it. I’ve never felt the need to apologize for it or change my ways until—”
“Kathy?” she prompted with a sneer.
“Partly.” He lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “She was a catalyst of sorts. She never said I was lousy in bed, but she did tell me I wasn’t relationship material. Guess I’m the kind of guy who’s only good for a tumble in the hay as long as I’m cleaned up. I wanted to prove her wrong.”
“And you used me to do that.” Another realization dawned as that sick feeling invaded her stomach again. “Did you decide on the romance angle before or after we’d met?”
Nathan frowned. “Why does that matter now?”
Tate clenched her teeth to keep her chin from trembling. “Because if you made that decision after we met, then you saw me as the pitiable friend of Val’s who would gladly accept whatever crumbs you offered. A good girl like me would agree to a romantic relationship instead of a sexual one. Then you’d be off the hook and wouldn’t have to feel guilty about using me to further your business plans, right? Now it makes perfect sense as to why we didn’t continue the art lessons after you submitted my drawings for both this place and the fire station.”
He didn’t refute her claim. “We’re getting off track here. The main issue—”
“The only issue is that you lied to me and used me.”
“No. I never used you.” His mouth turned hard. “As long as my embarrassing truths are laid on the table, yours had better be too.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Instead of staying here and figuring out what you want to do with your future, you’re running back to Denver to live out the life your mother has mapped out for you.”
Tate shrank back. “How dare you. You can’t possibly stand there and judge me when you’re guilty of the same thing.”
Nathan crossed his beefy arms over his puffed-out chest, acting every inch the macho male. “How so?”
“Maybe you don’t run, Nathan, but you sure as hell hide, claiming your business eats up every minute of your time.”
“You know it does.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“And how am I supposed to change that?” His reaction was surprisingly cool to this touchy subject. In fact, he looked calm and rested. For the first time in weeks his brown eyes were clear and free of shadows. Why? Because she hadn’t kicked him out of her bed last night?
Oh no. She was not taking the blame for his faults. Nathan worked too much. One night rolling around in her sheets wasn’t the cure-all. It never would be.
“Come on, quit stalling with your advice,” he urged. “This I’m dying to hear.”
“No, you don’t want to hear that you live in a perpetual state of exhaustion. Of loneliness. Of complete isolation that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the color of your skin.”
The muscle in his temple jumped. “Pretty broad judgment, don’t you think? Let’s cut to the chase and save the lecture. I’m self-employed. I have no one to rely on but myself. I’m tired. So? A little hard work never killed anyone.”
“You have no life outside of work. You’re so busy killing yourself trying to prove you’re not another lazy Indian and to show your father you’re not screwing up his business that you use it as an excuse to avoid everything. Even your dog—”
“Don’t you drag Duke into this,” he warned. “You don’t even like him.”
“Because I don’t know him. Neither do you. There’s no room in your life for anything but work.” She pushed her final point, regardless of the stark expression in his eyes. “The truth hurts, doesn’t it? Nancy, Tina and Vickie’s husbands are in the construction business. Even they mentioned how hard it was to convince you to take time to join a simple pool league.”
Nathan did a double take. “You talked about me to them? Where do they get off poking their noses into my business? Did you tell them about the landscaping?”
“No. But why does that matter?”
“Because it’s something I’ve kept quiet on purpose. The online courses, the weeks I spent down south in the off-season learning the basics of how xeriscaping works.” He inhaled. “No one knows I’ve been going to school.”
“Why did you keep that to yourself? I’d think you’d be proud—”
“I am proud. But the guys I work with will give me a rash of shit for changing the focus of my business to ‘planting posies.’ I didn’t want anyone to know until I had a contract. Even then they’ll harp on the fact that I think I’m too good to dig utilities.”
“Nathan, they are your friends. I doubt they’d believe that.” Tate softened her tone. “Besides, it seemed they were hoping that I’d show you there’s more to life than work.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he exploded. “Everything has changed in the last few weeks since I met you. How can I prove—?”
As if on cue, his cell phone trilled.
Heartsick, she closed her eyes, willing him to ignore it.
Please just this one time let it go. I’ll stay here and talk to you, just don’t answer it. Prove it to me now. Show me that I mean more to you than a business call. Ask me to stay. Please.
After five rings, he answered it with a snarled “What?”
Tate bolted while she still had the chance.
After packing her car in record time, Tate drove to Val’s.
Sneaking out of town like a guest who’d outstayed their welcome was a poor way to repay her friend. Although she promised herself the announcement of the end of her “deal” with Nathan and her departure from Spearfish would be as cheerily civilized as their first conversation about her lackluster love life. Quips only, no hysterical sobbing. During the last few weeks she’d definitely experienced that awesome sex she’d craved. Too bad she’d lost her heart in the process.
