“You’re probably right. But I’ve been waiting for an excuse to deck that man for two years.” Humor jumped in his eyes.
“Ah. Then I’m glad I could oblige.”
“I’m surprised Hal didn’t fire him on the spot.” Tanner sounded annoyed he hadn’t.
She’d been thinking the same. “Maybe he will on Monday.”
“He’d better.” Tanner turned her in a circle. “I’ve been pushing for it the last few months. The guy is a jerk, doesn’t do any more than he has to. He’s always down at the bar. He’s trouble. But you know Hal, always likes to give the benefit of the doubt.”
“Well, after tonight, I’d say he’s changed his mind.” If he hadn’t, Natalie would certainly do it for him. They didn’t need somebody like Leo Kastner in the mix.
They danced for a bit in silence until Tanner spoke again.
“I had a chat with Hal the other day. He’s finally given me carte blanche control on some of my marketing ideas. Probably thanks to you. So, I thought maybe we could go to some wineries on Monday. Check out the competition. If we can gather some data, let Hal know what the other guys are doing, I think we’ll be one step closer to getting him to come around to our way of thinking.”
“Monday. Uh-huh.” Sleepiness descended without warning. She followed his smooth steps with a happy sigh, unable to resist placing her head on his chest.
“You’d be up for that, right?” he asked. “We’ll make a day of it. Better than sitting in my office crunching numbers. You might actually have fun.”
“I know how to have fun.” She was having fun right now. His cologne was intoxicating. Woodsy with a hint of citrus. He felt good. Solid. Protective. She shivered as his thumb pressed against the top of her hand.
“Did you try the new Syrah? Got a lot of compliments on it tonight.”
“Uh-huh.” She could lose herself in this embrace.
“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying, are you, Mouse?”
“Uh-huh.”
Laughter rumbled from him and he pulled her a little closer. “We should take the Jag on Monday. I can’t wait until Wednesday.”
“I’ll drive.” Natalie lifted her head and managed a smile. “Thought you’d get that past me, did you?”
“I was hoping.” His eyes sparked with mischief.
“Well, I do owe you for coming to my rescue, yet again, so I suppose you can drive. But remember, it’s a rental. No joyriding or . . .” She sucked back the words and clamped her lips together.
Memories rolled in like a sudden storm, and she shut her eyes against them.
A sigh slid out of Tanner and he tightened his arms around her. “Breathe, Nat.”
“I know. I’m trying,” she whispered. But the shaking had already started.
They moved in another circle as Natalie fought emotion, concentrating on the rise and fall of his chest, letting his closeness calm her. “Sometimes it seems like it never happened,” she confessed. “Like Nic is suddenly going to appear, as though she’s always been here.” She blinked back tears and met his eyes. “I should have listened to my first instinct, stayed in New York, not gotten on that plane.”
He maneuvered her off the dance floor. Next thing she knew they were standing by the stream, away from the party, away from the noise. But not away from the thoughts that screamed in her head and made her wish she’d never voiced them.
“I’m sorry.” Natalie sent him a small smile. “I didn’t mean to drag you into my morose world. I’ll be fine. You go on back to Jeni. I’ll be there in a minute.” She put her back to him and watched dark water skim over large boulders on its way downstream. If only she could toss the past into that rushing water, watch it slip away, never to return.
“I’m not leaving you.”
She turned, saw the stubborn look, recognizing the boy she’d once known. “There’s no need to stay. I’ll be all right.”
“Do you ever let your guard down, Natalie?” He stood beside her, the question humming in the cool night air.
Natalie gripped her elbows and shivered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do. Ever since you got here, I’ve watched you, tried to find the girl I remembered, the one who used to be my friend.” Softly spoken words nudged truth into her soul. “Back then, I could talk to you about anything. There was no trying to impress, trying to sound smarter, be better. I could just be me. I was fifteen years old. I didn’t know a whole heck of a lot about life, but I knew I liked the way I felt when I was with you. You were sweet, innocent. Sincere. You were the real deal. Where’d you go, Mouse?”
