Happily Ever After: A Romance Collection

by Amelia Wilde

  Mason liked routine. He liked predictable things and predictable people. It was one of the reasons he had fallen so hard and fast for Lark in the first place. She was silly and unpredictable when it came to making jokes or conversation, but in her day-to-day life she was a creature of habit. She had a routine and she stuck to it religiously. She had a code of conduct for herself that she had inherited from her parents and there was rarely any doubt how Lark would respond in a given situation.

  But now…

  “Where are we going that I need to be blindfolded?” Mason finally asked, careful to keep his reservations out of his tone.

  “We’re going wherever I want to go,” Lark said. “I’m in control tonight. Can you handle that, Mason? Or should we end this date right now?”

  Mason didn’t say a word. He just forced a smile, turned around, and closed his eyes, bending his knees a little to make it easier for Lark to reach the bandana as she tied it snuggly behind his head.

  “How’s that?” Lark asked. “Too tight?”

  Mason shook his head. “Nope. It’s good.”

  It wasn’t good. He pretty much hated this, but it was clearly something Lark was serious about, and if wearing a blindfold and having him obey orders were what it took to regain her trust, then he would do it.

  With a smile, if possible.

  “Good,” Lark said, slipping her hand through his. “Let me help you to the car.”

  Mason ignored the anxiety that skittered across the surface of his skin as Lark led him to her car. He could trust Lark to keep him safe. And maybe that was the whole point of this exercise. Maybe she was testing him to see how much he trusted her before giving him her trust in return.

  “We’re at the door. I’m going to help you in and buckle your seat belt,” Lark said. “And then I’m going to drive, and I don’t want you to say another word until I tell you to. Not even when I stop the car when we get where we’re going.”

  Or maybe she was just torturing him, getting her revenge for the hell he’d put her through.

  “Can you do that, Mason?” she asked.

  Mason swallowed hard. “Yep.”

  “Great,” Lark said, a slight tremble in her voice that made Mason wish he could see her face.

  Was she nervous? Scared? Second-guessing her decision to act completely out of character and play kidnaper-dominatrix for the night?

  Mason didn’t know, but as he allowed himself to be strapped in and waited for Lark to join him in the car, he hoped it was the last option. He wasn’t into bondage or power plays in the bedroom or anywhere else, and he had to confess this kind of thing coming from Lark was completely unexpected and a little…disturbing.

  Lark started the car and pulled out of the motel parking lot, heading south, away from town and Atlanta, out into the countryside. Mason kept track of their turns for the first several miles, but after twenty minutes or so, he had to admit he had no idea where Lark was taking him. He didn’t even have a firm grasp on how much time had passed. He was guessing twenty minutes, but it could have been only ten or fifteen.

  Time seemed to stretch out forever with his eyesight taken away and not a sound in the car but Lark’s soft breath and the hum of the wheels on the road beneath them. More than once, Mason was tempted to ask where they were going, but he’d sensed Lark was serious about following directions. So he held his tongue and did his best to ignore how uneasy this was making him.

  They drove on and on, the road hum turning to a grumble as Lark turned off onto a gravel road. The road tipped up sharply, and Mason knew they were gaining elevation, but that didn’t help him guess where they were going. He and Lark had gone hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills lots of times, but he didn’t think they’d driven far enough to reach any of their favorite spots and the park roads closed at sunset, which wouldn’t be long now Mason was guessing.

  He had felt sun shining through the car windows onto his lap for the first part of the drive, but now the inside of the car was cooling down. Cooling, cooling, and the small amount of yellow light seeping through his blindfold faded to blue. Lark cracked the windows to let in a breeze and the calls of the night insects and still they drove. Up, up, up, turning three more times before Lark finally pulled to a stop and shut off the engine.

  Mason sagged with relief and let out a long breath. Finally. They were here.

  Wherever here was.

  11

  Mason was curious, but he remembered what Lark had said and kept his peace as Lark slammed out of the driver’s side and fetched something from the trunk.

  He turned toward his door, expecting her to open it, but nothing happened. After several more minutes passed, Mason realized Lark intended to leave him in the car for a while.

  He sat in silence, straining for a sign of where she had gone. Once or twice, he thought he heard footsteps and the crack of a twig underfoot, but another thirty minutes—or ten or twenty, he had no idea—passed and the night fell quiet except for the buzzing of insects and the occasional call of a night bird.

  Mason’s anxiety turned to irritation and then back to anxiety again when the smell of campfire smoke drifted to his nose. Someone had lit a fire. Was it Lark? Or were there other people close to this place?

  He fidgeted in his seat, dying to get out and stretch his legs, his throat aching with the effort it took to stay quiet. He wanted to shout Lark’s name more than he could remember wanting anything in a long, long time, but he forced himself to keep his damned mouth shut.

  If this was some kind of test, he wasn’t going to fail it now, not when he had already put up with this insanity for well over an hour and a half.

  More time passed, minutes that spun around and around Mason’s heart like fishing line pulled tight, cutting off his circulation. Time bled on until Mason’s stomach cramped with hunger and his muscles ached with sitting for so long and his pulse raced with a mix of nerves and fear and anger.

