A shiver of anticipation raced through her. “Thank you,” she murmured, then followed him into the study.
She settled on a corner of the burgundy sofa, then nodded when he held up a decanter of brandy. A fire burned in the fireplace. Here the storm was far away. There weren’t even any windows. They could have been anywhere. They could have been the last two people in the world.
As he handed her the glass, their fingers touched. Erin felt the spark clear down to her toes. She didn’t know whether to swoon or break out into hysterical laughter. Both thoughts were equally unpleasant.
Erin stared at Parker as he sat at the other end of the sofa. She was going insane. There was no other explanation for her reaction. Okay, there might be a couple. He was good-looking and charming. He turned her on in a big way. He reminded her that she hadn’t been with a man in years.
All of this would have been easier if Stacey hadn’t been here first. Erin didn’t want to relive her sister’s life at Hawkin’s Point. She didn’t want to have a crush and act like a fool. If Stacey hadn’t written all those things about Parker, Erin would have felt more comfortable experiencing her emotions without judging them. It wasn’t as if she was going to act on them.
But Stacey
Ignore it and it will go away, she told herself. Excellent advice that she was going to take, starting now.
“Does the storm frighten Christie?” he asked, placing his glass on the oak table in front of them.
“I checked on her a little bit ago. She’s fine. She thinks that the thunder is just the clouds talking to each other.”
He smiled. “She’s very creative.”
“I agree.” She took a sip of brandy. The liquid was warm and smooth as it slipped down her throat. “Is Kiki gone?” she asked.
“Of course. I don’t remember who she’s seeing tonight.”
“Your housekeeper is amazing.”
Parker leaned back in the corner of his sofa and stretched his arms along the back and side. The action pulled his shirt tight across his shoulders. She tried not to notice how masculine he looked sitting there, or how much she wanted to lean closer. She wished she could explain her reaction away as the result of too much brandy, but she’d only had the one sip.
“Kiki is her own person,” he said.
“How did you come to hire her?”
He grinned. “She brought brownies to the interview. Robin and I had already spoken with three or four women. They’d shown up in conservative dresses with sensible shoes. Kiki walked in wearing one of her bright jogging suits and carrying a plate of the brownies. After one bite we were hooked.” His smile faded. “She has her reasons for what she does.”
“The men you mean?”
He nodded.
Erin took another sip of her brandy. “I don’t judge her, Parker. Even if I didn’t know about the loss of her child, I wouldn’t be put off by what she does. If it makes her happy and doesn’t hurt anyone, then she should be free to do as she pleases.”
“Not everyone would be so open-minded.”
She shrugged. “They’re wrong.”
He leaned forward and picked up his glass. “You were an unmarried single parent. Did you ever have to do any explaining?”
“Not really. Once people knew that Christie was my sister’s child it was never an issue. Palmdale isn’t all that small but even if it were, it wouldn’t matter. The weather might not be my favorite, but the people are friendly.”
“Do you miss it?”
She met his gaze. His dark eyes held her captive. Maybe it was the night. Maybe it was the man. Maybe it was her ridiculous fantasies about him.
“No. Not really,” she said as the house shook and the lights flickered.
“Looks like we might lose power,” he said and stood up. He crossed to the mantel. There were several candles sitting beside some framed pictures of Robin and himself. He moved the candles to the coffee table, lit them, then returned to the sofa. “The night-lights upstairs have battery power if the electricity goes out. Christie won’t be in total darkness.”
“Good.”
He leaned forward and picked up his glass, then cradled it in his large hands. She stared at his fingers. Her mind was filled with erotic pictures. She tried to shake them off but it didn’t work. To distract herself, she imagined what Stacey would think of this evening and how she would romanticize their quiet time in the study.
Then Erin realized she didn’t want to think about her sister or what she’d felt for Parker. That was the past. She might be experiencing what Stacey had written about in her diary, but her emotions came from her own dealings with him. At least she was pretty sure they did. Everything was so confusing.
“What are you thinking about?” Parker asked. “You’re frowning.”
“Am I? I was just wondering…” She drew in a breath, then decided to tell him the truth. At least part of it. “Do you think of Stacey when you look at me?”
He was obviously startled by the question. He stiffened slightly, then stared at her face as if seeing her features for the first time.
“I did at first,” he said. “Being around you made me remember her more. But now I don’t really think about her when I see you. You’ve become two separate people. Does that make sense?”
“Yes. What do you remember about her?”
“Not a lot.” He took a drink of brandy. One corner of his mouth twisted down. “Obviously we were lovers, Christie is proof of that, but that doesn’t mean I knew her. I was drunk and she-Damn. Sorry, Erin. This isn’t what you want to hear.”
“I do if it’s the truth.” She set her glass on the table and leaned toward him. “I have her version of what happened. I’d like to know yours.”
“It’s not a great story.” He rubbed his right temple. “That summer is a blur for me. All the students blended together for the first few weeks. I missed Robin more than I could have believed possible.”
His confession tore at her heart. Parker had suffered greatly when he’d lost his wife. Erin wondered if she would ever have the courage to risk that kind of love and loss. She loved Christie more than life but she hadn’t had a choice in the matter. The moment she’d held the infant in her arms, her fate had been sealed. But loving a man required a conscious choice. At least that was her understanding. One didn’t just fall in love unexpectedly, without wanting to.
“That must have been a difficult summer for you,” she said.
“Yeah. It was. The first thing I noticed about Stacey was that she was there. Always there, in the background. I resented the students.” He grimaced. “Makes me quite the bastard, doesn’t it? I hated their laughter and jokes. I wanted everyone to feel as sad as I did.” He met her gaze. “I was very angry with your sister. I resented the fact that she was alive and Robin was dead.”
He’d stretched his left arm across the back of the sofa. His hand rested about a foot from her shoulder. She reached up and touched the back of his fingers. She ignored the sparks that singed her skin and the fact that he didn’t pull away. “You say that as if you now expect me to be angry with you.”
“Aren’t you? It wasn’t Stacey’s fault that she was alive.”
“It wasn’t your fault Robin was dead.”
He pulled his hand free, turned and faced the fire. After setting his glass on the coffee table he rested his elbows on his thighs and laced his fingers together between his knees. “Wasn’t it?”
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing. The past gets ugly sometimes. I’ve always regretted what happened with Stacey. At first I was angry and blamed her. She was just a kid, an inexperienced young woman who thought she saw something where there was nothing. I was cruel to her the morning…the morning after. I’m sorry for what I said.”
