RSVP with Love Read online

  Kyra wasted no time in grabbing Chloe and enfolding her in a tight embrace that forced Chloe to bend down to accommodate their height difference.

  “Can I get one, too?” Kevin asked with a teasing smile.

  “Oh, come on. You don’t…” Chloe began, but then found herself encircled by his arms as well.

  Of course there was a difference.

  Instantly she had another recall from the past. Instantly she felt a warmth surge through her, and she inhaled the fresh masculine essence that was Kevin. She felt the sinewy strength in his arms and the spread of his large hands on her back and waist. She felt the flatness of his abdomen and his hips. In just that brief moment. Not given a choice, Chloe returned the embrace as impersonally as she could. But she wasn’t indifferent.

  Could he sense that?

  “Good girl,” Kevin whispered in her ear.

  Chloe knew at once there was a double meaning, and she got them both.

  The warmth was replaced by a titillating tension as he covertly but lightly kissed her cheek. Then he stood back, releasing her.

  “Kevin! Hiiiii.”

  The three of them turned at the loud shout-out to Kevin. Walking toward them was a young attractive woman, her very short hair dyed blond. Tight black jeans hugged her long legs and rounded butt, and a baby-doll-type top showed off cleavage and a lithe, playfully sexy body.

  Kevin excused himself and walked to meet the woman halfway. She dramatically threw up her arms in the air and boldly pressed her hips and chest against Kevin as she greeted him, slowly wrapping her arms around his neck.

  Chloe caught Kyra’s reaction, a silent expression that basically said, “Oh, please.” But Chloe realized that she was hardly amused by the little reunion, and she covered her response as she fumbled with her summer shoulder bag. She knew instinctively that theirs had not been a casual relationship.

  Kyra watched the encounter for a few more seconds and shrugged. “A fling thing. At least a one-night stand,” she whispered dismissively.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Look, I don’t want you to get the wrong impression about him. Kevin is eligible and popular. He likes women, but he does have standards. She is not what he’d take home to meet his mama.”

  Chloe glanced up in time to realize that Kevin was, from a distance, introducing her and Kyra to the blonde.

  “Hiiiii,” the woman sang out again, waving.

  Kyra and Chloe waved back, and then Kevin was saying goodbye and lightly jogging back to them.

  “Sorry ’bout that.”

  “Who was that?” Kyra asked with mock teasing.

  “A moment out of my past. Right where it belongs,” he admitted with a guiltless chuckle. “Where were we?”

  “Catching up on reunion business,” Kyra said. “And that reminds me, how did it go with Terrence?”

  “I’m going to meet with him now. He’s flying back to New York later. I told him he’d be a fool not to look at the offer seriously, but I get the feeling he’s playing hardball. Like, he wants someone begging him. Know what I mean?”

  Chloe noticed that Kyra didn’t look directly at her or Kevin as she silently nodded. If anything she looked taken aback.

  “Is it money?” Chloe asked, not sure of Kevin’s meaning.

  “No, I’m almost sure it’s not about the money. I think there’s another stumbling block,” Kyra said, and then forced a cheerful smile to her face. “What about you, Chloe? Did we have a meeting planned I forgot about?”

  “No, we’re good. I just met with a committee from the alumni office to go over the thousand and one little details that we have to get done for October. I’m told it always gets crowded, but I want to make sure that our tenth anniversary is headlined. So I asked for a special tent just for the class of 1999 on the Square, or in front of the band shell stage. Things like that. Right now I’m on my way over to check out President Morrow’s house. He’s invited us to make use of it in October.”

  “Then you don’t need me, and I’m late for my own meeting.”

  Chloe squinted at the sky. “I think it’s going to rain, so I better hurry.”

  “I’ll talk to both of you later?” Kyra asked. But typically she didn’t wait for a response, hurrying away with her confident bouncy stride.

  Chloe faced Kevin, once again alone with him.

  “Well…I know you have to rush off, too. Good luck with Terrence. I’ll talk with you…”

  “When you’re finished. Wait for me.”

