“Bone graft,” she said.
“Ouch.”
She shrugged. “At least the bone graft healed the fracture once and for all.”
They ate in companionable silence. C.J. finished off one piece and reached for a second. Then he uncovered the coleslaw and apple pie. Tamara finished her first drumstick, then grabbed a second.
Behind the cover of his chicken, C.J. watched her with genuine appreciation. Her shoulders had come down, her posture easing. Her long sable hair swept down her back like a beautiful scarf. She tossed her head a little when strands threatened to interfere with eating her chicken. By the end of her second piece, she had a grease stain on her cheek and a gleam in her eye.
He had a feeling she wasn’t eating or sleeping enough. At least now she was beginning to relax. He liked that. He liked that a lot.
“So what do you think?” he asked at last, tossing aside a second bone and digging into the coleslaw. “Is Arizona beautiful or what?”
“Stunning.” She perked up at the sight of coleslaw.
“I spent the first half of my youth in L.A.,” C.J. volunteered. “Certainly Sunset Boulevard and Sedona cannot be compared. Then I lived with my grandma for a while in Tillamook, Oregon. That’s a small dairy community nestled on the coast. You ever been out west?”
She shook her head, her gaze clear and curious for a change.
“It’s beautiful, Tamara. Green mountains and rolling fog. Nothing at all like Sedona, and yet, I really think Tillamook and Sedona are two of the most beautiful places in the world.”
“That’s why you moved here?”
“Absolutely. Besides, real estate’s cheap and there’s enough stuff to keep a guy like me happy.”
“Women?” she quizzed dryly. “I thought they were everywhere.”
He chuckled and offered her a bit of coleslaw on his spoon. After a brief hesitation, she accepted it. “Hmm. Good slaw.”
“Thank you. I bought it myself. Oh, yes, the subject of ‘stuff.’ Not women—though of course I checked that out—but outdoor activities. Some of the best hiking, rock climbing and white-water rafting in the world is right here in Arizona. Oh, and golf.”
“Of course.”
He held out another spoonful of coleslaw. This time she took it without hesitation. She was definitely beginning to catch her second wind. When he’d first spotted her pulling up into the parking lot of her hotel, he’d thought she looked like a woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders. And almost immediately—hell, instinctively—he’d wanted to do something about that.
Once, one of the barn cats on his grandmother’s farm had given birth to six kittens and hidden them under the flooring of the hayloft. He and Maggie had discovered them, and C.J. had promptly picked one up—at which point the tiny, trembling creature had split open C.J.’s hand from the base of his finger to his wrist. He’d dropped it with a howl, Maggie had leapt back ten feet, and they’d run out of the loft as if they had the very devil on their heels. His grandmother, Lydia, had shaken her head the whole time she’d cleaned up his hand.
“They’re wild cats, C.J., not meant to be coddled. Leave them alone.”
He’d nodded, but both he and Maggie had ended up there again the next afternoon. Maggie simply adored kittens and wanted to see them. C.J. . . . C.J. couldn’t let them go. They looked so tiny, so helpless. He wanted to touch them, to hold them. And yet the one orange kitten had hurt him fiercely, and he hated it for that. He wanted to walk away; he wanted to hate the kitten. He glowered a lot. Blamed it all on Maggie and her obsession with “dumb animals.” But he couldn’t keep away. He made it one week, then simply had to try again. The orange kitten had grown, and so had its claws. He came racing back to the house with Maggie hot on his heels, both of them convinced he was going to bleed to death. They’d slapped a whole box of Band-Aids onto his hand, then waited in fear for Lydia to find out.
“You tried to pick up the kitten again.”
“Did not.”
“Don’t lie to me, C.J. You’re not on the streets anymore. You’re part of a family. You don’t lie to family.”
He’d scowled. His father had lied a lot, especially to his mother. In the end, he’d lied to his mother a lot, too. No, I didn’t steal the sandwiches. Of course I went to school.
Hey, your temperature is coming down. You’re getting better. Everything is going to be all right.
“It’s just a damn kitten,” he’d muttered to Lydia at last.
Lydia had handed him a bar of soap to wash out his mouth for swearing. When that was over, she’d sat him down. “You’re going to try again, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.” He was trying to sound tough. He kicked at the ground a few times for good measure. Lydia was patient, but he was never sure how patient. He’d gone through a mother and a father. At this point, he was pretty sure this grandma was just passing through, as well.
“All right, C.J., this is what you do. Go every afternoon. Sit there with Maggie. Move a little closer each time. Let the kittens get used to you, your presence, your smell. Just be, and after a while, they’ll know you. And soon, they’ll be so curious, they’ll approach you. Then you be very gentle and very patient. And someday, you’ll get to hold that kitten again, and it won’t hurt you.”
“I don’t care.”
“Of course.”
But he and Maggie had done exactly what Lydia had recommended, and Lydia knew the day they finally achieved contact because they carried their newfound friends back to the house for inspection. C.J. had named his orange kitten Speedy, and she’d been his cat until he’d turned eighteen and joined the marines.
He’d loved that cat. And over the years, he’d come to love his grandmother for everything she’d taught the wild, destructive, angry boy he’d been.
