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“Mom…”
“The barn? That’s isolationism, right there. And the men. Oh, yes,” she went on, when Sinclair opened her mouth to disclaim them. “I know there are men in your life, but you keep them far away.”
Heat crept into her face. “There’s been no reason to bring any of them around. They’re not…important.” Jesus. What an awful thing to admit to a parent. Feeling dirty, she automatically took a step back.
“Honey…” Her mom took hold of her shoulders to keep her in place. “You don’t give anyone a chance to be important.” Then, in her mother’s trademark way of cutting to the heart of the matter, she asked, “Did you love him?”
A lump lodged in her throat. Oversize and jagged. She actually had to swallow hard to get past it. “Mom, I was a kid. It was ten years ago…”
“Fine. It was the past, but it’s his past, too. What happened involved him, and he ought to know—”
Panic kicked in, cold, desperate, and not in a listening mood. “No, it happened to me. It’s my past. Mine. And I shouldn’t have to share it if I don’t want to—”
The sound of a throat clearing cut her off. She looked up to find Shane filling the kitchen entryway, a carefully neutral expression on his face and plates balanced in his hands. “Sorry to interrupt.”
One question filtered through her mind—How much did he hear?—before her brain cells locked up. Luckily, her mother suffered no such affliction. She swept forward. “No apology necessary.” With the deftness of a born hostess, she took the plates from him and flashed him a charming smile. “We were rudely sidetracked. We don’t usually make our guests clear the table.”
He offered up his own, equally effective version of a charming smile. “Sorry, ma’am. You can take the man out of the Marines, but you can’t take the Marines out of the man. I clean up after myself. And, unfortunately, I have to go. I have a client in Australia who discovered a data breach, and I need to jump on a call in thirty minutes.”
Her mom transferred the dishes to the counter and wiped her hands on a lemon-yellow towel. “Oh, mercy. That’s a shame. Sinclair, the key lime pie is in the fridge. Fix him up a slice to take with him.”
It took her a moment to process the instructions, but then she jumped to do her mother’s bidding as all the information filled in the bigger picture. The sooner she got his slice of pie in a Tupperware box, the sooner he’d be gone and this nerve-wracking minefield of an evening would be over.
“Here,” she practically shoved the plastic container at him. “See you later.”
“Sinclair, see our guest to the door, please.” Her mother used the same tone she’d used when telling a five-year-old Sinclair things like, Give your Aunt Penelope a kiss. Aunt Penny had been two hundred years old and smelled like mothballs. Shane, on the other hand…
“Yeah, Sinclair. Walk me to the door.” His lips lifted into a grin, but his eyes didn’t join the festivities. They assessed her with something that looked a lot like concern.
Like the diminutive bulldozer she was, her mother ushered everyone out of the kitchen. They were through the house, exchanging thank-yous and good-byes, and then she was alone on the front porch with Shane.
He set the pie container on the porch rail. “Anything you’d like to tell me?” His eyes found hers.
“Well played, with the conference call. I’ll have to remember that one.” Sarcasm was her superpower, thankfully, because the last thing she wanted to do on her parents’ doorstep was have an honest conversation with him about the past. “Good-night.” She turned and reached for the doorknob.
The next thing she knew, she was locked tight against a solid barrier of muscle while a brutally effective tongue swept the sarcasm right out of her mouth. The only things left were raw, and honest, and utterly impossible to deny. The present expanded to blot out past and future. Time condensed into this single instant, and she clung to it, ready to abandon caution and pride for the chance to wallow in want so strong it hurt, need now infused with some new, dangerously addictive promise she couldn’t resist, along with a sweet aftertaste of the past. She’d learned the hard way not to put much stock in his promises. When he finally raised his head, she went onto her tiptoes to give chase, sinking her teeth into his lower lip to punish him for…everything. Coming back. Stirring up old memories and new feelings.
A groan—more pain than pleasure—rumbled from deep in his chest, but he cupped her cheeks and used his thumbs to wipe away tears she hadn’t realized had gathered at the corners of her eyes. Appalled, she drew back, only to be brought up short by his arms. Her defense mechanisms took control of her vocal cords.
“Go away.”
He could have interpreted the rude instruction to apply just to the here and now, and the fact that he had a call to attend to, but the set of his jaw and the determined look in his eyes told he knew damn well what she’d meant. He kissed her again, brushing his lips over hers. “No.”
Oh, but he would. Eventually. She sniffed inelegantly and shoved the heel of her hand against his immovable shoulder. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d get in that fancy rental of yours and drive straight out of town.”
“Uh-uh. I only just got here.” His lips skimmed her eyelid with heart-stopping gentleness. “You still owe me four tours. Next one is tomorrow morning. Be ready at nine.”
He stepped away without waiting for her reply and made his way down the front walkway.
“Shane—”
“Tell you mother thanks for dinner,” he called from the street. The slam of his car door punctuated the comment.
Suddenly exhausted, she leaned against the porch rail and watched him pull away from the curb. When his taillights disappeared from view, she scrubbed her hands under her eyes and inhaled the cool night air. Oh, yeah. She’d be thanking her
mother, all right.
Chapter Eight
