MARRIAGE MATERIAL Page 3

  Resolutely, she took out her notes and began crosschecking herself. The page didn't disappear, as it always had when she studied history and languages and literature, but she could do it.

  She had to.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  An hour into her studies, Tamara rested her head on her arm. Just for a minute. Just to clear her eyes. Maybe ease the headache pounding through her temples.

  She fell asleep. And dreamed she was at college again. She and Eric walked one of the avenues on campus, beneath trees shedding leaves in red and brown and yellow, their varied shapes dotting the withering lawn and floating atop the green water of the pond. The air was crisp and full of excitement. She and Eric debated the place of poets in the scope of history, swinging their hands between them.

  Tamara jolted awake suddenly, yanked into her tiny kitchen in Red Creek by the sound of a tomcat in the garbage cans outside. She blinked slowly, an ache in her chest.

  Four years, and she still dreamed about it all the time. Four years, and she had not come to terms with the fact that she would never be that free, excited girl again, with a future filled with intellectual pursuits, in the company of people who didn't think she was odd for enjoying French films or preferring to read rather than go to the rodeo.

  At the university, for the first time in her life she'd found people to talk with about the things she loved. Music and books and history, a world of ideas and dreams and visions that most people around Red Creek found impractical at the very least.

  She missed it desperately.

  Wearily she closed the book and turned off the overhead light, making her way to the bathroom. She was almost too tired to shower, but if she left it till morning, she would be more rushed than she could stand. She stripped off her clothes and turned on the shower to let steam heat the small room.

  In the mirror, she caught sight of her face. She leaned forward, gingerly touching the black eye. Her entire lid was purple, a garish contrast to her green iris. It added an impression of too many years on her youngish face, like the tightness around her mouth, the circles ringing her eyes. With a frown, she tugged out the braid and worked her fingers through the dark mass of her hair. Better. She didn't look so old and worn down.

  She rubbed a circle in the misting mirror, looking for the girl she'd been only a few short years ago. Was her life over at twenty-five? Sometimes it felt like it.

  The mirror swallowed her image once more. Tamara fixed the temperature of the water and stepped into the shower. The heated spray felt glorious on her tired neck and she sighed aloud, ducking her head to let the water pound down on the tight muscles. What a day.

  A wavery picture of Lance Forrest floated before her closed eyes, then solidified. That bright hair. The twinkle in his eyes. The aura of zesty good humor that surrounded him. He made her think of Loki, the Norse god of mischief.

  He wasn't at all what she had expected all these years.

  * * *

  Tamara's cousin Valerie had generally liked dark men—brooding, ruthless types who took what they wanted and strode through life without giving a second thought to the people around them. Bad boys. Jocks. Businessmen. Never the kind of man Tamara found attractive.

  She should have realized, looking at Lance's brother Tyler, that Lance would not be the dark brooding man in her imagination, that vague image toward whom she had directed all her frustration and hatred all these years. If not for Lance Forrest, she had told herself over and over, she would be happily teaching in a university somewhere, working on her doctorate.

  Instead, she was stuck in Red Creek, eating macaroni and cheese, studying accounting so she could eventually pay doctor bills, taking care of a child she adored and wanted, but wasn't even her own.

  It was Valerie who had given birth to Cody.

  Tamara and Valerie's mothers had come to Red Creek together, to make a new life for themselves far from their poverty-stricken Arkansas roots. To some degree, they had succeeded, but the sisters had very different ideas of what marked success and when Tamara was eight, they had a fight. They never spoke again.

  But Valerie and Tamara managed to sneak around to see each other, anyway. Six years younger than her dazzling cousin, Tamara had worshiped the ground Valerie walked upon, and lived for the stories of romance and love Valerie spun.

  When Valerie was in high school, she fell in love with Lance Forrest, and the pair were an item for their last two years there. Valerie had even shown Tamara the ring Lance had given her as a promise ring. It was a striking tigereye—he'd said diamonds were too common for a girl like Valerie.

