“I’ll call her back.”
“Answer it,” Renie said again, rolling away from him.
“Ah, shit.”
Billy grabbed the phone. “Hey, Mama.”
He got up and walked out of the bedroom. Renie went in to the bathroom and turned on the shower. She wasn’t ready to hear the conversations he had with Willow, or about Willow. She wasn’t ready for anything to do with Willow.
It ate her up that she felt the way she did. She loved kids, so why the problem with this one in particular?
Billy opened the bathroom door a few minutes later. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.” She reached out and grabbed a towel. “I’m finished anyway.”
“I was thinking more about joining you—finishing what we started.”
“I don’t think so, Billy.” Renie was out of the shower and drying off, but the water was still running. Billy reached in and turned it off.
He put his hands over hers on the towel. “Come on, now.”
“No, I don’t feel like it anymore.”
“You’re poutin’, darlin’.” He leaned forward and grabbed her lower lip between his teeth. She breathed in deeply and let the towel fall to the floor. Billy pushed off his boxer briefs, reached behind her and turned the shower back on.
“I’m gonna get you dirty, and then all clean again, baby.”
She couldn’t resist him. He was persuasive, and so damn sexy. She let him move her back under the water, but she couldn’t get Willow’s image out of her head. She turned him around, so his back was to the stream of water, opened the shower door, and stepped out.
“Renie, what’re you doin’?”
“I’m done, Billy.”
He didn’t like the sound of that. Done with what? When he came out of the bathroom, he found her sitting in the kitchen, eating a piece of cold pizza.
“Still poutin’?”
“Don’t, Billy.”
“Find any coffee?”
“Yeah, I made some,” she answered, pointing toward the French Press sitting on the counter.
“I want you to meet her. That’s it. She’s a lot less scary in person.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I think you’re more afraid of the idea of her, and once you meet her, you’ll feel different.”
That he was right didn’t change anything. “Can you take me home now? I mean to Ben’s.”
“Of course I can. You gonna invite me in when we get there, or are you gonna make me give you a kiss goodbye on the front porch?”
“Are you going home?” Already?
“I could be talked into staying, if you’ll come back here with me after we’ve seen your mom and Ben.”
She tried to stifle her sigh of relief. At least he was willing to stay one more day, before she had to give him back to the other woman in his life.