18
HE TENSED.
Even through the sudden turmoil in her head, Taylor registered first and foremost the rigidity of his muscles, the taut, pared down expression on his face.Ice arrowed through her.
“It was so good to see you today,” Melissa purred over the answering machine speaker. “I know it was stupid of me to start things in the trailer, but I couldn’t help it. It’s been so long, for both of us, and you felt so good.” She gave a sultry chuckle. “Besides, you know how I’ve always loved nooners with you. And I locked the door.”
Never in her life had Taylor felt so naked as now, draped against Dev’s nude body while the voice of his ex-fiancée—his lover?—came through the phone. The hackles rose on the back of her neck. She moved to rise, but he tightened his arm to hold her against him.
“You’ve got to know how much I love you, Dev. And I know how you feel about me. God, it was so good to have you hold me again. I think today showed us both we need to give it another try. Call me.” She disconnected.
Taylor shoved, pulled, scratched to get loose from him and rose quickly to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Taylor.” Dev caught at her arm, but she shook him off.
Instead she rose to her feet and walked to the chair where she’d left her clothing earlier, slipping into her lingerie. The thing to do was get dressed and get out. Don’t think, she told herself, just dress. Stay calm. Don’t feel this vicious, impossible pain.
“It’s not what you think.”
Her calm shuddered a little at Dev’s voice. She ignored him and stepped into her trousers. The floor creaked, and then he was behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
And calm shattered all to pieces.
She whirled and jerked away. “I was at your trailer today at lunch. The door was locked.” She hadn’t thought she could feel anything more but when he closed his eyes, betrayal sliced through her.
“Taylor, nothing happened.”
“Really?” Her voice cracked. “It sure didn’t sound that way listening to her talk.” She searched for her socks, rescuing them from the corner.
“Look, I didn’t agree to meet her. I walked into the trailer and she was just there. But we didn’t do anything.”
“She seems to think you did.”
“And she’s wrong, as usual. Look, what do you want me to say?”
She glared at him. “I want you to tell me you didn’t have your arms around your fiancée.”
Dev looked at her for a moment in silence, then looked away.
“Right,” Taylor said, buttoning her shirt.
Dev dragged on his jeans and sat on the edge of the bed. “Look,” he said, reaching toward her.
Taylor jerked back. “Just tell me what happened,” she said. “All of it.”
His jaw tightened. “Melissa’s been calling me ever since I went to Mexico. And I haven’t returned one call. I haven’t wanted to,” he said emphatically.
“Then how do you explain that?” she replied, gesturing to the answering machine.
“I went to the trailer today at lunch and she was there, waiting for me. I guess Riley must have let her in.”
“Riley?” Taylor said blankly. “What does he have to do with this?”
Dev shook his head wearily. “He’s her cousin. We met at one of his parties. His mother’s been on him about Melissa and me because no one else besides Riley knows why we broke up.”
“Fine. Then what?”
“She said she wanted to talk. She apologized, said she’d been foolish and regretted it, but that she still loved me. We belonged together, she said, she still wanted me. And then she locked the door.”
“And let me guess, you screamed for the police,” she said sarcastically, jamming her feet into her boots and zipping them up. She was strong enough to get through this, she told herself fiercely. It wasn’t going to flatten her this time. She’d hear him out, see what kind of person he was.
And then she’d walk away and never look back.
Dev dragged his fingers through his hair. “Everything since the Jack and Jill party has just been such a blur. I’ve been so caught up in it—finding her with that guy, going to Mexico, being with you, the craziness back here. It’s all happened too fast.” He raised his head and looked at her, eyes intense. “I haven’t been taking time to think, and that’s been a mistake. That’s how people get hurt. When I was in the trailer with Melissa and she put her arms around me, I realized that—”
The phone rang again. Both of them stared at it until the answering machine clicked and Melissa’s voice came out again. “Dev, honey, pick up the phone, I know you’re there. I can’t stop thinking about you, I can’t stop thinking about touching you. I need to see you. I love you,” she whispered, and hung up.
