Yet it seemed that extravagance was a pattern with him. Twice, he’d demonstrated in her presence that he wasn’t careful with money, and he’d admitted taking a date to a restaurant way beyond his means. Dori kept trying to think about that, when all she wanted to think about was his kiss, his strong arms holding her close, his body becoming aroused…
The night before she’d vowed not to be blinded by sexual attraction. And she wouldn’t be. Before she got in any deeper, she’d ask Tanner to leave. She simply couldn’t take the chance of making another gigantic mistake.
“Momma!” Little Jim shook her shoulder.
Dori snapped out of her trance with a guilty start and turned toward the back seat. “What, sweetheart?”
“I was calling you and calling you, but you didn’t hear me.”
“Sorry. I was thinking.” She noticed the movement as Tanner glanced at her. He knew she was worried about that scene in the store.
“You’re always thinking,” Little Jim complained.
“I suppose I am.” She managed a smile. His Dallas Cowboys cap was crammed down tight on his head to keep it from blowing off m the wind, and he had to peer up at her from under the bill of the cap. He clutched the White Ranger in a death grip. Dori suspected he’d sleep with the action figure and hoped none of the Devaneys would give him a hard time about the new toy. “What did you want to say?” she asked.
“Can you make me a White Ranger costume for Halloween?”
“Hold him up and let me look.”
Little Jim raised the figure cautiously from his lap. “Just don’t want him to blow out,” he explained.
Dori studied the Power Ranger’s outfit and estimated how much fabric it would take, and how much skill. Thank goodness for her mother’s old sewing machine. “I think I can manage that,” she said.
“Okay! Wait’ll Jerry and Melissa and Stanley see me!”
Dori felt the familiar tug of regret. He didn’t spend much time with his neighborhood playmates anymore and she knew he missed them. “I…I’m not sure you’ll be going trick-or-treating with them this year, sweet-heart.”
“Why not?”
“Halloween’s on a Thursday.”
Little Jim seemed to absorb that news. “I have to go there. We don’t have any houses around Grandpa and Grandma Devaney’s.”
“We’ll see. I’ll talk to them about it.”
“Will Tanner be here on Halloween?”
“Oh, I don’t think so, honey,” Dori answered. “He has to get back to Dallas soon.”
“Will he be here next Monday?”
“No, he won’t, sweetheart.” She glanced at Tanner. He’d suggested spending approximately a week in Los Lobos, although they’d both known the time could be shortened if the relationship didn’t seem to be working.
He took his eyes from traffic long enough to meet her gaze. “I plan to still be here next Monday,” he said as he returned his attention to the road.
Dori worked to get her racing heart under control. In one brief glance, Tanner had managed to convey an intensity of desire that swept away her latest resolution and left thudding passion in its wake. Suddenly the money issue seemed unimportant, even petty, compared to the searing force of that look. Dori struggled to remain rational, but she was at war with a body that demanded the very thing Tanner had silently promised to give. Still, she had to send him away, no matter how much she wanted him.
Tanner spoke over his shoulder to Little Jim. “Any objection if I hang around until Monday?”
“I guess not,” Little Jim said.
“Thanks.”
Dori evaluated Tanner’s grim smile and concluded he wasn’t satisfied with her son’s lukewarm answer. Maybe he thought buying the White Ranger should have made them friends for life. If so, he was in for a rude awakening. Little Jim’s affections couldn’t be bought, and neither could his mother. Not even with potent kisses and melting looks.
A few minutes later Tanner flicked on the turn signal for the exit to Los Lobos. Dori had two more hours before she was scheduled to take Little Jim home, and she wanted to spend them alone with her son. She directed Tanner to the motel, and he drove there without comment.
In front of the motel, she got out and climbed into the driver’s seat of the convertible as Tanner held the door.
He closed it firmly and rested both hands on the doorframe as he gazed down at her. “We need to talk.”
“Yes, we do. I’ll drop my son off at eight. I can come by after that, if it’s not too late.”
