She pounded the keys. Tchaikovsky. The first piano concerto. The first movement. Hers was a violently passionate interpretation of the romantic theme. She wanted the violence, wanted to let it pour out from inside her and into the music.
He’d had no right. No right to bring everything back. To force her to face feelings she’d wanted to forget. Feelings she’d forgotten. Worse, he’d shown her how much deeper, how much more raw and intense, those feelings could be now that she was a woman.
He meant nothing to her. Could be nothing more to her than an old acquaintance, a friend of her childhood. She would not be hurt by him again. And she would never—never—allow anyone to have the kind of power over her that Brady had once had.
The feelings would pass, because she would make them pass. If there was one thing she had learned through all these years of work and travel, it was that she and she alone was responsible for her emotions.
She stopped playing, letting her fingers rest on the keys. While she might not have been able to claim serenity, she was grateful that she had been able to exorcise most of the anger and frustration through her music.
“Vanessa?”
She turned her head to see her mother standing in the doorway. “I didn’t know you were home.”
“I came in while you were playing.” Loretta took a step forward. She was dressed as she had been that morning, in her sleek suit and pearls, but her face showed a hesitant concern. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” Vanessa lifted a hand to push back her hair. Looking at her mother, she felt flushed, untidy and vulnerable. Automatically, defensively, she straightened her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I guess I lost track of the time.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Loretta blocked off the urge to move closer and smooth her daughter’s hair herself. “Mrs. Driscoll stopped by the shop before I closed. She mentioned that she saw you going into Ham Tucker’s house.”
“She still has an eagle eye, I see.”
“And a big nose.” Loretta’s smile was hesitant. “You saw Ham, then.”
“Yes.” Vanessa turned on the stool, but didn’t rise. “He looks wonderful, almost unchanged. We had some pie and tea in the kitchen.”
“I’m glad you had a chance to visit with him. He’s always been so fond of you.”
“I know.” She took a bracing breath. “Why didn’t you tell me you were involved with him?”
Loretta lifted a hand to her pearls and twisted the strand nervously. “I suppose I wasn’t sure how to bring it up. To explain. I thought you might be…might feel awkward about seeing him again if you knew we were…” She let her words trail off, certain the word dating would be out of place at her age.
Vanessa merely lifted a brow. “Maybe you thought it was none of my business.”
“No.” Her hand fell to her side. “Oh, Van…”
“Well, it isn’t, after all.” Slowly, deliberately, Vanessa patched up the cracks in her shield. “You and my father had been divorced for years before he died. You’re certainly free to choose your own companions.”
The censure in her daughter’s voice had Loretta’s spine straightening. There were many things, many, that she regretted, that had caused her shame. Her relationship with Abraham Tucker wasn’t one of them.
“You’re absolutely right,” she said, her voice cool. “I’m not embarrassed, and I certainly don’t feel guilty, about seeing Ham. We’re adults, and both of us are free.” The tilt of her chin as she spoke was very like her daughter’s. “Perhaps I felt odd about what started between us, because of Emily. She had been my oldest and dearest friend. But Emily was gone, and both Ham and I were alone. And maybe the fact that we both had loved Emily had something to do with our growing closer. I’m very proud that he cares for me,” she said, color dotting her cheeks. “In the past few years, he’s given me something I’ve never had from another man. Understanding.”
She turned and hurried up the stairs. She was standing in front of her dresser, removing her jewelry, when Vanessa came in.
“I apologize if I seemed too critical.”
Loretta slapped the pearls down on the wood. “I don’t want you to apologize like some polite stranger, Vanessa. You’re my daughter. I’d rather you shouted at me. I’d rather you slammed doors or stormed into your room the way you used to.”
“I nearly did.” She walked farther into the room, running a hand over the back of a small, tufted chair. Even that was new, she thought—the little blue lady’s chair that so suited the woman who was her mother. Calmer now, and more than a little ashamed, she chose her next words carefully. “I don’t resent your relationship with Dr. Tucker. Really. It surprised me, certainly. And what I said before is true. It’s none of my business.”
“Van—”
“No, please.” Vanessa held up a hand. “When I first drove into town, I thought nothing had changed. But I was wrong. It’s difficult to accept that. It’s difficult to accept that you moved on so easily.”
“Moved on, yes,” Loretta said. “But not easily.”
Vanessa looked up, passion in her eyes. “Why did you let me go?”
“I had no choice,” Loretta said simply. “And at the time I tried to believe it was what was best for you. What you wanted.”
