“And what if the real killer is on, like, a spree?”
“Number one, I can’t think of a single reason why the nearly dead guy would want to come here. All you boys did was try to help him,” Steve told them.
“But what if—”
“Number two, if you’d seen who shot the guy, than he would have seen you. Since you boys weren’t witnesses to the actual crime, you don’t have to worry about him, either.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Number three, if the shooter saw you, he’s sure not going to want to come around here and bother you. Especially with me in town.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And number four, if you three are going to help me with my investigation tomorrow, you’ll need to get some sleep.”
“Help you?”
“No fooling?”
“Way, way cool!”
All three boys hurled themselves back under the covers and closed their eyes tightly. The sight reminded Taylor of the way the boys used to act when she told them Santa wouldn’t come until after they went to sleep.
She patted Jason’s shoulder. “You okay now?” she asked softly.
Jason shrugged nonchalantly. “’Course, Mom. It was only a dream. That guy wouldn’t really come after us.”
“I love you,” Taylor said.
“I love you, too, Mom.”
Watching them, Steve felt his heart constrict. Taylor said the words of love with such ease and with such obvious feeling. What would it be like to have a woman like Taylor saying such words to...say...a man like him?
Had she said the words to Doug after all their years together? Somehow, he thought perhaps she had. The thought troubled him on many levels he didn’t care to explore.
“Good night, boys,” she said, rising to her feet. She stepped around the edge of the bed, moving toward him.
Steve’s heart gave a jolt and started beating too rapidly.
“G’night, Mom. Love you.”
“Love you, too, guys. Sweet dreams. Really sweet ones this time.”
Steve found himself smiling crookedly as her sons laughed. He backed out of the room to allow Taylor to draw the door partway closed.
One of the boys called out in a falsetto Freddy Krueger imitation, “I’m coming to get you, Jason. And I’ve got dirty fingernails!”
Steve had to bite off a laugh as Taylor choked, then said, “Cut it out, Josh.” He knew she couldn’t have been heard over the swearing and giggling in the darkened bedroom.
He waited as she pulled the door closed with a soft snap and raised her eyes, not to his, but to his chest. Her gaze landed there and skittered off. She studied the wall just beyond his shoulder.
“Thanks.”
“For nothing,” he said.
Her eyes flicked to his, then away again. “You don’t still have any doubts that they saw somebody wounded, do you?”
He smiled. “About that, no.”
He thought her smile was wistful. “Sorry we woke you,” she said.
“You didn’t. I was awake.”
She darted a glance at him, then looked away. “So was L It was too hot to sleep.”
Since Steve reckoned her central air-conditioning was probably set on something just above freezing, he couldn’t help but grin a little. Luckily, she wasn’t looking at him.
“I’m going to get some lemonade,” she said. “Want some?”
He knew he should just decline and climb back in that lumpy sofa bed and toss and turn some more, but ever since he’d walked through Taylor Smithton’s front door, his rational mind seemed to have taken a vacation. “Sounds good.”
On the way through the living room, he grabbed his shirt and shrugged into it. It seemed the lady couldn’t look at him when he wasn’t fully dressed.
But it seemed he was wrong about that. When he pushed through the doorway into the kitchen, she shot him a quick glance, then looked back down to find herself carefully pouring lemonade all over her countertop.
She righted the pitcher with an oath he’d have sworn couldn’t escape her lips, then set it on the counter with a sharp thud. “Try to hit the glasses next time,” she muttered, reaching for a drawer. Inside it, he saw some thirty or forty neatly folded tea towels.
She blotted the lemonade from the counter, rinsed the cloth and vigorously scrubbed the Formica. “Ants,” she said.
Even from where he stood he could see that her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I beg your pardon?” he asked.
“If I don’t get it up right away, the ants will find it. Summer, fall, dead of winter. They’re always waiting for a speck of sugar. I’ve heard horror stories of people having to move just to get away from them.”