“Your family in New York?” he asked Tamara at last.
For the first time, Tamara hesitated over her chicken. “No. My . . . my parents died when I was younger.”
“That’s hard.”
She shrugged, clearly not wanting to talk about it. “That was a long time ago.”
“My parents died when I was younger, too. That’s why I was raised by my grandmother in Tillamook.”
She looked at him silently, and he realized she’d never ask the questions on her own. If he wanted to volunteer information, she was leaving it up to him.
“My parents never married,” he said easily. “My father, Max, apparently only married women with money. So he married my half brother’s mother, who had a decent-size inheritance from England, and he married my half sister’s mother for her inheritance. My mother, he liked to say, he was with out of love.”
“And she didn’t mind?”
C.J. shrugged. “I think she did. But I think she also thought it was romantic. My mother . . . she was sweet. Gentle. Sometimes she didn’t have the best judgment. Max said he would take care of her and me, so she trusted him to do that and she was always happy when he came to visit.”
“I see.”
“She became very ill when I was eleven. We didn’t have much money. The doctors put her on antibiotics, but they didn’t seem to help. I tried to find Max, but he traveled all the time. I couldn’t reach him. Eventually, her condition deteriorated. By the time Max arrived, it was all over.”
“Oh.”
C.J. offered her a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. I don’t expect you to murmur any magical words that make it better. Life goes on, you know?”
Mutely, she nodded.
“I lived with my father for a year, traveling all over the world, but then his plane went down in Indonesia and that was that. I stayed with my grandmother, Lydia, and met my half siblings, Maggie and Brandon.”
“What did your father do?”
C.J. grinned; he couldn’t help it. “That’s subject to some debate,” he said dryly.
“Debate?”
“Honestly, I think he was a crook.” That got her full attention. He winked. “Think about it
. The man called himself an ‘importer-exporter.’ He was always traveling around the globe, he seemed to have unbelievable sums of cash, yet none of us ever saw him actually conduct any business. My grandma, his mother, to this day doesn’t know what his job really was. None of his wives ever understood it. As a kid, I was very impressed with the whole nine yards—the travel, the plane, the presents. As an adult, I look back at him and I think he had to have been a smuggler. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“I . . . I suppose.”
“Now, my sister, Maggie, is a romantic. I think she’s decided he was a secret agent because that sounds like a great dad thing to be.”
“That would be romantic,” Tamara agreed. She hesitated a moment, leaning forward ever so slightly. He held his breath. He didn’t think she was aware of it, but her eyes were large and clear, her expression earnest. In spite of herself, she’d gotten caught up in the conversation. Perhaps she was even enjoying his company. “You’re very close to your half siblings.”
“Yeah. My grandma brought us together because she wanted us to learn how to be a family. My grandma is a very smart woman.”
“I never had any brothers or sisters.”
“Yeah? I have to say, I like mine more than I thought I would when I was a streetwise only child hell-bent on taking care of himself. When my grandma introduced me to Brandon, my first words to him were ‘Go to hell.’ Luckily, his English reserve allows him to blow off such things.”
“You told your brother to go to hell?”
“I was a bit of a head case,” he admitted. He grinned. “Not at all the charming young man you see before you now. These days I would never dream of doing the slightest misdeed. I am an angel. Ask anyone.”
“Uh-huh,” she said with just the right note of skepticism.
“Are you besmirching my reputation?”
“Uh-huh.”
“After I just fed you chicken?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well.” He crossed his arms in mock indignation and gave her his most affronted gaze. Slowly, but surely, her lips curved into a smile. It brightened her whole face, brought a luminescent sheen to her eyes. He liked it very much when she smiled. He intended to make sure she smiled again and then again after that.
“You’re very beautiful, you know?”
Her smile vanished. She looked startled, then uncomfortable. She drew back, and he could tell she was suddenly awkward. It puzzled him.
“Surely you’ve heard that before.”
“I’m . . . I work a lot. In fact, I have work to do tonight. I really should get back to the hotel.” Her fingers fumbled with her napkin. She began to pick up chicken bones.
He covered her hand with his, stilling her motions. He watched her chest rise and fall too rapidly in the silence. “Tamara, I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable.”
Her gaze remained locked on the blue-checked picnic blanket. “I’m . . . I’m not very good at this.”
“What is ‘good at this’?” he quizzed gently. “You either enjoy being with someone or you don’t. You’re either comfortable with someone or you’re not. I don’t expect anything from you. I’m happy we had dinner together. I enjoyed talking with you. I do think you’re beautiful. Especially when you smile.”
Her head turned slightly. For a moment, she studied him as if she was trying to figure out whether he was lying or not. Then she removed her hand from his grip, and in a gesture that was curiously vulnerable, she pressed it against her stomach.
“Thank you for dinner,” she said quietly. “I did enjoy the conversation. Your family . . . they sound very special. Now I need to go, C.J. I have work to do. And in one week or so, I will be returning to New York.”
“Understood,” he said softly, though he was disappointed. Acutely disappointed. More disappointed than he had been in a long time. He worked on shrugging it away. “That’s still at least a week away, you know. And a girl’s gotta eat. . . .”
