“We need to get breakfast,” I whispered.
His head was coming toward me. “After I kiss you.”
“Tate,” I was still whispering.
He kissed me, I slid out of my mind and into my body. By the time he was done I was all about my body.
So was Tate. “Don’t cover up, baby,” he muttered against my mouth. “I like the view.”
“I’m –”
“I like it.”
“But –”
His hand slid over one cheek of my bottom and he pulled my hips deeper into his.
“Babe, spent a month thinkin’ about this moment, when you’d be mine and this was what I could look forward to. Don’t hide it from me.”
In complete shock at his words, I stared into his eyes. “You spent a month thinking about this moment?” I repeated.
“Actually, no,” he answered. “Spent a month thinkin’ about what I did to you in bed,” he smiled, “and the shower.” His smile got so sexy my fingers curled into his shoulders. “And what I’m gonna do to you later. Seein’ you in sexy underwear was just bonus footage.”
I had no reply to this. I couldn’t even process this. All I could do was stand in his arms, my body pressed to his, and gaze in his eyes.
“You gonna stand there lookin’ at me, kiss me or get ready?” he asked.
“Get ready,” I answered softly but didn’t move and I didn’t move mainly because I was thinking I preferred option two (but option one of just staring at him had its merits).
He grinned. “Babe.”
“What?”
He let me go but his hand didn’t leave my ass. It stayed there so it could push me toward the bathroom.
I grabbed my stuff as I went and camped out in the bathroom, wiping the mirror and starting to get ready. I’d pulled a comb through my hair, put on a white headband, washed my face, brushed and flossed my teeth, moisturized and I was preparing for minimal makeup when Tate walked in, still in his towel, and he brushed his teeth standing next to me.
This was when I came fully back into my mind, in fact, I came speeding into it at Mach Three.
How on earth was I standing in my new sage green satin and taupe lace underwear in a bathroom in a Marriott in Indianapolis with Tatum Jackson?
My blush brush arrested in mid-air and I turned woodenly to him.
“How did this happen?” I asked.
He took his toothbrush out of his mouth and with a mouth full of white foam, he asked, “What?” then kept brushing.
I swirled my blush brush in the air indicating the entirety of our situation with a flourish.
He turned to the sink, put a palm in the counter, bent his neck and spit. Then he rinsed. Then he twisted, reached across the counter in front of me, grabbed a hand towel and wiped, throwing it on the counter when he was done.
“You jumped me,” he answered.
“I didn’t jump you! You threw me on the bed!”
“Right,” he grinned. “Then you jumped me.”
“I didn’t jump you, I was on my back!”
He moved so he was behind me, his hands came to my upper hips and his head bent so he could kiss my neck, which he did. I watched him do it in the mirror and watching it made me lose my hold on my mind again.
Then his head came up and he looked at me in the mirror.
“Thanks for remindin’ me of that,” he muttered. “So, I guess I shouldn’t say you jumped. It was more like you… attacked.”
“This isn’t funny,” I told his reflection.
He grinned yet again and said, “Babe.”
“It isn’t!”
“We’ll talk about it later,” he declared.
“Tate –” I started.
“Get ready.”
“Tate! We need to talk. This is insane.”
“We’ll talk.”
“When?”
“Later.”
“When, later?” I asked.
“Later, later,” he answered with a non-answer.
I pulled in breath. Then with his hands still on my nearly naked hips, me in my underwear, in a bathroom, in a hotel with Tatum Jackson, I started swiping my cheeks with blush while said Tatum Jackson watched.
“That reminds me. Mom called this morning and she’s going to try to talk you out of going today. She wants you to see our farm,” I told him.
“She won’t have to try too hard.”
My blush brush arrested on the apple of my cheek and I stared into his eyes in the mirror.
His eyes moved to the brush. “Ace, you keep fuckin’ around, we’ll never have breakfast.”
“You’re staying?” I whispered.
He dropped his bearded chin to my shoulder and his arms wrapped around my belly.
