“Um…well…” She really had planned on spending the following evening reading.
“Listen, Em, I have to hang up. Six o’clock? I’ll meet you at your place.”
And before she’d managed to do more than stutter, he ended the call.
She stared at the receiver in her hand. That conversation had been too rushed and definitely less-than-satisfying. Sort of like their marriage.
Blood rose on her cheeks at the errant thought. She should be thankful they hadn’t consummated their bad decision instead of complaining about it! Still…Closing her eyes, she remembered the sensation of being in his arms on the dance floor in Las Vegas. She recalled the hot, male scent of his neck when she pressed her face there, the imprint of his large hands on her back and then sliding lower, the unmistakable ridge she’d felt pressing against her stomach as they swayed together.
Squeezing the phone tight, she wrenched her thoughts away from the past. And from what wasn’t to be.
Instead, she promised herself she’d focus on discovering what needed to be done to put an end to their impulsive mistake. Friday night, she’d present her findings to him first thing.
Okay, “first thing” wasn’t going to happen, Emily realized, when she found herself squeezed between Will and his youngest sister on the bench seat of his pickup. Betsy had insisted on giving her the spot closest to her brother.
“Nice to see you again,” the other woman said, “though I’m sorry to horn in on your date.”
“Oh, we’re not…” Emily let her voice trail off. Explaining they were only out together in order to discuss their divorce was surely subject matter Will didn’t want her pursuing with his little sister.
And it would have been a lie, anyway, Emily realized, as they made their way into the crowded stands. While Betsy went off in one direction, Will was hailed by a group who scooted down the bleacher seats to make a place for two on a plaid woolen blanket. Thigh-to-thigh and arm-to-arm with him on one side and a total stranger on the other—not to mention knees to shoulder blades with other people she’d never met—meant they wouldn’t have a chance to get into anything serious.
The man beside her stuck out his hand. “Patrick Walsh,” he said, with a friendly smile. “Let me guess, you met Will at Roady’s. Or was it that new bar over on Chestnut?”
Emily blinked. She looked like some woman Will had picked up in a bar? she wondered, glancing down at her jeans, boots and wool coat. Okay, the coat was cherry red, and she’d succumbed to some beauty magazine advice about matching her lipstick to the color of the clothes closest to her face, but she hadn’t ever been mistaken for a barfly type in her life. “No, I—” She broke off to press her lips together, hoping to rub some of the brightness away. “Um…”
Patrick was looking at her expectantly. “Um?”
“Well, you see, we met a long time ago…”
The man laughed. “I get it. I’ve had one of those looong nights myself. You were pub-hopping and can’t quite recall where you first said ‘how do you do’ to our man Will?”
“No!” Not that there was anything wrong with pub-hopping or bars or anything like that, not really. But Emily lived a much quieter life, if you didn’t count those few crazy days in Las Vegas. “I’m a librarian.”
“Oh.” Patrick stilled, then scooted down the bench to put another inch between their limbs.
If she’d said “serial murderer” she didn’t think he could look more surprised—or was it alarmed? Emily sighed. A reference to books tended to work on some people that way.
The man gave her an awkward half smile. “It’s just that I didn’t think Will was in a place where he was interested in women, who, uh, read.”
Emily ignored the little flame of annoyance sparking somewhere beneath her red coat. “What ‘place’ is that, exactly, that Will’s in? And what are the occupations of his usual type of female companion?”
“Not going there,” Patrick said, lifting his hands in surrender. “So not going there. It’s just that we used to call him ‘Wild Will’ in the old days, and he’s been making noises about reclaiming the title now that Betsy’s—”
“Graduated and out of the house,” she finished for him. “I know about that.” But what she didn’t know was this nickname he used to have. The Will of her past had been summer-tan, summer-strong, the best swimmer, the fastest with a canoe, the guy who could actually use a compass. He’d evicted eight-legged creatures from the girls’ cabins without one teasing guffaw and she was certain he’d never participated in a single, stupid panty raid.