Steve blinked. This didn’t quite seem like her. Her house was tidy enough, but not meticulous. It was impossible to be meticulous in dusty West Texas. The person who tried would go crazy.
She rinsed the tea towel again and wrung it dry before draping it over the bar in the center of the sink. She leaned against the counter, her back to him. She seemed completely unaware that her silk nightgown was not only clinging to her skin, revealing every rich curve and sleek line, but affecting him like a shot of stiff whiskey, leaving him strangely breathless and burning all over.
“That was a terrible nightmare,” she said.
“Yes,” he said slowly, trying not to undress her the rest of the way with his eyes, telling himself not to be a fool, not to fall into the gullibility zone.
“The boys never saw Doug...after. I made sure they kept the casket closed.”
He remembered Jason’s question about how his father had looked.... He didn’t, did he? Steve didn’t know what to say, so said nothing at all.
“I lied to him. All of them.” She waved her hand. “It’s not like I haven’t lied to them before. Everyone lies. ‘Oh, that’s a cute horny toad, Josh. I don’t really hate that cartoon, Jonah.’ Stuff like that. Little lies. But you see, I never told them what Doug looked like. I didn’t want them to know. So I lied to them. I lied to Jason tonight. All I told them at the time was that he was killed instantly, that there was no blood because of that.”
Steve closed his eyes. He realized a part of him had always wondered, too. She should never have had to see such a thing. No one should. “You did the right thing, Taylor.”
A shudder worked down her spine. It took every inch of resolve in him not to cross the room and take her into his arms. And then some.
“Was it right? I always thought so. Then tonight, because of that stranger they found—oh, how I wish he’d just show up and tell us it was all a nasty joke, the kind Doug thought was funny sometimes—but because of him, the nearly dead guy, I mean, Jason’s having nightmares and wondering if his father looked like that after he was...was k-killed.”
All Steve’s resolve evaporated when her voice broke. He crossed the room and drew her back against his chest, wrapping his arms around her, cradling her shoulders, rocking slightly. And, unconsciously, he used the very same words she’d said to her son earlier. “It’s okay, honey. Sh. It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t, he thought. He pressed a kiss to her temple and kept his lips against her velvet skin. He closed his eyes. “It’ll be all right,” he murmured. As she’d asked earlier, just who was he trying to convince...her or himself?
When Taylor felt his warm arms enfold her, drawing her against his broad chest, she’d felt vaguely humiliated at breaking down in front of him. Especially because of his denial of emotional involvement. His calling her “honey,” his rocking motion, a slow, gentle swaying left and right, his warm lips murmuring soothing nothings against her temple, smoothed over her embarrassment.
It felt so right. So permanent, somehow.
Steve Kessler might profess not to be the marrying kind of man, but he was the very kind of man a woman wanted to marry. She smiled slightly and raised a hand to wipe away the tears that had broken free.
“I’m okay now,” she said. “It just threw me.”
H
e didn’t let go of her. If anything, he held her tighter. “It’d throw anybody.”
“Thank you,” she said, referring also to his calm support in the bedroom, and signaling him that he could take those arms away from her now.
He stopped the rocking motion but didn’t turn her loose. The cessation of the slow undulation thrust their contact onto a different plane. Between one heartbeat and the next, it transformed from neutral nurturing to a sexual attraction.
She realized suddenly, and with a catch in her breath, that she could feel his shirt buttons through her thin nightgown. She could feel his heart thudding against her back. She could feel the long line of his legs. And could feel his awareness that things had just changed.
And still he didn’t move.
Her breathing came a little faster, and every nerve ending on her body called out a need for immediate contact.
He kissed her temple, a far different sensation from the comforting, gentling pressure she’d felt earlier. No less gentle, but infused with a deliberate, tantalizing intention now, he trailed feather-soft lips down her cheek, her jawline, her bared throat.
