Kiss River by Diane Chamberlain Page B

kids, she feared looking more like their grandmother than their mother, so he understood. His own hair was more gray than black now, and he still felt an occasional jolt when he looked in the mirror, expecting to see the dark hair he’d once possessed. He still felt like that younger man inside. Most of the time, anyway.
    He began to unbuckle the belt on his jeans, but Olivia stretched an arm toward him.
    “Come here,” she said. “Let me do that.”
    He lay down next to her, and she kissed him, her hand freeing the end of his belt from the buckle just as the doorbell rang. Olivia’s fingers froze, and she groaned, burying her head in his shoulder with a laugh.
    “Let’s ignore it.” He pressed his hand over hers where it rested on the snap of his jeans.
    Olivia nodded in agreement, then unsnapped his jeans and curled her fingers beneath the waistband. The bell rang again.
    “What if it has something to do with the kids?” she asked, leaning away from him. Her pretty, green eyes were wide open, the desire that had been in them only a moment earlier alreadygone. She was mother now, all of a sudden. Not wife. Not lover. She would not be able to ignore the bell.
    He nodded and sat up, pulling on his shirt. He knew she was right. Their house stood alone, at the tail end of a small, out-of-the-way road that ended at the edge of the water. No one came out here unless they had a real purpose.
    He bent over to kiss Olivia’s temple, then walked out of the room, buckling his pants. The bell was ringing again by the time he reached the living room, and he opened the door to find a young woman standing on the wooden front porch.
    “Yes?” He tried to place her. Some of his patients occasionally brought their sick pets to him when he was off, and he didn’t always recognize them out of the context of his office, but he doubted he’d ever seen this woman before. He would remember her if he had. She was in her late twenties or early thirties, with long, very dark hair, milky-white skin and eyes the color of charcoal. In short, the sort of woman you could not see once and then forget.
    “Are you Dr. O’Neill?” she asked. She was wearing dark-blue shorts and a light-blue shirt, open, over a white top of some sort.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “I’m Gina Higgins, a friend of your son and daughter’s.”
    With his mind already on Jack and Maggie, his heart did a nervous little dance in his chest until he realized she was probably not talking about his two youngest children. “Oh,” he said. “Do you mean Clay and Lacey?”
    She nodded. “That’s right,” she said with a smile. “I should have made that clear. I forgot you have younger children.”
    He felt awkward, if not downright rude, standing in the doorway without inviting her in, but this did not appear to be an emergency, and he was anxious to get back to Olivia. “What can I do for you?” he asked.
    “I was wondering…May I come in for a moment?” She looked past him into the living room. “Is this a good time?”
    “Actually, it’s not,” Alec said, but Olivia walked into the room in her khaki shorts and white shirt, and he figured there was nothing to get back to, at least not at that moment. He opened the door wider. “It’s fine,” he relented, stepping back to let her walk pasthim into the living room. She was wearing a green backpack. “Olivia,” he said, “this is Gina Higgins. Right?” He looked at Gina to check his memory.
    “Right.” She held out her hand to Olivia, who shook it, smiling her usual gracious smile.
    “Gina’s a friend of Lacey and Clay’s,” Alec explained.
    “It feels so good in here,” Gina said, taking in a deep breath and smoothing her dark hair back from her damp forehead. “The air conditioner’s broken in my car.”
    “Have a seat, Gina.” Olivia motioned toward the sofa. “Can I get you something to drink?”
    Gina sat down, slipping her backpack from her shoulders to her lap. “No, thank you. I