  But at the end of senior year, Lance had left Valerie and gone off to college. He never came back; instead he went to work for a Houston construction firm. Occasionally Valerie caught word here and there of what he was doing, but she never saw him when he came to town.

  Finally, she gave up and married another man, and just as quickly divorced him. Tamara knew it was because Valerie had never quite gotten over her first love. It struck her young heart as deeply romantic—and tragic.

  After her own high school graduation Tamara went to college at the University of Colorado at Denver. There she met Eric Marks, a philosophy major. By her sophomore year, they shared a small apartment and had planned a future in which they both taught at the same university. When Tamara's mother died at the start of her junior year, Tamara suffered a setback, but with Eric's support, managed to stay in school.

  That Christmas, the first Christmas without her mother, Tamara received a letter from Valerie, telling her Lance Forrest had come home, and their love affair had been rekindled. Tamara worried, but Valerie sounded so happy, she tried to put aside her reservations.

  But she'd been right to worry. After a brief—and by Valerie's accounts—torrid affair, Lance blew out of town just as quickly as he'd come in.

  Leaving Valerie pregnant.

  It had been the beginning of the end. By the time Spring Break rolled around, Tamara was worried enough about the wild ravings of Valerie's letters to go home and check on her. Valerie had always been a little unstable, prone to wild swings of emotion, but it had increased tenfold with pregnancy. Valerie had no one else—her own mother had gone back to Arkansas, washing her hands of her daughter.

  Spring Break stretched to two weeks, then three. Eric made frantic, and increasingly irritated phone calls to Red Creek, urging Tamara to get back to school, but Tamara knew she couldn't live with herself if anything happened to her cousin.

  Despite Tamara's efforts to get Valerie counseling, three months after Cody was born, Valerie drove herself off a high mountain road. It was ruled an accident, but Tamara knew better. When September came—the start of what should have been her senior year—Tamara was the adoptive mother of a baby son. Eric, disgusted with what he called her "provincial values," deserted her.

  Tamara had stayed in Red Creek.

  * * *

  With a jolt, Tamara realized she'd been standing under the water for a long time. Her neck was still stiff, but better. She picked up the shampoo bottle—an expensive salon brand that was one of her few luxuries. Squeezing a tiny dot out in her palm, she began to wash her hair.

  Now, she faced a moral dilemma. After almost four years of blaming Lance for everything, Tamara discovered he wasn't some dark evil man who'd stolen Valerie's virtue and deserted her. Not at all. He was what they would have called a rake in the old days, an unapologetic good-time Charlie who had no intention of ever settling down, but loved all the women he met along the way.

  Which put Tamara's long-nursed plans of revenge in a new perspective. In the first place, she didn't quite know what sort of revenge she had meant to take. Her fantasies of making Lance pay had always been rather vague. She supposed she'd imagined making him fall in love with her, then breaking his heart, as he'd broken Valerie's.

  The reality of his compelling physical presence made that seem a little absurd.

  Valerie had
planned to use Cody to get her revenge. In her more rational moments, Valerie had continually talked about it, her sapphire eyes cold and glittery. She planned to milk Lance Forrest of his money, using his own blood.

  Tamara wouldn't do that. Cody was too precious to be used. Period.

  So what possible revenge could there be? She had no money or power. Lance wasn't the kind of man who usually noticed her, so the seduction and broken heart angle were out. It was embarrassing that she'd even believed she might have a chance.

  But then a vision of his wicked, promising grin flashed over her imagination.

  What would it be like? Seducing him? Touching his golden skin, his sun-kissed hair, kissing his sensual mouth?

  She shivered. Don't even think about it.

  There was another angle she did have to think about. Cody.

  Should Lance know about his child? Did he have any rights to a child he didn't even know existed?

  No. Given his ways, he probably had dozens of children scattered around. One more wouldn't make any difference.

  Wearily, she rinsed shampoo out of her eyes, then blinking, looked for the soap. The bar she used was over on the sink. Cody's crayon sat in the soap dish, and she picked it up with a giggle. What the heck.

