by Tawna Fenske
Vanessa cracks up and swats Val with a spatula before turning around to level me with a faux accusing stare. “Who are you, and what have you done with my sister?”
I play innocent, even though Val’s moving behind her, making obscene gestures with a mixing spoon. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ve got her flirting and talking dirty like some kind of strumpet.” Vanessa nudges Val, who seems delighted by the assessment.
“Strumpet.” Val giggles. “Wasn’t that grandma’s word?”
“My mom made strumpets once,” I deadpan. “She served them with butter and jelly.”
The sisters crack up, and I’m relieved they’re laughing with me instead of at me. I might not be the sharpest meatball in the pot, but I know the difference between strumpets and crumpets.
Val flashes her eyes at me and makes a show of rubbing her lips together. “Wanna frost my strumpet, babe?”
Her laughter fills the kitchen, along with my whole body. I can feel it in my chest, in the tips of my fingers. The heat in her eyes says she wants to eat me alive, and I’d cheerfully lie down on the plate and hand her a fork.
Feeling bold, Val leans over and plants her elbows on the counter, giving me a delicious glimpse down the front of her shirt. “Wanna pre-heat my oven?”
I lean in too, grateful for the chance to be closer, to flirt so shamelessly with this woman I’m nuts about. “How hot do you want it?”
Vanessa swats me with the spatula this time. “Get a room, you two.”
I keep my focus on Val, feeling happy and dizzy and buzzing with something that feels absurdly like falling in love.
* * *
***
* * *
Two nights later, I drop Val off in front of her cabin. It’s well past midnight, and all I want to do is follow her inside and crawl in bed together for a solid night of sleep.
Okay, sleep’s not the only thing I want.
“God, I wish I had just a few more hours.” I growl the words against her throat, which I’ve been kissing for the last ten minutes. I can’t get enough of her.
Val laughs and trails her fingers over my chest. She’s got her hand under my shirt, making me dizzy with her light little touches. “I’d settle for fifteen minutes,” she says. “You’re sure you can’t come in?”
I shake my head and force myself to unhand her. “I’ve gotta get back up to the lake to help the crew bring everything down. Canoes, tables, coolers, twinkle lights—”
“I get it, I know.” She drags her hand back and shifts in her seat to put some distance between us. “I admire your work ethic, even if it’s getting in the way of me jumping your bones.”
I laugh and reach out to cup the side of her face, unable to stop touching her. “Soon,” I promise.
She smiles and turns her head to kiss my palm. “I had fun tonight,” she says. “Moonlight canoeing—that was new.”
“Throwing a Christmas party in July was new for me,” I say. “I’m glad everyone liked the eggnog.”
“The whole thing was amazing. You outdid yourself.”
Val bites her lip. There’s something on her mind; I’ve noticed it all evening. If I’ve learned anything these last two weeks, it’s that I won’t need to wait long to hear it.
When she speaks again, her voice is soft. “Do you ever think about what happens after the wedding?”
For about six seconds, I think she means our wedding. I love those six seconds way more than I should, and almost make a honeymoon crack.
“Bree and Austin’s wedding,” I clarify. “Do you fly home right away afterward?”
She shrugs and glances away. “I thought about heading down to LA. I don’t make it out West very often.”
“What’s in LA?”
Even in the darkness, I see color stain her cheeks. I wait for her to get up the nerve to say the rest of it. There’s something heavy on her mind, something she needs to get out. This overwhelming urge to share personal details, that’s still new to me. So new that I recognize what it looks like in Val’s brown eyes.
I take her hand to make it easier. “What is it?” I ask.
The smile she gives me is shaky, and her hand is tense in mine. “I told you about that wedding dress TV show? The one that wants to send me to all these stops around the globe making wedding dresses for rich people?”
I nod, remembering how Vanessa kept bringing it up over cookie making. “Your sister seemed pretty fired up about it.”
“Yeah, well.” She looks down at her lap. “I have some reservations.”
I nod, tamping down the tiny flare of excitement in my chest. Val flat-out refused to discuss it in her kitchen, changing the subject when Ness brought it up. Is she considering it now? LA’s not that far from Bend, and the thought of Val being close for the long-term is a thrill.
The frown furrowing her brow has me less thrilled. “I don’t know. I just—I told you how the show got cancelled, right? Spy Babies?”
“And how they abandoned you in the forest.” A spurt of anger mixes with my excitement, making me queasy. I still want to kick someone’s ass over that.
“Right. Well, that wasn’t the end of my Hollywood experience.” She takes a deep breath, and I know I’m not going to like this story.
“When I was thirteen, our agent got in touch again,” she says. “Ness and I had been out of the business for years, but he started messaging me about how he saw all this potential in me. That there was this new series I’d be perfect for.”
I frown in the darkness, not loving where this is going. “What happened?”
“He tried to get me to meet him,” she says. “Told me he had an audition all set up. Named these big actors who’d already signed on, and kept telling me how great it was going to be.”
Her voice is heavy with regret. With a feeling of foolishness I know well. “There was no series, was there?”
“Nope.” She shakes her head. “The cops had been watching him for months. Part of some big national child sex trafficking sting. As soon as he got to my house, they picked him up.”
