Jennifer Greene - Wild in the Moonlight

“Damn,” he said.

She leaned back her head. “Uh-oh. That sounds like a man in the throes of regrets.”

“Try again. I couldn’t regret what just happened between us if my life were at stake.” He bussed the top of her head, which made Charlie pop to attention again. He was too old to have Charlie pop to attention again this fast. It was her. Making him feel things, do things, want things that weren’t normal for him.

He couldn’t be in love with her. Not just because he barely knew the woman, but because his pull for her made no sense. She’d almost cried twice that day. Did he need a weepy woman? Did he need all those cats? For that matter, he’d seen Alps and ocean, so how could he possibly be drawn to some rocky land with red barns and stone fences and winding roads?

Perhaps more directly to the point, if he’d lost his mind, where the hell had it gone?

Was there a chance it could find its way home again?

“Cameron?” She twisted in his arms, not moving far away from him, just pushing back far enough that she could tilt her head and look at him face-to-face. Below, her fingers reached over and gently, playfully, entwined with his. “Tell me about your daughters.”

He glanced down and watched their two hands blend together. Hell. Double hell. Teenagers held hands like this, not fully grown adults who were lying naked in the moonlight. But she didn’t seem willing to sever all closeness yet, and neither was he.

The question about his daughters seemed to come from nowhere, but he was more than willing to answer it. Talk was better than the alternative-which was lying there, drinking in the scent of lavender and moonlight and wanting to make love to her again. So he talked. “Miranda’s fifteen. Kate’s sixteen.” He hesitated. “For a long time it was totally clear cut that they belonged with their mom. It’s not that I didn’t want to be an active dad. I’ve always wanted that, always tried to be. I just traveled so much. Over the years, I always talked to them twice a week. We spend time together every holiday and school break. And I usually hang there at least a month every year to just be around them, part of their routine. Only lately…”

“Lately what?”

“Well, lately, they’re fighting all the time with their mom. Most of it seems to be pretty standard teenage girl, mother stuff. Rules. Roles. But sometimes she’s had it, and then I think…”

“You think what?”

“That if I lived in a more settled way, I could have them with me for a while. Most parents don’t seem to like the teenage years, but for some strange reason, it doesn’t bother me that they’re being difficult and impossible. If anything, I feel like now I could be a better parent to them.” Okay. He’d stripped naked some of his heart to tell her that. And left him hanging besides, so it was her turn now, he figured. “What about your ex?”

Her hand dropped away from his. She lay back, facing the stars. “Well…his name is Ed. Simpson, I always called him. Back in college, I took one look and just knew he was my first and only true love. He was a warm, family kind of guy, good sense of humor. Fun. I quit my last year of school to help him finish faster-he got his social work degree. He was always one to reach out to help someone else.”

“Sounds like a saint,” Cam said, and was briefly tempted to spit and paw the earth-but naturally he was too mature.

“Not exactly,” she said wryly. “He’s married to someone else now. In fact, they had their first child five months after the wedding. And he called me this morning to tell me about their newborn son.”

“I don’t understand why he’d call you.” It wasn’t hard for Cam to deduce that the creep had cheated on her, judging from the age of the first kid.

“Who would? I wouldn’t take him back for a fortune, am over him in every way a woman can get over a man. For some reason he seems to still think I’m his friend. That we’re still good friends.”

“So, are you?”

“No.”

“Then why on earth do you let him keep calling?”

“Because.” She lifted a hand to the moonlight. “Oh, cripes, I don’t know why. In the beginning, I acted friendly out of pride because I never wanted to let on how much he’d hurt me. And then I just didn’t seem to know how to cut him off. I know they’ve really been struggling to afford their growing family.”

“Struggling? I thought your ex was wealthy.”

She frowned. “Why’d you think that?”

“Because…I thought you said or implied you’d gotten a pretty good settlement from the divorce. When you were talking about how you could afford to put up the greenhouses, not have to care if you lost money on the lavender, all that.”

“Oh. Well, I did get a good lump of money from the divorce-but not because Simpson gave me anything for free. We had a house together. He wanted to stay in the house to raise his kids, and I didn’t need or want to stay there, so he owed me my share. Actually, I’d earned more than him back then. But the point was-”

It wasn’t that hard to finish her sentence that time. “You wanted to spend any money you got from the marriage. It felt like ugly money somehow. As if it could sabotage your luck if you used it in a relationship with someone else.”

“Yeah. And I know that thinking was superstitious.”

“It is. But I remember feeling that way after my divorce, too. Then it wasn’t about money. I gave her all the money I could, wanted her to have it. She had the girls. But the ‘stuff’-furniture, paintings, the things we’d split up that were part of the marriage-at the time, it didn’t matter how valuable they were or how much I liked them or even needed them. I wanted all ties severed.”

“So you understand. Why’d you get divorced, Cam?”

“I told you. Because I couldn’t settle in one place. I was too restless. Not responsible enough. Not mature enough to make any kind of husband, either,” he said honestly. “And you?”

Her bare big toe had sneaked over and found his bare big toe. Now they were playing footsie, he realized. Both of them, like kids who couldn’t stop touching each other. No matter what they were sure of and what they weren’t.

There had to be something narcotic in the Vermont air. Something dangerous.

Maybe it was even in her big toe.

“Me, what?” She seemed to be referring to some question he’d asked, as if she’d lost track of the conversation.

Hell, so had he. “Why’d you get divorced? Because he cheated? Because you fell out of love? What?”

She didn’t answer for a long time, and then finally she made a sound-like a wry little chuckle, only not so much humor in it. “We have a problem, Lachlan.”

“What’s that?”

“The problem is that I want to answer your question. I have this horrible feeling that you could turn out to be someone I could seriously trust. How weird is that?”

“Weird? You’re not used to trusting people?”

She propped up on an elbow then. Moonlight draped the round of her shoulder, the edge of one plump, firm breast, the sweet soft curve of her hip and high. “Don’t waste your time sounding surprised, Cam. You’re no more used to trusting people than I am. You’re a loner. Just like me.”

He didn’t know what to say, except that she didn’t strike him as a natural loner in any conceivable way. She was an earth mother, a giving lover, a warm, nurturing woman right down to her toes. He said honestly, “I can well understand your needing time to get over a hurtful relationship, but in the long run it’s impossible to imagine you living alone. Or not wanting to be in a marriage.”

“I won’t be climbing into another serious relationship,” she said firmly.