Back in the Game: A Stardust, Texas Novel (16 page)

“Where
are
we going?”

He dropped her hand, turned, and started walking backward into the pines, crooking a come-with-me finger. Birds twittered overhead. A brown squirrel scolded them from a tree limb. The damp ground, littered with pine needles, felt spongy beneath her feet.

Her writer’s imagination went wild, and she pictured this place in the dark filled with the sharp call of whippoorwills and the shivery scream of screech owls. So easy to believe in those East Texas swamp stories of ghosts and goblins and things that went bump in the forest at night.

But the sun was high in the sky. Broad daylight.

She paused.

Rowdy drew farther into the copse of trees, almost disappearing from her view. “Breezy,” he coaxed her in a provocative singsong. “Come along with me.”

Lured by his Pied Piper voice, she followed.

The path narrowed and the deeper they went, the thicker the trees grew, squeezing too close, strangling each other for sunlight. While she’d grown up in the piney woods, she’d spent so much time in bed recuperating from surgeries, and her parents had been cautious and protective. She had not played in the woods much. And definitely not unsupervised.

“You used to play here?” she asked.

“When me and my friends weren’t in a vacant lot playing baseball.”

She pushed aside a bushy frond that sprang back to slap against her calf. “Why do I feel like Little Red Riding Hood?” she joked nervously.

“Are you saying I’m the Big Bad Wolf?” His teeth flashed white.

“It’s spooky in here.”

“But in a good way.”

“Depends on what you mean by good,” she mumbled.

“This,” he said, parting tree branches in front of him.

Sunlight shone on the other side, and he led her into a clearing where a blue pond, the same color as his eyes, shimmered.

An oasis.

A treasured gem buried in the center of a pine thicket. Rabbits and squirrels scampered in the undergrowth. Mockingbirds called. A carpet of colorful wildflowers spread over the ground. The odor of creosote was replaced with the sweet perfume of prairie verbena, scarlet paintbrush, pink buttercups, and lazy daisies. The train noises, the dilapidated shacks were a world away.

Magical. A fairy tale.

“Rowdy.” She breathed. “It’s beautiful.”

“Told you.” He settled the picnic basket down, and spread the blanket on the ground.

“Night and day from where we were,” she marveled.

“Refuge. A surprising gift from Mother Nature to the people stuck living by the train tracks.”

“Nature doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor,” she said.

“As long as man doesn’t come along, put a fence around it, and charge admission.”

“We’re not trespassing?”

“Public land.”

He reached his arms behind him, fisted two handfuls of T-shirt, and in one relaxed move, peeled the shirt over his head. There he stood, cock-of-the-walk, the nearly noonday sun of late May flaring a hot glow over his sublimely naked torso, low-slung jeans hugging his lean hips.

“Um . . .” Breeanne gulped. “What are you doing?”

He didn’t answer. Just flung her that born-to-sin grin. His thumb flicked loose his belt buckle, and he yanked the belt through the loops of his jeans. It hissed a seductive slithering sound, leather whipping against denim. He toed off his boots, peeled off his socks. Stood the boots, with the socks tucked inside them, near the blanket.

“Rowdy?” Her voice came out shaky.

He winked, slow and easy. Unsnapped his jeans.

Oh Lord! A thousand wicked thoughts of what she’d like to do to and with this man flooded her brain.

“What’s happening?” she squeaked.

He looked utterly amused at her shock. Was she that big of a prude? “What do you think is happenin’?”

She noticed he dropped the “g” from “ing” verbs when he was being intentionally provocative. The potent charm of the Southern masculine drawl. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t even lick her lips, much less spit out any more words.

“Why, sweetheart, did you think I brought you here to seduce you? That’s so cute. But you gotta get your mind out of the gutter. I’m hot and sweaty and the water’s clear and cool. That’s all.”

Swimming. Oh. She felt a bit let down.

“You set the ground rules for this relationship, and I’m abidin’ by them.”

Her eyes were glued to his exquisite body. She’d seen him nearly naked before but she hadn’t been so stoked by wild thoughts or so completely alone with him. Warwick was always lurking in the background. But now, it was just the two of them.