“Jesus.” I hate that guy. I hate everyone who ever hurt her, honestly.
And I hate more than anything that this is why she doubts herself. I may not be the world’s brightest guy, but I can read people. I can see in her eyes that this cut runs deep. That her lifetime of fear traces back to this. To this incident with her agent, or what happened in the forest when she was six.
And she’s chosen to share both stories with me. To let me in, to show me the complete picture of herself.
“I’m so sorry, Val.” I rub my thumb over her knuckles, wanting to pull her against me. “I hate that you went through that.”
“Thank you.” She’s not crying, not even misty-eyed, but I can tell from her voice that it hurts to tell this. “What’s dumb is that I would have gone with him,” she says. “That’s how much I trusted him.”
“You were a kid,” I tell her. “Thirteen.”
Christ, I can’t imagine.
She’s quiet a long time. I can see that beautiful brain of hers in motion, watch the wheels turning. “Later, I saw this documentary on child predators,” she says. “They interviewed a guy in prison and asked how he’d choose girls to target. Want to know what he said?”
I’m not sure I do but hear myself asking anyway. “What?”
“He said he’d watch for pairs of girls walking around together at a mall or something. He’d go up and compliment them, tell them both how pretty they were.” She’s looking right in my eyes, not blinking at all. “The girl who glanced down, who cast her eyes away or said something like, ‘oh, I’m not pretty’—that’s the one he’d target.”
“Christ.”
My breath stalls in my chest, but she still doesn’t blink. “The low self-esteem makes them an easy target.”
The sick lump in my gut has turned to nausea. I want to cover her in bubble wrap so no one can hurt her. I want to pull her into my arms and hold
tight forever.
I want to hunt that guy down and wedge his dick in a George Foreman grill.
“I’m sorry.” It’s such a useless word, and I wish it could be more. “For what it’s worth, you don’t strike me as having low self-esteem.”
“I don’t.” The smile she gives me is warm and steady, and I realize just how brave she is. “I’ve spent a long time working on that. On trust issues, too.”
She’s still holding eye contact, telling me something way beyond a shitty childhood story. I hear it, I hear the words even though she doesn’t say them aloud. She doesn’t need to.
I’m trusting you, buddy. Don’t let me down.
“I won’t.” Like a dummy, I say it out loud, but it doesn’t faze her.
Neither does the moment I pull her into my arms for the gentlest, sweetest goodnight kiss I’ve ever had.
Chapter 7
VALERIE
“I’ve totally been cockblocking you, huh?” My sister flops onto the couch beside me and slips a glass of wine into my hand. “Or whatever the female equivalent of cockblocking would be.”
I sip the wine. It’s an Oregon Pinot Noir, all earthy and leathery and not at all like elegant French Pinots our parents favor. I’m developing quite the taste for the Oregon stuff.
“Cooch check?” I suggest.
My sister erupts into laughter, sloshing her wine onto my bare knee. She swipes it off and slurps at her fingers because we’re classy like that.
“The female equivalent of cockblock is cooch check?” She snorts. “How about bush whack?”
“That works.” I grin and sip my wine. “Clitorference?”
Vanessa laughs again but manages to keep her wine in the glass this time. “This is my favorite side of you.”
“The uncouth, dirty-minded one?”
“The smartass who says what she thinks.”
“I always say what I think,” I point out. “I’m kinda famous for it.”
“Then you must not think irreverent and dirty things all that much.”
She has a point, and I’m sure she knows it. She also knows the reason for my recent surge in dirty thoughts is currently at a snowshoeing bachelor party with the source of her dirty thoughts.
“You didn’t cockblock me,” I assure her, circling back to the original topic. “I mean, you did that first day when you called during the mistletoe hunt—”
“And when I dragged you to the Christmas cookie thing,” she adds. “And then when I suggested we take Bree up on the pedicure party.”
I wiggle my toes, which are decked out in red and green Christmas dots. “It might have been worth it,” I muse. “Besides, Josh had to work.”
He’s been crazy busy organizing all the outdoorsy stuff around the wedding. Knowing what I know now about his dyscalculia, I’m even more impressed by his work ethic. By how hard he busts ass to be seen as “normal” and “competent” and “capable,” even though he’s all of those things without needing to try so hard.
Vanessa puts her feet up on the cushy ottoman and leans into me. “I still can’t believe you went whitewater rafting,” she says. “I never thought you’d go.”
“You’ve been nagging me to try for years.”
“And you never did.” She sips her wine, looking thoughtful. “Not until Josh.”
Josh. Just the sound of his name has me grinning like a big dork.
He didn’t seem surprised when I showed up for the bachelorette raft outing in the red and green-striped bikini I bought for the occasion. He did manage to elbow another guide out of the way so he could be the one to show me how the PFD worked.
“I thought these were called life vests,” I said, tugging at the webbing on mine.
“Not for years,” he said, cinching the straps to snug them tight around my chest. “For the record, it’s a crime against humanity to cover the world’s most perfect breasts with a PFD.”
