Wyatt stretched out his legs on the king-size bed. He’d taken off his boots and changed into an old Stanford sweatshirt after coming back to the motel from the Brodys’ ranch. Toni had left during the third quarter, but he’d put on a cheerful face and stuck around for the whole game. He’d even managed to laugh a little with the Brodys and tell Cassie and Louisa some stories about himself and James.
Now, though, he was alone. The two women had retired to Louisa’s room to watch some estrogen-rich show, leaving him on his own. The television had basic cable channels, but he couldn’t settle on anything. Sunday Night Football hadn’t started yet and the news shows were either too depressing or too touchy-feely.
Especially after his conversation with Toni.
He supposed their talk had been a long time coming and was inevitable if they were going to be around each other for any period of time. He’d just ignored that possibility and focused on the fun aspects of being with Toni. Hell, he’d practically made it his mission to make her have fun.
Well, he should have left well enough alone. He should have told himself that he was only in town temporarily, to accomplish a goal, and then he’d be back to his life in California.
Except his life had changed since he’d sold his company. He no longer had daily responsibilities for product development and marketing decisions. He didn’t hire or fire people. As a member of the board of directors and creative consultant, he was still expected to target trends and see possibilities in future software applications, but that was more about thinking than doing.
He had all the time in the world to pursue whatever he wanted, yet he had no idea what to do. Keeping busy wasn’t a problem; getting bored was. Always had been with him.
He was just about to flip through the channels again when he heard something hit his west-facing window. Was the wind that high? The day had been remarkably pleasant, perfect for horseback riding and grilling. Perfect for long talks with your ex-girlfriend about what a jerk you’d been way back when. And probably still were, from her perspective.
He heard the sound again. Maybe he should find The Weather Channel. See if a norther was coming through. That could mess up the plans he had to make sooner or later about getting back to California.
A decidedly louder “thump” hit the window, sounding less like wind and more as if someone was throwing something at his room. That seemed like a prank he might have pulled as a kid.
He swung his legs off the bed and walked to the door, opening it quietly. The walkway and parking lot faced south, with a tall single light near the road. His Hummer was fine, as well as the other cars in the lot. He stepped out onto the concrete, past the brightly painted vintage metal chairs provided for sitting outside, and headed for the corner of the building.
“Psst,” he heard as he reached the corner.
He looked down the slight hill to the side of the motel and saw Toni squatting in the bushes. She wore dark clothing and her hair was pulled back under a cap. Her white sneakers made her look like part jogger, part cat burglar.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Are you alone?” she said in a loud whisper.
“Of course I’m alone. Why are you out there? In the dark.”
“I didn’t want anyone to see me. I couldn’t just park in the lot and walk up to your door. I was sure Louisa or Cassie or any number of people might just pop their heads out of their rooms and see the mayor approaching the room of her ex-boy-friend. How would that look?”
“We have these great inventions now called phones.”
“I wasn’t about to call the motel and ask for your room. I, er, deleted your number from my cell phone when I was angry with you.”
“Today or one of the many other times?”
She glared at him, which was rather comical given her position between two boxwoods. “I wanted to see you, okay? But maybe I’m changing my mind.” She started to get up.
“No! Do you want to come in?”
“I’m fairly certain that if I do, I’ll get caught. It’s happened every single time. Louisa or Cassie or the night watchman. Maybe there will be a fire alarm. A meteor will strike the motel. Something horrible will happen, I just know it.”
“Then what? Why are you here, if you’re so certain something terrible will happen?” Why was she risking her reputation when they’d already had their “talk.”
She sighed. “Because I had to.”
“Okay, I have to hear this one. Do you want to go someplace else? Your house, maybe?”
“No! I can’t have anyone see you come inside my house this late at night.”
“It’s not even eight o’clock yet.”
“Shh! The sidewalks roll up early on Sunday night. You remember that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I suppose so.” He leaned against the corner of the building. “So, what did you have in mind?”
“Call Cassie and Louisa and tell them you’re turning in early. Tell them you have a headache or something.”
“That is such a girly excuse.”
“Well, think of something!” Toni hissed.
“Okay, then what?”
“Follow me around the side of the motel. I parked my truck in back of the old rock house on that vacant property next door.”
“Then what?”
“I thought we might…go for a drive,” she said, her voice suddenly tense. “You know, like old times.”
