Kyle jumped into the backseat ahead of her. She followed behind, but Bren stopped her. “Sit up on top.”
She looked confused.
“Like this?” Kyle sat on the fold-down roof.
“Exactly like that.”
“Are you sure about this?” she asked as she took a seat next to her son.
“I’ve never been more sure about something in my life.”
* * *
KYLE COULDN’T STOP talking the whole time they drove the giant circle of the parade. Somewhere in between First and Third Streets he’d lost his dismay at spotting his mom kissing his steer-riding coach, but she’d seen the look on her son’s face and it surprised her. She knew Kyle adored Bren, but clearly the idea of his dating his mother was strange.
Perhaps too strange.
“Did you have fun?” Bren asked her son.
Kyle nodded. “I saw a bunch of people from my school. They’re going to be so jealous.”
“And how about you?”
She shelved her concerns for a moment. “It was great.”
His campaign manager had faded away, thank goodness. She didn’t like the man. Not at all.
“Just great?”
Damn his smile and the teasing glint in his eyes. She’d wanted to be mad at him, had been determined to give him a cold shoulder despite the flowers he’d sent her yesterday. How hard would it have been to pick up the phone and call her during the week? He hadn’t. And, yes, she’d been hurt. But now here he was, smiling at her, inviting her to ride in a parade with him, and she could feel herself falling again.
Falling, taunted that little voice.
Maybe not that. Or maybe it was that. She didn’t know, because she couldn’t concentrate when he was around.
“It was fun,” she amended.
He leaned down next to her, and every nerve ending in her body erupted as he whispered in her ear, “I know a better way to have fun.”
She blushed, glanced down at Kyle, but her son was too busy trying to peek under the hood of the sports car to pay attention to them.
“Why didn’t you call me this week?”
She hadn’t meant to blurt the words, but suddenly she didn’t care that it wasn’t the right moment to confront him. She’d seen him that one night, and then...nothing.
He looked away for a second and she saw in his eyes that she’d made him uncomfortable with her question. She gleaned her own answer then, and she didn’t like it. He’d been trying to avoid her. But then why the flowers?
“I thought maybe it might be easier if we took things a little more slow.”
She pinned him with a stare. “Easier for whom?”
He had the grace to look ashamed. “I realized quickly that it was the wrong call.” He faced her fully. “I want to see you. As much as possible. If that’s all right with you.”
She could read the earnestness in his eyes and the genuine remorse for hurting her.
“Don’t do that again.”
He nodded. “I won’t. I promise.” He lightly cupped her face with his palms, the gesture so tender and so familiar that she felt tears fill her eyes.
“It made me think you didn’t want to see me anymore,” she added.
“Never.”
He kissed her then and she gave herself up to it, only this kiss was unlike any she’d ever experienced before. It was at once tender and passionate. Both soft and rough. Both perfect and imperfect because she wanted it to go on forever and she knew it couldn’t given where they were.
“We should get going.”
The words came from a distance and it was only when Bren drew back that she realized they came from her son. “Uncle Jax is expecting us for lunch.”
He was. They were supposed to meet at Ed’s Eatery, and an invitation to join them was on the tip of Lauren’s tongue, but something stopped her.
Kyle.
She could tell he wasn’t sure what to think of Bren’s new status as her boyfriend.
Is that what he is? she asked herself.
Yes, she admitted. Or that’s what she wanted him to be. The realization was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. She hadn’t expected Kyle to react the way he had, though, and so she forced herself to step out of his arms.
“You’re right. We probably should get going.”
She had a feeling Bren knew what was going on. He didn’t seem to take it personally that she was running off to have lunch without him.
“See you later tonight?” he asked in a voice so low she knew it was for her ears only.
“Yes.”
He smiled as he turned and walked away. She smiled, too.
Chapter Nineteen
She spent the night at Bren’s house. Lauren had never felt more naughty in her life. She’d had to sneak out of her apartment like a misbehaving teenager. She’d left Kyle with Jax, who was watching TV in her family room, her brother not above teasing her as she dashed toward the door. The teasing she could handle, but she’d fretted the whole way over to Bren’s place that she was doing the right thing.
“You made it?”
She was so instantly struck by his standing there, all five o’clock shadow and sexy cowboy, that she couldn’t even smile at him.
“I’m here.”
He reached for her. She sank into his arms. It took one kiss for him to convince her that she should have come over sooner. She needed this thing with Bren, whatever it was. Afterward he held her and they talked. She confessed that she’d spent the first year after Paul’s death beating herself up because there’d been a part of her that had wanted the marriage to end, no matter how it happened. He confessed that he’d never been serious about a woman in his life, until her. They ended up making love again, only this time it was a coupling that brought tears to both their eyes.
