DINNER WAS TENSE. Although the adults tried to keep up a facade of normalcy, Charm was unusually quiet and a little surly. So much so that, after she’d helped to clear the table, she declared she was going to go to bed, without anyone reminding her it was time.
Mina found it telling that she wasn’t asked to come and tuck Charm in, as she often had been in the past. Instead, it was Kiah who went to make sure she had turned out her light.
When he came back into the living room, he said to Miss Pearl, “Do you think you can manage by yourself for a little?”
“Of course.” She sniffed, as though annoyed. “I got back up the hill from the stream after I twisted my ankle, so I’m sure I’ll be able to get myself to bed without any problems.”
He turned to Mina. “Do you want to go get a drink somewhere?”
“Sure,” she said, not bothering to disguise the frost in her voice. “Just let me go change.”
She was spoiling for a fight, and she knew it. Whatever he had to say, she was ready to give it all right back to him.
Wasn’t he the one, back in Canada, who told her she needed to get on with her life? What right did he have to be upset because she was doing exactly that?
With that in mind, as they were driving toward the Sweet Spot, she said, “If you want to talk about what I told you earlier, I don’t think we should do it in public.”
He slanted her a glance and said, “Yes, I want to discuss it. So, if that’s how you feel, what do you suggest?”
“Let’s just go to the beach. We can walk and discuss.”
But if he thought he was going to berate her for keeping the news to herself, he’d better have a damn good argument, because she was loaded for bear.
The moon was waxing, almost full. The scene at Rickard’s Cove, with its backdrop of coconut trees, would have been romantic if Mina wasn’t simmering with annoyance.
Kiah waited while she took off her sandals, and then they walked silently together down toward the water. It occurred to her that, before they’d slept together, they’d probably have been holding hands, or Kiah would have put his arm around her shoulders, and the memory made her suddenly sad.
“You think I’m upset because you didn’t tell me what was going on, but that isn’t true.”
She’d been so lost in melancholy reminiscences his voice startled her, but it also brought her back to the moment, and her anger.
“Really?” Injecting skepticism into her tone wasn’t difficult at all. “So what is your problem then? Because it sure seems like you’re sulking for having been left out of the loop.”
“That’s not it, Mina.” There was a note of frustration in his voice. “Sure, I was annoyed that I had to hear about Hamilton’s offer at the hospital, instead of from you, but I have bigger concerns than that.”
“Like what?”
“Like Charm’s well-being. Yes, I want what’s best for you, and I know deciding what that is, is your job. It’s just not going to be easy, no matter what you choose. Especially for Charm. She heard us talking earlier, and is upset just at the idea of you leaving.”
Of course, he was thinking about the effect on Charm. What had happened between them didn’t come into the picture, at all.
Not for him, anyway.
“Kiah, no matter where I am, Charm is always welcome. In fact, I’d love to take her to Canada. I can’t think of anything more fun than the thought of showing her around Toronto, or taking her to Niagara Falls.”
“That’s another thought that fills me with dread,” he said, and she could actually hear it in his voice. “Charm in Canada.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me to take care of her?”
“Of course I do. I wouldn’t trust her with anyone else. It’s just...”
He stopped and stood facing the water, rubbing his hand across his cheek, the way he always did when upset.
“Just what?” She spoke gently, realizing they’d gotten far from the topic of her job prospects, but not minding. There was something deeper at play here, and she wanted to know what it was.
“I don’t want her seeing Mom, and don’t know that I can stop it happening, if either of them wants to see the other.”
His words rocked her back on her heels, and before she could formulate a reply, he went on.
“Mom’s toxic, Mina. You know that. She drove Roy to do what he did, and then had the gall to want to fight me for custody when it turned out Karlene and Roy had made me her guardian. You remember?”
“Of course I do,” she said gently, unable to stop herself putting her hand on his arm, out of sympathy, and a shared sense of remembered grief.
