by Lee Kilraine
“No, no, we didn’t.”
“Pfft.” Oh, way to sound intelligent, Swan. It’s just that he was so big and angry. “We did too.”
“We did not make love. Just ask anyone in town.” He tore his gaze from where he had her pinned to look around at the full restaurant, gesturing with his arms to indicate the avid listeners sitting around them. “Everyone knows, right, everyone?”
Everyone agreed in unison. “He can’t get it up!”
“That is so not the truth,” she snarled at him. “And you know it.”
“Truth? Seriously, Lu? And, dude, do you think announcing that we had sex in front of my mother is a problem?”
Oh. My. God. His mother was in the diner?
“Hell, it’s not even unique or shocking. It’s damn near a tradition in our family. So yell at the top of your lungs in the middle of Main Street if you want.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” a worried voice said into the nearly silent eatery. “She could get hit by a car.”
She heard Renee from a few steps behind her. “Relax, Yvette, it was just a figure of speech.”
Tynan leaned down close to her face. So close she saw angry sparks of yellow in both his blue and green eyes. His warm breath heated her face.
“But taking the cabin from me? That I will not forgive you for.” His voice went menacingly soft. “And I will not forget. You knew what that cabin meant to me. I confided in you, for Chrissake.”
“I apologized for that. I’m sorry, sincerely sorry, for what I did.” She hoped he could see how much because this thing between them didn’t feel like it was over. Could it really have meant so much to her and absolutely nothing to him? No, she remembered the look in his eyes. The passion on his face. “And I don’t know what this is, but there’s something between us, dammit, or my name isn’t Lulubelle Stanley Swan.”
“Excuse me, what did you say?”
His ice-cold tone worried her. “I . . . I said there’s something be . . . tween us.”
“No.” He shook his head impatiently. “Your name. What did you say your name is?”
She swallowed. “Lulubelle Stanley Swan.”
“Stanley? Your name is Stanley?”
“Yes—”
“You were Joey’s fiancée?”
“Yes, but—”
The fire died in his eyes as his face slammed into a stiff, somber mask.
“Tynan, I can explain . . .”
“Wait right there. Don’t move.” Tynan pointed at her, then turned and exited through the side door.
People scrambled to the windows to watch where he was going, then scrambled just as quickly back into their seats when he grabbed something out of his truck’s glove compartment and reentered the diner.
“You’re a hard woman to track down, but then, I didn’t know I was looking for a woman. I’m sorry for your loss. Joey was a good man.” He handled the white envelope in his large hands with special care. “This is for you.”
Frowning up at Tynan as he held the envelope out to her, she reached her hand out reflexively and took it from him. When she finally tore her gaze from Tynan and looked down at the envelope, a wave of prickly numbness rushed from her head down through her body, leaving her dizzy.
“I’m not sure what you tracked me down for, but whatever it is, I hope you find it. I really do.”
She stood in disbelief, running the tips of her fingers over Joe’s stilted script. Stanley. Other than her parents, only Joe had known her middle name, and only Joe had ever used it. Tears rushed to her eyes, remembering how Joe used to call her Stanley when he wanted to get her attention.
“I tracked you down to see how you’d moved on.” Lu stared down at the envelope in her numb fingers. The familiar handwriting on the front twisted her stomach inside out. Her gaze floated back up to Tynan’s, unable to hide her pain and confusion.
“You know what I don’t get?” He lifted his hands, only to let them fall with a shake of his head. “Why didn’t you just tell me you were Joey’s girl at the start, or at least when you came back to Climax?”
“I . . .” Her mind and body were numb with shock. Putting her jumbled thoughts into words was impossible. She hugged the letter up against her chest and sucked in a painful breath. “I just . . . couldn’t.”
Tynan clenched his jaw tight, gave her a curt nod, and without another word, turned and left.
Lu watched Tynan walk out the door and all she wanted to do was cry and kick and scream up to the heavens. Just when she’d thought she’d begun to find her way, life dumped her in the middle of nowhere without a map. Again.
