“Where did you get this book?”
“Online. Why?”
“No
reason. Hand me the bottle.”
“You’re kidding! You’re taking the shots? Just kiss someone.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m engaged to be married. There’s one person I kiss intimately. Only one.”
A strange mix of happiness and sadness fought for supremacy inside Wyatt.
Taken.
“Except for all those men you kiss on the show.”
“That’s different. That’s work, and Jared understands it.”
“Believe
me, he won’t blame you for making out with one of us. He’ll just be pissed he wasn’t here.”
Wyatt’s gut clenched. “Nancy—”
She ignored him. “Give me the bottle. I’ll do the shots.”
Polly capitulated with a dramatic sigh. “Fine. Here. This was supposed to be fun.”
“Okay, how about this? Give me a different question. Just make sure it’s not one that involves me cheating on my fiancé, whether
in words or action.”
Admiration warmed his chest. Here was a woman who took her commitments so seriously she wouldn’t do anything that would even hint at unfaithfulness to the man she’d pledged herself to.
But she’d pledged herself to someone else, and he was struggling to tamp down on his growing attraction.
You stupid bastard.
Polly flipped through the book. “Not that one. Not that one.
Uh, would it be cheating if you named three celebrities you would sleep with?”
Nancy tipped her head to the side and raised her brows.
“Right. Not just cheating but also something you could do anytime you wanted. Oh! Here’s one. Name your biggest regret.”
Nancy’s whole body went rigid, but Wyatt had been watching her so closely he caught the way her eyes shifted, as if she were looking at the
ground next to him. His heart picked up speed, and she didn’t have to say a word. He knew exactly where her thoughts had taken her and, as confident as he was that he’d made the right decision all those years ago, he couldn’t help but share her regret that it had driven a wedge of silence between them.
Nancy yanked the top out of the tequila bottle as her friends teased her. Wyatt couldn’t stand
to listen anymore, but he couldn’t put a stop to this game without the others wondering why he was reacting so strongly.
He stood and brushed the dirt off the ass of his pants. “I’ll be up at sunrise, so I’m going to turn in now. Have fun. Try not to get so drunk you fall off the raft tomorrow.”
“No, stay!” Polly jumped to her feet and brushed her fingers through her hair in a gesture obviously
calculated to draw his attention to the way it made her chest move.
“Can’t. Gotta rest so I can keep you guys safe tomorrow. Do me a favor and make sure you bank the fire and put all the bottles in bear-proof canisters.”
“Kill-joy.”
“I don’t kill as much joy as a bear mauling would.” He headed toward the line of trees at the edge of the clearing.
“Where are you going?” Nancy called after him.
“My tent’s back here. The yurt’s for you guys.” He gave them his best smile. “Have a good night.”
He crawled into his one-man tent and got undressed, hoping he wouldn’t be able to overhear the rest of their conversation. He couldn’t. Nothing concrete, anyway. Just lots of laughter and occasional shouts of disbelief from all four of them.
He closed his eyes and tried to force sleep to come, but
it eluded him completely. When the women finally called it a night and stumbled loudly toward the yurt, he finally fell into a restless sleep with memories and his disturbing new feelings for Nancy plaguing him.
He’d been twenty-one and home from Chicago for the summer. Nancy had been fifteen and lived on his dad’s ranch with her parents. His college semesters were shorter than her high school
ones, so her mom was still driving her into town for school every day. The first day Wyatt came home, her dad had taken him aside and said, “I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”
“Sure,” he’d replied, figuring the favor would have something to do with the ranch.
“Could you pick Nancylynn up from school in the afternoons and bring her back here?”
Wyatt had drawn back in surprise. “What?”
“I know it sounds strange,” Ted said, “but she’s got this new boyfriend, and I’m not too happy about it. He’s eighteen.
Eighteen
. And she’s fifteen. Tina thinks it’s sweet, but I want to rip the kid’s head off and spit down his neck.”
“Just because he’s going out with your daughter?”
“It’s not that. I can’t explain it, and Nancylynn won’t listen to me. It’s just this gut feeling. Maybe it’s
because I used to be an eighteen-year-old guy, but I don’t trust him.”
