Summer Heat

by Carly Phillips

  Driving back into town on the frontage road, he passed a stranded car, hood up. It was an old Buick, the paint faded to a dead-leaf color. Lance looked at the clock on his dashboard, and realized he was even later than he thought. His mother would have expected him almost an hour ago. He picked up his phone to call the sheriff, and glanced in the rearview mirror.

  It was Tamara Flynn, cursing a blue streak if her body language was any indication. He put the phone down and pulled over, backing up to within a few feet of her.

  She was so touchable, Lance thought, getting out of his car. Her thick dark hair lay on her shoulders, glossy in the early-morning sunlight. He let his gaze wander over her body, admiring the fit of jeans so old, he guessed she might have worn them in high school. It wasn’t a fashionable sort of worn, but a patched and crossed-fingers type. And the effect of soft denim against her thighs and round, pretty bottom was unbelievably erotic.

  Yesterday, he’d noticed her vivid green eyes and wariness, her work-worn hands. Today, he admired the neat, perfectly formed shape of her breasts, her sleek waist and long legs, and he wanted to touch her. All over. Very slowly.

  Judging by the look on her face as he approached, a little of the same thing was in her mind. Her gaze washed from his head to his toes, then back up again more slowly. The faintest hint of shock showed in her face.

  She hid it fast enough. That pretty soft mouth went tight. “You again,” she said with exasperation. “Are you following me around?”

  Lance chuckled. “Not at all, sweetheart. Maybe I’m just your guardian angel.”

  “Some angel,” she said with a frown. “I look like a tramp with this black eye.”

  A thread of regret wound through him. A purple-and-black-and-green bruise decorated her eye and the cheek below. He made a sympathetic face. “That’s pretty nasty.” Unable to resist, he added, “You should have used that steak. It would have helped.”

  “Right.” She sighed in barely suppressed frustration. “Is there any chance you can give me a lift to the community college?” She looked at her watch. “I have a test in exactly—” she looked at her watch, a sensible thing on a thin black strap “—twenty minutes. I don’t have time to figure out what’s wrong with this stupid car right now.”

  “Careful,” he said, bending toward the engine. “You don’t want her to hear you.”

  “Trust me, that’s mild in comparison to some of the things I’ve said.”

  “Well, no wonder, then. She’s probably trying to teach you a lesson.”

  “She?”

  “All engines are she,” he said with a grin.

  “Okay. She. And she heard me saying bad things about her, so she’s misbehaving. You still didn’t answer me. Can you give me a ride to school?”

  “Hang on.” He noticed with approval that there was no oil leaking anywhere inside the engine, and someone had taught her to keep things clean inside. Rare for a woman. “What did she do?”

  “There was a strange noise, like a big knock, and I lost all power.”

  “Uh-oh.” Lance hesitated for only a second before sticking his hand into the bowels of the car.

  “Oh, don’t mess up your suit!” she protested.

  Lance lifted his head and winked. “Real men don’t worry about suits.” The truth was, he was pretty sure what the problem was, and the engine was so clean, it wasn’t a problem. He wiggled the spark plug wires blindly, and found what he was looking for. One hung in empty space. “Okay. It’s nothing serious. Just a thrown spark plug.” He closed the hood. “Hop in my car, and I’ll run you to school.”

  “Thank you.” Picking a worn backpack up off the ground, she flung it over her shoulder, and headed up the road at a good pace. Her hair shifted smoothly, glimmering and shining.

  He hurried to catch up. In the car, he said, “Reach in the glove box and get me that red rag, will you?”

  She did, taking the greasy cloth out with two fingers. The smell of lemon-scented industrial cleaner filled the car.

  He wiped his hands. “I’ll send somebody out here to fix that for you. Let me have your keys.”

  “That isn’t necessary.” She folded her hands primly in her lap and looked straight ahead. “I’ll manage.”

  “You’re as prickly as a porcupine, you know? What made you so mean?”

  That surprised her. Her head snapped around, and the green eyes flashed. “I’m not mean.”

  He grinned. “You are to me.”

