The First Love Cookie Club (14 page)

Don’t read anything into it. They didn’t even know you were Sadie Cool.

Which made this even more special.

One thing in the room remained the same—the bookcase sitting in the corner. It had been Gram’s. Her heart gave an odd little thump and Sarahmoved across the room to run her hand over the polished oak.

Travis cleared his throat.

She jumped and spun around to see him standing behind her. She reached to pick her wet clothes up off the floor, still clutching the blanket tightly around her.

“Leave your clothes,” he said. “I’ll put them in the dryer. Get in the bath. Get warmed up. I put my bathrobe on the back of the door for you to wear until your clothes are dried.”

She obeyed because there was no reason to argue. She was cold and he had saved her from drowning after she’d done a very foolish thing.

The bathroom must have been Jazzy’s, for it had been redone in a mermaid theme. The walls were painted Indian summer blue. Fishing net sprayed with sparkle glitter dangled from the ceiling with plastic starfish and turtles and sand dollars caught in it. Sticky appliqués of mermaids cavorted around a mirror shaped like a ship’s portal. The shower curtain was dotted with mermaids as well. The room made her smile.

Sarah dropped the blanket and caught sight of her disfigured torso in the portal mirror. She started to quickly avert her gaze from her reflection as she usually did when she got in or out of the shower, but this time, she made herself take a good, hard look. How would Travis view her body?

Tentatively, she ran a hand over her abdomen and fingered the irregular border of the reddish pink burn scar that began just below her rib cage on the right side of her body, swooped down under her navel, and ended at the top of her left hip. Herskin was puckered, stretched, and even after three years, still looked unsettlingly raw. No bikinis for Sarah Collier. Ever.

No getting around it. Anyone was bound to be thrown by the scar the first time he saw it. Aidan sure had been.

Sarah moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, remembering the first guy she’d dated after the accident. Aidan Hartley. Tall, thin, dark-haired, intense, and introverted, and just as unemotional as Sarah. He restored rare books and they’d shared an interest in foreign films. She’d thought they were a perfect match even though his kisses left her lukewarm.

It wasn’t as though she hadn’t warned him about the scar in advance. Aidan had claimed it wouldn’t bother him. But when they’d started making out on their fourth date and he’d slipped his hand under her blouse and felt the scar, he’d abruptly shifted gears, told her it was getting late, he had to get up early, blah, blah, blah. Then he’d hustled out of her apartment and never called her again.

And Aidan was the second guy to dump her because of the scar.

Her gut clenched at the memory. She’d told herself not to let that jerk-off affect her self-esteem, but she hadn’t been out on a date since and that was over a year ago.

What if her scar disgusted Travis too?

What was she worrying about that for? It wasn’t like she was on a date with Travis.

No, but she was naked in his bathroom.

Purposefully, she shook off the thoughts and stepped into the warm sudsy bathwater. A box of Mr. Bubble sat on the edge of the tub. She smiled. He’d made her a bubble bath. She eased into the hot water and laid her head back against the wall. Instantly, the heat began to relax her tense muscles. She closed her eyes and took several long, slow, deep breaths.

It was odd, being here in Gram’s house with Travis owning it. And what felt even odder was being naked in his tub with only one thin wall separating them. Sarah gulped and her eyes flew open. She had no business luxuriating in here like it was a spa. Her goal was to get warm and get the lake stink off her.

She pulled open the drain and hopped from the tub and then rinsed it out behind her. After she dried off, she slipped on Travis’s navy blue terry-cloth bathrobe and secured the belt tightly around her. It smelled like blue spruce and sunshine. Quintessential Travis.

She had no bra, no panties, not even socks. All her clothes were in the wash. But he’d also left her a pair of navy blue house slippers. Apparently they were his as the slippers were four sizes too big. She pushed her feet inside the house shoes, draped the wet blanket over the shower bar to dry, and then padded out into the hallway.

Pausing, she stood with one hand holding the neck of the bathrobe closed high at her throat. If she tilted her head to the right she could see him from there, crouched on the braided rug, stoking a small flame he’d started in the fireplace.

Compelled by a force she could not deny, Sarah canted her head and studied his brilliantly muscled buttocks encased in those brown work pants thatshouldn’t have looked sexy, but on him they did.

