by LJ Evans
I squeezed her hand as she darted from the chair and flew towards Blake on feet that would never stop.
Derek’s song ended, and he announced that he was turning the mic over to Cam. After the auction, another band that Blake had ties to was taking over. Something with more country twang than Derek’s group. Something that fit into the Tennessee lifestyle just a hair better.
But Derek and his band got a hearty round of applause as they left the stage. And I couldn’t help my eyes as they followed him into the crowd with my heart pounding like that kitten chasing the bug again and my brain yelling at me to cease and desist.
TENEREFE SEA
The Dance
“You got the kind of look in your eyes as if no one knows anything but us. And all of the voices surrounding us here, just fade out when you take a breath.”
-Ed Sheeran
I FOUND MY WAY to the drink table and for the first time since college I was thirsty for something stronger than water. But there was no way that I was letting myself put anything with alcohol near my face. Not when I was barely holding my front in place like a placard advertiser. It was bad enough that I was an emotional drunk on a good day. No, there would be no drinks for me tonight.
Like some echolocation device set to a Derek setting, I felt him, before I heard him. I seemed to ping like crazy whenever he was nearby. Was that a good thing? Absolutely not. I might as well just rebreak my own heart before he had the chance.
I turned towards him anyway because I couldn’t seem to stop myself. He was sweaty from the heat and the lights and his effort. He’d been all in. Going at it like there might not be a chance to play again, and I liked that. I liked that he’d lost himself in it like I could lose myself in a good book.
“You look beautiful.” He said it with a hint of something in his eyes that made me realize that I was the mouse, and he was the bat in our echolocation scenario, and not the other way around. Did eagles use echolocation? Because Derek was definitely more eagle than bat.
I handed him a water and he took it with thanks. I watched as he uncapped it and downed the whole thing in one big swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in a neck that looked like it would be perfect to first kiss and then snuggle into.
Get a grip, I scolded myself and purposely turned away from this sensual man so that I could watch Cam announce the winners of the auction items.
“Your band is good,” I told him without looking at him. He was watching me though. I could feel his gaze taking in every inch of me. I shifted uncomfortably, my heels sinking in the grass, and as I swayed, he caught my elbow to steady me.
That smooth as honey connection slid back between us at his touch. I swallowed hard and mumbled something that might have been thanks but sounded like the frogs at the lake. I drew my arm away once I’d regained my balance.
“You sound surprised,” he said with a hint of that laughter that had been in his tone all afternoon.
I shrugged. “I guess I didn’t know what to expect.”
“Come on, tell me the truth. You thought I was gonna go all boyband up there, didn’t you?” He was laughing at me and himself and I couldn’t help but turn and smile back at him.
But when I did, his gray eyes were flashing thunder clouds at me. Not storms of anger, but storms of a different kind. Storms I knew I couldn’t even come halfway close to matching. I’d be a disappointment in that area.
Derek sighed a self-deprecating sigh. “It’s okay. Everyone thinks the same thing. They see my pretty boy image and just assume I’m part of some boyband. Not that there’s anything wrong with boybands. They have their place and their fans. I’m just saying, I’m not really that kind of musician.”
“Then why don’t you change your image?” I told him without looking at him.
“So tell me, how would you make me over?” and I didn’t have a choice but to take him in because he was daring me to do it. I flushed a thousand shades of red while I glanced at his chiseled muscles and suggestive smile.
He saw my flush and winked. I wanted to say something mocking but, as always, I wasn’t good when put on the spot like that. “I wouldn’t know where to begin,” was all I could come up with.
“I could think of a few places…” He started to step closer, but was interrupted in his path to me by his name being called, leaving me feeling equal parts relieved and regretful.
He jerked out of his slow seduction mode and looked up with a confident grin that I hadn’t seen on anyone since Jake used to wear it.
“What did you win?” I asked, because I clearly hadn’t been paying attention to anything that Cam was saying.
