Batteries Not Required (3 page)

The lake was really calling to me by then. I would have loved to wander down to the dock, kick off my sandals, and dangle my feet in that blue, blue water, but I couldn't bring myself to intrude on the swimming party. Anyway, I figured being at the fringe of that happy little family would have made me feel lonelier, instead of lifting my spirits.

I was sitting on the end of my double bed, leafing through an outdated issue of
Field & Stream,
when the telephone jangled and nearly scared me out of my skin.

“Hello?” I said uncertainly.

“Just thought I'd let you know your car is here,” Nancy told me. “It's parked in the lot, and I have the keys here in the office.”

I thanked her and rushed to reclaim my suitcase and purse.

When I got back to the room, I took a shower, scrubbing the pitch off my backside, and put on clean jeans and a tank top. My cell phone, nestled in the bottom of my bag, was on its last legs, making an irritating bleep-bleep sound.

I turned it off, plugged it in for a charge, and peered out the window again. The minivan family was still in the water. The dad had joined them by then, but the mom still sat on the dock, smiling and shading her eyes with one hand.

I grabbed my purse, locked up the room, and stopped by the office to return Nancy's shorts. I suppose I should have washed them first, but that seemed a little over the top, considering I'd worn them for half an hour at the outside.

Leaving the rental car in the lot, I set out on foot for the Bucking Bronco. I was hoping for a peek inside, though I don't know what I expected to see.

Passing cars slowed, so the driver and passengers could gawk, as I walked toward the tavern. Strangers always get noticed in towns like Parable—if I could be considered a stranger. Most likely, people remembered me as the poor girl who thought someone like Tristan McCullough could really be interested in her.

I waved cheerfully and picked up my pace.

Reaching the Bronco, I noted, without surprise, that the front doors were padlocked. I tried looking through the cracks between the boards covering the windows, but to no avail. I went around back, hoping for better luck.

Here, there were no boards and no padlocks. I turned to scan the sparkling lake for watching boaters, but there were none to be seen, so I tried the door.

It creaked open, and I stopped on the threshold. I thought I heard music, soft and distant. The jukebox? Impossible. The Bronco had been closed for several years, according to Mom, and the electricity must have been shut off long ago.

Still, my breath quickened. I stood still, listening. Yes, there was music. And the familiar click of pool balls.

Ghosts? The only people who would have haunted the Bronco were Mom and I, and we weren't dead.

I stepped inside, hesitantly, my heart hammering. I wasn't scared, exactly, but something out of the ordinary was definitely going on. My curiosity won out over good sense, and I followed the sounds, swimming through a swell of memories as I passed through the little apartment. Mom at the stove, stirring a canned supper and humming a Dolly Parton song. Me, curled up on the ancient sofa, studying.

The door between the apartment and the bar stood open.

The music brought tears to my eyes. Tristan and I used to dance under the stars to the song that was playing. For a moment, I was transported back to our favorite spot, high on a ridge overlooking his family's ranch, with that old, sentimental tune pouring out of the CD player in Tristan's truck. I felt his arms around me. I remembered how he'd lay me down so gently in the tall, sweet-scented grass, and make love to me until I lost myself.

I took another step, even though everything inside me screamed,
Run!

There was a portable boombox on the dusty bar, and Tristan stood next to the pool table, leaning on his cue stick. He was wearing the same dusty clothes he'd had on before, and his hat rested on one of the bar stools.

“I knew you'd show up,” he said.

My throat felt tight and raw. I couldn't think of anything to say, and couldn't have gotten the words out even if I had.

He hung the cue stick on the wall rack and walked toward me.

I was frozen in place, temporarily speechless, just the way I'd been on the road outside of town an hour or so earlier.

Tristan pushed a button on the boombox, and our song began to play. “Dance with me,” he said, and pulled me into his arms.

I stumbled along with him. He used the pad of one thumb to brush away my tears.

I finally found my voice. “I didn't see your horse outside,” I said.

He laughed. For all that he'd been herding cattle, he smelled of laundry detergent and that green grass we used to lie down in, together. “Gramps took him back to the ranch,” he said. “I walked over here from the office. Left my truck there.”

“How did you know I'd come here?”

“Easy,” he said. “This was home. I knew you couldn't stay away.” He kissed me, a light, nibbling, tasting kiss.

I should have resisted, but the best I could do was ask, “What do you want?”

“We have some unfinished business, you and I,” he said, and caught my right earlobe lightly between his teeth.

A thrill of need went through me. “We don't,” I argued, but weakly.

I felt the edge of the pool table pressing against my rear end. That was nothing compared to what was pressing against my front. “You cheated on me,” I murmured.

He kissed me again, deeply this time, with tongue. The floor of the tavern seemed to pitch to one side, like the deck of a ship too small for the waves it was riding.

“You cheated on
me
,” he countered.

We'd had that argument just before I left Parable, ten years before, but the circumstances had changed. There had been a lot of yelling then, and I'd thrown things.

Tristan slid a hand up under my tank top, and I didn't stop him. I don't know why. I just didn't. I groaned inside.

He pushed my bra up, cupped my breast, chafing the nipple with the side of his thumb, and kissed me once more.

I am not a loose woman, but you'd never have known it by the way I responded to Tristan's kisses and the way he caressed my breast. I was wet between the legs, and I could already feel myself opening to take him inside, even though I had no intention of letting him get into my jeans.

He unsnapped them, pushed the zipper down, then tugged my tank top down to bare my breast. When he took my nipple into his mouth, I cried out, buried my hands in his hair, and held him close.

I felt his chuckle of triumph reverberate through my breast, but I still didn't stop him.
Just a minute more,
I remember thinking.
Just a minute more, and then I'll push him away and slap his face for him.

“Oh, God,” I said instead.

