The Debra Dilemma (The Lone Stars Book 4) (19 page)

“Back to the whole kissing thing.” She leaned over and laid one on him. She pulled back and fought the urge to grab her throat and fall over.

“Not bad, but I think I can do better.” His hand went to her neck and nudged her into him. Tenderly, his lips came down on hers, soft at first and then more demanding. His tongue darted into her mouth and her pulse kicked into high gear. He’d always been able to do this. No other man had ever had this effect on her.

His mouth took a lazy journey from her mouth to the tender spot at the base of her neck. God, it felt good…really good.

His free hand slid up her green silk shirt and lightly touched her breast.

“Did you just cop a feel?” She laughed.

“No.” His hand fell away. “Yes.”

She grabbed his hand and replaced it on her breast. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing, in fact, it’s been a long time since I’ve been this.…”

Now, she was over-sharing. It seemed like a really bad idea to remind the man that she loved about all of the other men she’d slept with.

“Since you’ve been what…?” His mouth found that wonderful, tender spot again as his hand found her shirttail and slipped under it. His fingers skimmed up her rib cage and found her lace-covered nipple and rolled it between his index finger and thumb.

“This turned me on.” She opened her mouth and words fell out.

“That’s good to know.” Her words registered and every muscle in his body went rigid, like cold water poured over his head. “So they…the guys…didn’t mean anything to you.”

Talk about bad conversation choices, but he’d given her honesty and she owed him the same.

“No. It was nothing more than an act of revenge for me…a means to an end.” Saying it out loud made it real, and she felt so much worse now that she’d voiced it. “There are so many things that I wish I’d done differently.”

But even as she said it, she realized once and for all that she’d apologized enough. Playing the victim had never felt right and she wasn’t about to start now. Facing her past head on was the only way to make up for it.

“Good.” He pulled more firmly onto his lap with her straddling him. He kissed her softly on the mouth.

He sounded more relieved than angry.

“If memory serves, you like being on top.” His hands went to her hips and he pressed her into him.

“You’re not mad?” She would have been mad if he’d slept with all of her friends. Come to think of it, he hadn’t been a saint. She seemed to remember a long string of blondes and the occasional brunette thrown in here and there for good measure. Now she was getting pissed off.

“No…and yes. I’m not mad so much as jealous.” He took her face in his hands. “Stop torturing yourself over the past. We’re good.”

“Now that I think about it, you might have over-indulged with the opposite sex too.” Yep, she was more than a little pissed off.

“All practice for you.” He kissed her hard on the mouth. “Most of them were my own version of revenge. Did it work?”

“I’m ashamed to say, yes it worked really well.” Good Lord, would they ever truly live down their pasts?

“Good.” She sucked on her top lip. “So you didn’t care about any of them?”

It was stupid to want to know, but she did. It was terrible to realize how badly she really wanted to know.

“Yes and no.” He hugged her against him.

“I don’t understand. Either you cared for them or not.” It felt good having her head on his shoulder. While she wanted honesty, actually having and hearing about the other women was harder than she’d imagined.

“None of them were you. I thought that if I dated women that looked like you, I’d fall in love with them, but it doesn’t work that way. I tried to care about them, but none of the women I dated were you.” There was nothing but sincerity in his voice. He was simply stating a fact.

“I know it’s terrible, but I’m happy that you didn’t care. I was in the same boat. I wanted to love all of those men, but I couldn’t convince myself that I did. Instead, I spent most of the time not enjoying, but enduring their company. I’ve come to realize that you can’t make yourself fall in love. You either are in love or you aren’t. It’s not a conscious decision.” She’d spent too many years torturing herself with the company of men who bored her.

“Our mistakes aren’t who we are. I for one am tired of rehashing them.” Gently, he lifted her off of his lap. “I think we deserve a do-over.”

He held out his right hand. “Hello, my name is Warren Daniver, it’s nice to meet you.”

Debra grinned and shook his head. “Debra Covington. You look so familiar, have we met before?”

