“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.
A cold sweat broke on her skin at the thought. Surely she couldn’t be that shallow?
She rubbed her chest, feeling there the knot of thick guilt pressing into her lungs, taking away her breath, stealing all her joy.
Valerie had been selfish and vain and a gold digger. Tamara was old enough and wise enough that she couldn’t deny any of that. But she had also loved Lance Forrest with something akin to obsession.
Tonight, Tamara had held in her arms the man Valerie had adored. She had kissed him and touched him and let him cast his spell over her senses with a kind of hedonistic hunger she had never known.
It had been sheer heaven.
It had also been wrong.
The truth was, Tamara had not given a single moment of thought to Valerie when Lance had so deliciously ravaged her senses. She had thought only of him, of Lance himself, with his jeweled eyes and gorgeous mouth and buoyant attitude. She had been thinking of herself, and the pleasure he gave so willingly.
She closed her eyes. The whole mess was entirely too complicated, riddled with little sins that piled up and piled up until there seemed to be no possible answer.
Lance had been wrong to allow himself to be drawn into an affair with Valerie a second time. But it had also been wrong for Valerie to blame her pregnancy on him, and then hide it.
It had been wrong for Tamara to entertain thoughts of revenge against a man who, by all Tamara could see, was simply a charming womanizer. He didn’t lie or cheat or make bold promises he wouldn’t keep to reach his ends. He didn’t have to—he had to only be himself.
She sipped her cooling tea, frowning. Valerie always said that Lance seduced her with promises of marriage. Knowing him now, Tamara didn’t see that he would have ever done that. It didn’t jibe with the rest of him. Tamara hated to believe that Valerie had lied—but it wouldn’t have been the first time. Her unstable cousin had lied quite boldly and without conscience if it suited her ends.
But that didn’t change one simple, inescapable fact. Whatever she’d done, Valerie had loved Lance, and it was wrong for Tamara to take now what her cousin had most wanted. It was a betrayal.
It didn’t matter that Tamara knew that if the situation were reversed, Valerie would have done whatever pleased her. Tamara’s mother had taught her better than that, had taught her to adhere to her own moral code, no matter how others acted.
That moral code had insisted that Tamara come home when Valerie fell apart. It had insisted that she take her cousin’s child and raise him. It now insisted she could not indulge her longing for Lance Forrest. Not even for the brief, shimmering time he offered.
Bleakly she carried her cup to the kitchen. She rinsed her cup and put it in the drainer, feeling the silence and loneliness of her house all around her. She wanted more than this. More than always being alone, always struggling, her only joy the few hours she could steal from the business of living to spend with Cody. She wanted the freedom to spend her days at work she loved, rather than work she only endured, and time to play once in a while, and freedom from the worry of wondering how she would make ends meet.
Staring out the window at a pool of white cast by the streetlight, she pursed her lips. She was tired of doing everything alone. Tired of not having friends, tired of being afraid to dream of anything for fear it would be stolen like her dream of college.
With a sudden burst of insight, she realized she wanted a husband and more children and the warm, rich family life she’d seen in other families while she’d been growing up. She wanted Cody to have brothers and sisters, and dogs and cats, and supper-times filled with love and arguments and laughter.
What was stopping her?
Why was she settling for an accounting degree when she hated numbers? If she was going to be a woman of modest means, why not shift her focus to something she would enjoy?
Why not apply to Denver again, and return to her degree? Why not become the teacher she wanted to be, instead of an accountant who was miserable going to work every day?
It made her almost breathless to think about it. And for the first time in almost five years, the mist of familial duty was swept away, to reveal the truth: Tamara herself had let herself be trapped into a life she didn’t enjoy. While there had been reason to leave school, and she would not change that, her anger and resentment toward Valerie had been unbearable, and Tamara had shifted the blame inward.
Only she could change her life. Only she held the key to her own dreams, to the life she wanted.
It scared her. Shutting off lights as she went, she climbed into bed with a racing heart. Choices. She’d forgotten she had choices, and somehow the dilemma with Lance had reminded her.
She still could not choose him. One day, she wanted a husband and a father for her children, but she didn’t want one like Lance. He was a charming man, pleasant to be with, and she hoped they could be friends once she confessed the truth about Cody.
But he wasn’t marriage material. Nor would he ever be.
Soon, she would work up her courage to tell him the truth, and she would also tell him she could not continue with their playful relationship.
It was the right thing to do.
Chapter Twelve
She wouldn’t see him.
