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It didn’t feel like a line.
“How many um …” His voice cracked, so he cleared his throat. “… jobsites have you trained on?” He wanted to know but really didn’t. Any other man touching her made his blood boil. He’d never had a problem with jealousy before, but he was certainly experiencing some now.
“A whole lot less than you.” She thought about it for a second. “And most of my,” she threw up some air quotes, “‘training’ came from a book and not the jobsite.”
“Oh yeah, well … let me show you something I learned a long time ago.” He tickled her ribs. He knew just the spot.
She wriggled around and laughed. It was a beautiful sound, one he thought he could listen to for a long, long time.
* * *
Chapter 16
* * *
They stayed in bed for hours, eating cold omelets and talking about all kinds of things. His knee, her job, how San Angelo never changed. Anything and everything but the elephants in the room. Even after Heath had run next door to his suitcase and ransacked the thing for more condoms, they didn’t talk about their fake engagement or her father’s illness. And they sure as hell didn’t talk about Harmony and Heath’s long-ago crush on her.
It still bothered her. There was no denying it.
More than once, Lyric thought about telling him the truth—that she was the one he’d slept with all those years ago. But every time she got close, she chickened out. What was the point, anyway? Things were good between them now. This wasn’t forever—she was older and wiser—and there was no happily ever after where Heath was her white knight to save her from … what? She didn’t need saving, and what was with the whole white knight thing anyway?
Once, in Canterbury, England, she’d been to a museum that brought Chaucer’s Tales to life. The smell had been staggering. Maybe that was why knights had worn suits of armor—because deodorant wouldn’t be invented for five hundred years.
As for the fake engagement, she was just going to have to woman up and tell her daddy that Heath had jumped the gun. Actually, now that she thought about it, a gun didn’t seem a big enough object for him to have jumped. He’d jumped a cannon? The “Come and Take It” cannon that adorned many a Texas flag was only twenty-one and a half inches long. Bigger than a gun, but still too small. Maybe an entire battleship? Heath would need a jetpack to do that, which made “jumping the gun” not make sense.
Either way, things needed to be set straight. And since Heath was too big of a chicken to do it, she was going to have to be the one to break her daddy’s heart.
It hurt more than she liked to admit, but not as much as faking an engagement to Heath for the next six months, only to have the whole thing fall apart on them. Besides, if it went on that long, she didn’t even want to think about the pitying looks she would get when he “dumped her.” Even if they said it was a mutual decision, no one would believe them. And they sure as shit wouldn’t believe that Lyric had actually dumped Heath.
No. No way. She was not doing this. She was not going to give her mother anything else to beat her up with for the next fifty years. She could just hear what Livinia would have to say when she found out that Lyric had driven Heath away.
She just had to figure out what to say. And she would, just as soon as Heath stopped kissing her toes. And her calves. And her thighs. And her …
Her phone rang, interrupting what was turning out to be a very interesting foot massage.
“Ignore it,” Heath murmured from where his head was buried between her thighs.
That sounded like a really good idea to her, especially considering how talented the man was with his tongue. But it was Chopin’s Funeral March, her mother’s ringtone. Harmony had added it because their mother killed any fun that was to be had. Like, for instance, now ...
Be that as it may, if her mother was calling about her daddy, Lyric wanted to know about it.
“Sorry,” she said as she reached for the phone. She couldn’t help the lip curl. “That’s Momma.”
At the mention of her mother, Heath shot out from between her legs like her mother had burst into the room. “Sorry, darlin’, but much as I adore you, Livinia and oral sex don’t belong in the same zip code, let alone the same bedroom. I’ll be in the shower if you need me.”
“Coward.” She tossed a pillow at his back even as she swiped to answer the call.
“I prefer to call it a strategic retreat.” His sculpted ass looked good in his “strategic retreat.”
“Is that Heath I hear talking?” Livinia demanded before Lyric could even say hello.
“It is. He was just telling me that he was going to take a shower before we head up to the hospital. We just woke up.” She could have kicked herself. Now her mother was going to give her the no-man’s-going-to-buy-the-cow-if-he-gets-the-milk-free speech. That had always pissed Lyric off. What if her cow wasn’t for sale? What if she wanted to take his cow for a test drive? What if she was lactose intolerant?
“That’s nice.” Livinia actually sounded somewhat pleasant.
Lyric waited for the barrage of nasty, but there was only silence.
“We didn’t just get up … one of us has been up for hours.” Heath looked over his shoulder and waggled his eyebrows.
