by Carter Ashby
Arden pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. "I think you're an asshole," she said softly.
"I'm an honest asshole," he said, with no humor in his tone.
She abruptly stood and left the room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Arden was still sore about the way he'd abused the noble name of Nick Wheeler. Travis couldn't blame her. He shouldn't have done it. But he hated the bastard. Until the snowstorm, he'd never given a second's thought to Nick's marrying Arden. He didn't know her. Didn't care. At most he figured they'd be perfect for each other. But now he knew better. She belonged with Travis.
She was laying on the mattress on her stomach reading her third romance novel. Travis glanced over the top edge of the novel he'd been pretending to read and watched her for a few moments. She kicked her feet up and down like a kid. The flannel pajamas swallowed her up and her hair was in tangles hanging down around her face. He smiled.
"You wanna play a game or something?" he asked.
"Nope," she said without looking at him.
"If I apologize for blaspheming your fiancé's great name, then will you play a game with me?"
"Not if you're going to be a smartass about it."
"I'm not, Arden," he said.
She turned, then, and raised her eyebrows at him.
"I can't apologize for not liking him. Especially when he has something I want so much. But I am sorry for talking bad about him to you. Can you forgive me?"
She blushed first and then slowly smiled. "Sure. I forgive you."
He grinned. "Then can we play a game?"
She sat up. "Okay. What do you want to play."
"Risk."
"No. Fucking. Way."
"Aw, come on."
"Listen," Arden said, "I'm not playing that game with you again. Ever. So pick something else."
"Spin the bottle?"
She cocked her head at him raised one eyebrow.
"Poker."
She sat up straight. "I've always wanted to learn."
"Alright. Poker it is. We'll play stud."
Arden closed her book and tossed it on the floor next to the mattress. Travis dug through the game box and pulled out a deck of cards.
"Now," Arden said, "Just to clarify. We're not playing strip poker. Right?"
He grinned at her but didn't answer. He went to the kitchen where he'd found a big bag of m&m's they'd found on the first day there. The only reason they hadn't eaten them already is that the bag was wide open and there were m&m's scattered on the pantry floor. The thought that little, dirty mice might have been digging around in there was enough to turn them off to the risk.
He went back to the living room and sat on the mattress opposite Arden. "We can use these as money. Ante's one m&m." He put a handful next to her and one next to him.
"I don't know what 'ante' means."
He explained and then told her the rules. They started playing and damned if Arden didn't have a good poker face.
"You could go pro with that stone cold expression," he said.
"I was thinking I need some of those sunglasses where you can't see the person's eyes."
"And a ball cap turned backwards. God would that be cute."
She glanced up at him and then rearranged her cards.
"You know, I think you'd make a pretty good redneck," Travis said.
She scoffed. "I am a redneck."
"Are not. You're too refined to be a redneck," he said in a mocking tone.
"Okay. I'm the richest, most refined redneck in redneck city. Put me in New York or Los Angeles...I'm still a redneck."
Travis had never thought about it like that. "I guess in New York, you and I would be equals in terms of stature."
She arched a brow. "I wouldn't go that far."
"Snob."
She laughed, a sparkly, cheerful sound.
"Why did you become a teacher?" he asked.
They laid their cards down and Travis won the hand. "Well, I had to do something. I like little kids. And I had a teacher who inspired me, once. So that's just what I went with. Besides, you don't see too many kids graduate and come back to teach here. It's really hard, actually, to get teachers to come here."
"So how did this one teacher inspire you?" Travis asked as he dealt the next hand.
"It was Mrs. Cheswick. She's old, so maybe you had her."
Travis made a dagger to his heart gesture.
"This may come as a shock to you," she said, looking at her cards and putting two face down on the mattress, "but I was a bit spoiled growing up."
Travis snorted.
"And most of my teachers spoiled me, too. My parents were very involved and everyone just sort of tiptoed around me all the time. But Mrs. Cheswick didn't. She didn't pad my grades. She didn't care about my cheering schedule or my parents' money. I thought she was this terrible teacher. One day I just got fed up with it and I waited until after class and asked her how come she was so hard on me. She told me it was because I was a 'smart girl' and I should be challenging myself instead of coasting along on my parents' influence.
"I was mad at first. But after I thought about it, I realized she was right. I ought to do something of my own. I didn't have any idea at the time what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to stay in Splitlog. So right then I just decided to work harder in school and earn the good grades I was getting. And it turned out, I really enjoyed it. I guess I decided to become a teacher so maybe I can do the same thing for some other kid that she did for me."
Travis had been watching her and smiling gently. When she finished talking she looked at him and lifted her chin. "Do you think it's silly?"
"Not at all. I was thinking how much better I would have done in school if my teachers looked like you."
Arden scoffed and took the cards from him. She dealt. "You would have done worse. I actually did some student-teaching for junior high and quickly gave up on that idea. It was six weeks and almost every male student's grades dropped during that time."
He laughed. "You're probably right. Now that I think of it, I had that problem in junior high. Ms. Tandy. Did you know her?"
"Yeah," Arden said. "I had her too."
