He looked at her and swallowed hard. “Ellie, no. I love you for offering, but...”
“It’s not an offer, Ross.” She added a note of firmness. “It’s a gift. Just say thank-you and shut up.”
He didn’t, couldn’t, seem to say anything for a moment, but then Travis said, “Damn! I’ll say thank-you. Give it to me.” He made a grab for the keys, but Ross closed his fingers tightly around them.
“Thank you,” he said. And then he shut up.
Chapter Nine
Ross couldn’t sleep. The sleeping bag under him was lumpy and smelled as though it had been in someone’s attic for twenty years...which maybe it had. Travis and Bobby Joe had been involved in a snore-off for the past couple of hours, their duet rising and falling in a sloughing cacophony. A storm was moving in from the west, and outside, the trees rustled with the advancing wind. In the tent, the air was stale and humid and heavy.
Rolling onto his back, Ross stared at the canvas above his head as it moved in, then out in response to the pull of the wind. Once, there had been nothing he loved more than sleeping outdoors. Once, the sounds of an approaching storm would have had his heart pounding with the anticipation of being out in its wildness. Once, these friends had comprised the only world he had ever imagined he would want.
The restlessness seized him and he lay there in the dark tent, wondering what was wrong. Pre-wedding jitters, he decided. It had to be that. He should have insisted the wedding be held in Chicago, among the people he and Tori worked with. But she was enamored of small towns, of this area of Missouri in particular. She wanted a wedding in a quaint little church, in a quaint little town, with her best friend and his best friend in attendance, and with all the people he so often talked about looking on. He’d filled her head with the characters and stories of his hometown and look where it had gotten him. Right back in Bachelor Falls with the friends he’d left behind.
Nostalgia. That was a part of this, too. Wanting to go back to a simpler time. Although it hadn’t seemed simpler then. Funny that he still enjoyed the same things, that these friends still were the best he had, that his life away from Bachelor Falls was the one he dreaded going back to. In his heart of hearts, he knew this strange little town, in this beautiful area of the Ozark Mountains, would always be the home he yearned to return to. For a moment he imagined himself taking over Doc Spivey’s clinic and taking care of colds, flu, broken bones, rheumatism and whatever else might beset the residents of Bachelor Falls. He and Tori would buy one of the old Victorian houses on Main Street, raise a couple of rowdy kids and he’d drive around town in the ’57 Chevy convertible Ellie had given him for a wedding present.
The image faded as the canvas flapped vigorously over his head. It could never happen, he realized. Tori had their future planned. A house near her parents, dual careers until the first baby arrived, a luxury car for him, a sports car for her...until their growing family required a van. He would play golf on Thursday afternoons. She would join the junior league. And until he’d come home to get married, all her plans had seemed wonderful and worthy and something to cherish.
He had prewedding jitters. That was the only explanation.
Outside, he heard the crunch of a broken twig underfoot and a hushed conversation. He sat up, straining to make sense of the low murmur that floated in random syllables into his tent. Then he heard laughter and a cautioning “Ssshhh!” and knew one of the voices was Ellie’s. What was she doing? Who was she talking to? It was already starting to rain. There was the occasional plop of a raindrop on the canvas and any minute the storm could begin in earnest. Surely she wasn’t outside with Elston. She had more sense than to meet him outside with a storm coming.
Ross frowned, vaguely aware of the fluxing beat of his pulse, vaguely conscious of an increasingly restless energy. So what was going on out there? Or in there? What if Elston had slipped out of his tent and into hers? What if they were together? In Ellie’s tent. Just Elston and Ellie. Pushing at the folds of the sleeping bag, he jerked himself free, pulled on the jeans and shirt he’d taken off before bedding down, and moved to release the tent flap. The wind caught him full in the face, not strong enough to take his breath, but carrying a warning of imminent downpour. He scanned the campsite and saw only the tents and the moving shadows of the tree branches. The flap of Ellie’s tent was unsecured, blowing loose. So was the flap of the other three-man tent, the one Brad Elston was sharing with Ned and Shorty. His gaze snapped back to the smaller tent.
