All of You (6 page)

“Yeah. I wanted to stay in Chicago and was
fortunate enough to be given that opportunity. Not all guys get
that choice,” Lincoln answered. Then he turned to me and asked,
“Have you ever been to a game?”

I thought for a moment. “My older brother got
tickets to a game. Um... not last year but the year before, I
think. You played Toronto.”

“Did we win?” Lincoln asked.

“Yeah. It was a good game”

“Did I play?”

“Yeah,” I said and blushed. Lincoln raised
his eyebrows, questioning my reaction. “I remember hearing your
name being announced and thinking how crazy your life must be.
Being a professional hockey player and the son of a senator. That
must be chaotic.”

Lincoln didn’t say anything in reply, and we
walked for a little longer in silence. I began worrying I had said
something stupid again. Maybe the comment about being the son of a
senator was a touchy subject for him. He hadn’t really talked about
that.

I decided to jump-start the conversation. “So
you said you wanted to talk to me about something?” I asked,
breaking the silence.

Lincoln gave a small smile and stopped
walking. We had reached a small bridge that spanned over a frozen
stream which fed the pond. Lincoln leaned against the railing of
the bridge and looked out at the hockey kids playing in the
distance but didn’t say anything. I leaned against the bridge rail
next to him and waited. I assumed he wanted to talk about my coat,
but yet he wasn’t saying anything. I was practicing in my head how
I was going to decline his offer once again to buy me a new coat
when he finally broke the silence.

“It’s so beautiful here,” Lincoln said,
looking out at the pond and the trail with the tall prairie grass
poking out from the snow bank.

I smiled. “Yeah, it is. This is my favorite
park. But it’s especially gorgeous in the fall when those trees
turn colors,” I said, pointing to a small grove of trees that were
bare now on the opposite bank.

“That would be nice,” Lincoln said quietly. I
waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. I thought maybe he was
trying to think of a way to bring up the subject of my coat, but
when he didn’t, I figured I'd take matters into my own hands.

“If you’re—” I said at the same time Lincoln
spoke.

“How many—” Lincoln stopped talking once he
realized we had interrupted each other.

“Go ahead,” I offered.

“Oh, no. You go first,” Lincoln objected.

“No, no, really. You go,” I insisted. Lincoln
stared at me momentarily.

“How many siblings do you have?” he finally
asked.

Not what I thought he was going to say, but I
went with it figuring some small talk wouldn’t hurt anything. “Four
siblings. Frankie is the oldest. He’s an accountant for some
company in Boston. He moved away when I was still in high school.
Then Rebecca. She’s a nurse at Chicago General Clinic. Then it’s
me, and then the twins, Elliot and Emily. Elliot is a police
officer, and Emily is a teacher.” I rattled off.

“Middle child, eh?” Lincoln said, and I
nodded. “Me too.” He gave me a small smile. “And you work at
GenChem?”

“Mm… I’m interning right now. I’m working on
my thesis research project.”

“You’re still in school?” Lincoln asked
surprised.

I nodded. “I’m getting my Master’s in
Cellular and Molecular Biology. If my internship goes well, I’ll
graduate in May.”

“Wow. That’s impressive. What are your plans
for after graduation?”

“Um… I’m not sure. GenChem could keep me on.
My research project has some elements that might interest them
enough to keep me there after I graduate. If my research pans out,
anyway.”

“What are you researching?” he asked.

“Basically, I’m researching skin cell growth.
I’m doing growth studies and testing the lifespan of artificially
produced skin. Ideally my research would be used in the medial
field for patients with prosthetic limbs,” I paused and added
quietly, “Or burn victims.”

“That’s really remarkable. Someday you could
give someone a new arm or leg,” Lincoln stated.

I laughed slightly. “Well, that’s being
ambitious. The most my research would ever be able to help with is
to cover a prosthetic with artificial skin. Someday, hopefully,
you’d never know that person had a fake limb.”

“Well, if you could do that, it could just be
a start. You could develop nerve and muscle cells essentially
giving them a new arm. Think of the impact that would have on our
wounded veterans alone.” Lincoln sounded in awe of my research.

