Free Lover in the Rough by Elizabeth Lowell

palm. “I can’t bear to think of you being hurt like that,” she whispered.
    Chance drew Reba into his arms, holding her with a fierce tenderness that made her tremble. “No one has ever cried for me before,” he said huskily, kissing her eyelashes where tears glittered. “Some tears taste very sweet.”
    Reba put her arms around Chance, holding him tightly, feeling again the paradox of his hard body and gentle hands. His heart beat smoothly beneath her cheek. With each breath she felt his chest muscles shift beneath the soft chamois shirt. Gradually his warmth sank into her like sunlight, relaxing her until she fit against him perfectly.
    “Tell me about yourself,” he said quietly. “I want to know what kind of woman cried for me.”
    “My life sounds very dull after yours.”
    She felt his fingers in her hair, pulling out the comb once more.
    “Nothing about you is dull,” he said, taking a handful of her hair and pouring it out of his palm like gold dust in the sun. He tipped back her head and kissed her slowly, deeply. “Tell me,” he murmured finally, settling her across his chest once more.
    “I never had a father. In fact . . .” Reba hesitated, then shrugged. Whatever she said could hardly shock a man of Chance’s experience. “I think I’m a bastard.”
    “Love-child,” he corrected easily, trying to erase the tension he felt returning to her body.
    She laughed shortly. “Some love. Mother never told me his name. Sometimes I wonder if she even knew it.”
    “Don’t, chaton . Not if it hurts you.”
    Reba rubbed her cheek against his shirt. “Mother raised me to be perfect. Other girls could get dirty, but not me. Other girls could get angry, but not me. Other girls could go to Christmas dances and kiss under the mistletoe. Other girls could date and have boyfriends and even neck in cars. Not me. Mother was obsessed with never giving the neighbors anything to talk about. Above reproach. That was it for her, the El Dorado and the Hope diamond in one.”
    “But you married,” said Chance.
    “My mother picked him out. I was too innocent at eighteen to know which end was up. He was my French professor at college. Old enough to be my father. I suppose that’s what I wanted. A father. He wanted a little girl who would always look up to him. But little girls have a terrible habit of growing up.”
    “Particularly bright little girls,” Chance murmured, stroking her hair. “I’m glad you grew up, Reba.”
    “So am I. Mother wasn’t very pleased, though. She hasn’t spoken to me since the divorce. Seven years.”
    Chance shifted until he could look into Reba’s eyes. “Why?”
    “I was no longer perfect,” Reba said evenly. “My mother never loved me, not really. She loved what she wanted me to be. And when she discovered that I was something else, she no longer loved me at all. It was the same with my husband. He loved one thing and I was another. No one ever loved me until Jeremy Sinclair.”
    The sudden tension in Chance’s body lasted only an instant. “Tell me about him,” said Chance, his voice neutral, his eyes hooded.
    Reba hesitated, not knowing where to begin. “I met him by accident. I was getting gas one day when I heard these absolute fountains of French pouring out of the next car. I looked up and saw a white-haired man trying to describe mechanical problems in French to a very bewildered American mechanic who was about one-quarter Jeremy’s age.”
    Chance made a startled sound.
    “What?” she said, looking up.
    “How old,” he asked carefully, “was Jeremy?”
    “When I met him? Seventy-three.” For the first time since she had known Chance, Reba saw him totally off balance. “You didn’t believe me when I said Jeremy and I weren’t lovers, did you?”
    “You never said that. You just said that your relationship wasn’t the way loverboy thought it was. He thought you were a whore. You aren’t. That doesn’t mean you weren’t Jeremy’s lover,