But it hadn’t only been her shiny blond hair, fine bone structure and porcelain skin that had spurred him to take a second glance at her that night in June.
He’d stolen the second glance when she’d opened her car door and long, shapely legs had made their appearance below it. Then she’d closed the driver’s door, and he’d been treated to the view of long, shapely legs easing into a cute little body with just enough up front and behind.
She’d opened the rear door to get something from the back seat and he’d averted his gaze again. He’d gone on with his search under Cassie’s seat for the yearbook.
But once he’d found the yearbook he’d backed out of the car just as Clair Cabot had closed her rear door, too. And something about that simultaneous movement had been enough of an excuse to draw yet a third glance at her.
She’d looked directly at him that time, meeting his eyes with hers. And holy cow, what eyes they were!
They were the color of the lilacs that grew on the bush alongside his mother’s house. Purple eyes. Clair Cabot had big, deep, dark purple eyes that still managed to be bright and sparkling in spite of all that depth of color. Eyes that had held him transfixed for a moment and almost unable to break that hold. Or certainly unwilling to…
And then, with the softest-looking, rose petal lips, she’d smiled at him. Tentatively. Uncertainly. Obviously wondering if he was someone she should remember. But with enough warmth to make him glad he’d gone to the reunion after all.
He’d actually been thinking about introducing himself to her, wondering if he would discover that she was someone he’d known all along. But before he’d had the chance, two other women had spotted her and rushed to say hello, calling her by name.
That was how he’d found out who she was.
Clair Cabot.
Ah, Cassie’s friend…
She’d turned away from him to talk to the other women then, and Ben couldn’t very well hang around waiting for another opportunity to speak to her, so he’d returned to the school gym without saying anything.
Only once he was there, he’d kept an eye on the door, watching for her, still considering approaching her when she came inside. Wondering if he should pretend he remembered her as his sister’s friend….
Except that when she had come inside, she’d gone straight to the reception table to get her name tag and it had seemed as if she’d had an awkward exchange with another couple there. Old enemies—that’s the impression he’d had. Probably a high school rivalry or something. Then she’d disappeared in a hurry into the girls’ locker room.
And that was the last he’d seen of her for more than an hour.
It just hadn’t been the last he’d thought of her.
Which was probably why, when, by pure coincidence, Cassie had asked him to keep her friend Clair company some time later, he’d agreed. Without asking why. Without asking anything. Just feeling a little thrill that he was going to get to see Clair Cabot again and talk to her after all.
Ben pushed his speed up to an almost punishing rate for the last leg of his run, thinking that regardless of the fact that he’d been glad his sister had asked that particular favor of him at the time, Cassie still should have known better. She should have at least warned him that her friend was suffering some kind of post-divorce fallout so he would have had his guard up. So it wouldn’t have mattered how great Clair looked or how funny or sweet she’d been, or how much he’d ultimately enjoyed her company.
So he wouldn’t have done something as dumb as spend the night with her.
The school came into view just then, and the sight of it made him think and that’s another thing…
The school. The Northbridge School for Boys was his priority. His number-one priority. He’d reminded himself of that every time Clair Cabot and her running out on him had come to mind over the past two months.
The school was something he’d wanted to do since the day he’d been released from placement himself. It had been his dream, his goal, to work with kids who were like he’d been, and to do it the way he felt—the way he knew—it should be done.
Now that he’d reached that goal, he was devoting himself to it and to the boys he accepted into the program. It wasn’t something he would do halfheartedly, that was for sure. And until the school was well established, until everything was in order and it was almost running itself, he couldn’t let himself be distracted. Not by anything…or anyone.
And Clair Cabot—purple eyes and blond hair and cute little body or not—had to be strictly relegated to business status, he told himself firmly.
She was there to show him how her father ran the place. To walk him through the billing procedures and teach him how to do the necessary paperwork. She was there to fill him in on what had to be done for social services to certify him.
But that was all she was there for—business.
In fact, tending to business was the reason he’d made the suggestion that they start over—so they could put the night they’d spent together behind them and focus on what needed to be done now.
And when that business was taken care of, she could go back where she’d come from—where she’d run to the morning after the reunion—and he could forget about her.
Except, of course, he hadn’t been able to forget her.
That thought brought him full circle in his musings just as his run came to an end.
So, he asked himself as he walked the final few yards up the drive to cool down, if he hadn’t been successful at forgetting Clair Cabot before, how was he going to do it when she left again?
He wasn’t really sure.
He hoped that maybe it would help that he would be occupied with the opening of the school. That maybe he would just be too busy to think about her.
Or maybe, knowing now that not only was she someone who might disappear on him the way she had at the reunion but also that she was in the inordinately risky newly divorced category, would help cool his jets.
But deep down he didn’t feel too confident in any of those possibilities.
Because he wasn’t sure those jets she’d fired up two months ago would ever cool down.
Especially when so many of his thoughts about her came complete with memories of what had been one of the most incredible nights of his life….
It had taken Clair a while to fall asleep Monday night. Between being in the small, two-bedroom cottage where she’d lived with her dad, and all the mixed emotions she had about seeing Ben again, she’d been awake until after 1:00 a.m.
As a result she was late getting up Tuesday morning. And even though she only took a quick shower and raced through dressing in jeans and a crop-sleeved crewneck T-shirt, she still arrived in the kitchen of the main house after both Ben and Cassie.
“I’m so sorry to keep you guys waiting,” Clair apologized. “I overslept.”
“You didn’t keep me waiting,” Cassie assured from where she was standing at the entrance to the kitchen. “I just got here myself.”
“Okay then, I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” Clair amended, aiming that portion of the apology at Ben, who was sitting at one end of the long, rectangular table.
“Don’t let it happen again or I’ll have to give you extra chores and three days restriction,” he joked, clearly referring to a punishment he intended to mete out to any of his rule-breaking charges.
Then