Forbidden (Southern Comfort) by O'Neill, Clark (best affordable ebook reader txt) 📕

a wife, a kid – five-year-old boy, cute as a button – that he used as target practice when he wasn’t out assaulting his victims.  When the police cornered him, he took his family hostage.  Anyway, long story short, I got pressed into trying to negotiate.  I failed.  Completely.  The guy blew himself and his family away before I could even say boo.”

“Oh, Clay.”  Tate reached for his hand across the table.  “And yet you volunteered to spend the entire day yesterday with Max.  How difficult that must have been.”

“Actually,” he squeezed her hand.  “It was remarkably easy.  Yet another reason to knock the guilt block off your shoulder.  Being at that carnival with Max was good for me.  I’d been avoiding the issue ever since it happened, first throwing myself back into work, then throwing myself into vacation. Because I was… afraid.  Afraid of admitting that I felt like a failure.  That if I’d been a little bit smarter, a little bit better, a little bit faster, that child might still be alive.  But last night I realized that I’d done the best I could.

“And besides, if I hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have gotten a look at the perp, and you and I probably wouldn’t be sitting here enjoying our daily dose of indigestion.”

Tate smiled, although she suspected he was changing the subject on purpose.  Humor was obviously his default coping mechanism, as he’d managed to find the comedic side of almost every lousy situation they’d found themselves in.

“So how’d the sketch turn out?” he inquired, clearly wanting to close the door on the previous topic.  “I meant to look it over to compare it against my own observations, but Deputy Harding hotfooted it out of the interview room before I had a chance to ask.”

“The sketch looks great.  I might not have described the guy exactly, but it seems to be much closer than I would have thought possible.  Josh is really a fantastic artist.”

Clay muttered something under his breath.

Tate’s head popped up.  “What?”

“I said Deputy Harding seems like a nice guy.”

“He is nice,” she agreed, although she was sure that was not what he’d muttered. “Actually, it’s kind of surprising.  Given my experience, men who look like that can’t see past their own reflection.”

When he was quiet, Tate looked up to find his warm brown eyes sharp with comprehension.  “Max’s dad?”

She didn’t want to talk about… the jerk… not ever, but after the way Clay had bared himself, she didn’t feel it was fair to shut him out.

“Yes.”  It was a simple answer to his question, but she could tell by the look on his face that he was waiting for the story.  Maybe it would help him to understand why she’d called a halt to their physical relationship, as well as to remind herself why she didn’t do casual flings.

There were simply too many repercussions.

“It’s nothing dramatic,” she warned, pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear.  “Just your typical love-struck girl falls for ego-centric guy who dumps her the moment he finds out she’s pregnant.”

“You don’t have to say any more if you don’t want to.”

But Tate suddenly felt the need to get it out. “Final semester of my senior year in college, I did an internship at the Regency in Atlanta. I was a glorified gopher, but I loved it.”  Had loved it more, she recalled, for a certain recurring guest.  “Anyway… there’s a spa there that’s absolutely to die for, and some of the suites offer complementary services with return visits, which is a really nice lure for drawing people back.  I was working the spa rotation – helping at the desk – when I first met Max’s dad.”

“One of those repeat guests?”

“Um-hmm,” she agreed.  “He was a sales rep, traveled a lot.  And as you can probably guess, he was gorgeous and charming. I was naïve and smitten – young and stupid enough to mistake sophistication for class.  As you said, long story short, we had a raging affair that ended in condom failure. When he found out I was pregnant, he…” she swallowed, lingering shame rising like bile in her throat. “Well, that’s when he suddenly remembered that he was married.  Separated, but legally married, with no interest in complicating the situation with a child.  Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom.  Not a very original punch line.”

“He’s an asshole.”

Tate couldn’t help but smile at his quick assessment.  “I’m inclined to agree.  He’s the kind of man who puts his interests above all others, just recklessly crashing through life not really caring what he might break.  But if he hadn’t been an asshole, I wouldn’t have my son.”

AND suddenly, Clay felt like an asshole, because he realized that on some level, he was no better than Max’s dad.  Of course, no way in hell would he ever cheat on his wife, nor would he abandon Tate if she were pregnant.  However, he was putting his own interests first, because Tate had given him some very valid reasons as to why she couldn’t take their acquaintanceship to an intimate level.

And here he was, disregarding that, trying to find a way to finagle himself into Tate’s bed.

Shit.

He’d already been through all that this morning.  He had nothing to offer this woman other than a temporary good time.  A long distance relationship was impractical if not impossible, and did he really want to put either of them through that?

God.  Was he actually considering a relationship?

This was further proof that he’d blown some kind of gasket.

Relationships were difficult, even under the best of circumstances, and trying to maintain one in the face of both his demanding career and the hundreds of miles between them was nothing short of crazy.  He should shuttle this woman back home as quickly as possible, go about the business of putting her out of his mind.

That was something he usually excelled at.  Compartmentalizing was an essential part of his job.  To do what he needed to do, not think about the rest.