She turned to look at Eli. “Did you lock—” She dropped the rest of her question when she saw him slide a metal lever into place. “Thanks.”
She slipped off her robe and hung it on a hook above the table, which was stocked with bottles of water and magazines. “Man, they really think of everything.” She helped herself to a bottle and backed out of the one-size-fits-all flip-flops she’d found in her room. “Here goes nothing.”
Or everything, Eli thought as he watched her step into the ultramodern sauna. He’d never seen the type that used panels in the wall instead of hot rocks and water to create the heat, but the liability release sheet he’d signed had included an informational brochure about the unit. The infrared application sounded highly therapeutic.
But could it fix the problem between him and Char? He doubted it.
He hung up his robe beside hers then wrapped a towel around his waist. He hadn’t been surprised by Char’s newfound modesty. She was certainly intuitive enough to sense the divide between them. He felt torn in two. And he didn’t really like either half of himself.
He slipped inside the brightly lit cedar box and sat on the folded towel a foot to Char’s left. She had her eyes closed and appeared to be doing some deep breathing techniques. His gaze lingered over the swell of her bosom above the white towel.
What a jerk! Even with his life in the throes of chaos and upheaval, he wanted her. Even knowing he couldn’t promise her squat and might wind up hurting her more than he had in the past, he wanted her.
He squeezed his eyes tight, but blocking one sense only made him more aware of others. He inhaled deeply to take in the smell of her skin. Soap and something he couldn’t quite pin down. Jasmine? Did he even know what jasmine smelled like?
“So you arranged for Damien to walk away with a get-out-of-jail-free card, huh?”
He sat a little straighter, his gaze going to a tiny smudge on the glass door in front of him. “Apparently the state is open to creative ways of cutting their losses where minor offenders are concerned.”
“That’s good. For Damien, I mean. Will this go on his record?”
He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, weaving his fingers together. The heat felt good but it didn’t seem to be sinking in fast enough. In his hazy memory of that night with his uncle, the burning, acrid taste of hot steam had penetrated deep under his skin to short-circuit his brain. Either that or he’d actually experienced an honest-to-goodness vision.
He recalled the chipper, valiant, little, black and white bird that had seemed so sure of itself.
“Eli?”
He blinked as a bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. “Um…sorry. I zoned out a minute. I don’t know all the particulars. The D.A.’s office is working on it. Damien and I will both have to sign it, then have it approved by a judge, I believe.”
“When?”
He glanced sideways. A mustache of dewy sweat had formed on her upper lip. She brushed it away when she caught him staring. “I don’t know. A day or two? Nothing seems to happen very fast around here. Did the nurses say when Damien will be released?”
She retucked the end of the towel above her right breast. “You’re asking the wrong person. I’m not family.” He could hear the hurt in her tone even though she tried to mask it with a shrug. “Why? Are you in a hurry to return home to an empty house?”
The question took him by surprise. Bobbi had hinted about moving back. She said the girls missed him, missed their life. After eighteen years, she knew which buttons to push. “I…um…I—”
The silence stretched between them as Eli tried to figure out the best way to explain what he didn’t completely understand. Why was he such a chump? Why did he feel compelled to take responsibility for a mess that wasn’t of his making? Maybe his dad was right. Maybe he was a woman masquerading as a man all these years.
“You’re not going home to an empty house, are you, Eli?”
“I’m not sure what’s happening back home,” he said honestly. He owed her the truth as he knew it. “E.J. called. He got your number from the girl working at your store. He wasn’t expecting me to answer.”
“Your son called Native Arts looking for you? How’d he know to call there?”
He tamped down the little blossom of pride that he felt. He’d taught the kid a thing or two about investigative work. “I called home from your house, remember?”
She nodded impatiently, her look intense.
“He took the caller I.D. and asked a buddy of mine at work to check it out.”
She didn’t look impressed. In fact, she looked pissed off. “I can’t believe Rachel Grey would give out my cell phone number.”
Eli shrugged. He noticed the fact that her gaze went straight to his shoulders and stayed there. Despite her anger, there was desire, too. “He said he sweet-talked a girl who sounded like a real hottie—his words, not mine—into telling him. He convinced her it was a matter of life and death.”
“Pia,” she muttered under her breath. Her clerk’s small disloyalty appeared to trigger a deeper hurt. She seemed to shrink back as if she no longer trusted anyone—especially him.
A sharp sensation pierced the center of his chest. He hoped to hell he didn’t have a heart attack here. He’d signed a paper saying he was in good health. That probably didn’t cover emotional pain from impending regrets.
“You talked to Bobbi, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Yes. She was with E.J. Apparently Robert’s wife attempted suicide. He’s rethinking his decision to separate.”
“So Bobbi wants the two of you to start over, too.”
He rubbed the back of his neck to release some of the tension that had been building since that call. He wanted to say that he didn’t love Bobbi anymore—maybe he never had. He wanted to tell Char how much she meant to him. How she’d changed his life in a good way—a great way—in a mere three days. How he wanted her to marry him as soon as his divorce was final.
