Toys and Baby Wishes (7 page)

"Lexa, I want to see you again."

"Josh..."

"Give me a good reason why we shouldn't have fun
together as we have tonight."

"You don't understand my life.  I have commitments and
I take them all seriously."

"So do I."  After an uncomfortable pause, he
asked, "Is your career all-important to you?"

It would be so easy to use that as an excuse, but it
wouldn't be honest.  "I enjoy my work.  But my volunteer work is
important, too."

"Has that been a problem before?"

Her volunteer work wasn't the only issue that had been a
problem.  But if Josh couldn't even accept the community activities... 
"Yes, it has.  I've found men consider my meetings unimportant.  And they
are important, Josh, because they make a difference in people's lives."

Josh pushed a few of Lexa's curls away form her brow.  So
much passion.  So much caring.  Why?  Yes, she was a busy woman and he'd sworn
never again to get involved with someone like that.  But she seemed to know how
to play and have fun, too.  She wasn't all work.

He wanted to get to know Lexa, to explore the vibrations
humming every time they talked, every time they touched.  "I know what you
do is important.  Look at the difference the senior center has made in Clare's
life.  Did you see her dancing with Jim in there?  I haven't seen her this
happy in years."

"You do understand."

He caressed her cheek.  "I do.  So what do you say? 
Want to spend some time together?"  He could feel her hesitancy as much as
the frosty breeze that suddenly blew against his back.  And he knew he couldn't
stampede her.  "What are your plans next weekend?"

"I'm going to Penn State to see Dani."

"When will you be back?"

"Sunday afternoon."

If he put the power in her hands, maybe she'd understand he
didn't want to box her in.  "Call me when you get back.  Maybe we can go
to dinner or something."

She still hesitated.

He tipped her chin up with his knuckle.  "I want to see
you again."

He leaned forward.  Her stunning brown eyes were wide with
indecision.  Her mouth was slightly parted.  Her soft hair curled enticingly
around her pretty face.  Desire, strong and potent, surged through him.  But he
sensed if he pushed, Lexa would be gone.

Instead of bending his head and exploring her lips, he
dropped a light kiss on her forehead and backed away.

She looked confused.  "Josh, if I don't call Sunday,
it's not because I don't like you."

His brows hiked up.  "It's because..."

"My life's complicated right now."

At this moment, he wanted to be one of the complications. 
He'd give her the space she needed...for a while.  But if she didn't call
Sunday, he'd try again.

***

Lexa plopped her overnight case in her bedroom and stared at
the phone by her bed.  Should she call Josh?  Dare she?  Could he possibly want
to get involved with a woman who was going to adopt a baby?  A woman who
couldn't have more children?  Didn't she deserve a chance to find out?

She looked up his number in the phone book and dialed.

Josh picked it up immediately.  "Hello?"

"It's Lexa.  I'm back."  She wished she could see
his face.  Maybe there was nothing special between them.  Maybe he was like
Richard...  "Uh, do you still want to get together?"

"Get together.  That has a world of
possibilities," he teased.

Her stomach fluttered.

"Lexa?  Of course, I want to get together.  Do you have
a back yard?"

"What?"

"A back yard.  Do you have one?"

"Yes.  But why?"

"Is it big?"

"It's long and narrow."

"Great.  I have a toy to try out.  I'll be right
over."

"Do you know where I live?"

"I checked Google's yellow pages.  I don't need
directions.  I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

After Lexa said good-bye, she felt as if she had been caught
in a revolving door.  He had so much energy, seemed to know exactly what he
wanted to do, where he wanted to go.  She remembered him saying, "When I
have five kids..."  Had she made a mistake calling him?

When Lexa heard a car pull into the driveway to her town
house, she peeked out the window.  She saw Josh looking at something in his
trunk.  She pulled her suede jacket out of the closet and went outside.  His
car was a hybrid.  Josh was gathering cellophane packages out of his trunk that
looked as if they contained pieces of long white Styrofoam.

He tucked the packages under one arm and slammed the trunk. 
When he saw her, he smiled--one of those devastating smiles that weakened her
knees.  She felt inordinately happy to see him.  "What do you have?"