It had been one of the worst things she’d experienced. They’d all been shocked and horrified by the tragedy. All except Kiah’s mother, who’d told anyone who’d listen she’d known it was going to happen. That Roy was evil, and a wastrel who’d stolen her daughter from her.
Not trusting Warren, even then, to do it properly, Mina had found Kiah a lawyer who’d petitioned the court on his behalf. Somehow, he’d convinced Mrs. Langdon, or her attorney, not to pursue her own claim, and Kiah had gotten full custody.
Outside the courtroom door, Kiah’s mother had told him, flat out, she never wanted to have anything more to do with him, within earshot of Charm, Mina and everyone else.
It had been horrid and uncomfortable, and one more blow to him in an already tragic situation.
“I can’t let her poison Charm, Mina. Not when she’s just getting to the stage that she’s wanting to hear about Karlene and Roy. Mom won’t have anything good to say about either of them.”
He paused, his throat working.
“And she won’t have anything good to say about me, either. She never did.”
Now she was angry again, but not at him. At his mother, and the soul-sapping hold she’d always had on Kiah.
Mina tightened her fingers and shook his arm, hard.
“Hezekiah Langdon, you listen to me. You’re a wonderful man, an amazing doctor and a fantastic father to Charm. Nothing your mother can do, or say, can change any of that, you hear me?”
He chuckled, but it was edged in pain.
“You have to say that. You’re my best friend.”
“No,” she said honestly. “I don’t have to say that, and wouldn’t if it weren’t true. For instance, if you were a crappy doctor, I’d leave that bit out. Or if you were a mediocre father, I’d be nice enough not to mention it. But I don’t recall our friend contract stating anywhere that I had to lie to stroke your ego, so I’m not going to do it.”
His laughter was more natural by the time she was finished, just as she’d hoped, but she wasn’t prepared for him to turn to her, and say, “So you think I’m a wonderful man, eh?”
Caught in a trap of her own making, all she could do was shake her head and send him a scowl.
“Why’re you always fishing for compliments? It’s one of your least attractive traits.”
Which just made him laugh harder, and when he pulled her in for a hug, it felt so natural to go into his arms, the way she had so many times before.
However, this wasn’t old times, and in the new reality she was living, Kiah Langdon wasn’t just her friend, but had also been her lover. The man who’d shown her more pleasure than she’d ever dreamed possible.
So being hugged didn’t feel safe, or comfy-cozy the way it used to. Instead, her body reacted, heating and softening, her heart rate kicking into high gear, her nipples tightening until they ached.
She wanted him, so very badly, but couldn’t have him, and she searched for something to say to distract her from the need weakening her resolve.
“Do you remember the night by the lake, up at my parents’ cottage?”
There had been several, but he hummed assent, the sound rumbling into her cheek, as though the shared memory had drifted from her brain into his. “Just before we went off to residency. How could I forget? You asked me to run away with you.”
“Yes. I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to hack the program. That they’d figure out I was a fraud and kick me out.”
“Plus, your mom had that breast cancer scare, and your grandfather had just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. It was a bad time for you.”
“But you talked me down off the ledge. Plus turning me down for the freedom flight.”
“I didn’t know it was a flight to freedom,” he said with a soft chuckle. “All I could picture was your dad and Warren hunting me down like a dog, thinking I’d kidnapped you.”
She snorted. “I doubt either of them would have minded much.”
He was quiet for a while, and that was when she realized his heart was pounding, too. He shifted his body slightly away from her and, guided by an impulse she couldn’t control, she shifted, too, bringing his erection flush against her stomach.
Kiah inhaled, his chest expanding, muscles rippling, and Mina caught back a moan of desire.
How could she want him so much, even knowing it would never lead anywhere? Where was her pride? Her sense of self-preservation?
“Why do I want you the way I do, Mina?” Kiah’s voice was quiet, almost contemplative, but rough. “When I close my eyes at night, all I can see is you. When I hear your voice, I remember you crying out my name. It’s like you’ve gotten into my blood, and now I can’t get you out.”
