Page 20 of No Kind of Hero
Butwhyhad she felt that way? It wasn’t because law school would be hard. Schoolwashard, but it was doable. She was good at school. She always had been, ever since she’d been the best reader in Mrs. Kenworthy’s first-grade class.
All the same, there had to besomereason why her mind kept going to Evan during that week, and why her feet did, too. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t control either of them. There he was in her parents’ house, only a few doors down, drawing her in like a magnet.
She didn’t know how he felt about her. All she knew was that when she was with him, the jagged pieces inside her fell into place and the worry receded. How could you feel so unsettled and breathless, and so ridiculously happy at the same time? How could you feel sothere,so aware of your body and your desires andyourself,just because you were with that one person?
Maybe because he seemed to understand you even when you didn’t understand yourself, and you thought you were understanding him better every day. Maybe because that connection seemed to be growing stronger all the time, deeper than conscious thought, and you thought he might be feeling it too.
She’d watched him come and go for two days before she got up the nerve to talk to him beyond “hello.” Before she’d asked him if wanted a glass of water, brought it back to him, and he’d said, “Sit down and keep me company, if you want,” and she had. Sitting and keeping him company had turned into painting trim for him on her hands and knees, into sharing her hopes and her dreams and her fears while Evan listened. It had also turned into sharp questions from her mother at dinner and evasive answers, a fierce desire to hold this precious, tender new thing close to her chest.
“I need to do something,” she said when her mother brought it up yet again at Christmas dinner. “I can’t study all the time, and anyway, it’s snowing.”
“You should go skiing,” her mother said. “You should be seeing friends. Or we could have a spa day.”
“I have too much to do,” Beth answered. “I can go skiing from Seattle, and my friends are there now.”
Her mother’s mouth compressed, her dad looked at them both and didn’t say a word, and her mom fell silent. If Beth was sure her mom was checking another day off the calendar every night, ready to push Beth physically onto that Seattle-bound plane? That wasn’t her problem. She was getting her work done. She was taking breaks, that was all.
But when Evan came back to the house on the day after Christmas to paint the rest of it, when Beth walked into another dropcloth-covered room and he smiled at her after two long days without seeing each other? Her heart had been in brand-new territory. She was a white rosebud that had been furled tight and was finally starting to open, and damn it, she wanted that rose tobloom.She wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything. So when everything went so wrong and then so right a couple days later, and he finally asked her out? There was no way she was saying no.
And here was the man himself almost a decade later, pushing open the swinging door into the lobby and coming toward her holding his empty baby carrier. He shoved his notebook back into his jeans pocket and showed off some more bicep, as if she hadn’t seen enough of it. Which, of course, she hadn’t. When he’d been holding Gracie over his head? It had been sweet, and it had been hot, because Evan had somearms.Gracie started making some excited noises and pedaling her legs at the sight of him, and Beth knew how she felt.
Evan reached out and took his baby, kissed the top of her head like he didn’t realize he was doing it, gave Beth another one of those slow almost-there smiles, and said, “If we’re going to be burning it down . . .” And then he put a hand on her cheek and brushed his lips over hers, waking her body all the way up and making her wish even more for that sundress.
She wanted him to kiss her again, and he didn’t. He pulled back, left his hand on her cheek, and said, “Call it a down payment.” His thumb trailed all the way down the side of her jaw, he smiled at her for real, eyes and mouth and . . . everything, and she could swear her heart turned over.
“Down payment works,” she said, finding her voice again. “Because I’ve had a thing for you since ninth grade, and you still make my knees weak.”
She never said things like that. But she’d said this. It was effective, too. She could tell. All he said, though, was, “I’ll have to see what I can do about that,” with his best intense look. Which still worked just fine. He dropped his hand at last and jiggled Gracie. “We’re heading over to the paint store. Want to come and help me choose peacock colors? I realize that’s not quite burning-it-down territory, but I’ll do my best to talk dirty or something while we do it.”
“Except there’s Gracie,” Beth reminded him, knowing she was smiling like a fool and unable to care.
“Oh, yeah.” He sighed. “Maybe not, then. I’ll just think dirty thoughts.”
“Works for me. Is that what your client wants? Whoever that was? Thor? Is he going for peacock colors? That’s going to be spectacular. What a good idea.” It wouldn’t be restoring the theater to its former glory. It would be even better.
“Thanks,” Evan said.
“Really? It was your idea?”
“Yep.” He looked . . . delighted. He did. Still confident in his skin, like he knew who he was and he was good with it. But now he seemed happy, too, and she wasglad.
“Then I definitely want to come,” she said. “I can think dirty thoughts with the best of them, believe it or not.”
“I believe it,” he said. “You always were good at thinking. Keep ’em coming, and I’ll do my best to deliver. That’s a promise.”
Evan lay awake that night, too. Between Gracie and Beth, his sleep was definitely suffering.
The problem was, when you had a baby, “spontaneous” went right out the window, and it stayed gone. If Beth had showed up and offered him that awkward, tentative proposition a couple years ago, he’d have had her clothes off in two minutes, and in another five max, he’d have been showing her what the stage was for. He’d had a flash of her naked on her back right smack in the center, the featured attraction, a teenage fantasy come to life, and you could say that he’d wanted to do it. Or you could say that he’d barely been able to hold himself back.
Except that they hadn’t been alone, and he couldn’t do it. The second she’d walked out into the lobby with Gracie, though, he’d been pulling his phone from his back pocket and calling his mom. And hearing nothing but ringing until her voicemail came on. She was square dancing and then having a barbecue dinner with the group, and he was stuck. Done in by potluck.
Dakota. His hand hovered over the button, and he didn’t dial. Blake was coming home this afternoon, and he wouldn’t be one bit happy to find a pint-sized interloper in the middle of his reunion. At least that was how Evan would have felt.
He called her anyway. You could say he was desperate.
“Oh,” she said, sounding distracted. “I wish I could, but Blake’s picking me up in the jet and taking me straight to Portland. I’m packing now. We’ll be gone until Wednesday night. And Russell . . . You know how much he loves Gracie, but he can’t right now.”
“Yeah,” Evan said. “I know.” Dakota’s stepfather was living at Blake’s big house on the lake now too, recovering from major back surgery that didn’t allow for holding babies.
