A Man to Hold on to (A Tallgrass Novel) (24 page)

As Therese shrugged into her sweater, she gazed toward the garden, taking a deep breath. “I’m not sure which smells better here—the flowers or the food.”

In Keegan’s opinion, the food won, hands down, but he didn’t say so. His mama hadn’t raised any fools, though Duke came close. “You should plant some,” he said as he opened the menu.

“I know. I will. If I don’t, I’ll regret it come June.”

Neither of them wanted regrets come June.

When their waiter came, Keegan ordered the pasta combination platter and tea. Therese asked for gnocchi and a glass of wine. It came in a tall glass, deep in color, hints of red showing when it sat on the table, looking purple when she lifted it for a sip. A faint lip print remained on the rim of the glass when she set it down again, which he found insanely sexy.

In an effort to distract himself, he asked, “What do you and the kids do in summer when school’s out?”

She rolled her eyes in a good impression of Abby. The voice was pretty dead-on, too. “‘Oh, God, it’s so boring. I’d rather go to school year-round than stay home all day with you.’” Ruefully she sipped the wine again, as if she regretted mimicking her stepdaughter, especially after faulting herself for not trying hard enough with her.

“Jacob does basketball, football, baseball, and soccer camps, and Abby goes to swimming, science, computer, and cheer camps. They also do a week of camp with the church youth group, and they spend a week with Paul’s parents. Last summer they stayed five days with my parents, but the ranch didn’t rate among their favorite places. Mom and Dad expected them to do chores.” Making a face, she shuddered.

“I wouldn’t have pegged Abby for science or computer camps.” Cheer, hell, yeah. She looked exactly like every cheerleader/homecoming queen/prom queen he’d ever known: slender, pretty, blond, tanned, graceful.

“She actually prefers those two, I think. She does the other two because her friends do. It’s cooler to look good in a swimsuit and to do cheers than it is to be a geek. But she dropped out of gymnastics after she sprained her ankle six months ago, and she hasn’t kept up with the swimming since last summer. I haven’t said anything about either one because, frankly, I think kids are way overscheduled. Back in my summers, once my chores were done, the rest of the day was mine to do what I wanted. Of course, I had horses, two thousand acres to roam, and didn’t hate my mother.”

“Abby doesn’t hate you.”

“She sounds pretty convincing when she says it.”

“All kids say that.”

“I never did.”

Neither did he, he acknowledged. It would have been sacrilege in his home. If the thought had even flickered through his brain, someone—God or Ercella—would have smacked it right back out. “I know I brought it up, but let’s make a deal. No more talk about the kids for now, okay?”

Her smile took a minute to form, and it was tenuous at best, but she nodded.

Reaching across the table, he took her hand, studying her slender fingers and pale pink nails with white tips. He turned it over, tracing her palm with his fingertip. “Hard to believe these hands broke horses, drove heavy equipment, and herded cattle.”

“It’s been a while. And I wore gloves and have invested a small fortune in the baby-lotion industry since.” Her muscles tightened as he touched a particularly sensitive place on her palm, so he did it again. Such a light caress to evoke such a sensuous shudder.

Their salads arrived, along with a basket of warm bread, and she reluctantly tugged free. He reluctantly let her.

She primly spread the linen napkin on her lap and picked up her fork. “I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s dinner. Authentic Louisiana food cooked by an authentic Louisiana charmer.”

“Sometimes the charm is questionable, but the recipe’s my mom’s, so it’s always good.”

“Aw, you’re always charming. Even when you’re not.” After taking a bite, she asked, “When you joined the Army, how did she feel about your leaving one dangerous job for another?”

“First she cried. Not because she was worried but because she was proud. All the Dupree men have done their service, all the way back to the Civil War.” He shrugged, and a thousand memories of Ercella doing it exactly the same way flashed in his head. “Life is dangerous. She knows that. She says you’re born and you die, and hopefully between those times, you do something you enjoy and love someone who loves you back.”

For the first time that evening, Therese’s smile was genuine pleasure—no stress, no worries, no regrets. “I would like your mother.”

It was easy to envision Ercella meeting Therese and the kids. She would know in that mother-to-all way of hers that Abby needed extra welcome and affection and would give it with her embrace, and would charm Jacob into turning off the games and tuning in to her one hundred percent. She would recognize in Therese a woman very much like herself, would see immediately why Keegan was so certain he wanted a chance with her after only a week.