  He was angry now. So angry he pressed clenched fists into the tops of his thighs and the back of his neck had broken out in a light sweat.

  What the hell was she doing? What was the point of all this? Was forcing him to sit for hours in a parked car really proving anything?

  It proves you’re a fool, that’s what it proves.

  Mason fought the urge to punch the dashboard, or reach up and yank the blindfold from his eyes. If he was going to be a fool for anyone, it was Lark.

  Another half hour or more passed and Mason’s rage gradually faded away, replaced by sad resignation.

  She wasn’t coming back. If she were, surely she would have come to get him by now. It had to be after nine o’clock. She must be intending to leave him here all night. Maybe she’d had a friend, or one of her sisters, come pick her up further down the mountain. Maybe she was safely back in Summerville right now, laughing about the prank she had pulled on the man who’d broken her heart.

  Mason reached across the car, feeling for the steering wheel and the ignition.

  She had taken the keys with her. So if she was gone, then he was truly trapped here. Trapped with no idea which direction led back home.

  Mason rubbed a fist across his forehead, and sighed. What should he do? Wait here until morning and hope Lark came back to fetch him? Get out and start walking and hope he ran into someone willing to give a hitchhiker a ride in the middle of the night?

  And what if this wasn’t a prank, and Lark was out there somewhere, needing his help? What if she had gotten lost or hurt, and that was the reason she hadn’t come back to get him?

  He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it another minute in this car. He reached for the handle and pulled, swinging his feet onto the ground as he wrenched the blindfold from his eyes.

  “Three hours,” a voice said from a few feet away, making him flinch with surprise.

  “Lark?” He blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he saw Lark sitting in a lawn chair a few feet away, holding a book wit
h a reading light clipped to the top of it on her lap.

  “What the hell is going on?” he asked, standing as he threw the blindfold into the dirt at his feet. They were parked on a blanket of pine needles about fifty feet from a campsite where a campfire burned. Looking around, he expected to see other campsites, but they were alone. Wherever she had taken him, it wasn’t a public campground.

  “You made it three hours,” Lark repeated in a calm voice. “I made it thirty thousand.”

  Mason shook his head, unable to hide his frustration. “What?”

  “Four years. That’s over a thousand days, over thirty thousand hours.” Lark closed her book but kept the light on. It illuminated just enough of her face for Mason to see the tightness in her jaw and the emotion in her eyes.

  It wasn’t an emotion he could easily place. It lived somewhere between anger and misery and hope, in the no man’s land of feelings where people so often found themselves when relationships went terribly wrong. It was a hard emotion to name, but not a hard one to empathize with. It was the same way he’d felt sitting in that car—a mix of angry and miserable and abandoned, with a tiny voice beneath it all praying in a whisper for a miracle, for Lark to come back and make everything all right.

  Mason’s bunched shoulders dropped away from his ears. His hands unfisted at his sides.

  He understood now. He should have understood all along.

  “You wanted me to know how you felt,” he said, staring at the ground near Lark’s feet, not quite ready to look her in the eye.

  “No, there’s no way you could know how I felt,” Lark said. “Three hours can’t teach you everything there is to know about thirty thousand hours, but I was hoping it would at least give you a taste.”

  Mason nodded. “It did.”

  “You were angry.”

  “I was,” he whispered.

  “And miserable.”

  “And pretty sure I’d been abandoned,” he finished, a fresh wave of shame washing over him. He thought of the misery he had felt and multiplied it times ten thousand.

  That was what he had done to her. He’d known he was an ass, but it wasn’t until this exact moment that he understood it in a visceral way that cut through him the way he’d cut through bones and tissue in Gross Anatomy.

  “You can’t ever forgive me,” Mason said, fighting to speak past the tightness in his throat. That had to be the reason for this. Lark was trying to penetrate his stubborn resolve and make him see that she was never going to give him a second chance, no matter what.

  And now he did, he understood, and he was shattered, so shattered the ground felt like it was tilting beneath his feet.

  “No,” Lark whispered. “I think I can. I think maybe I already have.”

  12

  Mason’s head jerked up in surprise. This time, when he met Lark’s eyes they were gentle, hopeful.

  “You have?” he asked, voice cracking.

  “I didn’t think you’d last an hour,” Lark said. “But you did and the longer I sat here watching you wait for me, the more I realized I don’t want to stay angry. Holding a grudge never made anyone happy and I don’t want to be one of those bitter people who look back on their lives and all they can see are the chips they’ve collected on their own shoulders.” She licked her lips, pressing them together for a moment before she continued with a deep breath. “I care about you, Mason. I want to give this a chance. A real chance.”

  “You do?” Mason’s relief was so profound, his hands shook with it.

  “I do,” Lark said with a shy grin. “Are you still up for four more dates after a night like this?”

  “I’m up for as many dates as you’ll give me,” Mason said, the center of his bones still feeling unsteady. He felt like a man who’d been rescued from a burning building seconds before it collapsed. Lark had pulled him from the fire and he was going to make the most of the chance she’d given him.

