The Rebound Girl (Getting Physical) (22 page)

Chapter Eighteen

“It was nice of Whitney to include us.” Lincoln took the hairpin turn at a leisurely forty-five mile per hour pace. He drove a bright orange Dodge Challenger this time—yet another of his turnaround investments. Matt was pretty sure he’d read an article last week about a car just like this taking part in a drug bust over in New Jersey. “I didn’t even know they rented out the McCullough barn for parties.”

“Me either.” Matt tipped his cowboy hat. “But you have to admit—it’s the perfect place for a hoedown-themed birthday bash. I haven’t been to a costume party since...”

“Ever?” Lincoln’s laughter got lost in the rev of the engine. “Face it, Matt. You’ve never exactly been the adventurous type. Your flannel looks fetching, by the way.”

Matt looked down. He hadn’t had much in the way of cowboy clothes in his closet, so he’d settled for borrowing a workshirt and boots from Donald. At least the jeans were his—a faded pair he distinctly remembered wearing the first day of college. “The shirt is a little snug,” he admitted, tugging at the collar. Although Hilly was built like a linebacker, her husband stood five foot six, if measured generously, and had the daintiest wrists. He and Lincoln had once tried to figure out the dynamics of a sexual relationship between the two.

But only once. He shuddered.

“I rolled up the sleeves so you can’t tell they’re so short,” Matt said. “Don’t cowboys wear tight things?”

“Of course they do,” Lincoln said, clearly patronizing him. “Helps with the aerodynamics of roping a bull.”

Since his brother had opted for pointy white alligator shoes and red denim, Matt decided to take Lincoln’s insults with a generous helping of salt.

They pulled into the drive leading up to the McCullough barn, a towering two-story structure reputed to have once been the seat of the biggest moonshine distillery in the state. It was set back from the house by a good three miles, secluded enough that you had to be looking for it to find it, which made it ideal for running booze.

Tonight, though, it had been transformed. The faded wood-grain doors had been pulled open and lined with pots of colorful flowers, and in the fading twilight Matt could make out dozens of strings of twinkling lights illuminating the interior. Cars lined an impromptu parking lot along one side, and people milled about, most of them with glasses in their hands.

“You came!” Pearl Vidra wrapped her arms around Matt and hauled him from the car. Although it was rare for him to feel the pangs of missing his mother—Hilly had admirably stepped up to take on the role—the scent of this woman’s floral perfume and the tight squeeze of her arms awakened something sad in him. As if sensing it, Pearl pulled away and pinched his chin. “I insist you call me Mom. We can’t tell you how happy we are Whitney has found a...friend like you.”

Lincoln snorted at the invocation of the word
friend
but composed himself enough to take Pearl’s hand. “You must be Whitney’s sister,” he said, bowing theatrically low. “She never mentioned she had such a gorgeous family.”

Pearl rolled her eyes at Matt but let Lincoln continue his ministrations. “I’m as impervious as the next middle-aged has-been to flattery,” she said, by way of apology. Allowing Lincoln to take her arm and lead her into the barn, she nodded over her shoulder. “You’ll find Whitney inside. She’s holding court at the birthday girl table.”

“Holding court?”

“Oh, sweetie,” she said, her voice and tone so similar to Whitney’s it made him smile. This was one family where it was pretty obvious the apple didn’t clear the first set of branches. “I hope you brought one heck of a nice gift. My daughter has never, in all her thirty-four years of existence, failed to turn her birthday into a celebration of all things Whitney. She’ll be the one with the crown over her cowboy hat. Expect to grovel.”

Matt laughed and wandered into the barn in search of the woman in question.

There were a lot more people there than he expected, given Whitney’s lack of reception in the town thus far, but closer inspection revealed mostly faces he didn’t recognize. He nodded and tipped his cowboy hat to a few, taking in their crisp western shirts and creaky boots, and realized most of them were from the city.
Whitney’s
real
friends
. Her professional ones—the ones who wore suits and saved lives and did otherwise important things with their time.

He shifted uncomfortably. The faded red flannel he wore suddenly seemed too authentic, making him a small-town hick amongst royalty.

