Golden Trail (46 page)

“Not a big fan of shopping,” he informed
her.

“That’s okay, you can swing by and get me a
coffee. I’ll do all the grunt work.”

He used her hair to bring her mouth to his
and he kissed her lightly. He did it lightly because she put
pressure on his hand and pulled back a little and he watched her
eyes move over his face then her hand came up and he felt her
fingers at his jaw. She watched as they glided feather light along
his jaw, his lips and then over his cheekbone before her fingers
slid into his hair at the side of his head, curling around the back
and her eyes came back to his.

“I know about you,” she whispered.

“What do you know?” he whispered back.

“You help people,” she was still
whispering.

“Rocky –”

She interrupted him. “I know about Kim
Kempler.”

“Roc –”

“And I know about Winona Jakobi.”

“Baby –”

“Mostly women, right Layne?” she asked
softly and he felt his body get tight.

“It isn’t –”

“Women with kids but on their own,” she cut
him off. “Women like your Mom who struggle going it alone.”

“Ma did all right,” Layne reminded her.

“Yeah, because her son got a paper route the
minute he could and got a job the minute he could get that.
Couldn’t play football, even though you were good, as good as Alec
Colton, if not better, because you had to quit when you were
fifteen and work after school to help out at home.”

Layne tried to lighten the mood. “I don’t
have amnesia, sweetcheeks.”

Rocky didn’t feel like lightening the mood.
Her eyes had grown intense and her hand moved out of his hair so
she could run the backs of her knuckles against his jaw. She
flattened her hand on his cheek and her eyes held his.

“What am I going to do with you, Tanner
Layne?” she whispered.

“If you’re open to suggestions, I got a
few,” Layne whispered back.

“Do you want real?” she asked suddenly and
he didn’t understand the question.

Still, he answered, “Yeah, I want real.”

“How real?” she asked quickly back.

“Lay it on me, Rocky,” Layne invited.

“I didn’t love him,” she returned and his
body got tight under hers again. “I talked myself into thinking I
loved him, but I didn’t. I liked him. I admired him. He’s brilliant
at what he does, he’s passionate about it. I wanted to love him, I
tried, but I never did.”

“What I’m hearin’, Roc, he wasn’t an easy
man to love,” Layne replied.

“He treated me like shit,” Rocky announced
and his arm automatically squeezed her as his hand holding her hair
balled into a fist. “That’s why I couldn’t love him, I guess.
Because he treated me like shit. For ten years. Even before we were
married. And I took that, Layne. I took ten years of it. I took
it.”

“You goin’ somewhere with this?” he
asked.

“Do you think
we’re
going somewhere?”
she asked back.

“We
are
goin’ somewhere,” he
returned.

She nodded. “Then you need to know what kind
of woman I’ve become.”

Layne stared at her a second and he fought
it, he really did, but he couldn’t help it and he burst out
laughing.

“Layne!” she snapped after he’d been
laughing awhile and he rolled so she was on her back in the couch
and he was mostly on top of her. When he got her in that position
and kept laughing, she repeated, “Layne!”

“Give me a minute, sweetcheeks, that was
fuckin’ funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” she
hissed.

“Well you were,” he said through waning
laughter.

She glared at him then announced, “He’s bad
in bed.” Layne burst out laughing again and Rocky slapped his arm.
“Stop laughing, that’s not funny!”

“No, baby, you’re right, it isn’t,
for
you
, for me, I find it hilarious,” Layne returned.

“I put up with that too,” she declared
stubbornly then went back on it. “Well, I did then I didn’t so I
guess it’s no surprise he went looking elsewhere because…
well…”

Layne’s body was shaking and his side hurt
so he said, “Please, Roc, you’re killin’ me.”

She fell silent, Layne got control of his
hilarity and when he did he saw she was staring at him, serious as
a heart attack.

“It’s interesting you think the last ten
years of my life are amusing,” she noted and Layne sobered
instantly and just as instantly gave it to her straight.

