Chapter Ten
Chap-ter Ten
D ina’s phone rang early the next morn-ing, and she cracked an eye open as she looked at the time. Seven-eigh-teen. Who was call-ing her this early on a Sat-ur-day morn-ing?
“Hey, Dina, it’s Adam.”
She cleared her throat, hop-ing she didn’t have too much of a morn-ing voice, know-ing it was a fu-tile hope, and pray-ing he wouldn’t hear it. “Hi, Adam.”
“Oh gosh, I woke you! I’m so sorry. I…I wanted to talk to you, and didn’t think about the time.”
So much for hopes and prayers. “It’s okay.”
“I’m re-ally sorry. Go back to bed, I’ll talk to you later.”
“Wait,” she screeched be-fore he could hang up on her. “It’s fine. I need to get up any-way.” That was a lie, but she’d never fall asleep now, so she might as well talk to him. Be-sides, she’d missed his voice.
“Are you sure?”
“Adam!”
He laughed. “Okay, well, now that you’re awake, want to go for an early-morn-ing walk?”
A walk? “A walk? Where?”
“I was think-ing on one of the trails. It’s cold, but sunny and I thought it might be nice. Al-though…”
Dina yawned. “Al-though what?” She heard what she thought was a sigh, and then, noth-ing. “Adam?”
“Never mind. This sounded like a much bet-ter idea last night when I was get-ting ready for bed.”
“It sounds lovely, re-ally. Did you have a par-tic-u-lar trail in mind?” She’d never seen this un-sure side of Adam be-fore.
“How about the Loan-taka Brook Reser-va-tion Trail? It’s at the end of South Street.”
“I know where you’re talk-ing about. Should I meet you there?”
“No, I’ll pick you up. Can you be ready in an hour?”
Dina looked at the clock again. Seven-thirty. “Sure.”
“We’ll stop for cof-fee first.”
“Thank good-ness!”
He laughed, and the echo of it lin-gered in her mind long af-ter she’d hung up the phone. Which was ridicu-lous, be-cause they were noth-ing more than two peo-ple ful-fill-ing a bar-gain. Think-ing of Adam in any other light would just lead to heartache.
By the time she was dressed and ready to go, Dina had just about con-vinced her-self to beg off from the walk. They’d grab cof-fee to-gether and she’d go back home. There was laun-dry to do, bath-room clean-ing, and gro-cery shop-ping.
When he pulled up to her door and flashed his high-wattage smile at her, her pulse thrummed and thoughts of laun-dry, bath-room clean-ing, and gro-cery shop-ping dis-solved in a poof of cleanser bub-bles. He wanted to walk, so she’d walk.
“I missed you,” he said, as she climbed into his car. He missed her? Heck, if he wanted her to run, she’d run, with-out need-ing any-one to chase her, even.
“It’s good to see you too.”
They pulled away from the curb into the al-most empty Sat-ur-day early morn-ing streets, and chat-ted about their week, Adam pay-ing close at-ten-tion and ask-ing ques-tions. By the time they’d stopped for cof-fee and ar-rived at the trail-head, she was ready to fol-low him any-where.
He took her hand as he helped her out of the car and if she hadn’t been star-ing at their hands joined to-gether, she’d swear flames were rac-ing up and down her arm. Meet-ing Adam’s gaze, she saw his eyes darken and a frown line ap-pear be-tween his eye-brows for a brief mo-ment, dis-ap-pear-ing be-fore she had a chance to think about why it might be there.
Once she was stand-ing, he dropped her hand and took a step closer to her, un-til there were mere inches be-tween them. He brushed his hand across her shoul-der, lin-ger-ing for a sec-ond or two be-fore mov-ing away.
“Your hair was caught on your jacket col-lar,” he said, a strange husk-i-ness mak-ing his voice scrape across the space be-tween them. Stuff-ing his hands in his pock-ets, he turned to-ward the trail-head, and Dina fol-lowed.
His stride wasn’t overly long, but it was brisk, and she had to race to keep up with him.
“Adam, wait,” she said, when he didn’t seem to no-tice.
He turned a sheep-ish glance to-ward her and waited for her. “Sorry, I was dis-tracted.”
A part of her wanted to ask what dis-tracted him. An-other part of her was afraid she knew the an-swer. So she kept silent and the two of them be-gan walk-ing the paved trail. The air was cold, the sky a clear blue, and the ris-ing sun sparkled in the stream run-ning next to the path.
“Hold on,” Dina said, as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She knelt and took a pic-ture. “It’s beau-ti-ful out here.”
