Any Time, Any Place(36)

She wiped her mouth and glared. "Very funny. I doubt you'd marry someone just to score. What freaked you out about long-term relationships, anyway? Were your parents divorced?"

Of course, the question was casual, but it was like a missile launched into too much hidden pain. Many times he'd believed his parents should have divorced. He'd known for a long time his mother had been unhappy, and that his father had changed into a cold, domineering man swept up in all aspects of the business and success. Was that why she'd run away? Hadn't she known her sons would stand by her if she had decided to divorce? Was she so desperate to be free she considered them her captors, too?

"Dalton?"

His name fell from her lips whisper soft. Goose bumps broke out on his arms. "Sorry. No, my parents weren't divorced. But they weren't happy." He dragged in a breath. "In my opinion, things would've been better if they had split up."

"Did they fight a lot?"

He expected to shut down at the small probe. Instead, he found himself answering. "Yes, but it was more than that. I think the silence was the worst. Maybe if they'd fought more, there'd have been communication. My father wasn't an easy person to live with. After a while, I could tell my mother got tired of trying to make him happy. When she stopped, he shut down even more, and they just became roommates raising three sons."

"Were you close to your brothers?"

"Very. Sure, we fought and competed, but underneath it all we were tight."

"And your mom? Were you-were you close to her?"

The question was phrased tentatively, as if she wasn't sure she wanted to know his answer. Was she thinking about losing her own mother? Again, the truth came out before he could think about it. "Yes. We were very close. She was . . . everything."

Pain flashed in her eyes, and then she nodded, dropping her head. They ate without speaking, and once again, he respected the way she didn't need to fill silence with inane chatter. She was a woman who appreciated the impact of quiet.

"My parents were happy," she finally said. "I was young when we lost Mom to breast cancer. Don't remember much about her, except her scent. Papa said she liked to bake cookies. The smell of cookie dough and sugar makes me happy."




 

 

He knew how hard it was for him. Was it worse to never even have known your mother? To only rely on other people's stories or pictures to create a world you never got to share? "My mom liked to cook, too. Used to let me help in the kitchen a lot, and didn't care about the mess I made. Unfortunately, I inherited no skill."

Raven smiled and wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I suck at baking, too. My cakes fall flat, and my cookies are always underdone."

"I'd eat your cookies any time."

His naughty wink had the desired effect and lightened the mood. She shook her head in exasperation, but her eyes twinkled. "You're incorrigible."

"Back to my original question. Your tat. It's beautiful."

She reached up and touched her arm. His nerve endings rippled with the craving to intermingle his fingers with hers, stroke her smooth skin, trace the lines of the ink. "Thanks."

"But it's brutal. A bit raw. Not your usual peace sign or rose. A sword reeks of symbolism. Why'd you pick it?"

The grief and flare of anger in her eyes made him pause. For one moment she was unguarded, and he delved deep and found a seething array of secrets. A caveman instinct rose up and strangled him with the need to protect this woman, to tear through each barrier until she was open and vulnerable to him. Shocked to the core at his response, he gripped the neck of his beer bottle in a stranglehold. What the hell was happening to him? It was like he was becoming someone he didn't recognize when he was around her, yet he wanted more.

"I had it done as a reminder on my twenty-first birthday."

The truth shimmered around her, but he was still too far away. "A reminder of what?"

A second dragged by. A minute. Two.

"Justice."

"Ma'am, would you like any more cocktails?" The waiter chirped brightly, looking at her half-full glasses. "The bartender was quite impressed with your knowledge and wanted feedback on the champagne cocktail. How did you like it?"

Dalton cursed the man's appearance as Raven visibly pulled back from the brink of confessing something important. Justice? What could have possibly happened in her past to make her ink her arm with a symbol of justice?

"Thank you, I enjoyed them. Please tell the bartender the cocktail would pop better if he used a higher quality brut champagne and Angostura bitters instead of Peychaud's. I'll take the bill now, please."

"Right away."

She avoided his gaze as she took out her purse and fished for her credit card. Like he'd ever let her pay. "I don't mean to rush," she said, "but I think we'd better get going. It's getting late."