“Well, like I said, that’s being ambitious.
Right now I’m just focusing on getting my little cells to
grow.”

Lincoln nodded. “I’m highly impressed,
Jillian.”

“Thanks,” I said, blushing. “We’ll see how
things go. I might be just grasping at straws with my
research.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Research is trial and error. Lately it seems
like it’s more error than anything. But this is my first big
research project, so chances of it succeeding are slim.” I
shrugged. “At least, that’s what my boss says. I’m just an
intern.”

“Your boss doesn’t support your
research?”

“He does… to an extent. His family owns the
company, so it’s their money that’s funding my research. He knows
positive results are few and far between, and he’s fine with that
as long as it appears their investment will pay off eventually.” I
shrugged again. “It’s a gamble. But I’m not too concerned right
now. I’ve only really been working on this since my internship
started last semester. So far, there’s not a lot of time or money
sunk into it. It’s going to be a while before we know for sure that
I’ve failed,” I said with a small laugh.

Lincoln looked concerned as he peered over
his sunglasses and met my eyes. “Why are you so sure you going to
fail?”

I started getting uncomfortable. I was
talking about myself too much. “That’s just the likelihood.” I
looked down at my gloved hands as I wrung them. “I hope my research
produces something someday, but we’ll just have to see.” I looked
away, back toward the pond.

“Jillian…,” Lincoln said in a tender voice.
He moved a half step closer to me and leaned on the railing next to
me. He drew a finger down the back of my hand to my coat sleeve. I
swallowed a gulp and took a step away from him.

“Um. If this is about my coat, you really
don’t need to feel guilty for it. Like I said last night, accidents
happen.”

“This isn’t about your coat. Although I am
still willing to buy you a new one.”

“Then what is this about?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” Lincoln said
plainly.

“Well, if you didn’t want to talk to me about
the coat, what did you want to talk to me about?” I asked,
confused. There was nothing else the two of us could possibly have
to talk about.

“Everything. Anything,” Lincoln said with a
smile. “I want to know more about you. I want to talk to you and
get to know you better. When I first saw you watching the parade,
you looked so beautiful. I wasn’t lying about your smile last night
in the tent. You looked so beautiful and happy. I couldn’t help but
stare.”

Crap. It seemed like Rebecca was right, and I
didn’t know how to handle it. I wasn’t used to guys hitting on me
to begin with and Lincoln was way out of my league. I don’t even
have a league, I thought miserably.

“But then there was the hot chocolate
incident…,” Lincoln continued. “And you didn’t even care about your
coat. I’m not used to that. Most women are more concerned with
their appearance and would never have wanted to get messy. But you
didn’t even care.”

I blushed. That’s why he wanted to talk to
me? Because I didn’t care that he had stained my coat. Not only did
I feel ridiculous now that he thought I didn’t care about my
appearance, I also felt a flash of jealousy. Did he have a lot of
women around him? I supposed so. Women probably fell at his feet.
And they were probably all beautiful and worthy of his attention,
unlike me.

Ugh. I nervously tried to fix the hairs that
had fallen out of my messy ponytail. He thought I didn’t care about
my appearance, and then I had seen him this morning with the
just-rolled-out-of-bed look, and now I hadn’t even had time to
shower today. Oh my God. No wonder he thought I didn’t care about
my looks! I knew I was undesirable, but I still tried. I usually
wore make up and tried to do something with my hair. I wanted to at
least look normal as far as others could see.

I pushed off the bridge railing and started
walking again, and Lincoln followed. I hoped by the time we got
back around to where we parked he would be done with his spiel and
I could go home and forget this ever happened.

“Why do you do that?” Lincoln asked,
surprising me.

“Do what?” I spat out impatiently.

“Run from me.”

I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t tell him the
truth without explaining about my past, and I wasn’t about to do
that. “It’s just better this way,” I finally answered.

Lincoln stopped walking and grabbed my arm,
turning me to face him. He took his sunglasses off and looked at
me. “You said that last night too. But was it so bad at the
bar?”

