Smooth talking stranger Read online

  “Dad.” She held up a hand to stifle his diatribe. She didn’t need the scolding this morning, no matter how well-deserved it might be. She’d chastised herself repeatedly on the drive home, and he couldn’t say anything to her that she hadn’t already said to herself several times over and much more harshly.

  Besides she had no intention of explaining last night in front of her son, and she knew her father would eventually confront her and demand to know what she’d been up to. Ten years had passed since she’d moved out from beneath his roof, but whenever she came home for a spell, she was his child again. He pestered her with questions, offered advice that she seldom appreciated, and gave the impression that he didn’t know how she managed on her own.

  But she had managed for a long time now, and she imagined managing on her own—and alone—would continue for a good while longer. She had the impression that the man she’d spent last night with wasn’t the marrying kind.

  “I’m a grown woman,” she told him, a little more harshly than she’d intended, “fully capable of taking care of myself.”

  Usually. She had doubts about last night, although admittedly she was safe and sound and not much worse for wear.

  She crossed the kitchen where she’d spent so many hours talking with her mother, and once again, felt the sharp pang of recent loss. Maybe it wasn’t the loneliness from losing Steve finally catching up with her that had sent her to the bar; maybe it was trying to fulfill her mother’s last request: Get out, Serena. Stop mourning. You’re too young not to be looking for another man.

  She wondered if her mother had given similar advice to her father. She’d only been gone two weeks, and already three ladies from the church had hit on Serena’s fifty-six-year-old father as though he were God’s gift to widows.

  Serena wrapped her arms around Riker, bent over, and kissed the top of his head. He smelled earthy, like puppies, hay, and dirt, mixed in with chocolate milk. “Looks like Grandpa is taking good care of you.”

  Riker tilted up his face to look at her with blue eyes that mirrored his father’s. “Yeah, but we were worried.”

  “I had a little too much to drink. You never drive when you’ve had too much to drink.”

  “I know, I know,” he grumbled.

  His best friend’s dad was the chief of police in the small town of Hopeful where she and Riker lived. Hell, her best friend was the chief of police. That was part of the problem as well. As happy as she was for Jack, glad that he’d finally trusted love and recently gotten married, she unexpectedly found herself floundering again as she had immediately after Steve had died. She hadn’t realized how dependent she’d become on Jack to fulfill the role of a man in her life.

  With boys the same age and Steve a common thread between them, she and Jack had drifted into a relationship that closely resembled marriage—always being there for the other, satisfying that second parent role that constantly reared its inconvenient head. It was difficult being a single parent, trying to fulfill all of a child’s needs alone, especially when society was set up toward two-parent families. Sometimes she simply needed someone to act as a sounding board, and a man served well when it came to raising a boy.

  But now with Jack devoting most of his time to his new family and her mother losing her battle to cancer, Serena felt as though her foundation was in danger of crumbling. She’d always considered herself strong. Right now, she simply felt a soul-deep weariness that sometimes left her too exhausted to even think about getting out of bed.

  “So what did you do then?” her dad asked, censure in his voice, bringing her back to the present. “Last night? If you were too drunk to drive?”

  “I found a room, slept over.” A carefully worded truth if she ever heard one, but she’d never lied to her father. She didn’t feel like starting now, although it was incredibly tempting—but the effort required to fabricate a story wasn’t worth it.

  He narrowed his eyes in suspicion just as he had the night she’d lost her virginity in the bed of Steve’s beat-up pickup truck—on a pile of blankets that had smelled like hay and horses. Her father hadn’t said anything that night, but his glare had spoken louder than any words could have. She’d felt as though she’d walked through the door with a virgin in a red circle with a slash through it drawn on her forehead. She wasn’t sure what to draw and slash on her forehead now. Good mom? Mourning wife? Bereft daughter?

  What sort of mother hit the bars and ended up in a stranger’s bed? What sort of devoted wife dishonored the memory of her husband as she had? It was strange to be standing here feeling as though she’d betrayed a man who’d been gone so many years—when for so long she’d felt as though he’d betrayed her by dying. Irrational thoughts, every damn one of them.

  She patted Riker’s head, his shoulders, his back; he was her precious anchor in the storm of life. She bent down and kissed the top of his head again. “I’m sorry, baby.”

  “For what?”

  Tears stung her eyes. “I shouldn’t have gone out last night. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

  “I wasn’t alone. I was with Grandpa.”

  She hugged him more tightly. “I know. But I should have been here.”

  “Mom, you’re hurting me.”

  She unwound her arms and stepped back. “I just missed you so much.”

  Damn it. That was part of the problem. Anytime she took time for herself, she felt guilty, as though she was being unfair to Riker, selfishly denying him her presence. It was bad enough that he was denied the presence of a father. She owed him.

  “I’m going to take a hot shower, and then you can tell me all about your time with Grandpa.” She looked at her dad. “Later we can go through some more of Mother’s things.”

  “You ought to have some breakfast before you head upstairs,” her dad groused.

  “I’ll drink a cup of tea later.”

