The Valentine’s Day Disaster (5 page)

“No,” she admitted. She didn’t know why the flawed cutout bothered her so much, but it did.

“You sure about that?” He lowered his head.

“Yes.” She felt kind of silly now. “Nobody’s perfect.”

“Then why do you feel like
you
have to be perfect all the time? It’s a losing battle. Why do you do that to yourself?”

It was a good question, a rational question. Too bad she didn’t have a rational answer.

“Because,” she explained, as the stomach anxiety pole-­vaulted into her throat, “if I’m not perfect, I won’t be good enough.”

“Good enough for what?”

And without even knowing she was thinking it, Sesty blurted, “To be loved.”

He peered at her for a long moment. “Honey, anyone who would reject you because you have flaws isn’t worthy of
your
love. You’re lovable just the way you are—­an imperfect perfectionist, who tries her best to please everyone but herself.”

“You think I’m lovable?” She breathed, unable to believe she was asking him. It was pathetic. A competent woman didn’t go fishing for compliments. She earned them.

“Smart, gorgeous, obsessive, insecure, what’s not to love?” He laughed.

“Those last two don’t sound like lovable qualities to me.”

“Are you kidding me?” He smiled kindly—­much more than kindly—­it was a smile brimming with encouragement and belief. In her. A tingle went up and down her spine, sparkly and hot. “Those last two qualities are what make you the most lovable.”

“How’s that?”

“If you were truly perfect, everyone would hate your guts.”

“But I’ll never be perfect.”

“Bull’s-­eye.”

“So I should just stop striving for excellence?”

“Not excellence, perfection.”

“I don’t know the difference.”

His smile flipped over. “Redoing the cutout means that much to you, huh?”

“Yes.”

He put out his hand. “Give me that jigsaw.

This was silliness. They didn’t have time to redo the cutout. Why was she being so picky?

A memory washed over her. Something she’d tucked away in the back of her brain and shut the door on, but it returned to her now with startling clarity. She was nine years old and struggling in math and her usual straight A’s had taken a hit. She’d gotten a C. Knees shaking, palms sweating, stomach aching, she approached her parents with the wretched report card to sign.

Her mother had taken the report card from her, scowled darkly. “What is this, young lady?”

“A C!” her father exploded. “Snows do not make C’s!”

She burst into tears, apologized profusely for her failings. It hadn’t mattered. Her parents scolded her. “You’ve let us down. We are so disappointed in you.” That night they did not tuck her in bed as they did every other night. “We can’t look at you right now,” her father said when he sent her to her room without dinner as her punishment.

Left alone in the dark, sobbing into a pillow, she had made a vow. She would always strive to be perfect. If she were perfect, her parents would not be disappointed in her.

Throughout her life she had received that same message loud and clear, from her parents, from teachers, from Chad, from society at large.
The world values champions
. Therefore, in order to be loved, she could not fall.

The only person who had not expected perfection from her, had in fact encouraged her to fail and fail spectacularly, was Josh.

“Hey,” he’d said to her once. “If I didn’t wreck cars, I wouldn’t learn how to drive skillfully. You’ve got to crash a few times in order to get better. You never crash, you never succeed.”

Of course, that was why she’d broken up with him—­over a crash, over a flaw. The night they totaled her parents’ car, smashing through the park and into the Sweetheart Fountain, Josh hadn’t been behind the wheel.

She had.

But he’d been the one to take the blame. Before the police had gotten there, he made her switch seats with him. In the end, her parents vilified Josh, and she felt she had no choice but to pick them over him.

And now here he was, doing it all over again. Pushing her to accept her flaws as a lovable part of who she was.

It felt wonderfully strange.

Chapter Five

T
EN P.M.
WAS
late for Twilight, and the streets stretched empty when they emerged from her office after cutting, sanding, and painting perfect set designs for the bachelor auction. While they’d been inside, city workers had twined red, white, and pink twinkle lights throughout the trees on the courthouse lawn and in nearby Sweetheart Park.

