Secrets and Lies (21 page)

“Do you want some more to eat?” He pointed to her empty plate. She had asked him to go easy on the serving size for her. She didn’t need much on her plate to fill her up. He had obliged, and somehow she had still managed to feel like a stuffed pig.

“No,” she shook her head ardently. “It was really good; but I’m stuffed.” She watched him swirl his breadstick in some pasta sauce before taking a big bite out of it. “Thanks for dinner,” she felt the need to say thanks. She didn’t remember thanking him for cooking for her yet.

He swallowed his food before speaking. She was thankful for that. It really bugged her when people talked with food in their mouth. In fact, it wasn’t something she was likely to get past. Some women hated toilet seats being left up; she hated when people talked with food in their mouth.

“When you had that conversation with the code inspector—”

“Eddie Mason? What does that have to do with what you found out today?”

He laughed. “I’m curious. Humor me.”

She shrugged. Sure, just as long as he eventually got around to answering her questions.

“Did you tell him you have a new boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t realize I did. I mean I know we’ve had sex.” She saw the look in his eyes—that look as if she had just said something that hurt him. She didn’t mean to hurt him, but the truth was they hadn’t talked about what that night meant. She didn’t want to seem clingy. She didn’t want him to think one night with her would make her assume they would have more—even if she did want more. “I just wasn’t sure if you were thinking of more…more than sex…oh boy that still didn’t sound right.”

“That’s okay,” he stood, taking the plates from the table and going over to the sink.

“Let me help.” She offered and he quickly told her no. He wanted her to keep resting, to stay sitting. She wondered if maybe he were angry with her now. She was good at finessing anything and everything, except relationship issues. She had never been great at hiding what she felt, and this was the one area where her words always seemed to come out before they really should have. She didn’t know what they were to each other, or if he even wanted them to be something to each other.

“I think it’s good you didn’t tell him we were dating.”

“Oh,” she whispered. Well, there she had it; he didn’t want a relationship anyway.

“Sometimes it’s good to keep things undisclosed.”

“I guess,” she mumbled, suddenly not sure how she felt about knowing Thomas didn’t want a full on relationship with her. Why did she have to like this guy? “I should go get ready for bed.”

“But,” he stared her down, never breaking his eye contact with her. She felt heat rush through her. She felt embarrassed, vulnerable, transparent.

“But?”

“But,” he continued. “Make no mistake about it, we are in a relationship.”

“We are?”

“We are. There are a lot of things I can’t give you, Thena. I can’t give you the husband, kids, home, life that you probably want. I have things in my past, things I have to settle before I’ll be good for any woman on that level. But I care about you. I want to be with you. And if you’re okay with knowing I won’t be proposing marriage, not now, and probably not soon, then I’d like to continue what we have. When this is all over I’d like to take you out; date you properly.”

She sat back down. She wasn’t sure what to think. She hadn’t thought she had given off the impression that she was on the hunt for a husband, for kids, for a new home. She wouldn’t mind being a wife someday—his wife—but she wasn’t desperate for it.

“Can you live with that knowledge, Thena?”

She knew he was asking because if she couldn’t then there was no point in going deeper into the relationship than they already had. “I don’t need to be married, Thomas. I like you—a lot more than I should—and I want to be with you, but please don’t think I’m trying to rope you and hog tie you down with marriage.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t think you were. It’s just…usually I don’t get involved with women who want the family life someday. I try to stay away from women like that because I know I’ll end up hurting them. I tried to stay away from you because I think you deserve more than what I can offer you now. I don’t know when things will be settled for me. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to promise you forever.”

She nodded. “You can’t promise me forever in marriage?”

“No.”

“But can you promise me a place in your heart? Can you promise me that this won’t just be sex with us? Can you promise me that you’ll, maybe, someday, possibly, love me forever—even without the wedding ring and signed documents—can you promise me that?”

“I can promise you that I can open my heart to you, but until I resolve some issues there will always be something between us, something else that demands that I hold a part of me back from you.”

She nodded. “I see. And will you ever tell me what this
something
is?”

He exhaled slowly. “I’m not sure I can promise you that.”

She nodded again. The thoughts going around in her head had her kicking around several possibilities, some of them included him and some didn’t. She wasn’t particularly fond of the ones that didn’t include him in her life…on some level.

“Thomas,” she stood and approached him. “I can promise you that I’ll never ask you, or pressure you, to marry me. I can promise that I can be okay with being the love in your life. But I could never be okay with just being another woman in your bed. I want more than that.” More didn’t have to be something that took her from Thena Davis to Thena McGregor, but she did want more respect than just bed buddies.

“And you would have more, Thena. I’m not asking you to just be a bed warmer, to just satisfy my basic needs. I just needed to be upfront with you, to let you know that I won’t be a good husband for anybody right now…and I guess that’s why I tried so hard not to want you, not to let you know I wanted you, because I think you deserve more. You deserve the house, the husband, the kids, all of it.”

She shrugged. “I have a house. I could always adopt a child if ever I should feel the need to have one. And the husband…well, marriage is highly overrated,” she smiled. “I want you, Thomas McGregor. And if you tell me that there’s something between us, something worth holding on to, then I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait for you forever if that’s how long it takes for you to decimate your demons and feel ready to be a husband to me someday. But I don’t want to wait forever if I’m not the woman you could see yourself calling your wife someday. I don’t want you to keep me on the line until somebody worth fighting for comes along.” With those words she had put it out on the line too. She wasn’t asking him to marry her. She didn’t need marriage. But she didn’t want one of his reasons for keeping her at a distance to be that he was waiting for something better, someone better, to come along.