“Not at all.” He straightened. “Oh, it’s room nine.”
She lifted a startled gaze to his. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Nine is Momma’s lucky number,” Little Jim chimed in from the back seat.
“So I hear.”
Dori still couldn’t believe it. “Out of twenty-seven rooms in this motel, you’re in number nine. That’s incredible.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Well, we’d better get going.” She turned toward the back seat. “Come on, son.” As he made his way between the bucket seats and plopped down, she touched his shoulder. “Thank Tanner for your gift.”
“Thank you, Tanner,” Little Jim said. “I really like him.”
“That’s good. I’ll see you next Monday, buddy.”
“Okay.”
Dori waved and pulled out of the parking lot. Room number nine. She really couldn’t believe it. Maybe she was tempting fate to doubt that this was the right man for her. Maybe she should give him just a little longer to prove it one way or the other.
WHEN THE CONVERTIBLE was out of sight, Tanner headed straight for the motel office. Elmer wasn’t there. Behind the front desk stood a white-haired, matronly woman whose name tag read Beatrice. Tanner guessed she might be Elmer’s wife.
Apparently, she knew all about Tanner, because she smiled when he walked in. “Mr. Jones, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“Elmer told me you were here. You’re in room sixteen, aren’t you? I trust you had a pleasant night?”
AFTER DORI DROVEBACK to her house, she fixed Little Jim his favorite dinner of toasted cheese sandwiches and they played slapjack until it was time for him to go back to the Devaneys. Those last few minutes as they rushed around gathering Little Jim’s belongings were usually the hardest for Dori. She always saved the packet of the previous week’s pictures to tuck into his knapsack just before they walked out the door of the house they used to share. Little Jim hoarded them for when he was alone in his room, so he’d still have his mother’s face to look at.
Normally on the short drive to the Devaney mansion, Little Jim was subdued, but tonight he had questions. “Do you like Tanner, Momma?”
She hesitated, thinking about Tanner’s habit of tossing money around. Although it was a big worry, it was the only negative she’d found. Otherwise he’d shown himself to be courageous, gallant, sensitive…and sexy. “Yes, I like him,” she said.
“Better than Daddy?”
Absolutely, she thought, but she couldn’t say that. “Your daddy has some fine qualities,” she forced herself to say. “But we just don’t see things the same.”
“Do you see things the same as Tanner?”
Dori took a deep breath. “I don’t know yet. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Why?”
She couldn’t tell Little Jim her long-range plan. He was too young to understand the plotting she’d done in an attempt to get him back. “Well, someday I’d like to get married again,” she said. “But I want to make sure the man is somebody I like a lot, and somebody you like a lot, too.”
“Daddy says you’re gonna marry him again.”
Dori silently cursed Jimmy Jr. for confiding his fantasies to their son. “When did he say that?”
“Oh, he says it all the time. He says then we can all be together again.”
She clenched her jaw. Jimmy was shameless. “I’m afraid that’s n
ot going to happen, sweetheart.”
“Couldn’t you try to like Daddy?”
Dori turned down the winding road to the mansion, her stomach in knots. “Sometimes all the trying in the world won’t work. Remember when I read that article about tofu?”
“Yeah, I sure do!”
“But I kept thinking if I cooked it a different way, or with different food, we’d learn to like it. We really tried, didn’t we?”
“I hated that yucky tofu.”
Dori braked the car. No lights shone from the front windows, so everyone must be in the back of the house, she thought. Even at night the house didn’t look welcoming. “But some people like tofu fine,” she continued. “I just gave up trying.”
“Daddy’s like tofu?”
“Yep. For me he is.”
Little Jim sat quite still as he seemed to turn the concept over in his mind. Then he looked up at her. “If Daddy’s tofu, what’s Tanner?”
A hot fudge sundae. “I’m not sure yet. We have to get better acquainted.” Finally, she asked the most important question, knowing she’d been putting it off until the last moment. “What do you think of him?”