So…Wild Will?
Glancing to her other side, she saw that the man in question was deep in a conversation with someone sitting on the bleacher behind him. “When exactly was he called that?” she asked the red-haired man beside her. “‘Wild Will’, I mean.” And why?
“High school,” Patrick answered, a nostalgic smile overtaking his face. “Want to play a practical joke on a friend? Will was the go-to guy. Looking for a class prank? He had dozens of schemes to make the administration nuts. One year we kidnapped the graduation caps and gowns and held them for the ransom of a longer lunch period. His idea.”
“Oh. Well.” That sounded harmless enough and very much like the clever Will she knew from summer camp. He’d been the one who came up with the best comic lines for the end-of-season skits.
“Of course, then there was his success with the ladies,” Patrick went on, followed by a sentimental sigh. “The stuff of legends.”
“‘Stuff of legends’?” Over her shoulder, she cast another swift glance at Will, but he had turned away from her to grab a box of goodies being passed down the row. “I didn’t realize.”
“Oh, yeah. The head cheerleader—a senior—before he could drive. Next year, it was the hot yearbook editor-in-chief. Then there were the twins he took to junior prom. I heard he kept the codes to a dozen girls’ home alarm systems in a little black book.”
“Codes?” A dozen girls?
“You know. He wheedled out of them—not that they put up any fight, mind you—those codes so he could sneak into their bedrooms at night.”
A dozen girls?
“I had no idea,” Emily said, her voice a little faint.
“He was a bad boy, our Wild Will,” Patrick confirmed. “Envy of the guys, the goal of the girls.”
She was trying to absorb all that when Will leaned close to insert himself into the conversation. “What are you two talking about?” His brows met as his gaze darted between Emily and Patrick. “You’re not hitting on her, are you, Pat?”
“No, Will,” Patrick protested. “No way.”
Will focused on Emily’s face. “Then why do you look so…so…” He made a vague gesture. “Upset?”
“I’m not upset.” A cannon at the end zone boomed, announcing the beginning of the game, and everyone around her directed their attention to the field, including, thank goodness, Patrick and Will.
She wasn’t upset.
But she had plenty of time to try to figure out what she was, because she’d never been a big fan of football. Who could follow that little dirt-colored ball? And there wasn’t much else to think about besides how dangerously low teenage girls’ denim rode when they sat and why they didn’t seem to feel the draft down the back gap of their blue jeans.
Will—her Will—had been “bad” September through June? How then, come summer camp, was he the attentive, sweet, good boyfriend that she remembered? Not once had he tried wheedling any code out of her that would give him access to her bed. Though their kisses had been frequent and sometimes a little bit hot, he’d never pushed her for anything physical either.
Because when school started up again he had all the nookie he needed?
She shot him an assessing look, but he was focused on the game. Probably because he’d been such a player at one time himself, she thought. And not just the football kind of player, either.
So which Will had she met in Las Vegas? The sweet summer guy or th
e bad boy on the make?
Annoyance flaring again, she crossed her arms over her chest and turned slightly on the bleacher to study his handsome profile. Before she divorced, she decided, she certainly wanted to figure out which one she’d married.
Betsy had another ride home, Will was relieved to hear, because that left him alone with Emily for the drive back from the game. Something was wrong and he was determined to get to the bottom of it, so he was taking the back roads to her place to give him more opportunity to figure out what was up with her mood. Sometime after the start of the game she’d gone ultra-quiet and had stayed that way through the fourth quarter. It was no way to make new friends.
And a befriended Emily was his path to freedom.
Reaching over, he turned up the heat because the atmosphere in the truck’s cab was decidedly chilly. It was nothing like the ride on the way to the high school stadium, when Emily’s perfume had teased his nose and her warmth had been pressed close to him. Now she was cuddling the passenger door, closer to it than she’d even been to him during the game when she’d been sandwiched on the bleacher between him and Pat.
