“Just because I want to be close to them doesn’t mean I need to live next door.” Glaring at him, she pressed her water-chilled hands against her too-hot cheeks.
He got a near-apologetic look on his face. “Or maybe they don’t need you as much as you claim they do.”
The heat in her face spread down her neck, spiraled into her belly and legs. She dropped her hands, clenched her fingers. “I’m less than a half hour away. That’s pretty fricking close.”
“And if we’d been somewhere else and they’d needed you, you could have—” He sighed. “Never mind. I needed to talk to you about—”
“We’ve done enough talking.”
“I—” He shifted his gaze to the end of the lake, where the boat had turned around. The hum of the engine reached a crescendo as it approached. “I guess it can wait. So, you were pretty impressive to watch out there.”
She wanted to insult his own performance to regain a fighting position in their spar, but couldn’t, not when any insult would be a lie. “You, too,” she admitted.
His expression flickered with amusement. “Was that so hard?”
“No.” Some lies were worth the guilt. She pivoted, feeling stronger facing him head-on, and rubbed her hands together to try to increase the blood flow to her ice-cold fingertips. Sometimes she could forget, could go back to when she was seventeen and he was eighteen and they had all summer to flirt and gibe. Other times, the pain of his desertion—and the knowledge she was equally to blame as he was—hurt so badly she expected to spit up blood.
He leaned forward and took her hands in his. The warmth of his touch immediately seeped into her skin. “I didn’t think we’d end up like this. I thought we’d move on.”
A solid rush of frustration erupted in her chest. “How am I supposed to move on when you keep poking at me, trying to make it sound like it was all my fault we couldn’t make this work?”
He sat, mouth open, gripping her hands so she couldn’t get away. She pulled, but he hung on.
“Let go, Tavish. We failed at being together. And I’ve been lying to my family about it for a year. Two transgressions I don’t take lightly.”
He met her challenge with a gaze that bit straight through to her core. His grip on her fingers changed from a utilitarian warming rub to a more sensual press. “It’s not something either of us should take lightly. And had you been willing to tell our families about what happened in Vegas, you might not be so damn stuck.”
“I am not stuck.” And he’s not going to believe me unless I stop shouting. She lowered her volume. “What would it say about me if I didn’t feel bad for lying to my family?”
“They didn’t need to know. That’s what you said, anyway.” He traced his fingers against the backs of her hands. His touch felt too gentle, too caring, coming from someone incapable of a functional relationship. Lifting one of her hands to his lips, he kissed her fingertips, setting them off like sparklers.
“I don’t need you to validate my guilt, Tavish,” she snapped. Not only might their siblings be watching from the boat, but his lips plus her skin still equaled electric currents—both problems with potentially disastrous outcomes. Yanking her hands away, she stood. “I’m going to go get more coffee.”
By the time she climbed the stairs to her house and entered her kitchen, all her self-preservation had drained from her like a trail of gasoline from the dock to the house, ready to ignite and burn to cinders. She poured herself a fresh mug of coffee but didn’t drink, just let the heat from the pottery leach into her hands. It was a safer heat than Tavish’s.
Her life felt like an “Oh, God, Dad’s coming over in ten minutes and the house is filthy” moment. But she had carefully stuffed her crap into closets so no one would realize how messy she was. She’d been Cadie’s sounding board since Sam died, and her father’s since her grandparents’ fatal car accident last May. Last May when she’d been secretly standing at an altar with Tavish. Goddamn it. Sure, Andrew was a rock, but he had Mackenzie and the baby to worry about, and couldn’t always be there for Cadie and their father like Lauren could.
Somehow, she needed to construct a Rocky Mountain-size barricade between herself and her ex-husband. Gripping the kitchen counter, she stared through the window as the boat returned to the dock and everyone piled out. She relaxed at the prospect of no longer being alone with Tavish. Until realization struck—she’d let him chase her off her own dock. Shameful. She stomped back down the stairs.
Cadie flopped onto a lounge chair and snuggled under a towel, and held her hands out to Lauren. “Can I hold your coffee for a few minutes? My fingers are numb.”
“Sure.” Lauren passed the mug over and sat down in the chair next to her sister’s, trying to convince herself that the smell of sandalwood lingering on the cushion hadn’t come from Tavish’s soft hair. He’d climbed back into the boat and sat in one of the stern seats, concentrating intently on the screen of his cell phone. He’d zipped into a hoodie, but that did nothing to minimize his hotness—just one more article of clothing to strip off him. Getting to undress him in their honeymoon suite while he stood stock-still, eyes burning with need, had been one of the best—
Ugh. What is my problem today?
He stretched, exposing a thin line of tanned, tattooed skin between his hoodie and board shorts.
Thanks for the taunt, universe. That was a hypothetical question. Didn’t really need the object lesson.
“Let me know when you’re warmed up, Cadie,” Andrew said, tugging Mackenzie into the bow seat and pulling her in close next to him. “You can drive and I’ll ski back to the boat launch. After this run, I’m going to head into the office for a few hours.”
“You were supposed to take the day off,” Tavish said in a half-engaged tone, still focused on whatever he was reading on his cell.
“And so were you, but you seem pretty absorbed in your emails,” Andrew countered.
“Yeah, just got my itinerary for my Thailand assignment in the fall.”
Leaving again. Of course. She steeled herself before disappointment struck, before she wasted any more emotions on Tavish.
Turning off his phone, Tavish jammed it in his pocket. “Sorry. All yours until tomorrow.”
Andrew rubbed his hands together and let out an exaggerated cackle. “Better get used to it. In no time it’ll be the wedding and I’ll own your ass. I think I’ll start training you this afternoon so there’s less to do in July.”
Training? The word skittered down Lauren’s spine like an unwelcome insect. She shivered and pinned Tavish with a questioning look.
He paled. “Uh, well—”
“What is going on?” Her heartbeat filled her ears, drowning out the sound of water slapping against the dock.
“Finally found you help for while I’m away,” Andrew said, climbing out of the boat with an oblivious grin on his face. “Tavish is going to be your assistant.”
* * *
Gripping his sandwiched-together flip-flops in one hand, Tavish smacked the rubber against his thigh and huffed out a breath. Ah, hell. That was not how he’d wanted Lauren to find out. He should have told her when he had the chance.
Turning white, she stammered out an excuse of having to have a shower before meeting Mackenzie in town for wedding prep. She sprinted up her multileveled deck as if trying to escape an encroaching forest fire.
And it was up to Tavish to put out the flames. He tilted his chin at Drew, who was sitting on the dock waiting for his turn for a ski. “You know, Lauren and I need to coordinate our best-man/maid-of-honor speeches. I’m going