Till I Kissed You (22 page)

“Please. He calls Cade in a tizzy because you have a fever. Spends the night. And looked like a kicked puppy when I pushed him out the front door the next morning.”

“I can't imagine Sawyer in a tizzy about anything.” Regan straightened but couldn't meet her best friend's eyes. “I showed him the letters because he's as invested as I am in finding whoever is doing this. That's all.”

Maybe it was all. She wouldn't know until she and Sawyer had a chance to finish their talk. She glanced up. Monroe's blue eyes cut through her lies. Or at least her half-truths.

“I understand more than anyone what it is to protect yourself from being hurt. Just remember that living is laying your heart on the line for someone else to protect.” Monroe gave Regan's arm a squeeze and left her alone.

Before any more well-meaning friends or business owners or gossips could stop by, she closed up, turning the key in her newly installed lock even though the gaping hole in her front window had only been secured with a battened-down tarp. Even after everything that had happened, she trusted nothing would be stolen. A police car rolled slowly by and she waved. Chief Thomason was following through on his promise to step up patrols.

She didn't feel like dealing with the shop or the festival. All she could think about was Sawyer. The danger of making someone or something the center of your world was that when it self-destructed, everything was ruined.

Yet, Monroe's words resonated. Could she trust Sawyer to protect something he'd destroyed once?

*   *   *

Doubts circled, the uncertainty casting him back to his adolescence. It had been a long time since he'd been nervous and excited about a woman. Since Regan as a matter of fact.

Before he had the chance to question himself, he made his way to the river and set off. He tried not to think too far into the future. Whatever was growing between them was a seedling he had to nurture. Any storm could flatten it.

He was used to travelling a little farther upstream to her parents but guessed he was near enough. Seeing a navigable section of bank, he ran the skiff aground. The past seemed both close and a different lifetime. Hauling himself up the bank, he could see the faint outline of her house in the distance.

He ran his hands down his shorts before pulling his phone out. He'd gotten in trouble for not calling her after their fiery encounter against her wall. A mistake he wouldn't repeat. He hit her number.

She answered on the fourth ring with a tentative “Hello.”

“Hi, yourself. Checking on you. How are you?”

“Fine. Fine.”

He rubbed his nape and stared toward her house. “Are you home?”

“I am. Hard to get anything done with half the town stopping by to see the damage. What about you?”

“I'm out and about, actually.”

“Do you want to come over here maybe?” A shy hesitancy softened her voice. “We can throw around some theories about whoever is behind the festival shenanigans.”

He leaned against the trunk of a water oak. “I'm already at your place.”

A pause before she said, “I don't see your truck.”

“Meet me at the river? I'll be waiting under the big oak.”

The silence stretched and he barely heard her whispered “Okay” before she disconnected.

He had no idea how long he would have to wait. Or if she would change her mind and call him back. Or just leave him hanging. It took all of five minutes. Movement caught his attention and had him pushing off the tree and stepping forward.

She was run-skipping toward him, her hair loose and sparking in the hot afternoon sun. His heart tried to claw out of his chest and perform a kamikaze-style suicide. Or maybe it was more of an offering to the gods of fate. The truth broke open inside him.

He still loved Regan Lovell.

Always present just muffled by layers of complications and pains. Philosophers say the truth will set you free, but he was fearful the truth might destroy him.

She slowed to a walk a dozen feet away. Her sleeveless sundress was white and covered in small red flowers, poppies maybe, and she was barefoot, flip-flops in her hand. The smile on her face rivaled the sun.

“I was surprised you called,” she said as she stepped into the shade with him. “Especially with an invite to the river. I assume…” She craned her neck toward the water.

“I came by boat.” His voice sounded like it had been run through a grinder. “How about a ride for old times' sake?”

“Why not?”

She slid on the flip-flops, and he helped her down the bank to the boat. They slipped into old rhythms. She took the seat in the bow, tucking her skirt under her legs and swinging to half-face the front.

He pushed them off, jumped in before his feet got too wet, and started the motor. It was one of Cade's first designs and quiet. He got them moving, letting the river current do most of the work. Her hair blew around her face, the wind undoing whatever magic she'd performed to straighten the natural waves.

She raised her arms and twisted her hair back, holding it off her neck. Her arms flexed, toned and graceful. Her breasts stretched the top of the dress. She arched her back and tilted her chin, showcasing her long neck. Her every movement seduced him like a choreographed dance.

He bypassed the section of river that bisected downtown Cottonbloom. It was too shallow and too public. He had no idea how public she wanted to take whatever it was that they were doing. In all their time dating, he'd never taken her out to eat or to the movies.

It had been hard to justify such luxuries when his family struggled to even put food on the table or clothes on their backs. Regan hadn't seemed to mind. Or maybe it was more that the clandestine nature of their relationship had suited her fine. She'd wanted to keep her parents—especially her mother—in the dark as much as possible.

They passed into Louisiana and entered a narrow section of the river. The trees leaned low, the branches reaching for one another. After the bright sun, the shadows were deep. He killed the engine and let them drift. The current kicked the back around, setting them into a slow, arching circle.

“It's beautiful out here. I'd forgotten.” Her tones were hushed, reverent.

“I don't guess you had much cause to get on the water after we—” He didn't want to talk about the pain of their breakup. Not yet. “I remember my daddy and Uncle Del taking me and Cade on the river to fish. We couldn't stay quiet. Back then we were more like best friends than brothers.”

Now they were moving slow, she'd turned to face him and a genuine smile turned her lips. He'd always hated her fake, pageant smile. “Guess you didn't catch any fish.”

“Daddy put us out on the bank, told us not to mess with any gators, and left us.” The memory made him smile even as she gasped.

“Sawyer, that's terrible.”

