Chapter 18

That laugh. Tori’s whole body went hot just from the echo. Delon Sanchez laughing was enough to smoke a girl’s thong—assuming she still owned one. That little lack had turned out to be troublesome, since her stupid dress didn’t allow for anything else. Going commando in this stuffed-shirt crowd had seemed mildly amusing until Delon showed up and filled her head with thoughts of what could be done given ten minutes and an empty back room. Tori pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks and blew out a long, heated sigh. If she didn’t vacate this bathroom stall soon, rumors would be flying that she was doing something illegal in here, and if she looked as glassy-eyed as she felt, she’d confirm their suspicions.

She stepped out and immediately regretted her decision. The battle-ax in purple was at the sinks, making an elaborate show of freshening her lipstick. The click of the tube of lipstick snapping shut sounded like the cocking of a pistol. Potential gossip in sight. Ready, aim, fire!

“Victoria. Darling.” The woman laid a manicured claw on her arm. “What have you been doing with yourself?”

“Oh, you know. This and that. Keeping busy.”

“And you’re living in…” She trailed off, waiting for Tori to fill in the blank.

She shifted away to bend over the sink and crank the tap. “Farfromyou, America,” she said, too fast and quiet for the woman to make out.

The purple people-eater stared at her for a beat, not quite ballsy enough to ask Tori to speak up. Finally she said, “Well, you look wonderful. The climate there must agree with you.”

“Yes. It’s so much like being here at home, some days I can barely tell the difference.” Tori punched the button on the hand dryer, the roar drowning out conversation and leaving the human eggplant no excuse to linger.

Damn, this brilliant plan of her father’s might just work. But wow, did she need a drink. An hour of sitting next to Delon, trying to ignore the hum of awareness between them, had drained her dry.

She had, as Shawnee said, really fucked him up, if only indirectly. The knowledge had snuffed out her anger at him for the scene at the clinic. All this time, Tori had assumed Delon had been, at most, disappointed when he found her gone. Maybe a little annoyed that she hadn’t kissed him good-bye. But he’d been upset enough to get roaring drunk and make a mistake that had changed his entire life. Considering it had resulted in Beni, she wondered if Delon cursed her, or thanked her.

With a quick sidestep, she angled through the crowd toward the closest bar. She should make boots a permanent fashion statement. For the first time in history her feet didn’t hurt at one of these dress-up things, and she could move fast enough to dodge most of the vultures. And it had made her father smile through whatever was drawing those tight lines around his mouth.

Her father…honestly, she appreciated his concern, but what was he thinking, putting her and Delon side by side, on display at the head table? Delon had handled it, though. He was used to the spotlight, and the boy who’d thrown temper tantrums had learned all too well how to play nice. Tonight, his public face was plastered on thick, glossy and impenetrable.

Tori slithered around a cluster of men debating what kind of quarterback Romo might’ve been if Landry were still coaching—dear sweet Jesus, it’d been damn near thirty years since the man stood on the sidelines, let it go—and arrived at the bar a few paces ahead of Delon. He’d been waylaid by two elderly women decked to the nines in rhinestones, fringed leather skirts, and white hats. The Goodacre sisters liked to go the full Dale Evans whenever the situation warranted. They also had hands like a two-headed octopus and were old enough to get away with it.

Tori couldn’t blame them for wanting to get Delon in their clutches. Dinner over, he’d retrieved his cowboy hat. Combined with the white shirt, black jacket, and those dark eyes, it sent her tumbling down a rabbit hole of memories. He smiled, nodded, and tried to ease away from the sisters, but they clung like horn flies. As he freed his arm from one, the other clamped a bony hand on his butt. To his credit, he barely flinched, but his smile was getting tight around the edges.

“Give me two Shiner Bocks,” Tori told the bartender. When he handed her the bottles, she caught Delon’s eye and held one of them up.

He grabbed at the invitation like a drowning man, gesturing in her direction and dodging greedy fingers as he—wisely—backed away. He plucked the bottle from Tori’s hand and chugged down a third of it, then whooshed out a breath.

