The Bride Wore Denim (21 page)

Cole laughed, its resonance cutting through her panic. “Harpo, it’s fine. Everyone’s fine. Except maybe you. Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“No, no.” She held her wristwatch up to the flashlight and gasped. “Oh my gosh.”

“Yeah. Nearly one in the morning.”

“This is not possible. Oh, Cole, I’m so sorry. What happened to the kids?”

“They’re total lightweights. Sound asleep all of them by midnight. Definitely not natural party animals. I don’t think any of their parents tolerate much hanky-panky.”

She gazed at her surroundings, still stunned that she’d disappeared so completely into her own private world. “I’m really sorry I abandoned you with them. Thank God you’re here. You’re so good with them. They adore you.”

“Because you adore me, too?”

“Dream on.” Relief that all was well started slowing her heart at last. “Thank you, Cole. What kind of chaperone am I? I’d have been in big trouble had I zoned out like this and been here alone. Heaven knows where they would have ended up.”

“Are you telling me you need a keeper, Harper Crockett?”

He took a step toward her, and she brandished her brush at him. “I do. Desperately. But one with a clear head and some self-control.”

“Oh, my head is clear. One hundred percent. Give me a test that measures clear-headedness and I’ll pass with extra credit.”

She didn’t get another word out before he grasped her wrist, removed the brush from her fingers, and took her paint-smeared palette from the other hand. He set both on the ground and straightened.

“Are you going to tell me you don’t want this?” he asked.

Her head spun with all the thoughts from her evening’s introspection. She knew she’d still have to talk to Mia sometime, but it was going to be a very different talk than she’d once thought. She closed her eyes and leaned into him.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

H
E STOLE HER
breath with the kiss—a claim-staking lock of his mouth onto hers. How he could be powerful and gentle at the same moment baffled her, but she lost the ability to analyze the question as soon as her brain had asked it. The muscle-weakening, bone-liquefying invasion of his tongue, and the resulting hot dance against hers sent fireworks surging through every nerve in her body. She pressed back with her own tongue and set off another wave of sparklers and cherry bombs.

With a groan she thrust into his mouth and tasted him, warm and savory and familiar now, like her new favorite wine. She withdrew and let her head fall back when he nipped lightly at her bottom lip. Shivers ricocheted through her stomach. He kissed down her chin and beneath it, traveled down her neck and flicked his tongue into the hollow of her throat.

So softly she barely felt anything but the electricity, he ran a thumb over her breast, kissing her ear when she gasped.

“Like that?” he whispered.

“Stupid question,” she whispered back. “But this isn’t safe. I might not be able to control myself. I have a history with you now.”

“Trust
me
then.”

“Oh no. You said that before, and I ended up sleeping with you.” She smiled in spite of herself.

“Probably shouldn’t happen tonight.”

He pushed her backward three steps until her back met the face of an upright boulder marking the edge of the bluff. She relaxed against it gratefully and arched her back until she curved into his body, meeting the hard outline of his obvious arousal with her pelvis.

“Is that a pool cue in your pocket—?”

“No. I’m just very glad to see you.”

“ ‘Trust me’ he says.”

With a little moan of desire, she grasped his seat through the denim of his jeans, squeezing and caressing the solid curves she’d drawn and dreamed of touching just hours before. The pressure brought him fully against her, and he rocked slowly upward. Heat exploded through her core.

“Oh, Cole. We really, really have to stop soon.”

“Yes. I know.”

He captured her mouth again, and she tugged harder on his hips. Once more he traveled down her body with his lips, and this time he unzipped her sweatshirt and delved beneath the hem of the turtleneck underneath it, pushing the soft fabric up and over her bra. A moment later, the satin was out of his way as well, and he closed his lips over the tip of her breast.

“Oh, I really don’t trust you now.” Her breath came in a rush, and she released his seat and lifted her fingers to his hair, diving into the soft spikes.

He lifted his head, pressed a kiss on her nipple and then moved his lips to the valley between both breasts. “Think how silly you’ll look when you find out you still can.” He nibbled on the second soft swell of skin. “Trust me, that is.”

He assaulted her already rubbery bones with equal treatment of her second breast, and when he stopped he ran his hands up her sides and placed a thumb on the tip of each, circling the damp skin with butterfly-light rotations.

“You really are beautiful,” he whispered.

“You make me feel that way,” she admitted, reveling in the cool air on her skin while his hands, with their reverent touch, drove hard shivers through her body. “I don’t very often.”

“Why not?”

“Age-old insecurities. Comparisons to my sisters who all got the long, tall, model bodies. I got the five-foot-four body.”

