Forbidden (Southern Comfort) (10 page)

It was unfortunate that the girls whose circumstances made it easiest for them to take were also the ones exposed to the realities of life at an earlier age.  He’d like to grab one of the pony-tailed, Gap-clad young teens who traveled around in giggling packs like pretty gazelles. But the hue and cry that would result from taking a child of obvious means and protective parentage made such thoughts an extremely risky business.

Circumspection was the name of the game in this enterprise, thereby making the most babelicious of the little bubble-gum smackers off limits.

He returned his attention to the sluts.

One of the girls – a cute little brunette in a Hello Kitty T-shirt and a pair of booty hugging denim shorts – looked a little younger and less used than the others.  Her legs were slim and nicely tanned, her breasts small but well rounded.  He put her age at approximately thirteen or fourteen.  As a rule, he and JR tried not to dip much below that end of their targeted age bracket, because in general people no longer viewed the girls as kids once they’d entered their teens.

It excluded them from
some of the market, but it also helped to keep them off the biggest of law enforcement radars.

And beside
s that, Billy Wayne didn’t enjoy having sex with kids.

Sweet young things, however, were a different story.

Watching the brunette casually from beneath the cover of his hat, he took another long drink of water.  It was hot as a bitch today, and he rued the necessity of his cumbersome clothes.  The tinted lenses and fake tan might enable him to blend in with the crowd, but it didn’t protect his sensitive skin from sunburn.

The brunette laughed uproariously at something one of her compatriots said, tilting a bottle of Coke to her gloss-slicked lips.  From the way she’d grown louder and more unsteady over the past half hour, he concluded there was something more than soda in the bottle. 

Excellent.

It would be so easy to slip a little GSB in along with her vodka or rum, to watch her stumble off into the trees.  Her friends would conclude that she’d passed out.  He’d been watching, and most of the teens were well on their way to being drunk or high, showing little concern for anything but their own path to self-destruction.  A friend who displayed signs of being dangerously wasted would be more of a cause for amusement than alarm. 

He’d just about decided on his course when a movement off to the right caught his eye.

It was the girl from the funnel cake trailer.

She strolled into the perimeter of the picnic ground with a rumpled looking little blonde girl in tow – assumingly the younger sister.  She made her way toward the big metal barrel where she threw the remnants of a half-eaten hot dog away.  Her clothes – an apple green T-shirt and a pair of navy blue shorts – were a little ratty, mostly clean, and not in the least provocative. 

Unless, of course, one had Billy Wayne’s ability to envision what lay underneath.  

She turned slightly, catching his eye.

It was tentative, but there could be no mistaking her smile.

Ho, ho, ho.  What do you know?  Most of the girls were too intimidated by his size to find him appealing, except for the ones who’d been had so many times that they knew what they were getting into.  That wasn’t the kind of target he wanted to attract.

But this little sweetheart had given him an endearingly flirtatious smile. 

Senses sharpening, he became the predator – swift and sure – spotting its tantalizing prey in the tall grass. 

This one.

Yes, this was the one he wanted.  She might prove more challenging, for he had to take the little sister into consideration, but he would have her nonetheless.

Smiling, answering her unspoken flirtation, he delighted in her blush as she turned away.

He watched her head off toward the Ferris wheel.  It rose above trees whose shadows fell longer and deeper as daylight disintegrated into night. 

There was a path amongst the trees, he knew, leading to the rarely used dirt road.  The road where he’d parked his van.

Plan formulated, Billy Wayne stood, indulging in a leisurely stretch. And then casually strolled toward the trash barrel to toss out his plate. 

Just like any conscientious citizen.

THE
hazy half-light of dusk had begun to settle by the time Clay and Max finally made their way to the Ferris wheel.  Midway lights throughout the entire fairgrounds popped on in a symphony of rainbow hues.

“Look, Mommy.” Max pointed toward the kaleidoscope of bright bulbs outlining the ride.  Reds and greens winked against the pinks and indigos of the evening sky, creating a panorama of saturated color.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Tate scooped him into a hug, smiled over his head toward Clay. The first tentative breath of night sighed like relief through the trees.

“It certainly is.”  Blind to the lights, Clay looked at Tate,
and thought he’d never seen anything more lovely.  The fact that she’d seen both innocence and trust perverted, was raising a child without a father, and still managed to look at the world and see its wonder made Clay feel that he’d taken his first real breath of that air.

He’d been suffocating, Clay thought. In work. In routine. In the sheer, unrelenting misery he saw all too often.  And here, here was goodness. 

He wanted to drink it in.

TATE
saw the change in his eyes – that flash of heat signifying intention.  She touched the tip of her tongue to her lips, whether from nerves or anticipation she couldn’t say.  And watched desire slip like a living thing from the steel band of his restraint.

Oblivious to the press of the crowd around them, he brushed his thumb along the slope of her cheek.

“Max?”  His normally smooth voice tumbled roughly, like a pebble skipping down a rocky slope. 

“Yes, Mr. Clay?”

“You may,” he suggested man to man, “want to turn around and look the other way.”

“Why?”  Max pulled his gaze from the lights, brows knit in a puzzled frown.

“Because if it’s okay with you, I’m going to kiss your mama.”

His lips on hers were undemanding, gentle as a summer rain. Tate felt herself begin the slide from reluctant interest to all-out attraction.  If he’d pressured her, been the least bit aggressive, or hadn’t taken her son’s feelings into consideration, it would have been a heck of a lot easier for her to maintain some emotional distance. 

