Because she wanted him to want her just as badly as she wanted to not want him when she couldn’t have him. Distance was her best ally.
And he kept stripping her of it.
“I miss being your friend,” he said.
There was a loneliness in his voice, a whisper of a reminder that they could’ve been friends. Real friends. Real lovers. Real—no. No, they never could’ve been more. “Were we friends?”
“We were something.” His thumb brushed her neck. Need pulled her nerves tight, low in her belly. His voice turned husky. “Something good.”
“You’re leaving.” Not something she wanted to think about tonight, but it was her reality.
His thumb drifted higher, his fingers joining in the party at her hairline, and for one beautiful moment, she thought he might correct her.
Tell her he’d stay. Tell her she was worthy of him. Tell her he’d missed Noah too.
That he wanted to try.
He tilted her chin up, stared down at her as if he’d heard her thoughts, but needed to see her to know he’d heard right. As if he needed to hear her ask him to stay.
But she couldn’t do it.
If CJ wanted to stay, if he wanted to take a chance with her and Noah, he would say so.
And if he didn’t, he wasn’t the man she needed him to be.
Heartbreaking as it was, her reality was that simple.
He touched her cheek. “Get some rest,” he said. “Long day tomorrow. See you at eight.”
He pressed a hard kiss to her temple, and then he was gone.
Leaving her alone. As she was apparently supposed to be.
Chapter Eighteen
NAT’S STOMACH was putting a different kind of knot in Knot Fest. As promised, CJ had arrived at 8:00 a.m. to pick her up. He must’ve sweet-talked someone at the T-shirt shop, because he’d brought new team shirts. Today’s were a flattering periwinkle printed with a new logo: The Second Chance Misfits.
If she hadn’t been in danger of falling for him before, the shirts would’ve done her in. They’d certainly made up for his leaving last night. And for not kissing her.
Every time she thought of kissing him, she thought of this afternoon’s Games, and her stomach knotted harder.
This morning’s event was about skill and strength.
Then came the events about love.
That knowledge may have kept Natalie up half the night.
She and CJ were at the edge of the end zone. The field wasn’t large enough to accommodate all twenty-eight couples at once, so the couples were going in three groups. They were in the first.
The high school marching band finished “Chapel of Love,” and the last of the couples took their place at the starting line.
It was go time.
Three couples down, Dad was smiling. Nat had heard both him and Marilyn laugh once or twice in the hospitality tent before the festivities officially kicked off this morning.
It was strange to see Marilyn acting human. Even after yesterday, Nat couldn’t shake her suspicions and distrust.
Old habits died hard.
Beside her, CJ bounced on his toes. “Ready?”
Natalie swallowed and nodded.
On the side of the field at the fifty-yard line, Elsie stepped onto the platform with today’s judges—a local news anchor, a Methodist minister from Willow Glen and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who had recently moved to Bliss.
“Gentlemen,” Elsie said into her mic, her voice booming through the stadium, “welcome to the Hubstacle Course.”
The packed stands erupted in cheers and hollers. Midway up to the right, a portion of the crowd wearing periwinkle T-shirts waved white foam fingers and signs for the Second Chance Misfits.
“Before you is a series of challenges to test your skill as husbands,” Elsie said. “Judging will be not only on your time, but also on your style, and you’ll have the opportunity to earn extra points at the stations along the way, as detailed by the instruction sheets you’ll find there.”
Nat’s heart gave a sentimental pang. Mom should’ve been here.
She’d dreamed up the Hubstacle Course two years ago. One morning, she’d charged into the kitchen wearing a green striped bath towel, her short blonde-gray hair dripping onto her shoulders, and declared, I’ve got it! The pinnacle strength challenge will be a Hubstacle Course. Points for time and style! Then she’d scurried out of the room with a “Be right back, have to write down a few things” tossed back over her shoulder.
And now the Hubstacle Course was here. In two hours, it would be over. All of Mom’s ideas and dreams and hard work, all here, now, without her.
Natalie caught Dad’s eye. He smiled, gave a rueful shake of his head, and she knew he was remembering too.
CJ squeezed her hand. “Okay, Nat?”
She nodded. “Thank you,” she said softly. She was still afraid she’d do something to embarrass Dad or Mom’s memory or CJ, but more, she was so, so grateful to be included today.
CJ swept a gaze around the stadium. “You people are nuts.” His lips tipped up, his fingers fidgeted, and determination settled into his features.
He wanted to win.
Natalie smiled. Whom he wanted to win for didn’t matter. That he was here, fully committed, excited, was wonderful.
It reminded her of the CJ who had come to Bliss five years ago. The thought that he’d made some peace with his past the last couple of months made her happy for him.
“We’ll see you at the other end zone, gentlemen,” Elsie said. “On your marks!”
CJ grinned at Natalie. He waved up at his family, eliciting a call of “Go, Princess!”
“Which one was that?” Natalie asked.
“Rika.”
“Is that a spice?”
“Short for Paprika. Poppy’s twin.”
“Get set!” Elsie said.
More “Yeah, Princess!” cries erupted.
“Go!”
