by Katy Paige
Zoë’s were perfect too. What any man wouldn’t give to—
Wait! Stop! He clenched his eyes shut, fisting his hands. Stop thinking about her breasts! Think about Holly. Sweet Holly.
He fumbled, grabbing his phone out of his back pocket and clicked on Holly’s phone number, then quickly hung up before the call connected. She was out to dinner. You don’t want to be a clingy, cloying boyfriend, remember? Anyway, he shouldn’t need to track down Holly just to convince himself he wasn’t interested in Zoë. He was falling hard for Holly, planning to tell her exactly how he felt when he finally saw her in person in a little more than three short weeks.
He stared at Holly’s picture on his phone for a moment, wishing for the first time that he had a close-up of her face. She stood at a bit of a distance from the photographer, under a weeping willow tree beside a bush with small white blossoms and suddenly he wondered what she smelled like. Zoë smelled like honeysuckle. He’d smelled it on her skin as he bent over her knee, and recognized it from his childhood—the thick, sweet, heavy scent of summer, of—
Stop thinking about how she smells!
Feeling frantic, he opened a text box.
Sweetheart. I miss you. I can’t wait to see you. Twenty-five days. –P
He pressed send then studied the words, feeling better. He scrolled back to the picture of Holly, taking in her hair and her pretty white dress, the pink shoes on her little feet. She was the person he was falling in love with, with whom he wanted to build something real and enduring. Holly. Not Zoë, who he barely knew at all.
He smiled at her sweet picture, feeling centered, and put the phone back in his pocket. Zoë seemed like a really nice person and he was grateful to her for saving his dog. But Paul was already taken by the prettiest, most amazing girl in the world, and no one, including edgy Zoë from Rhode Island with perfect ta-tas, was going to change that.
CHAPTER 9
As Zoë stepped out of the shower her phone buzzed on the bedside table:
Sweetheart. I miss you. I can’t wait to see you. Twenty-five days. –P
Envy colored the words green and she actually considered throwing the phone across the room before stopping herself. That would be crazy. That would mean she was jealous of…herself.
Rolling her eyes at the absurdity of the situation, she took a deep breath, backing away from the big pile of crazy in her head, and placed her phone gently back down on the bedside table.
She never, ever should have let things get this far. She should have been up front with him from the beginning. She should have handed him Cleo, put out her hand and said, “My full name’s Zoë Holly Flannigan and you’ve been writing to me for over a month now. I know I don’t look like the blonde girl in the white dress, but I promise you that’s who I am, and if you’ll give me a chance, I’ll explain everything and hopefully you’ll understand how all of this happened.”
Right.
He would have looked her up and down with horrified realization, called her a liar and slammed the door in her face.
She saw the way he’d backed away from her when he said, “It’s my girlfriend’s favorite movie too,” and she understood his true meaning: he wasn’t available to her.
Then again, she thought, letting the towel drop provocatively to her waist and staring at her naked breasts in the mirror, he hadn’t looked at her like she was a leper either. Her breasts were full and firm, almost perfectly round with deep pink areolas and pink rosebud nipples. Several times she’d caught his eyes flicking to her chest with interest, and he’d certainly held onto her hand longer than he’d needed to, both times.
Zoë let the rest of the towel drop, inspecting the rest of her body in the mirror. Her eyes were drawn to the scar on her leg first, but she didn’t focus on it. She could see the extra pounds holding on to her frame, especially in the swell of her hips, but she didn’t really mind them. They gave her womanly curves that weren’t unattractive. She turned slightly, looking at her backside and decided that she’d lost enough weight. She didn’t need or want to be skinny Holly anymore.
What would he think of her body? she wondered, tilting her head to the side, as he’d done. Would he ever have a chance to see it?
She certainly hoped so.
Their chemistry had been, in a word, electric, and she knew he felt it too or he wouldn’t have looked so guilty about Holly.