“What I wanted?” The anger she wanted so badly to control seeped out as bitterness. “Did anyone ever ask me what I wanted?”
“I tried. In every letter I wrote you, I begged you to tell me if you were happy, if you wanted to come home. When you sent them back unopened, I knew I had my answer.”
The color ran into and then out of Vanessa’s face as she stared at Loretta. “You never wrote me.”
“I wrote you for years, hoping that you might find the compassion to open at least one.”
“There were no letters,” Vanessa said, very deliberately, her hands clenching and unclenching.
Without a word, Loretta went over to an enameled trunk at the foot of her bed. She drew out a deep box and removed the lid. “I kept them,” she said.
Vanessa looked in and saw dozens of letters, addressed to her at hotels throughout Europe and the States. Her stomach convulsing, she took careful breaths and sat on the edge of the bed.
“You never saw them, did you?” Loretta murmured. Vanessa could only shake her head. “He would deny me even such a little thing as a letter.” With a sigh, Loretta set the box back in the trunk.”
“Why?” Vanessa’s throat was raw. “Why did he stop me from seeing your letters?”
“Maybe he thought I would interfere with your career.” After a moment’s hesitation, Loretta touched her shoulder. “He was wrong. I would never have stopped you from reaching for something you wanted and deserved so much. He was, in his way, protecting you and punishing me.”
“For what?”
Loretta turned and walked to the window.
“Damn it, I have a right to know.” Fury had her on her feet and taking a step forward. Then, with an involuntary gasp, she was clutching her stomach.
“Van?” Loretta took her shoulders, moving her gently back to the bed. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing.” She gritted her teeth against the grinding pain. It infuriated her that it could incapacitate her, even for a moment, in front of someone else. “Just a spasm.”
“I’m going to call Ham.”
“No.” Vanessa grabbed her arm. Her long musician’s fingers were strong and firm. “I don’t need a doctor. It’s just stress.” She kept one hand balled at her side and struggled to get past the pain. “And I stood up too fast.” Very carefully, she relaxed her hand.
“Then it won’t hurt to have him look at you.” Loretta draped an arm over her shoulders. “Van, you’re so thin.”
“I’ve had a lot to deal with in the last year.” Vanessa kept her words measured. “A lot of tension. Which is why I’ve decided to take a few months off.”
“Yes, but—”
“I know how I feel. And I’m fine.”
Loretta removed her arm when she heard Vanessa’s dismissive tone. “All right, then. You’re not a child anymore.”
“No, I’m not.” She folded her hands in her lap as Loretta rose. “I’d like an answer. What was my father punishing you for?”
Loretta seemed to brace herself, but her voice was calm and strong when she spoke. “For betraying him with another man.”
For a moment, Vanessa could only stare. Here was her mother, her face pale but set, confessing to adultery. “You had an affair?” Vanessa asked at length.
“Yes.” Shame rushed through her. But she knew she could deal with it. She’d lived with shame for years. “There was someone… It hardly matters now who it was. I was involved with him for almost a year before you went to Europe.”
“I see.”
Loretta gave a short, brittle laugh. “Oh, I’m sure you do. So I won’t bother to offer you any excuses or explanations. I broke my vows, and I’ve been paying for it for twelve years.”
Vanessa lifted her head, torn between wanting to understand and wanting to condemn. “Did you love him?”
“I needed him. There’s a world of difference.”
“You didn’t marry again.”
“No.” Loretta felt no regret at that, just a vague ache, as from an old scar that had been bumped once too often. “Marriage wasn’t something either of us wanted at the time.”
“Then it was just for sex.” Vanessa pressed her fingers against her eyes. “You cheated on your husband just for sex.”
A flurry of emotions raced over Loretta’s face before she calmed it again. “That’s the least common denominator. Maybe, now that you’re a woman, you’ll understand, even if you can’t forgive.”
“I don’t understand anything.” Vanessa stood. It was foolish to want to weep for something that was over and done. “I need to think. I’m going for a drive.”
Alone, Loretta sat on the edge of the bed and let her own tears fall.
She drove for hours, aimlessly. She spent most of the time negotiating curving back roads lined with budding wildflowers and arching trees. Some of the old farms had been sold and subdivided since she’d been here last. Houses and yards crisscrossed over what had once been sprawling corn or barley fields. She felt a pang of loss on seeing them. The same kind of pang she felt when she thought of her family.
She wondered if she would have been able to understand the lack of fidelity if it had been some other woman. Would she have been able to give a sophisticated little shrug and agree that the odd affair was just a part of life? She wasn’t sure. She hadn’t been raised to see a sanctified state. And it wasn’t some other woman. It was her mother.