Little Jim stared out the windshield into the darkness. “He’s okay. But—”
“But?”
“But I sure wish Daddy wasn’t tofu,” he said softly.
Dori reached an arm around him and gave him a squeeze. “So do I.”
She walked him up the steps and rang the bell. If she was lucky Crystal would answer the door again. She wasn’t lucky. Jimmy Jr. opened the door and gazed out at them.
Little Jim did what most five-year-olds would have, and held up his new toy. “See, Daddy? The White Ranger!”
Jimmy frowned. “Your momma must be feelin’ flush if she’s buying you stuff.”
“Tanner bought it,” Little Jim said. Then he glanced into his father’s face and cringed.
“You went with that of boy to Abilene?” Jimmy demanded. “After I told you not to?”
“But Momma said—”
“Your momma has taken leave of her senses. Give me that stupid toy.”
Dori stepped in front of Little Jim to shield him. “You’re not depriving him of that toy, Jimmy. If he can’t keep it here, then I’ll take it home with me, to have for him when he comes over.”
“Don’t be telling me what I can and can’t do with my own son! Your time’s up, Dori Mae. What happens with him is my business now.”
“What’s going on here?” James Devaney strode into the hallway, the light from the back of the house surrounding him. A good two inches taller than his son, with a lean, tanned face and a full head of silver hair, he had the sort of manner that made people step back in deference.
His son was no exception. As Jimmy moved away from the door, he motioned to Dori and Little Jim. “She had a date with that construction worker today and dragged my son along.”
James lifted an eyebrow in obvious disapproval as he glanced at Jimmy Jr. “So you make things worse by causing a commotion out here on the front porch, like some poor white trash. And in front of the boy, too. You should both be ashamed of yourselves.”
Behind her back, Dori motioned for Little Jim to give her the White Ranger. It wasn’t safe in this house, and they both knew it now. Little Jim put the White Ranger into her hand slowly, keeping his own grip on it as long as possible.
“I’ll be running along,” Dori said, keeping the figure behind her as she backed toward the steps. “See you next Monday, Little Jim.”
“Bye, Momma.” He tried manfully not to cry, but his lower lip quivered.
Dori trembled with fury. She could guess what it cost him to give up his beloved White Ranger, but she figured it would land in the trash compactor if she hadn’t taken it. That would be worse.
“Come on, L.J.,” James said, putting his hand on Little Jim’s shoulder. “I think Grandma has some cookies for you.” As he guided the child away, he glanced back at Jimmy. “Cut it short. This is not the time or place.”
Jimmy glared back at his father but didn’t reply. Dori knew he was too aware of his own interests to risk crossing the man who wrote out his paycheck. Unlike his older sister, who’d finally had enough and had fled to California, Jimmy seemed willing to bide his time until he could be in charge. At which time, Dori had no doubt, he’d behave exactly as his father did. In the meantime, he’d expected to have Dori to boss around. She’d cheated him of that opportunity, and he didn’t like it.
“I warned you to get that ol’ boy out of town,” Jimmy said in a low voice.
Dori eased down the steps, careful not to let him see the toy in her hand. “Good night, Jimmy.”
“I warned you,” he said again.
She reached the car and got in quickly. As she drove away, the White Ranger in her lap, she checked her rearview mirror. She kept checking all the way to the Prairie Schooner Motel. But even if Jimmy didn’t follow her there, he’d eventually find out where she’d gone. People in Los Lobos kept track of each other by noticing where vehicles were parked. Everybody in town knew her white Sunbird convertible. Too bad she hadn’t chosen a more ordinary car, but it couldn’t be helped now. She’d promised to have a talk with Tanner. She wouldn’t stay long.
WHEN THE SOFT KNOCK CAME at the door, Tanner switched off the television and leapt from the bed where he’d been sprawling, the pillows shoved behind his head. His heart pounded in anticipation of whether this would be her kiss-off speech. He sure as hell hoped not, but she’d been angry about his offer to buy all those Power Ranger things, and he’d been a fool to suggest it.
