A Minute to Smile Read online

  “I want you, Esther,” he breathed into her ear, and then his mouth was open on her shoulder, tugging with a gentle suckling at the tender flesh.

  She tore off the gloves on her hands and turned in his embrace. With a groan, Alexander lifted his head to kiss her, his hands below her skirt skimming up the backs of her thighs until her bottom was cupped in his palms. He pressed himself into the aching juncture of her thighs.

  Esther moaned softly and the sound seemed to inflame him. His fingers pushed below the fragile barrier of her panties, his tongue danced an exquisite ballet of passion over her lips, and his beard and the silky curls of his head brushed her flesh.

  A building wave pushed through her and she clutched him to her, unable to breathe or think. He moved his hips gently against her and his strong, callused fingers spread in radiating circles below her skirt. She quivered with a rippling, aching desire and pushed against him, longing for a more complete joining—She realized with an icy shock that she was much too close to losing control. With a tiny cry of dismay, she pulled her mouth from his, grabbing his arms.

  “Stop, Alexander.” Her voice was throaty and husky with need.

  He released her instantly, but didn’t move away. He threaded his hands into her hair, forcing her to look at him. With exquisite tenderness, he kissed her lips. His eyes glowed turquoise. “You’re a magnificent woman, Esther. I want to make love to you the way you were meant to be loved.”

  She swallowed, mesmerized by his gaze and the sound of his British voice, gone hot and soft with passion.

  He stepped away a little and gently smoothed her skirt, then pressed another small, hungry kiss to her mouth. “When you’re ready, Esther, I will be waiting.”

  And then, he was gone.

  Chapter Ten

  As Esther sorted the children’s clothing Wednesday night in preparation for their trip, Alexander’s words still echoed in her mind.

  She had concentrated as much as possible on her children through the days just past, aware that she would miss them desperately. Abe had enjoyed tending the store so much that she had asked him to take over all day today, and taken the boys swimming and then out for hamburgers.

  Esther had seen Alexander only twice. Monday night at the dojo, he had been going through his exercise in a room off the main one and she had not disturbed him. Tuesday in class, he was calm and tender, even teasing, but he didn’t make any effort to sway her toward him. It made her wonder if she had imagined the whole thing Sunday evening.

  And then, toward the end of class, she looked up to find his eyes upon her, the color that electric turquoise, and she knew his thoughts. Her body tautened, glistened with swift hunger, but she hurried away after class, suddenly very afraid of him.

  When you’re ready, Esther, I will be waiting.

  Her body was ready—had probably been ready the instant she’d seen his beautiful form working with such power and grace that day in the dojo. Bodies were like that, she thought with a smile, folding socks. They cared little for reason or emotion or even suitability of time and place. If hormone-driven bodies ruled the world, it would have disintegrated before it had had a chance to begin.

  So she had to ignore the siren call of her body, the urgings of her loins to have done with it. She had to look at the emotional angle—both his and hers—and the logical ones.

  Logic. She sighed. Not good. His ordered, balanced life-style was on a direct collision course with her haphazard style. He didn’t realize it, but their worlds were very, very different. On the other hand, he was adaptable, or seemed to be. He never seemed to mind the children, not their noise or their bickering or their messes. In fact, he seemed to like looking at the world through their eyes.

  She counted shorts and jeans and stacked a reasonable number of both into the suitcase. Okay, she thought, so the positive outweighed the negative in the logic column. Two pluses.

  Emotion.

  The biggie. Both hers and his. Every instinct she owned warned her that he had not come to terms with his emotional wounds. His late wife was still vague in Esther’s mind and that worried her. Did he still grieve the woman herself, or was it fear of loss that lingered in the abrupt shadows that could cloud his eyes? Esther didn’t know.

  He was undoubtedly infatuated with Esther. Perhaps he might even fall in love with her. It would be good for him if he did. Loving would heal him. She just didn’t know if he would let her close enough to the true heart of him for that to happen.

  And that was the real reason she hesitated to let their passion have its reign—once she made love with Alexander, her life would be altered forever. There would be no holding back. He would open and expose every single inch of her soul, and would do it so joyfully, carefully and intently that she would be unable to hide anything.

  There was danger in her openness. It had taken her many years to realize it, years of aching at the closed limits of other people. In defense, she had learned to erect a screen with strangers and choose her friends with great care.

  But once she allowed someone into her inner circle, she was unable to maintain her reserve. She had a great questing hunger to understand and love the people in her life; something within her flowed out to embrace and share all that was, all that could be.

  If she made love with Alexander, the small walls of protection she had managed to keep in place against him would crumble. He needed that unadulterated giving, the flow of her against his wounded soul—it would ease and heal the torn places he barely knew existed.

  But what would happen to her if he found that he couldn’t risk loving her, after all?

  It would be devastating—worse than leaving her degree unfinished, worse than learning her ex-husband was unfaithful, worse than the wrenching difficulty of her divorce.

  Before she risked that irreversible leap, she needed to know more about him, his feelings, his wounds. Only then could she make a wise decision about whether or not to move forward.

