“Would you like to come up?”
“I should probably leave you here.”
“Sure. Right. Nothing like an interruption to spoil the mood.”
“It’s probably for the best.”
“Excuse me?” Her voice came out on a strangled moan, and if he hadn’t already known the words were the wrong ones, her reaction ensured it.
“You know. Things happen for a reason. There’s a lot going on here. You’re visiting. You deserve better.”
“I know I do.”
“Well, then. Good.”
The elevator pinged open, saving both of them from any further awkwardness.
She stepped through the doors, her spine stiff. With anger, no doubt, and a good dose of pride to back it up. “Good night, Walker.”
“Good night, Sloan.”
As the doors swished closed, he told himself it was for the best once again. There was no way he was turning his life upside down for a woman.
But as he walked back toward the lobby, he couldn’t stop the image of her in his arms from assaulting him.
How right she felt.
And how very wrong it felt to leave her to go to bed alone.
Chapter Ten
T
he knock came sooner than she thought it would, but she was deeply grateful to find Grier and Avery at her door. And they came carrying cookies. Still-warm chocolate chip cookies with little flecks of toffee in them.
“You don’t fight fair,” Sloan muttered as she reached for one.
“This isn’t about fair. It’s about details.” Grier ran across the room and hopped onto the bed. “Spill.”
“I think I’ll just sit here and savor my cookie for a minute.” Sloan took a bite as she walked to the bed, the warm chocolate on her tongue providing a temporary balm to make-out-session interruptus.
Unfortunately, a whole tray of cookies wouldn’t make up for the brush-off at the elevator Walker had delivered after.
Grier’s gray eyes darkened like storm clouds. “What happened, Sloan? You’re totally missing the smug happiness people who just had sex have. And actually, what the hell are you doing texting us to come up and talk? Avery told me in the elevator you were, um, conferencing.”
“The conference ended.”
Grier’s eyes widened. “Was he bad? Because he doesn’t look like he’d be bad. Oh wow. That’s so disappointing.”
“Grier.” Sloan finally had a chance to get a word in. “He wasn’t bad. He wasn’t anything. We didn’t have sex.”
“Before you tell us”—Avery held up a hand as she moved to sit on the edge of the bed, laying the platter of cookies in the middle between them—“I owe you an apology. I’ve had to knock off things in that conference room more than once and I figured it was someone else. Had I known it was you I would never have interrupted.”
“Don’t worry about it. It was probably for the best.”
“Sloan. Why?”
“Because he gave me the brush-off right after delivering the best fucking orgasm of my life.”
Grier and Avery leaned forward as a pair, eyes wide. Grier was the first to speak. “Okay. Sorry, but you need to back up. What happened?”
“I’m not sure, to be very honest. One minute I’m heading into the hallway after talking to Avery in the kitchen and the next he’s got me moving backward down the hall and into the conference room, kissing me senseless. And then . . .”
Sloan broke off when the memories threatened to overwhelm her. No matter how comforting it was to share, some of the specifics had to remain private.
Especially with the mortifying way it all ended.
“And then we screwed around a bit in the conference room.” Sloan reached for another cookie. “And that’s basically it, culminating in an ending that means Princess Dry Spell isn’t quite dry-spell free.”
“I’m sorry you’re still sitting in the castle. But you did get an orgasm out of it. A good one if the color on your cheeks is any indication,” Grier pointed out helpfully, laying a hand over the top of hers.
“That I did.” Her body was still overly sensitized from his touch, the energy that followed a really good orgasm still firing through her nerve endings.
“This is my fault, Sloan. I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t be, Avery. If this is the way the man reacts to a willing woman, I probably got off lucky.”
“Well, you got off,” Grier added with the dry wit that usually managed to cheer her up.
“Again, your statement of the obvious is oddly comforting while annoyingly accurate.” Sloan tamped down on the tears that threatened at the base of her throat.
Avery must have sensed the threat of tears because she passed the plate of cookies again. “I know we’re all brand-new friends, but I’m forbidding any tears. Because if you start, I’ll start, and I refuse to shed one more tear over Roman Forsyth.”
“Did something happen?” Sloan was grateful for the change in topic and the chance to focus on someone else’s problems instead of her own.
“Nothing since I last updated you.”
Avery quickly got Grier up to speed, fleshing out the same details she’d shared with Sloan earlier, but with a succinct and emotionless monologue. “Of all weekends. With the competition we’ve got a full house, so there’s no way Susan will let me off.”
“Surely she understands,” Sloan argued. “I mean, what does she do for help when you’re not around? Can’t she ask them?”
“They’re already here filling in to help with the overflow. And no, she doesn’t understand. She sees me as the one who got away.”
“Oh, Avery. That’s awful.” Grier shifted positions, laying a comforting hand over Avery’s. “Can you try and talk to her about it?”
“Nothing works. She claims she knows best when it comes to her son.”
“Which obviously she doesn’t.” Why was it, Sloan mused, most people—even well-meaning people—just didn’t know how to mind their own business?
“Do you guys have any sort of reunion sex when he comes back?” Grier reached for another cookie.
The misery stamped across Avery’s face gave all the answer she or Sloan needed. “No. Never.”
“That’s too bad,” Grier mentioned as she took a small nibble. “That means the last time you two had sex together was when?”
“My nineteenth birthday.”
“Ooooh.” Grier winced. “And you’ve had several birthdays since then.”