They con-tin-ued walk-ing, Dina stop-ping ev-ery few min-utes as she no-ticed a pretty leaf or weed or view. Adam waited with-out a word each time. Af-ter pho-tograph-ing a brown leaf float-ing on the stream, she turned the cam-era on Adam. He stood star-ing off into the dis-tance, hands thrust in the pock-ets of his navy down jacket, a pen-sive look on his face. Against the stark brown leaf-less trees, he made a strik-ing shot and she fo-cused the cam-era, in-tent on cap-tur-ing the shot. The click made him turn, and he frowned.
“Did you just take my pic-ture?”
“I did. Do you mind?”
“I wasn’t look-ing at you.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “It was a strik-ing setup. Do you want to see?”
When he nod-ded, she showed him the photo. His frown deep-ened. “I wasn’t smil-ing.”
“I know, it was can-did. You look good.”
He raised an eye-brow. “Next time, tell me you want a pic-ture and I’ll smile.”
She raised her phone. “Okay, smile.”
The smile he gave her re-minded her of why she called him “Mr. Flashy-pants.” It was broad with white teeth and re-minded her of a car sales-man. His mus-cles stretched, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. She took it any-way, since she told him she would, but in-side, she pre-ferred the other one. When she showed the smil-ing one to him, he nod-ded.
“That’s more like me.”
She dis-agreed.
They walked along the stream un-til the path veered into the woods. Within the shade of the trees, the air felt sev-eral de-grees cooler and Dina bur-rowed deeper into her pea coat.
“Cold?” Adam turned and stopped in front of her.
She nod-ded and he ad-justed her scarf, the backs of his fin-gers ca-ress-ing her cheeks and jaw. His warm breath tick-led her nose and up close, she could see flecks of sil-ver and brown in his eyes. A small scar marked the top of his cheek-bone, be-neath his eye, and with-out think-ing, she touched it.
He froze, a sharp in-take of breath mak-ing Dina re-al-ize she’d ac-tu-ally made con-tact. As if the tex-ture of his skin be-neath the tip of her fin-ger wasn’t enough ev-i-dence.
“I’m sorry,” she said, draw-ing her hand away.
“No, that’s okay.” He took her hand and held it against his cheek. She could see his pupils di-late, feel the rasp of stub-ble be-neath her palm.
“How did you get it?” she asked.
“A fight in the third grade. Tommy D laughed at me for talk-ing to the girl ev-ery-one used to make fun of in class. So I decked him. He got me back and we both got de-ten-tion.”
Dina couldn’t help smil-ing. “Aw, you were her knight in shin-ing ar-mor.”
He red-dened. “You’re the only one who thinks that.”
“Not true. She prob-a-bly thinks so as well. Now that I know who my com-pe-ti-tion is, I’ll have to give you my rib-bon to carry or some-thing.”
At his look of con-fu-sion, she con-tin-ued. “In me-dieval times, a lady gave her knight a fa-vor, such as a rib-bon, and he’d joust for her.”
Tak-ing her hand from his cheek, he raised it to his lips and kissed the backs of her fin-gers. “So you want me to fight for you?”
This was go-ing in a whole di-rec-tion she didn’t want to tra-verse. So she laughed. “We’re too old for fight-ing. But it’s sweet you de-fended her.”
A look crossed Adam’s face and she couldn’t be sure if it was em-bar-rass-ment or re-lief. He squeezed her hand. “Your fin-gers are icy cold.” He rubbed them be-tween his, try-ing to warm them up, which was weird, since the rest of her was on fire at his prox-im-ity. He pulled her back onto the trail and con-tin-ued their walk. His hand was warm and larger than hers and some-how, it fit.
Their feet crunched on the gravel path. Deeper in the veg-e-ta-tion and hid-den among the trees, deer popped up their heads and watched them pass, the younger ones bound-ing away be-fore they got close.
“Did you get in many fights as a kid?” she asked, as the si-lence stretched be-tween them.
“That was my only one. My fa-ther was so an-gry, I don’t think I was able to sit for a week. How about you?”
“Did I get into any fights?” Dina laughed.
He laughed with her. “What were you like as a kid?”
“You wouldn’t have no-ticed me,” she said. “I al-ways had my head in a book. The teacher would have to call my name re-peat-edly for me to even hear her.”
His face took on a dreamy qual-ity, as if he were pic-tur-ing her lost in her book.
“And now?”
“I still keep my nose in books. The worlds they cre-ate are won-der-ful. I can live any-where I want, be any-one I want, with-out con-se-quence.”
Adam huffed. “That has a cer-tain ap-peal.” His fin-gers tight-ened around her hand, not enough to hurt, but enough to tell her he’d tensed up and she strug-gled for a way to change the sub-ject. Not know-ing what up-set him, she didn’t want to ruin their walk.
“I bought a dress for the re-union,” she said.
“What’s it look like?”
She grap-pled with a way to de-scribe it—fash-ion wasn’t her strong suit. “It’s cream, with a ruf-fle and…” No way was she men-tion-ing the Sticky Boobs.
