ClarenceBN Read online

  “Good. Really good.” Although Tammy wasn’t sure if that was because the kids had been on their best behavior or just because she felt like she was floating. There’d been that moment when Clarence had touched her. And not because he’d made a mess or needed a boo-boo kissed or any of that. He’d touched her because . . .

  She didn’t know why. Maybe it was because she was messy and he couldn’t stand to see coffee on her lips. He was a nurse, after all. He was used to things being neat and clean and sterile.

  Whatever the reason, he’d touched her lips in a gentle way and it’d done things to her. Things she wasn’t sure she remembered feeling. Things that had been hot and tingling and tight—so tight it’d hurt in the best way possible.

  “Yeah?” Melinda looked at her and suddenly Tammy was embarrassed. “How good?”

  Okay, so Clarence was a nice guy. A really nice guy. He had a good job. And he was good looking—he was like a tank. Plus, he wasn’t scared off by Mikey.

  But he was at least ten years older than she was. And nice guys like Clarence were hard to come by. No doubt, he could have his pick of women on this rez—or off of it, even.

  He couldn’t really be interested in her, could he?

  “It’s nothing,” she said to Melinda and headed back to the kitchen to get started on lunch.

  Tammy cooked the lunches every day. She and Melinda would feed the kids and get the littler ones bedded down for their afternoon nap, and then Tammy would head home. She worked the morning shift, Melinda the evening shift. It wasn’t a full-time job, but the Mitchell Trust, or Foundation, or whatever rich white people named bank accounts when they decided to give money away, was paying her three bucks more than minimum wage to watch kids. She didn’t even have to pay to bring Mikey along with her.

  Which meant that, after four months, Tammy was beginning to pay off some bills and have money left over. Not much—not enough to buy fancy coffee—but last week she was able to put fifteen dollars into a sock under her bed to save up for Mikey’s fourth birthday and she still had twenty dollars left over.

  She had a job she was good at, a boss who liked her and—for the first time in her adult life—a feeling of stability. It was a great thing.

  Melinda let her go, which was nice. Tammy liked working with Melinda but sometimes, Melinda’s enthusiasm was a bit much. They were friends, but not the kind of friend Tammy could tell about Clarence wiping the coffee off her lip and then licking it off his thumb.

  Hell, she didn’t even want to tell her sister that. Once Tara got going, it was all over.

  Instead, Tammy cooked. She enjoyed the break of cooking lunch. It was one of the few times when she was not watching Mikey. As she boiled the hot dogs and steamed the peas, Tammy thought over the morning again. What had Clarence said?

  “It’s time I took care of you.”

  Yes, that was it. That confused her. Had she been taking care of him? Well, she made the coffee. But that was because she got here so early. Sometimes, a parent had a job off the rez and they had to leave early in the morning. So she got to the Clinic by 6:30 for the early drop-offs. It only made sense that she got the coffee going. As a bonus, her super-early mornings with Mikey meant that the boy went to bed about seven, leaving Tammy with some quiet time in the evening.

  Plus, Tara was the receptionist at the Clinic and Tammy knew that without her morning coffee, Tara could be a real bitch. So it was a matter of self-preservation, really.

  But Clarence usually got in before Tara did.

  She’d gotten used to seeing him first thing in the morning. He was a very tall man, the kind that was so big most people did a double-take when he walked into a room. He had a good foot on her, at least, and probably outweighed her by a hundred pounds or more. She’d seen him lift people twice her size out of cars because they couldn’t walk and he hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  He was attractive. Maybe not movie-star hot—but then again, she was no starlet herself. Clarence was strong and dependable and kind to the patients. He was kind to kids.

  He was kind to her. And that? That was attractive.

  And the way he’d touched her this morning?

  That blew past ‘attractive’ and went right over into ‘hot.’

  She thought about Ezra. Once, he’d made her feel hot, too. Of course, Tammy had been a different woman then. Prettier, shyer, more innocent. More willing to believe what a man said and not what he did.

  Once, she’d been in love.

  It hadn’t lasted.