Taylor stared at him, shaking her head. “I’ve been through this, God, I’ve been through this. I thought it was different this time but it’s just the same.”
“Taylor, nothing happened,” Dev burst out.
The words shivered in the silence of the room.
She stood up slowly. “You know, you were in an awful hurry to get into the shower today. You usually let me in and kiss me hello, you don’t just bolt. It seemed weird at the time, but now maybe it’s not so odd after all.” She glanced at his shirt, then did a double-take and lifted it off the floor by one fingertip and examined the collar. “Estée Lauder cocoa plum? Nice shade of lipstick,” she said cuttingly.
“You’re jumping to conclusions.”
She gave a humorless laugh. “Do you blame me? Your fiancée—”
“Ex-fiancée.”
“Whatever,” she said impatiently. “She calls and talks about touching you and wanting you, her smell and her lipstick is all over your shirt, you bolt to the shower, your trailer was locked. What am I supposed to think?”
“Maybe you could trust me,” he said quietly, staring at her.
“This isn’t the first time that I’ve found the man I love playing around with someone else.”
Dev’s eyes widened at her words, but she didn’t notice.
“Oh, yeah, I’m getting practice. And I’m getting better at walking away all the time,” Taylor said grimly. She wanted to rage, to weep. And finally, she just wanted it over. “You know what, it’s irrelevant whether you did anything or not. What matters is that you still have feelings for her. If you hadn’t, you’d have told me about it.”
“It didn’t mean anything,” he repeated.
She studied him for a moment. “Are you sure about that? Can you honestly tell me you didn’t have any feelings for her in that trailer, that you weren’t at least tempted?” She shook her head. “If you wanted out, Dev, all you had to do was say so. You didn’t have to put me through this.”
“I don’t want out.”
“Well, guess what?” Her eyes flashed. “I do.”
DEV SAT ON THE BED and methodically ran through every curse word he knew. Then he started at the beginning and ran through it all again. Finally he stood up and pulled a shirt on, laced on his work boots. Talking would only tempt him to shout, and thinking would only make him crazy. He knew what he needed to do.
Ten minutes later, he was in what was technically speaking his kitchen, swinging a hammer, losing himself in the controlled violence of pounding nails. Steadily, methodically, he built the studs for the new interior walls, lattices of parallel two-by-fours with top and bottom crown pieces. He focused on the wood and on the job at hand, consciously avoiding thinking about the day he and Taylor had torn down the walls.Torn down his walls, shown him what life could be like.
Sound exploded as Dev slammed 2-inch nails into two-by-fours with such violence that a single blow sank them completely. Over and over, with a numbing repetition, he reached for a nail, grabbed a slab of wood, and created order and structure by the force of his mind and his body. He took grim pleasure in wrestling warped pieces into position, nailing in a temporary fulcrum and muscling them straight, then holding them
, arms trembling, until he could slam them in place with nails.
When his muscles began to ache, he welcomed it. When sweat began dripping, he stripped his shirt off and went onward. He wouldn’t have been able to guess at the passing time; his goal was not to know.
The pounding at his front door had been going on for long minutes before he registered it. Finally he tossed down his hammer, the metal ringing on the bare concrete of the room. With a glance at the clock, he went to face the person at the door, doubtlessly a neighbor complaining about the noise.
It wasn’t.
“Jesus, Dev, I’ve been out here for five minutes. What the hell are you doing?” Riley stood on the porch, face pinched with cold.
Dev turned without a word and walked back into the house.
Riley followed in his wake. “Look, I bet you’re kind of mad at me.”
“What would make you think that?” Dev bit off the words without turning as he walked down the central hall to his kitchen.
Riley stepped into the room and paced around restlessly. “Man, you’ve been going to town in here. I didn’t think you were going to start this for a couple of weeks.”