“And?”
Her face heated as she tried to fig-ure out how to fill in the “and.” “Tracy helped me and she says it’s per-fect, but I’m not sure.”
He slanted his gaze to-ward her and squeezed her hand again. This time, the squeeze wasn’t filled with ten-sion. “I can’t wait to see it.”
His con-fi-dence in her ap-pear-ance should have made her happy. In-stead, it only gave her anx-i-ety. She sus-pected he was used to fash-ion model-types, not girls with frizzy hair and hips. And even if she passed in-spec-tion when he first saw her, once he saw the rest of her class-mates, she was sure he’d find her lack-ing.
Well, she could spend the next few weeks wor-ry-ing about it, or she could suck it up and ac-cept her-self for the way she was.
She just hoped Adam could do the same.
“Adam, your fa-ther wants to see you,” Di-ane, his fa-ther’s sec-re-tary, an-nounced as Adam walked into the of-fice Mon-day morn-ing.
Adam con-tin-ued walk-ing to his desk, his stom-ach clenched.
“I think he’d like to see you right away,” she said, fol-low-ing Adam.
The woman would have re-minded him of a puppy, with the way she fol-lowed his fa-ther around do-ing his bid-ding, if she wasn’t so sharp and fe-ro-cious. Maybe a rat ter-rier? With her hair pulled back in a tight bun, small pointy glasses and bright red nail pol-ish, he could see the re-sem-blance. He nod-ded to her and changed his di-rec-tion.
Adam knocked on his fa-ther’s door, not both-er-ing to wait for his fa-ther to an-swer. There had to be some perk to be-ing the boss’s son. These days he was hard pressed to come up with any oth-ers.
“When are you bring-ing Dina to the of-fice?” His fa-ther spoke with-out look-ing up from his desk, his at-ten-tion still on what-ever was on his com-puter screen.
Two can play this game. Adam sat, crossed his leg over his knee. He waited for his fa-ther to look at him.
Af-ter a mo-ment, his fa-ther met his gaze.
“Why would I bring her here?”
An ex-pres-sion ap-peared on his fa-ther’s face that Adam could only de-scribe as pa-tron-iz-ing, the kind you give a small child who doesn’t un-der-stand the sim-plest of com-mands. “I thought we went over this, Adam. You need to change your im-age. Com-pletely. Bring-ing Dina here, in-tro-duc-ing her as your steady girl-friend, would help you do that. It would make you seem more sta-ble and thought-ful.”
Bile rose in Adam’s throat at his fa-ther’s bla-tant use of Dina. And his. Be-cause wasn’t that why he was dat-ing her?
“Seems to me that would only prove I slack off, since I wouldn’t be work-ing when she was here.”
“I don’t re-call your work-ing on any-thing so im-por-tant you couldn’t have a small break to show your girl-friend around.”
Man, he’d have to look into get-ting a Kevlar suit made up if his dad was go-ing to con-tinue sling-ing in-sults his way, no mat-ter how veiled they might be. He rose from the chair.
“She works so she might not be able to get time off.”
“I’m sure she’d love to visit her boyfriend’s law of-fice and meet his high-pow-ered co-work-ers.”
Adam re-turned to his desk, nau-se-ated. His fa-ther was ma-nip-u-lat-ing him and us-ing Dina. He was go-ing along with it. Be-cause re-ally, wasn’t he go-ing out with her to get his fa-ther off his back? A part of his con-science agreed, but there was a small piece that re-belled. Her skin yes-ter-day on the trail, when he’d ad-justed her scarf, had been softer than any-thing he’d touched in a long time. He’d lin-gered, ad-just-ing the scarf in minis-cule move-ments to try to pro-long con-tact. Had they not been in pub-lic and in the cold, he would have re-moved the scarf, and ev-ery-thing else she was wear-ing, just to feel if the rest of her was as soft. When she’d touched his scar? Heat had ra-di-ated from her fin-ger-tip on his cheek-bone to the edges of his scalp, down his neck. He’d wanted her to touch more of him.
But those things spoke of phys-i-cal at-trac-tion, which was sur-pris-ing given how dif-fer-ent she looked from those he was nor-mally at-tracted to. Yet, he’d kissed her in the car on the way back from din-ner with his fa-ther. If she hadn’t stopped him, he’d have gone much fur-ther.
But he loved talk-ing with her, hear-ing how her mind worked, laugh-ing at her ob-scure trivia. When they weren’t to-gether, he missed her. Even if she scared the crap out of him. Be-cause she got him. She knew him bet-ter than friends he’d known for years. He liked that. In fact, he was crazy about that.
