Shades of Twilight (22 page)

As Webb slid behind the wheel, he slanted her an unreadable glance. She wondered if he expected her to either start planning a wedding or pitch a fit because he'd left her alone this morning. She did neither. She sat silently.

“Hungry?”

She shook her head, then remembered that he liked verbal answers. “No, thank you.”

His lips thinned as he started the motor and reversed out of the parking spot. “You're going to eat. You've gained a little weight, and it looks good on you. I'm not going to let you catch your flight without eating.”

She hadn't booked a return flight, because she hadn't known how long she would be staying. She opened her mouth to say so, then caught the flinty expression in his eyes and realized he had booked one for her.

“When am I leaving?”

“One o'clock. I managed to get you on a direct flight from Tucson to Dallas. Your connection in Dallas is a bit tight, forty-five minutes, but it'll get you into Huntsville at a reasonable hour. You should get home around ten, ten-thirty tonight. Do you have to call anyone to pick you up in Huntsville?”

“No.” She had driven herself to the airport, because no one else had been willing to get up at three-thirty to perform the service. No, that wasn't fair. She hadn't asked anyone to do it. She never asked anyone to do anything for her.

By the time she ate, as he seemed determined for her to
do, she would have to leave almost immediately in order to turn in her rental car at the airport and make it to the gate in time to board. He hadn't left her any breathing space, probably by design. He didn't want to talk to her, didn't want to spend any more time in her company than necessary.

“There's a little place not far from here that serves breakfast until eleven. The food's plain, but good.”

“Just drop me off at the bar so I can pick up my car,” she said as she looked out the window, anywhere but at him. “I'll stop at a fast-food place.”

“I doubt it,” he said grimly. “I'm going to watch every bite go into your mouth.”

“I eat now and then,” she replied in a mild tone. “I learned how.”

“Then you won't mind if I watch.”

She recognized that tone, the one he used when he'd made up his mind that you were going to do something, so you might as well not argue. When she'd been younger, that tone had been of infinite comfort, symbolizing the rock steadiness and security she had so desperately needed after her parents' death. In an odd way it was still comforting; he might not like her, might not desire her, but at least he didn't want her to starve to death.

The little restaurant he took her to wasn't much bigger than the kitchen at Davencourt, with a couple of booths, a couple of tiny tables, and four stools lined up at the counter. The rich scent of frying bacon and sausage was in the air, underlaid with that of coffee and the spiciness of chili peppers. Two sun-baked old men were in the back booth, and they both looked up with interest as Webb escorted Roanna to the other booth.

A thin woman of indeterminate age, her skin baked as hard and brown as that of the two old men, approached the booth. She pulled a green order pad out of the hip pocket of her jeans and held a stubby pencil at the ready.

Evidently there was no menu. Roanna looked at Webb in question. “I'll have the short stack, ham and eggs on the
side, sunny side up,” he said, “and she'll have an egg, plain scrambled, with dry toast, bacon, and hash browns. Coffee for both of us.”

“We can't do eggs sunny side up no more. Health Department rules,” the waitress said.

“Then I want them well done but take them up early.”

“Gotcha.” The waitress tore the top sheet off the pad as she walked over to an opening cut out in the wall. She laid the ticket on the sill. “Betts! Got an order.”

“You must eat here often,” Roanna said.

“I usually stop by whenever I'm in town.”

“What does plain scrambled mean?”

“No peppers.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if they called that fancy scrambled but bit the comment back. How easy it would be to fall into the old habits with him! she thought sadly. But she had learned to curb her quips, because most people didn't appreciate even the milder ones. Webb had once seemed to, but perhaps he'd been kind.

The waitress set two steaming cups of coffee in front of them. “Cream?” she asked, and Webb said, “No,” answering for both of them.

“It'll take me at least a week, maybe two, to get things squared away here,” he said abruptly. “I'm keeping my ranch, so I'll be flying back and forth. Davencourt won't be my sole concern.”