Telling her he was in room nine had been an inspiration. And his luck had held, because nine hadn’t been rented out yet and he was able to convince Beatrice to let him switch by making up some story about the television not working right. Before he’d moved out of sixteen he’d screwed up the controls enough to give Elmer something to do when he went to check out the set later. Elmer had reported to him that nothing was wrong with the set except that somebody had messed with the settings, but by that time Tanner had taken possession of room nine.
He opened the door and restrained himself from gathering her immediately into his arms. Instead, he stepped back and allowed her to walk past him into the room. Then he noticed that she held the White Ranger in one hand. His stomach clenched. She was about to deliver the kiss-off speech, complete with the return of his gift to her son.
He closed the door and turned to her. Desperation made him reckless.
“Tanner, I—”
“Don’t.” He closed the gap between them and pulled her into his arms. He’d told himself not to use Neanderthal tactics, but the specter of losing her canceled his good intentions. In the middle of her startled exclamation of surprise he brought his mouth down on hers. If she fought him, he’d let her go.
She didn’t fight. She caught fire. Her shoulder purse slid to the floor and the White Ranger’s leg pressed into his shoulder as she wound her arms around his neck. He didn’t care. Nothing mattered except the urgency of her mouth inviting him to delve inside and possess her. His thrusting tongue presented a blatant suggestion of the more complete union he sought. Cupping her bottom, he brought her tight against his arousal, wanting her to know exactly how she was affecting him. His pulse raced as she wiggled even closer, and he groaned at the perfect way they fit together.
He pulled the hem of her T-shirt from her jeans and reached beneath it to unfasten her bra. Before he could accomplish it, she shoved him away.
“Not yet,” she gasped.
His voice was husky with need. “Why not? We’re both ready for it, Dori.”
She waited until her breathing slowed before answering. “Physically, perhaps. Not mentally. I hope you didn’t think, because I offered to come to your room, that I was giving you permission to sleep with me.”
“No, I didn’t think that.” He couldn’t keep the impatience from his voice. “But after the way you responded when I kissed you just
now, I thought the time had arrived.”
“You caught me by surprise, is all. I wasn’t expecting you to grab me like that, and it was…” She glanced up at him through her lashes. “Exciting.” Her endearing habit of drawing out the letter i gave a whole new emphasis to the word.
He swallowed. “No kidding.”
“But I really came here to talk.”
“And return Little Jim’s gift?”
She glanced down at the figure in her hand as if she’d forgotten she was holding it. “Oh! No, I just brought this in because the top’s still down on the car and somebody might take it. I could have used the glove compartment or the trunk, I suppose, but bringing it in was the easiest thing to do.” She laid the figure on the bed and reached behind her to tuck in her T-shirt where he’d pulled it out.
If the gesture was meant to discourage Tanner from trying to kiss her again, it did. “How come Little Jim doesn’t have his toy?”
Her eyes darkened. “I was afraid somebody in that house would destroy it.”
“Destroy a kid’s toy?” The idea left a bitter taste in his mouth. “What kind of people are they?”
“They’d make it look like an accident, but I could see by the expression on Jimmy’s face, and even his father’s, that they’d get rid of it. I told you they didn’t want him playing with Power Ranger stuff. He gets the toys they want him to have. Some of them are very expensive, but he doesn’t have any choice in the matter. They control his life completely.”
“That’s sick.”
“That’s why I want him back.”
He looked into her eyes. It could all be so easy, so quick. He could tell her about his thriving business and ask her to marry him. His lawyers would make mincemeat of the Devaneys, and Little Jim would be reunited with his mother. But Tanner couldn’t forget her speech about carelessly throwing up a house and hoping the structure was solid instead of taking the time to do it right. She’d already put Little Jim through one divorce. He knew she didn’t want to risk a second one. They’d have to do this her way.
Holding Out For A Hero Page 7