LITMIR.BIZ

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      And, obviously, neither of them would ever forget that this should have been their own sugary bliss. The look in Susannah’s eyes said it all. If Trent hadn’t cheated on her, they would have been the kissing, cooing newlyweds.

      She had wanted that, once. Trent knew it had been her most comforting dream. It had helped her endure the loss of her parents, and her grandfather’s brutality.

      And he’d killed it.

      She would never forgive him for that. Hell, he’d never forgive himself.

      But life went on, damn it. Why couldn’t she let go of the past long enough to get through this year without adding more misery to the heaping load they already carried around?

      “So let’s see how this works.” He plucked the stencil from her fingers. “Ummm…” He turned it in all directions, trying to figure out how exactly this collection of random slits in a wobbly plastic rectangle was going to end up looking like anything. “Sorry, but…what the hell?”

      In spite of her obvious belief that cracking a smile in his presence would usher in the end of the world, he saw the corner of her mouth tuck back.

      “It’s a simple stencil, really. Just one color, just one layer. See? You press the stencil against the wall, then sponge over it with paint. What comes through will look like a lamb.”

      “Really.” He squinted. It would, he thought, probably help to be drunk. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

      But she didn’t seem to be listening anymore. When he glanced toward her, he was rewarded with a close-up of her tight, round ass. She’d bent over and begun squeezing blobs of white acrylic paint onto the plates that waited on the bright blue drop cloth.

      He took a minute to enjoy the sight. Expecting to work hard—and definitely not expecting to see Trent—she’d dressed casually today. Instead of her regular tailored khaki slacks and oxford cloth shirt, she was wearing cutoff blue jeans, frayed up to the danger zone, and a tiny white halter top.

      Eleven years ago, he would have grabbed her in both hands and pulled her in for an X-rated squeeze that would have put Chase and Josie to shame. They would have ended up laughing, stumbling and probably covered in white paint.

      Today, they lived under new laws. He gave himself that one stolen minute to look, and then turned away before she sensed the heat of his gaze.

      “The border goes along the edge of the ceiling, I suppose?” There were still two ladders in the room, from when Trent and Chase had painted the baby-blue walls two weeks ago, and they’d obviously been left for a reason.

      She stood on tiptoe to investigate. “Yeah. Chase already drew the guidelines, so we don’t have to worry about spacing. You can start over by the closet. I’ll start by the door.”

      Her gaze dropped to his calf, which still had a bandage over Marchant’s six stitches. “Unless…” She waved toward the injury. “If you’d rather not…”

      He laughed. “You think I’ve developed a fear of ladders?”

      “Probably not.” She actually smiled at that.

      For about twenty minutes they worked in silence, atop their own perches on opposite sides of the room. He taped the stencil in place, sponged the paint onto the wall, then moved the stencil and began again.

      The lambs looked blobby.… Was he using too much paint? His hands felt too big, mostly thumbs. Though he’d done only five lambs, he was already bored.

      He glanced back to see how her wall was coming.

      Far better than his, naturally. She had so much more control, so much more patience. He was restless, physical, more comfortable outdoors. He’d always marveled at her ability to sit quietly, to wait, to think things through, to stay on task.

      He had none of that. Which was, of course, why he’d botched up his life for so long, making one impulsive mistake after another. What patience he had acquired had come at great cost…and it still didn’t come naturally.

      He climbed down, moved his ladder and filled his plate with white paint. He climbed up again, ignoring the twinge in his stitches, and taped the stencil in place. Just before he touched the sponge to the wall, he noticed that he’d taped the lamb upside down.

      In spite of his annoyance, he had to laugh. Josie was going to regret letting him get involved with this. “Hey. Remember when Nikki decided she wanted unicorns all over her walls?”

      He wasn’t surprised when Susannah didn’t immediately answer. Normally, they avoided “Remember when” as a conversation starter. But he’d spoken without thinking, of course. And besides, damn it, he was tired of pretending that ten years of intimacy and fun hadn’t existed, just because they’d ended in one night of disaster.

      She must have decided the same thing, because after only a brief hesitation, she chuckled, too.

      “I hope that doesn’t mean what I think it means.” She put down her sponge and twisted her head to see his border. “Have you screwed up already?”

      “Yeah. I almost put one on upside down.” He leaned back to let her get a full view of the mess. “Is the paint supposed to drip like that? My lambs look sort of…deformed.”

      She frowned, studying his line of white, puffy animals. “It’s not too bad,” she said finally. “You’re using too much paint, that’s all. I can probably go back with the blue and touch it up.”

      “Oh.” He stared at his row of lambs, as if they’d betrayed him. “Darn.”

      “Darn? You wanted me to say they were awful?”

      “Yeah.” He grinned. “I was hoping you’d order me to surrender my sponge immediately.”

      “Nope.” She dabbed her own sponge into the white paint. “Sorry. And don’t go making it worse deliberately, just to get out of it. It didn’t work with the unicorns, did it?”

      It certainly hadn’t. At five, Nikki had been in love with unicorns, and she’d begged Susannah, Trent, Paul and Chase—who, at nineteen, still called themselves the Fugitive Four—to paint the creatures on her bedroom walls.

      Ever sensible, Susannah found a picture to copy, but unfortunately none of the boys had an iota of artistic talent. Trent’s contributions were the worst, looking like everything from rhinos to car keys…but never like unicorns.

      Nikki, who at the time was crazy about Trent, adored the weird creations. She egged him on, encouraging him to make them ever wilder, despite Susannah’s frustrated efforts to keep everyone copying the pattern.

      Chase and Paul joined in the fun, abandoning the original design without regret. It took a while, but by the end of the day even Sue relented and began adding inventive flourishes to her unicorns, too.

      The result was colorful madness, but it had been so joyous, a visible representation of the love and creative camaraderie that had existed among the four friends. It had been one of their happiest days.

      They’d all been crushed when, two days later, Arlington Everly had sent one of the ranch hands up to paint over it with a bland eggshell white. It had taken four coats to cover it all, which had given them an irrational sense of pride.

      “Okay, but if my lambs all look like unicorns, let it be on your head.” He tapped the sponge against the edge of the plate, making sure it didn’t soak up too much paint. “That was a fun day, wasn’t it?”

      He didn’t look at Susannah, but he could feel her tension all the way across the room. He could almost hear her thoughts. She was trying to calculate risk, vulnerability, exposure. Was it too dangerous to agree that yes, she, too, remembered that day with pleasure? Was she somehow in danger if she admitted that, on that one day, they had been happy?

      “Yes,” she said finally. “Yes, it was a beautiful day.”

      He

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