Rebound (9 page)

She turned and looked
to the hillside again, and had to really search to find the mouth
of the trail. She had seen too many horror movies. It was never a
good idea, under any circumstances, to go off into the woods--or a
jungle--by yourself. In slasher flicks, it wasn’t a good move to
enter a forest at all.

But then that part of
her that wanted her to go paragliding chimed in that at least if
she was killed by a maniac, or savaged by a wild animal, she
wouldn’t have to face Kevin. Wouldn’t have to apologize or get
turned down again.

But if she didn’t go
she might never see him again, and that thought alone propelled her
into the jungle and down the path leading to Kevin. She had to see
him.

Chapter 6

The old surfer chick
was right. Standing looking over The Virgin Drop, the view was
outstanding. The palm trees parted and gave a full panorama of the
beach, the other hills and mountains, and far out into the blue
ocean. Fragrant flowers swayed in the breeze, their scents both
soothing and intoxicating. But no landscape was going to help Kevin
sort out the jumble of thoughts quickly turning into a swamp
crowding his head.

What was Susan trying
to do to him? Had she lost her goddamn mind?

Or was she really
interested in him that way, the way he’d always dreamed of?

If so, what was the
problem again?

Kevin couldn’t pin
down the problem, but he knew it was there, festering, waiting to
kill him. He couldn’t have what he wanted, not when it came to
Susan. The world didn’t work that way.

If he slept with
Susan, and Kevin could already feel himself taking her in his arms,
crushing her curves against himself, feasting on her mouth, on her
flesh, being inside her...

But she was in pain.
That was her exact word for it. How could she be ready to sleep
with him if she was still in pain over shit-head Mark! It had to be
something like a one-night stand, a rebound thing. And that was
empty. That was always a mess. And if he was just her rebound guy,
then...

Then he wouldn’t be
her friend anymore. He’d be the guy she used to get over Mark.

And he’d lose
her.

Kevin took a deep
breath of the unbelievably clean tropical air. Everything about
this place was pure and beautiful, and not worth a damn if Susan
wasn’t with him. Somehow he’d have to find a way around this. Some
way to make Susan forget trying to bed him. Because it was a bad
idea. She needed time to heal, not a one-night stand. She needed
her friend Kevin, not his horn-dog evil twin.

He couldn’t chance
losing her, no matter how badly he wanted her.

Pussy!

Suddenly there was a
rustling behind him, on the other side of the clearing, and Kevin’s
eyes widened as he turned to see Susan drop through a stand of
young palm trees and land flat on her face in the tall grass.

Kevin gave a quick
snort of laughter. “So, I can’t even get a couple of minutes to
think?” he grumbled to God under his breath. “You had to send her
all the way up here just to screw with me.”

* * * *

The trail had
gotten steep and rocky, and then littered with fallen trees, and
finally covered in vines until there was no trail left. And just
when Susan was about to freak out, wishing hard for a big machete
or an industrial strength weed-whacker, she unceremoniously tripped
and fell. Her life flashed before her eyes, for she was sure she
was about to fall right over The Virgin Drop, and to her death. But
her life was short and whizzed by far too swiftly to comprehend.
When she hit the nice solid ground and didn’t go tumbling head over
heels, or simply pitch down into the seething ocean, she sent a
hysterical
Thank
You
up to heaven.

She looked up
to see Kevin staring at her, hands crossed over his chest, and then
he snorted. Kevin didn’t snort. So Susan was pretty sure she looked
ridiculous. As she stood, and tangles of dead vines and bits of
palm and grass fell out of her hair, she rescinded her
Thank You,
replacing it with
Asshole
!

She realized Kevin
had turned away from her and hadn’t so much as lifted a finger to
help her. “Thanks for the helping hand.”

He didn’t move a
muscle, but Susan could tell he stiffened all over. “I wanted to be
alone. Is that so hard to understand?”

Well, yes...Susan had
to rein herself back. She couldn’t just start yelling at him

“A plane could’ve
gotten you.”

Kevin’s head jerked.
“A plane?”