“Very funny.” Still holding her hand, he stood and pulled her up with him. “I’ll walk you home.”

“Why?” She didn’t want to go home. There was nothing there but a burned out kitchen and the promise of loneliness. Being alone was no longer enough for her.

“I know it’s stupid, but I want to make sure you get home safely.” His hand went to the small of her back.

“No, I mean, why do I need to go home? We’re both consenting adults. I could sleep over.” Sex would be fun and it would feel really good.

“While there are few things in the world I would enjoy more than spending the night with you, I want to take it slowly this time.” He opened the door for her, waited for her to step through, and then he followed and closed the door. “I’m not looking for a one-night stand, I want a lifetime.”

He wanted a future with her. That was worth waiting for.

The next morning, Warren was fairly vibrating with energy. He’d been up for hours by the time eight o’clock rolled around and he knocked on Debra’s door. It was ridiculous, but in some small way it felt like today was the first day of their life together.

Furniture shopping had never held so much promise.

Debra opened the door and his heart kicked up a notch. He hoped that it would always be like that. In ten years, when they were happily married and she came home from work, would seeing her still make his heart go pitter pat?

In a pale pink sweater and jeans, she looked amazing. “Wow, you’re beautiful.”

She blushed, and if she’d tucked her chin and looked up at him with those huge hazel eyes, he would have lost it, fallen to his knees right there on the hall floor and begged her to marry him, but thank God she didn’t do that chin thing. Right now, he wasn’t sure she’d say “yes.” In fact, he was fairly certain she wouldn’t say “yes.”

“Thanks, you clean up nicely too.” She pointed to his brown loafers. “Remembered your shoes.”

“Been up for hours agonizing over the perfect outfit.” There was no use lying and he owed her the truth. A long time ago, she’d admitted to him that she agonized over what to wear on their first date because she wanted to impress him. It had made him feel special then, and he wanted that for her now.

“I never realized that you’re such a girl.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Me too. My bed is full of rejects.”

That was definitely a confidence builder. For some reason, in the back of his mind, he kept waiting for her to throw him out of her life. The fact that he realized that about himself should have silenced the fear, but it only brought it to the forefront.

She grabbed her purse and keys from the little table next to the door, pulled the door closed, and locked it.

“Shouldn’t this get easier?” Would they always be so stiff with each other? When they’d first met, trust and caring had been easy. They had just fit together, but now...overcoming the past was proving to be harder than he’d have ever thought. He knew that they’d never truly get back what they’d had before, but he didn’t want the past…he was hoping to build something new and wonderful with her.

“I know, right? It feels like we’re both trying too hard.” She laced her fingers through his. “How about for today, we just put aside the awkwardness and agree that friends is enough…for now?”

But it wasn’t enough…not nearly.

“Okay.” He tried not to sound disappointed, but he really was. They were beyond friends. This was a step backwards. “I thought we might start on South Congress.”

She grinned and elbowed him playfully in the ribs. “You do know me too well. I love all of the funky shops, and that’s exactly where I’d go to buy my furniture.” The smiled drooped around the corners. “How about we start at my house.”

He glanced back at her door. “I don’t understand.”

He could afford to buy the finest furniture so why did she want to use her red sofa.

“Not my condo. My house. The one I grew up in.” She rubbed her right index fingernail against her jeans. “I woke up this morning thinking there might be some things there that you could use. The place has been locked up tight since my father died. I have a cleaning service that dusts and vacuums once a month and a yard service, but I haven’t been back.”

She looked a little embarrassed. “Not that you can’t buy new things, but well…it’s seems wasteful to let all of that furniture go unused.”

Besides hating people who were late, it appeared that she also still abhorred wastefulness. He’d once remembered her saying something about not confusing wastefulness with frivolity. While frivolous, a crystal swan figurine wasn’t wasteful as long as it was loved and appreciated by its owner. But the minute it was overlooked in favor of a newer figurine, that swan became a two pointer in the donation box.