She felt simultaneously enervated and energized. Her entire body trembled in reaction, her legs threatening to buckle, her head dropping back to rest on his shoulder, granting him even greater access.
He ran his hands along her arms, warming her, heating her, turning her into clay for his careful sculpting. He slowly massaged her fingers, her palms, her numb arms, all the while nuzzling the soft hollow beneath her ear, the sharp curve of her collarbone.
If he hadn’t been standing behind her now, she would have collapsed to the ground, such was her intense languor.
Slowly, steadily, he massaged her arms, her shoulders, her hands, raising his head only to kiss her temple again, to rub his cheeks against her hair, to brush a kiss near her lips, to lightly flick his tongue at the nape of her neck.
Feeling weightless and yet strangely heavy, Taylor tried telling herself to stop him, to run and hide in her safe, lonely bedroom. She knew she was too vulnerable, too unprepared for a physical relationship with any man, let alone one who wore a badge and who had already made it clear he didn’t want any involvement. Most of all, she knew she should cry a halt because this man, this one man, made her feel alive again, and to feel alive was to risk everything.
But she didn’t run. She couldn’t.
His strong hands slipped from her arms to her waist, and his massaging, caressing, stroking continued. Her stomach, her breasts, her trembling thighs...his hands roamed over her, exploring her, finding rills and valleys, lingering at her breasts then molding her to him, letting her know he was as aroused as she.
And yet, she had the strangest feeling that mere arousal was the very least part of what he was doing to her...and what she was doing to him. She wanted to close her eyes forever and savor every nuance of emotion that flowed between them.
This, she thought, this was what it was supposed to be like. Love, life, feeling.
With a groan that seemed to come from deep inside him, he abruptly whirled her around to face him, pulling her sharply against his full length, plundering her mouth with a kiss that seemed born of desperation.
Hungered beyond thought, she returned his kiss with the clear impression that only this moment existed in all of reality. His touch, his taste, the rich scent of this one man filled her senses and left them reeling.
“Oh, man!” a voice muttered.
“Sh, can’t you see they’re kissing?” another whispered.
“Wa-ay cool!”
She felt dropped from a cliff’s edge as Steve released her and pivoted, automatically blocking her from the boys’ sight. “What are you doing up?” he growled.
“Nothing,” said one.
“Getting a drink,” lied another.
“We’re outta here!” said the third, and a wild elephant stampede couldn’t have more loudly announced their departure. Their bedroom door slammed shut, though whoops of triumph could still be heard.
Taylor leaned against the counter, her legs trembling too badly to support her. She watched through heavylidded eyes as Steve raised a hand and smoothed back his hair. He let out a large whoosh of air.
“I didn’t mean to yell at them,” he said. He shot her a sideways glance, then looked at the still-swinging kitchen door.
Taylor half smiled at his back. “They didn’t sound as if they minded.”
He turned then, a rueful grin on his face. “No, I think they believe we’re halfway down the aisle already.”
His words shot a pang of regret through her; she wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because they carried too much reality in them, and for those beautiful few minutes, she’d been transported beyond the mundane world. But it could have been because he looked as stricken as she felt.
“I’d better turn in myself,” he said. His eyes dropped to her nightgown and back up again.
“Yeah,” she said, wishing she didn’t want to argue with him, wishing she could simply step back into his arms and forget the universe.
“Yeah,” he echoed, and left the kitchen without looking at her again.
She stayed where she was for a moment, then pushed herself away from the counter and walked, somewhat unsteadily, to where she’d left the lemonade pitcher. She put it away, doused the lights, drew a deep breath and bravely walked into the darkened living room.
“Good night, Steve,” she said, hesitating at the entrance to the hall. She couldn’t see more of him than a largish shadow in the center of the sofa bed.
She clicked off the haU light, plunging them into total darkness.
“Taylor...?”
“Yes?”
“Have you dated much since...?”
Her heart rate accelerated anew. “No. Not at all.”
