She forced her thoughts away from her confusion and attempted to focus on Nate’s reactions to the ideas. What did he want out of this proposal of his for a wedding? She’d always nebulously supposed he was a service-in-a-church kind of guy. But Nate never said, just genially enjoyed all the suggestions and rolled along with the jokes, seeming to take none of it seriously or completely dismiss anything, except for his protest on his mom’s behalf, not even Dave’s crazy Vegas idea.
She could see how his mom might not be happy about that one. Her own mother would be mortified.
But why not do something unconventional? From moment one, nothing about their spontaneous relationship had ever been conventional. If she stopped worrying about everything, the event could be fun. Memorable. Something she could make her very own, despite all the commercial frivolity and glitz.
Dave’s crazy Vegas idea was strangely, scarily perfect. What better way than to do it surrounded by the people she cared most about? The people she really…
Dizziness swept her. Oh, wow, what was she doing? He was leaving on Sunday. Flying away again.
“I have something to say.” Olivia rose to her feet and raised her cup, the vodka and tonics bringing out the touch of sweet Southern belle in her voice. “I just want to say thank you. For everything. I don’t know what I would have done without you all. And now…I well, ah, thank you all, for being a friend.” She sat hurriedly, flushed and eyes lowered in embarrassment.
Mark set off the clapping. Dave toasted her with his beer, “Go for it, Florida.” Patti and Margie hugged Olivia.
“You have been assimilated,” intoned Chuck in his best Borg voice, but he couldn’t keep a straight face for long and cracked up laughing.
JoAnn tapped the pickle jar again. “Okay, time to wash up before any of you hit more beer and the Munchkin wants s’mores again, pronto. Okay?”
“Yes, Mama Jo.” Nate chuckled and heaved himself up from the chair. He held out his hand to Kay. “Care to join me in scrubbing a pan or two?”
Many hands made short work of the dirty dishes. Dave built the fire. Soon marshmallows were toasting, and folks were back to drinking, talking, and dancing.
Kay took a break from dancing with Nate to catch her breath and toast a marshmallow.
Olivia settled on the chair next to Kay. She took a long sip of her drink, her eyes on Dave and Nate making goofs of themselves singing a duet of “I’ve Had the Time of My Life.”
But while Nate might be joking around with Dave as they sang, he had his eyes locked on Kay, singing every word to her.
Kay blinked back the pricking moisture in her eyes and nibbled at her piping hot marshmallow on a stick, guilty and delighted.
Olivia laid her head back heavily. “Dave’s got a beautiful voice. So nice.” Her own soft voice was blurred from drinking her tall but stiff vodka and tonics. “Like, like pralines and bourbon. You’re so lucky, Kay. Nate’s so fun. A good guy, through and through.”
Happiness rushed over Kay. He was a great guy, and she was very lucky.
So, tell him yes.
“Kay?” Anxiety trembled in Olivia’s plaintive question.
“Yes?”
“I’m so scared about all this. Am I doing the right thing?”
Oh, she was the last person to ask about doing the right thing. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Kay looked away into the bright heat of the fire to pause as she worked on an answer. “I think the right thing is different for every person.”
Olivia’s quiet, slurred voice trembled with pain and anger. “I can’t live with the cheating anymore. I loved him and he…he…I just can’t live like this, like some doll, some doormat anymore.” She scrubbed at her fresh tears with the heel of her hand. “Guess I answered my question.”
Not knowing what else to do or say, Kay patted Olivia’s hand.
Olivia curled her hand around Kay’s and held on like she was drowning.
The night grew late and the party wound down to lazy conversation, the music long over and CD player forgotten, but everyone remained too jazzed over Nate’s excellent news, their sort of engagement, and Olivia’s determination to pull herself up by the bootstraps, to call it a night.
Kay excused herself for a bathroom break and ended up turning the necessary trip into a long walk up the hill to the rocky jut of land dividing Spider Camp and High Water to get some air away from the crowd and clear her head for a moment.
She felt itchy, both happy to spend time with her friends and stifled as if she were wrapped in a wool blanket. She’d had too much to drink and a light buzz going, but not close to enough beer to wash the worries away or relax and confidently spill her guts to Nate and hash things out once and for all. However, the evening was drawing to a close, and they would go back to her camp. Ready or not, the talk was creeping inexorably closer.
Kay walked to the end of the small point. A pleasant breeze rippled off the lake, keeping most of the mosquitoes and no-see-ums at bay. Scattered bursts of laughter and muddled conversation rose from Spider Camp and reminded her she’d better head back down before Nate worried.
A man’s low, laughing words broke the quiet.
Down below in the notch of a cove that was High Water, Nate and Olivia walked along the water’s edge. Olivia pulled the ribbon from her hair and she whirled to Nate, fell against his chest, and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around Olivia and dragged her hard against him, and she laughed with delight.
Kay froze, unable to think, speak or move. Her stomach twisted with ice.
She must have made some sort of noise, because Nate broke away from Olivia.
“Ah, shit! Kay! Wait up!”
Chapter Thirteen
Oh, shit
.
Kay stood like a statue up on the point, shocked face clear in the moonlight.
She bolted.
“Kay. Damn it, wait up,” Nate shouted. She had to see that. Great, just great.
He peeled the drunk, maudlin Olivia off him, hustled her the last few yards toward her tent, and plunked her into the nearest chair. “Got to go.”
He charged up the trail after Kay. He hoped to hell Olivia would just put herself to bed without getting near the water. “Kay!”
Nate gained on Kay, but she was damned fast, racing like a deer on the rough, shadowy trail leading along the hillside to her camp, and stayed just ahead of him all the way.
She was two-thirds of the way down the slope when she slipped, stumbled awkwardly and fell headlong on knees and hands.