It was late when she found herself turning into Brady’s lane. She didn’t know why she’d come here, come to him, of all people. But she needed someone to listen. Someone who cared.
The lights were on. She could hear the dog barking from inside the house at the sound of her car. Slowly she retraced the steps she had taken that evening. When she had run from him, and from her own feelings. Before she could knock, Brady was at the door. He took a long look at her through the glass before pulling it open.
“Hi.”
“I was out driving.” She felt so completely stupid that she took a step back. “I’m sorry. It’s late.”
“Come on in, Van.” He took her hand. The dog sniffed at her slacks, wagging his tail. “Want a drink?”
“No.” She had no idea what she wanted. She looked around, aware that she’d interrupted him. There was a stepladder against a wall, and a portable stereo set too loud. Rock echoed to the ceiling. She noted there was a fine coat of white dust on his hands and forearms, even in his hair. She fought a ridiculous urge to brush it out for him. “You’re busy.”
“Just sanding drywall.” He walked over to turn off the music. The sudden silence made her edgy. “It’s amazingly therapeutic.” He picked up a sheet of sandpaper. “Want to try it?”
She managed to smile. “Maybe later.”
He stopped by the refrigerator to pull out a beer. He gestured with it. “Sure?”
“Yes. I’m driving, and I can’t stay long.”
He popped the top and took a long drink. The cold beer eased through the dust in his throat—and through the knot that had lodged there when he saw her walking to his door. “I guess you decided not to be mad at me anymore.”
“I don’t know.” Hugging her arms, Vanessa walked to the far window. She wished she could see the moon, but it was hiding behind a bank of clouds. “I don’t know what I feel about anything.”
He knew that look, that set of her shoulders, that tone of voice. It had been the same years before, when she would escape from one of the miserable arguments between her parents. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Of course he would say that, she thought. Hadn’t she known he would? And he would listen. He always had. “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said with a sigh. “It’s like falling back into an old rut.”
“Or slipping into a comfortable pair of shoes.” He winced a little at his own words. “I don’t think I like that much better. Look, do you want to sit down? I can dust off a sawhorse, or turn over a can of drywall compound.”
“No. No, I couldn’t sit.” She continued to stare out the window. All she could see was her own pale reflection ghosted on the glass. “My mother told me she’d had an affair before my father took me to Europe.” When he didn’t respond, she turned to study his face. “You knew.”
“Not at the time.” The hurt and bewilderment on her face had him crossing to her to brush at her hair. “Not long after you were gone, it came out.” He shrugged. “Small towns.”
“My father knew,” Vanessa said carefully. “My mother said as much. That must have been why he took me away the way he did. And why she didn’t come with us.”
“I can’t comment on what went on between your parents, Van. If there are things you need to know, you should hear them from Loretta.”
“I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know what to ask.” She turned away again. “In all those years, my father never said a thing about it.”
That didn’t surprise him, but he doubted Julius’s motives had been altruistic. “What else did she tell you?”
“What else is there to tell?” Vanessa countered.
Brady was silent for a moment. “Did you ask her why?”
“I didn’t have to.” She rubbed a chill from her arms. “She told me she didn’t even love the man. It was just physical. Just sex.”
He contemplated his beer. “Well, I guess we should drag her out in the street and shoot her.”
“It’s not a joke,” Vanessa said, whirling around. “She deceived her husband. She cheated on him while they were living together, while she was pretending to be part of a family.”
“That’s all true. Considering the kind of woman Loretta is, it seems to me she must have had some very strong reasons.” His eyes stayed on hers, calm and searching. “I’m surprised it didn’t occur to you.”
“How can you justify adultery?”
“I’m not. But there are very few situations that are simple black and white. I think once you get over the shock and the anger, you’ll ask her about those gray areas.”
“How would you feel if it was one of your parents?”
“Lousy.” He set the beer aside. “Want a hug?”
She felt the tears rise to burn the backs of her eyes. “Yes,” she managed, and went gratefully into his arms.
He held her, his arms gentle, his hands easy as they stroked along her back. She needed him now, he thought. And the need was for friendship. However tangled his emotions were, he could never refuse her that. He brushed his lips over her hair, enchanted by the texture, the scent, the warm, deep color. Her arms were tight around him. Her head was nestled just beneath his.
She still fitted, he thought. She was still a perfect fit.