“I hope you brought Whitney a good present.” Kendra sidled up next to him and offered a perfunctory kiss on his cheek. Like the rest of the guests in the twinkling barn, she wore a middle-class version of cowgirl chic, her short denim skirt matched by a pair of pink cowboy boots, her midriff bare under a blue-and-white checkered top that tied at her waist. When she turned, Matt caught sight of twin piercings in the dimples of her lower back. He hadn’t even known you could pierce those.

He returned her greeting with a smile. “Why does everyone keep saying that? Is there some kind of present-giving contest I don’t know about?”

“Only if by contest you mean your worthiness as a human being and as a man,” Kendra said. “Whitney takes birthdays pretty seriously. I bought her a pony. I hope you can top that.”

He cast a look around, searching the dark, hay-filled corners for signs of life. “An actual pony? Why am I only hearing about this birthday obsession now?”

Kendra reached up and patted his cheek. “I’m sure whatever you got her is fine. But tread lightly, Matt. She’s had a bit of a rough week.”

Left with that enigmatic threat and visions of a palomino out back, Matt tucked his gift to Whitney in his back waistband. He’d had to specially order it online, but the present wasn’t
pony
good.

Besides—how was he supposed to know what was appropriate to give one’s rebound girl? A book was too little, jewelry too much, edible underwear too predictable. And what he
really
wanted to give her—the formal title of girlfriend—was something he knew all too well she wouldn’t accept.

As he had been forewarned, Whitney stood near the back of the barn, surrounded by a group of about seven or eight people, all of them laughing at a shared joke. Of the bunch, only John was familiar. Matt hung back a little, watching her interact with her people.

Like Kendra, Whitney’s version of country fashion included the least functional attire in the world. Tiny denim shorts that cupped and lifted her ass, a tight electric-blue tank top layered with twin bandoliers that strapped diagonally over her chest, black cowboy boots that just hit the middle of her perfectly shaped calves—she was much more fantasy outlaw than rustic farmhand.

Matt leaned on the nearest beam and let himself enjoy the simple act of admiration. Her face lit up and her hands moved quickly as she chatted, oblivious to the way her infectious joy impacted everyone in her immediate circle.

And while he could have stayed there all night, perfectly happy to be part of her captive audience, John spotted him and nudged Whitney with his hip. Their eyes met across the musty, straw-scented distance, and her smile dimmed—but not in any kind of way that signaled sadness. On the contrary, the difference was one of gentle transformation. Gone were the trappings of delight, replaced in an instant with the reality of it.

Surrounded by people she adored and who adored her right back, on what was obviously her favorite day of the year, dressed to seduce every man in sight—that smile told him one thing. She was his.

And God help him, even though he knew it was the last thing she wanted, Matt loved her.

* * *

Whitney waggled her fingers in Matt’s direction, but he didn’t move from his spot near the back of the barn. In any other man, she would have assumed it was timidity keeping him at bay, but not Matt. In order to feel awkward or shy, he’d also have to be the kind of person who compared himself to others—he’d have to have arrogance or false pride.

Matt had neither of those. She’d known that since the first night they met, when he approached her in the bar with his quiet, calm earnestness. It was still there—and she still found herself undeniably attracted to it.

“Who is that guy staring at you?” Her friend Liz, a matronly psychiatrist who worked in a nearby county, made a pointing-but-not-pointing motion in Matt’s direction. “I think he might be the most delicious thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Tight pants suit him,” Whitney murmured, agreeing. He looked like a real cowboy, all faded and comfortable, the perfect fit. As if he knew her weakness for rough men in rolled-up sleeves, he crossed his arms and nodded once. “That’s Matt. He’s a local.”

“I thought you said the locals hate you.” Jerry, a graduate-level sociology student and one of Kendra’s many ex-lovers at the party, raised a brow. It was obvious he’d had Kendra recently thread them—men simply didn’t have eyebrows like that on their own. “You’re supposed to be our own baby pariah.”

Whitney’s smile gentled. “Well, all the locals but that one.”

Without another word of explanation, she moved to Matt’s side, working her bandoliers with a thumb hooked on either side. She looked sexy as hell and knew it—but if she’d had any doubts, they would have been erased as she caught the gleam in Matt’s eyes, the slight part in his lips where his breath came hotter and heavier.

