“I thought you’d be happier than you look,” Scott said from where he still laid in her bed, rolled over on this stomach, the sheet barely concealing the rest of him.
She would need to be okay with the fact that he didn’t want anything more than sexual gratification from her. Wasn’t that what she’d signed up for? How could she just change the rules midstream?
She grabbed her robe and headed to the refrigerator. Maybe she should also grab her dignity if she could still find it anywhere. “I am happy.”
“Right. Sure you are.”
She tied the robe tight around her waist and reached for two cold water bottles. Before she could turn, he was behind her, his arms reaching and pulling her close to his still warm and naked body. “What’s up, baby? Your turn to talk to me.”
She couldn’t tell him about her family’s problems. Because despite the fact that Diana had her issues with Mom, she’d never wish this loss on her. Losing a dream was the worst kind of pain. When that dream had formed most of your adult life, it was so much worse. She wasn’t sure how Mom could recover from this setback and had no idea what any of them would do. They’d probably all have to go back eventually and face the mess Florina had left them. Diana couldn’t abandon Mom. Now Diana would be stuck at the shop at least until they figured this all out.
But she couldn’t bother Scott with any of this. She didn’t want to be one more thing on his long list of worries and concerns. The man carried enough weight on his shoulders, and she didn’t need to add to it. This thing between them was all about fun, all about being young and carefree and reaping the benefits. Sucking up the bone marrow of life, the one thing she’d failed to do for most of it, while she went after a dream she wasn’t even sure she wanted anymore.
“Look, we both went into this knowing it was temporary. I’m happy you’re not going, but I have no right to stop you,” Diana said.
“Right or not, you’re a big influence. I want you to be okay. Do you hear me?”
“I’m good.” She turned around in his arms, holding the two water bottles. She offered him a small smile. “Really.”
“Yeah?” he tugged a lock of her hair. “Why don’t I believe you?”
“What do I need to do to convince you?”
He gave her a decidedly wicked look, and she wanted to know every indecent thought in that mind of his.
“Kiss me,” she said, a reminder of the first time she’d given him an invitation. It was now an open invitation for him, anytime he wanted because she was, unfortunately for her, beginning to recognize a few signs she didn’t want to acknowledge.
She was a bit hooked on this man. And she did have him, at least for now. Maybe that’s all she needed.
Scott couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed watching someone sleep. Awake, Diana’s face was always on full scale alert, and she always seemed to be firing on all cylinders. Even when they made love she always tried to take some control. In her sleep, at least, she let go. Her hair fanned out against the pillow, one long curl falling over her eye. He pushed it out of the way, and she scrunched up her nose, her hand moving in her sleep to block the action.
“No…lemme sleep.”
He smiled. Gen’s crazy bakery hours were messing with Diana’s system. He really shouldn’t bother her any more tonight. She had to get up in a few hours.
In her dreams, at least, she seemed to let go of her worries. About her grandmother, about what people thought of her, writing, even about him. She cared too much sometimes, and it showed. It did more than surprise him. He couldn’t remember the last time any woman unrelated to him had showed any real worry or concern for him. They were always more concerned with what he could do for them. But he couldn’t have Diana worried about him. He’d already said too much about the wildfires and only fed into her worries. Of course she’d be concerned, because she cared about all the people in her life. And they were friends. More than friends. He was apparently the only one of the two of them willing to face that this arrangement between them went far deeper than friendship. At least on his end.
She’d try to help him if she got one hint that he needed it. That’s why he couldn’t tell her about Jake. If he did, he was afraid of the pity he might find in her eyes. He didn’t want pity from Diana. He only wanted to be needed half as much as he seemed to need her.
Which was nuts.
He should get out of here, and go home. Spending the night was one of those relationship things he didn’t do, and she’d made it clear this was strictly friends. That’s all she wanted from him. He quietly climbed out of bed and reached for his clothes. Yet another thing he’d learned in the service which served him now. Stealth.
Clearly he was out of practice because halfway to the door he heard Diana’s voice. “Scott? Where are you going?”
When he turned to her, she was already sitting up in bed, the sheets falling below her naked breasts.
The blood flow to his brain stopped, and he took a second to answer. “I thought I’d go since you have to get up so early.”
“You were going to leave without saying goodbye?”
“I didn’t want to wake you up just to say goodbye.”
“Right.”
This always seemed to be the place in a relationship where he failed, where he self-destructed. Not that this was a relationship. They were friends with benefits. It was what she wanted. Why was he now feeling defensive about it?
He retraced his steps, walking slowly back towards her. “Do you want me to stay?”
“I don’t want to force you to do anything you don’t want to do. Go if that’s what you want.” She pulled the covers up to her nose.
Now he was getting pissed. He was right about this, dammit. Spending the night was a big step, a step she wasn’t ready to take with him. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re the one that said no strings.”
“Yeah, so? Why are you sneaking out on me?”
Okay, now he was totally confused. “Not sneak out. Slip out. I didn’t want to take you up.”