“I always thought the Let ’er Buck Room at Pendleton was the worst for getting mauled, but those two make it look like a junior high dance.” He watched her take a swig from her own bottle. “Beer doesn’t really match your outfit.”

“Does so.” She lifted her hem and stuck one boot out as proof. “Besides, I never could develop a taste for wine. Or whiskey. But if you don’t like Shiner, I’m not sure we can be friends.”

He studied her for a beat, then took another long pull off his beer before lowering it to meet her gaze, his expression complicated. “Is that what we are? Friends?”

“Do you have a better definition?”

He thought about that for another excruciating moment. “I guess not.”

She breathed out a sigh that should have been relief, but tasted uncomfortably like disappointment. As if she’d wanted more. How stupid was that? Anything else—well. Even if she had been ready to get involved—especially with someone who was permanently tied to the Panhandle—she couldn’t imagine how she would fit with this older version of Delon. He was so contained. His emotions so carefully shielded. Exactly the opposite of Willy. Plus, there was Violet. According to Shawnee, Delon had all but lived at her place, pre-Joe Cassidy. And he was Beni’s father. He had serious responsibilities. No longer the kind of man to spend the better part of a weekend wearing nothing but a cocky grin.

Damn, she missed that grin. A cold ache settled around her heart. She missed laughing. The unbridled, joyful kind that left you giddy and breathless, as if your soul was doing loop-de-loops in a clear blue sky. The first thing she’d fallen in love with was Willy’s big, booming laugh, how easily he shared it. But he hadn’t been the one to teach her to let go and fly.

Odd that she’d forgotten how much she and Delon had laughed together, like a pair of kids giggling in their secret clubhouse. And that, she realized with a start, was why she’d never pushed him for more. Even if her demands didn’t scare him away, she’d feared reality would ruin their fun. So many times she’d felt as if he was teetering on the edge, a step away from saying the words that would have changed everything, only to pull back.

And she’d never nudged him. Never risked popping their shiny bubble and letting the world inside. She’d chosen the euphoria of stolen hours over something more substantial, and when her heart refused to be satisfied, she’d kept her feelings bottled up until they congealed into resentment.

She’d set a deadline without ever giving him a clue that the clock was ticking down. If he doesn’t do something, say something, before I have to leave for my clinical rotation…

Of course he’d failed. He’d never even known there was a test. And now life had stomped the laughter out of both of them.

“Tori?” he said, and she had to blink to bring this older, serious face into focus even though she’d been staring at him.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, but of course he didn’t know she was apologizing for so much more than her rudeness. She pulled her gaze away, down to the bottle in her hand. “This is why they don’t drag me to these social things much. I can only hold the pose for so long, and then…”

She was babbling. And he was looking at her as if he also wondered whether she’d snorted something while she was in the ladies room.

“Never mind,” she said. “Can we just—”

She had no idea how she might have finished the sentence, because a man stepped between them. Tall. Blond. Gorgeous. And built. His face was familiar. A person she knew in passing, but from where? He wasn’t exactly forgettable, which meant she must have met him in circumstances very different from these.

“Delon,” he said, with a nod and the kind of smile only a certain class of people had reason to learn, mockery wrapped in such impeccable manners you might not even realize you’d been insulted.

Delon knew. His body went rigid, his eyes hardening to obsidian. “Wyatt.”

Ah. Yes. Wyatt Darrington. Bullfighter extraordinaire, rebel spawn of an East Coast dynasty that would sneer at upstart ruralites like the Pattersons, whose serious money had only been made since the turn of the nineteenth century.

More to the point, Wyatt was Joe Cassidy’s best friend. He turned a laser-sharp gaze on her. “Tori. It’s good to see you again, though I wish the circumstances were different.”

She assumed it was a reference to Willy and not the Buckaroo Ball, since Wyatt was apparently attending of his own free will. From what she’d seen and heard, Wyatt rarely felt compelled to do anything that didn’t serve his needs. Which led to the question—

“What brings you all the way from Oregon to our little soiree?”

