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My heart was thundering in my ears. I could feel the warm gust of his breath against my lips. I could no more tell him to stop than I could sprout wings and fly out of this freezer. When I stayed silent, his eyes flicked up and found mine. There was a pained expression on his face. I cupped his cheek in my hand, brushing my thumb lightly over his bottom lip.
And that was it. The dam broke. He shoved me hard against the boxes of frozen chicken, lifting me onto my toes as his lips parted mine, as he stole my breath with an earth-shattering kiss. I clung to him as his tongue pushed its way into my mouth. At the taste of him, I groaned. He froze, his body taut, his eyes closed, and then his hands gripped the underside of my thighs and he picked me up, pinning me against the wall of boxes with his hips and his mouth.
I bucked my hips up against his obvious bulge and he shuddered. He broke the kiss, leaning back and staring at me in the half-light.
“Goddamn it, Hope,” he murmured, his eyes searching mine. “What are you doing to me?”
In answer, I arched my back again, pressing myself against him, my arms around his neck and my gaze locked on his. I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to. I wanted him to take me. Right here, right now. We’d been dancing around it for months. Years. I couldn’t wait another second.
But he didn’t kiss me again. Instead, he lowered me until my feet were on the floor, and then he took a big step back. When there was space between us, I could finally breathe again. My wits started to return to me, slowly but surely.
What the hell were we doing? And why was my body buzzing electric, desperate for more? His dark eyes fixed on my swollen lips again. He lingered there for a long moment like he was trying to gather himself, or maybe he was lost in thought. Then he turned and walked out of the freezer without another word, letting the door bang closed behind him.
I sagged back against the boxes, fighting the overwhelming urge to cry.
I had more love in my life than I knew what to do with. Still, I couldn’t help but picture another life, another universe, where I met Thacker under different circumstances. We were drawn to each other like powerful magnets. It felt wrong that we weren’t together, but polyamory wasn’t exactly widely practiced. Most men weren’t remotely interested in sharing. And that seemed to be the case with Thacker. I could feel my heart cracking, splitting into pieces in my chest. But as strong as my feelings were for Thacker, I felt just as strongly about Jamie and Rowan. I could no more choose between them than pick two of my limbs to cut off.
I couldn’t—wouldn’t—leave them for a monogamous relationship with Thacker. And I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, try to force someone into polyamory.
In this life, Thacker and I were like two ships passing in the night.
69.
Hope
“I’m never going to find a dress,” I groaned, hanging two more misshapen smocks on the return rack outside the boutique’s fitting room.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Jeanine said, crossing her arms. “We are supposed to be staying positive.” She lowered her voice so that only I could hear her. “But I don’t think we’re going to find what we’re looking for here.” I nodded, and together we hurried back out into the cold, bright day.
We walked up a block to the next dress shop. It had a sparkly green prom dress in one window and an outdated, puffy-sleeved wedding dress in the other. Jeanine and I shared a skeptical glance, but we were starting to get desperate. We’d been roaming all over downtown Casper trying on dresses, each worse than the last. With the gala coming up in a few days, all the good vintage stuff had been picked over. But I wasn’t about to give up. The other option was to drive to Cheyenne or, even worse, Denver. I didn’t have time for that. The gala was this weekend. I was buying a dresstoday.
“We might as well look,” I said with a shrug. I grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. Inside was a bright room with racks along each wall. The racks were lined with all kinds of dresses for every occasion. It was the polar opposite of the boutique we’d just been in, which apparently only stocked a dozen or so dresses and nothing that would fit over Jeanine’s growing belly.
“Let’s split up,” Jeanine said, sounding excited. She loved a good bargain. I laughed and headed off to the left, while she veered right. I flipped through the racks until I found a couple of dresses that I thought might work. When Jeanine met me back at the fitting rooms, she had two armfuls of hopefuls and a wide grin on her face. I watched her try on ball gowns and cocktail dresses until she came out in something shimmery and gold that highlighted her baby bump in a way that made her look like a fertility goddess.
“Gorgeous,” I said, standing up. “That one. You look amazing.”
Jeanine turned to look at herself in the mirror, and I could see in her reflection that she was frowning.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “It’s a little flashy, isn’t it?”
“So what?” I asked, walking up behind her and pulling her hair free from her collar. I gathered it into a loose ponytail and draped it over one shoulder. “You’re flashy, baby. And you arewearingthat dress.” She was. She rarely dressed up these days, with one baby already here and another one on the way. But even with day-old hair and no make-up, she was stunning. The dress looked like it was made for her.
She tilted her head to the side, taking herself in, and after a minute or two it was like her eyes focused. A slow smile spread across her face.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll buy it. Now get in there and try yours on. Show me what you’re working with, girl.”
70.
Thacker
Casper Careswas the biggest event of the year. The catering bid was a huge get. Best of all, being out of my mind with panic over whether we were going to get everything finished in time was a welcome distraction from my constant thoughts of Hope. But there was no avoiding her today. We had to work together to pull this off. Every time her elbow bumped mine, a sweet pain sliced straight through my heart.
I should have let her quit one of the many times she’d threatened to over the past year. But even amid this exquisite torture, I’d bleed out than watch her walk away from me.
So basically, I was fucked.
“We need two more trays of mini cheesecakes,” she barked as she ran past me with a baking sheet full of scallops.
