A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father: A Marriage-Minded Man / From Friend to Father

“Maid?”

After putting the tray on the counter, Eli shrugged out of his denim jacket. “No, Tess, no maid. Not that I’m suggesting you eat off the floor, but I do know how to wash a dish and take out the garbage.”

“Oh, I…” She blew out a sigh, then pointed to her wound. “Triage?”

“Right straight through, on your right. First-aid kit’s under the sink. I take it you don’t need my help?”

“No,” she said, hobbling off. Ten seconds later, he heard a shriek. Eli hotfooted it to the bathroom to find Tess gawking at her reflection in the medicine chest mirror. “How come you didn’t tell me I have half the national forest in my hair?” she asked, plucking at twigs and chamisa fluff and stuff, and in the light he could see that twelve years and a couple of kids had added a few not-unwelcome pounds here and there.

“It was dark,” he said. “Couldn’t tell.” He leaned one palm against the doorjamb, appreciating the view. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you with short hair.”

Her eyes cut to his for barely a second before veering back to the mirror. “Got tired of taking care of it long,” she said softly, bitterly, finger-combing most of the chamisa gunk out of it, sending the yellow bits floating all over his bathroom.

Don’t get sucked in, don’t get—

“Looks good,” he said, then walked away and left her to it.

Tess braced herself against his sink—far cleaner than she would have expected, nothing on it except a cup and a razor—willing her heart to settle down.

What on earth had she been thinking, not turning back long before she’d gotten so far from her own house? She supposed that had been the whole point, that she’d wanted to run away. From everything. Not forever, just for a little while. But to end up in Eli Garrett’s bathroom?

Beyond weird.

If they’d seen each other a half dozen times since their breakup, she’d be surprised. It wasn’t anything deliberate, exactly, even if their parting had been, well, pretty bad. In retrospect, chasing him down Main Street with a sponge mop had probably been a bit over the top. Not that she would have inflicted any lasting damage—she didn’t think—even if there’d been the slightest chance of catching up with those long legs of his. But for heaven’s sake, it wasn’t like she still had any feelings for the guy. Not after a dozen years and a couple of kids and a marriage blowing up in her face—

Sighing, Tess hauled out the first-aid kit, getting her first good look at her boo-boo. Eww. She’d hardly be crippled for life, but miniskirts had just been crossed off the list for the near future.

She banged down the toilet seat and sank onto it, dampening a gauze pad with antiseptic before tentatively touching it to the wound. She hissed, then swore, as hot tears bit at her eyes—from the pain, yes, but more from a sudden surge of anger and frustration, topped with a leftover jalapeño or two of grief. All that time, petrified of losing Ricky to something she didn’t even fully understand, only to discover she’d lost him anyway.

Yeah, there was some sick irony for you.

The grief, Tess could handle. Had handled, for the most part. People change, marriages die, let’s move on. The anger, however…this was new. The anger was what had propelled her out the door two hours ago, fueled a run that had lasted far longer than it should have, made her take risks she would have never normally taken.

The anger frightened her because she didn’t know its limits. What it would do. What it would make her do.

She glopped on some antibiotic ointment, then bandaged the scrape. Already, the shock of the fall was wearing off. When she stood this time, her leg seemed more inclined to do its job. The kit shoved back underneath Eli’s sink, she made her way to the front room, a living/dining combo all rustic and woodsy—and surprisingly homey—with its wooden floor and paneling, the dark beams running the length of the white ceiling. The decorating style was strictly Early Parental Cast Offs—she thought she recognized the old beige corduroy sofa—but mercifully devoid of ancient pizza boxes and beer cans.

One might not even think a bachelor lived here at all, had it not been for the two solid shelves of video game cases and the corresponding jumble of consoles under, beside and around the boxy, ’90s-issue TV squatting in the entertainment center like a bloated rhinoceros.

“So what’s the prognosis?” Eli called from the dining nook, which is when she noticed not only that he’d set the table for two, but the man who’d set that table.

Taller. More solid. Curly, light brown hair still too long, the Henley T-shirt still too loose, the jeans still ragged. The person wearing them still too damn sure of himself for his own good. And—much as it pained her to admit it—for hers.

Her hands stuffed in her jacket front pocket, Tess shrugged, reminding herself the sexually predatory divorcée was such a cliché. “No worries on that amputation thing. Um…what’s this?”

“Dinner,” he said, flashing her the dimpled grin that had been her undoing so long ago. Ducking the not-half-bad wrought-iron chandelier over the table, he set down a plate of enchiladas, then another, like Enrique used to once upon a time, when they were first married and the future beckoned, unblemished and secure.