She was trembling, but made one last-ditch effort to lighten the mood, to break the spell of moonlight and lust that had settled over them.
“Are you calling me a virus?”
“If you are, I’m afraid it’s incurable.” Now his voice was anguished, the pain unmistakable to her Kiah-sensitive ears.
It made her realize how much he didn’t want to feel that way, how much the change in their relationship hurt him, although she didn’t know why. And knowing he was hurting made her hurt, too.
She took a step back, easing out of his arms so as to look up into his beautiful, moonlit and shadowed face, wishing she could see whatever it was in his eyes.
“We don’t have to go on with this, Kiah. We can just be friends, no matter how hard that might be. We’ve come too far to lose what we do have, and we can move forward from this.”
When he pulled her back in against his chest and buried his face in the space between her neck and shoulder she thought he was going to acquiesce.
But instead, he murmured, “One more night, Mina. Please. Give me one more night with you.”
And it didn’t even cross her mind to refuse.
Kissing on the beach, in the moonlight, was enough to drive him to lunacy with the sheer, urgent intimacy of his mouth on hers, the interplay of their tongues.
He knew it wasn’t right, that he was flirting with destruction, but Kiah couldn’t resist Mina’s lure, the need that drove through him each time she spoke, or laughed, or simply breathed.
His hands roamed her body, slipping beneath her shirt to slide across the skin of her back, and he felt the goose bumps rising in their wake when he reversed course. And he shivered at the sensation of her hand on his nape, pulling him closer, and her soft breasts against his chest.
Wanting was like fire in his veins, or lava, making him hard, reducing him to a column of desire, ready and willing to be incinerated by the woman in his arms.
Something about Mina spoke to his soul, called to him, so he raced to her like a sailor to a siren.
She’d joked about being a virus, but at times it felt exactly like that. A virus without treatment or cure, that never left the system but flared up at will.
This, he promised himself, would be the last time he made love with her. If this madness wasn’t corralled, contained, it would devour him whole, leaving nothing behind.
“Let’s go home,” he said, coming up for air. “Before I try to make love to you here.”
“We can’t, not yet.” Her voice was raw, as desire-rough as his own. “Miss Pearl will still be up.”
He cursed, dropping his chin down to his chest, her giggles lightening his heart, although they did nothing to tamp down his libido. It was on the tip of his tongue to say he didn’t care, but that wasn’t strictly true. Granny not only had very traditional views on how men and women should behave, but she also harbored hope he and Mina would get together as a couple.
She hadn’t been reticent about saying so to him either, over the years, although surprisingly she hadn’t mentioned it recently.
There was no way he was giving her any false hope by letting it be known he and Mina had slept together.
Resting his forehead against Mina’s, he said, “The joys of being a thirty-five-year-old man who lives with his grandmother. Why do I feel so much like a teenager right now?”
Her giggles increased, but her hand swept lightly across his cheek.
“Because we’re in the kind of predicament teenagers find themselves in all the time. All revved up, and nowhere to go.” She kissed the tip of his nose. “Let’s go have that drink and regroup. Then we can see how we feel after that.”
But he recognized a reprieve when he saw one, and shook his head.
“Let’s just go home. This was a bad idea anyway. We both know this isn’t healthy.” It almost killed him to say it, but he knew it was true. “We can’t be together, as a couple, so we probably should stop torturing ourselves this way.”
Her amusement fell away, and she tried to search his gaze. With the moon behind him, he hoped she couldn’t read the anguish he knew was reflecting in his eyes. Then one corner of her mouth tipped up, and she nodded.
“Okay. Probably a wise plan.”
And she bent to pick up her sandals from where they’d dropped onto the sand, and they headed back to the car.
She’d been on the island for only a short time, but it had been enough to tear his life, his heart, apart. The years stretched ahead, threatening his sanity with the knowledge of what his options were—either seeing her all the time but not touching her anymore, or not seeing her at all.
He couldn’t decide which would be worse.