by Jae
She trailed her gaze up Annie’s bare back, from the point where the dress rested just above her hips, over vulnerable-looking shoulder blades, to the elegant curve of her neck. The burgundy color made the smooth, pale skin glow like the moonstone she had shown Annie on the beach.
God, she’s beautiful. And she’s not wearing a bra.
With fingers that felt too big for the dainty task, Drew reached for the zipper. Her fingertips grazed Annie’s skin.
A visible trail of goose bumps spread over Annie’s back, making Drew shiver in response.
“Cold?” Drew asked. She barely recognized her own voice.
Annie shook her head. The mirror showed a flush creeping up her neck.
To Drew, it made Annie look even lovelier. Focus. Zip her up and get out of here before you do something stupid. She lowered her gaze to the zipper.
A bit of fabric had gotten caught in the zipper, and Drew tugged it free. She felt Annie stop breathing and go still beneath her hands. Slowly, Drew pulled the zipper up until she encountered the golden-blond hair falling to just below Annie’s shoulders. “Can you lift your hair?”
Letting go of the dress with one hand, Annie reached back and swept her hair to the side.
The movement made the fine muscles of her back vibrate against Drew’s fingers.
Drew struggled against the urge to move forward and press her lips to Annie’s bare neck. When she wrenched her gaze away from the pale skin, their gazes connected in the mirror.
Heat rushed through her.
Was she just imagining the mix of hunger and fear in Annie’s darkened eyes?
“Drew ...” Annie’s tone sounded pleading, but Drew wasn’t sure for what.
Warm flesh twitched beneath Drew’s hands, and she realized she had laid both of her hands on Annie’s back, fingers spread as if to connect with as much of Annie as she could. She wrenched her hands away. When she lifted her gaze back up, Annie’s face had lost the unguarded expression. Whatever she had felt was now hidden behind a mask of control.
“Sorry.” Drew pulled up the zipper the rest of the way and stepped back as far as the tiny fitting room allowed. “The zipper should work now. Think you can manage alone?”
Annie nodded. Even though the zipper was closed and held up the dress, she was still clutching the front.
“I’ll wait outside.” Not waiting for a reply, Drew stumbled from the fitting room and sank onto a bench.
* * *
Oh God, oh God, oh God. What was that? Annie stared into the mirror without seeing the dress. Her skin burned as she remembered the heat in Drew’s gaze. She could still feel where Drew’s hands had rested against her back.
Shakily, she dropped onto the narrow bench in the fitting room. Take a deep breath. She sucked air into her lungs as if she were suffocating. Nothing happened. No big deal. Okay, so you’re attracted to Drew. Just ignore it. Maybe it’ll go away once we stop pretending for Jake.
But the excuse had grown empty. Except for the time when Jake had been watching and at the Halloween party, she wasn’t playing a role when she was with Drew. Quite the opposite. She couldn’t remember when she had last shown another person so much of herself without fear of being judged. Probably never.
What does that mean? Is this connection ... these feelings ... are they for real?
Too much was going through her mind to be sure of the answer.
She leaned against the mirrored wall of the fitting room and shivered as the cold seeped into her back. Despite the cramped space, she didn’t want to open the door and face Drew—or maybe it was her own feelings she didn’t want to face.
Sarah’s words echoed through her mind again. Maybe your reaction isn’t about Drew and her sexual orientation. It’s about yours.
Annie stood and jerked down the zipper, nearly getting it caught on a piece of fabric again. Stop. If she damaged the zipper, she would have to call Drew for help. Heat shot through her at the thought of feeling Drew’s hands on her back again.
Annie struggled out of the dress. When she picked up her pants, something slipped out of her pocket and dropped onto the carpet. The milky-white moonstone twinkled in the glaring lights of the fitting room, looking as out of place as Annie felt.
For a moment, Annie considered leaving it behind, but then she again saw the carefree smile on Drew’s face when she had shown her the moonstone. She bent and touched the stone. It was still warm from her body heat. Sighing, she put it back into her pocket.