  She drew blue lines on her tummy, as he had. And down her arms, and her legs, feeling like a wild Scot. Remembering a movie she'd seen, she drew a line down the middle of her face, and rubbed blue crayon over the left side, and left it like that while she conditioned her hair. She wondered vaguely what battle she was preparing herself for.

  But she knew. As her hands moved on her body, she remembered Lance Forrest's big masculine hands, with their square, strong fingers. Her nerves tingled at the thought, tingled in her stomach and her knees and along the back of her neck. Tingled in anticipation.

  She was preparing for a battle with herself. With her need to be touched like a woman. She ached to be stroked and pleasured, to be held and tended. It had been such a very long time.

  And in that single moment, she knew she was going to do it. She was going to let Lance Forrest pursue her, keeping herself just out of his reach until he was in her clutches.

  Then she would walk away, as he had walked away, leaving three broken lives behind him. For Valerie, for Cody and most of all, for her own broken dreams, she would do it. She would seduce Lance Forrest.

  * * *

  The morning of the funeral, Lance laid out his black suit, an Italian number a woman in Houston had picked out for him. He dressed carefully. Snowy shirt, silk socks, his good shoes. Before dawn broke, he got in his Fairlane, and went to the funeral home to say his goodbyes privately.

  It was what people did, wasn't it? But the minute he stepped inside, Lance knew it was the wrong thing for him. The wrong way for him to bid farewell to his father. He shook his head at the funeral director and left.

  He drove to a lake a few miles from town. And there in the outdoor stillness of morning, Lance felt his father. Here had Lance stood with his old man, learning to fish. Here had his father told him everything he deemed important. Here would Olan Forrest linger.

  Lance put his head down. He wanted to weep, but the tears wouldn't come. What kind of son couldn't shed tears for his father? He could feel them, thick and hot in his throat, but they were stuck there. He hoped they didn't all come out in a humiliating rush at the funeral.

  It had felt like the right thing to do, coming out to the lake. His father would be glad that Lance had worn the Italian suit, and the shoes that had cost more than a month's rent on his Houston apartment. Olan would he glad to see him here like this, straddling easily the two things the older man had valued most—money and nature.

  It was an odd combination, but Lance's father loved having money. Lots of it. And he took pride in the fact that he'd earned every penny himself, doing a man's work, not some sissified thing like banking or playing the stock market. He hadn't been the best father or husband in the world, but on his own terms, in his own way, he'd done what he set out to do.

  And Lance had loved him.

  After a time, Lance knew he had to get back to his mother's house. There were a hundred things left to do, and she'd want it all to be just right.

  He took his time walking back to his car, trying to breathe and feel okay, instead of the weird shakiness that seemed to have overtaken him. Maybe he was just hungry.

  Driving back into town on the frontage road, he passed a stranded car, hood up. It was an old Buick, the paint faded to a dead-leaf color. Lance looked at the clock on his dashboard, and realized he was even later than he thought. His mother would have expected him almost an hour ago. He picked up the cellular phone to call the sheriff, and glanced in the rearview mirror.

  It was Tamara Flynn, cursing a blue streak if her body language was any indication. He put the phone down and pulled over, backing up to within a few feet of her.

  She was so touchable, Lance thought, getting out of his car. Her thick dark hair lay on her shoulders, glossy and touchable in the early-morning sunlight. He let his gaze wander over her body, admiring the fit of jeans so old, he guessed she might have worn them in high school. It wasn't a fashionable sort of worn, but a patched and crossed-fingers type. And the effect of soft denim against her thighs and round, pretty bottom was unbelievably erotic.

  Yesterday, he'd noticed her vivid green eyes and wariness, her work-worn hands. Today, he admired the neat, perfectly formed shape of her breasts, and her sleek waist and long legs, and he wanted to touch her. All over. Very slowly.

