Every Breath She Takes (32 page)

His father made a sound of disgust. “Dammit, Cal, I never said my way was better. I went by guess and by God because it was the only way I knew. Lord knows I was wrong often enough.”

Cal dragged a hand over his face. Why were their exchanges always like this? Why couldn’t they talk like normal men? Well, to the extent that men talked. “Sorry. I had no call to jump down your throat like that. It’s been a long day.”

Zane took a seat, then gestured to the whiskey bottle. “If you’re not planning on drowning yourself in that after all, how about pouring your old man a drink?”

Share a drink with his father? Now there was a first. In his youth, Cal had done his drinking with his rowdy crowd of friends, carousing on Saturday nights just to spite the old man. The police had carted him home more than once. Well, at least until he’d brought Nalini home. That poor, neglected mare had likely saved his life. Knowing she was there at home, needing a calm spirit, a quiet voice, and a gentle hand—if he was lucky enough that she let him touch her—kept him home and sober. He shook the thought away.

“A drink? That’s not against doctor’s orders?”

Zane’s face darkened thunderously. “There’s nothing wrong with me that I can’t handle that little drop of whiskey.”

Cal bared his teeth. “Relax, I was baiting you.”

Zane swore, then closed his eyes and sighed heavily. “I know you were. That’s the worst of it, that I still rise to it.”

Cal dug another glass out of the bottom drawer of his desk. Thumping it down, he poured the last finger of Canadian Club into it and pushed it toward his father.

“And you still open every conversation with a criticism. I just lash back out of habit. That’s why I got defensive over the bar charts.” Cal nodded toward the computer screen, which had winked out. “I just assumed you were going to dump on it.”

His father picked up the glass, swirling the amber liquid but not drinking it. Cal picked up his own glass and took a sip. His old leather chair creaked as he settled back in it, then the room fell silent but for the white noise of the computer. It took about ten seconds for the silence to become extremely uncomfortable.

“Do I really do that?” Zane asked.

At his father’s words, Cal glanced up, only to find his father staring into his own glass.

“Do what?”

“Open every conversation with a criticism?”

Cripes, and here he’d thought the
silence
was uncomfortable. If he wasn’t careful, this could turn into a real conversation, another one of those things he didn’t know how to share with his father. Best to skate quickly over it, then change the subject.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about it, Dad. It’s like the chicken and the egg thing, hard to tell which came first. Did you disapprove of me because I acted up or did I act up because you disapproved of me? I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

Zane’s head came up. “I never disapproved of you.”

Cal’s fingers tightened on the glass in his hands. When he noticed his knuckles turn white, he consciously relaxed his grip. He opened his mouth to say,
“Whatever you say, Dad,”
but what emerged was a disbelieving snort. “I was there, Dad, remember? You disapproved of me plenty.”

Zane took a swallow of the liquor and grimaced. “I may have disapproved of your choices sometimes, but I always knew you were a good kid. When you weren’t doing your darndest to get my goat, I was proud of you. I may not have said it often enough—”

Or at all.
Cal clamped down hard on the thought.
Don’t think, don’t think, don’t feel.

“I know I wasn’t the best parent, but I did worry about you. Those kids you hung around with were bad news. Two of ’em, the Cookson boys, went on to prison. Did you know that? I wanted better’n that for you.”

Cal felt the barrier behind which he kept the anger bulge. He couldn’t hear this. Not now. Not twenty years too late.

“And the rodeo…I know you loved it, but I thought it would break your heart, if not your body.”

“Don’t say another word.”

“Why not?” Zane growled. “I guess it needs to be said, if you think you were such an all-around disappointment to me.”

Cal slammed his glass down on the table, sloshing the contents on his sleeve. “I said shut up, old man.”

Zane ignored the warning. “You’ve got a good heart, son, just like your mother. I always knew you’d make a good man, once you got those wild years behind you. Look at the way you tried to help that mare you brought—”

“Just…don’t.”

