Six

      Morning came too soon. Tamra heard the clang of pots and pans, the familiar sound of Mary fixing breakfast.

      Was Walker awake, too? Was he sitting at the kitchen table, pretending that he hadn’t sneaked out of the house last night? Or crept back in several hours later?

      She sat up and reached for her robe. She could still feel Walker’s touch—his mouth, his hands, the strength of his body, the erotic sensation of flesh against flesh.

      Although she kept telling herself it had been lust, a hard-hammering, desperate-for-sex release, she knew better. Because after the sex had ended, they’d remained in each other’s arms, not wanting to let go, to break the spell.

      And now, God help her, she was nervous about seeing him, anxious about facing the man who was seeping into her pores, the man playing guessing games with her emotions.

      They were getting too close too fast, and it scared her. Yet she liked it, too. She envisioned marching into the kitchen or her bedroom or wherever he was and kissing him senseless. But she wouldn’t dare, not in front of Mary. Walker’s mom had slept through the entire event.

      Tamra washed her face and brushed her teeth, but she didn’t take a shower or get dressed. She simply tightened her robe and headed down the hall. She wanted Walker to see her this way, to look into her eyes on the morning after, to appreciate her tousled hair, to remember running his hands through it.

      She entered the kitchen, but he wasn’t at the table. She took a deep breath and decided he would awaken soon. He didn’t seem like the type of man who would sleep the day away.

      “Oh, my. Look at you.” Mary turned away from the stove, from the old-fashioned oatmeal she was stirring. “Did you have a rough night?”

      Tamra blinked, forced a smile, fought a wave of guilt. “Rough?”

      “Did I keep you up?” The older woman sighed. “I was snoring, wasn’t I? I need one of those mouthpiece devices. Or a nasal strip or something.”

      “It was fine. I hardly noticed.” Because she’d been parked on the plains, having carnal relations with Mary’s son.

      A sin she was sure to repeat.

      Dodging eye contact, she poured herself a cup of coffee, grateful it was thick and dark and blasted with caffeine. “Do you need help with breakfast?” she asked, adding sugar to her cup, giving herself another artificial boost.

      “Sure. You can fry the eggs. But it’s just the two of us. Walker already left this morning.”

      “Left?” Tamra spun around, nearly burned her hand on the sloshing drink, then set it on the counter. “He went home?”

      “No, honey. He drove to Gordon. He said he had some banking matters to take care of.”

      Her pulse quit pounding. There were no banks on the rez, no financial institutions. “That makes sense.”

      Mary checked her watch, then went back to the oatmeal. An early riser, she was already dressed for work, wearing a freshly laundered uniform and squeaky nurse-type shoes. Her gray-streaked hair was tucked behind her ears. “Walker seemed preoccupied today.”

      “He did?” Tamra opened a carton of eggs, took inventory, tried to behave accordingly. “How so?”

      “I think he was anxious to see you, hoping you were awake.”

      “Really?” A teenybopper reaction, a bevy of wings took flight in her belly, making breakfast an impossible task. But she cracked several eggs into a pan, anyway, then realized she’d neglected to turn on the flame. She glanced up and noticed Mary watching her. She’d forgotten the oil, too.

      “What’s going on with you two?”

      “Me and Walker?” Caught red-handed, Tamra faked her response, feigning a casual air. “Nothing. We’re just friends.”

      “Friends, my foot,” his mother said. “I think you have your eyes on each other.”

      Uh-oh. Trying to stay calm, she dumped the mistake she’d made into a bowl, deciding she would fix scrambled instead of fried. And this time, she put a pad of butter in the pan, igniting the stove. “Would it be okay with you if we did?”

      “Did what?”

      “Had our eyes on each other.”

      “Of course it would,” Mary told her. “But I’d hate to see you do something rash.”

      Unable to keep pretending, she gazed at the lady who’d raised her, who’d given her everything a child could hope for. “I already slept with him.”

      “Oh, my goodness.” Mary fanned her face. “So soon?” She turned off the oatmeal, ignoring their half-made breakfast. “You need to be careful, honey. And so does he. This is all so new.”

      “We can handle it.”

      “Are you sure?”

      “No,” she admitted, “I’m not. But what choice do we have? We’re already involved.”

      “For how long?”

      “It doesn’t have to last forever. And he promised he wouldn’t hurt me.”

      The older woman frowned. “Not purposely, no. But what if you fall in love with him? What then?”

      It was a question Tamra couldn’t answer. A question she feared. Because she knew that when Walker went home, she would have to cope with her loss.

      With missing him desperately.

      Tamra tried to focus on her job. She sat at the desk in her cluttered office, telling herself to quit thinking about Walker. She had more important issues to deal with: flyers to design, schedules to coordinate, donations to secure for an end-of-the-month powwow.

      Obsessing about a man wouldn’t accomplish a thing.

      A knock sounded on her door and she reached for her coffee, her second cup that day. “Come in,” she called out, assuming it was Michele. Her friend had offered to stop by to help with the powwow details. The Oyate Project intended to host a raffle this year, giving away as many prizes as they could wangle.

      She glanced up, saw that she was mistaken. It wasn’t Michele. Walker crossed the threshold, wearing jeans and a denim shirt, similar to the one she’d torn off his body.

      He moved closer, and her heart went haywire.

      “Hi,” he said.

      “Hi.” She started stacking folders, trying to compose her senses, trying to look busy, to pretend that she hadn’t been thinking about him. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

      He