Toss Up (The Toss Trilogy) (23 page)

Her heart seemed to float like a helium balloon inside her. Nothing seemed impossible anymore.

He gave her a crooked grin. “…
on one condition.”

“Condition! What condition?” She smiled.

“You’ll see.” He pulled her to him and brought his lips to hers with a sweetness that threatened to make her cry, so she changed it into passion, increasing the pressure of the kiss, then drawing away. He looked at her with his brows slightly furrowed. “Sally?”

“Don’t be sweet to me right now, Jim. I have to stay strong. Okay?”

He stared for a beat, then grinned. “That’s my gal.”

Demarco raised his voice. “Well, Tyler, thank you for your stat
ement.”

Jim took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. “Later.”

They turned back toward the treatment room. The happiness filling Sally’s heart pushed her earlier fears into the background. “Officer Demarco,” she said, “is it all right if we leave now that you have the statements? We’ll be spending the rest of the night at Dr. Donovan’s.”

Demarco gave her a sharp-eyed glance and smiled. “No problem at all, Ma’am. I have the address. If I need to talk to either of you again t
onight I’ll come by there.”

“Let’s go, Tyler.” Jim grinned and hoisted the boy over his shoulders like a giggling sack of potatoes, then led the way to his truck.

Sally grabbed the blanket from the cot and followed, pausing at the door to turn toward Demarco. She smiled. “Thank you.”

He gave her a nod. “No problem. I’ll let you know what we find.”

At the loft, Jim dug out his own sleeping bag, and Sally settled Tyler into it on the sectional. Then she and Jim sat on the old couch by the window, talking quietly, and waiting for Tyler to fall asleep. Sally marveled at how comfortable their new relationship felt.

“I was ready to tear Smith apart when I left your house this mor
ning.” With a companionable arm around Sally’s shoulders, Jim looked out the window, where dawn began to lighten the sky. “Make that yesterday morning.”

Sally flushed and snuggled closer. “What happened?”

“He’s a smart kid—too smart to give me the excuse I wanted to lay into him. He just sat there with his feet propped up on his desk and told me I was an idiot--for not giving you enough encouragement. What on earth did you tell him?”

“Only the truth. That I’d finally figured out you were the only man I wanted.”

“I’d have thought you could have figured that out Friday night when he was all over you in the surgery.”

“He wasn’t all over me.” She sat up straighter, moving out from u
nder his arm. “He just kissed me. Besides, I wasn’t kissing Daniel, I was kissing goodbye to Trent.”

“You were kissing goodbye?”

She looked down and nodded, cheeks flushed.

“To Trent?” Jim sounded incredulous.

“Does that seem so impossible? You must see the resemblance. He’s a dead ringer for Trent except for the green eyes.”

Jim was silent for a moment.

Sally looked at him, puzzled.

“Sally, I’ve never seen a picture of Trent. You don’t have any out in your home.”

She stared at him, eyes wide. “You haven’t… I hadn’t realized you’d never… I put them all away about a year after he died. At first the pictures helped, but then it got to where they made me too sad—I couldn’t be sad all the time, it was bad for Tyler. I made a book of photographs for him—he keeps it in his bottom drawer—and I put all mine away. It helped not to be reminded every day, and when I needed to see him, the photos were there.”

“So, you’re telling me every time you look at Daniel, you see Trent?”

“No. Not anymore. Just at first. That’s why Daniel asked me out.”

Jim’s eyes popped and he tilted his head, looking at her in disbelief.

“That’s what he said.” She twisted her body to face him, needing to explain. “He said I owed it to him to get to know him so I didn’t get him mixed up with Trent anymore. That was after I told him I’d only kissed him because he reminded me of Trent.”

“You told him that?”

“Yes.”

“And then he asked you out?”

“Yes.”

Jim grinned and shook his head. “I think I’m starting to feel entirely too much sympathy for Smith. So what happened when you went out with him?”

