“Hi, Jess,” Kyle said when she opened the door.
“Hi.” She felt like a red arrow was pointing to the slight bulge in her purse that was Kyle’s phone, and she was almost surprised when he didn’t reach out and grab it from her.
His gaze swept over her body, and he smiled appreciatively. “You look nice.”
Trying to ignore the imagined weight of her purse that seemed to pull on her shoulder, she smiled. “Thanks.”
“Ready to go?”
“Yes.” She followed him out the door, and down the steps to his truck. Buckling herself in, she knew she needed to get rid of the phone now, or she would never be able to focus on their date. In a voice that she hoped sounded off-hand, she said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you that Melanie stopped by earlier to drop off your phone.”
He looked at her with a mixture of surprise and something that could have been guilt. “I was wondering where that was.”
She pulled the phone out of her purse and handed it over, waiting for him to ask if she’d read his messages or looked at anything on it, but he just smiled and tucked it into his pocket. When he started up the truck and began driving without a word about his phone, she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed. Maybe she wanted an opening to discuss the messages she’d seen, but if he didn’t bring it up, she certainly had no intention to.
“Where are we going?” she asked, pushing aside the image of him holding Melanie in his arms, telling her that he loved her.
He turned to her and smiled, his green eyes twinkling. “I’m taking you to a place you may remember going to years ago.”
“Hmm. We went to lots of places.”
His smile grew. “Yes, we did.”
That was one thing Jessica had that Melanie didn’t. A long history together. A history that included being engaged and talking about a future together. Unless Kyle and Melanie had talked about a future together. Sighing quietly, Jessica focused on what memories she could invoke that would pull Kyle closer to her.
“Remember the day we met?” she asked.
He glanced at her. “How could I forget? You’d dropped that big stack of decorating books at the library.” He grinned. “And I got there just in time to help you carry them out to your car.”
She nodded.
“I’ll never forget the look on your face when I asked if you wanted to go out.” He laughed. “You looked like you were ready to bolt.” He glanced at her again. “Why is that?”
Because I’d been afraid of getting hurt. She smiled. “Because I wasn’t used to being hit on at the library.”
He smiled in return. “Oh, is that what I was doing?”
“Yes, you were.”
“Well, you ended up going out with me, so I guess it worked.”
She laughed. “I guess so.” She was quiet a moment. “How did you meet Melanie?”
His eyes shifted to her face, then went back to the road. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m just curious.” She gazed at him, waiting for him to begin, but he stayed silent. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Are you going to tell me?”
He laughed with apparent discomfort. “I don’t understand why you want to talk about Melanie. This is our date.”
Though glad that he didn’t seem to have Melanie on his mind, she was still curious about their story. Maybe knowing it would help her in her battle for him. “Just tell me, then we can move on.”
He sighed. “Fine.” He paused. “I was driving home from work one night and saw this woman standing on the side of the road next to a car with the hood up, so I stopped to see if she needed any help.” His voice softened. “Avery was just a few months old then, but she was screaming in the back seat, and Melanie was near tears herself, not knowing what to do. Her cell phone had died and she didn’t have her charger with her, so she was really happy to see me, even though we’d never met.”
Jessica listened in rapt fascination, picturing the scene as he described it. She could only imagine the pitiful picture Melanie and Avery would have made for someone like Kyle who wasn’t one to turn away from someone in need. Especially a beautiful woman.
“Do you want me to go on?” he asked. “Or is that enough information for you?”
“How did you end up going out with her?”
“You really want to know this?”
No. “Yes.” It was all for a good cause, she told herself.
“I couldn’t tell what was wrong with her car, so I asked her if she wanted to use my cell phone to call her husband.” He glanced at me. “I mean, I just assumed she was married since she had a baby and everything.” He looked back at the road. “She told me she was single and asked if I could give her a ride home, that her baby needed to be fed, and that she would deal with the car later.” He laughed softly. “We had to put the car seat in my truck, but once we were driving, Avery settled down.” He paused. “We enjoyed talking on the drive to her house, and, well, the rest is history.”
It turned out that Jessica didn’t want to know. She hadn’t learned anything useful, and in fact could tell that Kyle had good memories of his time with Melanie. Then a thought suddenly occurred to her—he didn’t break up with Melanie because he didn’t want to be with her. He’d only done it because he wanted to be with me. But what did that mean? Is he in love with both of us?
