She already was uncomfortable with the speed with which these two men had taken her from the purely physical to so very much more. “One day at a time, you said. And this one is going to start with my having a shower, alone.” She would cling to that. She’d buy herself a tiny bit of space, and she’d shore up her defenses as best she could.
If she wanted to keep her dignity intact and her vulnerability protected, she really had no choice in the matter.
“Okay.” Morgan kissed her lightly then bounded out of bed. He made a very quick trip to the bathroom—likely to dispose of the condom—and then waltzed back into the bedroom, completely naked and easy with it.
Tamara knew it was very silly to hold the sheet up over her body. He’d seen, touched, and kissed every inch of her. None of that mattered. She clutched the exquisite cotton close. Desperate times really did call for desperate measures.
She watched him stroll naked over to one of the dressers. He grabbed a pair of boxers and a T-shirt out of a drawer then scooped his jeans off the floor. With clothing in hand he headed toward the stairs. She almost sighed with relief when he reached the doorframe. Then he turned around and gave her a very cheeky grin.
“But I should point out that your day already has begun and, baby, you definitely weren’t alone when it happened.” He winked then headed toward the stairs.
Tamara flopped back down on the pillow and wondered which urge warring within her would win—the one to scream, or the one to laugh.
Chapter 11
“Hey, don’t apologize, Jordan. There’s nothing you can do about it. We’ll just work harder tomorrow.”
Morgan closed his cell phone then turned when he heard the sound of Tamara’s step on the stairs. He waited until she appeared in the door of the kitchen before saying, “That was Jordan. The material he ordered isn’t going to make it in until late afternoon.”
“Well, hell,” Henry said as he reached into the oven and began to pull out plates of food. “I wonder what we’ll do to fill our day now?”
Since he slid a grin to their woman when he said that, Tamara smiled. “Maybe you can refine your business plan and draw up a prospectus.”
“Now that sounds totally boring.” Henry set two of the plates on the breakfast table. Tamara seemed to notice the food for the first time.
“You didn’t have to wait for me.”
“Don’t be silly, Red. Of course we did. Come and eat.”
The first few moments were filled with distributing the food and pouring coffee.
“Actually,” Henry said, “we probably should spend some time on our business plan. But to be honest with you, Morgan and I are both hands-on. We figured once we got going, we’d have to hire someone to do the paperwork and fly the desk, so to speak.”
Tamara grinned. “I hear you. Actually, that’s where I’m lucky. My business partner loves the paperwork, and flying a desk comes very naturally to him.”
“You went to live with your great-uncle when you were still a kid?” Morgan wanted to draw Tamara out. She’d hit the nail on the head earlier when she’d said they didn’t know her. At least as far as the details of her life were concerned.
He could have argued that he and Henry did know her, deep inside and in a way that was damn near spiritual. However, he sensed she wasn’t ready to hear anything quite that deep yet.
“Yes. My parents were still playing ‘pass the kid,’ I had just turned sixteen, and I’d had enough. I’d met Uncle Goodwin—my mother’s uncle—a couple of years before when he’d come to visit.”
“So you hadn’t known him long?” Henry asked.
“No, but that was totally not his fault. Mom kept moving us, wherever she thought the fishing might be better. She never stayed with anything, a job or a man, for long. Usually she’d move us after a relationship ended. Uncle Goodwin had been looking for us for quite a while.”
“So you banked on him taking you in?” Morgan asked.
“Yeah. Dad’s most recent girlfriend considered me competition—I mean, she was only about four years older than me at the time—so Dad said I had to go back and live with Mom.”
“And instead you knocked on your uncle’s door.” Henry grinned at her.
Tamara’s smile turned soft. “He opened the door, saw my suitcase, and said, ‘It’s about damn time.’” She grinned. “So right then and there I moved in. About a month later we moved from the double-wide trailer he was in to a small hobby farm that had been for sale. It had a solid, brick house with a yard, room for a garden, and a small barn he said was good for tinkering in.”
“He moved you from what many might consider a temporary home, to a permanent one,” Morgan said.
Tamara blinked. “Huh. I never looked at it that way before. But I think you’re right. That’s exactly what he did.”
“We’d like to meet him some time,” Henry said. “He sounds like a man worth knowing.”
“He is. He’s getting older.” Tamara blinked, and Morgan wondered if she realized how much of herself she revealed in her tone and expressions. “One of his best friends passed away last year, and another one moved to Florida to be closer to his family. He’d been pretty down until he hit on this idea of starting a crop-dusting service.”
“He must have gotten the idea from his friend who sold him the Piper,” Henry said.
Tamara shrugged. “To be honest with you, I’m not sure where the idea came from. But you’d have to know my uncle to understand that. No one can come up with more ideas on how to make a buck than Goodwin
