Kitabı oku: «A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father»

Available in June 2010
from Mills & Boon^® Special Moments™

The Tycoon’s Perfect Match by Christine Wenger & Their Second-Chance Child by Karen Sandler

A Marriage-Minded Man by Karen Templeton & From Friend to Father by Tracy Wolff

An Imperfect Match by Kimberly Van Meter & Next Comes Love by Helen Brenna

A Bravo’s Honour by Christine Rimmer

Lone Star Daddy by Stella Bagwell

Claiming the Rancher’s Heart by Cindy Kirk

To Save a Family by Anna DeStefano

A MARRIAGE-MINDED MAN
“I should retreat now before I make any more of an idiot of myself – ”

“No, don’t,” Tess said, grabbing Eli’s hand, just to keep him from leaving. Eli grabbed hers back, then tugged her to him, his eyes touching hers for about half a second – barely long enough for a “Wha – ?” to skate through her brain – and lowered his mouth to hers.

She tensed, then thought, What the hell? and kissed him back, no grappling involved, no body parts touching except lips, the merest suggestion of tongue, their linked hands…and Eli’s strong, rough fingers on the nape of her neck. Whee, doggie. She kissed him back and he kissed her back more and basically she turned into one big quivering mass of goo.

Just from his lips touching hers? Holy cow.

When it was over – much too soon – Eli chuckled again, sheepish, and Tess had to grab the railing, she was quivering so badly.

“This isn’t working, is it?” he said and Tess barked out a laugh.

“Our staying out of each other’s way? No. Apparently not…”

FROM FRIEND TO FATHER
Gone was the work-at-home mum he was used to.

In her place was a blonde bombshell – slender but with curves in all the right places. And legs that seemed to go on for miles.

“Is that a new dress?” Reece asked, his voice much hoarser than usual. But he couldn’t do anything about that – the second he’d laid eyes on Sarah, most of the blood had left his head and pooled about three feet south.

Her cheeks heated and she glanced down, her hand playing uncomfortably in the silky skirt. “It is. I found it at the mall last week, when I was picking up shoes for Rose.”

“You look good.”

“Really?” Her smile was tentative.

“Yeah.” Oh, yeah. Good enough to have his libido leaping to life after nearly a year of complete and total dormancy. And his body was now reminding him – in very uncomfortable detail – just how long it had been since he’d held a woman in his arms.

A Marriage-Minded Man

BY

Karen Templeton
From Friend
To Father

BY

Tracy Wolff

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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A Marriage-Minded Man

BY

Karen Templeton

Karen Templeton is the mother of five sons and living proof that romance and dirty nappies are not mutually exclusive. An Easterner transplanted to Albuquerque, New Mexico, she spends far too much time trying to coax her garden to yield roses and produce something resembling a lawn, all the while fantasising about a weekend alone with her husband. Or at least an uninterrupted conversation.

She loves to hear from readers, who may reach her online at www.karentempleton.com.

To Jack,

for always being there

even when I’m sure there were times when you

wondered what on earth you’d gotten into!

Chapter One

Crackly leaves darted out of the old pickup’s way as Eli Garrett effortlessly navigated the mountain road, one hand resting lightly on the steering wheel, the other thrumming the dashboard in time to Willie Nelson. Behind him, like backup, ladders and tools and whatnot rattled and rumbled in the truck’s bed.

Good times, Eli thought as he approached the final, dusk-cloaked curve to his house. He had a check from a thrilled client in his pocket, 007 waiting in his mailbox, and Evangelista Ortega’s chicken enchiladas tucked up all nice and cozy in the aluminum tray on the seat beside him. So the late fall evening stretched before him, gloriously free, nothin’ to do except hang with Mr. Bond and chow down on the best enchiladas this side of Santa Fe. Maybe in all of New Mexico, he mused, cresting the hill—

“What the hell—!”

He swerved to avoid the small, ghostlike figure who’d popped up out of nowhere, jogging on the wrong damn side of the road. The figure shrieked, then toppled over into a thicket of brush and chamisa, cussing in a mixture of Spanish and English loud enough to blow poor Willie right off the map.

All the junk in the truck bed crashed mightily as Eli jerked up short on the shoulder ahead and jumped out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you!” he yelled, striding toward the figure, already getting to her feet. “You okay?” In the glow from his taillights, she spun around, glaring, and what was left of Eli’s good mood evaporated like smoke in a high wind.

He froze, unsure of his next move. Recognizing him, Teresa Morales—wrong, Montoya—stiffened, too, a moment before a dry, caustic laugh sprang from her mouth. Eli relaxed. Some.

“Holy hell, Tess—you trying to give me a heart attack?”

Swiping dirt, dead leaves and chamisa gunk off her butt, Tess shot him The Look of Death. “Yeah, well,” she said, “you didn’t exactly do my cardiovascular system any favors, either. Crap.” Shoving a headband off her short, wavy hair, she plunked back down in the dirt, inspecting an ugly-ass dark slash on her shin. “Am I bleeding? I can’t see a damn thing in this light.”

“If I look, you promise not to go after me with a blunt object?”

Her eyes flashed to his, then back to the cut. “It’s your lucky day—I’m unarmed.”

“You sure? That headband looks kinda dangerous—”

“Geez, Eli—just look at my leg, okay?”

Eli squatted beside her, trying not to react to her scent, the same one that used to make his eyes cross as a horny seventeen-year-old. That threatened to short out his brain now. Especially when he yanked up her leg to get a better look and came into contact with all that cool, smooth skin—

“Ow!”

“Sorry,” he mumbled. Rubbing the underside of her calf, a little. Noticing she’d recently shaved. Or waxed. Or something. Stubble, the curse of the dark-haired, she’d said. “Yeah, you’re bleeding all right. Must’ve been a branch or something stickin’ out, scratched you up pretty good. What in tarnation were you doing runnin’ this time of night? And why on earth were you way out here?”

“It was still daylight when I started,” she muttered, digging a tissue out of her body-hugging, light-colored jacket. “And I didn’t mean to run this far—or even run at all, I’d just gone for a walk—but it sorta got away from me.” He noticed her hand trembling as she dabbed at the blood, like most of the fight had gone out of her.

Like a woman still stinging from her recent divorce, maybe?

Eli sighed. “Hold on, I’ve got paper towels and water in the truck.”

Amazingly, she was still there when he returned, her forehead propped on her arms, folded across her knees. Knowing Tess, he’d half expected to see her hobbling down the road, muttering, “Don’t need no stinkin’ help from no stinkin’, stupid ex-boyfriends.” He handed her a soaked towel. “Here.”