“You would. And she would adore you.”

“I’d like that. It’s been a long time since I’ve been adored,” Therese replied breezily.

“Aw, your margarita friends adore you.”

She nodded. “They do.”

“And all your little kindergarten students who hug you every day and leave their sticky little prints on everything and compete for your attention.”

“Them, too.” She smiled smugly.

“And me.”

For a moment, the smile wavered and he thought it might slip away, but instead it widened, lightening her whole expression, making her look younger and happier and carefree and so damn beautiful. “Good. I’m finding that I adore you, too.”

J
essy prowled her apartment, feeling like a lion she’d once watched in a zoo. She’d been seven or eight, and she’d felt for the animal, pacing in a cage when he should have been running free. Before her mother had drawn her to the next enclosure, she’d gripped the bars of the fence and leaned close, though twenty feet and a deep chasm separated them, and whispered,
I’m sorry.

So many years, and nothing had changed. She was still sorry.

When she reached the glass door that led to her tiny balcony this time, she stopped instead of pivoting, opened the door, and stepped outside. The air held just a bit of a chill, not enough to need a jacket if she was moving. The sun was out of sight, leaving only a beautiful palette of blues and purples and smoky grays in the western sky.

The balcony had been an afterthought to the apartment, a small rectangle of wood that had turned silvery with age. It held two cheap plastic chairs and a tiny gas grill, the kind meant for tailgating or picnics, and it looked over the one-story rooftops of the buildings behind hers. She and Aaron had sat out here when he got home from work, sharing a beer and their day while he’d tended brats, burgers, or steaks on the grill.

She could count on one hand the number of times she’d been out here since he’d deployed. The day of his funeral. The day she’d packed his things. The early hours of the morning when she’d come home from her first bout of meaningless sex with someone she’d picked up in a bar. The time—

God, she couldn’t do this. Couldn’t think about Aaron. Couldn’t face her regrets.

So what else could she focus on? She’d taken lunch to Fia and found her looking better but not right. Fia had insisted she was fine, it had just been a headache, but Jessy wasn’t convinced. Something was wrong with her friend, and the thought made her gut clench.

Something else. What else? She still didn’t know where she’d been or what she’d done Wednesday night, and she couldn’t begin to forget what she’d done Thursday night. What in the world had made her offer to deliver Dalton’s beer to his table? At least he’d been sociable—more than she’d been able to muster after asking if she could join him. The man had seen her at her worst; he knew her for what she really was. There was a reason she engaged in anonymous sex: so she wouldn’t have to face the guy when she was sober. Why in God’s name make Dalton Smith the exception to her rule?

Damn, there must be something she could think about that wouldn’t dig her deeper into the dark hole she was already living in. Something she could do…

Only one thing helped her cope, made her forget, and it was no more than fifteen feet away, in a kitchen cabinet. Waiting for her, offering comfort and peace and oblivion. Just the thought of it made her mouth water, made her hands unsteady.

She hadn’t had a drink since Thursday night, when she’d taken a few small sips of beer before Dalton had come into Bubba’s, just to steady her nerves, to give the appearance that everything was all right and not rouse anyone’s suspicions. That was some kind of record for her. Surely it was all right to have one tonight. Just one, to steady her nerves. To give her peace. To keep her from falling apart.

Her breathing shallow, she went inside and turned into the kitchen. Opened the cabinet. Took out a glass. Poured a small amount, no more than an ounce. Sipped. And sighed.

She would make it.

At least one more night.

Dinner was over, dessert just a memory, and the pleasure of the entire evening left Therese feeling more comfortable and happy and content than she’d been in years. She could sit there on Luca’s porch nursing her second glass of wine for another few hours if it weren’t for the flutters in her chest and stomach. Not panicky flutters, but anticipation. Desire. Heat.

Keegan had paid the check, and the waiter returned his card and receipt with two delectable handmade filled chocolates, their version of the mints other restaurants provided but oh, so much more. She picked up the gold foil cup nearest her and lifted out the candy. The fillings were liqueur-flavored, amaretto or brandy or hazelnut, and each piece was two tiny bites of heaven.