“Howdy, pardner,” she drawled, loosening her stance and shaking her chest so the fake bullets rattled. “Save me a dance for later?”

“Am I allowed to kiss you hello?”

Whitney paused. Was it her imagination, or was there a hitch in his voice as he asked that? “The merest peck,” she offered flippantly. “We wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.”

“Oh, no,” he murmured softly, his eyes never leaving hers. There was an intensity to them that rooted Whitney to the spot, cementing her in his presence. “I wouldn’t dare.”

Gently, and with a carefulness almost agonizing in its precision, he took her hand in his. He brought the appendage to his lips and, true to her request, gave it the merest of pecks. Lips fluttered over her skin so softly she might have imagined it, yet the mark they left behind went deep enough to flood her entire body with tingling sensation.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Galahad. You win.”

She turned her hand so that it gripped his, and, using the momentum of catching him off guard, pulled him close. She wanted none of that chaste, knightly kissing, so she met him with her lips parted and ready. Their hats knocked off, but neither one of them seemed to care. His gorgeous mouth, so hot and willing, robbed her of all her breath in a matter of seconds, and she found herself hitching a leg against him in order to keep standing, wrapping her arms around the soft flannel that rippled over his lean musculature.

“Jesus, Whitney,” he groaned against her mouth, his tongue pausing only momentarily before it plunged back in, sweeping languid circles despite the urgency that swept through her. “This is
not
a peck.”

A catcall sounded in the distance, warning her that she was overstepping a boundary—hers or Matt’s or the crowd’s, she didn’t know. But this was her birthday party, dammit, and she wanted to kiss her lover without fear of retribution. Without pulling away, she lifted a hand and flipped whoever it was the bird. Then, deepening the kiss, she snaked that hand around Matt’s back and continued on a dedicated journey to the tight fit of his jeans around his ass.

Crackle.

She pulled away. “Is that what I think it is?”

“That depends...” Matt paused. “What do you think it is?”

“You brought me a present, didn’t you?” She jumped up and down, clapping her hands and giggling. “And it’s in your pants!”

“You act like you haven’t been given a present before.” He shook his head and reached around, pulling out a smallish package, a bit longer than her hand but so thin it might have been a padded envelope. The paper was covered in cheerful birthday lassos. “Kendra already told me about the pony.”

Whitney giggled again. She knew it was ridiculous for a woman of her advanced years to put so much stock in one day out of the year—ordinary but for the celebration of her birth—but for as long as she could remember, her parents had made this day magical. Even when she’d been halfway across the world, they’d sent her a care package full of instant gourmet hot chocolate mix and well wishes and even a bulk-sized box of lacy underwear, since her mother was sure every woman needed something pretty downstairs, even if she toiled under the tropical sky.

Even though children of her own had never been something Whitney particularly wished for, the one concession she’d allowed herself was the unspoken promise that if they existed, their birthdays would be epic. Everyone deserved epic.

“I don’t think she told you what The Pony really is, or you’d be blushing so hard there would be no blood left for your other parts.” She looked purposefully at his groin, which bulged with promise and a definite lean to the right. A girl had to love tight cowboy pants.

He licked his lips, eyes wide. “And what, may I ask, is the pony?”

She laughed. Matt was so adorable when he was flustered. “Let’s just say it’s long and hard and something all girls love to ride.” Dropping her voice, she leaned in and plucked the present from his hand. “If you’re very good, I might be willing to show you later.”

“I’m not even going to ask what your parents got you.” Then, realizing what she held in her hands, he quickly added, “It’s just a little thing. Silly, really.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

She examined the package carefully, taking her time, noting the weight and texture—more to annoy him than anything else. It looked an awful lot like an envelope stuffed with something, like maybe a mixed tape. Oh, God. She hoped it wasn’t a mixed tape.

Matt leaned back against the wall, watching as she tore in. At first, she was confused—it
was
an envelope, but a plastic one in black and white. It wasn’t until she lifted the fold and pulled out what was inside that she realized what he’d gotten her.