MARRIAGE MATERIAL Page 7

  The bar, too, was packed, and a steady stream of music poured from the jukebox, a mix of old rock and roll and country that so marked the mountain towns. Tamara liked most of it—the Eagles and Allman Brothers and old Jackson Browne tossed in the same set with Willie Nelson and a few, slow, dancing tunes.

  Tonight, Tamara was thankful for the crowd. It kept her busy enough that she didn't eye Lance Forrest more than once every five minutes or so, and she got busy enough that for a good twenty minutes she almost forgot he was there.

  He danced. A lot, and she thought it was telling he didn't seem to have to leave his table to do it. Women went to him, and he never turned any of them down.

  Women approached Lance's brothers, too, but Lance was usually their first choice. Jake scared women a little—he was almost too good-looking, with those Mel Gibson blue eyes and the obvious scent of money that clung to the cut of his shirt and the watch on his wrist and the Scotch he drank.

  And although Ty had a very sexy mountain man look, he didn't get up once, just sat in the darkest corner and nursed a Guinness for two hours. He got up and left after that, and Tamara felt a little sorry for him. Everyone knew he'd taken his wife's death very hard.

  Not long after Ty cleared out, Jake left with the out-of-town blonde. Lance and Alonzo chatted awhile longer, obviously about something work related, because Alonzo came up and asked for paper and a pencil, which he took back to the table and used to sketch.

  Then Alonzo, too, was on his way. Tamara's stomach gave a little jump when Lance stood up. Maybe he'd go, too, and she could stop feeling so tense.

  But he didn't. He tossed his jean jacket over his shoulder and picked up his beer. Ambling with that set-the-streets-afire loose-limbed grace, he crossed the room. To the bar, where he settled with a faint smile on his lips. "Evening, sugar. Get me another beer, please?"

  Without speaking, Tamara turned and fished one out of the cooler. Her hand trembled ever so slightly as she opened it and set it down beside him. She hoped he didn't notice.

  It would all be a hell of a lot easier if he weren't so wretchedly, exquisitely perfect. The glimmer in his eye, that lean and sexy body, the cut of his face. It wasn't fair.

  And it wasn't as if she were the only woman in the room to notice, either. A gaggle of woman in a corner booth eyed him, some covertly, one boldly. Tamara lifted her chin toward them. "I think you might be able to wrangle a dance out of one of those young ladies."

  Lance grinned and lifted his beer lazily, taking a long pull before he put it down. "I never had to 'wrangle' a dance in my life." His eyes tilted mischievously. "I just go on out and claim one."

  "I'm so impressed," she returned, her voice clearly claiming the opposite.

  "I knew you would be." He glanced over his shoulder at the table of women. "I have a feeling they'd be a lot more so."

  He left his beer on the bar and strolled over to the table. Tamara crossed her arms against the slightly sick feeling in her stomach, trying to guess which one he'd ask. There were two possibilities. A brunette in a turquoise blouse, with earrings beaded to match the beads on her shirt; and a slim, tiny blonde in a bare nothing of a dress. They both eyed him with avarice, shifting in their seats to display their attributes to best advantage.

  Tamara was suddenly transported to a shopping mall in Denver, ten years before. She had been sitting with Valerie in a café open to the view of passerbys, and Valerie had preened just like this the entire time they sat there—pouting and leaning and tossing her dark, glossy hair to send it rippling over her snowy white and perfect shoulders.

  Tamara had felt then what she felt now. As plain as rice. Even worse, tonight she felt the stickiness of sweet and sour mix on her skin, and the faint sheen of sweat on her brow, and the limpness of hair pinned up. She wished she owned a single item of alluring clothing. Just one blouse that might make her look like something other than a hardworking mother with no ready cash.

  She didn't wait to see which of the two pretty women Lance picked, but grabbed a bar towel and vigorously began to wipe down surfaces. It was hours before they closed, but the more work she did now, the less she'd have to do later.