But there was no shutting the old man up. “I’m sorry about putting down that horse, son. I guess I didn’t fully appreciate what she meant to you. I’ve had a lot of years to think about it. A lot of time to regret it. But she pretty near killed me earlier that day, and I was a damned sight bigger and stronger than you were at a scrawny sixteen years old. I know you believed she could be fixed, son, but I was too scared to let you try. I couldn’t lose you too.”

The barrier snapped then, letting the pent-up anger escape. Cal lurched to his feet, sweeping his drink to the floor. The shattering of glass did nothing to soothe the beast inside him.

“Not…another…word! You hear me?” Even in his rage, Cal knew enough to keep the desk between himself and his father.

“Cal, what’s the matter—”

“If you don’t shut up, I swear I’ll hit you.”

Zane surged to his feet. “Then I guess you’ll have to hit me, cuz I won’t shut up about this. I shoulda tol’ you all this stuff back
then, but we never could have a conversation without it turnin’ into a donnybrook, and then you were gone.”

Cal rounded the big desk. His father held his ground but braced for a blow. That subtle stiffening infuriated Cal even more. To think the old man actually thought he’d hit him…

Then he noticed his own right fist cocked at his side, knuckles gleaming white, the muscles of his arm coiled to strike.

Jesus
.

With a muffled oath, Cal turned and stalked out.

Lauren, having seen Marlena safely past the critical period before sundown for another night, had just slid into her bath when a knock came at her cabin door.
Cal
. That peremptory rap couldn’t be anyone else’s.

A thrill arrowed straight to her core, raising goose bumps on her flesh. On its heels came a surge of resentment. How could she respond like this to the mere thought of him after he talked so scathingly about crazy people who saw “movies in their heads”?

But he didn’t mean you. He doesn’t know about your visions. Stupid to punish him when he doesn’t even know.

Clutching the face cloth to her chest, she chewed the inside of her lip. She did want him rather desperately…

Two more short, sharp raps. “It’s me, Lauren. Let me in.”

What had she vowed just this morning?
To grab every minute, savor every sensation, memorize each look and touch.
“Hang
on.” She stepped out of the tub, sloshing water in her eagerness. “I’m coming.”

A moment later, she opened the door. As he brushed past, she flared her nostrils to catch the tang of aftershave and night air and Cal that she knew he’d bring in with him, but this time it was overlaid with the smell of alcohol. That, along with the set of his shoulders, sent a small jolt of alarm through her.

“Cal, are you all right?”

He turned to face her, and she sucked in a breath. His face looked like a stranger’s. His eyes burned with an intensity she’d never seen in them before, yet they were curiously flat.

“Come here.”

She wanted to, but something stopped her. Again she caught a whiff of alcohol. “Have you been drinking?”

“Not nearly enough.”

She’d never known Cal to take more than a few drinks, but maybe this afternoon’s run-in with Harvey McLeod…

“You haven’t had more trouble with Harvey, have you?”

“No.”

Marlena! Fear jolted her, leaving an acrid taste in her mouth. Surely not. It was full dark already. “Has something happened to Marlena? Is she okay?”

His lips thinned. “See, now there you go again. I’m used to my men obsessing over Marlena, but I gotta say this is kinky.”

She ignored the taunt. “Cal, just tell me, is she okay?”

“I imagine she’s in her room, but I expect I could get her over here, if you like.” He lowered his voice as though imparting a confidence. “Strictly speaking, I don’t think she’s into women, but if anyone could change her mind, you could.”

“Cut it out,” she said sharply. “We’re not going to do this again.” Relief that Marlena was safe gave way to swiftly rising anger at his treatment of her. “Just because you’re hurting about something doesn’t mean you get to lash out at me.”

That pain she’d accused him of harboring flickered in his eyes, but he shuttered it quickly. Instead he raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “What? You’re not going to fight back?”

“This is not a fight,” she said, meeting his gaze calmly and unflinchingly. “This is you trying to pick a fight because you don’t know how else to cope. But I’m not having any of it.”

Cal spun away from her to stand in front of the window, but he couldn’t get away from the words. God, she was right. He was a bastard, lashing out at the one he cared about the most instead of dealing with the demons that rode him. The last of the anger he’d been clinging to fell away, leaving a terrifying black hole yawning beneath him. He clutched for the fury again, but it was gone.

