Flash and Fire (22 page)

Chapter Twenty Three

Amanda took a stick of margarine from the refrigerator. She cut a pat of it for the pan, then watched it sizzle before raising her eyes to Pierce. “What do you want with your eggs?”

You.

Pierce pushed the urge away. Lovemaking with the same woman had never been habit-forming before. Why this time? He chalked up his rekindled desire to the novelty of having someone like Amanda.

“How about another installment of the Amanda Foster story?” His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “Why’d you leave?”

His eyes seemed to pin her in place. Amanda deliberately turned her back on him to avoid them and reached into the refrigerator for bread. She maintained an intentionally disinterested voice.

“I didn’t know that there was a code of ethics to follow. Emily Post doesn’t cover the morning after in her etiquette book, and I haven’t had any practice at it.” She tossed the loaf onto the counter. “Sorry if I didn’t follow the rules.”

He picked up on something that she hadn’t had any intention of telling him. “There’s been no one since your ignoble ex-husband?”

“No.” Amanda bit off the word. Dropping four slices of bread into the toaster slots, she slapped down the levers.

“That would explain the explosion,” Pierce observed mildly, his eyes teasing her. She wasn’t taking this well, he noted, enjoying himself. “How about before?”

Why did he have to be so persistent about quizzing her? And why did she feel honor-bound to tell the truth? “I said I didn’t sleep around.”

He stared at her, trying to comprehend what she was telling him. As far as Pierce was concerned, sex was just as natural as breathing. He had taken her participation in the activity for granted.

“Let me get this straight.” He leaned forward, watching her expression. “To put this delicately, you mean to tell me that I’ve just ridden in the seat of a Mercedes that’s only had one previous owner?”

“Yes.” Amanda ground out the admission between clenched teeth.

He tried not to think about the responsibility this information shifted to his shoulders. Right now, Pierce was attempting to fathom the idea that a man would turn his back on someone like Amanda if he was legally bound to her.

“And pursuing that same analogy, your husband was out test-driving Volkswagens with a Mercedes parked in his garage?”

Amanda took out two plates from the cupboard. Swinging around, she laid them on the counter with a small thud. “Are you quite through? What are you, some kind of a car freak? I already told you—“

He cut through the mounting impatience he heard in her voice. “What does he do, this mindless ex-husband of yours?”

What did that have to do with anything? “He’s a lawyer. A tax lawyer.”

Pierce snorted. It figured. A drab, bloodsucking vocation. “Remind me not to ever let him represent me if the IRS comes knocking. The man’s an ass.”

Pierce slid off the stool and circumvented the counter. Opening the refrigerator, he rummaged around as if he lived here.

She didn’t like the way he just made himself at home.

Amanda blew out a breath, impatient with the conversation and with him. “I already established that fact long before last night.”

Pierce took out a carton of orange juice and reached for a glass.

“So,” he said, pouring half a glass, then tucking the carton away on the bottom shelf behind the milk, “can I see you tonight?”

She wanted to say yes, but she knew it was the wrong answer. “We both have work to do.”

She was hedging, but there was very little spirit behind it. He decided to blow away the flimsy barriers. “I can come by after the broadcast—“

Amanda cracked an egg on the side of the pan and dropped the contents in. “No.”

“All right, then before.”

She cracked another, then tossed both empty shells down. She missed the garbage. “No.”

Pierce stooped to pick up the shells. He dropped them into the pail. Standing next to her, he trailed his hand along the side of her neck, wishing he knew just what the hell he was doing here, in the middle of all this.

“It’s too late to play hard to get, Mandy.”

With effort, she moved aside. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? Wasn’t he satisfied yet? Did he want all of her pride?

“I’m not playing. Don’t you understand?” It was almost bordering on a plea.

His voice softened. “Yeah, I do.” And for some reason, neither was he.

His intrinsic pride urged him to retreat, to tell her the hell with her, he didn’t need or want her.

But something had been stirred by her presence last night and it made him remain where he was. Not because he wanted or needed her, he told himself, but because it was his nature to explore things until he had an answer.

And right now, everything was just one great big question mark.

