For Love and Family (8 page)

But theirs wasn't that kind of relationship, she told herself.

Still, she was looking up into that ruggedly beautiful male face, into those topaz-colored eyes that seemed to be bathing her in a warm glow, and she couldn't escape the sense that him kissing her was what should be happening at that moment.

And then, suddenly, it was.

Suddenly he was leaning forward. She was tilting her chin up. And their mouths just somehow met as her eyes drifted shut.

He was kissing her.

His lips were over hers, parted just slightly, sweet and sexy at the same time.

And she was kissing him back.

She was letting her own lips relax and open just slightly. She was letting her head move just a little in answer to his movements.

Even as her mind spun with the pure amazement that this was happening, her senses were registering the feel of that kiss, the smell of his aftershave, the heat of his breath against her skin….

Oh, what a kiss it was!

A great kiss. A kiss that she willed to last and last.

To last long enough for him to put his arms around her. Long enough for him to pull her against him. Long enough for him to press his hands to her back and give her the excuse to press hers to the muscles of his. To have her breasts against the hard wall of his chest and the rest of her body running the length of his…

But the kiss didn't last long enough for any of that.

Instead, Hunter eased into ending it, slowly straightening up again and returning to just peering down into her eyes.

“I'm sorry,” he said then. “I shouldn't have done that.”

“Yes, you should have,” she blurted out before she realized she was going to say anything at all.

She could feel her face suffuse with color again, but the comment and the blush only made Hunter smile.

“I should have?” he asked.

“I just meant it was okay,” she said, making a desperate effort to regroup.

His smile grew even bigger. “Only
okay?
” he teased as if she'd given him a rating.

“Well, maybe a
little
better than okay,” she allowed, finally getting hold of herself enough to play along.

Hunter chuckled, maintaining his search of her eyes for a moment longer as a number of emotions seemed to war in his expression, leaving Terese thinking that he'd surprised himself as much as he'd surprised her with that kiss.

Then, as if those warring emotions had settled or resigned themselves, he said, “Tomorrow night I have the PAN meeting.”

“I remember.”

“It's at seven and shouldn't take longer than an hour or so. Willy and Carla are baby-sitting Johnny—”

“And you want me to, instead?”

That made him smile slightly. “No, they've promised him an evening of making caramel apples and anybody who gets in the way of that is in for trouble. Actually, I was going to ask you if you'd like
to go with me to the meeting—not that you'd be interested in it, but you could read a magazine or something while it goes on—and then, when it's over, maybe we could have dinner? The meeting is in one of the conference rooms at the hospital and there's a pretty good seafood restaurant nearby. Do you eat seafood?”

“I do,” she confirmed as her mind spun wildly in response to this turn of events.

“After last night's dinner of hot dogs and marshmallows dropped in the dirt, and pizza with pineapple on it for lunch today, I think I owe you a nice meal,” he went on to say.

“You don't. You don't owe me anything.”

“I'd just like to make it up to you, then.”

Or was he simply occupying her time since both he and Johnny already had plans?

“Don't feel as if you have to entertain me if there are other things going on for you and Johnny. I—”

“I was just thinking that it might be nice to have dinner. Together.
I'd
like to, anyway.”

“So would I,” Terese was quick to assure him when it became evident he thought she was dragging her feet. Then, with more control of herself, she said, “It sounds good. The fish and having dinner together.”

He smiled at her once more, again studying her face, probing her eyes for a moment before he broke it off and stepped back out of the doorway. “Then we're on,” he confirmed.

“Okay.”

“See you in the morning,” he said, taking one hand out of his pocket to wave as he turned to go.

“See you in the morning,” Terese answered, forcing herself to retreat far enough inside the cabin to close the door rather than standing there watching him the way she was inclined to do.

But even when Hunter was out of her sight he still wasn't out of her mind.

And neither was that kiss he'd just given her.

Or the fact that he'd asked her to dinner the next night.

And while the last few minutes of that evening had left her confused, they'd also left her smiling so big it almost hurt.

“H
ey, good news about Johnny yesterday, huh?”

It was one of the first things Willy said to Hunter on Wednesday morning. They'd loaded Hunter's truck and were headed for the fences that needed repair.

“It'd be better news if they said he didn't have hemophilia at all, but given that that's not going to happen, yeah, it was good news that he came through last week's scare without any more problems,” Hunter allowed.

“At least now you know what's goin' on with him and where to get blood in an emergency,” Hunter's longtime friend said.

“True. And Terese would never turn him down.”

“No, she seems pretty fond of him. Pretty fond of you, too, maybe…”

Willy had added that last part under his breath, but Hunter heard it, anyway. He took his eyes off the deserted country road he was driving and glanced at his passenger. “What?” he said as if the suggestion were ridiculous.

“Carla thinks she can feel vibes when the two of you are together—you and Terese. Whatever
vibes
means.”

Hunter didn't tell his friend that he had some understanding of what Carla meant. Or that Carla might be right. Or that the fact that there might be vibes between himself and Terese had thrown him all off-kilter. He just said, “What'd Carla say?”