Lance called Tamara Sunday night. All the way home from Denver, his head had been filled with snapshots of her. Some were memories—her dark hair reflecting the colors of the neon lights at the carnival, her shy smile, her unexpectedly earthy laughter…
And, well—her breasts. He couldn’t help it. His mind returne
d over and over again to that moment high above the ground when he’d lifted his hand and found her breast had been made for him. He kept remembering the feel of her—supple and delectably sensitive to even the tiniest touch. He wanted to make love to her in the light, so he could see what he touched, and watch her face blur with passion as he cupped his hands around her luscious flesh once again.
He hadn’t forgotten the odd sensation he’d had when he got out of the car, that maybe he was in too deep, that maybe he had no right to be wanting this woman. Especially not with this kind of intensity. She deserved better.
But maybe she deserved a little fun, too. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to just want to please a woman—especially one who seemed to come alive to his touch like she did. Especially when it seemed life had not been particularly kind to her.
Yeah, right. He heard the litany of justifications with cynicism.
He could justify himself all he wanted. The fact was, he wasn’t going to leave her alone because he wanted her. It was that simple. It wasn’t for her at all.
He spent half his time in a pleasurable haze, wondering what she was doing, what she was wearing, how it looked on her, the other half remembering how blisteringly passionate she had been. How richly she had responded. He had one vision of her, her head thrown back, her hair scattering over his fingers, as he moved his mouth on her throat.
It aroused him massively.
In fact, as much as he liked women, this kind of round-the-clock arousal was new for him. When he was younger, Valerie had whipped him into a frenzy at times—but there had always been a deliberation about the way she did it. He’d never been entirely sure she really enjoyed him. Even when she thrashed and hollered, he’d suspected a lot of it was sheer playacting.
It was hard to believe Tamara was even related. There was a guilelessness about Tamara he found refreshing, and there was no doubt in his mind that her response to him—that soft cry, that trembling, rocking, falling apart—had been utterly genuine.
His blood was fevered by the time he could call her Sunday night. And he was more crushed than he would have admitted to anyone when she declined his invitation. She sounded tired, and made apologies, but the fact was, she was too swamped with schoolwork to go out.
He thought he sensed a little reserve in her manner, but put if off to her preoccupation with school. He also reminded her to call Marissa.
Every night for the next week, he called. The story was the same all week long. She was too busy. She had too much homework. She couldn’t spare the time. By Thursday, his persistence embarrassed him, and he called Marissa instead.
“Hey, good-lookin’,” he said. “I have a favor to ask you.”
“Only if I can ask one in return,” she countered.
Lance felt the tension that had built in him ease a little. Marissa was a sunny, smart woman, and he loved the way she made him laugh. In spite of what Tamara had implied, Lance also knew Marissa was not the slightest bit attracted to him—she liked big, burly, hairy biker guys. Her father would approve far too much of Lance for him to be even remotely interesting. “Anything you want, doll.”
“You first.”
Lance drew an eye on a piece of paper in front of him. “Has Tamara called you by any chance?”
“She did. I helped her with her accounting.” She chuckled. “I have to tell you, this woman does not have a head for figures.”
Lance carefully added eyelashes to the almond-shaped eye. “So I guess she’s really been swamped?”
“Are you going to get to the point anytime soon?”
“I want to go see her at the bar tomorrow night, but I don’t want to be too obvious about it. I think—” he cleared his throat “—maybe I’m getting the brush-off.”
Marissa laughed softly. “I get it. You want some female there to balm your bruised ego if she tells you to get lost.”
Lance grinned. “Exactly.”
“I can do that. But I can tell you, she wants you bad, big boy.”
“Yeah, right. What’s your favor?”
“I need someone to take me to a dance at the country club in a couple of weeks.”
“The country club? I thought you scorned all that rich-girl stuff.”
Marissa sighed. “The fact of the matter is, I’m sick to death of the sideways comments about diet and exercise from a certain blond bimbo in my acquaintance, and I want to shut her up.” She made a frustrated little noise. “Mine’s an ego favor, too.”
“I’ll make a spectacle of myself, adoring you.”
Marissa giggled. “And you will, too.”
“It’ll be fun.” He straightened. “Just let me know the date and time and I’ll pick you up.”
* * *
With the quick switch of weather so famous in the mountains, the season changed suddenly. On Thursday, Tamara had to leave her coat in the car when she got to work, and it was warm enough that she wished she’d remembered to wear something cooler than a heavy sweater.
