Star Dust (11 page)

Kit tossed the football to an eager Freddie. Now, this, this was easy. Tossing the ball back and forth, no need to search for conversation, no hero worship shining in Freddie’s eyes, only purest concentration.

What was hard was not glancing at Freddie’s mom once the ball rolled off his fingertips.

Mrs. Smith’s kids might like him—and his dog, they
loved
his dog—but she certainly didn’t.

The Dunsfords’ party was in full swing. Margie’s meticulously planned dinner was now in everyone’s belly, and most people were in the backyard, enjoying the evening air under the tiki torches.

Rather than chat up his lovely blonde dinner partner—clearly Margie’s latest candidate in her campaign to marry Kit off—he’d chosen instead to toss the football with the kids. It was no hardship, truly. He liked Freddie and Lisa—they were smart and polite. Their hero worship of him was somehow more palatable than the rest of America’s.

Mrs. Smith didn’t like it, though. Or his fixing her cart in the store yesterday, or his saving her from the awkward social situation she’d obviously been in. Her stiff back and rigid jaw had been those of a woman infuriated to be trapped in a conversation.

She’d said he was wonderful and then run as if she’d been frightened by those words. And tonight, she’d ignored him with a force of will he could feel from across the room. They hadn’t been seated close, but the one time they’d locked eyes, she’d looked away. He’d tried to the point of rudeness to everyone around him to catch her attention again, but she’d never deigned to give it.

Oh, she was avoiding him all right. Across the lawn, Carruthers was talking her up at the moment. Her shoulders were set unyieldingly against the application of the other man’s charm.

But Kit was done rescuing her. He’d smacked his head against the wall of her disdain once too often. He had to quit before he got a concussion.

“Hey, Kit! Catch!”

Kit turned away from Mrs. Smith just in time to catch Freddie’s toss. The kid had a good arm, but he needed to work on his control. Maybe in a few years, with some practice—

He’d what? Kit wasn’t his father, wouldn’t be tossing the ball with him beyond tonight, most likely.

“Go long,” he said to Freddie, who ran backwards with an open, eager expression on his face, not even glancing behind him. Because his idol had told him to go long. Nothing bad could possibly happen to him while he was obeying an astronaut.

Kit snapped the ball off his fingers with more force than he’d intended. His gaze followed the ball just long enough to see Freddie catch it to his chest with a grunt, then he was searching out Mrs. Smith again, almost against his will.

Carruthers was raising his hand in slow motion, his eyes slits of calculation even as he wore an innocent smile.

And he set his hand in the small of Mrs. Smith’s back.

It was only two fingers there, lingering for half a second at most—a perfectly friendly, unobjectionable touch, but Mrs. Smith did not like it. She never dropped her polite smile, but the edges of it stretched toward the breaking point.

Kit saw red. “Hang on, Freddie,” he called. “I’ll be right back.”

He walked purposefully over to the two of them, putting on a lazy smile as he bore down on them. Carruthers saw him first, his expression slipping.

“Campbell,” the other man called to him, an edge behind the words that asked,
What are you doing?

“Carruthers,” he called back, letting his face fall into his “superior officer” expression for half a moment. Carruthers was a Navy man and below him in rank—he’d take the hint.

But just in case, Kit took that hint and made it a broad suggestion. “Mrs. Smith.” He smiled as he always did at her—polite, charming.
Astronaut at your service, ma’am.

She glared back as she always did. Well, it was either him or Carruthers. She could pick.

“I thought I’d claim that dance you promised me.” His gaze flicked to Carruthers. “If this is a good time.”

The other man held his eyes for a half a moment—just long enough for Kit to think about pulling rank once more—but then Carruthers lifted his brows.

So there is something there,
those brows said.

Hell
. He was never going to hear the end of this at work. But given a choice between facing insults at the job or Mrs. Smith’s strained smile as she wilted under Carruthers’s hand… well, he’d already made that choice, hadn’t he?

“Now’s fine,” Mrs. Smith said, her smile a twist of lemon. She turned away from Carruthers, giving him only her back in farewell. Oh, she must be angry to be so impolite. Kit didn’t think he’d ever seen her so put out, at least with someone who wasn’t him.

“Shall we?” She headed for the concrete pad other couples were using as a dance floor without waiting for him.

Carruthers sent him a smirk that said,
Good luck.

He’d need it.

Joey Dee was singing about the twist on the hi-fi. Kit caught Anne-Marie at the waist and took her hand. She was stiff in his arms but close, so close. She only came up to his shoulder, and she was carefully looking at their feet moving together so that all he could see was the brightness of her hair. And the vivid green of her silk sheath dress, the fabric rucking around her hips, the scalloped neckline revealing lovely, freckled flesh.

He reminded himself to breathe.

“I’m sorry about him,” he offered after a few beats. Better if Carruthers himself would apologize, but Kit’s remorse would have to do for now.

Her hand tightened on his. The wrong words. He was always saying the wrong thing to her, although he never could figure out how he was off.

“He wasn’t doing anything.”

Kit supposed he really hadn’t. But Carruthers had set his hand at her back, made her distinctly uncomfortable, and yet she excused him—while Kit was nothing but polite, solicitous, helpful with her—hell, he was trying his damnedest not to think about her hips swishing in that silk—and got sullenness.

“Have I done something wrong?” He said it gently, even as his heart began to race. He’d apologized for the pass, hadn’t attempted anything like it since. What if it wasn’t anything he’d done, just a general, inexplicable aversion?
 

He’d never been the object of a woman’s disgust before—quite the opposite. And to have such a thing turned on him by a woman he was attracted to? Hell, one that he admired?

