Waiting for Your Love (Echoes of the Heart) (6 page)

Clair’s heart seemed to
think she’d been running the final mile of a marathon.

I want to give the possibility of us having more a chance…

She was light-headed, her lungs fighting to take in air, and of course her best friend was there to steady her. Help her. Tempt her to dive headfirst into madness.

“Our mission objective is simple.” Conrad ran his hands up and down her arms, scattering goose bumps of excitement. “We date for real, keep everything else the same, and see where it takes us.”

“Starting now?”

She surveyed the blur of people around them, the wacky family she loved but had been planning to move away from to strike out on her own. Her mother and Rachael were walking over from the pool, leaving Clair no time to make up her mind.

“Right now.” Conrad sealed his challenge with the sweetest of kisses. “You’ve risked everything in business, and look how far you’re come. How about giving your heart the same opportunity to thrive?”

“And you want us to start thriving here.” She knew she must look as panic-stricken as she felt.

“Why waste another second of whatever time we have?” He nodded at the lawn sprawling beyond her shoulder. For a moment he seemed to be gazing at something miles away. “After what happened with Amanda, I’d be crazy to let another good thing slip away if I can stop it. And you and I could be a really good thing.” He smiled at the beautiful July afternoon. “I can’t think of a more perfect AO for—”

“Perfect what?”

“Area of operation.”

“Could you cut out the military jargon just this once?” She poked his chest with her finger.

He grabbed her hand and laughed. “As long as you’re on board. I—”

“Darlings!” Clair’s mother arrived, interrupting them as she kissed Clair’s cheek, and then Conny’s. “It’s wonderful to have you both here. Though I can’t tell you what a surprise it is to learn that you’re finally a couple.”

“Tell me about it,” Clair mumbled. At a tug from Conrad’s hand, she pasted on a smile. “I mean, we hadn’t planned to tell anyone yet. It was a total surprise to me this morning when he said he wanted to come to the barbecue.”

“Under the circumstances”—Conrad kissed her cheek—“How could I let her out of my sight?”

“You must mean the PetClub merger.” Ra glanced her surprise Clair’s way. “Does that mean the gag order’s rescinded, and the family can go public about you beating a path out of town?”

“Oh, let’s not bore everyone with business talk. Not today.” Barbara linked an arm through Conrad’s and led him away, leaving Clair and her sister to follow. “Though I’m counting on you, young man,” Babs continued, “to help talk my daughter out of this crazy merger notion. It’s beyond me why she’d want to leave a man like you behind.”

“Shoot me,” Clair begged Rachael. “Shoot me now.”

“Actually…” Conrad slowed their mother’s pace and reached a hand toward Clair. “I intend to help your daughter fight for everything she wants, wherever her dreams take her. I want her to be happy, just like you do.”

Barbara grinned like a seasoned social warrior. She’d never dream of being anything but gracious and accommodating on the outside. Even if an inferno were raging within, burning her to cinders.

“The happiness of my children is always my number one priority,” she purred in her sweetest-of-honey Southern drawl. “It’s just that all my youngest thinks she needs is work and business and dating casually, with nary a nod to settling down.”

“So you keep nodding for me?” Clair countered. “Like cornering first Travis and then Don on my behalf, and making them think I’m trolling for an engagement ring or worse?”

“How was I to know that you had such a wonderful choice waiting in the wings?” Barbara beamed at Conrad. “Your mother’s thrilled, too.”

“I’m sure she is,” he conceded.

“Having you living in town again, regardless of the unfortunate circumstances that brought you home, has been wonderful for Julianna. She’s so proud of how you’re raising Harper and making such a success of yourself at the hospital. And she’s known Clair since you two were babies. What could be lovelier?”

“I’m a lucky man. My work and family and life finally feel good again. For a long time I wondered if that day would ever come.” He drew Clair into a tender hug. “Your daughter was an integral part of bringing me back to life.”

Clair kissed his cheek, drawn in by his poignant depiction of her being a vital part of his and Harper’s once-more happy life. He cleared his throat before continuing.

“Which is why,” he said gruffly, “I wouldn’t dream of asking Clair to give up a single one of her dreams. Even if her work takes her away from Chandlerville.”

“You don’t mean that.” Barbara seemed genuinely baffled.