“Well, we flirted all through dinner. He—” She halted as Jim raised his arm from the back of the couch to hold up a peremptory hand.

“You can spare me the details. Just cut to the end.”

Right. “Well afterwards, I was still denying what I felt for you, so even though I knew I didn’t want Daniel, I invited him in. I don’t know what I was thinking. He came in, but then he told me he could tell my heart was ‘entangled elsewhere.’ When I told him that the elsewhere was you, he seemed surprised.”

“Naturally.” Jim’s voice was dry. He stretched his arm across the back of the couch again and cocked his head at her.

Sally straightened her spine, leaning toward Jim. “He told me I should be spending time with you, and started to get angry because he thought I was using him to make you jealous, but I told him it wasn’t that at all.”

“No, of course not.”

Sally felt her face flush at the sarcasm in his voice. “Look, I was stupid, okay? And dangerously foolish. I should have realized I love you. I know that. You said you forgave me.”

“No, I didn’t. I said there was a condition.”

“What condition?”

“You’ll find out. So, Smith jumped to the conclusions he hit me with, all on his own?”

“Basically, yes. I certainly never complained about a lack of encouragement from you.”

“No. I’m the one with a complaint on that score.”

She angled her head at him and raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yes.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared out the window at the rising sun.

Sally shot a glance toward the sectional. Tyler was surely asleep by now. She smiled, reached over and ran her fingertips across Jim’s shirt. “You’re so right.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I have been horribly remiss.” She undid the top four buttons and slipped her hand inside to stroke the muscles there. “Please let me try to make it up to you.”

“Well…”

She rose and tugged him to his feet. Walking backwards, she led him into the bedroom, and backed him up against the door to close it. “Tyler will sleep for hours. Maybe I could start making it up to you now?”

His mouth stayed straight, but his eyes crinkled at the corners. “Po
ssibly.”

She stepped closer, pressing against him, and placed her hands on his shoulders, running her fingers up into his hair and angling his head for a deep, sensuous kiss. “Are you feeling more encouraged?”

“Maybe a bit.”

Planting her feet on either side of his, she rose on her toes, rubbing herself against his erection. “My goodness, you feel as if you’ve been e
ncouraged.”

“That’s my natural state.”

She opened her eyes wide and batted her lashes at him in her best Southern belle fashion. “Well, goodness me, now I’m encouraged. Very encouraged.”

His arms wrapped
tight around her, crushing her to him as their hips ground together. She leaned her shoulders back, the better to see his face. His dimple was very much in evidence as he slid a hand up to grasp her tousled hair and arch her head back. “Encouraged, are you?” He nipped her neck and she whimpered, tilting her head to give him greater access. He scooped her up and laid her across his bed.

When he leaned forward to kiss her, she closed her eyes and ran her hands over his arms. The rough hair caressed her palms, and she felt his fingers on her shirt, unfastening the buttons and pushing the fabric aside. When the cool air of the room hit her heated flesh she shivered. A single fingertip ran along the line of her sports bra, across and back above her breasts, then followed the center seam and continued down the midline of her torso to where her navel dipped. A warm breath c
aressed the same path, sending tingles spreading below her ribs.

His hands grasped her hips, sending a thrill up her spine. When his fingers slid up her sides, just above where her skin contacted the bed, she wriggled and caught his hands with hers, stopping the tingly caress.

He leaned over her and nipped her lip, then soothed it with his tongue. His breath caressed her open lips as he spoke, and she drew in the sharp male scent of him. “We can’t have you interrupting me like that. I might begin to feel discouraged.”

She laughed, then grinned at him as he pulled her arms gently over her head. Leaning over her, he kissed her wrist, and nibbled his way along her arm, teasing the ticklish spot at her inner elbow.

Pulling her arm down with a giggle, she grabbed his face and pushed him away from her and onto his back. Straddling him with her legs, she sat on his flat stomach and leaned forward to kiss him thoroughly. When she sat back, his eyes were nearly closed.