“Mission accomplished!” She turned her back to him. “Goodnight, Scott.”
Scott turned to go, and was inches away from the door when he stopped moving again. This was what he did. Leave. Deal with it later, usually with some good sex. He didn’t know what kept him from walking out the door right now, but it seemed a force field had settled on him and he couldn’t take another step. He heard Wallace’s voice as if he were in Scott’s head with a damned megaphone: you can’t be both happy and right all the time. For the first time in his life, he wanted to be back in that bed with Diana more than he wanted to be right.
Deal with it. She’s worth it. His boots felt loaded with quick drying cement as he moved back toward her. “Diana.”
“What!”
“We’re not doing this.”
She faced him, and lowered the sheet down to her neck. “Not doing what?”
“Fighting.”
Her eyes dropped down to study the sheet. “We’re not fighting. We’re just having a disagreement.”
“Over what, exactly?”
It took her a minute to answer, and he waited her out. Patiently. “You want to go and I want you to stay.” She said this so quietly, it was almost a whisper.
He sat down on the bed next to her. “Was it so hard to say that?”
“Yes,” she squeaked out.
He couldn’t help but laugh. “All you had to do was ask.”
“But I don’t want you to stay if you don’t—”
He put a finger over her lips. “Shut. Up.”
She smiled and lightly bit his finger.
Scott kicked off his boots, lay back down beside her and then pulled her back to his front, spooning style. “Now go to sleep.”
“Are you going to sleep in your clothes?”
“If I take them off again, neither one of us is going to get any sleep.”
“Good point.” Still, she wiggled her butt against him, teasing.
He slapped her ass as a warning, and moved his hips back.
It was going to be a long night.
Friday morning Scott met Wallace in town for a wrecking job. They didn’t do too many of them, but to Scott it was the best part of construction work. Demolition.
Before they could improve, they often had to tear it all down. The entire kitchen was being renovated, which meant Scott could take a sledgehammer to the tile countertops. He did so with no small amount of pleasure, taking his aggressions out on a dated seventies counter that had never done any harm to anyone. Unless one counted being lime green a crime.
After last night, his body should be spent and not ready to go to war with tile. But he was swimming in uncharted waters with Diana and that bothered him. Too much. He’d stayed with her all night, a first for him. So much of a first that until this moment he hadn’t even admitted it to himself. But just between him and this sledgehammer, he felt like a loser.
He’d had a chance to show Diana that he wanted more than temporary with her, but in the end he’d backtracked and taken the easy way out. Tried to leave like a coward. But he hadn’t, and not just because it was what she’d wanted when he’d finally got her to admit it. He couldn’t walk out on her, and that too was new. Still, it was obvious she still operated from a defensive posture in everything she did with him. Not like he could blame her. She’d been through a painful break-up and didn’t need him coming in and complicating her life full throttle. Not to mention that he deserved her lack of trust, seeing as he’d managed to fail everyone who’d ever mattered to him.
Later, taking a break with Wallace, Scott drained two cold bottles of water and tossed them in a pail in the kitchen. “Hell, it’s hot today.”
Another scorching August day. Another fire somewhere, probably. He hadn’t had a chance to check his Cal Fire app today.
“Nice aggression,” Wallace said, quirking an eyebrow.
“You’re welcome.”
Wallace shook his head slowly. “Anything else wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, right. But I would think you’d be more relaxed.”
“Relaxed?”
He cocked his head. “C’mon, man. I know about Diana.”
Scott froze. “How do you know about that?”
“So it’s true. I didn’t know for sure.”
“Shit, Wallace. What the hell?” Couldn’t he have anything private in his life that was his? Just his? Couldn’t his loving family stay off his ass for a second and let him figure things out on his own?
“It’s Gen. She said that you and Diana look at each other like you’re doing it.”
Scott felt a scowl coming on. “And I guess she’s an authority on the subject.”
“Actually, yeah.” Wallace grinned. “But please don’t tell me you’re having booty calls with Mrs. Paulsen’s granddaughter.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
Wallace winced. “Ah, crap.”
“It’s not like that. This is what she wants. Friends with benefits. That’s it.” He gulped down half of another water bottle, and crunched the plastic in his hand.
Wallace laughed. “Yeah, right. You believe that?”
“Hell, I don’t know what to believe anymore. All I know is she doesn’t trust me.”
“Or maybe she doesn’t trust herself with you.” Wallace downed the contents of a water bottle, then studied Scott. “When’s the last time you let yourself have fun?”
Yesterday, he almost said, when he’d been lost and buried deep in Diana. When she’d wrapped her long legs around his back and urged him to go faster. Deeper. Before that, he couldn’t say. Fun was a four letter word when there was so much to be done.
“I had most of my fun before I turned eighteen. You of all people know that.” Fast cars. Underage drinking. Trouble personified. More than anyone, Wallace understood.
“And ever since then you’ve been in payback mode. But you were a stupid kid, not a criminal. You’ve already helped more people than you ever hurt.”
