He started Tammy’s coffee and cleaned the new coffee pot while hers was brewing. This was not a permanent solution but at least it’d get everyone else to stop bitching about the coffee.
His head was a mess and he didn’t like it. This wouldn’t be worth the hassle, except he didn’t want to let Tara steamroll him.
Except . . . except for that kiss. To hell with Tara. This was between him and Tammy.
He heard the car doors slamming and went to get the door for her. She had Mikey against her shoulder again.
“Clarence,” she said in a tight voice that did nothing to help the place his head was in.
Oh, hell—had Tara gone off on her last night? “Tammy,” he replied, feeling uncertain again. “I . . .”
She stopped and pivoted. He couldn’t read her eyes. All that tight tension from the last two days seemed long gone and all that was left was a wariness that was not exactly encouraging. “Yes?”
“I brought a coloring book for Mikey today.”
The little boy lifted his head up and popped his thumb out of his mouth. “Coloring?”
Clarence pulled the rolled-up coloring book—some $0.99 cent cheapie featuring smiling animals—out of his back pocket and handed it to the kid. “But you have to do a good job. Stay inside the lines and stuff.”
“Peas tank you,” Mikey said as he wriggled down from Tammy’s arms and went to grab a box of crayons that were little more than nubs off a shelf. Then he sat down and started coloring very carefully.
Okay, so the kid still liked him. But Tammy had her hands on her hips and was giving Clarence a look that was way too familiar. “You’re going to spoil him.”
“It’s just a couple of small things. Didn’t cost much.”
That was clearly the wrong thing to say because a red-hot blush raced up her cheeks and she darn-near glared at him. “Well, it’s more than I can afford to give him and I’m the one who’ll have to deal with the fallout when you stop giving him presents for no particular reason.”
Clarence blinked at her. He’d never heard her say something so rude before. “What?”
She opened her mouth but then appeared to catch herself. “Look, I appreciate your . . . thoughtfulness but this isn’t going to work.”
“It’s not?”
“No, it’s not. I mean . . .” her voice trailed off as she looked at her son, coloring inside the lines as if his life depended on it. “I can’t see how it’s going to work,” she went on in a much lower voice. Clarence had to move a step closer to her to hear her. “I don’t have anything to offer you. I live with my mom and my sister. I have a part-time job and a mountain of debt and a child. I have to put him first. Whatever this is, I just . . . can’t.”
She said that last part with so much defeat in her voice that he forgot about the part where she was telling him to stop making her coffee and to stop giving her kid presents. Instead, he acted on instinct—the instinct to make it better, somehow.
“Mikey,” he said as he started pulling Tammy toward the Clinic, “I’m gonna talk to your mom for a second. When we come back, I want to look at your pictures, okay?”
“Okay,” Mikey said without looking up. He started coloring even harder.
“What are you doing?” Tammy demanded as Clarence all but dragged her through the dividing door. “Clarence?”
He didn’t even try to answer her, not in words. Instead, he kissed her—hard. Not the tentative asking of permission that’d happened yesterday.
Today, he kissed her like a man kissed the woman he wanted. Because he wanted her and he’d be damned if he let her talk herself out of it.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pushed her up to his mouth. He swept his tongue into her mouth and tasted the salty sweetness of Tammy.
There was a painful moment where she didn’t kiss him back and he was sure that she’d already made up her mind and he was just making it worse.
But suddenly her arms were around his neck and she sighed into his mouth and the kiss became something deeper, something more.
He could kiss her all damn day, but they didn’t have that much time. He had to make every single second count.
“Oh,” Tammy said when the kiss ended. Her eyes were closed and her brow was creased, although he couldn’t tell if it was in disgust or happiness or what. She looked like she was deep in thought.
“Just because you can’t see how this is going to work doesn’t mean it won’t,” he told her. He kissed her forehead, right on the crease. “You have to put the boy first, I get that. But let me put you first, Tammy. Let me at least try. Because I like you and I think you have a lot to offer me and I hope I have something to offer you. Something more than coffee,” he added.
