He was worried about her.
“I want to go home, Garrett. Tell me you’ll take me home
first thing in the morning. I can’t be here. Not anymore. Not after tonight.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely. I’ll call to see if we can
get our reservations changed. Whatever you need, baby. You know that.”
God, this man was her rock. Her savior.
“Thank you.”
He stepped over to her and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll
do it now,” he said quietly, then slipped back into the bedroom. A light came
on in the attached office, and she knew he was in there, switching their plans
around, and he was doing it just for her.
She hadn’t sat in front of that cold and dark fire pit all
that long before the bathroom door creaked open once again. She jumped to her
feet as Evan emerged and started zigzagging around the room, picking up the few
things he’d brought with him that he’d left lying out. She wrapped her arms
around herself in an attempt to fight back the pain inside her chest, but it
wasn’t working. Screams ricocheted through her mind, lamely telling her over
and over to be strong. To be calm. That this
wasn’t
the end of the
world.
No, it wasn’t. It only
felt
like it.
Still, she straightened her shoulders and shuffled back into
the bedroom. Evan was zipping up his backpack, but he didn’t look at her, not
until she came up next to him and put her hand on his arm.
He closed his eyes, as if her touch burned him from the inside
out. Hell, maybe it did. “You have no idea how much I’m going to—”
“Don’t,” he said, cutting her off. But it was too late.
“Miss you.”
“Ah, hell.” He dropped his pack on the bed and wrapped his
arms around her then, holding her close. So closely and so strongly that his
grip almost hurt, but heaven above, she didn’t want him to ever let her go.
And then Garrett was there, nuzzled up behind her. He
clutched her hips and pressed hard kisses against her shoulder. She
deliberately pulled her strength from him, from that innate power he held so
effortlessly in his body. She counted on it, simply because her supply was
rapidly disappearing, breath by excruciating breath.
In the next moment, she knew no amount of strength or power
she stole from Garrett was going to make a damn bit of difference anyway, not
when the weight of reality crushed her where she stood. Evan took her mouth,
quickly, fiercely, then swooped in on Garrett and ravaged his lips too.
This was his goodbye.
“I’ve got to go.” He whispered the words, as if he knew
saying them any louder would be too much for them all to take.
Sweet Jesus, this was it.
He let her go, stepping back out of her arms. In that final
second when their stares locked, he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her
palm. But he didn’t linger. In his next breath, he turned away from her and
grabbed his backpack off the bed.
He stopped to give her one last sad smile from over his
shoulder, and then he was gone.
Thank goodness for routines.
For much of the last three months since she and Garrett had
left Florida, Riley had counted on a hectic schedule to get her through each
day. She figured her heartache would’ve eased by now, but it hadn’t. She was
able to keep her mind busy with her patients during the day, and yes, she
worked off her myriad frustrations three nights a week on a punching bag at the
gym. In the midst of all that, she spent every other spare moment with Garrett.
They’d gone to countless movies over the last couple months, walked endless
miles up and down the bike paths adjacent to Lake Michigan’s shoreline, and
visited most of the museums in the city more than once, all just trying to stay
busy.
But none of that had healed the part of her that shattered
when Evan had turned and walked away from her the night he went home to Texas.
The pain from losing him only eased in those moments when
she’d get a random text from him, or better yet a phone call. Or the ultimate,
what had quickly become their regularly scheduled Friday night video chats. For
the hour or so on those nights, when she could both see
and
hear him,
all her misery would disappear. She loved being able to talk to him like that
and loved even more hearing about his week while the three of them joked
around. He and Garrett had such a similar sense of humor and an even closer
outlook on life. They loved each other too. She knew down to her toes that they
did, and that meant more to her than little else ever could.
God, she missed him so much.
As she steered into a parking spot in the garage of her and
Garrett’s Near North apartment building, her phone chirped. The short, sweet
and to the point text lighting up her screen was from Garrett.
Scored a meeting with Kramer. Finally. Going to be late.
Have dinner without me.
Garrett had been trying for a month straight to set up a
meeting with his boss, but the old guy was always either out of town or booked
solid. She was glad their schedules finally synced, but damn. She so wasn’t in
the mood to eat alone tonight.
Nevertheless, she pulled up her big-girl panties and climbed
out of her car. Luckily, no one else was in the garage with her, so the
elevator trip up to the seventeenth floor turned into a non-stop express ride.
When she got off and opened the door to their apartment, a blast of cool air
hit her head-on. A shiver blossomed across her skin, but the nippiness made her
smile as well. Garrett had been the last one to leave this morning, and as he
was known to do, he’d cranked the air conditioning setting down so their small
two-bedroom-one-and-a-half-bath unit wouldn’t end up feeling like an oven in
Chicago’s muggy July temperatures. To combat the chill, Riley ditched her work
clothes and changed into a pair of comfy yoga pants and her favorite, albeit
threadbare, Northwestern sweatshirt.
