Rough Terrain (Vista Falls #1) (4 page)

Wes felt as if he was driving to the dealership on autopilot. He used to drive by as a teen, fantasizing about the day when he’d be able to walk in and slap down a big fat check for the most expensive vehicle on their lot just to put Sage’s old man in his place. Now that day had finally come and not only was Sage’s father not around to see it, but Wes didn’t give a shit what he thought of Wes anymore.

As he pulled into the lot, he scanned the cars with plates, trying to figure out which one might belong to Sage. He finally decided on the black Jeep. It looked fun but practical at the same time, just like Sage.

He hopped out of his pickup, slamming the door as he tried to tamp down his nerves. He hadn’t set foot inside this building in years and had no idea what would be waiting on the other side of that door. Would Sage be happy to see him, or would she tell him to go to hell after the way he’d trash-talked her family the night before?

Gabby was standing at the high counter in the middle of the reception area, passing her friend a coffee, when her eyes met Wes’s. A slow smile spread across Gabby’s face as though she sensed he needed the encouragement.

“Hey there, handsome,” Gabby said when it became apparent Sage wasn’t planning to greet him. “What brings you by?”

“I’m looking for a new truck.”

That finally piqued Sage’s interest enough for her to glance outside at his Ford F-450. “That doesn’t look too old to me. What is it, a few years?”

“Yeah, but I put a lot of miles on it. I like to drive between our stores when I can. Driving helps me think.”

Sage smiled. “Still? You always used to say you did some of your best thinking out on the open road.” Her smile slipped, and she cleared her throat, obviously annoyed with herself for taking a detour down memory lane. “Um, I only have one sales guy in right now, and he’s out on a test drive. My receptionist is out for lunch, so I’m covering for her.” She glanced at her watch. “Barry should be back in about ten minutes, if you want to wait around?”

“Why don’t you show Wes around the lot?” Gabby asked, giving her friend a meaningful look. “I’ve got help at the flower shop today, so I can cover the desk until Amy gets back.”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Sage said as her gaze darted to Gabby. “You don’t even work here.”

“But I did for years in high school and when I was on summer break from college. I bet this thing still has my ass print.” Gabby rolled her eyes with a laugh as she claimed the swivel chair behind the desk and moved her butt from side-to-side with a cheeky grin. “Yup, I was right.”

“Well,” Sage said, reaching for a set of keys, “I guess that’s settled. Thanks, by the way, Gabby.”

Her teeth were clenched when she said it, making Wes doubt her sincerity, but he didn’t care if she felt pressured into helping him as long as he got what he came for—time alone with her.

“Um, I think we only have one loaded 450 on the lot, assuming that’s what you’re after?” she asked.

He was after a hell of a lot more than a new vehicle, he realized as he watched the tempting sway of her hips in a tight black skirt as she made her way to the truck.

“Uh yeah,” he said, realizing she expected a response.

Wes fell into step beside her, inhaling her fresh citrusy, floral scent. He knew it well even after all these years. They’d been lying in his bed one afternoon when they had his house to themselves, and she told him the shampoo was some combination of citrus and kiwi and the perfume wasn’t perfume at all but a lavender essential oil. He’d told her whatever it was, it was sexy as hell and begged her to never stop wearing it.

“What are you doing?” she asked, frowning when she realized he’d sniffed her.

He chuckled, not at all embarrassed at being caught. “Just remembering.”

“We should probably try to refrain from doing too much of that.” Her high heels clicked against the pavement, her stride eating up the distance between them.

He stopped her in her tracks. “I read your book.”

She turned to face him slowly, color creeping up her neck before eventually staining her cheeks. Given her dark complexion, it took a lot to make her blush. “You did? What did you think?”

“I thought you were incredibly brave.” Since she seemed momentarily stunned, he took advantage of her lapse to close the distance between them. “I’ve thought about it a million times over the years, but I sure as hell wouldn’t have had the guts to write my feelings down and let the world read them.”