She sort of sagged in his arms. “You do, Clarence. You do. But I don’t want to be played for the fool again. I’ve had quite enough of that in my life.”
He gaped at her. “You think I’d—what, that I’d use you?”
She opened her eyes and he saw a world of pain before him. No wonder her sister referred to Mikey’s father as ‘that dickbag.’
“I wouldn’t do that, Tammy. That’s not what I’m here for. I want . . .” He leaned down and put his mouth against her ear. “I want something more than that. I want you. All of you.”
She gasped and jolted in his arms, pressing every part of her against a few really important parts of him. Inwardly, he groaned in pain. Then she said, “But Mikey . . .”
“Bring him,” Clarence said, even though that wasn’t his first choice—especially not if Tammy didn’t want him to spoil the boy. “Come have dinner with me on Saturday, you and Mikey.”
She opened her mouth like she was maybe going to say no but then paused and nodded her head. “I don’t want to bring him. I don’t want him to get attached if . . .”
If this didn’t work.
Clarence kissed her again, trying his damnedest to push that thought right out of her mind. He’d barely gotten started. He wasn’t going to think about the end just yet. “Then just you. Let me take care of you, Tammy. Let me make you dinner.”
“I can’t,” she said and at least she sounded truly sorry about it. “Mom works the night shift and I don’t think Tara will watch him. She doesn’t like this.”
“I’m not going to let Tara dictate us,” he said with more force than he meant, but it was true. “This isn’t about her. This is about you and me. If you can’t do dinner, what about lunch?”
“Mom would watch him, as long as I was back before she had to go to work.” She took a deep breath. “All right. Lunch.” Then she cracked open one eye. “Can you cook?”
“I get by.” A five-course meal wasn’t going to happen but food that tasted good—plus maybe a bottle of wine? Yeah, he could pull that off. “Eleven-thirty?”
“Okay, eleven-thirty. It’s a date.”
A date. He hadn’t had a date in a hell of a long time. It was almost as if he was twenty again, young and stupid on shore leave for the first time in months.
He opened his mouth to say something—what, he didn’t know. Did men thank women for agreeing to a date these days or what?—when Mikey called out, “Mr. Carwence? Wanna see my pictures?”
Tammy raised an eyebrow at him in what looked a hell of a lot like a challenge. “Coming,” Clarence called out. Then he gave Tammy a quick kiss before he went to get the coffee.
Saturday seemed like both a long way off—and not nearly enough time to get ready.
Chapter Five
Tammy paused long enough to take a deep breath, because she wasn’t sure she was going to continue breathing on a regular schedule.
She was really doing this. Well, this was just lunch with a work friend. A work friend she’d kissed a couple of times, but still. It’s not like she was running off to Vegas with Clarence or anything. Just having lunch.
Alone. With a man who’d held her in his arms and whispered in her ear that he wanted her. A man who had made her coffee every single day since
. A man who treated her son well and told her he wanted to take care of her like it was a point of personal pride.
It’d be so easy to just let Clarence take care of her. It’d be a relief, honestly, after three plus years of trying and trying and trying so hard to make things work.
But it wasn’t just her. She had to keep Mikey in mind. Clarence was being thoughtful and attentive to both of them, but she didn’t want Mikey to get attached if this wasn’t going anywhere.
She didn’t want to get attached if this wasn’t going anywhere. She didn’t want to fall for sweet words and empty promises again.
This was just lunch.
If she kept repeating it, it was bound to be true, right?
Clarence opened the front door before she got halfway up the walk. “Hiya,” he said as he came to greet her.
She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t seen Clarence in scrubs but today he was in a gray t-shirt that fit him well and a pair of blue jeans. His close-cropped hair was neat and he just looked good.
Yeah, this wasn’t just lunch and they both knew it.
