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“Somehow I don’t think lumps would bother me a bit as long as you were in that bed with me. I still think about you tangled in those soft sheets.”
“That’s all we can ever be—a memory,” she said, her glance dropping to his mouth before shooting back up to his eyes. “We can’t go backward.”
“You can tell yourself all kinds of things, Tess, but convincing yourself you don’t feel something and actually feeling something… Those are two different things.” He clasped her elbows and brought her to him.
Tess let him.
More than anything he wanted to kiss her, but after the afternoon she’d had, he knew it would be manipulating her emotions for his gain, so he merely wrapped his arms around her and held her with tender resolve.
Tess was angry and hurt, but she needed him. This he knew. For a few seconds she held herself stiff, refusing to relax, but suddenly, as if someone had cut an invisible string, she sagged against him, wrapping her arms around him, her face tucked against his chest.
For a full minute, he held her, dropping the occasional kiss atop her head, begging his body to remember this wasn’t about sex. It was about proving to Tess there was a connection beyond their bodies.
She inhaled deeply and then exhaled.
“You do what you need to do, Tess, but remember this,” he murmured, loosening his grasp and looking down at her. “We have something between us. It’s not going to go away because either of us want it to.”
Her green eyes, soft as the grass lining the path, lifted to his, and in that moment he saw the truth. Her lips were parted and he couldn’t resist the invitation.
Lowering his head, he kissed her softly, tasting the sweetness briefly before stepping away. “I’ll take you home now.”
Wiping her lips, Tess straightened and turned from him. Like a soldier she marched forward, spine straight. Part of him withered, but another part deep inside knew her. Knew she’d thrown up defenses, protecting herself because she needed to survive the day.
In his bones, in his very gut, Graham knew he and Tess belonged together… or at least deserved the chance to see if they did.
But how?
It was the question he’d mulled over night after lonely night. He’d tried to tell himself he didn’t want her. He’d convinced himself things were too complicated. But still his mind and heart nudged him away from being logical toward the one thing he’d always clung to—hope.
Where there’s a will…
Tess disappeared around a curve before ducking back.
“You know the way back, don’t you?”
Graham smiled. “Put one foot in front of the other.”
She made a face. “I’ll meet you at the car.” And then she spun and disappeared again.
Graham stood a second longer and started after her, the hope inside him uncurling and stretching in the small crack she’d opened in her resolve.
FRANKWATCHEDASthe nurse slid the needle into the vein in his arm. A quick sting and it was over. A turn of a ring and the liquid started flowing into his body into his bloodstream. Go forth and conquer, he silently beseeched the drug.
Leaning back in the hospital bed, Frank closed his eyes and wished for the umpteenth time that day that he was mulling over figures at the office, calling James to tell him to order more primer, arguing with Tess over using paper too expensive for the floats.
“Frank?” Maggie’s voice worried him.
He cracked open an eye. “Still breathing.”
“Stop making those jokes.” Maggie, with her hair in a topknot and the cut of her jacket, looked as if she’d skidded back in time to when he’d first met her. 1962. Pretty as a magnolia, sitting on an iron bench in the Quarter, eating an ice cream with one of her coworkers from Henry’s department store. She didn’t look all that different to him now. The years had been kind to his Maggie.
“You tell Jack Baumgartner to keep his hands off your can, Mags. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“What?”
“He’s always had his eye on you, and he’ll move in before I’m cold in the ground.”
“I can’t believe you,” she said, rising, crossing her arms and giving him her best evil Maggie glare. “As if I would even consider going out with Jack Baumgartner. Maybe Perry Underhill, but never Jack.”
