Read Online Just in Time by Rosalind James - Free Book Online Page A

not going to look down on women who do what they have to do to take care of themselves, or to take care of their kids. We’re all just doing what we have to do to get by.’”
    He didn’t know quite what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything.
    “She was a good mom,” she repeated after a minute. “She had fun, sure she did. You just heard her tell you so, because she’s honest. But she told me I was smart, and that being smart mattered. She made sure I wouldn’t have to use my body to survive. She pushed me in school. She was proud of me.”
    “I can see that.”
    “And you know, men want women to be sexy. Then they look down on them for being sexy. Like if they’re sexy, that’s all they are. My mom’s more than that.” She shook her head, pulled onto Torrey Pines at the light, and slowed to twenty-five. “I’m not making sense, I suppose.”
    “No. You are. So where was your dad?”
    “Married.”
    “Ah.”
    “Yeah.” She sighed, pulled into the little parking lot of the apartment complex, and turned the engine off, but kept sitting there, so he did too. “She didn’t know, of course. Because men are good at lying. Some men, anyway,” she went on hastily, as if that would be a shock to him. “She didn’t tell him about me, because she didn’t want to wreck his wife’s marriage. She told me the truth, though, when I was old enough to hear it. She didn’t sugarcoat it, because life’s hard, and facing the truth is the only way through. My mom’s a decent lady, although I don’t expect you to see that.”
    “I see it. And my dad buggered off himself, didn’t he,” he found himself admitting. “Worse than that, I guess you’d say. After five kids, when I was eighteen. So I know about strong mums who do what they have to do. And I know about looking after your mum, too. About wanting to protect her. Don’t worry about me. She was keeping you safe. That’s a mum’s job, keeping her kids safe.”
    She was still sitting there in the dark, and she didn’t look like she was moving. Normally, that would have been his signal that a woman wanted him to kiss her. Normally.
    “You know,” she said, looking at him at last, “you’re just way too confusing.”
    That startled a laugh out of him. “Me? How?”
    “Would you just be one way? Let me make up my mind? At first I think you’re a player, and my mom’s completely right. And then you’re so sweet . Stop that. It’s messing me up.”
    He wanted to kiss her. He’d never wanted to do anything more. If he was sweet…she was that, too, and so much else besides. Sweet, and warm, and curvy, and so bloody sexy. Her embarrassment, and her passion, defending her mother. The way she’d blushed, the way he’d seen her breath coming a bit faster, there at dinner, when he’d looked at her. He’d known that if he’d put his palm on her chest, just above that wide vee of neckline, he’d have felt her heart galloping, and the need to do it had pulled at him. Was still pulling at him.
    So, yes, he wanted to kiss her. But he didn’t. “Your mum’s right,” he said instead, and felt the wrench of it, the twist in his gut. “I’m a player. I’m chocolate cheesecake. And I’m leaving in less than three weeks.”
    “Yes. You are.”
    He looked at her there in the dark. She wasn’t looking at him, was staring out through the windshield, her hands still on the wheel despite the fact that they weren’t going anywhere at all, and her expression was so…so troubled. So sad, and it was making him sad, too.
    “I’m never noble,” he said, “and I wouldn’t have said I had a clue how to be. I’m doing my best, though. I’m leaving, and I don’t stick anyway. So I’m going to get out of this truck, and I’m not even going to kiss you goodnight, because I like you too much. And I don’t want to muck that up.”
    She turned her head at that. “All right.” It was just a breath. Had he been wrong? Did she want him to kiss her?
    He