“Want me to take you home?” he whispered against her windblown hair.
Topaz nuzzled her face into Simon’s shoulder. “Home’s the last place I want to be,” she told him, inhaling the scent of cologne clinging to his maroon shirt.
He pressed a kiss to her cheek, then made her look at him. “How about I take you home and you can change your clothes so I can take you out to dinner?”
Topaz managed a smile when he tweaked her chin. “Sounds perfect.”
“You think she’ll sell the property after this?”
“I don’t see why she wouldn’t. However ...”
“However ... ?”
“She’s tough. Beau says she has a lot of power over that group.”
“Hell, of course she does, look at her!”
“I have... .”
“Mmm-hmm, listen, I’m counting on you all to handle this. Otherwise, we’ll have to make our presence more known.”
“We understand how badly your people want this land. We simply want as little bloodshed as possible. Especially since they already know who we are.”
“I understand your concerns, but I want that property.”
“You’ll have it.”
“Thanks for making the trip, man.”
Beck Gillam shrugged and recrossed his long legs at the ankles. “Hop, skip, and a jump from Columbia,” he explained.
Alex grinned. “What the hell were you doing in South Carolina?”
“Visiting my mama,” Beck said, removing the short plastic straw from his club soda. “I try spendin’ a few days or so with her every month.”
Alex leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Damn, that sounds good right about now,” he admitted, thinking how nice it would be to see his own mother.
Beck took note of his patient’s melancholy demeanor. “I hope this won’t be a onetime get-together,” he pointedly remarked.
“It won’t. I want to keep every appointment.”
“She must be somethin’ else.”
Alex focused his penetrating gaze on Beck and grinned. “She is,” he confirmed, losing a bit of his cool. “But I hurt her when I broke it off. I don’t know if she’ll forgive me.”
Beck cleared his throat, his green eyes narrowing. “Did you ...”
Alex tilted his head in confusion, then grimaced upon realizing what the doctor was asking. “It wasn’t like that. I told her I couldn’t see her anymore and she was hurt.”
Beck sipped his soda. “Are you going to tell her?”
“Tell her? Tell her what, Beck? That my dreams affect me so violently, she could wake up to find my hands around her neck?”
“Alex—”
“I won’t tell her that. I can’t even think about tellin’ her that. Not until it’s a thing of the past.”
“It’ll never be a thing of the past, Zan.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Zan—”
“I won’t tell her that!” Alex snapped, his voice a fierce whisper as he slammed a fist down on the table. “I never want her to see me as that person. Ever,” he confided, the pain in his eyes blatant and unrelenting.
Beck focused on the pattern in the tablecloth. “So you’ll settle for losing her instead?” he asked, raking one hand through his wavy brown hair when he looked up.
Alex only reclined in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. He fixed his doctor with a sour expression, before his blue-green stare focused across the dining room. “I’ll be damned ...” he breathed, watching Topaz standing in the arched doorway.
“What?” Beck inquired, setting his glass on the table.
Alex grinned, shaking his head as he massaged his jaw. “Not long ago, I’d never heard of Topaz Emerson. Now, every time I look up, there she is.”
Beck turned to follow the line of his patient’s gaze. “Topaz Emerson, I presume?” he remarked, his jade-green gaze observing the devastating chocolate-skinned beauty across the room. “And you’ve decided to cut things off with her?” he asked, still looking toward the doorway. “Hmph. If you can walk away from a dime like that, you’re a better man than I could ever hope to be,” he declared, turning as he spoke. “Don’t take that as a professional viewpoint,” he advised, grinning at the look Alex flashed him. “I’m speaking as a man, not a psychiatrist.”
