“I hope to hell you’re talking about me.”
Allie jumped at the sound of James’s voice echoing from across the alley. A thrill ran through her at the sight of him standing so rigid and strong, his eyes blazing with clear and intense jealousy.
“For Pete’s sake,” she said, stepping back out of Eric’s personal space and slamming her fists onto her hips, “who the hell else would I be talking about?”
She could see his scowl threatening to turn into a grin. Unwilling to wait, she marched across the street, slapped her hands on either side of his face and tugged him down for a kiss—a possessive, make-no-mistakes, you’re-the-only-man-for-me kiss that came from the depth of her soul and made her toes curl inside her sexy, sassy sandals.
When James wrapped his arms around her and lifted her off the ground, she knew they’d come one step closer to finally breaking down the last barrier.
He set her down, his arms still wrapped around her, which was good because she was pretty sure that otherwise, she would have toppled right off her four-inch heels.
From behind them, Eric cleared his throat.
After exchanging an embarrassed look with James, she twisted around in his arms, then locked her hands over his, which he had crossed possessively over her midsection.
“I’m sorry, Eric,” she said to him from across the alley. “I’ve made my decision.”
Eric clucked his tongue and toed the ground with his deck shoes, but she could tell by the smile in his eyes that he wasn’t surprised. He’d taken a chance and it hadn’t worked out. With his laissez-faire attitude, he’d recover, if he hadn’t already.
“The team would have been stronger with you as a player, Allie, but I see you’ve made up your mind. At least, now I know. Will you be coming back to Port Aransas to present your dissertation?”
“I didn’t work all these years not to finish my doctorate. I’ll be back on Monday. But after the review committee makes their decision, I’m coming back home.” She threw an uncertain glance over her shoulder. “No matter what happens, I’m coming home.”
Nodding, Eric crossed the road, held his hand out to James, who released Allie halfway, just enough to force his damaged right hand into Eric’s and give what she imagined must have been a painful shake. But in true cowboy fashion, he didn’t wince or flinch, though his left hand did squeeze her a little tighter around the middle.
“You’re a lucky man,” Eric said.
“I don’t need a college professor to tell me that,” Hook answered.
Eric smirked. “Don’t you?”
Before Hook could argue, Eric let go of his hand and addressed Allie. “I’ll see you back at the Institute.”
Without a backward glance, he used the diner’s back door to return the way he’d come.
Allie turned around and pressed her cheek to James’s chest. She could hear his heart slamming against his ribs, but even as his beat double-time, hers had slowed to an even, comfortable cadence. After what seemed like a lifetime of uncertainty, she’d made her choice. No matter what happened between her and James, it felt right.
More than right. It felt like heaven.
He pushed her back, but only enough for him to be able to look her in the eye. “So let me get this straight—you’re giving up that job for me?”
In the uncertain light from the streetlamp, his gaze was hard to read.
Hard, but not impossible. Her stomach suddenly dipped with the weight of her choice.
“You don’t think I should?” she asked.
“It’s your choice,” he replied. “But before that guy leaves town, I think you need to know the truth about me. The whole truth. And it isn’t going to be pretty.”
* * *
HOLDING HER SO CLOSE, James was sure Allie could hear his heart thudding against his chest like a grandfather clock on steroids. Maylene’s phone call had caught him completely off-guard. He hadn’t fully understood how much he’d been counting on Allie’s return to the ranch until he’d been faced with even the smallest possibility that she might stand him up.
After years of her chasing him, he’d hopped into his truck and broke every speed limit in the county to reach town before the man who was offering Allie a life in paradise beat him to the punch and stopped him from offering her the world.
Well, maybe not the whole world—but his world—one that would be worth much if she wasn’t the center of it.
“There’s nothing you can tell me about you that I don’t already know,” she assured him.
He held her tighter again, suddenly reluctant to fill in the gaps in their history that could end up derailing all the progress they’d made over the past two days. But she deserved to know everything. Only then could she make the right choice.
“I wish that were true. Fact is, you might want to ask that prof of yours for a little more time before you make your decision about going to the islands.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “You want me to take the job?”
“No way in hell,” he replied.
She laughed. “Well, then, you’re not making any sense. I know everything there is to know about you. I’ve practically been your stalker, remember?”
He laughed, tugged her forward and kissed the top of her head. God, he wished it could all be that easy, but what good things in life ever were?
“Look, I promised your Aunt Maylene that I wouldn’t stick my nose into your career aspirations, and pissing her off isn’t a particularly good idea. No telling what she’ll put into my pie.”
“Oh, God! I forgot the pie!”
“I know,” he grinned, tugging her back close. He didn’t know what she was wearing under this sweet little yellow dress, but he didn’t imagine it was much, judging by the way her ample breasts pressed soft, full and unbound against his chest. He had a strong inclination to hold her here for a while, maybe see just how much room she had in the backseat of her car. “That’s why I came out here to get you.”
“Boy, you really wanted that pie.”