Oh, Joe. I sure could use your advice right now. I’ve been lost for so long that I’m afraid I’m never going to find a way back.
“He just needs to calm down. He’ll come back.” Renee wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell him you were Joey’s girl?”
“I guess because somewhere in there, between the time I decided to track him down and the time he kissed me in the elevator, I stopped being Joe’s girl and became Lu Swan—just me.”
Once the tears started to fall, they wouldn’t stop.
Renee’s voice broke through. “Lu? You gonna be okay?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Chapter Twenty
Tynan couldn’t sleep. Not that that was anything new. Only now it wasn’t Joey keeping him awake at night but Joey’s fiancée. Holy Christ. He was having real trouble wrapping his head around who Lu really was.
Lu had been Joey’s fiancée. Unbelievable.
He cut off that train of thought. He couldn’t afford to think about Lu anymore. The clock across the room said it was an hour later than the last time he’d looked. Dammit. He reached out, turning on the light on his bedside table.
Houdini lifted his head to blink at him from his bed in the corner, then went back to sleep. Well, good for you. Glad one of us is sleeping. He had no idea where the cat was. He propped himself up against the heavy chestnut headboard he’d made two years ago, when he’d first returned home, another time when sleep had alluded him.
Sitting up, he pushed and rearranged his pillow, leaned back again and glanced around the room. He could go to the 24/7 and work out, but he didn’t much like working out at—he turned back to the clock—two a.m.
In desperation, he grabbed up the romance book that had been sitting gathering dust since his coerced appearance at the Simon sisters’ book club. He opened the book to a random page and read. Big mistake. He slammed the book closed and tossed it back, where it slid across the table and on to the floor with a plop.
Damn, that was hot, and hot sex made him think of Lu.
Lu Swan was everywhere he turned. She was in his face constantly. And maybe it was his imagination, but why did she smell like vanilla and chocolate? She made his mouth water. Sometimes he had the urge to lick her all over.
And sometimes in his dreams he did, not to mention a few times in real life too. He closed his eyes and saw Lu tangled in his sheets, panting and moaning under him. He heard her release the sweetest sigh as he brought her to orgasm with his hands and his mouth and his cock.
Talk about a mindfuck. Nothing like having the hottest, mind-blowing sex with a woman and then face her fiancé less than an hour later at the poker table. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d dreamed both encounters, it still was drilling guilt into his head. Hell, he hadn’t even known Lu was Joey’s fiancée because she hadn’t bothered to tell him, so why was he feeling so guilty?
Joey’s girl. He felt the words slice at him like knives, cutting deep.
He looked at the dim numbers on the clock again. Ah, hell: 2:17. Throwing the covers off, he lay on his back, letting the fan above him cool his body down. He felt twitchy and frustrated, as if his skin was a size too small for his body. Every muscle tense, as if he needed to sprint toward the horizon and never look back. Still not comfortable, he flipped his pillow over to the cool side and scrunched it up under h
is head.
Closing his eyes was dangerous, but he let go, finally drifting off, and there she was, waiting for him. Standing there in scanty panties and her pink tool belt. And nothing else. Her breasts might be on the small side, but they were perfect. When he reached out to touch her, she wrapped a leather rope around each of his wrists and stapled the leather to the wall, using his Bostitch PowerSlam 20-gauge stapler.
His body was at her mercy and his imagination went places his body had never been. He happily conceded all power to the bent pixie with the sexy mouth. She ran her hands over his body. Their limbs twined together until her body slid down, down, until her knees hit the ground in front of him. She looked up at him through her soft bangs with those gypsy dark eyes, ran her tongue along her pink lips. Her hands warm on his thighs. And she opened her mouth and offered anything and everything he ever wanted.
“Dammit.” He jackknifed up in bed, throwing the pillow across the room. Houdini yelped and moved over to the bed, resting his chin on the mattress. He patted the dog’s head. “Sorry, buddy. Everything’s okay.”
