Just Let Go… (17 page)

“What if I need you? What if I want those small and pitiful pieces of your heart? What if I look at another man and all I see is you?”

He smiled, pressed a gentle thumb at the side of her mouth, forcing her to smile, when she had no cause to smile. “You’re sounding more and more like a politician. They should make you mayor. I bet they will someday.”

She didn’t care about being mayor. She didn’t care about her town. She didn’t care about the railroad. Everything came down to this. Everything came down to him. “Are you running away again?”

He shook his head. “Not running. I’m home. I’m staying right where I am.”

There was resignation in his voice, but Gillian wasn’t there yet. She was the third generation of the San Angelo Wanamakers, and quitting wasn’t in her vocabulary. “Ten years ago, you made me a promise. A night of dancing. A night of us. Together. I want my night. Please.”

Austen looked ready to say no, but at some point, even a mountain would move to her will. She wanted her night to love him, to be in his arms. He needed this, and she needed him. Gillian wanted her heaven, too.

G
ILLIAN WAS BEAUTIFUL
in the moonlight, the night sky streaming in through the windows of the hotel room. With hungry eyes he watched her undress, nervous to touch her, but he would. His whole body ached for her, his cock heavy and eager, but this time, the last time, he would do this right.

“I used to think of this,” she told him, her voice husky with emotion. “I wanted to see your face while you watched me. Your eyes were a poem, a song. When you looked at me, it was like no one had ever seen me before. I wanted to be that person that you saw, that image of someone better than who I was.”

She slipped off her bra and his mouth grew dry, his tongue too large, too clumsy to speak.

Soundlessly she approached, laying a soft hand to his cheek. Still, he dared not touch her. This was no fantasy, no game. For the first time, he could see the reality of her. The light brush of freckles along her neck, a mole on her right shoulder, the tiny gap between her teeth. He could see the strength in the lean muscles of her legs, the gentleness juxtaposed against the stubborn curve of her jaw. Most of all, he saw the perfect clarity of her eyes.

Austen began to smile.

He returned the favor and undressed for her, pleased with the heavy passion in her face. He wanted to please her. Tonight he would.

Gently he drew her to the bed, content for now only to kiss her. He had never kissed a woman like this, easing into the passion, riding it like the water’s edge. With her mouth on his, with the heat of her body so close, he could almost forget. His heart ached to forget everything pain-inducing he’d ever done to her, everything disrespectful he’d ever said to her. He would love to start over, but life wasn’t like that.

I love you,
he thought, a silent promise to do better, to be better, to be the man that she thought him to be.

Slowly he thrust inside her, feeling her surround him, and the pleasure began. Her arms tightened around him, and he took her mouth.

I love you.

Her breath mingled with his, her hips arching to meet his, and he wanted to be like this forever. He wanted her, the dark perfect of her, the pure, the not so pure, the woman who made him burn.

All of her. Again and again he thrust, listening to her words in his ear. The love words, the wicked words.

The words of Gillian Wanamaker, woman extraordinaire.

He rolled her beneath him, worshiping at the peaks of her breasts. He marveled at the scar on her hip, the sharp line of her pelvis, the perfection, the flaws. Each one he kept sacred in the small and pitiful pieces of his heart.

Wanting more, he slid lower, stealing between her thighs. The secrets of her called to him, and he tasted himself. The taste of her. The taste of sex.

Gillian moaned as he licked the pulse of her, and he would remember that sound. Not a triple-X fantasy, not the young girl of his youth, but her. This.

Now.

Wanting to show her what words couldn’t say, his mouth suckled harder, her hips rising, falling, and he used his tongue to play her, to please her.

More and more he gave, hearing her soft gasps, and when her muscles locked, frozen in the air, Austen raised his head to see her, to watch the woman he loved.

Her eyes were blind, unseeing, missing the man he was. Tonight was her fantasy, not his.

She collapsed against the pillows, pulling him close, and he could feel the hammering thud of her heart. He pressed her head to his shoulder, hugging her tight. One second that she could truly belong to him.

His own heart was still racing at double-time, and he could feel his arousal hard between her legs and she reached down to touch him, to stroke him, to please him.

He nearly stopped her, nearly warned her, but her industrious fingers were magic. She slid out of his arms, moved astride him, and then slid down on his aching cock. Like a dream, she pushed back her hair, her face taut with feeling and desire. She smiled at him, and he was the luckiest man alive to know that smile.