Instead of eating something with more substance like she
knew she should, she poured herself a glass of Sauvignon Blanc from the bottle
Garrett had opened last night and cut a few hunks off the brick of Monterey
Jack from the fridge. She balanced the small cheese plate on top of her
wineglass, snatched up the latest issue of
Cosmo
from the stack of mail
on the end of the kitchen’s peninsula counter and headed for her favorite spot
on the far end of the sofa, the one right next to the western-facing window.
Chicago sunsets typically ranged from hazy blues which
quickly died away into a star-speckled black, to the occasional paler pinks
fading into a deeper purple before nighttime engulfed the sky completely.
Tonight, however, the sky glowed a spectacular orange, interspersed randomly
with shafts of gold and yellow. The evening was gorgeous and had her thinking
back to those amazing Inlet Beach sunsets, which in turn had her reminiscing
about that remarkable week she spent with her two men.
And they
were
hers. They always would be. Nearby or
far away, it didn’t matter. Garrett and Evan belonged to her, just as she
belonged to them. The eleven hundred mile distance separating her, Garrett and
Evan was a glitch, and okay, it was one she’d spent the last three months
trying to figure out how to fix. Every solution she came up with involved a
complete upheaval—which actually didn’t bother her all that much, but dropping
their life here in Chicago wasn’t as easy as a finger snap for Garrett. He’d
shot up the ladder so quickly at his job, had earned praise and won awards—not
to mention luxurious beach vacations. He couldn’t just turn his back on all
that, or the promise of a killer retirement plan, just as Evan couldn’t turn
his back on his family.
Really, sometimes being a conscientious person completely
sucked.
But in all honestly, she wouldn’t have the men she loved
behave any other way. As undesirable as their personal situation was, they were
both doing what they thought was right professionally. So for now, the texts
and phone calls and video chats were what they could cling to. They were the
only things that were going to work.
As she let the heat of the evocative sunset warm her face,
she sighed deeply. A sadness crept up on her, adding to the muscular aches and
pains already wearing her down as a result of being on her feet in surgery all
day.
She set her wineglass on the coffee table and grabbed the
throw off the back of the couch. Covering up and closing her eyes, she snuggled
deeper into the cushions. She thought back to that last night with Evan and to
the heated and passionate way they’d both made love to her. God, she’d give
just about anything to be held like that between them again. To be taken like
that again. It was all she dreamed about. It was what got her through each and
every day.
But the memory of it was all she had. And as the hectic day
closed in around her and she drifted off, she knew deep down that the memory of
that night was never—
ever
—going to be enough.
* * * * *
Just look at her.
Garrett stood in the middle of his dark living room, staring
down at the beautiful woman fast asleep on the couch. He had so much love
firing through his body for her that he practically sizzled.
It was already well past ten, and since he’d crawled out of
bed this morning at an ungodly five thirty, he should be dead on his feet. But
he wasn’t. He was too excited to be tired, and he couldn’t wait share the cause
of his excitement with Riley.
He snapped on the accent light next to the couch and sat on
the edge of the coffee table in front of her. With a gentle hand on her knee,
he shook to wake her.
“Rie, baby. Wake up.”
A hint of a smile touched her lips and she stretched before
opening her eyes. When she did and blearily met his stare, his heart actually
leapt.
“Hey. How’d the meeting go?”
“It went well.”
To say the least…
“I have a surprise
for you.”
Her smile grew. She’d always loved surprises. “Oh?”
He couldn’t help but smile now too. “Mm hmm. I managed to
get some extra time off. Want to take a trip?”
“You know I’d go to the ends of the earth with you.” She
tossed the throw covering her to the side and swung her legs off the couch,
sitting up a little straighter. Hope shone clear as daylight in her eyes and he
knew right then that he’d nailed this surprise like he’d never nailed one
before. “Where are we going?”
“How about a few days down in Houston?”
She shot off the couch and lunged into his arms, hugging him
so hard he almost fell off the table. “Really? Oh my god! When?”
He laughed. “How soon can you clear your schedule?”
“Now! I’ll clear it now.” She scooted out of his hold and
went for her purse on the table by the door, practically bouncing the whole
time. She dug inside the bag and pulled out her phone. “I’ll just send a quick
text to Caryn. She owes me. I covered for her a few weeks ago when she and her
husband took off for Vegas.”
“It won’t be too short of notice for her?”
She peered at him as if he was crazy before concentrating
once more on her phone, and he laughed all over again.
“Next week is a light one for me, so it’ll be fine. It
has
to be fine.” On her next breath, her fingers stopped their tap-tap-tapping on
the phone screen and she glanced over at him again. “Wait, does Evan know we’re
coming?”
