Page 534 of Summer Heat
“Don’t forget about yourself in the bargain,” Louise said, and led the way back to the kitchen.
Suddenly, Louise paused and turned suddenly. “I know what I was trying to remember,” she said.
Tamara waited, a fist of apprehension in her stomach as she noticed the tightness of Louise’s mouth.
“Valerie was kin to you, wasn’t she?”
“Yes. She was my cousin.”
Louise nodded thoughtfully. “It was sad, what happened to her.”
“It was.” Tamara hoped Louise couldn’t hear her heart. It sounded like rifle shot to her, or drums. Loud, anyway. If Louise put that much together, how much longer until she remembered Valerie had had a baby just before she died?
And how long before she put Lance home that Christmas?
“Poor girl,” Louise said, pushing open the door. “I always felt sorry for her. She was crazy about Lance, that’s for sure. I was glad to see in the papers when she got married. It must have broken her husband’s heart when she died.”
Tamara let go of a breath and made a vague sound of agreement. She sometimes forgot that Valerie had been married just before that wild affair with Lance. Everyone assumed the baby she carried belonged to her husband—and he’d left town, so he wasn’t there to defend himself.
To Tamara’s relief, Lance was waiting in the kitchen.
“You ready?” he said, standing up with keys dangling in his hand.
Was she ever!
* * *
He dropped her off at her house. They had been quiet on the way down the hill. Lance walked her to the door, and Tamara knew she wasn’t ready for him to come in. Not with so many disturbing things to think about.
He seemed to sense that. “I had a nice time with you tonight, Tamara,” he said, smoothing her hair over her shoulders. “I’d like to take you dinner or something, if you’ll let me.”
God help her, but she couldn’t say no. Not with him looking like Thor in the moonlight, not with that promise of heady pleasure in his eyes. “Okay,” she said.
“I’ve got to go to Denver this week, but I’ll call you next Sunday evening, and we can work something out.”
That slow, deep quiver stirred to life in her body as he bent down to kiss her. She’d never kissed anyone whose mouth seemed to fit hers so perfectly. Or been kissed with such a heady combination of slow passion and heartbreaking tenderness. He lifted his head, his hand on her face, and for a moment longer, he looked at her. “Good night, Tamara.”
“Good night.”
She tried to go straight to bed. It was late, and had been a very full evening, after all. After a half hour of fitful tossing, she gave up and went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Carrying it into the living room, she put Bach on the CD player, and curled up in her chair.
To think.
Valerie haunted her. Every variation of every emotion she’d ever had about her cousin rushed to the surface tonight, muddy and indistinct. Love, sorrow, regret, resentment—all were there, all in a tangle of hues.
But foremost among them was guilt. And shame. Oh, yes, there was shame, a heaping scoop of it.
Tonight, when Louise had spoken of Valerie, Tamara had remembered why she had wanted Lance Forrest to come home all these years—for revenge. She had remembered how Valerie suffered in her unrequited love, and how bitter she’d become at the end.
How despairing Valerie had been at the last! Night after night, Tamara had tried to comfort her, tried to make her see reason. But Valerie wouldn’t—or couldn’t. She railed at the unfairness of a man running off and leaving a woman alone to raise their baby—even though she’d never tried to let Lance know she was having his child.
She had complained bitterly of the fate of beautiful women who were used and cast aside. Tamara had had a little trouble with that one—Valerie’s vanity had been a source of friction between them for a long time, and it never let up. Valerie had always thought she was the most beautiful, the most desirable, the most passionate woman on the planet.
With a start, Tamara sat up straight, her tea sloshing over her hand. In the background, a minuet danced, making a mockery of her dark thoughts.
Was it possible Tamara found Lance so compelling precisely because he’d once been Valerie’s boyfriend? That somehow, after all these years, Tamara was taking a revenge of her own on the cousin who’d caused her so many problems?
Maybe she hadn’t wanted to get vengeance for Valerie at all, but upon Valerie.
