Almost A Bride (Montana Born Brides) (10 page)

“
Funny, I thought you’d enjoyed helping your dad out this past year. At least, that was the sense I got.” He’d never complained about having to spend his downtime in the orchard. Not once.

“
I don’t mind the work. Not anymore. In a lot of ways, it’s really rewarding.”

“
But you don’t want to be tied down?”

He finished his bottle of cider before responding, setting the bottle carefully back in the basket. His father recycled them, she knew.

“I guess I just never imagined my whole life being played out in Marietta.”

“
Then I guess that’s your answer, then.”

She felt sad as she said it. She liked having Reid around. Working with him and getting to know him had been a privilege.

Looking at him wasn’t too bad, either.

She distracted herself from her inappropriate and dangerous thoughts by helping herself to a piece of lemon cake. Once she
’d demolished that, she brushed the crumbs off her T-shirt and lay back with her ankles crossed, arms behind her head, and closed her eyes.

If her eyes were closed, she wouldn
’t be tempted to keep staring at him. That was the theory, anyway.

In practice, she was almost preternaturally aware of him moving around, putting food back in the cooler, rearranging things.

“Here,” he said, and she opened her eyes to find him leaning over her.

He was so close she could see the individual hairs of his eyelashes and she drew in a nervous breath. Then she reali
zed he’d folded her towel into a pillow for her and was waiting for her to lift her head so he could position it for her.

“
Thanks.”

She engaged her belly muscles and lifted her head and shoulders, and he slid the folded towel into place. She was powerless to stop herself from breathing in the smell of him as he did so
—deodorant and sun-warmed skin and man.

He was back on his side of the blanket in no seconds flat, arranging his own towel in a similar fashion. Her gaze got caught on the dark silk of the hair beneath his arms before darting to the sexy little trail that
led beneath the waistband of his shorts. Parts of him she didn’t normally see. Parts of him she’d always wondered about.

Traitorous heat unfolded in the pit of her stomach. When she and Scarlett were teenagers, her sister
’s bedroom walls had been covered with posters of hot guys in various states of undress, but Tara’s bedroom walls had been all about the athletes she admired and the movies she loved. She’d never considered herself the type of woman who ogled men or got all squirmy when a well-built guy happened into her orbit.

What a fool
.

She concentrated on her breathing, aware that her heart was beating too fast. She needed to calm the hell down and stop thinking like this. If Reid knew what was going on in her head
... she didn’t even want to contemplate how embarrassing that would be.

Instead, she thought about work, and her
mom, and how happy she was that Scarlett had found Mitch—although, strictly speaking, it had been the other way around, since Mitch had come looking for Scarlett, tracking her all the way from the Australian outback to Marietta.

Gradually her hyper-awareness faded and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“So, you ever going to get around to telling me about this motorbike?”

Reid
’s voice was lazy and relaxed, but it didn’t stop her eyes from popping open.

“
I thought we covered that last night.”

“
I can think of a million better ways to live a little than buying a motorbike,” he said.

She turned her head to find him watching her.
If it was anyone else, she’d tell them where to stuff it, but she could see the concern in his espresso-dark eyes.

“
Maybe you can. But this is about what I want, and I want that bike.”

“
You said something last night. About being sick of waiting for people to leave you.”

Three cheers for her beer-lubricated mouth.

“Did I?”

“
Tell me you don’t think you had anything to do with Simon cheating on you? Because that is straight-up bullshit, Tara. It’s all on him, all of it.”

He sat up, no longer lazy and relaxed. Not wanting to be at a disadvantage, she sat up, too.

“I don’t think it’s my fault he cheated. But it’s my fault for being with him. That’s all on me.”

He frowned and she could see he didn
’t understand.

“
It’s hard to explain,” she said, thinking about all the elements that had fed into the unconscious decision she’d made to play it safe with Simon. Her father, her mother, the way things had been after he left...

And then suddenly she was talking, the words pouring out of her, almost as though she
’d been waiting for an opportunity to share this part of herself with him.