Chapter 16
The folder held tightly in her hand, Drew crossed Cargill & Jones’s parking lot. Her heartbeat picked up when she saw Annie’s car parked right in front of the entrance. You’re not here to see Annie, she reminded herself.
But maybe she could combine business with pleasure and see if Annie had time to go for lunch. They needed to talk about what had happened between them in the fitting room. When Annie had come out of the fitting room, dress in hand, she had mumbled something about not liking the fit of the dress. Soon after finding a pair of slacks, she had hurriedly said good-bye, saying that she needed to get some work done.
Drew hadn’t been able to think of anything else all weekend. At times, she had convinced herself that it was all just in her imagination, that she was just projecting her own feelings onto Annie. But there were moments when she was almost sure she had seen her longing reflected in Annie’s eyes when their gazes had met in the mirror.
She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
When she entered the building, Mr. Hargrave, her accountant, stood in the hallway, talking to someone.
Drew craned her neck to see whether that someone was Annie.
A woman’s red hair peeked out from behind Mr. Hargrave.
Not Annie. Drew slowed her steps.
Mr. Hargrave turned and frowned. “Ms. Corbin. Do we have an appointment?”
“No, I just thought I’d drop off the receipts you asked for.” Drew held out the folder.
“Oh. Thank you.” He took the folder, glanced inside, and nodded. “You didn’t need to drop it off in person.”
Drew shrugged and admitted to herself that it had just been a convenient excuse to see Annie. “I was in the neighborhood anyway.” She hesitated and glanced at the petite redhead next to Mr. Hargrave. Was she a colleague or a client? Not that it mattered. She turned back toward her accountant. “You wouldn’t happen to know if Annie Prideaux is with a client right now?”
“Annie Prideaux?” Hargrave’s eyebrows crept toward his thinning hairline. He probably wondered whether she was trying to replace him as her accountant.
Drew didn’t care. She wasn’t in the mood to soothe her accountant’s ruffled feathers, so she just nodded.
“I have no idea,” Mr. Hargrave answered.
“I think she went to lunch with Jonathan,” the redhead said.
Jonathan. The name was like salt in an open wound for Drew. Maybe she had just imagined Annie’s reaction. If Annie was interested in anyone at all, it was Jonathan, not her. She unclenched her teeth, said “thank you,” and trudged back to her car.
* * *
“You barely touched your lunch,” Jonathan said as they made their way back to the office.
“I wasn’t very hungry.” Annie hadn’t eaten much in days. Her stomach felt like a churning sea of emotions. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep, she could barely hear herself think over the never-ending questions running through her mind. Even when they had talked about an account that Jonathan needed help with over lunch, her thoughts had repeatedly strayed from the topic at hand and returned to that moment in the fitting room.
“Wasn’t that your friend?” Jonathan asked. “The one from the restaurant?”
Drew? Annie looked up sharply. “Where?”
Jonathan paused in the middle of the firm’s parking lot. “In that car.” He pointed over his shoulder.
When Annie turned, the car was already gone.
Had it really been Drew? And if yes, what had
she been doing here? Had Drew wanted to talk to her? What am I supposed to say if she asks me what’s going on with me? Annie rubbed her forehead. Calm down. She was probably just in the neighborhood and wanted to talk about Thanksgiving.
“Annie?”
When Annie looked up, she realized Jonathan was holding the door open for her. “Oh. Thanks.” With one final glance back to the parking lot, she stepped past Jonathan.
* * *
Drew stood stock-still in the middle of her bedroom and looked at the bow that rested next to the quiver on her bed. In the past, taking out her bow and focusing just on hitting the target had always helped her to forget about her troubles. But since her mother’s death, just looking at the bow had hurt. Now she looked at the worn grip of her bow and the feathered arrows and felt a tingle of anticipation.
