Read Online Old Enough To Know Better by Carolyn Faulkner - Free Book Online Page B

she?”
    “Tired and depressed and she’s lost weight, so that’s why I made sure she ate some of the chicken you sent.  She’s sleeping now.  I was just about to leave.”  Her arm snaked around his waist to hold him when he said that, as if she didn’t want him to go, and his heart melted further.
    “Man, I hope she isn’t slipping back into a depression like she got into just after Clint died.”
    Finn’s interest was piqued.  “Oh yeah?”  He tried to play it off casually, but wanted to know more.
    Luckily, it wasn’t hard to get his mother to talk.  “Yeah, we were really worried about her there for a while.  She didn’t much deal with his illness and the inevitability of his death, I don’t think, while he was sick, and once he died it all hit her really hard.  She nearly faded away to nothing right in front of our eyes.  We need to make sure she eats.”
    Well, he had been planning on just tucking her into bed and leaving, but that settled that.  He was going to make sure that she ate something more – pretty much anything but junk food – before he left, and he was going to make sure that she ate regularly from now on, whether she liked it or not.
    “Definitely.  Can’t have that,” he replied, hoping he sounded casual enough.
    “Well, I’ll see you when you get back.  Don’t forget we’re going over to Meme’s.”
    “I won’t.  Love you.”
    “Love you too.  Drive carefully.”
    “I will.”  As much as he would have loved to have let her sleep on him all afternoon – and even more so all night, he had other commitments today, and he wanted to make sure she got something more to eat before he left, and he had a feeling there might be a bit of an issue about that, knowing Cat.  He wanted to introduce the idea as soon as possible, so that if he needed to discipline her, they could get it done and over with and get her fed before he needed to leave.
    He began to wake her, slowly and carefully, knowing how much she hated to wake up, especially abruptly.  All through those summers he’d spent with Clint, he’d carefully catalogued in his mind every tidbit he could about Catherine, and he remembered nearly everything – likes, dislikes, pet peeves, preferences and opinions.  Finn decided that the best way to wake her was with a soft, undemanding kiss.
    She responded nicely, too, opening her mouth to the gentlest of pressures and making him moan at her warm, sleepy compliance.  His hand found her braless breast, slowly, giving her more than enough time to raise an objection, but she didn’t, as the edge of his thumb found an already pert nipple and she sighed slightly into his mouth. Her hands sought his hair, which he kept a little longer than Clint had, but as soon as those small hands found his broad shoulders and she woke up to exactly who it was that was kissing her, she jumped away from him like a scalded cat, standing well away from him.
    “Don’t do that!” She rubbed the back of her hand over her lips, as if wiping his kiss away, but it was that her lips were tingling from the feel of him.  Her whole body was humming, and he’d barely touched her.  She was cold now, from the lack of his body heat, and furious that she’d noticed it.  What was he doing to her, damnit?
    And he just sat there, grinning like an idiot.
    “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she asked rudely.
    “Not quite.”  Finn rose and went to her fridge.  “What would you like to have for lunch?”
    “Lunch?  I just had breakfast.  Don’t you remember?  You were here for it.  You’re too young for senility.  That’s my excuse.”
    He was disgustingly affable, to a point, still peering into her fridge and assessing the food situation.  “Okay, then what would you like to have as a second helping of breakfast?  Or a mid morning snack?  You have more casserole, hot dogs, some unidentifiable deli meat . . .”
    Cat crossed her arms over her chest.  “I’m not hungry, thank