Lord, not again.
“Now, I was thinking. If you needed those aliens in your stories to abduct someone, Melvin would be a good one. And when they beam him up into one of them spaceships, they should attach electrodes to his privates.” Edie held up a fist and shook it in the air. “And give him a good zap!”
“Ahh… okay.” Hope took several steps sideways until she was lost in the crowd. She’d always figured there was a possibility that someone in Gospel would discover what she really wrote for a living; she just hadn’t figured that it would be Paris Fernwood. And since Paris and Edie knew, Hope assumed everyone in town knew by now. She didn’t really know how she felt about everyone finding out. Maybe a mixture of apprehension and relief. No more lies. No more secrets. Of course, she’d have to listen to everyone’s ideas for her next article with a few life stories thrown in. But if a few of them cast disdaining glances at her for her articles, why should she care? They bet on broken legs and tossed toilets, and ate testicles, for goodness’ sake.
Hope walked around the edge of the large hall, casting her gaze through the crowd as she made her way to the bar. Even though she knew better, she still caught herself looking for Dylan.
She ordered a glass of zinfandel and dug into her little black bag for her money. “I heard about your articles,” Burley said over the music as he handed her the glass. “I’ve never known anyone who’s met Bigfoot before.”
Hope looked closely at his face and saw the humor in his eyes. “I’ve never met Bigfoot.” She passed him the money. “But I have interviewed several aliens and one possessed dog.”
He laughed and Hope turned away. She took a drink of her wine and scanned the dusky dance floor.
The overhead disco ball shot sparks off Shelly’s green sequins and Paul’s emerald tie as he spun her around like a top. The song was one that Hope had never heard before, something about a cowboy and his pickup truck. She spotted Hazel Avery dressed in pink satin and dancing with a man Hope assumed was her husband.
Hope took another drink of wine and remembered the day Dylan had taught her to two-step. They’d been completely dressed at the beginning of the lesson but naked by the end. They’d made love on the bearskin in front of her fireplace, and now she wondered how many other women he’d stripped while he’d danced with them.
A tall, lean cowboy she’d never seen before asked her to dance, but just as she placed her glass on an empty table, Dylan stepped in front of the younger man.
“Take a hike,” he said and gave the cowboy a hard look. Then he added for good measure, “Buddy.” Before she could say anything, Dylan grabbed her hand and pulled her along to the middle of the dance floor.
Once she recovered from the shock of seeing him there, of his touch and the sound of his voice scattering little shivers across her flesh, she looked up into his dark face, lit only by the disco ball hanging above his head. Slivers of mirrored light slipped through his hair and across his shoulders, which were covered in a nice navy wool blazer. He wore a white dress shirt and burgundy tie, and through the darkened shadows of the dance floor, she recognized the desire in his eyes. She’d seen it directed at her many times. She lowered her gaze to the knot in his tie. “That wasn’t very nice,” she said in a tight voice as he slid his palm to the small of her back. “He asked me very politely. You didn’t have to call him buddy like that.”
“That’s his name. Buddy Duncan. He lives in Challis.”
“Oh.” She looked up again, up into his face and at the outline of his mouth. “What are you doing here? Shelly told me you never come to the Founder’s Day Ball.”
“Shelly talks way too much.” He tried to pull her against his chest, but she resisted. He wanted her. She could read it in his eyes and feel it in the restless way his hand caressed the small of her back, but desire wasn’t love. And she wanted more from him.
“What are you doing here?” she repeated.
“Relax and I’ll tell you.” He tugged harder and she lost the battle. “That’s better,” he said and settled her against his chest. He bent his head over hers and spoke next to her ear. “I’m here because you’re here. When a man loves a woman, he wants to spend time with her. Even if that means he has to put on a suit and tie. He wants to hold her tight and smell her hair.”
His words pinched her heart, and she stopped trying to put distance between them. She was afraid to breathe. Afraid she hadn’t heard him right.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday,” he said as they slowly moved across the dance floor. “About me caring enough to believe you, and you’re right. I should have believed you all along.”
She looked past his chin to his eyes. She had to know why he believed her now, although she feared the answer. “Did you find out who really contacted the tabloids?”
In the few seconds it took him to answer, her hopes plummeted. He hadn’t believed her. Someone had confessed. Nothing had really changed and they had no future.
“Yes,” he said, and she again struggled to put distance between them. “Be still or I’ll have to tie you up again.”
“Let me go, Dylan.” The backs of her eyes stung and she was afraid she would cry right there in the grange in front of the whole town.
“Honey, that’s not likely to happen ever again.” His grasp on her tightened and held her so close she could hardly breathe. “I found out it was Paris who called the tabloids, but by then it didn’t matter anymore. When you discover you love someone, you have to believe in them or you just cause yourself a lot of unnecessary misery.” His warm breath whispered across her temple when he said, “I love you, Hope. My life has been miserable without you.”
She’d been so unhappy without him, she had to know. “Have you really been miserable?”
“Yes.”
