Beau sunk deeper into the sectional cushion, the book clutched between his hands as he continued to read through the first half of the novel. Ever since he had gotten home from picking Dixie up, he’d become engrossed in this story about Tracy and Ben. It didn’t take him long to realize it was really about Beau and Tara. He didn’t know how this book could exist, but for the moment, he didn’t care. He needed answers.

With Daniel still wrapped up in his work and Dixie outside playing with the dogs, Beau had a couple of hours to learn exactly where Tara was coming from.

Since the very beginning, she had been clueless about it all. Against everything he had tried to imply, she really believed that they were going to end up together. He read about the joy she felt when he paid her any bit of kindness and the tears that streamed down her face as she drove home from the bar. He even read about the arousing moments when she was in the shower and when he held her tight on the dance floor. Whoever this preternatural author was, they were immensely talented in making him feel for the twisted plight of the characters.

When he came to the chapter where he and Tara had their final meeting in the café, Beau turned the page to find it blank. He flipped back and forth, ahead a few pages, and then thumbed through the last quarter of the book. Nothing.

He made a sound of disbelief which gained the notice of his brother down the hall.

“You all right?” he hollered.

Beau hardly knew. He thought the kiss at the bar was instigated under the influence of alcohol, but to learn that Tara was completely in her right mind and eager to kiss him since the moment they met, it changed everything.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he called back, then snapped the book closed to stare at the cover in amazement.

All this time, she wanted him just as badly as he wanted her. He saw the furtive looks and returned the witty banter, because he needed to at least be friendly. But it turned out that Tara didn’t want Daniel in the least and she chided herself so harshly for never noticing Beau before.

It made him understand her reaction at the bar, why she distanced herself from the Bremors over the last week or so. He had been so blind and overly gallant that he had never stopped to really think how she felt through this whole ordeal.

Now he knew. And now had to make things right.

He tossed the book on the adjacent cushion and went to Daniel’s office. Even if Tara couldn’t be his wife, the man still needed a bookkeeper. Stacks of papers, receipts, and manifests covered his desk to the point that he couldn’t see a bit of clear space whatsoever.

Daniel looked up from his keyboard and his fingers went still. “What’s up?” he asked, probably seeing his brother’s bemused expression.

“Tell me something straight,” he began, hoping that without the book’s guidance, he could somehow begin to wrap up this mystery. “Tara… Do you even like her?”

He eased back in his office chair and laced his fingers over his stomach. “You know, I thought I did… She’s cute and you may not like her long legs, but that’s definitely one of her more redeeming features.”

Beau leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “I hear a ‘but’ somewhere in there.”

Daniel made a face as if he were wrestling with the words. “Like I said, she’s great. But her friend…” He whistled. “Rebecca’s pretty hot.”

There was no way he would agree. Tara could probably roll out of bed, no makeup, her hair a mess, and she’d still outshine every girl in Texas. “So you like Rebecca?”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “Why are you so interested in who I like all of the sudden?”

That’s when Beau knew he had to come clean. He told Daniel all about his master plan to get him and Tara together, how that had been his goal from the start and how it had back fired the other night at the bar.

His older brother listened. The flames of despair and rage that had shined so bright in his eyes last week were gone now. Apparently he'd had time to think over things too.

When Beau was finished pouring out his confession, Daniel didn’t say a thing at first. They just stared, brother regarding brother and the only noise came from the barking dogs and giggling girl outside near the barn.

“And you like Tara, don’t you?” he asked, a faint smile gracing his stone cold face.

Beau nodded. “I think I love her.”

It was a bold proclamation. Beau had never claimed to love any woman in his life. But he knew that if this fire he felt for Tara hadn’t fully died away after spending so many years apart, it must have been love that he felt.

It wasn’t just a fleeting notion or a passing fancy. It wasn’t just a high school crush. This was pure, true, undying, unconditional love. Why else would he forgive her for ignoring him in school and going MIA on them after she left the bar? Why else would he feel this unending ache for her touch, to hear her voice, and see her pretty face? Why else would his heart still be holding on after all they had been through – after all he had put them through.

Daniel smiled. “Then you can have her with my blessing.”

Beau rolled his eyes and turned away. As if he even needed Daniel’s blessing. Knowing that he wasn’t even interested in Tara was blessing enough.

Before he left the office, Daniel said, “And one more thing. Don’t try and play match-maker again. You suck at it and I don’t need my little brother to hook up dates for me. When I’m ready, I’ll take care of it.”

He nodded and realized that’s probably what he should have been told from the beginning. He was a damn fool from the start. Hopefully Tara would take him back, even if he had to get down on his knees.

* * *

Tara tore off her bed sheets, though she knew it would have been absolutely silly to think the book was tucked against her mattress like that. But she was running out of options. Her tiny, one-bedroom apartment had been turned upside down in order to find that missing novel and the panic steadily began to build in her chest.

