The Right Thing (24 page)

Morgan burst out laughing. “So the local Don Juan wants to settle down, but the woman who has caught his fancy won’t. Maybe your timing’s off. You were all but engaged to someone else the whole time you were sleeping with her for the last year. I imagine she needs to adjust to the new situation between you.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t understand it,” Gerald said. “I just don’t like it. I’m tired of sleeping alone more often than not. If I kick off in my bed, I’d rather it be next to Lydia.”

“Gee, that’s so romantic,” Morgan teased. “How could Lydia turn that offer down?”

“You think she needs to be courted—after all this time?” Gerald asked, biting his lip in thought.

“Probably,” Morgan said, laughing. “Lydia loves you. She just doesn’t want to look bad to her friends or yours by being too eager. Court her. Openly. Publicly. You’ll be engaged by the time I get back in October.”

“Sedona agrees with you, Morgan,” Gerald said as he headed to bed alone. “Thea’s not the only one who’s going to miss you when you’re gone.”

Morgan sat alone at the kitchen table after his father went to bed, thinking and wondering how he could possibly make it all work out.

*** *** ***

By Thursday, Morgan couldn’t put off telling Thea any longer. It was three o’clock, the lunch rush had passed, and they were sitting in a booth sharing a plate of fries.

“I have a present for you,” Morgan told her, pulling a paper out of his pocket and passing it across the table.

Thea unfolded the paper and held it out where she could mostly focus on it. She kept her reading glasses by the cash register, but it didn’t take much to see it was a recipe. It took less to know what recipe it was.

“This is your pasta sauce,” she said sadly. “I guess this means you’re leaving soon.”

“Pete already knows how to make it. He’s doing the cooking tomorrow night and I’m assisting. You’ll be fine after I’m gone,” Morgan told her.

“By that, you mean that pasta night will be possible without you,” Thea concluded. “I appreciate this Morgan. You’ve helped me move the restaurant from the red into the black with just this one idea.”

“I wanted to help you succeed, Thea. You work hard and you deserve it,” Morgan told her.

“Just think, a few weeks ago I thought you were my enemy, and here you turned out to be my rescuer,” she joked, hoping it hid her sinking heart. “But you never said—when exactly are you leaving?”

Morgan bit into a fry with no appetite at all. “Saturday morning. There’s a time-sensitive job waiting for me.”

Thea nodded. Saturday. Two days. And he probably would have liked nothing better than to have just left without her knowing it.

“I’m sure you’re the best at what you do. I imagine you miss your job after all this time.”

Not really
, Morgan thought, but it was his life. He had to clear his throat to get the next words out.

“I’ll be on the road for about six weeks all over Nevada. When I settle, I’ll try to give you a call. I’d like to come back in October to visit.”

Thea nodded and sighed. Her future was going to be nothing more than a constant repeat of routine days. Now she would also have a whole series of empty nights, unless she found someone to replace Morgan.

She watched Morgan’s mouth as he bit into a fry, remembered those lips and teeth biting into her. It had taken ten years to find someone that interested her a second time in her life.

She’d likely be Lydia’s age before she found a third.

“Unless I win the lottery, I imagine I’ll still be in Sedona in October. Give me a call when you get back into town,” Thea said softly. “I’m going to miss you, Morgan Reed. You know how to show a woman a good time when you aren’t investigating her for fraud.”

“I’m going to miss you too,” Morgan said cautiously, laughing at her teasing, “but—I’m not gone yet, Thea.”

“No, but you promised to be lousy in bed so I wouldn’t miss you so much. I figure we’ll be fighting by tomorrow night. This is probably the last time I’ll be able to say something nice to you,” Thea joked, sliding from the booth.

Morgan slid out quickly after her, not wanting to let Thea get away.

“Well, actually—I might have lied about that a little.”

He tugged Thea into his arms and used his hands to mold her body to his.

“I don’t think I can be lousy after all. I want you to miss me.”

“Already going to happen,” Thea told him, “you don’t have to try any harder.”

“No. No. I need to make sure you will,” Morgan said, bending his mouth to her neck, travelling up her cheek, and finally over to her mouth for a kiss that took them both to the edge of sanity.

When they came up for air, Thea put a hand on Morgan’s chest and pushed him off her. “I’m already going to cry every night for a month, Morgan. Don’t make it worse.”

Then because she wanted nothing more than to fall to the floor and weep over the fact Morgan was leaving, Thea turned on her heel and walked to the kitchen, smacking the swinging doors with enough force to practically knock them off their hinges.

When Pete walked through them from the kitchen into the dining room a few moments after, Morgan was still standing in front of their booth.

“Did you and Thea have a fight again?” Pete asked.

“Something like that,” Morgan said quietly. “Do you think she really will cry when I’m gone?”

“Thea cried for Angus for a couple of years. Yeah. I imagine she will,” Pete said, rubbing his jaw. “She’s likes you.”

“I never meant for that to happen,” Morgan said, putting his hands in his pockets. “I have a job. I have to go back.”

“Do you?” Pete asked.

Morgan frowned. “Yes. Damn it.”

Pete laughed. “Well, okay then. I’m going to miss you as well, Morgan Reed. So will your father. Don’t take too long to figure this out. Thea’s been ready to do something different for a while. And I’d like to keep this job.”

“What are you talking about?” Morgan asked, looking at Pete like he’d lost his mind.

Pete shook his head.

“It’s not my place to say.”

Pete nodded to the customers as they came in.

“I’ll seat these people and tell Thea. See you tomorrow night.”

Morgan stood there frowning, then bussed the booth and carried the dishes to the kitchen.

