Chapter Six
Dumb, Bowen thought. Dumb, dumb, dumb. He had just asked Ashton Burnadette, a woman he hardly knew, if it would be okay to kiss her.
But it didn't feel like he hardly knew her. It didn't feel that way at all. It felt like he had known her forever, like he would always know her. It felt like his life had been half lived until he heard the delightful music of her laughter.
But even so, kiss her? Where was that in the game plan?
Last night Bowen had gone home, gotten enough distance from the warm golden brown of her eyes that he had been able to figure everything out so carefully. The first thing he was supposed to do this morning, according to the game plan, was ask Justin his birth date.
Once that was out of the way, and he had determined Justin was not his son, then he would be free to do the knight-in-shining-armor thing — give Ashton a wonderful, carefree day of fun.
But when she had come down the walk, pushing the motorcycle, her eyes sparkling with eagerness, the birthday question had eased right out of his mind. And maybe it hadn't just been the laughter in her eyes.
She was wearing a white button-up shirt and jeans, and both items of clothing hugged all the right places. His mouth had gone dry at how effortlessly lovely she looked. He had escorted women to elegant parties who, in all their finery, could not hold a candle to Ashton in blue jeans.
Still, it wasn't okay to kiss her, and Bowen knew it. It was not anywhere on any game plan he had formulated.
If she had an ounce of sense she was going to say no.
But at the moment she seemed to have even less sense than him, because she leaned closer and she whispered her answer, so low that he almost didn't hear it.
"Yes, Bowen, it would be okay to kiss me."
So he did.
He was not sure what he had been expecting. She was shy and sensitive and so perhaps he had expected innocence.
He had thought her lips would taste cool, like mint.
But there was nothing chaste in the meeting of their lips. Rather than being cool, her kiss was red hot.
Her lips were soft beneath his and tasted not of mint, but of cinnamon hearts. There was fire there, licking just below the surface.
Bowen Reeve had kissed a lot of women on that stretch of road that started at beer and pizza and always ended well short of diamond rings and wedding dates.
He thought he knew all there was to know on the subject. So he was amazed to find himself, twenty-six years old and learning something brand-new.
That a kiss could open places in a man that he had not known existed. That a kiss could make him yearn, not for sex, but for love. That a kiss could promise to find empty places in his soul, dark places, and fill them to overflowing with light.
"That's the problem with game plans," he muttered against her ear.
"What?" she whispered, and took his lip and gently gnawed it with her teeth.
The problem with game plans was they couldn't always be put into effect. Bowen knew the other team could throw all kinds of unexpected obstacles in front of you. A game plan was not a guarantee that anything was going to go your way. In fact, the success rate of a good game plan, if he calculated it mathematically, was probably pathetically poor.
On the other hand, what wasn't going his way, at the moment, even if it wasn't going according to plan?
It was a beautiful day, and he was with a beautiful woman.
Who happened to be kissing the living daylights out of him. What could be better? He gave in to the tantalizing temptation of her lips, tasted her, savored a sweetness that he knew went to her soul.
Repercussions, he reminded himself. He was the expert on repercussions, right? This was not going to turn out well if he was stealing kisses before coming clean. If Justin was his son, she was never going to forgive him for taking things so badly out of sequence.
In the natural order of things, truth should come before kisses.
He disengaged his lips from hers.
"Don't stop," she whispered.
For the first time in his life he understood addiction, understood how a force could be so strong it could overpower and crush absolutely anything in its path, especially something as weak and ineffective as a man's willpower.
When he had taken his lips from hers, where there had been warmth, a great cold emptiness took its place.
Using the force of his entire will, he stayed her lips, putting his finger on the soft fullness of her bottom one. When she kissed his finger lightly and then nipped, he thought he was lost.
But he marshaled what was left of his will and wrapped his arms around her, pulled her in close to him. After a moment, he felt her nestle her head against his chest, trusting. Trusting him to be exactly who he had said he was.
He felt the warmth of her, and how sweetly feminine she was. But he also felt her fragility. "Gosh, your kid is bold," he said, watching Justin grab air over a dirt pile. "What sign is he?"
He hated himself for this, for edging closer to an answer when she didn't even know there was a question.
"You're not into astrology!" she said, and tilted her head up and looked at him.
It was true, he wasn't. It had just seemed like a subtle way to get around to Justin's birthday. His sense of self-loathing grew. "I'm an Aries," he said, leading her along.
