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He was extremely gifted at creating diversions.
Ten
Sunny woke up before Ty did. She came awake slowly, deliciously, with a Sunday morning languor that brought a smile to her lips even before she opened her eyes.
Slanting beams of sunlight were striping the hardwood floor. Dust motes filled the room like fairy dust. Outside, birds were chirping happily. Sunny could believe that this perfect morning was the continuation of a fantasy were it not for the man lying beside her.
He was breathing deeply and evenly. She lay there, listening to his breathing and loving the masculine, snuffling sound of it. She basked in the heat his long, hard body radiated. They were curled together like two kittens. Her cheek was resting against his ribs. His fingers were ensnared in her hair.
From now on, for every day of her life that she didn’t wake up beside Ty Beaumont, she would miss this feeling of oneness.
The thought of living without him was a dismal one.
Three years ago she had thought she was dying of a broken heart when she escaped to New Orleans. Now, she realized she had only been suffering from shattered pride. Leaving today, leaving Ty, that would be heart-breaking.
She loved him.
And she was angry at him over it. The arrogant, aggravating cad had made her fall in love with him.
She moved her head just enough to enable her to look into his sleeping face. In spite of herself she smiled. He was breathing through his mouth; his lips were slightly parted. Her tummy fluttered with remembrance of all the pleasure those lips were capable of giving her.
Was that all she felt for him, sexual infatuation?
She answered the question before it was completely formed in her mind. No, it wasn’t just sexual attraction. She liked his sense of humor, though at times over the past week, his laughter had been at her expense. She liked his sense of fair play and his innate kindness.
He was sensitive. Last night he’d been a big brother before he’d been a lover because he had intuitively known that’s what she had needed. She appreciated the confidence he showed in her skill as a businesswoman. He didn’t scoff at her ideas. He wasn’t condescending. He offered advice, but didn’t preach.
She admired him for picking up his own life after it had fallen apart. Faced with political corruption, he hadn’t turned his head and looked the other way, though the temptation to do so must have been great. Against incredible odds and without a single ally, he had withstood adversity until he had seen justice done. He was a man of integrity and high moral character. He held himself accountable for his own mistakes and didn’t pass the blame to someone else. He was certainly a man worthy of love.
Between him and Don Jenkins there was no comparison.
Sunny knew that if she lay beside him much longer, she would touch him, and touching him, as she knew from experience, led to making love. She didn’t want to make love right now. She needed time to sort out her feelings, to think, evaluate, plan.
Without rousing him, she slid from the bed and crossed the room on tiptoe. She dressed quickly and quietly in a pair of shorts and a loose cotton top and silently left the room. Ty was still sleeping.
Going into the bright living room, Sunny hugged herself, barely able to contain the happiness that bubbled like champagne inside her. She was in love! After years of loneliness and bitterness, she felt vitally, vibrantly alive.
But what was she going to do with this newfound love? Pack it with her other belongings and return to New Orleans? This was Sunday. Her week in Latham Green was officially over. She was free from obligation to stay.
But now, instead of looking forward to leaving, she was reluctant to. Didn’t her ambiguous feelings toward Ty Beaumont warrant at least another week of testing? Surely. However, she’d made such a point about leaving on Sunday that he would wonder why she had suddenly changed her mind. And out of sheer cussedness, she wasn’t about to be the first one to broach the subject of love.
Deep in thought as to what excuse she could use for staying, she wandered out to the front porch. Maybe she could say that her parents had asked her to oversee some renovations on the cabin. Or maybe—
A case of Wild Turkey was sitting on the second step.
Warm as the morning was, Sunny went cold at the sight of it. She stared down at the case of bourbon as though it were the most repulsive thing she’d ever seen. Something hideous. Foul. Too vile to look at.
That bastard!
At some imprecise moment in time, she had reached the conclusion that there had never been a bet between him and George Henderson. She had decided the wager was just Ty’s clever excuse to keep pestering her until he had indeed gotten into her bed.
To discover now that there had been a wager, and that it had been taken seriously by both parties, was almost as shattering as finding Don in bed with Gretchen.
When had Ty claimed his victory? When he finally went to close the front door they had negligently left standing open? Had he crept to the telephone and placed a gloating phone call to George then? While she was lying in bed, stretching in languid sublimity over what had already happened and in anticipation of what was yet to come, had he telephoned George and heckled him about being the loser?
Her heart was tearing in two, but Sunny stubbornly refused to let her stinging tears of humiliation and disillusionment fall. Barefoot, she stamped back through the house and into the dim kitchen. She yanked drawers open, noisily rattling their utilitarian contents as she searched through them, then slamming them close
d when she didn’t find what she was looking for.