She smiled for the first time since he’d taken her into his arms. She felt like laughing and crying and curling up into his chest all at once. “How miserable?”
He rested his forehead against hers. “Every morning when I wake up, I get a real cold feeling in my gut, like something is missing in my house, like oxygen or sunlight. Something I need. Then I look over at the empty pillow and realize it’s you I’m missing. And when I go to bed, I lay awake and wonder if you’re thinking about me, too. Wondering if you miss me as much as I miss you.”
“Dylan?”
“Hmm.”
“I’ve missed you, too.”
The song ended and before another began, Thomas Aberdeen tapped Dylan on the shoulder and asked if he could cut in.
“Hell, no,” Dylan answered, his voice loud and clear, his eyes narrowed at Thomas. “Go find your own damn woman. This one is mine!”
Well, she guessed their relationship was out in the open now. She placed her hand on Dylan’s cheek and brought his gaze to hers. “He didn’t know I’m your damn woman.”
“Then I guess I better show him,” he said, then lowered his mouth and kissed the breath from her lungs. He bent her over his arm like he was Rhett Butler, and right there in front of anyone who cared to watch, the kiss turned hot and wet and so good. When he straightened, he placed his palms on the sides of her head and looked deep into her eyes. “I want everyone to know I love you, Hope.”
“I want everyone to know I love you, too.”
A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “I am glad you just said that, because I was thinking that I might have to take you home and handcuff you to a chair until you did.”
“You don’t have to handcuff me. I love you. I’ve loved you since the day you showed me Sawtooth Lake. Probably even before that.”
He brushed his nose against hers. “I know I messed things up between us, but if you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life making you happy.”
Hope blinked but couldn’t stop the tears in her eyes. “Then what are we doing here? Take me home.”
“Honey, I’ve been waiting for you to say that since I walked in.”
On the drive to the Donnelly hou
se, Hope sat beside Dylan in the cab of his truck. She had her hand on his thigh and her head on his shoulder. The last time she’d ridden in his truck at night, she’d torn at his clothes, but for now, she was content to sit within the glow of the dashboard lights and listen to the sound of his voice. Later, there would be plenty of time for tearing clothes. She had the rest of her life. Right now they had something important they had to do. They had to talk to Adam.
She kissed Dylan’s shoulder through his jacket and shirt, and he put his arm around her. Within the dark confines of the truck’s cab, she felt as if they were the only people on the planet. Like the night she’d fallen in love with him at Sawtooth Lake. Her heart swelled and her head spun like poor upside-down Cassiopeia.
She listened while Dylan told her about Myron and Paris leaving town together and their plans to start a wrestling career in Mexico. Personally, she couldn’t see it happening, but she certainly wished them success so that neither returned to darken her life again.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too, but you know I’m a package deal. How do you feel about Adam?”
She didn’t even have to think about it. “He’s a great kid, Dylan. He’s smart and funny, and I like being around him.”
“Then stay with us,” he said and kissed the top of her head. “Stay with us forever. I know it’s asking a lot of you, but I’m asking anyway. I’m asking you to give up your life in L.A. for me, a man with a young son. I don’t know how you feel about being a mama, and I know it’s a lot to think about.”
It wasn’t a lot to ask, and she didn’t have to think about that, either. Not at all. She would be whatever Adam wanted her to be, a mother or a friend or both. “Have you told Adam how you feel about me?”
“Yes, and while he wasn’t jumping up and down, he did say he was going to find you a special rock. That means he likes you.” He picked up her hand from his thigh and kissed her fingers. “I guess I need to find you a special rock, too. A big, sparkly one.”
“I don’t need a special rock. I just need you.” She straightened and turned to his dark profile. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
“Not right now.”
She supposed it was better to wait a few months. She wondered if he would want to wait a year.
“After we talk to Adam, I’m going to take you to your house and make love to you, and when you’re all soft and happy and satisfied, that’s when I’ll ask.”
She laughed, vastly relieved. “Why wait?”
“Well, I discovered that when you have an afterglow, you’ll say yes to anything. Eating cake off your body, being tied up, marriage.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
She’d come to Gospel to find Bigfoot and aliens, but she’d found something else. Something better. She’d found where her heart belonged. The future was in front of her and beside her. She had Dylan and Adam and Shelly. She had her career, and just that morning she’d received an e-mail from Time magazine. She’d sent them a query letter, and they were interested in seeing her article on Hiram Donnelly. It wasn’t a guarantee, but then, guarantees came only with toaster ovens. The rest was hard work and luck. Since moving to Gospel, she’d found herself and a man who loved her. She didn’t need a guarantee.
Maybe next she’d write a book. A book about a small town where the people ate Rocky Mountain oysters and tossed toilets. Where two elderly twins dyed their hair and plotted the painful deaths of the other’s husband.
Nah, Hope thought as the truck turned into Dylan’s driveway. Fiction had to be truer than real life, or no one would believe it. No one would believe a town like Gospel existed outside of her writer’s imagination.
Not even she was that good.
RACHEL GIBSON
***
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True Confessions Page 29
