“It’s… complicated.” She let out a long sigh and his hand rubbed her arm up and down, providing the comfort she needed. Talking about Julian wasn’t something that put her particularly at ease. “You see, everyone loves Julian: he’s successful, handsome, charismatic. My mother didn’t even listen to me when I told her it had been the most awful date of my life. It was just easier to let them all believe he’s a great catch and I’m the crazy one with wool over her eyes.”
She turned to look at him. She was surprised to find a wicked grin had replaced the frown that a moment ago had creased his brow.
“Why are you grinning like that, now?” she asked with raised eyebrows.
“I think it’s kinda funny you ran away from a rich attorney who drives a Mercedes and showered you with gifts, and ended up making love to a cowboy in a godforsaken place like Wind Creek. It kinda makes me feel special; I never thought I could compete with a New York attorney.”
She laughed, and all the sadness those memories had brought back finally disappeared. Julian had only been a hitch in the road; Sean was all that mattered to her now. As far as she was concerned, Julian didn’t even exist.
“You could never compete with someone like Julian…” she said through the laugh, but stopped when he frowned in disappointment. When she realized he’d misunderstood her words she quickly finished her sentence, batting her lashes languidly at him. “You would definitely win hands down, Cowboy.”
His frown eased and his eyes lit up in amusement. He chuckled and leaned in to kiss her, gently at first, and slowly getting more passionate.
While the fire was slowly dying, they rolled themselves up in the woolen blanket, knowing it would probably be the last time they could get lost in each other’s arms before she would have to go home.
“I think we should get going now,” Sean said, rubbing her arm and blowing a strand of hair off her cheek. “It stopped raining, and it’s a long walk to the ranch; besides, you’re not used to walking in the woods after sunset. There are some evil creatures creeping up from behind the bushes.”
Alyssa let out a sigh, snuggling against his chest. Her hand was splayed on his bare skin and kept stroking it in circles. He loved her soft touch and the way his skin burned whenever her fingertips grazed over it. Nobody had ever made him feel so completely at ease.
He squeezed her a little tighter and her body went limp in his arms; he could easily spend the rest of his life with her cuddled next to him like this, but it was time for them to go back now.
“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave this place. I don’t want to leave you. Can’t we just stay here forever?”
“Yeah, until we starve to death or the grizzlies eat us. Definitely not my favorite way of dying. You’re a city girl, you can’t live in a log cabin eating berries and fish. Besides, weren’t you the one who thought my family would be worried about us? We’d better go home now before they send out the search party, and the sheriff barges in on us.”
He laughed out loud when she blushed, and kissed the tip of her nose. He stood up, picked up his clothes and handed her dry clothes to her. She folded the tracksuit and put the blanket over the couch again, while he put out the remains of the fire.
“The water for our coffee has totally evaporated.” He lifted the bucket and smiled. “I’d forgotten you wanted some coffee, sorry.”
She giggled and hugged him from behind. He put his hands on hers, enjoying the feel of her arms around him. He wished they could stay there forever, too.
“I didn’t want coffee. I was nervous enough, without caffeine. Coffee was simply an excuse to make you move away from me so I could breathe,” she whispered, resting her cheek on his back. Chills raced down his spine at breakneck speed. “The nearness of you was almost giving me a heart attack; I needed a diversion.”
He laughed and turned back to look at her. “Guess what: I offered to make coffee just because I needed to keep my mind off how beautiful you looked and how bad I wanted to kiss you.”
“Well, it seems it didn’t work…”
They laughed and kissed tenderly before turning to leave.
A few minutes later they were strolling on the muddy path, Sean carrying the fishing equipment and Alyssa carrying the basket with what was left of their lunch, just like they had a few hours earlier. This time, though, they were holding hands and walking as close as they possibly could without tripping on each other’s feet, enjoying each other’s company and listening to the sounds of the woods coming back to life after the storm.
Chapter 28
“So, apart from the slimy attorney, are there any other guys I should be worried about?” Sean asked when they were halfway to the ranch.
Even though his tone was playful, he noticed her shoulders drooped and the corners of her lips turned downward. He hadn’t meant to be offensive, he’d just wanted to break the silence.
“I’ve never been that lucky with men. All the guys I dated were in one way or another connected to either my mother or my father’s social circle—basically, rich brats who thought the world revolved around them. They never lasted longer than a date because, attractive as they may have been, there was nothing interesting beyond their pretty faces. They would bore me to death before the date was through, and my mother was usually quite disappointed when I told her I wouldn’t be seeing them again.”
“It sounds like she wanted you to have a boyfriend pretty badly, huh?”
“She wanted me to show up at her social events hanging off the arm of a good catch, just so she could brag about me with her friends—especially after most of her friends’ daughters got engaged.”
“Wow,” he said, unable to contain his astonishment. Her mother was a pretty tough woman to be around, no kidding. He couldn’t imagine his own mother pushing Tammy, or any of her sons, into the arms of someone they wouldn’t like, just so she could brag with her friends. No wonder Alyssa had needed a break.