Ellie was in there with Brad. Ross knew it, felt the jolt of knowledge deep in his bones. She ought to know better. Did know better than to get mixed up with a loser like Brad. But what if Brad had slipped into her tent uninvited? What if she needed help to get rid of him? What if...? Ross crossed the campsite in four long strides, stepping over what remained of the fire, and ducking down to push aside the flap and peer inside Ellie’s tent. It was dark, and he sensed rather than saw her startled movement as she sat straight up. “Ross?” she whispered hoarsely.
He sank back on his heels and held the flap higher so he could see if there was a second shape occupying her sleeping bag. “Where’s Elston?”
“What?” She leaned forward, bringing her face out of the deepest shadows of the tent. “He was with me a few minutes ago. We both got up at the same time, and... Why? Has something happened to him? Is he hurt?”
“Not yet,” Ross said, realizing with a razoredged anger that he’d been right. Elston had been here. With Ellie. “He was here, though? With you?”
“Yes. I told you that already.”
“Is he coming back?”
“I certainly hope so. He couldn’t have gone very...” Her whisper stopped. “What’s happened to him, Ross? What’s wrong?”
Ross didn’t recognize the hot, hammering pulse-beat that rose like a tidal wave of disaster in his veins. He simply felt it sweep through him, a thing apart, a force he hadn’t the means or the will to control. “You could have told me, Ellie, instead of letting me find out like this.”
“Find out what?”
The defensive note in her voice pushed him on to indiscretion. “You could have told me you were sleeping with Elston. Then I would have known not to act like your outraged big brother when he was making his stupid Chicken Little remarks, when he was intimating that the two of you were paradise on wheels together.”
“What?” The word cracked in the stillness. And then she was grabbing his arm and jerking him inside the tent with her, pulling the flap in after him and securing it to stop its irritating motion. “What in the hell are you talking about, Ross?”
It was claustrophobic inside the small tent and all he could see in front of him was the dark shape that was Ellie. All he could hear was the quick in and out of her breathing. All he could smell was her smell. Her annoyance was like another presence, like an uninvited guest for dinner. Outside, the rain began and pelted the canvas walls surrounding them. Sense returned with the clarity of a cold shower. But it was a little too late to retreat quietly back to his own tent. Too late to stop this intrusion before it got started. Too late to analyze the emotion that had brought him here in the midst of this dark and stormy midnight.
“Ross,” she repeated in a soft, threatening whisper. “What is wrong with you?”
There was nothing for it but sheer, unadulterated brazenness. “Are you sleeping with Elston?”
“Brad?”
“Well, now we both know who we’re talking about. Are you sleeping with him?”
“This is a joke, right? Brad put you up to this, didn’t he?”
“Why would he do that? He, at least, must know if you’re having sex with him.”
“Sex?” Her voice rose, shrill above the sounds of the rain. “You think I’m having sex? In a tent? With all my friends sleeping not ten feet away? Is that what this is about? You’re thinking my fantasy is to have sex with Brad Elston while camping out with you and four other males?”
“Keep your voice down,” he
cautioned. “Do you want them to hear you?”
“Oh, no,” she said even louder. “I don’t want them to hear me. I want them to catch me having sex with Brad. Oh, but Brad isn’t here, is he, Ross? You are!”
She was losing it. Ross could tell. And just when he needed it most, his anger vanished. She wasn’t sleeping with Brad. It had been stupid to even think... Maybe he’d been asleep and just dreamed this. Maybe he was going to wake up in his own sleeping bag and remember how mad she’d been in his dream and when he told her about it, they’d both laugh.
But he could hear the rain pounding down on her tent. He could feel her breath on his face, the agitated rise and fall of her breasts against his bare arm. If this was a dream, it was turning into a nightmare.
“Calm down,” he said, though he knew immediately that was not what he should have said.
“Calm down,” she repeated in a voice of deadly calm. “Calm down. You burst into my tent in the middle of a thunderstorm and accuse me of sleeping with one of my friends and I’m supposed to be calm and tell you that you’re just mistaken?”