  Turning her back to the room, she started wiping down liquor bottles, turning their labels to face front. In the mirror behind the bottles, she had a good view of Lance's broad back, covered in red plaid flannel. She tried not to look, but traitorously watched as the woman stood up. The brunette. No, must be the blonde. No, it was another girl entirely, the only one at the table she would not have imagined Lance to pick.

  Her name was Marissa. Tamara knew her from school. She was pretty enough with thick, perfectly cut dark hair and big blue eyes. In coloring, at least, she was like Valerie.

  But Marissa was quite, quite heavy. Not merely plump. Not Rubenesque. She wore flowing, pretty fabrics, and carried herself lightly, but there was no denying the fact that she was at least seventy-five pounds overweight. Maybe even a hundred.

  Tamara dropped the pretense of watching in the mirror, and turned around. Marissa's face was wreathed in an attractive flush and as she followed Lance to the dance floor. He took her hand and gave her a dazzling version of his killer smile.

  They danced. And danced and danced and danced. And against her will, Tamara was touched. It was a kindness to dance with the round girl, who'd been tapping her foot hopefully all evening. And they were well matched on the dance floor—moving wildly and cheerfully and exuberantly. Everyone watching had to smile.

  When, winded and flushed and perspiring, they finally quit, Lance grabbed her arm as she started to return to her booth, and pointed to the bar. The girl laughed and nodded.

  Tamara met them, a tight knot of something in her chest. "What would you like?" she asked, putting a napkin down.

  "Hi!" Marissa said. "Weren't you in my accounting class last semester?"

  "Yes. You were the one with the 4.0 average." Tamara smiled ruefully. "I was the one who flunked the final and had to repeat the class."

  "Oh, no!" Marissa reached over the bar and put her hand on Tamara's. "You should call me. I'm really good at it. I can help you if you want."

  She really was astonishingly pretty. Skin like porcelain. Tamara wondered how she kept it so flawless. "Thanks."

  Lance winked. "I've been telling Tamara she doesn't strike me as a math person. What do you think?"

  "Oh, really?" Marissa smiled. "That's not something you can tell by looking at a person. Do you like numbers?"

  Tamara allowed a reluctant smile. "No. But a person cannot support herself with an English degree."

  "That's true."

  "You can do anything you want to do," Lance said, shaking his head. "You just have to believe you can."

  "Right. It's easy to say that when you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth," Tamara said. "Money makes everything easy."

  To her surprise, Lance lowered his head, almost wincing. Oddly, Tamara felt a little ashamed of herself.

  Marissa looked at Lance, then back to Tamara, a more sober look in her eye. "Anyone who has money will tell you that it doesn't do anything except make you feel guilty for not being happy or thin or perfect." She chuckled. "My father has more money than Trump, and what am I doing? Studying accounting at a community college in the wilds of Colorado!"

  "I bet it drives him crazy," Lance said.

  Marissa nodded cheerfully. "Bingo." Turning back to Tamara, she said, "I think I'd like a margarita. Lots of salt."

  "Coming right up." Tamara moved away, feeling claustrophobic and left out and dismissed. A servant.

  As she prepared the margarita, she mentally shook herself. What was wrong with her lately? All she ever did was feel sorry for herself. Poor pitiful Tamara, who had to make her own way in the world.

  It got old after a while. She was beginning to sound like Valerie and her mother, who had taken the attitude that they'd been dealt a bad hand and the world had to make it up to them. That, as well as an incident with Valerie and a couple of
boys behind the barn, had been the reason Tamara had been forbidden to associate with her cousin and aunt.

  Her mother would be so ashamed of her tonight!

  With special care, Tamara made the margarita, and grabbed a bottle of expensive beer Lance sometimes drank. She served them with a flourish. "These are on the house." She wiped her hands on a bar towel self-consciously. "My apologies."

  Lance looked up, his dark blue eyes sober for once, searching. "You don't have to do that, Tamara."

  "I want to. Enjoy."

  She moved away to take the order of a waitress, leaving them some privacy. Wryly she imagined them discussing the trials of having to go to prep school and the strain of international travel.

