Colorado 02 Sweet Dreams (23 page)

“Sorry?”

“Tate.”

“Um…”

“See, ‘cause, when you were with Brad…” she hesitated then shook her head, “I don’t know. You were never yourself. You weren’t our Laurie. Not when he was around. When you were alone, you were great, you were you. When he was around, there was something off. Like you were on eggshells, like you had to be perfect and spent all your time in an effort to be that way.”

I stared at her, both surprised at this and not surprised because her saying those words made me realize I
did
try to be perfect for Brad because I thought
he
was perfect and to keep him I had to match that.

Boy was I wrong about that.

Then I asked, “Really?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Mom and I talked about it…” she paused, “a lot.”

I was already surprised at what she said but this surprised me even more.

“You talked about it?”

She turned to me. “He wasn’t all that and I’m glad you know that now. I’m sorry you went through what you did to find out, that totally sucks and I wish you hadn’t had to go through that, but still, I’m glad you know. He was just a guy and not a very nice one. Brad’s cute and all but he knows it. But you, it was like you didn’t know how pretty you were. It was like you thought you were luckier to be with him than he was to be with you when that was the wrong way around. With Tate…” she trailed off and her eyes slid away.

“With Tate what?” I prompted.

Her eyes slid back. “You just seem… I don’t know…
you
. Like you can be Laurie, you can be yourself and it’s so cool that he’s into that, into you just as you are because, well, he
is
all that.”

I looked back at Tate. She was right; he was pretty much all that.

He was also other things.

“I have another man back at Carnal,” I blurted and heard my sister gasp.

Then she asked on a whisper, “
What?
”

I shook my head and turned toward her. “Carrie, it’s all messed up.”

“What’s messed up?”

I kept shaking my head while talking. “I don’t know, Tate and me, we met and we did
not
get along. Well, mostly, I didn’t get along with him. He said some things about me and I overheard him and they hurt and, even though he apologized, I didn’t accept and we bickered all the time and then, suddenly,
poof.
” I threw out my hand with the tumbler and grape Kool-Aid almost sloshed on my jeans shorts. “Tonia gets raped and murdered and we find out about it together and we aren’t bickering anymore, we’re like, so far away from bickering it isn’t funny. We’re something else
completely.
”

“Tonia gets raped and murdered?” she repeated, her eyes huge.

“Tonia,” I told her, nodding. “She worked for Tate and he fired her
the night she got raped.
And he wasn’t nice about it. He gets pissed and watch
out
. Stuff comes out of his mouth, that’s why he said I was fat and sorry-ass, because he was pissed.”

Her head jerked back and her eyes narrowed. “He said you were fat and sorry-ass?”

I nodded again. “He didn’t mean it. He has a bad temper. He says a lot of things he doesn’t mean when he’s pissed. I’ve seen it happen three times and he’s regretted it three times. He said those things to Tonia, right in front of everyone and she left the bar and that’s the last anyone saw of her conscious. Then she was dead. Tate was a mess… I mean, in a badass, biker, bounty hunter kind of way. He freaked out and took off after her murderer and he was gone for
a month
. That’s when Wood told me Tate was fucking his sister.”

“Tate is fucking Wood’s sister?” Caroline asked and I nodded.

“That’s what Wood said.”

“Wood?”

“The other guy I’m sleeping with,” I informed her and her eyebrows shot up.

“You’re sleeping with him?” she whispered, getting closer so, when she did, I got closer too.

“Not
sleeping
sleeping just, you know, sleeping and maybe fooling around a bit. He gets up early and I get home late –”

“Laurie!” she hissed. “How could you –?”

“I don’t know!” I hissed back. “Tate went out of town and he took me for a ride on his bike and he kissed me before he left. But he didn’t tell me he was going. He just said he wanted me on the back of his bike when he got back. But then he was gone.
For a month.
He didn’t call. Nothing. He just vanished. Then I got my car from Wood and he said he’d seen me on Tate’s bike and he didn’t want to tell me what he had to tell me because
he
wanted me to be on the back of
his
bike but then he told me Tate was with Neeta, Wood’s sister, and she’s
married.
”

“The back of his bike?” she asked, looking confused.

