Challenges by Sharon Green Page A

there, but Jovvi could see that there was something he ached to add. His emotions had rippled wildly when he’d mentioned Tamma, and Jovvi couldn’t stand it.
    “You might as well tell me whatever you’re holding back on,” she said, smiling faintly at his startlement. “If you don’t, we’ll probably both explode.”
    “But imposin’ now would be wrong,” he protested, actually meaning it. “This court business has got to be botherin’ you, and I meant to say right away that I don’t have to go in with you if you really don’t want company. I can walk around outside the buildin’ until the whole thing is over—”
    “Vallant, please,” she interrupted, leaning forward to touch his hand where it rested on his knee. “I’m very glad to have you going with me, and talking about what’s bothering you won’t be imposing. I’m badly in need of something to distract me, so you’d actually be doing me a favor.”
    “To tell the truth, I feel like a damned fool just thinkin’ about it,” he admitted heavily, his very handsome face strained. “Talkin’ about it is worse, but neither is as bad as not doin’ somethin’ to change it. Last night Tamrissa said some things to Coll, and he got mad and repeated them to
me
. It seems I was wrong to believe she has no feelin’s for me.”
    “I think I tried to tell you that at one point, but you were in too much pain to hear me,” Jovvi commented with a smile and a nod. “I expect Lorand put it a bit less delicately than I did… And now you’ve decided to do what? Change your mind again?”
    “The only reason I changed it the first time was to keep from botherin’ a woman who wanted nothin’ to do with me.” Now his expression was just serious, and it was clear that he was telling the truth. “I also felt pretty worthless, to have a woman like Tamrissa hate me so much.”
    “It wasn’t hate, it was fear,” Jovvi felt compelled to tell him. “She’s very much afraid of getting involved again, and the fact that she only treated
you
that way said clearly how attracted she was to you. It was rather easy for me to see that, but discussing it without her permission was another matter entirely.”
    “And now we have an even bigger problem,” he said, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees and clasp his hands. “I was all for talkin’ to her right away and gettin’ the misunderstandin’ straightened out, but Coll and Mardimil talked me out of it. They pointed out that I was probably kept in the residence while Holter was moved elsewhere because he was startin’ to fit in too well. And he also got along with Tamrissa, which seems to be the major point. If
I
start gettin’ along with her, I could end up bein’ transferred elsewhere.”
    “Yes, you certainly could.” Jovvi was forced to agree even while she hated the idea. “So that means you can’t change the way you’ve been acting with Tamma, but she has to be told
something
. The way things are now, she’s completely miserable.”
    “And I refuse to let her go on feelin’ like that,” Vallant said flatly. “This happened because I acted like a fool, and I won’t have her sufferin’ over my mistake. I’d like you to tell her the truth—and that I’ll be lookin’ for a chance to get her alone. What the testin’ authority doesn’t know can’t hurt us.”
    “Well, I’ll tell her, of course, but I’m not sure how she’ll take it,” Jovvi said, needing to tell the man the truth. “She took a very big step forward when she decided to try a relationship with you, but that was just before
you
apparently changed your mind. Now that you’ve changed it back, there’s no guarantee she’ll do the same.”
    “I feel like I’m ridin’ a runaway horse,” Vallant said after letting out a long, deep breath. “And not only runaway, we’re both blindfolded. But you can tell Tamrissa that I offer my apologies in advance, because this time I won’t be changin’ my mind back