“Trained in avoidance tactics is more like it,” she muttered. “You’re the one who’s feeling cornered right now, not me.”
Rick glanced up at the dark night sky. The time had come to either reveal his innermost pain or walk away from Kendall for good, before she walked away from him. Which she’d probably do anyway. He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “Jillian and I knew each other since she moved to town. I was a few years older than her but we became good friends and stayed that way all through high school.”
“Just friends?” Kendall asked.
“Yeah, just friends.”
“But you wanted more.”
He shrugged. “I was a guy. She was a pretty girl. Of course I wanted more.” Rick wanted to get through this telling as easily as possible, no emotion or theatrics involved. “I graduated high school and commuted to Albany for college, trained and joined the police force. Jillian was doing the commuting thing too and had finished her third year of college when she came home that summer.”
“Pregnant.” Kendall lay a hand on his arm and he covered it with his own.
“Four months.”
Kendall sighed.
Even if she had forced the story out of him, her presence and support meant a lot to him now. There was no one else he’d rather share his past with than Kendall. No one he’d rather share his future with either. The thought hit with greater impact and force than a bullet and he sucked in a startled breath.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Yeah right.
“So finish the story,” she gently prompted.
He gathered the fortitude from somewhere deep inside him. He no longer had feelings for Jillian, of that much he was certain. He wasn’t dealing with raw emotion or lost love when he told this story now. But he was coping with a loss. One he’d never fully acknowledged before. Because Jillian’s leaving represented the end of the life he’d always wanted. The life he’d accepted that he’d never have.
Or thought he’d accepted until he met Kendall. Somehow this wanderer had reignited the desire for family he thought he’d put behind him. Ironically, even as she’d fed the yearning, she couldn’t provide the fulfillment.
But Rick couldn’t blame Kendall, not when she’d been honest from the beginning. Because she’d been deprived of love, caring, and stability all her life, she thought she didn’t have it in her to stay in one place. To trust in someone else’s word and deed. Yet she knew just how to provide and evoke all those wonderful feelings in someone else—in Hannah, and in Rick. She was just afraid to reach out and grab those same things for herself.
“Rick?” She said his name tentatively. “If you can’t do this—”
“I can.” He couldn’t force her to stay, but he could confide in her now and still hope she’d come around on her own. Her honesty with him earlier demanded the same truthfulness now. He regrouped to explain. “Jillian had told the father that she was pregnant but he’d just graduated and wasn’t ready for commitment.”
“Nice of him to inform his sperm of that,” Kendall said in disgust.
“I can’t argue with you there.” He let out a bitter laugh. “She was too far along for an abortion and her parents threw her out of the house. It was a scene out of a television drama, not reality. At least not reality in Yorkshire Falls. But she showed up on my doorstep. I was renting a small apartment near the station in town. She moved in and things progressed from there.”
“Uh-uh. That’s too stark a description. Too black and white.” Kendall leaned against the railing and eyed him skeptically.
She studied him as if she could figure out what he was not only thinking, but feeling. Jillian had known him too, but in a shallow sense. She knew he’d take her in and never let her down. But she didn’t understand him nor had she bothered to get inside his head. Her own needs came first, a pattern that continued even after they were married and the panic of uncertainty had passed.
But Kendall was here now, asking about his past, his feelings. She obviously cared about the reasons behind his actions. She wanted his happiness too. In his experience, that quality was rare and he valued her all the more for it. No one had ever known him as well as Rick sensed Kendall already did.
“It wasn’t just a hormonal thing, what you felt for Jillian, was it?” Kendall asked.
Her words confirmed his hunch. She knew him well. Well enough to read his feelings for her? He doubted it, if only because until now he’d hid them, even from himself.
He loved her. And those emotions were out there now for him to recognize, acknowledge, and feel. He wanted her in his future because he loved her. And damned if he knew what he was going to do about it.
As a cop, Rick wasn’t a man used to remaining idle and once he came to a realization, action took over. He refused to look back and say he hadn’t given his all—to any one person, thing or situation. He stretched his legs out as far as the small, confined area would allow and glanced at Kendall.
A humid breeze ruffled her hair and she’d pursed her lightly glossed lips, giving him time to formulate a reply. But as Kendall sat there so stiff and uptight, waiting to hear how he’d felt about his ex-wife then, she had no clue all he could think about was how he felt for her now.
“What makes you so sure that what I felt for Jillian went beyond the need to help a friend?”
Kendall shrugged but he sensed more behind the gesture than a casual dismissal. “You’re the proverbial white knight but not even you would give up your life by marrying someone you didn’t love. Favors and goodwill only go so far. Even for Rick Chandler,” she said wryly. “Don’t get me wrong, I believe you’d