“And you want me to get involved…how?”
“I just want him to see you’re there. You’re there, picking her up and watching him. Maybe give him a look every now and then, letting him know you know what he’s thinking and it’s not okay.”
Wyatt had nodded. “I can do that.”
He’d picked Nancylynn up every day for the next month.
The first time he’d done it, she and a guy in a letterman’s jacket had been holding hands on the school steps, grinning sickeningly at each other as if no one else existed, even though the guy had to have seen him pull up. Wyatt had given them five minutes, but when the guy tugged her close and slipped her the tongue, Wyatt leaned on his horn.
Nancylynn had glared at him as she’d climbed into
the truck. “Jerk.”
“Jailbait.”
His barb hadn’t seemed to bother her. “I know why my dad put you up to this.”
“Because it saves him gas money?” He’d turned on the ignition.
“No. He wants you to check out Brady.”
“He’s just worried about you.”
“Well, he shouldn’t be. I’m a big girl, and I know what I’m doing. Brady’s a nice guy.”
“I’m sure he is,” he lied. It bothered him the way the kid
had rammed his tongue into her mouth. “Nice of him to use your mouth the way a dog uses a tree.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He saw me and decided to mark his territory.”
He’d expected her to get all irate, but she actually preened. “I told him you were picking me up. He was extra nice to me all day.”
“Sounds like you two deserve each other. Anyway, what you do with him is your business.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she fake coughed “Bull crud” into her fist.
“Seriously. I couldn’t give a shit. Do what you want with him. Just make sure he treats you right.”
“Like you’ve treated every girl you’ve been out with right.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve never done what he just did. You should demand a little more respect than that.”
“Maybe I liked it.”
“Or maybe it made
you gag. I had a good view of your face, Nancylynn. You didn’t like it.”
She picked some lint off her skirt. “Well, it was a little abrupt. But normally he’s a really good kisser.”
He held up his hands. “Really don’t want to know.”
“When he strokes his tongue against mine, it makes me tingle in that special spot.”
“Jesus.” He flipped on the radio and cranked up the country music so loud his
eardrums ached.
The second day he’d picked her up, she and the jock were already making out as he drove up. He parked, got out of the truck and strode over to them. Nancy disengaged her mouth and gasped when she saw him. “Wyatt. What—”
He thrust his hand toward the kid, who squared his shoulders like he expected to take a hit like a man. “I’m Wyatt, a friend of Nancylynn’s.”
“Brady.” The kid
shook his hand, squeezing hard as if trying to impress or intimidate him.
Wyatt just grinned. “Heard a lot about you.” He turned to Nancylynn. “Ready?”
“I guess so.” She waited until they were pulling out of the school’s parking lot before saying, “You’re not my friend.”
“Gosh, sweetheart. That hurts.”
“You’re my dad’s hired thug.”
Laughter burst out of him. “I want that on a bumper sticker.”
Two weeks passed without much difference. He picked her up, and she let him know how much she hated being treated like a child. He could understand that, but the more he saw of Brady the more he trusted her dad’s instincts. Something wasn’t right about the kid, but Nancy reveled in his attention. In a way, he couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t like she had a whole lot else going on, and—as she told
him with pride on one of their drives home—Brady was the football team captain, so he could see how being with the douchebag made her feel special. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what his misgivings were, but he also had a hard time ignoring them.
Then one day he arrived and the two of them weren’t on the steps or anywhere else he could see from the parking lot. He sat in his idling truck for twenty
minutes, growing hotter and angrier as the school gradually emptied out. He’d been preparing to go to Brazil and trek through the Amazon for the summer, so he had a million things to do that afternoon, every single one of them better than sitting there waiting for a selfish, immature girl.
Letting annoyance get the better of him, he got out of the truck and slammed the door shut. He jogged up
the steps and barely slowed to wave at a couple of his former teachers. A few students were milling around, but the campus was mostly empty. Still, he took his chances and asked one group, “Have you seen Nancylynn Pruitt?”
They shook their heads, and he moved on to the next until he finally found someone who said, “She left with Brady.”
Fury exploded deep inside him. “When?”
“Before last period.”