“Old times. Er, Toni—”
“Okay. If you don’t want to go, just say so.” He heard the bushes rustle as she duckwalked backward. “God, this is so humiliating.” That statement was followed by an “umph” as she apparently stumbled or hit something. Probably went down on her butt.
“Wait, I want to go. For a drive. Whatever. Let me get my phone so I can call Cassie and Louisa. And a jacket. It’s getting cooler.”
“You’re darn right it is. Hurry up, please.”
“I’m hurrying. Do you want to come inside?”
“No,” she snapped. “Listen carefully. I do not want to get caught!”
“Okay, got it. I’ll be right there.”
He couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say. See where she wanted to go for a drive.
He quickly called Louisa’s room and discovered both women were still watching their show. He said he was turning in early because he had a slight stomach ache from eating too many burgers and didn’t want to be disturbed. That wasn’t true; he hadn’t eaten much since his appetite had deserted him after confessing to Toni. But his employees seemed to believe him.
So far, so good. He shoved his feet into some running shoes, then grabbed his phone and leather jacket. Tonight reminded him of old times. He and Toni, slipping around, out for a drive. Up to no good, usually because of something he had planned. This time, she’d taken the initiative. What did that mean?
Reevaluating his needs for the night, he went into the bathroom and fished around for more supplies. Better safe than sorry.
He grinned as he pulled the door shut. He was no longer bored.
TONI DROVE AWAY FROM the vacant lot with her lights off, just in case anyone saw her lurking about. She almost told Wyatt to bend down, but that would have been overkill. There was nothing wrong with her driving around with a passenger.
Of course, there was no one on the street after eight o’clock on Sunday night, she reminded herself as she switched on the lights and pulled out onto the road. The church people had already gone home from six-thirty services. All the businesses were closed here in town. The evening was quiet.
So quiet, she could almost hear her heart pounding. She glanced to the left, where the Christmas display was still on at the community center. The multicolored ornaments glowed on the bed of fake snow. She could still feel the softness of that snow, the hardness of Wyatt as he pressed against her. Thankfully, the inside of the truck was dark and he couldn’t see her flushed face.
“So, where are we going?” Wyatt asked as she drove past her house on Elm Street.
“Um, well, since you’re leaving tomorrow, I thought we might drive out to the scene of your original crime. Of course, if you’d rather not…”
“No, that’s fine with me,” he answered, stretching out his arm along the back of the seat. “It’s kind of dark.”
“There’s at least a quarter moon, and the night is clear.
Now, since the tower is white, as it should be, it can be seen okay.” Besides, she didn’t really want to look at the stupid water tower. She wanted to look at Wyatt.
“I kind of liked it purple and gold.”
“Don’t even think about it.” She stopped at the intersection of Commerce and Elm before continuing west.
He laughed and she relaxed just a little. “How many times do you think we drove out here?”
She tensed up again. So, he was thinking about…that. “I don’t know.” As the houses thinned out, the road curved and went up a rocky hill. The water tower was on the other side, high on the mesa off a dirt road.
“Nice pickup,” Wyatt commented.
“What?” He knew she was picking him up? Like a desperate woman in a singles bar?
“Yeah, I like the extended-cab models. I imagine it’s convenient for your work crews.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief. He was talking about her truck. “My work crews. Yes, it’s absolutely essential.” She drove slowly up the curving road, which cut around big red rocks and scruffy mesquite trees. She hadn’t been up here in the dark in many years. The one time she’d come without Wyatt had been in broad daylight with the city manager and public works supervisor, when they were talking about repairs to the tower.
She pulled to a stop up high, between the water tower legs and the small concrete-block maintenance building. Her truck should be hidden from anyone driving around below, although she couldn’t imagine why anyone would be out here at night.
Unless, of course, they were also up to no good.
“Do you want to let the tailgate down and look at the stars?” she asked Wyatt.
“Sure. I haven’t seen the stars in the Texas sky in a long time.”
“I imagine they look exactly the same as in California.”
“You never know,” he said as he opened the passenger side door. The light illuminated his smiling face.
That man was way too good-looking. Way better than the boy she’d known.
They shut the doors and walked around back. The rear of the truck faced the valley below, away from the town. Ranches and government land stretched out for miles, much farther than they could see in the dark with only a quarter moon for light. Toni unlatched the tailgate, put her hands on the cold metal and jumped up.
