Temptation Ridge (22 page)

Any normal guy would be grateful. Relieved. But for Luke it presented complications. It was bad enough worrying about Shelby’s expectations, but he could keep that under control. He didn’t know what the hell he’d do with the expectations of her family, of an entire town who’d recently begun to see him as a trustworthy man with honorable intentions.

It left him quiet. Morose. And at the same time, very ready for Maureen and Sean to go, give him back his private life with Shelby, who he was aching to hold, to make love to.

And finally Sunday morning came. The bags were packed, Art had breakfast with them before heading down to the river to fish, and Sean was ready to take his mother to the airport. He’d drive her to Sacramento and put her on a plane to Phoenix, then he would make the trip back north to Beale AFB where he was stationed.

Luke took a mug of coffee out onto his porch. The sun was shining, but it had gotten cold. He had a morning fire blazing in the hearth. It wasn’t long before Maureen came outside, wearing her jacket, holding her own cup of coffee.

“All set?” Luke asked.

“Ready. Sean’s using your shower. He should be done in ten, fifteen minutes. I thought maybe you and I could have that time. We haven’t really talked.”

“We’ve been together for five days,” he said with a shrug. “Almost a record.” But he knew that wasn’t what she meant.

“It’s been a long time since Felicia, Luke,” she said gently. And she lifted her cup to her lips.

“Long time,” he agreed. “I’m over that.”

“She was the exception, not the rule,” Maureen said.
“You shouldn’t assume relationships can’t work just because you were treated badly by one woman.”

Luke said nothing, but what he wanted to scream was
Badly? Badly? I thought she was having my baby and I came back from a war to find out it wasn’t mine!

“Shelby is a wonderful young woman. You’re good together.”

“Mother…”

“It isn’t just her. Oh, it’s obvious she loves you. But it’s also you. The second she’s near you, all those tense lines in your face relax and you soften up. That grumpy, self-protective shield drops and you’re warm and affectionate. She’s good for you, she brings out your best, makes you fun. You have something special with her.”

“She’s twenty-five.”

Maureen shook her head. “I don’t think that’s relevant. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with how you two communicate…”

“There are things you don’t understand about Shelby,” he said. “She’s not just young, she hasn’t had many relationships. She’s been taking care of her mother and hasn’t really looked at the world. In a lot of ways, she’s a child.”

“I know all about her mother, but she’s no child,” Maureen said. “It takes maturity and courage to do what she did. So she didn’t have a lot of relationships with young men, it doesn’t mean she lacks worldly experience. And your age doesn’t matter to her.”

“It will. I’m too old. I’m not going to stand still while she gets older. She’ll be thirty-five and I’ll be almost fifty. She’d find herself with an old man.”

“At fifty?” She laughed. “I liked fifty,” she said with a dismissive shrug. “Fifty was good. I was only twenty-three when I married your father and I never thought of him as
too old for me. To the contrary, it made me feel better in so many ways, to be with a mature man, a man of experience who didn’t have doubts anymore. He was stable and solid. It brought me comfort. And he was awful good to me.”

Luke straightened his shoulders. “I’m not getting married. Shelby will move on, Mom. She wants a career. A young husband. She wants a family.”

“You know this?” Maureen asked.

“Of course I know that,” he said. “You think we haven’t talked? I didn’t lead her on. And she didn’t lead me on. She knows I don’t want a wife, don’t want children…”

Maureen was quiet for a long moment. Finally she said, “You did once.”

Luke let go a short laugh that was tinged with his inner rage. “I’m cured of that.”

“You have to think about this. The way you’ve managed your life since Felicia hasn’t exactly brought you peace. I suppose it’s normal when a man gets hurt to avoid anything risky for a while, but not for thirteen years, Luke. If the right person comes along, don’t assume it can’t work just because it didn’t work once, a long, long time ago. I know this young woman as well as I ever knew Felicia. Luke, Shelby is nothing like her. Nothing.”

Luke pursed his lips, looked away for a second and then took a slow sip of coffee. “Thank you, Mom. I’ll remember that.”