“I dreamed of this,” she whispered. “I dreamed of you inside me. I dreamed of you watching me, touching me.” She took his hands, lifted them to her breasts, and he held her like a dying man. She leaned over and kissed his mouth, the feel of her body a gift that he could never forget, a debt he could never repay.

I love you.

He kissed her as she deserved. He kissed her with all that was left of his heart, and he made love to her as if he were a man in love.

I love you.

The shadows of the room hid his secrets, hid his heart, and he rolled her beneath him, his lust safe in the dark. Faster he moved, watching the bucking movements of her body, watching the frantic toss of her head. Her fingers dug into his back, his ass, and he moved faster, harder, hearing her quickening gasps.

Over and over he took her, making a memory to last him forever.

At last she looked at him, her eyes so clear, so full, so true, and he could feel something shift, something stir, something shatter inside him, and when he poured himself into her, he heard himself whisper.

I love you.

H
E WAS GONE
the next morning before she awoke. Gillian wanted to cry, but her tears had been used up long ago. The sun shone in her eyes because sunrise did not wait for whiners. Today was just another day. Another quiet Sunday. The world was not over, and she would be expected to go home, do her job, cast a cheery wave to the people of Tin Cup and carry on. She would, because she was a practical soul.

Her parents needed her; that would never change. She would have to find a job for Brad, unless she found some extra funds for the school. She should go running, run some miles along the river while she had the chance. Her mind was buzzing with plans and tasks because it was easier that way. Easier to throw herself into other people’s lives than to think about the loneliness of her own.

No.

With an energy she didn’t know she possessed, she climbed out of bed, showered, dressed and then searched the hotel room for her things. She didn’t want to forget anything. It was then that she noticed the small ring of flowers twisted together on top of her suitcase. Her mother would have been critical of the uneven spacing, at the imperfections of the knots, but Gillian took the crown and set it on her head, where she knew it was meant to be. As she looked at the reflection of the woman in the mirror, one solitary tear slid down her cheek.

There was no note because that wasn’t his way. He loved her, she loved him, but love wasn’t going to fix the world. Finally she wrapped the ring of flowers in tissue paper and packed them away. The hotel phone rang, and she flew across the room to answer it, but it was the desk clerk.

“Ms. Wanamaker, there’s a limo waiting to take you home.”

She didn’t need to ask who had arranged for the car, she didn’t need to ask who had paid the fare. Once outside, she spotted the black stretch car, the sort that kids took to the prom. So for four hours, Gillian sat alone in the backseat, her mind carefully blank, her eyes noticeable dry, leaving Austen behind her.

A
USTEN KNEW HE’D
made mistakes in the past. He’d accepted them, lived comfortably with some, lived uncomfortably with others, but no second-guessing. No doubts.

Doubts led to a general uneasiness with life, which led to a general bitterness with life, which in turn led to drunken binges sitting on a slapdash porch with bleary eyes and a shotgun loaded with buckshot.

Leaving Gillian that bright Sunday morning, making the long, lonely trip back to his less than stellar rental house in the cheaper parts of Austin, led Austen to second-guess his no-second-guessing policy, which was probably the same downward spiral that led to the eventual ruination of Frank Hart’s life.

While contemplating this downward spiral, Austen sat alone on the impersonal rented couch, and watched the sun rise over an impersonal street, and his impersonal life.

All those debts that he thought he could never repay because he wasn’t that guy. After taking a deep breath, Austen made his way to the window and took in an impersonal view. Austin, Texas, was a far cry from the harshness of West Texas, where only the strongest survived. Austin was a personable place with personable landscapes and personable personalities. It was where a person would go to become human. So why was he feeling inhuman?

Certainly there were some environmental factors in his upbringing that contributed to those feelings, but wasn’t he better than that?

Wasn’t that why he had always come alive in Gillian’s company, because she made him feel better than that?

Outside the window, the last of the stars were disappearing from the sky, eternally out of his reach, but still… The sun was waking up, shaking off the shadows. A slow breeze whipped at the sturdy oaks, the leaves determined to hang on in spite of the wind, fighting the unwinnable fight.

In spite of the shadows, in spite of Frank Hart…in spite of the wind.

For a long time, Austen studied the leaves, watched them being kicked around, but not beaten. Hopeless and strong, all in one. Not so impossible after all.