For Zoë’s part, she could never remember being so acutely aware of a man in her entire life. While it was possible her senses were primed from their intense correspondence, the physical attraction could have gone either way in person. There was no mistaking the way it had gone for her. She shivered remembering his smell, his voice, the warmth of his skin, his breath as he blew lightly on her knee.
While she pulled on black panties and a matching black lace bra, a single thought appeared and planted itself in her brain:
Why do you have to tell him?
Zoë looked closely at her face, into her own blue eyes, before covering them with contacts, as she let the question bounce around in her head.
Because it’s the right thing to do.
She knew it was the right thing to do. Hell, she’d bought a ticket and come all the way to Montana to tell him, to do the right thing. But now that she was here…now that she’d seen him and spoken to him, touched him…the stakes were higher. Infinitely higher. She couldn’t bear to lose him now.
But you will. You’ll lose him if you tell him.
She put her hands on her hips, taking a deep breath. It was probably true. Paul had always been so honest with her, so forthright. If she told him she’d been lying to him about important parts of her life, he wouldn’t hear her. No matter what her reasons. No matter what she said.
What if you gave him a day to get to know you? Just a day, no more. You’re off to such a good start. Wouldn’t the truth go over better if you weren’t some anonymous stranger when you finally told him who you were?
Zoë was in love with Paul.
She’d been intimately connected to his head and heart for weeks now; the only wild card had been whether or not they’d have chemistry. Now that she knew they did, or the real potential for it, at least, her feelings were growing exponentially. She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t risk telling him too soon and having him walk away from her.
He cares for you as Holly…if you gave him a chance to get to know Zoë too, and if he liked her, wouldn’t he be more likely to give Zoë Holly a chance? Wouldn’t it be harder for him to turn his back on you if he liked you both?
It made sense. It would be easy for him to turn his back on Zoë if he didn’t know her. But if he got to know her a little and liked her, well…maybe he’d be more apt to give her a chance.
Just don’t tell him tonight. Don’t rush to tell him the truth only to lose him entirely.
Zoë took another deep breath, the idea gaining traction.
I have every intention of telling him. Just tomorrow, instead of today.
A few hours difference wouldn’t matter, would it? And she was sure that those few hours letting him get to know Zoë would soften the blow when she finally admitted she was Holly too.
Tomorrow, she promised herself. No question. I’ll just enjoy him tonight and I’ll definitely, definitely tell him tomorrow.
She hoped she wasn’t making a massive mistake, but couldn’t help but feel that letting him get to know her a little bit couldn’t make matters worse at this point, and maybe, as she had reasoned, it would even help her cause. Plus, truth be told, she just wanted to enjoy him for a few hours. She just wanted to see him hanging out with his friends, sit next to him, walk beside him, get to know him in person without the complication of her real identity.
You mean the betrayal of your real identity, one small part of her heart whispered, not letting her entirely off the hook.
“Just one night,” she whispered back out loud. “Please. Can’t I just have that? Then I’ll tell him. I promise.”
She
smiled at herself in the mirror, tentatively at first, then broader as she thought of his kindness to her, how gently and tenderly he’d cleaned her wound, blowing on it, bandaging it. A shiver of pleasure went down her spine and her eyes softened as she bit her lip lightly with longing.
“Just one night,” she whispered again.
She pulled on an ankle-length black column skirt, a plunging light blue tank top and a black cardigan sweater which she pushed up to her elbows. She ran some mousse through her hair until it was slick and sleek, then curled up the ends in a kicky flip and added a pair of black sunglasses as a hair band. She put a silver bangle bracelet around her wrist and the silver heart back around her neck. Slipping her feet back into black flip-flops, she surveyed herself in the mirror. Not bad. Not bad at all. She adjusted the top of the tank top a little, until the swell of her cleavage showed off her assets without being slutty. If she was going to keep deceiving him for one more night, she may as well make the most of it.
