Hearts in Motion by Edie Ramer Page B

 
    She was feeling...odd. If Cara weren’t here, she might get more than a little wild and do something very stupid.
    “No plans,” she said and heard her voice deepen. A voice like one of the mythical Sirens, calling to the sailors. “ Come to me. Come. I need you.”
    “I have to go.” She hung up, putting down the phone, her hand shaking.
    She raised her hands to her cheeks, pressing her fingers against her cheekbones, feeling the heat emanating from her skin. This was craziness. Madness. She needed to take a bath in ice cubes.
    Or better yet...
    “Cara, you get to stay with me for tonight. Your dad can’t come until—”
    Cara’s squeal stopped her. She jumped up and clapped her hands. “I get a sleepover!”
    “No, sweetie, he was planning on picking you up. He—”
    Cara’s big smile and sparkling eyes fell into a downturned mouth and blinking eyes. Her shoulders slumped, her body drooped.
    “But I’d love to have you sleep over,” Abby said so fast the words practically tripped over each other. “Grace is at her friend’s, so it will be just me and you.”
    Cara stood straight again. Not smiling yet, but hope radiating from her. Then she did smile. “It will be like you’re my mom.”
    For an instant, Abby couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. So overcome with empathy and love for this small girl who didn’t get any from her absent mother.
    “I wish I was your mother,” she said once again. Then she stepped toward Cara, and Cara ran toward her, and she fell to her knees, and they hugged. Her eyes closed tightly as the small girl’s chin rested on her shoulder, the sides of their heads together. Abby smelled Cara’s fresh scent, and love grew inside her, getting bigger and taller then expanding even more inside her. She wished she could wrap all the love around Cara in layers, thick and permanent, so she’d feel that love for the rest of her life. Wherever she was, whatever she was doing, she’d know she was loved.
    How had this happened so fast?
    Opening her eyes, Abby loosened her hold. The three cats and Lion sat around them, watching. For an instant, she wondered what they thought.
    Probably that people were weird...and they wouldn’t be wrong.
    She kissed the top of Cara’s head, much like she’d kiss Minnie, Quigley, or Lion. Pulling back, she put on a smile as if she were putting on a protective coating.
    “I’ll call your dad and ask him if you can stay over.”  
    Of course he would say yes. He didn’t deserve a daughter like Cara. He was better now than the first day when he’d been so rigid, but sometimes better wasn’t good enough. Not when it came to children.
    Abby pulled away from Cara, then she marched to the phone.  
    At least she wasn’t sighing over him anymore. Right now, her hormones and her mind weren’t singing the same song.  
    ***
    He’d lost her. Holden pulled into the parking lot of a bowling alley so he could turn back to the city.
    Before tonight, he’d never imagined he’d wait outside Portia’s apartment to follow her like a suspicious lover.
    But before tonight, he’d never imagined she’d be so nervous and jumpy, finally telling him that she wasn’t feeling well. And when he asked, she told him she had PMS.
    Normally, he would have believed her, kissed her on her forehead, and driven home.
    That was before Ryan’s cryptic warning.
    So he’d parked his car across the street and just down the block from her condo building. After twenty minutes, he was thinking of leaving, when her silver BMW pulled out of the underground parking and turned the opposite direction that his car was facing.
    He’d turned as soon as he could but ended up following the wrong car.
    Stopping his car in the bowling alley parking lot, he called Ryan, who answered on the fourth ring.
    “What do you know about Portia?”
    “Nothing.”
    “That’s not what you said.”
    “You know what?” Resentment hardened Ryan’s voice. “She’s your fiancée. You figure it