Warrick was tired. So tired. Maybe it was the fight for his company. Maybe it was the fight to resist Sara. But he just wanted a normal, easy night. Working at the office wasn’t doing it for him anymore. And resisting Sara was beginning to seem hopeless. He took the stairs down to Sara’s floor and was only mildly surprised to find her in her office.
“Pitiful.” He leaned against the door jamb and waited for her to look up. Those wide brown eyes met his and kicked his heart into overdrive. Those eyes of hers got him every time.
“You’re one to talk,” she said. She smiled, but there was a shadow behind her eyes he couldn’t decipher. He found himself wanting to.
He told himself he was just being friendly. That this was all part of the plan to practice being a normal guy. To practice hanging out and having friends, but a small part of him was starting to recognize the lie.
“Dinner?”
She hesitated so he pushed. He wanted to be with her. “Come on, dinner never hurt anyone.”
“Okay.” She shut down her computer and grabbed her keys, sticking them in the small bag she threw over one shoulder.
They walked in silence across to the park. It was quiet, but on the other end a lone hot dog vendor waited to take their orders.
Warrick turned to Sara to let her order.
“Two plain.”
He turned back to the vendor. “I’ll take two with the works.” Warrick looked back at the park where he could see the shadow of a man. It was Sara’s homeless friend. “Add another couple of plain dogs and three sodas, please.” He pulled out his wallet and handed a few bills to the man. “Keep it,” he said, raising a hand when the man began to count out his change.
“Thank you.”
Warrick juggled the hot dogs while Sara grabbed the sodas and they headed back into the park. “Here.”
They settled on a bench and Sara picked up the extra hot dogs and one of the sodas and walked toward where Warrick had seen her homeless friend. “Buddy?” She called out. “Are you hungry?”
Warrick spotted the man walking away. “Sara.” He pointed toward the path leading out of the park on the other side. “There.”
“Buddy! Are you hungry?” Sara called to him, but he only sped up.
“Huh.” She turned back to Warrick. “Maybe he’s not in the mood for company. We can leave it for him here. He might come back after we’re gone.”
Warrick nodded and she settled next to him on the bench. The conversation as they ate was easy and light. Too light, Warrick noticed. There was something going on with her. Something she wasn’t telling him. But as they talked, her façade seemed to fall away and she relaxed.
“So, tell me why you were at the office on a Saturday. I have an excuse. You got nothing.” Warrick cracked open one of the sodas for her.
“There was a time I never would have eaten hot dogs and soda for dinner. I was too much of a health nut.” Sara frowned at the food, but took a bite. It was heaven, just as she knew it would be. Somehow the hot dogs you got from a street vendor always tasted better than the ones at home.
“It’s good for you.” Warrick grinned. “Now, really, why are you working?”
“I don’t have an excuse. I was just bored, so I came in to work on the go-go gadget model.”
He laughed. “You’re calling it that now?”
Now it was her turn to grin. “It’s a working name.”
“Are you hoping to bring that one to market, too?”
“Maybe.” Sara crumpled the foil from her first hot dog and opened her second, then began applying the mustard packets she’d grabbed from the vendor. “It’s turning out to be a challenge to get the right pressure and to find a material that allows the telescoping effect without being too heavy.”
“Make any progress today?”
She shook her head. “I wanted to run some figures on a material a friend told me about, but I looked into it more when I got here. It looks like it has some of the properties I would need, but over time it would break down too much to be worthwhile. The life of the prosthesis would likely be a year or two at the most.”
“Could it work for a child’s prosthesis? They’re already going through them at that rate anyway because of growth, right?”
Sara sat up and tilted her head. “Possibly, but there are some kids whose growth rate during any given year wouldn’t be fast enough to go through it before the material wears too thin. In those cases, the failures wouldn’t only be frustrating, they might be dangerous if the prosthesis gives out unexpectedly.”
“True. I hadn’t thought of that.”
She grinned at him. “It’s still fun to try to perfect it for myself. I mean, really, who doesn’t want an arm that grows another two or three inches when you need it?”
He laughed. He was doing that a lot more frequently with her.
Warrick leaned in, holding her gaze as he moved closer, giving her a chance to move away. She didn’t.
He kissed her. Softly at first, but the small touch of his mouth to hers lit a fire somewhere inside, and he deepened the connection. He reached for her, pulling her closer to him as a small moan escaped her. God, she did things to him.
She raised her hand and ran her fingers through his hair.
The sensation had a primal effect. He didn’t care that they were in the middle of the park. He wanted to drag her closer, still. To peel away her clothes and reveal every inch of her. Then to cover her back up. Not with clothes, but with his kisses, his touch, his body.
Why did this always happen when they had an audience? He pulled back, not because he wanted to, but because she deserved more than to be mauled on a park bench. The thought was a fierce reminder. She deserved more. More than him. More than a man who’d done the things he’d done. Who couldn’t love her the way she deserved to be loved.
Because there was no way he could. His wife was gone. He knew that. It wasn’t even about still being in love with Vicki. But Warrick could never let himself love the way he’d loved Vicki again. That just couldn’t happen. Letting someone down when you loved them the way he’d loved Vicki…seeing what that did to a person to let them down in that way. He couldn’t go through that again.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He cursed under his breath and looked out at the fountain in the center of the park as he worked to get himself under control. The apology spoke more to the fact that he was sorry he couldn’t be what she needed, but he knew it would sound like he was just apologizing for getting carried away in the moment. That was fine. Better she think that than go into the truth and have to explain why he wasn’t—never could be—good enough for her.
He hated the way she shrugged like it was nothing and turned away from him. She picked up her soda and drank and then talked, filling the silence as he sat there calling himself every name he could think of. Every name for idiot and asshole he could dream up. He watched as she brushed it off like it was nothing, just as she always did, but he’d begun to be able to see through the mantle of toughness she often wore. And it made him hate himself all the more.
Tyvek watched the couple, his heart cracking again. She was with him. Warrick had lured her in again. He had to be trying to use her to trap Tyvek.
He’d thought she was smarter this time. That she’d learned and wouldn’t be so easy to entice now that she’d seen where loving him had gotten her. The truth was, she’d just never been strong enough to resist him. Try as he might, Tyvek had never been able to make Vicki see that Warrick Staunton was wrong for her. To make her strong enough to open her eyes and see the truth before her.
A tear fell as he watched and he swiped at it, letting anger creep up to burn out the pain. Anger and rage to cleanse and stop the heartache. If he didn’t let the rage take over, he wouldn’t survive watching her go down this path. Not again. Not this time. This time, things would be different.