You Rock My World

by Juliana Stone

  “Maybe this could be different.”

  She was confused. And angry. Strangely exhilarated. And scattered. She tried to make sense of the jumbled thoughts rambling around inside her head. She tried again. “Too much has happened between us, and too much time has passed.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter.” He wasn’t going to make this easy. “Our history is complicated, Trav. And aside from that, I live in Crystal Lake now, which I’m sure has surprised the hell out of you, but I’ve made a life for myself. One that I’m proud of and one that fulfills me.” Okay, the proud thing was true. The fulfilled? Not so much. “You don’t live here anymore. You live in Detroit. You live in LA. You have a house in the Hamptons for God’s sake.”

  His eyebrow shot up. “Been stalking me online?” He grinned. “I’m cool with that.”

  Embarrassed, she was silent for a few moments, because, yeah, she’d stalked him online. “I’m just saying we could never work from a logistics point of view.”

  “If that’s your only reason, then I’m feeling pretty confident considering a few days ago, you hated my guts.”

  He was always so damn cocky and sure of himself. “What is it you think we’re going to do? Pick up where we left off? Because that’s never going to happen.”

  “No,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t start a new chapter. I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

  A lightbulb went off. “This is about sex. You want to have sex with me.”

  He looked confused at first and then shrugged, offering a smile that would make most women melt. Except Ruby wasn’t most women, and she was an expert when it came to Travis Blackwell’s charm.

  “We never had a problem with sex,” he replied, that damn smile still intact.

  “No. It was the other stuff that kicked our asses.”

  “Maybe we need to forget about the other stuff.”

  The air was electric. Practically sizzling. “And just have sex?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “I don’t want anything,” she replied.

  He stepped close, and she held her breath, afraid to breathe. “You’re lying. You want me as much as I want you.”

  Ruby Montgomery had taken leave of her senses, because she was actually considering his words. Sex with no strings? Could she do that with Travis and survive?

  Travis held her gaze a heartbeat longer. He gave her a smile that told her he didn’t give a damn about anything she’d just said. It was a quick, wicked smile that spoke volumes. It was a warning. Travis Blackwell was playing to win.

  “I’ll see you around.”

  “I don’t think so, Travis.” It was an attempt to make things clear, but even to Ruby, her voice sounded unsure.

  “It’s a small town. Won’t be a problem.”

  “True, but there’s lots of hiding places. I can disappear if I want to. Make myself scarce.” She thrust up her chin, praying her knees didn’t give out.

  “Good,” he murmured. “It’ll make finding you a lot more interesting.”

  He winked at her, slipped his aviators back in place, and walked away.

  Chapter 11

  Three days earlier, Travis had had his come-to-Jesus moment. He knew what he needed to do. Where he needed to go. But damned if he was stuck on which way to get there.

  He tossed his hammer and stood back, wiping sweat from his brow as he gazed across the water at a fast-approaching boat. It was Thursday evening, and he’d spent the entirety of the afternoon fixing the dock at his dad’s place, along with Wyatt and Zach. The boys had decided the day before to tackle the project when Wyatt found out their father had hired a company to come out and do it. His brother was taking some time off from the NASCAR circuit and cooling his heels at Regan’s place, and Travis, well, he was fed up trying to nail down Ruby. She’d been good on her word. He hadn’t set eyes on her since Monday, and that wasn’t from lack of trying.

  “It’s Nash,” Wyatt said with a grin as the boat slowed.

  “I think that’s Hudsy with him.” Their older brother had gone to the city with his wife and newborn for a doctor’s appointment earlier in the day. Travis was glad to see him.

  “Thought Nash would be busy at the bar.” Travis stretched sore muscles. It had been a while since he’d worked with his hands, and he glanced down at the blisters forming along his palm and fingers and smiled. It felt good.

  “Hudson was looking for an excuse to get away, so I ordered us up some food.”