Self-loathing was a bitterly new taste for him.

She slowed at his question, but not stiffly. More… consideringly.

“It’s not you,” she said, although it sounded as if it really were him.

She said nothing more, but they moved easier together than they had at first. Whether because she was less stiff or they were learning each other’s cues, he couldn’t say.
 

“Look,” he went on, “I like your kids. Your kids love Bucky. But we’re neighbors. And if you think I’m not being a good neighbor…”

She sighed and looked up at the stars. He was reminded of the times they’d sat together in dark, gazing at the night sky above them, him reaching out a hand to light her cigarette.

But this was different. He held her to him—no need for the excuse of a cigarette to reach across the space between them. He had only to slide his arm deeper around her waist and there would be no space between them at all.

Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps he hadn’t been able to hide his attraction behind politeness. Which was why it annoyed her.

“When I left Doug,” she began, “everyone was horrified.”

He leaned in to catch her words, her perfume touching his nose. It was powdery and light—it seemed to float off her skin.

“It was expected that without a husband, I would fail. At everything. As if without a husband, I would stop functioning.”

“Ah.” It began to make sense, her reluctant acceptance of his help, her pinched reaction whenever he tried to rescue her from distress.

“I needed to prove that I could do things. That leaving Doug was the right thing.”

“And I just keep trying to help you?”

“Well, yes. I suppose it’s not fair—you are only being polite. But there it is.”

They danced a few moments more, the space between them seeming to move with them.

“I know how you feel,” he said.

She snorted.
 

“No, really. Only in perhaps the opposite way.” He took a breath, gathered his courage. “They think you’ll never succeed. And the same people believe that I can never fail. I can’t be a man… I have to be a hero. To all of America.”

Their legs brushed together. Because she’d come closer. He swallowed and felt their hips roll in unison.

“I suppose it is harder for you. I don’t have all of America watching me,” she said.

He shook his head. “No, you have your kids depending on you. I’d rather disappoint America than them.”

She ducked her head, her breathing rasping a little too quickly. “They’re… do you think they’re okay?”

“Better than okay.” She looked up at him, and he smiled. “They’re great kids. I’m glad you moved in next door.” He meant that. Even if she disliked him, knowing her kids made it worth it. “Friends? I swear, I won’t offer help, unless you ask.” His voice lowered. “And all you have to do is ask. You know that.”

She held his gaze, and suddenly the world slowed around them. The music, the other couples, even their movements went to syrup. Her hand in his, her hip brushing against him, almost too slow to be real. And then it dissolved and everything—including his heart—leaped to double time.

It was the cousin to what he’d said to her before, but the reaction between them this time was completely different. Humid, rather than dry. Hot, rather than chilled.

Did she—

“Friends,” she said firmly, her smile certain. No hint of regret there.

He kept smiling, trying to keep his disappointment in.
 

Friends was good. Friends was enough. They were neighbors, he liked her kids. Of course, he’d never actually been friends with a woman before, and kids usually made him itchy. But there was a first time for everything.

“Friends,” he agreed.

Nothing more.

But nothing less.

Anne-Marie could feel the word between them:
friends
. Absolutely they were. And friends was a good thing—so why did the label feel so severe? Why did she feel rebuffed?

The song ended, and they stopped moving. Kit didn’t release her, though, and she didn’t pull away. His face was half lit, his mouth masked by shadow while his eyes caught the light. He stared at her with a look aflame with such quiet intensity it might have been rocket fuel.

She started to say something, but instead she swallowed and looked away at the party around them. Some other couple giggled across the patio. Someone shuffled with records at the stereo. The children were playing around the dark lawn. But all these things were outside the bubble surrounding her and Kit.

The record needle touched down and the speakers crackled. Ezio Pinza came on, singing about a party much like this one, about love and enchantment and other silliness. Kit pulled her closer and his hip brushed hers as he began to move again.

“Friends dance more than once.”

And she followed his lead—but only to be polite. They’d just established they were friends. She didn’t want to dance with him again. They didn’t fit. Without craning her neck, she stood as high as his collar, which was unbuttoned. He’d been wearing a tie and a jacket earlier, when she’d tried so hard not to watch the blonde he’d been sitting with. The blonde had blinked so much, Anne-Marie had almost worried the other woman was going to strain her eyelids. Almost.

He’d disposed of the jacket and tie somewhere, maybe when he’d been playing with Freddie, which had been sweet.

Regardless, they couldn’t really dance together. He smothered her. When he’d lit her cigarettes in the dark or jogged down the street, she couldn’t appreciate his size relative to hers, but up close he was big and manly and tall. He made her feel childish and tiny. She hated that.

But from down here, she could smell his aftershave, something spicy she could almost feel in the back of her throat. She closed her eyes and inhaled.

And missed a step and crashed into him.

Their pelvises bumped and her nose pressed into that notch at the base of his neck. His arms came around her, pulling her tight against him. She trembled.

“Whoa there. I got you.” He whispered the words against the shell of her ear and she felt them straight down her spine, where they pooled and ignited. “You okay?”

What she was was kissing his neck. Not kissing, but she didn’t know what else to call it when her mouth was pressed against him. She opened her mouth to answer and her lips brushed over his skin. She would have sworn he shivered under her, and his hand definitely tightened on her hip.

Which was ridiculous. She’d tripped. She pulled back and he released her, putting the normal amount of space between them. After a second, they both realized they weren’t moving and Kit began leading again.

“I’m sorry. I guess I’m out of practice.” She said the words to the darkness around his head—not to him. She couldn’t meet his gaze, not when she’d just… tasted him. “Or perhaps I was never a good dancer.”