Lauren

by Mima

  Sorrel had her hand around his waist and grinned up at him. He smiled down at her. They both looked happy. And together. He looked up, cozy with Sorrel.

  She was so sick of this old hurt, the inability to understand how the two people she most wanted seemed to constantly align against her. The entire barn was in a pack to be near her, but not Tommy. Oh, no. Not him. Just like before, Tommy failed to move toward her, staying stuck in Sorrel’s arms.

  “Will you freaking get your freaking hands off him?” Her voice was throaty not from the song but her emotion.

  The crowd went nearly silent, heads craning to see what she referred to.

  When Sorrel shot Lauren a disgusted, bitter look, Lauren snapped. Years fell away and Lauren remembered the scent of the incense she used to burn in that old apartment.

  Standing in the cheap wooden doorway, her palm around the doorknob suddenly icy and sweaty at the same time. Sorrel’s breasts plastered to Tommy’s firm chest, both of their swollen mouths gleaming damply, panting with passion, eyes wide and dazed as their flushed faces swung toward her. The sound of voices down the hall, of traffic far below. And Tommy, just standing there, holding Sorrel. Staring back at Lauren. Standing there. No frantic leap back, no fumbled apology. Just stillness.

  Lauren was not going to run away anymore. She was going to take control back from Sorrel-the-goddamn-temptress if it was the last thing she did.

  “How dare you look at me that way!” This was it. Sorrel seemed outraged. Lauren wasn’t going to take this crap anymore. “Yeah, you, Sorrel.”

  Her voice echoed around the barn through the pretty good sound system. “What was that crap down by the river and what is that crap you’ve got your hands all over right now!”

  The band shifted nervously. People turned, staring curiously at Sorrel and Tommy.

  Sorrel shouted something angrily, but her words were lost over the buzzing in Lauren’s ears.

  “Come on up here and say that. Oh, but you can’t just come out and tell the truth, can you? It always has to have a little drama. Well, how about this for drama!”

  Bending, Lauren snatched up a brown beer bottle from the edge of the stage and hurled it. Unfortunately, it was half full and sprayed beer like a deranged sprinkler over the crowd.

  It felt so good to throw it that she grabbed up another one and threw it, too. This one was almost full, and with her angry strength, it sailed quite far. Unlike the first, this one shattered, spraying glass in Sorrel’s direction. She jumped away and stormed forward toward Lauren.

  Lauren had never wanted to rip into someone more. Her body quivered, the crowd roared with bloodlust, and she knew she was one heartbeat from doing bodily harm to someone for the first time in her life.

  Was she going into the crowd to meet Sorrel? Or was she going to keep the wonderful power of this microphone?

  She wanted him and she would not wait. With just a week looming before her and the ghosts of her failed relationships looming behind her, she ached to establish a strong connection. Her hands and feet pushed off hard from the wall. The stones shifted and the water seemed to pour even more firmly against her. She strained forward, flushed, dying to know what her breasts would feel like up against his chest.

  “Well, don’t you have the look of a woman on a mission?” He watched her struggle forward with narrowed eyes.

  Finally she stood before him, the water swishing around her thighs, her body tingling from leaving the cold.

  He held out his hand and she took it, bracing on his strength as she stepped up into the rough grasses. Joining him, she became aware of how much bigger he was, how brawny against her delicate form. Her heart leaped, and she ached for more kisses.

  He held her hand up, turning her in a swirl. “Miss Lauren, shall we head to the dance?”

  To hell with being old-fashioned. Looking into that hazel gaze, she wrenched her hand free from his. Standing a breath from him, close enough to see the stubble coming in on his cheeks, she peeled the straps off both shoulders, lowering her suit. Biting her lip, she stepped up against him. He was chilled and firm. The hair on his chest was strange—soft and icy against her nipples.

  Coasting her fingertips up his arms, she firmly palmed his shoulders.

