He tried to remember what she’d just said—oh yes, the roast. “It’s fine.”
She nodded, looking back down at her salad. “I did some background work for my article this afternoon. I ran some errands and ended up at Betty’s. You…you might have been right there. I’m still writing the story,” she said, and he noticed how her cheeks flushed. “It’s my job. But I don’t want you to think I set out to make a spectacle of her. I know she’s a nice woman. It might be my job but it doesn’t mean I can’t help too.”
“Fair enough.”
“Really?” Her head lifted, and he saw the surprise in her eyes. He knew he’d been heavy handed with her this morning. And it had been more about himself than Betty. Once more he fought off the guilt at not telling her everything. And he called her selfish. But Ella didn’t know about his personal issues with the healthcare system. She didn’t know how all the money he’d saved for them to get their start had gone to hospital bills.
Perhaps the more important truth was that she hadn’t cared enough to find out, had she? Perhaps he should remember that each time he was tempted to take her in his arms, or when he felt himself softening towards her. She’d left and never looked back. The only time she’d made contact was when she sent the divorce papers.
Still, her voice held a trace of contrition and he almost believed her when she said she wanted to help.
“Really, Ella. I might think a lot of things, but I don’t think you’d deliberately exploit Betty Tucker for your own gains. At least not completely.”
“Thank you. I think.” She smiled and put the salad on the table. “I did want to ask you though…she mentioned you’ve been helping out a lot. Why is that?”
Her voice was smooth, the very pointed question ensconced in velvet. And the answer was one of those truths he wasn’t willing to share with her yet.
“Is it wrong to give a neighbor a hand? I haven’t done much.”
“You helped organize the benefit, took her groceries and put her on to a lawyer. That’s what I’d call much.”
“I knew Mark from before. He…” Devin paused, needing to be partially truthful even as he covered up more of the story. “He handled some of the farm stuff with Mom and Dad.”
Farm stuff. More like them selling off the farm for the cash Devin had needed. Paying them back had been first on his agenda.
“Still, it’s what you’d expect a family member to do, you know?”
He reached over and picked a cucumber out of the salad while his heart beat a hundred times a minute. “Betty doesn’t have any kids to help.” He forced a smile. “When did you say we were going to eat?”
She looked away and he exhaled, hoping that was the end of the interrogation.
“It’s almost ready. I bought some merlot…but maybe you’d rather have beer.”
He almost laughed, part out of relief, part disbelief. She really didn’t have any idea, did she? There was no way Ella was that good of an actress. She truly thought this was his life. Just this. She saw him as Devin McQuade, lowbrow redneck. For a flashing moment he considered telling her about all the changes in his life, about DMQ and his condo and the new development on the west side of Durango. But then…no. If she decided to stay it had to be for the right reasons. Not because he’d suddenly become someone different on the outside.
“Wine’s fine. I don’t think we need a repeat of last night, do you?”
“No,” she murmured.
But Devin couldn’t stop thinking about it. Much still stood between them, but he couldn’t erase the memory of how she’d felt in his arms again. How her lips had teased and beguiled, how her fingernails had trailed down his flesh. They weren’t kids anymore. They’d grown up a lot since eighteen. Foolish as he knew it was, he wanted to claim his wife. He wanted to believe in her again. But if she came to him now, it wasn’t going to be because she’d had too much to drink. He wanted her clear-headed and saying his name in the darkness. He wanted it so that he was the only thing she saw, felt, tasted. He wanted all of that first, before showing her how his world had changed.
She finished putting the meal on the table, while the newfound amicability pushed against its constraints. He didn’t want to be polite. He didn’t want to dance around facts anymore. He watched her hands as they poured wine into a glass and handed it to him.
Her eyes twinkled at him as she lifted her glass. “I think toasting is probably a bad idea at this point.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He took one step closer so that he could almost feel her body against his. “How about, for old times’ sake?”
Her smile faltered. “For old times’ sake?”
“There you go.” He grinned and tapped the rim of her glass with his. Drank deeply, letting the flavor envelop his tongue. The taste reminded him of her. Soft, full, seductive, yet in an un-ostentatious sort of way. Her hand trembled a little as she lifted her goblet. Good. A tiny drop of the ruby-red liquid stained the top of her lip. Before she could take a breath, he moved in, dipped his head and drew it away from her mouth with his tongue.
She stepped back like she was on fire. “What are you doing?”
“You had some on your lip.”
“Then give me a napkin!”
He laughed then and saw her lips thin as she got angry. Lord, he loved her angry. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes snapped, ready to take him on. Oh, he hoped so. He really, really did. He was dying to remind her of what she had discarded.
“As you can see, I don’t have any.”
She pushed him aside, going to her seat instead and sitting. Her eyes flashed with irritation. “I don’t know why I tried to do something nice for you,” she railed. “I thought we could have a nice civilized dinner.”
“It’s because you love me.” He smiled blithely and took another drink of wine.
She nearly choked on her first bite of potato.
“I’m here for a divorce, remember?”
