by Cindi Myers
“That’s okay. We should probably be going.”
He reluctantly agreed and they returned to the truck. But instead of starting the vehicle right away, he turned to her. “You’re wrong when you say my life has turned out exactly the way I planned,” he said. “At one time, I thought you’d be a big part of my future.”
“Oh.”
The small, soft sound reminded him of a wounded animal. “You never said anything at the time,” she said after a moment. “I thought you were okay with me leaving. I thought you knew that’s what I’d always intended to do after graduation.”
“I guess I didn’t want to believe you meant it,” he said. “And I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to hold you back from your dream.”
“That may be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.” Her voice was strained, as if she was trying not to cry.
He wanted to tell her he hadn’t felt very sweet toward her afterward—that it was only in the past few weeks he’d begun to think of her without a certain bitterness. But the threat of her tears silenced him. He reached for her, wanting only to comfort her, but she surprised him by kissing him with unexpected fervor.
Was she feeling guilty about hurting him so long ago? Or, like him, had she been aware of the heat that simmered between them every time they were together?
He stopped caring about the answers to such questions when she opened her mouth and deepened the kiss, her fingers kneading the back of his neck, her body arching against him. Desire flared through him, sharp with the recollection of the passion they’d once shared.
They moved together easily, the years falling away. Every caress carried with it the memory of what had been and anticipation of what might be. Her body was not that of a ripening girl but a mature woman, and he was no longer the lanky, overeager boy but a man who had learned the benefits of patience.
But the confines of the front seat of a pickup truck would test even the most practiced of lovers, and when the gearshift poked him in the side as he attempted to reach around to unfasten her bra, he withdrew reluctantly. “Maybe this isn’t the best place for this,” he said.
“I didn’t mean to get so carried away.” She moved to the far side of the front seat and busied herself straightening her clothes, avoiding looking at him.
“I wasn’t complaining,” he said. “We could go back to my house. It’s not far.”
“No. We’d better go home. I…” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
“We’re both adults, T. I’m not going to spread rumors among the basketball team that you’re easy.”
She laughed, a shaky trill that betrayed her nervousness. “It’s not that. It’s…There hasn’t been anyone…I mean, there hasn’t been a man in my life since I left Stuart. I don’t think I realized how much I missed that…that closeness until tonight, with you. But I’m not ready to take things any further. Not yet.”
Her honesty moved him even as he fought disappointment. “I won’t pretend I’m not sorry to hear that,” he said. “But I understand.” He turned the key and started the engine. “I’ll take you home now if you like.”
She nodded. “I think you’d better.”
They drove down the mountain in silence. From time to time another shooting star arced across the swath of blackness visible through the truck’s windshield. Jack thought of Tanya’s earlier announcement that he was happy here in Crested Butte. Before her return to town, he would have said he was as happy as he’d ever expected to be. His day-to-day life satisfied him; he had work he enjoyed and goals he still wanted to reach.
Then she’d moved back into his life and turned everything upside down. She had him questioning himself and replaying too many scenes from their past.
She’d made him want her again. The passion between them felt as real as anything he’d ever known, but he had to wonder how long it could last. Would it endure or would it flare and fade like those shooting stars?
Chapter Nine
Tanya paused in the entry of her parents’ home and slipped off her shoes, then tiptoed down the darkened hallway. She was halfway to her bedroom when the door to her parents’ room opened. “Tanya, is that you?”
“Yes, Mom. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Did you have a nice time on your date?”
“Yes. Good night.” She started down the hall again, but once more her mother’s voice stopped her.
“Where did you go?” Ruth asked.
Tanya wanted to protest that she wasn’t in high school anymore; her idea of the perfect after-date activity was not dissecting the evening with her mother. But she was living in her parents’ home, in the bedroom where she’d grown up. And though she had a daughter of her own, so much of her life felt exactly the way it had when she was in high school. It wouldn’t surprise her to learn Ruth felt the same. She turned to face her mother. “We went to Le Bosquet,” she said.
“Oooh. That’s very nice.” Ruth smiled.
Please don’t ask me what we did afterward, Tanya silently pleaded.
Instead, her mother stifled a yawn.
“Go back to bed, Mom,” Tanya said. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Tanya retreated to her room and shut the door, but she was far too keyed up to sleep. She changed into pajamas, checked in on a peaceful Annie, then paced the floor, trying to work off a burst of nervous energy. It was after midnight, too late to call Angela, but maybe she could leave a message at the Chocolate Moose….
Before she lost her nerve, she grabbed the phone and hit the speed dial for Angela’s candy shop. Angela’s sultry voice came on the line. “Hello, you’ve reached the Chocolate Moose…”
“Hello? Tanya, is that you?” Angela’s voice, clear and definitely not recorded, startled her.
“Angela! How did you know it was me?”
“Even Crested Butte has caller ID these days.”
“What are you doing at the shop this time of night?” Tanya asked.
“Bryan and I went to Grand Junction today and I picked up some specialty supplies. We got back later than we planned, but I needed to get this chocolate into the cooler before it melted.”