She stepped toward him. “It’s going to hurt just as much to let her go as it hurt you to be tossed away by Felicia. Remember
that.
”

“You know, I don’t think I’m the one guilty of assumptions here,” he said impatiently. “What makes you think all people want a tidy little marriage and children? Huh?
I’ve been damn happy the past dozen years. I’ve been challenged and successful in my own way, I’ve had a good time, good friends, a few relationships…”

“You’ve been treading water,” she said. “You’re marking the years, not living them. There’s more to life, Luke. I hope you let yourself see—you’re in such a good place right now—you can have it all. You put in your army years and it left you with a pension while you’re still young. You’re healthy, smart, accomplished, and you have a good woman. She’s devoted to you. There’s no reason you have to be alone for the rest of your life. It’s not too late.”

He’d met her soft gaze while she talked but now he turned away from her instead of arguing. He didn’t see it that way; he thought it
was
too late. What he saw was a beautiful young woman agreeing to life with him, having a child or two, then waking up one morning to realize she hadn’t really lived yet. She’d have gone from her mother’s sickbed to Luke. She would still be young, beautiful, vibrant and sorry she hadn’t looked a little further, for someone with more to offer her. Maureen was wrong. If that happened, if Shelby gave him a few years and then came to her senses and walked away, it was going to hurt a lot more. A
lot
more.

She spoke quietly to his back. “Listen, I have no idea what possessed Felicia to do the things she did. She could have had everything with you—finding a man who knows what he wants and cherishes it every day, that’s not easy. But she was so foolish and shortsighted. On a stupid whim she gave it up. Maybe she thought she had logical reasons. She had a chance to have it all. But she walked away from a good man, a good life, a hopeful future.”

Luke turned around and there was anger in his eyes. “Stop it,” he said. “You don’t have to draw me any more pictures. I
know
Shelby is nothing like Felicia.”

“I wasn’t talking about Shelby,” Maureen said. “I was talking about
you.
In this case you’d be the one in love who, on a stupid, illogical whim, throws it away. Think, Luke. Don’t throw away the best chance at happiness you might ever get.”

“Stop it,” he said softly, in a desperate plea.

Maureen wasn’t easily intimidated. “You’ve held on to this anger way too long. It’s time to let yourself have the life you really want.”

They locked eyes for long seconds. Then Sean bounced out of the house, all smiles. “Well, we ready to head out? Mom? Luke?”

It took a second for them to recover themselves. “Sure am,” Maureen said, handing off her coffee cup to Sean. “Just let me go down to the river and say goodbye to Art.”

“Yeah, I should do that, too,” Sean said, handing Luke the cup. “Then let’s make tracks, huh?”

Luke waited by Sean’s car until they came back. His mother was smiling that enormous smile of hers, green eyes twinkling. “Luke, honey, it was wonderful. I love your house and cabins, your town, your new friends. I think if you decided to stay right here, you might like it.” She went to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you so much for everything. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Real soon,” Luke said. “Sean, drive carefully. Get her there in one piece.”

Luke was brooding long after his mother and brother left. He knew what point she was trying to make. He could even give her credit for making some sense, but what she didn’t understand was that even if he could work up the courage to take that kind of risk, it was impossible for him to put Shelby through a challenge like that. She was young
and fresh. He was not. He was seasoned, bruised and holding back how he felt was by now a habit.

He could’ve worked on one of the cabins, but he didn’t. He puttered. There weren’t even breakfast dishes to clean up—his mother had done that. He laundered the sheets and towels. He wandered from the house to the porch and back again. At one point he saw Art come back from the river. He waved at Luke and went into his cabin for a while, then back to the river. Lunch break? Luke thought about getting him a little more gear just to ring his chimes—maybe a canvas vest, a creel, a fancy fisherman’s hat.

Luke loved his mother so much. He held her in such high esteem, and he hated that he’d disappointed her. It wasn’t a question of what he wanted, it was a matter of survival—didn’t she get that?