Great. Now I’m lying to my dog. Everything was not okay, dammit. After another few hours of tossing and turning, he finally gave up and got out of bed. What he needed was to head outside and chop wood for two hours. But it was still dark outside, and he probably shouldn’t be swinging an ax with the mood he was in. So, instead he hit up the 24/7, the only thing open in town at five a.m.
Tynan nodded to the college student working at the front desk. After a few minutes of stretching he got right to his workout. He did squats, power cleans, bench presses, and dead lifts, maxing out the weight on each. Still tense, he kept going and cranked out pull-ups, push-ups, and burpees tabata style—twenty seconds of intense exercise and ten seconds of rest, repeated until exhaustion finally released both his body and his mind. He leaned over, resting his hands on his thighs while he attempted to catch his breath. His mind blessedly, numbingly blank.
“Hell, Ty, if that workout didn’t exorcise all your demons, nothing will.” Kaz tossed a small towel to him.
“I just need to evict one pixie.” Straightening up, he scrubbed the towel over his face. “Can you come over to watch Houdini and his cat tomorrow instead of Friday?”
“Sure. I heard about Lu. I’d say small world, but obviously she tracked you down.”
He ran his hand over his eyes. They had that gritty, short-on-sleep feel. “Looks like it.”
“Did she explain why she did it?”
“She tried, but I’m still figuring out if I care enough to know.”
“Sounds fair. So you’re taking an extra day hiking to do it?”
“Yep. It’s that or go crazy. I’ll head out early, if that works for you.”
“I’ll come over tonight and sleep in your guest room.” He stared over Tynan’s shoulder with a grin. “Any other broken locks you want to tell me about?”
“No. Why?” Tynan followed his brother’s gaze out the glass front of the gym. Houdini stood staring in at him, the cat draped casually across his back. “I don’t know how he’s doing it.”
Out in the parking lot, Tynan opened the door of his truck and lifted in both Houdini and the cat. “All right, cat. Let’s play the name game. How about Boots? Ralph? Mr. Sassy Pants? No? You let me know when I get to a name you like.”
As he drove home, he let go of the cat names and made a mental list of all the supplies and equipment he needed to gather. It should be easy, because he always checked and replaced any worn equipment after each trip, and the last few years he’d only made this one trip each year on the anniversary of the darkest day of his life. November 21.
He went to pay his respects out in the elements under the same vast sky they’d all shared that night three years ago. He went alone because no one else in Climax could understand the emotions, the fear, and the loss in a way he needed. It was too soon and too fresh for the survivors of that night to gather. One day they would, just not for a while.
A whiff of noxious fumes had Tynan cranking down the driver’s side window to let in some fresh air. He turned to look at Houdini, who was plastered up against his side, trying to look innocent. “Dude, I told you to stop eating the cat food.”
Thankfully, he pulled into his driveway a few minutes later. They piled out of the truck, took a quick circuit of the lawn to take care of some business, and then Tynan herded them inside to pack and search for Houdini’s escape hatch before heading to work.
* * *
The next morning Tynan was up early, aiming to be on the road before five. Kaz was actually up before him. He found him sitting at his kitchen table having some kind of stare-off with the cat.
“You sure you’re okay with the animals? I mean, I can—”
“Ty, go. We’ll be fine.” Kaz didn’t take his gaze from the cat’s. “Your cat and I are simply having a conversation about its name.”
“Let me know when he tells you what it is.”
“She.”
“Huh. That figures. How did you get close enough to check?”
“Just picked her up. Women like me.”
“That is so weird. Okay, I’m set. You saw that I left my hiking itinerary there on the kitchen table?”
Kaz glanced over at the map and notes on the table and nodded. “Saw it. Good deal. You checked the weather again?”
“Uh-huh. There’s a tropical depression off the East Coast. Predicted to stay out over water, so I’ll probably be hiking in a bit of rain, but that’s all. I’ll be back in three days.”
“Okay. You’ve got the cell phone for an emergency, right?”
“Right.” He nodded. “But that’s adding an extra five ounces in my pack.”
Kaz pointed at him. “That’s the compromise. Otherwise we wouldn’t let you go alone and you’d hate it when we slowed you down.”
