MARRIAGE MATERIAL Page 9

  "I'm almost done, honey. Watch the rest of your show, and I'll be ready."

  "Hurry, okay?"

  Tamara kissed his blond head. "I will, sweetie."

  He ambled off, and Tamara tossed on the turtleneck with a pair of jeans, and hurried through her makeup. It was only as she caught sight of herself in the mirror in the living room that she remembered why she wore this shirt with something over it. She stopped, frowning. It wasn't particularly tight, or revealing—after all, how revealing could a long-sleeved turtleneck be?—but it always seemed to do something wild to her figure. The soft fabric clung lightly to her every curve, and the color was vivid.

  "You look really nice, Mommy," Cody said. He lifted a hand and rubbed her arm.

  Tamara smiled at him. "Thanks." What was she so afraid of, anyway? Wasn't she just whining to herself last night about wanting to look good?

  Yeah, but that was before Lance had kissed her. Before he brought alive every sexual longing she'd ever even thought about having.

  Oh, honestly! she thought with exasperation. She had to stop this. With a wry grin at Cody, she said, "C'mon, kiddo, let's go have some fun."

  * * *

  Cody played in the park, on the swings and merry-go-round and the slides, tumbling and running and hollering. Afterward, they had their cocoa at the B & B Café.

  And all day, men flirted with Tamara. At first, it puzzled her. It wasn't something that happened to her very often. Never had. Valerie always told her she put out touch-me-not signals.

  As the day wore on, Tamara wondered in some confusion if Lance had found the "on" button. Something had certainly changed. The old man at the gas station, who never wore his teeth and shaved maybe every third day, gave her a gummy smile and a wink with her change. A biker guy in the park, who might have looked dangerous in his leathers and long hair without the bevy of toddlers he rolled with in the grass, smiled at her every time she happened to glance his way. Even a young man, barely out of his teens, looked over his shoulder as he walked by.

  Must be the turtleneck, Tamara thought.

  Their last stop for the day was at the supermarket for coffee. She ordinarily avoided Saturdays at the market, but there were things in life she wouldn't do without.

  As she turned the corner, Cody spied the carnival. "Oh, Mommy, look!" he said in the voice of awe reserved for children under five, and fourteen-year-olds in love. "A carnibal! Can we go?"

  Tamara eyed the Ferris wheel and tented booths set up in the vacant lot beyond the grocery store, wondering how she'd missed its arrival. "I don't know, Cody." She did a few quick calculations, wondering if she dared take some of the tips from her earnings last night to do this for him. She had one week to gather the funds for the phone bill, or they'd cut her phone off.

  But she did have a week and she worked every day between now and then. Even if she did lose the phone, it didn't matter much. No one much ever called her.

  "Pretty please with sugar on top?" Cody wheedled. He knew he'd won, and the bright blue eyes twinkled in his cherubic face. Tamara suddenly saw Lance in that twinkle, and wondered if he had been this adorable as a child.

  "We'll go," she said. "But first you have to go home and take a nap. It's more fun at night, when all the lights are on, and everything looks pretty."

  "Yippee! And we can get cotton candy!"

  She patted his knee. "Yep, cotton candy. Pink for me."

  "Blue for me!"

  "You've got it, kiddo." She spied an empty parking space in the crowded lot. "Let's go get my coffee and get you home for a nap, and after supper we'll go to the carnival."

  As they entered the busy store, Tamara was caught suddenly by the strangeness of the place again. While she'd been growing up, Red Creek had been a sleepy, nowhere little town on the way to the ski resorts. This market had then been ten aisles wide, with maybe two variations of brands available, and the customers had been ranchers in pickup trucks, and plain-speaking natives in sensible clothes. Once in a while, a glamorous type from Denver or Aspen were forced to spend the night at the Sleepy Owl Motel, but they cleared out as soon as possible.

  The wild expansion of the last few years had begun while Tamara was away at college, and the changes it had wrought still occasionally took her by surprise. The market was truly a supermarket these days, with twenty five aisles of high-gloss floors. The customers were young, or trying to remain so as long as possible, and took fitness very seriously in their newfound home. L.L. Bean clothes abounded. The ranchers, in their worn boots and Western-cut jeans and broken-in hats, looked as out of place as a coal stove in a gourmet kitchen.