When she had gotten back to the office after meeting with Beau, she had wanted to check the book to see if anymore had been written. It was way too addictive not to check, even if her heart had crumbled into a thousand little pieces. She knew it hadn't fallen out at the café, but she went there right after work anyway to see if Rachel might have found it under the table where she and Beau had been sitting. No one had turned in a book to her.

So thinking she'd just left it at home on her nightstand, she hurried back to her apartment. It wasn’t there either. Tara had been searching for over an hour now, but the book was absolutely nowhere in her apartment.

She wasn’t so much worried that she had lost the book. Too many hours had been wasted fretting over what would appear in the magical pages next to make her realize this wasn’t healthy. She couldn’t just wait around for words to appear on a page and dictate her life. The book wasn’t something that could determine her fate. She had to do that herself.

What she was more worried about was someone else finding the book and reading what was in there. Yet, if it fell into the hands of another reader, would the story change? Would the cover change? Or would they read this crazy, mixed up story about her and Beau? Would they make the connection that she was really Tracy and Beau was really Ben?

Tara dropped to the foot of the bed and ran her fingers through her slightly disheveled, tangled hair, as she leaned against the edge of the mattress. She hadn’t taken that book anywhere besides work and home, and she had already asked if Rebecca had seen it anywhere. She hadn’t. Somehow, she figured that she wouldn’t even need to ask. If Rebecca found the novel and saw Beau on the cover, she would have made a huge deal about it already. She wasn’t the type to play anything cool.

She sat and held a moment of silence for the lost book. It was certainly fun and entertaining while it lasted. Now, she only had her own memories to remind her of the amazing times she'd had with Beau and his family. And now was her chance to make her own path, decide her own actions when it came to Beau and Daniel.

Who knows, maybe now that they were past this awkwardness, she could actually pursue Beau like she wanted. He seemed to have given up on his mission to set her up with his brother, now that she knew the whole truth. Maybe they could start over, just like they'd agreed in the café?

She pulled out her phone from her back pocket and opened her Facebook app. She had ignored his friend request for too long. With a shaky finger, she tapped the accept button and let out a long breath.

A knock came at her door and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She hadn't even heard any footsteps. These walls were paper thin so it was impossible not to hear her neighbors trouncing down the halls at all hours of the day or night.

She looked around her apartment, to the tossed throw pillows on the floor by the sofa, and the way the pots and pans had been pulled out from the kitchen cabinets. It looked like a tornado had hit the place, but with luck, whoever was at the door wouldn’t stay for long. Maybe one of her neighbors had heard her tearing up the apartment and wanted to make sure she wasn’t being robbed.

Tara opened the door and looked up into a pair of stunning, troubled blue eyes. She nearly crumbled.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, unable to slide that filter in place between her brain and her mouth.

Beau smiled and held up her book. Her stomach did several backflips and she was sure she’d puke right there on his shoes. “It said you lived at the Magnolia apartment complex, second floor, third door down the hall on the right… And here you are.” He gave a small laugh and looked down at the cover. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t quite sure if you’d be here or not.”

Tara’s heartbeat pounded in her throat and she wasn’t even sure if she could speak clearly. Somehow, the words managed to find a life of their own and poured out. “You read it? All of it?”

He nodded. “As much as it would let me… Can we talk?”

Glancing over her shoulder to the chaotic mess, she seriously didn’t want this to be his first impression of her apartment. Though, if he had read what was written so far, then he already knew what her apartment was like. Would he know about this mess? Did the book predict that for him?

She swung open the door and let him inside. He let out a whistle just as she shut the door. “I think the book understated this.”

Tara crossed her arms over her roiling stomach. “I lost it.”

“And you were looking for it,” he interrupted. “I know.”

Then, he kindly offered her the book. She took it and pressed it against her chest, hoping that it would calm everything with its mystic juju, or whatever it was that made the words appear on the page.

“So you know everything now,” she stated, unwilling to meet his gaze that felt hot on her skin.

“Not everything,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “Where did you find that book?”

Tara took a deep breath and leaned against the wall by the front door. “In Rachel’s bookstore. I pulled it down, because I liked the cover, but I didn’t realize what it could do until you walked in.”

His brows shot up. “You found it the day we met?”

She nodded. “And when it started to show everything that was happening, I knew I had to keep it.”

“And that’s how you found out about my idea to set you up with Daniel?”

She nodded again. “I read about it the night I came home after we left the bar.”

Silence stretched between them and Tara didn’t know whether to ask him to sit on the sofa, with its cushions thrown over the coffee table, or offer him a drink, since the glasses were already pulled down from the cabinets.