  “Walt.” It wasn’t a name you could croon. His name came out as a demand, which fit with the ache she carried. Rubbing her breasts against him in a sinuous wave, she stretched and placed a kiss against his throat.

  “Touch me,” she begged.

  There was a moment of tense silence. He stayed like a tree. Then his hands wrapped around her upper arms. Gently but firmly he pushed her back. While her feet were finding new purchase from stepping on a sharp rock, he pulled her wrists from his shoulders.

  “I think we’re done here.” He turned and strode to his shirt.

  Her mouth hung open. The ends of her hair dribbled an icy trail along her back that felt like a claw down her spine. “Walt?”

  “I’ll be honest, Ma’am, I thought you were different. Shoulda known better. I put us in this situation together, which you surely thought was encouragement, so this is on me.”

  Her suit was back on in a flash of disbelief. The long stalks scraped at her legs and itched at her thighs. Snatching up her towel she wrapped it around herself.

  He dried himself off with his shirt, then shrugged into it. His pants were on in a flash. He sat and worked his boots on while she scurried to get into her sandals.

  “Come on, I’ll walk you back to the cabins.”

  “I think I can manage a stroll of fifty yards,” she snapped. Her chest was tight and her face burned.

  “Lauren, I’ve hurt your pride. You’re a very attractive woman and I was kissing you in my underwear. I know it was wrong. I’m sorry for it.”

  She didn’t understand anything except for the obvious fact he’d rejected her. “Don’t let it keep you up at night. I’ll be just fine.”

  “I know you will.” Now his wet shirt was on his shoulders, but hanging unbuttoned. “That’s part of the problem. You have to understand. I come to these hoedowns and meet beautiful women who are here on vacation pretty often. I enjoy their company, it’s true, but with you—with our conversation here at the river, I just was not looking for that.”

  She wanted to take her gauze scarf and wrap it around her like a shroud. She wadded it up in one fist and stomped away.

  He sighed.

  Which made her feel childish. But she wouldn’t turn back even if a stampede came at her right now. As she was coming up to where the riverbank trail came across the ford, he caught up to her.

  “I hope you’ll come up to the hoedown. There’s lots of wonderful people and great live music. Three bands tonight, I hear. I’d love to dance with you.”

  She spun and faced him. Her throat was stiff with tears. Which was crazy. She just met him. “I do not take my top off for guys I just met. I took my top off for you. Because I liked you that much. Because I know we had a connection.”

  He nodded. “And because you’re on vacation and feeling wild and free. I’m not judging you. I’m just saying I’ve tried that in the past and it doesn’t give the connection you want it to.”

  “You are so judging me. You think because we just met it wouldn’t mean anything to me.”

  “I’m saying because we just met, you have no way of knowing what it would mean to me. And if you don’t care about what it means to me, then something else is driving you to feel.”

  His words were too tangled and she was too mad. She crossed her arms. “Clearly you think sex should be all about you.”

  She whirled and continued toward her cabin. The sun was much lower and the heat of the day had faded. She couldn’t wait to pull on a pair of jeans and a sweater. And maybe her robe, too.

  “Are you coming up to the dance?”

  “No!” she shouted back
over her shoulder. She crouched to get her room key, then leaped to the door. She couldn’t get inside fast enough.

  With a growl of frustration, she flung down the towel and scarf, kicked off her loose sandals and tore off her suit. She surged into the shower and stood for a long time under the warm spray, hugging herself.

  Foregoing her jeans and sweater, she put on just the white microfleece robe. Flopping on the bed, she groaned when the band started up, the drums filtering through the cabin walls.

  Over and over in her head she replayed their first conversation near his horse, their comfortable but hyper-aware silence as they put the horse in the corral. Their conversation in the river had been honest. She’d been so drawn to him. Grinding her fists into her eyes, the horrible moment when she offered herself to him flashed over and over and over. She’d liked him so much and they hadn’t even said good-bye.