“The schedule changed.”
“You doing tip up studs or building it piecemeal?”
Dev stopped and looked at him. “Riley, what are you doing here? I’m not in the mood for company, particularly not yours. What do you want?”
Riley shifted uneasily. “I, uh, wanted to see how you were doing. I mean, Melissa called me tonight.”
Dev looked at him coldly. “And you’re here to check it out?”
“No.” Riley stood foursquare. “Look, I told her where to find you, I’ll admit that. But I’m not her weasel. I came here to see what was up with you.”
“Well, as you can see, I’m busy.” Dev picked up the end of a two-by-four.
Riley grabbed the other end and helped Dev align it to the crown piece. “Come on, Dev, don’t be ticked with me.”
Dev picked up his hammer and put a pair of nails between his lips, holding them by the tips. “You think I’m ticked?” he grunted, pounding the hammer down on a nail in a powerful swing. “I’ll clue you in, buddy. This isn’t ticked.” He sank the nail with a second hit. “This is what we call ripshit.” He slammed the second nail, sinking it in a single stroke, and raised his head to look at Riley furiously. “Thanks to you and your helpfulness, everything is completely, totally, and utterly ruined.”
Riley looked chastened as he brought over another two-by-four. “I just thought—”
“No.” Dev cut him off. “That’s the trouble, you didn’t think. Melissa—or your mama—sold you on her little song and dance and you did what she wanted. She’s great at making herself look like the victim when it suits her purposes, and great at screwing everything up when it doesn’t. She lies, she manipulates to get what she wants. And you should know it by now.”
He stopped, abruptly spent, and sat down.
“So you told her things were finished, right?” Riley asked. “That means it’s done.”
Dev shook his head wearily. “Yeah, it’s done all right. And it’s looking like that’s not all. Taylor was here tonight when Melissa called to give me one of her little performances on the answering machine. Before I’d had a chance to tell Taylor about it.”
Riley gave a low whistle.
Dev nodded. “Melissa was in rare form. She spun it out so it sounded like we’d dropped in the trailer and gone at it.”
“So Taylor’s pissed, I take it.”
“No, Taylor’s gone.”
Riley blinked. “Well, just go and explain it to her.”
“I tried to explain it to her.” Dev rose and reached for another nail and his hammer. “She didn’t want to hear it. When you’ve gotten a divorce because you walked in on your husband with another woman, you’re kind of reluctant to cut the next guy much slack.”
“Oh. But you didn’t actually do Melissa, though.” Riley paused. “Did you?” Dev shot him a killing glare. “Right, so it’s not really a crisis. All you have to do is let Taylor cool down and tell her what really happened.”
“Why is she going to listen later when she wouldn’t listen now?”
“I don’t know, maybe she’ll miss you.” He gave a half smile that Dev ignored. “Look, I’ll vouch for you.”
Dev gave him a cold look and slammed home another nail, then dropped the hammer to the floor. He shook his head and put his hands on his hips, staring down at the concrete. “Goddamn it,” he said under his breath.
Riley stood for a moment and stared at the same patch of floor as if he might see whatever Dev’s imagination was conjuring there. Then he coughed and stepped to Dev’s side. “So how did you leave it?”
“You know, I realized something when I was talking with Melissa today,” Dev said, ignoring the question. “I’ve been paying attention to every other damned thing in the world other than what really matters.”
“What does that mean? What really matters? Are you in love with Melissa?”
“No.” Dev kicked the hammer and sent it skittering across the floor. “I’m in love with Taylor.”
19
EARLY AFTERNOON SUN spilled through the front windows of the travel agency, without, for the first time in five months, being blocked by scaffolding. It should have made Taylor feel good that the construction was finally finished.
