Family Love

I even went out on a date or two with Cal. But I was operating on autopilot, waiting for the next rotten thing to happen to me.

Luckily, there was a fair bit going on to distract everyone from my zombie-ish trance. Jace did, indeed, come home to Kentucky. We had a giant celebration di

About two weeks after that, Kent, the man who’d loved my brother so much he made a point to reunite him with his son, and saved the kid’s life in the process, died of the cancer that spread fast after he’d contracted AIDs.

Real Love family epic drama to be sure. But Dom topped it all off by a

Chapter Nineteen

“Angelique, your boyfriend’s here,” Mama called from the kitchen.

I groaned and rolled my eyes before struggling slowly up off the bed where I’d been lying since coming home from teaching a fresh passel of clumsy little girls to dance.

“Stop calling him that,” I hollered down the steps before slapping on a bit of makeup and fussing with my hair. I regarded my reflection in the full-length mirror behind the door. The fact that I still gazed into the same long glass I’d used as a little girl and a teenager depressed me so much I suddenly didn’t want to change out of the dark jeans and ratty T-shirt I had on.

I slouched down the steps to the living room, then into the kitchen, noting with a

“Come on, let’s go.” I grabbed my purse and headed for the door.

Later, after a movie and di

He took a long breath. I took that moment to regard him in the half-light. He was handsomer than I’d first thought. I knew a lot of that had to do with the way he brought me flowers, or my favorite iced mochas, or went on long walks with me along the river, where we talked about nothing in particular. He’d even come to the little recital Gayle and I put on for the girls that had ended with a duet she and I danced together.

His dark brown, nondescript hair was cut military short. His eyes were a compelling shade of dark green. His nose was forgettable, his jaw square, his shoulders broad, his waist trim, his legs long. There was not a single disagreeable thing about him.

And he was obviously smitten with the idiotic woman he’d found facedown in a snowbank, half-naked, beaten up, and raped. I think it was this fact that motivated me to keep my distance.

“You’re a real bitch to that poor guy,” Dom had said to me when he called from his new life as father and brewer in Colorado.

“How d’you know that?”

“Please, sister. How long will it take for you remember the small town you now inhabit?”

“How’s Jace?” I’d asked to change the subject.

“A total hellion. No, more like a hopped-up-on-sugar-and-caffeine hellion. It’s cool. We’re managing. He’s no less than I deserve.”

“I’m glad for you, Dom. It’s good you got away from here.”

“Yeah, I guess. Listen, be nice to that kid, willya? He’s a keeper.”

“Whatever.”

I pondered him a bit longer. Cal Morrison symbolized the opposite of everything wrong with my life—the bad choices, rotten behavior, inability to stay on the right path. He was, in short, perfect.

“I got into med school,” he said, his soft, calm voice having the opposite effect on my nerves.

I threw up my hands. “Of course you did.”

He looked puzzled. As he started to get out of the car I grabbed his arm, suddenly desperate for more than this man’s kindly, hands-off friendship. “Kiss me,” I demanded, my jaw clenched. “Please,” I added, blinking and making a concerted effort to soften my tone.

The smile lit up his face. He pulled me close over the console, threaded his fingers in my hair, his touch soft and unthreatening. I hadn’t realized how tense I was until I let it go at the touch of his lips to mine.

He started off slow, as if he had no intention of really kissing me at first. I stiffened a little when he got serious with it, parting my lips with his tongue, but still keeping his touch light. His other hand cradled my face and I sighed, recognizing a class-A kisser at about the same time that I fell in love with him.

When he broke the kiss, we were both breathless. I grabbed him, wanting more, wanting to never, ever stop kissing him. But he leaned away from me. “No, Angelique. Not tonight. I don’t want to rush anything.”

“Rush?” I had my hand on his thigh, creeping up, eager to feel what I sensed about his reaction to that incredible moment. “Damn, Cal, we’ve been on a million dates. We need to play catch-up, I think.”

He chuckled, plucking my hand off his zipper. “Maybe. But that’s not how I want this to go, okay?” He kissed my nose, but I grabbed hold of his shirt front and slanted my lips over his.

He made a sound deep in his throat that turned me on more than anything I’d ever heard. His hand brushed my breast, and I shifted to give him better access. When I stroked his erection beneath the khakis he always wore, his hips moved, and he dove deeper into my mouth, burrowing himself into my soul. White noise filled my head as my normally healthy libido roared back to life.

“Please, oh, Cal, please,” I said.

But he stopped at that, freezing almost in place, one hand up my shirt, the other tangled in my hair.

“What?” I was breathless and so was he. The noise his zipper made when I slid it down filled the inside of the now-steamy car.

“No,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Not here. Not tonight.”

He put my hand in my lap, re-zipped, and sat, gripping the steering wheel and staring out into the dark. Flustered, confused, my mind racing from one possibility to the next, I got out without a word and went inside. My parents were sitting on the couch, my mother’s feet in my father’s lap. He was watching television. Her eyes were closed.

“I’m moving back to New York,” I declared, daring them to contradict me. “I’m go

Mama sat up and yawned. “Did you fight with your boyfriend?”

“God damn it, Mama.” I hated her even more for reducing me to this adolescent emotional state—or more accurately for sussing out why I was so upset without me saying a word. “He finally kissed me for the first time tonight, and then made me get out of his car before I got what I really wanted.”

My father raised one dark eyebrow. I guess by this stage of his life, after parenting my wild-ass brothers and me there was very little that would shock the man.

Mama got up and stretched. Daddy sat there, having not even moved from his position since I first walked in.

“I knew I liked that boy,” she said, giving my cheek a little pat on her way past. “Will they give you your place back at the school?”

I sighed and gritted my teeth. “They will, even if I have to start all over again.”

I stomped after her into the kitchen. “You’re not sick anymore, right? I mean, I’m not go