“One night. Make it count,” she whispered to herself, thinking of how much was at stake. She placed a cool hand over the warm skin atop her thumping heart, feeling the strength of the beat, trying to convince herself that she could navigate this unchartered territory.
You must, she thought. You can’t lose him.
Nodding to her reflection with finality, she set about doing her makeup as carefully as possible, then grabbed her old-fashioned metal key and headed downstairs to wait for Paul.
***
He groaned softly when he saw her on the porch swing.
It’s not like he could have asked her to wear a poncho for their coffee date, but she wasn’t making things easy on him. She was wearing some form-fitting blue top that outlined her perfect chest, creating a tempting swell of soft, creamy skin that made his fingers twitch.
Did she have to look so good? So edgy and urban and put together? She looked like a Bostonian or New Yorker, and something inside of Paul responded to her look after years of seeing women in cowboy hats and western boots. She looked like she was ready for a late summer stroll in downtown Cambridge or Greenwich Village, and Paul sort of loved the familiarity of this strange, intriguing visitor.
He had promised himself not to look at her body at all, only her face, but this plan wasn’t exactly helping him to feel less attracted to her. Looking at her deep dark brown eyes was just as captivating as looking at her perfect chest. Those eyes seemed to beckon him as she stood up from the front porch swing at the Mountain View Inn, wide and vulnerable eyes, drawing him in, her lips turning up slightly in a tentative smile.
“Hey, Zoë,” he called from the foot of the stairs, determined to keep their outing light and friendly, despite the effect she had on him. “Ready for coffee?”
When she took a step toward him, he realized that she favored her left leg pretty significantly. Had she hurt herself today? More than a skinned knee?
“How’s the leg?” he asked, feeling worried about her, looking up to meet her eyes.
He saw something troubled, but vague, pass over her face as she shrugged. “It’s fine. Just a little skinned.”
Had he imagined the instability in her balance as she stood up? He barely noticed it as she approached him, but it didn’t stop him from instinctively offering her his hand as she reached the top of the stairs. She seemed surprised, but pleased, and slipped her hand into his, letting him help her down the stairs.
“I love the weather here,” she said in her low, sexy voice once she was standing before him. “So nice and cool.”
He felt it again, that feeling of recognition, of knowing her, of familiarity. She was so much smaller than he—maybe five-foot-four inches to his six-two. Not much bigger than Holly, he thought, although Zoë was a good bit sturdier than his slim, willowy girlfriend.
His attention was drawn to the scar that ran from the bangs over her right eyebrow down the side of her face, luckily skirting her eye. What had happened to her?
He looked up at a passing gray cloud. “Could get a shower.”
“This is my favorite weather,” she said. “It must be my Irish blood. Give me rainy and cool any day. I hate the heat.”
“It’s getting cooler and cooler now. I bet we get a freeze soon.” He could smell that honeysuckle scent she wore, and imagined her rubbing oil on her skin that diffused as it warmed with her body heat. God, it was distracting.
“A freeze! We’re still a month or so away from a freeze at home. Come Halloween, maybe.”
When had they started walking? Suddenly they’d walked a quarter of a block and Paul realized he was still holding her hand. He glanced down at her dark head. Did she notice it too?
A sharp twinge of guilt assaulted him as he thought of Holly and he loosened his fingers gently, dropping her hand to adjust his glasses, then shoving his hands in his pockets. He had no business holding her hand, no matter how unintentional it was or natural it felt.
“Halloween’s pretty cold here,” he offered. “Won’t get much above forty degrees by then.”
She had her hands clasped behind her back and her skirt undulated as she walked, as black as her hair.
She reminded him of the girl in the old Kurt Vonnegut story “Miss Temptation,” in which a bit actress, Susanna from New York, rents an apartment in a small New England town for a summer stock play. Vonnegut described her as having black hair, midnight eyes, creamy skin, and noted that she was always barefooted. She wears low-cut tops and undulating skirts and anklets with little bells that tingle with every step she takes, announcing her arrival. The villagers in the story can’t get used to her exotic presence in their quiet, humdrum midst. They can’t assimilate her strange, unconventional beauty to the ordinariness of their everyday lives.