She jerked her head up like she’d forgotten about him, then took the damp towel and pressed it to the wound, clearly holding back a wince. A single tear dribbled down her cheek, looking like blood itself in the red glow. She shouldered it away.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she snapped, then released a breath, her mouth set. “Really,” she said, more softly, and it was everything he could do not to call her on the obvious lie.

Eli sat back on his haunches, trying to reconcile what he saw in front of him with both the carefree sixteen-year-old girl his hormone-crazed younger self had been crazy in love with and the sharp, confident businesswoman she’d become over the past few years. Or so he’d heard, since they’d barely exchanged ten words since Eli’s Big Screwup.

Even so, in a town like Tierra Rosa you could go for years without talking to somebody and still know every detail of their lives. Either you’d overhear something, or some kind soul would fill you in, or you’d notice things with your own two eyes. Things you kept to yourself, no matter how much they might be killing you inside.

“Where’s the kids?” he asked, exchanging the bloodied towel for a clean one.

“In Albuquerque. With their father,” Tess said through a grimace. She glanced at him, just long enough for him to catch the anger-tinged shadows in her eyes, then back at her leg, pressing the towel to the wound. “Yesterday would have been our ninth anniversary.”

“Sorry.”

She shrugged. Lifted the towel. “You think it’s stopped?”

“Can’t really tell in the dark. Can you walk?”

“Of course I can walk,” she said, rising and putting her weight on her foot. Doing the stoic thing.

“Come on, I’ll take you back to my place and get you patched up.”

Clearly gritting her teeth, Tess took another step. Swore under her breath. “How about you take me home instead?”

“Because something tells me you shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Even in the dark, he felt the full force of her glare. Caught the pain behind it, too. And not just because of her leg. “And I don’t recall asking for your input. If you don’t want to give me a lift, I’ll get back on my own steam.”

“Before next Sunday?”

The glare intensified. Eli almost laughed. “Tell you what—how about we go back to my place and get the dirt cleaned out of that scratch, then I’ll take you home?” When she still hesitated, he said, “Might even rustle up a slug of whiskey from somewhere.”

“Why? In case you need to amputate?”

“Never hurts to be prepared.”

Muttering something about “damn Boy Scouts,” Tess started for the truck. Eli tried to put his arm around her waist, got his hand smacked for the trouble. Of course, she then limped the ten feet to the passenger-side door, leaning against the extended cab for dear life while Eli shifted the enchiladas so she’d have some place to sit. Once settled in her seat, however, she emitted a sound that was half sigh, half moan.

“Those Eva’s enchiladas?” she asked.

“They are.” Huh. “When’s the last time you ate?”

Tess erased the frown before—she thought—Eli noticed it. “A while ago.”

Thinking, Women, sheesh, Eli slammed shut her door and walked around the truck’s hood. Got in. “I got no problem sharing.”

“That’s okay, I’m fine.”

Shaking his head, he pulled back out onto the road. “Your stomach might take issue with you on that.”

Tess crossed her arms over her loudly rumbling middle. “There’s food at home.”

Eli decided to quit while he still had all his crucial body parts.

It didn’t take but a couple of minutes to get to his place, a nondescript pseudo-adobe number he’d bought some time ago, close to a much larger building that housed the family woodworking and cabinetry business, which in turn was maybe fifty yards away from his parents’ house. Award-worthy? God, no. Affordable and convenient? You bet.

Tess slid out of the truck on her own steam—big surprise, there—taking a second to either get her bearings or scrutinize the house. Maybe both.

“Hard to get the full effect in the dark,” he said, carting the enchiladas past her, figuring she’d hobble behind when she was ready.

“I’m sure,” she muttered. Hobbling along behind.

Eventually she made it inside the house. “Huh,” she said, although to the open space—the result of his knocking out a bunch of non-load-bearing walls after he’d first bought the place—or the lack of Clueless Bachelor clutter, he couldn’t say.

“Yeah, good thing the maid came today,” he said, carting the enchiladas to the kitchen.

“Maid?”

After putting the tray on the counter, Eli shrugged out of his denim jacket. “No, Tess, no maid. Not that I’m suggesting you eat off the floor, but I do know how to wash a dish and take out the garbage.”

“Oh, I…” She blew out a sigh, then pointed to her wound. “Triage?”

“Right straight through, on your right. First-aid kit’s under the sink. I take it you don’t need my help?”

“No,” she said, hobbling off. Ten seconds later, he heard a shriek. Eli hotfooted it to the bathroom to find Tess gawking at her reflection in the medicine chest mirror. “How come you didn’t tell me I have half the national forest in my hair?” she asked, plucking at twigs and chamisa fluff and stuff, and in the light he could see that twelve years and a couple of kids had added a few not-unwelcome pounds here and there.

“It was dark,” he said. “Couldn’t tell.” He leaned one palm against the doorjamb, appreciating the view. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you with short hair.”

Her eyes cut to his for barely a second before veering back to the mirror. “Got tired of taking care of it long,” she said softly, bitterly, finger-combing most of the chamisa gunk out of it, sending the yellow bits floating all over his bathroom.

Don’t get sucked in, don’t get—

“Looks good,” he said, then walked away and left her to it.

Tess braced herself against his sink—far cleaner than she would have expected, nothing on it except a cup and a razor—willing her heart to settle down.

What on earth had she been thinking, not turning back long before she’d gotten so far from her own house? She supposed that had been the whole point, that she’d wanted to run away. From everything. Not forever, just for a little while. But to end up in Eli Garrett’s bathroom?

Beyond weird.

If they’d seen each other a half dozen times since their breakup, she’d be surprised. It wasn’t anything deliberate, exactly, even if their parting had been, well, pretty bad. In retrospect, chasing him down Main Street with a sponge mop had probably been a bit over the top. Not that she would have inflicted any lasting damage—she didn’t think—even if there’d been the slightest chance of catching up with those long legs of his. But for heaven’s sake, it wasn’t like she still had any feelings for the guy. Not after a dozen years and a couple of kids and a marriage blowing up in her face—

Sighing, Tess hauled out the first-aid kit, getting her first good look at her boo-boo. Eww. She’d hardly be crippled for life, but miniskirts had just been crossed off the list for the near future.

She banged down the toilet seat and sank onto it, dampening a gauze pad with antiseptic before tentatively touching it to the wound. She hissed, then swore, as hot tears bit at her eyes—from the pain, yes, but more from a sudden surge of anger and frustration, topped with a leftover jalapeño or two of grief. All that time, petrified of losing Ricky to something she didn’t even fully understand, only to discover she’d lost him anyway.