“Baby, you just came three times,” he said softly, his mouth close to my ear. “You think I’m flyin’ across four states when you’re topped up and tonight I get a chance to play?”
I felt my knees wobble.
“Tate,” I breathed.
“And your ex is a fuckwad and until I know he’s on a fuckin’ plane on his way back to suburbia, I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
Oh.
My.
God.
“Tate,” I whispered.
“And we don’t know about your Dad yet and until he’s stable, I’m here.”
I stared at him in the mirror.
Who was this man and what did I do with him?
“What about the bar?” I asked.
“I’ll call Bubba, reem his ass, tell him about your situation and he’ll dry out and go back.”
I asked the all important question, “What about Wood?”
His chin came up but his arms didn’t leave me.
“That’s later.”
“I need to call him,” I whispered.
“No, you don’t need to call him. I need to call him. Wood and I need to have words. He’s got more words for you afterwards, we’ll see.”
“We’ll see?”
He nodded. “We’ll see.”
“I should –”
“Later.”
“But –”
His arms gave a squeeze. “Jesus, Lauren. Later.”
We held each other’s eyes in the mirror.
Then he said, “Breakfast, babe.”
“Right,” I whispered.
He dropped his head, kissed my shoulder, his beard tickling my skin and he left the bathroom.
I looked in the mirror at myself wearing my sexy undies. If I was honest, I didn’t look half bad. It was all Tyler’s “working the core”. Weeks of my abs aching like crazy was paying off, there was even some definition at my midriff and the mini-Buddha belly was more like a soft pooch. I hadn’t noticed. It was even kind of cute.
My eyes went from my pooch to my makeup bag; I dropped the blush brush in and pulled out some eye shadow.
Chapter Ten
Grape Kool-Aid
I was lying in the rope hammock between the two elm trees that butted the front edge of my Mom and Dad’s big, square, cement front porch, my eyes on Tate and Mack who were both standing at the raised bottom end of the huge pond that took up the side of our long front yard.
Mom was at the hospital with her best friend Norma.
We’d had breakfast. Tate had let Mom talk him into staying. Mom had let Tate pay for breakfast but not without a fight. She’d pulled the Dad card again, Tate’s eyes had sliced to me and I knew he was about to blow so I’d pulled the my-boyfriend-is-a-macho-man-bounty-hunter-and-if-you-don’t-let-him-pay-my-life-will-be-a-living-hell card and Mom had spent a full minute assessing Tate’s big, bearded badassness and what that might mean to me should he get miffed and wisely relented.
We’d gone to the hospital. I’d visited Dad for ten minutes, all of that time he was sleeping and I was thinking that he looked exactly like he’d had his chest cracked open and how that was the way wrong look for my big, tall, strong, farmer Dad. Carrie had her visit and Mom had hers and then my Mom’s best f
riend Norma showed up and Mom talked Mack into taking us to the farm and out to lunch at The Station before we came back. Mack drove with Tate in the passenger seat and Carrie and I in the back. Mack talked. Tate didn’t. Carrie and I looked out our windows, both of us, I was sure, not seeing the landscape and instead seeing our Dad in a hospital bed.
Now, Carrie was inside the house, Mack and Tate were inspecting the land and I was freaking out and not just about my Dad.
I heard Carrie approach and I looked up at her.
“Skooch over,” she ordered and handed me one of Mom’s Tupperware tumblers filled with purple liquid.
“No, is that –?” I started as I skooched.
“Grape Kool-Aid,” she affirmed.
It was official, I was home.
With grace borne of years of practice because Mom stretched that hammock out at the beginning of every May and rolled it up and took it in at the end of every September for as long as I could remember, Caroline got in the hammock while holding her tumbler.
Then, as if drawn by an invisible force, both of our eyes went to the men.
“Tate’s hot,” she whispered.
She had no idea.
I took a sip of ice cold Kool-Aid. Delicious, refreshing and Tyler and Wendy’s heads would explode if they knew I was drinking it which made it perfect.
