Reflection Point: An Eternity Springs Novel (37 page)

Zach held up the two peach-colored stubs. TJ took one of them and handed him two yellow tennis balls. He held one in his left hand, tossed the second up and down with his right.

“I’m a little dense this morning. Why this?”

“Well, of everything we thought of, this seemed like the best idea.”

His stare trailed over the setup. He couldn’t believe she actually brought a prison cell into this nonsense. “That doesn’t answer my question. Why this water game?”

“The dunking pool was too expensive to rent.”

“And the goal here is for me to … dump water on you?”

“Cold water. We added ice. We thought you’d like that.”

The woman was bat-crap crazy. “Why?”

“Because I hurt you and made you angry and I’m so very, very sorry and you deserve retribution.”

“Retribution.”

“We thought it needed to be public.”

He still didn’t get it. “What are you trying to prove here, Savannah?”

“That I trust you. That I love you. That you can trust me.”

Sometimes a woman’s mind was simply too foreign to understand. What was his job here today? “So you trust me not to dump ice water on your head?”

“Oh no. You need to do that. That’s the retribution I’m offering here in public, in front of our friends and neighbors and strangers. I’m making a very public statement that I have been a total idiot. I recognize that a basic human desire in an incident such as this is one of payback. But at your heart, you are the nicest guy I’ve ever known. You’re too nice to pay me back the way I deserve.”

“Yeah,” he sneered. “After all, I’m a nun with a penis.”

Savannah winced. “I’m sorry about that.”

Cam Murphy said, “Whoa. Hold on.” He handed Zach another ticket. “My treat, man.”

“So dousing you with ice water is supposed to satisfy my need for retribution for your cruel words and offensive actions?”

“It’s supposed to be a start. We hope once you’ve drenched me a few times, the ice will be broken, so to speak, and you’ll be more willing to listen to the serious, completely heartfelt apology I want to give to you. In private.”

“And the person who planned this with you?”

She shrugged. “My friends. Our friends. Well, the female part of the couples, anyway.”

“I never would have guessed.”

Now, finally, Zach allowed the faintest of grins to spread across his face. He tossed the tennis ball once, twice, three times. “Okay, Ms. Moore. This is for the nun comment.”

A pitcher for his high school baseball team, Zach hit the bull’s-eye on the first throw. A bell rang. A rope pulled. A gallon of water rushed down on Savannah Sophia Moore’s pretty head. She sucked in a breath. “Oooh, it’s cold!”

By filling her lungs, she’d lifted her breasts and the wet, clinging white stripes on her shirt clearly revealed a
peach-colored bra supporting a bounty crowned in tight dusky nipples.

Though Zach couldn’t drag his eyes off Savannah, in the periphery of his vision, he saw TJ refilling the bucket from a hose. When the boy picked up a sack of ice, Zach’s instinct was to tell him to leave it. But then he thought about the nun comment again and he let the ice go into the pail.

Damn, he’d missed her.

He threw the second tennis ball—another bull’s-eye. That was for unnecessary weeks of loneliness.

TJ reset the game. “Add the rest of the bag of ice,” Zach instructed. Savannah opened her mouth as if she were about to protest, but abruptly shut it, unafraid to take her medicine, silly as this whole thing was.

And yet, crazy as it sounded, this worked for him. A little innocent payback was soothing his ruffled feathers. A little peek at that pucker had put forgiveness right there at the top of his to-do list.

Once the game was reset and she sat shivering in her seat, looking beautiful and fresh and clean, though cold, Zach tossed the last ball from one hand to the other and debated. “Tell me again what you are hoping to prove.”

She clasped her fingers in her lap, her expression open, her eyes beseeching. “I love you, Zach Turner. I trust you. I hope you will consider reconciliation with me, but even if that’s not what you want, I’ll understand. Fair warning, though, I’ll still probably try to change your mind.”

Zach looked from Savannah back to the tennis ball, then back to Savannah. “So, one more shot. Do I take it?”

“I’ll give you as many shots as you want. I’m not going anywhere, Zach Turner. Never again. I’m staying put. You can trust me on that.”

He tossed the ball once, twice, three times. Then he
moved toward the “jail,” opened the door, and stepped inside. Savannah slipped off her stool and stood in front of him. “Zach?”

“I cannot believe you did something this silly.”

“Did it work?”

“I think it’s safe to say that the ice has been broken, yes.” He slipped his hand around her neck, pulled her against him, and fitted his mouth to hers. The kiss was long and slow and sweet, offering apologies and making promises. It was a kiss filled with healing, smack dab in the middle of the street in—where else?—Eternity Springs. Zach was just about ready to end the kiss and suggest they retire to somewhere more private when a gush of ice-cold water fell upon them. “Yikes!”

He jerked away from her, shook ice off his shirt, and turned to see the culprit. Culprits, plural, with smug, delighted grins on their faces. “The matchmaking coven,” he muttered. And their husbands. “Aren’t y’all funny.”