  She ended up out on the porch before she knew it. The sky was twilight magic of teals and lavender. The music was clearer now, and it wasn’t to her taste, a guitar-heavy kind of country. She sat on the rocker, draping the stiff wool blanket across her lap and curling her feet beneath her. She wondered if Sorrel was up there at the barn.

  “It’s a beautiful night.”

  She jumped when the new male voice came out of the darkness on her left. The cabins weren’t very close together, but the air was completely still. “Yeah,” she said to be polite.

  “Aren’t you going to the dance?”

  “Nope.” Abruptly, she was angry and wondering why the hell not. “Maybe.”

  He chuckled. “Shy?”

  Not really, but taking your suit off in front of an old-fashioned prude made you feel that way. Dejectedly, she muttered, “No.”

  “I’m really nervous,” he said.

  He sounded more excited to her. “About dancing with cowboys?”

  He laughed and something turned in her belly. She went very still. She knew that laugh.

  “No. I think my moves will hold up. I’m here to meet an old friend, but she doesn’t know I’m coming. It’s complicated. I know the owner of this ranch and she set it all up but she wants me to wait and go later.”

  Slowly, Lauren turned her head and peered hard into the darkness. From the light coming out her cabin window, she made out a dark shape sitting on the other cabin’s steps.

  “I guess she wants to talk to her first. It’s her idea so I’m following her lead, but it feels wrong. I feel like she could screw it all up.”

  Her heart beat against her ribs with the force of a battering ram. Lauren stood. “So this person was more than a friend.”

  He was quiet. “Yeah. She was The One, you know?”

  Damn, it was weirdly dark out. Aside from the glowing barn in the distance, there was no light at all. She wanted to see him, even though she was sure. Sorrel, up to her old dramatic tricks.

  Moving to the stairs, she asked, “But you haven’t told her?”

  “Oh, she knew she was the one for me. But I screwed up. She shut me out. There was nothing I could do.”

  “You could have gone to her.” The bare dirt was actually still a bit warm from the day. Ever so carefully, she walked toward him.

  “I tried. Like crazy. For a couple years. She moved, she told her friends and family what I did and they froze me out, too. She’d change her e-mail address every time I found a new one, change her phone number, return my letters. I came to her work and she had security escort me out.”

  Maybe it was the night that let Lauren hear how incredibly confused he still was about that.

  “So maybe you weren’t her One.” She hit a patch of grass between their cabins. It prickled her damp feet.

  “Obviously. Doesn’t mean I can’t try with her again. I know she’s still not with anyone. Maybe this won’t start anything, but I would really like to see her. Talk to her.” He finally noticed she’d come over toward him and stood abruptly. “Oh, hey. Hi.”

  “Sounds like you miss her.” She stuffed her hands into the robe pockets.

  He was just a dark shape, his face a pale blot. The lights in his cabin were out. “I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t think about her every day. But yeah, I really do.” He moved restlessly, gave a small chuckle. “I’m Tom. I’m completely hyped right now. Sorry to dump that all into the night. Are you a counselor by any chance?”

  She could almost hear his sweet smile in his words. Tom, he said. Not Tommy. It had been so long. Suddenly, her ironclad anger at him seemed to have a bad case of rust. They’d been young. Sex made people do stupid things. He made a mistake and she’d crucified them both. It may have been the moral and righteous thing to do, but it had hurt down to her soul and she was very tired of hurting. She missed him, too, even though she wasn’t at all sure he was her One.

  “Tom, it’s Lauren.”

  Again, quiet. He shifted with a soft rustle of clothes. The band’s guitars wailed.

  “Lauren?” he whispered.

  She nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her. “She put us in adjacent cabins. That’s so Sorrel.”

  “I—” He shifted again. “I just told you all that stuff. But I didn’t know.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m an idiot.” He shifted closer. “I didn’t recognize your voice.”

  “I didn’t recognize yours either. But I knew you when you laughed.”

  He came up to her then. They were so close she felt the warmth of him in the ever-cooling night air. But she still couldn’t see him like she wanted.

