A guest came in for coffee. He was a short fellow with a spectacular mustache that he fiddled with almost constantly as he talked, but Vickie couldn’t recall his name. “Good morning,” she said. “How’d you sleep?”
“Not worth a damn. Every time I drifted off, I thought I heard that bear coming into my tent.”
Vickie couldn’t stop herself and laughed. “Do you have food of any kind in there?”
“Hell, no. I’m not stupid.”
“Then you really shouldn’t worry tonight. You aren’t on Four Toes’ menu. Cream and sugar are right there by the coffeepot. Stir sticks off to the side. Help yourself and grab a seat. Chat with me while I work.”
Seconds later, Slade came in. He gave Vickie a long look. “I meant to ask you to go into town with me tonight. Then everything got exciting around here last night, and now I can’t remember if I remembered to ask you.”
Vickie glanced over her shoulder at him. “Is your memory going, Slade?”
“Is yours?”
“Oh, no. It already went south without me.”
“So will you?” Slade asked.
“Will I what?”
“Go with me into town tonight?”
Vickie considered her options. “Business or pleasure? Business, yes, pleasure, no.”
“Business.”
“When the boss says jump, I jump. What time are we leaving?”
“Three.”
She shot him a questioning look. “Who’ll feed everybody?”
“I’m sending everybody down the mountain. I do it once with every group. I think it’s a nice addition to the wilderness experience for guests to see our town and get acquainted with its people. You ever done a bus tour of Europe?”
“No, can’t say that I have,” Vickie replied. “I can tour the world on television, and that’s cheaper.”
He did his grunting thing as he stirred what had to be a quarter cup of sugar into his coffee. “My point is, all those people who go on bus tours see less of the people in a foreign country than you do on television. The bus stops at points of interest. To me, the points of interest are the little bakeries where only locals buy their bread. Or a neighborhood church instead of a famous cathedral. I want off the beaten path.”
“If I were to tour a country, I’d be with you on that.” Vickie sighed. “My dream is to win the lottery and visit Italy. Not on a tour bus. I’d rent a beautiful villa and stay right there for at least a month. I’d shop in the little fresh produce markets and walk home with my food to cook my meals. I’d try to create authentic Italian cuisine, just for the fun of it.”
Slade winked at her. “When you win the lottery, let me know. I’ll go along to carry your groceries.” He started out the door. “Don’t forget, three o’clock.”
“Dress code?”
“You always look great. Nothing fancy.”
Vickie wondered why Slade needed her to accompany him into town. Supplies, maybe? In the next minute, three more guests and two employees stormed the cookshack, and she didn’t have time to worry about it. She was too busy making an extra pot of coffee and dishing up plates of food.
Chapter Fifteen
Vickie enjoyed the horseback ride down the mountain with Slade. It took her back in time to happier days when they’d been young and crazy in love with each other. When the mountain breeze whispered in the boughs of the ponderosa pines, she could almost hear their voices drifting on the air, and she found herself wishing that she really could go back to that period of her life for just one day. One fabulous, lighthearted day. She’d want to know she was there on borrowed time, though, because she would make the most of every single second. Riding, joking, laughing, and making love. She would turn it into the most fabulous twenty-four hours of her life.
“What are you thinking about?” Slade asked.
They’d come to a wide section of trail, so he rode abreast of her. Looking over at him, so relaxed and competent in the saddle, stimulated her imagination, and she could almost believe her wish had been granted. Slade looked older now, of course, but she couldn’t honestly say that the extra mileage detracted from his handsomeness. If anything, he was sexier now than he’d ever been in his early twenties. He exuded confidence. In his visage, she saw the lines etched there by the passage of time, but she also glimpsed power, decisiveness, and strength that came only from facing life’s many challenges.
“I’m supposed to ask you that question,” she informed him. “Women are renowned for it. It forces the attention of men back onto them and puts men in the unenviable position of having to fabricate something fast, because most of the time, their thoughts would probably piss women off.”
He chuckled. “You think you have us all figured out, huh? Careful, Vickie. Too much confidence in the war between the sexes can set you up for defeat.”
“Is that what we’re doing, Slade? Engaging in a war between the sexes?”
“You’re female, I’m male. What do you think?”
“That I’ll win.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “I outweigh you by a good eighty pounds.”
“Oh, you’re referring to a physical battle. I’m sorry. I thought it was a war of wit, not physical strength. But, of course, you’d prefer physical, because women can outthink men with one side of their brain fried.”
She sent him a smile that she knew was sassy, and a part of her realized that she was trying to recapture just a few seconds of how it had once been between them, because wishing for a whole day would never make it happen.
“Which side of your brain would you sacrifice to a frying pan?”
“The left, because it’s mostly useless.”
He chuckled, and then he made that little throat-clearing sound with humph at the end. She was starting to wonder if he made that grunting noise because he couldn’t think what to say. But Slade had always been quick with comebacks. So it was far more likely that he was holding back, afraid that his rejoinder would irritate her.
“Do you remember that tree?” He drew his horse to a stop and pointed. “That lone pine with the low-hanging limb.”