Cam Murphy gave the rope attached to the bucket a little shake, making sure the last drops of water fell. “Hey, we’re just trying to keep you from having to arrest yourself. Public displays of affection can lead to indecent exposure charges, you know.”

Savannah laughed. “I need to go home and change and then … Zach, would you have time to talk?”

“How about lunch? Around one?”

“Perfect.”

“If you can steal an hour, I’ll take you out to Reflection Point. We’d have more privacy.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

He gave her a quick kiss, then turned to leave. He scooped up his last fifty-dollar tennis ball and decided he’d tuck it away somewhere. Never know when a man might need a little … retribution.

Wrapped in an Angel’s Rest beach towel Celeste had contributed to the cause, Savannah floated home. This had gone better than she’d dared to hope.

She’d been prepared for him to walk right by the booth and ignore her, no matter that her friends agreed that doing so would make him a stooge. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d thrown one ball and walked away or gone back for more tickets and drenched her over and over and over again.

She had not dreamed that he’d throw two balls and then give her a kiss. Not just any kiss, either, but a curl-your-toes, we’ll-be-okay, I-forgive-you sort of kiss.

At least that’s the way it had felt to her. She wouldn’t be confident that she’d read him right until they had a chance to talk.

She glanced at the clock visible through the window at the Mocha Moose as she hurried past. She had forty-five minutes. Plenty of time to shower and shampoo and slather herself in that special fragrance he loved so much. She’d wear her other new set of peach lingerie and her new sundress—peach-colored, of course.

Rather than unlock the shop, she went around to the back of the house and entered through the kitchen. She went straight to the bathroom, where she ran water in the tub and tossed in a bath melt.

She began humming the gazebo song from
The Sound of Music
, the one in which Maria and Captain Von Trapp declare their love, as she entered her bedroom, pulling the wet T-shirt over her head.

“Well now,” came a voice from out of her nightmares. “Isn’t it nice that you’re so anxious for me.”

TWENTY-FIVE
 

Savannah’s blood ran cold. “Kyle?”

He was tall, gym-rat built, and he wore his blond hair longer than he had years before. His blue eyes glowed with a malevolent light. His mouth spread in an evil smile. How had she ever thought him handsome?

“What? Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me. It’s only been what … seven years? Eight? You always were a stupid bitch, though. Hillbilly trailer trash and too dumb to know it.”

“What are you doing here, Kyle?”

“Well, now. That’s an interesting question. I came here to take care of one—no, two troublesome details, but I caught part of your little performance earlier. Gave me another idea altogether. Don’t stop with the T-shirt, sugar. Take off that pretty little bra.”

“You need to leave, Kyle.”

“Oh, I’ll leave. After I’ve gotten what I came for.” He reached behind him, pulled out a gun. “You really should have left well enough alone, Savannah. You shouldn’t have sicced the law on us. Since we had to run, we figured we might as well detour a shade off our escape route and make sure you understood what a big mistake you’d made. Now, let’s see those tits.”

Rather than waste half an hour walking back to his office and changing into a dry shirt, Zach bought a T-shirt from a vendor and changed between two booths. He then made his rounds in half the time he ordinarily would have taken. No stopping and shopping for him this year. He had places to go and, with any luck, a person to do.

He wanted to talk to Savannah. He needed to talk to Savannah. However, he needed to be with Savannah, too. In his experience, make-up sex was one of life’s greatest gifts—and he’d never had make-up sex with a woman he loved.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Turner,” he murmured as he turned to start down the last row of booths set up in Angel Creek Park. Despite his hurry, a display at the front of one tent caught his eye. “This is interesting. Is it a sculpture? A wall hanging?”

“It’s wearable art if a person so chooses, but it can be mounted for display on a wall, or we do sell a table display unit to hold it.”

The item was made from skeleton keys that had been soldered together, but the shape … wearable art? “I hope this doesn’t come across as insulting, because I really find this piece fascinating, but … what exactly is it?”

The grandmotherly artist smiled. “Why, a chastity belt, of course.”

“Of course,” Zach replied. Just like he’d said. Interesting people.

He’d reached the second-to-last booth when Logan McClure called his name. “Hey, Zach. Aren’t you the talk of the town today.”

“Heard about booth seventeen, did you?”

“I did. It was funny. I was just leaving the first-aid tent
when you walked up with your tennis balls. Celeste came to stand beside me and we exchanged hellos. I didn’t pay much attention to her because I was watching you and Savannah.”

“I’m so glad we were able to provide the morning’s entertainment.”

“I certainly laughed. Anyway, that’s not the strange part. Celeste started asking me questions about you and Savannah, and I thought it was weird since she knows you two better than I do. I looked at her again … and she wasn’t Celeste Blessing. But I swear, she looked so much like her that she could have been Celeste’s twin.”

“Really. Was she wearing angel earrings?”

“Nope. Nor white and gold clothes. That should have been my first tip-off.” They reached an intersection of booths, and Logan indicated he was going left. “I’m headed this way,” Zach said, pointing right.