“I don’t think all of our friends need to hear this.”
“Oh, I don’t see why not. If I have to defend myself—which, by the way, is not what I’m doing here—if I have to defend the perfectly legitimate privilege of sex between consenting adults—and I am old enough to consent, Ross—then maybe all of my friends need to hear this. Maybe I should write it up and get it printed in the Gazette for everyone to read—Ellie Applegate is not having sex with her friend Brad Elston. Ellie Applegate is not having sex, period. Although she could, if she wanted to.”
“Ellie—”
“And if she wanted to, it wouldn’t be any of her friends’ business! It wouldn’t even be her best friend’s business! It wouldn’t be anybody’s business, but hers and whoever she decided to have sex with!”
“Ellie—”
“Look, Ross, I can understand you being nervous and tense about getting married, but this is completely bizarre behavior. And you know what else? It really isn’t any of your business!”
“Ellie—”
“You have nothing to say about whose sleeping bag I’m sleeping in. You have nothing to say about who gets to sleep in mine. Get it? It’s none of your business if I’m hopping in and out of sleeping bags all over the country.”
“Ellie—” He stopped, assuming she would interrupt him again, and when she didn’t, it took him a second to realize he had the floor. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You’d better be really, really sorry.”
“I’m really, really sorry. I am.”
“I cannot believe you thought—”
“I must have been having a nightmare or something.” It was a cheap excuse, but the only one he thought she might find plausible. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“This isn’t like you, Ross.”
She was behaving a little strangely, too, he thought. And she didn’t even have prewedding jitters to blame. But pointing that out would probably not be the wisest response. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“You’ve said that already.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He was sorry he’d barged in on her like he had. But he wasn’t sorry that she wasn’t having sex with Brad. He was relieved. But saying he was sorry sounded better.
She was quiet for a moment and her anger began to feel more like a memory than a presence. “It really isn’t any of your business, you know.”
“I know.” He reached for her hand in the dark, and found something else entirely.
“Ross,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“I was looking for your hand...to give it a squeeze.”
“That isn’t my hand.”
It was awfully close in here, he thought. Not much room at all. And there was warmth under his hand, and fuzz. Lots of fuzz. “What is it?”
“Purple Bunny.”
“I’m squeezing Purple Bunny?” He pulled the rabbit toward him. “He’s gotten fat, since the last time I squeezed him.”
“I stuffed my jeans and T-shirt into that little pocket he has down his back. The one Lana and Kelly and I used to use to send notes to one another. Gives me a place to keep my clothes and makes a pretty good pillow for a camp-out.”
Ross’s listening ability stumbled at the very beginning. “If the rabbit is using your clothes for stuffing,” he asked, because it seemed important for him to know, “what are you wearing?”
“I travel light, but I never go anywhere without my Bachelor Daze Run The Gauntlet souvenir T-shirt. Can’t sleep without it.”
He laughed softly, relaxing into the welcome darkness with its attending summer shower. Ellie always had this effect on him. No matter how angry they might get, or what bizarre things they said, it somehow always came out like this...with the gentle sharing of memories and the comforting knowledge that their friendship could survive anything. “I suppose you’re prepared to run tackle for me Friday at the forty-seventh running of the gauntlet.”
“You betcha. I’ve got my football padding and I’m set.” She paused. “But once we get to the falls, you’re on your own. I’m not going to push you into the falls, Ross. I mean, I know that, as your best man, I’m supposed to try. And it’s not like either one of us believes that it means anything if I did push you in. You’d still get married Saturday, regardless. But just in case there’s any truth at all...”
“The Bachelor Daze race is just for fun, Ellie, no matter how seriously some people may feel about it. But I’m giving you fair warning that you couldn’t push me into the falls if you tried. You may have the edge when we play pool, but you are not going to be able to get me in the water come Friday.”
“Really?” She sounded interested in his little challenge. “Don’t have a chance, huh?”