As she watched, his eyelids lifted and a slow smile spread across his face, making her stomach tense in anticipation.

He lifted a hand to her face. Gently his fingertips glided from cheekbone to chin, then across her lower lip. “All mine?” There was wonder, and just a touch of reverence in his voice.

She turned her head to kiss his fingertips. “All yours.”

He sat up, his arms wrapped around her drawing them chest to chest. His mouth sought hers, tongue stroking the inner edges of her lips. “Now that,” he rumbled softly, “is encouraging.”

chapter eighteen

Sally woke to the ringing of Jim’s phone. Her head slipped off his chest and dropped onto the mattress as he shifted forward and swung his arm toward the floor beside the bed. Through half-open lids, she saw him lift the jeans he had worn the night before, then she heard the thud of phone against carpet.

Jim swung his legs out of the bed. “Donovan here.”

Sally sat up to watch him. He was listening intently, his gaze unfocused and eyes tight.

“And?” His brows drew further together, but his voice was upbeat. “Good. Thanks, Demarco. And thank Mike, too.”

Then he smiled, and glanced her way. “Definitely… I will… Right.”

Something about his look made her flush, even as relief flowed through her. “What did he say?”

“No explosives or booby traps. Mike brought Sadie over and Demarco said they checked the house thoroughly. They locked up afterward, and Demarco called someone in to keep an eye on the place until we get there. You did want to pick up clothes for Tyler, right?”

“Yeah, I do. But what was in the package?”

“Nothing dangerous.”

She raised her eyebrows and stared into his eyes. “What was in the package?”

He grimaced. “Lingerie and another note. Do you need to know more?”

“No.” She shuddered. “
Yech.”

“Shall we wake Tyler and get moving?”

Sally sighed. “I suppose we should. Too bad Demarco called so early. I was hoping to sleep late.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him and grinned.

Jim laughed. “Don’t
tease me, woman. There’ll be other mornings. Lots of them.” He turned toward the dresser. “I’ll get Tyler going.”

Jim’s fine posterior was admirably displayed as he rooted around in his drawer for a pair of sweatpants. Sally curled forward onto her hands and knees and moved toward temptation,
trying to decide between giving him a love pat or wrapping her arms around his waist in a hug.

Before she reached him
, Jim stepped into sweat pants, pulled them up, and padded out of the bedroom without turning. “You go ahead and shower first.”

Drat
. She sat back on her heels and shook her head.
Other mornings…

The trip to Sally’s parents’ house took a little over two hours. Tyler immediately settled in, playing
Wi-Fi games. Sally opened the laptop, intending to work, but shut it down after a few minutes and reached behind her to put it on the backseat of the truck. Reminiscing, she began to tell Jim about her family’s typical Thanksgiving. “We usually have the turkey around one, then watch football and in the evening play board games. With all that’s been going on, I’m not cooking anything this year, but usually we all bring something. And Mom does the turkey and dressing.”

“How about if we stop and pick up s
ome wine for the meal?”

“
That would be nice. You haven’t met my sisters yet, but you’ll like them. Lee Ann and Richard have two kids, Brian and Shelby. Kathy and Mike have baby Christopher, and Linda’s pregnant. Her husband is Miles.”

“Sisters? I haven’t met your parents yet either
.”

“Oh, that’s okay. Mom and Dad will know who you are. Also, they
invite Pastor Wilson and his family every year. They’re from Nebraska. No family nearby. They have three children. A boy, James, who is a year younger than Tyler, and twin girls who should be…” She thought a minute. “…should be six this year. That’s about it.” She sent him an inquiring glance. “Have you got all that?

He
grinned at her. “Sure, more or less. Sounds like a bit of a crowd to me, but I can see you’re looking forward to it.” He turned his attention back to the road, letting a comfortable silence settle between them as miles rolled by.

