by Wendy Vella
He wasn’t sure what the hell he’d witnessed in The Hoot today between her and her family, but it had left her reeling and him wanting to protect her, and that wasn’t going to happen if she left tomorrow.
Bracing himself as she followed his friends across the floor, Buster slapped the hand Jake held out to him when he reached the table and accepted the kiss Branna gave him on the cheek.
“Hey, Willow.” He gave her a nod as she slid into the booth next to Newman, which shouldn’t have annoyed him as much as it did.
“Hi, Buster,” she said, throwing him a quick look before moving on to the birthday girl. “Happy Birthday, Annabelle.” She handed over the roll of paper she’d been holding. “Open it when you get home.”
“No way!” Annabelle undid the ribbon and opened it. “Wow!”
Buster was seated two along from Annabelle, so he leaned over the Texan to get a better look. Willow had drawn all of them: Jake, Branna, Newman, Macy, Ethan, Annabelle, Cubby, and him. Everyone was laughing, and in the background was Lake Howling. Each black stroke of her pencil had captured them perfectly. Ethan’s smile was slow, Annabelle’s beauty was on display, and Macy looked sweet with Billy in her arms offering up a gummy smile.
Newman nudged Willow out of the booth and climbed out to take a look, and soon they were all gathered around the drawing.
“Lady, you have talent,” Jake said, and whistled.
Willow slid into the booth and offered Jake a quick nod. She didn’t seem to want the compliment; in fact, Buster was pretty sure what she wanted was for everyone to sit down, and the drawing to be put away, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“This is amazing,” Tex said. “You even managed to make Buster and Newman look halfway normal.”
“Billy looks cute,” Macy sighed. “He was so small then.”
“Is this from the picture Macy has in her house?” Buster asked Willow. She nodded but said nothing further.
“Evening, all,” Cubby said before elbowing Jake out of the way to get a look at the drawing. “You’re very talented, Willow.”
Soon others came over. Jake’s parents, Cubby’s mother. By the time Walt and Lizzie Heath arrived, Willow was pink in the cheeks and squirming with embarrassment. She was beside Buster now, as Newman and the others had jammed her into the booth.
“So, Willow, can I commission you to do a few drawings for The Howler?” Noah Harris asked.
“I don’t do it for anything other than fun, Noah. Sorry.”
“Shame,” Tex said. “I have a Longhorns poster if you want to back a winning team.”
Another debate erupted after howls of outrage at Ethan’s comments, and Buster could almost feel Willow’s relief that she was no longer the topic of conversation. She tried to keep some space between them as more people squashed into their booth, but it was hopeless, and soon she was pressed against him.
“Relax, New York, I won’t jump you.” He whispered the words in her ear, then drew in a deep breath. She smelled soft and seductive, and he wanted to push his face into her hair and take in another lungful. Her thigh rested along the length of his and Buster fought the urge to wrap his fingers around it and hold her there.
“I can’t believe you just said that.”
“I’m the friend with rough edges. Haven’t you worked that out yet? I say exactly what I think. I find it cuts out the BS, and any chance of misunderstandings.”
Her eyes were inches from his, and he could see she’d put something on them that made them look bigger, and her lashes longer. Her soft skin had a hint of something shimmering on it and her lips were wet. He could feel his body heating as his eyes traveled over her face and down her neck.
“Buster.” She was half laughing, half indignant. “I cannot believe you’re checking me out.”
“Honey, you look sexy as hell any day, but tonight…” He left the words hanging.
“I thought you didn’t speak like that. Compliment women, I mean.”
“Normally you’d be right, but I’ve already had a few beers and my tongue’s loosening, and you’re hot.”
He snorted as she took a large mouthful of her wine and looked away from him.
When she reached the bottom of her second glass they started flirting; there was no other word for it. She was going back to New York soon, and he knew there could never be anything between them—maybe that was why he was having so much fun. He didn’t give a damn right then about the fact that he’d decided to keep his distance from her.
She was funny, and the wine had loosened her tongue. She had a quirky way of looking at things, almost old-fashioned, and he wondered if that had to do with her upbringing. His friends liked her, and he knew she liked them. Although she was shy, they dragged her into their conversations until she was entering them voluntarily.
“So, New York, do I detect the hand of Macy in your duds?” Because he’d mentioned her clothes he was damned well within his rights to look at them, and if his eyes lingered a little longer where they shouldn’t, he was sure she’d let him know.
“She’s forceful for a little person.”
“She is that,” he said, trailing his gaze back up her neck to rest on her face. “But I have to say, the effort is something else.”
She slapped his chest. “So because I have a bit more body showing, I’m suddenly worth your inspection?”
Her words weren’t angry, and her eyes were twinkling. She had a sassy smile on her lips that was so different from the scared, uptight woman he’d come to know that he smiled back.
“Tell me you’re not actually enjoying yourself?”
She thought about that, then nodded. “It’s like Lake Howling is some kind of alternate universe and coming here has exposed me to stuff I haven’t touched for years.”