“I don’t want to lose you before we ever really get this book started,” he said.

All she heard was
I don’t want to lose you
. Everything else he said was white noise.

“You’re welcome to join me.”

Her lungs burst into flames. She tried to breathe, but the five-alarm fire inside her burned up every lick of oxygen. It was all she could do not to rush over, tug down his zipper, strip the pants from his body, and touch every masculine inch of him.

“Last one in is a rotten egg.” He turned his back to her, shucked off his jeans, and dove, buck-naked, into the pond.

The sexiest butt on the planet had just flashed her, and she wanted to pinch it to feel those rock-hard muscles. Which was most likely his intention. The tease!

He broke the surface, treading water, crooking that beguiling finger at her again. “C’mon in. The water’s perfect.”

“Wh-wh . . .”

“Speechless, huh? From the look on your face, I’m guessin’ you’ve never been skinny-dippin’.”

“No . . . no . . . nor am I about to start,” she sputtered, scandalized, mortified, dissatisfied, and oh-so-tempted to join him.

“Aw, you gonna leave me hangin’ here all alone?” He mocked up a faux-sad face, shook his head, and sent water flying off his wet, dark hair in all directions.

“You got yourself into this . . .” She cinched her arms over her chest, mainly so he couldn’t see how her nipples were turning into marbles underneath her camisole.

“Live a little,” he coaxed, smooth as the devil. “You know you want to.”

Slowly, she shook her head, but she smiled. Why did she smile?

“It’s liberatin’. Nothing between your skin and the water.” He was messing with her. Assuming she didn’t have the stones to take him up on his offer.

“I can get that any time I want in the bathtub.”

“It’s not the same. This is nature. Free and easy.”

“Too free and easy.” Gosh, she sounded like an old maid.

“You don’t know what you’re missin’.” He sounded like he felt sorry for her that she’d never had the experience of swimming naked in a pond.

He was right about that. She’d missed out on so much in life.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll make it easier for you. I’ll turn my back, and you tell me when you’re in the water.”

Did she dare? “How do I know you won’t turn back around before I’m ready?”

“I give you my word.”

“For what that’s worth,” she muttered, but her irreverent fingers plucked at the hem of her tank top.

“Here I go.” He raised his arms in a gesture of surrender as if a robber had a gun pressed to his back, and he turned around.

“Um . . .” The sensible part of her brain was frantically trying to put on the brakes. “How deep is the water? I can’t swim.”

“Woman, have you been living under a rock for twenty-five years?”

“Something like that,” she whispered.

“I’m on my feet,” he said. The water hit him in the middle of his muscled back. “It’s not much more than four feet deep. You’re safe. I would never let anything happen to you.”

His heartfelt promise cinched it. She tugged the hem of her tank top up to her rib cage. Was she really doing this? A thrill chased over her, both scary and exciting.

“You have to get completely naked,” he called. “No leaving your underwear on, that’s cheating.”

“Keep running your mouth,” she said, “and you’ll talk me right out of it.”

“You’re comin’ in?” he asked, hope in his voice.

“Only if you hush up.”

“I’m not saying another word.”

Cautiously, she peeked over her shoulder, making sure they were completely alone, except for woodland creatures, before she stripped off her tank top.

So far so good.

She kicked off her loafers, took off her shorts, stood there in her panties and camisole, the wind brushing softly against her legs, the soft grass tickling her bare feet.

“Breeanne? You still there?”

“I thought you were going to be quiet.”

“Sorry, forgot. My arms are getting tired.”

“You can put them down. No one said you had to put your arms up.” She took off her glasses, set them on top of the picnic basket. She was one step closer to bare-naked.
Hang in there, courage.

“I’m keeping them up so you don’t think I’m doing anything suspicious with my hands.”

“Well, I wasn’t imagining you might have been until you brought it up. Now I can’t stop imagining it.”

“Are you horrified?”

“I’m having second thoughts.” She stripped off her camisole, felt gloriously slutty. “You should have kept your mouth shut.”