It didn’t.It would have taken more than just sunlight to brighten her outlook. It would have taken temporary amnesia, a very specific amnesia that left her with no memory of Dev Carson outside of the first time she’d seen him. To have the peace of mind that that would engender, she’d give up Pace-Miller, she’d give up Champlin’s job offer. In exchange for wiping Dev Carson from her mind, she’d give up almost anything.
Unfortunately no one was offering, and short of clonking herself in the head with a brick on the off chance of success, it looked like she’d just have to live with it.
And live with it, she would, she told herself fiercely. After all, it wasn’t as though she hadn’t been through infidelity before. She’d been through it and survived. She’d survived Bennett, she’d survived the divorce, and she’d come back stronger than ever. Then again, getting over Bennett had been like getting over an illness. Getting over Dev felt more like getting past an amputation of a limb, the knowledge that some vital part of her was now gone forever.
The loss was bitter, the betrayal raw and deep. It was unbearable.
She had to find a way to bear it.
Taylor put her fingertips against her eyes, pressing until rainbow patterns appeared behind her closed lids. She had to forget. She had to get past it. It was pointless to think about him, so she told herself every time she thought about him.
It had gotten to where she was telling herself that all the time, because that was how often she thought of him. And why? He wasn’t worth it, she told herself. He wasn’t the man he’d appeared to be. He wasn’t the man she loved.
So why was it she couldn’t stop thinking about him? And wondering if he really had been telling her the truth.
Nicole knocked on the door and Taylor jumped. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I picked up your pictures.” Nicole tossed the red and white drugstore bag on Taylor’s desk.
Dimly she remembered asking Nicole to pick up her developed film, when she found out she was going to the drugstore. “How much was it?” Taylor asked, fumbling for her purse.
Nicole shrugged. “I don’t know. I got some other stuff. The receipt’s in the bag.”
Taylor opened up the film envelope and spilled the glossy stack of images into her hand.
Nicole moved to look over her shoulder and whistled. “Nice. Where’s that?”
“Barbados,” Taylor murmured. Lush and tropical, it would be perfect for the photo album she kept to show prospective customers who needed convincing.
“And that?”
“St. Thomas.”
Sun and sand, white stucco buildi
ngs with brightly painted doors and shutters. Palm trees, aqua ocean.
Dev.
The thought of him was inextricably tied to the hot climates, but Taylor struggled to shrug it off. She had to get used to not thinking about him, because it wasn’t going to get any better otherwise.
The front door jingled, and Nicole straightened up. “I’d better get out there. Glynnis left for lunch when I came in. Don’t put those away, though. I want to finish looking at them later.”
“Sure.”
Nicole paused in the doorway. “You know, if you ever need to send me down there to check out properties and collect photos, I’ll be happy to do it. Just in case you were wondering. I could use a vacation. You know, a hot spot, a hot guy…”
“Be careful what you ask for,” Taylor murmured.
“Or you will surely get it? Baby, that’s what I’m counting on,” Nicole laughed as she turned away.
Absently Taylor flipped through the rest of the stack, a record of two weeks of island hopping. St. Croix, Antigua, St. Lucia. Sultry days, sultry nights, the memories came streaming back as she shuffled through the pictures.
And then she froze. In her hand, glossy and golden, was a smiling photo of her with Dev. They were wrapped together and laughing, the background a lush fantasy of luxuriant palms, vines, and blossoms.
Some part of her mind railed that she was being foolish to stare at something that was done and over. She should enjoy the momentary memory of pleasure and move on. Accept that he wasn’t the one for her. They’d said no strings; the fact that he’d taken a more liberal translation of it was just her bad luck. And even if he hadn’t, he must still have feelings for Melissa or he’d have said something.
Enough, she told herself. It made no sense for pain to gouge her like this. But then feelings had never had much to do with sense anyway. It would get easier, she reminded herself. She had simply gotten used to Dev, that was all. As she became accustomed to his absence, the pain would fade. It had to.
Didn’t it?
Slippery When Wet Page 19