Shine Not Burn (36 page)

My heart was hammering in my chest now, making me feel like I was going to start panting like a dog any second.
 
Control yourself, Fido!
 
He’s just a guy!

I pulled my hand back more insistently this time, and he let it go.
 
“Sex isn’t love.
 
Don’t fool yourself into thinking it is.”
 
Memories of my mother flashed before my eyes.
 
She was always in a dreamy state after being with her boyfriend in the bedroom at night, but it never stopped him from smashing her in the face later.

“You’re not her, Andie.
 
You’re not your mother.”

“Shut up!
 
You don’t get to talk about her to me!”
 
My shouts echoed around the small space of the truck’s cab, making my ears ring.
 
My face burned with embarrassment over losing my temper.
 
“Sorry for shouting.
 
Just … don’t talk about her, please.
 
She’s off limits.”

“Sounds to me like you’d be better off talking about her rather than pretending she doesn’t exist, but I’ll leave it alone for now.”
 
He reached over and put his hand on mine, stroking the side of it with his thumb.
 
“I got some things for us so we can take a little ride this afternoon.”

“A ride?
 
Where?” I asked, suspicion ruling my emotions.
 
“I don’t want to take a ride with you.”
 
The words came out, but the feelings weren’t backing them up.

“Up into the hills a little bit.
 
I think we need some privacy so we can talk this out and get things straight.
 
I know you have a lifeplan to follow and all, so no reason to delay anymore.”

I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me or sad or anything else.
 
“I’m surprised I met you that night,” I said.

“Oh yeah?
 
Why’s that?”

“Because with that poker face of yours, I’ll bet you could make a lot of money at the poker tables instead of the blackjack tables.”

He smiled, sending a shock of attraction right through my chest and down to the space between my legs.
 
“I do like to play poker now and again, but I always warm up with a little twenty one first.”
 
He patted my hand before putting his back on the wheel.
 
“Glad I did that night, I can tell you that.”

I said nothing, not sure whether he’d changed my life for the better by playing blackjack that night or doomed me to a life of misery.

Chapter Thirty-Two

I SAT ON THE PORCH waiting for Mack to come around to the front.
 
He’d told me he was getting our transportation.
 
I leaned against one of the posts holding up the porch’s roof, my feet resting on the steps.
 
My mind wandered as a cool breeze moved bits of my hair around my face, tickling my skin.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d sat in the sun and just let my thoughts wander.
 
It was nice, making me wish Mack wouldn’t come back too quickly.
 
Right now, I’d willingly pay big money for a spell that would make time freeze so I could sit here and just breathe for a while without worrying about Bradley or Hannah or my future.
 
It was all such a mess.

Replaying the things Mack had said to me in the truck was helping me piece together what had happened in Las Vegas.
 
Not all of it was making sense, but some of it was.
 
Obviously, the first thing that had gone wrong was my complete lack of self control.
 
Mack’s sexual energy was like a magnet, pulling me in and making me do stupid things like forget my plans and all the things I’d sacrificed to leave the past behind and accomplish my goals.
 
Just the idea of abandoning what amounted to my life’s work made me scared senseless, like I’d be floating in the wind with no direction forever - a complete lack of control.
 
And on top of all that, in the space of maybe six hours, Mack had somehow convinced me to unload all of my personal garbage onto his shoulders to carry around.
 
The skeletons that used to live in my closet had come out to dance in the hot, Las Vegas night.

Even so, he still acted like being married to me wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened to him.
 
He’d said the L-word while we were in the middle of having shower sex, but that kind of declaration can’t be taken seriously.
 
So he wasn’t in love, but he wasn’t in a hurry to divorce me either.
 
What was he, exactly?

A small smile played across my lips.
 
Him loving me was too ridiculous to even consider part of my reality.
 
People don’t fall in love with strangers. Strangers could be anything, anyone, with an unlimited amount of awful baggage no one would ever want to bear.
 
How could he know I wasn’t a serial killer or mother of eight kids or already married?
 
He couldn’t.
 
Smart people like us don’t do stupid things like get married at twenty-four-hour chapels by a man named Elvis.
 
That’s what irresponsible people who have nothing to lose do.

Right?

I sighed, drawing a heart in the dust next to me.
 
Looking back and seeing things from the view of this porch, I wasn’t sure anymore that I’d had much to lose back then.
 
Two years ago I was freshly dumped by Luke the Puke, vying for a coveted junior partner spot at a firm that was sucking the life out of me, and getting ready to kiss my friendships goodbye for another guy.
 
That didn’t sound like something to strive towards.

All my grandiose ideas of who I am fell apart when I received that document from the Nevada State vital records department.
 
Apparently, smart, responsible people
do
sometimes do stupid things like get married at twenty-four hour chapels by a man named Elvis; either that, or I’m at least ten times dumber than I thought I was.

The problem wasn’t so much that I’d done it, but that for the first time since figuring this all out, I was wondering which was worse: getting married to a stranger in Vegas or scripting my life out and expecting to be happy at the end of the production.
 
My life was like a play with actors and scenes and lines I’d written, with a happily-ever-after I couldn’t even visualize.
 
Instead of working towards a clear vision of happiness, I’d been head down, moving in the direction of … nothing.
 
A big cloud of smoke I couldn’t see through.
 
I drummed it into my own head, this mantra of success, success, success … but where was the happiness?
 
Where was the love?
 
And why hadn’t I realized this before?