“I only bid on the Camaro,” he replied.
“Wh-what?” My breath caught in my throat.
“I couldn’t let something with so much love and emotion behind it go to just anyone, could I?” And then he left my side to go and collect his prize.
On stage, Cam hugged Derek, and handed him a set of keys as my brain tried to catch up. Derek had bought Jake’s Camaro. It was no longer Jake’s. It was now Derek’s. And somehow, instead of being sad or upset as I might have been, I was suddenly glad. Because if Jake had sold it to anyone, he would have wanted some confident, god-like creature just like him to own it, and didn’t that just fit.
There was a round of applause, and Cam was done with the mic and the new band came on, so I made my way deeper into the tent to mingle with Wynn and her husband and our neighbors and our families. People who had lived the Jake drama with us. People who understand the true importance he’d had in all our lives.
It wasn’t even fifteen minutes later that my echolocation senses went off again, and I turned from visiting with Blake’s grandparents to find Derek at my side once more. He’d taken a shower who knew where and changed from his sweaty band clothes into more tight jeans and a button down. His brown hair was wet and curling below his ears, and he smelled like soap and… something close to wood varnish with a hint of lemon and honey. It was a masculine and heady scent in the heat of the tent.
“I was hoping you’d dance with me.” He gave me a hopeful smile that didn’t quite fit the image that I’d built up in my head of his sexy arrogance.
There was a slow song playing. I wasn’t sure that I could handle being touched by him. Just his hand on my arm twice had almost been enough to make my knees give out. What would it be like to have my whole body pressed up against his? My soft curves to his hard muscle. It made me shiver internally.
“Sure,” I heard myself say, but I swear that was the exact opposite of what my brain was screaming. Good Girl Mia wanted me to run far, far away. He reached out a hand. I looked down at it hesitantly before I put my own inside it and melted all over again.
He drew me with him until we’d just barely reached the dance floor before turning and pulling me up against him. He still had my hand entwined in his own, but it was now pulled up tight against his chest. His other hand made its way to my waist and gently pulled me closer than I’d originally placed us.
He sighed. “I almost thought you’d tell me no.”
He smiled down at me, impish, but his eyes weren’t dancing with the same humor as before. Instead, they had that stormy look that made me imagine how deep a color they would be when he was in the middle of a passionate… I shook myself out of that thought before I could let it go nowhere good.
I tore my eyes from his to look around his shoulder, because even in my heels, there was no way I was tall enough to see over his shoulder. My parents were talking to the Swaynes at a table near the back. They were smiling and laughing, and I loved seeing them that way. It’d been a long four years for them. Parents should never have to bury a child. Guilt tore through me. It was good at hitting me when I least expected. Tonight, remembering Jake, it wasn’t so unexpected.
I switched my attention back to Derek rather than the guilt.
“Why wouldn’t I dance with you?” I asked.
“Let’s just say I get the feeling that yo
u don’t approve of me.” He was still smiling. Did he ever stop? He was more like Blake than my brother in that way. I could hear the smile in his voice even if I wouldn’t look up at those really sexy lips and the chin that called to me to run my finger tip over it.
“I don’t disapprove of you.” Cam may not lie, but I was good at it. I had learned to do it to protect those I loved from myself.
He didn’t respond, but twirled me out and around and then back, this time even closer to his body than before. Through my thin green dress, I could feel every inch of him. I tried to put a little space between us, but his hand at my waist didn’t loosen. Instead, it tightened.
I wasn’t used to being treated like this. As if he truly wanted my body tucked up against his. I mean, don’t get me wrong, as I said, my PlayBabe channel curves had guys ogling me, but the response was usually something crass about me, my boobs, and their penises. But with Derek, it felt like he wanted to absorb me. All of me.
But, maybe not. Hayden’s words made me doubt myself. I’d imagined a lot of things before and been wrong.
