One Last Promise (A Bedford Falls Novel Book 2) Read online

  Damon’s good-natured expression returned within an instant. But she couldn’t remove the somber image he’d drudged up. It made her feel dishonest. She trusted her intuition (a part of her intuition anyway, since the other part told her to give in to him). Still, she felt guilty that he’d shared his feelings…when she hadn’t been altogether honest.

  And based on how quickly he’d concealed his momentary shock, Kelsey realized that he’d exposed a piece of himself that he rarely, if ever, showed to others. And while he’d taken a chance by revealing it to her, she’d allowed fear and uncertainty to dominate her impulses, compromising her inclination to tell the truth.

  Now she wanted to take it back. Not only because it felt like the right thing to do, but also to see if doing so would encourage him to release that more sensitive aspect of his personality. She got the impression that he had more depth than he let on. But try though she might, she couldn’t collect the nerve to take back what she said.

  “I’m not going to lie,” Damon said, meeting her eyes with a heavy gaze. “I thought we made a connection.”

  Her cheeks grew warm under such scrutiny. Could he have intuited that she’d shied away from admitting she felt something too?

  He looked in the other direction. “But maybe I just wanted to feel it.”

  That statement gave her the perfect opportunity to recant, to explain that she didn’t trust her instincts when it came to men. But that would invite other questions; ones she didn’t want to answer. And since she’d kept those painful truths to herself, she had no intention of confiding in a stranger, a man Alex said she couldn’t trust.

  On the other hand, she found him so charming and refreshing that she didn’t want to shut him down outright. Watching him trying to decipher how he’d misinterpreted their chemistry made her chest feel tight, constricted. All of these thoughts resulted in the realization that she might be ready to date again. Her cheeks blazed, not with embarrassment for having lied, but with excitement in realizing she could finally resume her search for the man that she could spend her life with.

  Which brought her back to Damon Durant. Upon getting rejected, how many men would stick around and contemplate what went wrong, rather than scuttle away in shame?

  She suddenly decided to disregard Alex’s advice and tell Damon the truth. She wouldn’t concede that he intrigued her on a romantic level, but she wanted to get to know him better, and trusting him seemed the best way to make that happen. “Okay, I admit it. I—”

  “Don’t worry,” Damon said, swiveling back to her with a killer smile. “I can find the door on my own.” And the guard that he’d let down went back up full force. “But I really enjoyed talking with you again.” Then he turned and walked out of the diner.

  * * *

  The moment he turned the corner, stepping out of Kelsey’s sightline and onto the sidewalk, Damon let out a huge sigh. His breath came in rapid bursts; after saying goodbye, he hadn’t even realized he was holding his breath with heightened anxiety. His quickened heartbeat also surprised him, not to mention the dots of perspiration at his hairline. He hadn’t reacted to a casual flirtatious conversation with so little poise since…oh, he knew darn well the last time he’d lost his composure with a woman. And he refused to contemplate that failed relationship, the uneasiness that had accompanied it, and how the memories could still unhinge him.

  Shivering at even the slightest reminder of the best (and worst) romantic relationship he’d ever experienced, Damon felt another unexpected side effect of his chatting with Kelsey: an inability to catch his breath. He bent over and clutched his knees, closing his eyes to offset the white stars that danced behind his eyes. A short time later, when he’d regained his self-control, he stood upright and shook off the after effects of that encounter.

  At first glance last week at the Halloween party, Damon regarded Kelsey as perhaps the most adorable woman he’d ever seen. Those sincere brown eyes had cut through his cynicism with just a glance, and he’d imagined her toned arms and thighs clutching to him as he clenched onto that tight bottom and pressed those firm breasts against his chest. Her voice sounded as if every word luxuriated in honey before leaving her mouth. Only after hearing that soft yet forceful tone, full of self-assurance and innocence yet mixed with a tinge of naughtiness, did he grow hard.

