Kiss Me, Kelly Read online

  In the men’s locker room after their game, he wiped the sweat from his face with a towel, then sank onto a bench to catch his breath. He tried to clear his mind of everything but his assignment. Thoughts of Kelly superseded his will, though, invading his mind like Patton’s army.

  This wasn’t a new occurrence. Although he’d met her less than twenty-four hours ago, he was fast becoming a monomaniac about her. During his brief periods of lucidity, he realized all the complications she could generate in both his personal and professional lives. But he didn’t seem to have control anymore. She popped into his mind constantly, like she belonged there.

  From the moment he’d seen her, he’d burned with a fever to get so deep inside the woman that he’d never see daylight again. The times when she was quiet and introspective, he wanted to know her every thought and why she was thinking it. He wanted to understand her actions, her impulses, and why she was the way she was. He wanted to dream her dreams and breathe her air…

  And it could very likely be the last breath he took if he wasn’t careful, he reminded himself.

  He stripped, showered, and dressed, his mind still riveted to the red-haired beauty and her charms. She was going to be a tough nut to crack, he decided, dragging a brush through his hair. She was unpredictable and faithful to a fault. A better ally than an enemy, but she’d already declared her allegiance. His reason for being there had nothing to do with her, he was already pretty sure of that, but she still could have knowledge that would be vital to the success of his mission.

  All he had to do was reconcile himself to the idea of using her to get the information he needed. Afterward, he could appease his conscience with the excuse that he’d done it in the name of justice, a cause for which no price was too high to pay.

  What a bunch of malarkey that was, he thought. He snorted derisively as he snatched up his brown paper gym bag and left the locker room in search of Kelly. For all he knew, she was a total innocent. He’d win her trust, abuse it, and hurt her—all for nothing. He’d leave town with her hating him and remembering him as the biggest slime on earth.

  As he imagined the look on her face when it finally occurred to her that she’d been set up, something twisted in his chest until he couldn’t breathe. His stomach ached.

  “Is something wrong?” Kelly asked, walking toward him. She’d finished her shower first and had been waiting for him. “If it bothers you that much, you don’t really have to buy me lunch. You only lost by one point.”

  “What? And have you calling me a welsher until the day I die? No way. Where’s a good place to eat?” He put on a hearty tone, well experienced at camouflaging his feelings, at gritting his teeth and getting his job done.

  “No, really, I’m serious,” she said. “If you need to get back, I’ll take a rain check on lunch.” She smiled. “And I won’t call you anything but loser.”

  “Come on,” he said, taking her by the arm and leading the way back out onto the sidewalk, where pedestrian traffic had picked up considerably with the noon hour. “You’re hard on a man’s ego, you know? First you say you won’t date me, then you humiliate me at racquetball. Where’d you learn to play like that, anyway?”

  “My brother Kenny started playing when he was dating this girl from California. He got my brother Kevin hooked on it. And the two of them showed me no mercy when they were teaching me how to play. I had to really whack that ball or go broke buying them lunches.”

  “Where are your brothers now?”

  While they walked back down Seventh Avenue, Elgin listened as she talked about her two older brothers, now police officers at two different Manhattan precincts, living in the Bronx and Queens, seen only on holidays and birthdays. He could tell by the way she spoke that she missed them and was proud of their accomplishments.

  For no reason that he could identify, he got the sudden impression that for all the people who surrounded her during the day and night, Kelly was very much alone. Her parents were gone and her brothers lived elsewhere. No husband, no children. Aside from her grandfather, the people she associated with the most were customers or employees. He knew from experience that married couples like the Shaws had lives of their own that their single friends were automatically excluded from. She lived in her family home and ran her family’s business, and owned neither.

  What did she have that was hers alone? he wondered. Everyone needed something or someone that was his own and no one else’s. A man, a woman, a child, a space, a vocation. She had nothing that belonged solely to her, except herself. And he wanted that, he realized with a jolt.