  But there wasn't any other place to shop. And thanks to the rocketing rise of land prices, some of those laid-back ranchers were pretty well-off themselves.

  Tamara liked some of it. In the coffee aisle, she could choose from scores of brands, packaged or loose, whole bean or ground. The produce aisle groaned with exotic offerings of every imaginable variety, and the magazine aisle carried everything from confessions to Martha Stewart.

  Still it dazzled her at times. Today she didn't feel as uncomfortable as she sometimes did, and she cheerfully swung Cody's hand next to her, ambling through and watching people covertly. She took Cody to the coloring books and let him pick through them, all the while covertly admiring a woman in her late forties who wore black leggings and had the rear end of a sixteen-year-old.

  A voice said playfully in her ear, "She's not your type, I'm afraid."

  Lance. Tamara looked up, fighting the rush of welcome and heat she felt at the sound of his voice in her ear. He looked as touchable as always, blond and clean and gleaming, with just enough of a rakish air to be interesting. "I was just wondering," Tamara said, "what she has to do to keep looking like that."

  He inclined his head, admiring the woman's long legs and firm bottom. A slow grin crossed his face and he gave Tamara a wicked look, raising one approving eyebrow. "Whatever it is," he said, "it's worth it."

  Tamara chuckled. It was hard to argue with that logic.

  An elderly woman with her glasses on a chain over her blue cardigan thrust a handful of coupons into Lance's hands. "I don't have time for all your flirtin' today, boy." She poked a bony finger at the top coupon. "See if you can find that brand for me. I'll swear, these glasses still aren't right."

  Lance shot Tamara a bright glance from the corner of his eye. "Mrs. Jordan, this is Tamara Flynn. She's a friend of mine."

  "How do you do, young lady," the woman said, looking over her glasses. "Is that your boy there?"

  Tamara nodded. "This is Cody. Cody, say hello to Mrs. Jordan."

  Cody looked up. "Hi." Caught by something on her sweater, he leaned closer. "Cool pin!"

  "It's a poison pin!" She exclaimed, and bent over to show Cody the antique pin with its empty container.

  Tamara stood there in the florescent-lit aisle, trying to pretend she didn't notice Lance's shirt was open to the third button. She tried not to notice how alluring she found the tendons of his neck when he turned his head, or that he smelled of something spicy. She tried to pretend her gaze didn't skitter over his smiling mouth every ten seconds and fall on his hands, so broad and strong, the rest of the time.

  She really tried not to notice the way he was looking at her, a little shyly, when he thought she wouldn't notice, or that his gaze traveled all over her.

  But both of them looked up at the same instant. Tamara was swept into the bright jeweled blue, snagged hard on the half-sober, half-teasing way he looked at her. She couldn't think of anything to say, and she couldn't look away, and so they just stood there looking at each other for a long time. Tamara wondered if he was remembering the kiss last night, as she was—

  He touched her hand with his index finger. Covertly, so only she would know. "Would you let me take you and Cody to the carnival tonight?"

  The words didn't penetrate for a minute. "The carnival?" she echoed.

  His grin flashed then, that irascible, devil-may-care
grin that went straight through her. "You know, the one right outside here? I figured it might be something you could do with your son, so you wouldn't have to find a baby-sitter."

  Damn him. For an irresponsible wild man, he was awfully considerate sometimes. Or was that good? Tamara couldn't remember. He also made it very hard to think rationally.

  "That would be great," Tamara heard herself say. "I can't stay out late, though."

  "That's fine. How about if I come get you around six?"

  "Make it seven, so I can feed him before we go."

  He shook his head. "I'll buy you both supper."

  "Me?" Cody said, having learned everything he could from Mrs. Jordan about her pin. "Can I have one of them big hot dogs?"

  "'May I,'" Tamara said automatically. "And 'one of those,' not 'them.'"

  Cody rolled his eyes, and Lance ruffled his hair in the classic male gesture of affection. "Listen to your mom. And yes, you may have one of those hot dogs."

  Mrs. Jordan poked Lance's arm. "Enough, young man. I don't have all day."

  "Yes, ma'am," Lance said, and moved off, allowing Mrs. Jordan to lean on him as they went down the aisle.