  “It’s not mean. I’m just not swooning in your presence, and I’m sure that’s what you’re used to.”

  “Is that right?” He rested one arm on the steering wheel. In profile, her nose was as straight as a blade of bluegrass, making her mouth below look all the more plush and inviting and soft. Her chin jutted ever so slightly upward as she steadfastly ignored him, and he let his gaze drop lower, to the smooth skin showing above her blouse, and the delicious roundness of breasts. Perfect breasts. Not too big, not too small. Very touchable.

  “What would make you swoon, Tamara?” he asked in his best, most liquid voice.

  It worked. At least a little. She crossed her arms as if in protection. “Getting to school on time would top my list at the moment.”

  “So if I get you there on time,” he said, starting the engine, “you’ll swoon?”

  In exasperation, she sighed. “I’m really not the swooning sort of person.”

  He laughed, putting the car in gear. “Honey, all women can swoon.” He pulled out and gave her a sideways glance, catching a reluctant tail of a smile on her mouth. “Trust me.”

  * * *

  It was a test, Tamara told herself. A test to see if she really did have what it took to raise herself out of the pit she was in, and get on with some kind of real life. The universe was testing her mettle.

  And what a test.

  Yesterday, Lance had made her think of a steak, a homegrown, All-American beefsteak, thick and juicy. This morning he smelled of after-shave and soap. His jaw showed a tiny nick from shaving. Tamara thought of Black Forest cake, sinfully delicious and far too rich for her tastes.

  Food images. That wasn’t terribly difficult to figure out. She was practically starving.

  She took a long breath and let it go slowly. It didn’t help much. From the corner of her eye, she saw his hand on the steering wheel, strong and square and dark. When he said, “swoon,” it had been his hands she’d thought of, his hands gliding over her body with expertise and attention to detail.

  The fresh-man smell filled her head. Impossible. This whole thing was impossible. It was hilarious that she’d even imagined she could even attempt to seduce such a man.

  “What’s your test in?” he asked.

  Her heart nearly stopped dead. “Pardon?”

  He looked at her, a secret dancing in those bright blue eyes. “Your test. What is your test this morning?”

  “Oh.” A tinge of heat moved on her jaw. “Accounting.” She pointed at an intersection. “Turn left up there.”

  “I know where the college is, honey. I’m a native of this town, and it’s not like anything is hidden.” He changed lanes and took a swig of coffee from a thermal cup. “You like it?”

  “Yes,” she lied.

  “You don’t strike me as the accounting type.”

  “Oh.” Maybe if she answered in monosyllables he’d stop talking in that warm, teasing voice and the little shivers on her arms would cease.

  “No,” he said, pulling into the parking lot at the school. “You seem like you’d be into all those poets, Byron and Whitfield—”

  “Whitman.”

  “Right. And Shakespeare.” He stopped the car in front of the front doors and gave her a wicked grin. “Maybe John Donne.”

  Tamara couldn’t help herself. She stared at him. “You know Donne?”

  Wickedness winked in his eyes. “‘Love’s mysteries in souls do grow, but yet the body is his book.’” He put an arm along the back of the seat and leaned toward her.
“Does poetry make you swoon?”

  It did. And he knew it. Tamara sat rooted to her seat, her ears awash with the sound of his voice shaping those elegant words. He edged forward and his eyes touched her mouth. His sun-burnished face filled her whole vision, with the sensual, mobile mouth at the center.

  He was very close, and he smelled like heaven, and his mouth moved infinitely closer. She felt his breath whisper over her lower lip. Her heart pinched as if a huge heel were bearing down on it, and still she couldn’t move.

  And there, so close, millimeters from kissing her, he said, “You’d better get to class, honey, before you’re late.”

  Tamara bolted, yanking open the door, half tumbling out, the little hairs on the back of her neck standing on end the way they did when she had to go up the basement steps in the dark, sure there were ghosts and demons and evil spirits on her heels. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Tamara.”

  She swallowed. “What?”