Pat.
He remembered her chatting with the other man before the start of the first quarter. Damn. Had Pat-the-Rat done or said something to offend her?
“He’s harmless,” Will ventured, glancing over even though he couldn’t see her expression because the back route they were taking was just that dark. “Pat, I mean. Whatever he said, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Are you calling him a compulsive liar?”
“No, of course not. I just meant that he wouldn’t knowingly cause offense. Did he say something rude to you?”
“No. He didn’t say anything rude.”
“Okay.” Will breathed a little easier. “Good. You just seemed a little, I don’t know, subdued tonight.”
Get a grip, Dailey, he told himself. Emily had been sick recently and then this evening she’d been plopped in the middle of a group of strangers at a raucous football game. He should have thought of a better way to introduce her to new people.
“I’m probably overreacting, anyway,” Emily said.
Overreacting? He cast her another look. Overreacting about what? If Pat hadn’t said anything offensive, then he must have done something to insult Emily.
Will’s hands squeezed the steering wheel as heat shot up his spine. Damn it! The bleachers had been so jammed they’d been packed in like sardines, giving Pat an opportunity to somehow touch Emily. Will’s Emily.
Thinking of another man’s hands on her creamy skin—on even the fabric covering her creamy skin—made him tighten his choke-hold on the wheel. “I’ll break every one of his fingers. I swear, honey, I’ll make him rue the day—”
“That he told me about your bad boy reputation?”
“What?”
“It was a little disconcerting to discover that the boy I remembered from those summers spent his school year sneaking into girls’ bedrooms.”
“Whoa.” Noting a familiar turn-off just ahead, Will clamped down on taking the conversation further until he’d steered the truck to the right. A dirt-and-gravel road took him to a stand of cottonwood trees growing beside the silvery remains of a disintegrating barn. It was commonly known as a Lover’s Lane type of spot, not that now seemed the time to tell Emily that.
When he’d braked and shut off the headlights, he turned to face her. “Now, what’s all this about me sneaking into girls’ bedrooms?”
The meager moonlight didn’t illuminate Emily’s face, but he’d seen it clearly during the football game. She’d changed so little over the years—time only honing the delicate edge of her jawbone. She still had the same long eyes, feathery brows and that puffy lower lip that only looked one cross thought away from a pout. He couldn’t tell if it was pushed out now, but he did detect her shrug.
“Never mind,” she said. “I don’t have any real reason to be bothered by your little black book.”
“Black book?” Will had to laugh. “I don’t have any little black book.”
“Not even in high school? With the home alarm passcodes of your eager and willing teen harem?”
“Good God,” Will said, half-amused and half-bothered. “Is that the kind of tall tale that Pat’s spouting these days? Next thing you know I’ll have a big blue ox, too.”
“No, just a date with a pair of twins to the junior prom.”
“Oh.”
“Ha!” Emily pivoted on the seat and he could feel the heat of her gaze. “So you did take two girls to the dance.”
Will rubbed his hand over his mouth to hide his grimace. “Would you believe they’re my cousins?”
“No.”
“Oh,” he said again.
After a moment, she surprised the hell out of him by releasing a little bubble of laughter. “Will, did you really take a pair of twins to the prom?”
“I did it for us, honey.”
She laughed again, and swung her leg up onto the bench seat between them. “Go ahead, my friend, pull the other one.”
He wrapped his hand around her ankle, even as she tried to tug free of his grip. “Really. Of course I wanted to go to the big dance, but I figured by taking the Wilson twins that I wasn’t going to get into a compromising position or succumb to temptation when it was just a couple of weeks before we’d be together again. Danita and Danica watched each other like hawks eye snakes. Neither one could make a move without the other one ready to pounce on her.”
