Wild in the Moonlight

it was totally clear cut that they belonged with their mom. It’s not that I didn’t want to be an active dad. I’ve always wanted that, always tried to be. I just traveled so much. Over the years, I always talked to them twice a week. We spend time together every holiday and school break. And I usually hang there at least a month every year to just be around them, part of their routine. Only lately…”

“Lately what?”

“Well, lately, they’re fighting all the time with their mom. Most of it seems to be pretty standard teenage girl, mother stuff. Rules. Roles. But sometimes she’s had it, and then I think…”

“You think what?”

“That if I lived in a more settled way, I could have them with me for a while. Most parents don’t seem to like the teenage years, but for some strange reason, it doesn’t bother me that they’re being difficult and impossible. If anything, I feel like now I could be a better parent to them.” Okay. He’d stripped naked some of his heart to tell her that. And left him hanging besides, so it was her turn now, he figured. “What about your ex?”

Her hand dropped away from his. She lay back, facing the stars. “Well…his name is Ed. Simpson, I always called him. Back in college, I took one look and just knew he was my first and only true love. He was a warm, family kind of guy, good sense of humor. Fun. I quit my last year of school to help him finish faster-he got his social work degree. He was always one to reach out to help someone else.”

“Sounds like a saint,” Cam said, and was briefly tempted to spit and paw the earth-but naturally he was too mature.

“Not exactly,” she said wryly. “He’s married to someone else now. In fact, they had their first child five months after the wedding. And he called me this morning to tell me about their newborn son.”

“I don’t understand why he’d call you.” It wasn’t hard for Cam to deduce that the creep had cheated on her, judging from the age of the first kid.

“Who would? I wouldn’t take him back for a fortune, am over him in every way a woman can get over a man. For some reason he seems to still think I’m his friend. That we’re still good friends.”

“So, are you?”

“No.”

“Then why on earth do you let him keep calling?”

“Because.” She lifted a hand to the moonlight. “Oh, cripes, I don’t know why. In the beginning, I acted friendly out of pride because I never wanted to let on how much he’d hurt me. And then I just didn’t seem to know how to cut him off. I know they’ve really been struggling to afford their growing family.”

“Struggling? I thought your ex was wealthy.”

She frowned. “Why’d you think that?”

“Because…I thought you said or implied you’d gotten a pretty good settlement from the divorce. When you were talking about how you could afford to put up the greenhouses, not have to care if you lost money on the lavender, all that.”

“Oh. Well, I did get a good lump of money from the divorce-but not because Simpson gave me anything for free. We had a house together. He wanted to stay in the house to raise his kids, and I didn’t need or want to stay there, so he owed me my share. Actually, I’d earned more than him back then. But the point was-”

It wasn’t that hard to finish her sentence that time. “You wanted to spend any money you got from the marriage. It felt like ugly money somehow. As if it could sabotage your luck if you used it in a relationship with someone else.”

“Yeah. And I know that thinking was superstitious.”

“It is. But I remember feeling that way after my divorce, too. Then it wasn’t about money. I gave her all the money I could, wanted her to have it. She had the girls. But the ‘stuff’-furniture, paintings, the things we’d split up that were part of the marriage-at the time, it didn’t matter how valuable they were or how much I liked them or even needed them. I wanted all ties severed.”

“So you understand. Why’d you get divorced, Cam?”

“I told you. Because I couldn’t settle in one place. I was too restless. Not responsible enough. Not mature enough to make any kind of husband, either,” he said honestly. “And you?”

Her bare big toe had sneaked over and found his bare big toe. Now they were playing footsie, he realized. Both of them, like kids who couldn’t stop touching each other. No matter what they were sure of and what they weren’t.

There had to be something narcotic in the Vermont air. Something dangerous.

Maybe it was even in her big toe.

“Me, what?” She seemed to be referring to some question he’d asked, as if she’d lost track of the conversation.

Hell, so had he. “Why’d you get divorced? Because he cheated? Because you fell out of love? What?”

She didn’t answer for a long time, and then finally she made a sound-like a wry little chuckle, only not so much humor in it. “We have a problem, Lachlan.”

“What’s that?”

“The problem is that I want to answer your question. I have this horrible feeling that you could turn out to be someone I could seriously trust. How weird is that?”

“Weird? You’re not used to trusting people?”

She propped up on an elbow then. Moonlight draped the round of her shoulder, the edge of one plump, firm breast, the sweet soft curve of her hip and high. “Don’t waste your time sounding surprised, Cam. You’re no more used to trusting people than I am. You’re a loner. Just like me.”

He didn’t know what to say, except that she didn’t strike him as a natural loner in any conceivable way. She was an earth mother, a giving lover, a warm, nurturing woman right down to her toes. He said honestly, “I can well understand your needing time to get over a hurtful relationship, but in the long run it’s impossible to imagine you living alone. Or not wanting to be in a marriage.”

“I won’t be climbing into another serious relationship,” she said firmly.

He didn’t believe her. But he said, “That’s a relief, because I don’t want to hurt you. And for darn sure, I won’t lie to you. You know my work here’s only temporary, that I’ll be leaving soon. That’s the way it has to be.”

Again she smiled, at a moment when no other woman would have smiled at him. “And I’ll be staying here. Because that’s the way it has to be-for me. So we’re both safe, right?”

“Safe?”

“Safe,” she repeated. “You don’t want to shake up my world. I don’t want to shake up yours.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“We do need to watch it, though,” she said carefully. “I’m totally for casual sex. Especially with a man who’s only going to be here for a short time, and who positively doesn’t want anything serious from me. But we’ll both get cranky if we start to seriously trust each other, so let’s try not to, okay?”

She got up then. He didn’t instantly understand that the conversation-and their lovemaking-was all done. In principle, they should have left an hour earlier at least. The night temperatures were dropping fast now, and the mosquitoes had come out to feast-still, he was shaking his head as he quickly gathered their gear together.

The woman he seemed to be falling for, very hard, very fast, very irresponsibly, was walking toward his car completely naked in the moonlight. She didn’t seem to find anything odd about that. She didn’t seem to find anything odd about wanting to sleep with a man who wouldn’t stick around for her, either.

But it bugged him.

It was never a good idea, to wake up the next morning without both people having agreed on what they needed from such an encounter. Only Violet’s version of clearing the air had sure muddied his. Maybe most men would be happy to hear she was up for a short, passionate affair.

Maybe, even as early as last week, he’d have been ecstatic to hear a woman talk that way.

Only hearing Vi talk about casual sex and not wanting to trust him made him feel as edgy as if he’d sat on a porcupine. She deserved more than that. She should be demanding more from a man than that.

And damn it. He wanted to be more than that to her. Realizing how hard his heart was suddenly pounding, Cameron took a long, low, calming breath.

It had to be the moonlight. He just wasn’t a man to think, or spell, a word as petrifying as commitment. Tomorrow-daylight-he’d get a grip on this whole thing. He just knew he would.