Instead, she did what she had been itching to do for half the day. She opened the book and flipped to the page where she thought she'd left off. Sure enough, their meeting that morning was written there, plainly from his point of view. She skimmed over it and he slightly let her, probably already knowing what she was looking for.

She came to the part where it read that Ben’s heart was shattered when she spoke. It said that he had wanted nothing more than to be with her since the moment they'd met, but now there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that they could, since she had lost almost all her faith in him. That just wasn’t true.

Tara closed the book and risked a look up to Beau, who seemed just as nervous as she was. He had no reason to be nervous. He should have known, after reading the first part of the story, that she was head-over-heels for him.

“I never meant to hurt you,” she said.

“And I never meant to hurt you, either.”

Tara gulped and offered up the book. “Does it say what’s going to happen next, or will you tell me?”

Beau took a few cautious steps forward, but she refused to move. No more running, no more denying. They both wanted each other; they knew it, and there should have been nothing left for them to figure out.

He wrapped his strong arm around her waist and pulled her in for their second kiss. Tara closed her eyes and dropped the book, so she could properly wrap her arms around his neck. Her fingers weaved into his hair and he did the same. She loved the way he kissed. So smooth, tender, and filled with a quiet passion that she could definitely get used to.

At their feet, the book began to dematerialize and vanished, but she didn’t even notice. She was far too busy paying attention to where his hands roamed across her hips and waist.

Beau pinned her to the wall by the door, making the sheetrock shiver with the force of it. If her neighbors didn’t think anything was going on in her apartment before, they certainly would now.

As if passion had taken the wheel, Tara found herself hitching on of her long legs around Beau’s thigh, pull him in until she could feel his hardness behind the zipper on his jeans. They moaned together and Beau kissed down Tara’s jaw until he came to her slender neck. Each nip from his teeth and caress of his tongue along her skin sent out amazing currents of pleasure that skittered through her limbs until she was trembling for more.

“Are they expecting you back tonight?” she asked breathlessly as her eyes rolled into the back of her head.

“Nope,” he mumbled against her neck. The vibration of his deep voice added to everything else she felt and Tara moaned again.

It was a good thing they weren’t expecting him back, because Tara was positive that he wouldn’t leave this apartment until the following morning.

She tugged at the hem of his shirt, demanding its removal. Beau broke away just long enough to strip them both of their shirts. The feel of his skin on hers was magnificent, warm, and so sensuous. She could feel the edges of his ripped abs and sculpted muscles glide across her stomach as he rocked into her. The only thing in the way were their jeans, but they’d soon take care of that.

One of Beau’s hands found their way to her bra and cupped one of her breasts trapped beneath the soft padding of silk. Her nipple hardened and Tara moaned a little louder as he gently massaged her breast in his palm.

She leaned the back of her head against the wall, arching her back to wordlessly implore him to go further. He released her chest and hoisted her up off the ground, forcing her to wrap her other leg around his waist.

Somewhere in the haze of foreplay, Beau pulled her off the wall and carried her into her bedroom, which was just as much a disaster area as the rest of her apartment. If she had known that Beau would be coming over and that any of this would happen, she wouldn’t have yanked the sheets off and thrown them in a pile on the floor beside the bed.

He dropped her down and Tara bounced against the mattress. Before she knew it, Beau had his hands on her pants and was pulling them off.

A sobering thought entered her mind and Tara bolted upright. “Condom,” was all she could say.

As if predicting her panic, he slipped one out from his back pants pocket and presented it to her. Tara grabbed for it, but he snatched it out of reach.

“Not yet,” he purred before dropping down to suspend himself over her. “Too soon for that.”

Tara claimed his mouth in a demanding kiss, slipping her tongue in without another thought. Sweeter than honeysuckle and her mom’s special blend of sweet tea, Tara could have become addicted to him. Why had she waited so long? Why did they waste so much time dancing around their feelings? They could have been doing this a week ago and it still might have been long overdue. In fact, it had been overdue since high school.

Beau’s hand slid behind her and unclipped her bra before tossing it to the floor. With her breasts freed, she could feel the radiating heat of his skin on hers. The taut nipples pressed into his chest, tantalizing them so effectively that she wondered if she’d come right then.

This was insane on so many levels, but at the same time, it felt so right. Everything from the way his hands slid down her sides, sending chills through her core, to the way his mouth seized her nipples to suckle them, it was all so right and perfect.

With each flick of his tongue on her nipple and raking of his trimmed nails across her skin, Tara could feel herself drawing closer and closer to her climax. But it wasn’t fair. He was about to make her explode with mind-blowing foreplay and he still had his pants on.

His fingers hooked on the edge of her lacy panties and she was sure she heard a light ripping sound as he pulled them down to dangle from one of her ankles. Naked, but not completely. Before Beau could come down on her again, Tara pushed herself up and grabbed for his pants.