“
When my dad left, my mom fell apart. She loved him so much, and she just... couldn’t cope without him, I guess. She was so wounded and hurt and broken, and for a long time all she did was cry and spend days in bed and talk on the phone with Aunt Margot.” Tara swallowed past the tightness in her throat. She couldn’t think about those hard times without getting emotional. Life had been so precarious, every day had felt as though it balanced on the edge of disaster. “I felt so guilty. So responsible. I did everything I could to help out, but I couldn’t bring Dad back and that was what she wanted, more than anything.”

“
Your dad didn’t leave because of you and Scarlett, Tara,” Reid said.

“
I know. But something happened before he left... “ She drew her knees to her chest and looped her arms around them, needing the comfort as she gathered her courage. Then, her gaze fixed on the red and black plaid of the picnic blanket, she told him what she’d never told anyone else. “I came home from school early one day. I had a dentist appointment, and I was supposed to meet Mom at home and she was going to drive me to Dr. Cassidy’s. She wasn’t home when I got there, though. Dad was. And he was with someone. I could hear them when I let myself in, and I found them in the kitchen, kissing, half-undressed.”

She had to stop then, the old memory so powerful she felt physically ill. Reid shifted, turning to face her, reaching out to wrap his hand around her ankle. His touch was so reassuring, so grounding and safe, and she lifted her gaze from the blanket briefly to look at him.

His expression was patiently solemn as he waited for more.

“
He told me it was a mistake,” she said. “Told me it would never happen again. He cried... I’d never seen him like that. He made me promise that I would never tell anyone. He said he’d make it up to Mom, to me, to all of us. And I believed him.”

She saw comprehension dawn in Reid
’s eyes.

“
How long was it until he left?” he asked, his voice gravelly with what she suspected was anger.

And why not? It was an angry-making story. Her father had behaved appallingly. Weakly. Shamefully.

“A month. Just long enough for him to arrange things to suit himself. Take money from the mortgage, sort out a new place to live. Then we came home from school one day and he was gone and Mom was... broken.”

And Tammy Buck had never recovered, and Tara has spent the last thirteen years wondering what might have happened if she
’d said something about what she’d seen, instead of honoring her promise to her father.

“
Your father is an asshole.”

Trust Reid to put it so
bluntly.

“
Yeah, he is. But we all loved him like crazy when he was around. Then he just faded out of our lives, skipping visitation weekends, putting us off until it became clear that he’d rather forget he had us than face up to his own guilt. We haven’t heard from him in ten years.”

His hand tightened around her ankle. She took a deep breath, determined to get it all out.

“Anyway. Like I said, I did my best to make it up to Mom for not telling her about that day. To make things okay. But I always felt as though there was something I should have done. Warned Mom. Something. That’s why I always drop everything when she needs me. Why I can’t say no to her or Scarlett.”

“
Jesus, Tara. It wasn’t your fault. You must know that.”

“
I do. It took a while, but I worked out that I was carrying around my dad’s guilt for him, and that it wasn’t my burden to bear. I actually thought I was on top of it, which is pretty hilarious in retrospect. It took everything blowing up with Simon for me to realize that I’d been working so hard trying to avoid my mother’s fate that I’d almost married a man I didn’t love.”

Reid
’s hand tightened around her ankle again, and she forced herself to look up and meet his eyes.

He looked
... shaken. And also a little confused. She smiled ruefully. Apparently she’d done such a great job of convincing herself she loved Simon that she’d convinced the world, too.

“
You look like Scarlett did when I told her. She actually argued with me. Tried to convince me I was wrong, that I was mad about him,” she said.

“
I thought you were. When he asked you to marry him... you were happy.”

His gaze searched her face as he tried to understand.

“I was happy. He was safe, right? He wasn’t going anywhere. He wasn’t some outgoing, foot-loose, fancy-free raconteur like my father. He was a history teacher.”

She almost laughed at her own naivety and stupidity.

“So you’re not...?”

“
Heartbroken? No. I’m hurt. He betrayed my trust. I feel stupid, humiliated. But my heart is fine.”

There was a profound silence as they looked at one another.

“That’s good. I mean, the rest of it isn’t, but that part is good.” His hand slipped free from her ankle, releasing her.