“Yeah, well, that’s my mom. At some point though, she got her wish granted. When I was in my junior year in Yale I started hanging out with this guy in one of my classes. We actually dated for over three months and I really liked him. He was funny, smart, and, well, he was handsome too, as a bonus. Dark hair, chocolate-brown eyes, and cute dimples. I was pretty much crazy about him.”
“Ouch, that hurt.” Sean released her hand and brought his to his heart. “I don’t think I want to know about him. Tell me about the losers instead.”
In spite of the ache he saw in her eyes, Alyssa gave him a weak smile. “What is there to say? The guys I dated were all kinda shallow, you know? Handsome, popular guys from wealthy families, who always turned out to be nothing but pompous jerks, without a single interesting cell in their bodies. They were the kind of guys girls at college liked to be seen hanging out with, but it was no wonder I never went out on more than one date with them.”
“You mean dating a cowboy is better than dating an all-American boy?”
Alyssa chuckled and grabbed his hand, pulling him close. “Cowboys are more fun,” she said with a grin. “I wish I’d known sooner; I wouldn’t have waited this long to escape to the country and find out for myself.”
“Now I see why the poor guys never stuck around long; you’re a nasty little thing, aren’t you? Scared them all away, you did.”
He kissed the top of her head and started tracing circles on the back of her hand with his thumb as they walked.
“It was actually the other way around: they scared me. The thought of spending endless dates with those douches, boasting about how cool they were, or how much money their daddies had, sort of gave me the creeps and sent me running in the other direction.”
“Oh yeah, bet it must be awful to spend your days counting Franklins and trying to decide how to spend them.”
Alyssa let out a sigh. “You wouldn’t believe it, but yes, it is. Especially when money’s the only thing that makes them so popular. Rick was different; that’s why he lasted so long. He was nice
to be around, and never showed off his money.” She glanced at Sean briefly from under her eyelashes and he smiled, even though hearing her talk about another guy she’d dated made his stomach twist.
“But after I brought him with me to a charity party my mother had organized things changed. She was beside herself with joy when she discovered who he was; she’d been trying to organize a date between the two of us since I was seventeen, and we’d ended up dating without even knowing her plans. When we went back to college the following Monday I noticed he’d suddenly grown distant, and when I confronted him, he said dating the daughter of NYPD’s Chief of Police was too much for him at that time of his life. There would be too many expectations and he wasn’t ready to settle down yet. So he said ‘thank you, but no thank you,’ and hoped we could still be friends.”
Sean noticed the way her tone had changed and he turned to look at her; she was staring at her feet, and he felt her pain as if it were his own. He squeezed her hand, and she looked up at him.
Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears and she put on a fake smile to cover her real feelings.
“Funny how the first time I finally met a guy I really liked and that my mother loved because of his family name, he ended up dumping me because he couldn’t handle the pressure of my family name.”
“His loss, my gain,” Sean said with a shrug, stopping and pulling her in for yet another kiss. When she pulled back she was smiling again—a beautiful, real smile. “I guess ignorance is bliss sometimes, right? I mean, I don’t know who your father is and, honestly, I couldn’t really care less. Unless, of course, he has the authority of sending me to jail even though technically I don’t live in his jurisdiction. Then that may be a problem, and I would think twice before laying eyes on you again.” Alyssa chuckled as they resumed walking. “Although, I have to sympathize with the guy. I went out with the town sheriff’s daughter for a few weeks when I was sixteen; the night he saw me making out with her outside the diner and threatened to shoot me in places I would never forget, I made a mental note to stay away from the daughters of cops, federal agents, hunters and any other profession that includes a gun provided by the government.”
By then, Alyssa was bent over, laughing so hard she had tears streaking her cheeks, and she was gasping for air.
“That’s not funny; he scared me to death. I never even looked at her after that night. I think she ended up marrying a cop in town, the only one who could keep up with her father.”
Alyssa wiped away the tears with her palms and cleared her throat, trying to stifle the last hiccups of laughter that shook her body. He couldn’t help laughing with her though; when he thought back to the scene now, he had to admit it had been rather funny—if the sheriff hadn’t threatened to shoot him, that was.
They were still laughing when they approached the ranch, but they both instinctively, although quite reluctantly, let go of each other’s hand, keeping at a safer distance. They hadn’t spoken about it, but it seemed as if they both agreed that what had happened in the cabin would be their little secret.
Tammy was on the porch playing with the kittens when they got into sight, and she waved at them, putting one of the kittens down on the wooden floor and running toward them.
“Here you are, at last! We thought you had killed each other out there in the woods and we’d have to send the hounds to look for your corpses.”
“Tammy, what on earth have you been watching on TV recently?” Sean slapped the back of her head playfully, and Alyssa laughed. Tammy shrugged and took the basket from Alyssa’s hands, her eyes lingering on her face a little too long for Sean’s liking.
“What have you been up to? You’ve been away for such a long time.”
Alyssa blushed, and Sean resisted the urge to pull her into his arms. Tammy couldn’t possibly have guessed what had happened at the cabin, but if he knew Alyssa, she was probably thinking otherwise.