She looked at him quizzically, not buying it, but playing along anyway. "How does that go with Capricorn?"
How the hell did he know? "Great," he said, "if you're a Capricorn."
She grinned with such openhearted delight, and he realized he'd done it again, put the cart before the horse.
Bowen, he told himself sternly, find out the kid's birthday. If he's not yours, you can keep on kissing her. And if he is…
"Justin's a Gemini," she said. "May 30."
Bowen knew his life had just changed, forever and for always.
Chapter Seven
"What on earth have you been up to?" Tracey McMilligan, who worked at the next desk, asked Ashton on Monday morning.
Could it be that obvious? Could it? "What do you mean?"
"You look like you're in love," Tracey said, regarding her thoughtfully. "My God, girl, shining eyes, blooming cheeks. Give. Tell all to Auntie Tracey."
So, it could be that obvious!
"I just met him," Ashton said. "How could I be in love?" Of course, that was the same question she'd been asking herself since Bowen had dropped her off yesterday.
It was too soon to hope, anyway. After the kiss, he had seemed withdrawn, and very shortly after that he had announced he thought it was time to go.
There had not been another kiss at her doorstep, even though Ashton had longed for one.
"Well, tell me what sign he is," Tracey, the office horoscope expert, said, "and I can at least tell you if there's any hope."
"He's an Aries." How silly to actually want Tracey to delve into her mysterious books for this information, but she did.
"And you're a Capricorn, right?" Without waiting for an answer, out came the book that Tracey consulted for all kinds of office issues. Ashton's coworker apparently felt not an ounce of guilt about pursuing this interest on office time.
Ashton watched her friend frown. Tracey snapped the book shut.
"Sorry, Ashton, it's not in the stars."
"What?"
"Unless you're older than him. Then it might work. Rams can work with old goats."
"I have no idea how old he is! He looks the same age as me." She couldn't believe she was putting credence in Tracey's hocus-pocus! Was she prepared to be an old goat, even for Bowen Reeve? She had to admit the short answer was yes!
"Morning, Jerry," Tracey called.
Jerry! Jerry would know how old Bowen is! They had gone to school together. Jerry would know all kinds of things about Bowen Reeve.
Watching his office door out of the corner of her eye, Ashton waited for Jerry to go for morning coffee. Her plan was to casually follow him.
Ashton had not felt like this since she was a schoolgirl. No, that was not true. Even as a schoolgirl she had never given herself over to fluttering heartbeats, sweaty palms, breathless giggles, what the stars said!
It wasn't that she hadn't loved Daniel madly. It wasn't that at all. She had just known him forever. They had grown up next door to each other. Saying yes to him had been as comfortable and as right as choosing a favorite rocking chair.
Nobody was ever going to mistake Bowen Reeve for a comfortable rocking chair!
At five to ten, Jerry's office door opened and out he came, coffee cup in hand. Ashton grabbed her own and met him at the staff coffee room.
"So how was your weekend, Ashton?" he asked.
"Interesting. I met an old friend of yours."
"Really? Who?"
"Bowen Reeve."
She watched his face carefully and was pleased when it lit up.
"Bowen! My God, how is he?"
"He seems to be doing very well."
"Does he still teach at Montgomery Bridge? And coach football? That amazes me. He never seemed to be the high school teacher type to me."
Exactly what she had thought! "What type did he seem to you?"
"He was wild and fun and completely fearless. A daredevil. I remember he rode his bike along the edge of the high school roof one day on a dare. He used to get a gang of big guys together and we'd pick up Miss Mitchell's little Austin Mini out of the parking lot. We'd put it on the football field, or haul it into the gym. She could never find that car. Of course, he was a hell of a football player. I heard he had a chance to go pro, and picked teaching instead. Nuts, huh?"
"Nuts," she agreed, and remembered Bowen's voice telling her about the boys he had gone back for. He had never mentioned a pro football career. Was there any doubt left that she was falling in love with Bowen Reeve?
With very little need for encouragement, Jerry was off and running, reminiscing happily about Bowen Reeve, a charismatic renegade, a mischief maker, a superb athlete, a lady-killer.
"A high school teacher," he finally said with a shake of his head. "I can't believe it. I occasionally wondered if he might end up in jail, but I never pictured him in teaching."
"He said something happened to make him take life more seriously," she said.
"Yeah. Something did."
