac didn’t seem to mind that the lemonade wasn’t one hundred percent authentic. After washing his hands, he joined her on the porch and finished a glass before she’d taken more than a few sips of her own.
“Hot work.” He smiled his apology.
“That’s why I made a pitcher. The pond’s going to be beautiful.”
“We’ll see.”
Throughout their marriage, they had avoided household projects. In their first apartment they’d hardly taken the time to unpack and fill the closets. She wondered if she’d just been waiting to make sure her marriage survived. Had she subconsciously determined that the odds weren’t good enough for much of an investment?
Isaac reached over and pulled the bib of her shortalls away from her chest so he could see the T-shirt underneath. His fingertips brushed a breast as he did, and fire streaked through her.
“Farmer Taylor? A Toms Brook fashion statement?”
She gazed down at his hand. “Aren’t I cute?”
“I was just thinking that.” His hand slid up to her neck; his thumb caressed her chin. “You can hoe fields and pick cotton for me anytime.”
Her eyelids drifted shut. “Corn. We’re too far north for cotton.”
“I’ll take whatever you give me.”
She wondered.
She felt his hand move away, and she opened her eyes.
“Right now you can give me a refill,” he said. “But later will be a different matter.”
* * *
Kendra weeded a new patch of the garden and got the plants in the ground before she called it quits for the afternoon. Inside, she took a long shower to ease the knots in her neck and back. Every day she seemed to grow stronger. The physical therapist she now saw biweekly was pleased with her progress. The irony of using a garden once filled with healing herbs as a way to restore her own health wasn’t lost on her. Leah would have approved.
She set out fresh towels for Isaac, and he arrived soon after, sweaty and dirty and altogether appealing. She was standing in front of the refrigerator, taking stock, when he emerged from the shower wearing clean shorts and his favorite generic green shirt. Isaac shopped for clothes with only two criteria. Easy care and no advertisements.
He stood behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “Hoping the ingredients will assemble themselves?”
“I should have done some shopping. I guess we’ll have to go out for dinner. I’m afraid I eat very simply.”
“Example?”
“Sandwiches. Yogurt. Fruit. Sometimes a salad, if I’m feeling energetic after an afternoon in the garden. I don’t eat a lot of salads.”
“I have groceries in the car.”
She faced him. “Really?”
He turned her toward the open refrigerator again. “And there’s something in there behind the milk and orange juice.”
She pushed aside a milk carton and saw a bag. “I didn’t notice.”
“You’re going to relax, and I’m going to take care of everything.”
“What have you done with my husband?”
“What have you been hungry for since you got here? Something they don’t have right around the corner.”
She chewed on her lip. “Nothing you have in a bag in your car, I’m afraid.”
“What?” he repeated.
“Thai food.”
“How does shrimp pad thai sound?”
“You brought takeout all the way from D.C.?”
He rested his hands on her shoulders when she faced him again. “K.C., you’re refusing to get it. That’s a pound of Gulf shrimp in the fridge. I’m going to make shrimp pad thai. Right here, in your kitchen.”
“You don’t cook.”
“I do now.”
She tried not to smile, but she wasn’t successful. “Since when?”
“Since my wife moved away. The Food Network keeps me company late at night.”
“You’ve started cooking? Food Network recipes?”
“More like I’m going to start right now. How hard can it be? I did the shopping. I’ve seen it made. I have the recipe. I have the perfect victim.”
“You’re experimenting on me?” She leaned over and kissed him. “I’m enthralled. Cook away. Can I help?”
“You can pour the wine. I brought a very good merlot. I’ll bring it in.”
She was still mulling over this miracle when he returned with two brown grocery bags and set them on the table. “A large glass for the chef, please. I’ll be chopping for a while.”
She found the corkscrew and took down two glasses from the cabinet. Then, as he got out what looked to be half the wares of an Asian market, she opened the wine to let it breathe. The vintage was indeed a good one. Wine important enough for serious seduction.
Isaac examined everything he’d laid out. “Looks like I’ll be chopping for, oh, about three days. Stay nearby and talk to me.”
Part of her wanted to rescue him, and part of her wanted to see exactly what he had in mind. She could feel anticipation stirring. Anticipation of the wine, of the conversation, of the meal...of the aftermath.
He filled the teakettle and set it on a burner, turning on the heat beneath it. “Tell me what you’ve been doing since the last time I was here.”
She lounged against the counter and eliminated Dusty as a topic. “Trying to lure Ten out from under the sofa.”
“He came out to see me.”
“He didn’t!”
“Came out, ate his fill, then went back to hide. But it’s a start.”
“Then he’s alive, and it’s not mice eating his food.”
“More likely Ten’s eating the mice.”
