CHAPTER 1
“How long will you be in town?” Dr. Vaughn Brooks’s deep bedroom voice lifted Benita Hawkins from that place halfway between sleep and wakefulness.
She shifted under the sheets of Vaughn’s king-sized bed and spooned into his warm naked body. “About one month. Aunt Helen said her former colleagues planned to make the announcement about the endowed chemistry chair they’re naming in her honor either at the end of April or the beginning of May.”
Doctor Helen Gaston—Ms. Helen to the residents of Trinity Falls, Aunt Helen to Benita—was a retired chemistry professor. She used to teach at Trinity Falls University. The endowed chair was a gift to the university from one of her former students.
“A month?” The Trinity Falls University music professor played her body like a virtuoso. His large, hot hand left a trail of electricity from her waist, over her hip, stopping at her thigh. His sleepy drawl played a sexy melody with her stomach muscles. “That’s about thirty times longer than your usual visits.” His hand moved again, back up her thigh, along her hip, past her waist to cup her breast.
Benita pressed into his hold. Her nipple pebbled. “I have a job back in Los Angeles, remember?”
“You work for yourself.” Vaughn molded her breast in the palm of his hand. He whispered into her ear. “You can afford to be away longer than an overnight trip.”
Benita swallowed a groan as Vaughn’s caresses reawakened her recently sated passion. “Overnight trips? Stop exaggerating.”
Vaughn’s hair-roughened chest moved against her back. “I’m not. When you came home for the Trinity Falls Sesquicentennial Celebration, you arrived Friday night and left Saturday.”
Benita rolled over to face him. His left arm embraced her loosely. His erection flexed against her stomach. She rested her right hand on his bare broad shoulder and stared into his cocoa eyes. Her gaze roamed his beloved nutmeg features: well-shaped, clean-shaven head, high cheekbones, strong nose, full lips, and wicked goatee.
“As much as I’d like to spend a month with you every time I come back to Trinity Falls, I can’t usually be away from work that long.”
Vaughn sighed. “Benny, you have your own business. You’re an entertainment lawyer and business manager. You can work from anywhere. You can work from here.”
Familiar arguments. They’d been having them since Benita moved to L.A. three years ago. Why wouldn’t he understand her need for more than Trinity Falls? “When my clients are in the middle of contract negotiations and business dealings, they don’t want to wait a week, much less a month for me to weigh in on their contract offers.”
“That’s why you have e-mails, cell phones, and faxes. You don’t have to be in Los Angeles to negotiate for your clients.”
“I’ve made a life for myself in L.A.” She searched his almond-shaped eyes. Would he ever accept her need to spread her wings? “Since we were in high school, you knew I’d eventually leave Trinity Falls.”
“Yes. You and Ean had that in common in high school. But Ean eventually came to his senses. He moved back two years ago.” Vaughn rolled onto his back. Suddenly, the mood was gone.
Benita lay on her back as well. The late afternoon sun penetrated Vaughn’s cream venetian blinds to illuminate his dark wood bedroom furnishings. “I guess it depends on your point of view. From my perspective, Ean lost his mind.”
“No, he lost his father.” Vaughn’s retort was muted. “That’s when he realized the rat race wasn’t for him.”
Ean Fever had been a year behind Vaughn and Benita at Heritage High School. Like Benita, Ean had earned a law degree. He’d made partner with a prestigious firm in New York City, the culmination of his childhood dream. Then his father had died of cancer. That’s when Ean had thrown away the life he’d worked so hard for in New York. He’d returned to Trinity Falls and opened a little law practice in the town center. Nuts.
“Ean probably just needed a break.” Benita had known Ean’s father. Paul Fever’s death had been a great loss for the community. She could only imagine how devastating it had been for the Fever family. “He didn’t have to move back to Trinity Falls.”
“You sound like your parents. What happened to the college student who spent her Christmas breaks and most of her summer vacations in Trinity Falls?”
Vaughn was right. Benita’s parents had been very vocal about hating Trinity Falls. They’d had their reasons: nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to see, no one to talk to. As soon as she’d graduated from college, her parents had moved to Alexandria, Virginia. Benita had followed them before moving on to L.A. It was probably natural that she’d adopt at least some of their attitudes. But unlike her parents, she didn’t hate her hometown. She just wanted more.
Benita turned her head on the fluffy pillow and studied Vaughn’s profile. The softness of youth had hardened into the strong, determined lines of adulthood, complete with an attractive goatee. In high school, she’d been crazy about the boy. As a woman, she could easily fall in love with the man. Maybe she already had. But how foolish would that be if she wanted to build a life in L.A. while he stubbornly remained in Trinity Falls?
“If you really want to spend more time with me, you could move to L.A.” Benita offered him a hopeful smile. But she may as well have saved herself the effort. They’d played this verbal game before.
Here we go again. The thought flickered across Vaughn’s mind. His sigh was long and deep. Why did they keep rehashing this debate? “Trinity Falls is my home.”
“We could be happy in L.A.”
“You mean you could be happier if someone you knew was with you.” Vaughn searched Benita’s hazel brown eyes, noting the midnight ring around the irises. “There’s a town full of people you know and who know you right here. You’ve given Los Angeles three years, Benny. If you’re not happy there, it’s time to come home.”
Benita’s eyes widened. “What makes you think I’m not happy in L.A.?”
&nb
sp; “I’ve visited you six times. You’re a different person when you’re in Los Angeles. You’re stressed and distracted.”
She frowned. “I thought you enjoyed visiting me.”
Vaughn shook his head against the pillow. “I want to be with you. But when we’re in Los Angeles, you’re mentally somewhere else. You’re checking e-mails, texting, or answering a hundred calls a day. And when we’re out, you’re less interested in us than in who might see us.”
Benita seemed to become more tense with every accusation Vaughn aimed at her. “I didn’t know you felt this way.”