Lizzie rolled her eyes at Grace. “You know, you always think you know everything don’t you?”
Grace chucked her lightly on the shoulder. “No, you just can’t admit that I’m right! Come on, you haven’t seen half of these people in years. You have to come.”
Grace knew she had her, but she let her friend think it over for a few minutes anyway. “Fine,” she conceded. “I’ll be ready in two hours, but not a minute sooner, got it?”
“That’s my girl. I knew you had it in you.” Grace gave her friend a fierce hug, and when she pulled away she thought that Lizzie might have started to suspect something because she was watching her with an odd look.
“Just promise me one thing,” Lizzie said.
“What’s that?”
“Make sure that Payton doesn’t come anywhere near that barn party.”
Seeing as how Grace had made a promise of exactly the opposite, she simply said, “I’ll do my best.” Whatever that meant.
Lizzie checked herself from every conceivable angle in the long mirror attached to her closet door- an old habit that would forever stick with her, she supposed. For September, the weather was still exceptionally warm so she’d pulled out some of her summer clothes to wear to the party. When she was absolutely positive that her butt didn’t look too big in her new jeans, and that the black halter top she’d paired with it didn’t make her breasts look too small, she smiled at herself, making sure one last time that she hadn’t lost her famous smile.
She spritzed herself with perfume, threw an old cowboy hat on top of her long, wavy hair, and slid into her favorite pair of well-worn boots. She was ready she supposed, even though butterflies had been flitting around in her stomach all afternoon.
It had been so long since she’d seen some of the people she expected to be there tonight. For some, she hadn’t seen them since the day they had walked across the stage together at high school graduation. But the one person she was most worried would show up, even though she’d told Grace to make sure he didn’t, was Payton Cartwright. The last thing she wanted was to see him again tonight and drag up old memories she wanted nothing more than to forget about.
Already in the past few hours she’d remembered more about their past than she ever wanted to think about again. She felt her face flush as her brain flitted over the memory of the first time they had made love. No matter how hard she tried, it was something that she would never be able to forget.
Grace blared the horn of her car, and Lizzie’s nerves shot straight through the ceiling. Why had she agreed to go tonight? Grace laid on the horn again, and Faith called from the den, “Lizzie, you better get out there now before Gracie causes another noise violation. Sheriff Smith’s already had to give her two warnings this month!”
If there was one truth Lizzie couldn’t deny about her friend it was that subtlety had never been her strong point. She was redheaded, and blunt, and had more enthusiasm than a stadium full of professional cheerleaders. Lizzie grabbed her purse, though she doubted she would have any use for it in a field full of round bales and coolers full of beer.
“Have fun at the party, hon.”
“Thanks, mama. Don’t wait up,” She called out of habit as she raced out the back door to stop the next honk.
They said little on the five minute drive to Farmer Murphy’s barn, and Lizzie could feel her nerves pulling tighter and tighter, like violin strings ready to break as they rounded the bend and the barn came into sight.
The field in front of the barn was nearly full when they pulled in; massive pick-up trucks with wheels almost as big as her car made a big U around the main entrance of the barn, their beds facing inward. This was the beer station, and before they even pulled up Lizzie could already imagine the number of coolers filling the back of each truck. They could already hear the music blaring from the sound system someone had brought, and Lizzie felt her heart thud right along with the bass of the song.
She skimmed the crowd and the sea of vehicles scattered around the field, and breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t see Payton. She told herself to be happy that he hadn’t shown, that it didn’t really matter how he might have changed in the years since she had seen him. She reminded herself, very sternly, that she was furious with him for all he had done. But her heart was already buying in to the letter he had written, and she found it harder to cast blame on him than she had in the past.
Lizzie made her way to one of the coolers and snagged a beer before she went inside. It was like her courage life-line and she hated herself for being so nervous, but before long she felt herself swept up in the beat of the music and laughter that surrounded her, and she smiled when she saw Colin and Bud head her direction.
“Hello, boys! Haven’t seen your smilin’ faces in quite some time!”
They grinned and simultaneously wrapped her in a mountain of a bear hug. “Well, if it isn’t New Girl, come home to get herself hitched. Thought we’d never see the day.”
“Maybe you won’t. Who said I was inviting you?” They feigned offense and she laughed. An ease settled over her and she lost herself in their conversation, so she didn’t notice when Payton came through the double doors of the barn and stopped to talk to a group of people.
Somewhere during her conversation she looked up and found herself watching a pair of green eyes on top of a long, tall, heart-achingly familiar body headed right her way. She tried to free herself from the conversation and move out of the direct line of his vision, but Colin and Hank, forever Payton’s loyal companions, apparently knew this was going to happen and they effectively stalled her.
“So, Lizzie, when’s it official? When do you become the Doc?” She heard Colin asking her questions, but her mind had gone blank.
She tried, unsuccessfully, to evade the arm Colin wrapped around her waist. “Uh... Next month. It’s a big summer in the Benford family.”
“Seems to be,” Hank added, stepping up to her other side.
