Gift Wrapped Dad

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“That claustrophobic sensation you’re experiencing is perfectly normal. People who are paralyzed or suddenly lose their sight or hearing often experience that kind of panic,” she said as she added water to the teakettle and turned on the burner.

“Does it go away?” he asked.

“Usually,” she said, reaching onto a shelf for two mugs.

Will flattened his palm against the ceramictile counter, smoothing his hand over the cool, shiny surface. Fluffy green area rugs were scattered here and there over the vinyl floor. The table was wood, the chairs cane backed. Woven shades covered the windows, and in the middle of it all, Krista stood at the stove pouring instant hot chocolate into mugs, her hair a riot of waves, her purple shirt clinging to her softly rounded form.

“How long have you lived here?” he asked.

“Three years,” she said, turning around to lean on the counter on the other side of the kitchen.

“Did you live here with Tommy’s father?”

She shook her head slowly. “That relationship ended before Tommy was born. After that, my wandering days were over.”

Will didn’t understand why her words struck such a chord inside him. Her statement was simple enough, but it seemed to be filled with hidden meaning.

“Decorators might think this room is a little too much,” she confessed, obviously attempting to change the subject. “But I like it. Most people decorate with color. I’m a texture person. It has to feel good in order for me to like it.”

He saw her suck in a quick breath as if she’d just realized what she’d said. He could have said something provocative. The Lord only knew how many possibilities flitted through his mind. She’d said she was a texture person. He imagined the texture of her palm gliding over his arm, up to his shoulders and across his chest. He imagined her fingers dipping to the center of his abdomen, and wandering farther.

They both jumped when the teakettle whistled, then grinned sheepishly when she removed it from the burner. While she stirred boiling water into the hot cocoa mix, Will looked on, trying to get his screaming hormones in check. He wanted Krista, but he knew she was right. He hadn’t come here, to Allentown in general or here tonight in particular, to start something. Besides, she’d told him in a couple of different ways that she wasn’t looking for a relationship. Once she’d said she’d sworn off men. Another time she’d told him that theirs would be strictly a patient/therapist relationship. Just now, she’d offered friendship in a roundabout way. Under the circumstances, Will didn’t see how he could turn it down or expect anything more.

She placed the mug of hot cocoa on the counter. Motioning to the low-backed bar stool behind him, she said, “Let’s sit in here.”

Will rounded the counter and leaned into the chair. After propping his crutches against the counter, he took a sip of cocoa and said, “Mmm. Tastes good.”

She nodded. “Hot chocolate is okay, but I dream about coffee.”

“You dream about coffee?”

She nodded again. “My one and only weakness.”

Will eyed her over the rim of his mug and said, “I know, I know. You used to have two, but you gave up men.”

He wasn’t sure he liked the fact that men had been easier for her to give up than coffee. “I can understand why you’re happy with your life, Krista. I mean, you have a cute kid and a nice house and a good job. But why would you give up men completely?”

Krista couldn’t help laughing at Will’s dark expression. Placing her hand on his arm, she said, “You make it sound like I gave up candy for Lent. I didn’t do it for penance, Will. I did it to find my own happiness.” Lifting her hand from his arm, she placed her palm over her heart.

“And did you find your own happiness?” he asked quietly.

She looked around her at her kitchen with all its textures, at the clutter on the counter near the phone, at the field-trip form she’d signed for Tommy and the refrigerator covered with his drawings. She eyed the watch she wore for work and her name badge she always put on just before she walked out the door.

“Not the kind I thought I always wanted, but yes,” she replied, keenly aware of his scrutiny. “I have.”

After a long silence while they both sipped their hot chocolate, she asked, “Have you?”

Will thought about her question. Had he found happiness? At times he was happy enough. He knew he was going to be thrilled when he could walk on his own again. But that wasn’t what she’d meant. He’d had a happy childhood and plenty of happy times. Until these past three months, he hadn’t given happiness much thought. Until tonight, he’d never put his feelings on the subject into words.

Smoothing his finger up and down the handle on his mug of hot cocoa, he said, “I was young and cocky when the Detroit Cougars drafted me into the minor leagues. When I made it to the major leagues the following year, I thought I was on top of the world, thought I was invincible. For three years, I was. Then I had a bad season, tore up my knee. My swing was off. So was my timing. Before I knew it, they traded me to the New York Titans, traded me like stamps or marbles. That brought me down a peg or two, believe me.”

“That’s the way of the game. You play by the rules. Nothing personal, right?” she said quietly.

Nothing personal. Will glanced sideways at her, wondering what she was thinking. “I guess pro sports is a long way from physical therapy, huh?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered. “They both have their rules. I think people should do what they enjoy.”

She tipped her mug up and drank the last of her cocoa. Mesmerized, Will stared at her slender neck as she swallowed, and then at her mouth as she flicked her tongue across her upper lip. She’d said people should do what they enjoyed. He’d enjoy tasting the chocolate on her lips.

His heart began to hammer in his chest and his breathing deepened as he said, “It would probably be against one of those rules to kiss you.”

She nodded. A second later, she started to laugh. She’d laughed this way earlier today, spontaneous 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 clothes to the crackers and apple juice she removed from the bag on the counter. Krista wasn’t aware of anything amiss, but halfway through, Gina stopped talking and eyed her critically.

“What?” Krista asked.

“It just occurred to me that you’re in an awfully good mood this morning and the coffee isn’t even on.” Without another word, Gina strode across the kitchen and inspected a used mug.

“There are two mugs here, and I happen to know that Tommy is allergic to chocolate,” Gina said shrewdly.

“Oh, that one’s Will’s.”

“Will?”

“Will Sutherland.”

“You mean a man was here?” Gina asked, her voice rising an octave.

“Yes,” Krista answered. “But not the way you’re thinking.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“Because I know you. Ever since you met Taylor, you’ve had an X-rated mind.”

Gina smiled and pushed her chin-length blond hair out of her face. “Maybe you’re the one with the X-rated mind, Krista.”

Will had said something similar last night. For heaven’s sakes, was it really that obvious?

Even now she was a bit surprised by the ease with which she and Will had talked last night. After eight years, she would have thought they’d be a little uncomfortable with each other. She had no intention of allowing their relationship to go beyond patient-therapist-friend, but she had enjoyed his company.

He’d looked tired when he’d left. Why wouldn’t he? He’d driven across two states, settled into a new apartment and had begun a new therapy program. He’d always had incredible stamina, but his fatigue, along with the fact that he’d confided in her about what didn’t happen between him and his former therapist, made her feelings toward him shift, swell, soften. She’d gone to bed humming last night, and she woke up the same way. For the first time in years, she hadn’t needed a cup of coffee to clear her mind and begin a new day.

“Krista, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many sparks in your eyes,” Gina declared.

“These are sparks of battle,” she said. “I’m a little surprised by them myself.”

“This guy must really be sexy to have you in this good a mood first thing in the morning.”

“For heaven’s sakes, Gina. Our children are in the next room.” Krista glanced around. Finding the coast clear, she smiled grudgingly and said, “As a matter of fact, he is. But I’m not going to give in to the attraction. Forewarned is forearmed.”

“I don’t know,” Gina declared. “Maybe you should give another man a chance.”

Krista didn’t mind Gina’s candor. These conversations were as natural to them as the friendship they’d formed five years ago. Caring people made the world go round. They also made life worth living. Besides, Krista enjoyed teasing Gina just as much.

The voice of a singing dinosaur carried to their ears. Evidently, Tommy had turned the television on for the girls.