Val answered the door, sleeping baby nestled in the crook of her arm. While Maddie’s sweet pink mouth was slack with sleep, Val’s perpetual smile seemed slow in coming.
She motioned her inside, kicking a path through Legos, headless Barbies and stacks of board games.
Wow. The hallway used to be spotless. Tate tried not to gawk, but the living room looked worse. Puzzles, videos, naked baby dolls, towering Erector sets competed with clothes piled higher than the Big Wheels parked in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows.
With Maddie settled in the wicker bassinet, Val flopped on the leather couch. She tossed aside a package of graham crackers she’d inadvertently crushed between the seat cushions.
“Where are the kids?” Tate whispered, staggered as much by the god-awful mess as the absolute quiet.
“You don’t have to whisper.” Val shoved a hand through her already tousled hair. “They’re at the fish hatchery and park with my mom, all afternoon, thank God.”
“You okay?”
“Exhausted beyond belief. C-sections are awful. Strange, how you block out the amount of work there is in taking care of a baby. Seems I just get Maddie quieted down and she’s howling again. Or the kids need food, attention or a referee all at the exact same time.”
Tate noticed Val’s shirt was on inside out. Best not to mention it. “Doesn’t Richard help?”
“When he’s home.” Val’s attempted smile was wan at best as she gestured to the cluttered space. “Welcome to chaos central. You want something to drink?”
Eyeing the dozen or so sticky glasses on the slate fireplace, Tate shook her head. “If I’ve come at a bad time—”
“No. I’m glad you’re here. I didn’t mean to unload on you the minute you tripped through the door.”
“That’s okay. I’ve unloaded on you plenty of times.”
“Friends do that.” She yawned and stretched. “So what’s up?”
Don’t stall, just spit it out. “I stopped by to tell you I’m leaving tonight.”
The blurry, sleep-deprived look left Val’s eyes pronto. “What do you mean you’re leaving?”
Tate fiddled with the hem unraveling on
her sundress. The same one she’d worn in the Bobcat with Nathan. “Let me explain before you completely freak out.”
“Too late,” Val snapped.
“Oh no you don’t.” She wagged her finger. “You knew I never intended to stay in Spearfish permanently.” After she offered the abbreviated version of her reinstatement, she added, “The Beautification Committee approved the landscaping this morning, so I’m good to go.”
“Was Nathan there?”
“Yes. I might not have bothered being there for the way the committee members fawned over him.” She snorted. “I couldn’t very well let on that he hadn’t informed me that he’d even entered the Maxwell Competition especially after he’d won the damn thing.”
“He won?” Val faltered, clearly torn between excitement for Nathan’s accomplishment and commiserating with Tate. “You didn’t know that he’d entered your project in the competition?”
“No. Did he tell you?”
“I’d suspected.”
Tate’s broken heart constricted further. She couldn’t stand it if Val had been part of the deception. “Was that the reason you suggested it?”
“No.” She scowled, scrubbing at what looked like a mustard stain on her shorts. “Actually, he’d been so busy that I thought he’d forgotten until I convinced him to meet with you and talk about your landscaping problem.”
“Convinced,” Tate repeated slowly. “How hard did you have to beg your brother to have sex with me?” They’d headed into dangerous territory—not only could their friendship suffer, but Val’s relationship with Nathan might be strained as a result of this deal gone wrong.
Val went still. “What are you talking about?”
“Nathan never wanted to sleep with me.” Hot, erotic images danced through her mind, making a mockery of the statement. Okay, maybe Nathan had been reluctant in the beginning, but at the end he’d been an equal participant.
“Well, he certainly fooled me,” Val continued sarcastically, “with the way he couldn’t keep his hands off you.”
When Tate neither confirmed nor denied her statement, Val said, “Maybe you’d better start at the beginning because I think I missed something.”
“That day you asked me whether we’d done the deed? I lied about me being the one who backed off on wanting wild sex.” Tate grabbed a lilac-colored unicorn with a tattered leg. “Nathan wanted to go slow and somehow Mr. Charming convinced me to go along with it. So initially, our ‘lessons’ were all about his need for romance.” She squeezed the animal so hard stuffing popped from the mangled horn. “How could I have been so stupid? He didn’t want romance. All he’d wanted was to buy time to win that damn contest.”
“Whoa…back up. He said he wanted romance? Instead of sex? We are talking about my brother, aren’t we?”
“Picking wildflowers for me, taking me on a moonlit boat ride, lighting candles before he…” Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. She crushed the unicorn to her chest and rocked, wishing it really had magical healing powers.
“Nathan did all that? Wow. I’m impressed.”
“I was too.” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and slid down her cheeks. “Why does he have to be so damn s-sweet and n-nice…and why am I such an idiot to f-fall for him?” Great hitching sobs ripped from her soul.
