Coming Home to Texas--A Clean Romance by Kit Hawthorne

Author:Kit Hawthorne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-11-13T19:43:36+00:00

* * *

SHE HADN’T MEANT to kiss him.

Had she?

No, definitely not. Okay, maybe the whole thing did seem a little planned, getting him alone behind her closed bedroom door. But all she’d really wanted was to clear the air. Only a day earlier, she’d learned some things that radically altered her view of the past six years, exonerating Tony of serious fault, and casting her own behavior in a new and unflattering light. Whatever mistakes he’d made, he hadn’t been unfaithful to her. But she’d made assumptions, and pushed him into a corner, and added to his suffering, which had been bad enough already.

She’d wronged him, and she had to say so. That was only justice.

But once she had him there, the way he looked, the things he said and the memories that had a different meaning than what she’d thought came together in a powerful way.

And underneath all that was something more powerful still.

What it came down to was that she loved Tony, and she wanted him now as much as she ever had. She’d never stopped, really. And there was no reason to fight it anymore. All the things keeping them apart had vanished like August dew in a Texas sunrise.

Just for a second or two, a voice inside her head said, It’s been too long. Too much has happened. We’re too different.

And then she was kissing him, and the voice didn’t have anything more to say.

She heard a soft thump from the closed door as Tony’s back pushed it against the jamb. He smelled of sawdust and silicone caulk. His faded T-shirt was soft under her hands, and the artistic sculpted beard that had drawn her attention so often over the past several weeks rubbed against her chin.

A knock at the door made them both jump. “Dalia? Are you in there?”

It was her mom.

“Uh, no. I mean yes. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Tony was trying not very successfully to muffle a laugh. His eyes were bright, his face shining with joy and mischief, and for a second he looked a lot like the Tony of fifteen years ago.

“Shh!” Dalia whispered. “We’ve got to get you out of here. You can climb out the window.”

“And have my guys see me sneaking out like some punk? That’s way worse than just walking out the door.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. We’re not teenagers anymore.”

“No, we’re not. We’re two responsible adults with nothing to hide. We’ll just saunter out all cool like there’s nothing to see here.”

“Okay,” she said. “But don’t open the door yet. I need a second.”

It would take more than a second to restore her calm. Her heart pounded, and she was shaking.

She didn’t want to go. It felt so abrupt, ending the encounter this way. Nothing was resolved or talked through properly—it had been, but then the kiss had raised a whole fresh set of issues. And she didn’t want to address any of them yet. She just wanted to kiss Tony again and again.

But there wasn’t time for that.

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