  “It’s chilly. Will you come in?” he offered.

  “Okay.”

  It was surreal to follow him up onto his porch. His front door featured a rope stapled to it. A lasso, she realized. He flicked the lights on and her breath caught. Tommy—Tom—was older. He’d been lanky and cute. Now he was solid and handsome. His face had matured and his brown hair was shorter, more professional. Her hand flew to the lapel of her robe. She was abruptly aware she stood before him nude and barefoot, without any jewelry or makeup. Her hair hadn’t even been combed.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said softly. He held out his hand to her. “Come in.”

  She put her hand in his and stepped into the room. It was a replica of hers, except the bedspread and curtains were a dark plaid. His fingers were strong and steady.

  “You’re cold.” He went to the heating unit and turned it on, even though the cabin wasn’t that bad.

  “I’ve been swimming.” Walt seemed like a mirage from long ago. “And then I sat out on the porch all wet.”

  He stood there looking at her, awkward. They cleared their throats at the same time, then burst out laughing at the coincidence.

  “Tommy, I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “I can’t believe you are, either.” He shoved his hands into his back pockets, a habit she remembered well. “You cut your hair.”

  Hers had always been very long to Sorrel’s elfin cap. “I change it pretty often now. The bangs are new.” She self-consciously raised her hand and tried to finger comb it.

  He stepped forward and took her hand. “It looks great. It makes your eyes look really vivid.”

  “So you’re Tom now.” Looking at him made her dizzy. The changes in his face fascinated her, but his eyes were still green.

  “Yeah. All grown up.” His thumb stroked over her palm and the air disappeared from the cabin.

  Tom was holding her hand.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “I’ve been doing well.” She swallowed. “It was hard to come out here. I thought Sorrel was gone. I’d heard her family sold the resort.”

  “She’s their GM. When she saw your registration she called and told me to get out here. We stayed in touch on Facebook.” He hesitated, his gaze on their loosely joined hands. “Would you have come if you knew?” />
  Her toes curled in the Berber rug. “I don’t know.”

  “No, really. Would you have come?”

  She shook her head. “It could have gone either way.” Sucking in a huge breath she said in a rush, “I missed you, too.”

  He nodded, looking down at her hand.

  She thought he’d say something about that horrible scene of him in Sorrel’s nearly nude arms. But instead he stepped into her, grabbed her head, and kissed her.

  He was Tom, not Tommy now, but the chemistry they’d always shared roared into place. His mouth soared over hers, flying from one side to the other, then diving deep. His tongue claimed her mouth with a demand Tommy had rarely shown her. She was shocked, and touched. The creaking coffin containing her furious betrayal crumbled into dust. Softening, she leaned into him and flicked her tongue against his.

  He gave a small groan and then the kiss gentled. He stroked her tongue, her teeth, kissing her lips with gliding presses. His hands threaded into her hair, his fingers curling against her nape. She shivered.

  Stepping back, he tore his blue Henley over his head and threw it aside. She blinked at a more firmly muscled Tom. Then he was against her again, kissing so sweetly.

  “Lauren,” he said between breaths. “Just let me touch you for a minute.”

  He seemed taller than she remembered.

  Stop comparing him to the past. It’s been so long. He’s grown. Her inner sex kitten purred.

  What are you doing in his arms? Screamed her common sense and pride. He’s a cheater!

  But he was Tommy, and Tom, and sweet and magical. How odd that she’d left Denver this morning and, after an impetuous swim with a cowboy, discovered Sorrel’s secret revelation through sheer chance. Her fingers stroked up his ribs. She kissed off his mouth and down his throat. The smell of him hit her hard. He wore the scent of nice cologne, very mild, and male, and his skin had a trace of salt.

  He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and held her to him. She tucked her head against his chest and closed her eyes. They stood together, and she could feel how hard his heart hammered against her cheek. The years melted away, and then came rushing back. Her mind whirled. She wasn’t that same shocked, broken girl. She didn’t need Tommy anymore.