Revival Read online

  “It’s okay if you don’t have time to play with us today, Mr. James,” Jane said charitably. “We can play later.”

  “We can?” Baron’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Yes,” Charlotte exclaimed. “We can play later!”

  Jane’s face appeared to be infinitely satisfied with her good day’s work. Smiling up at Baron, she said, “We should shake-n-it.”

  Leila’s felt her cheeks flushing, hoping Baron and the college VP wouldn’t think her girls didn’t know how to behave properly.

  “Why should we shake on it?” he asked, for the first time looking slightly uncomfortable.

  “‘Cause we sorted it all out.” Jane glanced back at Leila for affirmation of her sound reasoning, and then the girl reached her hand up toward Baron.

  Baron just stared at the little hand for a moment. For the slightest breath of time, Leila thought she saw uncertainty in his eyes.

  Then, without smiling, he reached out and shook Jane’s hand.

  Leila felt that shudder start inside her—the one she’d felt a few times before. This time it was almost overwhelming, as she watched Baron shake her daughter’s hand.

  Whatever brief uncertainty Baron had felt the moment ago was nothing compared to what she felt now.

  This softness she was feeling, this ache at the sight of her girls so obviously won over by this man—for no reason she could possibly understand—was incredibly dangerous.

  She was happy with her life now, after the mess of her marriage and divorce. The girls were happy too. And she couldn’t put at risk the stable life she’d worked to build for her and the girls by allowing herself to be swept away by a man whose lifestyle and priorities would always make him unattainable.

  It didn’t matter that she was more attracted to him every time she saw him, and it didn’t matter that her babies had decided he was their new best friend.

  She was the grown-up. She was their mother.

  She’d be careful enough for all of them.

  Four

  Baron jarred awake, completely disoriented and conscious of only a sharp pain in his neck.

  He straightened up, slowly stretching his neck, trying to work out the painful catch.

  He sat at his father’s desk, in his father’s office. It was dark outside. His computer screen had gone black. He realized he must have fallen asleep at the desk.

  It was after midnight now. He’d stayed late to try to catch up after leaving the office for an hour that afternoon to meet with Benton College administrators about purchasing the property.

  “Mr. James,” a voice came from his doorway.

  He glanced up and realized belatedly that he’d been woken up by a knock at the door. “Sorry. What is it?” He felt blurry and completely out of it, and he didn’t like feeling that way.

  A young woman walked in—slim, attractive, dark-haired, with a subtly flirtatious smile. She was an intern here for the fall, and she’d been trying to indicate her availability to him for several weeks. “MaryAnn went home a couple of hours ago. Do you have a moment to sign this?”

  “Sure.” He reached for the page, reading it over quickly and then scrawling out his signature.

  He suddenly wondered if she’d pulled the document out of a pile on MaryAnn’s desk, just as an excuse to come into his office.

  “What are you doing here so late?” he asked.

  “MaryAnn had me working on a filing project, and I wanted to get it finished today.”

  “Well, you should go home.”

  He sure hoped someone else was still on the floor, and he wasn’t here alone with this intern at midnight.

  “Is everything all right, Mr. James?” The girl leaned over the desk, flashing a glimpse of her cleavage.

  He looked automatically. She was very pretty, but he couldn’t rouse enough interest to pursue her obvious invitation, despite how long it had been since he’d had sex.

  Having a fling with an intern was a bad idea, anyway.

  “Yes. Of course. Go home now. There’s plenty of time tomorrow to finish the filing.”

  She looked slightly disappointed as she left his office.

  Baron brought his computer back to life with a tap and shook his head at all the emails that had come in during the half-hour he’d dozed off.

  One night, when he was six, just after his parents had gotten divorced, he’d snuck into his father’s study after he was supposed to be in bed. His dad worked all the time—at home or in the office—and Baron had missed his mom so much he’d almost been in tears. When his father spotted him, he’d let him sit in the big leather chair near the desk.

  When Baron had found the courage to admit that he wished his mom hadn’t had to leave, his father had told him something he’d always remembered.

  “Listen to me, Baron,” his father had said. “This is important. You’ll need to know it. You’re a James, and that means you have a lot. But it comes with responsibilities and burdens. Not everyone will understand that, but you need to remember it. Focus on what is most important and let the rest fall away if it must. We have a lot, but we can’t have everything.”

  At six years old, Baron had felt special, like his father had told him an important secret.

  Now, looking back, Baron understood what his father had told him.

  He couldn’t have his old life and also do this job. If he wanted to be a James, to live out his role in his family, then he had to let his old life slip away.

  It would have been nice if he’d had a brother to help deal with the aftermath of his father’s death. It would have been nice to have any family left at all.

  Maybe Steven would come around. A brother he wasn’t close to was better than nothing at all.

  He had a lot. He couldn’t have everything.

  For some reason, the idea of family made him think about Leila.

  He hadn’t seen her in more than a week. He’d decided he didn’t have the time or energy to deal with her, especially since she was clearly the kind of women who’d be looking for a serious relationship, when all he could offer was a one-night-stand. He was still thinking about her, though.