Susan felt silly. She
made it sound like an airplane was some sort of ghoulish monster
out of a B movie.

“I’m a paranoid
former jilted bride with abandonment issues,” Susan paraphrased
Liz. “Give me a break.”

Kevin grunted and
shook his head. “I wasn’t going to leave. I just needed...”

“Some space?” Susan
said to utter silence. “Some time?”

“To think.”

“That’s never a good
idea.” Susan tiptoed over, trying to get closer without scaring him
off.

“You have room to
talk,” Kevin said, still not looking at her. “When your thoughts
don’t have you jumping your best friend, they’ve got you in a
coma.”

Ouch
.
But Susan pushed that barb right out
of her head. She had to fix what she’d done. She had to get him to
forgive her.

“Funny,” she
grumbled. “So, can I buy you a drink or a shiny new car to make up
for it?”

She could tell Kevin
was smiling, and it made her heart skip a beat. He was going to
forgive her.

“Since you attacked
me last night after a couple of margaritas, I think I’ll go for the
car.”

Susan found herself
standing right beside Kevin, looking out at the ocean, at the white
capped waves, at the palm trees swaying back and forth. “Foreign or
domestic?”

“Surprise me.”

“Mind if it’s shiny
and used? Or not so shiny and like a decade old? Did I mention I
spent a ton of money on my wedding that wasn’t?”

Kevin sighed and let
his arms fall from where they’d been staunchly crossed over his
broad chest. His shoulder was all of a sudden touching hers as they
peered down at the best view on the island.

“So, how much that
set you back?”

Susan smiled. The
tension had melted out of Kevin’s voice, and he sounded like the
old Kevin again. Her best friend. But there was the warmth of his
shoulder pressed against her own, and how she could feel her
heartbeat pick up the pace just being near him. She gulped,
swallowing the thoughts that were about to make her mind and body
go into meltdown stage.

“Well...” Susan shook
her head, but still she kept flashing on the drunken memory of
Kevin naked in that towel, and the way his body felt under her
touch. And how those tentative kisses had tasted. “Not enough to
repay my folks for college, but enough for a couple of shiny, new,
moderately priced cars. A couple of Saturns.”

Kevin must have
sensed Susan’s yearning boiling up in her, because he sidestepped
away from her and ran both hands through his hair, looking tired
and exasperated.

“What did I--”

“I think you should
head back to the hotel,” Kevin interrupted.

“No!” The word came
out of her like a shotgun blast, and Kevin turned to glare at her,
clearly irritated. “I’m not going anywhere until we’ve talked about
this. I can’t chance losing you!”

The irritation in
Kevin’s eyes melted to a sad, worried expression. “I’m not leaving
you, kiddo.” He lumbered back over to her and nudged her playfully
with his elbow. “I think I should get another room until Liz can
come and--”

And just like that
Susan started to sob. Her eyes misting up, burning as big tears
slid effortlessly down her face. Susan tried to choke her sobs
back, but the terror that had just seized her, whether made worse
by all the troubles she’d already had, or that she really felt like
she was about to lose her best friend, overwhelmed her, and she
fell to her knees in the tall grass.

* * * *

Kevin’s first
reaction was to go to her. His knees jerked, but he pulled himself
back. She was just crying, not falling over the Virgin Drop ledge.
She could handle that without him. But when she fell to her knees,
her hands in the tall grass desperately trying to hold herself up.
That made Kevin spring into action, swooping down and taking her in
his arms, pulling her to him as she started frantically sobbing,
saying things that were unintelligible and disjointed. What had he
done?

“It’s all right. I
promise, everything’s fine,” Kevin assured her, yet Susan kept
bawling, clinging to his chest and breathing like an asthmatic.
“You’ll see. It’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

Susan howled. And
then she said something that Kevin could make out. “I’ve lost
you.”

“You haven’t lost
me.”

“All I wanted was for
this pain to go away.” She cried into the cotton of his t-shirt.
“It’s this pain! I can’t stand it. It won’t go away.”