Okay, let’s try this. Maybe it would help her forget about Annie and their moment in the fitting room for a while. She attached the quiver to her belt and picked up the bow.
When she left the house, Martin was crossing the yard. He walked over, his gaze fixed on the bow in her hands. “Going out for some target practice?” he asked as if it were an everyday occurrence.
Drew nodded. “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah.”
Their gazes met and held.
The lines on Martin’s tan face deepened as he smiled. He clapped her shoulder with his work-roughened hand. “That girl, Annie, she’s really good for you. Your mother would have liked her.”
Drew swallowed. What wouldn’t she give to be able to introduce Annie to her parents and have her experience a warm family interaction. “I think so too. But she’s a woman, not a girl. And she’s not my girlfriend.”
“Didn’t say she was.” He winked at her. “Not yet.” Martin patted her shoulder again, then pulled his baseball cap more deeply over his face, and walked away, whistling.
Drew fondly shook her head and watched him go. When he had disappeared around the corner, she headed toward the field behind the barn.
* * *
What am I doing here? Annie sat in front of Drew’s house, her car’s engine idling. Instead of getting out and knocking on the door, she stayed in the car and drummed a staccato beat on the steering wheel with her fingers.
It was the day before Thanksgiving, so this was her last chance to talk to Drew.
There’s nothing to talk about.
But Annie knew that was a lie. There was a lot to talk about, but Annie wasn’t ready. Still, she couldn’t stay away. She had paced her apartment, always returning to the phone. But even though the phone would have afforded her a safe distance, she knew doing this by phone wasn’t right, so she had driven over to talk to Drew. But what was she supposed to say? I can’t stop thinking about you?
She imagined Drew staring at her. “Annie,” Drew would say, “you’re a wonderful woman, but I don’t think of you that way.”
God, that would be embarrassing. Annie had never risked humiliation like that. But would Drew really say that? The look in her eyes when their gazes met in the fitting room mirror made Annie think otherwise. What will you do if she thinks about you “that way” too? Could you have a relationship with a woman—with all the repercussions?
Annie pinched her nose. She was making herself crazy with all the what-ifs. Part of her wanted her safe, uneventful life back—the one she’d had before meeting Drew. The other part felt alive, really alive, for the first time in her life.
And that scared her even more. Before, her emotions had been safe and controllable. She had always thought of herself as a reserved person, not very passionate, romantic, or sexual. Now all the assumptions she had made about herself were no longer true. With Drew, she had lost all control of her body and her emotions.
She shook her head. Just keep your mouth shut. No one will ever need to know. Now get out of here before Drew sees you. She put the car in reverse and prepared to back out of the driveway.
A knock on the car window next to her made Annie jump. She whirled around.
One of Drew’s employees stood next to the car, and after a second, Annie remembered his name: Martin Salerno. He waved at her and gestured for her to roll down the window.
Annie did.
“If you’re looking for Drew, she’s behind that barn over there.” He pointed to one of the buildings.
“Thank you,” Annie said and forced a smile. Inwardly, she grimaced. Damn. Now she couldn’t just leave. He would probably tell Drew she had been here, and then Drew would wonder why she had driven all the way to the vineyard and left without talking to her.
Sighing, she turned off the car and sat in the deafening silence. Seconds ticked by. Finally, she touched the moonstone in her pocket, an annoying habit she had developed in the last week, and got out of the car.
She had expected to find Drew elbow-deep in vines, grapes, or some other work-related activity. But when she rounded the corner, Drew stood with a bow at the edge of a field, a quiver full of arrows strapped to her hip.
Annie paused to watch her undetected.
With fluent, unhurried movements, Drew nocked one arrow, raised the bow, and drew back the string. Her face was relaxed and focused at the same time. Nothing seemed to exist for her but the target on the other side of the field.
Annie couldn’t take her gaze off Drew.
When the fingers of Drew’s right hand grazed her cheek, she released the string.
The arrow streaked across the field.