Vickie followed the line of his finger, saw the tree, and felt heat rising up her neck to burn like fire in her cheeks.
Slade glanced over, saw her expression, and winked at her. “You do remember. You challenged me to do more chin-ups than you could, if I recollect right, and while you were pumping them out, I started removing your garments. My plan was to make sure you would get distracted and quit before you did so many I’d have to wear myself out trying to beat you. As it happened, I got worn out anyway. Damn, girl, but you were hot.”
“You lie like a rug, Slade Wilder. You took advantage of my determination to outdo you and introduced me to a whole new way of”—she broke off and glared at him—“doing chin-ups.”
“No, sir. My aim was to make you stop and drape those beautiful legs over my shoulders. Which you did. Want to give it another go, just for old time’s sake?”
Way deep in her belly, where she hadn’t felt much going on for at least twenty years, her muscles bunched, started to twitch, and sent out little shocks of sensation to parts of her body that she’d been convinced had long since atrophied. Dead from the neck down, that was she, only Slade was making her body come back to life, even if her mind refused to go there.
She didn’t want him to see how flustered he’d made her. “For old time’s sake, it’s your turn to do chin-ups first. I’ll be the one on the ground, jerking your clothes off.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “Role reversal. My favorite thing.”
“Oh, hell, no. About the time I let go of the limb like you did, we’d both go down. You couldn’t stand up under my weight. I’d probably break my back, and possibly yours along with it.”
Vickie nudged her mount into a trot. She needed to put that damned tree behind her. Slade was
like a foxtail that stuck to her clothes and then burrowed in to get under her skin. She had allowed him to do that once, and she couldn’t let him do it again. He would destroy her if she gave him a second chance.
He caught up with her at the bend in the trail. She slowed her horse, because there was a drop-off on one side. He drew up to ride abreast of her again. Her journey down memory lane was over, she assured herself. It was too dangerous for her to relive those moments. He’d been an inventive lover, blending laughter with sex, and she knew beyond a shadow of doubt that she’d never meet another man like him. Not that she wanted to. Once had been enough.
When they reached the trailhead, they put their horses into the holding pen, and then fed and watered them before they got into Slade’s truck and he drove them into Mystic Creek. Slade left the town center and hung a right onto Dewdrop Lane. When he pulled off into the parking lot of the Witch’s Brew, she sent him an inquiring glance.
“I thought you said this was a business thing.”
“It is. Any guests who don’t opt to dine on sandwiches tonight were told to meet us here. I’m buying the food and drinks. You’re my pretty little sidekick. Normally I have to go it alone. It’ll be a relief to have a partner to help me chat up the guests.”
Vickie relaxed slightly and then she looked at the building again. “This place was a ramshackle dump even back when we were kids.”
“JJ has remodeled recently. I’m looking forward to seeing what he did.”
Ever the gentleman in public places, Slade lightly grasped her elbow as they walked the length of the sagging boardwalk. “Well,” he observed, “the outside hasn’t changed any. One of these days, somebody’s going to crash through these rotten boards.”
“Just not one of us, I hope.”
Once inside the bar and grill, Slade looked around before he released his hold on her arm. Vickie remembered that about him, too. He’d always been alert for trouble and protective. It had always been a pleasant feeling to have him look after her, as if she were a special treasure, and she enjoyed experiencing it again. He led her down the length of the bar to a tall pub table along one wall, and then raised a hand at the bartender, a pencil-thin little guy with black hair, who moved so swiftly from place to place that he reminded Vickie of a frantic gerbil.
Someone had just plunked money into the jukebox, and “Ring of Fire” came over the speakers, forcing Slade to holler. “Where’s JJ?”
The bartender yelled back. “He don’t work on Sundays. Claims it’s a sin. Never stepped inside a church in his whole life, I don’t think, but he gets religion on the Sabbath.”
Slade chuckled and drew back a stool for her. Vickie climbed up onto the elevated seat and then squeaked when Slade picked up both her and the chair to get her closer to the table. She’d forgotten how strong he was, and it was a little unnerving to remember while he held her on a stool in midair.
He swung a denim-sheathed leg over his seat as if he were mounting a horse, and he did it with just as much masculine grace. “What’s your poison these days?” he asked.
Vickie considered ordering a girly drink, but she enjoyed the strong stuff a little too much to settle for something sugary. “Whiskey, straight up.”
Slade shot her a questioning glance. “Whoa! My girl grew up while my back was turned.” He winked at her. “I’m with you, though. I like a nice whiskey. What brand do you like?”
Vickie rarely drank, and when she did, she did it on the cheap. “What’s the best in the house?” She dimpled a cheek at him. “You are paying, right?”
He laughed and winked at her. Then he strode to the bar, rested his arms on its edge, and cocked one hip. It was a purely masculine stance, one lean leg bent, the other straight and angled out slightly behind him. Vickie couldn’t help herself. She ogled his butt. Not that he had much of one. He was narrow at the hip. But in that moment, she thought he looked good enough to eat.
“Not literally,” she muttered to herself. “You need to cool your jets, girlfriend, or you’ll get yourself in more trouble than you can handle. Slade Wilder isn’t a pussycat. Keep your head on straight.”