I thought of the countdown and how much I had
wanted him to kiss me at midnight. Yes, it was that bad at the bar
last night. “You don’t understand.” That was all I could think to
say.

“What don’t I understand? Do you… do you have
a boyfriend?” Lincoln asked timidly.

Yeah. Right. “Ugh… no, I don’t have a
boyfriend.”

“And you’re not gay?” he asked seriously and
stepped closer to me.

I snorted. “No, I’m not gay.”

“Then I don’t see what the problem is.”
Lincoln’s mouth descended to mine. He kissed me softly at first,
waiting to see if I was going to pull away. But when I didn’t, he
put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me closer, deepening the
kiss.

I had never been kissed like this before. It
felt as if Lincoln poured his whole fiber of being into that kiss.
A warm, excited feeling flowed through me and I brought a hand up
and grabbed the short hair at the back of his head. I knew I should
push him away, but in this one brief moment all I wanted was to
never stop kissing him. I had wanted him to kiss me last night so
badly.

Lincoln’s hand moved from my shoulder, down
my arm, and settled on my hip, and he gave a gentle squeeze there.
That squeeze was all it took to snap me back to reality. I gasped
and wrenched away from him. He looked at me with confusion. I took
several steps back from him and eyed him warily.

“Jillian?” Lincoln took a step toward me with
his hands out. I held my hands up and looked him in the eye.

“What do you want, Lincoln?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

“Jillian…I —”

“I don’t know what your intentions are, but I
told you last night, this is not happening,” I said, interrupting
him. I knew I was being cruel, but I also knew there was no way
Lincoln would be interested in me if he really knew me. The easiest
explanation to why he was acting as if he was interested in me was
that he wanted something from me, although I had no idea what that
would be.

“My intentions?” Lincoln said with a hurt
look in his eye. “My intentions are that I wanted to get to know
you better. I’m not sure what you are implying, and I’m sorry if I
pushed you too soon, but you seem like a really great person, and I
wanted to get to know you better. Spend some time together. I don’t
meet a lot of people that are genuinely decent people. Most people
I meet are not good people. They are only interested in either my
money or my career, or they want a piece of the fame.” Lincoln
looked deeply at me. “You don’t seem to want any of that. I don’t
usually meet people like that, so when I do I tend to cherish those
connections.”

I was dumbstruck. I never imagined he would
have problems with relationships. “What about all those people in
the bar?” I asked. “Aren’t they your friends?”

“Some of them,” he said shrugging. “Deacon’s
a great guy. Most of the guys on the team are really great guys,
and my family is always there for me, but it’s still…” He trailed
off.

“Lonely?” I prompted. Lincoln’s eyes locked
with mine, and he nodded. But instead of feeling empathy for him, I
resented the fact that this amazing man could ever claim to be
lonely. What could he possibly know about being lonely? All those
people at the bar last night were happy to see him. I had never
felt that way in my life.

“I probably sound like a spoiled rich kid
right now,” Lincoln said with a nervous chuckle.

“Yeah, a little bit,” I said and smiled. He
let out a small laugh but then looked at me seriously. I disliked
that he thought he knew anything about being lonely. But at the
same time, I realized he had feelings too. I was so scared of being
hurt again, however I knew my sister was right. I couldn’t hold my
past against him.

“Jillian… when I saw you at the parade and
after the hot-chocolate incident, I thought I had met someone who
was not only gorgeous but might not care about all the craziness
that normally surrounds my life,” Lincoln said with hope in his
voice. I felt a sliver of sympathy for this man and then felt
guilty for trying to push him away. Dammit.

Lincoln’s face drew up into a big smile as if
he knew he had made me feel something for him. “Can we just start
over? I’ll introduce myself again, and you won’t give me a fake
name this time,” he said, and I blushed and looked away. He pulled
my chin up gently, forcing me to look up at him. “And you won’t
leave me standing alone in a bar,” he said quietly. I swallowed as
I realized I had hurt him by abandoning him last night.

“I’m sorry,” I said, regretfully. “I didn’t
think you’d notice I left.”