  “Let me have your keys. It takes two dollars and three minutes to change a spark plug, and I’m guessing you have no idea how to do it.” He pointed to a parking lot. “I’ll leave it right over there, the keys in the glove box. You can pay me back next time I’m in the Wild Moose.”

  She couldn’t bear one more second of looking at him. Rather than argue, Tamara reached into her purse, dug out the keys and tossed them at him. “Thanks for the ride,” she said, and bolted for class.

  Chapter Four

  She flunked her test. She got into class, flustered and rushed, only moments before the instructor passed out the forms. When she saw the sheet of questions, she realized she had studied the wrong chapter. Her heart sunk. She knew none of the answers on this test. Not even one, though she made educated guesses on a few.

  And the day went downhill from there. In business administration, the teacher sprang news of an elaborate project that would be due in three weeks, an analysis of a corporation that would entail massive amounts of research. She grabbed a granola bar before statistics, which improved her mood marginally. The instructor handed her an envelope as she came in. Seeing the pink slip inside, she was afraid it was going to be a “see me after class” message, and couldn’t think what she might have done wrong.

  Instead, it was a scrawled note from Lance. He’d picked up her car, but it was more than a spark plug, and he’d taken the car to his mechanic. He’d left his own car for her use this afternoon. “Don’t curse at her,” he wrote, and signed his name.

  She held the key in the palm of her hand as if it were a five-inch field spider. Drive his car? Sit in that fast, bad car and be seen in it? Not in this lifetime.

  But in the end, she had no choice. It was her only day off this week, and she had to get her paycheck, then get some groceries in the house or they’d be eating peanut butter crackers for supper.

  Safely in the car, away from the pressures of the day, Tamara bent her head and let herself cry. She felt frazzled and hassled and unable to cope. Her Buick, ugly and old as it was, was the only car she had, and if the repair bill was too steep, she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

  Which meant she’d probably have to drop out of school this semester.

  She allowed herself five minutes to gnash her teeth and imagine the worst, then lifted her head and dried her tears with a tissue she found in the bottom of her purse. She checked for smeared mascara in the rearview mirror, and that was when she spied the car seat Lance had transferred from the Buick to the Fairlane. A pang touched her.

  In the mirror, she gave herself a stern glare. “Lighten up, Tamara Flynn.”

  It made her feel better. With new resolve, she turned the key in the ignition of the car and listened to it catch with a quiet roar. It handled like a dream, responding to her every little command like a dutiful soldier, carrying her down the highway with speed and smooth power. A cassette tape hung out of the stereo, and she impulsively pushed it in and turned it on. She expected some kind of bad-boy rock, but it was Bonnie Raitt, singing “Louise.”

  The day was clear and cool, bright as only mountain autumns can be. Tamara rolled the window down and turned up the music, and let the wind blow her hair around as she sang along. The furry green of pines and blazing gold of aspens whizzed by. Sunlight poured from a sky as blue as turquoise.

  What a car! she thought with amusement, pulling smoothly into the day care to pick up Cody. Wouldn’t he get a kick out of it?

  It was only as she got out and cheerfully slammed the door with a thunk that she noticed the long line of cars ribboning up the road toward Louise Forrest’s house.

  The funeral was today. That was why Lance had been dressed up this morning, and why he could let her use his car. With a thick sense of guilt, she followed the progress of the limo in front, wondering if Lance had loved his father. If he would miss him.

  If he would love his son, the grandson of the man they buried today.

  * * *

  Louise served and chatted with the gathered well-wishers—nearly everyone in town. A headache pounded lightly at her temples, pervasive and not unexpected. The past few days had been a strain for all of them.

  She eyed her sons carefully. Tyler sat in the rocker in the living room, reading a story to his son Curtis, who was sleepily sucking his thumb, his eyelids drooping as he valiantly fought to stay awake. Louise smiled. What a doll that child was!

  Jake was making time with the barely dry-behind-the-ears daughter of a town councilman, a skinny blonde who’d been known to date mainly ski instructors the past few years. Judging by the gleam in her eyes, Jake was her next prey. Or she was his. Louise scowled. Today she didn’t care. She was too tired.

