Secrets of a Perfect Night (34 page)

Now that she was older and wiser, she’d reverted back to her mother’s teachings and was fairly picky about whom she let worship her body. She had to care for the man, and it took time before she felt comfortable enough to let intimacy happen.

Until today.

Everything was different today. Turned upside down and inside out. Nothing made sense, and she didn’t know what to think or how to feel. She wished she did. She wished she had answers for all the questions rolling around in her head. She was a private investigator, and it was her job to search until she found the answers. Only this was her private life and she felt clueless and didn’t even know where to begin.

Thomas helped her back over the barricade, but this time there were no lingering touches. He opened the passenger-side door for her, and she cleared the snow from her boots before she climbed inside. For two people who fifteen minutes before hadn’t seemed to have an ounce of restraint or self-consciousness, the awkward silence stretching between them seemed that much more noticeable. The comfortable friendship she’d enjoyed over the past few hours was completely gone.

On the drive back to the lodge, Thomas finally broke the silence with, “I think it might snow tonight.”

Brina’s response was just as inspired. “Oh, uh-huh.” She wondered what he was thinking, but his dark glasses once again covered his eyes and concealed even a hint of his thoughts.

They lapsed back into silence until Thomas pulled the Jeep up to the front doors of the lodge and shoved the vehicle into park. When he spoke, it wasn’t really what Brina longed to hear. “I’m sorry I got carried away. Normally I don’t go around pinning women against trees,” he said, as he stared out the windshield.

“Me either. Ah…getting pinned, I mean.” She
thought a moment. “Maybe it happened because we feel like we know each other.”

“But we don’t.” He finally looked at her, but his face gave nothing away. “We don’t know each other at all.”

Brina gazed into his expressionless features, and thought he might be right. This closed-up man wasn’t the Thomas she’d known. Just when she’d begun to think she knew him, she realized she didn’t know him at all. Not anymore. Which, she realized with a heavy heart, was a shame. “Good-bye, Thomas,” she said, and let herself out of the Jeep.

From behind his sunglasses, Thomas watched Brina walk through the revolving doors of the lodge. He shoved the vehicle into gear and drove to a parking slot on the far side of the hotel. He turned off the engine, leaned his head back against the seat, and closed his eyes.

What in the hell had happened? He couldn’t believe he’d shoved Brina against a tree and buried his face in her breasts. She’d been wrong. It wasn’t because he knew her. Ten years ago he’d always been able to stop. It was something else. Something he didn’t even like to admit to himself.

He’d lost control. That was what had happened, and he didn’t want to think about what he would have done if it were summer and getting Brina out of her clothes was just a matter of flipping up her skirt and slipping off her panties. He was afraid he wouldn’t have stopped. He would have made love to her against that tree where they’d played as kids. He would have gladly lost control to Brina McConnell.

What was that saying about being careful of what you wished for? The bet he’d made with her had been a joke. All day he’d pictured her wearing long johns beneath that ski suit, and it had never entered his head that she only wore her bra, and not much of a bra either. Everyone knew you were supposed to wear a base layer. Everyone but Brina, he supposed. When he’d unzipped her suit, he’d thought she would stop him. He’d meant to shock her, but when he’d lowered his gaze, he’d been the one shocked like a kid getting his first look at a centerfold.

Now as he sat in his Jeep, he wondered why she hadn’t stopped him. Ten years ago she’d always stopped him with that lame “my body is a temple” bullshit excuse her mother had taught her. Now she not only didn’t stop him, she squeezed her thighs around him and held his face to her breast, and he couldn’t help but wonder why. The easy answer was that they were both adults and enjoyed sex, but Thomas never went for the easy answers. He never would have succeeded in business if he had.

On the drive to the lodge, another thought had entered his head. One he tried to dismiss but failed. He didn’t like it, but it was there—a nagging voice in the back of his brain. He’d seen it a lot with the older guys and wimpy geeks he did business with. Beautiful women, women like Holly who were willing to be with anyone, just as long as they had money, and the men kidding themselves that the women wanted them for themselves.