She turned, lifted her chin, not caring about the tears that slid down her cheeks. “I grew up.”
Tanner gave a half shrug. “So did I. But growing up doesn’t mean forgetting where you came from, forgetting who you were. It doesn’t mean you have to forget the past and pretend it never happened.”
“Yes, it does.” She choked on the words. “The past hurts, Tanner. When Nic died, everything changed. I changed.” Natalie drew a shaky breath and fiddled with the pendant around her neck. “Nic was everything I wasn’t. She was funny. She was smart. She was beautiful. Everyone loved her. And I was just Natalie.”
“Why can’t that be enough?”
“It never seemed to be.”
Tanner shook his head, thumbed the zodiac sign that sat beneath her pearls. “What is that?”
“It’s a zodiac symbol. Leo, our birth month. Ironic, huh?” Natalie lowered her eyes, waiting for the next question.
Tanner snorted. “You believe in that stuff?”
She shook her head. “No. It was Nic’s. She bought it at some little shop in town, for her birthday that summer. I’ve worn it ever since she died.”
“You think about her all the time, don’t you?”
Natalie nodded, her heart thudding. “I keep hoping it’ll get easier. My parents don’t like to talk about her, so I pretty much keep my thoughts to myself.”
Tanner placed his hands on her shoulders. Moonlight caressed his face, adding extra light to his eyes. After a while, he shook his head. Certain sadness crept over him. His hands moved upward to cradle her face and he wiped her tears with the base of his thumbs. “When are you going to stop trying to please everyone? Make Natalie happy for a change?”
The question smothered her, dragged her down to its depths, and tried to drown her in truth. Natalie shook off his hands, backed up, and pressed her lips together. “I am happy. I’m exactly where I want to be, doing what I want to do.”
“Really?” His eyes challenged her. “The Natalie Mitchell I knew would have hated being stuck in boardrooms with a bunch of stiff-lipped bureaucrats.”
Her chest tightened and her throat burned. “Like I said, I grew up. You don’t know me anymore, Tanner. You’ve got no right to tell me I don’t make my own choices.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.” He shoved his hands in his back pockets and rocked on his heels. “And I don’t think you do either. In all the time I’ve known you, you always gave in first. Nicole would argue anything. But you never did. But coming here . . .” He smiled a little, his gaze reaching right through her. “If what you say is true and you want to keep the winery open . . . it’s the first step. I’ll bet it’ll be the first time you’ve gone against your father’s wishes.”
“True.” Natalie swiped her cheeks.
“I also think you need to deal with the past. Deal with the memories of that summer. Let it go, once and for all. Let Nicole go. It’s the only way you’ll ever be free to live your own life.”
He may as well have taken a sharp blade, cut out her heart, and held it up for the world to scrutinize.
A slow, unexpected anger rose up.
“You’re making a lot of assumptions, Tanner. I think you’re the one who needs to let go of the past.”
“I will if you will.”
“Fine.” Talking to him was like walking an emotional tightrope. With no net t
o catch her if she fell.
“I have my own regrets, Natalie. I should have been there that night,” he told her, his voice taut. “That’s the thought that’s stuck with me all these years. I should have been there.”
Natalie brushed a hand across her face, her heart racing. What was he talking about? “Do you think if you had, things would have turned out differently? That you’re some savior?”
“Maybe.” His honesty hit her with the force of a slap. “Maybe I could have stopped it. Maybe I—”
“Could have saved Nic?” Of course. It was still about Nicole.
“Yes.” Tanner placed two fingers beneath her chin, forcing her eyes upward. “If I could have stopped things that night, saved Nic and saved you from the hell you’ve been through since, I would have.”
“Well, you weren’t there, were you?” Was she really angry with him because of it? It had hardly been his fault. His mother had grounded him.
No, it wasn’t him she was angry with.
What happened that horrible night had nothing to do with him.
It was all on her.
