The Rebound Girl (Getting Physical) (23 page)

It was a golfing glove...but not just any golfing glove. Bright pink leather, hand-stitching along the seams and, best of all, an embroidered flamingo located dead center. She looked up at Matt and back at the glove, feeling oddly wobbly where she stood. “Where did you find it? I
know
you didn’t buy this from Natalie.”

He shifted on his feet. “Oh, this novelty company online. It’s no big deal.”

“Matt.” She got up on tiptoed feet and kissed his cheek—a peck this time. She didn’t feel capable of more. “This is really sweet. Thank you.”

He opened his mouth to say something but seemed to think the better of it.

“What?” she asked, instantly suspicious. “Come on. Out with it.”

“I was just wondering if my gift made you feel good.”

Good
? Reeling, yes. Breathless, sure. Touched by the quiet thoughtfulness of it, absolutely. But good?

“You know, good enough to show me the pony later.”

The comment hit her from the side, and Whitney was so surprised she staggered. And laughed. The sound of it was so loud several people around them stopped talking to see what had happened—who had gone so far off her rocker she brought birds down from the rafters. By the time she got her composure back, her eyes were moist, and she’d never been more certain that despite the mess of her life, this might possibly be the best birthday ever.

And she knew exactly why.

Lean, charming, dimpled. Quiet. Strong. The exact opposite of everything she’d ever thought she found attractive in a man.

“Matt—for that comment alone, you get a private Pony showing that will have you coming so much harder in those tight little pants than you ever dreamed possible.” She smacked him on the ass and walked away, tossing back over her shoulder. “Come find me when the party’s over.”

* * *

Matt couldn’t say for sure exactly when he became aware of the other man’s presence.

Stocky, in his late thirties and the only one not wearing a cowboy hat, there wasn’t much else about him that stood out—at least not as far as Matt could tell. There were lots of people here he didn’t know. What difference did one more make?

“Did you see that guy over there in the cargo pants?” Lincoln took a seat next to Matt at one of the long tables near the food and dropped his head in his hands. “Ugh. I hate douchebags like that.”

Matt nodded once. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the guy.

“Do you know him?” Matt handed his red plastic cup to his brother, thinking he’d set it down. Lincoln had to go on duty tomorrow before the sun came up, and had already declared his intention to forgo the birthday cake and all its empty buttercream calories. “Whoa—that’s beer, Lincoln. I thought you were watching your fluids.”

“Maybe I want a night off for once, okay? Back off.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Kendra, does it? Look, Lincoln—you told me right from the start that city girls had a tendency to do this.”

Lincoln gulped back the rest of the cup’s contents and pointed it at him. “Not everything in life is about that mushy romance crap. Maybe you’re happy designing your life around the crook of a woman’s finger, but some of us have
real
problems.”

Matt steeled his jaw, taking his brother’s low blow without complaint. There had been rumblings that Lincoln was facing suspension from the force yet again, something that arose every couple of years and made them all miserable by extension. “I don’t design my life around women, Lincoln. I treat them like actual human beings. There’s a difference.”

Lincoln grabbed another red plastic cup from a woman walking close by. “Is there? Is that why you’re letting that guy move in on your girlfriend without so much as a murmur?”

“First of all, she’s technically not my girlfriend.” Matt glanced over at the man and did his best to fight a rising wave of panic. “And he seems nice. He’s probably a doctor friend.”

“They’re all fucking doctors.” Lincoln gestured widely. “Even that dude over there with the dreads down to his knees. Who ever heard of a doctor with dreads?”

“You’re absolutely right, Lincoln. How stupid of me. No man who makes style decisions you object to has a right to attend medical school. You should arrest him.”

Lincoln slumped farther in his seat. “Gimme my keys. I’m going home.”

“I think maybe you should go get some air first.” No way was Matt letting his brother behind the wheel of that speed trap in his current condition. “Give me a few minutes to let Whitney know where I’m going, and I’ll drive you.”

“I don’t need you to drive me. Besides—I think I’m about to become the least of your worries. Look.”

