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“You’re a good mom, Penta. You’ll do what’s right, even if it breaks your heart.”
Letting her children stretch their wings and fly away might do that. “I want them to be happy.”
“I know. But you can’t define their happiness for them. You have to let them choose their paths.”
“Like you did?” The words were out before she realized what a low blow they dealt. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I know you’ve worked hard to improve your life, to recover from, well, everything. It’s just”—she searched for words that didn’t sound accusing—“don’t you wish things had happened differently?”
“Every day, Penta. Every day.”
CASH LAY ON HIS BACK, his phone flat on his chest in speaker mode, arms bent under his head, watching shadows and lights play across his ceiling.
“Do you think you and Linda would still be together if things hadn’t happened the way they did?”
Penta’s voice was so clear it was like she were lying next to him in the dimness. She’d never stayed the night, so he didn’t have even that memory to warm his sheets. “I don’t know. Probably not.”
“Why?”
What he’d felt for Linda had been wan and weak compared to what he felt for Penta. Not that he was ready to put anything into words. He hadn’t even said them out loud to himself. “Her father hated me, for one. He hated that his daughter was hanging around with a guy who grew up on the wrong side of town, worked with his hands. I think she was with me mostly to piss him off.”
“That’s kind of sad. For all of you.” A transport truck rumbled by, the vibration rattling his bedroom window but not obscuring Penta’s words. “I don’t want my kids to feel trapped like that.”
“Then you know what to do.” He couldn’t believe she had turned to him for parenting advice. Her trust warmed his chest.
“It’s hard. The balance, I mean. Between letting them make their own mistakes and guiding them down the right path.”
He could imagine. Linda had done a great job with Elle, as far as he could see, and he was just beginning to realize why she’d been so distraught when Elle had insisted on meeting him. She must have seen it as a rejection of the love she offered every day. A declaration that she wasn’t enough.
A windy sigh gusted out of the speaker. “I guess I should let you go.”
“No.” He almost barked the word. “No,” he repeated, softer. “I like talking to you like this.”
“I like talking to you too.” Her voice took on a teasing lilt. “Almost as much as I like kissing you.”
His body reacted instantly. “Are you wearing those pajamas?”
The second night he’d stayed at her house, she’d come to bed swathed from chin to ankle in satiny pajamas decorated with teapots. He’d spent long sensual minutes dismantling the silken armor she’d donned, opening the shirt one button at a time, rubbing her core through the slippery fabric, using her shields against her until she’d been moaning and begging.
“Maybe. What about you?”
“You know I sleep naked.” He smiled at her hiss of appreciation. “Ever had phone sex?”
“Nuh-uh.”
Her wordless response played a melody of arousal, of need, of curiosity. He unwound one arm from behind his head and slid his hand under the blanket to grip his cock. “Are you touching yourself, Penta?”
A gasp was her only answer.
“What a bad girl.” He knew that’s what she wanted to hear. In reality, she was too good for words. Definitely too good for him. Though he was beginning to hope he might deserve her someday. “Now, here’s what I want you to do.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cash knew he shouldn’t let his guard down. Fate revelled in screwing him over when things were going well.
True summer temperatures had waited until mid-July to blaze down on Prince George. His shop had no air-conditioning and keeping all the doors open didn’t produce enough of a cross draft to help. His apartment was worse. Not that he was spending much time there.
No, he was spending most of his non-working hours at Penta’s. The last two weeks had been two of the best of his life. Her older children no longer regarded him with open suspicion and Abra accepted him with the innocence of a well-loved child. Penta’s shyness and his own reluctance to have sex with her kids in the house had evaporated and he’d slept over several nights.
The first hint that life was about to kick him in the balls occurred the afternoon of the last Wednesday of the month.
