Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain #2)(49)



“What?” I whispered.

Brad took a step forward, Tate moved a millimeter and Brad stopped but his eyes stayed pinned to me.

“I want you back, Ree,” he said softly. “I made a huge mistake.”

“Yeah, man, you did,” Tate cut in and Brad’s neck twisted so fast he probably gave himself a hitch when he looked up at Tate.

“Will you stay out of it?” he clipped.

“She’s holdin’ onto me, bud. I’d say I’m in it,” Tate returned.

“Ree,” Brad said when his eyes came to me.

And when they did, it hit me, like taking a bullet that ripped through me, changing my life, altering my perceptions in a way I knew there was no going back.

“Go away,” I whispered.

“Him or me?” Brad asked, jerking a thumb at Tate.

“Not Tate, you,” I was still whispering.

“Ree,” Brad repeated.

“Honest to God?” I asked quietly and Brad opened his mouth to speak but I kept talking. “Do you know how beautiful my life is now, Brad? Can you even understand what a beautiful life is? It isn’t about the perfect house and a keeping-up-with-the-Jones’s new car every two years and having the right landscaper and bragging at parties that you have a house cleaner. Not when all that stuff is shit. It’s surface. There’s nothing underneath.”

I didn’t know where these words were coming from, I just knew it was someplace buried deep, someplace that had been longing to see the light of day, someplace that had finally broken through when that bullet tore through me.

“Ree –”

“You lied to me and all my friends lied to me for five years. You can’t do that and have a soul.”

“Ree –”

“Do you know what happened to me today?” I asked and didn’t wait for an answer, I just gave it to him. “I got a phone call from my sister that tore my world apart and I didn’t have to lift a finger. Betty got me dressed and packed my bag and even got my laundry from the laundry room. Ned put me and my bag in the truck. Tate got the tickets and got me on a plane and dropped everything to come with me. These people have things to do, they have lives. At work Krys and Wendy will cover for me even though Tate and I are gone just because that’s what you do when you’re a good person. That’s what you do when you have a soul. That’s where I am now, that’s where I live, that’s my life. Do you think, for one second, I’d leave something that beautiful and come back to you?”

He didn’t answer so I kept going.

“Even now, you’re not thinking about me. My father’s fighting for his life somewhere in this hospital and my family is scared out of their minds and you don’t care. You don’t give a f**k. All you care about is you and what you want. I’m standing by a man who dropped everything, and he’s been on the trail of a murderer for a month, and he did it just to get me to my family. Have you ever done anything like that in your life?”

“You love me, Ree, you told me you did even after I explained about Hayley,” Brad reminded me. “You said we’d find our way back, make it work.”

“I did,” I agreed, “because I was scared and I was blind. Blinded by hope. I’d waited for something special and convinced myself you were that. Then you proved you weren’t and taught me the valuable lesson that special isn’t out there. Special doesn’t exist. So the best you can do is find real. I found real, Brad, and I like it.” I let Tate go, straightened and moved to his side. “I guess I should thank you for being here so I can thank you to your face for teaching me that lesson. I wasted a lot of my life hoping for something special. Now I’ve realized I’m good with what I’ve got.”

I watched Brad open his mouth to speak but I didn’t get a chance to hear what he had to say. I didn’t get that chance because Tate tagged me with an arm hooked around my neck, he yanked me into him so I collided with his body and his head came down, his mouth on mine, and he kissed me hard and deep, with tongues.

Right in front of my Mom!

This, at the time, didn’t register on me because it was Tate and he was good with his mouth therefore that was the only thing that registered.

Then he lifted his head half an inch and stated, “You’re gonna find special, Ace.”

I shook my head in the minimal space allowed partially in a negative, mostly to recover from his kiss.

“Special doesn’t exist, Tate,” I told him. “And I’m okay with that.”

His lips came back to mine and when he spoke, he did it gently. “It will for you, baby.”

“I like him,” Mom declared loudly.

I watched Tate’s eyes smile.

“Maybe we shouldn’t neck in front of my Mom while my Dad’s in ICU,” I suggested and then watched the smile in Tate’s eyes deepen.

“Don’t mind us,” Mack called. “They probably don’t get a lot of foreplay in hospital waiting rooms. You’re breakin’ the monotony of tears and tantrums.”

“Mack!” Carrie hissed. “Tate just kissed her, that’s hardly foreplay.”

“You weren’t watchin’ close enough, honey. That was definitely foreplay.”

By this time Tate’s head had gone up about three inches so I could see his mouth struggling against his smile, or, perhaps, out and out laughter.

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