The song ended and Derek didn’t let go. I finally looked up into his eyes, and they were dark with desire that I knew I wasn’t just imagining because his look was followed by words that matched. “I really like your hair that way. But all I can think of is how it would look if I pulled it down.”
“Tenerefe Sea” reverberated through my head. Ed’s voice singing about all the voices fading away as he breathed out how lovely she looked because the look in Derek’s eyes made me feel just like Ed’s words, like no one knew anything but us.
“I hear, Mr. Waters, that you are quite practiced at saying those kinds of things.” I was hoping my voice was steady and light, but I knew it sounded breathless because, let’s face it, I loved books and songs and all the well-rehearsed one liners. Didn’t I have a dog-eared note in my wallet to prove it?
He smiled. “I have had practice.”
I dragged myself away and he let me, but he didn’t let my hand go. I looked down at it expectantly. “Where are you going?” he said with a grin as the next song started. Faster. More country rock than seduction.
“You want to dance again?” I was surprised.
He twirled me in response, and to my utter astonishment, started a country line dance that just about blew me away. Sure, I lived in Tennessee, and there were plenty of guys who could keep up with the girls in a line dance, but I wasn’t expecting it from a Hollywood playboy.
God help me, I let myself be pulled in by it. The look. The happiness. The unexpectedness of it all. How could I help it? But somehow, in the process, I also felt my heart lighten just a little and so I let him keep me with him for another three songs because it had been so long since my heart had been lightened.
When the band started to wrap up, we had danced so much that I was sweaty and hot again. And he was sweaty and hot again. As Cam had pointed out, a shower in our July Tennessee heat didn’t last long.
We made our way back to the drinks. This time, he reached for a beer and handed me one. I shook my head and just grabbed a water bottle. Still no room in the tent for drunk Mia.
I fiddled with my cap trying to find something to say to this BB who had just danced more songs with me than anyone since high school.
“So, you leave tomorrow?” was all I could come up with.
“Not tomorrow. Tomorrow the guys and I are going caving over in McMinnville.”
“Like spelunking?”
He chuckled, and I looked up to see his gray eyes full of mischief again, seduction gone. Or on pause. God, I hated myself for wanting it only to be on pause. “Yes, but no one really calls it that anymore.”
I couldn’t help but think that that was too bad. Spelunking was a super cool word.
“Are there even caves in Tennessee?”
He smile broadened. “Quite famous ones. Cumberland Caverns.”
I just stared. How did I not know that?
“Would you like to go with us?” he asked.
I stopped, water bottle halfway to my mouth. “Crawling in a cave?”
“The advantage is that it’s a permanently air-conditioned room down there, plus you get to see some amazing formations,” he said.
“Is this a thing you do often?”
“Almost every stop on our tour this summer was designed with a cave in mind.”
I expected him to laugh, but then I realized he was serious.
“Really?” I said.
“Absolutely.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
He just grinned his crazy grin. “So, you wanna come?”
Tomorrow was Saturday. It was our busiest day at the dealership. There was no way that I could run off and go cave diving with some gorgeous musician. Besides, that would be incredibly stupid of me. There was no way Good Girl Mia would continue to allow me to be anywhere near Dangerous Derek after the pull he’d had on me tonight.
“Can’t. Tomorrow is our busiest day.”
“At the dealership?”
I nodded.
“You need the day off tomorrow, baby girl?” Daddy’s voice startled me. I didn’t know how long he’d been standing behind us. I turned pink. What had he heard?
I shook my head no, but it was as if Daddy hadn’t seen it. “I wanted to go in tomorrow anyway. I need to talk with Denise about some of the recent sales.”
“It’s okay, Daddy. I told Joe I’d be there to help him straighten out that mess in the parts department.”
“You haven’t had a day off since you graduated. Go. Have fun. Enjoy something new,” Daddy said. He patted me and then wandered away as if he’d settled it all.