  Travis’s stomach rumbled at the thought, but he nodded toward the house. “You don’t think Darlene is gonna have a problem with that?”

  The woman lived for cooking and liked nothing more than to have all “her boys” gathered around a table laden with food she’d prepared.

  “Nope. She and Dad are going to the Little House Theatre to see a play.”

  Surprised, Travis yanked his head back. Since when was their father well enough to sit through a play?

  “I know.” Wyatt shrugged. “He makes an effort for her, but I won’t be surprised if they come home early.” He rubbed his hands together. “In any case, I thought Nash could look after us and save firing up the barbecue.”

  “Since firing up the barbecue is such a chore.”

  Wyatt shoved Travis. “It’s not the barbecue so much as Darlene’s pristine patio. That new set they bought is worth more than this damn deck. All we’d need is one of you ding-dongs to get crap all over it. I just didn’t want to deal. You know how Dad gets. Remember when we had the party, that time he and Darlene went away for the weekend? That girl Hudson was seeing spilled red wine all over the white sofa in the family room. Jesus, I thought the old man’s head was going to pop off. He made us work the whole summer to pay him back what it cost to replace the damn thing. And I’m pretty sure we could have had it cleaned.”

  Travis nodded but didn’t respond. John Blackwell had always been a hard-ass. It had just gotten worse after their mother passed. Nothing seemed to please him, and he’d taken every opportunity to point it out.

  After a while, Travis offered, “He’s changed.”

  “Most men do when they’re dying.” His brother’s words were eerily similar to what his father had said only a few days earlier.

  “Sometimes it’s too late, and sometimes it isn’t.” Wyatt looked back at Travis. “And sometimes it just doesn’t matter anymore.”

  As his brother walked away from him, Travis realized just how fractured his family still was.

  Nash and Hudson hopped onto the dock and handed over two extra-large pizzas, a basket of dry Cajun chicken wings, and three boxes of piping-hot fries. Wyatt disappeared into the boathouse and returned holding a large bucket filled to the brim with beer and ice.

  “This is more like it.” Travis grinned, slapping the oldest Blackwell on the shoulder. “Rebecca let you out to play?”

  “More like I ran when she gave me the opportunity.”

  “What’s that mean?” Travis asked, reaching down for a beer and tossing a cold one to Hudson.

  “There are at least thirty women in my house, six babies, four toddlers, and two dogs.”

  “I thought you liked women and babies,” Travis said with a chuckle.

  “I do. Especially mine.” Hudson cracked open his can and took a long pull. He wiped foam from the corner of his mouth. “But a guy can only take so much. I bolted when they all started in with their war stories.”

  “War stories?” Travis repeated.

  “Labor. Delivery. Contractions.” He winced. “Stitches.”

  “Stitches?” That one had Travis scratching his head. Man, giving birth was a hell of a lot more complicated than he imagined. He frowned. Stitches?

  Hudson shook his head, the look in his eyes dead serious. “You don’t want to know.”

  Travis decided to take his brother’s word for it and turned to Nash. “Since when does the Coach House deliver on the lake?”

  Nash handed him
a slab of pizza. “Since I took the night off to kick back.”

  Zach sidled in for a slab and scooped out a beer for himself. “Honey working tonight?”

  Nash practically growled. “Sure is. Thought you’d be polishing a barstool at my place instead of out here.”

  Zach was too busy shoving pizza down the hatch to notice the particular undertone to Nash’s words. “I might head up there later.”

  “You do that.”

  Zach caught it that time and gave Nash a look, but the man had turned away to secure the boat properly.

  Travis chewed off a piece of double cheese and looked at his brothers. Hudson shrugged, and they all sat back, content to listen to the waves rush up against the shore, eat their pizza and wings, and listen to some vintage Zeppelin.

  The boys sat on the dock for a good hour or so. They polished off both boxes of pizza, all the wings, and not one fry was left behind. Travis gathered the empty containers and trudged into the boathouse, looking for the recycling bins. Hudson followed him and they got it all squared away. They made their way back outside just as the motor on Nash’s boat revved, and watched Wyatt and Zach head out.

