Whisper Falls (14 page)

“Well, I’ll be seein’ ya, Lucky,” Red said with a wave as he climbed on his bike to go.

“Dude
,” Lucky informed him dryly, “you have to
leave
the bike if you want it painted. Whole process takes about a week.”

Red looked just as embarrassed as Lucky thought he should. “Shit, didn’t think of that.”

Lucky could only sigh. “So you don’t have somebody coming to pick you up?”

“Nope.”

“Well, don’t look at
me
,” Lucky informed him. “I got work to do. Better call your sister.” Then he lamented knowing he had to spend a whole additional hour with Red.

But . . . well, maybe it was worth it for the confirmation he’d gotten—the idea, the possibility, that maybe the past would stay in the past, that maybe he could slowly start letting himself accept that the nightmare that had started with the Devil’s Assassins was really over, at last.

And if it was . . . well, that would change a hell of a lot.

B
y Friday afternoon, Tessa was back at work in Lucky’s living room and kitchen. The weather was typical for April—drizzly, with a chill in the air—forcing her back into blue jeans and making her wish for more of those warm sunny days that had come so early this year.

As she tried to mount a new curtain rod over the wide front window behind Lucky’s couch, she realized she needed more than two hands. So even though she was doing her darnedest to be cool toward Lucky and not interact with him much, when he passed through the room, she was forced to ask for his help.

“Whatcha need, hot stuff?” he asked.

Standing up on his couch, she swung her head around to peer down at him—he sounded positively jovial.
For crying out loud
,
which way is it
,
Romo? Are you mysterious and brooding or hot and flirtatious?
“Could you hold this above the window while I stand back and check the length of the drapes?” The new drapery already hung from each end of the decorative rod.

“Sure thing, babe,” he said—then took the last crisp bite of a juicy-looking apple, chucked the core in the kitchen garbage can, and came toward her.
Oh boy
,
he’s calling me babe again. And since when did seeing a guy eat an apple start turning me on?
This attraction was becoming . . . painful.

As Lucky kicked off his shoes and joined her to stand on the leather sofa, they bumped slightly and his sock-covered foot ended up pressing right against hers as they executed the hand-off of the long rod. “Been meaning to tell you,” he said, “Johnny’s room looks great.”

Crap—his smile made her stomach go hollow.

She stepped down off the couch feeling a little numb, her head swimming.
God
,
I just want to be under him.
The need was growing more raw and intense by the day. She was tired of this roller coaster of emotions—but at the same time, it was impossible to resist staying on the ride to see where it took her. “I’ve been meaning to tell
you
how great the mural is.” Double crap—she hadn’t planned to give him any compliments, but her appreciation of the painting apparently overrode her intentions.

He glanced down at her, his vulnerable expression surprising—and somehow more endearing on such a big, tattoo-covered guy. “You really think he’ll like it?”

Tessa’s stomach curled inward. He didn’t realize it yet, but he was
already
being a great dad. And that made it even
harder
to be cool and aloof. “Of course he will,” she told him, unable to keep the sincerity from her voice. “It’s really special.”

“Good,” he said on a short nod. “And it was a good idea, so . . . thanks.”

As she stood back to study the drapes, she instructed Lucky to lift the rod a little, then to lower it back down a smidge. Once it was where she wanted it, she said, “Perfect. Now don’t move.” She’d use a level before screwing anything in, but for the moment, she rushed to mark the spots for the brackets with a pencil—one mark at each end—standing up on tiptoes. “You seem in a good mood,” she tossed out casually.

“Yeah, guess I am.”

“Better than lately,” she noted, eyes still on the wall she scored lightly.

“Maybe so,” he agreed, but left it at that.

“Why?” she asked pointedly. This time she looked up at him. “And you can set that down now, on the back of the couch.”

“Nothin’ I need to bore you with,” he said, lowering the curtains, then stepping down next to her on the floor. “Just . . . maybe starting to get rid of some old baggage that’s been weighing me down.”

Hmm. Her mind raced, so she followed it. This was the only way she’d ever find out anything more about Lucky Romo. “Female baggage?”

At this, her brawny neighbor grinned. “No, hot stuff, nothin’ like that.”

