Might as well face it. She loved looking at him, loved the thought of touching him. Would he kiss her good-night? That would be worth a little loss of sleep.
“Connor, how come I don’t really know anything about your childhood? How come you never talk about it?”
He took a long sip of wine and looked at her through narrowed eyes. Then he put on his Sam Spade tough-guy voice. “It’s not a pretty story, sweetheart. Full of ugliness and despair. You don’t want to worry your pretty little head over it.”
“Be serious for a moment,” she asked. “Really. I want to know you better.”
“Why? What more can there be? We’ve known each other for more than ten years and suddenly you don’t know me?”
“Exactly. You’ve used our friendship as cover all this time. And now I want to know the truth. What were your parents really like? Not the cartoon version you dredge up for jokes. The real people.”
He appeared uncomfortable for a moment, then thought for a second or two, and began.
“Let’s just put it this way. As they say in the head-shrinking crowd, I’ve had lifelong relationship commitment problems, which can probably be traced back to my childhood environment.”
“And that means?”
He stared at her. Did she really want him to go there? Okay.
“I learned early and firsthand just what kind of power women have,” he said softly. “I watched my mother purposefully drive my father crazy. Payback, I think, for never making as much money as she felt she needed.”
“Ouch.” She frowned.
“Yes.” He glanced at his ruby-red wine and thought back. “My father was a sweet guy in many ways. He tried hard to please her. But he just didn’t have what it took to bring in a high salary, and she rubbed his nose in it every day.”
“Oh, Connor,” she said softly.
“I watched him go through all sorts of contortions to find some little way to bring a smile to her face, but that was virtually impossible. She nitpicked everything. Nothing was ever good enough for her.” He threw her a lopsided grin. “Especially me.”
“So she nitpicked you, too?”
“Oh, yeah. I think finding something to make me stammer out ‘gee, I’m sorry, Mom,’ was what made her day for her.” He looked at her. “So I avoided going home. I hung around school in the afternoon, joined every sports team, every debating society, every club that would give me a place to hang out.” His gaze darkened. “Meanwhile my father drank himself to death.”
“Oh, Connor. I’m so sorry.”
He nodded. “It was a waste, really. He was a smart guy. He should have had a better life.”
“Yes.”
He gazed at her levelly, wondering if he really wanted to get into the next level of this discussion. Did he want to cut a vein and just let it bleed all over the night? Not really. But he might as well explain a little more about why he’d been the way he was when they were younger.
“You know, for years I really was leery of having a relationship with a woman that lasted more than twenty minutes. It just didn’t seem worth the risk from what I’d seen.”
She wrinkled her nose at him, as if she thought he was being silly. Still, he plowed on.
“But I have a new perspective on it now. I spent the last eighteen months or so in Singapore working with a great guy name George who is married to a wonderful woman named Peggy. I lived in their house and saw their entire interaction, and it helped me understand that decent, loving relationships are possible. I had to look harder at myself and wonder if I had what it takes to have that. I mean, it may be possible, but is it possible for me?”
Jill stared at him. She’d had no idea he had such deep misgivings about lifetime relationships. It made her want to reach out to him, to hold his hand and reassure him. There were plenty of women in the world who didn’t treat men the way his mother had. Didn’t he know that?
“And what did you decide?” she asked tentatively.
He flashed her a quick grin. “The verdict isn’t in yet.”
She started to argue about that, but she stopped herself. How could she wrestle him out of opinions that had developed from real life experiences? She didn’t have as many bad ones as he did. Maybe it got harder as they piled up.
“Where’s your mother now?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think she moved to Florida to live with her sister, but we don’t keep in touch.”
She thought that was a mistake, but she held her tongue. Maybe later she would try to talk to him about how much could be lost when you lost your parents. Instead of going into it directly, she decided to tell him about her background.
“Here’s what happened to me,” she said. “And Sara. When my mother was alive, we were a happy family. At least, that’s the way I remember it. But my father’s second marriage was a horror show right from the beginning. That’s why Sara and I never warmed to our stepmother, Lorraine.” She shook her head.
“She was such a terrible choice for him. And it probably didn’t help the marriage that we couldn’t like her. He was a good guy, gentle, warm. And she was a shrew.”
“Wow,” he said, somewhat taken aback. He wasn’t used to such strong disapproval from Jill. “That’s a pretty negative judgment on the woman.”
She shrugged. “Of course, I saw the whole thing through the perspective of a child who had lost her mother and found her father bringing home a new, updated version that didn’t please her at all. We were very resentful and probably didn’t give her much of a chance, especially after she had a baby. Little Kelly was cute, but it didn’t make up for Lorraine. And she didn’t like us any better than we liked her and she made it pretty obvious.”
“Little Kelly is the one who died last week in a car crash?”
She nodded. “The one I wish we’d been kinder to.” She shrugged, but her eyes were sad and haunted. “Too late now.” She looked at him again. “And that’s what I want you to think about. Don’t wait until it’s too late to contact your mother again.”
He gave her a quizzical look. “Okay. Point taken.”
She nodded, then yawned. He smiled.
“You look like a sleepy princess.”
She’d traded in her uniform for a short fuzzy robe over the long lacy white nightgown and she looked adorable to him.
“What?” she said, laughing.
“In that gown thing. Even with the little robe over it. You look like you should be in a castle.”
She was blushing. Connor had a way of letting her know how pretty he thought she was and she was so hungry for that, it almost brought tears to her eyes.
She smiled back. “I guess we’d better go to bed.”
“You’re right. We need sleep. I’m only glad we survived the day.”
He rose and turned to pull her up beside him and he didn’t let go of her hands once they were standing face-to-face, looking at each other.
“I’m glad you came back,” she told him, her breath catching in her throat as her pulse began to race. Was he going to kiss her? Or was she going to have to do it herself?
“Me, too.” His eyes went so dark, they could have been black instead of blue. He leaned closer, pulling her body up hard against his. “Jill...” he began, and at the same moment, the cell phone in his pocket began to vibrate.
She felt it right away. Sharply drawing in her breath, she stepped back and looked at him. He pulled