Buster let her take a mouthful of wine before he answered that. “‘Stuff’ being friends, laughter, sexy clothes?”
“It’s a weird thing,” she said, suddenly serious. “I live in a city with over eight million people and yet here, where there’s only a handful, I’m suddenly thrust into decorating a tree, associating with people who could conceivably be friends, if I stayed long enough to let them, and don’t get me started on the emotions and tears.”
She had that look on her face again, the one that made her look young and scared, as if she was standing on the curb working out how to cross to the other side where her puppy had run to.
“Tears?”
“I don’t cry.”
“What, never?” Branna asked, butting into the conversation. Why was he surprised that they’d all been listening in to his and Willow’s conversation? He’d done it enough with them.
“No, at least not for a while.”
“I cry,” Cubby said. “Just last week blubbered like a baby when I watched Titanic.”
“Ethan cried watching that,” Annabelle said.
“Honey, we’ve been over this. I try to maintain my macho façade around these people, or I’d be toast.”
“You’re toast anyway, pretty boy,” Buster said.
“Will you show me your tattoo before I go, Buster?” She whispered the words in his ear.
“You want to see my tattoo?”
Her face was inches from his as she nodded. “I’ve only ever seen the end of it.”
“It might be the beginning.” Buster looked at her lips. He wanted her badly enough to kiss her right here in front of his friends.
“Is it?”
“No.” He touched her hand instead, where it rested on the thigh closest to his.
“When did you get it?”
“In Paris. I met a guy there from New Zealand. He had a tattoo, and I admired it, and we got talking. So he designed this one for me. It tells the story of my life.” Buster touched his shoulder.
“I like that your tattoo means something to you.” Her eyes focused on the ink work he had on his arm, and he could almost feel her touch there.
“Your round, I believe, Aramis.”
&nbs
p; Dragging his gaze from hers, Buster found Ethan. “And how am I supposed to get out and get that round, Tex?”
“I’m not sure which Musketeer said it, but I believe, and I quote, ‘The merit of all things lies in their difficulty.’”
“You looked online to research quotes?” Buster asked the Texan, who nodded.
“He spent hours printing them off and memorizing them,” Annabelle added.
Muttering something unflattering, Buster urged everyone to his left, including Willow, from the booth.
“Willow, I found your family.”
Her body jerked in reaction to Jake’s words, so Buster settled his hand on her spine to comfort her. She was tense, her muscles clenched tight beneath his fingers.
“Your family is in Howling?” Newman asked.
“They arrived today,” Willow said.
“Well, now you have to stay.”
Buster shot Newman a look and saw Macy had beaten him to it. Within seconds, his friends realized that the arrival of Willow’s family wasn’t the happy event they’d thought it to be.
“You look pretty tonight, Moonbeam,” Willow’s mother said, moving to her side.
Willow didn’t exactly groan, but Buster guessed she was close as he watched her fingers start fluttering.
“Thanks, Amelia, but I go by the name Willow now.”
“But we know you as Moonbeam.”
Willow’s mother was wearing every color of the rainbow. Her dress reached the floor, a long, colorful, flowing thing, and she had a scarlet scarf threaded through her long black hair.
“However, I don’t like—”
“What can I get you to drink?” Buster interrupted Willow, thinking it was best to separate the women since Little Miss Moonbeam had a few glasses of wine under her belt and was about to start an argument with her mother. “You can help me carry,” he said, then locking his fingers around Willow’s wrist he towed her to the bar.
“I wouldn’t have made a scene,” she said when they were waiting in line to be served. “I was simply pointing out to my mother that I like Willow better than Moonbeam.”
She was close, her shoulder pressed into his chest as people tried to squeeze passed them carrying drinks.
“You were about to get into it with your mother, whom you haven’t seen in seven years, so don’t try to bullshit me.”
“I shouldn’t have drunk so much wine.”
“I don’t know about that,” Buster said, running his hand down her hair. “It’s fun to loosen up now and again.”
She didn’t speak, simply kept her eyes on the man waiting in line before her.
“I don’t see my parents much, but they know I love them, and we talk all the time. It seems like something drove you and yours apart.” It was a guess, but the look she shot him confirmed his suspicions.
“I don’t like their lifestyle.”
“But you did like it once?”
“No, I’ve always hated it.”
“I bet that was rough growing up.”
She shrugged. “It’s in the past now, and I don’t like to talk about it.”
Buster didn’t say anything more, since it was his turn at the bar. When they arrived back at their booth with the drinks, more chairs had been drawn up, and Willow’s family had infiltrated their group. He watched her face tense up, and suddenly the woman he’d flirted with had vanished, replaced by a quiet, withdrawn Willow.
“Just the woman I want to dance with.” Tex stepped up beside Buster, giving him a questioning look that indicated he was confused by Willow’s reaction to her family and he’d be questioning Buster later. “Come on, city girl, show me your moves.”