She kept her evening jaunts from Kyle. Bren resumed his role as coach. Her son seemed much happier with Bren in that role. He took to watching them with an eagle eye, something that kept them both on edge. They’d never really talked about keeping their relationship a secret from her son, but that’s what they ended up doing.
Until the photo appeared online.
She hadn’t even known about it, and if she had, she probably wouldn’t have had the first clue about how to find it. Leave it to her ten-year-old son to know everything there was to know about the internet and to bring it to her attention first.
“They’re making fun of you and Bren online.”
She’d been in the midst of studying for an important test, and so at first she misheard him. “Who’s making fun of you?”
“No,” Kyle said in the way that kids had of speaking to adults like they were stupid. “Not me. You and Bren.”
She about dropped the paper she’d been studying. Kyle sat at the kitchen table, the windows that overlooked the backyard dark, and so she could see the panicked look on her own face as she came around behind him.
Bren held a woman close, the look on his face one of sexy male satisfaction, the woman he held staring up at him like she wanted to push him against the rear of the car next to where they stood and have her wicked way with him. A red car. A white dress. That was her. The day of the parade, right after he’d kissed her. The caption read “Via Del Caballo’s finest.”
She glanced down at Kyle. Her heart was beating a million miles per hour, and she could tell her son was troubled by the photo. He glanced up at her, his brown eyes full of...what? Was it consternation or distress?
“You look...”
She waited for him to finish the sentence. To add the word pretty or funny or even stupid. She would have taken anything in that moment, but he clearly didn’t want to say what was on his mind for fear of hurting her.
“I look good,” she fin
ished for him because she did. Even though the dress had been conservative, it set her figure off to advantage. The shoulders had slipped down, exposing a bare expanse of skin. You couldn’t see the bottom of that dress. Or tell that it was loose and down to her knees. The photo had cut that off so that all you saw was bare skin and her hanging all over Bren, one of her pigtails flipped back over a shoulder and making her look about fifteen years old.
Her eye caught on some of the comments.
What is she, ten?
I didn’t know Via Del Caballo had hookers.
Looks like Sheriff Connelly was making an arrest.
And the worst: I’d like to spread her—
She slammed the lid of Kyle’s laptop closed.
“Hey.” For the first time ever, she saw something else in Kyle’s eyes, something that made her stomach turn over. Anger. And also disgust. Maybe even dismay.
“Hey. What’s that look for?”
Kyle peered up at her with as studious an expression as she’d ever seen. “They’re calling you a slut, Mom.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“But that’s what they’re saying.”
“They’re just internet bullies, Kyle. You have to ignore them.”
He tipped his chin up, and he looked just like Jax in that moment, so much so that her heart lurched into her throat. She wanted to reach out and stroke his baby-smooth cheek, but she knew if she did that, he’d only jerk away.
“It’s just one photo.” No big deal, she told herself.
“The kids at school have seen it.”
“What?”
He nodded. “That’s how I found the picture. One of the kids at school showed it to me. Asked me if it was you.”
“And what’d you tell them?”
“I told them you and Bren were dating.”
And the kids had been cruel. She could see it in his expression. She didn’t want to know what they’d said. She doubted it had anything to do with “dating.” Probably more like...
“Goody,” she said. “That ought to shut them up.”
Kyle just nodded. Bless her son’s heart. The anger and disappointment had faded into righteous indignation. “They were being mean.”
“Kids can be cruel sometimes.” She took a deep breath. “Don’t let them get you down.”
But it bothered her. She hated that Kyle had to learn about the internet in such a way and how people could turn something so innocent into something lewd and tawdry. She hadn’t even noted what site it was on. Tumblr? Instagram? Facebook? Did it really matter? The damage was done.
“I hear you sneak out at night.”
She sank into a nearby chair, the blood having drained from her face. “You do?”
He nodded. “I hear Uncle Jax come in.” He pinned her with a stare. “I know what you’ve been up to.”
For the first time in her life, Lauren felt like a bad mom. She closed her eyes, tried to calm herself, tried to think what to say. In the end she decided on the truth.
“I thought you might be bothered that I was seeing him.”
When she opened her eyes, her son stared at her with a look reminiscent of someone twice his age. “I was.”
She swallowed. “And are you still?”
He shook his head. “You’re a good mom. You deserve to be happy.”
Her eyes burned. She had to take another deep breath to keep from losing it there and then.
“Thanks, kiddo,” she choked out.
“But this is going to get Bren in trouble.”
“No, it’s not.” She shook her head firmly. “It’s just a photo on Facebook. It’ll be at the bottom of the feed before tomorrow night.”
“It’s in the paper, Mom.”
She jerked upright. “What?”
“That’s where the kid at school found it. Some society page or something. You and Bren were center stage.”
* * *
“WHAT ARE WE going to do?”
Bren stared down at the photo in question and it seemed like his stomach turned inside out.
