The Sweetest Thing (18 page)

Tara ignored that. “Logan was at the bar again?”

“Well, mostly it was Ford at the bar being accosted by
Lucille and her friends. They’re on a mission to see you settled with Ford. Not that they don’t think Logan is hot, but you
know how they all love and adore Ford.”

This was true. The whole town loved and adored Ford. Everyone did. He had effortless charm and ease, no matter what he was
doing.

Or who.

“They’ve decided to try to sway the vote in his favor,” Chloe said. “There are signs up in town and everything. The one outside
the post office has Ford’s high school yearbook picture. He was Class Flirt, did you know that?”

Tara stared at her. “There are
not
signs in town.”

“Okay,” Chloe said agreeably. “But there are.”

Tara moaned. “Okay, new plan.” She shoved the sheets at Chloe. “You’re doing the bathrooms
and
the beds. I’m going to town to pull down the signs.”

“How did your problems become my problems? And if you’d just pick one of the Hot Guys, the voting would be a moot point.”

“It’s not about picking one,” Tara said. “Logan wants a woman who no longer exists, and Ford wants…”

But Chloe was gone. And Tara was talking to herself. Perfect. Turning, she walked directly into a brick wall that happened
to be Ford’s chest.

F
ord’s hands went to Tara’s hips to steady her. Dipping down a little, he met her eyes with his. “I want… what?” he asked.

Tara pushed past him and headed for the kitchen.

He followed her. Of course he followed. She was annoyed with herself for allowing it, but also a little discombobulated. Her
usual state around him.

“Talk to me,” he said. “I want what?”

“You tell me,” she said, going for flirty because she wasn’t at all sure whether or not she wanted to hear his real answer.

His eyes dilated. “I’d rather show you.” He reached for her but she backed up, directly into the pantry.

He simply stepped in as well and shut the door behind them. His expression resembled that of a lion stalking its prey.

“Okay, here’s the thing,” Tara said, hand on his chest to hold him off. “I meant what I told you that night after we…”

He cocked a brow.

“Were together.” She backed up a step and came up against the pantry door. “I told you I’m working on things. Things inside
of me. And you—you distract me from those things.” She poked him in the chest. “So I’m asking you to stop doing that. Stop
distracting me. Yes, we slept together. Hell, we have
a lot
of chemistry, and I was out of control that night. But I have a lot going on, Ford.
We
have a lot going on, so we really need to try to ignore us. Okay? No more of this dance we have going on. We have to control
ourselves.”

His silence was deafening.

“Well,” he finally said. “That’s all
fascinating
, and informative as well. And we’re going to circle back to parts of it, especially the part where you can’t control yourself
around me, but I was only trying to…” Slowly he reached out for her again and pulled a Post-it note from her back.

There were two words on it: Bite Me.

Tara groaned. “Chloe’s idea of a joke. Can we focus here?”

“I’d rather bite you.”

“Very funny. Look, I get how you might think that the natural progression would be for us to have sex again, but we can’t.
I can’t.”

“Because you’re working on yourself.”

So he
was
listening. “Yes. And because when I’m with you like that, I’m…” She searched for the right word.

“Multi-orgasmic?”

She closed her eyes. “You’re not taking me seriously.”

“On the contrary, I’m taking you very seriously.”

Their gazes collided. Held. And something jumped in her stomach. His eyes were dark and solemn, belying his easy tone. He’d
heard everything she’d said. He’d also heard everything she
hadn’t
said. What she didn’t know was if he agreed with her. “Someone’s going to get their emotions in the wrong place, Ford.” And
by someone, she meant
her
. They had a track record. The last time she let her emotions get tangled up with his, it had been the most painful time of
her life. People didn’t recover from that kind of screw-up; they didn’t get second chances.

“Ah,” he said quietly. “
Now
we’re getting somewhere.” He ran a finger over her jaw. “You’re afraid.”

“Yes. Join me, won’t you?” She gripped his shirt. “Mia—”

“Is amazing.”

“Yes.” Tara let out a breath. “She is. But that’s what I mean. We’re in danger of misplacing emotions—”

“I’m misplacing nothing.” His eyes softened, and he touched her face. “Tara. It’s not the same now.”

Because it was just sex. She swallowed the hurt. “Look, all I need is for you to agree that we should just go back to how
we were before.”

“Before what?”

He knew before what. “Before we made love,” she said uncomfortably, hating him for making her say it out loud.

“At least you know that that’s what we did.” He paused. “How much of this has to do with Logan?”

“None.” She met his gaze head on. “Okay, maybe a little, but not how you think.”

“Well, that makes me feel all better.”

“I tried to explain this to you before,” Tara said with a sigh. “I’ve got some issues. And so do you.”

“I thought this wasn’t about me.”

“It’s a roundabout thing,” she said.

Ford paused. “Okay, help me out here. Who exactly is working on whose issues?”

“I’m working on mine.” She lifted her chin. “And you should be working on yours.”

“And mine are?” he asked mildly.

“Well, for one, you don’t stick.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you’re laid-back, easygoing, and you like your life the same way,” Tara told him. “And let’s face it, you’re
good at just about everything. So when something’s hard, or difficult, or doesn’t drop into your lap, you don’t tend to work
at it.”

