Lu kept busy cooking up lunch orders while Renee poked her head in every few minutes giving her detailed, blow-by-blow progress reports of Tynan and Barbara’s date. It took Tynan and Barbara thirty minutes to eat their pasta in between all the laughing and talking they were doing. She’d bet Tynan would have finished the pasta in five minutes flat if he hadn’t been putting on a show for her benefit.
The longer they sat out there, the more her tension grew until her movements felt stilted and abrupt. Robotic. When Renee came in and announced Barbara had gotten a call from work and had to leave, Lu’s tense muscles relaxed so suddenly she had to lean against the counter to stay standing.
She knew what was going on here. Tynan was making a point. What had he said to her last night? No more craving cake.
Well, she had a point to make too. Two could play at this game. Only she wasn’t playing.
30
Lu grabbed a dessert plate off the stack from the shelf on the wall above her and cut a big, sexy slice of her latest, most decadent chocolate cake.
She slapped the bell. “In the window, Renee! This is for Tynan.”
Renee came over to pick it up, raising her brows when she saw the plate. “He didn’t order that.”
“No, he didn’t.” She lifted her chin a notch. “But he wants it; he’s just being pigheaded. Tell him it’s compliments of the chef.”
“Hot dog! I love when the Cates brothers get women mad.” Renee grinned and placed the dish on her tray. “It really livens things up around here. Heck, if Kaz and Paxton would get in on this, I could cancel my cable service.”
Lu peeked through the window to watch Renee deliver the cake.
“Compliments of the chef.”
Tynan looked down at the plate, then back up at Renee. “Oh, she’s funny, isn’t she?”
“I laughed and I’m not even in on the joke.” Renee shrugged with a grin. “You may see things differently.”
He pushed the cake to the edge of the table. “Could you send the chef out? And I don’t mean Dave.”
Lu pulled away from the window and sucked in her breath. Could she face Tynan right now? Sure. Sure she could. And she needed to. No point in stewing about this. They might as well lay all their cards on the table.
“Lu, you’ve been summoned.” Renee looked through, interrupting her pep talk to herself.
She swallowed her heart back down into her chest and went out to face off with Tynan.
“I’d like to send this back.” He sat back in the booth, hitting her with his icy-cool gaze. “No more cake for me.”
That hit its mark. She couldn’t stand here and take his shots, so she just blurted out what she wanted—no, needed—to know. “Were you serious about that date with Barbara?”
He narrowed his eyes on her. “Why would it even matter to you?”
Because last night you craved cake. “What about us? Are you just going to pretend nothing happened between us?”
Tynan’s face grew dark. He stood up from the booth, drawing himself up to his full height, and moved in close, probably trying to intimidate her. But then he leaned in even closer and lowered his voice for her ears only. “Nothing happened between us. Nothing of substance, anyway.”
And Lu’s only defense for what she did next was insanity. Because for some reason Tynan’s words slashed at her, the pain going deep. Maybe it was a gut reaction to having another man leave her, even if this one had turned his back and walked away under his own free will. Before she could even filter the words, she called after him, “We made love!”
She saw the words hit him. He froze in his spot, his hand on the handle of the side door, and like the soldier he used to be, his powerful body snapped to ramrod attention. Turning back around, his gaze burned into hers with such fierceness her impulse was to back up a step. Instead she lifted her chin.
He stalked toward her, and she had to lock her knees to stay standing where she was. When he was four feet away he stopped, his nostrils flaring.
“No, no, we didn’t.”
“Pfft.” Oh, way to sound intelligent, Lu. It’s just that he was so big and so very angry. “We did too.”
“We did not make love. Just ask anyone in town.” He tore his gaze from where he had her pinned to look around at the full restaurant, gesturing with his arms to indicate the avid listeners sitting around them. “Everyone knows, right, everyone?”
Everyone agreed in unison. “He can’t get it up!”
“That is so not the truth,” she hissed at him. “And you know it.”