  After exchanging only a few words, he spent several minutes trying to distract himself with more mundane thoughts: if he’d make plans for Thanksgiving dinner, since he had no family to speak of; if his readers would enjoy the final scene of his most recent romance novel; if he’d set his DVR to record that night’s episode of The Big Bang Theory.

  Today, however, he hadn’t responded with sexual innuendos but instead relied on a more thoughtful manner. Not good. It meant he’d given her more thought this past week than he should have: rather than lead the conversation towards a more active form of communication, in the form of testing and teasing, he began considering what it would be like to put an arm around her shoulders, to hold her in a comforting embrace. Not good at all!

  And then, as though reading his mind, Kelsey took his hand. Damon hadn’t anticipated such a bold move. But it didn’t seem like a brazen gesture. It felt like a natural extension of her personality. It showed that she had no interest in playing games, something he abhorred in the dating world. Since so many women tended to take this route, the moment Damon picked up on it, he exceeded their level of maneuvering until he got the upper hand.

  He hated this strategy because it wasted time and drained energy. Women claimed to despise this practice as well, but the majority of the time, they played games whether they realized it or not. Damon figured that this approach became so common that no one knew how to operate without scheming in one way or another.

  And by holding his hand, teasing him, and hiding her emotions, Kelsey had played the game as well despite saying she had no interest in dating him. Deep down, she felt otherwise. It came down to a struggle, where her brain rejected him, while her heart found the notion of spending time with him appealing.

  Damon didn’t often meet bright, beautiful, interesting women, so he found it shocking that she was also a successful entrepreneur with a fun yet playful disposition. Most women her age had begun their next job out of college, allowing them to get a handle on their profession as they worked toward reaching their goals. But Kelsey took pride in bypassing college, and the results astonished him. She owned and operated not one, but two dining establishments and navigated all of the responsibilities and pressure that came with such a stressful career.

  The resulting intimidation factor rattled his nerves to such an extent that he didn’t trust himself in her presence. To be clear, nothing about Kelsey intimidated him – not her exquisite smile, nor her willingness to welcome a debate, nor even her business savvy – it took guts to place all of her time, energy, and money into themed restaurants: business enterprises that could become huge hits – if they didn’t bomb outright. He’d once read that more than 25 percent of restaurants failed within twelve months of opening. And sixty percent of them went under within three years. But her diner had persevered, thrived even.

  Only one detail intimidated Damon: he genuinely liked her. He liked hearing whatever outrageous thoughts and ideas popped out of her mouth without the least bit of hesitation. It made him want to trust her. And that made him want to spend more time with her, which evoked an image of pulling her into his arms and kissing those supple lips, of tracing his own lips down to that slender neck and across her tanned shoulders, angling southward until he dipped his tongue between her…

  The image in his mind made him grow hard.

  To his left, the driver in a Ford Explorer laid on his horn with a suddenness that made Damon jerk backwards. He didn’t even recall stepping into the street! Lifting a hand to apologize to the angry driver, who flipped him off, Damon hurried back to the curb. For the second time in five minutes, he’d lost his breath, on account of meeting Kelsey and losing the a
bility to think clearly.

  He didn’t like this loss of control, didn’t like the way he acted without thinking, didn’t like the power Kelsey held over him – all of this after speaking to her for only a few minutes. What would happen if he carried on a long conversation with her?

  No, he couldn’t entertain the possibility of viewing her as a romantic interest.

  Besides, Alex had glared at him with what looked like blazing torches in his eyes. And because Damon had few male friends, he’d gravitated towards building an even better relationship with Alex by moving back to the Chicagoland area three weeks ago. If he tried getting close to Kelsey, Alex wouldn’t need two seconds to recognize his endgame, because although some women had no clue when a man hit on them, a man could always tell. Having failed to meet any new (platonic) friends since returning to the western suburbs, Damon desired Alex’s friendship more than he needed a relationship with Kelsey.