“Well.” Sesty paused on the street outside the art gallery featuring kitschy, Texas objects d’art. “This is good-­night.”

Josh didn’t make a move.

Neither did she.

They stood peering into each other’s eyes, surrounded by the smell of sawdust, acrylic paint, and the night breeze wafting off Lake Twilight, but in spite of the cool temperature, she wasn’t cold.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.

“No need,” she replied breathlessly. “I don’t require a bodyguard. Remember, you’re back in Twilight. Not some big city.”

“I’m walking you to your car,” he insisted. “And I’m not taking no for an answer. Where are you parked?”

“I’m not. I walked. I have a house over on Prosper Lane.”

“That’s a half a mile away. You definitely are not walking home in the dark.”

“All right,” she said. Twilight was a safe place, but sometimes, in the dark, the mind could play tricks with shadows, and she welcomed his company.

“Let’s cut through the park,” he said, and put a proprietary hand to the small of her back.

“There’s a curfew in effect for the park.” She was so aware of his hand, but didn’t try to shake him loose. “It closes at ten.”

“Since when?”

“There was some trouble a few years back with teenagers hanging out in the park after hours, drinking and making mischief.”

“It’s only a few minutes after ten. And how do you close a park anyway?”

“The cops patrol through here pretty frequently.”

“If they catch us, we’ll just explain we’re cutting through, not loitering. We’re both well over twenty-­one.”

She swatted at him, felt giggly and girly. “Oh, you and your bad boy ways.”

“C’mon.” He winked. “Live a little.”

How many times had he said that to her in the past? Too many to count.

“What’s the worst that could happen if we get caught?” he whispered, lowering his head close to her ear. “They call our parents?”

Silly as it was, that gave her pause. What would her parents say if they heard she’d gotten caught trespassing in Sweetheart Park after hours with Josh Langtree? She shook off the impulse. It was past time she stopped caring about what her parents thought. She loved them, but she’d allowed them to dominate her life for too long. Their approval of Chad had been one of the reasons she started dating him in the first place, and look where that road had taken her—­to a big fat dead end.

The light pressure of his palm against her spine triggered something inside her. A click. A pop. A settling into place, like the pieces of a puzzle coming together to form a cohesive whole.

Feels like old times.

He guided her over the wooden bridge that spanned a fingerling tributary of the Brazos River. They’d traversed this path many times before. Usually, holding hands or with their palms tucked in each other’s back pockets. Nostalgia made her smile at the girl she’d once been.

Hard plastic Valentine’s Day ornaments had been hung from the trees and they shone brightly in the reflection of the colorful twinkle lights. Hearts. Flowers. Cupids. Cheesy, yes but it was a little romantic too, she had to admit.

“They rope you in with it, don’t they?” Josh said, as if reading her thoughts. “No matter how hard you try to resist Valentine’s Day mania, you can’t escape it in this town.”

“From a purely practical standpoint, it’s all about pulling tourism dollars into our town. It’s Twilight’s lifeblood, after all.”

“All the hype makes it hard not to succumb to the illusion, but I’m not falling for the hokum.” Josh’s staunch jaw tightened.

“Me either.”

“Seems like we’re the only sane ­people in town when it comes being immune to Valentine’s Day.”

“Seems like,” she murmured, but a wisp of sadness tugged at her heart. She liked the sweet fantasy of one true love, but it was just that, wasn’t it? A fantasy and nothing more.

They left the wooden footbridge, strolled down the paved path that skirted the water’s edge. His hand was still at her back. She was so aware of it. Of him.

It had been ten years since she’d seen him, but it seemed no longer than a heartbeat. Was it really possible? To pick up the threads of a tattered relationship, only to find they’d never broken? She tried to breathe, but hope tangled up in her lungs, twisted around until she thought she might suffocate on the feeling.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

Up ahead lay the Sweetheart Tree, crowned with a red lights entwined around a heart-­shaped wire frame. Josh stopped in front of it, a come-­be-­bad-­with-­me smile plucking at his lips as he studied the trunk of the old pecan.