“Laurie, you look awesome,” Carrie said to me and I looked from Tate to her.
“Thanks, honey.”
“And more than just being tan and having cool hair. You look…” she studied me, “happy.”
This surprised me. “I do?”
“Well, outside of looking sad about Dad but, you know, deep down. Content-like.”
I looked toward Tate.
“Is it him?” she asked quietly and my eyes went back to her.
“Sorry?”
“Tate.”
“Um…”
“See, ‘cause, when you were with Brad…” she hesitated then shook her head, “I don’t know. You were never yourself. You weren’t our Laurie. Not when he was around. When you were alone, you were great, you were you. When he was around, there was something off. Like you were on eggshells, like you had to be perfect and spent all your time in an effort to be that way.”
I stared at her, both surprised at this and not surprised because her saying those words made me realize I did try to be perfect for Brad because I thought he was perfect and to keep him I had to match that.
Boy was I wrong about that.
Then I asked, “Really?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Mom and I talked about it…” she paused, “a lot.”
I was already surprised at what she said but this surprised me even more.
“You talked about it?”
She turned to me. “He wasn’t all that and I’m glad you know that now. I’m sorry you went through what you did to find out, that totally sucks and I wish you hadn’t had to go through that, but still, I’m glad you know. He was just a guy and not a very nice one. Brad’s cute and all but he knows it. But you, it was like you didn’t know how pretty you were. It was like you thought you were luckier to be with him than he was to be with you when that was the wrong way around. With Tate…” she trailed off and her eyes slid away.
“With Tate what?” I prompted.
Her eyes slid back. “You just seem… I don’t know… you. Like you can be Laurie, you can be yourself and it’s so cool that he’s into that, into you just as you are because, well, he is all that.”
I looked back at Tate. She was right; he was pretty much all that.
He was also other things.
“I have another man back at Carnal,” I blurted and heard my sister gasp.
Then she asked on a whisper, “What?”
I shook my head and turned toward her. “Carrie, it’s all messed up.”
“What’s messed up?”
I kept shaking my head while talking. “I don’t know, Tate and me, we met and we did not get along. Well, mostly, I didn’t get along with him. He said some things about me and I overheard him and they hurt and, even though he apologized, I didn’t accept and we bickered all the time and then, suddenly, poof.” I threw out my hand with the tumbler and grape Kool-Aid almost sloshed on my jeans shorts. “Tonia gets raped and murdered and we find out about it together and we aren’t bickering anymore, we’re like, so far away from bickering it isn’t funny. We’re something else completely.”
“Tonia gets raped and murdered?” she repeated, her eyes huge.
“Tonia,” I told her, nodding. “She worked for Tate and he fired her the night she got raped. And he wasn’t nice about it. He gets pissed and watch out. Stuff comes out of his mouth, that’s why he said I was fat and sorry-ass, because he was pissed.”
Her head jerked back and her eyes narrowed. “He said you were fat and sorry-ass?”
I nodded again. “He didn’t mean it. He has a bad temper. He says a lot of things he doesn’t mean when he’s pissed. I’ve seen it happen three times and he’s regretted it three times. He said those things to Tonia, right in front of everyone and she left the bar and that’s the last anyone saw of her conscious. Then she was dead. Tate was a mess… I mean, in a badass, biker, bounty hunter kind of way. He freaked out and took off after her murderer and he was gone for a month. That’s when Wood told me Tate was fucking his sister.”
“Tate is fucking Wood’s sister?” Caroline asked and I nodded.
“That’s what Wood said.”
“Wood?”
“The other guy I’m sleeping with,” I informed her and her eyebrows shot up.
“You’re sleeping with him?” she whispered, getting closer so, when she did, I got closer too.
“Not sleeping sleeping just, you know, sleeping and maybe fooling around a bit. He gets up early and I get home late –”
“Laurie!” she hissed. “How could you –?”