“Truth? Seriously, Lu? And if you think announcing we had sex in front of my mother is going to cause me a problem—think again.”
Oh. My. God. His mother was in the diner?
“Hell, it’s not even unique or shocking. It’s damn near a tradition in our family. So yell at the top of your lungs in the middle of Main Street if you want.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” a worried voice said into the nearly silent eatery. “She could get hit by a car.”
She heard Renee from a few steps behind her. “Relax, Yvette, it was just a figure of speech.”
Tynan leaned down close to her face. So close she saw angry sparks of yellow in both his blue and green eyes. His warm breath heated her face.
“But taking the cabin from me? That I will not forgive you for.” His voice went menacingly soft. “And I will not forget. You knew what that cabin meant to me. I confided in you, for Chrissake.”
“I apologized for that. I’m sorry, sincerely sorry, for what I did.” She hoped he could see how much because this thing between them didn’t feel like it was over. Could it really have meant so much to her and absolutely nothing to him? No, she remembered the look in his eyes. The passion on his face. “And I don’t know what this is, but there’s something between us, dammit,, or my name isn’t Lulubelle Stanley Swan.”
“Excuse me, what did you say?”
His ice-cold tone worried her. “I…I said there’s something be…tween us.”
“No.” He shook his head impatiently. “Your name. What did you say your name is?”
She swallowed. “Lulubelle Stanley Swan.”
“Stanley? Your name is Stanley?”
“Yes—”
“You were Joey’s fiancée?”
“Yes, but—”
The fire died in his eyes as his face slammed into a stiff, somber mask.
“Tynan, I can explain…”
“Wait right there. Don’t move.” Tynan pointed at her, then turned and exited through the side door.
People scrambled to the windows to watch where he was going, then scrambled just as quickly back into their seats when he grabbed something out of his truck’s glove compartment and reentered the diner.
“You’re a hard woman to track down, but then, I didn’t think I was looking for a woman. I’m sorry for your loss. Joey was a good man.” He handled the white envelope in his large hands with special care. “This is for you.”
Frowning up at Tynan as he held the envelope out to her, she reached her hand out reflexively and took it from him. When she finally tore her gaze from Tynan and looked down at the envelope, a wave of prickly numbness rushed from her head down through her body, leaving her dizzy.
“I’m not sure what you tracked me down for, but whatever it is, I hope you find it. I really do.”
She stood in disbelief, running the tips of her fingers over Joe’s stilted script. Stanley. Other than her parents, only Joe had known her middle name, and only Joe had ever used it. Tears rushed to her eyes, remembering how Joe used to call her Stanley when he wanted to get her attention.
“I tracked you down to see how you’d moved on.” Lu stared down at the envelope in her numb fingers. The familiar handwriting on the front twisted her stomach inside out. Her gaze floated back up to Tynan’s, unable to hide her pain and confusion.
“You know what I don’t get?” He lifted his hands only to let them fall with a shake of his h
ead. “Why didn’t you just tell me you were Joey’s girl at the start, or at least when you came back to Climax?”
“I…” Her mind and body were numb with shock. Putting her jumbled thoughts into words was impossible. She hugged the letter up against her chest and sucked in a painful breath. “I just…couldn’t.”
Tynan clenched his jaw tight, gave her a curt nod, and, without another word, turned and left.
Lu watched Tynan walk out the door and all she wanted to do was cry and kick and scream up to the heavens. Just when she’d thought she’d begun to find her way, life dumped her in the middle of nowhere without a map. Again.
Oh, Joe. I sure could use your advice right now. I’ve been lost for so long that I’m afraid I’m never going to find a way back.
“He just needs to calm down. He’ll come back.” Renee wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell him you were Joey’s girl?”
“I guess because somewhere in there, between the time I decided to track him down and the time he kissed me in the elevator, I stopped being Joe’s girl and became Lu Swan—just me.”
Once the tears started to fall, they wouldn’t stop.