  He’d been with beautiful women before. He’d been with smart women and witty women and sweet women before. He’d been with so many women he couldn’t even remember all of their names.

  He had no idea why he couldn’t stop thinking about Leila.

  But he wished he could.

  ***

  That Saturday, Baron worked all morning, but at lunchtime, when he started feeling like he might suffocate from the weight of responsibility and busywork, he drove back to campus.

  There was nothing else he needed at the church, but it made him feel better. Made him feel like he was doing something constructive for his dad instead of futilely trying to fill shoes that just wouldn’t fit.

  He looked around the building again, thinking through the plans he’d made, until he finally realized he needed to get back to work, so he headed for his car.

  A soccer ball hit him square on the side of the head before he’d gotten to the parking lot.

  The sudden impact stunned him. Jarred him. He jerked to a stop and stared blankly, having trouble wrapping his mind around where the ball had come from.

  A familiar giggle clued him in fairly quickly. With a sinking feeling in his chest, he turned to see the loud little girl—Charlotte—running up to him in pursuit of the ball she must have kicked.

  “Oh, oh, oh! It’s the movie— I mean, Mr. James! Did I hit you?” She grabbed her ball and walked up to Baron with a silly little sashay in her step. He couldn’t decide if she had too much energy to contain or if she was trying to be sophisticated.

  “You did,” he replied, wondering what cruel fate was at work, constantly throwing him in the path of these girls. “So you didn’t aim the ball at me on purpose?”

  “No!” she squealed, covering her mouth with her hand in a futile attempt to hide more giggles.

  The other one came running up. “
Mr. James, Mr. James! It’s been ages since we saw you!”

  Eleven days was more accurate, but who was keeping count?

  Baron turned to look in the direction the girls had come from, knowing who would be approaching now. His heart had accelerated slightly, either from dread or anticipation.

  He blinked in surprise when he saw the person walking up after the girls. Not Leila.

  “Baron,” Leila’s father, Joe, said as he extended a hand. “I hadn’t thought to see you around here.”

  Baron shook the older man’s hand without thinking. “I hadn’t thought to be here. Business.” It wasn’t really business, but he wasn’t about to explain the prompting of emotional desperation that had driven him here today.

  Joe nodded and glanced down at his granddaughters, who were clinging to his hands and grinning like little maniacs. “Charlotte and Jane have told me all about your adventures with them.”

  “Where have you been?” Charlotte demanded, leaning away from Joe and hanging onto his hand to keep her balance. “We look and look for you!”

  Baron cleared his throat, unused to explaining himself to six-year-olds and struggling for words because of it. “I’ve been busy. I hadn’t realized you would be expecting me.”

  “Mommy said that you were a very important man with lots of big work to do, and so you probably wouldn’t have time to play with us,” Jane explained, her big eyes wide and earnest. “She said we shouldn’t wait for you.”

  Baron could imagine Leila’s face as she explained to her daughters that Baron James wasn’t the kind of man they could bond with. That he wasn’t the kind of man who would make a point of spending time with children. That he wasn’t the kind of man they should trust.

  Not that she would use those words, of course—but he could very vividly imagine the nature of the talk.

  Trying to redirect the course of the conversation, Baron asked the girls, “So do you still act out the Siege of Thermopylae?”

  “Yes!” Charlotte exclaimed, “And Robin Hood too. But we were hoping you can help us think of other games too. We need more. Lots more!”

  “I’ll see if I can come up with anything,” he said, glancing from the girls up to Joe. “What are you all doing here today?”

  “We’re going to have a picnic,” Jane explained, dropping Joe’s hand and coming over to Baron.

  For one awkward moment, Baron thought she was going to try to take his hand. She didn’t, though. She just stood near him and looked up at him with those eyes so much like Leila’s.

  “A picnic!” Charlotte repeated exuberantly, still swinging from her grandfather’s arm. Then, evidently getting a brainstorm, she added, “Can I ride piggy-back, Grandpa?”

  Without hesitating, Joe swung the girl up onto his back. Then, before Jane could do more than make the first syllable of her complaint, he looked back at Baron, “Grab Jane, would you?”

  Baron’s mouth fell open.

  Without waiting for a response from Baron, Joe bounced Charlotte a little and started walking her over to the blanket they had spread out under a large tree.

  Jane clapped her hands and then reached up to Baron, her little face glowing the way her mother’s always did when she was happy.

  Baron was trapped.

  Why Joe would think Baron's was a suitable back on which to carry his little granddaughter, Baron had no idea. There was no way he could say “no” to Jane, though—not when Charlotte was already halfway to the blanket.

  With a clench of his jaw, Baron reached down and swung Jane up, piggy-back style. The little girl giggled in glee and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  She didn’t weigh much, and she didn’t clutch at his shirt or scratch at his neck or arms.

  But carrying little girls on his back was simply not something he did.

  He walked quickly, trying to catch up to Joe and hoping he could make a swift escape.

  “Mr. James,” Jane said in his ear.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you come back to the church before now?”

  “I didn’t have any work to do there.”

  “Oh. Do you only work?”

  After a pause, Baron replied, “I do other things.”

  There was a time when that was true, but it wasn’t anymore.