“Which is why I packed it. I think I found out how Houdini’s been getting out again. The side door wasn’t latching properly. Fixed it last night, so he should stay put.” Tynan gave Houdini a pat on his head and grabbed up the last bag. “Okay, I’m out. See you in three days.”
Tynan watched Climax disappear in his rearview mirror and released a lungful of pent-up air. Climax was pretty perfect in that small town sort of way. Which was why he’d come back. He had needed normal. He’d needed a place where people still sat on their front porches and gossiped down at the bait and tackle shop.
It could be suffocating, though, when people had their noses stuck so far into your life. He’d shunned all that when he’d first come home, but it was what had saved him. The town and his family. But the anniversary, that cold, dark, devastating day wasn’t something he’d been able to explain to anyone in Climax. Not even his family. You had to have been there—or have lost someone over there—to understand the pain of getting through the twenty-four hours of that day.
Every year it was the same; he almost couldn’t even breathe right that day. It was like the universe thinned out the air on that day, making his chest hurt and slowing down the rotation of the planets. Or, to sum it all up, it sucked. And each year it helped to go off alone, into nature, and hike until every muscle in his body ached. Hike so fast and without stopping so his thoughts and memories couldn’t catch up to him. And then, when he couldn’t move any farther out of shear pain or exhaustion, he pitched a tent or sometimes just a sleeping bag and curled up and escaped those last few hours.
And in those hours of exhausted sleep, the men he’d lost that day joined him. He could feel them close around him, and they’d spend a few unsettled hours together in the dark, cold night. Just like three years ago in Afghanistan. He wouldn’t call it peaceful, but he owed it to them.
God, he couldn’t wait to get into the forest. The first year he went he’d disappeared into the woods for sanity. He’d found something close to it. So he went again last year and found a necessary connection. This year he knew would be different. The wedding had moved him backward. He’d lost ground, and he could
feel his growing agitation. Although he could assign some of that agitation to one petite, smart-mouthed, brown-eyed woman. He’d done a lot of thinking about Lu over the last few sleepless nights, and he intended to come to grips with that, too, while he was out in the woods.
Yes, sir, he was carrying some heavy baggage into the forest with him this year, and he wasn’t planning on carrying it back out. He knew what he needed to do.
Chapter Twenty-one
After paying for his backcountry permit at the park office on the way in, Tynan took the time to review his three-day hiking route. He planned to complete the most strenuous part of the hike the first day and a half. The twelve-mile hike up Heartbreak Ridge, with its two-thousand-foot elevation gain, was steep and unrelenting. He’d hit it hard and fast, clearing his head and exhausting himself. By his calculations, he’d reach the upper falls by midafternoon. That would give him enough time to head far enough down the Backside Trail to set up his tent for the night at the campground near Middle Falls. He glanced up at the overcast skies and figured he’d be hiking in the rain by tomorrow.
He wore a lightweight backpack with minimal equipment. A first aid kit, a flashlight, a water bottle with water purification tablets, a map, rain gear, extra socks. For food he had granola, beef jerky, and protein bars. Not very tasty for sure, but he’d packed to maximize the calories and minimize the weight of his pack.
Oh yeah, and his cell phone for Kaz’s peace of mind, no matter that the odds of service were sketchy at best. The plastic whistle tucked in one of his pockets was more practical than his cell phone. And he had his handgun.
He set off at a blistering pace. A pace that guaranteed his thoughts would be left on the side of the trail, forcefully clearing his mind and focusing on the woods ahead of him. He was ready to escape his thoughts for a while, needing to release the growing agitation that had been dogging him.
These woods were nothing like the landscape over in Afghanistan. Thank God. He’d walked more miles in Afghanistan than he wanted to think about. He remembered, early on in his first deployment, thinking how beautiful the hillsides were. Yeah, that didn’t last long. Not when most of your hiking was at night, while your heart drummed in your chest and drowned out your hearing. Knowing on any given night, in any given moment, you might be in someone’s rifle site sucked the beauty right out of the countryside.