She sipped her coffee to hide her relief. He was still coming home! He'd said he would if she'd sleep with him, but until now she hadn't been certain he'd meant it. It wouldn't have made any difference if she'd known for sure he was lying; no matter what the day had brought, last night had been a dream come true for her, and she had grabbed at it with both hands.

“Lucinda wouldn't expect you to sell the ranch,” she said.

“Bullshit. She thinks the universe revolves around Davencourt. There's nothing she wouldn't do to safeguard it.” He leaned back and stretched out his long legs, carefully avoiding contact with hers. “Tell me what's been going on
there. Mother tells me some of the news, and so does Aunt Sandra, but neither of them know anything about the day-to-day operations. I do know that Gloria has managed to move her entire family into Davencourt.”

“Not
all
of them. Baron and his family still live in Charlotte.”

“Being under the same roof with Lanette and Corliss is enough to make me think about buying my own place in town.”

Roanna didn't voice her agreement, but she knew exactly what he meant.

“What about you?” he continued. “I know you went to college in Tuscaloosa. What changed your mind? I thought you wanted to attend college locally.”

She had gone away because for a long time that had been easier than staying home. Her sleeping problems hadn't been as bad while she was away, the memories hadn't been as acute. But it had been over a year after he'd left before she had started college, and it had been a year of hell.

She didn't tell him any of that. Instead she shrugged and said, “You know how it is. A person can get along without it, but to have all the
right
contacts you have to attend the university.” She didn't have to elaborate on which university, because Webb had gone to the same one.

“Did you do the sorority bit?”

“It was expected.”

A reluctant grin tugged at his mouth. “I can't see you as a Greek. How did you get along with the little society snobs?”

“Fine.” They had, in fact, been kind to her. It was they who had taught her how to dress, how to apply makeup, how to make social chitchat. She rather thought they had seen her as a challenge and taken her on as a makeover project.

The waitress approached with three plates of steaming hot food. She slid two plates in front of Webb and the remaining one in front of Roanna. “Yell when you need a refill,” she said comfortably, and left them alone.

Webb applied himself to his food, buttering the pancakes
and soaking them in syrup, then liberally salting and peppering his eggs. The slab of ham covered half the plate. Roanna looked at the mountain of food, then at his steely body. She tried to imagine the amount of physical labor that required that many calories, and felt an even deeper sense of respect for him.

“Eat,” he growled.

She picked up her fork and obeyed. Once she couldn't have managed it, but keeping her emotions controlled had allowed her stomach to settle down. The trick was to take her time and take tiny bites. Usually, by the time everyone else had finished their meal she had managed to eat half of hers, and that was enough.

That was the case this time, too. When Webb leaned back, replete, Roanna laid her fork aside. He gave her plate a long, hard look as if calculating exactly how much she'd eaten, but to her relief he decided not to push it.

Breakfast taken care of, he drove her to the bar. The rental car sat forlornly in the parking lot, looking abandoned and out of place. A CLOSED sign hung lopsidedly on the front door of the bar. In daylight, the building was even more ramshackle than it had appeared the night before.

Dust flew around the truck as he braked to a stop, and Roanna allowed the gritty cloud to settle while she fished the ignition key out of her purse. “Thanks for breakfast,” she said as she opened the door and slid out. “I'll tell Lucinda to expect you.”

He got out of the truck and walked over to the rental car with her, standing right beside the door so she couldn't open it. “About last night,” he said.

Dread filled her. God, she couldn't listen to this. She put the key in the lock and turned it, hoping he would take the hint and move. He didn't.

“What about it?” she managed to say without any expression in her voice.

“It shouldn't have happened.”

She bent her head. It was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and he wished it hadn't.