“Umm,” she sighed as the first bite melted over her tongue. Her favorite. She closed her eyes for a moment of pure pleasure overload, letting the flavors of chocolate, butter, and hazelnut wash through her, re-creating the sensation with the second bite. When she opened her eyes with another sweet sigh, she found Keegan watching her.

His gaze was intense, his features stark, his face a shade paler—or was that warmer?—than it had been before. The knowledge that he was aroused sent an even headier sensation through her. She had never been classically pretty like Marti, sexy like Jessy, delicate like Ilena, or gorgeous like Abby. She was a schoolteacher, a widow, a failed stepmother, a woman who’d hardly noticed—or been noticed by—a man in a long time, but she’d turned on the hottest guy around by doing nothing more than eating a piece of candy.

She felt powerful. Womanly. Wanted.

She gestured toward the other chocolate. “Try it. It’s incredible.”

“I’d rather watch you eat it.” His voice was husky, dark, wrapping around her with the heat of a soft blanket on a cold night.

Her hand surprisingly steady, she slid the tray to him. “Try it. And take your time. Good candy is meant to be savored.”

He took the remaining chocolate, bit it in half, chewed, and slowly swallowed. Surprise sparked in his eyes. He had expected it to be good, just not that good. He finished the piece, then pushed his chair back and extended his hand.

It was time to go. Time to start. Time to take that big step she’d been looking forward to.

She laid her hand in his, rose, and walked with him along the porch, past empty tables, into the restaurant and out front. They turned toward his car, strolling as if they had nowhere to be and all the time in the world to get there. Neither of them spoke until they reached it.

“I’d ask if we could walk all the way,” she remarked as he beeped the locks, then opened her door, “but I’m afraid these shoes would kill me.”

In the white glow of the streetlamp, he made a show of checking out her shoes. “They make your legs look incredible.”

She looked, too. “They do, don’t they?”

“Granted, your legs look incredible anyway.”

God, she loved blunt-spoken compliments.

It took them all of three minutes to drive to his motel. The room was dimly lit by a table lamp, barely enough to make out the furniture, and smelled of cinnamon and sugar, little girl, and the masculine fragrance of exotic, musky cologne. The scent of a man was one of the many little things she missed in her daily life.

The instant he closed the door and locked it, Therese’s nerves tightened and her stomach flipped. They were here. Now what? Small talk? Coffee? How did they go from the awkwardness of standing there, fully clothed, to naked and passionate in bed? Heavens, it had been so long since she—

Keegan stopped behind her, slid the purse strap from her shoulder, let it drop on the chair, and touched his mouth to her neck in the softest of kisses. Goose bumps danced along her skin, her nerves tightened for an entirely different reason, and her stomach settled. There was no awkwardness. He adored her, and she adored him, and they both knew that was a simpler way of saying so much more. Their present was definitely together, and their future…

They had a future. She couldn’t say anything else with certainty, about that or any other aspect of life. But it was enough.

Her head tilted to one side on its own, giving him better access, and he trailed kisses along the skin where a necklace would be if she’d worn one while his hands slid slowly from her shoulders to her wrists. He folded her arms across her middle and held her against the hard muscled strength of his body as his kisses teased and promised, never paying any particular bit of skin the attention it craved but moving on.

Sensation didn’t hum through her. It burned. Each place he touched her, her muscles tensed and her nerves rippled with a rush of raw, electric pleasure. The tiniest contact, even his breath on her skin, stoked the need building inside her. Her own breathing was nothing but shallow gasps, her chest too tight to allow anything more, and she was quivering deep in her gut when he brushed his mouth across her ear.

She jumped, as much as she could in the confines of his embrace, and a sound part giggle, part shriek, escaped her. “That tickles.”

“Ah, good to know. Does this tickle?” Freeing his hands, he slowly pulled the tab of the dress zipper down her back, pushing aside hair and fabric, and he kissed her at the base of her neck, his tongue bathing the skin, giving a tiny nip before laving it again.

“N-no.” For such a short word, it sounded dragged out of her in a voice so thick and raspy she hardly recognized it.

“How about this?” His powerful hands were gentle as he pushed the dress off her arms, touching her far too much for such a simple task, not nearly enough. When her arms were free, when the dress was bunched around her waist, he lost interest in it and turned his attention to her breasts instead.

