The temptation was intense, like standing in front of a blast furnace in a fur coat.
But I took a step away, refusing to follow his lure like some dumb fish, attracted to shiny objects. I was better than that.
“Who is she?” I asked. “The dealer.”
Carter’s face turned to stone, and I knew that if he didn’t answer me, I’d leave and never think of him again. Never want him. Never dream of his hands and those lips—ever again.
This ill-conceived affair would be over before it really began.
“My mother,” he breathed.
Shock rippled through me. It was hard, actually, not to laugh in sheer nervous reaction.
“Your mo—” Carter put his finger against my lips, a touch that gathered and pulled between my legs.
“Please,” he whispered, looking somehow pained and lost, as if saying the word mother had ripped the skin off an old wound. “Not here. I’ll tell you, just not here. I’m sorry for the way I acted in there. It was a shock…I guess…to see her. I reacted badly.”
I ran a trembling hand over my hair.
It was one thing to desire him. Another to like him. But this…this new river of sneaky, dangerous emotion that began to swirl through me needed to be avoided. I will not care. Caring would be a disaster.
“I’ll take you home,” he said, apparently reading my sudden misgivings.
He lifted his finger to summon a cab as if the usually elusive creature were simply a dog waiting for a command.
Quickly, I reached up and pulled down his arm. I wouldn’t care about him, but I didn’t want to go home. My home was sad. Empty.
His eyes flared as if thinking what I was thinking. That this night, despite its wild ups and downs of surprise and success, was too lonely.
“You want to go celebrate?” he asked. “The beginning of your academy? We could go get some pie.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“I think hell just got chilly.”
I smirked and shook out my hands, flooded with nervous energy. The excitement of the night, being with this man, made me feel a little too alive in my skin. As if I’d had too much coffee. “I would walk, though.”
“In those shoes?”
“I’ve got sneakers in my car,” I said, leading him toward my station wagon up the street.
A walk was safe. I wouldn’t have to worry about cozy alcoves or him touching my feet. I could cool down, get my hormones back under control.
But he tucked my hand into his arm and the tension of his muscles under the fine fabric of his jacket felt anything but safe.
“Amelia?” he asked an hour later as we walked along the river. “Are you giving birth to an old woman?”
“What’s wrong with Amelia?”
“Nothing. If you’re eighty years old.”
“It’s a lovely name,” I said, feeling as if the night had taken a magical turn and had suddenly been dipped in sugar. Within the first ten minutes of our walk down Third Street, I’d given up any notion of feeling safe with this man. We walked side by side, his hip rubbing mine, his muscles under my hands, and now I was charged with power.
A humming desire churned through me, and every time he turned, putting his hand to the small of my back, I felt like I could light up the night.
“You know for sure you’re having a girl?”
“The doctors haven’t told me, but I know.”
“Feminine intuition?”
“Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not. I have great respect for feminine intuition.” His grin was boyish, and I was so intrigued, so beguiled it was hard not to curl myself into his arms and push back the wind-tousled hair over his forehead.
“I just feel like I know this little person and I know she’s a girl. Like I understand her and she understands me and we’re making our way through this together.”
I honestly didn’t understand why I was talking to him like this, as if these little secrets, these details about the way my brain worked, were nothing. Small talk. Flirtation even. I kept laying myself out there like it didn’t matter.
His fingers feathered through my hair, brushing it off my face, and I nearly sighed with pleasure. But then his fingers were gone and I awkwardly turned away, staring at the city decked out in its Christmas finery.
White lights on the trees, the old state building lit up in red and green.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” he said.
“It is,” I agreed, surprised he thought so. “You like Christmas?”
He shrugged. “I did, you know, as a kid. I suppose now it’s just another day.”
“My mother goes overboard,” I said. “Starts shoving Christmas down my throat right after Halloween. I’ve started to like Easter just to be contrary.”
His lip kicked up, but his eyes were still on the city. “I envy you,” he said. “With the baby. You have a reason to love the holidays again. So many traditions to pass on. When I was a kid, my grandmother used to make us wait on the stairs until she’d showered and done her hair and put on her makeup.” He smiled, shaking his head. “It was torture. I can’t wait to do that to my kids.”