  * * *

  In class on Thursday, the student presentations began. The enthusiastic and fanatical young man who had argued and poked an arrow of intellectual challenge through the fabric of every argument wanted to go first. The subject he’d chosen was hygiene. As Esther settled next to Alexander in order to listen to his lecture, Alexander leaned over. In a whisper, he said, “This will be interesting—I guarantee it.”

  And it was. One of the qualities that made Keith so appealing was that, unlike many of the others, he approached everything with a sense of humor. So his presentation was sparkling and light, in spite of the grim statistics he cited.

  Finally he wrapped up. “The disposal—or lack of the same—of sewage in the dark ages makes most of us shudder. We’ve definitely come a long way toward eliminating the diseases caused by such carelessness—typhoid and cholera, that kind of thing.” He nodded. “Yes, we dispose of our sewage and organic waste very properly now.”

  He smiled slightly. “But have we really become more civilized? Instead of fecal matter and rotting vegetables in our rivers, there’s now radioactive waste and chemical poisons from factories. Instead of a ditch in the middle of the street running with the waste of bodies, our streets are littered with everything from fast-food wrappers to discarded needles. Even those of us who wouldn’t think of dropping a candy wrapper on the street will generate a ton of trash every year—trash we have no way to properly dispose of.”

  Esther glanced at Alexander, and found that he was smiling at the youth. Keith caught the expression on his professor’s face and flushed in pride, then gave a little mock bow.

  The class applauded, and within minutes, a rousing debate was in progress. For Esther, it was exhilarating and challenging. Although she didn’t participate, she followed the arguments carefully, weighing out both sides in her own mind for later sorting.

  When the class time ended, Alexander gestured toward Keith, keeping him back after the others had left. “That was quite well done,” Alexander said.

  “Th
anks, Dr. Stone.”

  “I’d like to talk to you about your plans following graduation, if you wouldn’t mind. Are you free sometime tomorrow morning?”

  “Sure. About ten?”

  “Fine. You know where my office is.”

  “See you.” He lifted a hand to both Esther and Alexander, then shouldered his heavy book bag and wandered out.

  Alexander looked at her. “Will you join me for coffee this morning? I overslept and had no chance to eat breakfast.”

  “The orderly and disciplined Alexander Stone overslept?” Esther said with raised eyebrows. “What’s the world coming to?”

  He brushed her forearm with his index finger. “If my dreams of a certain lovely redhead didn’t so torment me,” he said quietly, “I’d likely be on time.”

  Esther said nothing. She lowered her eyes, feeling the sweep of yearning overtake her. “Let’s go get some breakfast,” she said finally.

  Out on the university grounds, with warm summer sunshine streaming through the trees, the oddly claustrophobic sense of desire that had descended over Esther at his hint of dreams evaporated. She looked at him. “Keith is a natural teacher. Is that what you’re going to discuss with him?”

  “Partly. The trouble is, he’s on scholarships and just recently wed. The last six months have been a struggle for him and another student told me this morning that his wife is going to have a baby.”

  Esther made a sympathetic noise.

  “Yes,” Alexander said. “In fact, your experiences are what triggered my decision to see if I might be able to help him.”

  A pang touched her—if only there had been someone willing to go to bat for her, how different things might be now. “I think that’s wonderful,” she said. “What are you going to do?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about that.” He took her hand and wrapped it around his elbow, covering it with his own hand. “What would have made it possible for you to continue with your studies? Was it money or time that made it impossible?”

  Ruefully Esther said, “What I needed was a different husband.” She sighed. “It was time, mainly, for me. John wanted me home with the children. But that also led to questions of money, because it was impossible to hold a job, do my studies and care for Daniel all at once.”

  “Didn’t he help you?”

  Esther hesitated, knowing how cruel her answer would make John seem. “No, Alexander, he was opposed to me leaving the children at all.” Their walk had carried them to a small bridge over a pond and she paused there to look at Alexander. “But it’s a lot more complicated than it seems. He’s not a bad person. His mother was an alcoholic and abused him.” A flicker of sympathy showed on Alexander’s craggy features, giving her courage to continue. “He wanted the boys to have the mother he never did, and I guess I wanted to show him that they would.”

  “You needn’t defend him to me, Esther.”

  She smiled. “Maybe I’m defending him to me.”

  “You’re very hard on yourself,” he said, inclining his head. “We all make mistakes, you know. And you can hardly call the time you spent with John a mistake. You have your children, and since Jeremy will be in school next year, there’s no reason you can’t go ahead with your degree, as well.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes.” He took her hand. “But that’s not what I meant to discuss this morning. I am starving.”

  “What are you going to do for Keith?” she asked.

  “I’m not quite sure. Susan was quite wealthy—her father built a fortune in manufacturing—and she asked me to see that some of that money be used for this kind of thing.”

  “Why not a scholarship or something?”

  He shook his head. “She felt that scholarships, no matter how well administered, often had too many conditions attached. So instead of setting it up to be given to graduate students in history or single parents or struggling sons of the working class—” he lifted a brow sardonically “—she asked me to keep my eyes open as long as I taught, and when I retired, to pass the baton to someone I felt would do it well.”

  They had reached the door of the café, and Esther paused, touched. “What a kind person she must have been.”