  Relationship. Hearing that word reverberate through his head verified that he couldn’t be friends with her. He would want more. So he couldn’t consider her a friend or a lover. When their paths crossed, he would speak to her in a detached way, regarding her as any other person he neither liked nor disliked. Even as he attempted to instill this objective into his head, Damon knew that it would be incredibly difficult to walk that path. He just hoped that he had enough strength for the task.

  CHAPTER TWO

  At the Fennel Kennel Club, an animal shelter that housed lost or abandoned cats and dogs, Kelsey strolled down a concrete corridor, her gym shoes coming away sticky from the urine- streaked floors, and stopped beside the iron crates where the dogs inside whined or yelped for attention. She volunteered twice each week at the shelter, spending a few hours each stint taking one dog after another for a walk around the mile-long loop circling the pond.

  Once when she was seven, Kelsey saw a news report about the abuse dogs sometimes suffered at animal shelters: cruel employees who hit them or neglected them, diseases they contacted, injuries sustained from dogfights, not to mention the emotional torture they endured from sharing close quarters with other animals for far too long. The images that played out on the screen terrified Kelsey so much that night terrors tormented her for weeks: waking up in a cold sweat, screaming out in distress, thrashing and kicking in her bed.

  To quell their daughter’s persistent bad dreams, Kelsey’s parents took her to the Fennel Kennel Club in hopes of showing her that animals didn’t always withstand the mistreatment she witnessed from the journalism piece. Kelsey went from one dog crate to another, talking to each canine, and when it felt safe, reaching into the cage to pet the dog’s head, muzzle, or coat. The visit cured her of the slew of bad dreams, but she felt such a connection with those caged animals that she pestered her parents countless times each day for over two months to adopt a puppy.

  Her parents caved, and they brought home a Beagle she named Wilbur but often referred to as Willy Wonka or Silly Willy, with the understanding that Kelsey would feed the new family member each day, take him out to “do his duties,” and work alongside him in a dog-training course. Although Wilbur’s exuberant nature and occasional obnoxiousness often tested her patience, Kelsey never wavered in her responsibilities, despite her age, and over the next eleven years, she shared her life with a loyal and loving companion.

  That event coincided with the end of high school, and rather than head off to college, which she regarded as a waste of time, energy, and money, Kelsey took a job at Slippery When Wet, a local automotive franchise similar to Jiffy Lube, where female employees ranging in age from 18-28 wore skimpy outfits and did plenty of bending (under the hood, inside the car to clean, etc.) and squatting (checking tire pressure, changing light bulbs, etc.), while attending to the vehicles that pulled into the car bays.

  When two of her colleagues were chosen as centerfolds of a well-known men’s magazine, the owner mandated that each new employee had to sign a waiver to model for a Slippery When Wet annual calendar – if customers selected that individual as the most desired employee at that location. Having joined the company before the waiver became mandatory for employment, Kelsey refused to pose for the annual photo shoot and won the respect of the owner, Ron Moretti, who admired Kelsey’s tenaciousness, ethics, and practicality. When a managerial position opened up, he offered her the job. She accepted with an enthusiastic guarantee that she would become his most valuable employee.

  Taking that promise in stride, Mr. Moretti provided guidance on supervising, motivating, raising employee morale, selecting the right candidates for suitable positions, how to evaluate and dismiss (if necessary) those individuals who couldn’t keep pace with their quick and demanding business environment, as well as countless other details that would allow her to succeed. Soon enough, Kelsey became a devoted business disciple and a wonderful professional relationship blossomed.

  Shocked at how much money a business could rake in with an enterprise that promised an experience rather than just run-of-the-mill service, Kelsey found it gratifying and rewarding to help build a business and discovered a vocation to which she could devote her future. She wanted to own her own business, and she looked to Ron Moretti for advice on owning and building one. The only problem was that she lacked the capital and the experience to make it happen.