With a thud, it hit the golden center of the target.
“Wow.” Joy rushed through Annie. She knew that hitting the target meant more to Drew than just being good at a sport. Drew had been scared that she had forever lost the skills her mother had taught her.
At the sound of Annie’s voice, Drew lowered her arm with the bow and turned. Her lips curled into a welcoming smile. “Hey.”
“Hi.” Annie didn’t know what else to say. She struggled to find the right words—or any words at all. “Um ... Martin told me where to find you.” Her gaze flickered away from Drew and to the target. “You’re hitting the target. You’ve got it back, everything your mother taught you.”
“Yeah.” Drew exhaled and grinned. She radiated happiness. “This time when I touched the bow, it felt like coming home. Guess I just needed some time, like you said.”
“I’m really happy for you.” Despite her resolve not to touch Drew, Annie squeezed Drew’s forearm. Her fingers wrapped around the leather bracer.
After a moment, Drew put her free hand on top of Annie’s.
They stood there, not speaking, just communicating by touch, until finally, Drew was the one to shift and break the contact between them. “Want to try?” She glanced down and lifted the bow.
“What? Me?” Annie shook her head and stepped back. “Oh, no, that’s not a good idea. I’m such a klutz. I’d probably end up shooting someone.”
Drew closed the distance between them. “What did I tell you? No negative assumptions about yourself. Just try it once. Can’t be any worse than my first attempt.”
“What happened?” Annie asked. She couldn’t imagine calm, confident Drew fumbling around with the bow and arrow.
“Somehow, the arrow fell at my feet. My mother tried so hard not to laugh that she looked like she had a facial tic.” Drew chuckled.
Annie smiled back. “How old were you?”
“Ten,” Drew said. “Come on. Try it.”
A slow breath escaped Annie. Can’t hurt, right? She straightened. “What do I do?”
“First, you put on the arm guard,” Drew said. “It’ll protect your arm from the bowstring.” She removed the leather bracer from her forearm.
Annie’s breath caught when Drew slipped the piece of leather, still warm from Drew’s body heat, around her left arm and fastened it. Tingles shot up her arm and raced down the rest of her body.
Drew cleared her throat. “Then you put on the tab.” She fastened another piece of protection to Annie’s right hand by
looping it around her middle finger.
The feel of Drew’s tannin-stained fingers sliding around hers made Annie shiver. Her head spun.
“Now position yourself at a right angle from the target with your feet shoulder-width apart.”
Annie turned her left shoulder toward the target. “Like this?”
“Move your foot a bit more to the right.”
After moving her foot another inch to the side, Annie glanced over her shoulder at Drew.
“No, the other one. Like this.” Drew put her foot between Annie’s and pressed against her right instep. This position brought her flush against Annie’s back.
Annie stood frozen to the spot.
“Your foot,” Drew said from just inches behind her. Her voice sounded husky. “Move your right foot.”
Shaking herself out of her haze, Annie slid her foot to the right.
Drew’s left arm wrapped around her body and pressed the bow into her hand.
Oh, God. She expects me to handle a weapon now? Her whole body felt like a quivering mass of jelly. She almost dropped the bow when Drew’s other arm came around her body too. Caught between wanting to put some distance between them and wanting to lean into Drew’s embrace, she stood without moving.
“Now you nock the arrow.” Still helping Annie to hold on to the bow, Drew guided Annie’s fingers to attach the groove on the back of the arrow to the bowstring.
Were Drew’s fingers shaking too? Annie couldn’t tell. Her own fingers were trembling too much.
“Put your index finger above the arrow,” a swallowing sound interrupted Drew, “and your middle and ring finger below.” She waited until Annie followed her instruction. “How does that feel?”
Feel? A hundred feelings were rushing through her, none of them related to holding the bow and arrow. She couldn’t feel anything but Drew’s breasts pressed against her back, Drew’s arms wrapped around her, and warm breath tickling her neck. “O-okay.”