“I don’t know!” I hissed back. “Tate went out of town and he took me for a ride on his bike and he kissed me before he left. But he didn’t tell me he was going. He just said he wanted me on the back of his bike when he got back. But then he was gone. For a month. He didn’t call. Nothing. He just vanished. Then I got my car from Wood and he said he’d seen me on Tate’s bike and he didn’t want to tell me what he had to tell me because he wanted me to be on the back of his bike but then he told me Tate was with Neeta, Wood’s sister, and she’s married.”
“The back of his bike?” she asked, looking confused.
I shook my head. “I don’t know, I don’t get it. I think it’s biker slang for they want a date or something.”
“What did Tate say about what Wood said?”
This was the tricky part therefore I mumbled, “Um…”
“What?” she asked.
“I didn’t ask him,” I admitted. “When he got back…” I moved even closer, “Carrie, when he got back I think he came straight to me, straight to the bar, he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the hall and kissed me and told me he didn’t find Tonia’s killer but it was good to be home then I threw the whole Neeta thing in his face, he got pissed, said some nasty stuff and stormed off.”
“You threw the whole Neeta thing in his face, a big, badass man with a bad temper?”
“Yes.”
“Why on earth would you do that?” she whispered loudly.
“I don’t know!” I whispered loudly right back, “I’m me, he’s Tate, we haven’t known each other for very long but that’s what we do.”
“When was that?” she asked.
“Two days ago.”
My sister stared at me.
Then she said, “I don’t get it, did you make up?”
“No, he was just there when you called me. We’d just finished trading barbs and you phoned and… and…” I took in a breath then took a sip of Kool-Aid then finished, “now he’s here.”
“Now he’s here,” she repeated, staring at me intently.
“Yeah,” I said.
&nbs
p; She kept staring at me.
Then she shook her head and muttered, “Some things never change.”
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Honey,” she whispered and that one word seemed to have grave meaning but she said no more.
“What?”
She lifted up several inches and looked down at me. “Let me get this straight. You and Tate don’t get on then you do, more than likely because you really got on just one or the other of you didn’t get that, and I’m guessing the one who didn’t get that is you. Then he says he wants you on the back of his bike, which I think you don’t get means more than a date. Then he takes off and doesn’t call and some other guy talks trash about him to you behind his back. You listen to this trash and believe this guy. You don’t call Tate. When he comes back you don’t ask him what’s up. You just listen to some guy with an ulterior motive talking trash. Tate gets home, you throw it in his face, he gets pissed like you know he’s going to do, storms off but ends up a day later flying halfway across the country just to hold your hand because your Dad is sick? Do I have that right?”
Uh-oh. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
My eyes slid to Tate again to see he and Mack were walking up the yard toward us.
“So where is it now?” Carrie asked.
“We had sex for the first time this morning,” I answered and I heard my sister gasp again.
I closed my eyes.
“Laurie,” Carrie called and I didn’t look at her, I just opened my eyes and stared at Tate getting closer.
“Mm?” I muttered.
“Big Sister, I love you but you’ve always held a mean grudge and you’ve always, but always, leaped before you looked.”
My eyes moved to hers. “What?” I whispered.
“Brad was a dick and you thought he was something special and he gave you attention so you grabbed hold, never seeing he was a dick. That wasn’t good, not for years, and you followed him to Phoenix and lived a life you hated and did whatever you could to keep hold. That didn’t work out and you sold everything you owned and took off in your car and wandered the country. Now you’ve set up a life in the middle of nowhere and you got a man who’s into you and you listen to another man who’s into you and you don’t set the story straight, you just believe, shut down and, I’m guessing, intentionally piss him off to shut him out. A day later, he’s at your side during an intense time in your life, what I’m guessing again is pretending to be your boyfriend to get in the face of your dickhead ex-husband and then you leap into bed with him. Laurie,” she moved so her face was close to mine, “you’re smart in a lot of ways but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to learn how to think.”