Page 55 of How to Say I Do
They were absolutely not the Noël I wanted to showcase to the man I adored.
Well, too fucking bad about that.
How was I going to face him? I’d written about how I still dreamed about him making love to me and how there were times I woke up desperate to feel him between my legs and in my arms. I’d gone on andonabout how much I missed the taste of him, and had typed out long, drunken, Willie Nelson-fueled ramblings about how confused I was. I couldn’t understand how, after a lifetime of being exclusively attracted to women, I’d fallen for Wyatt harder than I had for anyone else in my life. Did loving a man change me? Or reveal me?
Why did I miss the six days I spent with him so much more than the eighteen months I’d spent with Jenna?
I could tell you exactly when I last thought of Wyatt—three minutes ago, when someone got off at Utica Avenue wearing a plaid shirt that Wyatt wore far better—but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d thought of Jenna. Or drank to her memory, or talked to her alone in the shower, or hunted through my laundry for a hint of her lingering scent. I’d done every one of those things in the past twenty-four hours for Wyatt.
And now he knew.
And, after knowing, all he asked for was my flight information.
Take a hint, Noël. Take a fucking hint. He’s been shoveling them at you. He won’t look at you. He told Tessa and Tyler you didn’t know each other. He doesn’t want you. So don’t make more of an ass of yourself in front of him. You’ve already done a spectacular job of that.
I copied and pasted my actual fight information out of my unsent drafts and shot it to him, and I didn’t say a single word about the other email. Still, I thought, maybe. Maybe he’d email me about it, or maybe he’d call me, and maybe he’d say something about how I’d poured out my heart. He’d say,Me too, andI feel the same, andGet here, and we’ll talk—
Nope. He never did.
Wyatt was waiting for me in his truck at the arrivals curb in San Antonio. He had one wrist hooked over the noon position of his steering wheel, and he had his chin tipped down and his hat pushed back. He peered through the crowd with a Texas Ranger intensity, one that must have come straight from his father. I felt his stare peel me open from ten yards away.
He climbed out when he saw me, of course, and opened up the passenger door while he unhooked my bag from my shoulder and set it on the back bench seat. A fucking gentleman, even now.
I wanted to vomit.
Instead, I sat on my hands as he circled the cab and climbed into the driver’s seat. His radio was tuned to a Texas football game, a low murmur that moved like running water. Wyatt shut the door, cleared his throat, and merged into airport traffic.
What ahellaciousdrive. I said nothing, determined to let him set the tone. He said nothing, either, just sat there stone-faced and silent as the Longhorns marched up the football field and scored three touchdowns.
Had he read my emails? Did he agree that I was a horrible person? Was he regretting his insistence on picking me up now that he knew exactly the kind of utter basket case he was sitting next to? And was he, in fact, even regretting ordering that burger for me, or rescuing me, or being so damn kind when he should have left me, the wretch that I am, to wallow alone?
I was only in Texas for one night, and despite Wyatt’s insistence on picking me up from the airport, he’d never offered to put me up at his ranch. I was both despondent and absurdly grateful. How could I have shared a roof with him when, the last time we did, we made love for hours?
I’d booked an overnight room at the bed and breakfast in the nearest one-horse town, a watering hole a short thirty-mile drive from his ranch. The place was an Old West-style inn, perched on a broad, leafy Main Street square that looked like it had been ripped forward in time. Wide streets, quaint shops, an outdoor café, an open-air flower market. Western flair with modern trimmings.
Wyatt walked me into the bed and breakfast and started catching up with a pair of older ranchers drinking coffee in the downstairs saloon. He held his hat in his hands, and he looked statuesque, as perfect as a picture, so at home among the worn wood and the warm light spilling through the lace curtains. He was wearing those tight jeans again, too, the ones that hugged his thick thighs all the way down to his boots.
I jogged upstairs as fast as my legs could carry me, dropped my duffel in the charming attic bedroom, and then slumped to the floor with my back pressed against the bed as I tried to hold back my scream.
Images hit me like sparks flung off a bonfire. His broad, bare shoulders shining in the sunlight. The sway of his hips against mine as he’d led me around the dance floor, and the rumble of his voice as he sang next to my ear. The softness of his lips—
One night. Just one night. When I got back to the city, I would go to Harrison and beg him to remove me from Tessa’s account. Dinah could have it back. Hell, she could have everything, all my clients, the partnership, anything she wanted, as long as I never had to face Wyatt—and what I’d done—again.
Wyatt took me to the town’s restaurant and bakery, and then to the florist, and then to the hardware, farm, and general store. That last stop wasn’t on my list—I’d asked to check out the local vendors to see if they could handle the kind of business Tessa was going to need—but Wyatt needed to pick up a few incomprehensible things, and he spent ten minutes staring determinedly at a wall of bolts.
It seemed like the whole town dropped by that hardware aisle to say hello. Sweet, matronly women doted over him, with their nineties permed close-cuts and plastic visors—"the nineties are coming back, Noël, how many times do I have totellyou”—and old men, ranchers plucked straight out of time, pumped Wyatt’s hand and drawled on about feed and cattle prices while they looked me over with a weather eye.
“You’re very popular,” I said, once we finally climbed into his truck. Wyatt had his bolts, two washers and two nuts, a bag of produce, a box of pastries, and a bouquet of flowers. All he’d come to town for were the bolts and me.
Wyatt passed me the box of pastries and tucked the flowers into the backseat. I pretended that didn’t bother me. They weren’t even roses, like the ones at his house, or plumerias, like he’d given me before, or a hibiscus, like from the hike. They were just a stunning arrangement of wildflowers, so crisp and fresh it seemed like bees should still be circling the blooms. Nothing I’d feel any sort of way about if he held them out to me with a smile and said,I think about you, too—
“It’s a close-knit place. Everyone’s known me since I was in diapers.” He settled his hat and shoved his keys into the ignition. “Did you find what you needed?”
“Yes. I’ll need to sample the menus and ask more detailed questions later, but I think we can source what we need for the wedding here, depending on the guest list Tessa settles on.”
He nodded, frowning like I’d spoken half in Martian. “You, uh… You wanna stay in town, or do you wanna go out to the ranch? We could knock out a few of those things on your to-do list this afternoon, if you want.”
My to-do list was miles long. It would take more than a few knocks to make a dent. “The ranch. We’ve got a ton of work to do.” Even to myself, I sounded snooty and stuck up. “Tessa is dead set on a late summer wedding. I don’t know how that’s going to be possible, but we’re going to have to do it.” I threw my head back against the headrest. “This wedding is going to be the death of me. I won’t even survive to make partner.”