  For her part, she'd gladly trade places.

  Or would she? Would she really have traded her own mother for Olan Forrest? Tamara's mother, who had passed away five years ago from cancer, had been a loving, cheerful woman whose only mistake had been an unexpected and devastating unwed pregnancy. She had made Tamara's life very rich with her songs and cooking and loving hands. She had always had time for Tamara, time to help with schoolwork or cooking lessons or a stroll in the park. When other girls complained that their mothers simply didn't understand them, Tamara had hugged the secret wonder of her mother to her closely.

  In contrast, Olan Forrest, rich as he was, had been mean-spirited, hard to please and self-important.

  No contest.

  She looked back at Lance and Marissa, heads bent together earnestly, one dark, one light, and realized maybe there were things poor little rich kids had to complain about. It was an unexpectedly freeing thought.

  But as she gazed at the two heads, she felt a little lonely. Left out. That was the hard part of never having enough; you always felt like the world was inside a big, cheery room, while you stood on the outside in the cold, looking through the windows.

  As she was looking at Lance now. Even though she'd made up her mind to avoid him, it was painful to have him here, so close and yet so unavailable.

  Live with it, she told herself. Even if he'd never met her cousin, if he'd never crossed her path in any way, Lance Forrest was not the kind of man she wanted to waste her time with.

  She'd just put him out of her mind.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  As the evening wore on, however, Tamara could not completely ignore him. It was impossible, like trying to ignore the honeyed sunshine pouring from a balloon-colored summer sky.

  And hard as she tried not to do it, she found herself wondering what had made Lance ask Marissa to dance in the first place. Had he felt sorry for her? Had it been some twisted way of showing just how desirable he was?

  He was obviously having a good time with her. They laughed and made jokes. Once Lance literally threw his head back and guffawed at something she said. A bright light shone in Marissa's eyes then, giving Tamara a deep, wrenching twist in her gut.

  Tamara scowled. She didn't believe Lance would really date a girl like this. She doubted any man with an ego like his would. They picked women for the way they looked—the best of the best, not even a little bit flawed, and God forbid any should be that great American horror: overweight!

  Was Lance simply being kind? If that were the case, it worried her. Marissa might take things the wrong way and get her heart broken.

  Washing glasses at the sink, Tamara overheard Lance say, "Too bad you're too young for me. You really make me laugh."

  Marissa smiled saucily. "Maybe you aren't my type, sweetheart."

  "I'm crashed." Lance flirted back.

  When Marissa's friends gathered her up, it was almost closing time. Marissa hurriedly scribbled her name and number on a napkin. "Tamara," she called. "I really meant it about accounting. If you have trouble, call me."

  "Oh, you'll give her your number, but not me, huh?" Lance said, plucking up the napkin. "You don't mind if I copy it down first, do you, Tamara?"

  Judging by the tight knot in her chest, Tamara did mind. "Why would I care? It's Marissa you should be asking."

  Ignoring her, Lance took out a little black book—now why wasn't she surprised that he should have one?—and scribbled the number down. "I'm serious about the melodrama," he said to Marissa. "Call me when it comes up."

  "I will." She patted his shoulder and waved gaily at Tamara.

  Lance handed the napkin to Tamara. "If you flunked that test, you really might give her a call."

  Tamara nodded and tucked the note in her pocket.

  The bar was clearing now. "It's fifteen minutes to last call," she said in a businesslike voice. "Do you want another beer?"

  He pursed his lips and tilted the bottle. The expression made his mouth look infinitely devourable, and a bolt of something hot and needy pulsed through her unexpectedly. "I'm gonna have to walk home either way, so yeah," he said, "give me one more."

  He stood up to pull money from the front pocket of his jeans, and Tamara found her gaze caressing his strong thighs and the weighty place between—

  She jerked her gaze away, a painful shame burning to the tips of her ears. Ducking, she fished out another bottle of beer and put it on the counter and took the bills he'd put down without looking at him. She made change and put it on the bar.

  "Do you have a favorite song?" he asked, taking quarters from the change.

