each hurried step away from the motel, she scolded herself more for her incredible lapse in judgment. She’d just had sex with a near stranger, twice! She wanted to get home, take a shower and go to bed. If she was supremely lucky, in the morning she’d wake up and this would all be nothing more than a hot, steamy dream.
As she neared downtown, she slowed as her thoughts spun. How in the world was she going to face Elissa and India? Why hadn’t she gone back to the music hall as she’d intended? Dealing with their matchmaking attempts would have been more bearable than telling them she’d gone off to the Country Vista to have sex with her skydiving partner. Wondering why she hadn’t heard from them, she stopped walking and pulled out her phone. When she saw she had twelve unanswered text messages, she remembered she’d put her phone on silent during the movie and had forgotten to change it back. If only she’d had the ringer on, maybe the texts would have kept her from making the biggest mistake of her life.
She scrolled through them.
Elissa: Hope you’re having a good time with Mr. McHottiePants.
Elissa: Smooch, smooch, smooch.
India: Ignore her. Call if you need us.
Several more followed in the same vein before India’s final message:
Where are you? Are you ok? Let me know.
She glanced across the street toward the mostly empty parking lot of the Blue Falls Music Hall and knew she couldn’t face seeing either of her friends tonight. With a deep breath, she texted India back.
Fine. Sorry, forgot to turn the ringer back on. Tired, heading to bed.
Just as soon as she walked the mile and a half around the lake to her apartment. If she made it without someone seeing her and setting the local gossip mill ablaze, she’d officially be the luckiest woman in all of the Hill Country.
She hurried toward the walking path that circled the lake. When she passed the Ice Cream Hut, she couldn’t help but remember how Logan had teased both her and Mari as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Damn her hormones—it probably was. She imagined him buying an ice-cream cone for a woman in every rodeo town he rolled into. Tears pooled in her eyes, and that made her even angrier. But she wasn’t angry at Logan. He hadn’t claimed to be anything he wasn’t. No, she was angry at herself. She’d let her body trump the orderly, precise thought process that had gotten her through years of upheaval and allowed her to become a successful businesswoman.
She increased her pace, wanting to be home more than she could express. Her anger grew, extending to her friends. They’d pushed her to the point where she’d fallen prey to Logan’s good looks and smooth talking. All the way back to the inn, she concocted countless ways to get back at them. But that would mean admitting what had happened. And by the time she unlocked the exterior door to her apartment that wouldn’t necessitate her walking through the inn’s lobby, she’d decided she was keeping her one-night stand to herself. That shouldn’t be a problem, since she couldn’t imagine Logan caring enough to deliberately cross her path again. He’d had her, and most likely he’d be on to the next woman who caught his eye.
That last thought kept reverberating in her head as she made straight for her bathroom and took a shower. Why did it bother her so much?
Because she wasn’t one to give even her body so easily. She’d lost control, and if there was one thing she couldn’t bear, it was to not be in control of her own life.
She dressed in cool summer pajamas and crawled into her bed. She inhaled the familiar clean scent of it, ran her hand across the downy softness. Everything about it was better than the bed at the Country Vista Inn.
Except that she was alone. She tried to tell herself that she was perfectly fine on her own, that she preferred it that way. But as a tear finally leaked out and trailed down to her pillow, she admitted that she was lonely. Logan wasn’t to blame for what happened between them. Her friends weren’t either. It was the loneliness that most of the time she could convince herself was a figment of her imagination, the empty feeling that she rarely acknowledged. But as she lay in her bed alone, she let herself feel it. She let herself admit, if only to herself in the privacy of her own mind, that she missed the warmth of a man’s body next to her.
As she closed her eyes, she allowed herself to relive every moment, every touch she’d shared with Logan. Moments and touches that had for a short while made her forget that loneliness.
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