Just Once (19 page)

“Kate, I’m not mad at you.”

“Knock it off. Why did you lie about the water?”

“You know why. To get you to come to the river. If I’d said, ‘Why don’t you hop in my shower?’ would you have done it?”

I hesitate. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Well. Now we’ll never know.”

I look at the clock. It’s four forty, as he said.

“I have to go.” I peel myself up and crawl over Shane, then hurry into the living room to find my damp shirt. I pull it on and peek out the window to see if the coast is clear to collect my wet things from the porch.

“You pissed?” Shane asks, standing naked in the bedroom doorway.

“You asked me that before,” I say. “After the bat incident.”

“And?”

“I said I wasn’t.”

“Were you?”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

I roll my eyes. “Shane,” I tell him. “This is the one and only time I will ever be glad you lied to me.”

I risk another peek out the window. All clear. I put my hand on the knob but stop when Shane strides toward me, his naked body pure, rippling perfection. He gathers my face in his hands and kisses me. Slowly. Thoroughly. I feel the tip of his cock nudge between my legs and force myself to pull away.

“I really have to go,” I say.

“I know.”

I open the door and bend down to collect my wet belongings. I feel Shane’s gaze on my bare ass and wrap the towel around my waist, sneakers and jeans clutched in one hand.

“Well,” I say, straightening.

“Well.”

“See you.”

He nods. A muscle twitches in his jaw, and I think he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. Finally I turn and hurry away, back to the bunkhouse, back to reality.

Chapter Eleven

D
ESPITE
B
EING
S
HORT
-S
TAFFED
, we’re now handling dinner service like seasoned pros and make it through the meal that evening with just two broken plates. Lisa and Hailey came back from town with magazines and chocolate—the things we’ve been missing most—promising to share with me, and Pete has returned from his outing with the ranch hands. Connor comes in to pick up the ranch hands’ dinner, and offers a polite “Thanks” as he goes. I don’t see Shane, but then again, I rarely do at this hour.

Once the dining room is swept and ready for the dance, Hailey and I head upstairs to change. She snags a dress from her closet and follows me to my room so we can get ready together. I root around in the pile of clothes at the foot of the bed for something to wear. With the day almost over, I can no longer stifle my yawn.

“No nap today?” she asks.

I freeze. “I—No. The burst pipe kept me busy.”

Hailey yawns too. “Dammit. You’re contagious.”

“Sorry.”

She groans. “I really don’t want to go to this dance tonight.”

“I hear you. I’m aching all over.” Let her think it’s from the endless mopping and my lack of overall fitness.

“Brandon came in to change a light bulb in cabin fourteen today and turned around and ran back out when he saw me.”

“He did not.”

“He did. Like a frightened deer. What does he think I’m going to do, shoot him and strap him to the roof of my car?”

“Would you?”

“I’m very tempted.”

Hailey continues to rant about Brandon’s ridiculousness, and I keep yawning while we change. “Are you going to make it?” she asks when a particularly strenuous yawn sends me reeling backward.

I drop onto the bed. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you stay up here and get some rest?” she suggests. “You’re working too hard. No need to force sleepy small talk with a bunch of old men.”

“They’ll know,” I mumble into my hand.

“Who will know?”

“Everyone.” I’m already slumping back onto my soft pillow, the mattress molding to my achy spine.

“Shh,” Hailey whispers, tugging the sheet over my legs. “I’ll check on you later.”

“Are you going to dance…”

“Hmm?” she asks.

But I’m out.

“Kate!”

My eyes open, and I look around, confused. The room is dark and cool, and I can hear the faint rattle of the ceiling fan as it spins overhead.

“Is she awake?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Don’t turn on the light. Kate!”

Hailey and Lisa are the loudest whisperers ever. “I’m up,” I mumble, looking at the clock. 11:15.

“Can we come in?”

“Aren’t you in already?”

“Um…yes.”

One of them switches on the light, and I blink until they come into focus. They’re standing there in bikinis and towels, hair piled on top of their heads in sloppy buns.

“What’s happening?” I ask, still groggy.

“Come hot tubbing with us!” Lisa urges. “It will help you relax.”

I look at my comfortable, beautiful bed. “I
was
relaxed.”

“Even more,” she insists.

I look at Hailey. “Please?” she tries. “The pool area is empty. We checked. The guests are in bed, the boys are at the bar…”

“You can have first dibs on
Cosmo
,” Lisa promises.

“Dammit. Okay.” I swing my legs to the floor.

They wait in the hall while I change, and a minute later I join them, similarly attired in bikini and towel. We creep quietly down the steps and around back to the pool, where we slide open the door to the hot tub shack and step inside. The room is dark and damp, and Hailey switches on the light to its lowest setting, just enough to prevent us from accidentally falling in.

I turn on the jets and we drop our towels, alternately moaning and squealing as we slowly immerse ourselves in the steaming water. This was a good idea, I realize immediately. Oh God, do I need this.

The pounding jets knead my aching joints from top to bottom. My head lolls back, and I may even drool a little.

