Noting the restless movement of his shoulders, Cat was reminded that her uncle had never been comfortable for long within the confines of four walls. As much as she wanted the insulation of his company, she didn’t press him to stay. Instead she companionably linked arms with him.
“Why don’t you have supper with us tomorrow night, Uncle Culley.” Pushing through the screen door ahead of him, Cat walked onto the front porch.
“I don’t know.” He threw an uncertain look over his shoulder at Logan.
“We’d like to have you, wouldn’t we, Logan?” she challenged when he joined them on the porch.
“Of course.” His voice was smooth and very dry.
Culley slanted another look at Logan. “What time?”
“Around seven o’clock,” Logan replied.
“Okay.” He shoved his hat on and took his leave of them with a quick, nodding bob of his head, then cut an angle down the porch steps and headed toward the shed barn, moving with a soft-footed silence.
Cat gazed after him, tracking his progress until night’s gathering shadows swallowed him. “I hadn’t realized he had gotten so thin,” she murmured in concern. “I’ve always known he doesn’t cook for himself, just opens up a can, sometimes eating right out of it. But his arm felt like only bone and sinew just now.”
“You don’t need to justify the invitation, Cat.” Logan sounded half-irritated.
It spun her around. “I wasn’t justifying anything. I was making an observation.”
Logan felt the sizzle in the air and knew the tension between them came from more than just anger. It hardened him. “If you say so. In any case, I agree it will probably be best for a while to have your uncle take his meals with us. It might make them less awkward for both of us until we get used to this—” He stopped, his mouth quirking in a humorless, almost bitter, line. “I don’t know what to call it. That “ring on your finger says you’re my wife, but this isn’t a marriage.”
“No, it isn’t.” She felt something that was very much like regret, which made no sense at all. “It’s a bit like having a stranger for a roommate.”
The breath he expelled was heavy with irony. “We aren’t strangers, either, Cat.” Reaching up, he loosened the knot of his tie and unfastened the collar button on his dress shirt, a certain weariness in the gesture. “It would make it a lot easier if we were. Instead of trying to deny this physical thing between us, we’d be exploring it to see where it led.”
“But that’s all it is—physical.”
“Are you sure?”
She ignored the swift rise of her heartbeat and unconsciously twisted the gold band around her finger. “I’m sure. You forget that I know what love is.”
“Ah, yes, the boyfriend. How could I forget him.” The amused disdain in his voice had her temper simmering again. “He’s dead, Cat.”
“That doesn’t change how much I loved him,” she fired back.
“Loved. Past tense,” he countered smoothly. “As I recall, that night in Fort Worth you wanted to feel alive.”
“And look what happened.” She turned from him, folding her arms tightly across her middle.
“Yes, we have a beautiful son now.” He dragged the tie from around his neck and jammed it in a jacket pocket. “Maybe you regret that night, but I don’t.”
“Of course not. You enjoyed yourself immensely.”
“And you didn’t, I suppose?” he mocked, then snapped his fingers. “That’s right, I forgot—you were drunk that night and can’t remember. But I can.”
Without warning, without Cat even noticing the step he took to bridge the distance between them, he was inches from her. Too stunned to react, she stood there, unable to breathe, unable to move, her pulse racing.
“Everything about that night was branded in my mind.” His voice was husky and thick, vibrating between anger and some other emotion. “I remember everything about it—the way you felt, the way you tasted, the way you moved against me.”
She bowed her head with a small denying shake and tried to shut out the memories his words evoked. “I don’t want to hear this.”
“Hear what?” he taunted softly, his hands sliding onto the curve of her hips and exerting little pressure to draw her to him. “The way we fit together like we were made for each other?”
The contact with his long, muscled thighs brought her head up. She flattened her hands on his chest to keep some space between them. The intensity of his eyes blocked any other protest.
“Or”—his face drifted closer—“don’t you want to hear about all the places I found where you had dabbed your perfume?” Her eyes closed of their own accord when his mouth grazed across her cheekbone to nuzzle the sensitive hollow below her ear, then came back to tease the corner of her lips, his breath warming them. But she refused to turn to them.