Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain #2)(86)

I got up and stood steady. Then I took in a deep breath.

Tate turned to Wood, tagged the ice from his hand and then came back to me, lifting it and pressing it gently to my temple.

“Laurie,” Wood called, my eyes went to him and my mind snapped to sharp focus.

“You didn’t tell me she was sick,” I whispered, my hand going up to take over the ice from Tate. His hand let mine hold the ice, he moved to my side and slid an arm around my waist.

“Lauren, I –” Wood started.

“You what?” I interrupted, still whispering. “You didn’t give me the full story, Wood.”

“Baby, there’s a reason.”

“Really?” I asked. “I spent ten years with a man who kept things from me, Wood. I’m not going to start something with another man who’d do the same.”

Wood’s arms crossed on his chest, the gentleness went out of his face and he jerked his head to Tate. “He tell you everything?”

“We haven’t had time,” I reminded him. “My father being sick, Tate needing to work. You haven’t told me everything either and you and me, Wood, we had time.”

And we did. Me having dinner with him, sharing my breaks with him including my dinner breaks, necking on my bed. We’d had time.

I’d felt like a heel the last three weeks because I was a nice person and I found it hard to live with what I did to Wood. It hadn’t occurred to me that what he did, with him knowing what it meant for me to be on the back of Tate’s bike, wasn’t nice either.

“I’m sorry it happened this way,” I told him, still being nice. “I wish it didn’t.”

“I do too,” he agreed instantly and walked straight away as I blinked at him, shocked by his sudden departure. I thought he’d get angry or at least have something to say like “Sorry I acted like a Neanderthal, fighting with Tate in his living room, and punched you in the head.”

My body moved to watch him and Tate’s moved with mine.

Wood stopped at the still open sliding glass door and turned, his eyes leveling on me.

“You don’t burden a good woman with that shit, baby. You find out, you’ll know. You get a shot at her, you hook her deep, then you lay that shit on her,” Wood stated and I felt my lungs freeze again but he wasn’t done. He jerked his head at Tate and went on, “He’ll tell you shit about me, if he hasn’t already. And all of it’s true. But none of it was true with you.”

Then he disappeared into the night not even bothering to close the door.

I stood staring into the darkness even as I heard his bike roar. Tate let me go and walked to the door, sliding it closed.

When he turned and started back to me, my eyes went to his.

“What was he talking about?” I asked.

“Let’s get you to bed,” Tate replied.

“Tate,” I said when he stopped in front of me.

“Bed, babe,” he repeated. “You need to lie down and I need to clean up.”

I didn’t know what to do in this situation. I was losing patience with Tate being so cagey. He’d just had a no-holds-barred fight in his living room with my kind of ex-boyfriend, a man whose picture was on the wall in Tate’s house, a man who used to be his friend, a man whose sister used to be under his skin. Now neither was true and Tate wasn’t talking about it, wasn’t sharing with me. And I’d told myself not to be a shrew, I’d made the decision I didn’t want to f**k this up.

How on earth did I proceed?

“You just fought with Wood in your living room,” I told him cautiously.

He came to my side and slid an arm along my waist, propelling me forward.

“Long time comin’,” he muttered.

“That wasn’t about me,” I stated and Tate stopped us both at the mouth to the hall.

I looked up at him and held my breath at the fury I saw stamped into his features.

“Yeah, Lauren,” he said and it sounded like a snarl, “it’s all about you.”

I braved the snarl and asked quietly, “How can that be? I haven’t been around long enough for something like that to be a long time coming.”

“You need to lie down,” Tate reiterated and I could tell it was straining his patience to do so.

“Tate –”

Tate pulled in breath on a hiss and I stopped speaking.

“Put it together, Lauren, at least part of it,” he demanded, definitely with strained patience.

“Sorry?” I asked, definitely with confusion.

“In my life, three women have been on the back of my bike. One was his sister, who f**ked up my life. One was his ex, who f**ked up my life. Now it’s you, who’s been in his bed.”

All of that didn’t pull together for me in any way mostly because, just like with Wood, I had the bones but none of the meat.

“Tate –”

“Babe, Christ,” he clipped. “You just took a power punch to the f**kin’ temple. I got blood leakin’ outta my nose. Can we talk about this goddamned later?”

No strained patience now, he’d lost it. I could read it in the line of his body and in his face.

Even so, even though this was frightening, that scary energy emanating from Tate directed at me, I wanted to tell him we couldn’t talk about it later. I wanted to tell him we were definitely going to talk about it now.