He hooked a thumb in the waistband of my jeans and panties and pulled them down, in one move. Without releasing my breast, he hoisted me onto the pool table, eased me back onto the felt top, and reached inside to find my sweet spot.

I gasped his name.

He pushed up my top, and my bra, took his time enjoying my breasts.

My vision blurred.
Just a minute more . . .

“Remember how it was with us?” Tristan asked throatily, kissing my belly now. My jeans and panties were around my ankles by then. “Remember?”

I'd tried to shut the memory out of my mind for ten years, but I remembered, all right. At a cellular level.

Tristan stopped long enough to pull off my shoes and toss my pants aside. Then he was nibbling at my navel again, and I felt his fingers glide inside me.

I wish I could blame him, but I was the one who lifted my heels to the edge of the pool table and parted my legs.

I held my breath, waiting. There was a debate going on inside my head.

The debate was nothing, compared to the riot in my senses. The weather was mild, but my skin burned as the passion grew.

Tristan parted me, took me into his mouth.

I moaned.

He teased me with the tip of his tongue. Made me beg.

He sucked again, then went back to flicking at me.

I bucked on that old pool table, and when he knew I was ready to come, he slipped both hands under my buttocks, raised me high, and ate me until I exploded. I had one orgasm, then another, deeper and harder. I lost count before he finally eased me down onto the felt again, and even though I was dazed with satisfaction, I knew it wasn't over.

I sensed that he was unbuttoning his jeans, unwrapping a condom, putting it on.

He moved sleekly into me, and that was when I caught fire again. He'd worked me over so well that I wouldn't have thought I had another orgasm in me, but I did.

Tristan put his hands behind my shoulders and lifted me up, so I was sitting on him. I wrapped my bare legs around his hips and held on tight. I knew from experience that this ride would be wilder than anything the rodeo had to offer.

“God, you feel good,” Tristan rasped, kissing me again. “So good.”

He raised me, then lowered me slowly along his shaft. I gave a sob, tilted my head back, and closed my eyes.

“Look at me,” he said.

I was under a spell by then, rummy with need. I did as he asked.

I had three more orgasms before Tristan laid me down again, on the pool table, and thrust hard, one, twice, a third time. We came together, me sobbing and clinging, drenched in perspiration, Tristan with his head flung back like a stallion taking a mare. He gave a muffled shout, and stiffened against me, driving deeper than ever.

When it was over, he braced both hands against the side of the table, on either side of my hips, breathing heavily.

“Is it like that with Bob?” he asked.

That was when I slapped him, hard.

He stepped back, grinning, but the look in his eyes was hard. He handed me my jeans and panties and stepped back, after pulling me to my feet. I scrambled into my clothes, jammed on my shoes. I wanted to slap him again, but a part of me was ashamed of doing it once, let alone a second time. I'm not a violent person, and I don't believe in hitting people.

“You bastard,” I said. Then I fled, across the tavern, through the apartment, out into the backyard, letting the screen door slam hard behind me. The lake was right there, shimmering with azure blue beauty, and I wanted to drown myself in it.

Behind me, the door hinges squeaked.

“Gayle.” Tristan's voice. I knew without looking that he was in the doorway.

I wasn't planning to turn around, but I did. Hadn't planned on letting an old boyfriend screw me on a pool table, either. Did that, too.

Tristan was leaning against the door jamb, just as I'd imagined, rumple-haired and too damned attractive, even then. “I'm sorry,” he said.

I stared at him. I'd expected something else, I don't know what. Mockery, maybe. More seduction. But certainly not an apology.

“I shouldn't have mentioned your boyfriend.”

I almost defended Bob, before I remembered he was a vibrator. “You proved you could still make me lose control. Let's leave it at that, okay.”

“Is he going to be mad?”

I suddenly saw the humor in the situation, even though I knew there were fresh tears on my face. “There'll be a buzz,” I said.

Tristan looked confused, which was fine by me. “You're planning to tell him?”

I nodded. I was on a roll. “He'll be rigid about it.”

“Did it ever occur to you that he might not be the right man for you, if it was that easy to get hot with me?”

So much for nonviolence. I would have slapped him again if he hadn't been well out of reach. “Maybe it's not a great relationship,” I said, “but at least Bob doesn't cheat on me.”

Tristan shoved a hand through his hair, and his jawline hardened. But, then, he wasn't in on the joke. “No, but you cheat on him. Some things never change.”

I tightened my fists. “No,” I snapped. “Some things never do.”

With that, I headed for the rocky beach that runs along the edge of the lake. I was both relieved and disappointed that Tristan didn't follow.

The motel was a half-mile hike, but I was so distracted that I hardly noticed. Fortunately, the Fun Family had left the swimming area, so I didn't have to worry about anybody seeing me with my hair messed up and my eyes puffy from crying furious tears.

I pulled my key from the hip pocket of my jeans, let myself into the room, and immediately took another shower.

I wanted to hibernate, but the Big Mac had worn off, and I knew the Lakeside didn't offer room service. I dressed carefully in the only other set of clothes I had, besides the prim business suit I planned to wear to the meeting with the other owners of the Bronco and the new buyers, a cotton sundress. I'd briefly scanned the papers, and knew the gathering was scheduled for ten the next morning; I would worry about the where part later.

Determined to restore some semblance of dignity, I put on makeup, styled my hair, and left the motel again.

There was still only one restaurant in Parable, a hole-in-the-wall diner on Main Street, across from the library. I had to pause on the sidewalk out front and brace myself to go in.

I was the girl who had done Tristan McCullough wrong, and I knew the locals remembered. By now, some of them might even know that I'd just done a pool-table mambo with the golden boy, though I didn't think Tristan would stoop so low as to screw and tell. Just the same, I'd be lucky if they didn't throw me out bodily.