Stop The Wedding!: Night Driving / Smooth Sailing / Crash Landing

To his credit, Boone looked chagrined, but then he went and ruined it by saying, “I’m not responsible for how you feel. I’m just calling it like I see it.”

“Hey, you’re not my big brother.”

“Thank God.”

“Why do you say that? I’m a good sister. A great sister, in fact. I can play shortstop and I don’t scream when my brothers put bugs down the back of my shirt, and I have cute girlfriends for my brothers to date and I—”

“Because if you were my sister, I’d be arrested for the thoughts I’ve been having about you.”

“Oh.” She blinked. Grinned. “What kind of thoughts?”

“Illicit thoughts.”

Imagine that. She sidled closer. “Real-ly?”

Boone stepped back, shook his head. “Duvall, you have no boundaries.”

“I have five siblings,” she explained, not knowing why she bothered other than the supreme satisfaction of knowing that he wanted her. For months, she’d been trying to charm him, but he’d been immune. Or so she’d thought, but apparently he put up a good front. Yet here he was admitting he liked her when she was moving thousands of miles away. What lousy timing.

“Five? That’s quite a brood.”

“Three brothers, two sisters. When you grow up in a crowd, it’s a free-for-all. Try riding in the back of a minivan where you can’t move an elbow without smacking someone in the eye and you wouldn’t have any boundaries either.”

For the briefest moment, he smiled. “Hey, I was in the military. I can relate to cramped quarters.”

“So why do you have a problem with no boundaries?”

“Because it feels…” He trailed off.

“What?”

“Where are you in the birth order?” he asked, changing the subject.

She let it go, even though what he had not said whetted her curiosity. “Third youngest or fourth oldest, however you want to look at it.”

“Stuck in the middle, huh? That explains some things.”

Tara frowned. “Yeah, like what?”

“The outrageous clothes, the way you change your hair color every time the wind blows, the in-your-face cheerfulness. It’s all a bid to stand out from the pack.”

“Seriously? We’re doing this? Because if we’re pointing fingers, boy, do I have some stuff to unload on you.”

“I wasn’t pointing fingers. Merely making an observation.”

“Guess what? I have eyes. I’ve observed a few things about you, too.”

His eyes narrowed and darn if he didn’t looked amused. “Yeah? Let’s have it.”

She ticked off his faults on her fingers, one by one. “Testy. Controlling. Rigid. Hypervigilant. I’d take no boundaries any day over brooding stick-in-the-mud.”

“That’s the worst you can do?” He arched an eyebrow, made come-on-let’s-fight motions with his fingers.

“Oh,” she said, new understanding dawning. “I finally get it.”

“Get what?”

“You think you deserved to be punished. That’s why you resist my attempts to draw you out. Sorry to break it to you, but I’m not going to be the one to crack the bullwhip against your back.”

“Huh?” He made such a disgusted face that she knew she’d nailed him. Boone hadn’t forgiven himself for coming home. Survivor’s guilt. She didn’t know much about the details of his injury, only snippets of local gossip, but clearly Boone was still torturing himself over it. Her heart went out to him.

Being a hairstylist gave her a peek into the human psyche. People spilled more confidences to her than to their therapists. There was something about having your hands deep in someone’s hair that made them talky. An odd intimacy developed between a stylist and her clientele. A lack of conventional boundaries. It was one of the things she liked about her profession.

Boone’s dark-eyed stare seared her skin, making her feel as naked as the day she was born. Things normally rolled right off her back, but for one split second she was tempted to jump into her car and drive away in the half-loaded U-Haul.

“We better get to work,” she mumbled and reached for one of the boxes sitting on her kitchen table. “Without the movers this is going to take us twice as long.”

He didn’t say another word, just moved over to reach for a second box. In the process, his arm accidentally brushed against hers and a tingle of awareness shot straight to her groin. Instantly, her nipples tightened. Hello, soldier, pleased to see you.

Involuntarily, Tara sucked in her breath.

“What is it?” Boone asked. “Are you all right?”

“Just a catch in my back,” she lied and set the box down.

“Where?”

She splayed a palm over her lower back, inched away from him. “It’s all better. Gone already.”

“Sounds like a muscle spasm.” He came closer.

“I’m good.” She’d never been able to get away with the occasional white lie—which was why she rarely told one. Falsehoods invariably came back to bite her in the butt.

He kept coming toward her. The closer he got, the more Tara’s throat tightened. She would have kept backing up, but she was hemmed into the corner between the refrigerator and the stove.

“Let me see,” he said.

“No need,” she croaked.

He took her by the shoulders, slowly turned her around and didn’t she just let him like some silly, awestruck teenager meeting her rock idol. His hands were warm and heavy, stirring up the languid sensation that had settled deep in her core.

“Here?” He rested his palm against her spine, just above the waistband of her shorts.

She swallowed, barely able to nod. Why was she nodding? The next thing she knew he was gently rubbing his knuckles across her back. He didn’t say anything else, just kept slowly massaging her.

They stood like that for a while, not saying a word, Boone’s big hand touching her so tenderly it sucker-punched her. The refrigerator cycled on with a click and hum. She could feel his slow, steady breathing stir her hair at her temple and this moment…the two of them in her kitchen together for the first and last time, was both strange and wondrous. And tainted with remorse, because it was too late now to start something up. They could have had something special, she and Boone. She felt it in her bones. If only she could have gotten him to walk across the street, open up his heart, months ago.

“How’s that?” he asked, stepping back, leaving her both regretful and relieved.