  “Do you have picnics?”

  “Not usually.”

  “You should have picnics. Do you want to have a picnic with us?”

  “I don’t think I’ll have time.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  She sounded disappointed, but there was nothing he could do about it. This simply wasn’t something he did. He would never get through everything his father had left for him to do if he indulged in the ridiculous desire to see Leila again and the even more ridiculous desire to make these two girls happy.

  Jane patted him on the shoulder. Baron had no idea what had prompted it.

  He had almost reached the blanket where Joe had set down Charlotte, and he was starting to breathe a sigh of relief that he could finally make an escape.

  Then he heard the word he’d been hoping not to hear.

  “Mommy!” Charlotte cried, jumping up and down and waving. “Mommy!”

  “Mommy,” Jane echoed, still clinging to Baron’s neck. “Look! It’s the movie-st—It’s Mr. James!”

  Baron didn’t have time to put Jane down and recover his composure and dignity before Mommy made her appearance.

  She was definitely surprised. Her lips parted slightly as her eyes focused on Baron, and she kept staring as he helped Jane slide off his back.

  Leila looked young and pretty with her hair pulled back in a long ponytail and her face rosy and free of makeup. She wasn’t wearing her glasses today.

  “Baron,” she said, reaching down automatically to respond to Charlotte’s enthusiastic greeting. “What are you doing here?”

  “Mommy!” Charlotte said, pulling on the pocket of her mother's jeans to get her attention, “Mommy, I kicked my ball and hit his head!”

  She was grinning with what Baron thought was unnecessary excitement over this declaration.

  “You did?” Leila’s eyes widened and shot from Baron to Joe.

  “An unfortunate accident,” Joe explained, trying unsuccessfully to hide a smile.

  Baron cleared his throat. He couldn’t remember feeling so unsure of what he should say in years. He tried to summon his typical reserves of charm and composure. “I had some work to do at the church.”

  She was watching him with a kind of distanced scrutiny, as if she were trying to figure him out but didn’t much care about the answers.

  “Mommy,” Jane chimed in, “Mr. James wants to have a picnic with us, even though he’s really busy.”

  Baron stared down at this blatant misrepresentation of their earlier conversation. When the girl smiled at him with innocent elation, he concluded that she genuinely believed he’d expressed that implausible sentiment.

  He cleared his throat again. “I, uh, certainly couldn’t impose on a family picnic,” he said politely, convinced by Leila’s cool expression that she would take him up on the out he’d provided.

  He could tell that she’d distanced herself from him over the last week or so. Not that they’d been really close, but things were definitely different now. She didn’t have the same smile and the same authentic glow when she looked at him today.

  It was to be expected. Baron had pulled away, and Leila would understand why.

  But he still didn’t like her looking at him with so little feeling.

  “You’re welcome to stay,” Leila said casually, glancing over to her father, who nodded in support of the invitation. “We’ve got plenty of food.”

  “Yay!” both girls exclaimed before Baron could find a way to bow out.

  So, unless he was willing to admit that he just didn’t want to spend time with them, he had no choice but to lower himself to the blanket with the others and accept the bottle of water, sandwich, grapes, and cookies that the gir
ls offered him.

  The picnic wasn’t as bad as he would have expected. It was a cool and sunny day, and the girls didn’t badger or tease him much.

  Mostly the conversation revolved around the girls’ first-grade class and the two labs catching Frisbees not far away. While Charlotte and Jane occasionally asked him to affirm one of their remarks, Baron was surprised that he could actually relax.

  Sometimes he caught Leila watching him discreetly, with a questioning look he understood. She wondered what he was doing here with them.

  It was a good question. He wondered the same thing. At least she didn’t now have the same cool distance he’d seen in her eyes when she’d first arrived.

  Joe acted as if it were perfectly natural for Baron James to join his family for a picnic, and the twins, of course, were thrilled with his presence.

  Baron had to admit that it was kind of nice to have someone—even a couple of six-year-old girls—be so uninhibitedly happy about hanging out with him.

  Leila’s hair glowed in the sun, smoothed back from her face and descending in a thick fall from the ponytail. It swung as she moved around, cleaning up the wrappings and baggies from their lunch. She was dressed casually in a pair of worn jeans that hugged the delicious curves of her thighs and ass, and she smiled with that glow he always associated with her as she told Charlotte and Jane that they only had another half-hour before they’d have to start back home.

  For his whole life, beautiful women had been primarily a source of pleasure and distraction. Even Molly, the woman he’d cared the most about in the past, he hadn’t really known.

  He did know Leila, though, so he wasn’t sure what to make of the yearning he suddenly felt as he watched her. He wanted her—viscerally. He recognized that much. But he didn’t just want her body.

  It was all so foreign to him that he wasn’t sure how he should respond to the urge.

  This disturbing line of thought was fortunately interrupted by Charlotte’s announcing that she didn’t want to go home. “I want to stay and play with Mr. James!”

  “Yes, please, Mommy,” Jane agreed, with less of a pout in her voice.

  “We can’t. I’m sure Mr. James needs to get home too.” Leila glanced over toward Baron for support.