She really annoyed him with her theories. He had to remind himself where she was coming from. She wasn’t like women of his generation. She’d been considering the convent, although he’d seen pictures of her and she was a beautiful young woman; boys and men must have been after her all the time. But, being the prude she was, she hadn’t slipped an inch. Although she wouldn’t speak of indelicate things, Luke’s father had said their mother was pure as the driven snow. Luke took that to mean a twenty-three-year-old virgin, a rarity in these days. Luke didn’t run into women like that.

Until lately.

But that was a whole different thing—Shelby. She wasn’t necessarily a virgin because she had been saving herself, but because she’d had no opportunities. That was what Shelby needed now—opportunities. Education, career, experience and, yes, a few more men so she could learn for herself what worked best for her. It wasn’t a good
idea for a young woman of Shelby’s intelligence, curiosity and gratitude for the good things in life to get herself stuck. Just because Luke was the first didn’t make him the best. God, he was hardly the best….

Still, there was a part of him that wished his mother’s fantasy could be real—that you accidentally find this person, this one ideal person, and you dive in, not wasting a minute, and make her yours. And then everything for the next thirty or forty or fifty years is just one big lovefest. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just his bad experience he drew from. He’d been around a lot of men the last twenty years and too few of them had relationships that held strong; too many had been fucked over by a woman. Being a big tough guy, he didn’t get into emotional conversations with men by habit, but as a matter of fact he’d held a few young, sobbing soldiers as they grieved lost love. The same men who could go into a bloody battle fearlessly could be brought to their knees by a woman who couldn’t keep her promises.

His mother didn’t know what she was talking about. His mother didn’t understand him, he groused. She meant well, wanted the best for him, but she was pie-in-the-sky delusional.

And then Shelby drove up to his house. It was early afternoon and Shelby had known his mother and brother were scheduled to leave in the morning. She came. He stood from his chair on the porch and watched her get out of her Jeep, her hair full and free as he liked it. She wore tight jeans and boots, a down vest over her turtleneck sweater, and she stood there beside her car, smiling at him. She could have waited for him to show up at Jack’s, or to call her and tell her the coast was clear. But she didn’t wait, she came.

“Where’s Art?” she asked.

“Fishing.”

“Good,” she said, grinning.

He forgot everything he’d been dwelling on. He smiled at her and never even felt all the tension drain from his face, his neck and shoulders. He laughed and hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. She slammed her car door and ran up the porch steps; she lunged at him, her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist, her lips on his lips. She laughed against his open mouth, but only for a moment.

He devoured that sweet mouth, holding her up. He couldn’t move from his spot on the porch. All that was important to him at the moment was having her in his arms, tasting her, smelling her, feeling his mouth on her mouth. “I’ll slow down,” he promised against her lips. “I’ll take some time.”

“It’s okay,” she said in her own breathless whisper. “You don’t have to slow down for me, because I’m in a big hurry.”

“Oh God,” he whispered, weak. “Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m dying for you, Luke.”

“God,” he said again. And he found his way into the house. He carried her like that straight to the bedroom and fell with her onto the bed.

“I couldn’t get away any sooner,” she said while pulling at his clothes. He began to peel away her clothes at the same time. The vest and sweater went first; his shirt was flung from the bed to the floor. “And I wasn’t exactly sure when—”

He stilled her with his mouth on hers, hungry and aching.

She wrestled free of his lips and said, “Boots, Luke. We have to get rid of the boots.”

He laughed a loud, lusty laugh. “Be interesting, doing it in only boots. Let’s take off the jeans and put the boots back on…”

“Someone could get hurt,” she said. “Hurry up.”

He thought he’d die, having her like this, rushing him, needing him. “This an emergency, honey?” he asked her.

“Oh, man,” she said, tugging at his lips. “Boots. Take care of the boots!”

He got an evil, amused glint in his eyes. He pulled off his boots, then hers, very slowly. It was fun, Shelby in a wild state. Holding her pleading eyes in his hot gaze, he grabbed her wrists, held them over her head and gently kissed her body, on top of her bra, on her belly, on her chin, on her neck. She laughed at him. “Will you
please!
”

“Need something?” he asked teasingly.

“I’ve been turned on all day, just waiting for you to be alone again.”

He leisurely unsnapped her jeans and slipped his hand down over her flat belly.