Chapter Nine
They made love five times that night—each more exquisite than the last. Each time, Sidney was wracked with guilt. But the fact was, she had no intention of being in any kind of relationship with Cody. This thing—whatever it was—was only for the weekend. And after this she would never see him again.
Surely that wasn’t being too unfaithful to her friend. Was it?
Aside from which, if Cody was at all interested in Porsche, wouldn’t he have made some kind of move? In all the years he’d known her?
And if he was attracted to Porsche but was deterred by Ford’s threats . . . he wasn’t good enough for her. Porsche deserved better.
Lame justifications aside, Sidney was utterly sated—and feeling like a worm—when she woke up in Claire’s bed the next morning coiled in Cody’s arms. It was a warm nest; his arms were wrapped tight around her and his breath kissed her cheek. It felt so good, she wanted to cry.
She knew she should leave. Wriggle free and slip away, but she couldn’t. Instead, she focused on memorizing the moment. Each and every aspect of it.
This was her last opportunity to hold him. The weekend was nearly over.
She knew the moment he woke up. His body tightened and he pulled her closer and murmured something that sounded like “Mmm.”
She glanced at him, at his beautiful face, those big green eyes laced with fringe, his perfect nose, that glorious mouth. He rose up, over her, and kissed her. Softly. Sweetly. Gently.
Her passion rose. So quickly. Too quickly.
A roil of irritation rippled through her.
How could he do this? So easily?
How could she let him?
But then, in a moment, she didn’t care, because he’d shifted over her and his cock brushed against her entrance.
That easily, she was ready for him . . .
He stilled as a furious roar reverberated through the house.
She stilled as well. Her gut clenched. She knew that voice. It made a shudder dance down her spine. “Zack is here.”
“Shit!” Cody leaped from the bed, pulled on his sweatpants, and ran from the room.
Sidney dressed as quickly as she could but by the time she had her clothes on, the ruckus had moved to the front yard. She ran to the window to see Zack towing Hanna toward his truck. Her sister was in her nightgown and was barefoot, dancing over the gravel in the yard.
Zack looked furious. “Get in the truck, Hanna.” When she hesitated, Zack bristled. “Get in the truck, Hanna. We’re leaving.”
Damn it. Damn it all anyway!
“Hanna, don’t get in the truck!” Logan called. Sidney glanced to the left to see him sprinting across the yard. As he passed, Cody grabbed him by the arm to stop him from running toward Zack. It was clear to all witnessing this scene, Zack was ready to kill Logan. Or anyone who tried to stop him from taking Hanna.
At once Sidney was filled with an unholy fury—how dare Zack treat her sister like this?—and guilt. This party had been her idea. If Zack was furious with Hanna, it was Sidney’s fault.
She bolted for the stairs, but by the time she reached the yard, Zack’s truck, with Hanna in it, was disappearing in a plume of dust in the distance.
Damn. Damn Damn.
Cody and Logan were facing off, snarling at each other, Logan furious that Cody had stopped him and Cody convinced Zack would have killed him. It only took moments for them to clamber into Cody’s truck to follow Zack and Hanna, but it seemed like hours.
There was no way they were going without her, so Sidney hopped into the backseat.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Cody roared.
She glowered at him. “She’s my sister. I’m going too.”
Logan, not inclined to argue, started the truck and they zoomed away.
***
They looked for Hanna all day and into the evening. By afternoon, Cody was starting to worry. There were only so many places they could have gone, but she wasn’t at Zack’s house or her family ranch, and no one in town had seen her.
Given how furious Zack had seemed, he could only suspect the worst. But he didn’t dare mention anything to Sidney. She was panicked enough as it was.
And damn it, as much as he hated having their last morning together interrupted, in these circumstances, it was even worse.
He wanted nothing more than to pull Sidney into his arms and comfort her, tell her it would be okay, wipe the worry from her brow and the tears from her cheeks . . . but he couldn’t. For one thing, her entire body was tense as a bowstring. She sat like a statue in the backseat fixated on the countryside out the window, her eyes frantically searching for her sister. Any comment or hopeful thought he proffered was greeted with a scowl.
He’d never felt such a wall between them.
It was, no doubt, the worst day of his life.
He’d never felt so helpless before . . . on all fronts.
Finally, long after evening had fallen, Sidney got a call from her father. Hanna had arrived at home. Apparently she’d had a fight with Zack and had walked over ten miles to the ranch.