  She walked through the house that still carried the lemony scent of the furniture polish her mother had used for more than thirty years to keep everything glowing. The hardwood floor creaked beneath her feet, protesting its age.

  Serena had grown up on two thousand acres of land that had been devoted to cattle. Over the years, her father had sold portions of it off to land developers. There was more money in land than in cattle these days, and he’d recognized early on that those who came after him had no interest in becoming a slave to the demands of ranching as he’d been.

  She trudged up the stairs to her bedroom, the walls still reflecting the girl she’d been in high school, the girl she’d been when she married Steve the summer she graduated. Pompoms were tacked to the wall. Prom corsages and spirit ribbons were pinned to the bulletin board. Frilly curtains she’d sewn in home ec class adorned the windows.

  This room had been her haven. She’d always been able to sit on her bed, knowing after a time, her mother would rap on the door to check on her, knowing that with only a look, her mother would come inside and hold her. Words were seldom needed, love the communicative thread. No matter how old Serena had grown, she’d known her mother would always be there, reaching out to her, comforting her.

  Only now her mother was gone.

  Tears filled her eyes, blurring everything that surrounded her. She could have told her mother about the mistake she’d made last night. She pressed her hand to mouth. Her mother would have made her feel better about her irresponsibility, her bad decision, her insane behavior. She could hear her mother’s wise voice now.

  “It’s done. Learn from it and move on.”

  Learn what? That she couldn’t stop thinking about the man who’d been sitting beside the bed when she’d awoken this morning? Couldn’t seem to shake the dreamlike state he’d carried her into last night? She felt as though he’d branded her with his mouth and hands—and that was an action that until last night had been Steve’s domain exclusively.

  She’d never kissed anyone other than Steve, had never slept with anyone except Steve.

  As old-fashioned as it see
med, she’d always been a one-man woman, a one-boy girl. She had fallen in love with Steve when she was fourteen. Maybe if she’d broadened her horizons when she was younger, she wouldn’t find it so difficult to do so now, but every step took her into unfamiliar territory, carried her farther away from Steve, and removed her from her comfort zone.

  She’d figured that sooner or later, she would let someone else into her life—the loneliness factor was simply too great to go on forever by herself—but she certainly hadn’t taken that initial step toward starting over the way she’d expected.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out the slip of paper he’d given her. Hunter. Was that his first name, his last? A nickname? For only a moment, she contemplated calling the phone number he’d provided and asking him about his name. But what did it truly matter? She’d never see him again.

  She grabbed her robe and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. She set her clothes aside, turned on the shower full force, and as soon as the water began creating steam behind the plastic curtain, she stripped off her clothes and ducked beneath the welcoming spray. She had showered at Hunter’s, but she simply felt in need of another cleansing, anything to clear her mind, to vanquish the fog.

  She remembered last night a bit more clearly now. There had been something about his eyes, something innately protective about them. She’d felt safe when he’d sat across from her at the booth. Safe and secure, no longer out of place. She’d thought she should have felt uncomfortable with his nearness. She hadn’t shown much interest in men—except for Jack, who had failed to notice—since Steve died.

  Not that she had many opportunities to meet men in Hopeful. The town boasted a population of nine thousand on a good day when traffic was brisk. She enjoyed the small town atmosphere near Houston. But Austin would always be her home, even though they didn’t technically live within the city limits. Lately she’d been contemplating moving back. Now she didn’t know if that possibility was wise or not.

  Riker was already complaining about missing his friends, and even though she told herself that this was home and children adjusted and she couldn’t make her life decisions based on a nine-year-old’s social life, she found herself doing exactly that. She’d established her own home-based interior decorating business—Window Dressings—so she would always be available for Riker, could determine her own hours, go on school field trips, and never have to deal with a difficult boss when she wanted to schedule time off to be with her son.

  Every decision she’d made since his birth had been made with his welfare in mind. Until last night.

  Last night, she’d given in to her longings, her needs, her desires.

  She pressed her back to the tiled wall and sank down into the bathtub, wrapped her arms tightly around her drawn up knees, and let the tears fall.

  Oh, God, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt. The loneliness she’d struggled so valiantly against when Steve died was back, like a tight rubber band pressing in on her chest, threatening to crush her physically and emotionally.

  “Oh, Mom, I miss you,” she rasped, her voice echoing around her. Why did people have to die, Goddamn it!

  She’d finally adjusted to Steve being gone—no, not adjusted. Accepted. Accepted that he was gone. Now she was trying to accept that her mother was no longer with her.

  She hit the side of the tub, felt the pain shoot up her arm. Damn it! She hadn’t been ready for either of them to go. Steve had been only twenty-three, her mother had only recently turned fifty. Too young. Too damned young, both of them.

  Oh, God, it hurt. The first week after her mother’s death, she’d been numb, walking around in a haze. She’d always heard that people who were truly depressed didn’t commit suicide. They were so lethargic that they didn’t want to do anything.

  The dangerous moments came when they started coming out of the depression. When they started feeling like doing something again. Too often, the first thing they felt like doing was killing themselves and without the weight of lethargy, they did just that.