“I’m surprised you don’t have one of those camper shells over the back,” Wyatt said as he boosted himself onto the tailgate beside her.
“I would, except I sometimes transport appliances or other tall items in the back. Besides, I have a locked tool chest bolted to the bed of the truck. That’s usually all I need.”
“The thought of you with power tools turns me on.”
Toni laughed. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw how grubby I get sometimes.”
“Sure I would. Besides, I’ve seen you grubby before. I don’t remember that being a turnoff.”
“Wyatt, you were eighteen. Nothing was a turnoff back then.”
“You think I’ve changed?”
“I imagine you’re more sophisticated now,” Toni said, swinging her legs. She looked out onto the landscape. Very few houses were visible from here.
“I’m a guy. We don’t mind sweat and a little dirt.”
“I’m a girl. I like showers and shampoo that smell like flowers.”
He leaned over and fingered a strand of her hair. “Hmm, you do smell like flowers.”
“Disappointed I’m not covered in sawdust?”
“Not really,” he said, leaning even closer, until his hot breath raised goose bumps along her neck. “I like girly-girls, too.”
He kissed her just below her ear, making her close her eyes and sigh. Wyatt had always known just where she liked to be kissed. Touched. Did he remember? She thought he must, from when they’d kissed—and more—this past week.
She turned her head and found his lips in the dark. His arms closed around her and pulled her sideways, half across his lap.
“Wait,” she whispered as she broke away. “I can’t bend that way.” Her legs scrambled for traction on the tailgate.
“How about this way?” he asked against her lips as he leaned back and pulled her with him. He kissed her deeply, his hands threaded through her hair. She felt light-headed, oxygen-deprived as the kiss went on and on.
Finally he broke for air, panting. “This metal is hard. Do you have blankets?”
“Um, yes.” She reluctantly pulled away from his warmth and scrambled to her knees on the truck bed. She pulled two clean packing blankets from the tool chest, glad she’d remembered them earlier. When she’d thought about what kind of bold moves she might make while she had the chance.
Suddenly his warmth was against her back. He kissed her neck again as she knelt against the tool chest. Her fingers grasped the blankets as he rubbed against her. “You look and feel even better than you did when you were eighteen,” he said. “I swear, the first time I saw you sitting behind your desk, I couldn’t think of anything but what you might be wearing. On your legs. You have terrific legs.”
“Um, thank you,” she whispered, as his hands moved from her shoulders down, around her sides and toward her breasts. Yes, touch me there, she wanted to say.
His hands closed over her as if they’d been doing this forever. Thankfully, she’d worn a soft, lacy bra instead of something more practical. She could feel his fingers seeking, finding her sensitive nipples through the two layers of clothing. She moaned as he rolled the tips between his thumb and forefinger.
“We need those blankets. Now,” he said against the side of her neck. “We may be acting like teenagers, but the bed of this truck is damn hard on my old knees.”
That wasn’t the only thing that was hard, she thought as she brushed against him once more before lifting the blankets the rest of the way out.
“You came prepared,” he said as they spread one blanket on the truck bed. “I like that in a woman.”
“Speaking of prepared, does that mean…”
“Yes, I came prepared also. Not that I assumed we’d do anything, but a guy can hope.”
“That’s okay. I don’t have…Well, the mayor can’t very well go into the drugstore and buy condoms.” She shivered in the night air, now that Wyatt wasn’t pressed against her.
“I don’t suppose that would be a good political move.” He tugged on the last corner of the blanket, then shrugged out of his jacket. “Come here, Miss Mayor, and I’ll warm you up.”
Yes, he would. They knelt facing each other, then he kissed her again and they sank slowly to the soft, thick blanket. Wyatt flung the other blanket over them as they tangled arms and legs. He rolled on top and she welcomed his weight.
“We have too many clothes on,” he murmured close to her ear.
“I know, but I don’t want to let you go. Even for a minute.”
He looked down at her, an odd expression on his face, until she realized what she’d said. “I mean to get undressed. You feel so good.”
He kissed her again, at the same time lifting her sweater. He barely broke contact to lift it over her head. Then his fingers went to work on her jeans. She ran her hands up his sweatshirt, feeling his hard muscles and rapid breathing. This grown Wyatt was bigger, stronger. He was a man, no longer a lean and sometimes too-rushed eighteen-year-old.