He thanked the girl and clenched his fists as he strode back to his truck. She would have hell to pay when he found her. He was only doing this to protect her, and she’d ditched school early without telling him? He couldn’t care less that she’d skipped out on her class, but she knew he would drive all the way into town for nothing. She had a cell phone. She could’ve at least given him the courtesy
of a call.
His tires squealed as he left the parking lot, and he forced himself to ease up on the accelerator. He knew a shortcut home, so he turned a corner…and found Nancylynn in a field slugging her boyfriend across the face. Taking advantage of Brady’s momentary surprise, she sprinted toward the street, but Brady took off after her, grabbed her hair and yanked so hard she flew backward, landing
on her back.
Adrenaline made his foot heavy, and the truck’s engine revved. The truck mounted the curb, dirt spraying the air as he tore across the field. The noise caught Brady’s attention, and he paused with his fist in the air, ready to rain a blow down on her. Wyatt hit the brake, threw the truck into neutral, yanked on the emergency brake and leaped out just in time to see Nancylynn drive
her foot hard into Brady’s nuts.
The asshole collapsed next to her, gasping for air like a fish on a riverbank. Nancylynn rolled slowly to her side, clutching her ribs as Wyatt fell to his knees next to her. “Don’t move, sweetheart. Tell me where it hurts.”
She shook her head and struggled to her feet. “I’m okay.”
He stood up next to her and put his arm gently over her shoulder. Her shirt gaped
open, missing a few buttons, and her skirt was twisted and filthy. Blood trickled from a cut on her swollen lower lip. Rage made his vision turn red. “He’s a dead man.”
She grabbed his arm and dug her nails in. “Don’t. Please. I just want to leave.”
Every instinct told him to finish the job she’d started. Brady was still writhing on the ground and wouldn’t pose much of a challenge. Wyatt cursed.
“I’m calling the cops.”
“No!” She clutched his shirt and hit him with pleading eyes. “If you have even an ounce of respect for me, then
listen
to me. I don’t want to talk to cops or you or anyone else. Just get me out of here.”
“He hurt you.” His voice vibrated with the force of his anger, no longer directed at her but at the asswipe who’d dared touch her. Jesus, what was he supposed to do in
this situation?
If you have even an ounce of respect for me…
He exhaled an unhappy breath. “Fine. Let’s get in the truck.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
“We won’t. We can…I don’t know. Go somewhere else.” A hospital, maybe? Did she need to see a doctor? “Let me take you to a doctor.”
Fire sparked in her eyes. “He didn’t do what you’re thinking.”
“Please give me some credit for not being an idiot,
Nancylynn. You don’t want to talk to me about it, and that’s fine. But don’t try to convince me I’m blind.”
“Give me some credit, too, Wyatt. I don’t need a doctor.” She turned her back to him and walked back toward his truck, her gait stiff and awkward. Every step she took convinced him he should be handling the situation differently, but hell if he knew how.
He followed her, giving her enough
space that she hopefully wouldn’t feel threatened. When she got to his truck, she opened the door without waiting for him to do it for her, and she climbed inside. Before she could slam the door closed, he put his hand on it and said softly, “Listen. You can tell me what happened or keep it all inside you. It’s up to you. But you should talk to someone about it.”
Her eyelids flickered, but she
stayed silent. He hadn’t really expected her to say anything, and he wasn’t sure whether he was disappointed or relieved.
He gently closed her door and walked around to the driver’s side. When the engine started, the radio blared an upbeat country song, and Nancylynn jabbed the knob to turn it off. Thick, heavy silence filled the cab.
Wyatt made sure to drive slowly past the hospital, just in
case she changed her mind, but she simply stared out the window as if she were asleep with her eyes wide open. They left town and were halfway through the journey back to the ranch when she finally said, “He tried, but I hit him. He pulled me back, so I kicked him.”
Relief swept through him. He grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze, not so much to reassure her but because he’d needed reassurance
himself. He drove aimlessly, having no clue where to go or what to do. But when he let go of her hand to shift gears, she folded her hands in her lap, a not-so-subtle message that she didn’t welcome his touch. He couldn’t blame her. His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “Want to tell me what happened?”