Tanner put his hands on her shoulders again. Infringing on her personal space. Making her think about things she didn’t want to. “Look at me.”
His eyes pulled her in, probed, peeled back layers, and peered into her soul.
Made her feel things she didn’t want to feel.
“Don’t you ever get angry, Natalie? Don’t you ever just want to lose it and scream at someone?”
All the time.
She lifted her chin in resignation. “What would be the point?”
His shoulders rose and fell in conjunction with his smile.
“What do you want from me, Tanner?”
“I want you to stop blaming yourself for things you can’t change.”
A simple request.
Impossible to grant.
“But I should have stopped her, should have done something! How can you say I’m not responsible?” No, she couldn’t do this. Couldn’t go back there.
Back to where she couldn’t think, breathe . . . feel.
Life was so much easier when you didn’t feel.
“You were only thirteen years old, Natalie! Your sister decided to take that Jeep, you didn’t make her do it. We both know you couldn’t have stopped her. Once Nic made up her mind, it was a done deal. It was not your fault. Life is too short to go on blaming yourself for something you had absolutely no control over.”
Too short to let one night ruin the rest of your life.
He didn’t say the words. Didn’t have to.
Natalie gulped air, her emotions raw, laid bare in front of him.
What would he say if he knew the whole story? Knew the truth?
“That day on the patio, you asked me why I stopped writing to you. Remember?”
“Sure.” He shrugged.
Natalie steadied her breathing, clutched her elbows, and plowed on before she lost her nerve. “I told you things got bad for a while after the accident. Bad is an understatement. I stopped writing to you because my world imploded. Three months after Nic’s funeral, I woke up in the middle of the night screaming, and I couldn’t stop.” She sank to the grass, drew her knees up, and held tight. Tanner slowly lowered himself beside her.
“My parents didn’t know what to do with me. I was hospitalized for three weeks. Well, they called it a hospital. It was more like something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. When I went home, my father could barely carry on a conversation with me. Crazy doesn’t fit the family image, apparently. Eventually I learned to avoid any discussion of what had happened. I stayed out of school until Christmas. In January they packed me off to boarding school.”
“They sent you away?” Tanner’s voice trembled, like he, too, was holding tight to emotions about to bolt like a runaway horse.
She didn’t dare look at him. Hadn’t planned to tell him any of this. She felt exposed again, vulnerable. “My parents don’t solve problems, Tanner. They simply get rid of them.”
“You were still a kid.”
“I know.” Natalie pushed to her feet and walked to the bank of the stream. She stood near the water and stared at the shimmering ripples. Cicadas sang in the tall trees above them, passing along secrets as old as time in their lullaby.
Tanner joined her at the water’s edge. “You deserved better.”
“Did I?” Would he say that if he knew the rest?
His searching eyes plumbed her depths, like he knew there was more.
“Sometimes I think my relapse is some kind of punishment from God. Because of what happened. Maybe it is. Maybe I deserve it.”
Tanner blinked under the moon’s glow. “I don’t think your struggles are a punishment from God, Natalie. Not that I’m any expert, but I think He’d rather help you than hurt you.”
“Some help might be nice.” She pulled her fingers through her hair, glanced down at her dress, and gave a wan smile. “I like to pretend I’ve got it all together, but I don’t. I’ve created a simple no-fail existence. Get up, go to work, go home, work some more, and maybe sleep a few hours if I’m lucky. Outside of my one long-term relationship, which ended in catastrophe, I have the social life of a slug.”
Tanner flashed a quick grin. “You must have some friends.”
“I have Laura.” Natalie smiled. “But she has Jim and the kids. I tend to limit the time I spend over there.”
“Why?”
“Oh . . .” A frustrated sigh slipped out. “Because their life makes me think about things I’ll never have. I think I try so hard to succeed in business because I know that world is all I’ve got.”
“What do you mean?” Confusion settled in the creases around his eyes.