Yeah, there was some sick irony for you.

The grief, Tess could handle. Had handled, for the most part. People change, marriages die, let’s move on. The anger, however…this was new. The anger was what had propelled her out the door two hours ago, fueled a run that had lasted far longer than it should have, made her take risks she would have never normally taken.

The anger frightened her because she didn’t know its limits. What it would do. What it would make her do.

She glopped on some antibiotic ointment, then bandaged the scrape. Already, the shock of the fall was wearing off. When she stood this time, her leg seemed more inclined to do its job. The kit shoved back underneath Eli’s sink, she made her way to the front room, a living/dining combo all rustic and woodsy—and surprisingly homey—with its wooden floor and paneling, the dark beams running the length of the white ceiling. The decorating style was strictly Early Parental Cast Offs—she thought she recognized the old beige corduroy sofa—but mercifully devoid of ancient pizza boxes and beer cans.

One might not even think a bachelor lived here at all, had it not been for the two solid shelves of video game cases and the corresponding jumble of consoles under, beside and around the boxy, ’90s-issue TV squatting in the entertainment center like a bloated rhinoceros.

“So what’s the prognosis?” Eli called from the dining nook, which is when she noticed not only that he’d set the table for two, but the man who’d set that table.

Taller. More solid. Curly, light brown hair still too long, the Henley T-shirt still too loose, the jeans still ragged. The person wearing them still too damn sure of himself for his own good. And—much as it pained her to admit it—for hers.

Her hands stuffed in her jacket front pocket, Tess shrugged, reminding herself the sexually predatory divorcée was such a cliché. “No worries on that amputation thing. Um…what’s this?”

“Dinner,” he said, flashing her the dimpled grin that had been her undoing so long ago. Ducking the not-half-bad wrought-iron chandelier over the table, he set down a plate of enchiladas, then another, like Enrique used to once upon a time, when they were first married and the future beckoned, unblemished and secure.

The anger flared. “I thought I said—”

“I know what you said,” Eli said mildly, although there was nothing mild about the way he was looking at her. Don’t do that! she wanted to yell, even as longing—hot and thick and syrupy—welled inside her to mix with the anger. Since, you know, he looked at pretty much every female in the county like that—

“I’ve also been working my butt off all day,” he continued, still watching her, and her eyes latched onto his mouth, and another memory flashed, of what good a kisser he’d been, and she realized she was an inch away from pity party status, which only made her madder—

“And you live clear on the other side of town. So I’m gonna eat before I take you home, if it’s all the same to you. And since my mama taught me it’s rude to eat in front of people without offering to share…” He gestured toward the plate on the far side of the table. “You may as well join me.”

Staring at the table, Tess removed one hand from its cocoon to jerk her hair behind her ear—a habit left over from when she’d still had hair. For some reason, this set the anger loose all over again. Not a single, neatly defined emotion or reaction to any one particular thing, but a whole damn herd of pissed-off thoughts, stampeding through her brain and soul and body—

“Tess?”

Eli’d said her name so softly it took a moment to register. “It’s okay,” he said gently when she jerked her gaze to his, and her eyes burned, partly because it wasn’t true—at all—and partly because it felt so strange, somebody reassuring her, a job that had been hers for as long as she could remember. His hands resting lightly along the top of one of the high-backed wooden chairs, his gaze was warm and steady and completely unthreatening. Not at all what she’d thought she’d seen earlier.

Yeah, like that was a step in the right direction.

Only because she was starving, and because her options at home began and ended with frozen pizza, she sighed out a “Fine,” her leg only hurting a little as she crossed to the table, plopping into the chair he held out for her. She thought she might’ve caught a smile before Eli turned to the refrigerator, a white, no-nonsense old-timer that wobbled slightly when he opened the door. “What would you like to drink? I got tea, Coke, water—”

“What happened to the booze offer?”

He turned, eyes sparkling, dimples dimpling, and wasn’t she thrilled to notice they were both far more deadly now than they had been a dozen years ago? And they’d been pretty damn deadly then. “Somehow I’m thinking whiskey on an empty stomach isn’t the best idea.”

And she was thinking she’d never get through the next twenty minutes without something to dull her senses. Especially those prone to reacting to cocky smiles from sexy old boyfriends with baaaaad reputations. “Beer, then? Unless you don’t have any.”

“Oh, I’ve got some, but—”

“Then hand her over.” At Eli’s dubious—and annoyingly protective—look, she sighed. “I can hold a single beer, Eli.” Never mind the nasty little voice whispering that, actually, no, she couldn’t, which was why she rarely drank. “Especially if I’m eating.”

The voice sniggered.

Oh, for crying out loud—so what if she got a little buzz on? She somehow doubted the world would implode. But dammit, she thought as she watched Eli pour out a can of Bud into a tall glass—which he rinsed out first—she’d been responsible for everyone and everything for so, so long, what was one little old beer in the scheme of things? And besides—

“And besides—” Her hands fisted on the table, she looked him square in the eye. “This is weird, okay? Me being here with you, in your house. What with all the other weirdnesses going on in my life…”

“Got it.” Eli handed her the beer, then sat with his own, and he was all big and solid and manly and such, and she remembered that baaaad reputation of his.

“Don’t you think this is weird?” she asked, shivering a little.

“Heck, yeah,” he said, lifting his glass to her. Spearing her with those eerie light brown eyes. Almost gold. Kinda the same color as his hair. The too-long hair half covering his ears, glossy in the chandelier’s light, all those hard-edged features at odds with those soft, soft curls—

Tess tipped back her glass; three gulps later, it was half-gone—

“Hey,” she said when Eli grabbed it from her. “Give that back.”

“Not until you eat something,” he said, tucking into his own food while holding her glass just out of reach, the creep. Only after Tess downed several bites and her eyes were streaming from the chili did Eli take pity on her and return her drink. Her mouth on fire, she finished it off. The belch just kind of escaped.

“Whoa,” Eli said. Grinning. Tess blinked, thinking she could practically see the pheromones rising from his warm skin. Like ghosts from a graveyard on Halloween.

And you know this is only because every time you see Ricky you go a little crazy. Has nothing to do with Eli.

“You know, these are almost as good as mine,” she said, jabbing her fork at the enchiladas. Which were beginning to get a little blurry.

“No way,” Eli said, forking in a huge mouthful. “Nobody makes enchiladas better’n Evangelista.”

“Oh, and you would know this how? I love Eva with all my heart, but my grandmother’s recipe…People have been known to kill for her enchiladas.”