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“Yeah.” That was a total and complete lie, but she’d asked, so it was her own fault for being nosy.
“Here we are,” he said as he pulled into the parking lot of the local bowling alley.
Pushing thoughts of Melanie aside, she smiled. “I remember coming here. Many times.”
He turned off the engine and smiled at her. “Yeah. Maybe tonight I’ll finally beat you.”
She jumped down from the truck. “You won plenty of times. Besides, I haven’t played in a while, so you probably will.”
He took her hand as they walked toward the entrance. “Really? Doesn’t . . . Alex . . . like to bowl?”
She noticed he’d nearly choked on Alex’s name, which made her smile to herself, because that meant he was jealous. Maybe she could use that to help him understand how she felt about Melanie. But there was a big difference. She was trying to rid Alex from her life, while he was still telling Melanie he loved her.
I’m going to have to talk to him about that, she thought, dreading the conversation because it would reveal her own treachery in snooping into his messages. “No,” she answered. “He’s not much of a bowler.” Kyle didn’t respond, and she noticed that he didn’t ask her how she’d met Alex.
After they rented their shoes and bowling balls, they headed to their assigned lane.
“Ladies first,” he said, grinning.
“You think I’m gonna crash and burn, don’t you?”
He laughed. “I guess we’ll see in a second.”
She got in position and released the ball, but as soon as it left her fingers she knew she was off her game. Sure enough, she only knocked down three pins. She turned to Kyle to see him smirking.
“Not such a great start,” he said.
She laughed and shook her head, then went again. This time she knocked down most of the remaining pins, but not all of them. She turned to Kyle. “Let’s see how you do.”
He bowled a strike, and turned to her with a grin.
“Have you been practicing?” she asked, her hands on her hips.
“Maybe.”
“Do you and Melanie like to go bowling?” Why do I torture myself with these questions?
“We’ve gone a few times.” He stepped toward her and pulled her into his arms. “Why are you so interested in my relationship with Melanie? I’m with you now.”
Encircled in his arms, her doubts receded, but didn’t disappear. “That’s just it, Kyle.”
He pulled back and looked at her. “What?”
Biting her lip, she hesitated. “I just wonder sometimes if . . . well, if your relationship with Melanie is actually over.”
“Why would you think that?” He gazed at her. “Is it because I still help her out with Avery?”
“That’s part of it.” She thought about their conversation earlier that day and how he’d seemed to accept the fact that he was not Avery’s father.
“Look, I know I’m not her father, okay?”
Startled that he’d seemed to read her mind, she didn’t reply. Besides, the conversation wasn’t going the way she wanted at all. They were getting off track. She didn’t want to talk about his relationship with Avery. No, she was interested in his relationship with Avery’s mother. “That’s not what’s bothering me. Well, it does bother me, but there’s something else that bothers me more.”
A look of frustration filled his face. “Would you just tell me?”
She gazed at him. “Are you still in love with Melanie?”
A look of shock flashed across his face, as if the question had been completely unexpected, but then his expression smoothed out. “Why would you think that?”
She found it interesting—and distressing—that he didn’t immediately deny it. She knew she was about to cross into dangerous territory, but didn’t see any way to avoid it. “What if I were to tell you that I know you told her that you love her? Recently.”
His eyes narrowed. “Where did you get that idea?”
“So it’s not true?”
His voice softened as he reached out and stroked her face. “I love you, Jess. That’s what you need to know.”
Again, she noticed that he never directly answered her question. She smiled at him, and accepted his kiss, but in her heart, she knew his non-answer was an answer of its own, and that worried her deeply.
Pointing to the balls that had come up the return, he said, “It’s your turn.”
This time they both bowled a spare, and by the time they’d finished, Kyle had won.
“Just barely,” Jessica said, smiling, as she put her purse over her shoulder.
“Hey, winning is winning.”
“As the winner, I think you need to take me out to dinner.”
He grinned. “I think that’s fair.” He took her hand. “Let’s go someplace a little quieter.”
Twenty minutes later they were seated across from each other in a booth at a restaurant in town.
“What are you getting?” he asked as he read over the menu.
“Pasta sounds good tonight.”
“That’s right. I remember you like your pasta.”
She set her menu down. “Oh yeah? What else do you remember about me?”