I shifted uncomfortably. What on earth to do now? If I tried to get out of it, Derek would know it was because of him. And I was no good at making people feel bad. At least not in my personal life. At work, that was a totally different story. I could lay down the law there and not give a hoot.
However, this was also an outdoorsy thing, and me and the outdoors didn’t typically end well. Jake and Cam had been all about the outdoors, but not me. The first and only time my daddy took me fishing I’d burst into tears when he tried to get me to string the worm on the hook because I’d felt so bad for the little creature. I sobbed and Cam looked at me like I was some foreign body. Jake smirked.
I sobbed so hard that Daddy finally gave in and took the worm off the hook, and I buried it in the ground hoping it would regenerate like Doctor Who. Then we took Jake and Cam’s bikes out of the truck and left them to their fishing while Daddy took me home to Mama. And she helped me bake cookies which was way more my thing.
If Derek noticed my indecision, he didn’t let it stop him. Instead, he dove in head first where Daddy had left off. “I’ll pick you up at eight, then?”
“A.M.?” I wasn’t really any more of a morning person than I was an outdoors person.
“Yes, baby, eight a.m. It’s a bit of a drive, and we want to be there early.”
My heart stopped. He was teasing me. Calling me a cry baby, but I couldn’t help my mind from wondering what it would be like if he was calling me baby for a whole other reason. So instead of fighting it all, I found myself giving in.
“Seems like I don’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice. But I can guarantee you’ll regret it if you tell me no.”
“I think I’ll regret it if I tell you yes.”
The crowd had pretty much dissipated. Derek followed me as I went to find Cam and Blake. Blake was pulling things from her hands as she started to clean-up. Cam on overdrive. “Stop. That’s what we paid the clean-up crew to do.”
“It’s just—”
He kissed her mid-sentence. And she stilled. It was amazing to watch the effect he had on her. “No. Let them do it,” he insisted, and she acquiesced. I was stunned. Cam had let Blake win. Cam never let anyone win. Not even Jake.
She saw me with Derek hovering nearby and frowned. A frown that was then echo
ed by Blake. I just ignored their frowns and squeezed her goodnight. “Love you, Cam.”
“Love you too, kiddo,” she said back with a smile that was as close to teary as you would see Cam get.
Blake kissed me on the cheek and said goodnight before dragging Cam off towards the house before she could find something else to dive into. His hand was wrapped through hers, pinkies entwined. My heart swelled with happiness for her and yet filled with a sudden longing for me that my broken heart echoed.
Mama and Daddy joined me, and we headed toward the cars with beautiful Derek matching our strides. “You won the Camaro?” Mama asked Derek with a little waver to her voice.
“Yes, ma’am,” Derek said. He was serious with her, not the flirty, charmer he’d been with me. “I promise to take good care of her,” he added, but he wasn’t looking at the Camaro. He was looking at me, and it made my longing body respond like yeast to sugar.
“You taking it to McMinnville tomorrow?” Daddy asked.
“No, we’ve got the SUV we rented.”
“What’s this?” Mama asked.
“Mia’s going caving with Derek tomorrow,” Daddy said nonchalantly.
Mama looked like a squirrel caught stealing from the bird feeder; frozen in place. “Caving? Is that dangerous?”
“It’s very safe. And we won’t do the expert treks with Mia. We’ll keep her to the less advanced stuff.”
“Who’s we?” Mama asked.
“Mama!” I said, humiliated at her giving him the third degree as if I was fifteen instead of twenty-two. Even though I understood that she worried about me differently now than she had at fifteen.
Daddy pulled Mama to him and kissed her temple, “People do it all the time. They have guides and safety equipment. It’ll be good for Mia to experience something of the real outdoors.”
He smiled cheekily at me. Like I was five and crying over the worm on the fishing hook. I stuck my tongue out at him.
“She’s feistier than she looks. Make sure she doesn’t leave you at the bottom of a pit,” my daddy teased.
“Is that how it is?” Derek said with that impish smile again.