  “Yes.” But instead of a sad light that sometimes clouded his eyes, this time the kaleidoscope irises twinkled. “But no saint, I assure you.”

  She smiled and stepped inside as he held the door. But in light of the resolve she had made the night before, the opportunity was too good to pass up. As a young waitress poured fragrant coffee into heavy mugs, Esther asked, “What was she like, Alexander?”

  “Who?” He seemed genuinely bewildered. “Oh, Susan?” He paused to tell the waitress to bring him an omelet.

  “Just coffee for me,” Esther said.

  He looked out the window for a moment, then finally looked at Esther, a fond expression gentling the harsh planes of his face. “She was silly,” he said. “She liked practical jokes and magic tricks and could tell a filthy story and get away with it because she looked like a nun.”

  “Was she pretty?”

  The twinkle returned to his eyes. “I believe you’re a bit jealous.”

  “Maybe a little,” Esther admitted. “Maybe curious is a better word.”

  He stirred cream into his coffee. “Well, Susan was many things—smart and funny and terribly clever, but no, she wasn’t particularly pretty. She was always too thin and a bit frail in spite of her vitality.” He tugged his beard. “But she had enormous gray eyes that were quite beautiful, and you forgot after a while that there were any prettier women because she had such presence.”

  A nudge of something half remembered flickered in Esther’s mind, but she ignored it. Clasping her hands tightly in front of her, she leaned over the table. “Are you still in love with her, Alexander?”

  For a long moment, he didn’t answer. In that moment, Esther saw all the things about him that she had grown so fond of—all the physical details that made him different from every other male on the planet. She let her gaze touch each detail: the hints of silver glittering through his dark curls, the swell of his lower lip against a frame of silky face hair, the breadth of his shoulders beneath his hand-tailored shirt, his beautiful long-fingered hands. Then she looked into his eyes for the answer she had to have, even if it meant she could no longer sit with him in the quiet of a weekday morning, drinking coffee at a window booth with students walking by.

  “I will always love the memory of her, Esther,” he said at last. “I spent fourteen years of my life with her, and you don’t forget someone like that.” He smiled and the twinkle shone like tiny stars through the sudden turquoise of his eyes. “But it’s you that I think of in the dark of the night, that I dream of, that I want.”

  She blushed, because it suddenly seemed as if she’d been fishing for compliments.

  As if he knew the conversation had made her shy, he sipped his coffee and looked out the window. “Esther,” he said and frowned.

  “What?” she asked, puzzled.

  “If you had the resources, would you finish your degree?”

  Esther bit her lip. Even the thought of it was terrifying. She wasn’t sure she could do it. “I don’t know,” she said at last. It seemed as if she should add more to that, somehow, that she should articulate her reasons for not knowing, but how could she? She wasn’t even sure what they were herself. “I haven’t even let myself think about it since I left school.”

  The waitress brought his omelet and refilled their coffee cups. Alexander said nothing for several minutes. Finally he looked at her with a serious expression in his eyes. “You’re a natural healer, Esther. I hope you won’t defer your dream much longer.”

  “Thank you.”

  He ate with relish and Esther watched him spreading jam on toast liberally. “I keep meaning to buy some of your rose-petal jelly,” he commented.

  “I’ve got to make a fresh batch this afternoon. A woman brought a bag of rose petals in this morning to trade for
a gallon of lemonade.” The thought didn’t give her much pleasure. The day was going to be a hot one and she would much rather have spent the time with the children. But if she left them, the petals would be no good. “Hmm,” she said, thinking aloud. “I wonder if I could make a decoction of the petals and wait until this weekend to make the jelly.”

  “Try it,” he commented. “And if it works, may I come over and learn your secret recipe?”

  She laughed, then inclined her head. “There’s an elaborate initiation and incantation, but I suppose I can share it with you.”

  The small radiating lines around his eyes creased with humor. “Perhaps I ought to dust off the robe I keep around for such sacred occasions.” He finished his breakfast with a sigh of satisfaction and lifted his coffee. “When are the boys leaving?”

  “John is coming to get them at nine in the morning.” She looked at her watch. “Which means I’d better get back and finish the packing.”

  “All right. I’m going to sit here a while longer.”

  She smiled. “Ponder the imponderables?”

  “Something like that.” He stood up with her. “Call me if you need anything, will you?”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  * * *

  Esther cooked all the children’s favorite foods for supper, hot dogs and macaroni and cheese, strawberry-banana gelatin with bananas, and German chocolate cake. Afterward, they went through their lists carefully, making sure nothing had been forgotten. Each had several favorite toys, plenty of clothes, jackets and sweaters and sturdy shoes. She gave them baths and washed their hair, then clipped their fingernails and toenails, which they loved for some reason Esther had never been able to fathom.

  “Okay, guys. Each of you pick a book and I’ll read to you, then you need to get to sleep.”

  Jeremy chose his copy of Owl Moon, which told the story of a little girl and her father going owling in the middle of a still winter night. She ruffled his silky curls as he put it in her lap. “I remember when I checked this book out of the library the first time,” she said with a smile. “You loved it so much that we renewed it three times.”