“Only the vibes thing.” It was Willy's turn to look over at Hunter. “Is she right?”

Hunter didn't answer. He only shrugged.

“So there
is
something goin' on?” Willy asked, sounding surprised.

“There's not really anything going on…” Hunter hedged, thinking about the kiss he and Terese had shared the night before. The kiss that had almost happened the night before that. The kiss that he'd been itching for and still should probably not have let happen at all.

“You like her,” Willy said as if he were seeing it for the first time.

“Sure, well enough,” Hunter said noncommittally. “Terese is a nice person. A world different than her sister.”

“Her sister who is also Johnny's birth mother.”

Was there a criticism in Willy pointing that out? Or was it just that that fact bothered Hunter so much that he was overly sensitive to it?

Hunter couldn't be sure. So he didn't take issue with it; he only confirmed it. “Right, Terese is a world different than her sister, who is also Johnny's birth mother.”

“But they're still sisters,” Willy persisted.

“Yeah.”

“And you've got a little thing for the nice sister?” Willy asked.

“I don't know,” Hunter answered, opting to be honest when he could easily have denied it and put his friend off the track. “But I know that it isn't what you'd call the most ideal situation.”

“That's putting it mildly,” Willy observed.

Silence reigned for a moment before Willy spoke again, this time treading somewhat more carefully. “This is the first time this has happened since Margee. You maybe being attracted to a woman.”

“Yeah,” Hunter agreed equally as tentatively.

Regardless of how tentative it was, it still seemed to solidify the possibility for his friend. “So it
is
happening?” Willy asked.

“I don't know. Maybe something is.”

“Something like what?”

“I don't know,” Hunter repeated once more. “I just…I don't know. I guess I'm sort of enjoying having her around.”

“Her in particular or just having a woman around the house again?”

Hunter hadn't considered that, and he did now, hoping that maybe his friend had hit on an easier answer to whatever it was that was happening with him when Terese was around. Hoping that it wasn't Terese herself, that it was just having a woman around again that was appealing to him.

But no matter how he looked at it, he came to the same conclusion. “It's Terese in particular,” he confessed.

“Oh,” Willy said. “How so?”

Hunter thought about that, too, wanting to figure it all out. Wanting to know what the hell was happening to him.

Then, despite realizing that he was beginning to sound like a broken record, he once more began with, “I don't know. She's just not what I expected. Even after she came with me to the hospital last week, and I could tell she was nicer than her sister, I still thought she'd be… Well, stuck-up or stiff or so snobby and straitlaced that she'd get on my nerves.”

“But she isn't stuck-up or stiff or snobby or straitlaced,” Willy said, as if he'd realized that, too.

“No, she isn't any of that. There's no doubt that she didn't grow up the way we did, that she's from a whole different world, but she's still down-to-earth and open to things she hasn't done or experienced before. She doesn't turn her nose up at anything. Or
look down it at anyone, either. She's interested in things other than herself. She's open to learning what she doesn't know. She listens—to me and to Johnny even when he's talking her ear off. She's honest—she'll answer any question either of us asks her. She's pleasant and funny and Johnny and I both have a great time with her and—”

Hunter knew he was going on and on, and he cut himself off, shrugging and saying yet again, “I don't know, it's just been…I've just liked having her around.”

And he was missing having her with them right at that moment, but he didn't tell his friend that. In fact, he could hardly believe it himself.

“So you've got a little thing for her,” Willy concluded. “And Carla thinks Terese has a little thing for you.”

Hunter cast his ranch hand a glance out of the corner of his eye. “I thought you said Carla didn't say anything except the vibe thing?”

“That was part of the vibe thing. That Terese steals a lot of looks at you when you don't notice it, and brightens up when you come into the room, and gets real interested whenever you're talking or anyone else is talking about you. Stuff that made Carla think Terese has a little thing for you.”

A
little thing
that had caused her to kiss him back the night before…

But Hunter didn't say that. He just rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Terese is a nice person, maybe Carla is taking that for more than it really is.”

“What if Carla isn't taking it for more than it really is? What if Terese does have a little thing for you and you have a little thing for her? Would you let it go anywhere?”

He'd already let it go to kissing. That was letting it go somewhere. And as much as he'd liked it, as much as he'd wanted it to last longer than he'd allowed it to, as much as he hadn't been able to think about too many other things since it had happened, he still knew he probably shouldn't have done it at all.

“Letting it go anywhere would be complicated,” he said, which, along with thinking about that kiss and how much he wanted to kiss her again, had also been on his mind nonstop. “Complicated and probably not the best idea,” he added.

He felt Willy turn to stare at him. “Complicated and not the best idea?” the ranch hand parroted. “Every time Carla's tried to fix you up with someone you've gone into a huge song and dance about the decision you made when Margee died and how your love life is totally and completely on hold. But now, with Terese, it's just complicated and not the best idea?”

“Well, it is complicated and not the best idea.”

“Sure. But what I'm gettin'at is, why aren't you just saying a flat no, the way you have with other women?”