“The Sweetheart Tree is still here.” He sounded amazed.

“It’s been here for over a century. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“How long do pecans live, for godsakes?”

“Apparently more than a hundred years.”

“Even with all the carvings.”

“We never carved our name into the tree like everyone else did,” she said.

“Because you wouldn’t let me.”

“The sign says not to. It’s bad for the tree.”

“And you always follow the rules when no one else does.” His voice was weighted, with both amusement and exasperation.

“And you were dead set on breaking all of them.” When she was in high school, she’d primly told him that the rules were there for a reason, but now a bittersweet melancholia settled over her. She wished she
had
let him carve their names in the tree.

He dropped his hand and stepped to the south side of the tree, settled his arms on his hips, stared at the names carved there of all the ­couples who’d been in love. Jesse and Flynn. Sam and Emma. Travis and Sarah. Caitlyn and Gideon. It was a virtual who’s who of local lovers.

Intrigued, she moved to stand beside him. “What are you looking for?”

His mouth twitched but he didn’t look at her. He was busy with his search.

Suspicion sneaked up on her. “Did you carve our name in the tree after I asked you not to?” Part of her was thrilled at the idea that he might have gone to all the trouble, while the good girl part of her was appalled to think he’d marred the tree.

He didn’t answer, but took car keys from his pocket. There was a tiny flashlight on the key chain. He turned in on, flashed the light over the bark. “Ah,” he said. “Here it is.”

“I should have known you couldn’t resist breaking the rules.” She inched closer, her body brushing up against his back as she peered up to where he was shining the light. “Where is it? I don’t see our names carved there.”

“Keep looking.”

She squinted, reached out a finger to trace the names,
Jon loves Rebekka,
the original sweethearts who were part of the town founders, and the first to carve their names into the tree.

Sesty found other names. ­People she knew well. Rule breakers. Tree defacers. All in the name of love. Now, because Josh had carved her name there, she was one of those rule-­breakers too. Why did that feel so exciting?

“I’m sorry, but I still don’t see it.”

“It’s right under your nose, Ses.”

Huh? No matter how she searched, she did not see their names carved into the tree. Wait a minute. What was that?

There, in a flat bark-­free area of the tree, just above Jon’s declaration of love for Rebekka, she spied faded red nail polish. The lacquered lettering was thin and patches of it had flaked off, so she could just barely make it out.
Josh loves Sesty.

Loves.

Oh my. She put a palm to her mouth and a hard knot bloomed in the dead center of her chest.

“I didn’t carve it,” he said. “I promised you I wouldn’t carve our names in the tree, so I stole a bottle of my sister’s nail polish and I painted it there instead.”

“The years have almost worn it away.” She couldn’t seem to catch her breath, her fingers still tracing the lettering.

“But not quite.”

“We were so silly then. Thinking our puppy love would last forever.”

“Nothing lasts forever.” He sounded glib.

Typical Josh. Nothing got to him. Everything rolled right off his back, but when she looked up, she saw a what-­might-­have-­happened-­if-­I’d-­chosen-­a-­different-­path expression on his face. The longing and regret in his eyes matched the tightening of her throat. Could he see it on her too?

Thrown off guard, she ducked her head, stepped back. “I better be getting home. Tomorrow is a busy day.”

“Zesty Sesty,” he whispered.

He was standing above her, one hand resting on the bark of the Sweetheart Tree; his head tilted downward, his eyes twinkling from the blink of Valentine lights. On his face was an expression of raw, honest sexual hunger.

He wanted her.

Sesty gulped. She wanted him too.

Oh no, no, no. You’re on the rebound. Josh is water under the bridge. He’s—­

But that’s as far as she got in her mental argument.

He hooked two fingers underneath her chin, lifted her face up to his, lowered his head and kissed her.