But he couldn’t. He had three—no, four—children depending on him to act like a grown-up. That meant putting their happiness first. Didn’t it?
Neither spoke for several minutes. Char broke the stalemate by saying, “Wanda invited me to stay at her house tonight. She offered to show me Damien’s baby pictures and videos of him growing up. I—I think I should take her up on the offer.”
And he wasn’t invited.
“Running away isn’t going to change anything.”
Her smile seemed reflective. “My friend Libby says you’re allowed to make as many mistakes as necessary as long as you never make the same one twice. Spending the night in your arms when you’re poised to go back to your wife would probably fall under that category, don’t you think?”
He started to tell her he wasn’t going back to Bobbi—emotionally. But was that too fine a distinction if Bobbi and his daughters showed up begging to come home? He wasn’t the kind of guy to turn his back on his duty.
“I’m sorry, Char.”
“Me, too, Eli.”
She used the corner of her towel to wipe sweat—not tears, he hoped—from her eyes. A second later, she cleared her throat and said, “But I need for you to understand that regardless of your legal maneuvering, I plan to stay in touch with Damien unless he specifically asks me to go away. I would have liked to be part of the custody agreement, if that’s what it’s called, but even if I’m not formally recognized, you can’t shut me out.”
“That was never my intention. I’m trying to do what’s best for Damien.”
“Since when is having more people who love you a bad thing?”
He didn’t have an answer.
When she stood, her towel came loose and for the briefest of seconds Eli was reminded of what he was giving up. Perfection. Goddamn perfection.
“Wait.”
He grabbed her free hand—the one that wasn’t holding the ends of her towel together at her chest. “Have dinner with me, at least. We can’t leave things like this.”
Char heard his plea and knew this wasn’t easy for him. He wasn’t a cavalier jerk who took advantage of her while waiting for his ex to come to her senses. He really was thinking about what was best for his children. And their child, too.
She knew he had no idea how tempted she was to spend one more night in his arms. Her mother would have. Mom would have sacrificed her last scrap of pride to hang on to him, pretending every little crumb of affection he tossed her way was the real thing. But she wasn’t her mother. And she damn well wasn’t cut out to be the other woman in Eli’s life.
“I deserve better, Eli,” she told him. “If I can’t have the whole shebang, then I don’t want any of it. Except Damien. With him, I’ll take anything I can get.”
He squeezed her hand so hard she almost winced. She knew he wasn’t trying to hurt her, only to make certain she knew how deeply he believed what he was telling her. “I promise, Char. I’m not trying to exclude you. But simple logistics dictate that I bring him home with me. I have a house and a job. His biological siblings will be there.”
She could picture the happy homecoming all too easily. That was why she needed to leave. Now, before she did something stupid, like cry. Or cave in. Or beg him to love her more than he loved Bobbi and his children.
She lifted her chin and purposefully set her shoulders. She felt the towel gap but she didn’t care how much he saw. Maybe seeing what he was going to miss out on was fair retribution. “You’re the one who came looking for the missing pieces of your life, Eli. There’s a damn good chance you found two of them—Damien and me. If you’re not man enough to make room for both of us in your life, then who needs you? Not me. But you’re never going to be able to keep me away from my son. Never.”
“That was never my intention. You’re not listening to me.”
She wasn’t a fighter—she’d been exposed to the ugly side of man-woman disagreements almost from day one—but this time she leaned over to get in his face. “When I called Bobbi your wife a minute ago, you didn’t correct me. You didn’t say my ex-wife. I’m not my mother, Eli. I don’t date, screw or wait around for married men.”
She pulled her hand but he countered with a tug that propelled her downward into his lap. His free hand reached behind her head and held her in place so he could kiss her. Hard. As if trying to wipe the words off her lips.
She squirmed to break away but both of them were slick with sweat. As her hands slid over his chest, some signal in her brain turned fury to passion. She didn’t even try to fight it. Screw pride. This was Eli. If this was her last hurrah, then she’d damn well make it a good one.
He yanked her towel away with the flourish of a matador. His towel, which was tented at his lap, suddenly disappeared, too. The brightly lit sauna showed every inch of his desire with almost clinical accuracy. Shy, inhibited Char might have been mortified if she weren’t so turned on. Need superseded everything else.
She opened her legs and straddled him. His slickness matched hers—everywhere. The outside heat was nowhere near as intense as the inside heat. He let out a low groan that set off a chain of spasms inside her, from her core upward. She shivered with something the exact opposite of cold.
He wrapped his arms around her as he lifted and twisted to find his own release. “Char,” he grunted with a torn sound to his voice. “I love you.”
She wrapped her arms and legs around him as if to pull him into the center of her being. His words were a validation she’d been waiting her whole life to hear. Tears formed in her eyes, but she squeezed her lids tight. She didn’t want to lose a drop of this moment. This triumph. This redemption.
They stayed that way until one of them—Eli, she thought—moved. “I think the timer went off. It’s getting cooler in here,” he said.
His voice was low and sexy. She easily could have done this again. Instead she eased back. His hands were still splayed along her rib cage. He hadn’t even touched her breasts, she realized. There was an odd satisfaction in that, too, but she didn’t dwell on the significance.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” she said, looking into his eyes.