She was beating the eggs in the pan furiously with her spatula. No doubt picturing him in the pan in place of the eggs, he thought, amused. He slid back onto the stool and nodded toward the pan, though it was too late.

“I like my eggs over easy.”

He was lucky she wasn’t throwing them at him instead. “Tough, you’re getting them scrambled.”

Just like I am right now, she thought.

He shrugged. “I’m not difficult.”

She spared him a mocking look. “Ha!”

It was much too still, even for this hour of the morning. Christopher struck him as a child who needed very little sleep. ‘Where’s the rest of the household?”

“Sleeping, I guess.” As an afterthought, she added her two eggs into the pan. “Although how they can sleep with all the noise you made, I don’t know.”

He drained his glass and set it on the counter. “If they sleep that soundly, we won’t have to go to my place next time.”

The toast popped and she turned her back on him. She made a mess of buttering the bread. “Pierce, I don’t want there to be a next time.” No, she amended silently, she couldn’t let there be a next time.

He was behind her. She could feel the warmth radiating from his bare chest as he lightly ran his hands along her arms.

“Why, was it so bad?”

She turned and only succeeded in brushing up against him. “You want a rating?”

“I want an answer.”

She saw just the smallest strain of vulnerability in his eyes. It made her think of the boy he’d been. The one who’d never been wanted or accepted. The one who had probably been hungry for approval.

“It was wonderful,” she admitted quietly, then her voice rose, gaining in volume and strength. “That’s not the point. I don’t want my emotions all tangled up. My life’s complicated enough as it is. Grimsley’s going to be after my scalp with a vengeance now. Whitney might need me. I’ve got a career and a hyperactive two-year-old to tend to. I don’t have any space in my life for anything more.” She ran out of breath.

“Too bad.”

With his eyes laughing at her, Pierce brushed a hand softly across her cheek. How could a woman evoke such passion from him and yet stir such tenderness at the same time? It was a complete mystery to him. A complete, frightening mystery. He was better off just walking away, the way she wanted.

“Everyone needs a hobby, Mandy. You could think of what we did as recreational relaxation.”

Amanda felt laughter bubbling up within her for the first time since she’d entered his apartment last night. “Not hardly.”

Relaxing was the absolute last way she would have described what had transpired between them last night.

Pierce backed off, not because Amanda asked him to, but because he needed to. Something was going on and he didn’t like it. It was holding him and he wanted to be free. Freedom was of tantamount importance to him. It always had been.

“So, what are you going to do? About Grimsley,” he added.

She shrugged, feeling a little helpless on that score. It was like knowing that the Indians were going to attack but not knowing which direction they were coming from.

“Nothing, I guess, until I know what he has up his sleeve.” Amanda divided the eggs between the two plates, then surrounded each portion with toast.

He nodded as she set his plate in front of him. “I’ll see what I can pick up.”

It was a temporary truce between them, and she appreciated it.

“Thank you.” Pushing her plate over, Amanda circled the counter and took the stool next to his. “Paul told me you were married,” she said abruptly. Pierce raised a brow. “Paul Rodriquez, the cameraman,” Amanda explained.

He knew who she was referring to. He used Paul in the field on occasion. He knew they both did. That wasn’t what had prompted his quizzical look. He was surprised at her question.

“Why d’you ask?”

She shrugged, suddenly feeling self-conscious. She shouldn’t have asked. “Curious.”

Personal questions always made him leery. But this one was harmless enough.

“Yeah, I was. For about two years. Maybe three,” he speculated vaguely. He looked at her before beginning to eat. “I forget.”

Amanda had a feeling that Pierce didn’t forget so much as he wanted to blot the whole thing from his mind. She saw the rigid set of his jaw. Common sense told her to drop it. But he had probed her. Turnabout was only fair play. “What happened?”

He didn’t look at her. “I wasn’t meant for marriage. It’s as simple as that.”

Paul had given her no details. She pictured a bewildered young woman who had bought more than she bargained for by marrying Pierce. Amanda had only herself and Jeff to go on.

“Broke her heart?”

