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He’d managed to charm his way past her barriers, slowly and gently peeling them away and exposing her vulnerability. It had been more than just the physical attraction she’d felt toward him; there’d been an emotional connection there, too. It had been so tangible that she would have sworn he felt the same way. Man, had he ever taken her for a ride.
Just went to show what an appalling judge of character she was after all. Raina dashed away an errant tear from her cheek. No. There’d be no more tears over men whose sole purpose in life was to break her heart—or worse, her hope for the future. She was better than that and she deserved better than that, too.
Raina pushed herself up onto her feet and put her mug in the sink alongside Mellie’s. She was grateful the woman had come to see her today to tell her the news. What if it had been tomorrow, or even next week? Heck, she had invited Nolan to her house for dinner with her and JJ, and who knows where that might have led given the heat of their kiss on Saturday night?
She pressed trembling fingers to her lips. It took very little stretch of her imagination to relive the pressure of his lips on hers. To remember the taste of him, the strength of his arms around her and how safe and protected he had made her feel. And that hadn’t been all. He’d wanted her, she’d felt it in the hard lines of his body, and to her shame she’d wanted him back with all the heat and hunger she’d ignored for too long.
Damn him for doing this to her. For sliding under her skin and for making her want things she had no right wanting.
With a sound of disgust, Raina reached for her bag and snatched her cell phone. She pulled up Nolan’s number and viciously tapped the call button on the screen. He wasn’t welcome at her house anymore, let alone anywhere near her son. She had to tell him tonight was off. Tonight and every other night in the future.
Eight
Nolan pulled up outside Raina’s house and sighed. Today had been tough. They’d closed on several private deals today. While on the one hand he’d known that, under the guise of Samson Oil, Rafiq was offering many people a way out of a situation that had become untenable since the tornado—people who’d been underinsured and overmortgaged and living hand-to-mouth since the disaster—he also knew he was taking them from a way of life that had been in their families for generations.
It had taken a toll—seeing relief tempered with failure, hope for a new start tempered with sorrow at leaving behind the past. These were families and people whose kids had gone to school alongside him here in Royal. And now they were scattering to the winds, some leaving Royal altogether and others settling for a life they’d never believed they’d live in one of the new suburbs. Sure, there were those who’d ecstatically accepted Rafiq’s money and were eager to move forward with new lives. But the majority were people whose pride had been beaten down by so much loss that they had no fight left in them. It had been there in every hollow-eyed stare, every line of strain on their faces.
The shining light in his day today had been the knowledge that he’d see Raina again. His body had been buzzing with suppressed energy ever since Saturday night, and he’d realized that for the first time since Carole’s and Bennett’s deaths, he’d begun to be able to think about them without the sharp stab of pain that always accompanied the memories. Instead, he saw two new faces. Faces that he knew were fast becoming equally special to him.
Nolan got out of the SUV, hit the autolock and reached into his jacket pocket for his mobile phone before remembering he’d forgotten to charge it last night and that he’d heard the warning beeps before it shut down earlier today. It had been a blessing in disguise, he’d thought at the time, that he hadn’t had to deal with the text messages and emails while he’d dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s on each individual contract that signaled the end of life as many people had known it. He strode up the front path—eager now to rid himself of the clinging mental residue of the day.
He’d no sooner knocked when the door was flung open. He was assailed by two things. JJ’s effusive greeting, as the little boy almost knocked him off his feet with a powerful hug around his legs, and the sound of Raina’s stern admonition to let her get the door. Nolan reached down and tousled JJ’s mop of dark hair. An unexpected surge of tenderness swelled inside him as JJ lifted his happy little face.
“Hi, No’an.”