"Well I had her her very first year teaching. We all thought she was such hot stuff. I never got worse grades in my life. I just couldn't pay attention. Some of the other guys dealt with it in other ways, acting up in class, drawing mean pictures...stuff like that. I just stared at her and learned absolutely nothing. She got so discouraged that year. I remember passing by her class after school was out one day. Probably heading to detention or something. She was sitting at her desk crying."
"What did you do?" Arden was listening intently, now, her cards hanging from her fingers.
"I went in and talked to her," Travis said. "I asked her what was wrong and she said how she thought she must be a terrible teacher. She had her grade book open and mine was among a whole long list of F's. I remember I said to her, 'Ms. Tandy, I'm real sorry about my bad grades. But you're so pretty to look at I just can't pay attention.'"
Arden smiled and put her hands on her heart, all girly like.
"Yeah, I don't know whether it helped, but she smiled up at me. And the next day she started cracking down. She got really tough and I think most of the guys quit looking at her as a hottie and started listening better. But she always had a special smile for me."
"That is so cute, Travis," Arden said.
He grinned. "Yeah. Well. Ever since then, I've always wanted to marry a school teacher." He stared into her warm brown eyes and watched them grow cold again, and distant.
"Layla Montrose is single," she said. She tossed an m&m on the mattress. "Ante up."
Travis chuckled and followed suit. "I think I've acquired a taste for blondes," he said.
She glared up at him, but her cheeks were pink again. Poor princess could control everything else about her body, but not that darned heart-rate. He thanked God for that. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep him encouraged.
"Ms. Tandy still teaches, you know," she said, trying to change the course of the conversation.
"Yeah? Is she married?"
Arden glanced up at him. "Would it matter to you?"
"Of course. I've got standards."
"You've never been with a married woman?"
Travis wished she hadn't asked that. "I have. But it was back before I found religion. Now I'm on the straight-and-narrow."
"That so? I'm engaged and you keep hitting on me."
"I tone it down. If you were absolutely single, we'd have already had sex at least a dozen times."
Arden laughed. "You are so full of yourself."
Travis shrugged. "I'm telling you, women can't resist my charms. Not even you. Sure, you're stronger than what I'm usually up against, but you'll cave eventually. It's inevitable."
She shook her head. "You underestimate my moral fortitude. I'll never cheat on my fiancé."
"Even though you don't love him?"
She looked up at him, then, and glared. "I love Nick."
The sound of those words made him want to be sick. "It doesn't show."
"Do you want me to play poker with you?"
Travis pressed his lips together. Two hands later he said, "Just tell me this. If there was no Nick, would you be interested?"
"I'm not participating in that line of questioning."
"Okay, so if it wasn't me, but some other guy who maybe didn't have a lot of money in the bank, worked at a job where he had to get dirty, but was otherwise a pretty nice guy. Would you be interested?"
She sighed. "Probably not. I don't really like poor and dirty. I prefer well-employed and clean-cut. So I'd just find me another Nick."
It was his turn to glare. "I'm not poor and I do take a shower now and then."
"We weren't talking about you. We were talking about the hypothetical poor, dirty nice guy."
"Now you're just being difficult."
"Well, so are you. Can we stop, now?"
Travis exhaled loudly and focussed on playing. There was no way he could break through her defenses in just a couple of days. He would just do the best he could without getting his hopes up.
CHAPTER NINE
"So you've mentioned Kristin a few times," Arden said. They were laying on the mattress staring up at the ceiling.
"We're each other's backup plans," Travis replied.
Arden kicked her feet in and out. They'd both run out of enthusiasm for cards and board games and romance novels. The lack of entertainment left nothing to distract her from the increasing sizzle that was developing between them. She was fairly certain if he were to say or do just the right thing, she'd lose all self-control and jump him.
"Well if you're not seeing anyone else," Arden said, "why is she your backup plan?"
Travis sighed. "Well...when we first hooked up, I wasn't interested in anything serious. And I was still so fucked up after Tonya leaving that I doubt Kristen would have had me anyway. By the time I got through all that and on my feet good and steady, Kristen had fallen in love with Brody Jessop. But he's still getting over losing his wife, so he's needed time. She's approached him several times and gotten her heart broken. Those are the times she and I tend to hook up."
"Does Brody know about your relationship with her?"
Travis shrugged. "Don't know."
Arden sighed. It was okay, talking about Kristen like this. It didn't seem real. Didn't bother her. But she was fairly certain if she ever saw her with Travis, she'd have to hate the woman.
"How did you and Nick first get together?" Travis asked.
Arden glanced at him to make sure he wasn't somehow trying to harass her. Satisfied, she looked back up at the ceiling. "He was a senior and I was a sophomore. We met at a party. That was about it."
"How do rich kids party?"
"We wait until someone's parents go out of town, steal from our parents' liquor cabinets, and then get drunk and make out. How do poor kids party?"
He chuckled. "We pile in pickup trucks and drive down to Coon Hollow where old Dirk Danby lives. We drink whiskey from his still and get in fights."
"My God. We're freaking Romeo and Juliet."