  That wasn’t what this was, was it? This wasn’t love. This wasn’t even an infatuation. Okay, after the way he touched her this morning? Maybe it was.

  Did that make it a bad thing?

  She wasn’t the same shy girl she’d once been. She knew better now. Actions spoke louder than words, after all.

  The hot dogs boiled over. “Oh!” she exclaimed as she shut the heat off. This was not good. It’d been bad enough this morning when she hadn’t been watching and Mikey had taken out the bookshelf. But now?

  Clarence was distracting her.

  She focused on her task at hand. Lunch could be crazy and they had a nearly full house today. If she got lost in rehashing what Clarence had said—how he’d said it—she was worth the good stuff?

  Somehow, she made it through lunch without total disaster. Then Melinda had the kids get the cots out and everyone lay down. Tammy did the dishes while Melinda read them a story.

  When she was done, most of the kids were asleep. They’d been doing this long enough that Mikey had trained himself to stay awake. She’d put him down when she got home. Right now, he was laying on his cot, driving his new, awesome car up and down in front of his face.

  She loved her son with everything she had. She wouldn’t change anything, really. But there were days . . .

  Would Clarence be here super early again tomorrow? The coffee had already been made by the time she’d gotten here, which meant he must have gotten to the Clinic around six or so. That was at least an hour before his normal time. That couldn’t have been an accident.

  Tara popped her head in, which left Tammy feeling disappointed. Sometimes, Clarence stuck his head in. He’d look around, catch her eye and give her a quick smile. Tara, on the other hand, wanted to talk.

  Tammy left Mikey on his cot. She thought she and Tara might be able to talk alone in the kitchen area, but Melinda followed them back. Wonderful. To hide her nervousness, Tammy picked up the rag and wiped the counter down again. “Yeah?”

  “What the hell kind of coffee did you make this morning?” Tara huffed in disgust. “It tasted like a vanilla jelly bean died in there or something.”

  Embarrassment flooded Tammy’s cheeks. Was there any way to do this that didn’t involve mentioning Clarence? “Um . . . actually, I didn’t make the coffee today.”

  Tara gaped at her. She was always being dramatic like this. “If you didn’t, who did? Don’t tell me that freak—” she bit the words off as she looked at Melinda.

  They all knew who Tara considered to be the freak—Nobody. Melinda gave Tara one of the meanest looks Tammy had ever seen on her. It looked more like Dr. Mitchell’s sneer than Melinda’s normally good-natured smile.

  “Clarence made it,” Tammy blurted out before Melinda could respond or Tara could make things worse. “He thought . . . he thought everyone might like a change.”

  Which was not true. But it also beat the hell out of what had really happened.

  Tammy was pretty sure he’d gotten it for her and her alone. And if he had, she wanted to keep that secret close to her heart for just a little bit longer.

  Her admission was enough to break the tension. Tara huffed and said, “Since when does Clarence try new things?”

  “Maybe you should keep an open mind,” Melinda snipped. “Or consider the possibility that you’re not always right about something.”

  Whoa, this was going downhill fast. “Right, well, I’ve got to get Mikey home,” Tammy said into the
bristling silence. Tara might like to throw down and Melinda might be happy to defend her man, but Tammy wanted nothing to do with a catfight. She dumped the washcloth into the sink and pushed between the two women and out into the main room.

  Mikey’s eyes were half closed. He’d fall asleep in the car and she’d lay him down in his own bed for two hours of quiet. And today, she needed that quiet.

  “Come on, sweetie,” she murmured as she picked him up.

  “Car, Mommy. Car.” He stuck his thumb in his mouth.

  “Of course.” She crouched down so she could grab the car. She turned to wave to the other women and silently prayed that they wouldn’t kill each other—or, if they did, they wouldn’t wake the children.

  She wanted to warn Clarence that she’d outed him as the producer of the weird coffee. And she really wanted to tell him that it was good coffee, no matter what Tara might say. But, assuming Tara wasn’t in a fistfight with Melinda, both women would notice that she’d gone to talk to him. And that made her nervous. Maybe Melinda wouldn’t say anything, or she’d keep it short because little pitchers have big ears or whatever.