There was a grow-ing part of him that felt at ease around her. It was com-fort-ing to know you didn’t have to play a part, even if you couldn’t help play-ing it any-way. Be-cause there had been times when he’d let his in-ner self shine through—like when they talked about his love of Vikings—and it had been a re-lief.
So invit-ing her to his of-fice was go-ing to be dif-fi-cult. Be-cause he was us-ing her, but he also cared for her. Bal-anc-ing those two pieces was go-ing to be tricky.
Back at his desk, he picked up the phone and di-aled her num-ber.
“Hello?”
Her voice filled him with warmth. He couldn’t stop the smile from teas-ing his lips.
“Hey, Dina. Are you free for lunch?”
“To-day? Yeah.”
The plea-sure in her voice made his re-quest bit-ter-sweet. “Good, why don’t you come to my of-fice at twelve. We can go to a restau-rant in my build-ing.”
“I’ll see you then.”
The busy-work he was still han-dling did lit-tle to make the rest of the morn-ing pass, but some-how, the hands of the clock moved along un-til noon, when his phone rang. With-out both-er-ing to an-swer it, Adam sprinted to the re-cep-tion desk and stuck his head around the door into the wait-ing area.
“Hey, Dina, come on in.”
He wanted to kiss her hello, run his hands be-neath her pea coat, play with her springy hair, but there were peo-ple around. In-stead, he gri-maced. “I’ll give you a tour.”
His stom-ach clenched a lit-tle as they walked through the of-fice, wav-ing to his friends be-hind glass walls. He’d do what his fa-ther wanted, but fast, and then he’d have the rest of lunch to en-joy spend-ing time with her.
“Have you known him long?” Dina asked, as he pointed out his friend John be-hind a glass wall.
“Yeah, he’s one of my close friends here.” Close be-ing rel-a-tive, of course. He and John hadn’t spo-ken much since Ash-ley had made her ac-cu-sa-tions.
“What about him?” she asked, point-ing to Paul, an-other one of his friends who’d also been avoid-ing him.
“Yeah, we of-ten have lunch to-gether.”
He steered her around the para-le-gal de-part-ment, rat-tling off a list of names and keep-ing them mov-ing un-til they were near his of-fice.
“Marie, this is my friend, Dina,” he said to his sec-re-tary.
She waved. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too,” Dina said.
“And this,” he said, open-ing his door, “is my of-fice.”
She took a cur-sory look around, glanced out his win-dow, and nod-ded. “Nice.”
He shouldn’t have been sur-prised by her re-ac-tion. She wasn’t the type of woman to be im-pressed by an ac-tual of-fice, even if it had a win-dow.
She fid-geted. When he opened his mouth to speak, she turned to his book-shelves. Of course. Bend-ing down, she ex-am-ined the law books on his shelves as if they were the most fas-ci-nat-ing things she’d ever seen. He ex-am-ined the shape of her rear, which he found much more in-trigu-ing.
“Are you ready for lunch?”
“Sure,” she said.
With his hand on the small of her back, he ush-ered her out of the of-fice and down-stairs to the restau-rant off the lobby. She was silent. He didn’t know what to make of it. Once they’d been seated and looked at menus, he put his aside.
“So, what did you think of the of-fice?”
“Um, it was very nice.” She squirmed.
He frowned. What was go-ing on?
She sighed. “Adam, why did you in-vite me to your of-fice?”
Well, that was a lit-tle trick-ier. “Be-cause you hadn’t seen it. I thought you’d like to.”
“The build-ing or the peo-ple?”
“What do you mean?”
She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “I mean, did you want me to meet the peo-ple you work with or see the place you spend hours of your day?”
He shrugged, con-fused. “Dina, I don’t know what you’re talk-ing about.”
“Do I em-bar-rass you?”
He stared at her. “Why would you think that?”
“Be-cause ev-ery time I’m with you and we meet some-one you know, you act like you don’t know me. Be-cause rather than in-tro-duce me to the peo-ple who are your sup-posed best friends at work, you rushed me by their of-fices be-fore I had time to even wave.”
Oh God. “Dina, you’ve got it wrong.”
“Do I?” She rose and dropped her nap-kin on the ta-ble. “I don’t think so. So if you’ll ex-cuse me, I’m go-ing to go clear my head. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Dina, wait!”
He rose to go af-ter her, but was stopped short by a body in his way.
“Hey, Adam, how are you?”
Stephen, a guy in an-other law firm in the build-ing, came up to him.
“I can’t talk now, Stephen, I’m sorry.”
“You know, you re-ally need to man-age your time bet-ter.”
Adam stopped short and swore to him-self. He couldn’t get away from his rep-u-ta-tion even if he wanted to. The de-sire to straighten out Stephen’s as-sump-tion made him start to turn back, but he shook his head. Now wasn’t the time. He needed to find Dina and fix her as-sump-tions first.
But when he looked for her, she was gone.