by Maisey Yates
They were aware that each other was a man and a woman. Even if their relationship was platonic.
She took a breath and emerged.
He was sitting on the couch, having helped himself to a glass of wine.
“Well?”
He frowned. “What are you buying a dress for?”
She decided not to answer that. “Give me your opinion on the dress first. Then tell me about West.”
“The red one’s better.”
She squinted. “Why?”
“Because it’s red. And it’s tighter.”
“Are men really that simple?”
“Yes,” he said easily, taking a sip of his wine. “West is a convicted criminal.”
“Really?” Well, that was interesting.
“Yes. I mean, I guess he was cleared of his last few charges. But he was convicted of a few things in high school that he definitely did.”
“So he should fit right in with the Daltons.”
Caleb laughed, the sound containing a bit of an edge. “I guess.”
“Do you like him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t say it like that. Like it was a stupid question. It’s not a stupid question.”
“Of course it’s not a stupid question,” he said quickly.
“Then don’t look at me like I’m stupid.”
He huffed out a frustrated breath. “What’s the deal with the dresses?”
She didn’t want to lie to him. But she didn’t want to tell him, either. But it would be dumb not to tell him. “I...I’m working on my Christmas list,” she said.
“What?”
“I... Look, you’re making some changes. And the more that I thought about it the more I realized I’m a little bit jealous of you. I want to change things. I want to change...me. I want an excuse to buy a dress. I want to go out. I want to... I want to dance.”
“That’s on your list?” he asked, clearly dumbfounded by the concept.
“Yes,” she said.
His expression was impossible to read, his face blank.
“But first I have to buy a dress. I have to pick one. And I’m having trouble because I haven’t worn a dress and gone out since I was twenty-three years old, and hadn’t had a baby. And even then I had a husband, so I wasn’t trying to look...good for other men.”
“You’re trying to look good for men,” he echoed.
“Yes,” she said. “I would really like to look good for men, so that I can dance. And if I don’t look good, no one will ask me to dance.”
He narrowed his eyes. “It may come as a shock to you, Ellie, but women can ask men to dance, too.”
“I know that,” she said. “But I don’t want to be some sad widow accosting men, trying to get a pity lap around the dance floor to the tune of ‘Bubba Shot the Jukebox.’”
He only looked at her. His eyes neutral, his lips pressed into a grim line. “The word widow is not stamped on your forehead,” he said, his voice hard.
That comment, dry though it was, made her pause. Because she realized that a part of her had imagined it might be.
That widow was stamped on her forehead, and mother was perhaps written boldly across her arms.
Well, definitely her stomach.
All kinds of things that would make men want to avoid her or lend weight to something she just wanted to be light.
“I just want to go out and have fun. I don’t want to talk to anybody about my life. I don’t want to...have anything serious happen. I just want... Christmas is beautiful. And they’re going to start decorating town, and the bars are going to be packed full of extra people that came in to see the big Christmas celebration. I just want to be with that. In that.”
She realized that that probably sounded stupid. That it sounded sad.
Well, she was a little bit sad. Sometimes.
She sighed heavily and sat down on the couch next to Caleb, a wedge of couch about the width of her hand between them. She rested her hand in that space for a moment, and the heat from his thigh seemed too warm. She moved it back on her own leg, and it still felt fuzzy. Strange.
She swallowed. “Don’t you ever just want to pretend that...your life doesn’t exist?”
“I don’t...” He looked over at her, his brows knit together. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t mean that I’m not alive. I mean, sometimes I want to pretend to be someone else. Just for a couple of hours. Like I’m the kind of person who could go out and have a drink. And dance. And wear a pretty dress. I never really did any of that. I met Clint, and I don’t regret that. But... Now this is my life. It’s shaped mostly by not having him. And I want to be able to do things...
“Like someone who didn’t lose someone. Just for a couple of hours. Someone who doesn’t have a mountain of baggage and a thousand responsibilities. Not forever. Just for an evening.” She let her head fall back against the couch, and turned her face so that she was staring at him. “Am I ridiculous?”
“No,” he said, his voice rough.
“I have another dress,” she said.
“Okay,” he said, his voice cautious now.
She pushed herself up off the couch, and suddenly a tightness in her chest eased just a little bit.
She grabbed the last box and went down the hall, closing herself into the bathroom and taking out a green dress that she had chosen because she thought it might enhance that color in her eyes. They could go gold, blue or green depending on what she chose to wear.
She shimmied out of her current dress and put the new one on. It was somewhere between the red and the navy, the neckline more of a narrow V, but lower than the other two.
It clung to her curves, but it didn’t make her feel quite so much like a lumpy sponge with rubber bands wrapped around her.
She walked out slowly, her heels clicking on the floor, and lifted her hands, doing a short turn and then continuing to walk toward Caleb. “What about this?”
