Caroline

Chapter 22

Again, Caroline found herself floating, yet completely grounded. Kissing Michael was insanely wonderful. She loved his taste, his smell, the feeling of his arms pulling her in. Shifting against him, trying to make as much contact with her body to his as possible, she thrilled to the feel of the bulge in his jeans. With a breathy grunt, he raised his hips to press more firmly against her. Leaving her mouth, he trailed kisses down her jaw and throat, raising goosebumps on her skin. The farther his kisses traveled, however, the slower they became, until they stopped completely. With his head bent and eyes closed, he pulled away, but didn't release her.

"I'm trying," he said, his breath ragged, "I swear I'm trying. I don't want to mess this up."

She ran her fingers through the hair at his temples, trying to soothe while her heart beat rapidly. "Mess what up?"

When he looked up at her, his eyes were pleading. "I don't want this to be just a rebound for you, and at this rate, I'm afraid that's all it'll be. I want you. God, I want you so bad, it's killing me. But I want you right. All of you. Because you'd be getting all of me."

She shook her head, slowly. "We were friends as kids, but you've only known the person I am now for three days."

"I've only had three days to look at you, talk to you. But I know you. I know how introverted you became after your mamma died. I know how you focused your attention on Mark afterward, trying to hold onto what was left of your family. I know he had to talk you into going away to college because you didn't want to leave him. And for probably that same reason, you avoided any kind of relationship that might take you away from him."

He reached up to hold her face in his hands. "I know how you looked after your neighbor when she had her knee replacement, even though you had a full time job and two grown men clamoring for your attention."

"She only needed my help for a few weeks..." Caroline started.

"She had her own family who could've done it," he broke in. "But she trusted you."

"And how would you know anything about any of that?" she asked, irritation creeping into her voice.

"Because I asked," he answered softly, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. "Your daddy didn't just send me to school and then walk away. He kept coming back to check on me, find out what I was doing and what I needed. We used to talk over just about anything. He seemed to know that I was especially interested in hearing about you. At first, you were a connection to who I used to be, and I needed that."

"Then why didn't you get in touch with me?"

"I told you I was scared, but also, because Mark didn't want me to."

She hated knowing it, but based on every other revelation she had heard that day, she knew he was right. Her father had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep her in a protective bubble.

"So we're going against his wishes now?"

He appeared to think about it for a moment, then said, slowly "I don't think so."

This piqued her curiosity. "Why do you say that?"

He dropped his hands to wrap around her waist. "Because toward the end, he stopped asking so many questions about me, and focused mainly on talking about you."

"What?"

"He told me about your boyfriend, that he didn't trust him not to break your heart. But that you were so happy he couldn't bring himself to do anything about it for fear of breaking it even worse. I probably knew about his cancer before you did. He didn't want to tell you about it at all, though I don't know how he thought he'd pull that off. But when you announced your engagement, he knew you wouldn't plan a wedding knowing he was sick. So he told you, hoping to delay long enough for something to happen."

She thought again of those dinners with her father. He had known about Derek all along. That was why nothing had happened when Terrence had seen Derek with another woman. And given the reaction her mother had had to his own infidelity, it was no wonder he had tried to shield his daughter as much as he could.

"It wasn't until he told me he had bought the cabin down from mine for you to have, that I started to wonder if he wasn't up to something."

She felt her reality make another small shift. "Daddy didn't buy that cabin," she said, carefully. "I did."

He shook his head. "He bought it from Ricky Jeter a year ago. I was there when they signed the papers."

Slowly, she slid off his lap, then curled up in the corner of the sofa.

"I contacted the broker..." she said, trying to figure out what she had missed.

"Yeah, Maggie said she had been waiting for your call."

She felt tired, physically and mentally. Yet again, she was made to feel unsure about her world and her place in it. One thing she was absolutely certain about: these surprises needed to end, now. She was also certain she knew exactly where to go to get them straightened out. Sadly, apologetically, she looked to Michael as she stood. He rose immediately and wrapped his hands around her arms.

"What's the matter?" he asked, worry evident in his voice.

"I need to go... to try to get some sleep," she said. "I need to drive to Charlotte in the morning."

"Why?"

"To have a heart to heart conversation with Terrence Duke."