"What?"
There are moments sometimes in a person's life where they know what they are going to hear next is going to alter their whole existence. And she had that feeling, but just a hair to late to stop Jerry from speaking.
"He got into some trouble our senior year. He was never the same after that. It was like the fun was gone out of him. He became very serious. Mature."
Don't ask, she told herself. But there was her voice, asking, "What happened?"
Jerry hesitated, then shrugged. "He got a girl pregnant. She was nearly as wild as him, as I remember it, and drop-dead gorgeous- Sorry, that was an unfortunate choice of phrase. I remember reading she died in a car accident a few years ago."
"The baby?" Ashton whispered.
"They gave up the baby for adoption. All the rest of us were getting ready for grad, celebrating life, and I remember him and Becky looking so sad, as if they would never be young and carefree again. It was as if it broke something inside of him. His heart, I guess."
She stared at Jerry. A baby, born near the end of the school year. That would make it a spring baby. Possibly even a May baby.
A baby given up for adoption.
Green eyes.
"How old are you, Jerry?" Her voice sounded like it was coming from a great distance.
"Huh?" he said, not following the quick change in conversation.
"How old are you?" Her voice sounded shrill, agitated.
He gave her a puzzled look. "I'm twenty-six."
Absurdly, she realized she was older than Jerry. And Bowen. That she could be Bowen's old goat, after all, if her whole world wasn't falling into pieces.
Ashton's mind raced. If Jerry and Bowen had graduated when they were eighteen, that would be eight years ago. Eight years ago that a baby born in the spring had been given up for adoption.
Green eyes, like nothing she had ever seen before, like emeralds dropped into the bottom of a pond.
Ashton stood up. Her legs felt very odd, as if they had turned to putty and were folding in on themselves under the pressure of her own weight.
From a long way away, she heard Jerry call her name.
And then her world went black.
Chapter Eight
Bowen Reeve felt both foolish and exhilarated. He was standing on Ashton Burnadette's front porch with the biggest bouquet of flowers he could find.
He had never bought flowers before, but he thought they might signal his intentions far more clearly than pizza and beer.
He had a game plan, finally. It was such a relief to have the whole thing mapped out, and to know exactly where he wanted to go with it.
Justin Burnadette was his son. Bowen had to explain that to Ashton, to tell her everything, beginning at midnight phone calls and ending with his arrival at her garage door. And then he had to ask her if she would consider him being a part of their lives.
Not just as a father to Justin.
No, he wanted to taste her lips again. To hold her. In the long run, he was thinking diamond rings and wedding dates.
He pounded on the door again. Justin peered out cautiously then flung the door open.
"I'm so glad you're here," he said. "My mommy's sick. I'm scared."
Bowen dropped the flowers, bolted past Justin, and looked in two doors down the hallway before he found her.
Her room was in darkness. She had the covers pulled up right to her nose.
And her face was all blotchy. She'd been crying.
She opened her eyes and pulled the covers right up over her head. "Go away," she said. "I never want to see you again."
Bowen ignored her. Instead he entered her bedroom, sat down on the edge of her bed, and pulled the covers back down over her nose.
She regarded him furiously. "You're his father," she said. "Jerry at work told me all about your May baby eight years ago. You came here looking for him. You tricked me. You made me think —" she stopped abruptly and put her head back under the covers.
He pulled the covers back down. She had a firmer grip on them this time, so it was marginally harder. "I made you think what? I care about you? I do care about you!"
"Oh, sure. I get it all now. You gave him up for adoption, and then you decided you wanted him back, didn't you? Life-long repercussions, you said."
"That's not how it happened," he said.
"I don't want you around me."
"You're scared to death of falling in love again."
"I am not! You snake. Tracking him down. Not telling me who you are."
"Mommy?" Justin appeared in the bedroom doorway.
"Not now, Justin."
"It wasn't like that," Justin said in a tiny voice. "Bowen didn't track us down. I tracked him down."
She went very still. Very slowly she sat up in bed, and patted the place beside her. Justin came in and sat down.
"How could you have tracked him down?" she asked softly.
Justin held out a worn leather-bound book to her.
"That's Daniel's journal," she said, taking it.
"You gave it to me after he died," Justin said. "Remember?"
She nodded, running her hands over the soft leather cover. "I didn't read it. I couldn't. But I thought it would help you know the kind of man your father was. Your real father," she said, shooting Bowen a look, "which happens to be more than a function of biology."