Hmm, how to answer that one. And leave it to her to start
digging right away too. Eh, let her, he figured. This little surprise was only
a drop in the bucket of what he had planned. There was no way she’d expect what
else he had in store for her. “I talked to him on my way home. He was pretty
stoked and said he could pick us up whenever.”
When she finished sending her text, she plopped back down on
the couch and pulled him toward her. He slid beside her, burrowing into her
hold and nuzzling her neck. She giggled and for a moment it struck him just how
long it’d been since he’d last heard her truly laugh.
“Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
Oh, he knew. He knew simply by the way she grabbed on to him
and the ease with which she smiled. It was as if months of heartbreak melted
away in a flash. But it wasn’t just that. He knew, since this little trip to
Houston meant just as much to him as it did to her. Maybe more, because of
what—and who—was waiting for her there.
The second her phone chirped, she snatched it off the coffee
table, read the new message, then grinned like a gorgeous fool. “Yes! Caryn can
cover for me. Oh my god, I have to pack.” She kissed him, hard and fast. “And
you have to make reservations.” She smacked another kiss on him and he laughed
again. He hadn’t seen her this lighthearted in months, and damn, it did his
heart some good.
When she hopped up and darted into their bedroom, the little
devil inside him shouted out to her. “Don’t pack much. I have a feeling you
won’t be needing a lot of clothes.”
Matter of fact, he was certain she wouldn’t.
Twelve hours later, he and Riley were zipping through the
sky on their way south. The flight couldn’t have been more uneventful, but that
didn’t stop her from wriggling around anxiously in the seat beside him.
When the captain came over the intercom to announce their
descent into the Houston area, she grabbed his hand and squeezed. “You know, I
haven’t been down here since I was a teenager. One of the men Mom was dating
for a while had a time-share condo in Galveston, and it was one of those rare
occasions where Char and I actually got to tag along with them when they came
down. I loved it, loved being that close to the water. It was so gorgeous. We
had a lot of fun that week.”
“Good memories.”
She smiled a little. “Yeah. One of the few.”
Hearing her say that nearly killed him, but it also ramped
up his determination to give her more amazing memories. A
lifetime
more.
The landing went smoothly, the taxiing to the terminal
surprisingly quick. They’d carried on their luggage, so it wasn’t long before
they were standing outside in the stifling Texas heat, waiting for Evan to pick
them up.
He searched the loading area for the Land Rover Evan told
them he’d picked up for a steal, but didn’t see it. He pulled out his phone and
shot off a quick text. Minutes later, there was still no reply.
“Traffic, maybe?” she asked.
“I’m sure,” he replied, just as a sleek black stretch limo
pulled up and stopped in front of them.
The driver hopped out and came around the back of the car,
popping the trunk on his way. “Mr. Watson?”
Um… “Yes.” What the…
“Mr. Tucker wasn’t able to make it. I was hired by Tucker
General Contracting to pick you up and drop you off for him.”
The driver opened the rear door expectantly, but Garrett and
Riley just stood there. This wasn’t what they expected. It wasn’t what he’d
planned
.
“Drop us off where, exactly?” he asked.
“Mr. Tucker provided an address, about forty-five minutes
from here.”
Okay, so
not
the JW Marriott where Garrett had booked
a suite. Not that this little detour was a huge deal, but it certainly had
Garrett wondering why Evan hadn’t clued him in on the change in plans.
“He said if you hesitated, to show you this.” The driver
reached inside the door and came back to them holding a small plastic tub. The
thing had a crimson red bow on top, and Riley was laughing before the driver
even handed it over to her.
“What is it?” Garrett asked.
She peeled back the lid and showed him the contents—pink and
fluffy cotton candy.
“Well, if that’s not an incentive to get in, I don’t know
what is,” Garrett said, laughing too.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
With a leading hand, he said, “Shall we, then?”
Riley pulled off a chunk of the candy and slipped it into
her mouth. He could almost feel the sticky sweetness wrapped around his dick as
it dissolved on her tongue. “Definitely.”
They snuggled together in the deep rear seat of the limo as
the driver loaded their bags into the trunk. “So you didn’t know about this?”
Riley asked.
“No, not this,” he said evasively.
“And you don’t know where we’re going?”
He shook his head. “Not a clue. I booked us a suite at the
JW, which is only about a half hour from here.”
“Maybe we’re going to his place?”
That was a distinct possibility. He pressed his lips against
her temple as she pinched off another piece of the pink fluff. “I guess we’ll
just have to wait and see.”
“Another adventure,” she said.
Oh yeah. She didn’t know the half of it.
The ride passed quickly, despite the heightened excitement
bubbling between them. Not long after they exited the highway, the driver
slowly turned down a recently constructed road.