“Sorry if that was too personal,” he said, looking away. But in truth, he wasn’t sorry. He was just getting warmed up.
“No, no, it’s…it’s okay,” she stammered. “Um. Have you?”
He turned back to look at Sara’s profile and hesitated before answering. “Have I been in love? Hmm.” He rubbed his chin, trying to come up with a politically correct answer. “Depends on the definition, I guess.” Now he was just stalling. He’d been with a lot of girls, and he thought he was in love a lot of times, but in the clear light of hindsight, he wasn’t so sure. Still, he was the one who brought up the subject, and Sara deserved an honest answer. “I mean, I thought I was in love, like every time I had…” His words trailed off, and he cleared his throat. “I guess I um…I guess I’ve been known to confuse sex with love from time to time.”
She glanced at him with a warm smile. “I’m sure you’re not the first person to ever do that.”
“Yeah.” Philip blew some air through his lips, relieved by her reaction. He wondered if her empathetic comment had to do with her own personal experiences, if the same thing had happened to her. Regardless, he was grateful that she didn’t make a big deal of something he thought was going to be this big confession.
He turned his body as much as the seat restraints would allow. Touching her arm, he told her, “Okay, time’s up. Your turn to answer the question, Miss Ross. Have you ever been in love?” For whatever reason, he felt the need to know, and the longer she avoided the question, the more important her answer became.
∙•∙
“Come on, tell me. Have you ever been in love? Simple question. Simple answer.”
Sara smiled shyly, but didn’t reply.
“I saw that,” Philip teased. “Tell me. Or is it something you can’t talk about in polite company?”
Sara’s jaw fell open in mock surprise, and she quickly eyed him up and down before facing front again. “First of all, I don’t think I’m in polite company,” she joked.
“Hey!”
“Second of all, I don’t talk about myself much,” she said, sticking her chin out. She liked that answer. It gave her an easy out.
“No kidding.” He rolled his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but that’s all in the past. It’s time to start talking. So, tell me. Do you have a boyfriend?”
Sara briefly glanced at Philip like he was crazy. “Me? Um. No.”
“Why not?”
“Oh. I don’t know. Because I’m too young to be tied down to just one guy,” she lied.
Philip’s brow knit. “Seriously? How old are you?”
She slanted her eyes and looked at him without moving her head. “Nineteen.” Even though she knew the answer from reading articles about Philip, she asked, “How old are you?”
“Twenty-one. And nineteen isn’t too young,” he quickly added. “So what’s the real reason you don’t have a boyfriend?”
Sara squirmed in her seat. Wasn’t it obvious? She didn’t have a boyfriend because she wasn’t pretty enough or interesting enough or sweet enough. She was too judgmental and had too many defenses that no one had ever bothered to penetrate. But instead of admitting any of that, she merely shrugged and changed the subject. “What about you? Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
“
Aaah
.” He waved at the air. “I’m taking a break. Tired of all the sycophants.”
Sara almost snarked about Philip using a big word again, but she pulled back. He was saying that the girls he dated weren’t genuine, that they just used him because of his status. “That’s too bad,” she said sincerely.
Philip hit his thigh with his palm. “Damn girl. Stop doing that.” The words were harsh, but his tone was lighthearted.
“Doing what?”
“Changing the subject and getting me to do the talking.”
She was a little surprised by how much he was pushing the issue. Didn’t her silence tell him she didn’t want to talk about herself? She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “People aren’t usually interested in my life.”
“I’m interested.”
Sara did a double take at Philip. He shocked her by saying “I’m interested,” and judging by the expression on his face, he meant it. With her eyes squarely on the road in front of her, she stammered, “Oh. Um. Well okay. Let’s see. I love to read.” She again intentionally sidestepped the original question about whether she’d ever been in love.
“What do you read?”
“Historical fiction mostly. Like E.L. Doctorow, Ken Follett, Margaret Mitchell, Natalie Brock,” she replied, listing off some of her favorites. “Anything that has a historical backdrop. And I also…”
“Also what?”
“I-I like to write.”
“You mean books?”