“Hiya,” she tried to say, but it came out as a whisper. She tried to clear her throat, but there was this lump stuck about halfway down that was making talking almost impossible.
“It’s good to see you in the daytime,” he said as he slipped an arm around her waist and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’m glad you came.”
She felt self-conscious standing here in broad daylight with Clarence’s arm around her. What did it matter if someone saw them? Her mom and her sister already knew—or thought they knew—what was going on. Her mom was actually kind of on board with it, too.
“He’s a good one,” Mom had said when Tammy had managed to tell her why she wanted Mom to hang out with Mikey. “And good ones are hard to come by.”
“I don’t know that this will go anywhere,” Tammy had replied, feeling her face grow hot. “This is just lunch.”
Her mom—a woman who had raised two daughters by herself and was now helping to raise two grandchildren—a woman who had a firm grasp on exactly how hard ‘good ones’ were to come by—had merely smiled. “Well, you have fun, honey,” she’d said. “Don’t you worry about me and Mikey. We’ll have a good time.”
So Tammy tried not to worry. She leaned her head against Clarence’s shoulder and said, “I’m glad I came, too.”
“Lunch is almost ready,” he said, guiding her toward his house. “Hope you like burgers and fries?”
“That’s fine.” She smiled to herself, a feeling of warm satisfaction. It wasn’t that the meal was fancy—but he’d made it for her.
She wasn’t sure what kind of place she expected Clarence to live in. After all, she lived in a pre-fab house that dated back to the 1980s. Most everyone she knew either lived in the same kind of house or in a trailer that was even older.
At first glance, Clarence lived in the same house she did. But upon closer inspection, she noticed important differences. For one, he had an actual lawn—neatly mowed and green, which meant he was watering it. His house was a bright blue color and had shutters—bright white and hanging straight—on the windows. Along the foundation were clumps of black-eyed Susans and coneflowers in full yellow and purple bloom.
Tammy searched her memory, but couldn’t find any recollection of painting her house. Once, she’d tried to plant some flowers around the steps, but they’d died.
“Your place is pretty,” she said, not sure if that was the right thing or not.
“Thanks.” She looked up at him—was he blushing? Maybe ‘pretty’ had been the wrong word. “It’s all those years in the Navy. A place for everything and everything in its place.” He opened the door for her.
When was the last time someone had held a door for her? “How long were you in the Navy?” she asked as she walked past him.
“Joined when I was eighteen. They put me through nursing school—there was no way I could have afforded the schooling on my own.”
She sighed. “I know. I’m still in debt from when I attempted college.” As she talked, she looked around. The inside was what one might call sparse—he had a blue couch and a matching recliner, but he didn’t even have a coffee table. Instead, he had a flat-screen TV on a stand that lined up perfectly with the recliner. She could tell from the way the recliner sagged and the couch didn’t that he always sat in the chair. The other thing that was surprising was that the entire wall between the front door and the hallway that lead back to the bedrooms was lined with bookcases—huge bookcases that loomed a solid foot over her head and were neatly lined with all kinds of books. She hadn’t seen so many books in one place since she went to the library at school.
She had never actually seen a flat-screen TV in person before, just on the commercials. They had a regular old tube TV that got most of the channels but lines drifted up the screen on three of the channels. When it went, she didn’t know if they’d be able to get another one.
Clarence grinned down at her. “Come on.” He led her through the dining room, which opened into the kitchen. The walls were a bright white without a scuff or crayon mark in sight and the table was nearly completely empty. At home, she didn’t have a flat surface that didn’t attract piles of papers or toys or whatever, but the only thing on Clarence’s table was salt and pepper shakers.
It wasn’t that she didn’t try to keep a neat house, but with three adults and two kids—Mikey and Tara’s daughter Nelly—living in the same small house, keeping things this clean was nearly impossible. She was doing good most days if Mikey didn’t add another permanent stain to the carpeting.