“A crime, huh?” I adopted my most prim and proper tone, even as I slid my hands around his waist. “Bree’s marrying a cop, so you’d better think twice about committing crimes.” I dropped my hands and gave his ass a squeeze, signaling the other ladies that this one’s mine.
A cluster of Bree’s boarding school classmates stood chattering nearby, one of them eyeing Josh like a hot fudge sundae. Seeing my hands on him, she looked away fast.
Josh cinched the webbing a little tighter, making my breath catch. Or maybe that was his hand brushing the edge of my breast. “This crime’s worth it to make sure you don’t drown.”
Before I could ask about the likelihood of drowning, he covered my mouth with his and kissed me thoroughly enough to make me forget about drowning and frigid water and pretty much everything else.
“Have fun.” He patted my butt and headed off to help some other rafters.
“What are you thinking about?” My sister’s question jars me back to the present here on Bree’s cozy leather sofa.
“Josh,” I admit.
“Figures. You got all dopey and smiley.”
“I can’t help it. He brings out my dopey, smiley side, I guess.”
My sister studies my face, serious all of a sudden. “Are you falling for him, or is it a fling?”
I bite my lip, not sure how to answer. “It’s pretty intense for a fling.”
“Flings are intense by nature.”
“I wouldn’t know.” A tiny bubble of irritation wiggles to the top of my subconscious, along with the memory of what Josh told me. The stuff about not sleeping with my sister. What does it mean that I believe him instead of her?
I push back the dark thoughts, annoyed with myself for putting a damper on twin bonding time. “Tell me about your fling with him.”
She looks at me, surprised. “You really want to hear this?”
“Didn’t I already hear it?”
She hesitates. “Yeah, but I guess it’s different now. Before, he was just this guy you’d never met. My sexy vacation fling from my summer of adventure.”
The words are laced with a new note of self-deprecation. Or maybe it’s been there all along and I never noticed.
“You had fun that summer,” I remind her. “After you got home, all I heard about was mountain biking and rock climbing and Josh.”
Vanessa sighs. “I might have exaggerated a little.”
I try not to let her see me tense. Not to let on that I already know this. “How do you mean?”
She hesitates. “I was so intent on having this wild, crazy summer filled with new experiences and adventures. I got all caught up in it and didn’t think about anyone getting hurt.”
Josh. She means Josh. I digest this information, this extra layer to an old story. “How serious were the two of you?”
Again, she hesitates. “Not very,” she says. “I mean, I wanted to convince myself I was in love, but I think love was just one more thing I wanted to check off my bucket list that summer.”
“So there weren’t any future plans?”
She shakes her head, giving me an awkward little half-smile. “Nothing real. I shouldn’t have ghosted him like I did—that was a dick move. But I’m sure we both knew we wouldn’t stay together long-term.”
I think about how I’ve been feeling around Josh. The thought of never seeing him again after the wedding is unfathomable. Is he feeling the same?
“Look, for what it’s worth, he’s nuts about you,” my sister says.
I usually hate when she reads my mind, but this one’s okay. “How do you mean?”
“He never looked at me like that,” she says. “Whatever the two of you have, it’s way beyond fling-level intense. It’s like…next-level intense.”
I’m no expert on relationship intensity levels, so hearing her say this fills my chest with a big ball of sunshine. I don’t realize I’m grinning again until she nudges me with her elbow.
“You, too,” she says. “There’s just this energy between you. I love how you look at each other. How you flirt and tease and touch like you
can’t keep your hands off each other.”
“That’s early-stage fling stuff.” I say it with all the conviction of a woman having her first actual fling but hoping I’m wrong.
“It’s not,” she says. “Your chemistry, your connection—I’m actually a little envious.”
“Envious?” I touch the dainty gold bracelet on her wrist, a gift from Raleigh just this morning. “You’re about to get engaged to a gorgeous guy who’s nuts about you.”
She smiles and fingers the bracelet, but the smile isn’t reaching her eyes. “I know,” she says. “I just—I keep feeling like something’s off.”
“Off how?”
“I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t watched you and Josh.”
“How do you mean?”
“Raleigh and I never do that. We don’t flirt or finish each other’s sentences or squeeze each other’s butts when we think no one’s looking. I’m not sure we’ve ever done that.”
“But you guys are rock solid.” I don’t know if I’m trying to convince myself or her. “What are you always telling me? Mature relationships are different. They’re safe and solid and secure.”
Hearing it out loud, this sounds more like marketing copy for a suburban park than the description of a possible marriage.
“You’re right.” The smile she gives me this time has a little more heft to it. “Can I confess something?”
“Anything.”
“I never slept with him.”
At first, I think she means Raleigh. It takes me a second to catch up. “Josh, you mean?”
My sister nods slowly, embarrassment blooming on her cheeks. “I know I told you we had sex, but we didn’t. I feel like kind of an idiot about the whole thing.”
A million questions swirl through the sea of uncertainty in my head, so I ask the first one that flings itself ashore. “Why?”
“Why did I lie?” She looks down at her lap, fiddling with a seam on her skirt. “It was one of those things on my summer bucket list, I guess. Rock climbing, check. Whitewater rafting, check. Lose virginity to hot guy, check. Only he didn’t want to.”