Therese closed her eyes and let her head fall back against Keegan’s shoulder. It was just too much effort to keep them open, too much strength to hold it up, when she needed all her will to not collapse at his feet. She’d been so alone for so long, craving intimacy the way she craved oxygen but refusing to recognize it. Every part of her body, even her hair, was burning, sensitized to his touch, wanting more, needing it.

He traced the lace edges of her bra, stroked across the slick satin, one moment so light she barely felt it, the next with the pressure she craved. When he finally closed his fingertips around her nipples, sweet pain rocketed through her, intense and breath-stealing, and she pivoted in his arms, clasping her hands to his cheeks, kissing him, tasting him, stroking his tongue with hers.

When he pushed her back too soon, she whimpered, but he shushed her. “We’ve got time,” he murmured, but judging by the strained look on his face—and the straining of his body against her pelvis—he wasn’t any steadier than she was. Maybe she should push him over the edge and jump with him.

“Time,” she repeated with a nod. She took a step back, then another, putting a few feet between them before sliding her hands beneath the fabric at her waist and slowly pushing the dress over her hips, giving a little shimmy to help it in its fall to the floor. Still wearing the killer heels, she stepped out of the pile of soft color, then turned in a slow circle. “What do you think?”

“Green is definitely your color.” His voice was unsteady, and his gaze burned. So much heat radiated from him that she was surprised he didn’t glow in the dark. She was just as surprised that she hadn’t self-combusted.

He reached for her, but she backed away, bending to retrieve the dress, shaking it out, laying it on the couch. The kids might guess what she and Keegan had done, but no need to help them reach that conclusion.

Then she walked to the bed, folded back the covers, and lay down on her side, propped on one elbow, one leg stretched out straight, the other bent at the knee. “Time,” she repeated. “Let’s not waste any of it. Good candy’s not the only thing meant to be savored.”

Savor
might be his new favorite word, Keegan thought some time later, once his heart rate had dropped below a hundred beats a second and his muscles had finally stopped twitching and his breaths were easier to come by. He’d savored every moment, every touch, every taste, every kiss, and by the time they’d finished, he was sure of one thing.

He owed Major Matheson a hell of a debt for bringing Therese and his kids into his life.

He’d disposed of the condom in the bathroom, then returned to the bed where she lay on her back, her long pale body gleaming in the pitiful illumination. He wanted to turn on every light in the room, to banish every shadow and see every inch of her, but when he’d reached for the bedside lamp, she’d paralyzed him with an intimate caress, and he’d forgotten everything but her.

The bedspread and blanket lay in a jumble on the floor, along with her bra, panties, those sexy shoes, and his clothes. He lay next to her, facing her, head on his hand, and studied her—hair tumbled across the pillow, flushed cheeks, moist lips—intently enough to make her laugh self-consciously. “What are you doing?”

“Looking. Just looking.” He wanted to remember everything about this moment. The faint fragrance of her perfume. The exact taste of her mouth—rich chocolate, hazelnut, and wine. The sweet, lazy, well-pleasured look in her eyes. The earring dangling drunkenly to the side, catching in her hair. And the way he felt. The satisfaction. The still-there desire. The possessiveness. The sense of absolute rightness.

“What do you see?” Did she hear the wistful uncertainty in her voice?

“The beautiful woman who has been waiting a long time for me even if she didn’t know it.”

Her smile came slowly, the one that made her look like the most important woman ever in his life, and she raised her hand to his jaw, cupping it gently as she whispered, “I knew it somewhere.”

She kissed him then, pushing him onto his back, rising up over him. Kissing was sweet and innocent and fun. It was serious fun when she settled over him, her legs flanking his thighs, her breasts rubbing against his chest, her hands sending tingles of electricity through him with every stroke. His body was quick to respond. Ten seconds into the kiss, he was hard again, as if he hadn’t fiercely come less than ten minutes before.

He was damn near sizzling when she stretched away long enough to reach a condom on the nightstand, and he damn near came when she deliberately fumbled it into place. Only sheer determination held him together as she slid deeply, fully over him, and then the heat of her, the tightness of her, took what little control he had.

It was fast and hard and primal, and neither of them lasted more than moments, her cries mixed with the guttural groan that was all he could form. She collapsed against him, her skin as slick with sweat as his, her breathing as ragged. Her hair, damp and smelling of something sweet, drifted against his skin, silken and soft, losing its waves fast.