“Seriously?”

“Okay, not really. But close.” Tess took another bite. Then burped again. And frowned at her glass. “S’empty.”

Laughing, Eli stood, pulling a pitcher from the fridge. “How ’bout some tea now?”

“Hell, no. I can have tea at home.” She held out her glass, suddenly fascinated with the way it sparkled in the light from the chandelier. “Hit me with another Bud, bud.” She giggled. And hiccupped.

Eli got a funny look on his face. “You sure?”

She rolled her eyes. They felt a little loose. “Not driving, I’m good. Oh, come on—have pity on the poor divorcée, huh? What’s the worst that can happen?”

“You get bombed and puke all over my rug?”

Tess shook her head. Decided maybe she shouldn’t do that again. “I didn’t even throw up when I was pregnant,” she said, which made her sad, thinking about her babies and how much she loved them and how hard it was when they were off with their father, even though that only happened maybe once a month, if that, and that here she was, sitting in Eli Garrett’s kitchen, drinking his beer and not even thinking about them. Except she was, because she was always thinking about her babies.

She thought maybe she was getting a little…confused.

Nothing another beer couldn’t fix, right?

“Please,” she said, and Eli took her glass, pouring another beer into it, God bless his baaaaad self.

“Need any help?” Eli heard Tess ask when he went to clear the table shortly after they’d finished their meal.

“Nope. All under control. Soon as I give ’em a rinse, I’ll run you home. If you’re ready.”

She gave him a slightly guarded smile, then nodded. “Sure thing,” she said, getting to her feet. More or less steadily, he was relieved to note. Not that she was exactly sober—feeling no pain was the phrase that came to mind—but thankfully she’d stopped well short of stupid drunk. Eli’d been with his share of stupid drunk women over the years; whatever amusement he’d at one time found in those sorts of shenanigans had long since faded. And besides, Tess getting plastered…just didn’t seem right.

In any case, he got the feeling the beer had only been an excuse to let go—which something told him she hadn’t done in a very long while. Not that she’d gone all maudlin on him or anything; mostly, they talked about her kids, Miguel and Julia—pronounced with an H instead of a J—and his recently married and very much younger brother, Jesse, and his wife, Rachel, how they were dealing with being new parents, stuff like that. In fact, whenever Eli’d tried to steer the conversation in Tess’s direction, she’d steer it right back.

Because, okay, he was curious about what had happened between her and Enrique, who’d been deployed overseas for most of their marriage. Maybe more than curious—he’d watched his older brother, Silas, go through a nasty divorce, knew how hard it was. Especially on the good ones. Like his brother. Or Tess.

Still, the protective feelings boiling up inside him went way beyond your garden-variety gee-I-hope-she’s-okay concern. What did it matter to him whether she got drunk or not? Or made a fool of herself?

So why, as he stood at the sink, half watching her walk into his living room with her hands tucked into her jacket’s front pouch, did he feel compelled to make sure she wasn’t gonna keel over or anything?

“Everything okay in there?” he called over.

Tess nodded. A little too vigorously. “I like what you’ve done here.”

Stacking the plates in the dishwasher, he laughed. “I think ‘done’ might be overstating it. Unless you consider shoving around a bunch of castoffs and thrift store junk so I can walk through the room without injuring myself ‘done.’”

“It’s…” She gave him a puzzled look over her shoulder. “You.”

“Lot to be said for not having to consider anybody else’s opinion.” The dishwasher shut, he was about to say, “Ready?” when she spun around and collapsed into the couch, an old beige corduroy number that had been in his parents’ family room. The fluff was worn off in some places, and the cushions sagged from being crushed by a whole bunch of butts over the years, but it was still comfortable as hell—

“What’s wrong?” he said when Tess leaned into the cushions, her eyes closed.

“Probably shouldn’t’ve done that spinning thing.”

“You gonna be sick?”

She laughed softly. “Told you. I don’t do that.”

“Not even when you get stomach flu?”

“Nope. And by the way, technically that’s not the flu.”

“Technically, I don’t much care what it’s called. And how do you not throw up?”

“Sheer willpower,” she said, except the words seemed a little frayed around the edges. Eli crossed his arms, trying not to think how soft and vulnerable she looked, all sunk into those deep cushions with her eyes closed like that. “Comfy?”

“As comfy as one can be when your brain’s on the puree setting.”

“So you are drunk.”

“Maybe. A little.” Finally, she opened her eyes, frowning at him. “I didn’t expect you to be…nice.”

Eli frowned. “I’m always nice—”

“I mean really nice.”

“What that’s supposed to mean?”

“I’m not entirely sure.” Tess snuggled farther into the corner of the sofa, letting out a shriek when the mass of fur that owned the place jumped up onto the sofa arm beside her. “Dear God—what’s that?”

“A cat. What’s it look like?”

“Something from a ’50s horror movie. After the radiation experiment went horribly wrong. Wait—” She shifted her frown to Eli. “You have a cat?”

“Got a problem with that?”

“Geez, touchy much?” she said, then looked at the cat again. Leaning back a little. “He’s bigger than my two-year-old.”

“She. And big is a definite advantage when you live in the woods. Chased a bear up a tree once.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Wanna see the video?”

“No, I’ll take your word for it. Does she have a name?”

She would have to ask. Warmth prickled his cheeks. “Maybelline.”

Tess’s wide-eyed gaze flew to his; a moment later, she snorted out a very unladylike laugh. “You’re not serious.”

“I didn’t name her, okay? Some lady we were working for, it had been her mother’s cat, only the old lady died and her daughter was allergic. Damn thing glommed on to me from the moment I walked into her house, so she asked me if I wanted her.”

“And you actually said yes.”

“She’d already asked, like, ten people. It was me or the pound. Anyway, look at that face—how could I say no to that face?”

Another laugh. “And you actually call her Maybelline?”

“Actually, I call her Belly. For obvious reasons.”

Sitting on the arm of the sofa and purring loud enough to rattle skulls in a five-mile radius, Belly shot an offended look in Eli’s direction, although with one eye partly closed and her snaggleteeth on full display the effect was kinda lost. One ear was half-bitten off—Eli didn’t want to know what she’d tangled with, or what condition she’d left the other guy in—and it’d been a while since she’d let him brush out the knots in her fur. He supposed maybe she didn’t give the best first impression.

Now, sensing some lovin’ in the offing, she jumped down and trotted over to Eli, her saggy belly swaying from side to side. In one swipe, Belly coated the bottom of his jeans with a half inch of cat fur. Eli scooped her up to roughly scratch under her chin, getting her motor going full throttle. Cat did love her chin rubs.