  Tamara watched them go, struck by the rarity of a man that patient. Maybe she'd been wrong about him. It sure looked that way.

  Then Mrs. Jordan glanced over her shoulder, and there was no mistaking the expression on her wizened face.

  Pity.

  Tamara blushed. Even old Mrs. Jordan knew Lance's reputation as a ladies' man—and she thought Tamara was his next victim.

  Tamara lifted her chin. Mrs. Jordan didn't know anything.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  « ^ »

  Louise Forrest loved carnivals, always had. She liked the smell of them—cotton candy and dust and frying onions. She liked the tubes of neon in candy colors and the tinny music and the crowds of people. Most of all, she loved the feverishness of the combination, the excitement.

  Tonight was no different. She and her youngest son, Tyler, had brought Curtis out to ride the kiddie rides. They stood by the baby Ferris wheel, waving at the three-year-old cheerfully when Louise caught sight of Lance and a woman coming closer.

  Louise grabbed Tyler's arm. "Who's the woman your brother is with?"

  "I knew he wasn't going to leave her alone." His mouth thinned. "That's Tamara Flynn. She's a bartender at the Wild Moose."

  "Is that her child?"

  "Yeah." Ty gave his mother an odd look. "Why?"

  Louise pursed her lips and looked at Curtis, who was now free of the Ferris wheel and bolted toward them, blond hair flying, face full of glee. Then she looked at the boy walking alongside Lance, bubbling about something.

  No, she wasn't mistaken.

  The boys could be twins.

  Louise raised her gaze to the dark-haired woman's face, and in a fleeting instant before the girl covered her expression, there was pure, terrified panic.

  Faintly, Louise smiled. Interesting. Very interesting indeed.

  * * *

  Until the moment they encountered Lance's mother and brother, Tamara had been enjoying herself immensely. Cody was rested from a long nap, and the night was comfortable. Walking next to Lance, holding Cody's hand, Tamara felt young for the first time in years. Young and carefree.

  It was heavenly.

  Until they ran into Louise Forrest at the kiddie Ferris wheel, and one of Tamara's most dreaded moments came to pass.

  It was impossible to miss the resemblance between Cody and Curtis—and Tamara had always thought it odd that their names were so similar, too. She had seen Tyler and his son when the boys were one and two, respectively, and had known to stay clear of all Forrests thereafter. It wasn't completely possible—she knew Curtis sometimes went to Cody's day care, for example—but she did her best.

  It wasn't strange to her that neither Lance nor Tyler had noticed the resemblance between the boys. Men just didn't notice such things unless a woman brought it to their attention.

  Louise was the one Tamara worried about. A man might be oblivious, but never a mother, and never, ever a grandmother. And judging by the measuring expression on her face, Louise didn't need anyone to point out anything.

  Since Tamara couldn't very well grab Cody and bolt now, she moved forward on leaden legs, trying to keep her face expressionless and distantly friendly.

  "Uncle Lanth!" Curtis cried, and rushed into his arms. "I rode the Ferrith wheel!"

  Lance picked him up easily, and Tamara felt a queer little flip in her stomach. He had such a sweet way with children. It lulled her into thinking he was steady. That would be a mistake. Gentle didn't necessarily mean reliable.

  "You did?" Lance said. "Do you want to go again, with Cody? It might be more fun for both of you to have somebody to ride with."

  "Yeah, I do," Curtis said, peeking over Lance's shoulder at Cody.

  "Cool!" Cody cried. "Can I?"

  Tamara nodded. Her heart raced, but she tried to act normally. "Sure."

  "Mama," Lance said, "this is Tamara Flynn. My mother, Louise Forrest."

  "Hello," Tamara said, quietly.

  "Nice to meet you, Tamara," Louise replied. Her bright blue eyes were the exact same shade as Lance and Cody's, and Tamara felt a pang of conscience. Whatever her reservations about Lance as a father figure, Tamara had also deprived a grandmother of her grandchild.

  She looked away, glad of the distraction when the boys climbed into the car of the Ferris wheel. She gave the man tending the ride some tickets.