I shook my head. “I don’t know, I don’t get it. I think it’s biker slang for they want a date or something.”

“What did Tate say about what Wood said?”

This was the tricky part therefore I mumbled, “Um…”

“What?” she asked.

“I didn’t ask him,” I admitted. “When he got back…” I moved even closer, “Carrie, when he got back I think he came straight to me, straight to the bar, he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the hall and kissed me and told me he didn’t find Tonia’s killer but it was good to be home then I threw the whole Neeta thing in his face, he got pissed, said some nasty stuff and stormed off.”

“You threw the whole Neeta thing in his face, a big, badass man with a bad temper?”

“Yes.”

“Why on earth would you do that?” she whispered loudly.

“I don’t know!” I whispered loudly right back, “I’m me, he’s Tate, we haven’t known each other for very long but that’s what we
do
.”

“When was that?” she asked.

“Two days ago.”

My sister stared at me.

Then she said, “I don’t get it, did you make up?”

“No, he was just there when you called me. We’d just finished trading barbs and you phoned and… and…” I took in a breath then took a sip of Kool-Aid then finished, “now he’s here.”

“Now he’s here,” she repeated, staring at me intently.

“Yeah,” I said.

She kept staring at me.

Then she shook her head and muttered, “Some things never change.”

“Sorry?” I asked.

“Honey,” she whispered and that one word seemed to have grave meaning but she said no more.

“What?”

She lifted up several inches and looked down at me. “Let me get this straight. You and Tate don’t get on then you do, more than likely because you
really
got on just one or the other of you didn’t get that, and I’m guessing the one who didn’t get that is you. Then he says he wants you on the back of his bike, which I think you don’t get means more than a date. Then he takes off and doesn’t call and some other guy talks trash about him to you behind his back. You listen to this trash and believe this guy. You don’t call
Tate
. When he comes back you don’t ask
him
what’s up. You just listen to some guy with an ulterior motive talking trash. Tate gets home, you throw it in his face, he gets pissed like you know he’s going to do, storms off but ends up a day later flying halfway across the country just to hold your hand because your Dad is sick? Do I have that right?”

Uh-oh. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

My eyes slid to Tate again to see he and Mack were walking up the yard toward us.

“So where is it now?” Carrie asked.

“We had sex for the first time this morning,” I answered and I heard my sister gasp again.

I closed my eyes.

“Laurie,” Carrie called and I didn’t look at her, I just opened my eyes and stared at Tate getting closer.

“Mm?” I muttered.

“Big Sister, I love you but you’ve always held a mean grudge and you’ve always, but always, leaped before you looked.”

My eyes moved to hers. “What?” I whispered.

“Brad was a dick and you thought he was something special and he gave you attention so you grabbed hold, never seeing he was a dick. That wasn’t good, not for years, and you followed him to Phoenix and lived a life you hated and did whatever you could to keep hold. That didn’t work out and you sold everything you owned and took off in your car and wandered the country. Now you’ve set up a life in the middle of nowhere and you got a man who’s into you and you listen to another man who’s into you and you don’t set the story straight, you just believe, shut down and, I’m guessing, intentionally piss him off to shut him out. A day later, he’s at your side during an intense time in your life, what I’m guessing again is pretending to be your boyfriend to get in the face of your dickhead ex-husband and then you leap into bed with him. Laurie,” she moved so her face was close to mine, “you’re smart in a lot of ways but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to learn how
to think
.”

Okay, I had to admit I’d heard that before, not only from Carrie but from Dad
and
Mom.

Still, I said, “Carrie –”

“Talk to him,” she whispered as we heard the men approach. “Give him a chance to set the story straight.”

“Right,” I whispered back because the men were almost there, we needed to stop talking and because she
was
right, she usually was. She was my baby sister and I knew I should be the smart and responsible one but I never was. I was always a good girl and I was always a nice person but I wasn’t always smart and responsible. That had always been Caroline’s role.

She got to within an inch of my face. “And
listen
,” she finished.

“Right,” I repeated still whispering.

