“No smoking, no fast food-so, I suppose you’re some kind of a health nut, too.”
“Too?”
“Mirabella.” She sat back with a resigned sigh. “She’s always getting after me about my eating habits.”
And that was something that just about boggled Troy’s mind. He kept trying to imagine those two headstrong, feisty women-the Mirabella he knew and the Charly he’d just met-being best friends. He decided such a volatile combination would have to be either highly entertaining or highly hazardous to a person’s health. Either that, or there were facets to both women he hadn’t discovered yet. The more he thought about it, the more he decided he’d like to. Especially after last night.
“Way I see it,” he drawled, “you only get one body. I try not to abuse mine, is all.”
He could feel her studying him again. It gave him a pleasurable little tingle to think she might be wondering about some of his undiscovered facets. He thought to himself, Darlin’, if you’ll show me yours, I’ll show you mine…
After a moment she said, “So, is it true? You’re a SEAL?”
“Used to be.” He glanced over at her, but she had turned her head and was staring out the window, gazing at the buildings they were just passing.
“Mourning Spring High School,” he said, reading the letters on the sign at the base of the flagpole as it flashed by. “That where you went to school?”
“For a while.” Her voice seemed faraway, and had that hollowness he’d heard before. “Never graduated.”
“Never graduated?” He frowned, thinking she probably hadn’t meant it just that way. “How come?”
“Moved.” Her voice had a new, bright edge, an artificial lightness. She turned her head toward him again, giving her hair a little flip that made him think of his own high-school days, of bands playing Queen’s “We Are the Champions” and cheerleaders flirting.
“Hey, I bet you were a jock-football player, right? Hell, I’ll bet you were the quarterback.”
“Shows how wrong you are.” Troy grinned, still riding on those memories, allowing himself to strut a little. “Wide receiver. All-conference, junior and senior year-voted best hands in the state.”
“That I can believe.”
He thought she probably hadn’t meant to say it like that, with her voice going husky and a catch in her breathing. But suddenly there was silence, except for Bubba’s panting, which sounded too much like heavy breathing and didn’t help matters. And if she hadn’t meant to say it like that, she sure knew right away that she had. She put her head back against the seat and whispered under her breath-most likely swear words, if he knew her. And he thought he was beginning to, a little.
At first he thought the best thing would be to ignore it. But the silence kept getting thicker and heavier, and his mind, looking for ways to fill the vacuum, kept wanting to give him reminders of the very things he was trying to forget. He found himself growing light-headed.
So he finally said, “Hey, look-it happened. It’s not like it’s gonna go away if we don’t talk about it.”
Her body jerked slightly, and she turned her head to give him an angry glare. “I hope you don’t think I do-”
He held up a hand and stopped her right there, then shook his head and growled, “I can’t believe you’d even say that.”
“Well, I wouldn’t blame you if you did think it,” she countered in an edgy voice. There was a pause, and then she gave a tight, high laugh. “I mean, God, I wish I could say it was because I’d had too much to drink. But I don’t think one light beer would do it, do you?”
“You had too much of somethin’,” Troy muttered, narrowing his eyes and staring straight ahead through the windshield. Like trouble, stress and heartache, maybe.
And the worst of it, as far as he was concerned, was that he still didn’t know why, or what in the hell it was all about. He wished to God he had it in him to just come right out and ask, but he kept telling himself it was her business, not his.
He let out a breath through his nose, calling on all his patience and self-control. “And I…took advantage of the situation. That’s not something I’m proud of. But on the other hand I don’t feel particularly inclined to apologize for it, either. Unless you feel like I ought to.” He looked over at her, issuing the challenge. “You want me to?”
“What?”
“Apologize.”
“No!” She threw him a furious look, then put her head back against the headrest and finished it on a soft exhalation. “Of course not. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t yours, either.”
“Okay,” she snarled, “so it wasn’t anybody’s fault It just happened.”
“Yeah, it did. And you want to tell me why we’re sitting here tryin’ to attach fault to something that felt so damn good?”
They were just coming into the town square, on a Saturday morning as bright and blue and sunshiny as an Alabama June day knows how to be. Out there in the park, people were going about their business, kids playing ball, old folks sitting in the sun. And inside the Cherokee where they were sitting the atmosphere was as charged and sultry as it had been in the night with the lightning flickering and the thunder growling and one hell of a storm coming on.
Some of the growling was coming from Troy’s stomach, and it wasn’t all from hunger-at least, not the bacon- an’-eggs kind. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Charly shake her head, then look down at her hands, which were all knotted up in her lap. But she couldn’t find anything more to say, and neither could he.
Troy found a shady parking place on the square across from Kelly’s and pulled into it. While he was rolling down windows and explaining the program to Bubba, and trying to get him to understand that all that howling and carrying on wasn’t going to change things one bit, Charly sat and stared through the windshield at the sign that said Kelly’s Kitchen.
She told herself she was behaving like a child. More accurately like the emotionally racked teenager she’d once been. It was time she remembered that that girl, Charlene Elizabeth, didn’t exist anymore. It was time she remembered who she was now-C. E. Phelps, Attorney-At-Law, according to the brass letters on the door of her plush-carpeted offices on the twentieth floor of a downtown L.A. high-rise. And time she started demonstrating some of the character that had gotten her to that place.
She knew that the first thing she was going to have to do was come to some kind of understanding with Troy. And that in order to do that, she was going to have to level with him-at least up to a point. She owed him that much. Okay. She knew it was the right thing to do, and she’d made up her mind to do it. She just hadn’t realized how hard it would be to work up the courage and self-control to make it possible.
By the time Troy had finished sweet-talking his dog and was giving her an “Are we getting out or what?” look, she was ready. Or thought she was.
“I…” It was a false start, but enough to stop him in the act of reaching for the door handle. She cleared her throat and tried again, in a voice still too raspy for the calm, in-control image she was trying for. “I’m the one who should apologize.”
He gave a faint “Here we go again” sigh. “What for?”
She could feel his eyes on her, but couldn’t bring herself to meet them. Instead she went on looking at the Kelly’s Kitchen sign. “Please understand-I’m not making excuses. I’m just trying to explain.”
“No need-”
“Yeah, there is. I shouldn’t…” She tried to take a deep breath and was surprised by the pain-physical pain, this time. She’d forgotten the seat-belt bruise. Because of it, her voice was an air-starved whisper. “I had some things…happen yesterday.”
“I kinda got that idea,” Troy said dryly.
She held up a hand. “But that’s no excuse. It’s my problem. I shouldn’t…have dragged you into it.”
He gave a soft huff of laughter. “I don’t recall doin’ any kickin’ and screamin’.” He paused, then added, “Well, maybe a
Ah, damn. She didn’t want to smile. She bowed her head and looked at her hands and tried her best to hide it, but his chuckle was like a sensual massage along her auditory nerves. And then she felt his hand on her shoulder, pushing upward to nudge under her hair and his fingers gently probing the tense places in her neck. Heat crept up into her throat and cheeks, and oozed down into her stomach and pooled in the sensitized places that still remembered that touch…