CJ grabbed Natalie’s hand and dragged her to the ten-yard line. He skidded to a stop at their designated table, grabbed the index card with this station’s instructions, then eyeballed their equipment. Coffeemaker, pitcher of water, and canister of Folgers.
“Black?” CJ said to Nat.
He knew how she took her coffee? “Usually. How—”
His grin cut her off. “Ninety-eight percent success rate with knowing what will make a woman happy. Remember?”
He made laughing so easy. “Such an ego.”
“You like it.”
She did.
He slid open the basket on the coffeemaker. No filter.
Looked like one or two of the other tables were missing filters as well. CJ plowed ahead. He grabbed the Folgers, measured out two scoops, closed the basket, and then added the water to the machine and started it.
“I sincerely hope I don’t have to drink that,” Natalie said.
“I kinda hope you do.” He slid her a grin, and she laughed again.
“We should make out while it brews.” He settled his hands at her waist. His eyes gleamed with mischief, but there was a hint of uncertainty in them. As if it mattered to him whether or not she wanted to kiss him.
She rested her hands on his chest. “For the judges?”
“Sure. For them too.”
His shirt was warm, his muscles tight beneath his shirt. She could’ve kissed him. She could’ve kissed him so easily. “You want to gross out your sisters?” Nat said.
“You’re a pain in the ass.”
“That’s a dime. And your coffee’s not brewing.”
“Hell.” He released her and bent under the table, then popped back up. “Unplugged. All fixed.”
Cameramen wandered around the tables. Duke followed, giving the audience a blow-by-blow of each husband’s difficulties.
And the crowd loved it.
By the time CJ’s coffee was ready, most of the other couples were already at the next obstacle at the twenty-yard line. CJ poured the coff
ee cup three-quarters full, then, still holding both the mug and the coffeepot, jerked his head down the field. “Let’s see some hustle.”
Nat pointed at the coffeepot. “You can’t—”
“Sure I can.” He grinned. “Rules said carry a full cup to the end. Didn’t say I can’t take refills.”
That was exactly the sort of thinking that had won him the Husband Games five years ago.
“Go, Nat.”
Together, they raced to their pile of two-by-fours at the twenty-yard line, then backtracked like the other couples, searching for the screws in the grass so CJ could build a free-standing doorframe. The cameras circled. Duke entertained the crowd with his running commentary, and Natalie wished the Hubstacle Course could last forever.
CJ started on the frame when he had enough screws. Natalie kept searching. When she had eight, she darted to deliver them. His drill wrenched out a sickening squeal that ended in an abrupt sputter. He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. “Huh.”
He dropped the battery out, glanced at it, shoved it back in, and pulled the trigger again.
Nothing.
“Oh, no,” Nat whispered.
“Ye of little faith.” He reached into his back pocket and whipped out a multitool, then flipped it open to the screwdriver. “Need six more, Nat. Get back to work.”
“Fine way to talk to your wife.”
“If you were my wife, I would’ve slapped your ass too.”
She stared at him a beat too long. She did love the feel of his hands on her ass.
“Go get the screws, Natalie.” But there was a heat in his eyes that hadn’t been there a minute before, and she felt an answering pull low in her belly.
“You dirty talker, you,” she murmured.
He clamped a board in place between his thighs and lined up the edge with the last piece of the square frame. “You haven’t seen dirty yet.”
Nat scampered back to scour the grass for more screws. There wouldn’t be dirty talk—not after what was coming next—but she was here to support him, so she’d find the screws.
By the time CJ finished his door frame, most every other couple—including Vi and Gilbert—were at the next obstacle. CJ handed Natalie the coffee mug and pot, and then—
“Ohmigod,” Nat squealed.
He hefted her up in his arms, sloshing coffee over both of them. “Style points, right?” He marched her through the doorway, all the way from the twenty-yard line to the thirty-, where he deposited her gently at the edge of the next obstacle.
A temporary floor was laid out, and secondhand couches and recliners and lamps were scattered haphazardly on top of it. CJ plucked the instructions off a torchiere floor lamp. “Put it all in its place,” he read. He grinned at Natalie. “’Bout time I get to use these muscles for something.”
He hefted her into a chair, and then he went to work.
Three floors down, Dad was heaving against a purple floral recliner while Marilyn pointed to a mark on their portion of the floor. The couple closest to Nat and CJ, a younger couple that had won sometime since the flood, were pushing a pockmarked leather sofa to a strip of yellow tape that roughly matched the couch’s length.
CJ heaved and shoved at the furniture on their floor. Natalie couldn’t deny her primal satisfaction at watching him go caveman on the furniture.
He did have nice muscles.
And all too soon, they’d done their job. He had moved up to fourth place, behind Dad and Marilyn.
CJ carried the mug and the coffeepot while they raced to their next station at the forty-yard line. When they arrived, Natalie’s heart cramped.
Mom was up there in heaven laughing right now. She should’ve been here though. On the field. Watching. Celebrating.
This obstacle was the reason she’d created the Hubstacle Course.
Another folding table held three glass mason jars full of a brown substance. CJ set down the coffee. “Open these?” he said. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Natalie said.
He twisted the first lid.
And grunted when it didn’t budge.