Because this woman was different. And not just different than he'd expected or different than her nasty sister. But different in what she was stirring in him. Things that hadn't been stirred in him since Margee's death.

But once again Hunter merely said, “I don't know.”

“Yeah, you have a little thing for her, all right,” Willy concluded for himself.

“Not saying I do, but what if I did?”

“Definitely complicated,” the ranch hand decreed.

“With you and Carla?” Hunter asked, testing the waters.

“Not with me,” Willy said. “I want to see you happy, period. With Carla? She likes Terese and I think she'd be okay with it. It's just tough for her to see you with someone other than her best friend. But complicated because of who Terese is.”

Complicated and not the best idea, Hunter repeated to himself.

In spite of how complicated it was, in spite of anything personal happening between the two of them not being a good idea—maybe even being about the worst idea there ever was—it didn't change anything for him.

He was still thinking about her, no matter how hard he tried not to. He was still itching to be with her whenever he wasn't. He was still remembering how much he'd enjoyed sitting and talking to her the previous evening. He was still recalling how much he'd wanted to kiss her the night before last and last night.

He was still thinking about that kiss and how much he'd enjoyed it.

And he was still thinking about how much he wanted to do it again.

Not even the complications, not even the solemn swearing-off of a love life that he'd done after his wife's death managed to stop any of it.

 

Terese's day with Johnny flew by. They drew faces on six pumpkins and Terese let herself be talked into carving two of them—something she was inexperienced and very bad at, but her nephew didn't seem to notice.

They also used Johnny's crayons, watercolor paints and markers to make Halloween decorations that they hung up in the living room and the kitchen, in Johnny's room, and in the cabin so Terese wouldn't be left out. Then they sat together on the sofa with a bag of microwave popcorn and watched animated Halloween movies.

Through it all Terese tried to concentrate solely on her nephew. There was no doubt that she was as enamored of him, as fascinated and entertained by him, as she could possibly be. In spite of that, it still wasn't easy to keep her thoughts from wandering to Hunter. To the way Hunter looked, the way he sounded, the things he'd said and how he'd said them. To Hunter and the kiss that had ended the previous evening. To Hunter and the dinner they were having tonight…

And then Hunter and Willy returned from mending fences, and Terese turned Johnny over to his father so she could go to the cabin to get ready for her night out. And even the marginal success
she'd had warding off those thoughts of Hunter was lost. Because without any distraction at all, it was impossible to keep the man out of her head.

Instead, as she stepped under the spray of a steamy shower, those thoughts of Hunter kept her constant company. Only now, for no reason she understood, insecurities she was all too familiar with began to pummel her with questions.

Questions about
why
Hunter had kissed her.

About
why
he'd asked her to have dinner with him.

She didn't want to be jaded, but experience had taught her some harsh lessons. Lessons about attractive men who seemed to show an interest in her. Lessons about not being too easily convinced that they really were interested in
her
…

So why
had
Hunter kissed her last night and invited her to dinner tonight? she asked herself as she coated her hair with conditioner and then began to use a honey-and-vanilla-scented body scrub on the rest of her.

She wanted to believe that both the kiss and the impending dinner had simply come out of an attraction to her. She wanted to believe that he enjoyed her company, that he liked her.

But she also kept remembering another time when she'd believed those things of another man. A man who wasn't even as strikingly good-looking as Hunter. A man who hadn't exuded as much of the pure, innate sensuality that Hunter did. But a man who, like Hunter, could have had any woman he wanted.

And she'd been wrong.

So maybe, a little voice in the back of her mind said, she shouldn't be so quick to believe that that kiss had come from Hunter being attracted to her, or that tonight's invitation to dinner had come from him merely wanting to spend some time alone with her.

But if he had kissed her and suggested dinner tonight for some other reason, then what was that other reason? she wondered as she let the shower's spray rinse her body and hair, then wrapped a towel around her head and used another to dry off.

The only reason she could come up with was what she considered the worst-case scenario.

Hunter owned a ranch that, though it obviously supported him and Johnny and provided Willy's income as well, still wasn't lucrative enough to allow him to afford the important business trip he needed to take without saving up for a full two years. Which led her to assume that finances were an issue for him in a way that finances had never been and would never be an issue for anyone born to the Warwick family.

The Warwick family were all familiar with being asked to invest in any number of things—things like a ranch whose owner wanted to make improvements…

It wasn't a thought Terese wanted to have and she tried to push it out of her mind. But once it was there, it stuck like glue.

If the worst-case scenario were to come about, it
wouldn't be the first time someone had wined and dined her to present her with a proposal for their own economic gain.

And yet, merely the idea that that might be what Hunter was about made her feel bad. It certainly took some of the luster off the kiss she'd been reliving since it had happened, some of the luster off the dinner she'd been looking forward to as if it were her first cotillion.

Please don't make that why,
she silently implored no one in particular.

But she needed to be mentally and emotionally prepared, she told herself as she stepped out of the shower stall and moved on to applying lotion and powder. She needed to be going into this dinner without any illusions. With her eyes wide open.