“He does mean it,” Clair answered, her heart blooming, and her excuses for not falling headfirst into Conrad’s offer fading away.

At least give it a chance…

He was on her side, unconditionally, the same as always. And he knew how skittish she was about love—even the prospect of wanting it with a man she already cared so deeply for.

No, there were no guarantees. They couldn’t promise each other everything yet. Certainly not forever. And sure, this could all turn into a huge mess at any moment, if one or both of them decided it wasn’t working. But this was Conrad. And she’d thought she was the only one wanting to get closer.

Now that she knew she wasn’t, their friendship could survive figuring the rest out. Right?

She pushed onto her tiptoes and kissed him soundly on the lips. His enthusiastic response blocked out the Cheshire-cat smile spreading across her mother’s face.

“If you’ll excuse us,” she said to Barbara and Rachael, who was gaping.

Conrad chuckled as Clair led him away. “Was that so hard?”

“That was fun.” She giggled. “Imagine rendering my sister speechless. Who’da thought that was possible?”

His hand felt like heaven, settling on the small of her back. “I’ve always said you can do anything you put your mind to.”

“You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, doing this with my entire family milling around us.”

“Wanna bet?”

Anticipation sizzled between them.

She stopped him before they reached a cluster of her cousins, the ones who’d driven down from nearby Athens. The honest passion—and compassion—in his expression settled the last of Clair’s clamoring nerves.

He’d wanted her, too, which was a priceless revelation. But more than that, her Conny had always believed in her, wanted the best for her, and vice versa. And that would never change.

“We’re going to be okay, you and me,” she promised out loud. “No matter what.”

“No matter what,” he agreed.

They stood there for several shocked seconds as the world shifted around and beneath and inside them.

Clair fought the survival instinct to turn back, to play it safe. Or maybe to stay right where they were now, forever, in this perfect place where nothing could possibly go wrong. When the truth was, if they didn’t move forward her heart would never know whether its dreams of her and Conrad and having it all together could be a reality.

And then, sharing one last kiss that left her aching, they turned as a couple to greet her aunt Adele’s oldest.

“Daddy!”

Harper bounded out of the Harper-size tent in his playroom. Clair stood beside Conrad in the doorway.

“Clair!” The little boy cheered next. “Ice cream now? Let me hold her.” He reached for Buster, whom he’d first met several weeks ago when Clair had last PAWSMatched for the miniature poodle. “Cupcake, Daddy? D’you bring me a cupcake?”

“No cupcakes or ice cream before dinner.” Conrad lifted his son over his head, twirling Harper around. “You’re a shameless mercenary, you know that? No hello. No ‘Daddy, I’ve missed you.’ No hug for Clair?”

She laughed at their happy portrait of a loving family. And at how Conrad had always made her feel so effortlessly a part of it.

“Hug, Clair!” Harper reached out his arms.

Her eyes stung a little at his exuberance. Her gaze connected with Conrad’s and held. His expression softened, making the moment even lovelier.

He contained his son’s full-body launch into her arms, softening the impact. With pastry on the line, Harper’s enthusiasm generally veered toward toppling whatever was in his path.

“Oof!” Clair exclaimed. “I’ll most definitely be packing cupcakes next time, if there’s a hug like this to look forward to.”

“Yay!”

Harper gave her a soupy raspberry of a kiss. Then his attention ping-ponged back to Buster.

“She’s so pretty,” he announced, perpetually confused by the gender of Clair’s canine charges.

“Yes”—Conrad smiled at Clair—“she’s very pretty.”

“Keep her forever.” Harper petted the tiny dog who looked more like a topiary. “I love her. Is she ours?”

He asked that a lot when Clair introduced him to a client. Many of whom were last-minute PAWSMatch’s like Buster, who became part of her day when their owners needed to be pet-free elsewhere.

Harper was as animal-obsessed as she’d been at his age. But Conny’s hectic schedule didn’t allow for bringing one more thing into their lives that needed taking care of.

“Buster belongs to someone else.” Clair ruffled Harper’s hair. “He’s not yours to keep.”

“But we could definitely use a little more love in this house.” Conrad smiled at Clair, and then winked at his son. “Right, buddy?”

“Right!” Harper cheered.

