Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Lynx
“What can I get y’all?” Donna asked when she approached the table.
I peered up at the diner’s owner and grinned. Recognition dawned on the older woman’s face and a rare smile tilted her thin lips.
“Well, I’ll be. Just when I thought nothin’ stranger than seein’ your cousin with a guy and a gal could happen.” Donna grinned over at Reagan. “Then the two of you show up together and prove me wrong.”
“We’re not together,” Reagan countered.
I winked at Donna.
“The usual?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I confirmed.
“And you, dear?”
Reagan nodded, clearly not pleased with Donna’s reaction. Or lack thereof.
“Yeah. The usual. Please.”
Donna chuckled and wandered back to the counter.
“You know this is your fault, right?” Reagan hissed softly, her eyes pinned on me.
“What’s my fault?” I watched as she brushed her long, silky hair over her shoulder.
“These people are gonna think we’re together.”
I was banking on that. But I said, “And that’s a bad thing?”
She glared at me. “I’m not gonna be your flavor of the week, Lynx Caine. No matter what you think.”
Her sassy tone made me smile. The woman sounded as though she couldn’t even fathom the two of us together, yet here she was, sitting across from me.
Leaning in, I waited until she met my eyes. “Trust me, darlin’. A week would never be enough for me.”
Some women would’ve swooned if I'd said that to them. Not Reagan. The girl was stubborn as all get out.
“Sweet-talk a nun outta her panties,” she muttered, her gaze focused on the silverware wrapped in a paper napkin.
“What was that?”
Reagan shook her head. “Nothin’.” She lifted her gaze to mine. “So, why’d you wanna meet me for breakfast?”
“’Cause I like your company.”
“Pfft. Now I know you’re fulla shit.”
Although I probably should’ve been offended, I couldn’t keep the grin off my face.
Reagan had always been sassy. For as long as I'd known her. It was one of the reasons I was so into her. She wasn’t the type of woman to let a man sweet-talk her out of her panties, that was for damn sure.
If a man wanted to be with her, he’d have to work for it.
And I knew I'd have to work twice as hard because my reputation when it came to women wasn’t one I was necessarily proud of. However, explaining to Reagan that I'd been trying to fill the void because I wanted her more than I wanted air probably wouldn’t gain me any points.
“Tell me, Lynx. When’s the divorce gonna be final?”
Ah. Fantastic. My least favorite topic.
Leaning back, I toyed with the paper ring that held the silverware inside the napkin. “Monday.”
“Really?” She didn’t sound convinced.
“Yeah.” I held her stare. “It was filed a while back. Just had to wait it out.”
Reagan sat stone-still, her eyes locked with mine. I could tell she was processing that information, probably trying to find a way to verify it. When she finally broke eye contact, shaking her head slightly, I held back a smirk.
She sighed and I waited. I could see her brain working, knew she was coming up with a sassy retort.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she finally said under her breath.
I didn’t say anything. What could I say? It was true. And come Monday, Reagan wouldn’t have a reason to push me away. Sure, she would probably come up with something, but at least she didn’t have her usual excuses working for her anymore.
“What made you marry that woman, anyway?” She relaxed somewhat. “I’ve always wanted to know.”
“What made you stay with a dumbass like Billy Watson?” I countered.
Reagan’s dark eyes narrowed. “That’s none of your business.”
“No?”
Donna returned with a cup of coffee for me and a Dr. Pepper for Reagan, but the older woman didn’t stick around, quickly moving to the next table and refilling coffee mugs.
“No,” Reagan stated firmly. “Plus, I ain’t with him anymore, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Sure it does. Same as it matters to you why I married Tammy.”
If I wasn’t mistaken, there was something territorial about Reagan’s heated stare. She certainly didn’t like the idea of me being married. Whether it was to Tammy or anyone, I couldn’t tell.
Leaning forward, I decided to clear the air between us. “I’m gonna say this one time and one time only. You do with the information what you want.”
“I’m all ears,” she responded in that snarky tone that made my dick hard.
Keeping my voice low enough that it didn’t carry past our table, I said, “I married Tammy because she said she was pregnant. And yes, before you ask, I did glove up. I’ve never had sex without a condom.”