  Therefore, over the next four years, while working under Mr. Moretti’s tutelage, she worked sixty hours per week learning how to network among other local establishments, how to market and publicize a business entity, how to win and maintain a loyal customer base, the measures one needed to take to incorporate a business, the importance of adhering to proper accounting measures, how to surround herself with a wise legal team, working alongside ambitious tax advisors, and hiring a trustworthy insurance company.

  Throughout this period, her parents allowed her to remain at home while paying a generously low rent. The rest of her earnings went towards a down payment on a cramped two-bedroom ranch-style home.

  After paying her mortgage each month, she socked away what little remained to finance a cozy diner (what became Forever and Always) on a small plot of land that had been foreclosed upon. Mr. Moretti bankrolled the majority of the business venture and became a full partner.

  While her friends went to college, spent money on extravagant vacations, got married and had children, Kelsey sacrificed fun and a decade of her life to work toward her dream: owning a string of themed restaurants in the Chicagoland area with the hope of retiring at fifty-five.

  Through it all, however, one thing remained the same: she loved dogs and wanted to have one in her life. Even now, ten years after losing Silly Willy, she ached for a dog of her own.

  But having recently opened her second themed restaurant, The Witching Hour, Kelsey had begun working over seventy-hours each week. That much time away from home made it impossible to care for a dog. So for the time being, she settled for volunteering at the kennel and walking a variety of dogs, hoping one might charm its way into her home, convincing her to hire an assistant manager at both of her restaurants to handle the more banal managerial duties, so she could have what she’d wanted for so long: a life.

  While she had a close-knit group of friends, she didn’t have many of them, and although they understood why she couldn’t get together often, they had stopped calling, texting, and emailing due to her long hours. Instead, they relied on her to contact them whenever she had time to meet up with them.

  If she had so little time for her friends, she dreaded contemplating how she might fit romance into her life, so she did her best to pretend that she didn’t need love or sex. And she supposed that if she didn’t hit the mattress completely exhausted every night, she would probably have difficulty falling asleep anyway due to loneliness.

  “He’s a cute one, isn’t he?”

  Hearing that kind voice above her, Kelsey glanced up to find a handsome blond-haired man wearing a pin-striped sky blue dress shirt and matching tie, while offering her a soft smile. She pegged him
at no more than thirty years old. “Only when the little devil doesn’t pee on your shoes. Happens a lot here.”

  “I guess looks can be deceiving.” He folded his arms and his expression became wary. “I would have noticed you before, so you must be new here.”

  “I bet I’ve been here longer than you.”

  “I doubt that.”

  The challenging tone intrigued her. “Why?”

  “I designed this building. So technically, I was here before everyone but the proprietor, of course.”

  “A little young to be designing facilities like this, aren’t you?”

  “The same could be said of a restaurant proprietor.” He held her gaze, giving nothing away. He had thin lips the color of a pencil eraser, and it looked like he’d stuck an ice cube into each cheek. His chin, while utterly hairless, looked misshapen, as though it had been broken in either direction and had re-set itself at an awkward angle.

  Taking in his indecipherable look and the fact that he’d inquired about her sent an alarm ringing through Kelsey’s mind. A knot of anxiety settled in her chest, making her breath come in quick bursts. Since that horrible night ten months ago, the few instances where a man had taken an interest in her set Kelsey on edge and made it difficult to consider going on a date anytime soon. Until, of course, she met Damon Durant.

  Then the man smiled. His chin straightened, his cheeks thinned out, and his lips curled into a pleasant shape.

  Seeing him reflect actual humanity, as compared to his previous almost lifeless state, calmed Kelsey enough to shake off some of her apprehension. After all, if she wanted to find a man to spend her life with, she couldn’t judge them all by the deranged actions of only one. This wouldn’t change the way she reacted overnight, but with an ever-increasing amount of effort, Kelsey hoped she’d encourage those men to approach her when they might otherwise lack the nerve to do so. After analyzing this man’s wavering smile, she counted him as one with muted self-confidence.