“These are in my way,” she said, a playful smile dancing across her lips.

Beau returned the smile and didn’t protest as she worked at his belt buckle and boxers. It shouldn’t have surprised her when she laid eyes upon his thick, slightly moistened cock. What surprised her more was how much she lusted after it. Before she could take that for herself as well, Beau dropped to his knees, denying her the pleasure of taking him the way he was about to take her.

His mouth trailed along the inside of her thighs first. With his hands under her knees, and pulled until half of her body was hanging off the bed. He pushed her legs apart to receive him and Tara couldn’t help but watch the way his mouth captured her folds.

But that didn’t last long. Tara threw her head back as a fresh wave of mounting pleasure tightened her core until she thought she couldn’t hold it in anymore. But hold it she did. Because she wanted this to last.

Just as his tongue had toyed with her nipples, so did it tease her clit and slip in to lap up the moisture that practically dripped from her. Her fingers had nothing to grip as she continued to moan and cry out for release.

Who knew that Beau could be so powerful, and yet so tender in lovemaking?

When the moment came, her breath hitched and she whimpered even louder as the pressure reached its breaking point. She came and Beau was there to taste the fruits of his labor. Her back arched as the orgasm crested, leaving her body racked with little spasms as he continued to torment her with more flicks of his tongue and grazing of his lips along her tender, throbbing skin.

Tara closed her eyes and was only vaguely aware of Beau tearing open the condom package. She hastily tried to recover so she could do the honors herself, but she was far too weak to move much less return the favor he had bestowed to her.

She had never known such world-spinning, amazing sex could exist, but here Beau was, proving her wrong once more.

He scooted her back onto the mattress, grabbed her by the ass as his leverage. She could feel the head of his cock play between the folds, gliding up and down to tease her further. Tara’s body responded in kind and she hooked her legs around him as more heat pulled between them.

It shouldn’t have been possible that she wanted another, not after experiencing the best orgasm she had ever had. But when he played with her breasts again, gearing her up for another round, she almost couldn’t contain herself.

Her body received him, slow at first. Beau only ventured in a little bit, but it was enough to make her gasp and dig her nails into his broad shoulders. She tried to rock against him to force him inside, but he resisted her.

“Slow,” he whispered, as if that was supposed to make her want it any less.

Tara groaned in protest. “Now.”

Beau eased in further, filling the core of her desire until Tara shuddered in ecstasy. With aching slowness, he pulled out and pushed back in, thrusting into her with climbing urgency. Tara held him close, savoring this feeling for as long as her body would allow.

It was hard just to think straight as he pounded into her, his face buried into her neck as they moaned and gasped with every thrust. Tara felt her whole universe spin out of focus and the only thing that existed in perfect clarity was Beau and her feelings for him. There was no way the book could have predicted this because no mind on earth could fully comprehend the kind of utter bliss she experienced when they came together as one.

She could feel her climax coming a second time and she wasn’t too shy to let Beau know through her screams. He pumped faster until they orgasmed in unison. Intertwined, they spiral down from their erotic high.

Tara shuddered and felt the aftershocks course through her nerves as his cock pulsated within her. They sighed together and rolled to the side. It was a wonder he had any strength at all to pull her up onto the bed, so they could lay beside one another.

A light sheen of sweat dotted her forehead as she tried to catch her breath. Sex took the wind out of her even more than line dancing.

Beau’s arm encircled her waist, a gentle reminder that he was still there and still completely real. He wasn’t some fictional character from one of her books that left her as soon as she slipped it back on her shelf. He wasn’t going to disappear again like he did after graduation. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to ignore him anymore.

He had a good soul and a tender heart. The body, the arresting blue eyes, it was all icing to sweeten this already yummy dessert she had been gifted. She reached out to stroke the stubble on his cheek. With his face half-buried in the pillow at the head of her bed, he opened his free eye and smiled to her.

“Why couldn’t I have found you sooner?” she wondered aloud.

Beau reached up and took her hand in his to kiss the back of her fingers. “Doesn’t matter,” he replied. “I’m here now.”

Tara edged closer. “You were always there and I never saw it. I know I -”

He wouldn’t let her continue and captured her mouth in a silencing kiss. Apparently he didn’t want to hear all of her regrets and her apologies. She had so much to atone for, so much she felt like she had to make right by him. One evening of outstanding sex wasn’t going to do it.

She grabbed him and pulled him closer, deepening their kiss until he finally pulled away to speak.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I always have.” So out of the blue, but so right for the moment.

Tara could only grin. “I love you too. And I always will.”

Maybe she didn’t have to make up for so much. If he loved her anyway, she didn’t need to prove her newfound devotion to earn back his trust. And with just a few simple words, she made her own declaration that she’d want to spend a lifetime getting to know him and catching up on all their lost time.