Page 543 of Summer Heat
Lance hated the way she looked at him all through breakfast. Warily, as if he were a dangerous animal who’d wandered in during the storm.
He hated the way she avoided his gaze, lowering her eyes quickly if he caught her looking at him. He hated the way she kept the food or the dishes or Cody between them like a veil. He could see through it, but couldn’t reach her.
It made it impossible for him to know what she was thinking, what she was feeling. What she thought about last night.
Last night.
He didn’t know what had happened. How he’d gone from pacing in his faceless apartment to taking refuge in Tamara’s arms. He didn’t know why his feet had led him here, why it had seemed to be the only choice.
All he knew this morning was that he’d never experienced anything like it. He hadn
’t know sex could feel like that, so rich and deep, so different.
He also knew he’d done Tamara a great wrong. He’d lain in her bed, smelling the scent of her hair in the pillow, his hand roaming over the sheet where she’d lain, and told himself he had to let it all go. She wasn’t the kind of woman who could play his game. She’d told him that in the bar last night.
Lying there, unwilling to leave the warmth of her soft bed, he’d listened to her talking to Cody and clattering pans, and told himself he had to cut this as short and clean as he could. As gently as possible, he had to find a way to tell her it had been a mistake, him coming here last night.
Then he’d come to the kitchen to see her standing against the sink, and everything had flown out of his head. All his resolves, all his careful planning. She had been so beautiful he couldn’t resist her, and her eyes had carried such warning and suspicion, he’d wanted her to know he didn’t take her lightly.
With a growl of frustration, he bent his head to his fists, silently calling himself every name in the book.
Cody rushed through, bundled like a teddy bear. “Bye!” he said, clomping through, “I’m going outside to build a snowman.”
Lance chuckled in spite of himself. “Build one for me, too.”
“I will.”
Tamara called out a warning to him. “Don’t stay out too long.” She closed the back door, and flipped the curtain aside to keep an eye on him. “Thank goodness for fenced yards.”
She settled in the chair at the table and leaned over. “Lance, we need to talk,” she said.
“No,” he said. “Don’t take it all apart.” He touched her hands and let go. “Just let it be.”
“Lance—”
“I don’t want to spoil it, Tamara. Please.”
A curious and fleeting vulnerability danced over her eyes and was gone. “Listen,” she said.
He looked down, feeling a thickness in his chest. Hadn’t he been going to tell her himself that he thought it was a mistake? Hadn’t that been in his mind all morning? So what difference did it make if she did it?
“It’s not about last night, Lance,” she said. She cleared her throat. “It’s about Valerie.”
“Valerie?” He frowned. “What does she—”
She gripped his hands. “Please listen. It’s important and I’m afraid to tell you, but you have to know.”
He learned forward, alerted by her somber tone. By her worry. “What?”
Tamara looked out the window and back to him. “Cody is her son. I adopted him when she died.”
Lance lifted his eyebrows, but he was still puzzled. Why did she have to tell him this now? Right now, this morning, with that worried frown on her brow? “I don’t—”
And then suddenly, he thought he might. He remembered that Christmas when he’d come home. One cold December night, he’d run into Valerie at a bar, and one thing had led to another. She’d reminded him of a simpler time in his life. And although he’d told himself he shouldn’t let himself fall under Valerie’s spell, he’d gone ahead and done it anyway. When she was up, she was so wild and vibrant it was hard to resist her. It had been three weeks of up—then she’d crashed into one of her black moods. Rather than risk his health or his car to her rages this time, he’d headed back to Houston and never looked back.
A creeping cold filled his limbs, freezing his organs and gut. He stared at Tamara, and everything about her seemed strangely acute: her green eyes, the fall of dark hair, her sober, serious mouth.
It never had really made sense that she didn’t speak of Cody’s father. There had been, from the beginning, something off kilter about the whole business.
