Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Dylan was awake for at least an hour before Willow stirred.
He pulled on his shorts and T-shirt and took Elvis for a quick walk, then crept back into bed and lay trying to sleep, but watching her profile as she slept instead, her hair in loose curls over the pillow.
He laughed when she snored a couple of times.
He lay still when she rolled over and draped her arm over his chest. And with his hand hovering millimeters above her skin, he traced the line of each of her long manicured fingers in turn.
He looked down at the van floor, at her clothes strewn there from the day before.
He found it hard to align the fact that Willow Carter was there in his van.
Couldn’t get his brain to fathom what had happened the night before.
He lay looking out the window at the mountain, same mountain that he saw from the back porch in his hammock, and yet he was so far removed from that right then, Willow tucked tight against his side.
He could smell her skin, watch her lips part as she breathed, see each thick brown lash, the freckles on her cheeks, the silver studs in her ears.
He closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the headboard. What the heck had he done.
Why had he invited her here, why had introduced her to his friends, why had he felt a burning stab of jealously when Alejandro had mentioned meeting her at the bar after she’d brushed her relationship with Dylan off as merely high-school friends?
And then why, when she asked about his past, had he told her about the coach, about his mom, his sister?
About his first job? Pouring his darn heart out.
What was wrong with him? These were not things he told people.
Dylan lived alone. His own world, his own self-reliance.
He blamed the result at the track. The relief, the pride in Thunder doing so well at a bigger race.
But he couldn’t help picturing what it was like to find Willow in the grandstand after Thunder crossed the line, to have someone there to share the success with.
Or to hear from Mrs. Rosely that Willow Carter had recommended him, the burst of pride he had felt inside.
Or last night, when the gentle press of her legs against his, the scent of her shampoo, the laughter that made her smile stretch wide and the big eyes that watched with sympathy, all took some of the pressure away from the memories as he talked.
He screwed his face up tight. Imagined his brother Tyler looking at him with one brow raised incredulously at the mess he’d got himself into, like, you’re playing with fire, Dylan, and those Carters sure as heck aren’t the ones that are gonna get burned.
Willow breathed in deep, then her eyes fluttered open and she looked around, saw her arm over his chest, tipped her chin to see him propped up and awake, and immediately pushed herself up next to him, drawing the sheet with her. “How long have you been awake?”
“Not long,” he lied.
She tried to do something with her hair, raked her fingers through it to smooth it down, then searched around for her vest and pulled it on. She sat with the sheet over her legs, a little bit awkward, angled slightly away from him. “Did I snore?”
“Couple of times.”
She cringed.
Dylan laughed. “It was cute.”
She pulled her hair back and tied it with the band on her wrist. He missed it loose. “You should have woken me up.”
He didn’t reply.
The van suddenly felt suffocatingly small.
He wanted to reach out and touch her, but at the same time, jump out of bed, maybe go for a run, get as far away from the current situation as he could.
If they’d been in a motel, he couldn’t say for certain whether he’d have still been there when she woke up.
The whole thing was a perpetually bad idea, a fact he kept forgetting and then remembering again.
She was not for him. She never would be. He kept his women at arm’s length, a rule that had never failed him.
Willow looked down at the sheet, maybe trying to work out what was going to happen next. A loose curl fell forward over her face, and he itched to run it through his fingers. She glanced up under those thick lashes that he’d been studying as she slept and said, “What now?”
He shrugged. “We go get some breakfast.”
He saw her do a wry smile to herself, as if that was exactly the kind of answer she’d expected him to say.
He was about to get up but he paused, and looking back, said, “Whatever happens, Willow, I don’t want you to go running home and telling those brothers of yours my sob story, okay?”
Her brows drew quizzically together. “It’s not a sob story, Dylan.”
He shook his head, felt the stab of concern in his chest at the idea of her talking about him and his past to all her family.
All his vulnerabilities handed like ammunition to the Carter boys.
“I mean it, Willow. I’m fine as I am. I don’t need the pity of Autumn Falls.
As far as I’m concerned, people can judge me as they find me. ”
“But if I told them, then?—”
He could see her frustration, maybe even disappointment, and felt the panic inside him grow.
He shook his head. “Everyone looks at someone and sees who they want to see, Willow. It wouldn’t make any difference, even if you did tell them, they’d just have to hide what they really think.
Brodie isn’t going to suddenly change because he’s found out what my father was like.
Neither is your dad.” He cringed at the idea of Emmett being forced to reluctantly rehash his view of the past.
Willow went to speak again but he cut her off.
He said, “I don’t plan on being around long enough, Willow, to want everything that I told you to be public history in Autumn Falls.
I don’t want it for my mom or my sister.
Ruby has a life untainted by that past, she was too young to know anything really.
” The idea of what he’d told Willow spreading its tentacles into the lives of his family made him feel almost nauseous.
Made him kick himself for saying anything.
“They’ve got a new life and they’re content.
I have no right to encroach on that happiness. ”
At the mention of his family’s happiness, he thankfully saw her acquiesce even if reluctantly. She nodded. “I get it, Dylan.”
He tried not to show his relief.
Willow moved away to look out the window, it felt like maybe she was buying herself a little time, allowing the mood to resettle.
She retied her hair as she studied the weather, the wisps of white cloud and the morning sunlight on the bare earth beneath the trees.
Then she turned around, smile back in place and said, “Let’s go and get some breakfast, I’m starving. ”
Dylan nodded, trying to ignore the sting of regret that the smile looked like one she’d perfected for the stage.