And thus, Austen Hart began to smile. There was courage to be found buried in those unreachable dreams. There was glory to be mined from the wind.

She’d always made him want to tilt at windmills.

Now it was time that he did.

I
T TOOK FOUR
hours of Austen wheedling, pleading and reminding J.C. of all he’d done for her. In the end, he won out by strategically exploring the possibilities of her political future. There was only one job bigger than railroad commissioner. The governorship, and after he told her that nobody was fond of the governor’s high-handed treatment, and this was her time to make a run at him, she got a light in her eyes, and began to laugh. Two hours after that, J.C. delivered up Chester Suggs, a weather-beaten roustabout who had made billions in oil, but preferred to dress in torn-up jeans and a worn workshirt.

When Austen shook his hand, he noticed the decades of calluses and grime, and then Austen smiled at the man who was cheerfully accepting of his place in life, and wanted to leave the world a better one.

Two days later, Chester was the proud backer of not only the most ambitious wind projects in the great state of Texas, but the entire U.S.

The next piece of business was even more difficult. Convincing Big Ed to support his idea.

Austen showed up at the office on a late Thursday night, hat in hand, because the hell of it was that he had very little to trade in return.

Ed put aside the papers on his desk.

“You read the proposal?” Austen asked, not bothering with small talk. Ed would see through it all, anyway. “It’s stupid.”

“No, sir. It’s very forward thinking.”

“Can’t believe Chester signed on.”

“J.C. did, as well.”

Ed looked at him with a sharp gaze. “The governor won’t budge.”

“He would to get the budget passed,” Austen said.

“Why would I throw my weight behind this one?”

“Because it will make your wife happy.”

Ed laughed, a rusty sound, but the man still had a heart no matter how hard he tried to hide it. “After thirty years of marriage, nothing I do can make that woman happy.”

Austen brushed at an imaginary speck of lint on his pants. “She’ll think it’s romantic and sentimental, putting your heart in front of your wallet.”

“And what do I get?”

“Shelby.”

That stopped Big Ed. “You’re selling me your car.”

“No, sir. I’m giving it to you if you’ll do this for me.”

Ed steepled his fingers, considering his idea. “You’ve given this a great deal of thought.”

“Whatever it takes. Just like you and Jack always taught me.”

“My boys will never forgive me if I agree to this. It’s a stab in the back to the oil industry. Wind? I don’t know that I’m that good of a salesman, pitching a slaughter-house to a bunch of pigs. Let me sleep on it, and give it some thought.”

And that would be the end of it. In the cold light of day, Ed would never agree, he couldn’t and say that it was in the best interest of the oil and gas producers. Austen stood to leave because he had nothing left to give. The rail line would stay as it was, Austen would go back to his job, and Gillian would have to witness the slow demise of everything she loved.

At that moment, his soul felt heavier than anything he’d ever carried before. He stopped in his tracks and returned to his seat and laid his hands on the desk.

“Your boys don’t have to know that you agreed to this. Your fingerprints won’t be anywhere on the deal. Only mine. Since everybody knows I was doing things without your say-so, this can be just another item on the list. They’ll forgive you if you fire me. Tell them that I lied to you about the wind project, and you didn’t know about it until after the budget vote. I take the blame. The governor gets his budget. Pecos County gets the biggest, baddest wind turbines in the country, Boxwood Flats get the prison and Tin Cup gets the railroad. You come out looking clean.”

“And you are out of a job.”

“I’ll survive.”

“You’re a fool, son.”

“I know. I’ve been fighting it for a long time, but the basic fundamentals of a person don’t change. I was born a fool. I’ll die a fool.”

“You’re doing all this for her?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ed pushed a hand across the thinning hair on his scalp. “Damn, son.”

Austen leaned in closer, pressing his point. “Maggie would be impressed.”

“That she would.”

“I’ve done a lot for you,” Austen reminded him. “Time and again, I’ve been loyal. I’ve done what you’ve wanted.”

“Except for once,” Ed commented.

“It was the right thing to do. You wouldn’t have agreed with me if you didn’t know it deep down in those places that big ol’ bad businessmen aren’t supposed to acknowledge. But they exist.”

Big Ed nodded. “All right. We go with it, since you’ll tell Maggie if I turn you down.”

“Whatever it takes.”

He smiled ruefully. “Damned women. Make fools out of all of us.”