But he’d asked her son’s
permission
, for God’s sake. And then proceeded to kiss her as sweetly as if they were both virgins on their first date.

It was that consideration that was her undoing.

She stretched an arm around his neck and found herself kissing him back.

“Excuse me,” a syrupy voice drawled before the kiss could get really interesting.  “The line’s moving, and I think that y’all are next.”

Embarrassment had her eyes popping open, her hands pushing against his chest.  And turning, she apologized to the woman and three children waiting with varying degrees of patience behind them. 

“That’s okay,” the woman chuckled.  “If my husband looked like yours, I’d be all over him, too.”

Tate’s eyes went wide, but Clay’s laugh rang out as he wrapped an arm around her to draw her forward.  “Come on, sugar. You can watch me and the kid while we’re on the ride, and I give you permission to be all over me later.”

Shaking her head
, Tate watched Clay get Max situated in the seatbelt.

And was struck, not quite easily, by what an amazing man he truly was.

How many men would voluntarily spend an entire day of their vacation entertaining the demanding five-year-old son of a woman they’d just met?  A woman who’d made it clear that she had no intention of providing any diversionary physical entertainment?

Of course, if she were being honest, she would have to admit that a couple minutes ago she’d been on the verge of forgetting that she didn’t engage in fleeting physical relationships with veritable strangers.  Clay’s tender kiss had rekindled long dormant fires that hadn’t been lit since… well, she hesitated to actually recall how long. She’d been in such a sexual drought that she was like a little pile of dry kindling.

And Clay Copeland was quite a potent spark.

What would it hurt, she mused, to indulge herself with a little adult recreation?  To allow whatever seemed to be igniting between her and Clay to develop naturally? 

The Ferris wheel groaned suddenly, interrupting her thoughts, and she smiled and waved as Clay and Max began their backward ascent.

Clay winked, and then slid his arm around her son to help keep him from bouncing out of his seat with excitement.  Max looked up at him with naked adoration.

It was then that Tate came to the sinking realization that she couldn’t see Clay again.

Even if she
could
handle a brief affair in a mature and reasonable fashion – which, given her short and unimpressive history with affairs of any sort, was highly unlikely – she couldn’t discount the effect such a relationship might have on Max.  She’d always been very careful to keep her dating life, what there was of it, totally separate from her son. The look she’d just seen pass between Max and Clay reminded her of the wisdom of that decision. 

For five years she’d done her best to shield Max from the rejection children inevitably feel growing up in single parent households.

Max was young still, but he’d already peppered her with questions about his absentee father.  Where he was. 
Who
he was.

Wondering why the other children he knew had daddies when he didn’t. 

It was no fault of his own that his bastard of a father hadn’t been interested in making any significant contributions to his life other than donating his sperm.

As the Ferris wheel slid backward again, the little boy in question leaned over, waving an arm in enthusiastic greeting.  Clay said something in his ear which had him erupting in a fit of giggles, and Tate winced even as she waved back.

No, she definitely shouldn’t see Clay again.  And especially not in the company of her son.  Clay would be leaving in a few days, and if she allowed anything to develop, Max would be confused and possibly hurt when Clay waltzed easily out of their lives.

It would be best to thank Clay for a truly wonderful day, explain that she had nothing more than friendship to offer, and bid him farewell so that he could enjoy the remainder of his vacation.

Whether alone, or in the company of a more accommodating woman.

And it didn’t matter, couldn’t matter, which avenue he chose.

Drawing a fortifying breath, Tate pushed at an errant lock of hair and turned her attention to some of the other bystanders waiting for the ride to begin.

A happy set of plump grandparents waved enthusiastically to their grandsons, a father laden with camera equipment videotaped his wife and young daughter, a
nd a pretty teen with dark eyes watched as a smaller girl climbed aboard and buckled herself in. From the child’s competence and the teen’s air of boredom they’d obviously gone through the routine before.  A man in a ball cap strolled over and began chatting amicably with the teen.

When the cars were filled, the sound of groaning metal gave way to a blast of rock music that signified the carnival’s shift into night. 

Tate found herself regretting that their excursion was drawing to a close.

THE
giant wheel circled, the cooler night air whispering against the accumulated heat at the back of Clay’s neck.  He smiled, watching the wind whip the layers of Max’s hair into a froth of messy peaks.  They reached the ride’s pinnacle, the gaudily illuminated carnival grounds spread beneath them. Max tilted his face up in wonder, and Clay marveled at how completely privileged he felt.

“This must be what it feels like to be Superman,” Max observed, hovering right at that border between fun and fear.

He clasped Clay’s hand and snuggled in close.  Clay felt something inside him swell, flow naturally as a wave into shore.  “You’re right.”  He gave Max’s hand a squeeze.  And felt pretty super himself.  There was something… wonderful about having a young child look at you with such unaffected trust and affection.

And he quietly thanked whatever cosmic force that had decided to put this particular child in his path.

The day he’d spent with Max and Tate had done more for his shattered morale than any beach or booze or uncomplicated sex ever could have.  It had restored his faith that there was goodness left in the world, and reminded him why he continued his disheartening fight.  If his knowledge and skills could make the world a little safer for kids like Max, then every hour he put into that fight was worth it.

The wheel began to circle back around, and Clay caught sight of Tate’s smiling face as she leaned over the metal railing.  Something else began to swell in him, but it had little to do with altruism and a whole lot to do with physiology.

He was pretty damn sure he’d never wanted a woman this much in his life.