He reached out and brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “You’re the first woman, and I mean that truthfully, Thena, that I’ve ever looked at and envisioned forever with.”

She smiled. In a weird kind of way, he was the first man she had ever envisioned saying “I do,” to as well. She hadn’t even thought seriously of marrying Kyle. He seemed like the safe choice. They were friends, and they were dating and she figured being the friends they were could make for a faithful marriage at least—but they lacked something with each other. They lacked that true romantic chemistry, and she guessed neither one of them really realized just how much so until they gave their relationship a second try. They were much better at the friend thing than they were at the lovers thing—not that Kyle was bad in bed…but still, they both needed more than what they could give each other. Now she understood why Thomas had been worried. He thought he couldn’t give her what she would want, what he thought she deserved.

“Well, then Thomas, I suggest we get a few things straight.”

“Go on,” he pushed his fingers through her hair.

“I’ll be your lover, your friend, your confidant if you want me to be, but I will not be your Saturday night date while other women fill the rest of the week.”

“Do I strike you as that kind of man?”

“No, but I felt the need to say it anyway. It’s my way of saying I’m okay with you not wanting to marry me, but I don’t want us to have an open relationship. I’d like to know that when you’re with me, you’re with me, and not some other woman.”

He nodded. “And I’d require the same thing.”

“I’ve never dated more than one guy at a time. It seems wrong somehow. I mean if you’re thinking about somebody else then be with somebody else, but not both…you know what I mean?”

He nodded. “And Thena…”

“Yes?”

“I never said I don’t want to marry you. I just can’t do it now.”

Her mouth fell open. “Oh.” She had just assumed from his words that he wasn’t interested in marriage—at least not to her anyway. She had obviously assumed wrong.

“Will you tell me, someday, about your past, about what’s haunting you? Maybe I can help.”

He smiled down at her, so lovingly it made her heart hurt. “Someday,” he whispered. “But not today. Today I’m going to tell you what I found out about your mother’s case.”

She narrowed her eyes and tilted her chin up. “Smooth,” she looked at him long and hard. “Very smooth;” she uttered those words with a hint of sarcasm.

He leaned in close to her. With a devious grin on his face he said, “Maybe later I’ll show you something else smooth.”

She laughed before slapping his shoulder. He pulled her in close and wrapped his arms around her. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“For giving me time.”

She exhaled slowly and wrapped her arms completely around him. “Thank you,” she whispered, “for giving me a reason to.” If he hadn’t been honest with her, if she hadn’t believed that he wanted more with her—even if that wasn’t marriage—then she wouldn’t have been willing to venture deeper into the relationship. Just knowing that he wanted more than sex was enough to make her want to explore what they had in great depth.

“Okay,” she pulled away from him. “Before we get too sidetracked here, let’s talk about my mom’s case.”

“I’m already sidetracked,” he looked at her body. “Holding that soft body of yours in my arms has me thinking about doing something other than talking right now.”

She rolled her eyes. “My body is not soft. I have you know I workout…okay, so there are some areas where—” His mouth covered hers, silencing her words with one sensuously explorative kiss. The taste of pasta mingled with the taste of Thomas had her leaning into him, pulling closer and deepening the kiss—meeting his tongue thrust for thrust as she dug her fingertips into his arms. When he pulled away she was breathless. “Hmmm…” she moaned. “You are too good at that.”

“No such thing,” he rubbed the pad of his thumb over her puffy lips. “Later,” he winked. “Back to business.”

She put distance between them. “Back to business,” she agreed. “I’m going to help you clean up the dishes.”

“I wanted you to rest,” he guided her back to the chair.

“Why? I feel fine now.”

“You’re going to need your strength tonight. I’ve been thinking about getting inside you all day, Thena. I can assure you gentle is not what I have in mind…and once will not be nearly enough.”

“Oh, you still want my soft body huh?”

He shook his head. “Not the kind of soft I had in mind, Thena. We’re really going to have to work on that.”

“What?”

“Your tenacity for reading something into things…the wrong
something
on top of that.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” So what if her father had often told her the same thing. She did have a tendency to jump the proverbial gun when it came to conversations. She always had a way of taking a sentence and running away with the meaning of it, even if her understanding of it wasn’t exactly what it meant in the first place.

“I bet,” he winked. “We’ll discuss it later.”

“There’s nothing to discuss. This is me. Love it, like it, hate it, take it or leave it, but this is who I am, who I have always been and who I will always be. I doubt I’d ever be able to change that.” Her personality was more high strung when it came to emotions. She was already in the mode of thinking that she had to be ready to defend herself, be ready to defend her family. After her mother vanished, the rumors around school had been that she had actually run off with another man—despite proof otherwise—and she always had to defend, had to jump in and save her mother’s honor. Maybe that’s why she looked at every sentence as a possible threat. Or maybe she just had issues…either way, she was who she was, and that wasn’t going to change.

“I’ll take it,” he said. “I like you a heck of a lot, Thena. You keep me on my toes—in a fun way. Thena Davis any other way just wouldn’t be Thena Davis.” He sat down at the table, ignoring the dishes that needed to be washed. “Now,” he took her hand in his, “about your mother.”

Chapter Fourteen

“H
e bought it,” Phoebe uttered those words of assurance with great conviction. She had told them she could handle things, and she did. A smile, a little cleavage, and a man would buy anything she was selling.