“Right,” Clair agreed, trying to match Conrad’s lightheartedness.

Neither of them had used that word yet—
love
—not in a romantic way. They were nowhere close to being ready to. She inhaled, the epic turn they were taking in their relationship hitting home again.

“So, I’ll keep bringing Buster and Matilda for visits,” she promised Harper, “every time I sit for them.”

The little boy cheered again. As he did, her cell phone sounded from somewhere beneath Buster—from the depths of the ridiculously high-end pet carrier still draped over her shoulder.

She rolled her eyes at Conrad. “Our absence from the post-barbecue cocktail hour has been noticed.”

“You think it’s your mother?” he asked.

“Or my sister. We did the right thing, leaving while there were still enough people around to keep Barbara and Ra otherwise engaged.”

She and Conrad needed some alone time, even though she had a ton of things to do this afternoon before she headed to Charlotte in the morning.

She set Harper and Buster down. Buster jumped into the little boy’s eager arms, pedigreed tail wagging, tongue licking, a normal dog making a child deliriously happy. For animals who’d known only security and belonging all their lives, giving and receiving love was as effortless as breathing. Clair envied them that.

“How long a reprieve will Babs give you before demanding more details about us?” Conrad asked.

Her phone rolled to voice mail. “A day. Maybe. It doesn’t hurt that I’m flying out tomorrow to meet with PetClub.”

Her and Conrad’s gaze held at the reminder of the ticking clock they faced. Harper wandered off to play with his set of DUPLO: a collection of oversized, colorful building blocks that perpetually consumed his playroom like a wave of kudzu.

Clair picked up Buster, resettling the poodle in his carrier. Conrad led her away, down the hallway toward the front of the house. They entered the living room, their fingers linked, his pinkie snuggled around hers. The caress felt intimate, though they were barely touching.

Bethany and Mike had made themselves scarce not long after Clair and Conrad returned to his house. Their friends had already been brought up to speed on the goings-on at the barbecue, either by email or text or social-media red alert. On her way out the door, Bethany had whispered to Clair that she’d call later to get the dish.

“So…” Clair settled on the couch.

She’d helped Conrad pick it out along with the rest of the room’s furniture. He’d arrived in Chandlerville with very little. He’d said he hadn’t been able to bear living with the things he’d purchased with Amanda.

She tugged him down beside her.

“What now?” she asked. “We made quite a display of ourselves at my mother’s. There’s no dialing that back, not without some serious damage control.”

Conrad quirked an eyebrow. “You mean the way we kissed like we’re lovers, for everyone to see?”

His words sounded like velvet, falling from those strong lips. They tasted like Conny, when she leaned in to do some more damage.

“Like we’ve been lovers for a while,” she said between kisses, “and we’ve been hiding it from everyone.”

“Ourselves most of all?”

She nodded, wishing they hadn’t waited so long, that love was an emotion she could feel and say and embrace without worrying how long a man’s feelings for her would last.

“I appreciate the assist getting my mother temporarily off my back,” she said. “But if you don’t want to…”

“Keep you forever?” he asked, calling to mind Harper’s begging to have Buster for his very own.

Conrad settled them deeper into the cushions while she nibbled on the corner of her bottom lip, battling back a fresh wave of doubt.

“I meant what I said, Clair. I don’t want to waste a second I can have with you. I may not know much else about what we’re doing.” He kissed her, and then kissed her again. “But that much I’m certain of.”

Time expanded, stretched, and snapped back as Conrad waited for Clair to respond. He watched her eyes dilate, the way they did when she was excited about some new adventure.

Now her next adventure could be him. Them. But she was clearly still troubled. Unsure of her heart and his. She wouldn’t be his Clair Bear if she wasn’t.

“Is this what you really want?” If she could trust him, just this little bit, they had a chance. “Being here with me right now, alone, with no one else to see or care?”

Buster released a doggy snore from the depths of his elitist tote. Harper laughed in the back of the house, content for the moment to entertain himself.

“I want…” Clair strained closer. Her sundress rustled between them.

“Whatever it is,” Conrad promised, “I’ll move heaven and earth to make it happen.”

He kissed her as if he’d never hold her again, cherishing and savoring and loving the way she gasped. He curved his hands beneath her, filling his fingers with her softness, her sweet curves.