“Not even the glimmer of one.” He could just make out the bobbing of her head in the dark. “So don’t even think about it.”
“Well, okay, if that’s the way you feel—”
“That’s the way I feel.” He tried to shift positions in the cramped one-man quarters and bumped her shoulder hard. He caught her as she fell into the side of the tent and pulled her against him before she capsized and took their shelter down with her. Not that there had been much danger, but his reaction had been strictly reflex. Another reflex kicked in when she put her hands on his arms to right herself and her chin bumped his. Awareness clamped onto him with sudden, sure surprise and in a split second, he went from relaxed to aroused. Wait a minute, he told his over-eager body. This is Ellie. My best friend.
She thankfully didn’t seem to notice anything remarkable about his stillness, didn’t seem to know that there had been a shift in mood, however fleeting it might prove to be. “I’d better go,” he said and was alarmed by the husk of desire he heard in his voice. This is Ellie, he repeated to himself. Ellie. My best friend. “I think the rain may be slacking off a little now,” was what he said to her.
“You think so?” She tilted her head back to listen and his senses were filled with her scent and her hair—all that wild, fragrant hair, curled riotously, sensuously into his awareness. He had to get out of here. Now.
“Yeah.” It was a desperate sound and he fumbled with the release of the tent flap, thinking a couple of minutes out in the rain would snap him out of this. A couple of minutes. That’s all he needed.
“Ross?” Her voice stopped him.
This is Ellie. Just Ellie. He grasped control of his thoughts and held on to them. There was nothing wrong with him. Nothing. He was tense, stressed. He was getting married on Saturday. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to tell you that no matter what stupid things you do, I still love you. As a friend.”
“As a friend,” he repeated, reminding himself of the same thing. They were friends. That was all. Except that he was behaving like an idiot. “Thanks, Ellie. Thanks a lot.”
He didn’t know she was going to hug him until he felt her arms sli
de around his waist, until her hair brushed against his nose and mouth, teasing him with its fragrant summer sweetness. And he was positive she didn’t know he was going to kiss her until the moment his lips closed over hers and the whole world turned upside down.
SOMEWHERE THERE WAS RAIN. A storm. Its energy was everywhere around her, surrounding her...in her. The thunder came from inside, pounding through her veins, roaring in her ears. Lightning heat seared her, consumed her, energized her...changed her. Ross’s kiss was all she knew, the surprising claim of his lips held both discovery and denial. If she’d had any warning, maybe she would have turned her head at the crucial moment and never known the truth that now branded her with its veracity.
Ellie lifted her hand to Ross’s face, felt the scratch of tomorrow’s beard against her palm as their lips clung for a wondrous, torturous eternity. Then she somehow found the strength to pull away. But the storm didn’t end. It lingered in the shaky breaths they each exhaled, in the hot, humid air surrounding them, in the weighty silence that said everything...and nothing. She trembled. Or maybe the whole world trembled.
Rain pounded down on the tent, its steady rhythms the only sound. Ellie wanted to scream into the silence, break it with her voice, shatter it with demands. She wanted to yell at Ross, berate him for being here, for kissing her, for stripping away the most precious illusion she had. She wanted to whisper to him that it was all right, that nothing had changed. She wanted to go back and turn her head, so she would miss his kiss, so she would miss the moment when her world shifted, spun around and brought her face-to-face with the realization that she was in love with her best friend.
“Ellie...?”
Her name was a throaty murmur in the darkness, but she couldn’t answer. She didn’t dare. She shook her head, pleading silently with him to go. Before the torrent of emotion broke free inside her and fatally wounded what was left of their friendship.
Whether Ross saw her movement or simply sensed that there was nothing to be said, Ellie didn’t know. But she felt the air stir as he threw back the entrance flap and moved quickly away from her and into the downpour outside. A mist of rain...or longing...blew against her lips and she almost reached out to stop him. But she didn’t. And he was gone. The tent flap dropped back into place, showering her with raindrops, closing her into darkness, into the terrible fear that she had just lost the best friend she’d ever have.
A Bachelor Falls Page 12