“It was hardly the world,” she said, turning to walk again. “It only sold about ten thousand copies. Half of them to people in this town who wanted to support me, I think. But writing about it was kind of cathartic for me. If I’d had those thoughts and feelings rolling around in my head for the rest of my life, I think I would have gone crazy.”

“I’m glad you found a way to deal ‘cause I sure as hell haven’t.” Wes didn’t mean to sound bitter that she’d found a way to let go of the past, but he knew that was how she would perceive it.

Sage closed her hand around the door handle of the truck she’d told him about. “What other choice do we have? We have to deal with it. What happened happened. We can’t change it.”

Wes rested his hand alongside hers, his cotton shirt barely brushing hers. “If you could change it, would you?”

She seemed to consider her answer a long time before she said, “I don’t know. I guess a lot would depend on the kind of life he’s had without us. I like to think that he’s happy, that he adores his adoptive parents and they’ve given him the kind of life we couldn’t back then.”

“But we could have loved him,” he whispered, his breath fanning her neck. “No one could have loved him more than we would have. You know that.”

“We can’t keep questioning ourselves and second-guessing our decision, Wes. It’s not healthy. We need to let it go.”

“I can’t. Not until I see with my own two eyes that he’s better off without us in his life.”

She sucked in a sharp breath as she whirled around to face him. “You can’t do that. You can’t reach out to him. You know—you knew even back then—that wouldn’t be fair to him or his parents.”

“We’re his parents.” Wes knew it wasn’t necessarily logical since they hadn’t raised him, but in his mind, that boy would always be his son.

“No,” she said softly, shaking her head as her gaze drifted from his to the ground between their feet. “They’re his parents. They have been since the day he was born.”

“What can you tell me about them?” Wes was desperate for something, anything that would provide a link to his son. No matter how fragile it may be.

She passed him the keys to the truck when another car pulled into the lot. “I can’t do this here. You drive. We’ll talk.”

He walked to the passenger’s side with her and opened the door for her before sucking in a few deep breaths as he rounded the rear of the big pickup truck. Wes wasn’t even sure he should be driving given his state of mind. When he slid into the driver’s seat and curled his big hands around the leather steering wheel, he realized they were shaking.

“Are you okay?” she asked, obviously noting the tremor as she fastened her seat belt. “We don’t have to do this if you’re not ready.”

“No, I’m fine,” he lied, starting the engine.

He didn’t even have to ask where they should go. There was only one place he could think to take her—the lake. It was late May, so the kids weren’t out of school yet, which meant it would be quiet. They might run into a few dog walkers or young mothers with strollers, but for the most part, they should have the small sandy beach to themselves.

“The lake?” she asked, looking tense as he turned down a narrow dead-end street that butted up against her lot.

“Where else?”

It was where they’d had some of their best and worst memories. The place where they’d fallen in love, broken up, and ultimately decided the fate of their unborn child.

Sage’s stomach was tied up in knots by the time they climbed out of the truck. She’d never imagined having a conversation with Wes about their child. No. That wasn’t entirely true. She’d imagined it hundreds of time. She’d just never thought it would happen.

“I can’t walk on the beach in these,” she said, pointing at her shoes. “Not to mention this.” She pulled the hem of her black blazer away from her body. “It’s hot today, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“So lose the blazer and kick your shoes off.” His eyes traveled down her legs. “You’re not wearing nylons. You can rinse your feet off before we head back.”

Since she didn’t have much of a choice, she slipped the blazer off, revealing a hand-dyed silk tank that Gabby swore reminded her of tie-dye. “I’ll just leave them here,” she muttered, knowing anything she said to him now would fall on deaf ears.

His eyes were roaming her body, making her remember things she’d have rather forgotten. Like how she felt when his hands grazed her skin as they kissed. Or the way he’d taken possession of her body when they made love…

“Something tells me you’re thinking the same thing I am.”

He smirked while she felt her cheeks burning for the second time in the past half hour. She never blushed, but something about this man brought out the worst in her…or the best depending on the day.

“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” she said.