“I guess more like short stories. I just like writing,” she answered truthfully.
“So, what do you write about?” Philip was a little relentless in his questioning, but she kind of liked the fact that this wasn’t just a one-way street, and he was curious about her, too.
“Anything, everything.”
“Ever write about me?”
She felt her heart stop for a minute. It felt like he was reading her mind. “Ha, you are really full of yourself, aren’t you?” she joked, using her old tried-and-true defense tactic.
Facing her, he rested his elbow on the top of his seat back and leaned his ear on his fist. “You haven’t answered the question.”
“Do I ever write about you?” she repeated quietly, stalling for time. “Only in my diary,” she answered, quite proud of herself for that little flirtation.
Philip was quiet for a minute. She glanced at him, and her proud moment turned to anxiety, the exact same way she felt after getting him to autograph his essay. She gripped the steering wheel harder. Did she reveal too much? Did she turn him off? Was he about to tell her that he actually does have a girlfriend and he only wants to be friends?
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him turn in his seat and face forward again. He was nodding, as if he approved of her revelation. “Works for me,” he said, smiling a little. Sara exhaled.
They drove in silence for the next five minutes, letting those words hang in the air, giving each of them time to contemplate the other.
After a while, Philip broke the silence. “You know, I was serious when I said I want to know more about you. Like…you wanting me to write an essay about a moment that changed the course of my life. So, what about you? Was there a moment in time that changed everything? Was it when your parents got divorced?” he asked.
Sara continued looking through the windshield. If she answered honestly, she’d tell him it was the moment she met Philip Mason, but she was sure it was way too soon for
that
revelation. “I guess,” was all she said.
“You told me you felt invisible around their new families.”
Sara was surprised that Philip remembered what she told him during the drive back to school after his doctor’s appointment. “That’s right. My stepfather put his real daughters on a pedestal. I can’t imagine anyone putting me on a pedestal the way he did with them.”
“That’s just wrong,” Philip blurted out.
Sara shrugged. “It’s just the way it was. It didn’t take long for me to realize I was the odd-person-out in the family. I didn’t belong anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” he said sympathetically. “That must have been rough.”
“It was.” The sympathy in his voice brought her own emotions to the surface. She could feel her eyes getting watery. She never talked about this to anyone else. No one ever seemed to care until now. “I was”—she gulped hard —“really lonely. My teen years were pretty unbearable. I couldn’t wait to be old enough to move out.”
“How old were you?”
“Well, I was a baby when my parents got divorced. Maybe two or three years old when my mother remarried. My mother’s other daughters—”
“The evil stepsisters?”
“No.” She chuckled. “They were my half sisters and they weren’t really evil. But I guess I did kind of feel like Cinderella, a second-class citizen in my own family. I was a product of the marriage that was known as the ‘big mistake.’” She glanced at Philip. “That’s what my mom always called it. The big mistake. The only saving grace for me is that my father has to pay for my college tuition and expenses as part of the divorce settlement. Sometimes, it just feels like a payoff. Instead of having a relationship with my father, I get an education.” She looked back at the road and felt like she was talking too much. “Sorry, that’s way too much information.”
“No, not at all,” Philip said sincerely. “So you were telling me about your stepsisters.”
“
Half
sisters,” she corrected again. “Everyone always thought I was weird because I became so solitary. Writing became my escape. I could create worlds where I could be accepted, worlds that were tailor-made for me.” She stopped again. She was telling Philip so many things she had never revealed to anyone in her life.
“It’s too bad no one ever told you how special you are,” he stated, as if it were a known fact.
“No. That’s because I’m not,” she countered. She wasn’t fishing for a compliment when she explained, “I’m fairly ordinary.”
“No, you’re not ordinary, Sara. In fact, you’re something else,” he stated. “You should hear it all the time.”
Sara’s face warmed as she looked over at Philip for a moment too long. She didn’t know what to say. He smiled and pointed at the windshield. “You should watch the road.”
She laughed a little and turned back to the road ahead. She wondered how deeply she was blushing. If she didn’t know better, she’d think Philip was actually interested in her. Well, maybe she
didn’t
know any better, maybe he actually
was
interested. Sara’s stomach did a little flip at that incredible thought. Was it possible that Philip Mason was interested in Sara Ross?