Okay, massive relief. He’d told her before that he didn’t have a woman in his life, but still . . . “Then did you . . . get in touch with your family or something?”

He lowered his chin and cast a chastising look. “No. And quit being so nosy.” But it came out teasingly, almost flirtatiously, making her chest ripple with fresh desire.

“Sorry,” she said, not really meaning it. “I just can’t help being curious about a guy who disappears for fifteen years.”

“Yeah, well—I’m ready to start focusing on the present, and the future. You should, too.”

And as luck would have it, she’d already been trying to do that in her own life—stop fretting over the past. So maybe she shouldn’t worry about
his
past, either? And maybe she
wouldn’t
—if he’d ease her present aches.

And the thought reminded her of the bigger, more
universal
ache plaguing her lately—the urge to grab onto life before she woke up one day, old and frail and alone. “Have you ever gone skydiving?” she asked him out of the blue.

He looked amused, cocking a surprised grin her way. “Nope—flying on my bike is a big enough thrill for
me
. Why?”

She bit her lip, tilted her head. “I just . . . kind of want to do it. And my friends think it’s crazy. But you seem like someone who wouldn’t be afraid of something like that.”

“I’m not afraid of much,” he stated plainly.

“So then . . . would you go with me maybe? Sometime?” Oh Lord, wait! Had she just asked him on a date? Oh brother, how had
that
happened?

And she was just about to yammer on, say something to let him off the hook—when he smoothly replied, “Sure, hot stuff—whenever you want.”

Oh. Okay. He hadn’t turned her down or made her feel stupid or rejected. Pure relief flooded her veins. Except, well . . . maybe she shouldn’t be all
that
relieved, since it wasn’t like she’d done what she’d
really
wanted to do: throw herself on him and rip his clothes off. “Good,” she managed to force out, her voice a bit too high-pitched. “We’ll do that. Sometime.”

He gave an easy nod. “So . . . any big weekend plans?”

Her stomach churned at the simple question. “Not really. You?”

“I’ve been hanging at Gravediggers a lot, over in Crestview.”

“Mmm,” she said, still trying to sound casual, cool, like the biker bar was just your typical friendly neighborhood pub.

“You ever been there?” he asked with a doubtful grin.

And she met his gaze, now letting her expression shift to self-deprecating honesty. “No.”

“You should come by sometime,” he said, still smiling. He was teasing her again, clearly sure she’d be afraid of such a place.

And even if she was, she met the challenge. “You never know, Romo, maybe I just will.”

He said nothing in reply, yet that severe chemistry between them kicked up a notch simply because they stood so close to each other for no practical reason—and neither of them smiled any longer. So she went to move past him, to retrieve the curtain rod brackets from a table across the room—but he didn’t step out of the way. “You need anything else, hot stuff?”

Oh Lord
,
quit torturing me
,
Lucky Romo! Because of course I need something else—your hot body—and you just torment me with it.
“Nope,” she said, resolute, drawing her gaze downward, to his chest. “Thanks for the help, though—now I have to get back to work.”

After which she pushed past him, her arm coming into solid contact with his, and the smell of his skin, the warmth of his flesh, nearly paralyzed her—but she stayed on her feet, glad her back was to him now so he couldn’t see the lust surely written all over her face.

“I’ll be out in the garage working. If you need more help,” he said.

Though she refused to let herself meet his gaze even one more time, certain it would be the death of her. “All righty. Happy painting. See ya later.”

T
hat night, she called Rachel and insisted they meet for dinner at Dolly’s Café. Because Lucky was driving her crazy, and making her feel a little desperate. She’d tried to stop questioning why he hadn’t put the moves on her, but as she drove toward town, she couldn’t help pondering it further. Could it be because, like her, he realized how different they were? Or . . . maybe he thought a nice girl like her wouldn’t be able to have sex without making it a big, heavy, emotional thing.

Well, once upon a time that had been true, but no more. At moments with him, in fact, she felt like sex was
all
that mattered to her. She wasn’t especially proud of that, nor did she find it a particularly appealing trait, but at least she understood her mounting needs and could accept them for what they were. She only wished Lucky could see that, too, and perhaps even appreciate them.