As I sat on the porch trying to envision myself as an older woman, all my brain would conjure was an image of an older Mack sitting across the dinner table from me, smiling in that knowing way of his.
 
Looking back now, the plan I had laid out for myself seemed not only stupid, but dull.
 
Empty.
 
Safe, but in the end, very very dangerous for how it could cause me to lose the real me entirely.
 
Who have I become?
 
And what is it about this ridiculous, dust-covered snake haven that’s causing me to re-think my entire life?
 
Maybe I did get bitten by that snake after all.
 
Can poison do this to a person?
 
I looked at the back of my ankles for the telltale double puncture wounds.

“Ready?”
 
Mack’s voice came to me from down in the yard.

I pulled my head out of the ether and stared at him and his transportation.
 
When my voice came back it got away from me a little.
 
“No fucking way, Mack.”
 
I shook my head.
 
“Excuse my French, but that is
not
going to happen.”

He grinned, holding two sets of reins in his hands.
 
“Sure it is.
 
You’ll be fine.
 
Come on over here so I can give you a leg up.”
 
He stood between a brown horse with a black mane and a blonde one with a pretty cream-colored mane.

I didn’t care how pretty she or it was, I was not going to ride it.
 
“Give
yourself
a leg up.
 
I’m not riding a horse anywhere.
 
Those things bite.
 
Bring me the four-wheeler or whatever you call it.”

“Can’t. It’s out of gas.” He was still smiling, obviously very pleased with himself.

I ignored the beauty of it, refusing to let him charm me into my death.
 
“You’re lying.”
 
I stared him down.

He lost the grin and put on his innocent-as-a-lamb expression.
 
“Nope.
 
Dry as a bone.
 
Come on, I brought you an old nag.” He gestured to the brown one with his chin.
 
“She couldn’t buck you off if she wanted to, and I promise, she won’t want to.
 
And she doesn’t bite either.”
 
His elbow came up to greet the teeth of the blond one who had swooped its head in towards his waist.
 
He didn’t look like he’d hurt it, but he’d done a good job of blocking its moves.

“Ha!
 
That one just tried to bite you!”
 
I backed up a little, making sure I had plenty of room to maneuver if it decided to come after me next.
 
The thing was huge, towering over Mack who was pretty damn tall himself.

“This one’s feisty, I admit.
 
But I’ll be riding her and you’ll be riding her momma, so you’ll be fine.
 
Cross my heart,” he said, making an X on his chest.

“Your heart’s on the other side.”

“I know,” he said, winking.
 
He held up crossed fingers.
 
“Got all my bases covered, just in case.”

My mouth dropped open at his casual dismissal of my well-grounded fears.
 
“You don’t have to kill me by horse, you know.
 
All you have to do is sign the papers.”
 
When he looked at me quizzically, I explained.
 
“People die on those things every day.”

“Not on my horses they don’t.”
 
He held out his hand.
 
“Come on, wife.
 
Come take a little ride with me.
 
Let me show you all the things you’ll be missing when you go back East and leave me here with a broken heart.”

My heart melted just a little bit in that moment, and I was pretty sure I’d never get it to go cold again.
 
It wasn’t just the things he said but how he said them.
 
He swung so easily between strong, sexy cowboy and soft-hearted loverboy, he was making me dizzy with it.
 
Maybe even a little love-drunk.

I stood, grabbing his hand petulantly and scowling at him, doing my damnedest to not fall for his charms.
 
“You’re not going to have a broken heart, you big dummy.”

He put his hands on my waist and leaned down, putting his lips near my neck and ear.
 
“It’s already bruised.”
 
And then he lifted me up all of a sudden, causing me to whoop with fear.

The horse he was putting me on didn’t bat an eyelash, but the other one jumped to the side and made snorting noises at us.
 
From my new perspective on top of the two-story horse, I could see the blonde one was very agitated.

“Oh my god,” I whisper-squealed, forgetting about everything else, “I’m on a horse!”
 
My butt muscles clenched so tight, my whole body raised up about three inches.
 
Sweat broke out all over my body and my heart doubled its pace.

“Just relax,” he said, adjusting a stirrup and putting my foot in it when he was done.
 
He walked around the horse and did the same on the other side.
 
“She’s as gentle as a baby.
 
You won’t have to do anything.
 
She’ll just follow my horse wherever she goes and all you have to do is enjoy the view.”

I snorted.
 
“Yeah, right.”
 
My hands and thighs were trembling.

He came to my left side again and put the reins in my hand, leaving his fingers on top of mine.
 
He stared at me as he gave me a quick lesson.
 
“If you want to go to the left, just move your hands like this.”
 
He dragged the leather strips to the left.
 
“The bit in her mouth and the reins on her neck and head will let her know what you want to do.
 
If you want to go right, take the reins and do this … see?”
 
He went the opposite direction, reaching over the horse’s neck to demonstrate, waiting for me to nod my head before continuing.
 
“When you want to stop, just pull back gently.
 
Not too hard, she has a sensitive mouth.
 
Try not to raise them up high, just keep them at waist-level.
 
When you want to go, loosen the reins and give her a kick or squeeze her with your legs and click your tongue and she’ll go.”

“I thought you said I was just going to follow you and I wouldn’t have to do anything.”
 
Sweat kept pouring down my sides and back.
 
The heat had nothing to do with it; it was all plain old, garden-variety, paralyzing fear.

“I’m giving you instructions, just in case,” he explained.