Travis turned then and caught her staring. He got to his feet with a grin and she quickly looked away. Her pulse was hammering and her mouth was dry and she felt hot all over. Who needed a fire? One look from him and her body was ablaze.

“Um,” she said. “Where’s Jazzy?”

“At a sleepover. It’s her first.”

“Are you nervous?”

“You better believe it.”

“You’re a great dad.”

His grin widened. “Who would have thought it, huh? Bad boy Travis Walker turning his life around over a tiny little blond?”

“She’s an amazing kid.”

“I think so, but then I’m prejudiced.”

She chanced slanting another glance directly at him. He was backlit by the fire that had sprung up, and it cast him in a devilish orange glow. He had become a paradox, this rebellious youth turned responsible single dad. It was a compelling transformation. A lock of hair fell across his eyebrow giving him a rakish look, whispering that he wasn’t one hundred percent tamed.

Water trickled from her hair, slid coolly down her temple. His grin disappeared and his gray eyes darkened. Slowly, he stepped across the room toward her, the hardwood creaking underneath his weight. He reached out to touch her with the tips of his calloused fingers, his eyes fixed on hers, pinning her in place.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.

Tenderly, he brushed the water from her skin. “Sarah …” he said hoarsely, then didn’t say anything else. He turned his palm, ran his knuckles down her cheek.

Everything stopped in that moment. She could no longer hear the ticking of the mantel clock or the snap of wood in the fireplace. She couldn’t feel her legs or see anything beyond those glorious gray eyes. How many times had she dreamed of a moment just like this? She and Travis Walker alone in a room together, desire for
her
reflected on his face.

Travis was touching her and she was naked underneath his robe and the air smelled of stew and wood smoke and they were in her grandmother’s house where she’d once dreamed those dreams of him.

He stepped closer, lowered his head, but then just stopped and studied her. His hand was still on her face, his thumb tracing over her chin. Her heart started pounding so loudly she could hear nothing else, was certain he could hear it right through her chest.
Thump, thump, thumpety-thump.

“Ever since I kissed you underneath the mistletoe, all I can think about is touching you, holding you, making love to you,” he said in a husky voice.

“This is insane,” she murmured, but tilted her head back, exposing her neck to him. They were moving too fast, she was in over her head. She hadn’t even told him about the scar yet. She didn’t want it to come as a complete shock. She simply wasn’t ready.

“Yeah, it’s insane. But you’re driving me crazy, Sarah. I want so much from you. Maybe too much. All I know is that I haven’t felt like this in a very long time.”

She wanted to tell him she’d never felt like this. Desperate, hungry, completely out of her mind with need.

“Are you sure it’s me that you want? Maybe you’re just horny, and it’s not really me. I could be anyone, I—“

His mouth came down on hers in a hard kiss that made her gulp. Then he pulled his mouth away and rasped, “It’s you.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I can’t stop thinking about you. The way you smell, the way you move, the cool, self-contained look in your eyes that says you know the secrets of the world and you’re not telling anyone. It snowed on the day you arrived. Do you know how rare that is in early December in this part of Texas? You looked so damn beautiful standing on the float with the snowflakes caught in your hair. Hell, who knows? Maybe those kismet cookies were right. Maybe there is such a thing as destiny.”

Her heart swirled at the possibilities, but her head shoved this explanation away. She didn’t believe in any of that stuff. Not anymore. “I came back to Twilight because of Jazzy.”

“And Jazzy is my daughter.”

“Precisely. Another good reason why this is a bad idea.” She took a step back, away from his arms, and then for good measure, took another.

“Okay,” he said. He came forward; gray eyes glittered in the firelight. “But it doesn’t change how I feel. I want you so badly right now I can barely breathe.”

He couldn’t breathe? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a full breath. Not since she’dset foot in this house that had once been her only real home, not since he’d pulled her from the lake just in the nick of time.

She put her palms up to stop him and connected with the honed ridges of his muscular chest beneath his blue plaid flannel shirt. But her hands seemed to melt, turn to putty. They slid around his rib cage to hug his back. Dammit! What the hell was wrong with her?

“Sarah,” he murmured.

