Gift Wrapped Dad. Sandra Steffen
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and throaty. Then, like now, the sound sneaked into his senses, reminding him of how her laughter used to trail away when he touched her. His body heated from the memories alone. How he’d love to touch her again, to slide his hands into the V-neckline of her shirt and glide it down her body. He’d love to cover her breasts with his palms, then bend to take each peak into his mouth. And then he’d swing her into his arms and stride with her to the bed....
He came back to his senses in the nick of time. He couldn’t take her in his arms and carry her off to bed. He couldn’t even walk without crutches. Besides, if kissing his therapist was against the rules, he had no doubt that making love with her was, too.
He finished his own hot chocolate, aware that she was watching him intently. He replaced his mug on the counter and reached for his crutches. She looked a little surprised, as if she’d expected him to kiss her anyway, or at least to try. He’d have loved to do just that. But he wouldn’t, at least not yet.
She followed him as he made his way to the front door. Moving ahead of him, she opened it. Will turned on the top step, loving the surge of adrenaline pumping through his body.
“Will,” she said. “I don’t think I like what you’re thinking.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?” he asked, the picture of innocence.
“Because I’ve seen that look in your eyes before,” she replied. “If I remember correctly you always looked like that when you had something dirty on your mind.”
He gave her a thorough once-over, silently giving her credit for being absolutely right. Rather than admitting it out loud, he said, “If you know what I’m thinking, I’m not the only one with a dirty mind.”
He saw the surprise in her eyes, and the sensuality, too. What a combination.
He glanced into her living room behind her, at all the textures she loved. She had changed in many ways, but in that way she was still the same. She’d always loved to touch.
Memories of Krista’s touch scattered his thoughts much like the late-night breeze was fluttering across the wet leaves on the sidewalk behind him. Like moisture soaking into those leaves, one thought soaked into his mind. In that instant, he began to wonder if maybe there had been more than one reason for his arrival in Pennsylvania.
Will had never believed in fate. He preferred to think that a person carved out his own future. But maybe fate had played a role in this, after all. Maybe fate had sent him to Krista’s house tonight. One thing he knew for sure: he’d gone there with panic tied around his windpipe. Now the panic was gone and desire was pumping through his body.
He wanted Krista Wilson. He wondered if it was against the rules to shout it at the top of his lungs. Whether it was or not, he wouldn’t do that. Sure, he wanted her, but if he was ever going to have her, he knew he’d have to be a lot more subtle than that.
Will suddenly felt as if this was the first inning of a brand-new game. The stands were full and the sun was shining. Billy the Kid was up to bat, and the sky was the limit. Will Sutherland was back in the game. In more ways than one.
“Good night, Krista,” he said before turning around, purposefully using his deepest tone of voice.
“Will?” she asked, drawing his gaze back to hers. “I just want you to know that you’re welcome to call or stop by whenever the walls start to close in on you.”
He felt as if his blood were thickening to molasses, swelling his chest and heating his body. “Thanks,” he said softly. “There’s something I’d like you to know, too.”
“What’s that?”
“Miss July and I never—” He clamped his mouth shut without finishing. Where in the world had that declaration come from?
“Oh, Will,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”
Will felt the adrenaline leak out of him like air from an open valve. Krista had tipped her head to one side and was looking at him as if she was genuinely sympathetic. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t sorry, that he could have made love with the other woman if he’d have wanted to. He just hadn’t wanted to.
Turning away from the sympathy in her expression, he clenched his jaw and began to make his way to his car. Moments ago he’d felt as if he was standing at bat in the first inning of a brand-new game. Now it seemed as if, in the blink of an eye, the game had been rained out.
He didn’t want anyone’s pity, least of all Krista’s. Okay, he thought to himself as he stuffed his crutches into the car and drove away. Maybe she hadn’t looked at him with pity in her eyes, but there had been sympathy. And that was almost as bad.
Will tried to imagine that he was lacing up his cleats and stepping up to home plate. In his imagination, he gripped the bat in his hands, measuring its weight. Unbidden came the image of Krista’s satin-covered skin filling his palms.
Scowling, he flipped on the radio and turned up the volume. He let his mind go blank as he drove back to his plain gray apartment.
Three
“Look out. Here they come!” Tommy called from the back door.
Krista tweaked Tommy’s nose as her best friend, Gina Harris, somehow managed to get all three of her daughters through the door and into the kitchen. Since Krista’s schedule was open until her ten o’clock session with Will, she’d offered to watch the triplets while Gina went to the dentist first thing this morning. In return, Gina would drop Tommy off at school.
The next few minutes were a flurry of activity as three bonnets were removed and three toddlers scampered around the kitchen, then darted into the next room, three pastel streaks of lace, ribbons and perpetual motion.
Krista, Tommy and Gina all poked their heads into the living room where the triplets began pulling Tommy’s old baby toys from a cardboard box. Other than Tommy, Gina’s twenty-two-month-old girls, Sarah, Beth and Abby, were the most adorable children Krista had ever seen.
“Did I really used to play with those toys?” Tommy whispered.
“You sure did,” Krista answered, smoothing her fingers over a stubborn lock of hair near the back of her son’s head. The instant she lifted her fingers, the hairs sprang up again.
“Wow,” Tommy whispered in awe. “Three babies at once. That is so cool.”
Cool was Tommy’s favorite word.
“Tommy,” Krista said. “Have you brushed your teeth?”
The boy nodded. “I just have to get my backpack and I’ll be ready to go.”
Instead of turning toward his bedroom, he looked up at Gina and said, “Did you know that only one out of every nine thousand, two hundred and seventy-three babies born is a triplet?”
Gina and Krista exchanged a smile before Gina answered, “No, Tommy, I didn’t know that.”
“I saw this really long equation in the Professor’s Book of Formulas at the library the other day, and the librarian said that’s what it meant. I thought it was cool and I thought you might want to know.” With that, he hurried toward his bedroom, those few stubborn hairs on the very top of his head swaying to and fro with every step he took.
Leaning toward Krista, Gina whispered, “I don’t think that professor figured Taylor’s stamina into that equation, do you?”
Krista shook her head and rolled her eyes. Ever since her best friend had met and married Taylor Harris, little innuendos about sex had become commonplace.
“I doubt they could have figured in your stamina, either, Gina. Now, why don’t you tell me what the girls are going to need while you’re gone.”
She listened intently as Gina listed everything the triplets might require, from the location of diapers and a change of