Sally let her mind drift, luxuriating in being with Jim, being safe, b
eing able to leave all her worries behind for a while. Her love for Jim felt both old and new at the same time.
Probably it’s been in my heart for a long time and I just didn’t realize it.
Then last night…

When the
stalker broke in and she’d gone running across that field with Tyler, terrified, not knowing what her next move would be, her heart had been screaming Jim’s name. He’d risen from the darkness in front of them like an answer to prayer.

Despite her rejection
that afternoon he’d been there, held by his love.

In that instant, t
he wall she’d built around her heart crumbled and the emotions she’d been denying rushed back in.

Remembering,
her gaze rested on the man beside her.
I am so blessed.

She
wanted to share that feeling with Jim, but looked instead at Tyler, seated between them, engrossed in his game. He normally ignored their conversation, but if it got emotional, he’d tune in. So instead of speaking, she stretched an arm across the seat behind Tyler and touched the back of Jim’s neck in a gentle massage, letting her fingers play in his hair.

He glanced over and
she smiled, letting her heart show in her eyes. What would her parents think of Jim? They’d like him, of course. Who wouldn’t? But how to explain that she was in love with a man they had never met?

It’ll be fine.

She knew her parents would accept and support her as they always had. She didn’t feel nervous at all.

What about Jim?

Was
he nervous about meeting her family?

Proba
bly not.
She couldn’t imagine him being nervous over meeting anyone. He arched his head back against her fingers. “Sleepy?” she asked.

“No, not at all. How did your folks respond when you asked them to keep Tyler
until things straighten out?”

Guess we’re back to the stalker.
She stifled a sigh. “They were delighted to have the chance.”

What if it takes weeks? What about school for Tyler?
Demarco seemed to think things were moving now. ‘Coming to a head,’ he said. Nameless, faceless fears swirled inside Sally.

She pushed them aside, surprising herself. It had been easy to do, and she felt good. It didn’t make any sense. Her house had been invaded. The creep who’d been making her life hell might get in again despite the p
olice—she didn’t even want to think about that—and she might still flunk her Economics class.

And I don’t even care.

No. Not true. She cared. She cared a lot. And the stress was still there, and the fear, and even the pain… but she was happy anyhow.

Well, not happy, exactly… Something she had heard her mother say, something she had always thought made no sense, came to mind. ‘Happy is for circumstances, but joy is for who you are.’

Who I am is a woman in love
, who is loved right back. Maybe the good feeling bubbling up despite everything that’s wrong is joy… I’ll take it.
And smiling to herself, her fingertips still gently stroking Jim’s neck, she settled back in the seat and relaxed.

It took only one look at the home where Sally had grown up for Jim to realize she had come by her landscaping talent naturally. The Craft
sman-style house was set quite a way back from the road, at the end of a winding country lane. With its low-pitched hipped roof, it fit in among the trees and rolling hills as if it had grown there and was surrounded by natural-looking stone formations, bushes and flowerbeds. Like Sally’s landscape, the area around the house pleased the eyes even in winter, with shapely bare-limbed trees and dried, rustling clumps of ornamental grass.

To the right, as one approached the house, was a small pond, iced
over except for a small area inhabited by a dozen or so puddle ducks. The whole place reminded Jim of a Christmas card. All that was missing was the snow.

The morning sun highlighted a porch running the full length of the home. Tapered, square columns supported the extension of the main roof that sheltered it, and drew the eye toward the entryway. Jim parked his truck behind a late-model
Land Rover and a beat-up van of the same vintage as Sally’s. He grabbed Tyler’s duffel bag and followed Sally and Tyler up the broad steps to the glass-paned front door.

Sally reached for the doorknob and went straight in. “Hey, Mom. We’re here.” She and Tyler didn’t pause
for an answer, but headed straight toward the back of the house.

Jim followed, inhaling the scents of Thanksgiving: turkey roasting, sweet potato casserole, and green beans with onion and bacon. It smelled like home. Pies lined the counter—apple, custard, and pum
pkin—two of each. Had he misunderstood? Sally had only mentioned the Wilsons and her family—that would make ten or twelve people—but judging by the amount of food already on the counters, preparations had been made for thirty or more. How much family did she have?