“What I really wanted was you,” he confessed. “Maylene called. She said you’d already left and that you’d forgotten our dessert, but I think that was just a cover for letting me know that some beach-bum professor from the coast had just driven into town looking for you, more than likely to try and influence you into taking off with him to that fancy island instead of making good on our date. I guess she decided I deserved a chance to talk you into turning it down.”
“And I beat you to it,” she said.
He tried to ferret out any sound of regret in her voice, but he didn’t hear anything but irony. And maybe, if he was honest with himself, relief.
“I want you to make the right decision, Allie. I don’t want you to have any regrets. And for that, you need to know the whole story of why I pushed you away.”
God knew he didn’t want her to change her whole life only for things not to work out between them. On the other hand, he wanted a chance to try. And he couldn’t do that if she lived hundreds of miles away.
“I don’t mean to damage your ego or anything, Hook, but I said no for me just as much as I did for you. But if you have something to say, say it.”
“Not here.”
She retrieved her bag from where she’d dropped it, shrugged it over her shoulder and then hooked her arm in his. “Lead the way.”
10
“YOU DON’T WANT TO DRIVE your own car out to the ranch so the whole of Lost Gun doesn’t know whose bed you’re going to be in tonight?” he asked, still hopeful that things would end well with Allie and not with her demanding he take her immediately back to town after vowing to never speak to him again.
Blissfully unaware of what he intended to tell her, she tugged him forward and placed a promissory kiss on his chin. “I don’t give a damn about what people know if you don’t. Besides, I’ve been wanting a ride in that big truck of yours for a long time. If it’s anything like that old pickup you had back in school, I remember the front
cab being rather roomy.”
He chuckled. “It is the old pickup from high school. You just don’t recognize it under all the dents and faded paint.”
She leaned in closer to him, her eyes twinkling with wicked intentions. “Good. Then I’m on familiar territory.”
His abdomen tightened as he led her around to where he’d parked in front of the hardware store beside the diner. An unfamiliar convertible not unlike Allie’s, though a much newer model and sparkling with bright red paint, was parked a couple of cars over. The professor was still inside. As much as James had been craving Maylene’s lemon-meringue pie and had plans for how he wanted to share dessert with the woman beside him, he craved Allie a hell of a lot more. Without a word, he opened the passenger-side door and handed Allie into the cab.
As he hit the highway, she turned up the radio, then scooted over close and locked her small fingers with his damaged ones, her gaze alternating between watching the road and stealing increasingly heated glances.
He remembered the things he used to coax her into doing to him while he was driving his truck. From the combustible glow in her emerald eyes, she hadn’t forgotten, either. One word from him, one shift of his body to give her easy access and he’d be fighting to keep his focus as he traversed the country roads.
But as much as he’d love to feel her hot palm around his rigid sex, the thought of what he had to say to her first kept him cool. There’d be time for that soon. If she listened. If she forgave him.
When he nearly spun out taking the curve around the back of the ranch house, she squealed and braced her hands on the dashboard. By the time he braked, she was flushed and a little out of breath.
“You don’t have to be in such a hurry,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere, remember?”
He hopped out of the truck. “You don’t know that, yet. I can’t offer you paradise, Allie.”
“Can’t you?” she asked. Still in the cab, she slipped her arms around his neck and teased her fingers in his hair.
He reached deep down and pulled out the largest chunk of self-control he had in him. He had all night to show Allie the kind of paradise he could promise, but not until she knew the whole truth.
“I was really pissed at you,” he admitted.
That cooled her jets. She sat back and tilted her head to the side. “When I was talking to Eric?”
“Who? No. I mean, who can blame the guy for wanting to see you in a bikini every day?”
“He’s seen me in a bikini every day for years. We don’t exactly wear lab coats on our research vessels. He’s a good guy, but he’s not the guy for me. You are.”
He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to thank her for choosing him over paradise by making love to her until neither one of them could think or speak or breathe. But first, he had to make sure she’d made the right decision.
“I wasn’t talking about him. When you lost the baby. I was screwed up, you know that. The meds, the pain, the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to bull ride again. Hell, with a bum hand, I wasn’t sure what I’d be able to do. I was angry.”
“You had every right to be. Your whole future had just imploded.”
“I was angry at you.”
She folded her lips together and though her chin quivered for a second, she kept a tight hold on her composure. Lord, she had a tough hide—tougher than he’d ever given her credit for.
“I shouldn’t have told you about being pregnant right before you got on the bull,” she repeated. “I’ve said I was sorry—”
“That’s not what I was angry about. I know you thought that’s why I wouldn’t let you back in my life, but that wasn’t the real reason.”
He yanked his hat off, tossed it in the back of the truck and jabbed his fingers through his hair. God, this sucked. But he couldn’t keep it in anymore.
After his talk with Ginny this afternoon, he’d decided that the only way he and Allie could really make a go at a relationship was to be completely honest and up-front about all that had happened between them. He knew Allie had poured her heart out and he knew her regrets had been genuine. She’d been trying to atone for a long time—but he’d been holding back.