Willow almost ran to the dance floor with Tex. Buster grabbed Annabelle and did the same.
“What the hell was that about?” Annabelle whispered. “Her family seems nice.”
“Damned if I know.”
“Well, find out, Buster. You need to look out for her.”
“What? Why me?” Buster protested, but he wanted to do what Annabelle had said. He didn’t want to see Willow hurting, and that scared him spitless.
CHAPTER TEN
“I-I don’t dance, Ethan.”
Willow felt the tingling in her fingers ease as she put distance between herself and her family.
“Sure you do.” The big Texan took both her hands in his and started dancing. “Just listen for the beat, honey. One, two, one, two.” She watched him move on each count, a shimmy of the hips or shuffle of the feet. “You’re naturally graceful. This will be a piece of cake, so just relax.”
“I don’t like making a fool of myself.”
“No one’s looking, and I always make a fool of myself. The trick is to act like you planned it.”
Willow couldn’t help it; she laughed. Ethan tugged her hands and she started moving, keeping her eyes on his feet. It was a shuffle, but she soon heard the beat like he’d told her to.
“And here’s my girl. Sorry, Willow, but I’ll have to hand you over to Aramis because Annabelle gets antsy if I dance with another woman.”
Willow found herself facing Buster seconds later. “We can sit down if you want.”
“Looked to me like you sprinted to the dance floor, New York, and now you’re telling me you want to sit down.”
His eyes were smiling at her, a gentle look that didn’t reach his lips. Willow loved Buster’s face. In New York, she used to study its planes and angles for ages, making up stories about his heritage and who his parents were and what they looked like. She’d drawn him too, once, just after he’d disappeared.
“I don’t dance.”
“Don’t or can’t?”
She felt his hands on her waist and then he was moving her with him as he began to dance.
“Both. I’ve never danced like this, on a floor with other people.”
“We could find some grass if you want, or do you need to be naked? It’d be cold, I’m thinking, but I’m game if you are.”
“Always the wiseass.”
“Did you just swear at me, New York?”
She didn’t speak, just let him move her around the floor like a puppet. She liked music and had danced with the other children a few times during her childhood, but that was nothing like this. That was arms wide, twirling circles and leaping in the air. The only thing those moves would get her here was thrown out of The Howler.
“So, you’ve lived away from home for how long?”
“Ten years,” Willow said.
“And most of those were in New York?”
She nodded, watching Buster’s feet. He didn’t have the Texan’s grace; he and Annabelle were a whole other league, Willow thought, looking to where the handsome couple was moving in sync—but he still had the moves and looked sexy as hell using them.
“Yes, seven of the ten in New York.” Willow tried a hip shimmy, and it seemed to work out okay, so she gave it another shot.
“And in all those years you never went dancing? Never partied drunk with friends, never went to a concert or celebrated New Year’s Eve in Times Square?”
Lifting her arms to the side, Willow copied Annabelle and moved her body, and then heard Buster’s breath hiss. She couldn’t see a change in his expression, so she thought she’d imagined it.
“I worked and studied. I had no time for anything else.”
“You worked and studied for what, three or four years tops? What did you do the rest of the time?”
“Stuff.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I don’t have to tell you the answers to these questions, just like I don’t have to tell your friends, either.”
“What about the years before New York?” he persisted. “What did you do then?”
“Those I spent learning valuable life lessons that I never got before I left home.”
He grabbed her hand and lifted it high. “Twirl,” he ordered.
“What?”
“Go under my hand and do a three-sixty.” He motion
ed her with his other fingers.
Doing as she was told, she came back to face him again.
“What kind of life lessons?”
“The usual kind. Who to trust, who not to. Not to turn your back on people or they’ll take you for everything, and that the only person you can rely on is yourself.”
“That’s a pretty hard line to take.”
“It’s the safest one,” she said, twirling again, and this time she did it with ease and smiled up at Buster, but he wasn’t smiling back.
“What happened?”
“I thought you weren’t the nosy type, like your buddies. I believe you told me that you hate the emotional stuff, and anything to do with baring your soul makes you nauseous,” Willow said. “Well, I’m the same.”
“We’re not talking about me.” Buster placed an arm around her waist and dipped her backward, and suddenly Willow was looking up at his handsome face.
“A little warning, please.” She sounded breathless, possibly because when he lifted her upright, he pressed her hard against his body. Her reaction was instantaneous. She wanted this man desperately.
“It’s called spontaneity, baby. Roll with it.” His smile was wicked. “Now tell me about the years after you left home and before you came to New York.”
“I caught a bus and started on my adventure, believing that finally I had what I’d always wanted, but I realized pretty soon that the reality is, we rarely get what we want.”
“What happened?”
“The two people I met on my first day stole everything I owned and left me stranded on the side of the road.”
Buster swore, his words low and dangerous. He reached for her, wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her against his body. Willow didn’t like to get too close to people, but this man was different. She craved closeness with him. Her fingers flattened over the beat of his heart, and she felt the strength beneath her hand.