The Promise of Christmas. Tara Quinn Taylor

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СКАЧАТЬ she’d grown up. He’d thought about that during the long night, too. Vacillated between great interest in the new Leslie, and anger at her for changing from the kid sister she’d always been. Angry at her for tempting him.

      “I was thinking about the time Cal and I came out of the locker room after a particularly great Friday-night game to find the Saylor twins waiting. They’d set aside the whole night just for us. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”

      Kip grinned at Leslie as he relived, just for a second, those easier days of youth when things had seemed black and white rather than the confusing shades of gray he now knew them to be.

      “From what I remember, that was all in a day’s work for the two of you,” Leslie said, smiling back. “Or a night’s…”

      “Yeah, well, the Saylor twins were…special.”

      “Loose you mean.”

      “Generous is how I’d describe them.”

      Shaking her head, Leslie grinned even more. “You’re an embarrassment to faithful men everywhere, Kip Webster.”

      He should probably sit up. But it felt so damn good lying there, talking to her. Natural.

      “Hey, now,” he said, “I’m not unfaithful. Being unfaithful means there had to be faith to begin with. Promises and vows—which I haven’t made. I’ve never once pretended to be anything other than what I am.”

      “And that is?”

      He opened his mouth with a ready quip, met her eyes, and closed it again, smile fading.

      “I’m honest, Les. I never allow a woman to think she’s the only one in my life.”

      Her grin was gone, too. “Has there ever been a time there’s been only one?” The question was almost a whisper.

      “There’ve been more times when there’ve been none.”

      “No!” She reached across and yanked at his toe before dropping into the chair. “The great Kip Webster without a woman?”

      “I didn’t say it happened—just that there’ve been more times when I didn’t have a woman than when I had only one.” He didn’t join her attempt to return them to the lighthearted conversation of moments ago. “You know something?” he said, completely serious. “That night when the Saylor twins were waiting for us, Cal and I had already agreed to go right home and get a good night's rest. We’d told your mother that first thing Saturday morning we'd move an elderly client of hers out of the house she’d just closed on….”

      Kip could remember that night like it had been the week before.

      “I was halfway to the car with the twins, fully prepared to pull an all-nighter and then help your mom, but Cal would have none of it. He said we could see the twins the next night. I thought he’d lost his mind.” Kip couldn’t find the smile that should have accompanied the boyhood memory. All he could find was the panic that had set in when Jim Brackerfield pronounced him guardian of a five-year-old boy.

      “So you went out with the twins and Cal came home?” Leslie asked.

      “No, I was spending the night at your house. And Cal was right. They agreed to see us the next night.”

      Swinging his legs to the floor, Kip sat up. “But that’s the thing, Les. I would’ve gone. It never even occurred to me not to go. I’m just not the responsible type.”

      When she leaned forward, Kip could see a hint of the cleavage he’d first noticed when she was about fifteen and he’d been leaving for college. He’d only ever seen her twice since then, until now. At her high school and college graduations.

      “You were seventeen, Kip!”

      “I like women, Les. I can imagine meeting someone at a business lunch, stretching lunch to dinner and completely forgetting to pick up the kid from daycare or wherever he might be.”

      “Have you ever had a cat?” Leslie asked.

      “Yeah, how’d you know?”

      “That time mine was hit by a car and almost died and you drove me to the vet. While we were waiting, you told me your dad wouldn’t allow you to have a pet but when you were on your own you were going to get a cat. Couldn’t be a dog because they had to be taken for walks and you weren’t planning to be home every night.”

      Since her words only added weight to the dread already consuming him, Kip didn’t share her humor. “See what I mean? Even then I knew I couldn’t be relied on.”

      “Did you ever forget to feed your cat?”

      “Of course not.” He wasn’t a complete imbecile. “He always had a clean litter box, too. He was almost ten when he got leukemia. I can’t tell you the nights I sat up with him before he finally had to be put down.”

      “There you go,” Leslie said, standing up. “You like to play, Kip, but you’ve never been one to shirk your responsibilities. Take that night with the Saylor twins,” she said, her mischievous grin affecting him in mysterious ways, “you’d have gone, but you also would’ve shown up to help my mother, worked your ass off, then gone home and crashed as soon as you were done.”

      Maybe. But…

      “And that would’ve been a horrible example to set,” he told her. “You know me, Les. I was born wild. If it hadn’t been for your family taking pity on me, I wouldn’t have any idea at all of what family life’s supposed to be like. And I didn’t totally get it even when I was here. How many times did I worry your mother sick because I forgot to call when I was coming here and I was late? Or forgot to come over, period? I was arrested at sixteen for possession of an illegal substance…”

      “It was a first offense, the only offense, the record was sealed when you turned eighteen and no one will ever know about it.”

      “I’m not prepared to be a father, Les.”

      “I know.”

      “I haven’t got a clue about raising a kid.”

      “I know. Me, neither.”

      “But you’re going to take her, aren’t you?”

      His breathing stopped during the second she nodded her head.

      IN A LITTLE OVER AN HOUR, she was going to meet Cal’s children. Leslie didn’t have any idea how one prepared for such a thing. Should she just be herself? Wear a pantsuit and fancy jewelry and pretend she wasn’t afraid, at least in some measure, almost every minute of every day?

      Or should she put on the one pair of jeans she still owned—left behind from a visit to her mother six or seven years ago, when Cal had been white-water rafting—and top it with the pink sweater she’d brought to wear under her black suit? Her black boots would be fine with jeans. And she could wear the butterfly necklace from her Purple Rain collection—it had blues and pinks and violets. Little girls liked butterflies.

      Oh, God, how do you expect me to do this? In bra and panties, Leslie sank onto the white eyelet coverlet on СКАЧАТЬ