Pursing his lips, he stroked his chin. “I remember that you always like to drink water with your meals, so that you don’t ‘waste calories on liquid’.” He did air quotes on the last part, making Jessica laugh. He gazed at her. “What about you? What do you remember about me?”
“Well, when it comes to food, you’re a meat and potatoes man.”
“That’s right. What else?”
“You can be competitive.” She smirked. “For instance, I know you wanted to win tonight’s bowling game.”
One of his eyebrows arched. “Are you saying you let me win?”
“No. I was really that bad.”
He laughed. “I guess I’ll have to take you bowling more often so you can improve your game.”
She smiled. “I’d like that.”
As they ate, Jessica began to feel the old camaraderie that they’d always had, and thoughts of Melanie began to slip from her mind. Towards the end of their meal, a man she’d never met before walked past their table. The man was about her age, and he glared at her as he passed. Alarmed by the hostility the man showed her, she looked at Kyle, who seemed oblivious to what had just happened. “Do you know who that is?” She motioned to the man whose back was to them as he continued walking away.
Kyle watched the man, and when the man turned so that his face was visible, Kyle frowned. “That’s Trey Harrington.”
“I assume he’s related to Douglas.”
“That’s his son.”
“Oh.” Her thoughts immediately went to the black roses that had been delivered to her. Could he be the one behind those? Or could they have been from Alex? Dismayed to realize she had a growing list of enemies, she felt unsettled and anxious.
“Are you okay?” Kyle asked, looking concerned.
“It’s just that when he walked past our table, he gave me a dirty look.”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about him. He’s all bark and no bite.” Kyle speared a piece of steak.
“So you know him?”
“I told you that I’ve done work for his father.”
Jessica nodded.
“Sometimes he’s on the job site, so I’ve talked to him a few times. He’s kind of a jerk, but he’s harmless.”
She hoped he was right.
When they got back to Ellen’s house, Kyle took her hand and led her up the steps to the porch. Stopping next to the door, he faced her and put both arms around her waist, then gazed at her. “Thank you for spending the evening with me. It was long overdue.”
His green eyes captivated her, and she felt drawn to him. “I really enjoyed it.”
His voice deepened. “Did you now?”
“Yes.” A sudden feeling of shyness swept over her. “I always like to spend time with you.”
His smile grew. “We need to spend more time together.” He paused. “Are you available tomorrow night?”
“For you, always.” Not that she wouldn’t want to go out with him anyway, but the more plans she made with him, the less time he would have with Melanie.
His eyebrows rose. “Is that so?”
She nodded.
A teasing look came into his eyes. “Even if Alex were to ask you out?”
Mixed with the teasing, Jessica detected a hint of jealousy. “That depends.”
The jealousy in his eyes grew from a hint, to a statement. “On what?”
“On who asked me first.” Now she was testing him—and goading him.
His hands loosened from around her waist. “I thought you were done with him.”
She laughed, knowing she’d pushed him far enough, but her own feelings of jealousy toward Melanie had made her spiteful. She wanted him to know how she felt. “I was just teasing you. I am done with him.”
“So you really never sent the email asking him to come?”
Back to this again. “No, I never sent it. I swear.”
“So he was just saying that?”
Jessica shrugged. “I guess.”
“What a loser,” he muttered.
Though Jessica didn’t necessarily like him calling her former boyfriend a loser, she didn’t protest. “Enough about Alex. What are we going to do tomorrow night?”
“Hmm. I’ll have to think about it. But I’ll come up with something fun.”
“Good.”
He tightened his grip on her waist with one hand, and with the other he tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then he placed his hand on her neck, tilting her head so that their mouths were only inches apart.
When their lips touched, Jessica melted into him, winding her arms around his neck, and reveling in his embrace. After a long kiss, they pulled apart, but heat burned through her.
“I’d ask if I could come in,” he said, his eyelids heavy with desire, “but I think Ellen would frown upon that.”
Jessica gazed at him, wanting him as much as he wanted her. But there was a difference. Until he firmly committed to her, she wasn’t willing to give herself over to him. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she finally said.
He nodded, then kissed her again. “I love you, Jess.”
His words made her heart sing, and she smiled. “I love you too.”
That night as she tried to fall asleep, she replayed her date with Kyle. After spending the evening with him, she felt better about their relationship, although she couldn’t suppress the distressing thought that the man she was in love with—and by all accounts was in love with her—was also in love with Melanie.