“You. With a cat. Unbelievable.” Tess grinned, for a second looking almost like the girl he used to know. A moment later, though, she swiped the red Netflix envelope off the end table next to her, slipping out the sleeved disk. “Bond, huh?” she said, and Eli thought, Why are you still here?

Because she was making him feel maybe not so protective, which was in turn making him twitchy. He scratched the cat harder.

“Not just Bond. Craig’s Bond.”

“I’m a Brosnan girl, myself.”

“Get out.” Please.

“What can I say?” she said, pushing herself to her feet. “I like suave…oh, hell—”

Cat went flying when Eli lunged forward to catch Tess as her knees buckled. She molded herself to his chest—what the hell?—only to immediately shove away again, shaking her head. Good call.

“You need to sit,” he said, trying to make her sit.

“I don’t need to sit. I’m fine, I’m—”

Tears bloomed in her eyes before she pushed past him to the door. Except she wobbled again, crashing into an armchair.

“For God’s sake, Tess—!”

She wheeled on him. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve watched a movie with another adult?”

That thud he heard in his head would be any hope of getting her out of his house before one of them did something stupid. Because clearly whatever she’d been keeping locked up inside her was only now lurching to the surface. And, since she was there to begin with at his insistence, dumping her now probably wouldn’t be cool.

Yeah, this would be a good time for the evil, scum-sucking side of his personality to kick in. If he’d had one. “You’re more than welcome to stay and watch—”

“That’s not the point!” Tess cried, charging him. Flailing a bit. “The point is…” She stopped, shaking her head, looking a little wild-eyed. “The point is, that there is no point! To any of it!”

She’d started pacing his living room like she was fixing to lift off any moment. Maybe not the best time to interrupt the flow.

“You know what I felt when Ricky said he wanted a divorce? Relief. That I could finally stop holding my breath, because it was over. He was officially no longer my responsibility! No more lying awake at night, worrying…no more wondering when he’d be home, if he’d even make it home…no more going around with a fake smile plastered across my face, pretending that everything was just hunky-dory when all I wanted to do was hit something, somebody, only to find out he’d fallen out of love with me! All that worrying for nothing, Eli! Nothing!”

She closed in on him, fists raised; although she couldn’t have hurt him if she tried, Eli grabbed her wrists, then wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight as all hell broke loose, as she railed against her husband for leaving her and the kids for months on end, for coming back from Iraq only to leave her for good. Then, somehow, they were on the couch, and he was holding her in his lap—just trying to comfort her, stop the emotional hemorrhage—when he all of a sudden realized they were kissing, seriously kissing with tongue and everything, and while on one level he was enjoying it and all, in the back of his mind he thought, Dude—seriously messed up.

And wasn’t now a helluva time for the growing-up thing to kick in?

So he wrenched their mouths apart and said, “This is just you being drunk and upset,” and she said, “Yeah, so?” and planted another one on him, and blood rushed hither and yon, doing what rushing blood will do, and it occurred to him watching movies wasn’t all Tess hadn’t done with another adult in a long time.

Especially when she mumbled, “Please tell me you’ve got condoms.”

Chapter Two

With more regret than the world would ever know, Eli put some distance—not enough, but some—between him and the woman currently responsible for an erection so hard his ears were ringing.

“Honey—you don’t really want this.”

Her answer to that was to unzip her running suit top and struggle out of it, tossing it over her shoulder, her exercise bra no match for her nipples’ attempts to punch right through the stretchy fabric. “And if you don’t touch my breasts within the next two seconds, I may have to kill you.” When Eli shook his head, she clamped her hands around his face and stared him right in the eye. “They hurt, Eli. I hurt—”

“And you’re going to hurt ten times worse if we do this.” She smacked his shoulder. “What the hell—?”

“Since when do you become honorable?” she said, smacking him again, although her hundred pounds—if that—were barely gonna make an impression on his one-eighty. “Geez, Eli—you sleep with anything with hooters! So how come you choose now to rustle up some scruples?”

She gasped when he grabbed her wrists, jerking her into silence. Bringing their faces within kissing distance again, he ground out, “I do not, and never have, slept with every woman who came on to me. And I sure as hell am not gonna take advantage of somebody who’s only looking for a little stress relief!”

Her swollen mouth set, Tess locked gazes with him for a long moment, then reached up and took off her bra. Eli groaned. And stared. What? Like he was gonna look away? Then he frowned.

“They’re bigger.”

“Yeah, two kids’ll do that. So. You got condoms or what?”

“Yeah, I got condoms. But you hate me.”

That seemed to sober her for a moment. Then, smiling, she thrust her hands through his hair and kissed him again, open-mouthed and hot and slow and thorough, and his scruples packed up their little bags and began to shuffle off, sighing. Day-um, the woman could kiss. Then she finally came up for air, pressed her forehead to his and ground certain eager body parts to his equally eager body parts and said, panting, “I’m drunk and mad and horny and half-naked. Could you please just shut up and go with the flow here?” And it occurred to him that he’d hurt her a lot more by rejecting her than simply doing what she wanted.

At least, that’s the story he was going with.

So he wound her more tightly around him and stood, carrying her into the bedroom, not even bothering to pull back the covers before he dropped her on the bed and ripped off her bicycle shorts and cotton panties, realizing he was more than a little pissed off himself as he stripped off his own clothes and yanked open the dresser drawer.

“So, you want me to just—”

“Yes,” she hissed, getting to her knees to yank him onto the bed. Snatching the condom out of his hand, she shoved him on his back, straddling him, sheathing him. A moment later they were joined, her long nails gouging his shoulders as she rode him, tears streaming down her cheeks, splashing onto Eli’s chest, making him madder still. He thrust up into her, hard, no finesse, making her moan and hiss and cry out.

Then he lifted her up and off, making her moan again—from distress, most likely—only to flip her onto her back and plunge into her…and she clutched the wrinkled bedspread in her fists and arched into him, whimpering, her lower lip caught between her teeth a moment before she crossed her ankles at the small of his back and drove him higher, tighter, even though he knew he must be hurting her, if it’d been a year or more since she’d—

She sank her teeth into his neck, not hard enough to draw blood—he didn’t think—but hard enough to make him jerk, then she licked the spot and blew on it, and he thought he’d lose his mind even as he did lose control, driving into her over and over and over until she screamed, clutching at his back as she tried to get on top of the orgasm.

But damned if he would let her, pushing her up, up, up until she had to curl forward to keep from banging into the headboard, shuddering his own release into her interminably pulsing warmth.