“Yes. How could I forget when you remind me every two minutes?” Devin sat and picked up his knife and fork. He cut his slice of beef and speared it, examined it, then looked up at her. “But they are two very different things.”
“What are?
He swallowed. “Love and our divorce.
“Are you saying you still love me, Dev? Because that’s pretty impossible. You told me exactly what you thought of me this morning.”
“You were quite right when you said I was angry. I was. I am. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop being angry about it, to be honest.”
It was work to continue eating, but that was exactly what Devin did.
“But do you still love me?”
Ella put her free hand between her knees and squeezed, suddenly nervous at how he’d answer. She hadn’t planned on asking either. But nothing about this trip had gone as planned. She certainly hadn’t planned on feeling like she did. She’d been back for a few hours and she’d been immediately sucked into the past. She didn’t want him to love her. She didn’t. And yet she knew if he said no, she’d be crushed. How irrational was that?
“Let’s just say I never stopped loving the girl I married.” His voice was low, tainted by what she would have sworn sounded like sadness. “But whether or not you’re her, I don’t know.”
She knew without saying a word that this was what he’d meant this morning. And in some ways he was right. Silence enveloped them and they went through the motions of eating, but her heart wasn’t in it. She’d made promises. Maybe she shouldn’t have, but she had. And not for the first time, she felt the smallest bit guilty for leaving him the way she had. She’d been a coward. She’d been so afraid.
Dev crossed his knife and fork on his plate and sat back, swirling the wine in his glass. “That was great, Ell. Really good.”
“Thank you.”
Silence settled around them, awkward and seductive.
“Why did you really come here?” His gaze pinned her from across the table, and she looked down at her lap.
“Bec
ause you never signed the ones I sent you.”
“So you really came here for a divorce.”
“Yes.”
“After all this time.”
She lifted her head, squared her shoulders. “Asked and answered.”
Silence fell for a few moments.
“Why didn’t you sign them?”
Her whispered words echoed through the kitchen. Dev looked away for a few minutes. When he looked back, her heart nearly broke from the tortured expression twisting his face. She knew she was to blame for it, no matter how he answered, and she felt guilt spiral through her, knowing she’d caused him so much pain. That she’d been capable of it. No one had ever loved her like that. Hated her like that.
“You wrote me a letter, Ell. I got a piece of paper in the mail that said you thought we’d made a mistake and you weren’t coming back. You’d realized you wanted more and that we should have known better. That we were just kids. But I wasn’t a kid. I loved you like a man. And I hated you with a man’s hate for a long time because you were a coward.” He ran a hand through his hair, closing his eyes. “Every time you sent papers through your lawyers, it made me more and more angry. I wouldn’t sign them because I wanted you to have the courage to come and end it to my face.”
Tears quivered on her lower lashes and she refused to blink, knowing it would send them down her cheeks, and she didn’t want to cry in front of him. She was ashamed. Hearing him echo her earlier thoughts only made the cut deeper.
“I’m here now. You’ve got what you wanted.” Her voice was rough, her throat clogged. “So why haven’t you signed them? Are you just trying to punish me?”
“Maybe.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m just angry enough that I demanded you live through forty-eight more hours of my company before you go away. Maybe I needed to see for myself how hard you’ve become, thinking that would make it easier to finally let you go. The city changed you. Maybe some of the Ella I knew is still in there. I don’t know.” His gaze delved into hers, and she was gutted to see pain there hiding in the blue depths. “I waited twelve years for you to come. For you to have the guts to do what you didn’t the first time. To look me in the eyes and say goodbye rather than using a piece of paper and a postage stamp.”
She didn’t blink, but the tears rolled over her lids anyway. It did feel so very final. And more painful than she’d anticipated. And at last the question she’d always had surfaced.
“Why didn’t you come after me?”
He looked away, swallowed heavily. “I kept hoping you’d come back, realizing you’d made a mistake.”
She shook her head, sniffled. “You mean you were too proud.”
Something dark glittered behind his eyes, something she hadn’t seen ever before. Dev was hiding something. She couldn’t say why or how she knew. Maybe it was reporter’s instinct. But he was definitely holding back. Was he afraid of showing her his feelings? Was that it? Would his pride not let him reveal how she’d broken his heart?
“Maybe I was,” he agreed, but it didn’t quite ring of the truth.
“And then too much time had passed…” she prompted.
His jaw clenched, a muscle ticking there. “Yes. Time. And now you’re going back tomorrow.”
“I have to,” she acknowledged, and was surprised at the wistful note in her voice. Was it regret? No, she couldn’t possibly want to stay longer, to prolong the ending. It was already proving to be harder than she expected to say goodbye.
She had her home and life back in Denver to look forward to. She had theater tickets for Thursday. She was covering the Victorian Ball next month. She had her apartment downtown and lunches with her friends to look forward to. She had to remember all those things, remember what she’d built for herself. The life she truly wanted. In time Dev would see it too.
“Then I guess tonight is it, isn’t it.”
Was that invitation she heard in his voice?
“It for what?” The question came out on a breath and seemed to hover between them.