“Thank you, Grier. That would be correct. Thirteen more of them, to be exact.”
“Then I say it’s definitely time for some grown-up reunion sex.”
Sloan had no idea where Grier was going with all this and was about to interrupt when Avery’s phone went off. Glancing down at the text, Avery jumped up. “Shit, shit, shit. Drama. I’ll be right back.”
“Saved by the bell,” Grier hollered after her as she ran out the hotel room door.
“Grier. What the hell was that about? We’re supposed to be giving her a listening ear.”
“I was helping. I’m way better at sex now than I was at nineteen.”
“And your point is?”
“She needs to stop thinking of the two of them when they were kids. They’re grown-ups, with very grown up parts they both now know how to use.”
“I swear, you need your head examined.”
“Probably.” Grier nodded with a smile. “But I bet I gave her some food for thought.”
“Closer together, Walker. They’re running an obstacle course on ice. We don’t want them falling.”
“Yes, Grandmother.” Walker repositioned the bright orange cones he’d already moved three times as his grandmother marched around the obstacle course they’d set up at the far end of town.
“It doesn’t look like last year.”
Tamping down on the urge to yell, Walker gritted his teeth and smiled. “You didn’t want it like last year because that girl from Arizona fell during the third turn.”
“Oh, that’s right dear.” Sophie patted his arm before turning at the sound of her name. “Well, I know you’ll do what’s best. I need to go.”
Walker watched her walk away before glancing down at the paper map he’d been given earlier that morning.
“She making you nuts?”
“It’s an annual tradition.” Walker glanced up to see Jack Rafferty, an armful of tools in his hands. “What did she rope you into?”
“I’m hammering bleachers for the next hour. Or until I freeze my ass off, which, based on the temperature this morning, will likely happen in the next ten minutes.” Jack glanced in the direction of Sophie’s retreating form. “How the hell is that woman so hale and hearty?”
“She made a deal with the devil.” At Jack’s bark of laughter, Walker added, “It’s the only reasonable explanation.”
“I hope you know I mean no disrespect to your family if I agree with you.”
“None taken.” Walker refolded the paper and shoved it in his pocket. “Here. Let me help you with that. Hammering something may put some feeling back into my limbs.”
“You’re on.”
The two of them walked to the far side of the course, where a series of poles and metal forms had already been laid out. “You’ve done this before?”
“This isn’t the first year your grandmother roped me into this.”
“I guess not.”
Jack pointed to a few poles that were separated from the rest. “We start with those.”
They worked in companionable silence for a few minutes as Walker followed Jack’s lead. In a relatively short time, the framework began to take shape.
“Your grandmother’s a wily one. She put me to work last year on this. Thought getting me out in the community would do me good dealing with Molly’s passing.”
Walker cast an eye toward Jack as he tightened a bolt. “Was she right?”
“Not much helped then, but it was the first time I got out. Funny what a year does. Or doesn’t,” Jack added quietly.
Walker thought about his conversation the evening before with Jess. He kept his tone casual while violating his personal rule of staying out of other people’s business. “You been doing much of that? Getting out?”
“Nah.”
With a final twist, Walker tightened the bolt he was working on and started for another. “Any reason?”
“I get out plenty with the flying. Mick and I have so many runs we’re thinking of expanding. And the rest of the time—well, there’s not a whole lot to get out for.”
“You sure about that, Rafferty?”
“Yeah.” A loud pounding echoed as Jack hammered on a post. Walker figured the movements were deliberate and he almost let the whole thing drop. He would have except that he caught Jack’s suddenly still form from the corner of his eye.
Across the square, Jess tromped out of their offices, her hands full of packages. Likely doing errands for Myrtle again, Walker figured, so the older woman wouldn’t have to go out in the cold. Jack’s gaze never left Jess until she turned the corner onto Indigo Avenue, out of sight.
Purposely keeping his tone light and casual, Walker reached for another bolt, not even looking at Jack as he spoke. “Seems to me you could do some getting out if you were up for it.”
For a few moments, it seemed as if he’d overstepped his bounds because Jack stood there in stony silence. Just as well. It wasn’t any of his damn business anyway. Besides, who the hell was he to be giving out relationship advice?
“Time’s just not right, Walker.”
Well, that was one bit of logic he couldn’t disagree with.
“Guess so, Jack. I guess so.”
As the frame of the bleachers went up between the two of them, taking shape and form with each passing minute, Walker ignored the clench in his gut that told him he’d made a mistake the night before with Sloan.
The timing was just off.
That was all.
If being snubbed via make-out-session interruptus by Walker Montgomery was the height of feminine embarrassment, breakfast at the Indigo Café was its antidote. Sloan and Grier were immediately seated at a table in the dead center of the dining room, amidst table after table of men.
All of whom were focused on the two of them.
“It’s like a dream come true.” Grier leaned forward over her menu, her voice barely above a whisper. “And I never thought a dream come true would feel so weird.”
“You’ve got that right.” Sloan glanced down at her menu, the pancakes again drawing her eye with all their carb-loaded sinfulness. With a firm snap, she decided a plate full of fluffy calories was just the ticket after the previous evening. Besides, now that she was competing, she needed to build up her strength.
“What are you both having? Besides a side of bachelors,” the waitress added with a wink as she filled their coffee mugs.
“Pancakes, bacon and a side of hash browns,” Grier answered, as if reading Sloan’s mind.