Thomas didn’t want to believe that Brina could be so shallow, but he hadn’t seen or talked to her in ten
years. Maybe that was exactly what she wanted. Money she’d never had as a kid and the attention she’d always wanted. To be seen with the biggest fish in the pond. And even though he knew it probably wasn’t fair to judge her by her past, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t done it before. Only last time he’d been dirt-poor and she’d dumped him faster than yesterday’s garbage.

Thomas opened his door and got out of the Jeep. His quick strides carried him into the lodge and past the registration desk. Without waiting for the elevator, he took the stairs to the third floor. He had to take his mind off her before she drove him completely insane. He had to fill his head with something other than the way she’d grabbed ahold of his insides and twisted him around.

Without pause, he walked past her door and to his own room. He unzipped his coat as he sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace and changed into his ski boots. Even as kids, there’d always been something about Brina. Something that had pulled at him. Something that just crept inside and made him want to wrap his hands in her hair and bury his face in her neck. Last night he’d thought he felt nothing for her, but he’d been wrong. This morning he’d thought he could kiss her and touch her and, maybe, make love to her. Nothing complicated. Just two people who’d known each other as kids, getting together as adults and having a good time. Just a man and a woman wanting to give each other a little pleasure.

He’d been wrong again. They weren’t just any man and woman. They were Thomas and Brina, and like
some preprogrammed memory, his body responded as if he were seventeen again. Wanting her so much he thought he would die. Only now it was worse.

When he’d held her against that tree and looked into her hazel eyes turning gray with passion, he’d shot past wanting her and had headed straight for need.

Thomas grabbed his skis and walked back out into the hall. The last thing he wanted was to give her that much control. The last thing he wanted was to need Brina McConnell.

Five

B
RINA SQUINTED THROUGH
the darkness to the clock next to her bed. It was 10:30
P.M
. She’d missed the banquet and the tour of her old school. No big deal, but she’d wanted to hook up with Karen Johnson and Jen Larkin before the awards ceremony. She’d wanted to make sure she had someone to sit with so she didn’t look like a complete loner.

She pushed her hair out of her face and sat on the side of her bed. After Thomas had dumped her at the lodge, she’d changed and gone back down to the lobby. Karen and Jen had been just about to leave to hit all the boutiques in town. Brina had joined them and bought a Galliton sweatshirt to replace the old one she slept in. She’d had a good time talking about the past with girls she had something in common with. Band girls. Home Ec Club girls. The nerds-who-don’t-ski girls.

She’d helped Karen pick out a little bunting suit for her unborn baby, and they’d stopped for lattes in the old renovated fire station. She’d kept herself occupied, diverted her attention with shopping, and hadn’t
thought of Thomas very much. Well, not every minute anyway.

When she’d returned to the lodge, she’d grabbed the ski equipment she’d rented that morning. There was no use in keeping it since she didn’t plan to ski anymore. As she’d stood in line, waiting her turn to return the awful blue suit, laughter had drawn her attention out of the rental shop and into the lounge. Sitting beside a big roaring fire, looking tan and cozy, yucking it up like best friends, were Holly, Mindy Burton, and Thomas.

While Brina had stood in the rental shop, her stomach turning, holding the suit Thomas had unzipped and stuck his hands inside, he’d casually flirted with other women.

She’d watched as Thomas leaned forward to hear something Holly had said, and she’d felt a little pinch in her heart and looked away. He’d dropped her off to hang out with Holly and her friends, and that hurt more than she’d thought possible.

After returning the suit, she’d gone to her room and tried to tell herself she didn’t care. Her eyes watered anyway, and it was just too bad her heart wasn’t listening. She’d turned on the televison to watch a little local news before getting ready for the action-packed events planned for that evening. She’d stared up at the ceiling, listening to a report on some stupid city council meeting, and she’d fallen asleep. Unfortunately, she’d had a nightmare involving Thomas and Holly, happy, laughing, together. Now that she was awake, she thought about going back to bed. Seeing Thomas again with Holly just might kill her.