Afterward, annoyed, he collapsed on top of her, panting, fully expecting her to shove him off, get up, get dressed and demand he take her home. Instead she wrapped herself around him, all sweaty and smelling of woodsmoke and girly shampoo and sex, and whispered, her teeth grazing his earlobe, “How long until you’re ready again?”

Floored, Eli pushed back enough to look at her. “You’re not serious?”

“Oh, honey,” she said, dragging her nails down his arms, making him shudder, making things stir he wouldn’t’ve thought anywhere near ready to stir again, “I’m just getting started.”

“Tess…you don’t—”

Her fingers clamped around his arms, stopping him, her expression gone from postorgasmic mellow to oh-no-you-don’t in two seconds flat. “Yes. I do.” Her eyes glittered. “Burn this feeling out of me, Eli. Please.”

Despite himself, his heart flipped over at the agony in those shiny eyes, at the soul-deep ache she had no idea how to ease. For some people—like his brother, like Tess—the end of a marriage was every bit as devastating as an actual death. But when he shifted to stroke his thumbs along her temples, she struck his hands away.

“No. I don’t want you to make love to me.”

His hands flat on either side of her head, Eli frowned at her. “You just want sex?”

“I just want sex.”

“You just want me to make you feel good, is that right?’

“You got a problem with that?” she said, brows arched.

“Fine,” he said, not sure why he was still pissed. “There any ground rules I should know about?”

Her pupils darkened. “None. I trust you.”

“And why in the hell would you do that?”

“I don’t know,” she said, tearing up once more. Damn. An instant later, Mad Tess was back. “But just for a moment, you made me…forget.” Her hands clamped around his face, she pushed against him, a tight smile pulling at her mouth when he responded. “Make me forget again.”

Eli reached for another condom, thinking tonight was giving a whole ’nother dimension to that Good Samaritan thing.

Nothing, Tess thought as she jerked awake the next morning, starts a girl’s day out right like waking up to a Freddy Krueger scalp massage.

Swearing, she detached Maybelline—who hissed back—and bolted upright, immediately realizing that precipitous changes in altitude were to be avoided at all costs for the foreseeable future. And that she was naked in Eli Garrett’s bed.

And nope, there was no “Did we…?” about this. Because they had. Oh, yes, indeedy, they had. Several times, in fact, before her anger was spent and many, many moons’ worth of sexual frustration exorcised.

Groaning, Tess yanked the top blanket out from underneath the cat, stomped to the bathroom and did her thing, only to scream when she returned to the bedroom to find Eli standing there, dimples at a hundred percent, her sports bra dangling from one hand.

Growling, she snatched it out of his hand, scanning the room for the rest of her clothes. “That blanket sure looks better on you than it does on me,” she heard behind her. As she irritably pondered how many times he’d undoubtedly used that line, he added, “Sleep well?”

She had, actually. Like the dead. “Guess I dozed off,” she muttered, mincing past him to look on the other side of the bed.

“Honey, you passed out.”

“I did not!” she said, twisting around, the velvety blanket’s rasping across her nipples instantly hardening them. Or maybe that was Eli’s knowing smirk.

“Like you would’ve voluntarily spent the night in my bed?”

Okay, there was that, she thought, clumsily dropping to her knees to look under the bed. Her head rebelled. As did her stomach. Especially when the damn cat decided to go after her bare toes. Yelping, Tess again jerked upright, catching her head in one palm before it rolled off her neck. Although the cat would probably love it. A new toy to bat around the room, yay.

Still cradling her head, she carefully hauled herself up to sit on the edge of the bed, wishing Eli would take pity on her and leave her to wallow in her mortification alone. But no.

Her stomach boinged when she felt the mattress shift. “Touch me and die.”

And of course, that brought a warm, gentle palm to the top of her head. “Your head hurt?” Eli said softly, and many unkind thoughts leaped to her brain, mostly along the lines of how desperately she wanted Eli to not be kind. Or warm. Or gentle. Not now, at least. Last night had been another story. Last night had been—

“Oh, they haven’t invented a word for how my head feels right now,” she muttered. Just like there was no word for women who finagle their high school exes into pity sex. No, wait—actually, there were several. None of them flattering.

Her cell phone rang.

From her jacket pocket.

In, apparently, the living room.

She glared at Eli. Who kept on grinning. “Would you like me to get that for you?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

And during the approximately nine seconds he was gone, Tess found and put on the rest of her clothes, scattered willy-nilly about the room though they were. Eli returned and handed her the phone. And her jacket. Tess’s heart nearly stopped when she saw Enrique’s cell number.

“Everything okay?” she barked when he answered.

“Just what I was gonna ask you. Since you’re not here.”

Tess paused. “‘Here’ being…?”

“The house. Where the hell are you? When you didn’t answer your phone I called your aunt. She’s probably on her way over already.”

Was there an award for Worst Morning After Ever? ’Cause Tess was at least a shoo-in for the finals. “You’re supposed to have the kids until tonight—”

“Julia was up half the night, I think she missed you. So I figured I may as well bring ’em back since they were so miserable.”

“They?”

“Okay, Micky, maybe not so much. But I’m not gonna drive up there and back twice in one day, am I?”

“For God’s sake, Enrique—you only see them one weekend a month as it is—”

“Yeah, I know, I’m disappointed, too. So where are you?”

“At…a friend’s. Since I thought I had the day to myself.”

Turning, Tess caught Eli’s frown. “I’ll be home soon,” she muttered, dialing Thea Griego’s number when Eli stomped off.

And it’s a beautiful day in Bozoland, she thought as Thea picked up, her “Tess? What’s wrong?” delivered in the groggy voice of the mother of a one-year-old still not entirely down with the concept of sleeping through the night.

“Please tell me I didn’t just wake you up.”

“For you to do that, I’d’ve had to have been—” Thea yawned “—asleep.” In the background, little Jonny happily squawked. “And you’re calling when the sun’s not even up yet, why?”

“Omigod, it isn’t, is it?” Tess said, realizing that until that very moment, she hadn’t thought her embarrassment level could spike any higher. She’d been wrong. “I have a huge favor to ask,” she whispered. “First off, I need you to swear to anyone who might ask that I was at your place last night.”

Silence. “Why? You kill somebody?”

“Worse,” Tess muttered. “So will you?”

“Long as it doesn’t involve the word ‘accessory’ in some way, sure, but—”

“And is there any way you could come pick me up and take me back home?”

More silence. “Um…pick you up from where?”