Finally one of the men in town—a young man, bitter and overcome with longing for her—confronts her.
“There ought to be a law about girls acting and dressing the way you do,” he says. “It makes more people unhappy than it does happy. You know what I want to say to you, for going around making everyone want to kiss you?”
“No,” the girl in the story answers, and Paul always imagined her face would look shattered and shocked by the unkind assault.
“I say to you what you’d say to me if I was to try and kiss you: The hell with you!”
Paul had always sympathized with Susanna when he read the story, the unwitting victim of an unfair attack. What right did anyone have to make her feel bad because she was so beguiling?
For the first time, however, Paul related better to the young man, and it bothered him quite a bit.
“Are you always so quiet?” asked Zoë, interrupting his thoughts. He looked up as they passed Third Street, headed toward the Yellowstone River.
“No,” he said. “I’m not. Sorry. I was just thinking about a short story I read a long time ago.”
“Which one?” she asked, glancing up at him. “I love short stories. Maybe I know it.”
“An old Kurt Vonnegut story.”
“Hmm. From Welcome to the Monkey House?”
“Yeah! In fact, it is,” he said, surprised she’d guessed the collection of stories so easily.
“My copy’s so dog-eared now, I finally bought it on my Kindle. I read it cover to cover at least once a year.”
“Which one’s your favorite?”
“Oh, no,” she mumbled in her distracting, breathy voice. When he looked down at her, she was biting back a smile. “You go first.”
“I won’t tell you mine until you tell me yours.”
She chuckled. “Hard ball. Okay. My favorite’s ‘The Long Walk to Forever.’”
The thing is? Paul loved “Miss Temptation” but “The Long Walk to Forever” was—hands down—his favorite story too.
He sucked in a deep breath. He barely knew this woman. Why did it feel so intense, so complicated, just to walk along next to her?
“Mine too,” he admitted.
“No! Really?”
He nodded. “Vonnegut ca
lled it a ‘sickeningly slick love story.’”
“I know. It’s in the preface. But it was a true story. He actually spent that afternoon with his wife.”
“Hey! You really did read it cover to cover.”
“Sure. Why would I lie?” Instead of letting him answer her question, she quickly asked another. “So that’s the story you were thinking about? As we’re walking? Should I read into that?”
He knew she was teasing, but he couldn’t help the way his heart skipped a beat at her question.
“No!” he exclaimed, guilt and surprise making him answer too quickly and too harshly. “No way! Not at all! No. I have a girlfriend. I wasn’t even thinking about that story. I was thinking about a different one.”
“I was just…teasing,” she said quietly, crossing her arms over her chest.
Her voice was small and hurt and he felt like a spaz, like an ass, like he’d just said: “To hell with you!” like the bitter young man, full of painful longing, in Miss Temptation.
“Sorry,” said Paul, nudging her gently with his elbow. “Me and Holly? It’s a weird situation. I guess I’m a little…I don’t know…out of sorts over it.”
“Would it help to talk about it?”
Paul shrugged. “Maybe.”
She pointed ahead to a wooden gazebo situated adjacent to a restaurant across the street. “You think they’d mind if we sat there for a bit?”
“Nah. But, I mean…you’re here to paint or be on vacation and so far, you’ve rescued my dog, almost been hit by a car, skinned your knee and been roped into coffee with a grouchy local. Doesn’t sound like a very fair deal to you.”
“I guess it’s up to me what a fair deal looks like, huh?”
He stared at her upturned face, that feeling of knowing her infusing his whole body. Could he have met her while he was at school in Rhode Island? Did she summer in Newport? Have a job there at some point? Why did he feel like he knew her?
“Who are you?” he breathed, the words falling out of his mouth before he had a moment to review them.