“Aw, Breezy, don’t back out. I take it back. Forget I said anything.” He shifted as if to turn around.

She squeaked, scrambled for her clothes, held them up in front of her naked chest.

But he didn’t turn around.

She let out a breath. Dropped her clothes.

The sun warmed her chest, put the scars under a spotlight. The older scars silvered with time, the latest one faded light pink at the seams. What was she thinking? He was going to see her scars. She wasn’t ready for him to see her scars. She should stop this nonsense and get dressed immediately.

She shivered uncontrollably despite the sun’s warmth.

Chicken. You claim you want adventure, but when one falls into your lap, you’re ready to run.

Fair enough, but she wasn’t ready to handle being naked in a pond with Rowdy Blanton. Not by a long shot.

When would she be ready? When she was twenty-six? Thirty-six? Fifty-six? Never?

Fine. Okay. She would do this. Let him see the scars. Let him see how she’d suffered. Let him see the real her.

What if he found her repulsive?

So what? It wasn’t as if she ever had a real shot with him anyway. He was gorgeous, rich, famous, sexy, accomplished, and she was none of those things.

But there was no reason she could not make this memory, and she would forever own bragging rights to skinny-dipping with Rowdy Blanton.

That decided the matter. She stripped off her panties, and waded in.

CHAPTER
12

Players like rules. If they didn’t have any rules,

they wouldn’t have anything to break.

—
L
EE
W
ALLS

“I’m in the water,” Breeanne said. “You can turn around now.”

To keep from scaring her with any sudden moves, Rowdy slowly lowered his arms and turned to face her.

Breeanne stood three feet behind him, the water lapping the tops of her shoulders, a sly smile on her face. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“What do you think of skinny-dippin’?” he asked.

She closed her eyes for a moment, as if fully absorbing the experience. Or was it because he made her uncomfortable?

Feeling oddly nervous, he prodded, “Well?”

“Hmm. So interesting.”

“First impressions?”

“The mud under my feet is kind of squishy. You’re right, you don’t get that in a bathtub.”

He could tell by the way she smiled and swayed that she was curling her toes in the mud, and loving the experience. Christ, why did he have such an overwhelming urge to show her the world?

She giggled and sank lower until the water lapped at her chin. The ends of her wavy hair soaked up the water, turning from dark blond to light brown. He imagined that those damp strands trailing across his face, and briefly closed his eyes against the idea of her straddling him the way she had when they’d fallen off the zipline platform, this time both of them naked and wet. He had to stop this. He was only making things harder on himself.

“If someone saw us they wouldn’t know we were totally naked in here, would they?” she asked.

“Not from looking at us, but the clothes on the bank? Dead giveaway.”

“Oh dear!” Her eyes rounded and she put a palm to her mouth. “Should I have hidden our clothes?”

“I’m pretty sure we’re totally alone.”

“What if kids come by?”

“It’s almost noon. Kids are still in school until the first week in June.”

“But it is the Friday before Memorial Day, and this neighborhood looks like the sort where kids play hooky. I bet you played hooky when you were a kid.”

“Everyone plays hooky.”

“I never did.”

“Well,
you
didn’t. But most people do. Ordinary people play hooky at least once or twice when they’re growing up. Your mom never wrote you a note saying you were sick when you weren’t so you could stay home for a play day?”

“I wanted to go to school. I hated being sick.” She said it strongly, the expression in her eyes fierce. “Faking an illness to get out of school is irresponsible.”

He raised his arms again. “I give. Clearly, my experiences were out of the norm, and not the other way around.”

“Rowdy,” she gasped, and the color drained from her face and her chin went twitchy.

“What is it?”

“Keep your hands and feet to yourself.”

She looked so upset that warning buzzers fired off in his brain, loud as firehouse alarms. “What? I didn’t touch you.”

Her skin turned ghostly. “You didn’t just rub your foot against my leg?”

“No.”

“
Something
brushed up against my leg. If it wasn’t you . . .” She looked like she was about to turn and sprint to the shore, and while he wouldn’t be the least bit opposed to the sight of that, he hated that something in the water had freaked her out.