Somehow Tess doubted Thea’d buy her having spent the night by the side of the road. “Eli Garrett’s.”

“Lord, now I know I’m not awake yet. I could’ve sworn you said—”

“I did.”

That got a far-too-gleeful cackle. “This just keeps gettin’ better and better.”

“Can you pick me up or not?”

“Do I have to put on makeup?”

“God, no.”

“Then I’ll be there in a few. Hang tight, honey.”

Tess had no sooner shut her phone than she heard behind her, “I’m not good enough to take you home?”

She turned. And while Eli’s insouciant smile and slouch against the door frame with his hands in his pockets might’ve said Like I give a damn, the sting of hurt in his eyes told another story entirely. What the hell?

“Oh, right,” Tess said, dropping onto the edge of the embarrassingly rumpled bed to lace up her running shoes. “Like there’d be any way to explain to Enrique why you were bringing me home at the crack of dawn.”

“He’s there?”

“Brought the kids back early, yup.” Slapping her hands on her thighs, she looked up. “Lucky me.”

“Guess that makes two of us,” he said, and Tess almost—almost—cringed at the bitterness spiking his words. “Because God knows I’m the last person you’d want to be associated with—”

“And don’t even go there,” Tess said, getting to her feet. “This isn’t about you. It’s about me not having the energy to deal with Ricky this early in the morning. It’s also about me feeling like an idiot. Not because I slept with you, but because I…fell apart—”

He grinned. Not one of his best, but bright enough. “Several times, as I recall.”

“Shut up,” Tess said, her face flaming, her nether regions tingling. Damn them. Fighting the urge to bury her face in her hands, she took a deep breath. “I used you, Eli. And I feel like crap about it.”

His grin died. “And didn’t I tell you this is exactly how you’d feel this morning? Although when you first came at me I sincerely doubted you’d be around for longer than twenty minutes—”

She grabbed a pillow off the bed and threw it at him. It went wide and scared the bejeebers out of the cat.

“It’s not meant as a put-down, okay?” Eli said, swiping the pillow off the floor, tossing it back on the bed. “You were obviously upset. And a little drunk. I knew what you were asking for, even before you made it more than clear my hunch’d been dead-on. And if you noticed, I had no problem stepping up to the plate.”

Too true, Tess thought as Eli came farther into the room, making her back up. A little. “Even so, I gave you plenty of opportunity to change your mind, to let me take you home before things got out of hand. Or maybe you don’t remember—”

“I remember,” she murmured, shutting her eyes.

“You know,” Eli said after a moment, “maybe you wouldn’t feel so bad if you’d just be honest about what happened last night. It was what it was. If I don’t have a problem with that, why should you?” At the sound of Thea’s old Jeep Cherokee pulling up in front of Eli’s house, he nodded toward the window. “There’s your ride,” he said, snatching a hooded sweatshirt off the back of a chair and tossing it over. “It’s cold. Put that on.” Then he stomped off, boots pounding against the old wooden floor.

“Eli, I’m sorry—!”

Too late.

Soon as she heard stuff banging around in the kitchen, Tess scurried down the hall and through the front door, yanking on the hoodie as she practically flew into Thea’s passenger seat. No fewer than three dogs of various sizes, shapes and lineages poked their heads through the gap between the bucket seats to offer greetings and/or condolences.

“Geez, mutts,” the tiny blonde—wearing a down vest over wrinkled pink pajamas—said, shoving back assorted canine heads, “give the poor woman a break.” She surveyed Tess for a few moments through a pair of perky round sunglasses before looking back out the windshield, her mouth twitching. “Rough night?”

Tess slumped down in her seat, snuggling farther into the warm, Eli-scented sweatshirt. Rats. “I seriously owe you for this.”

“Think that’s the other way around, cookie,” Thea said as she backed out of Eli’s drive. “Considering the backside-saving you did a couple months ago when everybody got the flu except the baby.”

“Where is junior, anyway?”

“Back there somewhere, between the dogs.” Startled, Tess twisted around to see the bundled up baby happily snoozing in his car seat. Thea cackled again. “Wow. This is just like high school, gettin’ a girlfriend to cover your butt so your mother won’t find out you went to some party you weren’t supposed to.”

“Yeah, well…I never did that.”

“Never?”

“You weren’t raised by a rabid Latina. My mother had spies everywhere.” Because that was a lot easier and less messy than personal interaction. Gah, at this rate her brain would melt before breakfast. “I couldn’t even look at a boy that my mother didn’t hear about it before I got home.”

“That sucks.”

“Tell me about it.”

Chuckling, Thea tucked a strand of barely combed, pale blond hair behind one ear as they pulled out onto the still-dark highway, the early-morning sun furtively peering through the pinons and live oaks choking the roadside. “So…what happened?”

Tess rolled her eyes in the blonde’s direction.

“I got that,” Thea said, shrugging a dog head off her shoulder. “It’s the how-in-the-hell? part I’m kinda vague on.”

Shivering, Tess zipped the hoodie up higher. “So Ricky had the kids, right? Seizing my freedom, brief though it may have been, I went for a run, it started getting dark, Eli nearly ran me over with his truck, next thing I know I’m in his living room, stripping.”

“Sober?”

“No.”

“Ah.” After a reflective moment, Thea glanced over. “I’m assuming there were bits between the almost getting run over and the stripping?”

“A lot less than you might think,” Tess mumbled, then slumped down farther, palming her face. “I’ve never done anything even remotely like that in my entire life.”

“Yeah, it must be hell, being perfect all the time.”

Tess’s eyes flashed to her friend. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Honey, you know I love you—but sometimes it’s like you’ve set these impossible standards for yourself, like you’re afraid anybody might find out you’ve got weak spots. So instead of occasionally releasing steam like any normal person, you let it all build up until you do something stupid.”

“Like having meltdown sex with my old high school boyfriend.”

“That would definitely qualify.” Thea reached over, giving Tess’s wrist a squeeze. “These things happen. No sense beating yourself up over it.” She paused. “Although if you end up pregnant, that could be awkward.”

Tess let out a dry laugh. “No worries there. My period’s due in a couple of days. Which probably at least partly accounts for the meltdown. And we used condoms.”

“Condoms?”

“Shut up.”

“So,” Thea said, clearly ignoring that last thing, “does this mean you and Eli, are, you know. An item?” Tess glared at her. She shrugged. “Had to ask.”

“Would you recycle a high school boyfriend?”

“Good point. But maybe…”

“What?” Tess said, on guard.

