LITMIR.BIZ

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her again. “And L.A. was this mother’s hell,” she said, her voice rather sharp. “Kyle was headed for serious trouble, and I was not going to let it happen.”

      His gaze snapped back to her. “He never came around? After he found out…?”

      He paused, clearly uncomfortable. She’d been so focused on the stupid things she’d done, she’d forgotten Rider had met Kyle, however briefly, in the days he’d been with her after the crash. And that his concern had stretched to both of them. Perhaps if she’d been more aware of that, she would have seen that he’d merely been being kind, not sending an invitation to the widow.

      And suddenly she knew she couldn’t go on like this. If she were to get through the time he would be here, she couldn’t handle the strain of either trying to dodge him or feeling this horrible knot in her stomach every time she saw him. Not on top of dealing with Kyle and keeping up with her students.

      She bit her lip, not knowing how to say it, then finally just blurted it out. “Could we talk?”

      His brows furrowed for a split second, in what she thought was a flinch. “Is that talk with a capital T?”

      The woman she’d once been might have given up. Might have ignored the elephant in the kitchen, hoping it would magically vanish, as she had done with too much else. The woman she was trying to be would not.

      “Let’s just say—” she looked around at the people who had exited the meeting and were now milling about, some glancing their way “—that I don’t want to do it here.”

      “Paige, is this necessary?”

      She hadn’t really considered that this might be as distasteful to him as to her. He’d probably managed to forget all about that night, until he’d walked into that meeting and seen her, the painful reminder.

      It would be better for both of them, she thought. She was sure of that. “It’s necessary for me,” she insisted.

      He let out an audible breath. “All right. I’ve got meetings the rest of the day. What about dinner?”

      She frowned; that sounded too much like a social occasion, and while this wasn’t really business—except the unfinished, personal kind—she didn’t feel comfortable with the implications of a formal dinner engagement.

      “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly when she didn’t answer. “I should have realized you wouldn’t want to do that. Later this evening then?”

      “Fine,” she said, wondering why he suddenly sounded so odd.

      He appeared to be thinking for a moment. “The overlook?”

      The deck built out over the steepest slope down to the beach would most likely be private enough. And convenient, she thought sourly, if she decided to jump off.

      “Fine,” she repeated. “You just got here, do you know where it is?”

      “Theoretically, from the plans. I need to check it out in person, anyway.”

      He sounded more natural now, but still stiffer than before. Dreading this, she assumed. “It won’t take long,” she assured him. “Eight?”

      “Fine.” He echoed her acceptance.

      “All right.” She became suddenly aware that several of the people from the meeting were still lingering, and she realized they must be waiting for him. “I’d better go. People are waiting to speak to you, I think.”

      “Seems to be my lot in life today,” he muttered.

      She winced inwardly, but said nothing as she turned and hurried back toward her bungalow. After tonight it would truly be over. She would deliver her long-overdue apology, he would hopefully accept it when he understood she was as embarrassed as he, and they could both put that night behind them.

      “I’m going with you.”

      “No,” Paige said firmly. “You’re not.”

      Kyle eyed her stubbornly from beneath the old, dirty baseball cap he still insisted on wearing backward despite the brilliant flood of sunlight here. The two earrings that pierced his left earlobe glinted, one gold, one silver and black. The second was a rather grim representation of a skull she hated but hadn’t made an issue of, for fear it would make him determined to keep wearing it whether he really wanted to or not.

      “Why not?”

      “To start with, you weren’t asked. Mr. Rider and I have things to talk about.”

      “You’re going to talk about Dad, aren’t you? So I want to go. He knew him. I want to ask him some things.”

      “We have school business to talk about.” That much was true; she did want to give him at least a brief report on the school and the students’ progress. “Besides, he didn’t know your father well at all.”

      “How do you know?”

      “Because he said so. Mr. Rider only met him briefly a couple of times.”

      “Then why did they send him, after he died?”

      She’d wondered that on more than one occasion herself. Wondered what would have happened—or not happened—if they’d sent someone else.

      “I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll ask him.”

      She gathered up the lightweight blue shawl to toss over her shoulders; the breeze had been picking up at night lately, and while it was hardly cold, it could be cool on bare arms. At the door she paused and looked back at her son.

      “Don’t forget you’ve got that history assignment, and the next chapter of Beowulf to read.”

      She thought he swore under his breath, but wasn’t sure enough to call him on it. “Bad enough to have to go to school, but living with the teacher sucks.”

      “You’ve been living with a teacher all your life,” she pointed out.

      “Yeah, but you weren’t my teacher.”

      She gave him a long, steady look. “I tried to be,” she said. “About the things that really count, at least.”

      He turned and walked away, into his bedroom, without a word. He’d taken to doing that recently, walking away from any discussion he didn’t want to have. She was going to have to call him on that soon, convince him that running away from the unpleasant didn’t work. She was certainly living proof of that.

      As she walked toward the lookout, she rehearsed in her mind yet again what she would say. There was no easy way to apologize for having so embarrassed them both, and having thought about how she would do it countless times hadn’t helped.

      How did you apologize for something like that? The man had been there as a representative of her husband’s company, he’d been doing his job, nothing more. They’d been kind enough to send him to see if she was all right or needed anything they could provide. Her emotional state had been so very tangled and fragile, and she had clung to him. And he had let her, comforting her, giving her his strong arm to lean on and broad shoulder to cry on. He’d helped her through the ugly process, even made the arrangements to have Phil’s remains shipped home on one of Redstone’s own planes.

      For nearly two weeks he’d been there to help. And then, one night after a nasty emotional outburst from the grieving Kyle, a night when she’d felt more alone than she ever had before, she’d leaned on his strength once more. He’d held her, soothed her…but when she’d looked up into his eyes she’d thought she’d seen something more, something warm and hungry.

      She’d responded to that look, imagined or not, with a speed and urgency that had astounded her even as it was happening. The next thing she knew she was kissing him. Hotly, deeply, in a way that made her blush at the memory even now, five years later. And the fact that he kissed her back, the fact that after a few moments his strong hands had begun to caress her, to rouse in her startling sensations that made her shiver,

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