Read Online A Long Tall Texan Summer: Tom Walker by Diana Palmer - Free Book Online Page B

her warily. "I was hoping to put that off until the very last minute, just in case. But if you have to, you have to. How about tomorrow? You can bring Crissy with you."
    "She'd like that."
    He checked his watch. "We'd better get going.
    I made reservations for supper."
    "This sounds like serious eating," she said as he led her to the Lincoln.
    "It is. I hope you still like seafood."
    Her breath caught. "I do. How did you remember

    that, after all this time?"
    He got in beside her and cranked the engine. "You'd be surprised at some of the things I remember about you," he replied. "You were memorable."
    She averted her eyes. "So were you."
    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html He drove quietly for several minutes. "I hurt you."
    "Inevitably," she agreed. "But, before..." She cleared her throat.
    "Before?" he prompted.
    She turned her purse over in her lap. "Before
    ... it was... wonderful.''
    "For me, too," he said stiffly. "A feast of first times. I'd never touched a woman that intimately in my life."
    She smiled shyly. "I know. I'm glad."
    He glanced at her ruefully. "Thank God you weren't experienced," he murmured.
    "Why?"
    "You'd have laughed your head off at all that fumbling."
    "Don't be silly," she replied. "No matter what you'd done, it would have been wonderful.
    I loved you,
    you know," she added huskily,
    and she didn't look at him.
    "Well, that's nice to know," he told her. "Because I was head over heels in love with you, too."

Chapter 5
    She gaped at him. "You were?"
    He didn't look at her. "Didn't you know?" he asked softly. "Everyone else did. It was why I couldn't face
    you the next morning. It had been the most exquisite experience of my life. But I had no way of knowing
    for sure if you were innocent, even though I suspected it. I was afraid you'd laugh at me."
    "As if I could, ever!" she exclaimed. "I worked for you for two years. Didn't that give you some clue to my character?"
    "I never knew you intimately," he explained.
    "And most women these days are very experienced and
    they expect a lot in bed.
    I wasn't sure I could measure up to those expectations.
    That's one reason I shied away from being
    intimate. At least, until you came along." He glanced at her. "I didn't plan it, either. I drank too much and
    things just seemed to happen."
    "I know. It was like that for me, too, nothing
    planned." She smiled, the first time she'd been able to smile about her naivete. "You might have noticed the lack of precautions..."
    He chuckled with delight. "All four feet of her," he said with a nod.
    She dropped her gaze to his chest and shook her head. "I guess we were both pretty naive."
    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    "I'm sorry," he said gravely, and his eyes were somber when hers lifted to them. "About the way I behaved, and most especially about the way things worked out for you and Crissy. I've missed so much of her life," he added. "I have years to catch up on. If you're going to let me."
    She felt startled. "Why wouldn't I?"
    His broad shoulders lifted and fell. "You have every right to hold a grudge against me for the past. I couldn't really blame you for wanting me out of your life all over again."
    The statement shocked and relieved her.
    She'd been afraid that he might sue for full custody of his daughter, but he didn't sound vindictive at all.
    He sounded as if the past left him guilty and empty.
    "I won't deny you access to your daughter, Tom," she said honestly. "I wouldn't do that."
    He let out the breath he'd been holding. "Thank you for that. I'd worried, you know."
    "So had I," she had to confess. "I thought you might feel vengeful toward me for not contacting you when
    I knew I was pregnant."
    "It was bad, wasn't it, having to have her without a husband?"
    "Fred Nash gave me respectability," she reminded him. "He was a good man, Tom. You'd have liked him. He was in a terrible condition, with no family to care for