  “Wait for you? Why?”

  “Because I thought we could hang out a little, long as we’re here.” Kevin chuckled silently. “You sure don’t make it easy. Are you always this tough on the men in your life?”

  What men in her life?

  Chloe stared at him. Was she being hard on him? Did he just say he wanted to see her again?

  “Look, it’s not going to take you long to look at President Morrow’s house. I’ve been there. And I doubt that I’ll need more than thirty minutes to convince Terry to snap out of it and get serious about working at Hollington. Meet me back here. Unless you have serious plans for later.”

  Like Kyra, Kevin didn’t give her a chance to respond. He was already walking away to the other side of the campus to meet with Terrence Franklin, most likely at the main building, which had a spacious and comfortable reception and lounge area. Chloe stood watching his retreat for a long thoughtful moment, as she’d so often done when they were undergraduates. Always admiring, from afar, the man with so much presence, personality, charm and potential that had labeled him early on as future master of his universe.

  She began to wonder just how long her meeting with Walter Morrow was going to take. Chloe also wouldn’t allow herself to think that Kevin might actually be serious—that he wanted her to wait for him and had done all but extract an actual promise.

  She hurried.

  Kevin frowned as he checked the time again. He cursed quietly under his breath. He’d been with Terrence for more than an hour.

  To his left he heard the distinct rumble of thunder, and the sky had turned a smoke-gray, the clouds low on the horizon, bellowing like dirty sheets in the wind.

  Walking just past the library, Kevin briefly reviewed his meeting with Terrence, even as he walked briskly. They’d known each other as undergrads and lived in the same frat house off campus. Terrence was a jock, an overgrown Herculean talent who, on Saturday afternoons throughout the school year, literally mowed down the opposition. For doing so Terrence basked, for three of his four years, in the glory of winning for the Hollington Lions as their awesome and unstoppable running back.

  Kevin had assumed that Terrence’s reluctance to openly deal with the offer from Hollington to be the head coach was nothing more than a reluctance to face, once and for all, that his pro ball career was dead and buried. He’d not been asked to do play-by-play commentary for any of the networks, or to be assistant coach or trainer for any national team. There were other options but not a lot. What Kevin found out, instead, was that the source of Terrence’s soul-searching and second-guessing was…a woman. Kyra Dixon, to be exact.

  While the information had stunned him, Kevin was more surprised that, after all these years, the big guy still had unresolved feelings for his petite classmate. He couldn’t recall if, even recently, Kyra had ever indicated that she and Terrence used to have a thing going on. Or, what had happened to it. But even listening to Terrence hint and make veiled references to, but never actually say it out loud, some sort of failed affair had made Kevin squirm. Not because he didn’t care about his friend and his obvious confused state of mind but because it was too clear a reminder of the trail of emotional debris he himself had been responsible for. Obviously Kyra had left quite an impression on Terrence’s psyche—and his heart.

  “Man, I don’t want to know the details, and I can’t help you with that,” Kevin had joked, eliciting an understanding chuckle from Terrence. “Sure I had my fair share of lo
vely young things, but it’s not like I ever really thought about what I wanted for real. Now if you’re asking me about getting a good deal from the college, I can advise you what to hold out for. To be frank, you could have them by the short hairs. Your name hooked up with Hollington could bring in a lot of sponsors, financial support and maybe even a deal with a local affiliate to broadcast the Hollington games. You control a lot of capital, my man. But first, you got to take care of this business between you and Kyra. She’s a cool lady. She’s sweet. Don’t hurt her if you can help it. And do what you gotta do.”

  Kevin only remembered that Terrence was ambivalent, feeling a little guilty about his past and a little scared about the future. It was a powerful enough combination to stymie his ability to make a decision—at least for now. And, Kevin had to admit, nothing he’d ever faced himself. Thinking about it, however, rather than feel lucky he suddenly felt empty.