  She supposed in a manner of speaking, she’d reacted the same way. She’d been numb, lethargic for days. And when she’d finally started coming out of it, she’d wanted to feel…to feel anything…to feel alive…to feel loved…to stop feeling so damned lonely.

  And she’d certainly felt alive last night. Her body had hummed as it hadn’t in years. From the moment he’d touched her, she’d wanted exactly what he’d offered. And he’d been so good, considerate, and tender. Last night, he’d been exactly what she needed.

  She began to shiver as the water grew tepid, and she was left with no more tears to shed. She forced herself to her feet, turned off the shower, grabbed a towel, and began to dry off. Her gaze fell on the love bite on the curve of her breast. Gingerly she touched it. It closely matched the one she’d spotted on her neck earlier, when she’d first looked in a mirror this morning.

  With the reminder, her legs grew weak and she settled on the edge of the tub. What if she became pregnant? The thought didn’t appall her as it should have. She’d always wanted more children. Of course, she’d always planned to have a husband to go along with them. She had an irrational urge to call Hunter, to hear his voice.

  Snap out of it! It wasn’t as if she’d ever see him again. She didn’t think she’d ever set foot in another bar, might not even set foot out of the house. She needed to stop thinking about him. She got up, finished drying off, pushed the crackly shower curtain back, and climbed out of the tub.

  She felt like hell. Too much booze and too many tears simply didn’t mix. Her eyelids were in danger of scratching her eyes every time she blinked, her throat was raw.

  She slipped on her robe and tightened the sash. Habit had her wiping down the tub, then hanging the towel up to dry before she tossed it in the hamper. Her mother had always worried about mold and mildew.

  Serena worked hard to follow her example. Miss Perfect homemaker. Well, she certainly didn’t feel perfect anymore.

  Chapter 4

  “Don’t give that one away.”

  Serena looked at the green evening gown she’d removed from the closet, then at her father sitting on the edge of the quilt-covered bed. The room was a balance of masculinity and femininity. Heavy mahogany furniture: a four-poster bed, a mirrored dresser, a tall bureau, bedside tables holding lamps with fringed shades. Yellow flowers on the wallpaper, yellow lacy curtains in the windows. Decorative doilies that her grandmother had crocheted collected dust on top of the dresser. In clusters on each doily stood an assortment of perfume bottles, given to Mary Barnett by her children, opened but never used.

  Here was evidence of a life, gifts appreciated, mementos treasured, a history, moments in time captured. A stranger had but to walk into this room to have a sense of who Mary Barnett had been and what had been important to her.

  No such evidence existed within the bedroom of the man she’d slept with last night. As a matter of fact, almost nothing in the rooms she’d seen had revealed a hint to his likes and dislikes. The house had been stark, bare.

  And while a part of her argued that he must have only recently moved into the house, something told her that he hadn’t. That he led a spartan life.

  She didn’t think most men were into decorating, but surely this man favored something, appreciated some sort of artwork or decoration. She’d seen no photos, no statuettes, no silk greenery. Nothing except furniture. The couch and the couple of chairs in the living room where he’d been gazing out at the lake severely limited the number of people he could have over to visit at one time.

  Unlike this house, which had always welcomed people. No matter how many of her friends came to visit, her mother had always managed to find another chair to accommodate them. Something to snack on could always be found on the counter. The refrigerator kept an abundance of drinks cold.

  The man this morning could offer nothing more than coffee and a boiled egg. She’d almost been tempted to share an egg with him, to spend a few more minutes in his pre
sence, to become better acquainted with him so she’d at least have memories other than a torrid night spent in his arms. And the memories were certainly there, slowly surfacing, re-heating her body—

  “Rena?”

  She snapped back to the present to find herself still holding the gown, her father still sitting on the bed.

  “Where were you?” he asked.

  Slightly off-kilter, she smiled. “You know me. Always daydreaming.” She lifted the dress slightly. “You said to keep this one, right?”

  “Right.” Her father tilted his head to the side as though his memories were too heavy. “She wore it on that tropical cruise I took her on for our twenty-fifth anniversary. We danced.” He released a gentle scoff. “We didn’t dance enough, you know that?”

  She saw the tears brimming in his eyes before he looked away. She knew the tears embarrassed him. He was of a generation that didn’t give in to emotion. Pretending not to notice what he was trying to hide, she hung the evening gown to the right side of the closet, marking it as something considered and determined not yet ready to be parted with—which so far had been every piece of clothing she’d shown to her dad.

  Her mother seldom threw anything away. That was part of the reason Serena had decided to stay and help her father go through some of her mother’s things.

  “Go through it now, go through it later,” her brother, Kevin, had muttered. “Makes no difference to me. I’m not interested in any of it.”

  A big-time lawyer now, he seemed embarrassed by their family’s humble beginnings. Sometimes she wanted to take her mother’s cast-iron skillet to her older brother’s head.

  “Dad, we don’t have to go through the closet this afternoon. I plan to stay for a few weeks.”

  “What about your business?”

  There wasn’t a lot of demand for decorators in Hopeful, so hers wasn’t a lucrative business, but she enjoyed the creative aspect of designing and sewing unique window treatments.