Nate’s heart rammed his chest, jammed his throat. “Shit! Kay, are you okay?” Stones crunched and rattled under his fast-skidding descent on the path behind her.
Biting back a cry, she pushed herself up before he could reach her, and with short, fierce gasps, ran limping toward the water.
“Kay, answer me!” He caught her shoulder.
Kay ignored him as if he wasn’t there, scrubbed at her cheeks with the back of her hand and angrily kicked off her sandals. She wrenched from his hand, waded into the water and scooped water to rinse her banged-up knees.
“How bad are you hurt?” He dropped to his knees in the water to get a better look.
She twisted sharply from him and kept scooping water, her tears flooding, while tight, strangled whimpers ripped from her throat and slashed at his heart.
“Talk to me.” Light. They needed light.
He loped from the water and grabbed the lantern, his hands shaking as he turned the fuel valve and punched the ignite button. Nothing. Come on, come on. He pressed the button again and the bright hissing light flared.
He ran back to Kay. “Let me take a look.”
“Go away!” She flinched away, turning her back on him again.
Anger’s burn joined his fear. “Damn it, shut up, hold still, and let me see!”
He brought the lantern close, shining the glaring white light over her legs. Kay’s knees bled steadily, the blood heavy, then thinning and blurring with every scoop of water running down her shins into the lake. How bad? Did he need Dave? Shit, Olivia was a nurse, but way too wasted…
“Let me see your hands. Now.” His voice crawled out tough, no nonsense.
She flinched again, and guilt stabbed him.
“You fell hard. Let me see you move your fingers. Tell me what hurts.”
“Just scratched. Not broken.” She flexed her fingers, and a sob broke from her, tearing at his heart.
As he grabbed one wrist and held the light close, she turned her face from him, squeezing her eyes tight. Blood oozed from the cuts and scrapes on her palms.
She wrenched at his grip once more.
“Hold still.” He grabbed her other hand. More scrapes and cuts. “You look like you had a fight with a cheese grater, damn it. Your knees are a mess. I’ll get Dave.”
“No! Just scrapes. I’m fine.” Her shaking said otherwise. “I’m fine.”
Yeah, right. He heaved a breath, needing his brain and heart to stop beating like crazed kangaroos. He debated how fast he could run to Spider Camp and back. Leaving her alone wasn’t worth the argument, and nothing was broken. He’d get her bandaged and calmed down first and then see. “I’ll get the soap and the first-aid kit.” He waded away.
She scooped more water against her knees.
He splashed back to her without the lantern. “Hold out your hand.” He spoke gruffly against the sick chill his fear had locked him in and dribbled soap into her palm. “Scrub up and we’ll get you bandaged.”
“I can do it.”
“Kay, will you just shut up and let me take care of you for one damn minute!”
“Don’t yell at me!” More tears rolled over her cheeks.
“Then stop being so stubborn. Jeez.”
She turned away from him once more, and doggedly washed her hands and knees.
The moment she finished, he gripped her under the arm and firmly led her out of the water to her chair. He knelt in front of her and gently dried her hands and knees. Holding the lantern close to each hand, then her knees, shins, and feet, he made one last check for grit, mesquite thorns and cactus spines.
And yeah, true, he wasn’t looking her in the face any more than she did him.
The cuts looked clean, but sometimes cactus spines could be hard to see. “No cactus?”
“No. I’m fine.” Her forced, thin voice made that a lie.
He snorted, set down the lantern, and rummaged through the assortment of adhesive bandages. He peeled the first bandage and squeezed ointment onto the pad. “Hold still.” Dropping to his knees before her, he applied the bandage over her knee, another for her shin and repeated the process for the other leg. He peeled the next bandage, applied ointment and glared up at her. “Okay. Knees done. Right hand, next.”
She reluctantly held out her hand and extended her fingers flat, her mouth pinched and tight, and her eyes all narrow and pained. Not okay, for more than one reason.
Her palm needed three crisscrossed bandages and two for fingers.
“Next.”
She cooperated this time and offered up her left. Just one large for that palm and another for her thumb.
He kept her hand in his when he was done. The damned ring winked and shone in the lamplight. “Kay, we need to talk.”
She tugged at him, tension trembling through her, ready to burst into tears and bolt again.
He kept his grip firm. “Kay. Nothing happened. Nothing was going to happen. Olivia was drunk. I was walking her back.”
“You kissed her.” Her pointed accusation whispered out.
Her distrust stabbed him through. He hadn’t done one damned thing wrong. “She kissed me. There’s a big damn difference. All I did was walk Olivia back to her camp so she’d get there safely and not drown herself. She’d had too much to drink. You know that. She said thank you. She kissed me. End of story.”
She hugged her arms around herself and stared out at the lake.
Oh, God, help me
. The pit of his stomach crawled. No good deed goes unpunished. “Look, Kay, I’m sorry it happened, okay? Damn it, I can swear myself blue, but you either trust me or you don’t.” He expelled a heavy, frustrated breath and stared at her. “But remember I’m not whoever’s in your head freaking you out right now.”
He jammed a hand through his hair, walked over to the cooler and pulled out two beers. He popped the tabs and handed her a can. He didn’t want anything more to drink, but he needed a drink bad. He took a long swallow, looking out at the lake. He took another hard swallow.
He turned and met her eyes. Her teary, strained face was killing him here. “You’re not the only one taking a risk here, Kay. I’ve never asked anyone to marry me. To me you’re worth the risk. There are no guarantees, babe. Yeah, I have a past. You have a past, too. But it’s past. I want to make a future with you. I’ve never screwed around on a relationship. I don’t want Olivia. I don’t want that waitress at the café. I want you, every prickly, stubborn, sweet bit of you. I love you. It’s simple, plain and true.”
****