“I know. But I can’t take it back.”
The sex? Or his declaration of love? She waited a heartbeat or two to see if he’d elaborate. He didn’t. Wiggling backward, she planted her feet and stood.
He handed her one of the towels and used the other to clean himself up.
She grabbed her half-empty water bottle then opened the door. The air temperature was a stark thirty or forty degrees cooler, but she didn’t mind. She finally understood how sauna enthusiasts could go from the hot box to the snow pile with apparent rapture.
After drying off, she deposited her towel in a hamper marked Used Towels then put on her robe. Eli was a step behind her. She waited in silence until he was ready, too.
“The concierge gave me the name of a good restaurant right around the corner, if you’d like to eat before we go back to the hospital.”
The hospital. Their son. Wanda and the future facing them all.
When they were back in the room, she turned to him and asked, “Did you mean it when you said you loved me or was that sex talk?”
His blue eyes didn’t blink or look away—a sure sign of a lie, she’d read. “It wasn’t sex talk.”
But he couldn’t bring himself to repeat it, she guessed.
“I’ll shower first,” she said, grabbing a few things from her suitcase. She’d have her bag repacked by the time Eli was done getting ready.
Despite sharing the most mind-blowing sex of her life with him, she knew with certainty their happily-ever-after wasn’t a sure thing. Eli was a complex person with a history that didn’t include her. She’d loved him all her life; he hadn’t even known she existed until a few days earlier. But he was right about one thing. They both needed to put Damien first.
She could do that. Even if letting go of today’s Eli hurt a thousand times worse than the boy she’d first adored. She didn’t try to stop her tears from flowing once she was standing under the shower. They were a freebie—and well-deserved.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAR CALLED LIBBY from the restaurant while Eli was in the restroom.
“Hi, Lib, it’s me. I decided to take you up on your offer. Not Thanksgiving. I can’t stay that long, but I thought since I was in the neighborhood…well, um, the state, I’d come see you. Could you meet my train tomorrow?”
“Char, that’s wonderful,” Libby exclaimed with a little woo-hoo that did Char’s bruised heart good. “Jenna and I will pick you up. But why the train? I thought you had a rental car.”
“Eli’s keeping it. He got someone—” his estranged wife, she assumed “—to fax him a copy of his insurance and his credit card. We were able to take my name off the rental car and put his on. It was impressive to watch. Eli doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“And you do?” Libby asked with a laugh. “You’re the most doggedly determined person I know. It’s one of the things I respect and admire most about you.”
You do? Before she could ask, though, Libby continued. “Eli…Damien…your few meager text messages have been intriguing me. You’re going to tell me everything when you get here, right?”
The inspiration to visit Libby instead of making a fool of herself by hanging around waiting for Eli to come to his senses had struck Char as she walked to her motel room after the sauna. After having breakup sex in the sauna. Something she never in a million years could have seen herself doing. She wasn’t sure she recognized herself anymore.
Your friends’ll know ya, chickadee.
“It’s a long and complicated story, Lib. True fiction, if you know what I mean. Speaking of stories, maybe we could talk about our next book while I’m there. We could call Kat and put her on speakerphone.”
They discussed the possibility a minute or so longer, then Char told Libby she had to go because her food was coming. In truth, Eli was returning. But he was like food to her. Nourishment for her so
ul. However would she be able to go back to her old life without him?
Mebbe you need a new life, chickadee.
“More wine?” he asked, taking the seat across from her. They’d been terribly civil and polite to each other since the moment he stepped out of the shower and spotted her suitcase sitting by the door.
“Do we have time? I don’t want to miss Wanda at the hospital.”
“She told me she was going to be late because of some function at her younger son’s school.”
Char put down her napkin. “Damien’s been alone all this time? I wish you would have said something becau—”
“Damien’s ex-girlfriend was planning to visit. Wanda said this girl was a good influence on Damien when they were dating. She wanted them to have some time alone.”
“Oh. Well, then, sure. More wine. You’re driving.”
The meal at the Flying Fish had been delicious—unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. A Japanese soup that was prepared and cooked shabu-shabu style at their table in a clay pot.
“Are you sure leaving now is the best thing? I thought we were in this together.”
We were until your ex-wife called and laid a guilt trip in your lap. The word lap gave her pause. She cleared her throat and said, “If I’m not a part of the agreement regarding Damien’s care and support, then what business do I have hanging around? The court regards you as perfectly capable of transporting him back to South Dakota. Call me when you have a release date and I’ll get your ticket switched. I’ll even pay for his flight if you want me to.”
“That’s not necessary. I’ll cover it. And I told you I intend to pay you back for everything.”
She took a sip of the cold, refreshing wine. “My leaving has nothing to do with money, Eli. You know that.”
He didn’t reply.
There had been several long silences throughout the meal, but Char was determined to keep things cordial—at least on the surface. She wasn’t a crisis junkie like her mother, drawing and redrawing line after line in the sand. No matter what happened between them, she and Eli would need to get along—for their son’s sake. Her broken heart was her business.
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