Travis turned to look at her. She froze, immediately regretting saying it. Travis rolled up on his elbow and for a second she thought he was going to kiss her. But he didn't. He just grinned down at her. "No we're not," he said. "I'm pretty crazy about you, but not enough to kill myself over."
"Is that so? Too bad for you. I only go for the suicidal ones."
He studied her and she felt her skin heating up. He reached over and took her hand and she let him. His fingers played through hers and it was easily the most erotic skin-on-skin contact she'd ever experienced. She didn't pull her hand away. It would have been too difficult. Too much to ask, even of her, the queen of self-control.
"So," Travis said. "You met at a party. Then what?"
Arden returned her gaze to the ceiling, trying to detach herself from the fact that Travis's hand was making love to her own. "Nothing much. We started dating. It was really good, back then. I thought he was so cool. And he really is a good looking guy. I think mostly I liked the attention I got from dating him. Then he left for college and we broke up. Then when I went to college, we hooked up again. At another party."
"Were you by any chance drunk at these parties?" Travis asked.
She had been, come to think of it. But then, whenever it came to having sex with Nick, drinking was always helpful. "Everyone is drunk at those parties."
"Mm-hmm. So then what?"
"So, we dated a while. Then he went to grad school and we broke up again. I didn't really feel like doing the long distance thing. Then I graduated and moved here and he graduated and moved here and we hooked back up. Not at a party. Just hanging out. Actually I think it was a high school football game. And we've been together since then. Which is about a year and a half."
"Well that's all very romantic," Travis said. "But even though you clearly love him passionately, it's not a very interesting story."
She looked at him. They just held hands, now. "It's a practical story."
"Sure. But you're going to have grandchildren someday. And they're going to beg you to tell them how you and grandpa fell in love. And wouldn't it be much more interesting to say that you met one fateful night when you were caught together in a snowstorm. After which you spent four days talking and laughing and falling in love. Now that's a good story."
Arden tried to come up with something withering to say. But he was holding her hand and looking at her like she was something glorious. And she wanted him like she'd never wanted anyone before. She wanted to touch him and taste him and memorize him. She wanted to rip his shirt off of him and nestle her face in the soft hair on his strong chest.
Of course, those were all physical things. And it would be wrong to give in to physical attraction that had no basis for a future when she was engaged to a perfectly good man. So what if Nick didn't excite her like this. She owed him her loyalty. He was attractive in his own way. In fact, he was just what she'd always wanted. Tall, trim, well-dressed and always smelling good. She should focus on learning to be turned on by Nick and stop thinking about Travis. Besides, it was only boredom and isolation that was driving these thoughts.
Travis was stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. When she looked at him she saw he was lost in his own thoughts. He wasn't even looking at her. Just staring at their hands, his brow furrowed.
"Travis," she said softly, "I think if you'll just realize that we're bored out of our mind here. I could be any female. You could be any male. Of course we're going to want to do things we shouldn't. It'll go away once we're back to our own homes and lives. You probably won't even think about me anymore. And I'll forget all about these feelings I'm having for you right now. Because they're not real. They're not deep. They're basic human instinct. But we're rational people and we can fight it for another day or two."
Travis looked
at her, a mild expression of disgust in his eyes. "Don't act like you know how I feel," he said.
She was surprised by his bluntness.
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, closing his eyes. She saw then that his feelings were deeper than what she'd just described. She jerked her hand away. "I'm engaged," she said.
"No shit," he said.
"I'm not interested in you."
"Yeah, I'm figuring that out. But thanks for being up front about it." He turned and sat up on the edge of the mattress, his back to her. He dug his palms into his eyes for a second and then stood and went into the kitchen.
Arden rolled over and pulled the blanket up to her chin. It smelled like him. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes.
CHAPTER TEN
Travis hiked back to the truck on his own. He didn't want Arden slipping through the slush and mud in those stupid heels of hers. When he got to the truck he was relieved to see that the ditch it was in wasn't nearly as deep as he'd remembered. With the snow mostly melted, he figured he wouldn't even have to disconnect Arden's car. It took a couple of tries to get the engine to turn over, but then it started. He climbed in and waited while it warmed up.
While he waited he thought about Arden. His Arden. In only four full days and nights he'd come to think of her as his. She was, too, she just wouldn't admit it to herself. Fine. Whatever. He could wait. He was fully aware and accepting of the fact that most people didn't fall in love as quickly as he did. He simply had the ability to see a person for who she was, flaws and all, and love her. It was the way all of his friendships had evolved.
He remembered meeting Tonya when they were kids. Only twelve. He'd whistled at her. She'd turned around and punched him in the face, making his nose bleed. And forever after he'd been in love. With Arden it felt almost exactly the same. He was twenty-plus years older than that first love, but the sensation was unmistakable. If he went home alone, he would be in a great deal of misery.
The truck warmed up, Travis shifted into first and pulled out of the ditch, fast enough to get out, but not so fast as to spin his tires in the soft, clay road. He made it out with no problems. Arden would be pleased. She wouldn't have to wait much longer to go back to her perfect life.
