Tequila

by Rebecca Sharp

  I put a hand up on my forehead, squinting to try and make out any details about the man approaching me, but it was too dark, he was only backlit by the blinding headlights, and the rain was too rough to see anything except that he was big and his truck door glinted with the park ranger logo on the side of it.

  “Get in my truck,” he yelled to me, pointing one arm back to where the white Ford was parked. “I’ll take a look.”

  It wasn’t Logan. His Ford truck was black… six years ago.

  Neither of us stopped as we jogged past one another. There was no point. It was hard to look at anything except the ground when the rain felt like tiny ice bullets against your face and eyes. And if the harsh pellets didn’t blind me, his headlights that bathed a sliver of the road in light, would.

  My shoulders sagged with relief when I grabbed the handle of the passenger door of his truck. The cabin was massive—almost as big as my whole rental car. Pulling it open, I stepped onto the ledge and hoisted myself into the lifted cab.

  Guiltily, I sagged into the warmth of the seat, knowing I was staining the cloth with rain and mud.

  I saw the lights of my rental turn off and the extra-large ranger jog back toward the truck.

  He’s even bigger than Logan. The unexpected thought presented itself.

  What the hell are they feeding these rangers out here?

  I shivered at the blast of cold air as the drenched and bundled man climbed into the cab with me.

  He let out a low growl, pushing his hood back from his head, and I knew I was in trouble; I definitely wasn’t supposed to go past the barrier.

  “Ma’am, what did you think you were—” His voice broke off as though he’d been shot.

  And I felt like I had.

  Eyes that looked like whiskey spilled over the moss-green forest floor locked on mine. Knowing. Recognizing.

  “L-Logan?” I choked out in utter disbelief.

  Of all the places… Of all the times…

  “Bae?”

  My hand was halfway to the gear shift. My breath was halfway to my lungs. And my heart was halfway to its next beat. But everything stopped when I saw her again.

  Everything but reality.

  A quick scan confirmed what I’d already assumed—she was soaked to the bone. Her clothes looked like she’d pulled them fresh out of the washer, dunked them in a full sink of water, and then proceeded to dress.

  Her blonde hair, now darkened and drenched by rain, was still long and clung in disobedient strands to her cheeks and forehead. And her pale, soft skin… I tensed. You don’t know if it’s soft anymore. Maybe six years hardened it, just like her fucking heart. Her skin was wet and smeared with mud. Dark streaks slashing across her cheekbones and coating both of her hands.

  Whatever she’d been trying to do with her car had been a battle she’d been losing.

  “Logan…” she repeated my name on a choppy exhale and I was bitterly surprised she even remembered it.

  It had only been one night—one night I’d thought meant a lot more than it had, when she’d gone and disappeared.

  Judging by the look on her face, she never expected to see me again either. Bae—or whatever her full name actually was—looked like she’d seen a ghost. But while ghosts might be common over at The Stanley Hotel thanks to Stephen King, they didn’t exist in the park; and I wasn’t one of them.

  Tightening my jaw, it was no wonder I had a strange feeling about the lone car I’d passed on the road—the one that had me turning around and climbing back up after it because there was too much fallen debris for the road to be passable.

  Damn tourists. That was my assumption.

  Who the hell tries to cross the pass at this time of night and in this kind of storm?

  I swallowed hard.

  She does.

  “What the hell were you doing up here?” I couldn’t stop the expletive from slipping out. One night together had earned me that margin of flexibility.

  “Logan—” she broke off with a violent shudder.

  As much as part of me wanted to hear what was on the other end of my name, in the middle of a torrential natural disaster while she was catching a chill was not the time.

  “Fuck.” Hoping the storm masked my growl, I reached behind her seat and began unzipping the duffel bag on the floor; it held piles of fresh blankets.

  Like I was about to pounce, her whole body froze as the movement forced my arm and chest to brush against her slightly. Even soaked, I could feel the heat of her and the heat she drew from me beneath the layers of frozen cold. I gritted my teeth and pulled out two large blankets, dropping them on her lap as I readjusted myself in the driver’s seat.

  “Put those around you,” I commanded.

  “Sorry about your seat,” she said as she complied.

  “I don’t give a shit about the truck,” I practically snarled for no good reason except that I found my body still wanted a woman who clearly hadn’t wanted me. “What are you doing up here? In that car?”

  She worked the blankets around her shoulders and underneath her seat. “Trying to get out of the park—and that car is just a rental.”

  Which meant she wasn’t staying. Again.

  “And the normal exit wouldn’t work because…”

  Her gaze snapped to the rain-soaked windshield. “I used that, but the Thirty-Four out of Estes is flooded.”

  “What?” I gaped at her.

  I’d been in the park all afternoon, trying to deal with the damn downpour no one had expected. Frightened hikers. Cars needing to be towed. And the road beyond Rainbow Curve needing to be checked and now, closed.

  “Because of the water. I think they’re closing the Thirty-Four and the Thirty-Six. Even if they’re not, there was no way the Sentra was making it through that kind of water. I doubt even Noah could build something to get through it,” she remarked with a short sarcastic laugh. “Anyway, Trail Ridge Road was the only other way out.”