“We were fishing, and you can’t expect a city girl to catch a fish after five minutes. Besides, she couldn’t keep quiet and kept talking, so she scared all the fish away,” Sean said, and Alyssa’s face eased into a smile. Tammy chuckled.
“And then it started to rain, and obviously she wanted to dance in the rain, singing as if she were in a Broadway musical, so in the end we had to stop at the log cabin and wait for the rain to stop because she was soaked.”
Tammy looked at Alyssa and linked arms with her like they were old friends. “Did you really dance in the rain? Like in the Singing in the Rain movie?”
Alyssa nodded and turned to Sean with a smug grin. “See? I told you you’re probably the only one who doesn’t know that movie. He thought I had gone crazy,” Alyssa said, pointing her finger to her temple with a dramatic spinning movement.
Tammy rolled her eyes. “You know Sean is from another galaxy altogether. You can’t expect him to know what a musical is.”
They both laughed, and Sean decided that fighting two girls wasn’t worth the effort so he shrugged and shook his head, knowing that if those two teamed together he’d never have a chance.
“But in the end I caught a fish,” Alyssa said triumphantly, as if she had won the first prize in a competition. Sean smiled, remembering the moment.
“Yeah, and she threw it back in as soon as I removed the hook, and checked it actually swam away before she started breathing again.”
Tammy started to laugh so hard she dropped the basket and fell to her knees, holding her stomach to stifle the cramps. Alyssa’s shoulders sagged, as she realized it would probably be the joke of the year and they’d be laughing at her for months, but in the end she smiled.
Sean’s mother walked out on the porch at that moment and called Tammy; when she noticed Sean and Alyssa were there too, she waved, informing them that dinner would be ready soon.
Tammy ran inside and Sean went into the barn to put away the fishing equipment. The urge to pull Alyssa into his arms had been too strong. He couldn’t trust himself around her; better let her go back to her room while he collected his thoughts and got a grip.
Half an hour later Sean was lying on his bed with a towel wrapped around his waist and his hands interlocked behind his head, thoughts racing through his mind.
Who would have guessed they’d end up falling for each other, when the first few days they hadn’t been able to be in the same room without arguing?
Love worked in mysterious ways.
And with impeccable timing.
They’d wasted so much time and now that she was just about to leave, they’d fallen for each other. What would happen to them now?
They hadn’t talked about it at the cabin or on the way back; they’d only wanted to enjoy those precious moments together, live for the moment and ignore the future, but now they had to discuss things and decide where they would be going from there.
He got off the bed and put on some clothes, determined to speak to her before they went to dinner. He walked out of his room, checked that nobody was around and sneaked to her room.
He knocked lightly on the door, hoping she was still there, and when the door opened and he saw her standing there with her hair freshly done and a shy smile on her face, he couldn’t help taking her face in his hands and kissing her.
She was taken aback at first but she immediately kissed him back, and he pushed her gently inside her room so that they could close the door behind them.
“You shouldn’t really be here,” she said, looking into his eyes and this time finally holding his stare. “What would your family think if they saw us?”
He shrugged, running his fingers through her hair. “I don’t care, they can think whatever they want. I needed to see you.”
“We need to talk.” She cut him off, just before his lips connected with hers again. He stopped and nodded, taking her hands and brushing them with his thumbs. “We need to talk about how we’re going to act with your family.”
Sean nodded. “Yeah, that’s one of the reasons why I came here. The other one being the
need to kiss you.” Alyssa laughed, and Sean placed another soft kiss on her lips before turning serious. “I think we shouldn’t tell them—not until we’ve figured out how to make things work between us. No need to build their hopes up for nothing, especially Tammy’s.”
Alyssa’s face fell, and Sean realized he had probably used the wrong words but he’d never been good with words and he was so overwhelmed by his feelings for Alyssa that it was a miracle he’d managed to articulate a proper sentence at all.
“So you think what we have is nothing?” She pushed away from his chest, and looked him straight on. Her eyes looked desperate, as if she thought it was already over. “Because when we were at the cabin I thought you’d felt there was more than just attraction between us; maybe I’m the only one who felt it, though.”
Sean hung his head, feeling as if he’d never be able to make this right. He could feel it in her tone that she was mad at him; all their efforts at getting close had been erased by one stupid sentence and he was sure they’d start fighting again now, just like they had the first days she was here.
“What I meant is this is going to be hard; there’s no point in hiding our heads in the sand and pretending we don’t know it. We’re both adults, and we both know from experience that life doesn’t always go the way we want it to. We have to be aware that things may not work between us, no matter how hard we try. We live six states away from each other, we belong to opposite worlds—we may feel the chemistry now, but once you’re back in your world you may end up feeling this isn’t worth the hassle after all.”
“So you’re giving up on us already?” Her voice trembled and Sean knew she was on the verge of tears. Great; he’d come here to talk to her and tell her how much she meant to him, and he’d turned out to be the bad ogre who broke her heart.
He took a step closer and reached for her hand, intertwining his fingers with hers.
Hold on to Love Page 18