At least, she hoped he wouldn’t rush too much.
“Lift up,” he said as he unzipped her jeans.
She gasped as he whipped off her underwear right along with the pants.
“Now, that’s what I call efficient,” he said, a smile evident in his voice.
“You’re not playing fair,” she said, reaching for his sweatshirt.
“I’m not playing at all. I’m serious about getting you naked as quickly as possible.”
“Don’t rush me,” she complained, pulling off his shirt. She reached for his jeans. The top button was already undone. She ran her finger along the zipper.
“Now who’s playing?” he asked, his breathing heavy.
She pushed him onto his back, and he took advantage of her position to unfasten her bra and pull it off. The second blanket shielded her from both the cool temperatures and his eyes. But not his hands, which seemed to be everywhere as she struggled with his jeans.
“You’re making me nervous, babe,” he said as she tugged on the stubborn zipper. He moved from under her, quickly took care of undressing and turned toward her once more. “Now, where were we?” he asked as he dropped a handful of condoms on the blanket nearby.
She closed her eyes and stopped breathing as he pressed against her. Oh, yes. That’s exactly where they were. Naked and suddenly in a great hurry.
Some things didn’t change in fifteen years. And some things were much, much better.
WYATT LAY ON HIS BACK, staring at the stars and wondering what had just happened. Technically, he knew. He and Toni had just had mind-blowing sex in the bed of her pickup truck. In December, in Texas. Beneath the infamous water tower.
But why? He knew he should have asked, but he really hadn’t wanted to talk. The adage, Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, came to mind. If Toni wanted him enough to throw rocks at his window, engineer an escape from town and fry his brain with sex, who was he to question her reasons?
And yet, he couldn’t help wondering what had happened between the third quarter of the Cowboys game and the I-can’t-get-you-out-of-your-clothes-fast-enough experience they’d just shared.
She wasn’t talking. She was breathing, though, as she lay across his chest. He’d pulled the blanket over them until just the top of her head, his neck and face were free. The night was cool, crisp and silent. They seemed to be the only people on earth.
He could stay this way all night. Or until she roused. She felt so damned good, all damp and warm and womanly, her thigh across his and her arm around his chest. Her breasts, fuller now, were soft against him. She smelled like flowers and good sex. Like Toni.
The memories weren’t as good as the reality. Or maybe he hadn’t let himself remember how they’d been together. If he’d thought about her too much, he might have tried to see her on the rare occasions when he’d returned to Brody’s Crossing.
Despite what he’d joked about earlier in the week, a “same time, next year” kind of relationship, that wouldn’t have worked with Toni. She was too focused, too serious. He was too flighty, too adventurous.
“You’re awfully quiet,” she said softly, her breath tickling his chest.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“Not really. Just…drifting.”
“Yeah, drifting. Me, too.” That was as good a description as anything of the way he felt. Knocked off his foundation was more like it, but he didn’t want to admit as much to Toni. At the moment he was content to hold her in his arms. Sooner or later, though, he knew he’d feel the urge to run.
He always did.
But not right now. “You know, I don’t have any pressing business back in California. I could stay a few extra days. Maybe we could talk about more Christmas decorations for the streets.”
He felt Toni tense before she responded. Her breathing changed. Slowly, her leg slid off his thigh. “Um, that’s probably not going to work for me.”
“What?” He’d offered to change his plans, maybe buy something really nice for her town, and she said no?
“I’m really busy, and besides, if you stayed around town we’d want to do…this some more. I’d get caught in a compromising situation sooner or later. Probably sooner. No, I just don’t want to push my luck.”
“Luck?” What about us? he wanted to ask before he remembered that there was no us. “What about this?” he asked, sweeping his hand down her back and pulling her close.
“Oh, this was great,” she said. “Better than I remembered. But we both know we don’t have a future, right? You’re West Coast and I’m strictly small-town Texas.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And like I said, I’m really busy. We have budget meetings, and I’ve got the old hotel project. All the other Christmas events are coming up. The Settlers’ Stroll next weekend, the VFW Christmas party, the Dewey’s Christmas party. I’m just going to be so busy I wouldn’t have time to spend with you, anyway.”
Suddenly he felt really irritated. Very naked. And a little bit…used. “So, what was this?”
“This was great. Thank you very much.”
Thank you? Had she really said that?