Seducing the Old Flame (23 page)

Or any other night this week.

No, he’d lain in bed breathing in Tabby’s scent that lingered on
his pillows.
 
A scent that probably still
lingered because he’d refused to change the sheets.
 
Doubted he’d change them until the scent
faded completely.

Pathetic.

“So, when’s she coming back?” Lori asked, apparently not quite following
the event of things.

“She’s not.”

Damn it all to hell.

He unlocked his apartment door and, not waiting on an
invitation, she followed him inside.

“Look, sis, I put in a twelve hour day and have a ton of
paperwork to do tonight.
 
Hate to rush
you off, but I need a shower and dinner and—“

“And you want me to leave.
 
I take it that means you’re not going to Dad’s?”
 
Lori frowned at him.
 
“Are you okay?”

Two Saturday nights in a row he’d forgotten about visiting his
father.
 
This wasn’t a good trend.

“I’m fine, but I’m not sure I can handle seeing Dad tonight.”

“You don’t look fine,” she unnecessarily pointed out.

“You work all day on a construction site and see how you
look.”
 
He ran a hand through his grimy
hair.
 
Today hadn’t gone well.
 
A shipment of supplies needed a week ago
still hadn’t arrived, five of the crew had called in sick, they were barely on
schedule which meant barely within budget, and he’d caught himself daydreaming
about Tabby so many times it scared him.

“Okay, I shouldn’t have been waiting on your doorstep when you got
home.
 
I know you weren’t expecting me
for another hour.”
 
She ran her gaze over
him.
 
“Or not at all.
 
But I couldn’t help coming by early.
 
I just knew you’d have good news to share
with me.”

“Good news?”

She shot him a duh look.
 
“About you and Tabitha.
 
I wanted
you to tell me you’re back together.”

“No.”

She clucked her tongue, apparently confounded.

Fine.
 
He was confounded,
too.

All week thoughts of Tabby haunted him.
 
Thoughts of the past, of mistakes made on
both their parts, of all the reasons she’d let him think the worst of her, and
of the future.
 
A future that loomed
ahead, passionless and cold.

“When she called last Friday,” Lori said, squinting her eyes at
him.
 
“I’d have sworn she’d come to her
senses and realized you two were made for each other.”

“Yeah, well, we weren’t.”
 
Did he really believe that?
 
Maybe, maybe not.
 
That was the
problem.
 
No matter how he analyzed
Tabby, he couldn’t figure out where things stood between them, where he wanted
things to stand.
 
He wanted Tabby, but he
wanted a wife and children.
 
He lusted
after Tabby, but there was more to life than lust.
 
Whether he wanted to or not, he cared for
Tabby, but he didn’t trust her.
 
Nor was
she the kind of woman he envisioned being Suzy Homemaker and Mother-of-the-Year
like what he wanted in a wife and mother of his children.

“I never did understand why you two broke things off so
suddenly,” Lori mused, pulling Jason from his introspection.
 
“I mean, you fought all the time, but you
always made up.”
 
She blasted him with an
accusing look.
 
“Why not that last time?”

He hadn’t told her why, hadn’t told anyone.

What had been the point?

But what was the point in keeping this to himself?
 
He needed to get it out, all out, in the
open.

“Because I walked into her apartment and caught her in bed with
another man.
 
Some things are
forgivable.
 
Some aren’t,” he said more
harshly than he should have spoken to his sister since she wasn’t the one who
had him tied into knots.

Lori gasped.
 
“She
didn’t.”

He snorted without humor.

“Why would she do that?” Lori sounded confounded.

“Because she could?
 
Because she was mad at me?
 
Because she wanted to hurt me?
 
You
tell me why the hell that woman does anything she does.”

Lori winced, plopping down on his sofa.
 
Shock bleached her face to color similar to
his towels.
 
“And to think I always
blamed you…”

Now that caught his attention.
 
“Blamed me?
 
Why the hell would
you have thought it was my fault?”

She cast him another duh look.
 
“Because you were always trying to change her.
 
To make her into something she wasn’t.”

“No, I wasn’t.”
 
But he
had done just that.
 
He’d wanted Tabby
for the vibrant woman she was, yet he’d constantly pushed her toward being
something that she wasn’t because it fit his image of what he thought a wife
and mother should be.
 
Not that Tabby had
ever wanted to be either.

But he’d wanted her in that role, but as his image of that role
rather than as Tabitha Sterling.

“Personally, I always thought you were trying to make her into
your idea of Mom, but regardless you were always pushing her buttons, trying to
put her in a box.”
 
Lori’s gaze met his and
she winced again.
 
“She cheated on
you?
 
I don’t understand why she’d do
that.”

He sank on to the opposite end of his sofa, convinced his sister
wasn’t going to leave unless he physically tossed her out.
 
No matter that he was tired and hungry or
that they were supposed to go to their father’s for their regular Saturday
evening visit.

“She loved you,” Lori said, shaking her head in confusion.
 
“It just doesn’t make sense.”

“She didn’t love me,” he quickly denied.

“Oh, get off it.
 
She did
love you.”
 
Lori waved her hand in the
air dismissively.
 
“She worshipped the
ground your muddy work boots walked on.”