“I’m not glad he treated you like shit and
I’m not glad he was shit in bed but at the same time I am. I’m glad
you didn’t move onto anything better than what we had because I
didn’t. Not in bed and not out of it, not ever, not once, not even
close. It would suck if you did because that would kill and these
last eighteen years without you were bad enough. These last
eighteen years thinkin’ you’d gone onto somethin’ good, somethin’
solid, somethin’ that made you happy cut straight to the bone,
Rocky. Knowin’ you didn’t is a relief, you should know that and I
don’t give a fuck what you think about it, that’s how I feel.”

When he was done, she was still staring at
him but her face had changed, her lips were parted and her eyes
were intense. But she didn’t speak so he took that at his cue to
continue.

“Somethin’ else, sweetcheeks,” he went on.
“I know what kind of woman you are, you can’t hide it. So you made
shitty decisions. I got blotto a week after you left me, fucked the
first woman who came along that night who reminded me of you, the
condom broke and she got pregnant. I was drunk but that’s no
excuse, it was a shitty decision. I was pissed and in pain, made
that decision and bore the consequences. I lucked out and got
Jasper and Tripp outta that. You, if you play your cards right, can
take his ass to the cleaners and make it so you’ll never worry
about money. That’s what you’ll get out of yours.”

“I think, don’t you, that I should just cut
my losses and move on. There’s no reason to make Jarrod pay for me
not loving him,” Rocky replied.

“Oh yeah… yeah there is,” Layne
returned.

“Really? What?”

His face dipped close. “Because he could
have made you happy. It was me, you gave me a shot, I’d tie myself
into knots to make you happy. He didn’t do that. He treated you
like shit, made you feel small and fucked around on you. You
think
you played him but you didn’t. He might not be any
good at fuckin’ but he’s the master at fuckin’ you over and he
should pay for that.”

“Layne –” she started, her mouth had gone
soft, her eyes had gone half-mast but he was on a roll.

She wanted to talk? They were going to
talk.

“Why were you in my hospital room?”

Her body went solid underneath him and she
repeated, “Layne.”

His arms gave her a rough squeeze. “Answer
me, Rocky, why?” She closed her eyes and he gave her another
squeeze on a warning, “Roc.”

She opened her eyes and whispered, “You know
why, Layne.”

And that was when Layne watched the tears
fill her eyes and one slid out the side, down her temple, into her
hair and there it was. He knew it, or he had wanted to know it but
he couldn’t be sure but there it was, the proof leaking from
Rocky’s eyes.

He lifted his hand, slid his fingers into
her hair and used his thumb to wipe the wetness away.

“Yeah, baby,” he said gently, “I know why
and now that I’ve reminded you, can we get passed this shit?”

Apparently they couldn’t, not yet.

“You were drunk when you slept with
her?”

“Yeah.”

She stared up at him and took in a deep
breath then another one until her eyes cleared and she asked, “Why
do men do that?”

“Baby, I did it and
I
don’t even know
why I did it.”

She studied his face and then nodded and he
felt her body ease under his, something he knew wouldn’t last long
because he had to ask so he was going to ask.

“Why’d you leave me?”

Her eyes held his, Layne held his breath and
she surprised the fuck out of him when she answered.

“I did it,” she stopped and licked her lips,
“and I don’t know why I did it.”

He closed his eyes and turned his head away
because that was pure and complete bullshit. Such bullshit, when he
was being straight with her, that it pissed him right, the fuck,
off. So he started to knife away but stopped when he felt her
fingers curl around his neck.

His eyes went back to her.

“You know, right after I left you, two days
I stayed in my room at Dad’s house and I don’t remember a second. I
don’t remember eating or sleeping or going to the bathroom. I just
remember getting up on the third day, all my stuff from our house
in boxes and suitcases jammed into my room, and I walked down and
Dad was eating cereal. He looked at me and said, ‘Want me to take
you back to Tanner?’ and I said, ‘Never,’ and that was it. I don’t
know why. I know…” She closed her eyes and Layne held his breath
again until she opened them and went on in a whisper. “I know it
hurt. I know every day I struggled with it. I know every day I
wondered why I was struggling. I know how it felt when you’d call,
come over, I’d hear you arguing with Dad or Merry. I know how all
of that felt. I remember all of that. I know it didn’t feel good
and I knew then that the only way to make it better was to go back
to you. I just don’t know why I couldn’t.” The tears came back into
her eyes, shimmering for a second before falling and she lifted her
head, closed her eyes, pressed her forehead to his and finished.
“Until you got shot.” She opened her eyes and, close up, they
locked on his. “Eighteen years, every day I struggled against
finding a way to connect with you but I couldn’t fight it anymore
when you got shot.”