  “Where they going?” Hudson asked.

  “Your hockey pal wanted to see Pottahawk island. I told them to take my boat instead of hauling yours out of the boathouse.” Nash got to his feet, and the three of them headed down the beach. Hudson grabbed the cooler while Nash and Travis gathered some kindling for a fire.

  The sun was low in the sky as vibrant reds and oranges lit up the horizon. Twilight would be setting in soon. Already, Travis heard an owl hoot in the distance. The air was still heavy from the heat, but a breeze made its way across the lake, teasing whitecaps that disappeared as soon as the waves hit the shore. Boats still zipped along the water; laughter and voices echoed in their wake.

  God, Travis loved this time of day. That in-between when darkness was about to fall. It was always quiet—even with the laughter and voices. It was hard to explain, more of the stillness that accompanied nightfall.

  The three of them had a fire going in no time, the well-worn pit a center for the semicircle of chairs. Travis leaned back in his chair, sank his feet in the sand, and closed his eyes. He should be content. He should be relaxed after a long day of hard work and a belly full of pizza and wings. Tired, even.

  But he wasn’t.

  His mind was racing, and every time he closed his eyes, he saw her. Ruby. He’d managed to get her cell number from Coach Hoder, but she’d not returned any of the calls or text messages he’d sent her. How in hell was he going to get her to fall back in love with him if he couldn’t even get her to answer a damn phone call? What was it going to take?

  “You okay over there?”

  Travis lifted up his head, opened his eyes, and spied his brother Hudson staring at him.

  “You look like you want to hit something.”

  Travis glanced down at his hands. Both of them were fisted. He stared at them so long, his vision blurred, and then, with a curse, he unclenched them.

  “You want to talk about it?” Hudson asked.

  “You guys aren’t going to hold hands and sing Kumbaya are you?” Nash popped open another can and slid farther back in his chair. Both Blackwells ignored him.

  “How’d you and Rebecca get back together?” Travis asked, watching his brother closely.

  Hudson was silent for a few moments as if contemplating his words. “It took a lot. You were too young to remember or know anything, but I ended things badly, and she pretty much hated me when I left town.”

  “Something we have in common,” Travis mumbled. He wasn’t sure his brother heard him.

  “I came back because Dad was sick.” He shook his head. “No, I came back because he was dying. I had no desire to stay here. I had a job and a life that was good. But then I saw her, and things changed.”

  “She still hated you.”

  “Damn right she did.” Hudson was quiet for a few moments. “It’s true what they say about love and hate. They’re two sides of the same coin. You can toss that sucker in the air and pray it lands the way you want it to. But it’s still a fifty-fifty shot.”

  He stirred the fire with a long stick. “I convinced myself that she and I were never going to be together again. For a lot of reasons. The main one being I didn’t think I deserved her. She’d been through a lot. Shitty marriage. Moving back here. She was raising a young son on her own, and I was a complication she didn’t need. In my mind, she should have been with someone who existed on a level I couldn’t even aspire to. But then I realized something. None of us are saints. We’re all human, and we all make mistakes. But more importantly, we all deserve to be happy.”

  “It doesn’t always happen,” Travis muttered.

  “No.” Hudson agreed. “It doesn’t. But you’ve got to at least try.”

  “Hudsy,” Nash groaned, straightening up in his chair. “Should I just call you Doctor Phil?”

  Hudson tossed his empty can at his friend with a chuckle. “Do that and I’m going to start charging for all these words of wisdom.”

  Nash looked at Travis. “Why don’t you just come out and tell us what the hell it is that’s bugging you?” He leaned forward. “Nope. Wait.” He shot a look toward Hudson. “You’re not the only Doctor Phil in the house.” He focused on Travis again. “I bet she’s about five foot six with blonde hair that almost touches her ass, a temper like no other woman in town, and the kind of eyes that can see right through a man.”