  "Pardon me?"

  "A favorite song. Do you have something you like on the jukebox? I thought I'd play some mellow stuff to get everybody tired so you can go home." His dimpled grin flashed.

  In every millimeter of her body, Tamara flushed in response. Damn him. It was not fair he should be so irresistible, that he should appear when she was feeling so vulnerable. With a frown, she shook her head. "I've heard them all so many times, it doesn't matter."

  "C'mon," he coaxed. "There must be one you like."

  Her tangled, roused emotions suddenly quelled. "Will you stop being so charming? I don't need your pity. Neither does Marissa, for that matter."

  "Pity?" He repeated the word quietly.

  "Yeah. Is this your charity week?" she said, heedless now. She saw the slight narrowing of his eyes and it goaded her further. "You think I don't know you would never date a woman like that? Do you think she doesn't know it? I think it's cruel to lead someone on."

  "Is that what you think?" He was very still.

  "Yes."

  Very slowly, he stood up and gathered his change, down to the last dime. His face had none of the boyish charm to it now, only a grim tightness around the beautiful mouth. "You don't get it, Tamara," He shook his head. "Not everybody has an ulterior motive all the time. Sometimes it's good to just enjoy the moment. Besides," he said, disdainfully tossing a dollar bill for a tip down on the bar, "who is doing the judging here, anyway? Are you the one who picks out the girls who get to have boyfriends and which ones sit on the sidelines?"

  Instantly, Tamara was ashamed. What she'd been feeling was pure, uncut jealousy, and it had made her catty.

  But before she could form an apology, Lance was gone, his beer left untouched on the bar. He yanked the door open with enough force that she knew she'd made him angry, and for some reason, it made her heart ache.

  Resolutely, she started breaking down the bar. It was better this way. Maybe he'd leave her alone now and she could get on with her life without wondering every minute if Lance Forrest was going to grace her with a smile.

  * * *

  Lance strode through the chilly night for two blocks before reason penetrated the faintly inebriated haze that colored his feelings. Damn the woman, anyway. Who did she think she was, making judgments like that?

  All evening, he'd done his best to show her he wasn't the cad she thought he was. Halfway through his conversation with Alonzo, he'd remembered how easy it had been to be with her at her house, when he was too tired to turn on the charm and try to impress her. And it had annoyed him. Instead of mooning over her, he'd decided to follow Jake's example and t
ry to have a good time. Marissa had proved to be a terrific companion, easy going and happy to playfully flirt. He wasn't quite sure why he'd sat at the bar…

  That was a lie. He'd wanted to be close to Tamara. But all it had done was make her mad.

  Or jealous.

  He slowed. Stopped. Turned around to glance back at the neon sign that blinked against the backdrop of black mountain. "Well, I'll be damned," he said aloud.

  Had that been jealousy on her face when she snatched the phone number from his hand? He turned his mind back over the signals she'd put out while he sat and talked with Marissa, Slamming glasses. Rattling ice. Restlessly moving back and forth between one end of the bar and the other.

  He grinned, and started walking back to the bar. Jealous he knew how to handle.

  The parking lot was fairly well cleared out by the time he got back there. A waitress waved at him wearily and he lifted his chin, taking up his spot to wait for Tamara—leaning against the hood of her Buick.

  He didn't have long to wait. She came out minutes later, pulling the pins out of her hair, probably in protection against the cold. It tumbled in a glossy swath to her shoulders. She gave a little shake of her head and rolled her neck.

  And then she saw him, leaning against her car under the streetlight, his arms crossed. She stopped dead, and Lance knew that if there had been any other option besides coming toward him, she'd have taken it.

  Her pointed little chin jutted up, and she hauled her bag close to her side, as if she were preparing for battle. As she came closer, he let himself simply look at her, as he'd been longing to do all night. He watched her dark hair swing, catching the light from the red neon behind her. He admired the long legs and the easy way she moved.

  "Do you need a ride?" she asked, fitting her key into the door lock.

  He had to hand it to her, she was cool as the night. He shook his head.