“You got the sexy body with the curves in all the right places. Don’t you dare be one of those gorgeous women who says she’s fat.”

“I’m not fat; I know that. I’m the cute one, not the elegant one. That’s a direct quote from my father, by the way.”

“Your father didn’t have the tact God gave a bull in a crystal shop. Don’t listen to his voice in your head anymore. You’re different from your sisters—you’re the most beautiful.”

He pulled her bra back down, adjusted her shirt, and closed up her sweatshirt, hugging it together in front of her. Softly he kissed her, and she had no idea what to do with the feelings he’d evoked. The concept of anyone thinking her more beautiful than her stunning sisters was foreign to her. The fact that it was rugged, beautiful Cole, only made tears threaten to fall.

“Don’t cry,” he said lightly. “I told you I’d stop.”

“I think I’m crying because you did.”

“Aw, hell, I can fix that.”

He pulled her into another kiss, this one softer—sensual, deep, and slow.

They both heard the high-pitched gasp at the same moment and pulled apart, eyes meeting in a question.

“Hello?” Cole called.

Nobody answered. A second later, footsteps pattered away through the leaves in the woods.

“What was that?” he asked.

Her heart sank. There was only one thing it could have been. Nate wouldn’t have gasped like a girl. Lily would have burst in on them like an excited little squirrel.

“Skylar,” she said. “She must have seen us.”

There was no sign of Skylar in the main living areas when Harper and Cole stole back into the house. They found her bedroom door closed.

“The light is off,” he said. “Maybe we didn’t hear her after all.”

“Maybe not, but we should peek in to make sure she’s here. It would be awful to find she’d slipped out and we didn’t know it.”

Harper cracked the door open enough to let light from the hallway illuminate the bed. The tips of Skylar’s strawberry blonde hair stuck out from beneath the blanket.

“It couldn’t have been her we heard,” Cole said once they’d closed the door again. “She couldn’t be this sound asleep already if she was out in the woods five minutes ago.”

“Don’t put anything past a fourteen-year-old girl with a crush.”

“You still believe she has a thing for me? She’s been perfectly normal ever since you first mentioned it. Personally I think you’re seeing things that aren’t there. She’s just a nice kid.”

“And you’re just a nice guy who’s such a guy. I hope you’re right. We’ll know tomorrow morning.”

S
KYLAR HELD HER
breath until the door closed and blackness filled the room again. She’d known they’d heard her in the woods, and she’d known they’d come right back and check on her. This had been the best defense she could think of. She rolled onto her back, unclutched her fingers from the blanket, and stared at the ceiling with tears burning in the corners of her eyes.

Cole and
Harper
?

She should have known. She should never have told Harper how handsome she thought Cole was. Now Harper had noticed him and moved in.

Deep inside, Skylar knew her thoughts were foolish and silly, but her chest literally ached since seeing Cole with his lips against Harper’s. She hadn’t meant to make a sound, but the kiss had totally shocked her. It hadn’t been any weenie, friendly little kiss either. It had been one that made Skylar’s stomach flip in wonder and excitement. It should have been forbidden. If her mother ever heard that the two chaperones had been out in the woods kissing and Skylar had seen them, she’d be furious.

At first, a small, mean-spirited corner of Skylar’s heart wanted to tell her mother exactly what she’d seen. But she’d never do that to Cole. And she liked Harper. Harper was the first person in the world to take Skylar’s side on anything—and to make this whole dream happen had been amazing.

She buried her head in her pillow and let a few confused tears wet the pillowcase. She had to get through the weekend without letting Harper know she’d seen anything or that she cared. She’d already scoped out a few spots where she wanted to paint. She wasn’t sure if she’d come up with ideas that would work for the contest, but looking for one would keep her away from Harper. And from Cole.

Finally, after plotting her strategy, as much as it felt completely lame and she hated it, she made one last adjustment to her pillow and snuggled into its softness. Now that she knew Cole was at least in the house, she felt safer if not better. Closing her eyes, she let herself drift to sleep at last.

What happened the next morning threw her whole plan off track. Lily and Nate greeted her from their seats around the dining room table. Cole stood at the stove with a huge, handsome smile on his face.

“Hey, Sky, can I make you some pancakes?”

“Yeah, okay.”

But then Harper handed her a mug filled with hot chocolate and pointed toward the living room.

“Come with me?” she asked, and Skylar had no choice but to nod, sure for a second she was in trouble.

But when Harper sat on the sofa and patted the seat next to her, she was the one who looked guilty. “I think I need to apologize to you,” she began. “You came back outside to the lookout late last night, didn’t you? I don’t care a bit if you were there. I only want to make sure it was you.”

