Wild Ride: Lance and Tammy (6 page)

“May I?”

Tammy looked back at the housekeeper who indicated to the suitcase. “Certainly.”

She picked it up and smiled at her. “I’ll have your room ready in twenty minutes ma’am.”

“Thank you.”  She felt like she was a terrible burden now.  Lance had proffered himself for her, and now he was putting her up. 

The woman left.

“I feel guilty.  I can stay in a hotel.”

He shook his head. “None of us would have that.  I have plenty of room.”

She breathed deeply staring up at him.  It was to stop the tears from filling her eyes.  She started to feel the emotional burden of meeting her family again.  Thankfully, he spoke distracting her.

“Okay, now we talk. Come with me.” He carried his bag in one hand and took hers in the other and led her through a long wide hallway. She could really get used to his hand on hers.  If, after five years, only meeting her family made him do this, she’d endure her mother’s disdain over and over again. Oh, she hoped that he wasn’t angry with her.  He was so unreadable. 

They walked down a long hallway to a set of double doors. He opened one to reveal a large bedroom.  She looked up at him questioningly. “My room.  We won’t be disturbed here.” He closed the door behind them.

“Lance I—“

“One moment.” He lifted his luggage and disappeared down a hall for a moment. When he came back his hands were empty.

She was too anxious to know why he put herself out for her, but wasn’t quite sure how to approach it. “W—why did you—I mean—”

“Sit down.” He indicated with a sweep of his hand to the bed.

It surprised her that she listened so quickly because he was being a little demanding and Tammy never took orders from anyone except the doctors—at work.  Maybe it had something to do with that inscrutable honeyed stare and the sound of his soft husky voice.  She sat on the edge of the bed.

“He was an ass.  She was horrible,” he finally said.

She looked up at him as he stood there, handsome and foreboding, giving nothing away in his expression, as usual.  Could he possibly look any more striking? Yet he was right about her family. “He’s always an ass. And she was always horrible,” she agreed without hesitation. Was that the semblance of a smile?  She felt her own mouth pull a bit.

“A spoiled pompous ass. It pissed me off.”

She laughed that time, her eyes twinkling and to her shock he actually smiled down at her. In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him angry, not even when Richard and her mother were staring down their noses at him. His self-control was impressive. She would have never guessed that it angered him. If anything, she thought he was annoyed with her for not telling him anything about her life. Then she remembered what he’d told her back home
. It doesn’t matter Tam. No one’s judging you here.  We all know who you are, here, now.

He pulled one of the Queen Anne styled chairs away from the wall so when he sat down facing her, their knees nearly touched. He rested his elbows on the armrests and interlocked his fingers. Then his eyes met hers and she ceased laughing, but kept a smile.  He was really a pleasure to look at, even in all of his seriousness. “We need to get our story straight. Your mother is obviously going to make this experience a living hell for you, and your father is too intelligent not to catch on that this is a sham.  Then there’s the pompous ass, still looking at you with lust in his eyes.”

He was spot on about all of it. She didn’t know how he deduced this after just meeting them for a brief moment, but she was certain he didn’t get his degree out of a Cracker Jack box. Lance went to Harvard and graduated with honors. She nodded in agreement and he began talking.  She couldn’t help but hang on every word.

“My favorite color is red. I like expensive wine, but would take a good cold bottle of beer on a hot day after working in the fields over that anytime.” He stopped and waved a hand at her. She realized it was her turn.  He was telling her a little at a time probably so she could remember it better. 

“Okay then. I like blue, or green but deep hues, not pastels.  I like white wine more than red, and I’ll agree with the beer on a hot day.” She had a vision of him on the range back home as he tilted back that handsome head full of perspiration and dust, to swallow a nice cold beer after working under the hot sun with the cattle.  She felt her tongue trace the edge of her bottom lip and quickly stilled it with her teeth.  Her eyes met his again and she saw that his eyes briefly flicked there.  If he saw that gesture he didn’t say anything and she was very grateful.  It would have embarrassed the hell out of her.

“I practiced law for ten years in New York.  Then I moved to Billings and opened my own law firm with two partners.  It was very successful. It made me filthy rich.  Then I sold my share to them a few years later.  It was even more—lucrative.” He paused studying her expression before he continued. There was a glint in his eyes over that last word. “I made some great investments from there. I guess you could say I’m semi-retired. I find I’m happier at home with my family.  I hold an office in town that I work out of mostly pro bono, part-time, and every now and then I come here or Billings to consult just to keep my feet wet.” 

Again, no expression, just a brief nod to indicate it was her turn.  Instead she asked questions. That piece of information opened up a world of interest, and she couldn’t help herself. “New York?  What kind of law? Which firm?”

“Mostly capital murder cases. And I was the Assistant to the District Attorney.”

She tilted her head in surprise.  “Wow, an ADA I would have never guessed.” A public servant, like her?  His modesty was endless. She was sure that he could have gotten a better paying job at a private practice. She’d heard he was a great lawyer, not good, but great. Yet, he volunteers his time to help others? His next words answered her curiosity about his career path.

“When I graduated from Harvard, I had offers at a dozen exclusive law firms, I interned at the two most prestigious in Boston, but I wasn’t in it for the money.  My family had money. I also didn’t like seeing the guilty get away with nothing because they had money to pay for great representation. Instead, I wanted to make a name for myself in putting away people like that.  The district attorney went out on a limb for me.  Usually they like us to clerk for some time, but he saw my potential.  I won my first murder trial, and it was tough.”

“
Did
you make a name for yourself?”

He nodded but didn’t elaborate. There was something in his eyes that suddenly clouded over.

