Page 53 of One Texas Night...
He crossed to his desk to pick up his phone, but then he put it down and stepped away, staring at it while he was lost in thought about her. Allison had declared her love for him. Did it really run deep? Thinking she was out there somewhere, probably at her office, he turned back to the window. What was she doing now?
* * *
Allison sat in her office while her dad was in front with a customer. She sat at her desk, composing a letter to go with the catalog. Everything was moving along toward the sale in early summer. She expected a really good response to the catalog that was filled with beautiful items and fine historical pieces.
She heard footsteps in the hall and assumed it was her dad coming back for something and that the customer had gone. She heard a knock at the open door and glanced up. Her breath caught and held while surprise shook her. Jared stood in the doorway.
Her heart seemed to stop and restart at a faster pace while she inhaled deeply. His green eyes held her immobile.
The silence stretched, and her heart became a steady drumming. Deep down she felt an urge to run into his arms. Instead, she locked her fingers together in her lap out of sight below her desktop. “Jared. What are you doing here?” she asked, finally finding her voice, but her words were breathless.
“Your dad told me to come on back,” Jared said, ignoring her last question. He stepped inside her office and closed the door.
She came around the desk to wave her hand toward two guest chairs. They both stopped where they stood only a few feet apart. Neither made a move to sit but stood facing each other in silence.
“So what’s this about?” she asked him finally.
“I want to talk to you in private. I figured if I called you and asked you to dinner, you would just turn me down.”
“You figured right,” she replied. “There’s no point in going to dinner together.”
“Yes, there is. We can talk.”
She barely knew what she was saying to him. He stood too close, looked too handsome and she had missed him more than she had believed possible. His riveting eyes still held her, and she wondered if he heard her pounding heart.
Her phone rang once and she didn’t even look at it. When it became silent, she guessed her dad had answered in the front.
“That was perfect timing. That phone call is an example of why I want to take you out so we can talk undisturbed. I want to be alone with you, not at an office or some other place where we’ll be interrupted. I want to pick you up and take you to my house tonight.”
“I think we’ve said everything there is to say to each other,” she answered, barely able to get out the words. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to be in his arms. She wanted the evening with him, but it was ridiculous to put herself through that agony, and she guessed that he wanted to try to talk her into accepting his lifestyle. She couldn’t think of another reason for his presence.
“Jared, I won’t move in with you no matter what you say,” she stated flatly, hurting all over again, a raw hurt that was as terrible as the first time they had gone through this.
“That is not what I want to talk about,” he said quietly. “One evening. That’s not so much, Allison.”
It was an eternity if someone hurt badly, she thought. “All right, Jared. I don’t see the point, but come by my condo at seven.”
“Thanks for doing this. We could just go now. You could leave your car here.”
“No, you come by my condo.”
He nodded. “I’ll let you get back to work. I’ll see you then.”
She felt the invisible wall between them that had never existed before, not like this. She didn’t know why he wanted to see her, because she hadn’t changed her feelings about him. Instead of the usual excitement she had always felt with him, she just hurt because she couldn’t see any reason to get together again except to repeat the final goodbye.
Even so, the sparks had still been there in that first glance, when she had looked up and faced him as he stood in the doorway. The mesmerizing draw between them was as present as ever, and his handsome looks still took her breath away. Those things had not diminished or changed one tiny degree. Would she ever get over him? Ever stop responding to him?
* * *
She drove home in a haze and showered and dressed in the same state. She selected a simple black sleeveless dress with a short-sleeved, high-waisted sweater that would be a light wrap later in the evening. She let her hair fall freely around her face, and she was ready about ten minutes before seven.
She heard his car and headed toward the front of the condo. Her nerves were taut, a deep eagerness gripping her that she could not ignore or get rid of despite of her best effort.
The bell chimed, and she swung open the door to once again be captured by green eyes that were filled with obvious warmth and appreciation.
Eleven
“You look gorgeous,” he said as he stepped inside, and she closed the door behind him.