Dev scraped back his chair and got up, the sound deafening in the tight quiet around them. He walked over to her chair, took her hand and gently tugged her to standing.
His hands cradled her face, his thumbs rubbed against her cheekbones, wiping away the remnants of moisture from her tears. She was helpless to push him away, prisoner to the tenderness in his touch, so at odds with the anger she’d witnessed only moments before. The gentle gesture made her want to cry all over again, made her want to weep for the memories of how completely they’d loved each other once upon a time.
“The last night I get to do this,” he murmured, just before he dipped his head and consumed her with a kiss.
His lips were warm and supple and tasted of the merlot. Ella’s eyes drifted closed as she let herself feel his kiss. His hands rested on the tops of her arms, holding her firmly while his tongue plundered her mouth. Sweet, and sad, and oh so final.
She felt a moan rise in her throat and let it escape. The sound echoed through the silent kitchen, adding fuel to the fire.
His lips broke away from hers and he reached behind her head, undoing the clip that anchored her hair, sending it tumbling over her shoulders and down her back. His blue eyes burned into hers, sending jolts of memory straight to her core. Remember? they said. Yes, I remember, hers answered back. She did remember. How this was only the beginning. How he could consume all of her with the slightest touch. And she wanted him to do it again. One last time.
She worried her lip with her teeth and his grin was lightning fast, sexy, teasing. “You’re thinking, Ell.”
Her breath came in shallow pants as his laughing mouth touched the side of her neck, suckled on her earlobe. “Don’t think. For the love of God, don’t think.”
“Occupational hazard,” she responded, her lashes fluttering. His tongue swirled around her earlobe and that one simple action nearly had her writhing in his hands. My God. The man could patent his tongue as a sex toy. Every nerve ending in her body was standing on edge, and they were both still fully clothed.
“What do you want?” His breath was hot in her ear and she shivered.
What did she want? Him, most certainly. And with his mouth doing naughty things to her neck and his hands sliding over her bottom, she couldn’t think any deeper than that. She wanted him. Inside her. Right now. So badly she could almost feel it by memory alone.
“One for old times’ sake?” she breathed, dropped her head back while his strong hand supported her neck.
“Oh, I like the sound of that, Ella McQuade,” he agreed, his voice devilishly rich.
His tongue teased the hollow of her throat and she couldn’t even bring herself to correct him.
He nibbled on her collarbone and her knees wobbled.
“Dev?” It came out as a breathless gasp and she didn’t care. “I’m not going to be able to stand much more of this.”
Slowly, painfully slowly, he slid his tongue up the column of her neck and along the underside of her lip while she went into complete and utter meltdown.
His mouth left her skin, the trails where it had been suddenly cool in the air. Her tongue darted out and wet her lips. Devin reached down to the table and retrieved her wine glass, handing it to her before reaching for his own.
She drank, the dark seduction of the red wine flavoring her tongue. He drank from his glass as well, his gaze steady on hers while the world seemed to hum around them.
“Are you trying to get me drunk again, McQuade?”
A slow smile crept up his cheek. “Not a chance, McQuade. I want you fully aware of what we’re doing.”
Her grin faltered as her stomach did somersaults of anticipation, knowing exactly what was in store. It had been so long since he’d last touched her, but with him only inches from her body it seemed like yesterday. She knew in her head that they had been different people then, but it ceased to matter now. Their hearts were the same. Their chemistry was the same—incendiary. And
if she were going to walk away tomorrow, then tonight she was going to give herself one hell of a memory to take with her.
With trembling fingers, she put her glass back on the table and reached for the buttons of his shirt.
One by one she slipped them from their holes until his shirt gaped open, revealing again the chest she’d touched last night, the one she’d wanted to taste this afternoon. She didn’t hesitate this time. Her hands slid the shirt out of the way and she touched her lips to the warm, firm skin beneath it, feeling it rise and fall heavily as his breathing grew ragged. She kissed her way down his sternum and then over, running her tongue over a hardened nipple.
“Ell,” he murmured roughly.
She ran her fingers down a cotton-clad arm until she got to the wrist and released the button there before moving to the opposite wrist and doing the same. She slid her hands up over his chest and over his shoulders, pushing the shirt off and down his arms. He stood painfully still, frozen in the moment, waiting while she took her time reacquainting herself with his hard, muscled body. She traced her fingertips down the long length of one arm, across the waistband of his jeans, smiling a little as he instinctively sucked in his belly at her touch. Her fingers trailed over to the other arm. Down the middle of his chest, until she finally looked up and saw his eyes were closed, his jaw quivering, and he swallowed thickly.
The little dent in her heart, the one put there when she’d left him, got a little bit bigger. He was holding himself back, letting her take her time. Tears pricked the backs of her lids. He had always been an unselfish lover. She willed the stinging away. It would be so easy to love him again. But loving him and living with him were different. She was smart enough to know that. Too much time had passed for them to pretend they could go back. So she’d love him for this one night. One last time. Tonight she wouldn’t be the coward he accused her of being. Tonight she’d give of herself. And when they said goodbye—as they must—it would be without their last memory being one of bitterness.
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