  “Then let’s start now.” Lark crossed to him, slipping her hand gently into his. “I have some stew warming by the fire. And there are rolls and sweet tea and beer in the cooler if you want it.”

  “I could use a beer,” Mason said with a soft laugh as Lark led him toward the campfire. “Or three.”

  “Have four,” Lark said, squeezing his hand. “I’m driving. I think you’ve earned a little buzz.”

  Mason stopped at the edge of the fire, holding tight to Lark’s hand, pulling her into his arms. She came without a moment of hesitation, letting him enfold her and hold her close for a long, quiet moment. Mason dropped his lips to the top of her head, drawing a deep, relieved breath, pressing a grateful kiss to her hair.

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, arms tightening around his waist as she tilted her head back to look up at him, her skin glowing in the campfire light. “Let’s never fight again, okay? Or at least not for a long, long time.”

  “Why would anyone fight with an angel like you?” Mason asked with a grin.

  Lark narrowed her eyes, but her lips stretched into a smile. “Have you forgotten who you’re talking to? I’m the woman who just made you sit in a car blindfolded and sweating for three hours. I might be more devil than angel tonight.”

  “Nope. You’re a good one, Lark, I don’t care what all those other people say.”

  Lark laughed. “People don’t say a thing, Mason Stewart.”

  “They don’t know you like I do.”

  “Oh yeah?” She leaned closer, all her soft curves pressed tight against him, making his head spin. “So you think I’m a little devilish after all?”

  Mason’s pulse beat faster. “Maybe. A little.”

  “Speaking of devilish, you know what I miss?” Lark asked.

  “What?” Mason murmured.

  “Your truck,” Lark said in a low voice. “We had some good times in that truck.”

  Mason remembered those good times, every single second of them. Every time they spread out the sleeping bags in the bed of his old red Chevy, every kiss, every caress, every time Lark leaned back her head and sighed as his lips trailed down her throat.

  “I’ll trade my car in for something with a tailgate first thing tomorrow morning,” he said, meaning every word.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Lark stood on tiptoe to press a soft kiss to his cheek before adding in a whisper, “I do have an apartment of my own, you know. I don’t live with Mom and Dad anymore.”

  “Yeah?” Mason asked, skimming one hand up and down the length of her back.

  “Yeah. Maybe you’ll get to see it someday,” she said in a teasing voice as she spun out of his arms and started around the fire. “Come on. Grab a couple of bowls from the bag by the cooler, I’m starving.”

  Up until a moment ago, Mason had been starving too, but now all he could think about was being alone with Lark in her apartment, in her bedroom…in her bed. He stood staring, imagining the firelight flickering over her bare skin, knowing she’d be so beautiful it would hurt to look at her, thinking about what part of her he’d kiss first, where his hands would—

  “Mason?” Lark asked, pulling him back to reality. “Bowls?”

  Mason blinked. “Right. Bowls.” He jerked into motion, forcing his thoughts back to food and campfires, letting his hand linger in the cooler for a few moments in hopes the ice closing around his fingers would help cool him off.

  It worked. Mostly.

  “So where are we?” Mason asked after they’d settled in two chairs close to the fire.

  “My land,” Lark said with proud grin. “I bought it last year. I’m hoping to save up enough money to build a cabin up here in the next year or two.”

  “That’s great.” Mason looked around the land with new interest. “You always said you wanted to live out in the boonies.”

  “Yeah, well, I can’t live here, since most of my business is in Summerville or Atlanta, but I’ll be able to come here on weekends and vacations.”

  Mason nodded as he dug into L
ark’s homemade stew, moaning in appreciation. “Damn, this is good.”

  Lark smiled. “It should be. I’m a professional now, you know.” She scooped up her own spoonful and reached for a roll from the paper plate on top of the cooler.

  “I know,” Mason said. “You should be proud. Starting your own business isn’t easy these days.”

  “Thanks.” Lark lifted her eyes, meeting his. “It was a ton of work, but it gave me something to focus on after you left.”

  For the first time, she had mentioned him leaving without any anger or sadness or resentment in her voice. It was simply a fact. A fact that was in their past, leaving the future open for something different. Something better.

  Things were really different now. Mason could feel it. The air between them felt lighter, their conversation freer, and as the night wore on, Lark didn’t hesitate to touch his arm, hold his hand, let him brush the crumbs from her lips or loop his arm around her waist.

  By the time she pulled back into the parking lot of his hotel, Mason was feeling brave enough to lean across the car, cup Lark’s soft cheek in his hand, and—

  “Wait,” Lark whispered, holding two fingers up between their mouths, keeping his lips from hers. “Not tonight.”

  Mason sank back into his seat, trying not to look disappointed. “Whatever you want.”

  “It’s not what I want,” Lark said, her hand coming to rest on his arm. “I just think it’s for the best. Once I start kissing you…”

  “What?” Mason asked gently.

  “I have a feeling I’m not going to want to stop,” Lark said in a husky voice that made Mason’s body ache in new and powerful ways.

  Mason swallowed and reached for the door, not certain he could resist the urge to claim her mouth with his if he stayed in the car another moment. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he said, stepping out of the car, throwing his next words over his shoulder. “I’ll pick you up at one.”