Page 34 of Hard Rain Coming
“Apparently not.”
“Why?” Vivian stopped a few feet from his bench.
“Wasn’t in the mood.”
“Huh.” She swiped at her bottom lip with her tongue. “Me either.”
Was she trying to get under his skin? “What do you want, Viv?” He watched as she walked over to his bench and picked up the piece of wood he’d been working on.
She ignored his question and studied the piece in her hands. At the moment, it was a medium size block of nothing. He’d carved out a few sections, his aim to make a large family tree that Benton wanted for his office. Her brow furrowed as she traced the lines with her blood-red nails, and when she finally looked up at him, her eyes were luminous.
“I like that you still work with wood.”
He said nothing, but, restless, shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, then took a few steps back. There, the shadows hid half his face. Gently, she set down the piece and wandered over to Bacon. She was close now, and he inhaled that fresh, clean floral scent that was all Vivian. It was her shampoo. Something he hadn’t smelled in a long time. It made him think of other things. Of another time and place when the two of them were nothing but tangled limbs, naked skin, and fused mouths.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice sharper than he intended.
“He’s beautiful,” she whispered before turning to Dallas.
“I asked you a question.”
She held his gaze for a few seconds and then made a soft sound. The kind that had all kinds of shit happening in his gut.
“Do you ever think about us?” She licked that damn mouth of hers again. “Of how good we were together?”
“Being good in bed is one thing. Being bad at being a couple is another thing altogether.”
“We were young.”
He nodded. “Too young to know better.”
A ghost of a smile lit up her face. “Do you remember the hoedown at Gatlin’s Ranch? I think I was sixteen.”
“You and Becky Smith walked in wearing the tightest T-shirts and smallest denim skirts I ever saw on a girl.”
“And the tallest boots.” She laughed, and the sound hit him in the chest, like a memory pulled out of the blue. “God, we thought we were the hottest young things on the planet.”
“You two caused a brawl.”
“Mathew Banks tried to put his hand up my skirt.”
“He did.”
“You made him sorry, and then you brought me home.”
He was silent because he was busy with the remembering. Being young and horny wasn’t out of the norm for a boy on the cusp of manhood. But being young and horny for your best friend’s sister made a guy step back and think.
Or at least he’d tried. Vivian had made it impossible. That had been the first night he’d had a taste, the first night he’d done more than he should have with her, and from then on, he’d been a goner.
“What do you want, Viv?” He wasn’t a young boy on the cusp anymore. He was a man who was riding dangerously close to a line he swore he’d never again cross.
She inhaled, which in turn made her chest rise. It took everything in him to keep his gaze above her neck. When she slowly let her breath out, he relaxed a bit, though he kept his distance. Something was going on here, and he didn’t trust himself.
He trusted Vivian less.
She opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it shut just as quick. She turned around and took a few steps back toward his worktable, then paused, her fingers trailing over that piece of wood again.
For several moments, neither of them moved or said a word, and just when Dallas felt that anger inside him expand and get ugly, she faced him, looking so damn lost and vulnerable, it vanished, and something else took its place.