“It’s no big deal,” he said.
“It’s in the paper.”
And he knew exactly who’d taken it. Miriam Webber. She took pictures for the community page, and she was best friends with Frank Farrell.
Damn it. How had he missed that? How had Jerry missed it?
But he couldn’t blame his campaign consultant.
This was all on his own shoulders. He’d known people were watching. He just hadn’t cared.
“Kyle’s being teased at school about it.”
His chin snapped up. “What?”
She nodded. “He didn’t complain about it outright, but I know it bothers him. And do you blame him? The paper allows comments on the pictures. Did you read what people were saying?”
His stomach flipped again, but if there was one thing being in the military had taught him, it was that panic didn’t do anybody any good.
“We’ll handle it.” He went over to her. She stood at his kitchen window, and if the people commenting on that photo could see her now, they’d know she wasn’t some kind of floozy. They’d see a distressed single mom. Someone who cared deeply about her son. “It’s okay.”
He clasped her shoulders. He was about to bend down and give her a kiss but she said, “He knows I’ve been sneaking out.”
That stopped him cold. They’d talked about how she was keeping her relationship with him away from Kyle. He hadn’t liked it, but he understood her reasoning.
“He was pissed,” she said.
“He doesn’t like me?”
Her gaze snapped to his. “No. That’s not it at all. He was mad because I didn’t trust him with the truth. He didn’t say it, but I could see it in his eyes.” She looked away. “It was the first time I’ve ever felt ashamed as a parent.”
He tipped her chin up, and his heart broke at the sadness in her gaze. “Don’t beat yourself up.”
Her eyes changed color with her mood, he’d noticed. They were hazel when she was happy and laughing. They were dark brown when she was sleepy or filled with passion. They were a rusty brown when she was uptight or felt strongly about something.
“My first time dating someone and I’m mucking it all up,” she said, her gaze darting around his face as if she sought clues in the way he stared down at her.
“You’re not mucking it up.” He rested his hands on her shoulders, staring at her reflection in the surface of the glass. “It might be messy. We might make mistakes at times, but we’re a couple.”
She turned to face him. “Do you love me, Bren?”
The words knocked the stuffing out of him. Love? Was that was this was? Was that why it felt like he couldn’t breathe every time he opened up his front door and she stood there? Why no matter what his mood, when he kissed her, she made him smile. Why he couldn’t think about anything else but her. He could be having the worst day of his life, and being town sheriff, there were some pretty dark moments, but when he picked up the phone and it was her on the other end, it always brightened his day.
So he took a deep breath, did what he always did whenever she stared up at him so intently—he cupped her face, tenderly, almost reverently, and said the words that had been building in his heart.
“I do.”
He saw her eyes widen just a bit. But then they filled with tears. She tried to look away, but he wouldn’t let her, the brown in her eyes suddenly tinged by a luminous green.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
She began to nod, slowly at first and then faster and faster, and suddenly he was pulling her into his arms. She let him hold her, but only for a moment. Then he felt her stiffen and he didn’t want to hear what was coming next. Like a sailor that sensed an i
mpending storm, he knew rough seas were ahead.
“I love you enough to walk away while you deal with reelection.”
He shook his head emphatically. “That’s ridiculous. We can weather this storm. It’s just a stupid picture.”
“That might influence voters.”
“It’s not like that. I’m not some high-profile congressman. I’m the town sheriff. No one will care.”
“You haven’t read the comments.”
“I don’t need to.” He rubbed her shoulders. “It’s okay.”
She shook her head again. “It’s not just the picture. It’s what it’s putting Kyle through, too.” The tears were back. “He didn’t say anything, but I know he must have been teased pretty bad. He was bullied in the school before. It’s one of the reasons why we left. I don’t want that to start back up again.”
“So marry me.”
“What?”
“Marry me,” he said, and after he said the words, he knew he’d never been so certain about something in his life. “That’ll take all the wind out of their sails.”
She blinked up at him. “You’re crazy.”
He smiled. “In love.”
He kissed her and once again he felt her soften in his arms, but it was short-lived because she pulled back. He could read the resolve on her face.
“I’m not marrying you.”
For the first time he felt a pang of concern. “Why not?”
“First of all, I have a son to think about. I can’t just spring something like this on him. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Kyle would be thrilled.”
“Would he?”
He thought back to the way Kyle had looked when he’d kissed his mom and he wasn’t so sure. Lauren pounced on that uncertainty.
“He’s ten. Four years ago he lost his dad. He’s in a strange new town with a bunch of kids he doesn’t know and they’re teasing him about a picture of his mom and the town sheriff. Add in a shotgun wedding and the rumors will fly.”
“So what?”
She jerked back then. “So what? Do you not care that this is our life we’re talking about?”
Her Cowboy Lawman Page 16