  Kevin sighed deeply, trying to shake off the heavy pall that had accompanied his time with Terrence. What he really wanted, and it came to him strongly during their meeting, was to finish and see if he could get back with Chloe.

  The irony was not lost on him. In fact he’d never been with Chloe in the first place. The four years leading up to, and including, senior year, had been totally devoid of any knowledge or awareness of her, as far as he could remember. So here he was, ten years on, trying to figure out how she’d managed in just about a month, what had not happened in four years. Get his attention.

  For one thing, Kevin knew for certain he’d finally grown up. It had taken a woman he’d thought about becoming engaged to, an ugly accusation and a DNA test to provide a serious reality check. So…what was so different about Chloe Jackson? Unlike almost every woman he’d ever met or been interested in…Chloe Jackson, for all the world, just didn’t seem that into him.

  How could that happen?

  As soon as Kevin shook hands with Terrence, leaving him at the building lobby, his thoughts turned to Chloe. He was already late, and he was pretty sure she was not the kind of woman to hang around waiting for any man.

  The thunder rolled again. He was worried that the rain would start before he could find her. Suddenly, Kevin realized this was important to him—urgent, almost. He began a light jog, cutting across the quad to shorten the distance.

  It had taken him several days and a copy of the 1999 yearbook to piece together who Chloe Jackson was. And still there was almost nothing to go on, which made his quest, as he now saw it, even more exciting.

  Who in the world was Chloe Jackson?

  The more he’d seen her and spoken with her, the more Kevin had a sense of something between them, here at Hollington, when they were students. Not an affair or a seduction…he knew he would have remembered that. No lab buddy thing, or mentoring, or friend of a friend of a friend. No hanger-on at the frat parties or groupie for the football team. Chloe had so stayed under the radar that she might almost not have existed, except for that vague feeling that they’d somehow met before. But he couldn’t nail it down. That is, until he’d hit on the idea of looking through the yearbook.

  Unable to locate his copy Kyra, who confessed that she remembered even less about Chloe, had sent him one by express mail. It had been enlightening, if frustrating.

  Kevin felt the warm wind picking up. A few fat drops splatted on the paved walkways and tree leaves overhead. A quick scan around him showed no sign of Chloe, and she would have been so easy to spot. She was dressed in a khaki-colored pencil skirt and a black V-neck jersey top with three-quarter length sleeves. She’d also worn black ankle-tie espadrilles. Her hair had been pulled back into a ponytail and twisted into a casual knot. The style made Chloe look even younger than she normally did with her hair down, more vulnerable.

  Kevin stopped near a corner under the shelter of a tree. With summer lightning another possibility he knew he couldn’t stay there for long. Since graduating he’d only been back to the campus maybe a half-dozen times. He was not given to being sentimental about anything or anyone, except for his grandmother and what she’d taught him. Of course there was also his mother, who had maintained her own pride and integrity even under fire from a difficult marriage, and worthless husband and father. But, for whatever reasons, Kevin suddenly felt a connection here at Hollington that seemed tangible solely because of its connection as well to Chloe Jackson. He was still trying to understand why.

  It was starting to rain for real. He looked at the time and sighed in annoyance, sure now that Chloe had left. And then he glanced up and there she was. Pressed back and huddled against a door with a very small inset. It was a side exit only from one of the buildings. She was, in essence, trapped there.

  “Chloe!”

  He watched her look quickly around, trying to find the source of the voice.

  “Here! I’m over here!”

  She spotted him. Relief and what Kevin imagined was surprise passed over her features. Chloe smiled at him, lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug and rolled her eyes toward the sky. He laughed.

  But he knew the rain could continue this way for twenty minutes before stopping. Or not. He tried to figure out how to get them together. Kevin calculated that he was perhaps fifty yards from a small classroom building behind him. Chloe was about ten feet farther away. The building was locked now, but its entrance was beneath an arched cement portico. It was deep enough to shelter them both with room to spare.

  Kevin got her attention and pointed to the building.

  “Make a run for it,” he shouted.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’ll get soaked.”

