Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain #2)(97)

I sighed and tipped my head back to the sun.

Weirdly enough, outside of fretting about cleaning Tate’s house, buying him sheets and semi-moving in, life felt normal. I hadn’t felt normal, not in a long time. Not during my wandering, not during the separation and divorce from Brad, not even before that, when I knew something was not right.

But now I had work that I liked. I had friends I could trust who I could go to the mall with. I came home to a house ensconced in the quiet, wooded hills sandwiched amongst Colorado’s mountains. I ate home-cooked dinners if I was working days. I made lunch in Tate’s kitchen if I was working nights. Every morning, I made myself breakfast and a cup of coffee in a real coffeemaker that sat on a kitchen counter.

Normal, all of it… normal.

I was back in a rhythm of life.

Unfortunately that rhythm seemed surrounded by Tate but held no Tate.

That wasn’t true. The two days we had together before Tate left obviously held Tate. He took me to work and worked my shifts with me, giving Bubba and Krystal a break. Surprisingly, nothing dramatic happened during these days except for the fact that Tate took an instant dislike to Twyla; then again Twyla was instantly dislikeable and didn’t mind that one bit considering she honed her instantly dislikeable personality to a razor sharp edge. I’d had to run interference but this wasn’t difficult because Tate seemed in a good mood so, unusually, outside of scowling at her a couple of times, he didn’t let Twyla’s antics get to him.

And Tate and I working together was different when I wasn’t holding a grudge. I had fun with him and he seemed to have fun with me. He liked being with me in the bar and I knew this because he laughed a lot and he smiled a lot too. In fact, I’d never seen him do either so much as in those two days after the Wood Incident.

As for me, I liked going to the bar and saying, “Need two Bud drafts,” and hearing him say softly, “Right, baby,” or, also softly, “You got it, Ace.”

Because of these responses, I found myself hanging at the bar more often, Tate across from me, both of us leaning in and chatting, me trying to be funny just to make him laugh or smile. Me getting a little curl of excitement when I succeeded.

I also found myself ending my orders with “honey”. “A Jack and Coke and a Dewar’s, honey,” or “Four Coors bottles and a Keystone Light, honey.” I found myself doing this because, when I did, I’d always get the smile so I went searching for it.

That smile didn’t give me a curl of excitement. It made me feel something else, something comfortable and settled but very sweet. Even though, if Twyla heard me call Tate “honey”, she’d give me a hard look or roll her eyes – I was guessing Twyla wasn’t a big fan of a waitress sleeping with the boss, that said, as far as I could tell, Twyla wasn’t a big fan of much.

After my shifts, Tate and I left work together and went to the hotel together where Tate would drop me off so I could have a swim and he’d go do stuff, like pick up groceries for dinner while I swam. Then he’d come back to get me. I’d pack more stuff and go to his house with him where he’d make me dinner and then we’d go to bed and make love and then we’d sleep somehow nuzzled together, him holding me or me curled into his back or, as the night progressed, both.

This felt good too. Comfortable. Settled. And definitely sweet.

On my day off, the day Tate had to go hunting, Tate had planned to take me for a ride. We were going to go out and stay out all day on the bike.

It was a bummer he’d been called away because I wanted to do that with him, have a day with him with nothing to do but ride. To be on the back of his bike and feel that freedom only Tate had given me, a freedom I’d only ever felt sitting on the back of his bike, letting go and thinking absolutely nothing at the same time feeling absolutely everything.

And I wanted to go back to work with him behind the bar.

I wanted him to come home.

I wanted him.

I heard the roar of pipes and my head righted and whipped to the end of the lane. A bike was coming up and I felt that curl of a thrill in my belly because Tate hadn’t said he was coming home last night when we talked but he’d surprised me before.

Then I stared because it wasn’t Tate, it was Wood.

“Damn,” I whispered under my breath and watched Wood ride up the drive and stop at the front of the garage.

I got up and walked down the deck as he got off the bike. We met five feet into the deck from the stairs that led to it from the side of the garage.

“Wood,” I greeted hesitantly.

“Laurie,” he greeted back, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses so I couldn’t read them.

“Um…” I mumbled, unsure what to say because I was unsure of why he was there.

Wood wasn’t unsure.

“Neeta’s in town.”

I felt my body get tight.

“Sorry?”

He didn’t repeat himself. Instead he asked, “Deke still playin’ bodyguard?”

“No,” I answered, finding this an odd question. “Why?”

Wood looked at the house then looked at me. “When’s Tate due back?”

“Wood –”

He took a step toward me and, with effort, I held my ground.

He pulled his sunglasses off and shoved an arm in the collar of his t-shirt. When I saw them, I noticed his eyes, as they normally were, were gentle on me.