She scooted out of the truck behind him, the heels of her spiky shoes digging into the dirt. “What are you trying to tell me?”
He took a deep breath, then pushed out the words.
“The baby. I was angry about the baby. I thought you lost the baby because you didn’t really want it in the first place. And then you took off so fast for college, I figured you couldn’t get away from me fast enough. As if you’d dodged a bullet.”
As he’d expected, as he’d dreaded, her face fell. She turned away, but he jogged around her so she’d have to face him—him and his cruelest weakness.
“I know now that it was stupid,” he said. “Losing the baby must have killed you the same way it killed me and when I pushed you away, you just threw yourself into school to keep sane. I get it now. It took a long time for my good sense to kick back in. But by then, I felt like such an idiot, I couldn’t face this moment, telling you why I wouldn’t let you close again for so long.”
“Then why are telling me this now?”
Her voice had a bite of rage, which he deserved. It was bad enough that she’d spent the last nine years thinking he blamed her for the injury to his hand, but adding to it that he’d thought she’d lost the baby on purpose was a hard truth to bear. But he couldn’t make excuses or pretend his anger toward her was at all reasonable or justified. If they were going to make a run at a real reunion, they had to start with a totally clean slate—or at least, they had to clear out all the ugly anger, resentment and sadness.
“I was wrong. I was a fool. I was stupid and mean and self-centered.”
He took a step forward and he was shocked that she didn’t push him away. Though her eyes were wary, she allowed him close enough to crook his finger beneath her chin, and she turned her face up to his.
“Before you turn down a dream job on a tropical island, you need to know what kind of first-class idiot you’ll be getting instead. I’m fully aware of my stupidity and I have every intention of spending the rest of my life proving that I’ve gotten a lot smarter since then. And I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
She shook her head and he took this as a sign to back away. As much as he desperately wanted to wrap her up in his arms and squeeze the anguish out of her, he couldn’t. She had to come to terms with it on her own.
After several long, torturous minutes, she held out her palm.
“Keys?”
She wanted to leave? Of course, she did. He dug into his pocket, trying to squelch the image of her tearing back to town and finding her professor and not only taking the job, but using the man for angry revenge sex that would make her more miserable than he was.
But he didn’t have the right to stop her. He handed her the keys and she climbed into the driver’s seat. She slammed the door and started up the engine, but she didn’t leave.
Through the window, he watched her brace her hands on the steering wheel as if she was doing ninety around a treacherous bend rather than sitting still behind his house. Her lips moved and without being able to hear a word, knew she was cursing a blue streak. He stepped closer, his heart aching. God, he hoped she wasn’t crying. He’d caused her enough tears. Even on his best behavior, he’d never make up for what he’d put her through, then or now.
She fumbled around the cab as if looking for the gear, but finally, she rolled down the window.
“Well?”
He stepped even closer, half-afraid she was waiting for him to get his feet under the wheels so she could run them over.
“Well, what?”
She looked at him as if he was the most idiotic man on the planet.
“What are you waiting for? Get in the damned truck.”
He wasn’t about to argue. If there was one thing he’d learned over the past nine years, it was that when Allie
Barrie set her mind to something, he was better off just giving in and going along for the ride.
* * *
ALLIE WAS HURT. How could he have thought so little of her? Knowing that he’d thought, even if only in his weakest moment, that she’d been glad about the miscarriage, tore at her insides like a great white on a feeding frenzy. Once she’d moved away from Lost Gun and had thrown herself into school, there had been moments—short, shameful moments—when she’d been thankful she didn’t have to face a future as a single mother.
But not even those selfish thoughts had diminished the ache she’d felt for that lost child. The lost future.
Nothing except time. Distance. Maybe a little wisdom. They’d both been young. They’d both made mistakes. They’d both been unprepared to handle the instantaneous deconstruction of the relationship they’d immersed themselves in for four blissful years when their disagreements had been over nothing more than which movie to go see on the weekend or who should say goodbye first when they ended one of their late-night phone calls. When real trouble had brewed, they’d faltered. Failed.
And yet, that was then—this was now. Growing up had meant accepting the fallibility of her choices and the inevitability of pain. Didn’t tragedy make triumph so much sweeter? As much as she thought she should conjure up a lot more hurt over what James had just told her, the longer she drove, the more her sadness waned. The past was the past. And with the future she’d fought for so close at hand, she simply couldn’t muster up the energy to stay mad.
How could she, when she loved him so completely?
“So, where are we headed?” he asked once she made a turn that revealed that she wasn’t going back to town.
She kept her smile small. “You don’t recognize the route?”
Truth was, he hadn’t been watching the road. From the moment he’d jumped into the cab beside her, his gaze hadn’t left her. Now, he took a second to mark their location and once he put two and two together, his grin matched hers.
Blazing Bedtime Stories, Volume VIII: The Cowboy Who Never Grew UpHooked Page 17