There’s no such thing as destiny, no such thing as kismet, no such thing as fate.

And yet, here she was.

If this wasn’t destiny, then what was it?

She didn’t protest when he kissed her again. In fact, she even pursed her lips. This time his kiss was soft, as when he’d kissed her underneath the mistletoe, but more inquisitive. She reached up and cupped his face between her palms, holding him steady, and touched the tip of her tongue to his. There. She was taking control. She wasn’t leaving anything up to destiny. If this happened, it was because they made it happen.

No quirk of fate. No stars aligned. No magic cookies.

Sarah gazed into his eyes, tumbled into them. Normally, she kissed with her eyes closed, but she wanted to see everything—his thick eyelashes that curled almost to his eyebrows, the way his dark hair lay across his forehead, how the muted light glinted off his angular cheekbones.

He deepened the kiss and closed his own eyes and she followed suit, letting her other senses take over. Taste, touch, smell, sound. He tasted of Christmas, splendid and redemptive. Peppermintcandy canes. Had he eaten one from the tree while she’d been in the bath? His breath came out in a hearty rasp. Just one spicy sweet sip from his lips and her mind spun crazy with daydreams of brightly colored packages and sleigh bells and roasted turkey.

The texture of his tongue was incredible, the feel of his masculine palms slipping up the sleeve of her bathrobe divine. The scent of him slipped into her nostrils, rising up hot with their growing passion. The rich smell of earthy man tinged with her own fragrance—the aroma of Mr. Bubble. It rolled over her, lighthearted and heavy, a ferocious mixture that stirred her blood.

Here she was, with the man of her dreams, and she couldn’t wrap her head around it.

Hold up. She wasn’t going to romanticize this by making it into anything more than it was. She was just going to go with the flow, stay out of her head, and be in her body. Speaking of which, her body was achy, raw in lust with him. She might not be able to stop this headlong hormonal rush shooting through her, but she could most certainly keep her heart from getting tangled up in this. She wasn’t going to let herself get hurt again.

Sarah pulled back, splayed a palm against his chest. “We need to talk.”

“I’m listening,” he said, leaning in close to run his hot, wet tongue along the outside of her ear.

Sarah shivered. “This is just hormones, chemistry, lust. That’s all.”

“You can tell yourself that all day, but we both know differently,” he said, his husky voice coming out like Sam Elliott on steroids. “But I don’t wantto do anything that you don’t want to do. I don’t want to confuse or upset you.”

“Excuse me?” She sank her hands on her hips and glowered at him. “You think I’ve been doodling your name in my notebook for nine years just waiting for the chance to jump your bones?”

“No, of course not. But once upon a time you did believe I was your soul mate.”

“Once upon a time I used to believe in Santa. You give yourself too much credit, Travis.” She notched her chin up. “I’m a big girl. I know how to distinguish sex from love. Let’s not mistake sexual attraction for anything more than it is.”

He stared deeply into her eyes. “Is that the way you really want it?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

Slowly, Travis reached down to untie the sash of her robe, but she moved her hand to block his. She wasn’t ready for him to see her scar.

But she was too late. Already his hand had slipped in between the folds of the robe and her scar tingled underneath the brief brush of his knuckles.

Sarah stared into his face, tremulous and scared of his reaction, but nothing registered on his face. It was as if he’d touched normal, soft, supple female skin. She stood frozen, not knowing what to do or say.

His left palm stayed splayed across her bare belly. With his right hand, he tilted her chin up and brought his mouth down on hers for another long, lingering kiss.

Okay, apparently touching the scar hadn’t freaked him out. What would happen when he saw it?

This thing isn’t going that far,
she assured herself, but then he started doing this incredible thing with his tongue and, helplessly, she melted against his hard-muscled body.

Wrapped up in each other, glued together by contact at the shoulder, hand, leg, hip, and chest, Travis and Sarah stepped forward together into a brave new world of sensation.

Sarah fell into the well of his heated embrace, his life force filling her with an electrifying energy she’d never felt before. His male vigor washed over every square inch of her in magnificent waves.

He stoked in Sarah a need so hungry she feared there was no sating it. She wrapped her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss, exploring him with her tongue, and barely noticed when he lifted her up off the floor, carried her to the couch, and laid her down on the soft, supple leather.