  He did. He looked at her, seated across from him at a small white table in a small restaurant, so beautiful to him and so susceptible to the rest of the world, and he knew that he wanted her. He wanted all she had to give him. Her loneliness, her fears, her joys, her love.

  It was a humbling feeling, and one he’d never dreamed he could feel. Rather abruptly, he was all too aware of the fact that he wasn’t Superman. He wasn’t even Clark Kent. He wasn’t much different from most men, except that he wanted to be the one thing in the world Kelly Branigan could call her own.

  “Oh-oh,” she said, misinterpreting the expression on his face. “I warned you that the chili here was super spicy. Do you need a fire engine to cool you off? You look a little funny.”

  “No,” he said, vigorously trying to pull himself together. What had he been thinking? He couldn’t be falling for Kelly Branigan. He knew the risks of getting personally involved in a case. “The chili’s great. I—I was just wondering what…what kind of a personal life you have,” he said, unable to control the words that seemed to launch themselves like rockets from his lips, without a countdown or warning. “I mean, you play while most people work, and work during their playtime. When do you go out? When someone other than a cop asks you out, that is.”

  Self-consciously, Kelly looked down at her half-eaten turkey on rye and shrugged. “I have Sundays and Mondays off, and my part-time bartender will fill in for me when I ask him. I manage.”

  The truth was, she hadn’t been out on a date in months. The men who came into The Library knew better than to ask her out. And those who didn’t know, soon did. Customers and cops were on her nondatable list, which narrowed the field down to blind dates set up by well-meaning friends—experiences that were as memorable as having one’s appendix removed; the men at the gym—most of whom had a tendency to drag their knuckles on the floor; and total strangers—who could be anyone from a wayward priest to a serial killer.

  “Then see if the other bartender can do Friday for you,” Elgin said offhandedly, concentrating more intently on his food than on what he was saying.

  Kelly just looked at him. He had such arrogance, she thought. And yet, she knew he wouldn’t have caught her attention quite so well if he were timid and mild. Torn between anticipation of the answer and fear of what she might hear, she asked, “Why should I do that?”

  He carefully set his spoon back in the bowl of chili, glanced around the crowded café, and leaned halfway across the table. “Because, by Friday night we are going to be so hot for each other that you’ll need the time off.”

  A startled gasp of laughter escaped her. “You’re incredible. Don’t you know when to give up?”

  “I’ve tried,” he said, sitting back again, enjoying the way it felt simply to look at her. “I’ve been telling myself that you are the worst thing that could possibly happen to me right now. You’re a distraction I can’t afford. You’re a complication my life doesn’t need. And you’re bound to break my heart eventually, but…I’m just not listening.” He shrugged helplessly over the unadorned facts, then added, “I want you, anyway.”

  Again, an airy bit of nervous laughter left her as she tried to convince herself he was merely teasing her.

  “And what if I don’t want you?” she asked, unaware of the defiant tilting of her chin.

  His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he rubbed his lower lip with one finger. Kelly imagined
him looking like that when interrogating a demurring suspect, who was doomed with forty witnesses to his crime. He wasn’t buying her sincerity, and she had the certain feeling he was about to throw the book at her.

  With a composure that made all the little hairs on the back of her neck stand up in alarm, he sat forward with his forearms resting on the table. He leveled his gaze to hers and in a soft, earnest voice, said, “Kiss me, Kelly. Kiss me one more time and then tell me you don’t want me as much as I want you.”

  “No.” The word came out too quick and too weak to be discouraging.

  “It’s the only way to convince me that you’re not feeling what I’m feeling. That your heart isn’t racing, your skin isn’t tingling. That your insides aren’t tied up in knots.” He spoke frankly, not really taunting her but certainly making it difficult for her to refuse and not sound like a liar. When she continued to hesitate, he added to the incentive, “Kiss me, then tell me to get lost and I will. No fuss, no muss.”