Renee’s voice broke through. “Lu? You gonna be okay?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
31
Tynan couldn’t sleep. Not that that was anything new. Only now it wasn’t Joey keeping him awake at night but Joey’s fiancée. Holy Christ. He was having real trouble wrapping his head around who Lu really was.
Lu had been Joey’s fiancée. Unbelievable.
He cut off that train of thought. He couldn’t afford to think about Lu anymore. The clock across the room said it was an hour later than the last time he’d looked. Dammit. He reached out, turning on the light on his bedside table.
Houdini lifted his head to blink at him from his bed in the corner, then went back to sleep. Well, good for you. Glad one of us is sleeping. He had no idea where the cat was. He propped himself up against the heavy chestnut headboard he’d made two years ago, when he’d first returned home, another time when sleep had alluded him.
Sitting up, he pushed and rearranged his pillow, leaned back again and glanced around the room. He could go to the 24/7 and work out, but he didn’t much like working out at—he turned back to the clock—two a.m.
In desperation, he grabbed up the romance book that had been sitting gathering dust since his coerced appearance at the Simon sisters’ book club. He opened the book to a random page and read. Big mistake. He slammed the book closed and tossed it back, where it slid across the table and on to the floor with a plop.
Damn, that was hot, and hot sex made him think of Lu.
Lu Swan was everywhere he turned. She was in his face constantly. And maybe it was his imagination, but why did she smell like vanilla and chocolate? She made his mouth water. Sometimes he had the urge to lick her all over.
And sometimes in his dreams he did, not to mention a few times in real life too. He closed his eyes and saw Lu tangled in his sheets, panting and moaning under him. He heard her release the sweetest sigh as he brought her to orgasm with his hands and his mouth and his cock.
Talk about a mindfuck. Nothing like having the hottest, mind-blowing sex with a woman and then face her fiancé less than an hour later at the poker table. It didn’t seem to matter that he’d dreamed both encounters, it still was drilling guilt into his head. Hell, he hadn’t even known Lu was Joey’s fiancée because she hadn’t bothered to tell him, so why was he feeling so guilty?
Joey’s girl. He felt the words slice at him like knives, cutting deep.
He looked at the dim numbers on the clock again. Ah, hell: 2:17. Throwing the covers off, he lay on his back, letting the fan above him cool his body down. He felt twitchy and frustrated, as if his skin was a size too small for his body. Every muscle tense, as if he needed to sprint toward the horizon and never look back. Still not comfortable, he flipped his pillow over to the cool side and scrunched it up under his head.
Closing his eyes was dangerous, but he let go, finally drifting off, and there she was, waiting for him. Standing there in scanty panties and her pink tool belt. And nothing else. Her breasts might be on the small side, but they were perfect. When he reached out to touch her, she wrapped a leather rope around each of his wrists and stapled the leather to the wall, using his Bostitch PowerSlam 20-gauge stapler.
His body was at her mercy and his imagination went places his body had never been. He happily conceded all power to the bent pixie with the sexy mouth. She ran her hands over his body. Their limbs twined together until her body slid down, down, until her knees hit the ground in front of him. She looked up at him through her soft bangs with those gypsy dark eyes, ran her tongue along her pink lips. Her hands warm on his thighs. And she opened her mouth and offered anything and everything he ever wanted.
“Dammit.” He jackknifed up in bed, throwing the pillow across the room. Houdini yelped and moved over to the bed, resting his chin on the mattress. He patted the dog’s head. “Sorry, buddy. Everything’s okay.”
Great. Now I’m lying to my dog. Everything was not okay, dammit. After another few hours of tossing and turning, he finally gave up and got out of bed. What he needed was to head outside and chop wood for two hours. But it was still dark outside, and he probably shouldn’t be swinging an ax with the mood he was in. So, instead he hit up the 24/7, the only thing open in town at five a.m.