Matt’s first thought was that Laura had somehow followed him here, and he sat up straighter, unconsciously correcting his posture. But that was ridiculous. Even though she’d been clingy as of late, she wasn’t obsessive. And she barely had the energy to leave the house anymore.

When he finally looked over, his gaze didn’t land on that of his ex-wife, looking uncertain in her surroundings. It landed on Whitney...and the mystery doctor. Dancing.

No. Not dancing.

The way the pair of them moved across the barn floor—faces close, lips moving, bodies swaying—wasn’t the embrace of two friends meeting for the first time in months. If he didn’t know better, Matt would say that Whitney had the other man’s neck in a chokehold.

“I, uh, think I might need to intervene.” Matt got to his feet and moved quickly. One thing he was sure of about Whitney—she wouldn’t forgive him for letting her murder someone on her birthday.

As he drew closer, hesitation settled in. Although Whitney’s face was unquestionably clouded with rage and homicidal thoughts, the man didn’t seem to feel the oncoming storm. The words
party
crasher
,
arrogant
and
asshole
streamed rapidly out of Whitney’s mouth, and all he did was swoop her into a dip and flash a dazzlingly white smile.

Matt’s stomach churned acid. Who was this guy? And why, if Whitney so clearly disliked him, was she putting up with his arms winding tighter around her waist? Before he knew what he was about, his feet carried him all the way across the barn floor, his steps long and sure.

“Mind if I cut in?” he asked, barely recognizing the James Bond voice that slipped past his lips. “I believe you promised me a dance.”

Whitney and the man stopped spinning, but their hands stayed in place as the music twanged on. It would have been an opportune moment for introductions or for an exchange of pleasantries as Whitney changed dance partners, but Matt felt a sudden urge to prove a point.

What that point might be he had no real clear idea—but it had its roots in an overwhelming urge to have Whitney in his arms and as far away from the blindingly white smile of the arrogant asshole party crasher as possible.

Without waiting for either one of them to do the polite thing, Matt grabbed Whitney’s hand and twirled her away from the man’s grasp. He slid his fingers along the curve of her waist and pulled her close, glad when he heard a hitch in her breath.

“That was rather debonair of you,” she said, watching him closely. “Care to share what’s got you so riled up?”

“Not really.” The music slowed into a ballad about teenage love, and Matt adjusted his step to match. Every eye in the place was on them, but he didn’t dare loosen his grip. “Can’t I dance with my non-girlfriend on her birthday if I feel like it?”

“I had no idea you were so light on your feet,” she said, ignoring his question. “Have you been having fun?”

They’d reached one edge of the eight-by-eight patch of flooring that served as the dance floor, so Matt spun Whitney to begin a path back across. Unfortunately, that put him squarely in view of the mysterious doctor, who stood somewhat apart from the others, watching Whitney with a look of keen interest.

“I’ve enjoyed being here for you,” he said honestly. Honesty was necessary, as he meant to counteract it with a slight deception. It wasn’t his fault—he wanted to know who the hell that guy thought he was. “I believe I got around to meeting just about all your friends. There are only one or two newcomers I missed.”

“Oh? Any ladies catch your eye? I should introduce you to Gertrude.”

Matt’s grip on her waist tightened, and he hooked his thumb on one of the wide straps of her bandolier. He ran his fingers up to where the leather passed over her nipple, allowing his touch to linger on the hardened peak. Juvenile it might have been, but he relished the reassurance of her body’s response to him. “That’s not funny. You know there’s only one woman I want.” Then, before she could do more than open her mouth to protest, he went for it. “Who was that you were dancing with?”

“Who?” Whitney avoided his gaze. The obvious fact that she was hiding something only made the fire in Matt’s stomach burn higher. He remained silent until she was forced to speak, their dancing all but stopped in the middle of the floor. “Oh, you must mean my old friend from med school days. He just arrived in town this week.”

Perfect. Lincoln was right—they were all doctors. “For your party?”

“Possibly longer.” Then, lower, as if to herself, “Hopefully not.”

They turned again, this time bringing Whitney within clear view of the mystery medical man. Her body tensed, and a full twenty seconds passed before she was able to shake herself off.

