Chapter 21 #2
He spun her until she was cursing at him and laughing. “That’s better,” he said. “That’s way better. I know there haven’t been many reasons to smile down here for the past few weekends—”
“We’ve almost got it all behind us now.”
“Yes,” he agreed with a relieved smile. “But in any case, I believe things happen for a reason.”
“The fire? You think something good can come out of all that damage and destruction?”
For a moment he didn’t say anything, just continued to spin her around the room to the wild, loud music.
“Yes,” he finally said. “I do. I think the ranchers learned a valuable lesson, one that their government has been trying to teach them for a long time. Their slash-and-burn methods have to change. I think the town realized how much of a team they are, and how important every single person is. I think Nina learned the world doesn’t always revolve around her. ”
“Did you learn something too?”
“Nothing I didn’t already know. Life is short, Lyndie. Too damn short. Things happen. Bad things.” He clipped her lightly on the chin. “So make the most of it. Make the most of every single second.” He smiled. “Though given what you learned, I probably don’t even have to say it.”
“Oh, really? And just what is it you think I learned?” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Griffin enter the courtyard. Immediately he sought her out, and when he found her, she felt her heart stutter just a bit.
Tom touched her nose, his smile widening. “You just smiled genuinely for the first time all evening, did you know that?”
Startled, she looked back at Tom. “I did not.”
“You did. And you know what else? It suits you. Do you know yet what you learned down here, Lyndie?”
“What is it about tonight that makes you all think I want or need to hear about my life? I don’t need advice, I don’t need any lessons attached to what’s happened down here.
Bottom line, you needed help, and getting you that help is my job.
End of story.” And if she’d gotten a little action on the side, well then, that was no one’s business but her own.
“But if you need it spelled out…I learned what a nosy bunch you all are. Now get out of my way, big guy, I need out of here. Badly.”
Tom laughed. “You can run, but you can’t hide.”
“Cut him off,” she said to Rosa, who was coming by with a tray of beers.
If Rosa did, Lyndie couldn’t have said, because she went out of the inn and into the night, drawing a deep breath of it into her lungs, holding it for a long moment before letting it go slowly.
She should be up in that air right now, flying her ass off, without an important thought in her head.
She shouldn’t be standing here by the creek, wondering if Griffin was going to give her another mind-blowing orgasm tonight. She shouldn’t be wondering if he was wondering about her.
And she sure as hell shouldn’t be wondering if he was going to miss her, even a little. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that here was her peace and calm whenever she needed it, a place that had stolen a chunk of her heart.
It would be enough.
“You needed out too.”
She took her gaze off the sky and eyed the man most on her mind, who stood there, hands in his pockets, his shoulders slightly hunched as he stared off into the night.
“Yeah.” She pushed away from the wall, came toward him. “Everyone in there seems to feel so comfortable telling me how to run my life, so I felt comfortable getting the hell out.”
“It’s funny what people do in the name of love.
” Griffin lifted a brow when she stopped midstride.
“Oh, that’s right. You don’t like that L-word.
It must really overwhelm you to come down here then, with Tom and Nina and Rosa all willing to do anything for you.
Including each of them threatening me with bodily harm if I hurt you. ”
“What?” She sputtered over that for a moment, then growled, but Griffin cocked his head, studying her with an interest she wasn’t sure was a good thing. “Look,” she said. “No one hurts me. I make sure of that.”
“Right.” He nodded agreeably and walked around her.
She turned in a circle, keeping her face to his. “What does that mean?”
“I know exactly how tough you are. I know you don’t let people close enough to even think about hurting you.
” Reaching out, he stroked a cheek. “And when I first met you, when I first felt that zing of heat between us, I worried about that—I worried about leading you on, hurting you somehow in spite of it.”
“Because of what happened in that Idaho fire.”
“Because I knew I was no good to a woman, not in the state I was in. In any case, you were so impenetrable, I decided it didn’t matter.”
Direct hit.
“But then I got to know you.”
“You did not,” she said. “It’s only been a week.”
“I got to know you,” he repeated gently. “And you know what?”
Seeing that heated, affectionate look in his eyes as he stepped close and put his hands on her hips, she started to shake her head. She didn’t want to know, she—
He kissed her, just once, soft and undemanding, but her body flared to life. “You might be fearless,” he whispered. “You might be independent, but on the inside you’re just as in need of love as the rest of us.”
“No—”
He put his finger on her lips, came in even closer. “I know you think you don’t need it. I know love’s hurt you in the past, that you’ve suffered losses too—” When she started to shake her head at that, he cupped her jaw with his other hand to hold her still. “Your parents, your grandfather…”
“Not like you,” she whispered past the sudden lump in her throat.
“We’ve already been there. Loss is loss, remember?
But before that Idaho fire, I’d never experienced such tragedy.
My life had been easy and good and filled with warmth and love from every corner.
” He stroked an uneven strand of hair from her eyes.
“I had that solid foundation beneath me. I don’t think you did. ”
“I was fine.”
“Sure. Fine. All on your own, right?”
“Right.”
“Because you don’t like to let people in. That way you don’t have to lose anyone else.”
She went very, very still.
“Anyone would feel that way if they’d had your life,” he assured her very quietly. “They would, but Lyndie, you don’t have to live like that.”
She pulled free. “Says the man who was running out of the party as fast as I was.”
He let out a gust of air. “Yeah. My brother—”
“He’s trying to rush you along in the life department?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, welcome to my world.”
“Tom and Nina and Rosa all have your best interests at heart—” He broke off and let out a low laugh when she gave him a long, knowing look. “Okay, fine. I get the message.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah. They have your best interests at heart. I suppose in the same damn way Brody does mine.”
She smirked. “Doesn’t make it any easier to take, though, does it?”
“No.”
They fell silent, just looking at each other for a long moment. There was something different in his gaze tonight. Something that snagged her breath. “This is our last night,” she whispered.
His eyes heated. “Yeah.”
Her nipples hardened. Her skin tingled in anticipation. “So what do you say we blow this Popsicle stand, Ace?”
His eyes heated again, his hands tightened on her, pulling her flush to his body—a body that already knew hers. “What did you have in mind?”
She arched against the interesting bulge behind the buttons on his Levi’s. “I’m thinking the same as you.”