The light from the televison flickered and flashed across the room as she tried to imagine what might be happening in the banquet room below. Yes, seeing Thomas with Holly might kill her, but staying in her room imagining the worst would definitely do her in.

Drained of anything that could be misconstrued as enthusiasm, Brina dragged herself into the shower for the second time that day. When she got out, she dressed in a pair of jeans and a short-sleeved mock T-neck, made of celery-colored stretch satin. The words
Calvin Klein
were written in silver across her breasts. She wore a black leather belt and pulled on her black shearling boots she’d worn earlier. They weren’t a great fashion statement, but they would keep her feet warm when she stepped outside to watch the fireworks show the lodge set off every year at the stroke of midnight.

Brina blew-dry her hair, then wove it into a loose braid. She put on cosmetics to make herself feel better, rather than to look good for any particular man. She hung big silver hoops in her ears, wrapped her big silver watch around her wrist, and sprinkled silvery glitter in her hair. She looked short, but she looked good.

On the way out, she grabbed the peacoat she’d brought with her from home, and by the time she made it downstairs, it was eleven-thirty. She moved past the ballroom where the reunion had been held the night before. Tonight the lodge was hosting its annual New Year’s Eve party, and the reunion had been moved down the hall to a large banquet room.

She walked through the doorway and decided to
hang back just in case she wanted to make a quiet exit. Mindy Burton’s voice flooded the room from where she stood behind a podium handing out little trophies.

“Our next award goes to the couple with the most children. It goes to Bob and Tamra Henderson. They have seven,” Mindy said, in her most cheerful rah-rah voice, as if cranking out seven rug rats in ten years ranked right up there with the seven wonders of the world. Everyone applauded Bob and Tamra’s reproductive organs, and Brina began to think that maybe it was just her. Maybe it was her crappy mood, but she really didn’t think giving birth was so unusual that it deserved a trophy. More like the reunion committee was so lame, they had to think up stupid reasons to give their friends a trophy. Next they would probably give an award for the brownest hair.

She let her gaze skim the crowd, searching for Karen and Jen, but of course, she spotted Thomas first. And of course, he sat at a round table surrounded by women. As if he felt her gaze on him, he looked up at her, then slowly he rose from his chair. As Mindy announced the next award winner, Brina watched Thomas walk toward her. His face was tanned from the sun, his lips a little chapped. He wore faded Levi’s, a white cotton sweater with a navy V-neck, and a plain white T-shirt beneath. With each casual stride of his long legs, her heart raced a bit faster. The faster her heart raced, the angrier she became, and the angrier she became, the more she didn’t care if her anger was irrational. He’d kissed her and touched her like she meant something to him, then he’d dumped her and
made her feel like she didn’t. He made her question his motives and hers. Made her uncertain and unsure. Something she hadn’t felt since high school.

He didn’t owe her anything, she reminded herself. She didn’t owe him anything either. He was a stranger. They were strangers. She didn’t know him anymore.

Only he didn’t feel like a stranger. When she looked into his familiar blue eyes, she felt as if she were coming home. Her soul recognized his. Thomas was the only person alive with whom she shared certain memories that brought a smile to her lips, a catch to her throat, or a longing to her heart. He was the only one who knew all her childhood insecurities and that in the sixth grade she’d prayed for a Strawberry Shortcake doll.

“Hey,” he said as he stopped in front of her. “You just getting in from somewhere?”

“Yeah, my room.”

Mindy announced the award for the person who’d changed the least, and Thomas waited for the applause to die before he spoke. “You’ve been in your room all night?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

She knew it. After what had happened that afternoon, he thought she was promiscuous, and of course, she’d also admitted to freaky sex in the Rose Garden, which didn’t help her image. With her peacoat hanging on one arm, she shoved her free hand on her hip. “Where were you all afternoon?”

“With you.”

She ignored the flush creeping up her neck. “After you dumped me.”

His gaze narrowed a bit. “After we got back to the lodge,” he said slowly, “I went skiing.”

“Yeah, I saw you
skiing
.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re mad about something.”

“No, I’m not.”