“Heaven,” Hailey announces. “It exists.”

“How come we haven’t done this before?” Lisa asks.

I’m too weak to reply, so Hailey answers. “Because we’re always at the bar. And you’re always with Pete.”

“Where is Pete?” I pipe up.

“Sleeping,” Lisa sighs. “Mending fences is exhausting work.”

Hailey sings the opening bars of “Desperado” for the ninety-first time. “Are you two in love?” she asks when finished.

I open my eyes to see Lisa’s bony shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. “I don’t know,” she answers. “I mean, I really, really like him, but…I don’t know if we’re in love. I’ve never been before. Have you?”

I stay silent. My longest relationship was with a handsome hotelier I met on my frequent travels. We dated for two years, but I never told him I loved him. I certainly liked the man, found him attractive, and enjoyed his company when we had occasion to be together, but love has never been in the cards for me.

I take a deep breath. The heat is getting to me. The longer I stay out here trying to be older and wiser Kate, the more I realize that the only thing I am is older. I have no more answers than I did a year ago. I’m more responsible, drink less, and keep better hours, but I’m no smarter than I was. I’m just more aware of the fact.

I tune back in to hear Hailey talking about her first love, a high school boyfriend she dated through college. “Then we graduate,” she’s saying, “and we’re in the freaking robes and everything, diplomas in hand, grinning like idiots, ready to face the future—as if—and he turns to me and says, ‘I’ve had enough, haven’t you?’”

Lisa’s listening, riveted, as Hailey continues.

“So I’m like, ‘Had enough what?’ and he gestures between us and says, ‘This.’ Meaning
us!”

“
What?”
Lisa gasps.

“That’s right,” Hailey affirms. “He broke up with me minutes after we graduated. Our lives are supposed to begin, and
we’re
ending. I was shocked. We’d been together nearly six years, and all of a sudden he’s ‘had enough.’ I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded like he was making perfect sense, and then he shook my hand—”

“
He shook your hand?!”

“And wished me the best of luck.”

I cover my mouth and stare at my friend. With the exception of naptimes, we talk almost all day, every day. How could I have not heard this story?

“So I took my degree, got a job teaching second grade at a fancy prep school, and two years later realized I hated teaching and hated kids and had to escape. So here I am.”

“Hailey,” I say. “I had no idea.”

She shrugs and leans her head back, closing her eyes. “Why would you?”

“What about you?” Lisa asks me. “Have you been in love?”

“I guess so,” I lie, squirming at the thought of admitting I have no idea what love would even look like.

“What was his name?”

“Andre,” I say, thinking of the hotelier. He was seven years older than me, richer than God, exotic and handsome with the faintest trace of an accent that made everything he said sound seductive. Everywhere we went he knew somebody more glamorous and fabulous than the last, and I always felt like they were all staring at me, wondering what I had that he wanted. And maybe I wondered too.

I change the subject before lovesick Lisa can ask me to elaborate. “So what happened at the dance?” I ask. “Why aren’t you guys out with everybody else?”

“Ugh,” Hailey groans. “I’ve had enough of everybody else.”

At the same time, Lisa says, “Because Pete’s still here.”

“Lisa,” Hailey intones, and I get the impression she’s been saying this all day, “you can do things without Pete. It won’t kill you.”

“I know, but I don’t
want
to do things without him.”

Hailey shoots me a look that says
Danger! Danger!
but I just smile and shake my head. Lisa’s eighteen. Let her get her codependence out of her system with a summer fling. Hopefully she’ll see more clearly in the fall. Maybe we all will.

I feel a twinge in my chest at the thought of autumn. Summer will be over, and I’ll return to Boston and my “normal” life, ready to pack my bags and travel again.

But back to the dance. “Why have you had enough?” I press. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Hailey answers with a sigh. “It was just…ugh.”

“Yep,” Lisa agrees. “
Ugh
. Shane didn’t come, so all the women were hanging on Brandon, and he spent the whole night dancing with them and not paying attention to Hailey.”

“Lisa!”

“What?”

“I don’t want him to pay attention to me!”

“You don’t? What about all the stuff you said in the car?”

“I said I
had
wanted him to pay attention to me—past tense—but now I don’t! I don’t care anymore.”

“Oh. My mistake.”

This time it’s Lisa who shoots me the
Danger! Danger!
look, and I smother a smile.

“Where was Shane?” I ask uber-casually.

“I don’t know,” Lisa says. “I saw him walking toward his trailer at one point, but he wasn’t dressed up, and he never came in. He looked tired.”

“Huh,” Hailey says. “He didn’t go out mending fences, there was hardly anybody left on the ranch for the afternoon, and the two people who were here are now uncommonly tired…”

I feel around for her leg under the water and kick it, but Hailey only laughs.

“What?” Lisa asks. “What am I missing?”

“Nothing,” I say before Hailey can embarrass me. “Shane helped me with the flood cleanup. He’s probably just sick of being in the dining room.”