“Are you okay?” Clarence asked as he guided her through the kitchen, which was much cleaner than her own, and out the back door onto a tidy little patio, complete with a bistro table set for two with an honest-to-God rose in a little vase.
Tammy pulled up. Where had he gotten a rose?
“This is lovely,” she said looking at the spread of food all arranged on platters on the table. Fries and burgers, with corn on the cob and grilled peppers. “This is . . .” she almost said ‘too nice for me,’ but she managed to keep that part in her mouth. “Lovely,” she managed to finish.
“What would you like to drink? I have some beer, some wine, and lemonade.”
“Lemonade.” Hadn’t that been part of the problem the first time? She and Ezra would go out and get buzzed and wind up in the backseat of his car, too drunk to make sure that the condom was on right. “If you don’t mind.”
“Nope.” Clarence disappeared back into the house, giving her a moment to study her surroundings. His house backed up to a little culvert that was overgrown with scrub trees and the neighboring houses were set off to the side, so she couldn’t see into anyone else’s windows. It was almost like there wasn’t anyone else in the world, just the two of them.
Clarence came back out with two glasses of lemonade and set them down on the table. Then he pulled his chair around so that he was sitting next to her. “Your mom is staying with Mikey?”
“Yes.” She didn’t know if she wanted to mention that Mom thought Clarence was a ‘good one.’ “Tara made herself scarce, so it really wasn’t too much of a problem.”
“That’s good. He’s a good kid,” Clarence said as they ate.
This was fine. Normal. Just making small talk, getting to know each other. She was not nervous discussing what was the biggest mistake and also the biggest blessing of her life with Clarence. Not at all. “Thanks. He’ll be four in a couple of months.” She sighed. “When he was born, my mom told me that the days were long but the years were short and it’s the truth. I can’t believe that it’s been almost four years, but just getting through the day sometimes . . .” She took a long drink, trying to compose her thoughts so that she sounded like a rational woman, instead of one on the verge of dissolving into grateful tears. “I can’t thank you enough for being so nice to him. You’re probably his favorite person in the whole world right now. He doesn’t usually
get toys unless it’s his birthday or Christmas.”
“I wasn’t trying to make things harder on you,” Clarence admitted, not looking at her. “I was just trying to keep him occupied for a few minutes.”
A few minutes where he could talk to her. Kiss her.
They ate in silence. The day was warm without being hot as puffy clouds danced over the blue sky. Little by little, Tammy began to relax. Just lunch. Just two friends. This was not a big deal. It was just Clarence.
Except it wasn’t and she knew it. They both did.
“So,” she said, not wanting to break the comfortable silence but wanting to anyway, “you joined the Navy when you were eighteen?”
“Yup. Graduated high school, shipped out two weeks later. I wanted off this rez so bad,” he said, his voice getting distant. “Funny how I wound up back here.”
She knew the feeling—wanting off and yet not quite being able to go. “Why?”
“I missed the place,” he said, leaning back in his chair. She did the same, casually resting her hand on her armrest.
It didn’t stay there for long. Clarence reached over and rested his hand on top of hers. His hand was so much larger than hers was—well, that wasn’t surprising. The man was huge. But what was surprising was the little thrill his touch sent through her body, like a long-forgotten first blush.
“After I got my nursing degree, I spent the better part of ten years on aircraft carriers,” he went on, his thumb stroking over her knuckles. “Living packed into tight quarters with all kinds of people, surrounded by water and sky. The sky was the same, but nothing else was. I could have re-upped for another tour, but I wanted to come home.” He turned to her and grinned. “I saw the world, but I missed home. Never thought I would, but I did.”
She’d never even gotten off the rez, except to go grocery shopping. Seeing Rapid City wasn’t really the same thing as seeing the whole world. “And you’ve been working at the Clinic since then?”
“Yup.” He sighed, looking around his place. “This was the house I grew up in. My mom died while I was at sea. I came home, fixed it up, started working at the Clinic. It’s not exactly exciting, but it’s not bad.”
ClarenceBN Page 4