  I sat and stared, trying hard not to lose myself in the way her lips moved over the words, wondering if they still tasted the same.

  I wondered if she still tasted warm and potent like tequila.

  “Jesus…” I swore under my breath, putting my truck in drive and carefully U-turning in the road to begin our descent.

  My mind scanned through the facts of just how bad the flooding must be for them to close the major highways out of the city. Hopefully, the rain would let up by morning so it could clear, otherwise there would be tens of thousands of people trapped in Estes…

  And then the thought hit me—the other disaster implied by her words.

  “Where are you staying?” I asked with a low voice.

  “I rented a place in Boulder for the night.” She paused. “Doesn’t look like I’m going to make it.”

  I clenched my jaw so I wouldn’t offer her a place to stay. There were plenty of places in Estes.

  There was a tense silence, and I almost caved. Almost. But then we made it to the base of the park, and I turned into the ranger station, needing to take care of some things—first and foremost, letting the rest of the park rangers know the extent of the storm.

  “Stay here,” I told her as I ducked back out into the rain.

  Once inside, I filed in all my end of the day reports and let Bruce and Dixon, the two rangers on the next shift, know what was going on. Apparently, all law enforcement and emergency workers had already been notified and warned that it didn’t appear the storm was leaving anytime soon.

  I paused at the desk—in front of the landline—before yanking the phone up to my ear with a swift, decisive movement. I called three local hotels. And then, I even called The Stanley.

  No one had any vacancy.

  Fuck.

  “Logan.”

  My eyes snapped to the door as she walked through it.

  Inside, in the light, I finally saw her, and it was as though no time had passed. Her hair and face just as breathtaking beneath the dirt and rain. The incredible cur
ves of her body now plastered over with cold, wet clothing peeked out from where she clutched one of my blankets around her. But it was the same look of determination in her eyes—strong and fearless—that arrested me. It was the one that had accompanied her invitation to the bar. The one that adorned that first kiss.

  And the one that begged me for more before she turned around and disappeared.

  “What are you doing?” The ‘I told you to wait in the car’ implied in my tone.

  She was soaked and shivering. She needed to try and get dry and stay warm—not go back out in the rain to come inside here.

  “I called a bunch of hotels,” she replied, and I held back the fact I had, too. “But no one has anything available.” She let out a sad, shocked laugh. “The Stanley said they have people camping out in their lobby.”

  I set the phone back on the receiver.

  “I thought maybe there was a place in here to sleep,” she suggested matter-of-factly.

  “No,” I bit out and shook my head.

  There were cots in the back room for the rangers, and she could stay here. But not like this. Not when she was drenched to the bone with nothing but the sopping clothes stuck to her back.

  And to other parts of her.

  Grunting, I forced my eyes to stay trained on her face and not how the fabric clung to each curve that seemed to have filled out so much more than my memory of six years ago recalled.

  “You can stay with me,” I said, my tone thick with decisive inevitability.

  There was no other option. I had to take her home with me.

  At least, that was what I told myself.

  “You live up here?” she asked as soon as we turned off the thirty-four just before hitting the road closure barriers.

  With a deep breath, I nodded as my tires grabbed and pulled us up the final few feet of the steep climb up the driveway to my house.

  Stilted on the side of the mountain face, it was perched up another few hundred feet or so off the road and looked out over the Estes Park basin.

  The outside lights were tripped on as soon as we turned onto the driveway, shedding rain-broken light over the log-cabin-style structure I’d finished building about three years ago.

  I didn’t take a lot of my parents’ money for myself—I tried not to—but I had used part of my inheritance for this land, knowing it would’ve been eaten up by a developer who would’ve leveled the ten acres to put in strings of cookie-cutter houses.

  The drive curved around to the back of the house and the two-car garage. One side for my truck, the other housing an ATV, dirt bike, and snowmobile. Once inside, I hauled my everyday work pack from the back seat of the truck, unlocked the door to my house, and held it open for Bae.

  I tried to ignore the way the small part in her lips widened as she stepped inside.

  I’d brought women here before. Very few. But none of them had walked inside with the same eager confidence of the woman in front of me.

  Her sneakers squelched for a single step before she slid them off her feet. Pulling the blanket tighter around her, she moved through the small laundry room and out into the living room and main open space.

  My house was unique, but it wasn’t fancy.

  Rich, amber beams stood out against white walls. The same wood framing around windows and doors, as well as matching the kitchen cabinets and island. It was a nice log cabin. It was what I needed and nothing more.

  From the moment I realized the woman who haunted all of my wet dreams wasn’t a literal wet dream sitting in the front seat of my truck, my dick had been at attention. She approached the rain-battered windows that looked out over the whole of Estes, the town looking like a pile of Christmas lights flickering in a sea of darkness, and her soft gasp caused my cock to jerk and strain against the frigid fabric of my uniform.

  “I guess you liked this park enough to stay then…”

  I flinched. She remembered.