“I flew Joe down to visit Violet, but they had plans for the evening.” The slight emphasis on plans was deliberate. Salt, meet Delon’s wounds. His animosity toward Joe had been obvious, even in that brief encounter at the clinic. And there had been that moment, when he watched his son pour affection on his mother’s new man…

His face darkened a shade as Wyatt blatantly ignored him, choosing to run a desultory gaze around the ballroom before saying, “I make a point of supporting the Cowboy Crisis Fund whenever possible.”

“And you just happened to have a tuxedo along.” Tori slathered on the Texas socialite drawl, insincerity dripping from every long, lazy vowel. “Aren’t we the lucky ones?”

His eyes narrowed and she felt herself measured, assessed, her usefulness calculated. Then he smiled and she was reminded of a shark, gliding graceful and silent beneath the surface of eyes the color of a Caribbean sea. Out on the floor, the band brought the obligatory rendition of “Cotton-Eyed Joe” to a thrumming crescendo, then launched into “Waltz Across Texas.”

Wyatt held out a hand. “Dance?”

“So sorry.” She stepped around him, looped her arm through Delon’s, and smiled a toothy smile of her own. “This one’s spoken for.”

She had to tug on Delon’s arm to uproot him. He took two steps and stopped. For an instant, Tori thought he was going to refuse to dance with her.

Then he waved the Goodacre sisters over. “I hate to run off and leave you lovely ladies. Have you met Wyatt Darrington? He was voted Bullfighter of the Year last season…”

Tori and Delon were both smirking when they reached the dance floor. And, Tori realized, still holding their beers. Lovely. But if it was good enough for John Travolta and Debra Winger…

Delon swung her into his arms. Despite his firm lead, she shuffled and nearly tripped. Her feet were still set to Willy’s boisterous rhythm, and she kept overstepping Delon’s more precise pace. They did a disjointed push-pull halfway around the floor before he paused by the head table to set down his beer, then take hers from her hand.

“Maybe that will help.”

As he gathered her close, his hand slipped beneath the loose drape of her shawl and found bare skin. His fingers were cold from the bottle, and she shivered. She rested her hand on his shoulder, felt the flex of muscle, and her mind obliged by providing detailed, graphic images of all the times she’d gripped those very excellent, very naked shoulders, his skin gleaming with a sweat she’d helped him work up.

She stumbled again, hoping he mistook her flushed face for embarrassment. “Sorry. My fault. You’re doing fine. It’s just been a while.”

“Seven years.” His smile was part sympathy, part encouragement, part…something. When she blinked at him, he added, “Since we’ve danced. Together, I mean.”

“I’ve never danced with you.”

This time the stumble was his fault, as he completely missed a step. “Of course you have. We…you and I…”

She shook her head.

“Never?” He stared at her, incredulous, as he spun her around the far corner of the floor.

Heat pooled in her abdomen as their thighs brushed, Tori all too aware that she was wearing nothing beneath the flimsy fabric of her dress. “If you, ah, remember, we didn’t go out much.”

“I remember.” And for a few beats those memories swirled hot in his eyes. Then he shook them off. “I can’t believe we didn’t…are you sure?”

“Very.”

“Oh.” His gaze pulled away from hers to fix on a point somewhere over her shoulder as they glided and spun reasonably smoothly through the mob of dancers. A terse line dug between his brows. “We should have.”

She could only shrug. The movement dislodged her shawl and it slithered down to hook at her elbows, leaving her shoulders bare. They danced in silence through the chorus of the song, their bodies moving more easily together but still not entirely in sync. Who would’ve guessed their first dance would be so awkward when sex between them had been so natural, so…

“Why don’t you like him?” Delon asked, fracturing a particularly vivid memory.

“Who?”

“Wyatt. You practically frosted his balls.”

“He was being a prick.”

Delon blinked, surprised either by her assessment or her language. “He was hitting on you.”

“Only to piss you off.”

Though she hadn’t figured out what he had to gain by it. And she knew his kind. Hell, every man in her family was his kind, even her father when it suited him. Wyatt had something to gain or he wouldn’t have sought out Delon, the one person in this massive ballroom who did not want to see him. Or was Tori his target? No. He’d asked her to dance to needle Delon. But why?

