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Oh sweet, sweet vengeance. I still missed my orange ASICS.
I doubled over in laughter while he blinked, trying to ascertain what the heck had just happened to him. Stepping over him with my legs straddling his body, I bent to get a better look and tipped his ball cap off his head. “You okay there, Sweet Nuts?”
Next thing I know, I’m lying on top of him. Eyes hooded and aimed at my mouth, he murmured, “Better now, Sunshine.”
We kissed and touched and got covered in mud. He stood, and with pure muscular power, took me with him. We peeled our clothes off even though it was only March and still a little nippy out. Then he grabbed the spray nozzle and hit me in the chest with the cold water. The look of pure shock on my face––
“Oh, you’re gonna get it now.”
He chuckled darkly. “And I’ll happily take it. This is better than a Girls Gone Wild video.”
I snatched the hose out of his hands and aimed for the jewels, but he turned in time to save “future generations of Blackstones.” His exact words. I was also labeled a “genocidal maniac,” for my actions. Which was a bit extreme, if you ask me.
After we’d rinsed the mud off, he wrapped his warmth around me, chased away the chill, and kissed me as he backed me up to the side of the house. His restless hands moving over me possessively, with the authority and conviction of a man who knew all my secrets and still wanted me.
Reaching between us, I guided him inside of me, my legs instinctively circling his waist. He wasn’t rough, he wasn’t fast. He pressed his face into the curve of my neck and made love to me. Two people moving as one, seeking absolution for the sins of the past and gaining acceptance for having repented. And once we were both wrung out and satisfied, legs trembling, holding each other tightly, he said, “I never want to be divorced, Syd…not even once.”
“Who keeps calling?” asked my lover, the same man I happened to be married to. I was lying in bed, enjoying the view when yet another call from my grandmother’s lawyer came in. The husband had neglected to put on a shirt as he packed his duffel bag, and he wasn’t going to hear any complaints from me.
“My grandmother’s lawyer. He’s been badgering me for months…I told him I don’t want anything.”
Stepping out of the walk-in closet, he searched my face, his brows bunched with concern. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I replied and meant it.
He was heading to Houston for two days on cattle business, and I was scheduled to return to New York. I was dreading it––no exaggeration. I was falling hard and fast in love for the first time in my adult life, and I wanted the feeling to last as long as possible.
I wasn’t sure what awaited me back in Manhattan. All I knew was that it wasn’t going to be pleasant. Not with Frank’s condition hanging over my head. More than a few times it was on my lips to tell Scott, but I couldn’t get the words out. Couldn’t betray the other man I loved.
Scott threw on a white dress shirt, and I got up to button it for him. “I’m gonna miss you,” he murmured while he brushed his fingers through my hair and looked at me the same way I was looking at him.
“Me too,” I returned.
Twenty minutes later, he was on his way to the airport.
Two hours later, I was on a flight to Philly.
“Your best room please.”
The pimple-faced young woman with long brown hair manning the desk at the motor inn stared at me dubiously, jaw hanging loose showcasing crooked teeth and a desperate need for braces.
“We only got one type ’a room.”
The Four Seasons this was not, but there was also no getting around it. I needed to take care of business and be gone as quickly as possible and driving an hour to stay in Philly would only slow me down.
“Then your cleanest room, please.”
More blank staring. “They’re all clean, Mrs.”
“Whatever,” I snapped, exhaustion getting the best of me. “Just…can I have a room, please?”
After making arrangements for Drake to stay with the dogs, I caught the first flight out of Jackson Hole. Six hours and two stops later, I landed in Philly at midnight, rented a car, and drove another forty-five minutes to reach the only hotel (or whatever you want to call it) anywhere near my old hometown.
Rural is the only way to describe where I grew up. And although it had some benefits––we never locked our doors at night, and the biggest issues were hunting accidents in the fall and drunken teenagers tearing up the public golf course in the summer––there was a lot of downside too. It was rural and remote.
