The Prodigal Valentine. Karen Templeton

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СКАЧАТЬ up in his head. He’d missed that bizarre mixture of vulnerability and toughness that was Mercedes Zamora. Missed it way too much to risk screwing things up now.

      “What are you doing?” she asked.

      “I think it’s called coming to my senses.”

      “Uh-huh.” Laughing, she shoved her hair out her face with both hands. Her swollen lips canted in a crooked smile, she slumped against the cushions, propping one foot on the brightly painted wooden trunk she used for a coffee table. The shiny red walls made the air seem molten, flooding his consciousness with possibilities he had no business considering. “And just what do you think,” she said, “the odds are of our keeping our hands off each other while you’re here?”

      “That’s not the point.” His hands shot up by his shoulders. “I can’t do this, Mercy.”

      “Yeah? Could’ve fooled me.”

      “No. I mean, I can’t do this again. Mess around. With you.”

      “Because…?”

      “Because it wouldn’t be right.”

      “Yeah, well, it wasn’t right the first time. Don’t recall that stopping us.”

      He squeezed shut his eyes against the onslaught of memories. “God, Merce,” he said, opening them again, “what is it about you that makes me so hot my brain shorts out?”

      She shrugged, then grabbed a bright blue throw pillow, hugging it to her, looking uncannily like a very grown-up version of their niece. “I’m easy?”

      This time, he laughed out loud. “Oh, babe, one thing you’re not is easy.”

      “Fun, then. And by the way, that thing where you said I made you hot?” She gave him a thumbs up.

      “Like men don’t say that to you all the time.”

      “Ooh, somebody’s just racking up the brownie points right and left today.” Two heartbeats later she stood in front of him again, her thumbs hooked in his belt loop, tugging him close. “No, really, that’s a very sweet thing to say, considering I’m not exactly the nubile young thing I used to be. But what other men might or might not say to me isn’t the point. The point is…” Her gaze never leaving his, she let go to skim a finger-nail down his chest, smiling when he involuntarily flinched. “The point is, it’s been a long, long time since anyone made me hot enough to short out my brain, too.”

      “Oh, yeah? How long?”

      The fingernail slid underneath the front of his shirt, gently scraping across his skin. “Guess.”

      He pulled away.

      “Would it put your mind at ease,” she said behind him, “to know I’m not looking for the same things I was ten years ago?” When he turned, she added, “Not with you, not with anybody else. I’m not looking for forever, Ben.” Her mouth stretched into an almost-smile. “Not anymore.”

      He frowned. “You don’t want marriage? Kids?”

      She walked over to the same photos he’d been looking at earlier, straightening out the one he’d apparently not put back correctly. “It’s like when you’re a teenager, and you just know if you don’t get that album, or dress, or pair of shoes, you’ll expire. Then one day you realize you never did get whatever it was you thought you couldn’t live without, and not only did you survive, you don’t miss it, either.”

      And clearly she’d forgotten just how well he’d always been able to see through her, too. Her reluctance to make eye contact was a dead giveaway that she was skirting the truth. But this wasn’t the time to call her on it, especially since he was hardly in a place where he could be entirely truthful with her, either.

      So all he said was, “You’re one weird chick, Mercy,” and she laughed.

      “Not exactly breaking news,” she said, facing him again. “Look, whether we should have let things get out of hand or not back then, I can’t say. But I’ve never regretted it. Have you? No, wait,” she said, holding up one hand. “Maybe I don’t want to know the answer to that.”

      Ben realized he was grinding his teeth to keep from going to her. “Not hardly,” he said, and she smiled.

      “Well, then. Ben, I knew from the moment you came home after the army that you’d never stick around. Yeah, I was supremely annoyed that you took off without saying anything, but I always knew you’d leave.” She did that thing where she planted her palms on her butt, and Ben’s mouth went dry. “Just like I know you’ll leave this time. But while you’re here, we could either drive ourselves nuts pretending we’re not interested, or we could enjoy each other.” Her shoulders bumped. “Your call.” When he shook his head, she said, “Why not?”

      “Porque nadie tropieza dos veces con la misma piedra,” he said softly, repeating an old Mexican proverb he’d heard a thousand times as a kid. Because nobody trips over the same stone twice.

      They eyed each other for a long moment, then she returned to the kitchen, collecting their mugs.

      “You’re angry.”

      “Don’t be ridiculous.” The dishwasher shuddered when she banged it open. “It was just a thought.”

      “Merce. A half hour ago you gave the very distinct impression you’d rather eat live snakes than start something up again with me. So why the sudden change of heart?”

      She slammed the dishwasher shut, turned around. “That was my wounded pride talking. So good news—guess I’m a faster healer than I realized.”

      “And I’m just getting started,” he said, and her brows plunged. “Honey, I’m not rejecting you. I’m rejecting the past. Because I don’t want to pick up where we left off. Because, yeah, I want you so much I can’t think straight, but it’s more than that with you.” His throat ached when he swallowed. “It was always more than that with you.”

      In the space of a heartbeat, her expression changed from confusion to stunned comprehension to bemusement. The cat jumped up on the counter beside her, bumping her elbow to be petted. Being obviously well-trained, she obeyed, then said, “You remember the scene early in It’s a Wonderful Life where Jimmy Stewart finds himself in Donna Reed’s living room, and her mother hollers down the stairs, asking her what he wants, and Donna Reed says, ‘I don’t know,’ then turns to Jimmy Stewart and says, ‘What do you want?’ and he gets all mad because he doesn’t really know?” She cocked her head. “Well?”

      “I don’t know,” Ben ground out, stuffing his arms into his jacket. “But I can tell you I’m not looking for the same things I was before, either.”

      Then he strode to her door and let himself out, not even trying to keep from slamming the door.

      

      The forecast had called for a slight chance of snow on New Year’s Eve—pretty much an empty threat in Albuquerque, which, Ben mused as he listened to his mother fuss at his father at their bedroom door, rarely had weather in the usual sense of the word. Muttering in Spanish, his mother trooped down the hall, all dressed up for her night on the town.

      “You СКАЧАТЬ