Except for Jake. And Scott couldn’t help it, but that one failure seemed to outshine everything else he’d done. Which made him angry, truth be told, and that’s where the sledgehammer came in.
“I say you go for it,” Wallace said. “Don’t worry about what any of us say or think. Let yourself be happy. If she makes you happy, then go for it. Booty call and all. Just don’t tell Gen I said that.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Sure it is. Look, I know what it’s like to be all up in your head about something. It took me years to admit I was in love with Gen.”
“And now look at you. You’re both disgusting.”
He gave him a wide grin. “You’d love to be me, admit it.”
Regular sex? Yeah, he could handle that. Never had that much in his life between his tours in the Army. And Diana? Yeah, she made him crazy. But this also felt wrong. As much as he wanted to keep them private, he didn’t want to hide. Hiding made it feel like a dirty little secret and she wasn’t that to him. Not even close.
But then again, she’d already made it clear what she wanted from him.
“If you want to give it a go with this girl, you’re going to have to be honest and real with her.”
“You don’t mean Jake.”
“Yeah, I mean Jake. What happened there changed who you are a little bit. It’s still raw, painful.”
Exactly, and all the more reason he wouldn’t tell her. Knowing Diana, she’d only feel sorry for him. He wanted her to feel a lot of things for him, but sorry wasn’t one of them.
Scott leaned against what was left of the counter. “That I can’t do.”
“And why not?”
“She has enough on her plate.”
“And you don’t? I’m telling you, the longer you keep it inside, the more it’s going to fester until it changes even more of who you are. And she might not understand when you pull away without even realizing that’s what you’re doing. She’ll think it’s because of her and take it personally.”
Scott stared. “Where the hell are you getting this crap?”
“Gen makes me watch Dr. Phil with her sometimes.” Now it was Wallace’s turn to wield the sledgehammer with a loud whack. The tile made a satisfying crack, and he turned to Scott. “The things I do for love.”
17
At the end of the day, Scott wanted nothing but a shower, a beer and a bed. He should have headed to The Tavern where he’d likely run into some of his ex-Army buds, if not the pussy ex-Air Force guys that hung out with Joe from time to time. Sometimes being with the brotherhood was the only thing that made his stupid life make any sense at all. Despite all that, he found himself at Diana’s door instead.
He was no different from a junkie, looking for his next fix.
She didn’t look surprised to see him as she opened the door. “I just got back from Gran’s. You should see the place now. It’s a big improvement.”
Today he’d been wrecking and she’d been building. Interesting metaphor for their lives. “While you were doing that, I wrecked a kitchen. Tomorrow we put it back together.”
“Do you want a beer?” she reached inside her refrigerator and pulled a cold one out.
Interesting, since the last time he’d looked in her fridge he’d seen nothing but water bottles and milk.
He untwisted the cap and took only a sip of it, letting his gaze slowly slide down her body. Recently she’d stopped wearing the unimaginative jeans and peasant tops, and had reverted back to her tight jeans and tank tops. He didn’t know why but wasn’t about to complain.
“What are you looking at?” she said.
“You.”
She blushed. “I had to stop wearing the mom jeans. Mandy made me.”
“Yeah?”
“She considers them a blight on the planet.”
He hoped he’d at least been some influence on her decision to stop covering it all up. If he hadn’t already shown her how much he
loved what she had under there, he didn’t know what else he could do.
He set the bottle down. “We haven’t been jogging for a while.”
“Yes, and thank you for that.”
“It was your idea.”
“I would have given up on it after day one if not for my partner.”
Partner. Why did he like the sound of that word coming out of her lips? But he had to call bullshit. Partners shared the worst with each other, and he hadn’t done anything even close to that with her. He wondered which one of them had the bigger trust issues.
“Got any plans today?” He had an idea brewing, though he wasn’t sure how she’d like it.
“I was going to have some dinner, and then … and then…” She chewed her lower lip, hesitating.
“And…?”
“I was going to call you, but you showed up.”
“That was pretty awesome of me.”
She nudged his shoulder. “Okay, buddy.”
He grabbed her and pulled her close, about to show her how much of a buddy he wasn’t. Her hands immediately slid up his back and settled around his neck. The move had begun to feel familiar and comfortable. Like her.
“Would you go somewhere with me? Tonight?”
Her eyes locked with his and unless he was fooling himself, and there was every possibility of that, he thought he caught a nugget of trust in them. He’d take it.
“Where to?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Diana didn’t much care for surprises, but one glance in Scott’s dark green eyes and she couldn’t say no. A few minutes later, they were on their way in Scott’s truck. He drove to the outskirts of town on county land, and she found that she wondered with every mile where in the hell he was taking her. It wasn’t until he turned on to the dirt road that she realized exactly where they were headed.
The lake. “This isn’t funny. Why here of all places?”
He didn’t answer, only took her hand and squeezed it once. He pulled further in on the dirt road and parked. “We’re finally here together.”
“Yeah. Twelve years too late.”
Starlight Hill: Complete collection 1-8 Page 81