She did not resist. In fact, if she were being quite honest, she met him halfway. Although she wasn’t really ready to admit that to herself, but her arms slipped around his neck as his mouth branded hers. She inhaled the rich taste of him, parted her lips.

Sweet Lord, but he tasted sensational.

A banquet after a starvation diet wouldn’t have tasted this good. She had to have more. Greedy, greedy. Surely it was a sin to feel this greedy.

His tongue touched hers, hot and searching.

Sesty sagged against him. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. It had been so long since she’d felt the hard planes of his body against her curves, but it was a sensation she’d never forgotten. Her first time had been with this man. She’d given him her virginity without regret and she would always remember him, no matter where she ended up or whom she eventually married or how old she got.

Josh was her first. There could be no changing that. She didn’t want to change it.

Don’t get swept away on emotions. You know how fickle feelings can be. You loved him once and mourned the loss of him for way longer than you should have. Do you really want to get back on that ride?

Yeah, the argument sounded good in theory, but she wasn’t listening. All she could hear was the steady pounding of their hearts beating in perfect harmony.

The kiss grew deeper, slower, a quiet inner pool amid the hard pull of sexual current flowing between them. His masterful tongue teased, drawing responses from her body that she never thought possible. She felt as if she were leaping off the old suspension bridge they used to dive off into the Brazos River back when they were in high school. Hitting the surface with a shocking smack of impact, falling into the languid arms of the water.

She threaded her fingers through his hair, tugged lightly, holding him in place. The world shrank to the width if their mouths. She knew every part of him. Had been here before, and while it felt hauntingly familiar, there was the spicy undertones of a stranger.

Ten years lay between. They’d both changed. Grown. Had experiences without each other. The sensation was novel, disconcerting, surprising, and oddly comfortable. How could a man be both known and mysterious?

He increased the pressure. Their bodies were molded to each other. His rock hard, hers moist and pliant. He made her feel sexy and wanted and accepted and needed and valued. It was a heady experience, and she had to ask herself some hard questions.

Was this merely a blast from the past? A melancholy trip down memory lane? Or was she secretly hoping for more and setting herself up for heartache?

But in the throes of passion, she could not answer such weighted questions. She gave herself into the moment, fully experiencing everything it had to offer. Requiring nothing from this space in time except to enjoy herself.

Finally, Josh pulled away from her, leaving her raw and achy and wanting more.

Dammit, she should have been the first one to pull away. She stepped back, straightened, and combed her fingers through her hair. Tried to look cool and completely unruffled.

His breathing was ragged, more ragged than hers. Good. She wasn’t the only one who’d been thrown for a loop.

He cupped her cheek with his palm, stared deeply into her eyes. “We’re in trouble here.”

“Not really,” she denied glibly. “It was just a kiss. We’ve kissed before.”

“This one was different.”

“Only because we’re older, more experienced. It’s not—­”

He kissed her again, sucking her into his orbit. Was this how all his fan girls felt?

She splayed a palm against his chest, pushed back. “You gotta stop doing that.”

“Why?”

“We hate all things romantic, remember?”

“This doesn’t have to be the least bit romantic, Ses.”

“Hmm, I fear we’re a little too late for that. Walking in the park, finding where you painted our names on the Sweetheart Tree. This is bordering on so damn sweet it could rot our teeth.”

“If you think this is sweet, then I’ve been doing it wrong,” he said.

And by damn, he kissed her again and there was nothing sweet about it.

A moan slipped from her lips and escaped into the cold night air. His body heat scalded her, invaded her, as relentless as that amazing tongue. He opened his mouth wider around hers, drank her up.

This was going to end up someplace they could very well live to regret. If she didn’t want Valentine’s Day to be forever connected to this night, she needed to put a stop to this.

Right now.

But she simply could not bring herself to let go of him. It felt too good. Maybe she could do casual sex. Why not?

Because this is Josh we’re talking about.

His hands slipped up underneath her coat, his palms sliding up her back. Big hands. Capable hands. Hands that gripped a steering wheel and kept expensive cars on a track at two hundred miles an hour.