Travis

I returned to the bar, mentally shored up for the conversation I knew I had to have with Christine, but the only person in evidence, when I walked through the door, was Sissy. She was doing something with beer mugs behind the bar and I hung in the doorway, about to ask where I might find Christine, when a streak of mild curses erupted from beyond the double doors into the kitchen.

Sissy looked up and smiled. “If you don’t know anything about plumbing, I suggest you don’t go in there.”

“Plumbing, huh?” Speaking of lucky breaks… One side of my mouth curved upward as I sauntered through the double doors. The curses leaned further into the graphic zone, and I raised an eyebrow. Bluebell had more of a temper than I’d realized.

The kitchen was new and very modern, stainless steel everywhere. Looking up from where she was chopping onions, Charlotte Hains shot me a silent grin, then nodded and pointed to the other side of a long food prep island in the middle of the kitchen.

I edged my way around the counter. A pair of long denim-clad legs emerged from a cabinet beneath the deep sink. One leg was straight, the other bent at the knee. Every few seconds, the flexed knee pushed against the floor, as though bracing against something beneath the sink.

“You will turn, you damn piece of—!” The words morphed into a low grunt.

Crouching next to her, I tried to see beneath the cabinet but the dim light hid all from my view except for some nice curves pushing against Christine’s sweater. Or maybe those were just more interesting…

Gently, I touched Christine on her bent knee. She jumped and propelled herself from under the sink, sitting up and casting a blinking stare. “You’re back.”

“Looks like.” I craned my neck to get a better look at what she was doing. “Plumbing problems?”

She smiled, showing no trace of the agitated plumber. “Looks like.”

“Want a hand?” Her smile became crooked, and she held out the wrench. “If you know what you’re doing, have at it.”

I grinned. “It just so happens plumbing is one of my specialties.”

Christine stared. The wrench slipped from her fingers, landing with a clank on the ceramic tile floor.

“You okay?”

A shudder wracked her body. Then she recovered with a shake of her head. “Um, yeah… it’s just… someone else said that once and I was just thinking about him. You startled me.”

The muscles in my jaw tensed. No need to ask who’d said it. Her twenty-three hour love. Jealousy stabbed like a needle in my gut. Relax. No point in fighting a ghost. Unless that ghost was still a tangible presence standing between us.

I forced the thought down and reached for the wrench. “Move on out of there, woman, and let an expert show you how it’s done.”

“I can’t believe you got that pipe off so easily.” Christine glared at me through narrowed eyes, and then suddenly broke into a good-natured smile that brought life to those Bluebell-colored eyes, reminding me of flowers dancing in the wind.

“And I can’t believe you pulled the trap without having a replacement.” I tugged the strand of hair that had escaped her loose ponytail.

The exaggerated pouty face made her look about ten. “I had duct tape.”

A smile tugging on the corners of my mouth, I handed her the silver roll. “You’re going to want to repair that the right way by tomorrow. I can do it for you.”

She tilted her head back and grinned up at me. “Got lots of experience, have you?”

“Hey, anyone can repair a sink trap.” I chuckled as we entered the main bar. “But it just so happens I’ve re-plumbed an entire house.”

Next to me, her steps faltered. Then she stopped. When I looked over my shoulder, she was staring at me again.

“What?” I asked.

“You just keep surprising me,” whispered Christine.

If her smile seemed a little too bright, I wouldn’t dwell on it. A deep-seated need to touch her drove me. Turning, I held her gaze. Her eyes widened when I cupped her face in my hands, caressing her cheeks with my thumbs. Then I bent and teased her with a butterfly touch, rubbing my lips back and forth along hers. She sighed, and I took the kiss deeper by inches, coaxing instead of demanding, giving instead of taking. Her breath caught and her hands settled on my waist. I took my time, lingering until I felt her tension dissolve.

I ended the kiss, laying my forehead against hers. “Hey, you.”

“What was that?” she whispered.

I laughed softly. “I guess I’m still not doing it right.”

The roll of tape dropped to the floor with a dull thud. Christine’s arms slid around to my back and she pulled herself against me. “You’ve never not done it right.”

After a quick, hard hug, I stepped away, moving my hands to the buttons on her sweater.

“What are you doing?” She tugged the edges back together.

I stilled my fingers but left them at her buttons. I leaned in and kissed her once more, a little harder this time. When she finally relaxed against me, I worked at the buttons again.

“You don’t need this.” Leaning out, he tugged the sweater off her shoulders, then straightened, folding the soft garment and laying it on the bar. “That’s better.”

I looked her over head to toe. Her flowing white blouse had wide gauzy sleeves, which ended just above her wrists. Light and airy, it covered nearly every inch of skin. But I knew what lay beneath. Just the memory of that wonderland I had yet to fully explore, made my body thrum into awareness and clear my mental dance card for the evening.

Her head was angled as she looked at me. Her eyes gleamed. A hint of a smile played around her lips. Oh yeah, she was aware of me, too. And maybe, just maybe, a little less aware of the ghost from her past.

Music filled the room, a slow easy number about the intent behind a particular kind of kiss. I looked up and caught my brother tipping his hat, from next to the updated version of the jukebox in the corner.

Christine held out a hand. “Dance with me?” Her smile promised much more than a dance.

Want and need held hands and skipped through my system. I answered with the most profound statement I could think of. “Okay.”

I laced our fingers together and tugged her against me. This time, my mouth closed over hers in ardent possession. With a throaty moan, she returned the kiss with the same passion, sliding her free hand up and tickling the sensitive spot at the nape of my neck.