“I’m not going to get married, have a family. No happily ever after. No kismet for me. Not if I can’t get better. Who’d want to marry crazy?” She pushed her shoulders back, produced a smile, and summoned the woman who could face down a table of board members, handle million-dollar marketing presentations, and rebuff the strongest of arguments. The woman her father expected her to be. Strong. Dependable. The woman who hid her feelings, put on a brave face, only cried when she was alone.
And fooled everybody.
“Honestly, I don’t why I told you all that.” Any thoughts of further revelations faded. This was too hard. “I don’t know what I was thinking, coming back here. Telling myself I could save Maoilios. Thinking my father might actually listen to me for a change.”
Tanner studied her with a pensive look. “Maybe you’re here so you can heal. If you give yourself a chance, give it time, you will work through this.”
“You really think it’s possible to get over the past?”
Tanner hesitated, breaking eye contact. “I don’t know. I’m trying to figure that out, same as you.” Secrets shimmered in his eyes when he looked back at her, but she wouldn’t ask. Not tonight.
“Look at us, actually having a civilized conversation.” She tried to laugh, tried to act like it didn’t mean a thing. Like her heart wasn’t about to explode any minute now. Like she didn’t want him to take her in his arms again. Desperately.
His slow smile sent a fresh rush of feelings ricocheting through her entire body. “Yeah. Look at us.” Tanner’s fingers brushed her cheek. “For the record, I’m glad you got on that plane and came back here.”
“You wouldn’t have said that when I first arrived.”
“No, I wouldn’t have.” His dimple deepened. “Not out loud anyway.”
“Well.” She shrugged, too aware of her heart’s rapid rhythm. “Now that you know my sorry story, I hope you’ll forgive me for not keeping in touch. Updates on the number of pills I was taking and who shared what in the Honesty Circle that morning wouldn’t have been terribly exciting.”
“I would have thought so.” Another smile sent her stomach swirling.
“Stop.” Natalie laughed and shook her head. “I’m not falling for your charm. Besides, I already said
you could drive the stupid car so you can quit trying so hard.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I have no charm.” Tanner ran a finger down the side of her face, sent a shiver down her spine. “And right now I couldn’t care less about the stupid car.”
“What are you thinking then?” Oh, she really shouldn’t have asked.
He stared at her for a long moment, then sighed. “If you must know, I’m wondering whether you might let me kiss you without telling me I look like a Backstreet Boy.”
He wanted to kiss her?
“Oh.” Natalie took a step back, fear fluttering in her throat. “Um. No.” Letting Tanner Collins kiss her would only add to her confusion. “That would be a terrible idea.”
“Probably.” He put his arms around her, placed his lips above her eyebrow, and pressed them against her skin, creating a pull of desire she couldn’t ignore. “But I seem to be living a little dangerously this evening.” His soft lips moved to explore the space between her eyes.
“Tanner,” she breathed his name, hardly able to stand. She pushed her hands against his chest. “Did you have too much wine?” Because he simply couldn’t be sober. A sober Tanner Collins would never dream of kissing her.
“Natalie.” Tanner placed his hands around her face again, his gaze smoldering. “I don’t drink. I taste it, but I don’t drink it. I’m in full control of all my faculties right now.”
“A vintner that doesn’t drink? Now that’s interesting.”
“It’s a long story.”
“Tell me. It’ll take your mind off doing something you’ll regret.”
“Some other time. And who says I’ll regret it?”
“You will, Tanner. We both will.”
“You don’t want me to kiss you?”
Oh . . . she wanted him to. So much it scared her.
“I didn’t say that.” There was no point in lying. “But we’re just getting to know each other again. It’ll complicate things.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” He stole further reasoning away by bringing his lips to hers.
The moment they connected, Natalie came alive. Electricity pulsed through her as she pressed closer to him. Accepted his kisses, welcomed them. While her brain told her to stop, her body did the opposite. She wound her arms around his neck, let her fingers drift through his hair, and lost herself in the fiery feeling of being wanted, needed.
The Memory of You Page 18