The anger flared. “I thought I said—”

“I know what you said,” Eli said mildly, although there was nothing mild about the way he was looking at her. Don’t do that! she wanted to yell, even as longing—hot and thick and syrupy—welled inside her to mix with the anger. Since, you know, he looked at pretty much every female in the county like that—

“I’ve also been working my butt off all day,” he continued, still watching her, and her eyes latched onto his mouth, and another memory flashed, of what good a kisser he’d been, and she realized she was an inch away from pity party status, which only made her madder—

“And you live clear on the other side of town. So I’m gonna eat before I take you home, if it’s all the same to you. And since my mama taught me it’s rude to eat in front of people without offering to share…” He gestured toward the plate on the far side of the table. “You may as well join me.”

Staring at the table, Tess removed one hand from its cocoon to jerk her hair behind her ear—a habit left over from when she’d still had hair. For some reason, this set the anger loose all over again. Not a single, neatly defined emotion or reaction to any one particular thing, but a whole damn herd of pissed-off thoughts, stampeding through her brain and soul and body—

“Tess?”

Eli’d said her name so softly it took a moment to register. “It’s okay,” he said gently when she jerked her gaze to his, and her eyes burned, partly because it wasn’t true—at all—and partly because it felt so strange, somebody reassuring her, a job that had been hers for as long as she could remember. His hands resting lightly along the top of one of the high-backed wooden chairs, his gaze was warm and steady and completely unthreatening. Not at all what she’d thought she’d seen earlier.

Yeah, like that was a step in the right direction.

Only because she was starving, and because her options at home began and ended with frozen pizza, she sighed out a “Fine,” her leg only hurting a little as she crossed to the table, plopping into the chair he held out for her. She thought she might’ve caught a smile before Eli turned to the refrigerator, a white, no-nonsense old-timer that wobbled slightly when he opened the door. “What would you like to drink? I got tea, Coke, water—”

“What happened to the booze offer?”

He turned, eyes sparkling, dimples dimpling, and wasn’t she thrilled to notice they were both far more deadly now than they had been a dozen years ago? And they’d been pretty damn deadly then. “Somehow I’m thinking whiskey on an empty stomach isn’t the best idea.”

And she was thinking she’d never get through the next twenty minutes without something to dull her senses. Especially those prone to reacting to cocky smiles from sexy old boyfriends with baaaaad reputations. “Beer, then? Unless you don’t have any.”

“Oh, I’ve got some, but—”

“Then hand her over.” At Eli’s dubious—and annoyingly protective—look, she sighed. “I can hold a single beer, Eli.” Never mind the nasty little voice whispering that, actually, no, she couldn’t, which was why she rarely drank. “Especially if I’m eating.”

The voice sniggered.

Oh, for crying out loud—so what if she got a little buzz on? She somehow doubted the world would implode. But dammit, she thought as she watched Eli pour out a can of Bud into a tall glass—which he rinsed out first—she’d been responsible for everyone and everything for so, so long, what was one little old beer in the scheme of things? And besides—

“And besides—” Her hands fisted on the table, she looked him square in the eye. “This is weird, okay? Me being here with you, in your house. What with all the other weirdnesses going on in my life…”

“Got it.” Eli handed her the beer, then sat with his own, and he was all big and solid and manly and such, and she remembered that baaaad reputation of his.

“Don’t you think this is weird?” she asked, shivering a little.

“Heck, yeah,” he said, lifting his glass to her. Spearing her with those eerie light brown eyes. Almost gold. Kinda the same color as his hair. The too-long hair half covering his ears, glossy in the chandelier’s light, all those hard-edged features at odds with those soft, soft curls—

Tess tipped back her glass; three gulps later, it was half-gone—

“Hey,” she said when Eli grabbed it from her. “Give that back.”

“Not until you eat something,” he said, tucking into his own food while holding her glass just out of reach, the creep. Only after Tess downed several bites and her eyes were streaming from the chili did Eli take pity on her and return her drink. Her mouth on fire, she finished it off. The belch just kind of escaped.

“Whoa,” Eli said. Grinning. Tess blinked, thinking she could practically see the pheromones rising from his warm skin. Like ghosts from a graveyard on Halloween.

And you know this is only because every time you see Ricky you go a little crazy. Has nothing to do with Eli.

“You know, these are almost as good as mine,” she said, jabbing her fork at the enchiladas. Which were beginning to get a little blurry.