Then Lauren closed the distance again. She was so close he could feel her warmth on his back. There was no escaping her either, it seemed.

“I just had a fight with my father,” he said, staring out into the floodlit yard. Some disconnected part of his brain observed that since there was no guest traffic from the cabins to the house, he could probably stop lighting the area after dark.

“Was it bad?”

“I nearly hit him.” He lifted a hand to massage his neck.

Lauren caught his hand as he dropped it. “He must have said something to provoke you,” she said softly.

His body angled toward hers of its own volition. She smelled like heaven. “You sound pretty sure of that.”

“I
am
sure of it. You wouldn’t attack your father—wouldn’t attack anyone—without provocation.”

Damp tendrils of hair clung to her forehead and moisture dewed her skin. If he could just bury his head against her breasts, if she would just hold him…

But he didn’t deserve that kind of solace, he reminded himself.

He laughed harshly. “I just attacked
you
, didn’t I?”

“You tried to pick a fight,” she clarified. “And I short-circuited you, which I’m pretty sure you knew I’d do.”

Had he known that? Yes, he thought maybe he had. Was that why he sought her out every time his demons started to howl?

“Lauren.” He brought their linked hands up to trap hers against his face.

“Tell me about it,” she said.

To his embarrassment, Cal felt tears prick his eyes. He turned his mouth into her hand, murmured the words into her fragrant palm. “I tried to make him shut up, but he wouldn’t.”

Lauren cupped the other side of his face with her free hand. “Zane, you mean?”

Cal’s hand tightened on hers. “He said he was proud of me, had always been proud of me. He said I was a good kid and he always knew I’d make a good man. He said…he said…”

“He said what, Cal?”

He swallowed to ease his throat. “He said I had a good heart, like my mother.”

Silence. He waited for her to say, “And your point is?” or “So what’s the problem?” Instead she drew his head down to her shoulder. He closed his arms around her fiercely.

“He’s right. You
are
a good man, Cal Taggart, and your father will have to answer for not telling you that sooner, for not showing you that every day.”

Her words laid his heart open as surely as a surgeon could have. She understood.

Then the terror set in. Sweet Jesus, she saw right through to the frightened core of him! Might as well crack his ribs and spread them, because it felt like his heart was pumping right out there, vulnerable and exposed, where anything could happen to it.

He tried to pull back, but she held him easily, shushing him. Then suddenly, somehow, he just let go of it. All that mattered was the heat of her and the comfort she offered.

He lifted his head from the satin of her shoulder and found her mouth clumsily. The kiss was short on technique but long on passion, and she returned it with equal fervor.

When he lifted his head, she moaned and followed his mouth as though reluctant to relinquish it. She licked his upper lip, then nibbled at the corners of his mouth before finally drawing his lower lip between her teeth and biting gently.

“Oh God, I need you, Lauren. I need you now.”

“Yes.”

A shudder went through her, or was it him? Then she was tugging him toward the bedroom, their lips still locked, hands fumbling. When the backs of her knees hit the bed, she sank down on it. He would have followed her, but again she stopped him, her fingers at the buckle of his belt.

“Let me.”

“Just a sec.” He tore off his shirt and fished a condom from his jeans before letting her resume her attentions. With delicate fingers, she slipped his belt free and undid the button on his jeans. Cal gritted his teeth, holding himself still as she eased his zipper down. Then she fisted her fingers in the material at his hips and started inching his jeans and briefs down. So slow. It was killing him. Finally his sex sprang free, heavy and eager. Lord, he needed to be inside her.

Urgently he shoved his jeans down and kicked them free while he tore at the condom packet with clumsy fingers.

She closed her hand over his fingers, taking the condom from him. “Not yet,” she breathed.

Not yet?
What did she mean,
not yet?

Then she showed him. Leaning forward, she caught his shaft in her hand and guided the tip of it into her mouth.

His heart stopped. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Hot silk, wet suction, the electrifying flick of a tongue…

Not
a
tongue.
Lauren’s
tongue.
Lauren’s
mouth.