He seemed so solid. She wondered how such a reckless boy could have become such a solid, dependable man. He was giving her, without her even having asked, exactly what she needed. Nothing more, nothing less.
Her eyes closed, she thought how easy, how terrifyingly easy, it would be to fall in love with him all over again.
“Feeling any better?”
She didn’t know about better, but she was definitely feeling. The hypnotic stroke of his hands up and down her spine, the steady rhythm of his heart against hers.
She lifted her head, just enough to see his eyes. There was understanding in them, and a strength that had developed during the time she had been without him.
“I can’t make up my mind whether you’ve changed or whether you’re the same.”
“Some of both.” Her scent was waltzing through his system. “I’m glad you came back.”
“I didn’t mean to.” She sighed again. “I wasn’t going to get near you again. When I was here before, I was angry because you made me remember—and what I remembered was that I’d never really forgotten.”
If she looked at him that way five more seconds, he knew, he’d forget she’d come looking for a friend. “Van…you should probably try to straighten this out with your mother. Why don’t I drive you home?”
“I don’t want to go home tonight.” Her words echoed in her head. She had to press her lips tightly together before she could form the next words. “Let me stay here with you.”
The somewhat pleasant ache that had coursed through him as he’d held her turned sharp and deadly. With his movements slow and deliberate, he put his hands on her shoulders and stepped back.
“That’s not a good idea.” When her mouth turned into a pout, he nearly groaned.
“A few hours ago, you seemed to think it was a very good idea.” She shrugged his hands off her shoulders before she turned. “Apparently you’re still a lot of talk and no action.”
He spun her around quickly, threats hovering on his tongue. As she watched, the livid fury in his eyes died to a smolder. “You still know what buttons to push.”
She tilted her head. “And you don’t.”
He slipped a hand around her throat. “You’re such a brat.” When she tossed back her head, he was tempted to give her throat just one quick squeeze. He reminded himself that he was a doctor. “It would serve you right if I dragged you upstairs and made love to you until you were deaf, dumb and blind.”
She felt a thrill of excitement mixed with alarm. What would it be like? Hadn’t she wondered since the first moment she’d seen him again? Maybe it was time to be reckless.
“I’d like to see you try.”
Desire seared through him as he looked at her, her head thrown back, her eyes hooded, her mouth soft and sulky. He knew what it would be like. Damn her. He’d spent hours trying not to imagine what now came all too clearly to his mind. In defense he took a step backward.
“Don’t push it, Van.”
“If you don’t want me, why—?”
“You know I do,” he shouted at her as he spun away. “Damn it, you know I always have. You make me feel like I’m eighteen and itchy again.” When she took a step forward, he threw up a hand. “Just stay away from me.” He snatched up his beer and took a long, greedy swallow. “You can take the bed,” he said more calmly. “I’ve got a sleeping bag I can use down here.”
“Why?”
“The timing stinks.” He drained the beer and tossed the empty bottle into a five-gallon drum. It shattered. “By God, if we’re going to have another shot at this, we’re going to do it right. Tonight you’re upset and confused and unhappy. You’re angry with your mother, and you’re not going to hate me for taking advantage of all of that.”
She looked down at her hands and spread them. He was right. That was the hell of it. “The timing’s never been right for us, has it?”
“It will be.” He put a hand on either side of her face. “You can count on it. You’d better go up.” He dropped his hands again. “Being noble makes me cranky.”
With a nod, she started toward the stairs. At the base, she stopped and turned. “Brady, I’m really sorry you’re such a nice guy.”
He rubbed at the tension at the back of his neck. “Me, too.”
She smiled a little. “No, not because of tonight. You’re right about tonight. I’m sorry because it reminds me how crazy I was about you. And why.”
Pressing a hand to the ache in his gut, he watched her go upstairs. “Thanks a lot,” he said to himself. “That’s just what I needed to hear to make sure I don’t sleep at all tonight.”
Vanessa lay in Brady’s bed, tangled in Brady’s sheets. The dog had deserted him to sleep at her feet. She could hear the soft canine snoring as she stared into the deep, deep country dark.
Would she—could she—have gone through with her invitation to come to this bed with him? A part of her yearned to. A part of her that had waited all these years to feel as only he could make her feel.
Yet, when she had offered herself to him, she had done so recklessly, heedlessly, and in direct opposition to her own instinct for survival.
She had walked away from him just this evening, angry, even insulted, at his cocky insistence that they would become lovers. What kind of sense did it make for her to have come back to him in emotional turmoil and rashly ask to do just that?
It made no sense at all.