“I saw Black Beauty yesterday. He hasn’t abandoned the cabin. He just leaves earlier every morning. Before the men arrive.”
“You’re blessed with pets.”
More than Isaac knew, of course. She wondered how her three living, breathing charges would get along when they finally confronted one another. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be there.
“I went to that meeting I told you about,” she said. “Over in Luray.”
“I wondered.”
She was encouraged by his tone. Had there been even a note of censure, she wouldn’t have continued. But Isaac sounded almost...interested?
“I met a man who knew your grandmother as a girl. And your grandfather.”
Isaac looked up. “Really?”
“Aubrey Grayling says he was your grandfather’s best friend. It’s pretty amazing.”
He took carrots and a red pepper to the sink. She wondered if he knew the carrots needed to be scraped. He returned to slice the pepper, and she was impressed with how well he managed it. How many television chefs had he seen?
“Do you think he’s for real?” Isaac asked.
“I do. He’s in his nineties, but he remembered so many details. Your grandfather was named Jesse Spurlock. His family owned apple orchards in Lock Hollow, the biggest and best. Leah’s family, the Blackburns, had fewer acres, but Aubrey said the Blackburn farm was a gem. They grew corn, mostly, and vegetables. They had animals, a two-story log and frame house, a chestnut barn. They weren’t rich, but they had a good life. Both families were well thought of.”
Isaac finished chopping the pepper into matchstick-thin slices before he spoke. “I’ve spent my whole life trying not to think about my birth family. Now I’m imagining the Waltons.” He paused. “The Waltons with inconvenient secrets.”
“Aubrey’s story brought them to life for me. Leah had hair the color of yours, Isaac. He said she was particularly pretty, with green eyes and a slender figure, but she was the picture of sturdy good health. Not like her sister.”
“Sister?”
“That’s right. Birdie. She was dark-haired and blue-eyed, very delicate featured. He said in some ways she was even prettier than Leah, who was younger. But Birdie was frail and in constant pain. She had polio as a child and nearly died. She was also so nearsighted that she had to squint to see anything more than a few feet away. Aubrey said both disabilities gave her a narrow focus, that she was content to live her life no farther away than the circle of her arms.”
“Aubrey sounds like something of a poet.”
Kendra went to pour the wine, and waited until Isaac had scraped the carrots—he had learned a lot from television—before she handed it to him. “He didn’t say too much after that. He got tired, or so he said.”
“So he said?”
“I don’t think he was being completely straight with me.”
“Maybe he likes the attention and wants you to come back.”
“I didn’t get that impression. In fact, he pointed me toward the daughter of Leah’s best friend. He said she might be able to help me.” She peeked over his shoulder. “Are those shiitake mushrooms?”
“You’re going to love this.”
She watched with awe as he wiped the mushrooms clean with a damp paper towel. The kettle whistled, and he turned off the burner, measuring water and pouring it slowly over rice noodles he’d placed in a bowl. “Five minutes,” he said. “Time them for me?”
“You bet.”
“So that was the end of your conversation?” Isaac asked.
“He did say the marriage of Jesse Spurlock and Leah Blackburn was as expected and natural as the coming together of two royal families.”
“Except they all didn’t live happily ever after...”
“Maybe that’s the next installment.”
“You’re going on with this?”
“I’m hooked.”
He diced tofu. Tofu? She wouldn’t have guessed he even knew where to find it in a store. He minced garlic, chopped peanuts, sliced green onions on the diagonal, squeezed a lime into a cup. Her mouth was beginning to water.
She watched as he combined a variety of things, all aromatic and wonderful, in another bowl and set it aside. She issued a warning. “If you have anything else to combine, you’re out of luck. You’re now officially out of bowls. And it’s been five minutes, by the way.”
“Drain the noodles, K.C., and let me cook.”
She laughed and did, setting them aside in the colander.
Isaac stood back and raised his hands dramatically, as if he were about to conduct a symphony. “Now you get to watch the real fun. Master chef at work.”
“I am just so impressed.”
“Tell me about the fair.”
She did, ending with the story of Caleb and the camera. Isaac had heated two kinds of oil in her largest saucepan, and now, with one last flourish, he added shrimp.
“The camera was a good idea. How are his photos?” Isaac began to stir as the shrimp sizzled.
Over the noise, she explained about his lack of a computer on which to view the photos. “But I invited him here to use mine. Meantime, he might have made a start on finding friends today. But it was hard to watch him with the other boys. He’s so quiet. He hardly said a word.”
“Do you think he enjoyed himself anyway?”
She watched as he dumped all the vegetables he’d assembled into the pan with the shrimp, which had turned a lovely pink. “I hope so. Leon and Noah were friendly. Maybe Caleb will loosen up eventually.”