“
Yeah. And that stuff at work last week? My Incredible Hulk impersonation? That was me starting to realize how badly I’d almost messed up my life.”

Reid nodded, processing.
“I can see that.”

“
I made myself a promise when I worked all this out the other night. No more playing it safe.”

“
Right. Which brings us back to the motorbike.”

“
Yep.”

He looked out at the lake, clearly chewing something over.
“Promise me you’ll be careful on the damned thing, okay?”

“
Yes, Mr. Dalton.”

He shook his head at her.

“Such a smart ass,” he said.

“
Thanks. I’ve been taking lessons from this guy I know.”

“
Sweetheart, that attitude is all yours, and you know it.”

They were both smiling, and something shifted between them. Suddenly she was very aware of how little they were both wearing, and the fact that they were utterly alone.
Reid’s smile faded and he looked out at the lake again, a frown on his face.

“
I might see if I can catch up on a little sleep,” she said, settling back onto the blanket. “All that cider and food has made me sleepy.”

“
Good idea.”

She settled back onto her towel pillow, and this time she fell into a true drowse, warmed by the sun and Reid
’s concern.

He cared about her.
He might be leaving soon, but he cared about her.

She had no idea how long she dozed, but gradually she came back to consciousness. When she opened her eyes, Reid was standing beside the blanket, stretching his arms high over his head, his skin burnished by the sun. She blinked as she gazed up at six
-foot-two of rock-solid muscle.

It was almost enough to make you believe in the
gods of Olympus, it really was.

“
You up for another go?” Reid asked when he realized she was awake.

“
Sure am.”

She stood, and together they walked down to the water
’s edge. She felt like an old pro as she pushed her board out to knee-deep water. Reid followed suit, and they both paddled out into deeper water before standing.

“
Come check out the other side of the lake,” Reid said, pointing with his paddle.

His strokes were longer and more powerful than hers, but she did her best to keep up, carefully rationing the number of times she allowed herself to admire his back and butt along the way.

She was only flesh and blood, after all.

When they got to the other side, he pointed out some wildflowers that had sprouted in a fallen log, and they drifted along the edge of the lake, talking and laughing. The sun moved across the sky as they did a slow tour, waving to two hikers and their dog on the far side of the lake, stopping to watch a deer that was grazing in the dappled light beneath the trees.

She was the one who suggested a race, taking shameless advantage by taking off at a fast clip before Reid could turn his board around. It didn’t take long for him to start gaining on her and Tara pushed her oar deep with each stroke, willing her board across the water. She wasn’t sure what happened—whether she hit something and the board jostled, or if she’d simply rocked herself off balance putting so much effort into her paddling, but one second she was laughing gleefully over the fact that she was somehow maintaining her lead, and the next the board seemed to slide sideways out from beneath her feet and she was teetering over the water.

She let out a cry of despair.

And then she was in the water, and it was every bit as icy as she knew it would be as she flailed her way to the surface.

The first thing she heard when she came up for air was the sound of Reid
’s laughter, deep and masculine, echoing off the water.

Kicking her feet, she stretched out a hand for her board before using her free hand to push the hair out of her eyes.

“Nice. Thanks for the empathy, Sir Galahad,” she said.

“
How’s the water?”

“
Delightful.”

He laughed again. She gave him a disgruntled look before dragging herself across the board and shuffling around until she was lying lengthwise on the damned thing, fully aware that she probably looked about as gracious and graceful as a beached
sea cow while doing all of the above.

Finally she was on her feet again, flipping her dripping hair over her shoulder. Her T-shirt clung to her like glue, and she took a moment to make sure her bathing suit was covering everything it should be.

“So, want to make it the best out of three?” Reid asked, his expression deceptively innocent.

“
Absolutely.”

“
And maybe we could both start at the same time this time?” he suggested, eyebrows raised.

“
Sorry?” she said.

His smile was knowing as he paddled his board alongside hers.

“On three,” he said. “First to the big boulder. One, two, three.”

She waited until he had his blade deep in the water
midway through his first stroke before reaching across with her paddle and prodding him firmly in the ass. His head snapped around, an expression of comic outrage on his face, but it was too late, he was already off balance.