I noticed a blush creep into Reagan’s cheeks. The talk of sex and condoms was clearly not something she was used to.
“But I took her at her word, and yes, I fucked up. I married her.”
“Did you love her?”
I didn’t even hesitate when I said, “No. Did I think I would eventually? No, but I had an obligation. I thought maybe we could make it work for the baby. But it didn’t. She lied about bein’ pregnant, and she was screwin’ around behind my back. I learned my lesson.”
What I didn’t say was that I knew I could never love Tammy because there was only one woman I could and would ever love. And she just so happened to be sitting across from me right at that moment.
“I’m sorry about that,” Reagan stated, her tone softer this time.
I sat up, surprised by her reaction.
“Regardless of whether you loved her or not, it’s not easy when they cheat.”
I knew that Reagan had experience in that area. Billy had shit for brains, and the dumbass hadn’t even attempted to hide his infidelity. That still didn’t explain why Reagan had stuck with him for so damn long.
“Did you love Billy?” I asked, figuring it was only fair. Tit for tat.
“I thought I did. At one point. But no, I don’t think so. I cared about him, sure. But even that died a long time ago.”
I believed her. Hell, if she’d said she had loved Billy, I would’ve believed her. I wouldn’t have liked it, but I would’ve believed it.
“What d’ya say we start over?” I suggested after several seconds of painful silence. “How ’bout we forget about Tammy and Billy and just try to leave them in the past, where they belong?”
Reagan’s gaze lifted to my face, studying me. It was as though she suspected I had a double meaning for everything I said. Finally, she nodded. “Okay. I’d like that.”
Good. Because I wasn’t sure I could tolerate thinking about Reagan and Billy together. Every time I did, I wanted to put my fist through the fucking wall.
“Here you go, kids,” Donna announced as she plopped our plates on the table.
“Thanks.”
“Yep.” And she was off.
“If we’re not talkin’ about … you know … then what exactly are we gonna talk about?” Reagan asked, forking her pancakes into small bites.
I honestly didn’t have the first clue, but hell. We could talk about the damn weather just as long as I got to sit here with her.
For me, that was all that fucking mattered.
Reagan
Sharing a meal with Lynx was the most awkward thing I had done in … forever. Maybe ever.
Sure, I'd fantasized about what it would be like to spend time with him like this. Although this certainly wasn’t a date, I'd even thought about that, too. Those damn fantasies had been around since I was sixteen years old. However, I had never thought they’d come to fruition. And certainly not like this.
The tension between us was thick enough to cut with a knife, and I knew that was partially my fault. Even though he’d suggested we leave the past in the past, it wasn’t that easy for me.
For one, I'd spent so long watching Lynx parade around town with one woman after another.
Well, okay, so maybe he hadn’t paraded, but he’d been seen, and I'd heard about it, and my heart didn’t seem to know the difference. Every time I thought about Lynx with another woman, it was like I'd ingested acid and it was eating away at the lining of my stomach.
“Where’d you meet Tammy?” I found myself asking before I could think better of it.
Lynx’s hard gaze lifted to meet mine. I could see the frustration there.
“It’s just conversation,” I told him.
“Here,” he told me. “In Embers Ridge.”
“Really?” How had I not known that?
He nodded, putting his fork down and picking up his coffee mug. “She had a girls’ retreat out at DHR. She was at Marla’s one night.”
DHR was the locals’ reference to Dead Heat Ranch, likely the most popular dude ranch in central Texas.
People came from far and wide to visit for family reunions, birthday parties, summer vacations, and apparently, girls’ retreats.
And Marla’s was a reference to Marla’s Bar, the place most Embers Ridge residents went to when they wanted something more potent than beer.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” His tone was a little harder than before. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk about somethin’ else.”
“Like?”
“Like you finishin’ those pancakes so we can get outta here.”
I glanced down at Lynx’s plate, realizing he’d already finished his food and I'd hardly even started.
With a shy smile, I picked up my fork.
“What do you wanna do after this?” he asked, watching me as I chewed.
Frowning, I tried to come up with something to say. Something that sounded a lot like, “I don’t think we should do anything after this.” Unfortunately, that’s not what came out of my mouth. In fact, nothing came out of my mouth, but I did manage an indecisive shrug.