And with the last step she watched Payton take in their direction, all the world seemed to still around her. All the noises faded, all the happy partying around her ceased, and she was left all alone, it felt, in a vast open space with only one man in front of her with eyes as clear and green as a meadow on a summer day.
“Hello, Lizzie.” His spoke to her in a voice that was deeper than she remembered and she felt her heart stop when she heard it. Even though she commanded it not to, it came to a momentary halt before it pounded back to life again. She forced herself not to look at him more than as a passing glance. She told herself she didn’t care or notice all the ways he’d changed.
“Hello.” She pushed the words from her dry, sandy throat and heard it crackle out into the warm, summer air.
“Dance with me.” Like an intimate but unwanted caress his words wrapped around her and held. This time her eyes narrowed and she forced herself out from beneath Colin’s arm. It was too much for her to take, and she couldn’t handle standing there in the same space as him for another second longer.
“Excuse me, boys, but I believe I have to get going.” She pushed her way out of the group and refused to look back when she heard him calling her name. Suddenly anger a million times stronger than she had remembered feeling in the past slammed into her, almost buckling her knees out from under her with its force. She forced herself forward and out into the night air.
There was a partially muffled curse that floated to her, and she judged that she had only seconds before Payton came after her. He caught up with her just outside of the barn and grabbed hold of her arm. “Wait! Liz, would you just wait a damn minute.”
“No!” She flung his arm away and made it a few steps farther, but she was no match for his speed, and this time he caught her with both of his hands and held her captive in the strength of them.
He whirled her around to face him, and she could tell by the sparks that flew from his eyes that he meant business. “I suggest you get your butt back in that barn and dance with me. I have some t
hings I want to say to you.”
Her face lit with fury. “You know, this may come as some surprise to you, Payton Cartwright, but I don’t want to dance, and I sure as hell have nothing to say to you.”
She watched the muscles in his jaw clench and relax, clench and relax, and knew there was a war going on inside him. For all the time they’d been apart she could still tell when he was deciding whether to hold back or let all his cards fly.
“Well,” he said at long last, “then that just leaves one other thing on my list that I’ve been thinking about doing tonight.” And with that he pulled her hard against his body, knocking her hat off in the process, and ran his strong, sun darkened hands roughly through her hair then down to hold her body in place. He forced his lips down onto her stubborn ones, and kissed her with a passion that had been banked for many long years.
She tried to fight him, but he just held on even tighter, and after a while she gave in to the struggle. He gentled his kiss only a fraction, but still she refused to kiss him in return. Those lips, stubborn as the girl they belonged to, kept clamped tight as clam shells, and refused to permit any sense of enjoyment.
But Payton refused to give in, and eventually, like with everything else in his life, he won. He nipped her lip and she opened her mouth to bite back when his whole mouth took over the job of kissing her. Lips and teeth and tongue took over, and before she knew what was happening, she had her arms wrapped around him, and her lips returning his caresses without another thought in the world except for how damn good this man could kiss.
When he pulled away, he kept his gaze on her, and he smiled with satisfaction at the look on her face. Her breath came hard and fast, and her lips felt swollen. And as quickly as the feeling had come, it left again. Fast as lighting she swung at him, landing a flat handed smack across his cheek. “Don’t you ever pull a trick like that again, Payton. Got it?”
He clapped a hand over the tender spot on his face, and his eyes narrowed at her. After a minute he spoke, “I know, I completely deserved that, Lizzie. It’s just that seeing you…” His words trailed off, and his eyes softened again. His hands ran down her arms, and he took her hand in his. “Don’t talk if you don’t want to, but please, dance with me.”
She was too shaken from his kiss and her reaction to think, so she followed him to a quiet spot just out of the lights of the barn, where they could still hear the music, and let him pull her in close to his body and begin a dance as old as time.
It took her a full minute to come back to her senses, but when she did she realized she was standing in the shadows of the barn, folded in the soft caress of Payton’s arms, with at least ten people curiously watching them as they slowly turned in circles on their imaginary dance floor. She tried to muster up the energy to be furious with him, but she was too tired to fight him right now. Instead she let her head fall against his strong shoulder and her body relaxed against his.
She didn’t know what to say when the song ended and he leaned back a little to watch the play of emotions flicker across her face. She had so much to say, yet so much she shouldn’t. She wanted to say everything at one time, and yet she wished she didn’t have to say anything at all.
Lizzie walked away from where they stood and hitched herself onto the bed of a pickup truck towards the back of the field. Payton followed close behind, and stopped at the side of the truck, propping his arms over the rim of the bed, watching her every move.
She studied the stars for a while, enjoying the peace they offered, and wondered exactly where it was this conversation was about to go. She hadn’t planned on seeing him tonight, though she should have known that somehow she would. She suspected that at the heart of it, Grace was somehow to blame. So now she was left to talk through things that she had no idea how to talk through or what exactly it was that she wanted to say.
Payton watched as Lizzie studied the stars and wished like hell he could see inside her head and just once know her thoughts. There had been a time that she would tell him anything, and in reality had told him everything. But that time had long ago come and gone, and now he was left wishing that somehow he could change her mind and let her see exactly what he felt.
