Page 29 of All Night with the Cowboy
Tanner listened, ears straining to hear what Lauren was doing. He’d heard her moving, even though she was barefoot, and listened to the light switches being flicked in the living room, then the soft pad of her feet as she walked and then stopped. He’d waited, certain she was going to knock, and when he’d looked down and seen the darkness of a shadow outside his bedroom door, he’d been positive she was about to either knock or push his door open. But she hadn’t done either.
He shifted in his bed, his head too full of thoughts of Lauren to have any chance of sleeping. He was tempted to go to her room, but if she’d wanted him, she’d have damn well knocked, and he wasn’t going to push her.
Instead he reached for his iPhone and decided to do a quick check-in on social media. He never posted anything—the last thing he wanted was the world knowing what he was doing or where he was all the time, but he thought he’d see what the rest of his family was up to. They all loved the side of social media that he hated so vehemently. His dad was the only other family member who wasn’t addicted to Facebook—and that was hardly surprising, considering he was in his late seventies.
A message pinged through from Mia then, asking how the vacation was going. He sent her a quick reply saying everything was great, then noticed a link his brother had shared. Tanner clicked and realized it was aweather warning for the South Pacific. He’d also missed five calls from his brother, one from his other sister, and three from his agent, but he’d chosen to ignore them all. He didn’t want to deal with questions and demands and more questions, but he did appreciate the weather warning.
“Chance of Gnarly Weather Hitting the Islands.” He read the headline twice and groaned. Seriously? Why the hell did he have to be on an island in the middle of goddamn nowhere when the weather turned bad? He scrolled through the rest of the article and saw that this time of year was the rainy season in Fiji, but he wasn’t about to let that ruin his time there. The weather had been picture perfect so far, and he wasn’t about to jinx it by worrying. He wasn’t afraid of a little rain.
He turned his device off and lay down, his head cocooned by a fluffy hotel pillow and his thoughts consumed with the beautiful, leggy brunette lying on her own bed just down the hall. So damn close, but so, so far away.
***
Lauren woke early, put her hair in a high ponytail and dressed in her running gear. She doubted Tanner would be up, and when she opened her bedroom door the house was silent. She slipped out and couldn’t believe how warm it was already—the temperature seemed to be balmy no matter what the time of day. Lauren stretched and limbered up, then settled into a slow jog, smiling as she felt the familiar pull of her muscles. Running was her happy place—it made her brain stop and her senses come to life. She set her sights on the mountain in front of her, moving onto the track and staying slow and steady. She could sprint on the way down if she had theenergy, but she didn’t know how far it was and she didn’t want to have to walk back down if she’d used up all her energy.
She’d come out without her music, and after admiring the scenery and finding her pace, listening to the familiar thud of her shoes hitting the track, her mind started to wander.Go away, she said, as if she were speaking to someone in her mind. But the little voice in there wasn’t leaving her alone.What about Tanner?
She decided to ignore the voice and her own reasoning and run faster. She pushed harder, trying to block it out, but she couldn’t. Dammit! She’d made the right choice, the only choice she’d had, so why was she living in her past and even thinkingWhat if?What-ifs were dangerous, she knew that, and Tanner seemed happy. They’d both done well, doing what they’d always wanted to do. The only difference was that they hadn’t done it together.
***
“I won’t do it,” she said defiantly, standing with her hands on her hips and staring at her mother. “You can’t force me to do it!”
“Lauren, trust me, you have your whole life aheadof you. I remember how appealing the bad boy was. When I was your age I would have felt the same as you do right now, but we know what’s right for you.”
She’d looked pleadingly at her sister, but there was nothing Hannah could do to help her. She’d already tried talking to Mom for her, but now that they’d made their minds up and given her an ultimatum, they weren’t going to back down, no matter what anyone tried to say to get them to change their minds.
“What if I quit then?” she’d asked. “What if I get a job and don’t ever go to college?”
Her mom had smiled. “Sweetheart, you’re a smart girl. You wouldn’t be flipping burgers for long before you’d be begging us to pay for your college tuition.”
She laughed then, shaking her head. “And what if Tanner pays for my college education? What if I don’t even need you to help me?”
Her father had risen from the table then and come to stand at the foot of the stairs. Lauren was standing halfway up, refusing to give in. She was down to her last days now—summer was almost over and she was going to have to break up with Tanner tomorrow or the day after if she was actually going to do it.
“Quit arguing with your mother, Lauren. You can ask him to pay if you like, be my guest—it’ll save me six figures and I’d be eternally grateful—but I think you’ll find it’s his father who’s wealthy, darling, not him. You really think Walter Ford is going to so generously pay for the college education of his son’s teenage girlfriend?”
She refused to back down, kept her face fixed even though she was falling to pieces inside.
“His son is a rebel, and from what I’ve heard his grades are terrible. He might be fun now, but there’s no future in fun.”
“He’s dyslexic, Dad, not dumb!” Lauren could feel her blood boiling but she clamped a hand over her mouth. Why had she said that? Tanner hadn’t wanted anyone else to know.
“Dyslexic or not, he’s a motorcycle-riding, cigarette-smoking, beer-guzzling bad influence on you, and I will not have him sucking away all your potential. A whole new world opens up when you leave high school, and mark my word, a boy like him is not going to be faithful to a sweet girl like you. It’s my job to protect you,and if you want me to invest my hard-earned money into your education, to finish college without debt, then you will do as we’ve asked.”
Lauren’s eyes filled with burning hot tears. There was no way she could ever afford to attend the college she wanted to go to if she had to pay for it herself. And if she did manage to get a loan, she’d spend the rest of her life paying it off. She wanted her own career, to stand on her own two feet. She’d always dreamed of turning her love of sports into a career, and if she couldn’t be a sports doctor or a physical therapist, then what was she going to do?
She loved Tanner fiercely, but she wasn’t about tobe his plus-one for the rest of her life. She wanted her own identity, and if her family would never accept him, then what hope did they have? They might be driving her crazy, but she loved her mom and dad, and their dislike of Tanner had grown rather than faded.
“Lauren?”
“Fine,” she said. “But if I look back when I’m thirty and regret what you made me do, then I know who I have to blame.”
***
Lauren ran faster, sprinting up the hill until her calves burned and her throat ached from sucking back so much humid air. When she reached the top she almost doubled over, leaning forward and trying not to be sick. It wasn’t until she finally stood up that she realized what a magic spot she was standing on, with 360-degree views of the islands.
She paced around slowly, needing a moment to catch her breath and let her heart rest to stop it from exploding. The trouble was, it wasn’t the run that her heart wasin danger from, it was Tanner. Because she’d never truly gotten over him, no matter how hard she’d tried, and the words she’d so angrily spat at her parents as a teenager, yelling at them from the family staircase, had come true. She did know who to blame for her heartache, for the fact she’d never met another man who’d even come close to Tanner, but now that she was thirty, she could understand why they’d pushed her to end things.