“The lake it is,” he said quickly.
I instantly shook my head. “No. I can’t.”
Holy crap. That was the absolute last place I wanted to go with Lynx. Extended lengths of time with him would be hard enough. Somewhere secluded like that… No way could I trust myself then.
As though he had expected my rebuttal, Lynx smiled. “Fine. But I wanna take you over to the shop. Show you somethin’.”
My sex-starved brain instantly thought about him showing me his sexy, naked body, but I shook off the thought.
No way was I going that route. Not with Lynx.
Certainly not until he held up his end of the bargain.
Although two days wasn’t a long time, it was still necessary.
Once his divorce was final, I would consider an alternate ending, but until then, I had absolutely no desire to get mixed up with the notable bad boy of Embers Ridge.
No matter how much I found myself wanting to.
Half an hour later, after I finished eating and Lynx paid the bill—despite my loud refusal—I was pulling into the parking lot of the warehouse where Lynx and his cousin spent their days building furniture.
I had adamantly refused to go, but Lynx had turned on that damn charm and I found myself following him.
It still pissed me off that my heart wasn’t doing what my brain wanted it to. I should’ve been heading home, not willingly spending more time with Lynx, yet here I was.
“Come on, girl,” he said, opening my truck door.
With a sigh, I hopped out and did my best not to look Lynx in the eye.
It took a minute or two to get inside because he had to unlock the door and disengage the alarm, then turn on the lights.
Once that was done, that damn tension had returned to my shoulders, only this time, it was threatening to steal my breath from my lungs.
It was one thing to go out in public with this man, something else entirely to follow him into an otherwise empty warehouse.
“I wanna show you somethin’,” he said, nodding toward the far end of the building.
Reluctantly, I followed, doing my damnedest not to pay attention to the play of his muscles across his back as he walked. I battled the urge to glance down at his ass or his long legs. I was sure the way the man filled out a pair of jeans was a crime in some countries.
When he stopped suddenly, I plowed right into his back.
“Shit. Sorry.”
He turned around, and I had just enough time to jump back. Of course, I couldn’t do it gracefully. No, I had to stumble, which then had Lynx reaching out, steadying me with a hand on my arm. My skin heated where he touched me, and my breath locked in my chest.
Why was this a good idea again?
“Do I make you nervous?” he asked in that raspy tone of his that made goose bumps form on my arms.
“What?” I rolled my eyes. “No.”
Not that he would believe me since I was suddenly imitating his same raspy tone. Damn it.
When I thought he would pull away, Lynx took a step closer, forcing me to crane my neck to look up at him. My heart thumped painfully hard against my ribs.
When his hand cupped my face, I had to fight the desire to press against it, to press against him.
He was so warm, and he smelled so good. I just wanted to lean into him, to press my lips to his, see if they were as soft as I remembered from all those years ago.
The memory of the other night assaulted me, the way his mouth had brushed against mine…
“Do you know how fuckin’ long I’ve waited to get my hands on you again?”
His words were a dark, guttural rasp that had me clenching my thighs together.
“Ever since that night,” he continued, “out by the lake. Damn, girl.” His eyes dropped to my mouth, then lifted to my eyes. “I’ve dreamed about you, Reagan.”
I knew I was supposed to pull back, to break the spell he seemed to have on me, but my feet wouldn’t listen. Instead, I continued to stare up into his eyes, and I knew for a fact he could see how much I wanted him. It was hard to deny, especially when we were that close.
I was a fraction of a second from throwing caution to the wind, to taking what I'd wanted for so long. When I leaned in, it seemed as though Lynx did, too. My heart skipped a beat. Hell, it skipped a whole series of beats.
“God, Reagan…”
I was breathing roughly, my hands trembling. I wanted this man to kiss me, to touch me, to erase the last ten years of my life and put me back on even footing. I'd wanted him for so damn long and now he was here, so close—
“But I made a promise,” he said, pulling away quickly.
It took a second to see he was smiling.
No, wait.
He was laughing.
At me.
“And I fully intend to keep my promise, girl. No matter how much you want me.”
Asshole.