Chapter Three
Another swell of river water raised her up.
“DREW!”
Kicking furiously, she tried to turn toward the overturned canoe, but the river current pulled her away. Another swell, another huge breath.
“Drew!”
“I love you, Emily,” floated along the water.
Emily started and shoved the memory back deep inside.
The whiskey came back into focus. The sounds of the Wooden Nickel bar rushed by her ears like a lap at Talladega. Before she slid off the stool and walked right out the door, Emily tightened her hold around the tumbler and lifted it to her mouth. One large swig later, and the amber liquid lit a fire down her throat and around her belly, relaxing the instinct to bolt and allowing her another moment to reinforce all the reasons she was here in the first place. Or rather the one reason she’d come. Scratch. That. Itch. She forced her eyes not to find her target who was hanging out somewhere behind her.
“Do you want another?”
She lifted her gaze and nodded, never really focusing on the woman whose name she was pretty sure was Candy.
The door opened, and three people spilled across the threshold. Faces familiar yet not friends or even acquaintances. One met her gaze, and the widened eyes weren’t unexpected. Emily didn’t come here. Or, well, she hadn’t come here in the three years since she’d moved to Fly Creek. But the rules she’d lived by to manage her grief had changed. Or maybe she had changed. Two brief interactions with a cowboy opened the slightest glimmer of a chance. A chance to reacquaint herself to physical need.
Emotionally, she would never be whole again, something she’d made peace with several years ago. But her twenty-seven-year-old body had reawakened physically, and it had focused on a pair of hands and a set of knowing baby blues. And no matter how hard she tried over the past three days to repress the need and slip back into her grief, she was thwarted. Adam Conley had fractured her shell just enough to let sensations, or more specifically the desire for them, to slither right in.
She wanted those hands—wrapped around her in a dance, cradling her face in a sweet kiss. She wanted his eyes to really look at her. See Emily White for the messed up, grief-fueled wreck she was. She wanted…well, it would be a moment-by-moment thing.
Three years ago, the thought of another man would have buckled her knees in guilt. Hell, even three days ago she would have predicted the same reaction. But now? Now, it seemed time to feed the side of her she’d neglected since that day. Her hand tightened on the tumbler. It would always be known as “That Day.”
The band started tuning, and a wave of movement filtered across the wooden floor as everyone partnered up. Someone tapped her on the shoulder. “You wanna dance?”
Emily slid around on the stool and faced her offer, scrambling for the man’s name. He had visited the shop with his sister a couple of times. “Thanks for asking, Chuck, but I think I’m going to warm this stool a little while longer. Maybe later?”
Tipping his hat, Chuck smiled and approached Becky Jane, the local veterinarian. The band finished warming up, and the first chords danced across the room as Chuck twirled Becky into a two-step, falling behind the other couples moving about the floor.
Emily followed the dips and sways, a small smile forming, but a dark-haired guy in plaid had that smile dissolving on a burst of pain. Emily sucked in a breath and squeezed her eyes shut against the sting of tears. He looked like Drew. It put her right back in the water, fighting to find him. She’d gotten better over the years. She knew her trigger points, but she’d also been hiding, so it was easier to avoid them. Tonight she was out, and triggers could be anywhere.
She should go. She should forget this night and Adam Conley and his damn hands. It would be easy to let herself continue the way she had.
Rubbing her palms down her jeans, Emily nodded firmly to herself. She could do this. She wanted to do this. And she would continue down the path she’d been on. This was just a momentary, lust-directed detour around a stump.
She let her gaze sweep across the couples and on to the upper area of tables. Adam was there, leaning against the split rail, one hand cradling a Corona, the other tucked in his back pocket. Heat flushed her body, and she wriggled her shoulders in anticipation.
Why him and why now she’d asked herself over and over the past three days. It seemed ironic that the moment of change in her life happened while she tried desperately to hold on to the memories of the worst day of her life.
Adam laughed, and Emily admired the carefree attitude. It seemed so easy. Had she laughed recently? No, but she’d wanted to that first day in the store with him.
Yep, things had changed. But that didn’t mean a permanent change. Just a one-night throw-off. Then right back into the shell.
She glanced around and noted some of the looks directed at her. She was used to it, although not in such a public setting. After all, she was the eccentric owner of the Painted Glass, an art gallery and supply store. She ran a business and not much else. She kept to herself, helped out when she could, but socially was as invisible as the black ice that coated the roadways during winter. And probably as welcome.