  It was a fair bargain, she thought. The deal of a lifetime actually…if she could hold up her end. But the truth was, she didn’t think she could. His description fit her perfectly. She did want him. But he was the man she’d hoped she’d never meet. The right man in the wrong profession.

  As if she were approaching a headhunter on the warpath, she sat on the edge of her chair, feeling she had no recourse other than to call his bluff. She at least had to try. Yet even as she closed the distance between them, she knew it was hopeless. He was hardly more than an acquaintance, yet she identified herself with him. She connected with him, she could communicate with him.

  His eyes didn’t waver from hers, even when she was close enough to feel his breath on her lips. There was no mockery or triumph in them, but a patient anticipation of what they both knew to be inevitable—the beginning of a relationship that neither one of them had any control over.

  It wasn’t just a kiss anymore. It wasn’t his victory or her defeat. For them both, it was an acceptance of what was to be. A frightening acknowledgment that they were vulnerable to each other. Susceptible and unprotected.

  His lips were warm and yielding. They accepted hers openly, surely, and with great tenderness and understanding. It wasn’t a long kiss. It wasn’t deep or passionate. It was a simple kiss, a poignant kiss that shook the foundation of all Kelly believed in, of all she knew to be true.

  In the few seconds that followed, as they searched the depths of each other’s eyes, wondering why him, why her, time stood still. It didn’t matter where they were or who they were or what they did separately. All that mattered were those specific moments. Kelly felt as if she was standing on solid ground, safe and certain, then suddenly, there was nothing but thin air.

  “Nothing happens till Friday, right?” she asked, her voice a whisper, her emotions as fragile. She needed time to think.

  “Not if you don’t want it to,” he said gently.

  “This isn’t going to work, you know.”

  “Not if you don’t want it to,” he repeated.

  “We don’t know each other.”

  “I know you.” He sounded so sure.

  “Well, I don’t know you,” she said. The words sounded like a denial, like she did know him but was refusing to admit it. She needed to elaborate. “I don’t know what you’re doing here or where you’ve been. I hardly know anything about your life before yesterday. I—”

  “I’ll get blood tests done if you want me to, Kelly. I’ll answer any question you ask me. You can call my mother for a character assessment, and my father will vouch for every misdeed I’ve ever committed. You can know me better than you know Shaw, better than you know yourself even. Friday night, tonight, tomorrow night—it’s all the same to me. But one way or another, sometime soon, you’re going to be mine.” He continued to hold her gaze, not quite able to believe what he was saying—or that he meant every word of it.

  The walk back to The Library was quiet and strained, even though Baker tried to alleviate her misgivings.

  “Ask me anything, anything at all,” he said good-naturedly, throwing his arms out wide to show his openness. His smile was broad and happiness danced in his eyes, as if he were a man without a care in the world.

  “Is your name really Elgin?” she asked, pulling a serious expression.

  He laughed aloud, and people passing by turned briefly to stare.

  “Starting with the fundamentals, huh?” He took no offense, but answered her with a smile that hung between amusement and admiration. “Yes, it’s really Elgin. It was my paternal grandmother’s maiden name. We Bakers have a thing about our mothers.”

  “What kind of a thing?” she asked, trying to picture him swaddled in apron strings.

  “Not the kind of thing you’re thinking of,” he said. “My grandmother raised strong, independent children. It was what she expected of them, insisted upon even, but she was always there when they needed her. My father had a great respect for her and as it turns out, he married a woman very much like her.”

  “Your mother.”

  He nodded. “She’d stand by and watch me drown in quicksand, confident that I’d figure a way out of it on my own. But if I called for help, she’d move heaven and earth to get me out and never think twice about it. And don’t think I haven’t called on her. I have. And she’s never said a word about it.”

  “What else about her do you like?” Kelly asked, wondering how she’d measure up against his mother, and envying the tenderness in his voice when he spoke of her.