She looked so beautiful sitting there with her long dark hair gently blowing in the night breeze. He wanted to reach out and touch that hair, feel its silky softness. He wanted to do a million things to her that he hadn’t been able to get out of his mind for years, but he knew now wasn’t the time. Now, he was hanging by a thread.
He watched her as she studied the stars and felt a tug of longing so deep it made him want to groan when she finally shifted her eyes and studied him in the moonlight. Her look was intense, but none of the emotions that he used to see flicking across the surface were evident tonight, and he wondered how it was she had learned to hide her feelings so well.
He couldn’t take it any longer. Standing here with her, watching that veiled look on her face, he knew he had no choice. He had to tell her the truth.
“Liz… I need to tell you something.” She focused her eyes on him, and waited. “Do you remember what I said to you before we broke up? I said all those cruel and terrible things to you. You remember, right?”
He could tell by her cocked head and narrow slit gaze that she remembered all right. He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh.
“Well… I didn’t… I mean, I never… I was just being a stupid kid.”
He shrugged his shoulders and turned away. Looking at her was too unbearable so he studied the night sky as he recounted the story. “I was scared, Liz. A few months before then I’d come home just after a game to check on my mom because I thought my dad was out of town on business.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Apparently he forgot something at home and came back to get it… except he brought his girlfriend with him, and for some ungodly reason they thought that having a quickie in my parents bed before they headed back out would be a good idea.”
He took a deep breath and forced himself to unclench his fists. “I watched my dad in that bed with that woman, wishing that I could kill him and her for how he had just ruined my parent’s marriage, but I walked out before I could do anything. God, Lizzie, I wanted to die that night.”
He turned to her, searching her eyes in the darkness for some sign of understanding, or shock, or anything that he could hang on to for support. She kept her eyes thickly veiled so he sent up a silent prayer and continued on.
“Walking in on my dad… let’s just say that didn’t do anything to bolster my confidence. Jesus, if anyone understands this, you would. Everything about my life was compared to my dad’s. I was supposed to be a walking mini-me of him, and then I see him….” He paused, running a hand through his hair. “I loved you, Lizzie. It scared me blind to know that I did. I had never felt that way about anyone… and I never have since.” He paused to look at her, noting, finally, the shock that registered on her face. He took a steadying breath and continued.
“What was I supposed to do? All I could think was that I was going to turn out just like the low life scum my dad was, and end up breaking the heart of the person I cared about most.” He chuckled, although it felt more like a painful sob ripping through him. “And then what d’ya know, a few short months later, I end up proving myself right.” There was more to say and he forced the words past the lump that was building in his throat.
“I had all these… feelings… inside me. Hell, and then you kept telling me how much you loved me and needed me and I just… started feeling suffocated because I was already going crazy trying to deal with everything else in my life.”
He turned away from Lizzie, giving her a minute to register what he’d said. It had always killed him to think that he’d broken her heart. He could never forget the pain in her eyes when he’d said all those things to her. How many times had he woken at night in a cold sweat remembering the pain in those eyes?
“Nothing, nothing that I ever say to you will excuse what
I did with Lou Ann, but for what it’s worth I’m sorry.”
He heard her sniffle, and turned to see her wipe a tear from her eye. Payton ran a hand through his hair and wished he hadn’t been such a fool. He could only hope that telling her the truth now might save his life in the end. There was nothing to do now, but wait, and hope.
At last she spoke. “What am I supposed to say to you?” She said, leaving him feeling like he’d just been punched in the gut.
He blinked. “Whatever you want. Whatever you feel.”
“Whatever I feel?” She stared off into the distance then flicked her eyes back to him. “What am I supposed to feel? You rip my heart out when I profess my love, and drop me like yesterday’s news.” She flung her arms out in protest. “Then now, all these years later…two weeks before I get married, you show up and tell me you were scared and that you never stopped loving me.” Her eyes glittered with rage. “Well, you could have fooled me- you did fool me. I never knew you loved me in the first place. So how the hell am I supposed to feel?”
“I had to tell you. I would have hated myself forever if I hadn’t.”
“Then I’ll tell you how I feel, Payton. I feel angry, and used. I feel like you’re making me make a decision that’s going to break someone’s heart no matter which way I turn. And I hate that. I didn’t put myself in that role, but you did. And now you’ve left it up to me to decide.”
He didn’t want to take heart, but he couldn’t help it. The simple fact that a decision was even part of her vocabulary was good news to him. It meant that she was torn, and even though it meant more waiting, it also meant he wasn’t out of the game yet.
He edged his way around the side of the truck and stopped when his leg brushed against the side of hers. He felt her tense and silently cursed himself for pushing her. But he wasn’t ready to lose her. Not yet.
“I know this wasn’t something you would have wished upon yourself, but it’s out there now and I can’t take it back. It would be a lie if I did.” He reached out and slowly brushed his finger across the silky skin of her face. Her eyes flicked to him, and held with his. “Liz, I do love you. I always have. It’s just taken me a while to grow up and figure it all out.”
The Heart Will Lead You Home Page 24
