Seducing the Old Flame (20 page)

She quit wiggling, but he only kissed the tip of her nose.
 
More than that and he’d have an
uncomfortable, and possibly embarrassing, trek home.

“Okay, I’m sorry.”
 
He
winked at her suspicious eye roll.
 
“What?
 
You don’t believe me?
 
I’ll even help you up.”

He stood and pulled her to her feet.

She held onto his wrist tight, straightening as if she expected
to crash back onto the grass any moment. “Why do I not trust you?”

“Beats me.
 
Look at this
face.
 
Doesn’t it look like one you
should trust?”
 
He rotated his face,
giving her a complete view.

“Yeah right.”
 
Her gaze
shot down the sidewalk, then she grinned at him.
 
“Race ya to the curb.”

Not waiting for his answer and barely short of mach one she took
off.

Laughing, Jason skated after her, determined not to let her get
the upper hand by winning again.

A woman with the upper hand spelled trouble.

Tabby was enough of that without any encouragement.

“What would you like for lunch?” Jason asked when they sat on
the curb in front of his apartment.
 
Okay, so he was trying to prolong their time together, afraid she’d pack
her things and head for the door the moment they were inside.
 
At this point, he’d say or do about anything
to keep that from happening.

“Lunch?”
 
She considered
his question while unlacing her skates.
 
“Honestly, I’m not hungry yet.”

He glanced at his watch.
 
It was long after lunchtime and he was hungry, but he could wait if she
wasn’t ready to eat.

“You have something in mind to fill the time until you are
hungry?” he asked, thinking about a shower, one with Tabby and he bathing each
other.
 
Or just cuddling on the
sofa.
 
For Tabby, he’d cuddle and talk
baby to that darn cat.

“Actually,” she grinned at him.
 
“I do.”

This ought to be good.
 
Maybe she was having the same vision of how to feel their afternoon as
he was.
 
A long and steamy shower.
 
A man could dream.

Grabbing his skates, he followed her up the stairs to his
apartment.
 
Halfway up the steps, she
turned and smiled with such sass that his breath caught.

“You were looking at my bottom, weren’t you?”

He had been, but he wasn’t going to admit to it.
 
“No ma’am.”

“Yeah right.
 
Like I
believe you after that tackling stunt earlier.”

She started back up the steps and he’d swear there was more
oompf to her hips’ seductive sway.

It was going to be all his under the spray of his shower nozzle.

He picked up his pace, almost pushing her the rest of the way to
his apartment.

“What’s your rush,” she teased as he unlocked the door.

“Just anxious to see what you have in mind for the rest of the
afternoon.”

Her lips pursed and she watched him push the door open to his
apartment.

“Ladies first.”

Without a word, she walked into the apartment, then waited on
him to enter.

He shot her a curious glance.
 
“What?”

“Nothing,” she said.
 
“I’ll go let She-cat out of the bathroom.”

Listening to Tabby coo at the cat about what a good little cat
she’d been not to shred the curtains anymore, Jason carried his skates to the
hall closet and dropped them in the far corner.

Too bad the cat hadn’t shredded the curtains more.
 
At least then someone would have gotten some
use out of them.

Tabby walked up to his side and he turned for her skates.

“No, these go with me.”

“Okay.”
 
He couldn’t
really argue.
 
They were hers.
 
Although possibly they’d been in his
possession long enough he could stake a claim if he wanted.

“Pull out that box.”
 
She
pointed to the one he’d ripped open to remove her skates.

Oh hell.

What was she up to?

Why did he get the feeling the only shower he’d be taking this
afternoon would be cold?

“Why?” he asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer.

“I want my stuff.”

“Why?” he repeated.

“It’s time, isn’t it?”
 
Her gaze met his.
 
“To let go of
the past, I mean.”

Maybe it was.
 
He sighed
and tugged the box to where he could get a good hold on it.
 
“Where do you want it?”

Her eyebrows wiggled.
 
“Well, I’ll take the box on the coffee table in the living room.”

Jason laughed, despite the jitters in his stomach at what the
box held.

Memories.

Good and bad.

This box contained bits and pieces of his and Tabby’s time
together.
 
When he packed the box, anger
blinded him to what he stuck inside.
 
He
couldn’t even remember what all was in there.
 
Anything he associated with her.

Well, anything that would fit inside a cardboard box.

He set the container down on the coffee table with more of a
thud than he’d meant too.

“You okay?” she asked, curling up on the sofa, She-cat rubbing
against her for attention.

He’d rub against her for attention too.

Anything besides go through this box with her, because he sure
as hell had never thought he’d be unpacking it with Tabby when he’d taped the
box closed.

Just went to prove that with life one never knew.

Apparently a snowball did have a chance in hell.
 
Because that’s the odds he would have given.

“What is it you hope to find, Tabby?”

“I’m not sure, but I’m curious as to what you kept.”
 
Her gaze met his and he sank onto the sofa
beside her.
 
“Why did you keep this
stuff?”

He shrugged and stared at the box as if it contained poisonous
snakes.
 