She shrugged and looked down at the tumbler. Gossip didn’t bother her. Gossip wasn’t why she ran away three years ago. She could handle gossip as well as she used to handle five-year-olds with paintbrushes. No, it was pity that broke through her hardened shell and spilled every ounce of hurt out on the sidewalk like shards of bloodied glass.
But there would be no pity tonight.
Adam’s two visits to the store opened up a small thread of curiosity. Of exploring one night with a man who made her want to throw off her shell and poke her head into the world of the living. A man who had made her want to laugh. A man whose dimpled smile instantly appeared when she thought of it.
So tonight there would be dancing and kissing with a cowboy. An unmarried and, as far as she knew, unattached cowboy. Of course, he’d only been in the town just shy of six weeks, but the way Fly Creek worked, if you went out with someone on a Friday, word had spread by the time you were trying for that good-night kiss. And no word had reached her ears.
Emily glanced his way again. Adam finished his beer and set it down on the tray of a passing waitress. Tonight, he wore a simple gray shirt molded to his body. It tapered into the waistband of jeans wrapped around an ass so perfect it was no wonder every female eye in the bar seemed drawn to it. Perched atop his mess of curls was the requisite Stetson everyone inside the Wooden Nickel wore. Her body reacted to the visual appraisal, the pull beginning low in her belly and fanning its way through her limbs until her fingers itched to touch him.
She caught Candy’s eye, ordered a Corona, and slid off the stool on to two steady, if not nervous, feet. She knew she was being dramatic, but it was as if her exposed back drew every pair of eyes. Lord, was she providing the Wagon Train fodder for tomorrow morning. Hell, probably for tonight as well, but it didn’t matter.
Coming up behind him, she said, “Hey, Cowboy.”
Emily extended the bottle in Adam’s direction, waiting for his gaze to meet hers. When it did, she released some of the tension she held. The brightened blue eyes and faint lift to his lips told her he at least wasn’t unhappy to see her.
Adam took the beer from her hands, careful to avoid touching her. The move gave her pause, but a quick glance at his long fingers loosely cradling the bottle had her tucking the small doubt away and reinforcing her goal. If her timing was right, she had about a minute of small talk to get through and then came her next move. Bold thy name was Emily White.
“Thanks.” He tipped the beer in her direction.
“You’re welcome.”
His gaze dropped and scanned the dance floor. “You here with friends?”
“No.”
He nodded and waved to a group of guys in the far corner.
Lord, had she read this whole thing wrong? Sure, she was rusty and her heart wasn’t even in the same solar system as the rest of her, but her heart had nothing to do with tonight. She swore she’d noticed the interest the other day. Adam checking her out when he thought she wasn’t looking. Damn, now he seemed to be…
“Are you looking for someone? Hot date tonight?”
His blue eyes met hers and one brow lifted. On cue, the song ended, and the beginning strains of a slow dance strummed out on the guitar.
“No date.”
She plucked his beer out of his hands and placed it on the table. “Good to hear. Let’s dance.”
…
Adam let Emily lead him to the dance floor while his brain played catch up and guess the picture at the same time. Emily White was here, in public, being social. He didn’t know what to do with the abrupt change of focus. Or the fact that the attraction between them, the one he’d convinced his body to forget, was suddenly flaring bright. That way was madness with a whole lot of crazy and guilt mixed in.
They reached the corner of the floor, and she turned readily into his body, leaving them a breath away from each other. Sliding an arm around her, his fingers brushed the smooth skin of her exposed back, and nerves he hadn’t known he possessed shouted, “woo-hoo.” She tensed and then moved closer, relaxing in his hold as she laid her head on his shoulder. Their height was almost identical, and Adam focused on the wood-paneled wall while his mind whirled, trying to make sense of the moment.
Six weeks he’d been in Fly Creek. Interacted with her on two occasions. Sure, he’d kept tabs on her before that. After all, how could he keep his promise if he didn’t know anything about her? How could he plan if he didn’t evaluate the situation? But never in his six weeks had he noticed her desire to interact socially with anyone, including him.
She appeared to be the resident loner. Solitary even in a crowd. He learned that she worked long hours, contributed to the town financially as she could, but wasn’t social beyond being nice. But tonight she was here, in his arms, dressed to kill, and sending his body into a dilemma of ethical proportions.
Emily shifted, her chest rubbing against him, and his fingers pressed tighter on her spine. He needed a plan. A way out of any offer she might make that would still leave the door open for him to spend more time with her. He needed to spend more time with her if he was to keep his promise.