  But Tara? She’d get home from work about dinnertime. And if she thought there was something going on between Tammy and Clarence, Tammy might never know peace again.

  So Tammy did not warn Clarence. She did not tell him she liked the coffee. She didn’t even thank him again, which made her feel ungrateful. She just loaded her sleepy boy up into his car seat and drove home.

  When Tara got home from work, Tammy did not ask if her sister had given Clarence a hard time about the fancy coffee. And she did not ask if Clarence had said whether or not he’d make the fancy coffee again.

  But she wanted to. She really wanted to.

  When she went to bed that night, she set her alarm ahead fifteen minutes.

  Just in case.

  Chapter Three

  Getting up early one day was hard. Getting up early two days in a row?

  It sucked. Big time.

  Clarence couldn’t stop yawning as he made the coffee. He was pretty sure he wasn’t making it the same way he’d made it yesterday, but he couldn’t remember how much he’d put in. So he just guessed. Either it’d be close and Tammy would like it or it’d be weak and maybe Tara wouldn’t whine about how all the coffee tasted funny.

  He rubbed the back of his neck as the coffee dripped. Tara had been all over him after lunch, complaining about how the coffee tasted weird and no one asked him to buy some crappy flavored stuff. She’d been slamming drawers and snapping at patients, too—Clarence wasn’t sure if that was all the coffee’s fault or if there was something else going on.

  Man, he was beat. He’d driven all the way to Rapid City last night and bought some more toy cars. He’d also grabbed some crayons and coloring books and he’d found some toy trains that looked cool, so he got a couple of those, too. Hell, he’d even thrown in a bouncy ball for good measure. Anything small and cheap that might buy him a few uninterrupted minutes with Tammy.

  That was, if she wanted a few uninterrupted minutes with him. Yesterday morning, he’d have felt pretty good about that. But after Tara got done ragging on him?

  Tara and Tammy lived together. Tara might not think Clarence was good enough for her sister. She might talk Tammy out of . . . whatever this was. Accepting his coffee and his gifts for her son.

  He did not want to go through Tara to get to Tammy. He’d worked with Tara long enough to know that wouldn’t go his way.

  As he stood there, contemplating his next move—he had a toy truck in his pocket today—he heard a car door shut. He panicked as he looked at the clock—six fifteen? She was early—the coffee wasn’t ready yet!

  For lack of a better plan, Clarence went to meet Tammy. He got there just as Tammy lifted a very sleepy looking Mikey out of his seat. “Morning,” he said in a quiet voice. “Let me get the door for you.”

  Tammy looked up at him with that shy smile he liked on her so much. “Hiya, Clarence,” she said as she slipped past him into the Child Care Center.

  As she went past, Mikey said, “Car?” Or at least, Clarence thought he said car. It was hard to understand, what with his thumb in his mouth.

  “Sorry,” Tammy said as she made her way over to the couch along one wall of the Center. “He was just so proud of his new car yesterday. Mikey, honey, don’t demand presents, okay?”

  Mikey responded by shaking his head no and burying his face against Tammy’s neck.

  Clarence felt pretty good about that, actually. The car had worked. Good thing he had another one. “I brought him another one.”

  Tammy paused and then turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised. Mikey just stuck out his hand. Poor kid was obviously just as tired as Clarence was.

  “Mikey,” she said, still giving Clarence that questioning look, “if Mr. Clarence gives you another toy car, will you lay down on the couch and play quietly?”

  The little boy nodded, thumb still in his mouth.

  So Clarence forked over the toy and watched as Tammy gently laid him out on the couch. “He seems tired today,” Clarence said.

  “We got up early.” As she said it, Tammy’s cheeks started to color up. She patted Mikey’s back as he slowly rolled the new toy back and forth in front of his eyes. It was a tender thing to see. Clarence didn’t know much about the boy’s father—beyond he was a dickbag, that was—but Tammy sure seemed to love her son.