  Kevin abruptly stepped out into the open and was immediately pelted with rain. He spread his arms, laughing at the shocked expression on her face.

  “Kevin!” Chloe admonished.

  “I’m drowning here. Come on! I’ll wait for you.”

  As Kevin felt the water run down his face, drip from his chin and eyelashes, plaster his shirt to his chest and arms, Chloe seemed to take a deep breath, clutch her purse to her chest and dash out into the rain toward him. She made a small surprised yelp as she got wet.

  He stood and just watched her. She ran all out, knees pumping despite the slim skirt. All slim long legs, fearless and graceful. She stumbled once, her wet feet slipping on the inner soles of her sandals. As she drew near to him Kevin held out his hand to her as he began to move toward the other building. Chloe stretched to reach for it. He grabbed hers firmly, pulling her along with him. Together they sprinted the last few dozen yards to the building.

  They arrived breathless and panting and started to laugh. Kevin wasn’t sure why or what was so funny. He just knew that it felt good.

  “I’m probably going to catch a chill,” Chloe muttered good-naturedly, using her hands to wipe her face and smooth back her hair.

  “Hey. I could catch one, too, you know. I could die,” he groused.

  “Serves you right. Making me wait in the rain for you.”

  He looked at her, knowing that her argument was feeble and teasing. “I waited in the rain for you.”

  Chloe looked caught off guard but then recovered with a sweet smile. “That’s true. But I’m worth it.”

  Kevin doubled over in laughter at her audacity. At her humor and how fresh she looked, wet all over.

  “That was cold.” He chuckled. “But that’s okay. My mama raised me good, and I did the right thing.”

  He tried to look affronted and waited for a sharp retort from her. When she remained silent Kevin turned to her. Chloe had pulled herself more or less to rights, impressing him even more with her lack of complaint and fussing about her clothing.

  “I guess it’s my fault that your hair got wet.”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  “Aah. Better hair through chemistry,” he cracked.

  She chuckled silently. “At least it’s my hair.”

  “I stand corrected.” His humor faded as he considered her. “I was only teasing you. I’m glad I waited, Chlo
e. I wanted to.”

  Now, she was once again the centered reserved woman, all poised and professional, except for the contradictory brightness of her gaze.

  “I’m…glad, too.”

  Her voice was a whisper, as if she wasn’t sure she should make such a confession. There was no way for her to know that, as far as he was concerned, it was an admission of her trust and, he hoped, more than a degree of like.

  The rain didn’t look like it was going to let up, and for a moment Kevin stood next to Chloe, silently watching the visible vale of water wash over the landscape. Not even thinking, he put his arm around her shoulder, briskly rubbing his hand up and down her arm. The motion forced her closer to his side, until her shoulder was pressed into his chest.

  “Are you cold?” Kevin asked quietly.

  She sighed, shaking her head. “No, I’m fine.” She inhaled deeply. “It smells like grass and leaves, doesn’t it?”

  Kevin didn’t answer. He didn’t think it was required.

  “I’ve always loved that smell about Hollington. I’ve always loved Hollington,” she said with a silent chuckle.

  “Did you? Why?” Kevin asked, keeping his arm around her but no longer stroking her arm. He was enjoying the way she was leaning against him. Trusting and open.

  She shrugged. “I’d never seen a place like this. Where I came from…well, it was different. Hollington was like visiting some foreign country. The campus, the buildings, were so old and beautiful. The minute I got here I was happy to be here.”

  “Well, I have to tell you, to me I only saw four years of lectures, papers, final exams and terrible cafeteria food.”

  Chloe laughed.

  “I’m exaggerating, naturally. I liked Hollington. And I was glad to come here and get away from…Anyway, I can’t complain. I don’t think my memories are like yours, but I can tell you I’m glad to be back and involved with homecoming.”

  “Are you? I’m glad, Kevin. Because you’ve been so helpful.”

  Kevin shifted slightly, so that he could see her face. “You don’t understand. I’m glad because I got to meet you. Really, for the first time.”