Karen Young - Never Tell

“After being up till all hours after the gala? I don’t think so.” She paused, seeing his expression. “I haven’t been on a horse in at least a dozen years, Hunter. I don’t even know if I still know how to ride.”

“It’s like riding a bike. You never forget. And we’ll make it next Sunday.” He tipped her chin up. “C’mon, you’ll love it, I promise.”

She gave a soft laugh, rolled her eyes and, for once, didn’t pull away. “Okay. I guess.”

His reaction then was instinctive. Looking down at her, at the curve of her pretty mouth and fantasizing how it would taste ever since she’d taken the first sip of that margarita, he just went with instinct. He bent and kissed her. He meant it to be quick and casual, a slightly less-than-serious salute to the hour they’d spent together. But that was before he found her lips so warm and soft…and tasting of margarita…and something a thousand times more potent. With both hands plunged into her hair and holding her just where he wanted her, he forgot to be brief. Or casual. And the fact that she fell right into the kiss with him made it worth the risk of rushing her. It also made it almost impossible to stop.

But they were on the sidewalk. All around them, bar patrons came and went. He broke the kiss…reluctantly. Set her down on her heels—she looked dazed, her eyes wide. He found he still held her chin and he rubbed his thumb over that tantalizingly curved lower lip before letting her go. But he took his time about it.

“I’ll call you,” he said, then watched her as she ran to her car.

He called his mother on his cell phone from the car. While it rang, he rubbed a hand over his mouth, where he could still taste Erica’s lip gloss. He shifted in his seat to accommodate a helluva hard-on and gave a short, incredulous laugh. What the heck had just happened? It was a simple kiss, done on impulse. A spur-of-the-moment thing that had turned into more than he’d intended. If they’d been in a private place instead of on a public sidewalk, he didn’t know what it would have led to. He only knew that he hadn’t felt such a deep and elemental desire for a woman, especially one he hardly knew, since he’d first discovered girls in the eighth grade and fastened his adolescent craving for sex on Cindy Walker.

“Hello?”

“Mom.” He shifted the phone to his other ear and signaled to enter the on-ramp to the interstate. “It’s me, Hunter.”

“I know. Caller ID is a wonderful thing.” There was a smile in her voice.

“Mom, do you still have tickets to that symphony gala you mentioned when I brought your gift over?”

“Why? You aren’t thinking of going, are you?” She was clearly surprised.

“I might.” Glancing over his left shoulder, he crossed two lanes of the crowded interstate. “Can you get me a ticket?”

“Just one? If you’re going, you’ll want to bring someone, won’t you?”

“Oh. Well, I guess. Sure. Two, then.”

“I take it you haven’t checked with Kelly to see if she’s free?”

“No, but it’s not her kind of thing. No horses.” He kicked the SUV into passing gear to get around an eighteen-wheeler. “About the tickets. Do I need to pick ’em up before that night, or what?”

“I’ll leave them with someone at the door. I’ll let you know who when I get a name.”

“Leave it on my voice mail, will you, Mom? It’s this Saturday night, right?”

“Yes. And you have really left it late to ask Kelly.” There was a note of concern in her voice. “I hope she’s free. Oh, I’m just thrilled that you’ve decided to go. Some of my friends haven’t seen you in ages, Hunter.”

“Uh-huh. Are you wearing your Erica Stewart jacket? It’s the kind of thing you’d wear to an event like this, isn’t it? It adds a little pizzazz to wear something from an artist whose stuff just happens to be up for auction, don’t you think?”

She took so long to reply that he thought he lost the connection. “Hello?”

“I’m here,” she murmured. “And I haven’t really thought too much about what I’ll wear, to tell the truth.”

“Well, that’s a first.” He merged smoothly into the exit lane. “I’ve spent a few years watching you get all decked out for occasions like this, and I remember you fretting for days over what to wear. Wear that jacket and you’ll turn a few heads.”

“I’m beyond turning heads by a few years, Hunter,” she said dryly.

“No way, you’re gorgeous and you’ll still be gorgeous when you’re ninety.”

“Thank you, son.”

He thought he heard a catch in her voice. “Gotta go, Mom. I’ll send a check for the tickets. And hey, thanks.”

Lillian clicked the phone off and stood with it in her hand, thinking. It was a toss-up to decide which was more unusual—Hunter’s sudden and unusual interest in going to the symphony gala, or his interest in what she might be wearing, which was also sudden and unusual. He’d never before expressed the slightest interest in what she wore. Like countless moms before her, she’d long ago become used to being almost invisible to her son as far as her physical appearance went.

It was that damn jacket.

“Who was that on the phone?”

She blinked and turned to face Morton, who stood in the arched entrance to the den with a half-finished drink in his hand. “It was Hunter.” Realizing she still held the phone, she replaced it. “He wants tickets to the symphony gala. Two tickets.”

“What’s the problem? You’ve been trying to drag him to one or another of your artsy affairs for years, so now he’s going. Why do you look as though it’s bad news?”

“He wants me to wear the jacket.”

“What jacket?” He watched her walk past him to the bar and pull a wineglass from a line of stems suspended from a rack beneath the counter.

“The Erica Stewart jacket he gave me for my birthday.” After dropping ice into the glass, she poured only a scant shot of gin before adding a wedge of fresh lime. She was trying to limit her drinking. It’s numbing effect had become too inviting lately.

“Is that what’s making you look so glum?” Morton finished his drink and moved behind the bar to pour himself another. “You said you loved it when Hunter gave it to you. So, wear it. Make him happy. God knows, you’ve never hesitated to put Hunter’s happiness above your own before.”

His jealousy of Hunter was a familiar bone of contention between them, but Lillian wasn’t in a mood to take him on just now. “He wanted two tickets, but I don’t think the other one is for Kelly. When I mentioned he’d waited until it was pretty late to ask her, I had a feeling he hadn’t even thought of asking her.”

“Meaning he’s got some other woman in mind,” Morton said, recapping the whiskey bottle. “Doesn’t surprise me. It’s been your and Hank Colson’s fantasy that those two would get together someday, but if that was what Hunter wanted, he’d have done it by now. No red-blooded thirtysomething puts off marrying if he’s found the woman he wants.” Using a swizzle, he noisily stirred the fresh drink. “Kelly’s a nice gal, smart and fairly attractive, but I don’t see him putting a ring on her finger.”

“It’s her. That’s why he’s suddenly interested in going.”

“Kelly? You just said—”

“No. Erica.” She walked to the window and stood looking out.

“Erica?” He stared at her, the swizzle going still in his hand. “You lost me. We’re talking about Kelly, aren’t we?”

“Erica Stewart. The artist. Didn’t you hear it in his voice when he brought me the gift? He couldn’t stop talking about her. He was…dazzled.”

“Dazzled.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, following the lights of a neighbor’s car across the street. “I’m imagining things. I’m seeing a disaster where there’s nothing. I’m jumping to a ridiculous conclusion. But I just have this dreadful feeling, Morton. What if he—”