Page 35 of Welcome Home, Cowboy
“You kissed who?” Val’s voice perked up now. “Oh, my God. Did you kiss Lawson Phillips?”
Julie shut her eyes, immediately regretting telling her friend. This was still too fresh. She had no idea what she was going to do about it. Lawson was in her yoga class; she was his instructor. And she was babysitting his niece. “It was a mistake, though. It shouldn’t have happened and—”
“Clarify. You kissed him or he kissed you?”
Julie swallowed. “He kissed me. We went horseback riding through this field and it was so freeing. We opened up to each other about our lives and we just kind of got lost in the moment.”
Val squealed. “I love secrets. I can’t believe you’re telling me and not Kat.”
“Lawson is Micah’s best friend. I can’t tell Kat. She keeps secrets about as well as she lies.”
“She’s an awful liar,” Val agreed. “Sooooo, did you kiss him back?”
The butterflies stormed Julie’s chest as she thought about it. “A little, I guess.” Or a whole lot, but Val didn’t need all the details. Julie just needed someone to knock some sense into her right now.
“This is awesome, Julie!” Val said, doing the opposite of what Julie needed. She needed someone to tell her that kissing Lawson was crazy, foolish, a temporary lapse in good judgment.
“Awesome? Really?”
“Sure. It means you’re moving on. Waving bye bye to Mr. Jerk Face.”
“Right.” That’s all this was. It was her letting go of the past. It didn’t mean there was going to be a future with Lawson. One kiss didn’t equal forever. Julie placed the lid on her carton of ice cream and carried it back to the fridge. “You made me feel better about the kiss. Thank you.” She was surprised, actually. She and Val had hated each other for a good part of their teenage years.
“Glad I could help,” Val said. “And if there’s more kissing, I want to hear about it. I have no love life, remember? I thrive off the details of others. Although I’ve banned Kat from telling me her details these days. Baby-making sex creeps me out.”
Julie laughed, carrying herself and her phone back to bed. “Good night, Val.”
“Night.”
Julie hung up and lay back on her bed again, staring at her ceiling. It was just a kiss, she repeated to herself. A magic kiss. That could never,everhappen again.
—
Lawson was actually looking forward to yoga tonight, which was one clue that maybe he did need that psychologist his commander had forced on him. After a day behind a desk, yoga sounded wonderful.
And so did the thought of seeing Julie in those fitted exercise pants and sports bra.
He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt, then headed out the door for class. It was look-but-don’t-touch when it came to the beautiful yoga instructor from now on. Kissing her had been…a mistake.
A mistake that had occupied his thoughts over the last twenty-four hours, which was a nice relief from thinking about what had happened in the desert, and the fact that he wasn’t flying right now.
He got in his truck and drove to the Veterans’ Center, arriving early. “Hey, Allison,” he said as he entered the building.
Allison looked up from a novel she was reading and waved. “You’re back for more, I see.”
A pang of embarrassment hit him. Yoga wasn’t exactly his exercise of choice. He’d still rather ride a horse or go for a run. Lift weights. In fact, the main thing yoga had going for it was the instructor here. Although the deep breathing did seem to help.
He scratched the side of his face, forcing himself not to say something stupid like he’d done the first class. He’d rather do yoga in front of his entire squadron than hurt Julie’s feelings again. “Back for more,” he echoed, keeping it simple. And good thing because Julie was walking up behind him.
“Hey,” she said, attracting his attention. A little blush crawled through her cheeks when he looked at her. She was thinking about that kiss, too. He wondered what she thought about it. If she wanted it to happen again. Not that it mattered because he’d decided that it definitely shouldn’t happen again. He needed to get his shit together before he started seeing anyone.
“Hey.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, heat moving in the space between them. Lawson wanted to close the space and put his mouth on hers. Put on his mouth onher. Damn, how the hell was he going to do an hour of yoga with thoughts like these filling his mind?
“Um, hey, Julie,” Allison said, laughing. “I’m here, too. But it looks like you two are somewhere else.” She raised a brow.
Julie shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean. Class starts in four minutes, though, so we better get down there,” she said to him, avoiding his gaze.