He’d never been much for frivolity, but he appreciated her love of pretty things. Leah had loved pretty things, but his sweet sister hadn’t had much that was pretty in her short life.

“I would have thought you’d sold the house.” Or would be living there, especially considering her view on wastefulness. The mansion was on a beautiful stretch of Lake Austin. Technology millions built the mansions that line the hills of Lake Travis, but Lake Austin is where the old money lived, and her family’s money was nearly ancient.

“I should have…kept meaning to, but something deep inside me couldn’t let go of it. Maybe because all of the vague images I have of my mother involve that house. At one time, I’d thought about donating it to some charity or turning it into a halfway house, but I can’t seem to work up the will to do it. That house…my house, I guess, has been in limbo as long as I have. It’s time to decide its fate.” Determination lit her eyes.

It was an important step in their relationship that she wanted him with her while she faced her past.

He stepped aside and then settled his hand firmly at the small of her back. “After you.”

Thirty minutes later, they pulled up to the fussy wrought iron gate of her ancestral home.

“Does my old code still work?” He hit the button to roll down the car window.

“Don’t know. The way my father threw you out when he caught us together, I’m going to say “no,” but he wasn’t much of a details man, so he might have forgotten to have your code changed.”

He smiled to himself. When her father had caught them in the pool house, Warren had been doing his best to separate her from her little red bikini. God he loved that bikini. It had haunted his dreams for over a decade.

He reached out the open window and typed in his code. A loud buzzer signaled that the code he typed in was invalid.

Debra wanted him to believe that she was waiting patiently in the passenger’s seat, but she rubbed her left index finger nail against her thigh several times. “Try zero—two—one—four.”

He took her left hand and brought it to his lips and kissed the back. “Valentine’s Day. I didn’t take your father for the hearts and flowers type.”

“He wasn’t.” She smiled at him. “My mother’s birthday. I guess he did have a little of the hearts and flowers in him. He always remembered her birthday.”

That was unexpected. What had her father been like as a man in love? All Warren remembered was a hard man who’d had little tolerance for sentiment and even less for people he regarded as beneath him. The man had never turned down an opportunity to belittle his employees, especially Warren. One day her father had caught them talking and had gone ballistic. On second thought, he wasn’t sure Tyrone Covington had ever loved anyone.

“Tell me about your mother. What do you remember of her?” He didn’t want to hurt Debra, but maybe talking about her mother would soothe her. It always seemed to in the past.

“She was very beautiful.” There was a smile in her voice. “I remember her laugh and the way she used to make my father laugh. He’d always call her Trixie when she made him laugh. Some sort of private joke. Her name was Druscilla Frost Covington and I have no idea what the Trixie was about. Her family had even older money than his, but her best friend in the world was her old college roommate, who could barely scrounge together rent money. Most of the things I know about my mother came from my Aunt June.”

“Losing your mother at fifteen must have been hard.” Losing a parent at any time was hard, but especially for a girl at fifteen, a time when she really needed a mother.

The old hinges of the gate groaned as the heavy wrought iron mass swung slowly open. For as long as he’d known Debra, these old hinges had creaked. Why hadn’t anyone ever oiled them? It seemed simple enough. One day, he was coming over here and oiling the damned things.

His Tesla rolled over the channel that guided the gate as the car practically glided down the blacktop driveway. The lush green lawn and manicured trees were exactly the same. In fact, they were probably exactly the same as they’d been a hundred years ago and would be a hundred years from now. Torrential rains and droughts may come and go, but old money lawns never changed.

“Nervous?” He brought her hand to his lips again and kissed the back.

“Yes…and no.” She sucked on her top lip. “I’m ready to face the past and this house. Now feels right.”

“Good.” He continued to hold her hand as he pulled into the circle drive and parked right in front of the door. Even though he knew the house no longer had a staff, he half expected the housekeeper to be at the front door ready to answer it.

He dropped Debra’s hand and got out of the car. He went around to her side, opened the door, and offered her his hand.

“You’re all charm today.” She took his hand.