“At the very least, I’d like you to recognize what you’re doing and why you’re doing it!”
“Don’t preach to me from your psychoanalytic pedestal. I know you’re thinking about Caddy and missing her just as much as I am with our first holiday season coming up without her. Don’t project all your stuff onto me.”
“You couldn’t be more mistaken,” her mother said imperiously.
Eleanor pointed toward the kitchen. “Beef pirog? It was Caddy’s favorite. You made it a lot for her, but you made it for Dad and her every Thanksgiving. You haven’t made it since she passed.” She noticed her mother’s incredulous expression. “You see? You’re not the only one who can psychoanalyze, Mom.”
Her mother inhaled, gathering herself. She straightened to her full height of five foot seven. Even though Eleanor had topped her by two inches for a decade now, she still felt about five years old whenever Catherine Briggs took on that regal stance and expression. She made a sound of exasperation.
“Do you really want to know why I’m dressing up in Caddy’s clothes? It’s not because I’m trying to embody her, or at least that’s not the main reason.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s because before she died, she told me to live every day like it was my last. She told me to stop being afraid and to take a bite out of li
fe. That’s why I’m acting the way I’m acting. It’s not because I’m trying to bring Caddy back by being like her. It’s because I’m trying to take advice she gave me while she was dying. Do you think I should ignore her deathbed advice, Mom?”
Her mother’s lower lip quivered. Eleanor immediately regretted her sharp outburst. She’d had the nerve to say those taboo words—dying and death—in association with Caddy.
“I’m not so sure that taking her advice and embodying her are two separate issues,” her mom said after a moment.
“Please, Mom—”
“Did she really say that to you?” her mother asked shakily.
Tears stung her eyes, witnessing her mom’s vulnerability. “Would I lie about something like that? Of course she did,” she said, her voice breaking.
“Hush, now. I didn’t come here to fight with you.” She stepped forward and took Eleanor into her arms. Eleanor stood stiff in her embrace for several seconds.
“You always say that, but we usually do,” Eleanor mumbled. Despite her annoyance and uncertainty about her mother’s argument, after a moment she hugged her back tightly.
She may be infuriating, but she was Eleanor’s mom, and Caddy’s too. She was a fellow sufferer. How could Eleanor possibly withhold her love, knowing that?
—
No matter how much he wrestled with his concentration, he couldn’t seem to pin it down on his book. How could he care about the social intricacies of a Regency country ball, how much money Mr. Bingley made in a year or anything about that stuck-up jerk Mr. Darcy, when her seat was empty?
People were creatures of habit. Trey had taken his exact same cushy armchair, and it seemed to him that most of the people in the crowded, hushed coffee shop had done the same with their former seats. It also was apparent that he wasn’t the only man in the room who kept glancing over at the empty chair by the window. He certainly noticed that Black Beard kept peering up from his book to beadily scan the room.
There was a clock on the wall next to a newly erected Christmas tree. The second hand ticked off another minute. It was quarter past eight. His temptress—the very same woman he should be avoiding at all costs—was either late, or she wasn’t coming.
Hopefully it was the latter.
Unfortunately for him, if it was the latter, he knew he wouldn’t be able to rest until he’d found out precisely why she was avoiding him.
How dare she avoid him, anyway?
What kind of a woman put on a show like the one she’d put on in her window last night, a mind-blowing display of sensuality and raw eroticism, and then backed off? She’d walked away . . . fucking walked away after turning him into a steaming, frustrated, teeth-gnashing sexual voyeur. He, Trey Riordan, didn’t watch passively, damn it. At least not for the long term, he didn’t. When it came to sex, he participated. He initiated.
He did.
For seemingly the thousandth time since last night, he relived that moment when she’d gone belly down on the bed, stuck her gorgeous bare ass in the air and reached between her spread thighs. He’d known the precise moment when she’d climaxed. He’d seen her body stiffen and quake, perfectly sensed her rush of relief and pleasure.
His cock swelled at the mere memory.
Unwanted erections happened with the regularity of his remembering, which wasn’t helping his straining attempt at celibacy in the least. Hell, sometimes it seemed like he couldn’t see anything else in his sex-warped mind’s eye than the vision of her lithe, curving body moving so sexily while she played with her breasts. It’d been damn hard concentrating at work today, and nearly impossible to sleep last night next to the window that she’d single-handedly turned into a giant erotic television screen with no off button.
She’d known where he lived all along. There was no other conclusion to be made. She’d seen him in his home before, and knew precisely what she was doing by inviting him to become a voyeur.