*** *** ***

Later than night, they left their clothes by Thea’s front door, washed and aroused each other in the shower, and then made love kneeling on the bed. In the middle of her orgasm, Thea found herself airborne and falling backward. She heard Morgan tell her he loved her, his voice rough and insistent as his body followed hers down.

Morgan pressed hard into Thea, pinning her strongly to the bed as her body hit the mattress.

Then he was unrelenting in claiming a woman he considered to be his now, and he did so with long intentional strokes that left no wave unfelt, no motive unclear.

As far as Morgan was concerned, Thea was his to pleasure, and doing so was the only thought in his mind as he moved in and out of her, his own pleasure waiting patiently as he focused on earning a complete surrender from her.

Thea felt Morgan’s possession in every cell as what he was doing to her went on and on. She felt him taking her up and over even when she thought there was no place left to go. It seemed like one wave ended only for another to begin, until Thea eventually couldn’t deny any longer that the man moving inside her had a power over her she had refused other lovers in her life.

When they were still at last, Morgan kissed Thea lovingly, linked both his hands with hers, and buried his face in her shoulder.

As passion dimmed, anger and resentment grew inside her, replacing the bliss. How was she supposed to live without this in her life now that she knew about it? Thea struggled to move away only to find her hands being held down firmly no matter how hard she fought to free them.

“That was your idea of
good,
wasn’t it?” Thea asked bitterly, her voice revealing both the hurt and the amazement of it.

It had been better than good. It had been the kind of thing a woman never forgot sharing with a man.

Morgan nodded his head against the curve of her neck and shoulder. “Yes, I suppose that was my idea of good, though it’s never been quite like that before. I’m going to miss you, Thea.”

“Damn you, Morgan Reed. It was already going to be hard enough to let you go,” she complained, then burst into tears because with her hands held tightly in Morgan’s there was no other reaction open to her.

Morgan held Thea constrained for as long as he could, trying to find it in himself to be sorry for feeling like she belonged to him, for wanting Thea to think of him instead of other men for the rest of her life. He’d been a goner the first time he’d met her. He wasn’t sure yet how he was going to live without her. He didn’t feel guilty at all for hoping she’d miss him too.

When Morgan finally let go of Thea’s hands, she punched his shoulders, then wrapped herself around him tightly, her desperate embrace and sobbing bringing tears to Morgan’s eyes as well. No one had ever held him so closely, or wanted him so much.

God—he really didn’t know how he was going to be able to live without her.

Cursing the man she held over and over, Thea continued to weep in Morgan’s arms until she finally fell asleep, all emotion exhausted.

Morgan wasn’t surprised a bit the next morning when he woke up in Thea’s bed alone again.

This time he understood.

*** *** ***

Friday night, Thea refused to be with him, and Morgan finally had the grace to be ashamed for what he put her through emotionally the night before. Instead of letting him spend his last night in Sedona with her, Thea sent him home to his father’s house.

She had kissed him goodbye at the restaurant and not much more passionately than he’d seen her kiss her cousin Ryan when he left.

Morgan knew why Thea intentionally put emotional distance between them, and he really didn’t blame her.

But it still hurt.

Driving to Flagstaff to catch his plane Saturday morning was the longest thirty minutes he had travelled in ages. By three o’clock Saturday afternoon, Morgan was back in his downtown condo, looking out over the bright lights of the strip.

His time in Sedona felt almost like a dream, but his memories of his father and Thea were all too real. His body was physically in Vegas, but his mind was still in rebellion about it. There was definitely a big part of Morgan that honestly didn’t know why he was somewhere other than beside Thea Carmichael.

But how could he give up his job and the security of his life to chase a woman?

Thea certainly hadn’t made him any promises, never once said she loved him. Was he just supposed to give up everything up and move to Sedona on the hope that they could work out things? Did people really do that?

Maybe if he went back to visit in October, he’d have a better idea then.

Even though he was jet-lagged and tired from the trip, it still took hours for Morgan to get to sleep as he ran through his options, wondering what to do.

Chapter 19

“So it’s doubtful you’ll be teaching even in the spring then?” Thea asked, watching Amy roll silverware into napkins.

“When you graduate in December, the timing is wrong,” Amy told her on sigh. “If I’m lucky, I’ll get to do my student teaching. Usually, you have to apply in April for fall work. Which means it will be at least
fall before I can teach full-time. So I’d like to stay on here another year if I can. I can work the dinner shifts and Saturdays, even with my other part-time work.”

“I know Tom is going to be able to pay you better than I do for working at his office. Pete said he’d help me on the lunch overflow,” Thea said. “I think it would be good for him. He’s teaching his friend Leonard to man the grill.”

“Pete changed a lot after he started working with Morgan,” Amy said, daring to mention his name.

Thea had been avoiding talking about Morgan, even in the smallest ways for over a month.

“Yes, he did,” Thea agreed, opening the menus to slide in the specials for the week.

Inspired by pasta night and Pete’s improved attitude, they had come up with a sandwich special that ran each week.

“Have you heard from Morgan?” Amy asked hopefully.

“No. I didn’t expect to. He said it would be October before he could get back to Sedona,” Thea said carefully. “So are you and Doug still talking about getting married?”

“If we could find steady jobs we’d already be living together,” Amy said sadly. “One of us has to be able to pay the rent. Living with your parents at our age is tough.”

Thea frowned. “I’m sorry, honey. I know that must be frustrating.”

“It is. I never meant to fall in love with a musician. That’s just how it worked out. But Doug is the right one for me,” Amy said softly. “I know he feels the same, so I guess waiting is our only choice.”

Thea put a hand out and squeezed Amy’s arm. “Things have a way of working out like they are meant to. One day soon, this will be a story you tell your children.”