“God damn it, look at me!” Just as he had the night before, he cupped her chin in his hand and lifted her head so that she faced him. His hat was pulled low on his forehead, shadowing his eyes, but she could still see the grimness in them and in the line of his mouth. Very gently, he touched her lips with his thumb. “I wasn't exactly drunk, but I'd had too much to drink. You were a virgin. I shouldn't have made that a condition to going back, and I regret what I did to you.”

Roanna held her spine very straight and still. “It was as much my responsibility as yours.”

“Not quite. You didn't know exactly what you were getting into. On the other hand, I did know that you wouldn't turn me down.”

She couldn't escape that hard, green gaze. This was very like the night before when she had stripped herself naked in front of him, except now she was emotionally naked. Her lower lip trembled, and she quickly controlled it. There was no point in denying what he'd said, because her actions had already proved him right. When he had given her the opportunity to call a stop to what was happening, she had begged him to continue.

“It's never been a secret how I feel about you,” she finally said. “All you had to do at any time was snap your fingers, and I'd have come running and let you do anything you wanted to me.” She managed a smile. It wasn't much of one, but it was better than weeping. “That hasn't changed.”

He searched her face, trying to pierce the remoteness of her expression. A kind of angry frustration flashed in his eyes. “I just wanted you to know that my return doesn't depend on your sleeping with me. You don't have to turn yourself into a whore to make sure Lucinda gets what she wants.”

This time she couldn't control her flinch. She pulled away from him and gave him another smile, this one even more strained than the first one. “I understand,” she forced herself to say with fragile calm. “I won't bother you.”

“The hell you won't,” he snapped. “You've been
bothering me for most of your life.” He leaned forward, scowling at her. “You bother me by being in the same room. You bother me by breathing.” Furiously he pulled her against him and ground his mouth down on hers. Roanna was too startled to react. All she could do was hang there in his hard grasp and open her mouth to the demand of his. The kiss was deep and intimate, his tongue moving against hers, and down below she could feel the iron ridge of his erection pressing into her belly.

He pushed her away as suddenly as he had grabbed her. “Now trot on back to Lucinda and tell her mission accomplished. Whether or not you tell her how you did it is up to you.” He opened the car door and ushered her inside, then stood for a moment looking down at her. “And you don't understand a damn thing,” he said evenly, before closing the door and striding back to his truck.

W
hen Roanna reached the long driveway to Davencourt that night, as exhausted from the second day of hard travel as she had been from the first, she groaned aloud at the lights still shining like a beacon from the big house. She'd hoped everyone would have gone to bed, so she could regroup before having to face the inquisition she knew was coming. She'd even hoped she could manage to get as much sleep as she had the night before, though that was unlikely. If she couldn't sleep, then at least she could relive those tumultuous hours, savor the memory of his naked body against hers, the kisses, the touches, the shattering, unending moments when he'd actually been inside her. And when she felt calmer, she would think about the rest of it, the hurtful things he'd said and the fact that he didn't want her again … But then why had he kissed her? She was too tired to think straight, so the analysis could wait.

She used the automatic opener for the garage, then braked when her headlights swept across a car already parked in her space. She sighed. Corliss again, taking advantage of Roanna's absence to park her own car inside. The detached garage had only five bays, and those bays were allotted to Lucinda, though she no longer drove herself, Roanna,
Gloria and Harlan, and Lanette and Greg, who each had a car. Brock and Corliss were supposed to park their cars outside, but Corliss had a habit of ignoring that and parking her car in any empty space.

Roanna parked her car beside Brock's and wearily climbed out, hauling her small overnight case with her. She thought about slipping up the outside stairway and around the balcony to her room on the back, but she had locked the French doors before leaving and couldn't get in that way. Instead she would go in through the kitchen and hope she could make it to the stairs unnoticed.

Luck wasn't with her. When she unlocked the kitchen door and opened it, Harlan and Gloria were both sitting at the kitchen table, demolishing thick slices of Tansy's coconut cake. Neither of them were in their nightclothes yet, which meant they had been watching television on the large set in the den.