He draped his arm around her shoulders as if he had been
doing it all his life and walked beside her.  "They're gliders.  They
operate on a boomerang principle.  If you fly them correctly, they come back to
you."

She could feel the strength in his arm, the strength in
him.  "How far do they fly?"

"Twenty or thirty feet.  At least that's what the
instructions say.  We'll see."

They crossed the front yard and walked along the side of the
house to the back.  Lexa glanced at the packages under his arm. 
"Instructions.  Does that mean we have to put them together?"

He shrugged.  "They're supposed to be easy to
assemble.  We don't have to paste on the decals before their maiden
voyages."

Josh and Lexa sat on the back porch steps and ripped open
the packages.  Lexa watched Josh maneuver the wing across the body of the
glider.

He glanced at her and asked, "How was your visit with
your sister?"

"It was fine."  Lexa wished she could tell Josh
all about it.  It would be wonderful to be able to confide in someone like Dani
confided in her, but for now...

Josh didn't press her further but assembled his glider.

"How's yours coming?"

She wiggled the wings of the plane into the body.  "It
looks like yours."

They stood and walked to the middle of the yard.  Autumn
danced all around them from the orange and crimson leaves on the tall maples to
the brisk breeze that hinted at a November wind.  The low riding sun was
blocked by Josh's shoulders, broad in his denim jacket, and outlined him until
he took on a fairy tale quality.  But Lexa had learned long ago that life was
no fairy tale.

He held up his hand, crossed his fingers, and gave her a
heart-stopping grin.  Then he sent the glider on a test run.

A gust of wind made it veer crazily and crash.

"This is going to take practice," he called as he
chased after it.

Lexa tried to follow the directions, to fly the plane in a
certain arc, but hers too fell on the grass.  She and Josh chased back and
forth for a half hour until Lexa found exactly the right combination of wrist
movements.

When the glider arched, dove and came back to her, she
caught it in one hand.  "I did it!"

Josh approached her and stood at her elbow.  "Now you
can teach me."

Josh watched Lexa's face instead of her hands.  He seemed to
be trying to see into her soul.  When he reached out and ran his thumb along
her cheekbone, she trembled.  She'd never reacted like this to a man and it
scared her to death.

She backed up and he dropped his hand.  With a gentle smile,
he asked, "So what do I have to do?"

He meant with the glider, of course.  She showed him a
second time.

Josh sailed the glider again unsuccessfully.  Looking up at
the sky, he said to no one in particular, "Do I have patience or
what?"  He jogged and retrieved the plane that had crashed.

Lexa launched her glider once more and it came back.  Josh
watched carefully and when he let go of his, it sailed forward, dove and came
back.  "Now I've got it.  Maybe I should set up a section in the store so
we can give instructions." Suddenly he gestured at the sky.  "Look at
that."

The sun was setting and the shadows were long.  The blue sky
had become shot through with purple, rose and orange.

  "It's beautiful, isn't it?" she murmured. 
"Sunsets are like the ocean.  When I look at them, feel surrounded by
them, in awe of them, I get chills and almost feel like crying."

"It's the expansiveness, the miracle of creation."

Instead of the sunset, she looked at him.  "I'm
surprised you understand.  Men usually scoff and call that kind of thinking
sentimentality."

"It's not sentimental to appreciate artistry and
beauty.  Listening to a symphony can evoke the same feeling.  I don't know why
most men are afraid of that.  But I believe if they're afraid of that, they're
afraid of love.  It comes from the same source."

Lexa took a step back from him.  How did they get to the
subject of "love"?

Josh took the glider from her hand and laid it on the grass
next to his.  When he straightened, he rested his hands on her shoulders. 
"For some reason, I scare you.  Why, Lexa?"

His perception caught her off guard.  "I...I don't
know.  I like you, Josh, but there are things you don't know about me."

"I have plenty of time to find out what they are if you
let me in."

Could she let him into her life?  Could she take the risk? 
"Josh, I'm not sure--"

"Maybe this will help you be sure."

He bent his head and slowly lowered his mouth to hers.  He 
began softly but with firm pressure.  After a few moments, his tongue teased
back and forth along the seam of her lips.