His hand sifted into her hair at the side
and he slanted his head and touched his mouth to hers, muttering,
“Baby.”

She shook her head and her arms slid around
his shoulders, she buried her face in his neck and her body
trembled with her tears as she kept talking, her voice rough and
thick, difficult to hear and not because her words were hard to
make out.

“Every day for eighteen years, Layne, every
fucking
day. I missed you every day. I’d wake up next to
Jarrod and wish it was you, I’d go to sleep next to him and wish it
was you.” She pulled her face out of his neck and her eyes hit his
but hers were so wet he knew she couldn’t focus on him when she
said, “That’s why he said that at the restaurant. He knew. He threw
you in my face all the time. We fought about it,
God,
all
the time. Once,” she pulled her hand through her hair then swiped
at her cheeks in agitation, “we were making love and he asked me,
right in the middle of it, ‘Who do you see, Rocky, do you see me or
is Tanner fucking you?’”

Layne had been holding his tongue.

Until then.

Then, he growled, “You are fuckin’ shitting
me.”

“No!” she cried and flopped back on the
couch, covering her face with her hands. “I don’t blame him.” Her
head was shaking side to side. “I don’t blame him.”

“Baby,” Layne’s hands went to her wrists to
pull hers away from her face but they moved suddenly, turned to
frame his and they held on tight.

“Merry called,” she whispered. “He called me
and told me to get to the hospital. He couldn’t go. He was dealing
with…” She shook her head. “He told me. He told me you’d been shot.
When I got there, Gabrielle was there with the boys. She was so
pissed when she saw me. Jasper and Tripp, they were in a fog, they
didn’t even know I was there. But Gabrielle, she was pissed. And I
didn’t care. I just sat there until the boys left you and I could
get into your room and I sat there until you woke up and I knew you
were okay. And that was it. I couldn’t fight it anymore, whatever
it was and now…” she stared up at him, “now…” her eyeballs went
side to side, “well, now I’m here.”

“Now you’re here,” Layne repeated, her eyes
came to his and her hands slid from his face and down to rest on
his chest.

“Now, I’m here,” she whispered.

“You play me?” Layne asked and he felt
pressure at her hands at his chest before they went away, one
folding around the other and she rested them on her chest.

“Play you?” She was still whispering.

“Sweetcheeks, leg of lamb?”

Light dawned and Layne watched her face
close down but not before he saw the pain knife through her eyes.
“No, Layne,” she said softly. “I didn’t play you.”

Then she shifted as if to slide out from
under him but he gave her all his weight, pressing her into the
couch and he framed her face with his hands.

“You played me,” he murmured, looking into
her eyes.

“I didn’t.” She bucked her back to try to
throw him off.

“You played me, just didn’t know you were
doing it.”

She stilled under him, held his gaze and
announced, “I think I’m sleeping at home tonight.”

He grinned. “Oh no you’re fuckin’ not.”

“I am.”

“You’re not.”

“Layne,
I am
so
get off,
” she
demanded, bucking again.

His thumb slid over her cheek and down to
rest on her lips and his face got close. “No, Roc, you’re not gonna
go home. You’re gonna go upstairs and you’re gonna get naked and
climb into my bed and then you’re gonna let me do what I want to
your body, whatever I want, for as long as I want and, when I make
you come, you’re gonna hafta be quiet about it so you don’t wake up
Ma and my boys.”

“Get off,” she whispered but there was no
fire to it and his grin turned to a smile, he dropped his head and
whispered in her ear.

“First I’m gonna suck your tits and finger
fuck you ‘til you come. Then I’m gonna go down on you ‘til you
come. Then I’m gonna fuck you hard ‘til
I
come.” He lifted
his head and looked at her face, eyes half-mast, mouth soft and she
was already breathing heavily. “You’re up to it, you can come when
I fuck you too. We’ll see how I do.”