“I won’t keep you. I was just going to leave a message to call me tomorrow.”
“I’m here now, so spill.”
“That’s okay. If Bryan’s waiting I don’t want to keep you.”
“He headed to the house, where’s he’s probably already passed out in front of the television. Besides, I’ll never sleep now with my curiosity aroused. How was your date with Jack?”
“How did you know I had a date with Jack?”
“Duh? Does anyone go out with anyone in this town without everyone else knowing? Besides, Mindy Fischer works at Le Bosquet and took the reservation when he called.”
“And Mindy told you?”
“She mentioned it when she stopped by to get a new supply of chocolate for the restaurant’s mousse.”
Tanya shook her head, awed by the swiftness and thoroughness of the informal information network. Crested Butte might seem more cosmopolitan and diverse than it had when she’d left, but some aspects of small-town life apparently never changed. “Yes, we had dinner at Le Bosquet,” she said. “It was very nice.”
“But that’s not why you’re calling me.”
“No.”
“Are you going to tell me, or do I have to come over there and force-feed you brownies until you confess?”
Angela’s brownies were awfully tempting.
“If brownies won’t work, I have some cherry-and-rum truffles that will make you beg for mercy,” Angela purred.
“As good as that sounds, I don’t want you to wake my parents and get them all upset.” One more reason she had to find her own place soon.
“Then you’d better tell me now.”
Tanya took a deep breath. “After dinner we went up to Gothic to watch shooting stars.”
Angela laughed. “Now that’s a line I hav
en’t heard before.”
“No! We really did watch stars.”
“Let me see if I have the picture—you’re in the mountains, in the dark, with a gorgeous guy, watching shooting stars. Did you make any fireworks of your own?”
Tanya’s cheeks suddenly felt hot. Was she that easy to read? Or had her reaction to Jack been the same one any woman would have had in a similar situation? “We made a few,” she said. “We might have made more if I’d taken him up on his invitation to go back to his house with him.”
“But you turned him down.”
“Of course I did. It’s too soon. Sex is such a big step.” She took another deep breath, reining in her runaway emotions. “And Jack’s not the kind of guy to take a woman to bed and think of it as a casual thing. At least, he never was before.”
“And you’re not the kind of woman to go to bed with a man and think it’s casual, either. I understand.”
“Good. So why do I feel so rotten now?”
“I don’t know, hon,” Angela said. “Why do you?”
Because she hadn’t wanted to say no to Jack. Because the idea of spending the night in his arms had been the most wonderful possibility she’d experienced in what felt like years.
“I’m worried I’m only attracted to him because it’s been so long since I’ve been with a man,” she said. “Or because I’m wanting to recreate what we had before—not anything that really exists between us now.”
“Then you’re probably smart to take things slowly.”
“I’m just really nervous about this.”
“You’ve got to get back into the swing of things sometime.”
“Maybe Jack isn’t a good guy to start with,” she said. “There’s so much history between us.”
“What is that history, anyway?” Angela asked. “I take it you two were quite an item at one time.”
“In high school. Ten years ago.” In another lifetime. “We were just a couple of kids.”
“Were you in love?”
The question made her stop. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Maybe we thought we were, but what does anybody know about love at that age?”
“Some people know a lot. My grandmother married my grandfather when she was sixteen and they were together seventy-three years.”
“Believe me, I wasn’t smart enough to know what I wanted for lunch the next day when I was sixteen, much less what I wanted to do the rest of my life.”
“So what happened with you and Jack?” Angela asked. “Why did you break up?”
“I went away to Hollywood after graduation. It’s what I’d always planned on doing.”
“So you left him and broke his heart.”
“No!” Is that what she’d done? “I thought he was okay with me leaving. He never said a word against it.”
“Guys aren’t always very good about saying what they feel,” Angela said. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“If I broke his heart, why would he want to have anything to do with me now?”
“Maybe he still has a soft spot for you after all these years,” Angela said. “Maybe beneath that captain-of-industry exterior beats the heart of a true romantic.”
Tanya’s heart started racing again. “I just don’t want to screw things up again,” she said. Not after the mistakes she’d made with Stuart—and apparently with Jack before.
“You’ll never get things right if you don’t give yourself a chance,” Angela said.
Put that way, the right decision sounded so simple. “So you think I should go out with Jack again?”
“If the only thing holding you back is fear, then absolutely.” Tanya heard the smile in Angela’s voice. “Didn’t you tell me something similar when I was agonizing over whether or not to take the role of the Red Lady in this play?”
“I was talking about acting.” Something she knew a little about.
“The same advice applies to relationships. Don’t sell yourself short. Maybe Jack isn’t the guy for you, but what if he is?”
There went her heart again, galloping as if she’d just run up a flight of stairs. “You’re not making me feel any better,” she said.
“Come by tomorrow and I’ll let you try the truffles. I may not be a very good counselor, but my chocolate can make almost anything better.”
“Thanks. I will.” She glanced at the clock. It was almost one. “I’d better go now. Thanks for listening.”
“Any time.”