He only looked at her for a moment. And then he looked away. “It’s fine.”
“Just fine?”
“Keep it,” he said, the words short.
For some reason he was very clearly no longer here for the discussion and she didn’t know why.
“Okay,” she responded, a little bit disappointed by the reaction.
She didn’t know what she had expected. Something. A little bit more of a reaction, maybe.
“Then I will wear this one,” she said.
“When are you going out dancing? Tonight?” he asked, his tone very neutral.
“Tomorrow night,” she said, lifting her chin. “I figure Saturday night is probably a pretty good...prowling night. For dancing.”
“Yeah,” he said, the word clipped. “I don’t think you really have to prowl to get a dance.”
“Great. Well.”
“Did you need me to babysit for you?”
That question was definitely a little bit hostile.
“No,” she said. “I have a babysitter. But thank you.”
“Great,” he said.
“Great,” she responded.
He stood up. “I should go.”
“You don’t have anything else to tell me about West?”
“Not really.”
“I feel like you came over to talk.”
“I did. And apparently ended up the victim of a fashion show.”
“The victim? I’m so sorry to victimize you with my body.”
That was all she needed. Really, she’d been feeling so good about herself, and he had used the word victim to describe having to sit and look at her.
His face did something strange. A muscle in his cheek twitching, a vein in his neck standing on end.
“I’ll see you later.”
He left his barely
touched wine sitting on the coffee table, and walked out the door of her house.
She huffed and sat down on the couch, then looked over at her phone.
She picked it up and called Vanessa.
“Hello?”
“Hey, pregnant lady,” she said, sounding as grumpy as she felt. “You want to go out with me tomorrow night and go dancing?”
“No,” Vanessa said. “I don’t want to dance. Are you kidding me?”
“Will you go to the bar with me?”
“Well, I could stay home and read one of the Panic books you gave me. But yeah, I can go to the bar with you.”
“I want to dance,” Ellie said.
“Okay,” Vanessa responded. “With anyone in particular?”
“Well. With anyone, in point of fact. Anyone male. In my age group.”
“Okay,” Vanessa reiterated. “I think we can make that happen.”
“Unless we can’t,” she said, knowing she sounded a little bit hysterical. “Maybe men will feel victimized by my very appearance.”
“Are you...okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think I’m okay. I think I’m very okay.”
And when she got off the phone with Vanessa, she determined that she was going to be very, very okay.
She picked up her glass of wine and his, and headed back toward her room.
She didn’t need Caleb to give her affirmation. She could get it all by herself. She wanted to do this. And she liked her dress. That was all that mattered.
And if she ended up keeping the red dress, too, it had nothing to do with him.
Nothing at all.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I MEAN, I GUESS the good news is it won’t be difficult for you to be my designated driver.”
“Yeah,” Vanessa said, turning off her car engine. “Since I’m pregnant, and sober even when I’m not pregnant.”
“Yeah,” Ellie said.
Ellie wasn’t much of a drinker, but she had a feeling that tonight she might need a little bit of liquid courage. She had ended up in the red dress. And she didn’t even know how that had happened. Because she didn’t even like it. But she just kept remembering the way that Caleb had responded to it.
The way that his face had gone all hard, the way that his jaw had turned impossibly square.
Of course, then he had been a jerk.
But he had expressed a clear preference for the red dress, and he was a man. That had been—after all—the point of asking him in the first place. Not that she would have asked him if he had never shown up at her home unannounced, but he had. And since he had, she had figured it was probably a good idea to take advantage of him and his maleness.
If she didn’t take his advice, his top pick, then really, she was just dressing for herself. And there was certainly a place for that. At her age, she was much more inclined to dress for herself as she was to dress for anyone else. She was through with trotting around like a pretty pony and trying to impress men, or, even worse, other women.
Except, tonight the point was a little bit to impress a man. So that he would dance with her.
And maybe kiss her.
And maybe... Maybe eventually...
That last item on her list was the most ambitious. And it terrified her in no small amount.
She took a deep breath and got out of Vanessa’s car.
They had parked across the street from the Gold Valley Saloon. It was dark outside, and she could see through the windows that the bar was packed.
The neon sign that hung above the door was lit, the old gold pan on it like a beacon for those looking not for gold, but a drink. A strange emblem for a bar, she had always thought, but not really a strange one for a town famous for its place during the gold-rush era.
Not that any of that was relevant to her current situation. But it took her mind off the reality of it all.
They got out slowly, and Vanessa looked her up and down. “It’s a good dress,” she said.
For her part, Vanessa was wearing a dress that was dark purple and hugged her curves. Including the baby bump one.
“It’s very tight,” Ellie said.
