Page 546 of Summer Heat
And then, before he could change his mind, he left her.
Chapter Fifteen
Lance walked home through the snow, his mind whirling. But once there, he couldn’t light, couldn’t think. He needed someone to talk to.
And without really knowing why he picked him, Lance went looking for his brother Jake. Lord knew Jake had a lot of problems of his own at the moment, but all Lance needed was a sounding board, someone to listen to him talk it all through. Of anyone, Jake was also most likely to understand.
There was too much snow to even consider getting out his car, but the condo Jake rented wasn’t far, so Lance set out on foot again, walking through the silent, pristine streets, taking pleasure in the snow still drifting from a dark sky.
Home. Man, he’d missed it.
Jake’s place was located in an upscale development with good access to the ski roads. Most of them were time shares, or vacation homes of the wealthy, and there were more gorgeous, well-tended women in the five-acre square than anyplace outside Hollywood. Lance rang the bell to his brother’s apartment, admiring the very fine assets of a girl in tight pants as she cleaned off her car.
But that was all he did—admire. Another Lance, another time, might have leaned over the railing and whistled at her. More likely he’d have called out and started a flirtation that would end up in an exchange of phone numbers.
Today, it didn’t seem that interesting. A nice rear end wasn’t much to go on, after all. And this one wasn’t nearly as nice as Tamara’s, even if she didn’t show it off like this.
He heard his thoughts with a sense of annoyance, and pushed the bell again, more impatiently. You’d think he’d never slept with a woman before the way he kept going over last night in his head.
Jake flung open the door, bleary-eyed and unshaved. “Lance!” He shoved his thick black hair off his forehead. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Nice welcome. A brother can’t drop by?”
Jake crossed his arms over his bare chest, shivering in a pair of sweats. “Well, he could, but this one never does. Come on in.”
The apartment, for all its built-in luxury, was even worse than Lance’s. Lance’s was at least neat. Jake’s furniture was covered with discarded clothes, and an empty wine bottle with two glasses littered the coffee table.
Seeing the evidence, Lance said, “You have a woman here? Maybe I should come back another time.”
Jake moved into the kitchen and began to measure coffee into the basket. “There’s always a woman here. No big deal.”
Something about the comment brought Tamara to mind. How hurt she would be if Lance said that about her. “I guess it hasn’t occurred to you that maybe those women have feelings, huh?”
“Look who’s talking. I’m not the one who got a black eye from a jilted lover the first day back in town.”
Lance didn’t particularly want to think about that. “One time. Big deal.”
Jake snorted. “C’mon, Lance. This is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and you know it.” He shook his hair out of his face. “It’s not like I’m going around with the girl next door. I’m just another notch on their belts.”
The girl next door.
Lance rubbed his stomach restlessly. That was the problem, wasn’t it? There were rules, and Lance had broken all of them by going after Tamara. It made him feel vaguely ill.
“Just be careful,” he said.
Jake leaned a hip on the kitchen counter. His eyes were almost a neon blue, all the more startling against the darkness of his hair. The hollows that had made him look gaunt at the Wild Moose a few weeks earlier seemed even worse. “Did you come here to give me a lecture on sex?”
“No.” He narrowed his eyes. “You look like hell, though. Are you still not sleeping?”
For a single moment, Jake clo
sed his eyes. It made him look unbearably weary. “It’s not so much the sleep, but the dreams.”
“Why don’t you get some help, man?”
Jake shook his head. “I’m fine.”
Yeah. In a pig’s eye. Jake had suffered more at the hands of their father than either of his brothers had—and then he’d taken his demons to war. The combination was killing him now.
