Once and Again. Brenda Harlen

to great lengths to build an orderly and structured life for herself, because she was afraid of the impulses that had led her into his arms and terrified of the emptiness that had almost overwhelmed her when he’d gone. “You don’t know anything about me or my life.”

      “I know that you can change your appearance but not your nature. I know that beneath the fancy suit and cool disdain, your blood still runs hot and your heart still beats faster when I’m with you.”

      She drained the last of her coffee, pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. “And I know that you’ve always been arrogant and delusional.”

      She started to turn away, but he grabbed her arm. She felt a jolt of heat as his hand came into contact with her bare skin, and her heart leapt in response to the touch.

      “I’m not imagining the way your pulse is racing right now,” he said.

      “Let go of me.”

      “That’s a mistake I made once before.”

      She tugged her arm out of his grasp. “I didn’t come here to play games with you, Nick.”

      “It doesn’t matter why you came,” he said. “It doesn’t matter that I don’t want you here. What matters is that there’s still a powerful chemistry between us.”

      “Maybe it’s just animosity,” she shot back over her shoulder as she exited the room.

      “There is that,” he agreed.

      Nick watched her walk away, wondering what it was about her cool, hands-off attitude that made him want to put his hands all over her. Maybe it was lust, a need to sate the physical urges that had been denied too long.

      But as much as he wanted to believe it could be that simple, he knew it wasn’t. Because he didn’t just want the mindless physical release of sex. He wanted Jessica.

      It had been eighteen years since they’d been together. Eighteen years after only one night, and yet he’d never forgotten anything about her. A fact that had been obvious to his wife—now his ex-wife—when Jess had returned to Pinehurst six years earlier.

      “Tell me about her,” Tina demanded.

      Nick rubbed weary hands over his face. They’d just returned home from the cemetery after burying his mother and the last thing he wanted was to go another round with his obviously unhappy wife. “Who?”

      Her eyes narrowed. “Jessica.”

      He shrugged, deliberately casual. “She’s Kristin’s best friend.”

      “I’m not interested in Kristin’s relationship with her, I’m interested in your relationship with her.”

      “I’ve known Jess since she was seven years old.” He hoped the information would placate her, stop her from digging at the scab over old wounds.

      But Tina was nothing if not tenacious. “How long have you been in love with her, Nick?”

      He’d denied her accusation vehemently. He’d even believed his denials. He never would have married Tina if he’d been in love with anyone else. Yes, he and Jess had a past—but it was in the past. Tina was his future.

      For six months after that showdown, they’d continued to try to make their marriage work. In the end, Tina had walked out, and Nick had been relieved when she’d left. Although he’d refused to admit that he could still have feelings for Jessica, he’d realized that he hadn’t loved his wife the way she’d needed to be loved.

      The most bizarre part of their breakup was that, after the fact, Tina had encouraged him to go to New York, to find Jessica and resolve whatever was unresolved between them.

      Nick had done so, just to prove her wrong. To prove that there wasn’t anything unresolved between him and Jess—that they were simply former lovers who’d each gone their own way.

      But when he’d tracked her down at Dawson, Murray & Neale, he’d found her in a conference with another lawyer. A man who looked as if he’d been born in his Armani suit—smooth, polished, professional. Nick hated him on sight. Even more so when Jessica introduced him as Steven Garrison—her husband.

      He’d offered stilted congratulations to the happy couple, then excused himself on the pretext of having to get to a meeting, his reason for being in the city. He drove back to Pinehurst, convinced that the only thing left between him and Jess was history.

      It was the last time he’d seen her.

      Until today.

      But now she was back, also divorced, and he was having a hard time remembering all the things that had gone wrong between them, all the reasons they were so obviously wrong for each other. Instead, all he could think about was how right everything had been when they were together.

      He dumped the rest of his coffee down the drain, set his mug in the dishwasher, and headed out to his Explorer.

      He’d promised to help Brian out with football practice this afternoon, hoping it would distract them both from their worries about Caleb. Nick hoped it would also make him forget about Jessica’s return.

      But as he headed toward the high school, he knew he was kidding himself. Nothing except Caleb’s waking up would alleviate his concerns about his nephew. And as much as he enjoyed working with the team, he couldn’t expect one afternoon on a football field to accomplish what eighteen years had failed to do—banish thoughts of Jessica Harding from his mind.

      Chapter Three

      Kristin stood in front of the window overlooking the hospital courtyard, staring down at the colorful and unoccupied playground equipment. She could all too easily picture Caleb climbing the rope ladder to the top of the slide or fearlessly hanging upside down on the monkey bars. It was what he should be doing—running and jumping and laughing.

      Instead he was fighting for his life, and she didn’t know how to help him. All she could do was wait.

      It seemed as though she’d been waiting forever, even though she knew it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes since they’d taken Caleb away. Another CT scan, the orderly had explained, wheeling her child out of the room with brisk efficiency.

      It seemed that everyone who worked here was brisk and efficient. The doctors, the nurses, even the janitorial staff. They moved through the narrow halls with an air of authority, a sense of purpose. While she hovered uncertainly on the periphery, waiting for someone, anyone, to tell her what the hell was going on.

      And when she finally managed to catch someone’s attention, the response would inevitably be a sympathetic smile, maybe a reassuring hand on her arm, and answers to her questions that somehow didn’t give her any information at all.

      Another X-ray.

      But why?

      What possible purpose would it serve?

      How many times did they need to poke and prod at her baby before they finally figured out what was wrong?

      Kristin wished she could have gone with him, just to hold his hand. She didn’t want him to be afraid; she didn’t want to admit that she was. Not just afraid, but terrified.

      But she refused to give in to the fear. She had to stay strong, for Brian, for Jacob and Katie, and especially for Caleb. If there was any consolation at all, it was that her son had no idea what was happening. He couldn’t see the needles and tubes and wires that made him look more like a dysfunctional robotic toy than the lively seven-year-old boy she knew him to be.

      She glanced again at the clock on the wall, at the red hand that moved with agonizing slowness around its face. It was one of the strangest things about hospitals, she’d always thought, the way time seemed to stand still inside its walls while the world outside continued to function at a breakneck pace.

      Twenty-one minutes.

      And still she waited.