“Naw, Cade and I had fun that day. We went looking for a gator but only found a couple of lizards. Daddy and Uncle Del came back for us a couple hours later with a cooler of fish.”

“I can't even imagine … my days were managed to the minute.”

An eddy pushed the boat alongside a fallen tree, and they came to a relative stop, the water rocking the boat slightly.

“I'm surprised you had the time for me. Actually, I'm surprised you ever gave me the time of day.” He asked something he'd wondered about over the years. “Why did you?”

*   *   *

Regan stuttered a breath in. When they'd been kids they'd never talked in-depth about their feelings and whys or why nots. Her love for him had been a fact, not something she'd spent time examining. Then, afterward … her hate had been just as factual. But as an adult she understood how simple and childish they'd been in their love.

“You were pretty cute, if you weren't aware. And you definitely made a big first impression.”

“So that's it?” He seemed disappointed and maybe even a little hurt.

How honest was she willing to be, considering she had no idea where they were headed? “At first, flirting with you at the parties was exciting and made me feel rebellious. I knew Mother would have a fit even then.” She got tangled in his hazel eyes and continued without censoring herself. “You were the first person to really see me.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mother saw herself in me. Or who she'd wanted to be maybe. The pageants, the cotillions, the cheerleading. The push to look the right way, act the right way, date the right boy. At first, all that was fine. I liked to win. I liked the attention.” She shrugged. “It's nice to hear you're pretty, at least on the outside, from a panel of impartial judges. But, I always felt like Cinderella's ugly stepsister trying to force my foot in the glass slipper.”

He smiled, a thin shaft of sunlight making his hair gleam. “Trust me, you are not the ugly stepsister in this story.”

“I felt like one on the inside. You helped me see beyond my selfish little circle in the world. Suddenly finding the right pageant dress wasn't as important as making sure you were okay. I wanted to make you happy.”

He looked to the treetops and muttered something unintelligible before looking her in the eye again. “Get over here.”

Only a few feet separated them. The command in his voice and eyes were more than she could deny. She stood and the boat tipped, pitching her into him. He swept her up and positioned her across his lap, her feet hanging over the side and brushing the water.

“You didn't date me to piss your mother off?” he asked.

“That was just a side benefit.” She forced a tease into her voice. Considering their most recent encounters, her mother still had not forgiven nor forgotten. Dating Sawyer had turned their mostly cordial mother-daughter relationship into a battlefield. And his betrayal had given her mother the victory.

She had disguised constant carping as constructive criticism. She still did, as a matter of fact. It had been Sawyer and his faith in her that had given her the strength to stand up for herself. With him gone, she'd lost the will to fight and settled back in Cottonbloom, her dreams smaller and her heart protected.

“Things have never been easy for us, have they?” she asked.

“Life is hard, Regan. Have you not figured that out yet? If you want something, you work for it.”

His lecturing tone put her on the defensive, tensing her. “I understand hard work, thank you very much. But don't you wonder if maybe we were doomed from the beginning? I mean, Shakespeare knew how Romeo and Juliet would end before he started, right?”

“Predestination is a cop-out.”

“What do you mean?” She slid her hands from around his neck to his chest, the resistance in her body growing.

“We both screwed up. You broke up with me—”

“It was a—”

“It wasn't a break, it was a breakup. Don't justify it. You hurt me so bad I wasn't sure I would survive.” The pain in his voice mirrored her own. “You want to know what happened that night?”

Did she? Not like this. Not in his arms and on the river. The place that held only the best memories of him. When she squirmed to put distance between them, he only held her tighter.

“Nothing happened,” he said shortly.

She froze, still pushing against his chest, but no longer fighting. “What?”

“My friends dragged me out that night to cheer me up. I drank myself into a blackout. I don't remember anything until you barged in that morning.”

“I wasn't delusional. I know what I saw.” A decade-old hurt reared up.

“I didn't have sex with that girl. I was physically incapable.”

“How do you know that? You said yourself you didn't remember anything.”

“Aside from the fact that alcohol makes it difficult for a man to get it up, I tracked her down later and asked her. If I had been awake I wouldn't have let her in my room, much less my bed, I can promise you that.”

“Why not?” She wanted to believe him with a desperation that took her by surprise.

He loosened his hold, but she stayed put, her hands sliding to the edges of his shoulders. Gently, he brushed her hair back and tucked an errant piece behind her ear. “You were my first. It was special and sacred and I wouldn't have thrown that away on a one-night stand.”

“Even though I … broke up with you? Broke your heart?” For the first time she took ownership of the part she'd played in their demise.

“Even so. Didn't mean I stopped loving you overnight.”

“Why didn't you—?” She swallowed a lump of tears down. “You tried to tell me.”

“So many times. Between your mama blocking me and you not taking my calls … And then you told me you didn't love me. That you were with someone else. I was furious. Everything I thought we had together meant nothing to you. You cut me out of your heart with such ease that—”

“I lied.”

“What?”

“I wasn't with someone else. I didn't even date for a really,
really
long time.”

He rolled his head back and closed his eyes.

Immaturity had doomed them, not the fates.

“I almost flunked out of Ole Miss.” Her humorless laugh drew his attention back to her face. “I was heartsick. Monroe was beside herself. Even Mother seemed to be genuinely concerned. I came close to having to move back home and go to Cottonbloom College.”

“Is that why you didn't get your degree in political science and move to Washington?”

“Partly.”

“What was the other part?”

“When I didn't have you anymore … my dreams seemed silly. Too big.”

“Was that your mama getting in your head again?”

“She didn't understand, but neither did Monroe. She'd always planned on coming back to Cottonbloom from the time she left. Her ties were unbreakable, and she was fine with that.”

“But you always wanted away.”