LITMIR.BIZ

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studied her for a moment or two. “I think you have. Survived, that is.”

      “We all have, or we wouldn’t be here.” She shook her head. “What do you want Chloe and me to do?”

      “I want to know what her favorite colors are. And to know if we’re going for a realistic representation of a cat or an abstract fun version. Can you ask your daughter which she’d prefer?”

      “I can already tell you that. She adores Jetta. She would probably love it if the kite could look very similar to him. Right down to his different-colored eyes.”

      “I didn’t notice the cat having two different eyes.”

      “Really? Most people see it right away. He has one bright green and one amber.”

      “My mind wasn’t exactly on your cat’s eyes.”

      That sardonic sense of humor was back in full force.

      Well, she wasn’t going to touch that last comment. Not if she knew what was good for her. Although that was debatable at the moment. “Well, they’re one of his best features.”

      “I thought his best feature was his purr. It was loud. Really loud.”

      “Jetta does have quite a motor on him. Is that why you decided to make the kite version of him purr?”

      “It seemed fitting. Although if Chloe had decided on a unicorn cat, I was going to have a little trouble figuring out that aspect of it.”

      “I’ll ask her, just to make sure, but I’m pretty sure she would love having Jetta immortalized in kite form. Without the horn.”

      “You got it.” He pushed the button to get back into the elevator. It was then that she noticed her department was bustling just as much as it normally was with nurses running here and there as they went about their tasks. It was strange that she hadn’t been aware of any of that until just now. No, she’d only had eyes for the man with the kite. And it looked as if he was aiming to win.

      He already had, as far as she was concerned. That worried her. But she could think about that later.

      “Thank you again, Kaleb, for doing this for her.”

      “My pleasure.” This time when his hand came out, he didn’t stop midmotion. Instead, he pressed his fingers to hers for several seconds until the elevator door dinged its arrival. Only then did he move away. But the feel of his skin against hers followed her long after the doors had closed behind him.

      * * *

      Kaleb woke with a start. Staring up at the dark ceiling, he tried to figure out where he was. His room.

      He untangled himself from the sheets and hung his legs over the side of the bed, propping himself up with his hands. He was drenched in sweat.

      Again.

      Dammit.

      He dragged shaky fingers through his hair, trying to slow his breathing.

      Those dreams were now following him from sleep to sleep. He shifted his head from one side to the other, letting the crack of his cervical vertebrae anchor him back to reality.

      His daughter was not trapped in a bottomless well. Nor had he been trying everything in his power to reach her: ropes, life preservers, scaling the walls with his bare hands. He lifted his fingers to look at them. No bloody stumps.

      “It was a dream.”

      A never-ending nightmare was more like it.

      Because the reality was that Grace had never been trapped in a well. Instead the vision always morphed to something closer to reality. His daughter, splayed on a hospital bed, her face paler than pale. Only in his dream, he reached for her chart to see what treatment her doctors recommended only to find the first page stamped with the words Too Late. As was the next. Page after page held the same terrible phrase. He flipped faster and faster, looking for some sign of hope. There had to be something. Something the doctors—something that he—could do. Panic engulfed him, along with a horrible premonition. He slowly turned back toward the bed.

      This was where he’d woken up each night. With the horror that it was no longer Grace’s lifeless form lying on that bed, but Chloe’s. And on the other side of her was Maddy. And in her face an accusation he’d lobbed at himself.

      Too Late.

      Hell! He climbed out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweatpants. Maybe if he burned some calories, he’d feel better. But thirty minutes in his weight room only left him tired and sweaty. It did nothing to erase what he’d seen in his dream.

      Grace had been dead for five years. He hadn’t had nightmares about her in ages. Was it because of Chloe and Maddy? Were they dredging up old regrets and flaying them open all over again?

      Chloe was a normal healthy girl. She and Grace had nothing in common. Not their age, not their appearance.

      Going into his drawing room, he sat at the drafting table to look at the designs for the kite. It was almost done. Almost ready for Chloe and Maddy to come over and...

      Was that what it was? He was worried about them coming into his space and upsetting his equilibrium?

      It was much more likely that Maddy would do that than Chloe. She’d already upset him in more ways than one.

      Like that kiss? The one he couldn’t seem to forget?

      Why couldn’t he dream about that? About laying her softly down on his bed and...

      Dammit. This was no better than his nightmares. Yes, actually it was. Because at least this was something he could comprehend. The man-wants-woman thing was much easier to understand and accept.

      All of a sudden, being a winner didn’t sound like such a great idea.

      He pushed the kite a little to the left on the table. Maybe he should purposely sabotage the design and lose. Handing Maddy a promise that they could win the prize wasn’t one of his brighter decisions. Because if they won, Kaleb would not get to walk away as he’d told himself a few minutes ago. Winning had consequences. Like the trip up the Space Needle. He could tell Maddy to give his ticket to someone else. But then he’d have to explain why he didn’t want to go. A talk he didn’t want to have. Not with her. Not with anyone on the committee who might also wonder.

      And Roxy, Maddy’s sister, who’d asked him to figure out if she could add fur to a kite and still get lift off, or if it would be too heavy to move.

      Kind of like Kaleb’s life nowadays.

      He sighed and pushed back from the table.

      Maybe he was going about this all wrong. Maybe he shouldn’t be trying to avoid the inevitable. He was attracted to Maddy, and he was pretty sure from that kiss that the attraction was mutual. If he couldn’t get her out of his head one way, maybe he should go at it from a completely different angle. How about if he approached it as he did any other woman? Spend a quick night together at his place. Maybe then he could walk away from that night the way he always did. No strings. No promises. Just a single night of pleasure.

      His gut churned at the thought. Maddy wasn’t like all those other women. And for years, he’d avoided being with women who had children.

      Could it be that that tactic had backfired, though? Had made him dig a rut that just got deeper and deeper with each new person?

      He had no idea. But maybe it was time to test that theory. And working together with Maddy gave him the perfect opportunity to do just that: see if he could get past this particular roadblock. And he could think of no person he’d rather experiment with than her.

      Kaleb yawned, the muscles in his body finally relaxing, probably wondering what had taken him so long to figure this whole thing out.

      Well, tough luck, buddy. You wanted to wake me up, well, now you can just stay awake. Because we have a kite-making contest to enter. And to win.

      *

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