What Not to Were (11 page)

The sun, even at the end of October, was unforgiving in its wrath. It was days like this when she missed the reds and golds of fall back in Boston most. The cool weather, hot soup and sandwiches, long walks with a sharp wind at her back.

Nothing had jarred Nash’s memory after they’d reenacted the first time they’d seen each other in eleven years—or as Daphne had titled it—
Reunion
.

But she wasn’t willing to give up yet. This was the man she loved, and if they had to start from scratch, she’d do it. Though, the ominous words Fate had used kept poking at her, telling her to hurry up—she just didn’t understand what the hurry was.

Nash handed her a cold bottle of water and lifted his Stetson to wipe his brow with his forearm. “So what did we do here?”

They’d decided as a group to only reenact the really important events, in light of the fact that there were just too many to count in their three-month courtship.

She cleared her throat, raspy from the heat, and smoothed her hands over her hair. “I was here with a couple of the seniors for an outing to feed the ducks, and you surprised them with cold lemonade and cookies from the bakery.”

Nash was always doing things like that. Not just for her, but the seniors he knew she loved so much. It had been just as hot that day as it was now, and when he’d seen them while he was doing some errands in town, sweating as they threw bread to the ducks, he’d grabbed bottles of lemonade from the downtown market and set up a mini-picnic under the shade of the tree.

“So lemonade was an important event?”

Her smile was distant. “It was more the kind act. It was crazy hot, and you did something so nice, it made me…” His gesture, so sweet, had her lobbing herself at him like a racquet ball to a court wall. “This was where we had our first kiss.”

Her heart throbbed at the thought. That first kiss had been some kind of magic.

He turned on the bench and looked down at her with a half smile. “Our first?”

She smiled back, even though her heart was growing heavier by the second. “Yeah. Right under the pecan tree.” Her words sounded almost giddy to her ears, so she bit the inside of her cheek.

Nash brushed a lock of hair from her shoulder. “The first time or the second? Because we knew each other growing up, right?”

If he only knew how his words were shredding her with every lost memory he voiced. “We never kissed when we were kids.”

“Didn’t we?”

“Nope.” Not that she hadn’t prayed for it every night before she went to sleep like most girls prayed a Backstreet Boy would lay one on them, but it never happened, much to her teenage dismay.

“Wow. Just call me slacker. I can’t believe I passed up an op to kiss you.”

She fought a good preen. “Really?”

“Hell yeah. You’re pretty cute. So was the kiss good?”

The best kiss ever. But she didn’t want to sound too overeager and scare him off with her enthusiasm. Instead she smiled and replied, “It was nice.”

He held a broad hand over his heart and made a sad face. “Nice? Just
nice
? What every guy wants to hear. What did I do wrong that just made it nice? What can I do to make it spectacular this time ’round?”

Greta approached with a roll of her eyes, her hair sticking to the sides of her face with perspiration. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Nash. If we’re gonna do this, let’s do it right, Calla. She talked about that blasted kiss for days afterward. All we heard every girls night out over cheese fries and apple martinis was, ‘Oh my God, those lips are like a pair of evil temptations. How ever will I manage to keep my hands off him until we take the big leap?’ That’s how good that kiss was.”

Calla’s cheeks went red with heat, but before she could say anything else, Daphne was there, like some weird director in a Civil War reenactment. “Places, everyone!” she bellowed through the megaphone that had appeared out of nowhere after they’d finished at the center.

Calla winced. All of her senses were on high, especially her already ultra-sensitive hearing. “Hey, Spielberg! I’m begging you, easy on the loud noises. My nerves are already frazzled.”

Daphne flipped through a notebook, something else that had magically appeared. “Sorry, honey. I just want to get this right. Now, the script says you two were under the pecan tree. So find your spots.”

“The script,” Calla muttered, trudging to the shade of the enormous pecan tree behind the bench and leaning back against it just like she had the day Nash first kissed her.

“Okay, so, this instance I totally remember because Winnie and I were out power-walking along the lake, minding our own business, chatting about nothing when we ran smack into you two, all pressed up against the big pecan tree, sucking face for all you were worth while Clive fed the ducks.”

Kirby shook her head full of gorgeous auburn hair when she inspected Calla’s position with a critical eye. “No, Calla, lean more on your left foot so your hip juts out.”