Logan was beside himself. He drove like a lunatic to Hanna’s place. Cody couldn’t blame him.
It was a tremendous relief.
He could tell that Logan would have been more relieved if Hanna had come down from her room so he could see she was all right for himself, but she refused to see anyone other than Sidney. While they waited for Sidney to come back downstairs with her report, Mr. Stevens warmed up a couple of bowls of his chili, which was awesome because—Cody suddenly realized—he was starving. He wolfed down two bowls.
When Sidney came back into the kitchen, her features were taut.
“How is Hanna?” Logan asked.
“She’s fine.”
Logan nearly collapsed in relief. Apparently he didn’t notice the gentle lie woven in her words . . . but Cody caught it. Then again, maybe he just knew her.
When Logan and Mr. Stevens embarked on a discussion about chili, and the curative aspects of the spices, Cody leaned over and murmured to Sidney, “Are you coming back to the ranch?”
She frowned at him. “No. I need to get back to Dallas.”
His stomach dropped. “I need to talk to you.”
Her frown deepened. “About what?”
“You know.” He knew she knew. It was written all over her face.
She shifted in her chair and glanced at her father and Logan. “Not here.”
“Outside then? On the porch?”
“All right.” She blew out a heavy sigh and said, “We’ll be right back.” But it was doubtful anyone noticed, given their enthusiastic discussion of meat versus vegetarian dishes.
As Cody followed Sidney down the hall toward the front door, his mind was in a whirl. How should he approach this? What should he say?
She’d promised him a one-night stand that had become two, but she’d been adamant it could never be more. How could he convince her this was something worth exploring? How could a few words whispered on a moonlit porch change her mind?
But he had to try.
When the front door closed on them he turned to her. “Sidney—”
He would have taken her in his embrace, but she crossed her arms, effectively expressing her desire to maintain this chasm between them.
“Sidney.” He tried again. “I don’t want this to end.” That was the crux of it, wasn’t it?
“We both knew it would.”
“But it doesn’t have to.”
“Yes. It does.” Was it his imagination, or was that the shimmer of tears in her eyes?
“Why? Why can’t we make this work? Is it the distance? I’m more than happy to drive to Dallas to see you. As often as you like.”
“You know it’s not that.”
“Then what?” What could it be?
She sighed heavily and turned away from him to stare out at the night. The sounds of crickets and croaking bullfrogs tangled with the scent of mown hay wafting around them.
“Do you know what you did to me?”
Annoyance rippled through him. “I know damn well what I did to you. But honestly. Can’t you forgive me for that one date with Tibby?” One lousy date. Granted, it had been an exceptionally poor choice and even worse timing, but that had been so long ago. Surely she didn’t need to harbor such an old grudge.
She whipped around and stared at him. “Oh my God. You don’t get it, do you?”
Apparently not.
She shook her head and struggled to find the words. Her throat worked. Finally she whispered, “That was my first time, Cody.”
He gulped. His pulse pinged. Something rippled at his nape. “What?”
“That night was my first time. You took my virginity and then dumped me the very next day. For Tibby Pucey.”
Shit. Shit, shit shit. He hadn’t known. Not that she was a virgin.
If he had, he would have been . . . what? Gentler? He’d been a randy kid in the backseat of a hot car with a hotter woman. One he’d secretly lusted after, and assumed he could never have.
But he did have a reason for asking Tibby out the next day. It wasn’t a very good reason, but he had one. “Don’t you want to know why?”
She glared at him. “No. No I don’t.”
“But—”
“I don’t care, Cody. Can you get that through your thick skull? I don’t care what your justifications were. You hurt me so badly I wasn’t sure I would ever get over it. But I did.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. I got over it, and I got over you.”
“You didn’t seem over me this weekend.” He wasn’t sure why he blurted that, except for the panic snarling through him. He was losing her. He felt it. Losing her for good.
A pity it was the exact wrong thing to say.
So often the case with her.
Her features tightened until her lips went white. “This weekend was a mistake,” she said in a hard, clipped tone. “And it’s over. O-V-E-R. And frankly, I don’t want to see you or speak to you ever again.”
And with that, Sidney Stevens—the one woman he could never forget, the one woman his soul yearned for—turned around and walked away from him, leaving him alone and cold, staring at the vastness of the Texas night sky.