“That they do,” Austen said, pouring a shot of whiskey for Big Ed. “I’ll get the governor to postpone that press conference.” Tin Cup was getting the train station back, and Austen needed to find a job. The lack of transportation might cause some problems, but as Austen threw back his shot, he felt clean for the first time in years.

Life wasn’t too awful after all.

T
WO WEEKS AFTER RETURNING
to Tin Cup, Mindy’s baby shower was a stupendous achievement. The social event of the millennium. Gillian had outdone herself with enough hors d’oeuvres to feed four counties. The Wanamaker house was decked in enough pink-check gingham to shelter the entire city of Houston, and she had cross-stitched a baby announcement herself, not only making Modine Wanamaker happy, but also taking fourteen sleepless nights and turning them into an heirloom that could be passed down for generations.

A somber attitude loomed over the town in spite of Gillian’s best efforts to keep things upbeat. As a Wanamaker of the San Angelo Wanamakers, she knew how to smile through a crisis. However, what she didn’t know was how to smile through a broken heart. What hurt the most was that she knew he loved her.

Every time she sat in her nonsqueaky chair, or every time she drove in her sheriff’s cruiser with its whisper-soft brakes, or every time she checked the time on the scratched pocket watch, she was reminded of a man who had left his mark all over her life. A man who wasn’t there.

Two months later, on a rainy day early in July, the roads turned to lakes of clay mud. It was on that very morning that Brandon Avery Shuck decided to make his grand entrance into the world. Gillian raced to the hospital, emergency lights flashing, sirens at ear-blasting volume because her friend was about to experience the pelvis-splitting miracle of birth.

Mindy lay in the hospital bed like a trouper, cursing happily at Brad, pushing and screaming. It was enough to make Gillian consider swearing off childbirth forever, and since the only man she ever wanted to have children with was a good four hours away, with no intent of ever showing his face in this town again, being childless seemed like a very practical plan.

In the third hour of labor, the nurses ran into the room, turning on the television, an odd birthing ritual, but Gillian assumed that the sight of the governor droning on in the pouring rain might induce more than one woman to get the whole wretched business done.

“Turn it off,” Gillian snapped, but everyone, including Mindy, was ignoring her, captivated by the words and more importantly—the map.

“Responding to our citizens’ complaints, and the back-breaking work of the state legislature, I am pleased to announce the passage of the budget and the creation of the largest wind field in the country, cementing Texas as the leader in energy production, powering the country to great, more environmentally friendly heights….”

It was the usual political hokum, but the image on the map made her catch her breath.

There, if one connected the dotted railroad lines, was a tiny star next to Tin Cup. The station. The route was back.

Mindy screamed, pushing again, and Brad held his wife’s hand in a near death-grip, most likely to keep Mindy from punching him. While Gillian wiped at the sweat pouring from Mindy’s brow, Mindy blew out panting breaths. “Not…going…AAAGHHHHH…anywhere.”

Gillian smiled at her best friend, witnessing not only one, but two miracles. When the doctor ordered Mindy to start pushing—as if she wasn’t pushing already— Gillian stepped back with a queasy stomach, knowing that somewhere out there in the drenching rain, Austen Holden Hart had finally come through.

For her.

A
USTEN WAS ELBOW-DEEP
in engine parts as he listened to the press conference. Making a living as an auto mechanic was a far cry from lobbyist, but he slept easier, and that counted for something.

At least this way, Gillian would know that sometimes Austen Hart didn’t disappoint. There was a lot of satisfaction in that, as well. Sometimes she was there in his dreams. Not a fantasy, not his imagination, but a vision so real, he could reach out and touch her, only to do just that, and find out she wasn’t there.

Two days later, after a hard day’s work, he got the letter in the mail. The handwriting was hers; no one wrote his name in such a fancy script as Gillian Wanamaker. His hands were grease-stained but he opened it anyway, finding only a newspaper clipping inside.

Austen read the article twice, smiling to himself. He considered sending it to Tyler, but figured that what Tyler didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

A part of Austen, a huge part of Austen, wanted to pick up the phone and call Gillian and say thank you, but he couldn’t hear her voice without facing the hard truth of finally realizing that she could never be his, and frankly, he’d rather do without that pain.

Gillian Wanamaker expected a man with clean fingernails and a designer suit, so he folded up the article, put it in his pocket, close to his heart, and then went to take a shower and clean the grease from his hands.

This was his life now. He’d done the right thing, and someday the right thing wouldn’t hurt.