‘For years I was so angry,’ Tess murmured, seeing it all so clearly for the first time. ‘I missed her. I wanted her back. The truth was I was an only child and she’d spoiled me horribly. Nothing was as good as it used to be and it wasn’t fair. A few weeks after the funeral, I remember giving Janey Prisley’s mum the evil eye and wishing she would die instead so I could have my mum back.’ She shot Nate a wry look. ‘I didn’t like Janey very much.’
His lips quirked. ‘Or her mom by the sound of it.’
‘Her mum was actually very sweet.’ If not that intuitive. ‘She was forever asking me how my father and I were doing. But I hated her for it, because it made me stand out.’
‘So you wished her dead. Sounds fair enough to me,’ he said amicably.
‘It’s not, it’s awful,’ Tess countered, remembering all the very inventive ways she’d imagined killing off Janey’s perfectly sweet mother.
‘No, it’s not,’ he said. ‘I never wanted to be the only kid in school whose parents didn’t bother to show for Little League games or science fairs or parent-teacher conferences. So I hated all the kids whose parents did bother. But that was pretty much all of them, which eventually made it too damn exhausting.’
Tess laughed, as she was sure he had intended her to.
‘Kids are egocentric—putting themselves first’s a survival instinct,’ he said, quoting her own advice back at her. ‘Losing your mom takes a lot of surviving. You’ve got nothing to feel bad about.’
‘I suppose not,’ she said, impossibly grateful for his vote of confidence, even though she knew he was putting a better spin on her behaviour than she probably deserved. ‘But what is awful is the way I treated my dad. I went totally off the rails for three years. I smoked, I drank, I got my nose pierced, I stayed out all night, dated boys I knew he would hate.’ She’d always admitted she’d been a little wild, but the truth was she’d been totally out of control. ‘I even got a tattoo!’
‘A tattoo?’ His eyes lit up. ‘Where? I haven’t spotted one.’
She giggled, gave him a playful nudge with her elbow. ‘Don’t get excited. I had it removed years ago.’
‘What was it? And where?’ he asked, his prurient sexual fantasies apparently undimmed by the truth.
‘Guess?’ she said, unable to resist playing up to the wicked gleam in his gaze.
‘All right, you were how old? Fifteen?’
‘Yes—did I mention I also had a very good fake ID, that I forged myself?’
He chuckled. ‘Okay, you were fifteen and a little British girl.’ He rubbed his jaw as if he were giving the question serious consideration. The glow died. ‘Tell me it wasn’t a puppy on your ankle, or something cute like that?’
‘Pur-lease,’ she said, insulted at the suggestion she would be so crass—and predictable. ‘I was a rebel. I had the words “Kiss my Arse” branded on my left bum cheek and framed with a heart,’ she announced, stupidly proud of the vulgar tattoo for the first time in thirteen years when he threw his head back and roared with laughter.
‘Tess,’ he said, when his amusement had finally died down enough for him to string together a coherent sentence. ‘That’s priceless.’ The glow of lust became a glow of admiration and her heartbeat stumbled to a halt. ‘What the hell were you thinking having that removed?’
‘It was ugly.’
‘On your butt?’ he teased. ‘I doubt that.’ He turned her hand over in his, pressed his thumb into the palm and caressed. ‘Do you have any idea how much I would have enjoyed obeying that command?’
Heat flared. Yeah, she had a very good idea. She tugged her hand out of his, the simple stroke of his thumb making the thought of how much they could both enjoy him obeying that command—in a car, on a layby on Highway One—way too vivid.
‘You’re too late, Graystone,’ she declared, determined to make light of the incendiary sparks fizzing through her nerve endings. ‘My arse-kicking days are over.’
‘Don’t be so sure about that,’ he said, but he laughed, lightening the mood. ‘So what did your old man do? Don’t tell me he found out about the tattoo?’
The remark doused the sizzles. And Tess felt the silly sting of tears as she looked out across the ocean. The sun had dipped in the sky, giving the line of the horizon a shimmer of orange.
‘Hey?’ Firm fingers gripped her chin, and tugged her gaze back to his. ‘What is it? What happened?’
‘You know what’s really ironic,’ she began. ‘Up until about twenty minutes ago, I would have given you this long sob story about how my dad had been a complete bastard about it and kicked me out of the house.’