“Damn,” he whispered, keeping his voice down for Harper’s sake. “It would be so easy not to care right now, not to think, just to feel. But I know you, Clair. You over think, over worry, everything. It’s your superpower, and because of it you’re a business mogul in the making. But with love… There’s always going to be a reason to talk yourself out of trusting it. Even between us. Maybe especially between us.”

“Especially us?” she repeated, more statement than question.

“I think…” He’d been working it out in his head while he drove them back from Barbara’s. “Was this easier when you thought there was no chance of exploring anything romantic between us? Did wanting me feel safe, only as long as you thought you couldn’t have this?”

“This?”

She made an approving sound while her hands roamed his back and headed south. Conrad swallowed a curse. He lifted her arms over her head.

“Oh,” she purred. “
This
is most definitely something I want to explore together. Safe or not.”

He stroked the soft skin of her arms, nuzzling the curve of her neck. “You’re a tease.”

“And you’re blind if you think what happened between us at my mother’s is something I can just turn on and off.” Tears misted her eyes, bright diamonds of emotional honesty. “I might be terrified. And a part of me might still want to escape to my place and my work and head to Charlotte like none of this ever happened. But I’ve wanted you for a long time, Conrad. If you’re still doubting that, then you’ve lost the ability to see anything about me at all.”

“How long have you wanted me?” He was dying to know, to ask how much, to strip away everything still separating them. “How long have you let me think I’m the only one who felt this way?”

Moisture trickled from the corners of her eyes. When he wiped her tears away, she smiled as if he’d slain all her dragons.

“Forever.” She smiled at the shock he would have felt spreading across his face, if his entire body hadn’t gone numb. “It feels like I’ve been falling in love with you forever, Conrad Lancaster.”

She pressed her head to his heart.

“But I think,” she continued, “it was after you left me behind and headed off to Duke to meet Amanda that I really knew. You two fell head over heels and then invited me to your wedding to celebrate beginning your perfect life together.”

“The kind of perfect you’ve never thought you wanted to try for, because your parents’ marriage is such a bust.”

“And then I watched you at Amanda’s funeral.” Clair rubbed her hand up and down his chest. “I’d never seen love that real and deep and honest, not up close. Not in my family. Not in Rachael’s. My sister runs her marriage more like a business than a relationship, just like our mom’s taught her to. Ray provides Glenn with the perfect home that all young bankers on the fast track need, to prove their stability to their board of directors. He keeps the lot of them in the lifestyle she’s been accustomed to her whole life. But where are their hearts? What’s Rachael and Glenn’s love story going to be years from now, when all the rest falls away and they want a soulmate to grow old with?”

“Some people really do get it right, Clair.”

Conrad and Amanda and Harper had. And after losing that, he’d been certain his heart was done.

“I watched you morn your wife,” Clair said. “And I’ve watched you the last three years making your son’s world okay without her in it: relocating, becoming mother and father and everything else Harper’s needed, while you started over and dealt with your grief on your own.”

“Not on my own.”

Conrad rubbed his fingers along her spine, replaying every pizza dinner she’d brought over, staying to eat with him and Harper. And then to play round after round of Candyland or Sorry! or Lucky Ducks. Then there was the endless stream of clients’ animals she’d made a point of sharing with his son. And the nights Conrad had been at his worst, and
he’d
been the one who’d called her at some heinous hour, drunk on grief, needing to ramble and babble and talk about the woman and life and family he’d lost.

And Clair had always taken his call. She’d listened straight through the night sometimes, patiently supportive. She’d let him bleed out every bottomless emotion until he could finally sleep.

“You were always there,” he reminded her.

“A lot of other people would have done the same thing.”

“Not like you. I was facing the darkest moments of my life, but I knew it was going to be okay. Because you never let me believe I was alone. Even that first year—once the day was done and Harper was tucked in, and I needed to shut the world out and not feel anything for a while. Sometimes it seemed like the only way I could get through the grief was to stop feeling anything at all. But then you’d call or come over or make time in your day for me and my son, and you’d pull me out of my pity party.”

“Friends don’t let friends brood alone.”

“Best friends don’t.”

“Best friends,” she repeated.

She settled into the nook between his chin and collarbone as if it were her new favorite place in the world.