No doubt, Mom was watching from her cloud in heaven, cackling gleefully at finally disposing of the stash in the attic.
CJ tried the lid again.
And again.
“Natalie,” he said between grunts, “where the hell did these things come from?”
He twisted and twisted, but nothing gave.
“Grandma Stella,” Nat whispered.
CJ stopped. Looked at her. Wiped his forehead. “How—”
He shook his head, then whacked the jar on the edge of the table.
This time when he twisted, the band came off.
“I think you have to pop the seal too,” Natalie said.
He flipped open his multitool and pried the lid off. “Holy mother,” he gasped. “What is that?”
Natalie’s laughter came from deep, deep inside her.
Around them, other couples were groaning and moaning and shrieking.
But Natalie couldn’t stop laughing. Mom would’ve loved this. “Beets,” she gasped.
Hands on hips, CJ turned to face her. “How long’s Grandma Stella been dead?”
“S-seven y-years.”
“Jesus.”
He grabbed a second can, whacked it against the table, then twisted.
When the lid didn’t budge, he yanked his shirt off.
The crowd whooped.
So did a few of Natalie’s not-anywhere-near-dormant-anymore bits, despite her uncontrollable laughter.
CJ covered the lid with his shirt and twisted again, and this time, the lid came loose. He held the can as far away as possible and popped the lid with his pocket knife. “Good God.”
“Get it off! Get it off!” Claudia Sweeney shrieked four tables down.
“Gilbert, go get that damn drill,” Vi shouted. “We’re getting done with this once and for all.”
There was laughter, there was chanting, there were cameramen gagging and backing away from the tables.
This. This was what Mom had envisioned. A new challenge, nothing anyone had seen before, with reactions to rival the best reality television anywhere. They’d go viral on YouTube, get mentioned on Good Morning America, and Bliss’s place in history would be re-secured.
She’d done it.
Mom had done it.
Natalie’s hands shook. Her laughter faded, a thicker, heavier emotion took its place. Her throat clogged and her eyes stung.
Mom had done it. She should’ve been here to see this. To dance and laugh with Dad. To celebrate her victory. To rule her final Games.
CJ grabbed his last jar. “Where’s the hazmat unit?”
She didn’t answer.
She couldn’t.
“Nat?” CJ said.
She waved her hands at the cans. “Keep going,” she said, but she had to push the words out.
“You’re crying.”
He sounded completely dumbfounded at the thought of a woman crying. He had all those sisters. She couldn’t comprehend how he couldn’t comprehend a woman crying.
“You’re crying,” he repeated.
“Oh, my God, what is that?” the young wife at the next table shrieked. Her husband gagged and spilled the congealed, God-only-knew-how-old beets all over the grass.
The crowd went wild.
This was Mom’s heaven.
She’d done it. And she wasn’t here to see it.
“Hell, Nat.” CJ pulled her into a hug against his warm, solid body. “They’re just beets.”
“Quit.” She shoved his chest, then swiped her eyes. “Win. I—I’m good.”
He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like damn women, but he let her go and grabbed his last jar again. “So your cooking skills are inherited?”
It was impossible to pretend to be insulted, and the laughter felt good. “Nobody had the heart to tell her the beets were terrible.”
“Nobody?”
“She
gave them to half our neighbors, and they gave them back to us.” Natalie’s laughter was born from her soul this time. “Mom couldn’t bring herself to throw them away, so she stored them in the attic. Every year, she made Dad buy new jars and wash them so they looked like the jars we’d eaten and saved for her. We lost so much sentimental stuff in the flood, but the damn beets survived.”
He grunted into the jar lid, then banged it on the table again. “You people make my family look normal.”
A cheer broke through the crowd. A loud, rambunctious, female-voiced chant.
“Princess! Princess! Princess!”
“What’s that about normal?” Natalie said.
She was being obnoxious and she knew it. But he treated her to one of his charming smiles, and she giggled. Soon, they were both laughing.
The last lid gave way. He popped the seal, deposited the open jar on the table, shrugged his shirt back on—damn it—then grabbed the coffee. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Two couples were ahead of them, three keeping pace, and Dad and Marilyn were right on their heels. The last visible obstacle was at the fifty-yard line. Finish line tape stretched across the end zone, but first, they had to tackle a Christmas tree.
CJ groaned at the pile of Christmas lights on the ground beside the fake tree. Natalie huffed out a laugh. “Memories?”
“Nightmares.” He handed over the coffee, then grabbed the tangled string of lights.
“Didn’t get what you wanted for Christmas?”
“After Basil left for college, I was the designated light stringer. If we had one tree, we had five. Every year.”
“So this’ll be no problem.”
He gave her the dubious eye, but he was already untangling the chaotic mess.
He was a natural competitor. But more, he was fun to watch. Engaging.
Hypnotizing.
“You’re doing really well,” she said.
He ducked his head, but she caught the glimmer of light in his smile. “I’m having fun.”
“I’m glad.” Glad that the shadows in his eyes were gone, glad that he was able to enjoy himself, glad that she was here with him.
And so very, very sad that this was almost over. The next two events were all on him.
Blissed (Misfit Brides #1) Page 28