Eyes gleaming with desire, he looked down at her, his gaze stroking her face as deftly as fingertips, and inhaled deeply. “You look so beautiful in firelight. I want to see you naked.”

She felt her cheeks heat. The look in his eyes fried her senses. “I … I’m not ready.”

“Okay, I’ll go first.” His fingers went to the buttons of his shirt, he worked them furiously, and once they were all undone, he stripped off his shirt.

Sarah bit down on her bottom lip at the sight of his muscular bare chest.

Honed and smooth, hard and ripped. Glorious! The reality of him put all her fantasies to shame.

He sat down on the couch beside her, pulling her into his arms again, raining kisses on her face.

She was getting sucked in, she could feel herself falling, but she couldn’t do anything to stop it. All the old emotions she’d tucked away, locked down tight, came bubbling to the surface, and she knew at once that sex would never, ever be enough for her. She couldn’t do this. Could not take it one step forward. There was so much at stake, so much holding her back. Their past, her scars, the precarious future.

“Travis …” she said, knowing she should put a stop to this, but simply unable to find the words. They needed to wait, but dammit, she did not want to. “There’s something … I have to …”

She couldn’t find the words, so she just stood up and dropped the robe.

Travis stared at her and his eyes widened. Audibly, he sucked in his breath. Doubt squeezed her hard. What was he thinking? Was that a look of disgust on his face?

Outside in the driveway came the sound of a car door slamming and then voices. Children’s voices.

With lightning speed, Travis was up off the couch and at the window, peeking through the blinds. In an instant, he whirled on his heels and ran from the living room.

Confused and more than a little dazed, Sarah reached for the robe, but before she could get to it, there was Travis thrusting her not-quite-dry clothes at her. “Go! Now! You’ve got to get out of here.”

“What is it?” she asked, jamming her legs into her panties, then struggling to get her bra on.

“Jazzy. No time. You have to go now.” He scooped up her boots from the floor and stuffed them—along with the remainder of her clothes—into her arms. He placed a forceful palm at her back, scooting her across the living room floor and past the kitchen to the back door. Sarah heard the front door open just as Travis shoved her out on the porch decking.

“Daddy, I’m home!”

“Gotta go,” Travis said, and slammed the door in Sarah’s astounded face.

The second he closed the door on Sarah, Travis knew he’d made a terrible mistake. She was going to think this was about her scar, not the fact that Jazzy had come home unexpectedly.

He almost yanked the door open and pulled her back inside and told her how sorry he was for treating her like his dirty little secret, but then his daughter was in the kitchen, canting her head at his bare chest.

And Andi and her mother were standing in the doorway behind Jazzy.

“What’s going on?” Jazzy asked.

“Um … nothing,” he said, resisting the urge to cover his bare chest with his hands. “It just got hot in here with the fireplace going, so I … um … took my shirt off.” God, he was a horrible liar. “What’s going on with you? Why are you home?”

Jazzy looked chagrined.

“She got homesick,” Andi’s mother, Sandy, said. “And since we’re all going to the slumber party at the Book Nook tomorrow evening, we just decided it was best if Jazzy came home tonight. We are all still on for the pajama party, right?”

Travis plowed a hand through his hair, suddenly realizing that Sandy was eyeing his bare chestlike he was a piece of chocolate cake. Sandy was newly single, having just gone through a divorce, and before Sarah had come to town, before he’d realized she was Sadie Cool, he’d made plans with Sandy to take their daughters to
The Magic Christmas Cookie
pajama party together. That seemed so long ago now. So much had changed.

“We are still going, Daddy, aren’t we?” Jazzy sounded alarmed.

“Sure, sure, of course we are.” He smiled at his daughter, and Sandy beamed at him. “Thank you for bringing Jazzy home.”

“No problem.” Sandy lowered her eyelids and slid him a speculative glance. “Since I have the minivan, do you want to come by the house tomorrow and we’ll all ride over to the bookstore together?”

“I think we’ll just take our own vehicle,” Travis hedged. “I’ve got some things to do tomorrow.”
Like go tell Sarah how sorry I am.

“So we’ll just see you there?” Sandy said brightly.

