“That sounds like fun, Mom, but I was hoping I could get to see Marcus this weekend.”
“Didn’t you see him at school today?”
“Yes.”
“And won’t you see him again tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“And the next day and the day after?”
“Yes, Mom, but you and Mr. Steele promised that we could have supervised outings and it’s been almost three weeks since we went camping.”
Kylie sighed. A part of her regretted having made that promise but at the time both she and Chance had known it was the best thing to keep the budding romance between their offspring under control. “Okay, then I’ll take the both of you. There’s no need to bother Chance this weekend and—”
“Mom, if you take us, it’ll seem as if you’re babysitting us. If both you and Mr. Steele go then it will be a foursome and it won’t be so obvious that you’re there to spy on us.”
Kylie rolled her eyes. “I’d be there as a chaperone, Tiffany.”
“Same difference.”
Not wanting to get into an argument with her daughter, Kylie stood and said, “Have Marcus check to see if his father is free this weekend. Chance is a busy man and might have made other plans.”
Later that night Kylie lay in bed and every so often she would glance over at the phone. Chance had made it a habit to call her around this time every night, but she knew after Sunday chances were that he wouldn’t be calling any time soon, if ever. And a part of her thought maybe it was for the best. He thought he had all the answers, but he would never understand the guilt trip her parents had placed on her shoulders after she’d gotten pregnant.
As she cuddled under the covers she thought about the weekend she had spent with Chance. There was no denying that it had been a fantasy come true, and heat flooded through her just thinking about all they had done. In fact today at the florist when she’d been alone her body actually trembled with the memories that were so vivid in her mind.
Their first date had been everything a first date should be, and what he probably hadn’t even realized was, although it had been their first date, it had been her first date period. She and Sam had been too young to actually date and she hadn’t gone out to dinner with any other man. So in reality, Chance had been her first in a lot of ways.
Tears blurring her eyes, she glanced over at the phone. She might as well get used to him not calling her ever again.
Chance threw onto his desk the document he’d been reading and glanced at the clock. Not that he was counting, but it had been three days, sixteen hours and forty-five minutes since he had last seen and talked to Kylie.
After what she had said to him on Sunday evening, she should have been the last person on his mind. She had decided that love or no love, there would not be a future for them.
Chance leaned back in his chair and hooked his hands behind his head. Dammit, he didn’t want that. He wanted a life with her, a life that included marriage. Kylie was being more than stubborn. She was being downright difficult.
He couldn’t help but remember their weekend together, and the days and nights they had shared. Those memories would sustain him in the coming months. He would need them.
He walked over to the window and stared out at Charlotte’s skyline. It was almost two in the afternoon. Kylie would be at her shop. Was she thinking about him the way he was thinking about her? Probably not.
But she had admitted that she loved him.
He should have known that when a woman gave herself as completely to a man as Kylie had done to him this past weekend that love was involved. One thing was for certain: there was still Marcus and Tiffany to deal with, and because of their kids, Kylie couldn’t put distance between them regardless of how much she might want to.
Whether she liked it or not, she hadn’t seen the last of him.
“I don’t know what, but something happened this weekend between our parents, Marcus,” Tiffany whispered.
Marcus, who was sitting across from her in the library, glanced around to make sure Mrs. Kennard, the librarian who had a strict no-talking policy, wasn’t anywhere close by. “Yes, I know,” he whispered back. “This weekend was supposed to get them to together, not pull them apart. What do you think happened?”
Tiffany shook her head. “I don’t know but I do know they spent time together this weekend.”
Marcus lifted a brow. “And how do you know that?”
“Because Carly Owens said she saw them together at the grocery store.”
“The grocery store? What were they doing at the grocery store?”
“Carly said they were actually shopping together. They didn’t see her but she saw them. She said my mom had her cart and your dad had his, but they had come together in the same car.”