Calla put her weight on her left foot, shoving her hip forward like some awkward supermodel.

Kirby still shook her head. “Nope. That’s not it either. Lift your arm up and drape it over that lower branch.”

Jesus. What had she been doing that day in the park, hooking for cash?

“A little higher,” Kirby instructed with a wave of her finger.

“Oh, stop, Kirby. Do you really think if I stand here looking like I’m ready to do business it’s going to alter the scene that much?”

The scene? Heh.

Daphne flapped her hands at Nash. “Now, Cowboy Hot, you stand in front of Calla, um, hand on her waist. And Kirby, you were chasing after Gus, who was doing some chasing of his own. Some poor unsuspecting woman who just wanted to eat her lunch in peace.”

Gus stuck his tongue out at Daphne. “She had Cheez-Its. Calla won’t let me have them because they’re too high in salt. I just asked if I could have a couple s’all,” Gus defended, his weathered face—likely in his youth, quite handsome—going all innocent.

“You did not just ask for Cheez-Its, Casanova,” Calla chided, moving around Nash to reach forward and wipe crumbs from Gus’ mouth. “You asked her if she was up for some foreplay with her Cheez-Its. You can’t do that, Gus. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. Women in this day and age won’t put up with that kind of sexist behavior. You’re going to find yourself locked up in the county jail for sexual harassment one day, pal.”

Gus scrunched up his face at her. “Whatever happened to the good old days, when a man was in charge and the women just made sandwiches all nice and quiet in the kitchen?”

Nash barked a laugh, slapping Gus on the back. “I think they went the way of floggings at high noon, my man. As in kaput.”

“Hey!” Clive called from the edge of the lake, where he lobbed bread at the ducks, his feet in the murky water. “Are we doing this? It’s almost time for snack back at the center. If that damn Swanson eats my tapioca, I’m gonna beat his scrawny butt with my cane. Not to mention, in case you two lovebirds hadn’t noticed, the sun is two feet from my face. It’s hot. Get ’er done!”

Clive was right. It was too hot for them to be out here, especially the seniors from the center. “Kirby? Take Clive and Gus back to the center, please. I don’t want anyone passing out from this infernal heat.”

“Aw, the hell I’m goin’ back now!” Clive shouted, hiking up his plaid shorts and wandering into the lake. “I’m not gonna be the one to screw this up. Plus, we got a new pool goin’ on. How long will it take before Marlboro Man remembers his Calla-Lilly?”

“Did I call you Calla-Lilly?” Nash rumbled, sending a shiver of longing down her spine.

Pressing the bottle of the water to her cheeks, she shook her head. “No. The only people who call me that are my grandfather and Denny Parks. Denny, totally against my will, mind you.”

Nash visibly bristled, his jaw tightening. “Parks calls you that? Why so intimate?”

“So you remember him?”

Nash paused a moment and slow-nodded. “Yeah, I remember him. In fact, he was just out at my ranch the other day.”

Calla’s alarm bells sang a warning tune. “Denny was at your ranch? You two can’t stand each other. Why would he come to your ranch? What did you talk about?”

Now he frowned. “I’ll be damned if I can remember. It’s no secret I don’t like him. I’ve never liked Denny.”

Indeed. This was something she’d mentally store away until she could get her hands on Denny and ask him why he’d been at Nash’s. Maybe he had something to do with this?

“So you didn’t answer the question. Why is Denny so intimate with your nickname?”

“Why do you ask?” She crossed her fingers it was because he remembered one of the reasons
why
he disliked Denny.

He paused a moment then shook his head. “I don’t know. Parks is no friend of mine, but I’m not sure why him calling you anything makes me want to bury his head under a trough of pig slop.”

She tried to keep her cool, but on the inside, her organs stood up and cheered. “You and Denny don’t get along because of me—or partially, anyway. I think you don’t like him for other reasons as well, but I exacerbated the situation.”

Nash’s eyes narrowed suspiciously exactly the way they had when he’d first found out Denny had a thing for her. “Is that because he has eyes for you, too?”

Yippee!
“Sort of. Though, I mostly think it’s because he hates the idea of a werewolf and warlock together. The two of you were always butting heads when it came to me because of it, and my kind typically disapproves of us mingling with someone outside our species.”