Tynan nodded to the college student working at the front desk. After a few minutes of stretching he got right to his workout. He did squats, power cleans, bench presses, and dead lifts, maxing out the weight on each. Still tense, he kept going and cranked out pull-ups, push-ups, and burpees tabata style—twenty seconds of intense exercise and ten seconds of rest, repeated until exhaustion finally released both his body and his mind. He leaned over, resting his hands on his thighs while he attempted to catch his breath. His mind blessedly, numbingly blank.
“Hell, Ty, if that workout didn’t exorcise all your demons, nothing will.” Kaz tossed a small towel to him.
“I just need to evict one pixie.” Straightening up, he scrubbed the towel over his face. “Can you come over to watch Houdini and his cat tomorrow instead of Friday?”
“Sure. I heard about Lu. I’d say small world, but obviously she tracked you down.”
He ran his hand over his eyes. They had that gritty, short-on-sleep feel. “Looks like it.”
“Did she explain why she did it?”
“She tried, but I’m still figuring out if I care enough to know.”
“Sounds fair. So you’re taking an extra day hiking to do it?”
“Yep. It’s that or go crazy. I’ll head out early, if that works for you.”
“I’ll come over tonight and sleep in your guest room.” He stared over Tynan’s shoulder with a grin. “Any other broken locks you want to tell me about?”
“No. Why?” Tynan followed his brother’s gaze out the glass front of the gym. Houdini stood staring in at him, the cat draped casually across his back. “I don’t know how he’s doing it.”
Out in the parking lot, Tynan opened the door of his truck and lifted in both Houdini and the cat. “All right, cat. Let’s play the name game. How about Boots? Ralph? Mr. Sassy Pants? No? You let me know when I get to a name you like.”
As he drove home, he let go of the cat names and made a mental list of all the supplies and equipment he needed to gather. It should be easy, because he always checked and replaced any worn equipment after each trip, and the last few years he’d only made this one trip each year on the anniversary of the darkest day of his life. November 21.
He went to pay his respects out in the elements under the same vast sky they’d all shared that night three years ago. He went alone because no one else in Climax could understand the emotions, the fear, and the loss in a way he needed. It was too soon and too fresh for the survivors of that night to gather. One day they would, just not for a while.
A wh
iff of noxious fumes had Tynan cranking down the driver’s side window to let in some fresh air. He turned to look at Houdini, who was plastered up against his side, trying to look innocent. “Dude, I told you to stop eating the cat food.”
Thankfully, he pulled into his driveway a few minutes later. They piled out of the truck, took a quick circuit of the lawn to take care of some business, and then Tynan herded them inside to pack and search for Houdini’s escape hatch before heading to work.
* * *
The next morning Tynan was up early, aiming to be on the road before five. Kaz was actually up before him. He found him sitting at his kitchen table having some kind of stare-off with the cat.
“You sure you’re okay with the animals? I mean, I can—”
“Ty, go. We’ll be fine.” Kaz didn’t take his gaze from the cat’s. “Your cat and I are simply having a conversation about its name.”
“Let me know when he tells you what it is.”
“She.”
“Huh. That figures. How did you get close enough to check?”
“Just picked her up. Women like me.”
“That is so weird. Okay, I’m set. You saw that I left my hiking itinerary there on the kitchen table?”
Kaz glanced over at the map and notes on the table and nodded. “Saw it. Good deal. You checked the weather again?”
“Uh-huh. There’s a tropical depression off the East Coast. Predicted to stay out over water, so I’ll probably be hiking in a bit of rain, but that’s all. I’ll be back in three days.”
“Okay. You’ve got the cell phone for an emergency, right?”
“Right.” He nodded. “But that’s adding an extra five ounces in my pack.”
Kaz pointed at him. “That’s the compromise. Otherwise we wouldn’t let you go alone and you’d hate it when we slowed you down.”
“Which is why I packed it. I think I found out how Houdini’s been getting out again. The side door wasn’t latching properly. Fixed it last night, so he should stay put.” Tynan gave Houdini a pat on his head and grabbed up the last bag. “Okay, I’m out. See you in three days.”
Lying to Her Grumpy New Boss: Cates Brothers #3 Page 18