Gosh, she really wanted to know why he quit, but if Lance wanted to share he would have.  She stored that question in the back of her mind.  Maybe one day he’d let her know.  Well, now it makes sense on how her father recognized the name.

“Your turn, Tam.  Why nursing?”

She looked down at her hands folded on her lap for a moment before she answered him. 
Tam
, it was just the way he said it.  Tingles ran through her.  Then there were those heavenly light brown eyes he possessed.  She could easily lose herself in them. Finally, she gathered her wits and her eyes met his again. “At first, I think it was to make my mother mad. I mean, I was young, at eighteen and itching to rebel just to get out from under her rules.”

He pulled his nicely shaped mouth into a smile and sat back in the chair rubbing a forefinger across his stubbly chin.  His eyes studied her with interest and in silence, and Tammy wondered what the hell he was thinking. It was as if she’d answered a long awaited question he had. “I amuse you?”

He shook his head subtly.  “I was just thinking that it suited you—the rebelliousness.”

She chuckled. “More like passive-aggressive but thank you for not saying that. Anyway, she wanted me to marry the pompous ass.  She was grooming me for it since I was fourteen.”

“That’s not much of a life, is it?” he said softly.

She shook her head and looked away for a moment, wishing she could have a loving family like Lance had.  She had heard that their mother was attentive and affectionate.  She can’t even remember when her mother hugged her last, or if she even did. She was in private schools where she was told how to look and act.  It was just as bad as being at home with her controlling mother. “I think at first, I was okay with it.  I mean I was a young naïve teenager.  Every young girls wish is to have that dream wedding.  Also, we were always together at family functions and social outings so I think it was just plain expected.  Then I grew up.”  She shifted anxiously and looked at her hands.

“So the nursing?” Lance continued not prying further into something that made her uncomfortable.

After a brief pause to sort her thoughts, she swallowed and continued, “Before I finished high school, there were college recruiters that came around and talked about career choices.  I just wanted away from this lifestyle and that seemed to be the way.  My grandmother left me a trust.  When I turned eighteen, it was mine, so I didn’t need my mother’s permission.  I used it for school.  I found out that I had a knack for it.  I really took to it quickly.”

“How did your parents feel?”

She shrugged her delicate shoulders and looked away again.  “My father is rigid most times, unreadable, but I think he missed me.  My mother—well, she screamed at me, called me ungrateful, told me I wasn’t doing anything of the sort and told me I was marrying Cavanaugh or I’d be cut off.  I chose correctly.  I left.”

He completely shocked her by leaning forward and moving his large warm hand over both of hers, still folded on her lap.  Her eyes locked with his and he gave her a reassuring smile.

“Think of what a waste it would have been.  All that talent and intellect in that beautiful head married to a stuffed shirt.  Can you imagine yourself playing the obedient socialite wife to a man who thinks he’s better than he really is? Planning tea parties certainly isn’t you.”

Beautiful?
  He thought she was Beautiful?  Her heart actually skipped a beat.  She did her best not to show how the compliment affected her.  Instead she laughed nervously as she answered his question, and he smiled. “No Lance, I can’t.  I like being able to do what I want.”

He released her and sat back.

Her eyes went up the front of him and met his.  He was looking at her again with that sharp curiously intelligent gaze.  She wondered if he knew how affective that was.  Well, of course he did, he probably worked his whole career around it.  He started talking again.

“My middle name is Sterling.  I know, it’s different, some great grandfather of my mother’s.  Someone she really admired.”

“I like it.  It seems—regent.”

He actually chuckled.

She blushed a little. “Mine’s Rose.  Same thing; grandmother or something.”

“That’s pretty actually. Tamara Rose.”

“Thank you.”  The way he said her name made a thrill shoot through her.  It was so heavenly coming from that man.  His deep voice and the way his mouth moved when he spoke.  God, he had a beautiful masculine mouth.  Her eyes quickly averted back to her hands so he wouldn’t catch her staring at him like a love sick teenager.

“I like to read.  Mysteries mostly, but any good book will do.”

Big surprise, she thought but she also liked a good mystery novel. “Me too.”

“I also like poetry, eighteen century.  Blake, Burns, and Lord Byron are my favorites.”

“I’m surprised at that one.”

“It touches something in me,” he confessed softly.

Now it really astonished her that he admitted that.  Wow, she wondered if his family knew that about him. She started to feel privileged that he was sharing so much with her. “I only really knew Tennyson, and I liked his work.”

He glanced at his watch. “Yes, another great poet. Now, moving on—I’m not trying to be rude, we just don’t have much time to learn about each other before we have to get ready to leave. I play tennis.  I golf too, but I’m better at tennis.  My winter sports are mainly skiing, but I do like hockey though I’m not as good as my nephew, Tyler.  I also like to hike, rock climb, and of course, rope and ride.”

She almost laughed again.  Tyler was five, and he was being modest because she was certain he good at anything he did. “I like tennis.  It’s a country club thing.  My mother made me take lessons.”  Grooming for the perfect high society wife; seen and not heard, obedient and useless. “I’m good.”

“That sounds like a challenge Tam.”

“Could be.” She was really enjoying herself. It would be fun having a good tennis match with this man. She’d been living in the same town as him for years, working in his house, and she learned more about him in the last five minutes than she had total in all the years she’d known him. “I’m scared of horses though.  I never had the opportunity to learn.”

“We can remedy that when we get home,” he said casually as if she didn’t have a choice. 

“Are you volunteering to teach me?  I’m a terrible pupil. I don’t follow orders very well.  Ask my mother.”

Humor and something else glittered in his eyes. “Another challenge.  Interesting.”

She felt heat hit her cheeks again.  He sounded intrigued. Thankfully he started talking again.

“I like kids, and want at least three.”