BEVERLY BARTON - The Tender Trap

“I thought it was wonderful that Joy and Craig christened my goddaughter, Melissa Blythe, after Joy’s grandmother and me.” Blythe hadn’t been able to keep herself from crying during the christening ceremony. She couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d been so touched.

“Well, you could hardly expect them to name her Adam Tobias Maximillian Wyatt.”

Blythe stared at Adam, trying hard to keep from smiling. The effort failed. “Good grief, is that really your name? Adam Tobias Maximillian Wyatt?”

Blythe burst into laughter. Groaning, Adam opened his eyes and stared at her. He shot out of his chair and playfully grabbed her by the shoulders. Smiling, he shook her gently. “I can’t believe I told you. Forget you ever heard that. Okay?”

She trembled with laughter, her body quivering beneath his fingertips. Damn, but she was tiny, her bones so very fragile. He doubted she weighed much more than a hundred pounds soaking wet. She had to be a foot shorter than he was; the top of her head struck him midchest. If he kissed her, he’d have to pick her up to reach her mouth.

Hell, he couldn’t let himself think about kissing her. She was the last woman on earth he should want. But he did want—had wanted her from the first moment he’d seen her in a body-hugging purple dress that accentuated every curve of her petite body. He’d spent the whole night of Craig and Joy’s engagement party struggling to control his arousal.

The moment Adam touched her, Blythe gazed up into his dark eyes. He looked at her intensely. What was he thinking? If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he wanted to kiss her.

Dropping his hands from Blythe’s shoulders, Adam took a step backward. Blythe sucked in a deep breath. A loud rumble of thunder shattered the uneasy silence. A zigzag of ragged lightning ripped through the cloudy, gray evening sky.

“I guess I’d better get going since you don’t need me to hang around and help you clean up.” Blythe backed away from Adam, bumping into the edge of an end table.

Heavy drops of rain hit the patio. The wind blew the dampness inside through the open doors. Turning quickly, Adam rushed to shut out the rain.

“You might want to wait around until this summer storm passes,” he said. “It probably won’t last long. They never do.”

She didn’t want to stay. Not one minute longer. Not alone with Adam Wyatt. She knew his reputation with women. Every time she saw him, he had a different voluptuous beauty on his arm.

So what are you worried about, Blythe? she asked herself. Adam Wyatt wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole. You’re hardly his type any more than he’s yours. He likes tall, big-boobed, helpless, brainless lovelies who simper and gush and cling to him like ivy to a brick wall.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Blythe said. “No use getting soaked.” She sat down on the leather sofa, perching her petite body tensely on the edge.

“Want something to drink?” he asked, eyeing the bar. “I could use something stronger than champagne myself.”

“Nothing for me. Thanks.” Blythe glanced outside. The rain poured from the sky. Suddenly the world shook with thunder. She gasped, her body trembling involuntarily.

“Are you afraid of storms?” Adam chuckled as he rounded the bar and lifted a bottle of bourbon from a low shelf.

“No. Not really. I just don’t like than.”

She hated storms, but that fact was none of Adam’s business. Being afraid of thunder and lightning could be seen as a weakness, a female weakness. Her stepfather had made fun of her mother’s fear of storms, telling her what a silly woman she was and what a good thing it was that he was around to take care of her since she couldn’t take care of herself.

Raymond Harold had been a big, handsome man, totally masculine in every way. He had taught Blythe never to trust men, especially big, macho men who liked to take care of women. She’d watched her lovely, kind, intelligent mother dominated and manipulated. No man would ever subjugate her. No man would ever turn her into “the little woman” and convince her she wasn’t capable of making her own decisions.

Adam carried his glass of bourbon with him, sat down on the sofa beside Blythe and took a sip of the mellow liquor. She scooted as far away from him as she could without getting up.

“What do you think I’m going to do, jump on you?” He sloshed the bourbon around inside the glass, then took a hefty swallow, shaking his head and blowing when the liquid blazed a trail down his throat and into his stomach.

“I understand you have that sort of reputation.” Blythe glared at him, issuing him a challenge without realizing what she was doing.

Adam set his drink down on the glass-and-brass coffee table, then turned to face Blythe, laying his hand across the back of the sofa and lifting his right knee onto the cushion. “Ms. Elliott, you don’t have a thing to worry about. When I take a woman, I want her to be just that—a woman. And I want her willing. No, I want her more than willing. I want her begging for it.”

Blythe cursed the blush she felt spreading up her neck and onto her face. She was supposed to be a woman of the world, dammit. She had dated practically every unattached man in north Alabama, and found them all lacking in one way or another. None of the guys she dated wanted to admit that he’d been the first one she had refused to sleep with, so no one, except Joy, knew that Blythe Alana Elliott was a twenty-eight-year-old virgin.

Clutching the thickly padded sofa arm with her hand, Blythe looked at Adam. “For the life of me, I can’t figure out why Joy chose you to be Melissa’s godfather. If anything were to happen to Joy and Craig, you’d make the worst possible father substitute in the world.”

“And you’d make a great mother, I suppose?”

“I’d certainly try to be a good mother.” Blythe’s sculptured lavender nails bit into the leather as she squeezed the sofa arm tightly. “Since I’m not married, I can’t say that motherhood is something I’ve thought about very much... until Joy got pregnant. I adore Missy. She’d never want for love and attention from me.”

“Well, believe me, I haven’t given fatherhood a thought since my divorce, but if that little girl ever needed me, I’d be there for her.”

“No little girl should be raised by a man like you!” Blythe jumped up off the couch, intending to go into the bedroom, where she’d deposited her purse when she’d arrived before the party started.

Adam stood, followed her across the living room and into his downstairs bedroom. Stopping abruptly in the doorway, Blythe glanced over her shoulder.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Just what kind of man do you think I am?”

Adam didn’t know why her accusation had stung so badly. Maybe it was because once he had wanted a child of his own desperately. He and Lynn had tried for two years of their five-year marriage, but his wife had never gotten pregnant. Just when he had agreed for them to seek medical advice, he had discovered Lynn’s infidelity. She hadn’t married her lover, but she had eventually remarried, finished law school and was now a successful attorney in Birmingham.

He supposed he had loved Lynn once, when they’d first married and he’d thought she wanted nothing more than to be his wife and the mother of his children. But she hadn’t been satisfied with their comfortable life—a life he had worked hard to give her.

A simple explanation for the demise of their marriage would be to say that they grew apart or grew in different directions. But the way Adam saw it, he had given in to her wants and wishes time and time again. He had compromised his ideals for her, had accepted the fact she wanted a career and had supported her efforts. He’d done everything possible to save their faltering relationship, but the one thing he couldn’t compromise on was fidelity. She’d taken a lover. And Adam had never forgiven her.