Kendall shook her glass, and the ice tinkled clear notes. “Your new wife is a pretty girl. She has that clean and unpretentious appeal I’ve never been able to project.” She smiled with a hint of sarcasm. “I guess I can see how such innocence might fascinate a man.”
Trevor kept his face closed, barring Kendall access to his thoughts. His inappropriate thoughts. Thoughts of how different Cassidy and Kendall were.
Cassidy was reserved . . . Kendall was a rebel.
Cassidy was inhibited . . . Kendall was unfettered.
Cassidy could be so uptight . . . Kendall could be so upbeat.
Cassidy didn’t want him. Kendall wanted him. He could almost smell the vibes she’d been putting out since arriving at his house. Silence continued between them, and they let it abide, Trevor dedicating the speech-free moments to additional musing about the woman across from him. He knew more about Kendall than she realized. Brenda had told him how Kendall had no qualms about sleeping with married men. She preferred them because they didn’t want anything from her except a few hours of gratification and a sympathetic ear, and in this way, Kendall could come and go as she pleased.
She swirled the glass of ice cubes with one of her squared, manicured nails. “Coming to Philly was really hard. I haven’t been back since Brenda’s funeral. I really miss her, you know.”
He had to give it to her. Kendall knew men well, and she knew he wasn’t the kind you threw yourself at. She was slow-walking him, hunting for a vulnerable spot, the door to his heart.
“I remember how she used to smile all big whenever she was talking about the girls. The girls and you were the loves of her life,” Kendall said, finding that door to his heart. Her eyes glistened with tears, and she vacated the chair, stepped around the coffee table, and sat on its polished wood surface, perching in front of him. She put a hand on his knee. “You must think of her all the time.”
“Brenda was a huge part of my life.” Trevor glanced at the hand on his leg. “I think about her every day.” His gaze slid upward, languidly cruising over Kendall’s cleavage and neck before parking on her face.
Kendall filled the next moment with a sigh. “You and Brenda had a beautiful marriage.” She raised both eyebrows, but one arched higher than the other. “What about your new one? Is it good?”
Of course, Kendall, as perceptive as she was, had noticed the uneasy glances between him and Cassidy, felt the tension that hung between them. And the fact that he had only touched Cassidy that one time in the vestibule had probably been the true indicator that something was amiss. He was a hands-on man. He’d always had his hands somewhere on Brenda: her neck, her back, her leg, somewhere. Even after two kids, he and Brenda were hand-holders.
“I didn’t expect to find the honeymoon over so soon. Or did I just happen to show up on a rare stormy night?” Kendall meddled more. “What’s going on?”
Discussing the particulars of his marriage with another woman would be as smart as curling up in a pit of cobras. And letting Kendall keep her hand on his leg wasn’t a good idea, either. But Trevor chose the passive alternative and permitted her hand to remain where it was. “My marriage,” he said softly, “is not something I can talk about, Kendall.” Her demeanor relayed that she was not offended as she smiled and rose to her feet. It was a good time for Trevor to stand and leave, yet he sat and studied the rhythmic bounce of Kendall’s feminine attributes as she carried her glass to the kitchenette. When she turned to come back, he shifted his gaze away from her, while his conscience ticked like a bomb about to explode.
Kendall strolled to him and stopped between his knees. She tipped his chin and held his stare. “So if you don’t want to talk, why are you here, gorgeous?”
After a pause that endured long enough for him to debate whether he should stay put or get out, he lied, “I don’t know,” sounding like a child, deciding he wouldn’t be so quick to judge others who fell to the beasts of lust and adultery. Taming the beasts was harder than he had realized, and at the moment, he wasn’t sure he wanted to tame them.
“You and I both know you didn’t have to bring me back tonight.” Kendall’s fingers, a chiffon touch, slithered up and down his ear. “And you certainly didn’t have to come up to my room.”
Trevor’s heart pounded triple time as Kendall’s coconut-shell-brown eyes bored into his with a twinkle that put stars in his own eyes. She was right on both points. He could have let her call for another cab or even called for it himself. And when Kendall said she had a photograph up in her room that she’d like the girls to have, he could have waited for one of the hotel attendants to bring the picture down, as Kendall had suggested. But Trevor had been quick to say he could come up. And now, as she piloted a single finger across his left eyebrow, along his sideburn, over his Adam’s apple to the top button of his shirt, he was in no hurry to go home. It felt good to be touched this way. Kendall’s finger was cold from the glass, but he didn’t mind. It was alive and exactly what a dying man needed. Soothed, he closed his eyes and continued to bask in Kendall’s attention.