She had found a pair of underwear that went decently with it, and smoothed out the lines that had been irritating her earlier. Of course, it was not sexy underwear. But then, she hadn’t planned on anyone seeing her underwear. Not tonight. Baby steps.
She had to take baby steps, because her heels were so high, and she wasn’t accustomed to the way they fit anymore.
“Tight is good,” Vanessa said. “Even my dress is tight.” She rubbed her hand over her stomach.
“Yes, and you look charming. I’m afraid that I look like I’m trying too hard.”
Vanessa laughed. “I think it’s pretty safe to say that men like it when women try too hard.”
“Okay. I can take your point there. It’s just been...so long since I actually wanted to get a man’s attention.”
“And...that’s what you want to do?” Vanessa sounded so skeptical that Ellie felt oddly dented.
“I don’t know. It’s more complicated than that. I just want to... I want to have fun.”
“I have never seen anyone look so grim about the notion of having fun.”
“I’m not sure I know how to have fun anymore.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out. We have to go in that bar. We have to go in that bar, and see if we can find some men to dance with us.”
“You’re going to...dance?”
“I don’t know,” Vanessa said. “I might. But then, I’m dancing for two.”
“Also, Jacob might have an issue with that.”
Vanessa laughed. “I’m not actually going to dance with another man. Honestly, Jacob trusts me, but if another guy put his hands on me...”
Vanessa didn’t look upset, marinating on her husband’s jealousy. If anything, she looked pleased.
Ellie was pretty sure Clint wouldn’t have cared if she’d danced with another man. And she wouldn’t have minded if he’d danced with someone else. They just weren’t like that.
For a moment she wondered what it would be like. To have a man be...possessive. The idea made her uncomfortable. But along with the discomfort came something else. Something that spread like a deep ache.
To be wanted so much that a man couldn’t stand it if someone else touched you...
She didn’t like the feeling it created in her. It reminded her too much of that intensity she’d felt as a girl. Wanting her mother to love her, not the string of men she brought into their home, into their lives.
Wanting her mother to have Christmas with her.
Wanting to be enough.
What would it be like to have someone care so much he couldn’t stand it if someone else even looked at her?
Bad. Very bad. That was all stuff she’d put away. Unhealthy nonsense that she’d worked hard to get rid of. She wasn’t going to go...longing for it now.
“Ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be to enact my own plan.”
They looked both ways, and the two of them tottered across the street quickly, and pushed their way into the bar. Immediately, Ellie found herself enveloped by warmth, the smell of beer and country music. It was loud and so full of people that she actually felt better.
She felt anonymous in here. Like the atmosphere itself had wrapped around her like a cloaking device, making it easy for her to slip through the crowd and find a little table in the corner.
Plenty of people were out on this small dance floor, swaying to the beat of Tim McGraw, laughing, smiling. Some clearly more interested in each other’s bodies than in moving to the beat.
Suddenly, she was very glad she was here. Because it looked... It looked fun. And she wanted to be out there.
She was about to stand, g
o over to the bar and get herself a drink when a man came to the table, a cowboy hat on his head, a smile on his face. He was cute, no doubt about it. Probably a couple of years younger than she was, though it was hard to say. But he still had that slim build of a guy in his early twenties rather than his late.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.
“I... Sure,” she said.
“And...a soda for your friend?”
“Thanks,” Vanessa said, grinning widely. “The friend would like a Diet Coke.”
“I’ll go get that with you,” she said. “I’m Ellie.”
He turned and grinned as they made their way across the bar. “Todd.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
Not a terrible name. Kind of reminded her of a cartoon fox. But foxes could be cute. And anyway, his name didn’t matter that much. She didn’t really want to make friends with him. She wanted to dance. And maybe have dancing turn into item three on her list: kissing under the mistletoe.
Which could easily become item five: sex.
She looked at the man, tried to imagine him without his clothes. She couldn’t.
Her brain immediately got stuck on her being out of hers. And that sounded terrible.
She looked straight ahead, and not at him, because for some reason she was afraid he might be able to read her mind.
He ordered them a couple of bottles of beer, handed hers right to her and smiled at her. “What brings you out tonight?” he asked.
“Dancing,” she said.
That she had some other aims was her business and hers alone.
“Well, then I think we should dance.”
The bartender brought Vanessa’s Diet Coke and Todd took hold of it, carrying it back to the table and offering it to her. He was terribly polite, which was lovely, and when Ellie set her beer on the table he took her hand and led her out to the dance floor.
His hand was warm, and it felt nice to be touched by someone. It really did. He grinned and tugged her up against him, one arm around her waist, the other holding her hand as they swayed to the mellow song coming from the jukebox.
This was fun, and she felt marginally exhilarated when the tempo of the song picked up and he spun her, pulling her back up against his body.