“They sound charming,” Emily replied, still trying to reclaim the limb he’d captured.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Will admitted. “Charm wasn’t one of their, uh, charms. Still, I left the dance unkissed—or close enough, anyway. Can you say the same?”
“My high school didn’t have a junior prom.” Her latest yank broke his hold and she retreated to a prim pose—knees and ankles pressed together, arms folded over her chest.
“You know what I mean, Em.” He ran a hand through his hair. “We didn’t make promises to each other about what would or wouldn’t happen during the school year. I admit I spent time with other girls, as I’m sure you did with other guys.”
There was a conspicuous quiet from her side of the cab. “Em?”
“So you were a player,” she said. “A senior girl before you could drive? The twins, not to mention the yearbook editor?”
“Emily—”
“Oh, forget about it,” she waved a hand in his direction and then laughed a little again. “I don’t know why I even brought it up. That was years ago. Who cares what you did during the school year…or what I thought you didn’t do.”
“Well, it wasn’t as if you spent every September through June sitting at home and pining—” He broke off as her stiff body language finally sank in. “Oh. Oh, Emily.”
She waved her hand again. “Don’t flatter yourself. I probably was just looking for an excuse to stay home and read. I was bookish even then. More than half the reason my parents sent me to summer camp was to get my nose out of novels and into a little sunshine.”
And in said sunshine her creamy skin turned a pale golden shade. It would bring out a splash of freckles on said nose, too.
She sighed. “What a sappy girl I was.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Sappy?”
“Silly. Sentimental. Foolish. While you were out dating cheerleaders and twins, I was sitting at home believing we had something really special.”
“We did have something really special.”
“Thanks, but I’m all grown up now. It’s no big deal to realize that while I was drowning in the sea of teenage love, you were skating across its waters.”
“Emily.” Will shifted from underneath the steering wheel to move toward her. “I wasn’t skating. I was right there with you, the water dangerously close to going over my head. You don’t know how much I thought about you—how much I wanted you.”
Though he couldn’t read her expression in the darkness, he could feel h
er disbelief. “You never once seemed…out of control, or even interested in pushing for more,” she said.
“Because I was so damn afraid of scaring you off,” he answered. “Yeah, apparently I had a little more experience than you when it came to kissing, but emotionally I was in a thousand knots when I was near you.”
“Really?” This time he could hear a smile in her voice. “Me, too. You’d touch my hand and my stomach would cramp.”
“My heart pounded so hard sometimes that I thought you might see it expanding out of my chest like something from a cartoon.” Will rubbed his sternum in sympathy for the lovesick kid he’d been. “And for the record, I regarded my, um, experiments with other girls something I did for us, Em.”
“You said that before.” Her voice was dry. “Excuse me for having a little trouble swallowing it down.”
“Really. Remember when I taught you to French kiss? I didn’t just pick that up from the Boy Scout manual, you know. That yearbook editor was one smart cookie and my learning experience with her made your learning experience just that much more pleasant.”
She made a sound of stifled amusement. “Tell me you didn’t actually think that…not then and certainly not now.”
But the fact was, he sort of had thought that. Fine, maybe that made him sound like an arrogant piece of work, but he’d never forget the first time he’d held Emily’s sweet face in the cup of his palms and whispered against her lips, “Open. Open your mouth.”
And then, without forethought, he slid down the truck’s seat and was doing it again, cradling her jaw in his palms, his long fingers caging the soft warmth of her cheeks. Her lashes fluttered and he felt the butterfly flicker against the pads of his index fingers.
His heart started that slamming pound against his ribs as he leaned closer. Her perfume floated in the air, dizzying him with its sweetness, as his lips touched hers.
“Open.” He echoed that old lesson. “Open your mouth.”
When she did, warm air puffed out, and then he slid inside, just the smallest distance, just enough so that he could touch the tip of his tongue to hers. Her breath hitched, his stomach knotted, and it was like he was a kid again, eager, afraid, breathless, burning up with heat.
I Still Do Page 5