Skylar had not prepared for direct confrontation. She wanted to lie and put her plan to ignore the whole situation into practice, but she couldn’t. She’d been told often enough in her life to cheer up and stop being so gloomy but never that she was a person who couldn’t be trusted.

“Yeah.” Her voice felt half its strength.

“And you saw me kissing Cole.”

Skylar’s face flamed with embarrassment. She didn’t want to talk about this. “So? It’s not my business.”

“You’re right.”

That surprised her. Skylar shrugged.

“On the other hand,” Harper continued, “I promised your mother everything would be appropriate this weekend. I’m sorry we got personal when you guys were around.”

“So basically you don’t want me to tell my mom.”

“I would never say that. You tell your mom anything you need to. This is about you and me.” She hesitated as if she wasn’t sure she should say the next thing. “And, I think I might have made you angry because I know you like Cole, too.”

If her face had been hot before, it was burning now. “No. No, I . . . don’t.”

“It’s okay. Cole is . . . kind of awesome. Right?”

She could only shrug again.

“Anyway, I want you to know I’m sorry. There won’t be any more embarrassing kissing during the weekend.”

That should have made Skylar feel 100 percent better. Instead, her stomach fell, like she was disappointed or something. She scowled. “Why would you even tell me that?”

“I like you. I’ve started thinking of you as my friend, and friends should be honest with each other.”

She had to think about that. How many times had she been told to be honest, be honest, be honest? No adults had ever said they had to be honest back.

“Do you love him? Cole?”

The question tumbled out. She couldn’t believe she’d asked. Harper looked a little surprised.

“I . . . don’t know,” she said. “I like him very much. But I don’t even live here, so I don’t think it matters.”

“What if you did live here?”

Harper laughed. “Then you and I would have to duke it out over him.”

Somehow, no matter how Skylar felt when she started talking to Harper, she felt better when she was done. Harper wasn’t like the other adults in her life. She didn’t take everything so dang seriously and make Skylar feel like she had to do the same.

“Yeah,” she said. “That would suck.”

Her mother would have lectured her for an hour about her language. Harper only laughed.

The rest of the day turned into one of the coolest of her life, and nothing could have surprised her more. Harper knew so much about painting and drawing it was like a paintbrush turned into a magic wand in her hand. She gave them lessons on shading and on perspective and on famous painters. She had books for them to look at and new paints for them to try. But she wasn’t strict about the lessons or anything. Everything was simply more fun when she talked about it. And when they were done for the morning, she let them wander anywhere they wanted. They could work or think or search for things to draw or paint. For hours. The only rule was, if they took horses and went farther than a mile away, they had to bring a walkie-talkie with them. And they could stay out until sunset, but they needed to be back to the outlook by dark.

Skylar felt like a grown-up. Like a real artist.

And she created the picture she knew she would enter in the exhibition. She got the idea from one of Harper’s art books containing a picture of one famous artist’s draft sketch and then his finished painting. Skylar started by sketching a mountain path and a sweetly kissing couple in the bottom left corner of the canvas. Beyond the couple, the entire Kwinaa Valley and the Teton Range spread across the canvas. The beginning of the path in the corner and the leg of the girl remained a pencil sketch. As the picture evolved, the shading grew more detailed until it burst into the whole rainbow palette of colors Skylar always saw in the mountains. By the time she had the canvas nearly filled and finished, she loved it.

She wanted to call it Hopeful World.

“That’s amazing.”

She turned around in her small copse of trees to find Nate. At first a small fist of resentment that he’d invaded her private painting spot squeezed in her chest, but then he smiled. He had a dimple in each cheek and bangs that fell across his forehead in a super-cute, pop singer kind of way. She couldn’t help but smile back.

“Thanks,” she said. “Are you looking for a place to paint?”

“No. I stayed around the house to paint. Now I’m hiking to clear my brain. I found this and thought maybe you were here somewhere.”

He held up a small, pink-and-white striped knit glove, the kind that were only a couple of dollars at Kloster’s Drug.

“It is mine. I didn’t even know I dropped it. Thanks, Nate.”

He stepped closer and peered at her painting. “You got those shadows perfectly. I’ve kind of been wondering, do you think you could help me with one of my drawings?”

He pulled off his backpack and unzipped the main pocket. From it he took his sketchbook. Flattered and nervous, Skylar waited while he flipped pages. He handed it to her. “Here,” he said. “I tried to get the shading on those flowers right but it isn’t quite. Can you see what the problem is?”

She did. The solution was simple. He had the light source twisted around a little bit. Her nerves vanished, and she sat cross-legged on a patch of grass with him beside her.