That promise was the only thing standing between him and his leaving. Because the one thing he knew for sure was that the home he so desperately sought couldn’t be found in a town like Fly Creek.
He rested his cheek on Emily’s hair. The scent reminded him of the beach back east. She was warm in his arms, light and supple just like her long, lean body. No doubt a product of the yoga he’d learned she preferred.
None of the sensations pulsing through his veins helped his brain come up with a way forward. What Adam needed was for Emily and him to be friends. The kind that involved no benefits, no matter what his body begged for.
Even as they danced across the planked floor his mind scrambled to answer why now? Why tonight? Their first encounter at the shop hadn’t seemed like anything more than a business transaction. An awkward, fumbling one, but still nothing earth shattering. The next day they’d shared that moment. The slight change in awareness, but she’d retreated almost immediately. Neither instance could have predicted her showing up to the local bar on a Friday night dressed to kill and apparently targeting him.
He’d noticed her as a man notices a woman, but the guilt embedded in that ensured it wouldn’t have gone beyond mere notice. Drew certainly hadn’t meant for Adam and Emily to become attached when he asked Adam for his word. His word to see Emily move past her grief and happy again. But his cousin wouldn’t have expected him not to notice beauty.
And Emily White was beautiful. Tonight, her long brown hair was piled on top of her head, exposing the long column of her throat. He could spend hours exploring that throat, with tongue and teeth and—
“Is it always this busy?”
Emily’s words brushed against his ear as goose bumps marched in a line all headed straight south. Her smile tickled his cheek, and he had to wet his lips before he could speak.
“Pretty regular crowd here. Not that I’m here every night.” He wasn’t about to tell her he’d been using the Wooden Nickel as a way to gather information on Fly Creek’s mysterious resident. Every single person in town knew Emily White, but not one of them in three years had managed to learn anything about her. Adam knew something about her and her history.
But knowing what she’d gone through didn’t equate to knowledge on how to get her to move forward.
“Hmmm…” Emily moved closer. “I’m glad you made it tonight.”
If he had any doubts something had shifted in her dealings with the world, and more specifically him, her words confirmed every damn concern.
And then his time ran out.
The song came to an end. He would have to let her go. Find a way to let her down without hurting her. Because lord knew she’d been hurt enough. No one else in Fly Creek might know the reason for the sorrow that still lingered in her eyes. But Adam? He knew it all. Even things she didn’t.
“Do you want to get out of here?” Emily leaned back enough to look him in the face as she waited for his answer. Her eyes open, trusting, everything about her screaming I’m available. Just say yes. The wanting he’d seen before mixed with curiosity.
But he couldn’t say yes. Could he? She wasn’t his. And he didn’t want her to be. She’d been Drew’s, and while Adam and his cousin had shared many things over the years growing up, women weren’t among them. Drew was his reason for being here.
Adam let his thumb slide up and down her back.
She arched slightly. “Is that a yes?”
He sighed. “What did you have in mind? Pie at the Wagon Train and my scintillating conversation?”
She laughed, and he enjoyed the sound more than he should have.
“I was thinking something a little more private.”
Adam’s mind scrambled. He wanted to see more of her, or rather needed to see more of her. He couldn’t help her if he didn’t get closer, and in six weeks he hadn’t managed to do that. September was closer than he’d liked and further, quite frankly, then he wanted. Yet, here she was, willing to be beside him. To trust him, even if for a brief time. Could he work with that? Find a way through the rest of the evening and not come out on the other end looking like a jerk who’d taken advantage of a woman still reeling from hurt. And the lingering question of why now needed to be answered. Why now, after three years of nothing in this town? Nothing in her life? What had been the catalyst?
Maybe away from the bar where they could talk, he might get insight.
“Private could be fun.”
Emily swayed toward him and moved back, her indecision allowing his lips to cruise her jaw. He hated that he was leading her on, but he told himself this was for both of them. He could keep his promise, and she could move on with her life.
And the other side of the coin, the one he didn’t want to examine too closely, was what if he said no? Would she try for one of the other guys in town? Maybe even one of the ranch hands he’d been hanging with and pumping for information. Any one of them wouldn’t hesitate. The thought stabbed him in the gut and meant he would tread this fine line of seduction. At least, for the moment.
Adam let his arms drop and grabbed one hand. “So?”
Emily looked down at their hands. With her free one, she traced his fingers and looked up through lowered lashes. “Let’s get out of here.”