  I held her gaze but chose not to respond. “You need to shower and get out of those clothes.”

  Heading for the master—and only—bedroom, she followed me.

  “Towel. Washcloth.” I stacked the items on top of my hand. “Soap and everything is in the shower.”

  I couldn’t even look at my own damn shower—the corner of the master bath had been fully tiled, making it a completely open shower with a rain shower head attached to the ceiling. There was no glass. No door. When I showered, anyone in the room could see everything. But no one was ever in the room with me.

  Now, all I could think was everything I’d be able to see if I were to stay in the room with her.

  “Logan—”

  “There’s dry t-shirts and gym shorts in the two top drawers of the dresser,” I continued, pointing out toward my bedroom. “I’ll be on the couch. Let me know when you’re done so I can rinse off.”

  I closed her in the room and headed for the fridge.

  One bed. One shower.

  One potential disaster.

  I’d spent one night with her six years ago. No word since.

  And now, that very woman was stranded with me in my house, wearing nothing but my clothes.

  My Rocky Mountain High t-shirt had been a gift after five years at Rocky Mountain National Park. The long-sleeve navy cotton was soft as it draped over her, falling down onto her thighs. At least my gym shorts had a drawstring; it looked as though she’d been able to tie them tight enough and roll them up a bit to make them a passable fit.

  But underneath those clothes—I forced my gaze back to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I’d made.

  “You should drink some water,” I told her, nodding to where I’d poured her a glass from the fridge.

  We still had power, but from what I could see down in Estes, it wasn’t going to last. Lightning decorated the mountainous horizon. Thankfully, the things I’d spent good money on in this house were those essential for survival—like the largest automatic propane generator I could find.

  Her fingertips peeked out from the edge of her sleeves.

  The good thing about her wearing my clothes was that they were so large on her, they hid most traces of all the curves that drove me crazy.

  The bad thing about her wearing my clothes was that she was wearing my clothes. And she was wearing them with nothing underneath.

  “I made you a sandwich,” I told her. “Peanut butter and jelly. Not much, but it’s all I can do on short notice.”

  “Thank you.” She didn’t reach for it though. Instead, she took a sip of the water and walked over to the window, cupping her hand against the glass in order to see out of it.

  “Not much to see.” Even without the darkness and rain, the lights of the town were dwindling.

  She turned back and approached me, notching her chin up so her eyes could hold mine steady.

  Six years, but the look in them hadn’t changed at all—the one that was assured and determined; the one that had something to prove. And the one that wore pride like a cape, forgetting that underneath the suit was still a human—a woman with a heart…

  A heart she’d shown me once upon a mountaintop.

  “Thanks for rescuing me, and for letting me stay with you, Logan,” she said, her voice turning thick as our proximity began to affect her in ways she hadn’t anticipated either.

  My mouth drew into a firm line. And before I could stop myself, I licked my thumb and cupped her cheek, rubbing over a faint spot of mud that the shower hadn’t washed away.

  I shouldn’t have touched her.

  But all I could think was how soft her skin still was. How warm. And how much I’d missed feeling it underneath my fingers.

  Her honey-colored eyes deepened to desire-laden amber as her tongue slipped out to moisten her lips, the same way she’d done the last time we’d been sky-high in Colorado.

  The same way that always came before she kissed me.

  My hand dropped to my side, and I stepped back, dragging in air and shoving my raging need back down into my c
hest.

  “Estes is slowly losing power. I have a generator that will kick on and last several weeks if that becomes the case here.”

  She cleared her throat and nodded, forcing herself, like I did, to ignore the moment that just occurred between us. “I can’t believe how quickly it got so bad.”

  My jaw clenched. “The worst things are always the ones you don’t expect,” I replied without thinking, watching her eyes widen as she caught the double-meaning to my words.

  “Logan, we need to talk,” she said with a sigh.

  Instantly, my body rammed back into high gear. The magnetic attraction lodged inside me, pulling me toward her in ways I knew would only burn me once again.

  Christ, it had only been one night and here I was, six years later, still thinking about her. Still wanting to touch her as though she were the only thing that mattered. I didn’t want to know what would happen if I actually fell for her and she left.

  Which she would.

  Because there was literally nothing here for her.

  I held up a hand and picked up my sandwich with the other.

  “It was one night, six years ago,” I began roughly. “We don’t need to talk about it. It was one night—it wasn’t anything.” It had only felt like everything.

  “Right.” She nodded. “But I want to explain. I should’ve explained then, and now that I’m here—staying with you because of this… disaster… I would just feel better about the whole situation—”

  “But I wouldn’t,” I told her.

  I still wanted her. Knowing what made her leave would only make resisting her that much harder.

  “It is what it is,” I went on firmly. “You were stranded, and it’s my duty to help you.”

  Was it me or did she flinch when I referred to her as a responsibility? I wasn’t trying to be insulting, but it was all I could let her be.

  Clearing my throat, I changed topics. “I’ve already heard from the Emergency Operations Center about the storm; they’re pulling the rangers from the park tomorrow to instead scout where roads need to be closed and where people need to be rescued.”