  He waited until she’d stood. “Why?”

  “Why what?” She didn’t meet his gaze.

  “Why’d you get up early today?” He shouldn’t ask. He shouldn’t push her into a corner like this. But dang it, he wanted to know. Maybe someone was dropping a kid off early. Maybe she really liked weird coffee. Or maybe . . . maybe she was here for him.

  “I could ask the same thing of you,” she demanded. She stuck her hands on her hips and tried to look fierce, like her sister did. It did not come naturally to her. “This is two days in a row you’ve been over an hour early.”

  Now. Now. The boy was quiet and no one else was around. Clarence could do this. He had to. He would be kicking himself from now to kingdom come if he didn’t. “I wanted to see you.”

  The effort of saying those words—in a voice that was somewhere between casual and serious without sounding stupid or anything—made him want to slump back and suck in air.

  Especially when he saw her reaction. Her eyes went wide and huge again as her mouth fell open. He’d like to close it for her, but he didn’t even have the pretext of coffee today.

  Coffee! That’s what he was missing this morning. “I’ll, um, I’ll be right back. Coffee’s probably ready by now.”

  He turned to go—and heard her footsteps behind him. “Clarence?” she said when he reached the door that separated the Clinic from the Center. “Clarence, wait.”

  What could he do? He wasn’t a coward who’d walk away from a woman just because he couldn’t figure out the best way to hit on her. So, halfway through the door, he paused and turned. “It’s, um, it’s the kind you like. The good stuff,” he told her. God, to be smooth.

  “The kind everyone else hated?” She stepped toward him, closing the distance. A small smile quirked up at her lips

  Tara. Damn it.

  “Did they give you too hard a time?” She’d reached the doorway now. She lifted her hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, placed it on top of his hand, the one holding the door open.

  “Dr. Mitchell didn’t care much for it,” he admitted.

  Actually, what she’d said had been, “Who the hell ruined the coffee pot?”

  But right now, Clarence didn’t care much about how he was going to get dressed down by both Tara and Dr. Mitchell because Tammy’s hand was on his—warm and soft and pulsing with desire. Or maybe that was just his pulse racing because she was touching him. There was no misreading this signal, no trying to guess what she was really thinking.

  Tammy looked back over her shoulder and Clarence f
ollowed her gaze. Mikey was still laying on the couch, one thumb in his mouth as he rolled the truck forward and back.

  Then she turned back to him, her eyes lit with a new fire. She lifted her hand but instead of pulling away from him, she slid it up his arm until she had placed her palm flat against his chest, right over his heart. “But you made it for me again anyway?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice hoarse as blood pounded in his ears. He covered her small hand with his big, rough one.

  She dropped her gaze, but then looked up at him through her lashes. Clarence leaned down so he could hear her better. “Why?”

  “Because,” he said. He needed another arm. He didn’t want to hold this door open any longer. He wanted to pull her into his arms and let the door swing shut behind them and for one glorious minute of privacy, he wanted to kiss her like she’d never been kissed before.

  Her breath was coming faster now—panting again, like she’d been yesterday when he’d touched her first. When he’d tasted just a drop of her.

  “Because why?” Her fingers dug into his shirt, pulling him down to her level so slowly that it hurt.

  “Because I care more about what you think that what they think.”

  Her whole face—well, it didn’t light up, not like he’d shoved a flashlight under her chin or anything, but she just got this radiant look about her that made it obvious that he’d said the right thing.

  God, she was pretty. He was glad he’d made her look like that, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to lay her out in a bed and make a whole lot more than just her face radiate with joy.

  Then she pushed him. Not hard—not like she wanted him out of her way or anything. Hell, she didn’t even let go of him.

  She just pushed him through the doorway. He was forced to let go of the door, which swung shut behind them. The door was glass, which didn’t exactly provide a lot of privacy, but she adjusted her grip on his shirt and directed him to the right.

  He knew he was grinning like an idiot, but he couldn’t help it. There was nothing subtle or sweet about this. She wanted him. He wanted her. And damn, that was something.