Page 86 of Cougar Chronicles

“Like you healed? You never got over Dad leaving.”

His mother’s dark eyes sank, her lashes fluttered closed. “Your papa leave me and you. He young, strong, and healthy, and he leave and never come back.” She opened her eyes, locked her gaze with his. “Beth no leave you.”

“The hell she didn’t.”

“She die, Michele. She no leave on purpose.”

He knew that. But still her memory pierced his heart. Their child would be eight years old now. He often wondered whether he’d have a son or a daughter, whether he or she would have Beth’s soft blue eyes, his thick dark hair.

“I see the look in your eyes, Michele. The sadness, the love. I not see that since Beth die.”

He scoffed and twirled more tasteless spaghetti around his fork. “You’re seeing things, Ma.”

“I know my son. I know what I see.”

Michael shook his head. He could deny it no longer. Stacy had gotten under his skin, into his heart, and into his soul.

“Okay. There’s a woman.”

“I know.”

“She’s a writer. I met her at that conference I went to a few weeks ago.”

“What’s her name?”

“Stacy.”

“She not love you back?”

“No. And I can’t blame her. I made some stupid mistakes. I thought…I thought I knew what I wanted. I went there looking for a woman.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I said I went there looking for a woman. I just didn’t bank on finding someone I cared about so much.”

“Why you look for a woman if you not want to care?”

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He could never explain the sugar mama concept to his mother. She wouldn’t understand. Hell, he no longer understood. What had he been thinking? He was many things, but a user of women had never been one of them. He’d been a womanizer after Beth, yes, but the women he bedded had always gotten what they wanted.

Getting old in an industry that focused on the young sometimes led to desperation. He’d seen it before. Too bad he hadn’t recognized it in himself. But hell, was he any less desperate now? His appetite was nearly nonexistent, and he’d been whacking off like an adolescent to Stacy’s image in his memory since the conference.

If only he could go back, do it all over…

But would he have met Stacy otherwise, if he hadn’t been searching for an older woman who might be willing to take care of him?

No, he wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have been looking for a woman at all. He would have made do with the scads of women who threw themselves at him, who meant nothing to him.

Stacy wouldn’t have been one of them. She was too shy, too inhibited.

Aw, hell no. She’d proved she could get over that. She wouldn’t have thrown herself at him because she had too much class. That’s the kind of woman she was. Classy. Like his mother. Like Beth.

“You going to answer me?”

“Sorry, Ma. I went looking for a woman for all the wrong reasons. I see that now.”

“And what you find?”

“I found someone amazing. Someone who lights up my world.”

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