Page 514 of Summer Heat
Marissa looked at Lance, then back to Tamara, a more sober look in her eye. “Anyone who has money will tell you that it doesn’t do anything except make you feel guilty for not being happy or thin or perfect.” She chuckled. “My father has more money than God, and what am I doing? Studying accounting at a community college in the wilds of Colorado!”
“I bet it drives him crazy,” Lance said.
Marissa nodded cheerfully. “Bingo.” Turning back to Tamara, she said, “I’d like a margarita. Lots of salt.”
“Coming right up.” Tamara moved away, feeling claustrophobic and left out and dismissed. A servant.
As she prepared the margarita, she mentally shook herself. What was wrong with her lately? All she ever did was feel sorry for herself. Poor pitiful Tamara, who had to make her own way in the world.
It got old after a while. She was beginning to sound like Valerie and her mother, who had taken the attitude that they’d been dealt a bad hand and the world had to make it up to them. That, as well as an incident with Valerie and a couple of boys behind the barn, had been the reason Tamara had been forbidden to associate with her cousin and aunt.
Her mother would be so ashamed of her tonight!
With special care, Tamara made the margarita, and grabbed a bottle of expensive beer Lance sometimes drank. She served them with a flourish. “These are on the house.” She wiped her hands on a bar towel self consciously. “My apologies.”
Lance looked up, his dark blue eyes sober for once, searching. “You don’t have to do that, Tamara.”
“I want to. Enjoy.”
She moved away to take the order of a waitress, leaving them some privacy. Wryly she imagined them discussing the trials of having to go to prep school and the strain of international travel.
For her part, she’d gladly trade places.
Or would she? Would she really have traded her own mother for Olan Forrest? Tamara’s mother, who had passed away five years ago from cancer, had been a loving, cheerful woman whose only mistake had been an unexpected and devastating unwed pregnancy. She had made Tamara’s life very rich with her songs and cooking and loving hands. She had always had time for Tamara, time to help with schoolwork or cooking lessons or a stroll in the park. When other girls complained that their mothers simply didn’t understand them, Tamara had hugged the secret wonder of her
mother to her closely.
In contrast, Olan Forrest, rich as he was, had been mean-spirited, hard to please and self-important.
No contest.
She looked back at Lance and Marissa, heads bent together earnestly, one dark, one light, and realized maybe there were things poor little rich kids had to complain about. It was an unexpectedly freeing thought.
But as she gazed at the two heads, she felt a little lonely. Left out. That was the hard part of never having enough; you always felt like the world was inside a big, cheery room, while you stood on the outside in the cold, looking through the windows.
As she was looking at Lance now. Even though she’d made up her mind to avoid him, it was painful to have him here, so close and yet so unavailable.
Live with it, she told herself. Even if he’d never met her cousin, if he’d never crossed her path in any way, Lance Forrest was not the kind of man she wanted to waste her time with.
She’d just put him out of her mind.
Chapter Seven
As the evening wore on, however, Tamara could not completely ignore him. It was impossible, like trying to ignore the honeyed sunshine pouring from a balloon-colored summer sky.
And hard as she tried not to do it, she found herself wondering what had made Lance ask Marissa to dance in the first place. Had he felt sorry for her? Had it been some twisted way of showing just how desirable he was?
He was obviously having a good time with her. They laughed and made jokes. Once Lance literally threw his head back and guffawed at something she said. A bright light shone in Marissa’s eyes then, giving Tamara a deep, wrenching twist in her gut.
Tamara scowled. She didn’t believe Lance would really date a girl like this. She doubted any man with an ego like his would. They picked women for the way they looked—the best of the best, not even a little bit flawed, and God forbid any should be that great American horror: overweight!
Was Lance simply being kind? If that were the case, it worried her. Marissa might take things the wrong way and get her heart broken.
Washing glasses at the sink, Tamara overheard Lance say, “Too bad you’re too young for me. You really make me laugh.”
Marissa smiled saucily. “Maybe you aren’t my type, sweetheart.”
“I’m crushed.” Lance flirted back.