“The men around here must be blind.”
She smiled, and it felt awkward on her lips. “There aren’t any single men around here except Doc Jamison, and he seems more like a brother than a...” She trailed off, unable to complete her comparison.
“I agree with the boys about one thing.”
“What’s that?” she asked, her heart thundering now.
“They have the most beautiful mother.”
Taylor closed her eyes, savoring his words. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Cool,” he said, and she could hear his grin.
“Yeah. Way cool,” she said. But even to herself, the words sounded bittersweet.
Chapter 8
After a confusing, restless night’s sleep, Steve woke with the firm conviction that the sooner he got out of Almost, the better. What happened in the kitchen couldn’t happen again. Taylor was too vulnerable, still too fragile following the loss of her husband. Just as she was the kind of woman to marry and raise a family, she was also the kind that could devote her whole life to one man. And that man had been Doug Smithton.
Steve knew, if he was completely honest, that she shook him up, made him want things he knew better than to wish for. Again. She didn’t have sparkling, witty conversation that made him uncomfortable, searching for some new quip or retort, yet she was light-years from unintelligent. She had a gift for making a stranger feel right at home. Too right.
She didn’t go along with everything he said, just to strengthen his male ego, yet one kiss, one touch, and she made him feel more male than he’d ever felt before. She didn’t seem combative—except when he’d barked at her kids the afternoon before—and yet he felt oddly challenged.
She wasn’t like anyone he knew, in fact, and yet she made every woman he’d been with seem a little shallow by comparison. Look-alikes or not.
He shook his head and slid the sofa bed back into place with a little more force than necessary. Hell, he didn’t know why he was analyzing this woman to death; he would be back in Houston that evening and would, in all likelihood, never see her again.
Except in his dreams.
He squared his shoulders and headed for the kitchen, the
scent of coffee and the sound of three eleven-year-olds plotting some new scheme. He pushed open the door.
The three boys were slouched against counters and the table, semicircling their lovely parent. The picture they presented, one of relaxed harmony, a togetherness that somehow seemed to come straight out of a Currier & Ives painting, didn’t seem to isolate Steve as it had the night before. A person could adjust to anything, he thought, and then wondered why the impression troubled him.
He looked at Taylor, who hadn’t noticed him yet. Dressed like a thousand other women in West Texas, in jeans, tennis shoes and a cotton blouse tucked in at the waist, her hair caught up in a ponytail, she looked fresh and inviting. And too alluring.
“Maybe Mr. Hampton’s barn loft needs cleaning,” Jason suggested hopefully.
“Hey, yeah. Mom, did you know Mr. Hampton’s barn has a loft?”
Her face softened, causing Steve to suffer a long-unfamiliar pang in his midsection. “Yes. We used to play there when we were kids.”
“You, Uncle Craig and Aunt Allison?”
“When we were little. As I recall, we weren’t allowed to play in there. Too dangerous.”
“That’s kinda what Mr. Hampton said yesterday.”
“That’s when we found out he had a loft. We didn’t know about it before.”
“Is it cool, Mom? Like way cool?”
Steve remembered her parting words from the night before, and how that undefinable something in her voice had wiped the grin from his face. Famous last words, he’d thought then, and felt slapped by them now.
“I suppose so,” she said. “He used to store cottonseed in the bam proper. We’d climb up in the loft and jump down into that mountain of seed. It was like jumping into a huge, scratchy pillow.”
“Wow.”
Taylor’s faraway gaze refocused on her avid listeners. “But don’t you boys go jumping out of there, you hear me? Allison broke her arm one time. In two places. She had to wear a cast all that summer and couldn’t run through the sprinkler or go swimming over at the Harrigans’ or anything. It still bothers her sometimes...at least, I suppose it does.”
Steve watched as the three boys exchanged glances. Another mystery? Why did Taylor look so sad?
Almost A Family Page 11