Only her body wasn’t listening. It had started back at that damned pine tree, and forgotten places inside of her felt as if they were tingling back to life. Slade returned with two tumblers filled to the halfway mark. Vickie normally limited herself to two fingers. Well, except when she drank with her daughter, which had only happened once.
“You didn’t bring me here to get me drunk, did you?”
He grinned and winked at her, all at once, and Vickie totally understood why April Pierce had crushed so hard on him. He wore nothing special, just his usual blue chambray shirt and a pair of faded Wrangler jeans. But with the gold and silver belt buckle to add a touch of sparkle and the Stetson cocked just so over his gray eyes, he looked hot enough to fry eggs. She studied his face and decided she liked the way his dimples had been carved deep into long creases. She even liked the little fan of wrinkles at the outside corners of his eyes. His lashes were still thick and dark, the touches of silver in his thick brows striking an attractive contrast.
She forced herself to stop ogling him. He wasn’t a damned homework assignment she had to memorize, and the way he was making her feel might make her forget that he’d gotten her pregnant, broken her heart, and never come riding into Coos Bay on a white steed to rescue her when she’d been a damsel in distress. Asshole. She’d never count on a man for anything again.
Besides, she was no longer a damsel at almost sixty-three. She was an old lady with breasts that looked like slightly deflated balloons and little white stretchmarks on her hips. She also had a slight case of baby gut after bearing three children, only age had removed the batting so her skin there felt loose when she touched it. Moving on down to consider her thighs, she decided she’d have to be three sheets to the wind to ever get naked with him again, and if she ever got stupid enough to do that, she’d feel embarrassed and humiliated as soon as she sobered up. Not happening.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked with that mischievous twinkle in his eyes that she remembered so well.
“I’m not saying. But if you show me another pine tree tonight, I’ll hang you from a lower limb with your own belt until dead.”
He laughed and took a sip of his drink. “Oh, darlin’, this is the good stuff. You have to try it.”
Vickie followed his advice, and the honeyed flavor of the liquor almost made her moan with delight. She swallowed and said, “That’s like sipping sunshine. It goes down so smooth it should be illegal.”
Someone entered the bar behind her. She felt a waft of cool evening air and heard the overhead bell jangle. Slade glanced over her head. Then he put down his glass, pushed it over by the napkin holder, and said, “Excuse me for a couple of minutes. I need to see a man about a dog.”
Vickie had almost forgotten the saying that meant he needed to use the restroom. She nodded and watched him walk away. He’d no sooner pushed through a door at the far end of the room when a woman climbed up onto his stool. Vickie smiled politely at her. “I’m sorry, ma’am. That place is taken.”
“Yep, I’m sitting on it.”
Vickie felt an odd sense of recognition. The lady had dyed blond hair and would be considered attractive if you appreciated a heavy application of cosmetics. She wore fake eyelashes and her bright red acrylic nails matched her lipstick.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
Vickie stared harder at her. “I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. I haven’t been home in over forty years.”
She shrugged, then commandeered Slade’s drink. “My feelings don’t get hurt that easily, Vickie. I intended to buy you a drink, but if I double you up on that one, Sparky will have to roll you out of here.” She flashed a smile. “I’m going to make this short and sweet. No point in reminding you of who I am, because you’ll re
member as soon as I start talking. Slade never touched me the night of that stupid party.”
“April?” Vickie said in a half whisper.
“Who else supposedly fucked Slade that night? Anyway, I lied.”
“Why?”
“Let me talk, and you just listen. I got my speech all memorized, you know, and I didn’t account for any interruptions. I’ll forget what I want to say next.” She took a huge gulp of Slade’s expensive whiskey. “Damn, but that man has class. Way back when, I would have licked him up one side and down the other like he was a melting ice cream cone, but he didn’t want any part of me. He only had eyes for you. You may not believe this, Vickie, but I’m sorry for what I did now. I was just a goofy girl back then, and I thought I’d shrivel up and die if I couldn’t make Slade Wilder fall in love with me. For almost a year after you took off, I was heartsick. He came by my parents’ house and read me the riot act about lying to you and ruining his life. I got five minutes of his attention, and then when he walked away, he never glanced in my direction again.”
Vickie’s stomach had wound into knots, and she started to shake. She grabbed her still barely touched drink, tipped back her head, and gulped it down. All of it. Right at that moment, she would have taken that whiskey straight into a vein. With more force that she intended to, she slammed the tumbler back down on the table. “April, I understand how silly all of us girls could be back then, but do you comprehend that you destroyed my life?”
Her eyes took on a suspicious shimmer. “I’m sorry. But you need to stop interrupting me so I can finish. Slade got four letters from you. I’d just gotten hired on at the post office as a mail sorter. I knew it was wrong to tamper with the mail, that I could lose my new job if I got caught, but I was so infatuated with him, I didn’t care. When I saw letters from you come in, I stuck them in my purse and took them home so I could read them. Mama sent me to counseling a couple of years later, but she climbed on that idea a little too late. I know now that I was messed up in my head, but I didn’t then, and it gave me a thrill to read what you wrote to him.”
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