“If you say so.”
 
A woman
in love didn’t sleep with another man.

Unless the man she loved pushed her into the other man’s arms
because he’d been too damned stubborn to see what he was doing to her, to their
relationship.

Damn.

“I say so,” Lori smugly pronounced, typical know it all woman
that she was.

This conversation had gone on long enough.
 
Too long.
 
“I don’t want to talk about Tabitha anymore.
 
Not ever again.”
 
He leaned his head back against the sofa and
stared at the ceiling.
 
“Give me fifteen
minutes to shower and I’ll be ready to go to Dad’s.”

“He’ll ask about Tabby,” Lori warned.

“Yeah, he can’t remember us from week to week, but after not
seeing her for two years he knew exactly who she was.
 
Figures.”

“You okay with that?”

“I’ll deal.”
 
He
shrugged.
 
“I’m a guy.
 
The woman came into my life, gave me a
weekend of great sex, then disappeared.
 
What more could I ask for?”

“What indeed?”
 
Lori
rolled her eyes.
 
“And don’t try to feed
me that ‘I’m a guy’ garbage as if you’ll ever convince me that you’re one of
the bad guys.”

“I thought you just said you blamed me for mine and Tabby’s
break up.”

“That doesn’t mean I thought you were a bad guy,” she
clarified.
 
“You’re not, just misguided
at times, and I’m not only saying that because you’re my brother.”

“You’re saying it because?”

She shot yet another duh look his way.
 
“It’s true.
 
Now go wash off so we can go see Dad.”

Jason stepped into his bedroom and stopped short as his gaze
collided with vivid green eyes.

Tabitha.

In all her beauty sprawled across an oil-canvas.

Why had he uncovered the painting?

Why had he propped it on his dresser?

Why did he stare at it night after night?

He should have left it in the closet.
 
His gaze lowered to the framed Gatlinburg
photo.
 
He should have packed the other
items and returned them to the closet.
 
Or better yet, he should get rid of all of it.

The painting, the pictures, the damn stuffed cat.

Why keep items that reminded him of the past?
 
A past that was all muddled in his mind.
 
He’d thought he knew exactly what had
happened between him and Tabby, had thought she was the one to blame.
 
Now he knew he hadn’t been as innocent as he’d
liked to believe, but what did that knowledge really change?

It was time quit living in the past and to put the future into
motion.

Tabitha tapped her fuzzy cartoon covered slippered foot at her
sister and glared from eyes that felt as if someone had dipped them in pickle
juice.
 
Crying all the time did that to a
girl.

 
“It’s Saturday
night.
 
Why aren’t you out on a date?”
Jenny asked as she pushed her way into Tabitha’s apartment.

“Why aren’t you?” Tabby flung back.

“Because I had to come see if you were back in the land of the
living yet.”
 
Jenny’s gaze raked over her
from head to toe.
 
“Nope, you’re not.”

Tabitha frowned.
 
“What
makes you say that?
 
I’m living.”

“Because you’re still dressing demurely.
 
Tabitha Sterling does not dress
demurely.
 
I didn’t even know you owned
such clothes.
 
It’s like you’re in
mourning or something.
 
Except for the
slippers, and those are a nice touch and pure you.”

Tabitha followed Jenny into the kitchen, noticing for the first
time that her sister carried Chinese take-out bags from their favorite
restaurant.

“I’m not hungry,” she automatically said.
 
Food hadn’t done a thing for her this
week.
 
Not that she’d eaten much.
 
Food just settled in her stomach like a big
fat rock and she hadn’t been hungry anyway.

“Ask me if I care.”
 
Jenny
gave her that I’m-your-sister-and-your-going-to-do-as-I-say look.
 
“You’re eating.”

Tabitha blinked.
 
“Excuse
me?”

“The last time Jason dumped you, you lost fifteen pounds.
 
You didn’t have fifteen pounds to lose then,
and you don’t now.
 
Eat before I whip out
a bib and do the honors myself.”
 
She
waved the food in Tabby’s direction, then set it on the bar.

“I’d like to see you try, short stuff.”

Jenny took a menacing step forward.

“Okay, I’ll eat.”
 
Not
that she was scared of Jenny or anything.
 
But the glint in her sister’s eyes said Jenny would think nothing of
wrestling her to the floor and stuffing her mouth full of Chinese.

“Good.”
 
Jenny pointed to
the bag.
 
“Get to it.”

Tabitha pulled a carton from the bag and sighed in mock
protest.
 
“You’re so bossy.”

“I took lessons from the best.”

“Compliments will get you everywhere.”
 
Tabitha stared at the carton of Chinese.
 
Would it taste like rubber the way everything
else did this week?

“You’re not going to distract me.”
 
Jenny crossed her arms.
 
“I’m not leaving until you’ve eaten.”

“Not that it would hurt me to lose a few pounds, but I’ll
freaking eat if it makes you happy.”

“It makes me happy and from the looks of things you’ve already
lost a few pounds.”

Tabitha glanced down.
 
Had
she?
 
She hadn’t noticed.
 
Hadn’t noticed much of anything this week
except the lonely emptiness of her bed.

“Are you sure you’re not really the big sister?” she asked.