Read Online Once in a Lifetime by Gwynne Forster - Free Book Online Page A

of him and yet, it felt like coming home to a warm, welcoming fire when you were practically frozen. Unfortunately, he couldn’t let anything happen between him and Alexis Stevenson, though he dared not let himself think about the hot lover she’d be. He shook his head. Not only did she work for him, but she could bring him to his knees the way his mother did his father whenever she got the notion. Besides, he liked his life as it was. He amended that. As it had been, and he’d make certain it stayed that way.
     
    “I’m bringing a friend home for dinner,” he told Henry several mornings later. With Russ and Drake in Philadelphia, he figured he had to do something to put a damper on what was becoming a cozy, family atmosphere with Alexis, Tara and himself. He behaved impersonally with her and kept his hands to himself, though at great cost. But they were like missiles, headed directly at each other, primed for a massive explosion. And nobody would believe what passed for conversation between them. Banality hardly described it.
    “Does this friend eat a lot, or does she pick at the food like she was scared it was gonna rise up and bite her?”
    At times, he would like to give Henry a piece of his mind, but that would be the same as cussing his father. “Just prepare enough for another adult.”
    “And here I was hoping you’d lost her in some nice place like the Bermuda wrangle.”
    “You mean Triangle. And, Henry, could you please stop meddling in my business?”
    “Humph. Guess you in a hurry for the Fourth of July fireworks. Them two women ain’t gonna like this. You think Alexis gonna hold still for that stuff Evangeline…’scuse me, Miss Evangeline puts down? I’m gonna eat a big lunch to give me plenty energy. I’ll need it for all the laughing I’m gonna have to do.” Henry looked up toward the ceiling and started whistling “Takin’ Care of Business.”
    Telford swallowed what remained of his coffee, picked up an umbrella and headed for the Eagle Park High Schoolconstruction site. Henry had never liked Evangeline, and she’d never been special to him. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked her to dinner, but what else could he do? Heat flared in his loins every time he looked at Alexis; if he couldn’t cool down on his own, maybe after tonight she’d force him to do it. He was halfway across town before he remembered that he hadn’t told Tara good-bye.
    As soon as he reached the trailer that housed his temporary office at the corner of Mountain and Edgecomb, he phoned her.
    “Henry, is Tara eating breakfast?”
    “Ain’t you supposed to be asking her mother that? Hold on.”
    “Hi, Mr. Telford. Where are you?”
    “I’m at work. I had to leave early this morning, so I called to tell you good-bye.”
    “Good-bye. When you coming home?”
    “I’ll be there for supper. See you then.”
    “Lots of kisses. Bye.”
    He hung up. He hadn’t said what he felt, but enough to let her know he hadn’t forgotten her. Somehow, he felt lighter than before. That little girl had gotten inside him, and it wasn’t a question of liking it or not. It just was.
    Since the night they gave in to the fire burning in them for each other, he and Alexis hadn’t gotten close enough to touch, except at mealtime when they had Tara and Henry to help them use common sense. She hadn’t made one move toward him, and he knew it was because she didn’t think a relationship with him appropriate, much as she might desire it. So if she didn’t want him, he reasoned, seeing him with Evangeline shouldn’t bother her. Yeah. And the sun rises in the west. He’d cross that bridge when he got there.
     
    Alexis sensed a difference before she got to the kitchen; the house seemed empty for so early in the morning.
    “Just you and Tara this morning,” Henry told her. “Tel had to leave early.”
    So that was it. If she could sense his absence from a house that big, she had better avoid him altogether. Nothing in her contract