Only his eyes reflected his tension. “You think things drop in my lap? That I haven’t had to work hard at life?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I know where you came from. I know how you busted your butt to get to where you are, but
sailing… face it, Ford. Sailing came easy. And Logan hasn’t been the only man in my life to find his face in the papers. You’ve
been there, too.
Cosmo
had some really interesting things to say about your bachelor life and how you live it.”

“So I haven’t been a monk. Jesus, Tara, I was in my twenties with too much money and women throwing
themselves at me. Yeah, I enjoyed it all
way
too much, but I also eventually grew up.”

“Yes, you got engaged after your gold medal to someone you met while training. You broke it off at the last minute.”

Something flickered in his eyes at that. Annoyance at having to explain himself, probably. Typical male. “Because,” he said,
“she’d gotten caught up in the fame and fortune of the sponsorships and wanted to live in the public eye. She went nuts for
the attention, and I—” He broke off and frowned. “I wanted my same old, simple life. The life I’d worked hard for.”

“You took a huge contract for sponsorship and then dropped it.”

He stared at her. “You
have
been reading the papers.”

Truthfully, Tara had devoured every little scrap on him over the years. “Yes.”

He was quiet a moment. “I wasn’t feeling as competitive as I’d been, and I wanted to slow down. It didn’t seem right to stick
with that contract when I wasn’t going to be giving them their money’s worth. So yeah, maybe I haven’t exactly done what was
expected, but I’ve always done what I felt was right.”

“And us?” Tara asked. “Seventeen years ago?”

His eyes hardened. “You’re the one who walked away.”

“Yes, but you let me.”

“What? Are you kidding me?” He shoved his hands into his hair, and arms up, muscles taut, he turned in a full circle. When
he faced her again, a very rare display of temper and frustration was showing on his face. “No one has ever had any luck stopping
you when you have
your mind set on something, Tara, and you damn well know it.”

“But you never even tried.” Her throat was tight with remembered pain. God, the pain. She didn’t want to ever feel that scared
and alone and anxious again. Yes,
she’d
been the one to walk, but she’d been so young and stupid. “You never even attempted to contact me.”

She’d been okay with that in the end. Because the clean break had given her the time to get over the heartbreak without having
to constantly relive it. But it was bothering her now, she realized. Deeply. She knew Ford felt very strongly about her, but
she wasn’t sure he felt strongly enough. Certainly not enough to want to stick for real, for the long haul. And with him,
she was beginning to realize she could handle no less.

Sure, back then he’d been willing to make things work, but the promise and drive of a teenager didn’t mean that it would have.
And what did teenagers know about love anyway? If he’d really been right for her, wouldn’t he have followed after her, or
at least tried?

She knew he’d wanted to do the right thing by her, she believed that. And he was a good guy: reliable, warm, caring… but she
could only go on what she knew. And she knew she hadn’t been important enough to him.

She had no reason to think now would be any different.

“I remember things differently,” he said quietly. “I remember that you gave up.
You
ran. I’d have gladly taken it to that happy-ever-after you were too guilt-ridden to allow yourself.”

She swallowed hard against both the recrimination in
his voice and the truth of that statement. “What’s done is done,” she said. “And it’s not just us now. There’s Mia. We can’t
play at this anymore, Ford, not when so much is at stake. She’s fragile and working through her adopted parents’ split. We
can’t mess her up. We can’t.” She turned away, then changed her mind. He deserved the truth. “It’s just that if by some miracle
we made this work now, then…” She swallowed hard and whispered, “then maybe we really might have been able to work it out
back then, too. And that
kills
me, Ford. All that pain I caused… for nothing.”

Looking stunned, he stared down at her. “Tara,” he said softly, regret heavy in his voice. “You can’t keep punishing yourself,
sabotaging your life, your own happiness for your past.”

She’d never really realized it but he was right. Deep down she felt she needed to be punished for giving up Mia.

Ford was watching her, eyes solemn. “I have all those thoughts too, you know,” he said. “The guilt. You’re not alone in this.”

She let out a breath. “How do you always know what I’m thinking?”

Running his thumb along her jaw, he let out a small smile. “It’s all over your face. You made a decision back then. It was
the right decision for you. Don’t let it eat away at you now. It’s a new chapter. Turn the page.”

He was still touching her face, his other hand low on her back, holding her against him, and she fought the urge to turn her
face into his palm. “So if I turn the page, then what?”

“Your choice,” he said. “It always was. But know this. You’re not alone. There are two of us now. Actually, there are three.”

She dropped her forehead to his chest. He was big and warm and strong. Strong enough to share her burdens, at least for this
moment. She shifted closer without even realizing it, then closer still. His heart was beating calm and even. His eyes were
warm as he looked at her.

Into her.

She thought about how he’d said that he felt all the same things that she did, and an old, familiar closeness and tenderness
welled up within her. She lifted her head and leaned back against the closed pantry door. “Ford?”

“Yeah?” He was steady and even. A rock.

Her rock.

Tired of thinking, tired of trying to keep in mind a viable reason why they needed to steer clear of each other, she followed
her gut and put her lips on his. Which was when the door of the pantry suddenly opened behind her, and she spilled out, right
into Logan’s waiting arms.