Free The Surprise of His Life by Karen Keast Page B

began.
    But
Walker cut her off with, "I'll tell him to call you."
    Lindsey
smiled. "Have you noticed that I'm sounding like the parent here?"
    Walker
grinned, primarily because he couldn't stop himself when subjected to the
grandeur of Lindsey's smile. "Trust me, parents worry needlessly about
ninety-nine per cent of the time. Your father's fine. I promise."
    Twenty
minutes later, concerned despite the positive rhetoric he'd spouted for
Lindsey's sake, Walker drove by the apartment Dean had rented after moving out
of his house. Walker was on the verge of pulling into the driveway when the
front door of the apartment opened. A redhead, a smiling, hair-tousled redhead,
stepped— bounded—onto the small porch. Dean stepped onto the porch, as well. As
though reluctant to part with her, he pulled her back into his arms. The only
thing that Walker's brain would register was that he wished he hadn't promised
Lindsey that her father was fine. Not that, in a technical sense, Dean wasn't
fine. In fact, he was a little too fine.
    Even
as Walker discreetly watched, Dean lowered his head and planted a kiss, a thorough
kiss, to the woman's lips. The woman leaned into Dean, unabashedly pressing her
svelte body to his. Dean slipped an arm about her waist and hauled her even
closer. Walker felt sick—sick at heart. He, likewise, understood, and never
more fully, the reputed blissfulness of ignorance. God, how he wished he hadn't
seen what he just did! That acknowledged, he admitted that he couldn't say he
was surprised. He'd had a nagging suspicion that he just couldn't shake.
However much he longed to believe that his friend wasn't capable of such
duplicity, the truth remained that an affair was an important component of a
mid-life crisis.
    And
there was no doubt about it, Dean Ellison was square in the middle of a
mid-life crisis! He'd also unwittingly put his friend square in the middle of a
moral dilemma. Walker owed allegiance to all three parties involved—Bunny, Dean
and Lindsey. Lindsey. God, she'd be crushed if she knew that her father was
seeing another woman!
    Pulling
around the corner, Walker watched and waited, hating what he was seeing, yet
captivated by it. In minutes, the woman walked to her car, got in and pulled
from the drive. She turned at the corner, and Walker leaned forward as though
retrieving something from the glove compartment. He looked up just as she was
passing by... and got the shock of his life. Up close, the woman became nothing
more than a child. She couldn't even be as old as Lindsey. Dean was having an
affair with a woman, a child, younger than his daughter!
    Walker
drove home with his thoughts alternately clouded by gray confusion and a red
blaze of anger. What should he do? Should he tell Bunny, tell Lindsey? Should
he confront Dean? The truth was that he felt like punching Dean out for putting
him in this hotter-than-hot spot. Which, in and of itself, was upsetting. He
could never remember wanting to punch out his best friend.
    Once
home, Walker showered, went through the motions of eating, then called Lindsey.
He had no idea what he was going to say until he heard himself saying it. Her
father was fine, he told her. He'd had an errand to run just as he'd suspected.
Hanging up the phone, Walker cursed at the out-and-out lie. He felt betrayed by
Dean. Furthermore, even though he'd decided that there was no way he could tell
Lindsey about her father's affair, he felt as though he were betraying her. He
wasn't certain which was worse: being betrayed or being the betrayer.
    That
night he slept restlessly and, when he did manage to drop off to sleep, he had
wild and disturbing dreams. He dreamed that he and Dean were fighting it out,
crude fisticuffs that bloodied noses and bruised knuckles. Interestingly,
Dean's punches to him didn't elicit pain. It was only those he landed to Dean
that caused him to writhe in physical agony. The blood was crimson and reminded
Walker of flame-red hair... the flame-red