Tanya switched off the light and lay back in bed. When she closed her eyes, she could still see the shooting stars, bright streaks in the blackness. Tomorrow she’d call Jack and talk to him. See how he felt about the two of them. She’d played a lot of roles in her acting career; maybe it was time to carry some of that bravado into her personal life. She’d play the confident, carefree woman—the one who would never hurt a man, or allow herself to be hurt by him.
THE RED LADY’S REVENGE played to packed houses through the end of August and into September. Angela received rave reviews for her performance in the title role, and Tanya was lauded for making the new play a reality.
Jack watched it all with a mixture of pride and frustration. He’d never understood Tanya’s fascination with the theater and acting. Why did she want to spend so much time pretending to be someone else? What was wrong with being herself?
He’d always wondered if she was drawn to acting because real life could never live up to her fantasies, and by extension, how could he ever live up to the men she met on the stage?
But he kept these doubts to himself, and continued to pursue her patiently. In the past decade, he’d grown used to getting his way. He wanted Tanya more than he wanted any of his building contracts or land deals. But he had to proceed with care. He couldn’t risk losing her a second time because he’d failed to pay close attention and heed any clues about her thoughts and feelings.
Two weeks after the play debuted, Jack spent the afternoon at his parents’ house, helping his dad install new gutters. “You’ve been seeing a lot of Tanya lately, haven’t you?” Andy said.
“Yes.” He hammered a section of gutter into place, then leaned over to attack the next one.
Below, Andy steadied the ladder. “Your mom wants to have the two of you over for supper sometime soon,” he said.
“Sure. That’d be okay. I’m sure Tanya would like to see you.” He climbed down and they moved the ladder over.
“So, how serious is it between you and Tanya?” Andy asked.
Jack cringed, but focused on his work. “We’re just two friends going out.”
Andy snorted. “With your history, I’d have thought you two would be more than friends by now.”
“We dated when we were teenagers. That doesn’t mean there’s anything special between us as adults.” Not that he could tell from Tanya’s behavior anyway. There had been no repeat of the passionate kisses they’d shared up at Gothic. Except for a few brief good-night embraces, their relationship had been as chaste as one between two strangers.
As for his own feelings, he’d avoided examining them too closely. He wanted to spend time with Tanya, so he hadn’t pushed her for more than she was willing to give.
“I remember what you were like when you were kids,” Andy said.
Jack climbed down the ladder once more. “How were we?”
“You were in love,” Andy said. “Not just puppy love, either. I thought you had the real thing.”
He stared at his father. “How can you say that? We were just a couple of teenagers.”
“You reminded me of how I felt about your mother. Some people say there isn’t such a thing as love at first sight, but the minute I laid eyes on Carrie at a college fraternity mixer, I knew she was the woman I’d eventually marry.”
Jack tried to ignore the shiver that raced down his spine. “Tanya’s already been married and it didn’t work out,” he said. He’d told himself her divorce had left her gun-shy, and he owed it to her to respect those feelings.
>
“Maybe it’s because she wasn’t married to you.”
“Dad.” He fixed his father with a stern look. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I don’t think I should rush her.”
“All I can say is, it’s a good thing you don’t approach business the way you do women,” Andy said. “If you did, I’d still be remodeling people’s garages and you’d still be delivering pizza part-time to make ends meet.”
That night, home alone with Nugget, Jack tried to watch a baseball game, but his mind kept drifting to his conversation with his dad. Was he moving too slowly with Tanya? Did their history dictate a different approach?
Tonight she was at a performance of the Red Lady’s Revenge. Jack had dutifully attended opening night, along with at least half the town, who had greeted the final curtain with a standing ovation. Tanya had come onstage at the end, radiant in a red silk dress. The sight of her made his heart pound and his mouth go dry.
The truth was, part of him had hoped he and Tanya would pick up where they’d left off ten years ago. If he was being completely honest with himself, he was disappointed in the distance that remained between them. Sure, they had a good time whenever they went out, but despite the closeness they’d once known, the years had built a wall between them that he didn’t know how to breach.
His dad had chided him for being slow, but business wasn’t like a woman. He couldn’t afford to hold back in business negotiations—someone else would always be there to make a better offer or a better impression if he didn’t act first. With Tanya, he had to tread more slowly to avoid making a wrong move or the wrong impression that would send her running.
But had he been too cautious? He’d been pursuing Tanya the way he’d pursued the girl she’d been before—letting her make the first move and following her lead.
But she wasn’t a girl anymore. Maybe it was time to show her that he wasn’t the naive boy she’d left behind, either. If he was going to get her and keep her this time, maybe he would have to make the first move.
IN BETWEEN REHEARSALS and performances, Tanya saw quite a bit of Jack, cheering him on at softball games, sharing cozy evening dinners and sunny afternoon hikes. They hadn’t gone any further than kissing, but she was beginning to entertain the possibility of more. Yes, he was every bit as ambitious and proud as Stuart had been, but Jack wasn’t self-centered or vain. He had worked to change the town in ways she didn’t always appreciate, but at his core he was the same sincere, loving man he’d always been.