He had always confused her, she thought as she turned restlessly in his bed. He had always been able to make her ignore her own common sense. Now that she was sleeping—or trying to—alone, her frustration was tempered by gratitude that he understood her better than she understood herself.
In all the years she had been away, in all the cities where she had traveled, not one of the men who had escorted her had tempted her to open the locks she had so firmly bolted on her emotions.
Only Brady. And what, for God’s sake, was she going to do about it?
She was sure—nearly sure—that if things stayed as they were she would be able to leave painlessly when the time came. If she could think of him as a friend, a sometimes maddening friend, she could fly off to pick up her career when she was ready. But if he became her lover, her first and only lover, the memory might haunt her like a restless ghost throughout her life.
And there was more, she admitted with a sigh. She didn’t want to hurt him. No matter how angry he could make her, no matter how deeply he had, and could, hurt her, she didn’t want to cause him any real pain.
She knew what it was like to live with that kind of pain, the kind that spread and throbbed, the kind that came when you knew someone didn’t care enough. Someone didn’t want you enough.
She wouldn’t do to Brady what had been done to her.
If he had been kind enough to allow her to hide in his home for a few hours, she would be kind enough to repay the favor by making sure they kept a reasonable distance between them.
No, she thought grimly, she would not be his lover. Or any man’s. She had her mother’s example before her. When her mother had taken a lover, it had ruined three lives. Vanessa knew her father had never been happy. Driven, yes. Obsessed with his daughter’s career. And bitter, Vanessa thought now. Oh, so bitter. He had never forgiven his wife for her betrayal. Why else had he blocked the letters she had sent to her daughter? Why else had he never, never spoken her name?
As the gnawing in her stomach grew sharper, she curled up tight. Somehow she would try to accept what her mother had done, and what she hadn’t done.
Closing her eyes, she listened to the call of an owl in the woods, and the distant rumble of thunder on the mountain.
She awoke at first light to the patter of rain on the roof. It sent music playing in her head as she shifted. Though she felt heavy with fatigue, she sat up, hugging her knees as she blinked at the gloom.
The dog was gone, but the sheets at her feet were still warm from him. It was time for her to go, as well.
The big tiled tub was tempting, but she reminded herself to be practical and turned instead to the glassed-in corner shower. In ten minutes she was walking quietly downstairs.
Brady was flat on his stomach in his twisted sleeping bag, his face buried in a ridiculously small pillow. With his dog sitting patiently beside him, he made a picture that turned her heart upside down.
Kong grinned and thumped his tail as she came to the bottom of the steps. She put a warning finger to her lips. Kong obviously wasn’t up on sign language, as he let out two sharp, happy barks, then turned to lick Brady’s face wherever he could reach.
Swearing, Brady shoved the dog’s face away from his. “Let yourself out, damn it. Don’t you know a dead man when you see one?”
Undaunted, Kong sat on him.
“Here, boy.” Vanessa walked to the door and opened it. Delighted to have his needs understood, Kong bounded outside into the pattering rain. When she looked back, Brady was sitting up, the sleeping bag pooled around his waist. Bleary-eyed, he scowled at her.
“How come you look so damn good?”
The same could be said about him, she thought. As he’d claimed, he’d filled out a bit. His naked chest looked rock-firm, his shoulders leanly muscled. Because her nerves were beginning to jump, she concentrated on his face.
Why was it he looked all the more attractive with a night’s stubble and a surly set to his mouth?
“I used your shower. I hope you don’t mind.” When he just grunted, she worked up a smile. If she felt this awkward now, she wondered, how would she have felt if he’d joined her in the bed? “I appreciate the night’s sanctuary, Brady. Really. Why don’t I pay you back by making some coffee?”
“How fast can you make it?”
“Faster than room service.” She slipped past him to the adjoining kitchen. “I learned to keep a travel pot with me in hotels.” She found a glass pot and a plastic cone filter. “But I think this is a little out of my league.”
“Put some water in the kettle. I’ll walk you through it.”
Grateful for the occupation, she turned on the tap. “I’m sorry about all this,” she said. “I know I dumped on you last night, and you were very…” She turned, and her words trailed off. He was standing now, tugging jeans over his hips. Her mouth went bone-dry.
“Stupid,” he finished for her. Metal rasped on metal as he pulled up the zipper. “Insane.”
“Understanding,” she managed. He started toward her. Her feet knocked up against the unfinished counter as she took a hasty step in retreat.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “And I do mean don’t mention it. I’ve had an entire sleepless night to regret it.”