“Maybe, C.J. Maybe.”
• • •
After pulling up in the parking lot, he waited while she retrieved the items she’d left in her car. He complimented the kachina doll, but she didn’t seem to have much to say about it.
They walked through the lush garden and swimming pool of the resort until they came to her hotel room. C.J. could tell she was becoming nervous again, tense. Her face had shuttered over. Her shoulders were square. She was retreating somewhere deep inside herself, marshaling her energies, cutting herself off.
He waited until she put her key in the lock, then gently turned her around.
He was aware of the softness of the night, the way the dry, dusty shadows swirled around them. He could hear crickets, the whir of gilla woodpeckers, the rhythmic lap of pool water against the patio. He let the sounds settle and linger, his arms still around her.
And he waited for the moment of awareness to hit her, too. That sharp, electric moment when her breath would suddenly slow, her eyes widen and her lips part. That moment when her gaze would meet his again and finally bloom with warm wonder. That moment when her body would subtly and unconsciously lean toward his.
It didn’t happen. Nothing changed. Her body remained as rigid and tense as the very first time he’d met her. She was frozen.
Puzzled, he bent and slowly brushed her lips with his own. Then he brushed them again, testing the full softness, feeling them part. He dipped his tongue in and tasted her. Warm, he thought. Sweet. And totally unresponsive.
He pulled back. She’d already averted her face.
“Is it me?” he asked quietly.
Her mouth opened, her throat working. It looked like she was saying yes. Maybe she wanted to say yes.
Instead, she stated abruptly, “No. It’s not you. It’s just . . . it’s just the way I am.”
“Tamara—”
She pushed out of his arms, already shaking her head. “It’s been a long night. I need to go.” She yanked open the door and disappeared inside her room without preamble.
His hand was still reaching out for her when the door slammed shut
Damn. Damn, damn, damn. He stood there feeling like an absolute idiot and having no idea what to do about it. He raked his fingers through his hair once, twice, then three times.
Finally, still shaking his head, he turned to walk away.
Just as he stepped forward, however, the silence of the night was broken. Behind him, Tamara screamed.
Chapter 4
“Tamara!” He pounded on the door. “Tamara!”
Her screams grew louder, then broke off in a strangled cry. C.J. gave up on civility. He took six steps back, then barreled into the door with the full force of his body. It burst open.
Tamara stood in the middle of the luxurious room beating at the floor with her kachina doll. Her dark hair flew around her face. Her pale cheeks were covered in beads of sweat. She pounded at the floor harder and harder, lost in a frenzy.
Beneath her rage, a good-size scorpion was being pulverized to bits.
“Tamara! Tamara, it’s dead.”
She slammed the kachina doll more furiously, her hair crackling. C.J. made a grab for her arm but couldn’t catch it. “It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay.”
She finally looked at him, and the fear in her face caught him off guard. Then so did the rage. She hammered the wooden doll hard.
C.J. moved forward forcefully, catching her full-shoulder and spinning her around. She raised the wooden statue unconsciously, and he blocked the blow, grabbed the doll and tossed it onto the bed.
“Stop it, stop it. Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
She remained, struggling. “I don’t need you!” she cried fiercely.
“Tamara—”
“Get out! Get out!”
“Tamara—”
“I don’t need you! I don’t need your smiles or your chicken. You have to be able to stand alone—don’t you get it?” Her fists suddenly beat his chest. “You want to learn how to walk, you ta
ke the first step yourself. That’s what Ben always said. No one’s going to do it for you. There’s only yourself. Only yourself!”
C.J. finally caught her flailing fists and pinned them between their bodies. He gripped her shoulders hard, his fingers welting her skin. “Tamara, calm down! What the hell are you talking about?”
Her head fell back. Her eyes killed him, and he didn’t even know why. She looked unbelievably angry. She looked unbelievably scared. She looked like she might shatter into a million pieces and never be put back together again.
He didn’t understand what she was saying or thinking. He followed instinct, cradling her body against him, her cheek against his shoulder. She went rigid, like a rod of steel, and then the spell broke and she sagged against him.
“Shh,” he whispered against the top of her hair. “Shh. It’s all right now. It’s all right.”
He rocked her, rubbing her back, stroking her long, silken hair, then her arm, her waist. He waited for tears. He waited for her to wrap her arms around him and hold him as if he were the last anchor in the storm. She did neither. She just stood there, slumped against him like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He could feel the delicate structure of her ribs, the slender curve of her waist, the gentle swell of her hips. She hardly made a dent against him, her build was so slight. She must have lost weight recently—a fair amount of it.
“It’s okay,” he murmured again, wishing he knew what she needed—or what she was so afraid of. He rested his cheek against the top of her hair, still rocking her back and forth. Her body was warm and fragrant. He smelled Arizona sandstone and windswept creosote tangled in her hair and dusting her skin. Just as he was beginning to relax, she pushed away.
She stepped back too quickly, her bad ankle not ready and almost sending her to the floor. He caught her arm and, when he was sure she wouldn’t fall, withdrew on his own.