  Lance bent over the boys, making sure they were securely fastened before he let the attendant close the safety cage. Looking at the pair of preschoolers side by side, Tamara was amazed how very much alike they looked. It was more than similar coloring and bone structure; they had mirroring gestures and facial expressions, as well.

  Tamara crossed her arms. Considering they lived in the same small town, it was amazing that someone had not commented on it before now.

  Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe a lot more people knew the truth than didn't. In that case, it might be considered bad manners to comment.

  "Why, those two boys could be kin!" Louise exclaimed.

  "I never noticed how much Cody looks like Curtis," Lance said, almost at the same moment.

  Tamara tried to take a breath no one would notice. She let it out slowly, and murmured, "Mmm-hmm."

  "It's amazing," Lance said.

  The only one who'd said nothing was Tyler, and Tamara felt his silence like a siren. He stood next to her, quiet, and she snuck a glance at him. He seemed to sense her gaze, and looked down.

  He winked.

  It was the first time Tamara had ever seen anything like amusement or anything half resembling a smile on his face.

  He knew.

  Of course he did. His late wife had worked with Valerie for a while. He would know the whole story. The whole story.

  She smiled in thanks. She didn't know why, but her gut told her she could trust the silent, haunted mountain man.

  "Oh, look what a nice time they're having together!" Louise exclaimed. "How about letting us take Cody with us, and you two can go and have a beer or something?"

  Tamara looked at Lance. Something hot and wicked rose in his eyes, and she suddenly wanted very much to have the chance to be alone with him for a little while. Just to talk. Hold hands, maybe. Listen to him laugh.

  Touch him. The very strength of the longing made her protest. "I don't know how Cody will feel about that."

  "Let's ask him," Tyler said. "Curtis doesn't get to be around other children much, since we live so far out, but Cody probably does. He might want to be with his mom."

  As the boys came off the Ferris wheel, Curtis loped along beside Cody, his cowboy boots scuffing up dust. Hesitantly, Curtis reached for Cody's hand.

  Cody looked a little surprised, but he didn't pull away. In fact, he leaned close, in a protective, older brother kind of way, and said, "Were you scared?"

  Curtis
made a guileless face. "Juth a little bit."

  Louise chuckled, and put a hand on Lance's shoulder. "You were just like that with Jake. Worshiped the ground he walked upon."

  "C'mon. Ma," Lance said with a chuckle. "Don't embarrass me in front of my girl, now."

  His girl. The phrase felt insulting and warming all at once. "I'm no girl, Mr. Forrest, and I don't belong to anyone."

  "Here, here," Tyler said.

  "Mommy," Cody said. "Can I ride with Curtis on all the rides? I think he needs somebody bigger."

  Tamara smiled. "Sure. Come here and let me ask you something."

  "I'll be right back," Cody said.

  When they were out of earshot of the others, Tamara said, "Curtis's grandma and daddy are going to take him to all the kid rides. Do you feel okay going with them? I'm just thinking about riding the big Ferris wheel with Mr. Forrest."

  "Sure! I like Curtis's daddy. He brings me gum."

  "Oh, he does? I didn't know that."

  Cody gave her a patient sigh. "Curtis and me eat lunch together whenever he comes to school." His eyes narrowed faintly. "Curtis has a Power Rangers lunch box. And his dad makes him beef jerky instead of peanut butter."

  "Is that right," Tamara said dryly. She stood and took his hand. "If you don't mind, then, I will go ride the grown-up rides."

  "With Mr. Forrest #1," he said with a bubble of laughter. "I'm going with Mr. Forrest #2."

  "And Mrs. Forrest," she said as they rejoined the others.

  "Oh, heck, you can call me 'Grandma,'" Louise said with a wink. "Everybody else does." She looked at Tamara. "That is if you don't mind."

  Tamara couldn't help it. Under the bright pointedness of Louise's gaze, she blushed. "I don't mind," she said quietly.

  Louise smiled. "All right, then, boys," she said, taking a hand of each, "let's go have us a time!"

  "See you after a while," Ty said. "But don't hold your breath. You know how Mama is about carnivals."

  "I remember," Lance said. "Thanks, man."

  "No problem. Curtis will love it." Ty gave Tamara a faint smile. "All I ever hear about after a day at preschool is Cody this, Cody that. Cody knows how to read. Cody has a Batman lunch box."