Poisonous snakes that all wanted
a piece of Jason Kelly for lunch.
 
“Hell
if I know.
 
Just didn’t feel right
throwing away things that weren’t mine.”

“And the painting?”

“The painting is mine.”
 
He looked at her.
 
She didn’t
smile or gloat or even have an expression.
 
Her eyes and facial expression didn’t give a thing away as to what she
was thinking or feeling.
 
Damn it.
 
“You gave it to me.”

Not that he’d looked at it in more than a year, not since he’d
sealed it and stored it in the back of the closet.

She didn’t comment, just lifted the flap on the box.
 
Her hand shook.

Maybe he wasn’t the only one expecting to get bit by the box’s
contents.

Did Tabitha really want to see what was in this box?

Why had she insisted upon this?

She hadn’t missed any of this stuff in the past two years.
 
It was highly unlikely there was something
she just couldn’t live without.

Like Pandora hadn’t had a choice when it came to taking a peek,
neither did Tabitha.

Even if the world would be a better place with the lid never
rising, she had to see.

She-cat meowed and cast a cynical look.
 
Even the cat knew she shouldn’t do this.

“I’m not sure why I’m so nervous,” she said, wondering why she
bothered to speak at all when she only managed to make herself sound stupid.

“Because some things are better left in the past,” Jason
suggested from beside her, staring at the box as if it contained wicked, evil
things.

“This box is one of them?”

He shrugged.
 
“Maybe.
 
You tell me.”

Determined to prove him wrong, she pulled out the item on top
and winced at the smiling image of she and Jason inside the black frame.
 
A photo snapped at an UT football game, one
of the first they’d gone to together.

“God, we look young,” Jason leaned closer to get a better look
at the picture.

“We were young.”

“It was only two years ago,” he reminded.

He was right.
 
Yet they
both seemed so much older, wiser now.
 
She was wiser, surer of what she wanted from life.
 
The girl in the photo hadn’t had a clue
beyond the here and now.

She set down the frame next to the box and reached for the next
item.
 
Another picture.

One they’d taken on a weekend trip to Gatlinburg.

“Oh my God.
 
I’d forgotten
all about this.”

Although Jason hadn’t wanted too, she’d convinced him to stop in
one of the many photo shops and play dress up.
 
She smiled.
 
Jason wore cowboy
garb and she wore a saloon girl costume.

“Let me see that.”
 
He
took the picture from her and whistled.
 
“Damn, you made a great saloon girl.”

She flashed him a smile.
 
“I was just thinking what a handsome cowboy you made.”

“Makes you want to saddle up and go for a ride, eh?” he teased,
handing her the frame.

“Jason,” she scolded, placing the frame next to the first
one.
 
“That weekend was so much fun.
 
Do you remember the cabin we rented?”

He snickered.
 
“I remember
the raccoons you fed.”

“Not on purpose.”
 
She
laughed at the memory.
 
“How was I to
know they’d come inside if I left the kitchen window up?
 
You could have warned me.”

“And missed the deadly scream in the middle of the night when
you discovered we had company?
 
Never.”

She slapped his shoulder.
 
“Shame on you.
 
I could have been
scarred for life.”

“Those two raccoons definitely were.”
 
He laughed.
 
“Bet you don’t leave your windows up any more.”

“No, although I haven’t been to Gatlinburg since that weekend.”

“Me either.”
 
His jaw
tensed.
 
“I’d suggest we should go up
there, see what the masked critters are up to, but there wouldn’t be any point,
would there?”

It would be so easy to just say yes, to agree to anything he
wanted that would keep her in his life, but they both deserved better.

Jason deserved the respectable wife he longed for, June “Annie”
Cleaver.
 
And Tabitha deserved a man who
would fight for her and love her no matter how much she messed up.
 
Jason might want to continue what they’d
started this weekend, but not enough to fight for their relationship.

“Sounds nice, but you’re right.”
 
She didn’t meet his eyes.
 
“There
wouldn’t be any point.”

She pulled several more items from the box, oohing and aahing
over each one.
 
Then she pulled a stuffed
animal from the box.

A ratty looking toy cat who didn’t look too dissimilar to
She-cat.

Jason’s indrawn breath echoed the oxygen-deprived dizziness
sweeping through Tabitha.

“You gave me that cat,” he said.

“I gave you this cat,” she said.

They spoke at the same time, then laughed.

“You first,” she offered.

“No, you.”

“Okay.
 
I gave you this
the day after we made love for the first time.”

“The day after we met, Tabby,” he reminded.

“Yeah, that, too,” she agreed.
 
“Our entire relationship was founded on sex from the beginning.”

Was that where they went wrong?
 
By jumping right into the fire?
 
If they’d gone slower, would they have found a way to make things work?

Tabitha sighed.

Jason didn’t comment.

“You called me Tabby-cat.”
 
She ran her fingers over the plush multi-colored fake-fur.
 
“And the next day I saw this thing in a mall
window and bought it because it made me think of you.”