"Read the page that the corner is bent over on," Justin said.
She turned to it. Bowen leaned close, inhaled the scent of her, prayed whatever was on that page could help them through this moment.
"'I went to pick Ashton up at work today,'" she read out loud from Daniel's journal. "'I was waiting in the coffee room for her, and I picked up the newspaper. There was a color picture of the Mountain Lions' coach, and I found myself looking at it thinking, This is what Justin will look like when he grows up.
"'Then Jerry Childers came in. He saw me looking at the picture and mentioned he'd gone to school with the man. He said he was surprised the man, Bowen Reeve, became a teacher because he'd been so wild throughout their high school years. He mentioned Bowen had fathered a child in his senior year.'" Ashton's voice caught in her throat, and then she continued reading. "'I think this man is Justin's father.'"
Ashton was choking back tears.
"Later on, he finds out for sure," Justin said, looking at his mother with concern. He took the book from her. "Look what he wrote at the end, the very last day before he went on his fishing trip."
Justin thumbed through the pages, then cleared his throat and read.
"'Justin and I played ball after work today. I watched the sun on his hair, the sturdy strength of him, and I know I have a complete stranger to thank for the marvel and the miracle that is my life. Bowen Reeve, wherever you are, thank you. Someday I hope the universe rewards you for the great gift you have given me, though how it could ever find a gift to equal this one is beyond me. Bowen Reeve, may you be happy and blessed.'"
Bowen could feel the sting behind his own eyes. Ashton's hand crept into his, and he held it with all his strength.
"I read Dad's journal lots," Justin said, "and then one day, I just had this idea, maybe he would be in the phone book. And he was. And I didn't really know what to say. I was kind of scared and mixed up. So, I just asked if he was my daddy, and then I'd listen to his voice for as long as I could before he hung up the phone."
"But I don't remember you ever phoning anybody!" Ashton said.
"I set my alarm for midnight and put it under the covers so you wouldn't hear it."
"You were the prank caller!" Ashton guessed softly.
Justin nodded. "Bowen knew right away it was me, but he didn't tell you."
"Why?" She turned her huge, tear-filled eyes on Bowen. "Why didn't you tell me?"
He caught the tear with his fingertip as it chased down her cheek, and lifted it to his lips, tasted it tenderly.
"I didn't think it was possible it was really my boy calling me. So when I first came here, I was just fighting mad. This prank caller was triggering my deepest loss and I wanted it stopped. Of course, as soon as I saw Justin's eyes, I realized maybe I was his father. I wanted to find out for sure before I troubled you. I know it would have been as easy as asking his birthday, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to ask. Not right away."
"Are you glad you're my dad?" Justin asked.
Bowen scooped him up in his arms and held him close to his chest. It felt as if his whole life had been in preparation for this moment.
"Nothing has ever made me happier. Ever. I hope your Mom is going to allow me to be part of your life for a long, long time." He remembered the game plan, suddenly.
He hopped off the bed and ran down the hall. The flowers were scattered all over the place, and he put them back together as best he could.
He went back into the bedroom. She was sitting on the side of the bed now, hugging Justin, and they were both crying.
Bowen got down on one knee and offered her the bedraggled bouquet.
"I was hoping not just that Justin would be part of my life, Ashton. I hoped you would give me a chance, too. To be part of your life and your future. That would be my greatest dream."
She took the flowers and buried her nose in them, and then looked up at him with shining eyes.
In her eyes, Bowen saw the gift.
It was a gift a stranger had wished for him, long ago, before he deserved it, if one could ever deserve such a gift.
A stranger, having no idea how his wish would be fulfilled, had wished Bowen Reeve a world filled to overflowing with love.
And that was what he saw in Ashton Burnadette's eyes. The potential for love beyond his wildest dreams.
Justin, catching the spirit in the room, let out a whoop of celebration and flung himself at Bowen. Since he was on one knee, he couldn't keep his balance and the boy fell on top of him.
And then Ashton was down there on the floor in a heap with them, hugging them both, laughing and crying.
"Do you think he knows?" Justin asked, when the laughter had died and they just lay there all wrapped up in each other, bathed in happiness. "Do you think Dad knows?"
"Yes," Ashton said. "He knows."
"Thanks, Dad," Justin said, softly. And then he turned to Bowen. "Welcome home."
The End
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