She was in trouble, and she knew it. She'd had plenty of life to live after Trevor had moved to Helena, enough that she had all but forgotten about him. Now that they were abiding under the same roof, though, more and more of their childhood was coming back to her. Each memory made it harder to dismiss the fact that she had spent a majority of her younger, formative years totally and hopelessly in love with Trevor McCall.
It wasn't like she’d been unique in that sense. Lacey was pretty sure that half the girls in Winding Creek had harbored secret fantasies of being the one who’d be able to tame Trevor's wild ways. He'd spent time with girls, of course, more than his fair share of them, if even only some of the rumors were true. But nobody had ever captured his heart, and thankfully, for the sake of Lacey's self-esteem, she'd never been so foolish as to think he would see her as anything other than his family maid's annoying kid.
That hadn't kept her from daydreaming, though, and now that they were together almost all the time, those fantasies had returned in full force. Sitting so close to him that she could smell the cedar undertones of his cologne and sipping matching glasses of wine wasn't doing anything to cool her jets, either. The only thing keeping her safe was the fact that the attraction was totally, one hundred percent one-sided.
“You know what? Scratch that,” Trevor went on, apparently willing to let her weird behavior go without explanation after all. “I want to know about something else.”
“Um, really? What might that be?” she asked nervously. She took another sip of wine to calm her nerves, and maybe buy her some time as well, depending on what he wanted to know. The sip was too big, however, and she almost choked, coming close to spitting wine all over a couch she suspected cost as much as much if not more than her Jeep, ruining any chance she might have with Trevor. Not that she really stood a chance. Not that she even wanted to, she reminded herself, albeit with a woeful lack of conviction.
“I want to know where all that fire in the hardware store came from,” he laughed, taking a sip from his own glass and wrinkling his nose ever so slightly at the taste of the smooth red wine.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, although the answer sounded lame even to her own ears.
"Oh no, don't try to play it that way," he said, shaking his head and angling his body toward her, closing the gap between them even further until their knees were actually touching. She did her best not to stare at the place where her body stopped and his began but worried she was doing a poor job. She had no idea how women did this—how they played it cool when their insides were screaming and doing a nervously optimistic happy dance.
“I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice surprisingly coy. “I’m not playing at anything, anyway.”
"You sure are," he countered. "You know exactly what I mean. Now, don't get me wrong, if that moron had been talking to me the way he was talking to you, I would have decked him. Probably would have gotten myself thrown in jail in the process, too. But I'm not exactly known for my even temper and my wells of reserve, if you know what I mean."
“I might have an idea,” she said, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“You, though, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you get up in anyone’s face like that. From what little I remember of us being kids, you were always pretty quiet.”
"Yeah, I was pretty forgettable," she said in a low voice, her good mood lessening considerably. No woman wanted her most lasting impression to be her ability to blend into the background. Not unless she was some sort of secret spy assassin, which Lacey most certainly was not.
"No way," Trevor said, shaking his head vehemently. "That's not what I said, and it's not what I meant. I said you were quiet. Like, shy. It just surprised me, is all, seeing you go toe to toe with that guy.” He nodded. “A good surprise, by the way."
“Yeah, I can see that,” Lacey said, willing herself to relax before her defensiveness made her seem like a total whack job. “If you want to know the truth, I had a couple of classes with that guy.”
“Did you?” Trevor asked, his face registering surprise. “He didn’t seem to recognize you.”
“No, he didn’t, did he?” she agreed sourly. “We were in school together, though, and he certainly enjoyed making things rough. He went out of his way to make fun of me every chance he got. It was like it was one of his hobbies, or something.”
Trevor didn't say anything to that, and as the silence wore on, Lacey mentally kicked herself. Trevor had probably never had to deal with a bully in his life. She didn't know what exactly he was thinking now, but she couldn't imagine it was good. She wanted to make a joke and laugh the whole thing off, but she couldn't think of a single thing to say, and the silence between them seemed magnified by the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner and the crickets singing just outside the windows.
“I hate that.” His voice was so low that Lacey thought she might have imagined it. When she ventured a glance at him, though, she saw that his expression had turned dark. He was staring at her as if he was trying to see into the most private thoughts in her head.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t know why I did. You asked where that scene came from, and I—”
“No,” he interrupted, his intensity making her heart jump into her throat, “you’re misunderstanding me. I don’t hate anything you did. I hate that something like that happened to you. That there wasn’t somebody around to put that punk in his place.”
“And would you have done it?” she asked, both appalled and transfixed by the forwardness of her question. “If you had been on the spot in school, and you had seen him messing with me like that, would you have stepped in and done something?”
“Are you kidding me?” he asked, his voice husky. He leaned forward and set his wine glass on the coffee table, never taking his eyes from hers as he moved. “How could I not?”
She couldn't look away from him, didn't want to look away. She watched with wide eyes as he leaned forward, his movements seeming slow and lightning-quick all at once. She could hardly grasp this was happening. Even as his spicy scent filled her nostrils and she felt his two-day stubble brush her face, she couldn't believe that he was going to kiss her. She was struck by an almost overwhelming urge to pinch herself. She managed to avoid the temptation, but not by much.
“Oh!” she gasped when his lips finally brushed hers, and she melted into him as if she had always been meant to be pressed up against him.
It started out tentative, questioning, his lips hardly touching hers at all. Then his teeth grazed along her lower lip, and she jerked, almost dropping her glass. Without missing a beat, he took it from her, setting it on the table beside his own.
"Okay?" he asked, his voice coming out rough, almost a growl. She nodded, smiling against his mouth, and he laughed and pulled her closer still. She gasped again, but this time it had nothing to do with surprise but with the feeling of heat growing inside her, the trembling of her thighs and all it implied. He slid his hand beneath her summer top, and she made no move to stop him. Instead, she arched her back so that he cupped her breast more completely in one calloused hand. Everything was moving too fast and too slowly for her all at once. She wanted only to let it happen, to see how far things would go, but a nagging fear of disappointing him in the back of her head wouldn't let her stay quiet. She pulled back reluctantly, trying to keep her eyes from straying to the bulge in his jeans.