My Way Back to You. Pamela Hearon

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СКАЧАТЬ gave a thoughtful pause as she opened the door to retrieve her phone from the console. She slipped it into her purse and closed the door, then turned to meet his earnest gaze. “You didn’t make me distrust men,” she answered honestly. “I distrusted myself.”

      A flicker of relief shot from his dark eyes, followed quickly by a shadow. She nodded toward the elevator and started moving in that direction. “I couldn’t risk failing again.” Keeping control of the conversation before he could ask any more questions seemed like her best option now. “Too much depended on my being successful. I had a child to take care of and a career to think about.” She stopped as the elevator door opened, relieved to find the car empty this time.

      A short ride to the third floor, and this would be over.

      They stepped in and Jeff punched the buttons as she continued. “I wasn’t sure I was capable of handling those things, so I couldn’t even think about throwing a relationship into the mix.” This wasn’t as difficult as she’d thought. Everything she was saying was the truth—she was simply leaving out a few details.

      “And once I opened the salon, there was yet another thing demanding my time.” Her stomach gave a jolt as the elevator came to a stop on the third floor. Jeff stepped out with her, just as he’d done the previous afternoon, only this time he started walking with her to her door.

      “Something you said last night at dinner kept me awake.” His voice was low as they made their way down the hallway. “And, coupled with what you said this morning, it’s bothered the hell out of me all day.”

      “What did I say?” Her spine had pulled into a tight curve at the touch of his hand, pressed absently to the small of her back as they walked. When they reached her door, her shoulders were squared as she turned to face him.

      “It was the part about admitting to yourself you’d made a huge mistake. Again.”

      “O-kay...?”

      His hands gripped his hips, and he shrugged. “You can’t think we were a mistake, Mags. If we were a mistake, that makes Russ a mistake.”

      She leaned against the door, closing her eyes to the raw emotion in his. “You’re right. Zeke was a mistake, but referring to us that way was a poor choice of words.”

      She heard the rustle of his movement and opened her eyes to find him pressing a forearm against the door frame, his eyes hooded with doubt.

      “Russ is the best thing that ever came into my life.” His voice was heavy with emotion. “And I know it’s been difficult for you. But I want you to understand that it’s not been easy for me, either. Being so far away from him—not being able to see him every day—has been hard on me.”

      The sincerity in his eyes pulled at her heartstrings. She reached up to touch his face in a motherly fashion, to console, the way she would with Russ when she saw that same expression on his face. But as soon as her palm connected with his cheek, the touch became something else entirely—something not at all motherly. It became a lover’s caress as his heat scorched her, sent tingles through her arm and into her chest...down into her belly and lower.

      The look in his eyes changed in an instant.

      He felt it, too.

      Electricity charged the atmosphere around them, encapsulating them in its trembling heat. Her eyes held to his steely gaze like a magnet. He leaned in slightly, and she pressed her back against the door but found no escape. Her hand, still on his cheek, should be pushing him away. So why did it slide around to the back of his neck and pull him closer?

      The world slowed as his mouth neared hers, and she licked her lips in anticipation. She closed her eyes at the last second, allowing this moment to take center stage in her mind as it had so often in her dreams. The tenderness of his lips, the familiar sweetness...the flutter in her stomach that all too soon would become an aching need.

      She’d entered a danger zone and was much too old and wise now to ignore the signs.

      Sliding her hand from the back of his neck to his chest, she didn’t push him away, but did apply enough pressure to let him know this needed to stop. In answer, he removed his mouth from hers slowly but didn’t straighten, staying close enough that his breath continued to feather across her lips, warming them with the caress.

      “Russ was never a mistake,” she whispered. “But letting this go any further would be.”

      She felt the burst of air from his disgruntled sigh, but he stepped back, buckling his chin and giving her a nod.

      “Good night, Mags.” He touched her cheek with the back of his finger.

      “Night.”

      She made short work of getting into her room, barely making it to the bed before her knees buckled under the weight of the moment.

CHAPTER FIVE

      “YOU HEARD ANY more from Maggie?” Eli doused his third cup of coffee with heavy cream and stirred it, changing the hue from black to tan.

      Rosemary thought Eli’s color seemed slightly better this morning than yesterday. She finished off the remains in her own cup and set it down with a sigh and a shake of her head. “No. And I know she must be upset. Yesterday was the day they moved Russ into his dorm. That had to be hard on her.”

      “You think being around the son of a bitch is hard on her, too?” The cream must have cooled Eli’s coffee quickly because he swallowed half the cup in one gulp.

      “Don’t drink so fast.”

      “Don’t tell me how to drink my coffee.” He picked up the cup and gulped down the rest, just out of spite, she was sure.

      “I hope it’s not hard on her. She’s known for a couple of months she and Jeff would be up there together. That was plenty of time to get her head prepared.”

      Eli stood, pulled the cap from the pocket of his overalls and flipped it onto his head to cover the mop of silver hair he still sported. He adjusted the bill so that it covered his heavy, still-black eyebrows. “Not her head I’m worried about,” he drawled.

      Rosemary pushed back in her chair and directed a withering glare his direction. “Shame on you, Eli Crenshaw Russell! That’s your daughter we’re talking about.”

      He stepped toward her and braced one arm on the table and one on the back of her chair. Then he leaned down until his twinkling blue-gray eyes were even with hers. “I was referring to her heart, you dirty old woman.”

      “Oh.” She saw the twitch of a grin at the corner of his mouth right before he kissed her heated forehead.

      “Gotta go.” He patted the top of her head as he straightened. “Those tractors aren’t going to fix themselves.”

      Rosemary leaned her head back, stretching those darn neck muscles that always seemed so tight these days. “But somebody else could fix them. Let’s retire, Eli. Let’s take that money we’ve worked so hard for all these years and spend it seeing some of the world...like we always promised ourselves we’d do.”

      Eli had started toward the door—her words didn’t even slow his СКАЧАТЬ