She lifted a hand to his cheek, then hastily dropped it when she saw his eyes darken. “You should have told me to go home. It was childish of me not to. I’m sure my mother was worried.”
“I called her after you went up.”
She looked down at the floor. “You’re much kinder than I am.”
He didn’t want her gratitude, he thought. Or her embarrassment. Annoyed, he passed her a paper filter. “You put this in the cone and put the cone on the glass pot. Six scoops of coffee in the filter, then pour the hot water through. Got it?”
“Yes.” There was no need for him to be so snotty when she was trying to thank him.
“Terrific. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She set her hands on her hips as he padded upstairs. An exasperating man, she thought. Sweet and compassionate one minute, surly and rude the next. With a half laugh, she turned back to scowl at the teakettle. And wasn’t that just the combination that had always fascinated her? At least she was no longer a naive girl certain he would turn into a prince.
Determined to finish what she had started, she measured out the coffee. She loved the rich morning aroma of it, and wished she hadn’t had to stop drinking it. Caffeine, she thought with a wistful sigh. It no longer seemed to agree with her.
She was pouring the boiling water over the coffee when Brady came back. His hair was damp, she noted. And there was the lingering scent of soap around him. Because her mind was set to be friendly, she smiled at him.
“That had to be the quickest shower on record.”
“I learned to be quick when I was an intern.” He took a long, deep sniff of the coffee. It was his bad luck that he could also smell his shampoo on her hair. “I’m going to feed Kong,” he said abruptly, and left her alone again.
When he returned, she was smiling at the coffee, which had nearly dripped through. “I remember one of these in your kitchen on Main Street.”
“My mother always made drip coffee. The best.”
“Brady, I haven’t told you how sorry I am. I know how close you were.”
“She never gave up on me. Probably should have more than once, but she never did.” His eyes met Vanessa’s. “I guess mothers don’t.”
Uncomfortable, Vanessa turned away. “I think it’s ready.” When he reached for two mugs, she shook her head. “No, I don’t want any, thanks. I’ve given it up.”
“As a doctor, I can tell you that’s commendable.” He poured a full mug. “As a human being, I have to ask how you function.”
She smiled. “You just start a little slower, that’s all. I have to go.”
He simply put a hand on the counter and blocked her way. There was rain on his hair now, and his eyes were very clear. “You didn’t sleep well.”
“I’d say that makes two of us.”
He took a casual sip of his coffee as he completed a thorough study of her face. The fatigue he saw was due to more than one restless night. “I want you to do something for me.”
“If I can.”
“Go home, pull the covers over your head, and tune out until noon.”
Her lips curved. “I might just do that.”
“If those shadows under your eyes aren’t gone in forty-eight hours, I’m going to sic my father on you.”
“Big talk.”
“Yeah.” He set the mug aside and then, leaning his other hand on the counter, effectively caged her. “I seem to remember a comment last night about no action.”
Since she couldn’t back up, she held her ground. “I was trying to make you mad.”
“You did.” He leaned closer until their thighs met.
“Brady, I don’t have the time or patience for this. I have to go.”
“Okay. Kiss me goodbye.”
Her chin tilted. “I don’t want to.”
“Sure you do.” His mouth whispered over hers before she could jerk her head back. “You’re just afraid to.”
“I’ve never been afraid of you.”
“No.” He smiled an infuriating smile. “But you’ve learned to be afraid of yourself.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Prove it.”
Seething, she leaned forward, intent on giving him a brief, soulless kiss. But her heart was in her throat almost instantly. He used no pressure, only soft, soft persuasion. His lips were warm and mobile against hers, his tongue cleverly tracing the shape of her mouth before dipping inside to tease and tempt.
On a breathless murmur, she took her hands up and over his naked chest to his shoulders. His skin was damp and cool.
He nipped gently at her lips, drowning in the taste of her. Using all his control, he kept his tensed hands on the counter. He knew that if he touched her now, even once, he wouldn’t stop.
She would come to him. He had promised himself that as he’d sweated through the night. She would come to him, and not because of a memory, not because of grief. Because of need.
Slowly, while he still had some control, he lifted his head and backed away. “I want to see you tonight, Van.”
“I don’t know.” She put a hand to her spinning head.
“Then you think about it.” He picked up his mug again, surprised the handle didn’t shatter in his grip. “You can call me when you make up your mind.”
Her confusion died away, to be replaced by anger. “I’m not playing games.”
“Then what the hell are you doing?”
“I’m just trying to survive.” She snatched up her purse and ran out into the rain.