People crowded the warm, cozy room. Some sat at the butcher-block breakfast bar, others stood at counters working on food preparation, and there was a board game in progress at the table near the far wall.

It may smell like home, but it looks like Grand Central Station.

Growing up the only child of single children had never prepared him for this. A little overwhelmed by the sheer number of people, he hung back a bit, not wanting to intrude.

Sally was being embraced by a tall man with faded red hair—must be her father. They shared the same sharp features and piercing green eyes. Like Sally, he had the broad shoulders and trim waist of an athlete.

A woman in the kitchen caught Jim’s eye and smiled, but didn’t speak to him. She was a brown-haired bundle of energy, directing the people working at the kitchen counters without interrupting the smooth rhythm with which she stirred a large pot on the stove. The restless e
nergy and take-charge manner felt mighty familiar. Sally walked up behind her and gave her a hug, resting her chin on the top of the woman’s head and sniffing the air in appreciation. “Yum. Tapioca pudding. I was hoping you’d make that, Mom.”

“It’s nearly ready to come off the heat. Give me a minute and I’ll give you a real hug, honey.”

At the far end of the room, Tyler was already busy kibitzing at the board game and initiating minor squabbles with two boys there. The older was involved in the game and must be Tyler’s cousin… Brian had it been? And the younger was watching, and would be the pastor’s son. The twin girls he’d been told about and the girl cousin were nowhere in evidence.

Sally looked back at him and came over to grab his hand and pull him into the crowd. “Mom, Dad, this is Jim Donovan. Jim, my parents Flo
rence and William McDonald.”

Sally’s mother nodded, smiling, and her father stepped forward offe
ring his hand. “Call me Will, Jim. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Florence and I are delighted you could join us today.”

“That’s right,” said his wife. “Now go sit down at the bar there. Tyler, stop bugging James and take your duffel bag to the back bedroom. You boys can take a football outside if you like. I’ll call you when it’s time to eat.”

Tyler stood immediately and, grabbing the duffel from Jim’s hand, raced down the hallway followed by a shorter dark-haired boy, presumably James.

Jim found himself seated at the breakfast bar next to a man with a j
ovial face and deep brown eyes bordered by curling black lashes. “I’m Isaiah Wilson,” the man said. “Let me grab you a glass of wine—red or white?”

“
Red, thanks.” Isaiah Wilson… he would be the pastor.

Plucking a glass from the center of the bar, Isaiah indicated a sleek-looking brunette with aristocratic features. “That’s my wife,
Catie.”

“So the boy who ran off with Tyler—James—he’s your son.”

Isaiah nodded. “That’s right. And we also have twin girls, Cassie and Melinda. They’re hiding out somewhere, with Tyler’s cousin Shelby, making place cards for the table.” Isaiah seemed ready to go on, but stopped and turned politely to the tall blonde woman approaching them.

“I’m LeAnn, Sally’s sister,” said the woman, “and that’s my husband Richard over there.” A dark-haired man with neat, military-style hair looked up from the board game with a wave and a smile. “Kathy and Linda aren’t here yet.”

Catie, LeeAnn, Kathy, Linda… It hadn’t sounded bad in the truck, but it was worse in reality. How was he ever going to keep this crew straight?

“Don’t worry, Jim. There’s no quiz. Drink your wine and relax.” The pastor handed him a sparkling glass of red.

Jim’s brain woke up. “Oh, we brought some wine too. It’s in the truck.”

As he began to get up, hands dropped onto his shoulders from b
ehind and squeezed, as Sally dropped a friendly kiss on the top of his head. “Stay, Jim. I’ll get it. You did all the driving. You should relax now.” She was out the door before he could protest.

Isaiah sat in the chair next to Jim and smiled benignly. “So, Jim, would I be right in guessing you don’t come from a large family you
rself?