“Yeah.” He nodded.

Sandy and her daughter left. Travis turned to Jazzy. “So you got homesick, huh?”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too, princess.” Playfully, he tweaked her nose.

Jazzy cocked her head and studied him for a moment. “You seem … different.”

“Different? Nah, I’m not any different.” He knew his daughter was very intuitive, but how could she possibly know that he was
feeling
different? Trying not to look self-conscious, he trailed into the living room to retrieve his shirt from the floor and shrugged into it.

Jazzy tapped her chin with an index finger. “Yep, you’re different.”

“I’m your same old dad.” It was unnerving, the way she was looking at him. As if there was nothing he could hide from her. Then he realized this was the first thing he’d ever hidden from her. That was probably it. He looked guilty.

“Are you hungry? Have you eaten? Why don’t we have some stew?” Travis made a beeline for the crockpot, took a couple of bowls from the cabinet.

“What’s that noise?”

“What noise?”

“It sounded like someone on the back porch.”

“Nah, there’s no one on the porch.” Was Sarah still out there?

“I think there is.” Jazzy headed for the back door.

Swiftly, Travis darted in front of her, a bowl of stew in his hand, blocking her from the door. “Food’s ready.”

She eyed him and muttered, “Something is very different.”

“Sit down, young lady, and eat your dinner.”

Thankfully, Jazzy sat, and as he settled the bowl in front of her, he leaned his head back to stare out the rear window just in time to see Sarah disappear around the corner of the house. He couldn’t help feeling like the crud on the bottom of the lake. One way or another, he’d find the perfect way to apologize.

In the aftermath of being thrust out on Travis’s backyard deck in her underwear, Sarah stuffed her arms inside her shirt and tugged it down overher head, then zipped up her jeans. She tried to convince herself that it was okay. It was better to know right up front that her burn scar was a deal breaker. It wasn’t as if they were even dating or anything.

This was good. It was a good thing he’d shoved her out the back door when his neighbor had brought his daughter home. No one would blame him. How could she blame him? His daughter came first. She got that. It’s just she couldn’t help thinking what might have happened if Jazzy hadn’t returned home when she did. Would Travis have been able to overlook her scarred body? Their chemistry was strong, but was it strong enough to overcome that?

So, whew, she wasn’t going to brood or feel sorry for herself. The foreplay had been good—oh, who the hell was she kidding—the foreplay (as much as they’d gotten to) had been fabulous. Which sort of only made things worse.

She stabbed her feet into her boots, jammed her arms into her coat, and stumbled down the redwood steps, ducking her head in the process so if Jazzy was inside the kitchen she wouldn’t see her passing by. What a lovely new take on the proverbial walk of shame, slinking nefariously away so as not to get caught by your almost-lover’s eight-year-old daughter. Her heels clattered on the pavers as she headed for the back gate.

She swept past a rose bush bare of vegetation. It clutched at the hem of her jacket with old summer thorns. Without a backward glance at the house that had given her so many wonderful holiday memories, Sarah hunched her shoulders againstthe wind rolling off the lake and headed for the Merry Cherub feeling broken in so many ways.

Her nose burned and tears pushed against the backs of her eyelids, but dammit she was
not
going to cry.

The farther she walked, the shittier she felt. She pretended not to stare enviously at the people she passed—lovers strolling along the shoreline holding hands, couples lining up two-by-two for festive horse-drawn carriage rides around the square, happy families ambling along the sidewalk, brightly colored shopping bags and gift-wrapped packages in their arms.

A tear slipped down her cheek. Then two. Now three.

Bah-fricking-humbug.

At six
P.M.
the next evening Sarah arrived at Ye Olde Book Nook on the square to find a line of people queued up to get into the bookstore, many of them clutching well-worn copies of
The Magic Christmas Cookie,
wearing pajamas and carrying sleeping bags.

Usually, at these types of affairs, there was a publicist assigned to help guide her. In Twilight, that turned out to be Belinda Murphey, who was outside working the crowd. She was a dynamo, dressed up like Mrs. Santa Claus, an Isabella doll tucked underneath her arm. She had the group singing, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” The minute she spied Sarah, she broke off in mid-song and hustled over to escort her into the bookstore.