“You could just…you know. Do the fling thing. Why not?” she said to Tess’s snort. “He’s hot, he’s personable, he’s obviously good with his hands…”

“You are so dead. And anyway, wasn’t it just last year you were saying that Eli wasn’t exactly the ripest apple on the tree?”

“True. But since he’s now my stepdaughter’s brother-in-law—”

Tess rolled her eyes.

“—I’ve gotten to know him some. Sure, he’s still a goofball, but…” The blonde’s eyes flashed to Tess. “He’s not a kid anymore. There’s a lot more beneath the surface than you might expect.”

“Whether that’s true or not, I’m not exactly keen on becoming another notch on Eli Garrett’s bedpost.”

“Hate to break it to you, honey,” Thea said as she pulled into Tess’s driveway. “But you just did.”

And damned if she hadn’t helped Eli do the carving, Tess thought on a sigh as she got out of the car, giving Thea a dejected little finger wave before she drove off.

“Mama!” Miguel dashed out the front door, throwing his small self into her arms like he hadn’t just seen her the day before. About to drown in her own self-reproach, Tess yanked him close, breathing in that sweet-musky scent of little boy, thinking Never, never, never, never again as curly-topped Julia—not to be left out—carefully clung to the porch railing as she navigated the stairs. Singing “Jingle Bells.” Sort of.

“Told you they missed you,” Enrique said from the doorway to the stucco-and-brick facade house, his hands bunched in the pockets of his Arizona Diamondbacks baseball jacket. For an instant a trick of the light made him look like the man she’d once loved with all her heart, only to torque back into the bastard who’d shredded that heart into a million pieces. A moment later her Aunt Florita—frowning, arms crossed—appeared behind Enrique in spiked boots and tight everything else, despite her lack of boobage and surfeit of years.

“I’m so sorry,” Tess said, to anybody and everybody, her arms full of her children, her heart of remorse. She kissed both kids, then rose, grabbing little hands before starting up the flagstone walk. “Obviously if I’d known,” she said to Ricky, “I would have made other…arrangements.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, then frowned. “Nice sweatshirt.”

“Picked it up at a yard sale,” she lied, ignoring her aunt’s raised eyebrow. “I know it’s way too big, but it’s cozy as all get out—”

“You cut your hair?”

“Yeah,” she said, thinking, Geez, now nothing gets past you?

He stared at her head for another couple seconds, then dug out his car keys. “One thing about hair, it always grows back, right? Hey, cabritos,” he called to the kids, squatting, “come give Daddy a kiss.”

Honestly, Tess thought, it was like a wire had worked loose in her ex-husband’s brain over the years. Sometimes the connections worked, and sometimes they didn’t. Mostly, though, they didn’t. And apparently hadn’t for a long time.

His children duly kissed and hugged, Ricky stood, gave her what passed for an apologetic look, then started out to his truck, only to turn when he got there. “Oh, I forgot—I can’t take the kids for Thanksgiving. I got…a conflict. That a problem?”

Tess crossed her arms. “For me? No.”

Ricky looked at his son. “You don’t mind spending the holiday with your mom, right?” Miguel shot Tess puzzled eyes, then shook his head. “See?” her ex said with what a poor imitation of his “old” smile. “So, Micky—you be good, okay? And I’ll call you—”

“Tonight?”

“Not tonight, maybe tomorrow. Soon, okay?”

The boy hugged his father’s thighs; to his credit, Ricky gave him another kiss before getting in his car and driving off. Flo wrapped her arm around Tess’s waist, muttering, “Pen-dejo,” under her breath. And Tess highly doubted Flo meant dumbass, the most PG definition of the word.

Then her aunt’s eyes dropped. The bandage had fallen off at some point during the evening’s activities; although Tess had cleaned the scrape up, she hadn’t bothered to redress it. “Dios mio—what happened to your leg?”

“I tripped over something while I was running,” Tess said slowly making her way up the stairs with an I-can-do-it-myselftoddler beside her. At the top, though, avoiding her aunt’s X-ray eyes, she swung Julia up to pepper her soft little neck with kisses, making her giggle. “No biggie.”

Once inside, she set her daughter down on the still-newish sculpted carpet she’d had installed before Enrique’s last leave, a warm beige that was perfect with the light tan sectional she’d bought at the same time, its built-in recliner positioned so he could watch football on the flat-screen TV she’d gotten him for Christmas.

Nobody could say she hadn’t tried. Nobody.

“Have the kids had breakfast yet?” she asked softly as old memories blurred uncomfortably into newer ones, a set of deep brown eyes morphing to hot, dark gold ones, welded to hers—

“Knowing Ricky? Probably not. How about you?”

“Um, no, I’m good for now,” Tess said, backing away from her aunt’s narrowed gaze, if not from the memories. “I had coffee and toast at Thea’s. You know how early they eat on the ranch—”

“You know, you don’t sound so good. Like maybe you’re coming down with something?”

“Nothing a hot shower won’t fix.”

“Sure, then,” Flo said, suspicion dripping from every word. “Take your time. I’ll feed the kids.”

Tess closed her bedroom door, thinking, You’re home now, everything’s back to normal, just put last night’s craziness out of your pretty little head…

And there were Eli’s eyes again, holding hers captive as he did things to her, for her, that, truth be told, Enrique had never even thought to.

Giving her head a hard shake, Tess twisted on the shower in the remodeled bathroom Ricky had hated on sight, saying it looked like somebody else’s house, never mind that they hadn’t lived here long enough that he should have thought anything one way or the other—

Moaning, Tess sank onto the whirlpool tub’s tiled edge. Because, in the cold light of day, she had to admit…she hadn’t been that drunk. Oh, she sincerely doubted she would have jumped Eli’s bones sober—as in, no way in hell—but she hadn’t exactly spaced what’d gone down after the bone-jumping part.

Or how many times.

Or how much, each time, she thought as she caught her haggard expression in the rapidly fogging mirror over the double vanity, a little more of the deadness around her heart she’d mistaken for stoicism had sloughed off, leaving in its place something tender and new and raw and frighteningly vulnerable. She really wasn’t upset with herself simply because she’d had sex with Eli. It was what having sex with Eli had done to her that had left her shaking. And shaken.

Tess stood and stripped, daring to trace with a trembling hand the still-reddened patches left by Eli’s late-day stubble across her belly and thighs and breasts. Who was this person who’d ceded so much control to another human being? Who’d known, at the time, exactly what she was doing? And who the hell was the man she’d allowed such power over her?

Worse, though, she thought as she jerked her gaze away from her reflection and stepped into the pounding shower, was that, mixed in with the regret…

Was the really scary feeling it could happen again.