“Hey,” she whispered, cupping his face between her hands. Trevor opened his eyes and rested his gaze on Kendall’s painted lips. Lips he had not once considered kissing in all the years he’d known her. He considered it now as her hands clutched his shoulders. It was torture not to respond with a touch of his own, but he kept his hands nailed to the chair arms.
“Don’t worry, gorgeous.” Her words were insulated in soft seduction. “I know what you need.”
Trevor was treading a thin-iced winter river and could not ignore the voice inside of him that warned him to stop and turn back.
But Cassidy’s not meeting your needs,
his flesh said.
She’s not even trying anymore. That’s a sin, too. A sin for a sin.
Cassidy is the one you vowed to cherish,
his spirit reminded him.
Kendall undid his shirt button.
Who knows how much longer it will be before Cassidy gets over the vaginismus? She might never get over it. How long are you supposed to wait?
If you love her, you’ll wait as long as it takes
, the answer came as Kendall undid another button and then another. She pulled his shirt open and laid her hands on his chest, and all of his skin reacted with heat.
Cassidy will never know about this,
his flesh whispered.
The response was no louder.
But you’ll know . . . and God will know.
As their heads angled and their lips were about to seal an action that went against everything Trevor believed in, he let go of the chair and gently closed his hands around Kendall’s wrists. “Stop,” he croaked.
A self-assured and determined glow on her face, Kendall responded by kissing his forehead, the bridge of his nose, and almost his lips, but he stood suddenly, sending her backward. She would have fallen had his hold on her wrists not been firm. He made sure she was steady before letting go and brushing by her. His breathing erratic as the path of a tornado, he ran a hand across his head and down the back of his neck as if this would clear the black clouds shadowing his integrity. Kendall stepped behind him, surrounded his waist with her arms, and he felt her chin pressing between his shoulder blades. He gripped her hands and led them away from his body. “Kendall, it’s best we end this.”
She exhaled compliance, lowered her arms, and stepped away. Buttoning his shirt, livid at himself for coming to Kendall’s room, and appalled at himself for allowing things to advance as far as they had, he barked, “I should go.” He turned and started for the door.
“Wait,” she hollered.
Trevor snapped around, his voice snapping, too. “What?”
“The photograph . . . I’ll get it. It’s an original black-and-white of Brenda and me when we were kids,” she said, backing up, “and I want the girls to have it.”
Kendall disappeared into what Trevor assumed was the bedroom. When she returned, he was calmer. “I’m sorry,” he said to her, just as he had whispered to God seconds before.
She shrugged. “I was the aggressor. You really didn’t do anything.”
“I’m here, and I shouldn’t be.”
She shrugged again. “It’s all good, Trevor.” She handed him a white envelope. “The picture’s inside.”
As Trevor clasped the envelope, his nose began to tingle, and he felt as if he was reliving something. In a matter of seconds, realization slugged him with brute force, and he looked Kendall in the eye. “It was you,” he charged. “You sent the info on the drunk-driving accident.”
“Yes,” she admitted directly.
Trevor gaped at the envelope, scented with something that watered his eyes.
“I sent it because I was concerned.”
He frowned.
She explained, “Penny told me you’d taken Cassidy to some awards banquet. I was just being nosy at the time and started asking questions about her. I found out she was a Tilden student, like my little brother, Simon.” Kendall folded her arms and leaned against the wall. “I called Simon and asked if he knew her. He said he remembered her. I asked if he had any dirt on her, and he told me she was clean. But a few days later, he faxed me the article. Considering how Brenda died, I thought you should know Cassidy’s history before you got too involved with her. Apparently, her transgression didn’t matter.”
“No, it didn’t. I shredded the article and never questioned Cassidy about it.”