Lexa's heart fluttered like a trapped hummingbird and the
air whooshed from her lungs as she opened to him.  Her hand moved from his
shoulder to the back of his neck.  As his tongue sweetly probed, her fingers
played in his hair.

He kissed like a man who knew how to love, knew how to touch
and wanted to be touched in return.  She'd been kissed before.  All kinds of
kisses--beard scratching kisses, invitation to bed kisses, weak kisses,
domineering kisses.  But Josh's kiss was lyrical, gentle yet masterful, giving
yet taking, and evocative, so evocative.  It wasn't just his lips and tongue,
but the tenderness of his hold, the exciting unfamiliarity of his long, strong
body.

Josh's hand released hers and caressed the side of her
face.  She sighed and his tongue became more seductive, encouraging hers to
play.  Finally, he slowed down and ended the kiss.

Lexa stared up at him, disoriented, aroused, and
embarrassed.  "We shouldn't have done that."  She didn't know if she
was trying to convince him or herself.

His voice was husky.  "Why not?"

"Because...because it confused me.  I'm not usually
like this."

"Let's try it again and maybe it will unconfuse
you," he suggested with a renegade smile.

She pulled her arms from around his neck and placed her
hands on his chest in case he might try.

He sighed and stepped back.  "Can you honestly tell me you
didn't want me to kiss you?"  His eyes challenged her to admit what she
felt.

Lexa nervously brushed her bangs to the side.  There was
something irresistible about Josh.  Maybe it was his sense of fun.  But she had
to resist, didn't she?

His eyes seemed to swallow her as he gathered her close to
him again.  The only place to put her arms was around his neck.  The first kiss
had been a prelude.  The second one...  His lips sealed to hers.  His tongue
asked her to open.  This kiss was pure feeling, pure passion, a coming
together.

Lexa's world spun and she hung onto Josh for support.  The
slight prickle of his beard, the fragrance of his cologne, the heat of his
lips, the skill of his tongue intoxicated her.

Josh could feel Lexa's need as much as his--the cataclysmic
potential they shared.  His tongue tempted hers to reciprocate.  When she did,
he took her deeper into his mouth.  She yielded to him and became soft in his
arms.  The hesitancy was gone.

Because of that, his control slipped away until he was
afraid he couldn't grab it back.  His hands had a mind of their own.  They
caressed her back, quested lower, pushing her into his hips.  But it wasn't
enough.  His right hand slipped under her jacket.  His palm molded her sweater
to her breast as he felt for her nipple under the fabric.  It was hard and he
could imagine flicking it with his tongue.  He swore to himself.  He had to
stop this and he had to stop it now.

Josh became harder as Lexa melted into him.  She had never
felt more fully her power as a woman.  The heart of her womanhood tensed,
coiled, heated, until she thought she'd explode.  When his hand touched her
breast, she felt the rippling from her fingers to her toes.  Is this what
making love with Josh would be like?  Not mechanical.  Not rote.  But dynamic,
free-flowing, a road to heaven.

His hand dropped, his hold loosened, his lips clung for a
moment and then released.  Her body cried out "why?" and her mind
answered, Because she had to stop.   She could never give Josh what he wanted.

Josh framed her cheeks with his hands.  "I'm sorry,
Lexa.  I didn't mean for that to get so out of hand."

"It wasn't your fault, I..."  She was an honest
person. There was so much she wanted to tell him, but she was afraid she'd lose
something precious she was beginning to find for the first time in her life. 
Tears pricked in her eyes.

He must have seen them.  "Was I wrong?  Didn't you want
that as much as I did?"

"It was...overwhelming."

He smiled.  "I know.  Lexa, I think we have something
right we should explore.  Don't you?"

"I'm not ready to rush into...into..."

"How about roller skating?"

"Roller skating?"

"Um hmm.  Some night next week."

"I haven't been roller skating in years."

"Then it's time.  What do you say?

The kiss must still be making her brain fuzzy because
without thinking twice, she said, "Yes."

***

"Josh!" Lexa called, clamping onto his arm as they
rolled toward a group of eight-year-olds holding hands and gliding around the
roller skating rink.