Matt wished there was some way he could see what sort of an exchange had passed between the two, but the music switched to a faster song—one of those thump and grind ones Lincoln favored when wooing a woman. Something inside Whitney switched, too, and she drew closer.

“Oh, I love this song,” she said, her hips coming to rest against his. The beat picked up, drums and electric guitar pounding, and Whitney’s dance moves picked up with it.

Before Matt could do more than wonder at the sudden change, Whitney twirled so that they stood front-to-back, her entire body flush with his. The press of her ass—so tightly packed in those tiny jean shorts—as it wiggled against his groin proved too much for Matt’s restraint, and he placed his hands on her hips to still the grinding movements. He still had to walk away from the dance floor on just two legs, regardless of how wonderful it felt to bury his head in the curve of her neck and lose himself in the moment of sound and sensation and
her
.

“What do you say we get out of here?” Matt said, his voice low as his lips brushed against her ear. “I saw this great pile of hay out back.”

“Tempting.” Whitney turned back around and pulled his face down to hers. Her lips barely grazing his, she breathed against them, “But right now I need you to kiss me, Matt, please. Kiss me like you mean it.”

He didn’t need much more of an invitation than that. Without hesitation, he pressed his mouth against hers—softer than the music and his straining erection called for, but the exact way he’d wanted to kiss her since the day they met. Slow. Deep. Sharing breath and fusing souls. The rest of the room fell away and they stopped dancing. All that remained were his hands cupping the sides of her face, holding her tenderly while his kiss said all the things she wouldn’t let him say with words.

Like he meant it.

Matt was the first to pull away, dazed, robbed of all memory of where they stood and who made up the audience around them.

Whitney’s lips remained parted, her cheeks flush with color. It was too dark to read her eyes, but her body language—heavy breathing, her whole body unnaturally still—was clear. She brought her fingers to her lips slowly, as if testing to make sure they were still there, and the only thing that prevented Matt from capturing them again was the crash of a table overturning and Lincoln’s voice, loud and insistent, that he was perfectly capable of seeing himself home.

“I can’t believe this,” he muttered, tearing his gaze away. “Whitney, I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to take him home.”

All of Whitney’s guests were watching the spectacle of Lincoln attempting to right the table by himself and sliding in the Jell-O salad. All except one. The mystery doctor stood rooted to the spot, watching Whitney.

No. Watching Matt.

The man nodded once, tipping his head in a way that suggested conciliation or capitulation or even...recognition. But recognition of what?

He didn’t have time to wonder. Kendra appeared at his elbow, asking if he wanted any help getting his brother out to the car, but Matt shook his head firmly and forced himself to leave the mystery alone for now.

“I can handle Lincoln.” Maybe nothing else in his life made much sense, but the inevitability of Lincoln screwing up was almost a comfort. “Just get him outside. I’ll do the rest.”

He faced Whitney, intending to apologize for such an abrupt end to an unforgettable kiss, but she had already recovered her senses, and he could practically see the shift in her eyes as she regained control. “Go rescue your brother, Galahad. The people of Pleasant Park are counting on you.”

“You’re not mad?” Matt was furious. Lincoln was going to owe him big time for this.

“Of course not. You’re the nice guy, the dependable brother. I wouldn’t expect anything less.” She brushed the hair from his face and rubbed her thumb along his jawline—an intimate gesture rendered void when her gaze shifted somewhere over Matt’s left shoulder. He knew, without needing to look, who she was staring at. “Thanks for coming. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Matt felt a burning urge to glance back as he exited the barn, to see if Whitney went to talk to the mystery doctor.

But he didn’t.

For one, Lincoln was retching all over the lanterns lining the path.

For another, he knew, with a roiling certainty in his gut, that the answer was one he wouldn’t like.

* * *

“Thirty-four looks good on you.”

Whitney froze in the midst of tossing a stack of plastic cups into the garbage bin. Determined not to let Jared goad her, she tossed her hair and kept cleaning. “Was there ever any doubt? The Vidra women are a well-preserved breed. You should know—you spend enough time with my mother.”

Jared’s hand fell on her shoulder, forcing her to turn and face him. “Don’t take it out on her. I made her invite me to your party. We need to talk, and you won’t return my calls. I didn’t have many other options.”