Months before she left for El Paso that summer, he had been questioning the durability of their childhood romance. If his feelings for her changed with maturity, how the hell was he going to handle the breakup? He had still been in a muddle about it when she had died, and it had left him wary of forming any future relationships.
He would never let himself get that entwined with another human being. It was deadly, having that kind of focus on another person, especially a woman.
Years ago, he’d sworn to take what women could expediently give him, chiefly sex, but never to cultivate tenderness toward one again. He would certainly never come close to loving one.
But the short-term affairs had become too complicated. Invariably, the woman developed an emotional attachment that he couldn’t reciprocate. That’s when he’d started relying on Nora Gail for physical gratification. Now, that had soured. Sex with her was routine and meaningless, and lately, he was having a hard time keeping his boredom from showing.
Dealing with a woman on any level demanded a much higher price than he was willing to pay.
Still, even as he lay there mentally reciting his creed of eternal detachment, he found himself thinking about her.
At this advanced stage of his life, he’d started daydreaming like a sap. She occupied more of his thoughts than he would have ever thought possible. At the edges of these thoughts was an emotion very akin to tenderness, nudging its way into his consciousness.
Nipping at the heels of it, however, was always pain: the pain of knowing who she was and how irrevocably her conception had altered his life, of knowing how decrepit he must appear to a woman her age, of seeing her kiss Junior.
“Dammit.”
He groaned into the darkness and covered his eyes with his forearms as his mind tricked him into witnessing it again. It had produced such an attack of jealousy, it had frightened him. His fury had been volcanic. It was a wonder he hadn’t erupted from the roof of the Blazer.
How the hell had it happened? Why had he let her get to him when absolutely nothing could come of it, except to widen the gulf between him and Junior that had been created by her mother?
A relationship—the word alone made him shudder—between him and Alex was out of the question, so why did it bother him to know that to a smart, savvy career woman like Alex, he must look like a hick, and an old one, at that?
He and Celina had had everything in common, but she’d been unattainable, so how the hell did he imagine there was common ground on which he and Alex could meet?
One other small point, he thought wryly. Celina’s murder. Alex would never understand about that.
None of that sound reasoning, however, kept him from wanting her. An influx of heat surged through his body now, and with it, desire. He wanted to smell her. He wanted to feel her hair against his cheek, his chest, his belly. Imagining her lips and tongue against his skin cost him precious breath, but the lack of sufficient air was worth the image. He wanted to taste her again and tug on her nipple with his mouth.
He whispered her name in the darkness and focused on that instant when he had slipped his hand into the cup of her bra and caressed forbidden flesh. He was consumed by the fire of his imagination. It burned brightly and fiercely.
Eventually, it dimmed. When it did, he was left feeling empty and alone in the cold, dark, lonely house.
Chapter 33
“Good morning, Wanda Gail.”
Fergus Plummet’s wife fell back a step. “What’d you call me?”
“Wanda Gail,” Alex repeated with a gentle smile. “That’s your name, isn’t it? You’re one of the Burton triplets, informally known as the Gail sisters.”
Mrs. Plummet had answered her door with a dishrag in her hands. Shocked by Alex’s knowledge of her past, she took a quick little breath. Her eyes darted about the yard, as though looking for artillery backing Alex up.
“May I come in?”
Alex didn’t wait for permission, but used the other woman’s astonishment to step inside and close the front door. She had discovered Mrs. Plummet’s identity quite by accident while idly perusing the pages of the yearbooks over her morning coffee. After glancing past it a hundred times, the classroom picture had suddenly leaped off the page. She’d thought her eyes were deceiving her until she verified the name in the margin. Wanda Gail Burton.
Hardly able to contain her excitement, she’d consulted the telephone directory for the address and driven straight to the parsonage. She had parked well down the block and hadn’t approached the house until Fergus had driven away in his car.
The two women stood face-to-face in the dim hallway. Alex was curious. Wanda Gail Plummet was clearly afraid.
“I shouldn’t be talking to you,” she whispered nervously.
“Why? Because your husband warned you against it?” Alex asked softly. “I don’t mean to cause you any trouble. Let’s sit down.”
Assuming the role of hostess, Alex led Wanda Gail into the drabbest, most unattractive room she had ever been in. There wasn’t a single spot of color or gaiety. There were no plants, no pictures—other than one of a bleeding, crucified Christ—no books or magazines. There was nothing to relieve the cheerless atmosphere that pervaded the house. Alex had seen three thin, dejected-looking children leave with their father. She and Wanda Gail were alone.
They sat side by side on a tacky, threadbare sofa that reflected the overall penury of the house. Wanda Gail was wringing the damp towel between her hands. Her face was working with anxiety. She was obv