“This doesn’t look good,” Mack remarked from close and Carrie moved back so we saw them both standing four feet from the hammock. Mack had his arms crossed on his chest. Tate had his hands resting on his hips. Mack’s eyes were assessing and they were on Carrie. Tate’s face was carefully blank and his eyes were on me.

Carrie ignored Mack’s comment and asked, “You guys want grape Kool-Aid?”

“Jesus, is that what you’re drinking?” Mack asked.

“Yes,” Caroline answered.

“Little kids drink that,” Mack noted.

“Laurie and me are always kids when we’re home,” Carrie replied. “You know that.”

“God’s honest truth,” Mack muttered in a way that stated plainly this was not a good thing as he shook his head while glancing at Tate then he looked back at Carrie.

“You have a grape Kool-Aid mustache,” he told Carrie and Carrie swiped the back of her wrist along her mouth at the same time she cried, “I do not!”

And she didn’t, Mack was just teasing which was why he grinned.

She stuck her purple tongue out at him and looked at Tate. “You want a Coke?”

“Yeah,” Tate replied.

“I’ll have a Coke too,” Mack put in as Carrie and I swung the hammock back so she could get out.

“You can get it yourself,” she muttered as she rolled out of the hammock to her feet. Then she rounded the hammock, jumped up on the patio and headed toward the door.

“I see the Grahame sisters have matching attitude,” Tate murmured to Mack and my eyes narrowed on him but Mack chuckled.

“It’s in the genes. Jeannie’s shell-shocked ‘cause Gavin’s in ICU. Just wait until he’s fit. He’ll be fakin’ a heart attack to get some rest from the drama,” Mack returned.

“Mack!” I snapped. “Mom’s sweet as pie.”

“Yeah, to
you
. You got balls, she’ll bust ‘em,” Mack retorted and my eyes cut to Tate firstly because he’d accused me of busting his balls and secondly because he’d burst out laughing.

“Shit man, you’re gonna catch it,” Mack warned a still chuckling Tate as he watched me glare at the still chuckling Tate. “I’m gonna get a Coke.”

Then Mack walked to the patio, jumped up on it and headed to the house.

Tate walked to me and then smoothly entered the hammock to lie at my side like he slept in one nightly since he could walk.

Regardless of the fact that I was in no danger of spillage, I snapped, “Watch my Kool-Aid!”

“Babe,” was his reply.

I glared at him.

He reached across his abs, wrapped an arm around my waist and curled me so I was on my side and resting the length of him. He also did this without endangering my Kool-Aid.

I decided to ignore him and take a sip.

Tate watched me doing this and remarked, “You grew up in heaven.”

I swallowed, dropped my tumbler hand to rest on his chest, glanced at him, lifted up and looked. I saw sun dazzling lights on the pond; the long, green front yard Dad kept neat and trimmed; the lush, dense trees at the foot; the farmland beyond that; and Mom’s tidy, flourishing garden on the opposite side of the pond where she planted strawberries, potatoes, tomatoes, regular corn and popcorn every year.

I looked back at Tate and whispered, “Yeah.”

“The first time I met you, you told me you grew up here, I’d call you a liar,” Tate informed me.

I tipped my head to the side and asked, “Really?”

“Really.”

“Why?”

“High-class,” he replied.

“Sorry?”

“You looked high-class,” he semi-repeated.

“I’m not,” I stated.

“No, Ace, you’re not. You’re a different kind of class.”

“Farmer class.”

“Pure class.”

That was so nice, and so unexpected, before I could stop myself, I melted into him, my face getting closer to his.

“Tate,” I whispered.

His hand slid from my waist partly up my back.

“You get grape Kool-Aid on my tee, babe, it’s gonna piss me off,” he lied and I knew it was a lie from the look on his face which was sweet and soft and more handsome than he ever looked.

“I’m not going to get Kool-Aid on your tee,” I returned quietly.

He rolled into me and I had no choice but to lift the tumbler and hold it behind his back.

“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,” he said, his face in my neck, his beard tickling my throat. “You could lick it off.”

 “Captain, we can’t fool around in the hammock at the front of my Mom and Dad’s house with Mack and Carrie
in
the house,” I informed him as his lips and beard slid up the underside of my chin.