He leaned in toward her, the scent of his cologne just as Renee had described. “
Typically
disapproves? I’ve heard that about your kind—all sorts of rules for mating, is that the word? So why didn’t they didn’t disapprove of us? Or did they, and maybe that’s why this is happening?”

Although he knew after this morning that she had only one breast, having to continually repeat why her pack couldn’t care less about whom she mated with had become rather like
Groundhog Day
.

But she wasn’t going to hide because her pack labeled her damaged goods. Fuck her pack. “First of all, werewolves don’t have any magical powers—so it’s pretty unlikely they had anything to do with your memory loss. And they don’t care because of my breast. Because I only have one, they consider me inferior, and the chance I’d reproduce children with the same defect keeps them off my back about whom I mate with.” She knew the words came out tight and stilted, but to share them now, to look him in the eye and explain why she was unworthy to her own kind, was embarrassing.

He looked astonished. “Well, you know what I say to that, don’t you, Miss Allen?”

“What do you say to that, Cowboy Nash?”

“Fuck your pack.” And then he hauled her into his arms and laid one on her.

“That’s not how the script goes!” Daphne boomed into the megaphone.

* * * *

Nash would swear on his own mother’s life he saw stars the moment his lips hit Calla’s. Her mouth was soft, her lips like two damn pillows he could rest his on for a good long spell.

And when she pressed her soft body against his, groaned into his mouth, he hardened instantly. Nothing mattered—not the heat, not Clive whistling and shouting his approval, not even Daphne who kept frantically yelling “cut!”

Nothing mattered but this woman and the desire to keep right on kissing her as they melted into one another.

This felt right. This felt good, and he wondered if this was how he’d felt the first time he’d kissed her.

Calla’s arms curled up around his neck, her fingers threading through his hair, pulling him closer, making his jeans become uncomfortable.

Suddenly, it didn’t matter that they were in a public park. It didn’t matter that this was all staged or that they had an audience. Nothing mattered but this woman he wanted desperately to remember, and her lips.

Greta’s whistle went off like a foghorn, jolting them both back into awareness. Calla tore her lips from his and looked up at him, searching his eyes. He knew what she wanted. He knew she wanted him to magically remember everything.

But he didn’t.

Somehow, that left him feeling pretty damn empty.

Greta’s round face appeared between them. “Okay, you two—we’re not out here to show everyone how to make their own orgy. Break it up before the kids on the swings get an education they’re not ready for just yet,” she chirped on a chuckle.

Nash looked down at Calla, her face coming back into focus. “Well, I don’t know about you, but damn. Was it like that the first time?”

Her chest rose and fell beneath her lacy blouse, giving him a quick glimpse of the swell of her breast, forcing him to fix his eyes to her face to keep from dragging her off to his bed.

She smiled, a soft, gentle lift of those luscious lips, and ran a hand over her hair. “It went something like that.”

“Can I get a little credit here?” he teased, running his thumb over her lower lip.

She swallowed hard, the knot in her throat evident. “Did it jar anything?”

He sighed. He didn’t want to hurt her. In fact, for some reason, he wanted to do everything in his power to make her happy—keep her smiling. But he had to be honest. “No. But that doesn’t mean something else we reenact won’t, right?” He was shooting for hopeful because he hated seeing her try to hide how crushed she was.

Daphne rushed up to them, clipboard of notes in one hand, megaphone in the other, her eyes hopeful. “Good gravy. I can’t believe you two didn’t set the tree on damn fire. So, anything?”

He was disappointing people left and right today and it left him feeling like a heap of shit. “I’m sorry. No.”

Instantly Daphne brightened, putting on a falsely cheerful grin. “No worries. Next up is The Big Talk. Now from what I understand, that was a huge deal. Maybe that’ll stir something up.”

“The big talk,” he muttered, feeling like an idiot for not getting the meaning.

Calla cast her eyes at the ground. “It’s when we decided to wait to…” She cleared her throat, clearly fighting for the explanation.

But Gus fixed that. He put an arm around each of their shoulders and grinned. “It’s when you two decided to wait to make chimichangas until y’all knew each other better. We all called it Wait To Consummate at the center. But I’ll tell ya, yer a better man n’ I am, Cowboy. I’d be all over this hot piece of work like fried on—”