Val pulled the spit-up rag from her shoulder and handed it over. When that didn’t quell the torrent of tears, she wrapped her arms around Tate and the unicorn and let her cry. After what seemed like hours, Val smoothed her damp hair from her forehead. “Better?”
Another howl broke free. “N-no! I’ve never felt like this. God. I don’t know what to do.”
“I do,” Val muttered. She rooted for something on the end table and knocked an apple juice box to the carpet.
Horrified, Tate yanked the phone from Val’s grasp. “You can’t call him.”
“Why not?”
“Because I got the no-strings-attached sex, and he won the contest. We both ended up with what we wanted.”
Val’s sympathetic expression turned skeptical. “No matter that you ended up falling in love with him?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Does Nathan love you?”
Tate shrugged, wishing the toy-strewn floor would open up and swallow her.
“Oh my God.” Val slapped her own forehead. “Please don’t tell me that instead of asking him how he feels, or talking about this, or even fighting about it, you’re just gonna take off like nothing happened?”
“No,” Tate corrected quietly, feeling decidedly calmer. “I’m going back to Denver like I’d originally planned. My job and my family are there, Val, not here. I can’t change everything because I’ve rather stupidly fallen in love with a man who was supposed to be nothing more than a summer fling.”
“But—”
“But nothing.” Tate scooted forward to set the phone down and dislodged a squeaky ball with her heel. “Honestly, even if Nathan does have feelings for me, can you see him moving? He isn’t willing to sacrifice his work time here to be with me. I wouldn’t ask him to give up something he loves despite the crazy schedule he keeps. And we both know he’d never offer.”
“You aren’t giving him the choice,” Val argued. “If your career was as important to you as you’ve claimed, you wouldn’t have run back here in the first place. Think about that.”
Tate didn’t want to consider Val’s point. Maybe later, during the long drive, she’d dissect it. “I have. That’s why I’m going back to Colorado. How can I not give my career another fair shot? What if I change my life, move here to be with Nathan and realize that’s not what I want either? I’ve been so busy trying to please other people—my parents, my bosses—that I lost sight of the fact I need to make my own choices. Never again will I make a rash decision based on emotions and tears.”
“Aren’t you doing that now by leaving?”
“No. Leaving was in my original plan. Staying wasn’t.”
Val stared through her for several agonizing moments. “As long as we’re baring our souls, I’ll tell you”—Maddie wailed from the bassinet, but Val only spared her a cursory glance—“that I planned on setting you up with Nathan from day one. Except you were both damn resistant, so when opportunity presented itself, almost like karma…” Her brief smile was unexpectedly sad. “Do I feel guilty? No. Maybe it is selfish to want you and my brother to find the same kind of happiness that I share with Rich.”
“Not everyone is destined to have that happiness, Val. Look at Grace and Luke. They are both counselors, for God’s sake. It didn’t matter that they were wildly in love, or that they still are. It wasn’t enough. And if they can’t figure out a way to make a relationship work, then what hope is there for the rest of us?”
“There’s always hope. Make no mistake, Tate, being with you makes Nathan happy. I see it every time he looks at you. It’s mirrored in your eyes when you look at him. You fit him. And that’s not easy, because he’s not an easy man.”
“I know.” Tate shook her head. “I don’t see—”
“You wouldn’t. For years I’ve watched him dig himself deeper into his business. Nathan works too hard. You do too, I suspect.” Val paused, eyes bright. “You’re both missing out on the best thing in life. And contrary to what you might believe, it’s not mind-blowing orgasms.” Her voice softened. “It’s love.”
Tate passed the damp spit-up rag back to Val, lost for response. But she held tight to the stuffed animal.
“I think you and Nathan could strike a happy balance. I wish you’d try. If you put half the effort into a relationship that you’ve invested in your careers, it couldn’t fail. I wish I could tell Grace and Luke the same damn thing because it’s true for them too.”
Silence stretched between them with no clear resolution.
“I have to go.” Tate stood, gently placing the well-loved unicorn in the baby-doll cradle. “I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”
“Will you at leas
t think about what I’ve said?”
Choking back another wave of tears, Tate nodded. She doubted she’d think of anything else. “I’ll call you next week. Thanks for everything.” She rushed from the cluttered room as quickly as possible without looking back.
And she didn’t stop crying until she’d hit Cheyenne.
That night Nathan cranked up the Dwight Yoakam CD and got rip-roaring drunk. Even Duke cowered in the corner, far away from his foul mood.
Alone again. Yippee. He tipped the Maker’s Mark whiskey bottle to his mouth, splashing a good portion on his grungy work coveralls. He hadn’t changed clothes. Why bother? He’d just get dirty again tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that… Hell, everything seemed endless. Pointless.