  She couldn’t find Lance at first, but found him at last on the deck that jutted out over a hundred-foot drop into the valley. Wind from below blew his hair into disorder, tumbling it onto his collar in bright points. She closed the glass door behind her, and joined him at the rail.

  “How are you, honey?” she asked, putting her hand on his broad back. The jacket of his expensive suit had been discarded, and she felt his extraordinary heat through the light cotton shirt. When he’d been a baby, she’d had to wait until his temperature was 102 before she called a doctor. His natural thermometer was just set high.

  He roused himself, as if returning from a long way off. “I’m all right,” he said, blinking. “You?”

  “I’m tired,” she admitted. “But we’re almost through it all now.”

  Lance took her hand, clasping it between both of his. This was her sweet son—the little lover. As a child, he’d come downstairs in the morning and found her wherever she was, to give her a hug, first thing. Even as a teenager, he’d take her arm when they were out shopping, and put his arm around her when he introduced her to his friends. It was a rare thing in a man.

  “I miss him already,” he said now in a rough voice.

  “I know you do.” She brushed a lock of hair from his face. He’d been so stoic at the funeral, she worried about him. “You had a real special relationship with him. A man who is loved by his son can’t have lived too bad a life.”

  Lance nodded, and she saw his eyes glimmer with unshed tears. He swallowed, lifting his head to the wide mountain sky, and she patted his hand.

  “I’ll leave you alone. No matter what your daddy said about boys and tears, I reckon even he would be honored right now.”

  She left him without looking back. It would be harder for Lance than for any of them. She had to be sure he had plenty of chances to grieve, get it out in the open where it wouldn’t fester and poison him. She’d seen that festering happen with Tyler, and she wouldn’t lose another son to it.

  * * *

  Tamara picked up her check and bought Cody his treat-night supper—a hamburger, shake and French fries from the local hamburger stand. Once he’d eaten, they stopped at the grocery store, where he picked out the words he’d learned to read. “Mommy, is that ‘sale’?” “Mommy, is that ‘fish’?” “Mommy, is th
at ‘diet’?”

  She nodded distractedly most of the time. Although he was only four, he’d been able to pick out most of the letters in the alphabet when he was two, and had been counting to a hundred for more than a year. It didn’t surprise her anymore that he was teaching himself to read. Her mother had once told her that Valerie’s father was the smartest man in Choctaw, Arkansas. Cody had evidently inherited his brains.

  In the spice aisle, she bent over, looking for lemon pepper. Behind her, Cody chanted in his usual way, making comments on whatever he saw. And in her usual way, she said, “Mmm-hmm,” every so often without really hearing.

  But suddenly, his words penetrated, and she looked up, stunned. He was chanting the names of spices. “Nutmeg, nutmeg, nutmeg. Salt, salt, salt.” He paused and frowned. “Carmamom.” The sound pleased him. “Carmamom, carmamom, carmamom.”

  When he noticed Tamara looking at him, his impish little face wreathed itself in a smile. “Carmamom!”

  “Cody,” she said, standing, “are you reading the labels on the bottles?”

  “Yep.” He swung his feet and cocked his head. “Some are hard.”

  “Which one is hard?” She pulled the basket close to the shelves.

  “That one.” He pointed to a bottle of Italian seasoning.

  Feeling a queer sense of excitement, Tamara forced herself to be calm as she pointed to another bottle. “How about this one?”

  He leaned forward against the silver handle of the shopping basket and made little gestures with his mouth, murmuring under his breath. “Pop-py!” he cried. “Pop-py, pop-py, pop-py. Hey!” he cried. “That’s almost pepper!” He pointed to the can nearby. “Black pepper.” With a serious expression he added, “I already know the color words.”

  With a happy little giggle, Tamara took his face in her palms and kissed his nose. “You are so smart,” she said. “I didn’t know you could read so well!”

  He leaned on the bar. “I can’t read books so good. There’s too many words.”

  “Oh, there are many books with only a few words in them. I’ll find you some, okay?”

  “Okay.” With a coy little expression, he said, “Can we get some dinosaurs now?”