“He never used to be,” Delon said, frowning. “A prick, I mean. When I saw him at the rodeos.”

“Have you done something to irritate him?”

“Not that I…” Then he trailed off, and his hand tightened on her waist. “After my appointment on Tuesday, Violet and I argued. I imagine Joe told him.”

And Wyatt was getting even by being rude? No, that was too simple. She glanced toward the bar. Wyatt was leaning against it, with a Goodacre sister on each side. One had a diamond-crusted claw on his chest. He snagged the other’s hand as it wandered south of his belt, looking totally unperturbed as he caught Tori’s gaze and raised a glass of something expensive on the rocks in a gesture that was the smug equivalent of a V for victory.

Son of a bitch.

Tori tripped over Delon’s foot and nearly sent both of them headfirst onto the nearest table. Thank God for her boots. If she’d been wearing heels, she’d be face down in the centerpiece.

“You okay?” Delon asked, his hands gripping her shoulders as they regained their balance.

“Yes. I’m just…” Furious. At Wyatt. At herself, for letting that bastard manipulate her so easily—straight into Delon’s arms, where she could distract him from making trouble for Violet and Joe. Right on cue, the band segued into a slow, dreamy number and the lights dimmed.

“This might be more our speed.” Delon’s hands slid down her arms, the brush of them setting fire to nerve endings she’d begun to think had died with Willy. His voice went low, a hint of the old mischief flirting with the corners of his mouth. “Wanna go again?”

Her body went hot, an inferno fed by all those memories piled one upon the other, each more flammable than the next. Oh yeah, she wanted. Many, many things, beginning with flipping Wyatt the bird and dancing until she and Delon found that magical rhythm they’d once had. She wanted, for one night, to be held. To be warm again. But this was not the place to let her reincarnated hormones have their way. And this was not the man. Too many ghosts of mistakes past were dancing along.

“We’re one slow dance away from having our picture front and center on the society page,” she said. “I don’t think that would be good for either of us.”

His hands dropped away, the warmth leaching out of his eyes as the walls closed in behind them. Impulsively, she reached up to skim her thumb over the clean angle of his cheekbone. “You’re right, though. We should have done this sooner.”

He caught her wrist, his grip like an iron bracelet, loose but unbreakable. “Why did you leave without telling me?”

They were attracting attention. Tori could feel the curious gazes, hear the whispered innuendo. But he deserved an answer. “I was hoping you’d try to find me.”

“Find you?” Emotions flickered over his face. Shock, confusion, a hint of irritation. “How was I supposed to do that?”

“You could have called my house.”

“The Patterson ranch.”

His voice held the same note of gross disbelief as if she’d suggested he dial up the White House and ask to speak to the first lady. He glanced across the dance floor to where her father gleamed in the midst of his supplicants like a king holding court. Suddenly, Tori saw the separation between his world and hers through Delon’s eyes. Not the shallow, albeit rocky ravine she had considered an inconvenience. To him, it was a chasm. Bottomless. Impassable. Finally, emphatically, she understood. For Delon, making that call was unthinkable.

“It was a test.” His hand dropped away from her arm. In disgust?

“I was stupid, and immature.” Her long-held conviction disintegrated as she grasped the full consequences of her bitter, childish actions. For Delon. Herself. Even Violet. “I am truly sorry for that.”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he smiled, the curl of his lips so sharp it was like a hook sinking into her heart. “But you’re not sorry you left.”

“No.” She let her gaze circle the glittering crowd, then come back to meet his. “This place decided who I was before I was ever born. Boxed me up all nice and neat. There was no room to find the person I wanted to be.”

“Willy Hancock’s wife.”

“Among other things. And you became Beni’s father, so we both won.”

“Is that what this feels like to you?” he asked. Then he turned and walked away.

Tori stood alone on the dance floor for several moments too long, staring at the spot where he’d been. Then she lifted her hand in an empty toast.

Here’s to the shortest friendship on record.