  Judging by the look on her face as he approached, a little of the same thing was in her mind. Her gaze washed from his head to his toes, then back up again more slowly. The faintest hint of shock showed in her face.

  She hid it fast enough. That pretty soft mouth went tight. "You again," she said with exasperation. "Are you following me around?"

  Lance chuckled. "Not at all, sugar. Maybe I'm just your guardian angel."

  "Some angel," she said with a frown. "I look like a tramp with this black eye."

  A thread of regret wound through him. A purple-and-black-and-green bruise decorated her eye and the cheek below. He made a sympathetic face. "That's pretty nasty." Unable to resist, he added, "You should have used that steak. It would have helped."

  "Right." She sighed in barely suppressed frustration. "Is there any chance you can give me a lift to the community college?" She looked at her watch. "I have a test in exactly—" she looked at her watch, a sensible thing on a thin black strap "—twenty minutes. I don't have time to figure out what's wrong with this stupid car right now."

  "Careful," he said, bending toward the engine. "You don't want her to hear you."

  "Trust me, that's mild in comparison to some of the things I've said."

  "Well, no wonder, then. She's probably trying to teach you a lesson."

  "She?"

  "All engines are she," he said with a grin. "Don't you know that?"

  "Okay. She. And she heard me saying bad things about her, so she's misbehaving. You still didn't answer me. Can you give me a ride to school?"

  "Hang on." He noticed with approval that there was no oil leaking anywhere inside the engine, and someone had taught her to keep things clean inside. Rare for a woman. "What did she do?"

  "There was a strange noise, like a big knock, and I lost all power."

  "Uh-oh." Lance hesitated for only a second before sticking his hand into the bowels of the car.

  "Oh, don't mess up your suit!" she protested.

  Lance lifted his head and winked. "Real men don't worry about suits, sugar." The truth was, he was pretty sure what the problem was, and the engine was so clean, it wasn't a problem. He wiggled the spark plug wires blindly, and found what he was looking for. One hung in empty space. "Okay. It's nothing serious. Just a thrown spark plug." He closed the hood. "Hop in my car, and I'll run you to school."

  "Thank you." Picking a worn backpack up off the ground, she flung it over her shoulder, a
nd headed up the road at a good pace. Her hair shifted smoothly, glimmering and shining.

  He hurried to catch up. In the car, he said, "Reach in the glove box and get me that red rag, will you?"

  She did, taking the greasy cloth out with two fingers. The smell of lemon-scented industrial cleaner filled the car.

  He wiped his hands. "I'll send somebody out here to fix that for you. Let me have your keys."

  "That isn't necessary." She folded her hands primly in her lap and looked straight ahead. "I'll manage."

  "You're as prickly as a porcupine, you know? What made you so mean?"

  That surprised her. Her head snapped around, and the green eyes flashed. "I'm not mean."

  He grinned. "You are to me."

  "It's not mean. I'm just not swooning in your presence, and I'm sure that's what you're used to."

  "Is that right?" He rested one arm on the steering wheel. In profile, her nose was as straight as a blade of bluegrass, making her mouth below look all the more plush and inviting and soft. Her chin jutted ever so slightly upward as she steadfastly ignored him, and he let his gaze drop lower, to the smooth skin showing above her blouse, and the delicious roundness of breasts. Perfect breasts. Not too big, not too small. Very touchable.

  "What would make you swoon, Tamara?" he asked in his best, most liquid voice.

  It worked. At least a little. She crossed her arms as if in protection. "Getting to school on time would top my list at the moment."

  "So if I get you there on time," he said, starting the engine, "you'll swoon?"

  In exasperation, she sighed. "I'm really not the swooning sort of person."

  He laughed, putting the car in gear. "Honey, all women can swoon." He pulled out and gave her a sideways glance, catching a reluctant tail of a smile on her mouth. "Trust me."

  * * *

  It was a test, Tamara told herself. A test to see if she really did have what it took to raise herself out of the pit she was in, and get on with some kind of real life. The universe was testing her mettle.