She rolled up to her feet in a smooth way that told Tennessee more things about her and that mouthwatering body of hers.Then she let out a sharp whistle that had all the dogs following her as she led them into the kitchen.He heard a lot of dog toenails scrabbling on the floor and a few barks, and when she came back out she closed the door to the kitchen behind her so they couldn’t follow.
Then she stood there by the door, her gray-blue gaze on him like she was waiting for him to object.To stand up and head for the door.To cut this off right now, before it got more complicated.
It was like she’d read his mind.
Because this was not the kind of thing Tennessee did.
Ever.
It felt almost painful, the clarity he had suddenly.It was like he could page back to every single interaction he’d had with this woman, going back years.Like they were all laid out before him, finally impossible to ignore.
In every single one of them, he’d worked hard to pretend he couldn’t see her.To pretend his body didn’t respond to her.To pretend, over and over, that she was just a neighbor.The younger sister of an old friend.Nothing more, nothing less.
In this moment, here in her house with the taste of her in his mouth, he was doing none of that work.And he could see how much effort he’d put into it over the years.How he’d been lying to himself, on some level, for at least the last decade.
Which would track.Since that was right around the time Kacey had left for the last time.She’d finally let him go and she’d been married within two years to a guy who looked at her like he’d won the lottery.Tennessee had expected to grieve that.To pat himself on the back for being some kind of martyr—but that had never happened.He hadn’t grieved Kacey at all, or not as much as he’d grieved that same idea of them at sixteen that they’d both held onto for much too long.
That had been telling.
Tonight, though, he was pretty sure that it was around that time that he’d started noticing Matilda.And not in the way that anyone else noticed Matilda.They all saw the eclectic clothes, the often messy hair, the truckful of animals.
But Tennessee, if he let himself, had a perfect memory of Matilda Stark at about twenty-two.
It had been summer.All of that golden light extending so late into the evenings made everybody giddy, and a little bit drunk on it all.He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing to find himself out by the river that stretched across their little valley, cutting across the main road, and down past the Coppermine, continuing along until it reached the church tucked in the foothills on the other side.In the summer, folks waded and floated about in the water, tubed across the valley floor, and swam in the swimming hole.
That particular evening must have been hot for Tennessee to have wandered down to the swimming hole.He couldn’t remember.What he could recall, perfectly, was Matilda.
He hadn’t been prepared to be standing there as she came up out of the water.She’d been slicked all over, wet and glistening in the evening light.Her hair had been dark from the water but still curly as it flowed down past her shoulders, but what he’d really been focused on was the bolt of heat that went through him at the wholly unexpected sight of Matilda Stark in a bikini.
It hadn’t even been a particularly revealing bikini.He supposed that it would be called a two-piece to distinguish it from the more deliberately sexy versions.Hers had been veryher.It had been more like a sports bra of a top and little shorts.
Tennessee shouldn’t have cared.He shouldn’t have noticed.
But he had never seen that much of Matilda’s body.She was dusted in freckles, and clearly spent time outside in not much more than she was wearing that night, since she was tan all over.She’d had water sandals on her feet, the way everyone did getting in and out of the river, and she’d appeared to have absolutely no awareness that Tennessee had just about swallowed his own tongue at the sight of her.
At all of that soft, golden flesh.He’d had an urge at the time that had struck him as borderline insane.He’d wanted to go over to her, kneel down in front of her, and press his face to the swell of her belly.He’d wanted to lose himself in all that slick gold.
He had the same urge now.But unlike then, he wasn’t pretending to himself that he wasn’t wildly attracted to her.
And he had no intention of leaving.
Matilda moved toward him and took his hands in hers.Then she tipped her head back to look up at him, and he got the feeling she liked how much taller he was than her as much as he did.
“I have an idea,” she said.He could see all that heat in her gaze, and all over her face.He could feel it answer in him.“What if you let me take you upstairs, lay you down, and have my way with you?You won’t have to be responsible for anything.”
“If you have your way with me, that would mean I’m also having my way with you,” he heard himself reply, as if someone else had taken over his body.“Seems to me I’d have some responsibilities there.”
Her smile was better than the best summer, he thought.It seemed to crack him wide open.
And the trouble was, Tennessee knew himself.
He knew himself too well, so when she only shrugged and tugged him after her as she headed for the stairs and then led him up them, he knew better.
Because he wasn’t a casual guy.When he felt something, it felt like forever.
And Matilda was all light and air, dancing about as a whim took her.He had never believed that she was quite as fluttery as she pretended she was sometimes, just as he’d never found her to be anything like her mother.
But Matilda didn’t settle.Matilda’s passions in life were temporary.Oh yes, she loved animals, but what she loved was rescuing them and then rehoming them and then moving on to rescue others.