Kendall examined him with the concentration a scientist might commit to a slide under a microscope. “You really love her, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.” Trevor started to turn but stopped. “You’re like another mom to Brittney and Brandi, and it would hurt them not to have you in their lives. But I’m uncomfortable with what transpired here tonight.” His eyes were unyielding. “It can
never
happen again.”
Her feeble smile curved with sheepish remorse. “Been there, done that . . . it’s over.”
He turned away, then jerked back. “I need to make something else very clear to you. Although I think about Brenda every day—often more than once—not a day goes by that I don’t fall on my knees and thank God for blessing me with Cassidy.” Trevor opened the door and entered the hall. He looked at Kendall and said before stepping away, “The answer to your earlier concern is yes. Cassidy and I
are
in the midst of a storm. But I assure you, Kendall, there’s no storm the God I know can’t calm.”
Cassidy concentrated on the red numbers of the digital stove clock. It was 10:45, too late for visitors, so she decided the person ringing the bell a second time had to be Trevor. He kept his door keys on a separate ring from his car keys, so it was possible he’d forgotten to take the door keys with him. She hurried to the front of the house and took a moment to peek through the peephole in case she was wrong.
And wrong she was, but she opened the door, anyway. A bashful smile lifted the corners of Rave’s lips. “Hi,” Rave said.
Cassidy returned the greeting as ribbons of warm air entered the house. She ransacked her brain, scrambling to find something else to say. It wasn’t as if she and Rave ever talked. And it was months since she’d seen Rave at church.
Rave seemed to be as disconcerted. “I realize it’s late, but I saw the lights on . . . and, well . . .” Her gaze fell to the floor before returning to Cassidy. “My . . . um . . . mom lives a couple blocks from here now. I dropped by to see her, but she was busy, so I thought I’d say hello to you guys.”
Rave’s voice had a sincere note to it, and there was something about her that almost seemed human. Cassidy took a step back. “Would you like to come in?”
Rave nodded, and with a small smile, walked in, sandals clicking against the black and white tiles of the foyer. Cassidy glanced over the rest of Rave’s attire. Her jeans didn’t have that pasted-on look, and a roomy shirt hid her navel.
The women spent several awkward seconds beneath a high iron chandelier with pointed teardrop bulbs showering tranquil white light. Cassidy gestured stiffly. “Let’s sit in the living room.”
Rave strolled in first. “It’s been a long time. How’ve you been?”
“I’m doing great,” Cassidy lied with a dim smile, and joined Rave on the couch. “How are you?”
“Good.” She stood unexpectedly and lifted her shirt. “
We’re
doing good.”
Cassidy stared at Rave’s potbelly. “You’re pregnant,” she gasped.
“Four months,” Rave said, and returned to the sofa. “Believe me, I went through all the stages of grief when I found out, but I’m okay with it now.”
Rave anchored her hand on her stomach, and Cassidy wondered if the action was purposeful or instinctive. During her own pregnancy, Cassidy had often discovered her hand on her belly.
“I’m lucky that pregnant is all I am. I could have AIDS or some other STD.”
Cassidy could appreciate the magnitude of that statement. When she compromised her standards and carried out a sexual relationship with Minister that lasted for months, she had been reckless and failed to use protection most times.
Rave wore her hair parted down the middle, and a long braid hung on each side of her head. She fingered the end of one of the black cords before flinging it over her shoulder. “I was planning to tell my mom about the baby tonight. But she was entertaining one of her boyfriends and didn’t have time to talk . . . the way it’s been my whole life. I thought she’d be glad to see me, since we haven’t seen each other for several months.”
Cassidy heard the dismay in Rave’s tone. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to talk to your mom.”
“It’s no big deal,” she murmured, but the tears in Rave’s eyes said differently.
“I was about to have a glass of juice. Can I fix you one?”
“I didn’t plan to stay long. Like my mom said, I should have called first.”
“Well, Trevor’s not here.” He should’ve been back from taking Kendall to her hotel by now, and a ball of tension bounced in Cassidy’s stomach, but she maintained a pleasant face. “And the girls are in bed, so you’re welcome to stay and talk.”
Rave took time to think. “If it’s no trouble?”
“It’s not,” Cassidy reassured her.
Sixty seconds later, Rave sat at the kitchen table built for six. Cassidy poured two glasses of apple-cranberry juice. “Are you hungry?”