Sara pulled her car into the driveway of Philip’s parents’ house feeling sad that their one-on-one time was over. She dreaded the long ride back to Orlando alone. She would have been perfectly happy to drive around with Philip for all eternity.
His parents’ house was a typical Florida ranch-style home, not small, but not huge. Sara figured it was around 2,000 to 2,500 square feet. The lawn was neatly manicured with lots of native Florida plants and trees, crepe myrtles, lantana, ixoria, and a large live oak. What stuck out like a sore thumb, however, was the paint job. The shingles at the top half of the house were painted orange. The stucco on the bottom half was hunter green. The house was capped by a terra cotta Spanish tile roof that actually coordinated well with the unusual paint colors. Sara stifled a laugh, but not before Philip noticed.
“Hey, I saw that.”
“Sorry,” she said fretfully. “It’s just that I never saw a house that looked so…” Her words trailed off. She didn’t know how to express her thoughts without sounding insulting.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, leaning closer and putting an arm around her. “Everyone has the same reaction. But it’s who my parents are. They live and breathe the citrus business. This is their idea of subliminal marketing.” He leaned away. “Come on, let’s go inside.” He started to pull on the door handle, but Sara stopped him.
“Philip wait.” She gripped his muscular arm and for a moment forgot what she was going to say. She stared at the muscle under his short-sleeved polo shirt and was struck by the desire to rip his shirt off. She restrained herself, of course. Sara Ross would never do anything that bold. She was surprised she was even thinking about it.
He looked down at her hands clasping his arm, and then looked back into her eyes. “Okay. I’ll wait.”
Sara’s lips parted and she released his arm. “Are you sure about this? I mean, nobody wants unexpected company, especially around the holidays.” She began to babble from nervousness at the idea of meeting Philip’s family like this. “I mean, your mom is busy with holiday plans for your family and I’m not family. I’m a total stranger showing up on her doorstep without any advance notice, without a—”
“Sara. Sara, shhhh.” He took her hand in his and she had no idea anything could feel so warm and strong, yet gentle. She briefly imagined his hands confidently stroking her skin as she lay beneath him in bed. His voice jolted her back to reality. “My parents love people. They love it when I bring my friends over. You’ll see. Come on.” He tugged on her hand before releasing it.
Sara watched Philip limp out of the car and retrieve his crutches and duffel bag from the back seat.
His parents love when he brings people over? Just how many “friends” has he brought here to meet them
, she wondered.
The front door to the house flung open while they were still getting out of the car, and Sara watched Philip’s mom rush to greet him and give him a bear hug. His mother was an attractive woman, probably around fifty years old. She had brown hair that was streaked with stray grays here and there. It was combed back, but not really styled. She was about the same height and build as Sara, not too thin, but not really overweight, either.
He rested his chin on his mother’s shoulder and closed his eyes as if he were soaking in the love. Sara had always heard that the way a guy treats his mom is the way he’ll treat his woman, and it was nice to see the open affection between them.
What Sara wasn’t prepared for was the bear hug his mother gave her. She felt herself stiffen. This wasn’t how she expected to be greeted, and she would have preferred to appear more approachable. She detected a hint of orange fragrance—cologne maybe—when Mrs. Mason leaned away to look at Sara. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said. “You’ve been a big help to my Phil. I’m really glad you’ll be spending Christmas with us.”
Sara’s eyes widened, and Philip seemed a bit embarrassed.
“Um, Mom.”
She heard a lot about Sara? What did that mean? “Oh, no, I’m not staying. I’m just—”
Mrs. Mason looked from Sara to Philip and back to Sara again. “You’re not? But Philip said…”
Cutting her off, Philip explained, “I said she was driving me here.”
“No. You said she had no plans for the holidays.” Looking at Sara, she asked, “Do you?”
Now Mrs. Mason was starting to remind Sara of her son. She asked very direct questions, just like Philip. “Um. Well, no, not exactly, but—”