It wasn’t supposed
to. And Kevin knew it wasn’t. Even though he’d gone deep into the
witness denial relocation program just to stave off his own pain,
he knew she needed to work through her own. She couldn’t be like
him, not daring to look inward, never truly happy, always wanting
what she couldn’t have.

But it was Susan
falling to pieces in his arms, not some stranger. And he couldn’t
stand seeing her in pain.

“Give it more time,
Suze. It will go away.” Kevin didn’t believe a word that had just
come out of his mouth.

“But I want it gone
now!” She clutched at him, and he could feel her body convulsing
with her sobs. She was shaking apart. “And Liz said--”

Kevin’s body
stiffened. “What did Liz say?” he asked, his voice hardening. Was
this all some joke fucking Liz was playing on both of them? He’d
kill her!

Susan coughed and
took a few deep breaths before speaking again. “Liz said it would
help the pain go away.”

He shook his head.
“What would?”

“Sleeping with you.”
Susan started crying again on “you.”

Kevin felt himself
turn as cold and still as a statue. Liz wanted Suze to sleep with
him? Impossible. Crazy. Unbelievable. And yet that’s what Susan had
said. Or had she?

“What exactly did Liz
say?”

Susan was still
sobbing, and speaking so quickly, all Kevin heard was a blur of
words. He used to call it
speaking chipmunk
. She’d done it a lot back in college, whenever she was
excited. Finally she slowed down enough that he started to catch
the words.

“She said she would
help me hunt for one when she got here. But I couldn’t wait for her
to come. I wanted the pain gone now.” She sniffled and choked,
coughing again. “And then I saw you coming out of the shower
and...and...” She stopped.

Kevin waited, holding
his breath, afraid she’d start speaking again and he wouldn’t hear
what she was saying. He counted to thirty before finally letting
his breath out. He took in another breath and said with the utmost
patience, “And?”

“And you were exactly
what she said I needed.”

Kevin was so
confused. “And what did Liz say you needed?”

Susan balled up her
fists and pushed Kevin away hard. “Don’t you listen to a word I
say?”

Kevin rolled his eyes
and pulled her back into his arms. “Humor me. You were speaking
chipmunk there for a minute.”

Susan pushed away
from him again. “I do not sound like a chipmunk! I never did.” She
gave him the evil eye.

“So what did she say
you needed?” Kevin gave her his most patient smile.

She punched him in
the stomach. “Ouch!” she whined. “Punching you is like hitting a
brick wall.” She held her fist, stroking it for a moment. “She said
I needed a rebound fling.”

He knew it!
Kevin cringed at the word
rebound
. He
wasn’t going to be that guy. No way!

“She said that if I
found some hot stud and...and...well, if I took him to bed,
repeatedly, that I would get over M-M-Mark.” Susan’s jaw snapped
shut when she said his name, her entire being going rigid and her
gaze falling down to the grassy ground. “That it would make the
pain go away. And I wanted it to go away. And there you were all
handsome and gorgeous, and hot...and did I mention I was drunk,
that my best friend got me plastered on frozen margaritas?”

“He sounds like a
real bastard,” Kevin said, as he kissed the top of her head.

“No.” She was shaking
her head, swiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands. Her
cheeks were shiny and red with sun and emotion. “He’s great. He’s a
catch, the real Prince Charming in this story. He flies across the
country to be with me on my wedding day, and then he gets sucked
into this horror movie, saddled with a comatose basket case.” She
looked up to Kevin with her beautiful, bloodshot eyes. “And then I
attack him like a horny sailor on shore leave.”

Kevin chuckled.
She had a way with words. But the words that were sticking with him
were
hot,
handsome
, and
Prince
Charming
. Did she really think
he was those things?

“So why were you so
pissed this morning? If your judgment was impaired by alcohol last
night, what was with getting mad at me for saying no?” The instant
he asked it, he wished he hadn’t. She was going to say that she
couldn’t get over that not even he wanted her.

“Because it hurt.”
She pushed herself up and off the ground, wobbling as she did so.
Kevin stood up with her, and she held onto him until her balance
kicked back in. “It hurt that you didn’t want me the way I wanted
you.”