By lunchtime on Friday, a cold wind had blown through, bringing with it a thick muffling of threatening clouds. By Friday night, it was snowing. Thick, white flakes that promised an early, lucrative beginning to the ski season.
It meant that work Friday night was slow. Very few of the locals would chance the roads on such a night, and those who did had designated drivers. A handful of ski-hopefuls drank margaritas in the early part of the evening, but even they grew worried when the snow didn’t let up by nine, and left for their exclusive condos up the road.
Tamara took the chance to reorganize her area, cleaning out half-used bottles of sweet and sour, reordering cans of piña colada mix and kosher salt and new sponges. The few customers lived close and would walk home.
As she worked, humming along with the jukebox, Tamara congratulated herself for sticking to her resolve to stay away from Lance. It hadn’t been easy. Every time she heard his voice—that sexy, cheerful, hungry voice—over the phone, she wanted to beg him to come over to her house right that instant. She wanted to agree to anything he asked if he’d only promise to kiss her again, touch her, let her touch him.
But she resisted. She pleaded an overwhelming load of homework. She heard his disappointment with a finger of mingled sorrow and relief, and stuck to her guns. She lasted all week without giving in.
Sooner or later, he’d get the message.
She told herself she needed to put some distance between them before she revealed the truth about Cody. She needed to have some sense of control over herself and the wild attraction she felt toward him before she could take that chance and make herself so vulnerable again.
Someone dropped coins in the jukebox and Willie Nelson sang about a good woman who loved a man she didn’t understand. Tamara smiled ironically.
As if on cue, the front door burst open, allowing a swirl of cold wind and suicidal snowflakes into the room. And as if he were a creature of the wind, Lance Forrest walked in with it.
Every single one of the careful rationalizations Tamara had built up over the long week disappeared—melted like snowflakes under the warmth of his presence.
He was beautiful. There was just no other word to describe the shining presence of such a man. His sun-fingered hair shone with a fresh washing, and fell around the collar of his worn jean jacket in defiance of any attempts at styling. As he came in with Marissa, he threw a casual arm around her shoulders and made a joke, and the pose made him seem even taller and leaner. The days outside on the job in the bright mountain sunlight had given his face a deep tan that made his eyes nearly glow.
And he moved like some creature of the forest, negligently at ease in his own skin, utterly sure of his place in the world.
To her despair, Tamara’s hands trembled, and she had to wipe her palms against her jean-clad thighs. Why couldn’t she ever remember how he really looked? If she could remember exactly, it would be easier to keep herself guarded, to review that perfection over and over in her head until it lost its power.
But it was impossible to remember it all. The way he moved, the way he smiled, that shining aura he carried, like a saint from a Renaissance painting. Distractedly, she wiped the bar with a towel and wondered if the models for those painted saints had been men and women with Lance’s sex appeal.
They didn’t take a table. Of course not. Instead, they walked to the bar. Lance tossed a leg over a stool and leaned on the bar. “Hi,” he said. His bright blue eyes shone in unmistakable approval, and a strange, uncertain expression that pierced Tamara right through the heart.
“Hi,” she said, putting cocktail napkins down on the bar in front of both of them. “What can I get for you?”
Marissa set her purse on the bar. “Just a Coke for me.” She waved at someone across the room. “I’ll be right back.”
Both Tamara and Lance watched her head toward a table where a gigantic biker in black leather and chains sat by himself. He smiled happily when he saw Marissa coming, and jumped up to give her a bear hug.
Tamara chuckled. “Looks like you lost your date.”
“She’s not my date, exactly. She’s here to make you jealous.” He smiled. “Is it working?”
Tamara swallowed the truth, which was that it worked all too well. “If it’s me who is supposed to be jealous, I’m afraid not.”
The sudden flash of emotion in his face stung her a little. He lowered his eyes and plucked at the napkin. “Well, it was worth a try.”
Trying to ease that wounded expression, Tamara said lightly, “It would be foolish to get too attached to a ladies’ man like yourself, now, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess so.” He straightened. “Get me a beer, will you please?”
She gave him a bottle of beer and prepared Marissa’s soft drink, then carried it to the table where she sat. On her way back, she was conscious of Lance watching her, his gaze washing over her body with an almost palpable touch that lingered with warmth on her mouth and breasts and thighs. She tried to ignore it, but there was no ignoring his hand when he reached out and snagged her around the wrist before she could go back behind the bar.
“Lance,” she protested. “I’m working.”
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