She reached Dolly’s first, happy to find it relatively quiet on a drizzly Friday night, and by the time Rachel sat down next to her at the small, round table, Tessa felt like she was about to burst with frustration.

Rachel’s gaze instantly narrowed in concern. “You look crazed. What’s wrong?”

“It’s Lucky,” she said.

And Rachel nearly flew into a rage, her eyes going wide. “What did he do to you? I’ll kill him.”

Tessa pressed her hand down over her friend’s to calm her. “No, it’s nothing like that—he didn’t do anything to me. In fact . . . that’s the whole problem.”

Rachel blinked, looking confused. “Wait, I thought you told me about wanting him just to get it off your chest—not because you really . . .
want him
.”

Tessa pursed her lips, then admitted, “Yeah, well, getting it off my chest wasn’t enough. And last weekend, he nearly kissed me, but then he stopped. And then there was the time I lost my balance and fell against him and he had an erection, and . . . half the time he’s sexy and nice, and the other half he’s quiet and withdrawn—and today I asked him to go skydiving with me and he said yes, but I don’t think I can wait for that.”

Rachel just looked at her like she wasn’t making sense and Tessa realized her friend was right: She
was
crazed. Officially. She grabbed onto Rachel’s wrist. “See, this is what happens when a woman in the prime of her life goes this long without sex. She loses her mind.”

Rachel held up her hands in a stop motion. “Wait—I’m trying to sort this out. What the hell does skydiving have to do with sex?”

Tessa tried to sort it out, too. “Well, they’re both about . . . living. Feeling life.”

“So you think skydiving will make you feel the same thing sex does?” Understandably, Rachel squinted her confusion. “Because I’ve never gone skydiving, but, uh . . .”

“No,” Tessa said, exasperated—by the situation, not Rachel. “Skydiving is just . . . an extreme substitute. But I didn’t call you here to talk about skydiving. I called you here to talk about Lucky.”

Rachel nodded, eyes still wide, probably from the rapid pace of the conversation. “Okay—what about him? Exactly.”

Tessa swallowed and tried to spit out the idea she’d come up with. She knew what she wanted to do—she knew it with clarity—and she wasn’t going to let Rachel, or her own fears, stop her any longer. “I want to seduce him.”

Just then, Mabel—the elderly waitress who seemed to be at Dolly’s around the clock—slapped two menus down in front of them. “What can I get you girls to drink?”

“Two iced teas,” Rachel said quickly, taking the liberty of ordering for them both, and the second Mabel ambled away, she turned back to Tessa. “Seduce him how?” And, of course, she looked very worried.

“Is Mike working tomorrow night?” Tessa asked.

“No—he’s having a guys’ night with Logan and Adam. Why?”

“Will he be out late?”

“Probably.”

A rush of adrenaline shot through Tessa’s body. This meant that maybe, just maybe, she could really go through with this. “Good—then you can come with me. Because I can’t do it without you.”

Rachel already looked apprehensive. “Come where?”

“To Gravediggers, the biker bar in Crestview—where Lucky hangs out.”

“Huh?”

Tessa rushed ahead, trying to win Rachel over before she refused. “We can be biker chicks for a night! Doesn’t that sound fun?” She raised her eyebrows and smiled.

While Rachel just sat there, mouth gaping. “On what planet?”

“Think of it like Halloween,” Tessa suggested cheerfully. “You used to love dressing up for Halloween. This will be like that—only . . . in springtime.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Rachel asked.

Tessa answered matter-of-factly. “I thought we’d already established that. But I’m also a desperate woman.”

“Well, yes, you
sound
desperate. I’m not convinced you’re thinking clearly here. So snap out of it.”

That’s when Mabel—suddenly Miss Speedy—chose to show up with two glasses of tea and her order pad. “What’ll ya have?”

Neither of them had cracked a menu, but they came to Dolly’s often enough to know the offerings by heart. Both placed their orders briskly, eager to get back to the matter at hand. And as soon as the waitress departed, Tessa said to Rachel, “I
am
thinking clearly, trust me. Just imagine how
you’d
feel if
you
hadn’t had sex in so long. And for all of Lucky’s flaws, Rach, I really believe he’s a perfectly okay guy.”
I think.