His eyes were cold when he looked at her. Though he squelched it quickly, one bitter memory had managed to get through: Marsha, her long hair spilling about her nude breasts, sitting up in bed and mocking him with her string of lovers.

“If I did, she was too busy screwing around to notice.”

The flash of pain she saw in his eyes was genuine, even though his response was flippant. She knew how much being betrayed could hurt. “I’m sorry.”

He frowned and took a last forkful. “It doesn’t matter.”

Was he as hard as he let on? Maybe she was reading too much of herself into him. “You don’t look any the worse for wear.”

Pierce pushed back his plate, his appetite suddenly gone. “People generally cover their scars, Mandy.”

She didn’t know if this was just a ploy to make her soften toward him or not. She only knew that it was succeeding.

Silence hung between them, thick and awkward. It was broken by a jubilant shout. The next moment, Christopher, dressed in yellow pajamas, came dashing into the room.

“’Lo, Mommy!”

Amanda got off her stool quickly and threw her arms around the boy. She let his hug warm her as it always did. ‘”Lo, yourself.”

Her face softened when she looked at her son, Pierce thought. For just the barest of moments, he found himself envying a two-year-old.

Releasing his death grip on his mother’s neck, Christopher turned his attention toward Pierce. Green eyes the same shade as his mother’s flickered over the tall man as recognition set in. Christopher’s face split into a huge grin. He grabbed hold of Pierce’s jeans and scrambled up his leg as if Pierce were a piece of furniture there for his exclusive use.

‘”Lo, man.”

Pierce eased the child onto the stool next to him. “Pierce,” he coached. “My name is Pierce. Can you say Pierce?” He gave Amanda a look that warned her not to laugh. “God, I feel like Mr. Rogers.”

Christopher looked as if he was trying to figure out how to fit his mouth around the name. ‘”Eese,” he declared triumphantly.

Close enough, Pierce thought. “’Eese it is, sport. Hungry?”

Christopher nodded his head vigorously.

Pierce looked over Christopher’s head at Amanda. “Looks like you’ve got another customer, Mandy. Good thing I brought a full carton.”

“Good thing,” she mimicked.

Pierce’s grin seemed to say that he could read her mind. “Put a little feeling into it next time,” he said.

Amanda watched the way Pierce let Christopher patiently explore the hair on his chest. Suppressing a smile, she tried not to make more of the scene than there was. But she couldn’t escape the fact that she liked what she saw. Or that it created a warm feeling within her.

She cleaned off the pan briskly, then set it on the burner once again.

“Breakfast coming up.” Two more eggs found their way into the pan. She scrambled them.

While the eggs cooked, she took out the orange juice and poured a little for Christopher.

Pierce watched as Christopher grasped the glass in both hands. Only part of the liquid made it into his mouth. The rest of the light orange stream decorated his face and the front of his pajamas.

“Where’s my fan club?” Pierce nodded toward the doorway, half expecting to see the round-faced woman peering at him shyly.

Amanda looked at her watch. It was a little after seven. Carla was usually up by now. “Carla’s still fighting off a sinus attack. Maybe she thinks she can sleep it off.”

“Just as well.” He took out his handkerchief and wiped the orange juice from Christopher’s cheeks.

Amanda caught the action out of the corner of her eye and a little more of her resolve cracked. She didn’t know why seeing him wipe her son’s face should make her feel closer to Pierce, but it did, even though she knew there was absolutely no future for this sort of feeling.

She was only asking for trouble.

She sighed inwardly. It seemed she was doing a lot of that lately.

Chapter Twenty Four

The sun streamed in through the restaurant window, highlighting the table where Amanda sat across from Carla. Christopher sat next to her, swinging his legs to and fro beneath the table, oblivious to the conversation. For once, he wasn’t the center of Amanda’s attention. Carla was.

“Carla, you just can’t leave like this. Christopher and I depend on you.” She reached across the table to squeeze the woman’s hand.

It was true. She did depend on Carla. More than that—she’d be lost without her. Amanda knew how difficult it was to find a competent nanny, especially for someone as energetic and exhausting as Christopher. Amanda desperately cast about for a way to persuade Carla to remain in Dallas.