“I was just about that quiet.”
Isaac always seemed comfortable in social situations. He was reserved, but he always contributed. And the fact that he didn’t chatter worked well for him. When he spoke, people hung on his words.
“Were you?” She moved closer to inhale what was now definitely the aroma of excellent pad thai. “You’re so confident now.”
“Confidence took a long time and a lot of work.” He flipped vegetables and stirred like a pro. Finally he turned off the heat under the pan and, in a surprise move, put his arms around her, pulling her close. “Maybe I haven’t done enough work, K.C. Maybe I still keep too much to myself.”
“Like what?” She could barely find the breath for the words.
“Like not telling you how much I miss you. Not telling you how hard it is to have you so far away.”
“Then why haven’t you come to see me more often?”
He touched her cheek. “Did you want me to? You came here without me. You’re making a home without me. You’re making a life I have no part of.”
“You’re a part of everything I do, Isaac. Whether I want it that way or not. Whether you’re with me or somewhere else.”
“Did you come here to change that?”
“I came here to see if I could live without you.” She saw the pain in his eyes. She leaned closer. “Because I thought it was inevitable.”
“Thought?”
“Now I think we’ll both suffer if we let this relationship die without a fight.”
His arms tightened. “But I don’t want to fight. Not tonight.”
She looked into eyes as dark as the doubts that had tormented her since the shooting. She had always found them nearly impenetrable. For too long she had wondered what was behind those eyes, what feelings were hidden there. Now she knew better than to wonder. She knew she had to be sure.
“If we make love tonight, I want it to be a new start, Isaac. That means both of us have to try to find our way to something better. I’m not sure how we do it, but I know we have to make that commitment.”
He smiled a little, and suddenly she had no trouble reading his thoughts.
“I know how we can find our way to something better,” he said. “But not right here.”
“And what about my special dinner?”
He scooped her into his arms, as if she were a new bride about to cross a threshold. “I told you I’ve watched a lot of cooking shows?”
“Isaac...”
“Reheating is going to be my specialty.”
CHAPTER 22
KENDRA LIKED TO sleep with Isaac. Awake, he was energetic but contained. He had learned to be careful about the space around him, only allowing his restlessness to boil over into prolonged bouts of exercise. In sleep, there were no restrictions. If she happened to be in the way, he incorporated her easily, pulling her close, wrapping arms around her, settling her against him. She liked to think that the affection he felt for her was most in evidence then, that in sleep he could express his longing for intimacy.
On the nights they’d slept together since the shooting, he had stayed on his side of the bed. Kendra had told herself he was afraid of hurting her, but the distance had stretched more than inches. In the end, she had been hurt because of him.
Early Sunday morning, she awoke with Isaac’s arms around her. Last night he had been careful when making love, still clearly afraid she was too fragile for more energetic sex, but once they were asleep, he had relaxed into old habits.
Viva old habits.
She snuggled deeper into his arms and felt him kiss her hair.
“You doing okay?” he asked.
“Not as good as I could be.” She turned, her nose just a fraction of an inch from his.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m thinking last night was a practice session. To make sure we remembered what we were here for.”
“How’d I do?”
“You still seem to have the hang of it. But I think you need another session, just to make sure.”
“You’re okay?”
“Better than that.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to get up and have a big country breakfast? Seems to me you were half starved last night. You ate every bit of your pad thai.”
She pushed his hair off his forehead and wiggled her arms around his neck. “And some of yours.”
“I wasn’t going to bring that up.”
“Did you learn to cook a big country breakfast from the Food Network?”
“Not yet.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to settle for this.” She nudged his head down, his lips toward hers.
“K.C....”
“Uh-huh?”
His hand slipped between them, sliding over her abdomen and up to her breast. “I love you.”
He said those words so rarely. She knew what they cost him. Her breath caught. Her throat seemed to close. She cleared it. “It’s mutual. You know that.”
“How do things get so messed up?”
“Let’s just spend some time straightening them out.”
“I like the sound of that.” Then he kissed her.
* * *
An hour later, Isaac was sleeping so soundly that Kendra was able to slip out of bed and shower without him so much as moving. She grabbed her keys and went out into the clearing to her car.
When she returned half an hour later, coffee was brewing in the kitchen, and judging from the discordant rattle of the old water pipes, Isaac was in the shower. She set the table, and laid out the coffee cake and newspaper she’d purchased. When he came in, hair wet and shirt unbuttoned, she was lounging at the table, reading the headlines.
“Not the New York Times,” she said. “I know you need the comics.”
He kissed the top of her head before going to the counter to pour his coffee. “The Post?”
“Uh-huh.”
“My favorite journalist hasn’t written anything in a while.”
“Nor has she had much desire to.”
