Once Upon A Half-Time 2(36)
“Sounds good.” I tore the seatbelt off me. “You’re on your own.”
“And I’ll do a better job than you.”
“Fine.”
“Fine!” Lindsey crossed her arms. “Hogface.”
Childhood insults now? I kicked the door open. “Feetmuncher!”
“Douche Canoe!”
I slammed the door before I said the real insult on my mind. Lindsey couldn’t roll the window down without the keys.
She screamed instead.
“Twatwaffle!”
“I’m out of the car!”
“Get in here before you’re eaten by a bear!”
“Oh my God, Lindsey, there are no bears!”
I sat on the guardrail and ignored her insults. After ten minutes she gave up and yelled at her bridesmaids. They lowered their seats and tried to sleep.
Not a soul passed us on the highway. The wind whistled through the wetlands below the guardrail. I swallowed. Whatever lurked in the grasses and shrubs rustled a lot and got too close. I smacked at imaginary bugs and pretended I didn’t have to go to the bathroom.
A long hour passed before headlights pulled up. Nate parked and got out of his car. That cocky smile was saved just for me and my desperation.
“You look like you need a rescue,” he said.
After an hour in the damp and chill, simmering in rage, and planning how best to turn my maid-of-honor dress into rags for waxing my car, I didn’t have the energy to argue with a man I was supposed to hate.
Except I didn’t hate him.
I didn’t hate his cocky smile.
I never hated the intense and perfect green of his eyes.
And there was no way I’d ever hate the feel of his body pressed against mine, either between the sheets or sitting at my side on the guardrail.
“Rough night?” he asked.
I couldn’t look at him, but I could enjoy how warm he felt next to me. “Can you take us to the cabin, please?”
“I’ll do you one better.” He kicked a bag of tools at his feet. “I’ll fix your car.”
“Think you can?”
“Only one way to find out.” That confidence amazed me. “I’m not going to leave you stranded out here all night…not without someone to cuddle at least.”
“If you fix the car, you’ll get a lot more than cuddles.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Better get under that hood.”
I didn’t regret my words. After twenty minutes, the SUV’s engine purred like a kitten. Nate tossed me the keys. The bridesmaids and Lindsey thanked him and begged me to drive. I walked him to his car.
“You girls should be more careful.” He crossed his arms, and I could only imagine what fantasy twisted his lips into a smile. “Never know what kind of creep might want to take advantage of a stranded, beautiful woman.”
“I’m well-aware.” I bit my lip. “You’re not going home, are you?”
“Where else would I go?”
“To the cabin?”
Nate narrowed his eyes. “You sure?”
No, but I had a bad enough night. “Someone should be there to protect me from any creeps following us in the woods.”
“No one would bother you if I were around.”
I stared at his lips. “Then you better follow close.”
“Mandy—”
“I’ll meet you there.”
I knew he watched me walk to the car. And I knew where he stared, what he wanted, just where his thoughts wandered because mine was already there.
Nate once thrilled me with a night of simple pleasures and dark fantasies.
And tonight, we’d do it again.
9
Mandy
A mistake was something that happened once.
What was it called when it happened twice? Idiocy? Insanity?
Luck?
It didn’t matter. The last time I was overwhelmed by the wedding and my family, I turned to the wrong man to make it right. And he had—at least, in that moment. Now I wanted more of the same, knowing the consequences.
I invited him to the cabin and tossed the bridesmaids and my sister into the guest bedrooms.
I told him to wait while I quickly showered the night off and grabbed a warm, fuzzy blanket.
And we planned to repeat that wonderful mistake.
It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t safe.
It wasn’t fair to him.
But I couldn’t share the secret about the baby yet, not even with him. My family already danced around total annihilation. The drama would ruin the wedding, drive a wedge deeper between my parents, and destroy any relationship I had with my sister.
That sort of news wouldn’t be seen as blessed or joyous. It’d be scandal and shame, and no baby deserved that.
Once the wedding was over, I’d tell them.
And him.
I shut the cabin door behind me. I expected the night to be completely silent this far away from the city, but the chirping frogs and buzzing locusts muffled the click of the door’s latch. The cabin overlooked a field of wildflowers in the front. In the back, it stood watch over a lake, mirror-flat and still, reflecting a sky littered with thousands of stars.