  Busted.

  Travis sighed. “She won’t take my calls or answer my text messages, even though I can see she’s read them. I’ve driven to the spa and she’s never there, which is bull. Her car is in the parking lot. Hell, I even dropped in to see Ryder.”

  “What’d he say?” Hudson asked.

  “He told me to go fuck myself.”

  “What did you expect? He has his problems, but him and Ruby are family. They’ve always been tight. And he’s going to have her back even if she doesn’t want him to. If Ryder thinks you’re going to screw his sister over again, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep you away from her.”

  Travis had nothing to say. He got it. He’d do the same if it were his sister. And that fact was a sobering thought.

  “What is it exactly you expected to happen? Do you want to apologize to her? Is that what this is about?”

  “Already done that.”

  “So it’s something more.” Hudson’s eyebrow shot up. “She’s seeing the golf pro. You know that, right?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Hudson exchanged a look with Nash, who was now grinning.

  Silence fell between the men. It stretched long and thin and became a kind of roaring in Travis’s ears. His chest was tight and his hands fisted once more. The emotion in him was like a big balloon that had filled and was about to burst.

  “I don’t know what I want. Not exactly. But there’s still something between us. I know it. She knows it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I want to spend time with her. I’m saying I miss her. I’m saying maybe I should never have let her go.”

  “You’re saying you want to have sex with her,” Nash said dryly.

  “No.” The denial was instant. “I mean, yes, I want her, but it’s more than just sex.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Hudson asked. “Do you want her back, or is this a summer thing?”

  Travis spied an eagle soaring over the water. It skimmed low across the lake, rising into the air and then dipping back, dragging its claws across the surface as it headed toward the forest that rose from the far shore. He thought back to the other night. To the expression in Ruby’s eyes. To the sound of her voice. The tremble as she spoke.

  “I don’t know,” he sighed. “It’s not about wanting her back. It’s about making it work.”

  “You have to be sure,” Hudson said, shaking his head. “You don’t want to open up old wounds for
nothing. You could end up pushing her farther away.”

  Irritated, Travis looked at his brother. “If I could just track her down, I can make her see that we should at least try. Five minutes. That’s all I need.”

  “Christ, you’ve got an inflated ego.” Hudson snorted. “Only five minutes?”

  “I can give you at least fifty.”

  Both men looked at Nash. “What do you mean?” Travis asked.

  “At the charity golf dinner, I managed to snag the winning bid for a full-body massage at Ruby’s spa.” He paused, grinning wickedly. “It was offered up by the owner, which would be your ex.”

  “I’ll double whatever you paid.” Travis shot up.

  “Triple it,” Nash retorted.

  “Done.”

  “Don’t you want to know how much I paid?”

  Travis shook his head. “Nope. Don’t care. When’s your appointment?”

  “Tomorrow at four.”

  Travis’s grin faded as he stared at the man across from him, and something dark curled in his gut. “You were going to get a massage from my Ruby?”

  “First off, that woman doesn’t belong to anyone but herself. And secondly, hell no,” Nash said with a chuckle. “It was for my mother, but now I can get her an entire year’s worth of fancy treatments at that spa with what you’re going to give me.”

  Nash scratched his chin and grabbed a cold beer from the bucket. “Just don’t screw it up, because if you piss her off, she’ll kick both of our asses. And while you’d enjoy it, it’s not something I look forward to. I’ve got enough complications in my life right now without adding Ruby Montgomery into the mix.”

  “Complications.” Hudson looked at his friend. “What’s that all about?”

  Nash scowled. “You don’t want to know.”

  “I kinda do,” Hudson replied with a chuckle.

  Travis however, wasn’t paying attention because his mind was already on tomorrow. He had a plan, or at least the beginning of one. It wasn’t perfect. Hell, it wasn’t even thought out, which meant there was lots of room for error. He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. All he needed was five minutes.