After walking down the stone steps leading to the beach, he fell into step beside her. “Admitting it doesn’t make you weak, you know,” he said, slipping on his sunglasses.

“Admitting what?” She looked up at him, wishing she could see his eyes.

“That you’re still attracted to me. You have to know I feel the same way.”

She looked out at the water, unable to answer. As they neared the small clearing, she walked up to the iron railing that prevented onlookers from getting too close to the falls, remembering all the times they’d stood in this very spot, planning their future.

“Why did you come back?” she asked, suddenly wishing he hadn’t. For years, her feelings for him had lain dormant. Pretending she’d gotten over him was so much easier when she didn’t have to look at his handsome face and be reminded there was a teenager out there somewhere who could look just like him.

“For a lot of reasons.” He curled his hands around the railing, looking out at the swirling water, no doubt remembering all the times they’d scurried down the embankment, shed their clothes, and made love under the waterfall.

Or maybe she was the only one thinking of that.

“Your family.” She had to believe that was the only reason he’d come back. If she allowed herself to entertain any other possibility, she was in serious danger of falling for him all over again.

“Yeah, sure.” He looked at her, but his eyes were masked by those damn aviator sunglasses. “Now that Dad’s gone, I feel better being here, in case they need me.”

There was so much she wanted to say. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was for his loss, that she knew his family loved him and was happy to have him back. Instead she swallowed the words that would have taken them back to another time and place.

“But they’re not the only reason I came back.”

“No?” She cleared her dry throat, thinking she’d give anything for a sip of water.

“I came back because I feel like I left too much behind.”

She wondered if he could see her heart beating through her thin silk tank. “What did you leave behind?”

“Our son, for one.”

“Wes, please.” She closed her eyes when they started burning, a surefire sign that tears were going to start flowing whether she wanted them to or not. “You have to stop thinking of him as our son. He’s not. He’s someone else’s son.”

“Have you seen him? Heard from him?”

She shook her head, curling her hands around the railing and pulling her body away as though she was afraid to hold on too tight yet afraid to let go at the same time. Her life had always been like that. It had started as a tug-of-war between her family and the man she loved, and now it was a tug-of-war between her head and heart. Her head told her she had no right to get to know the baby she’d given away, but her heart desperately wanted to see him just one more time.

“Have you ever thought about reaching out to him?” Wes asked.

“Every day.” She’d admitted that in her book, but she’d never said it to another person.

“Then why haven’t you?”

She shrugged, fighting back the blinding tears that were making it difficult to see the swirling water below. “I don’t think I have the right. If he wanted to, he could reach out to me, to us. Since he hasn’t, I have to assume he doesn’t want us in his life.”

“Maybe he thinks it’s the other way around, that we don’t want him in ours. We were the ones who gave him up, remember.”

“How could I forget?”

“You said in your book that you wished you could have kept him. That you’d have given anything if things could have been different.” He sighed. “I feel the same way. Even if you didn’t feel you could raise him, I should have stepped up. I may have made a lot of mistakes with him being on my own, but at least I wouldn’t have had to live with this goddamn ache in my chest every day.” He hung his head.

She swore she could feel his ache in her chest as she touched his back, wishing she could absorb some of his pain. “I’m not going to tell you to let it go again, because people have been telling me that for years, and I can’t tell you how much I resent it. I’ll never be able to let it go.”

“Neither will I.” He raised his sunglasses, letting her see the sheen of tears in his eyes. “That’s why I need to see him. I just need to know that he’s okay. That he knows we only gave him up because we love him and want the best for him.”

She didn’t know how to respond. Should she try to dissuade him or encourage him to do what he felt he had to do?

“Will you come with me to see him?” At her shocked expression, he added, “After I find out where he is and make sure he’s willing to talk to us.”

“I don’t know if I can.” Walking away from her son once had nearly destroyed her. She didn’t know if she had it in her to do it a second time. That was why, fifteen years ago, she had refused his adoptive parents’ offer of annual photos and occasional visits.