  He shrugged. “Everything, I guess. She’s loving and giving. Like most mothers, I suppose.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “She wasn’t ever much to look at, I hear. I mean, she wasn’t a knockout or anything when she was young, but she was smart. Not just with books, but smart in the way that really counts. I used think there wasn’t anything she didn’t know or couldn’t figure out.” He paused. “She has a nice laugh too.”

  “What was her maiden name?” Kelly asked, curious about what his son’s name would be. Polanski Baker? Fitzdrummund Baker? Jones Baker?

  “Williams.”

  William Baker. Bill Baker. Billy Baker as a child. She could live with that. William Branigan Baker. Impressive.

  “What about your father? What’s he like?” she asked. She wanted to know everything there was to know about Elgin. Who he was. Where he came from. Everything.

  Oblivious to the heat and their surroundings, they passed one brownstone building after another. The world could have been empty except for the two of them and they wouldn’t have known the difference.

  Elgin spoke of a strong authoritarian father with a heart of gold. A sentimental man who had dedicated his life to the justice system, determined to see it work, even for the guilty. Then it was Kelly’s turn.

  Although she had some fond memories of her father, she admitted to not knowing him well. She’d gone off to school one morning and returned to find out that he’d been shot during a racial demonstration. She remembered him as a candy man of sorts. Someone who was there in the background with presents and hugs and pat on the head. It was her mother she recalled most clearly.

  “I always liked the way she smelled,” Kelly said, breathing in the sweet lilac that came with her recollections. “She was quiet and small and hard as a rock. Not with us, but with the rest of the world. She was very protective of us, especially after my dad died.” She fell silent for a moment, distracted by Elgin’s fingers as they wound around hers in the most natural and comforting manner possible. It was a simple gesture, but at that moment it was more intimate than a kiss, warmer than a hug, and more endearing than anything he’d done so far.

  “My mom worked constantly,” she went on. “Raising three kids and running the bar didn’t leave her much time for herself, I’m afraid. And I—I didn’t notice until it was almost too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Disinclined to talk about her faults or reveal the guilt she still felt, Kelly hesitated. She glanced
at the man beside her and saw the perceptiveness and empathy in his face, and the words tumbled out on their own.

  “I was so self-centered and intent on getting what I wanted, I didn’t even notice how tired she was. I was angry because Papa was old and not helping out in the bar as much as he used to, which meant I couldn’t go to school full-time like Kenny and Kevin did. I had to stick around and help out…and I resented it. I wanted out of that bar and out of this neighborhood so bad, I could almost taste it.” Images of a shallow, ambitious young woman haunted her, filled her with shame.

  “One night I finished closing up the bar and went upstairs and found my mother sitting on the edge of her bed, all slumped over. Just sitting there staring at the floor, like she was too tired to get into the bed or to close her eyes and go to sleep.” Again, she paused, her thoughts too intolerable to be spoken aloud. “I hadn’t even missed her. I didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there or how long she’d have stayed like that if I hadn’t happened to see her. It—it was the first time I saw her as a person. A real person, you know? Someone with feelings and dreams and…I kept wondering when she’d gotten so old. She was only fifty-three, but she looked so much older. And so tired.”

  “Kelly.” The sympathy in Elgin’s voice brought forth a whole new rash of words.

  “No,” she said, refusing his pity. Telling him the story was cathartic for her. She felt lighter inside, almost euphoric in her memories. “I’m glad it happened. What if I’d simply gone on assuming that she’d always be there for me? She was always there. Making me feel safe, telling me I was pretty and smart when I felt ugly and dumb, and always, always smelling like lilacs.” She smiled at him. “That was one of the best nights of my life, Elgin. It was like the whole world turned around and I finally grew up. I undressed my mother and tucked her into bed. I told her I loved her and that I appreciated all the things she’d done for me. Things I might never have said if I hadn’t seen her sitting there, staring at the floor.”

  “Was she sick?” he asked, his tone thoughtful and kind.