But she had a sensitive spot of her own, and I knew where it was. In moments of finding and licking the tender place below her left ear, she went nearly limp in my arms. Smiling with the minor victory, I edged us onto the dance floor where we moved into an easy rhythmic sway. Christine hooked her arms over my shoulders and leaned back to gaze into my face. In the dim recesses of my mind, I felt the sensual glide of her body against mine as they danced, but my whole world swirled in those incredible Bluebell-colored eyes. Did she know her heart shone in them?

“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, sweetheart, we’re going to have to find a preacher and get married.”

I didn’t realize I’d spoken the thought aloud until her startled expression pierced through me.

“What?” Her fluttery laugh pricked at the edges of my nerves. I scanned her face. Was she frightened or was she turned off?

“Whoa, rewind and delete. I’m on fast forward again.” I kissed her lips softly and followed up with a peck. “Just ignore me, sweetheart. It’s a saying around here, like telling someone to get a room.”

Her lips curled gently upward and fear eased its grip on my heart.

“I have no intention of ignoring you.” She stroked her fingers over the shell of his ear. “We can rewind. But we don’t have to delete, do we? Maybe just… hit pause?”

I hugged her more tightly to me and wound one hand into her hair, tugging gently until the soft waves spilled freely around her shoulders. “So much better.” The scent of strawberries embraced me as I buried my face in the waves of softness and inhaled.

Around us the dinner crowd began to filter in, no more than a handful of people to start. Christine seemed content to let her staff run the place without her. We moved into the next song together, prolonging the connection. When the song was over, I captured her lips in a gentle kiss, spinning us into a prelude to fulfillment. Applause sounded from the dozen or so people seated at the tables on the edge of the dance floor.

“I’m sorry, Bluebell. I’m afraid we just went about as public as we can.”

“And I told you yesterday.” She cupped my cheek in one hand and held my eyes. “I. Don’t. Care. I love being with you.”

* * *

Shadows created by the flickering candle between us played across Christine’s face. She speared a roasted redskin potato chunk on the end of her fork and dragged it through the garlic sauce coating her plate. I followed each motion, mesmerized by the way she grasped the utensil, and the scrutiny she gave the potato just before she popped it into her mouth.

Maybe she’d had something, when she suggested we learn about each other over time, rather than telling their stories.

But some things had to be told, not discovered. We needed to talk, but I couldn’t find the words to start. So I smiled and stuck to light teasing instead. “You never seem to be the same person twice.”

Christine giggled. “So, what, you think I have multiple personalities or something?”

A smile pulled at his lips. “No,” I said softly. “You’ve just got a lot of facets. I’m wondering if I’ve seen the real Christine yet, or if you’ve only managed to show me a string of disguises.”

She swallowed hard and looked away for a moment. Had I lost her? Doubt twined through me. But then she smiled and I became lost in her gaze. “You found me out. When things matter I get nervous.”

“Nervous?” I scratched along one eyebrow, thinking about the easy way she moved through life and living, how she took most things in stride. “You must have an interesting definition of nervous.”

Christine laughed. The sound affected me the way it always did, with a rush of warmth and heightened awareness. “I’m mostly an act, Travis.” She shrugged and picked up her water, watching me over the glass while she sipped. When she set the glass on the table, she ran a finger around the rim. “I did some amateur stage work before I came here. Enough to put on a pretty convincing act of Wild West barmaid. It, um… entertains the regulars.” She shrugged. “And it gives me some clout when I need to discourage troublemakers.”

I couldn’t pull my gaze from that finger, but my thoughts flickered briefly to the way she’d diffused the situation with Bull. If that had been an act… My mood souring fast, I pushed MacKay Junior out of my mind. That ass wasn’t going to ruin my evening. Reaching across the table, I took hold of her hands and rubbed my thumbs over her knuckles.

Her eyes swept up to meet mine, filled with questions and uncertainty. But burning with intensity that sparked an answering heat inside me.

“And how are you feeling right now?” I murmured.

Her smile was slow and sweet and did things to my heartbeat. “Not as nervous as Friday night when you came in here the first time.”

There was something about her voice that nagged at me sometimes, but when I’m with her, all of my attention is on her eyes. “I’ve been trying since we met to figure out your accent.”

She looked at me with a sly smile of her own and shifted in her seat. When her bare foot brushed along my inner thigh, I choked on my next breath. Apparently she didn’t mind taking advantage of the seclusion afforded by our corner table, seating courtesy of Matchmaker Sissy.

Christine giggled. “I’m sorry. I was distracted. What did you say?”

As soon as some blood makes its way back to my brain I might be able to remember. “I… wondered where you came from. Your accent.”

“I don’t have an accent. You do.” She frowned. “Only your Wyoming cowboy is mixed with something else.”

“You almost don’t have one,” Travis corrected. “Just certain words sometimes. The way you say ‘you’ like it starts with an E and ends on a question mark. It’s cute. I’ve heard it someplace before but I can’t place it. So where did you start out?”

Christine smiled. “Southwestern Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountains.” That explained why she was comfortable with the mountains in Wyoming. Newcomers often weren’t. “So how did you end up moving from one mountain range to another?”

“There were a couple of stops in between, but the short story is I made someone a promise.”

Twenty-three hour man —again. Her face had started closing off the minute I’d asked the question.

“You have family back in Virginia?” I asked.

“Only child,” she said easily.

“My parents died in a car accident when I was nineteen.”

Crap. Zero for two. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.”

So, no denying the pain with statements of how long ago it had been, no insanity about how they’d had a good life and at least they went together.

But she wasn’t struggling with their loss the way she was with her twenty-three hour man. The thought was a quick stab to my heart. There were a million ways to screw up and I’d just stumbled onto the top one.