Dane's Storm

I raised a brow, looking past her into the room that appeared to be decent, though there was a strange scent in the air. I scrunched my nose. Was that . . . roasting meat? She took a few steps backward and reached into the closet, removing a sweater. “Ready?” she mumbled.

“Yeah.” Jesus, I was acting like an ass. I stepped back. “Sorry. You look nice.” And she did. She was wearing a pair of tight jeans that showed off her slim, shapely legs, a black silky shirt with some sort of ruffling on the sleeves, and a pair of black heels. I wanted to let my eyes roam her curves, but I didn’t allow myself to, knowing it would be a bad idea. I could already sense the longing I’d always felt to touch her, feel her softness, welling up inside me.

“Thanks.” She looked over at my dark gray slacks and white button-up shirt as we began to walk toward the elevator. “So do you. I would have dressed up a little more, but I didn’t really pack anything—”

“What you’re wearing is perfect. I had this little Italian place in mind. It’s casual.” We made it to the elevator and I hit the down button. “If I recall correctly, you used to be able to put away your body weight in pasta.”

“Some things never change, I guess.” She laughed softly.

“No, I guess they don’t.” Our eyes met and lingered for a moment before Audra broke eye contact.

We entered the elevator and stood silently and somewhat awkwardly as it descended. I led her outside, past the still-sleeping desk clerk, cringing as I noticed the thin trail of saliva dribbling from the side of her open mouth. I took a deep breath of the outside air when we stepped through the door. It held the vague hint of trash and car exhaust, but it was still better than the musty odor of the hotel lobby.

I clicked the key fob on my car and opened the passenger door for Audra and stood waiting as she got inside. There was a group of young guys hanging in a doorway near where I was parked. As I watched them check her out, something hot and possessive ran through me. Ah, fuck. Habit, just old habit. That’s it.

I felt off balance, not fully in control, and I took the first five minutes of the car ride trying to reclaim my inner equilibrium. When I finally looked at Audra, she looked a little tense as she stared straight ahead out the windshield. “So tell me a little bit about your business,” I asked, feeling a twinge of something uncomfortable in my chest. I’d bought the warehouse as my wedding gift to her, and it pained me that I knew virtually nothing about what she’d done with it, other than that she ran a flower shop.

Her shoulders seemed to relax and she smiled, the first genuine one I’d seen since she walked into my office earlier that day. “I think you’d like what I’ve done with it. A lot of the improvements are things we talked about . . .” She cleared her throat. “It’s taken me longer than I hoped it would, and I’ve had to scrimp and save to do it, but I’m really proud of what it’s becoming.” She told me about creating vendor spaces and her vision of a one-stop vendor “mall” for brides.

“That’s an amazing idea, Audra.” And I meant it.

“Thanks. It’s finally starting to take shape, and I’m just beginning to see the payoff of all my work—”

“And then in walked Luella Townsend.”

She took her lip under her top teeth in that familiar way and nodded. “Yeah.”

I reached over and took her hand where it lay on her left thigh, squeezing it lightly. She startled and looked at me. I let go. I hadn’t meant to touch her, and the gesture had just come naturally. “It’s going to be okay. Your business is going to be fine.”

Her eyes moved quickly over my face and she nodded, then looked away. She took the hand I’d held in mine only moments before and linked it with her other one, rubbing the skin slowly as if I’d caused some physical sensation she was attempting to rub away.

I pulled up in front of the restaurant and five minutes later, we were seated by the window in the intimate, family-run restaurant.

“Wine?” I asked Audra. The last time I saw her we hadn’t even been of drinking age, so I really had no idea if she even drank alcohol. Truth was, despite my earlier office indulgence, I wasn’t much of a drinker myself.

“Sure, that sounds good. The last time I saw you, we weren’t even twenty-one yet,” she said, voicing exactly what I’d just thought.

“I know. We couldn’t even toast at our wedding. Well that, and you couldn’t drink anyway,” I said quietly.

With my words, she froze, her face draining of color, an expression of stunned pain moving through her eyes before she looked down at her menu. “What’s good here?” she asked, her voice a whisper that still managed to be slightly choked. Oh, Audra. My heart dropped to my feet. She still couldn’t even discuss being pregnant. I wondered if she’d talked about our son once in the seven years we’d been apart. Surely she did . . . sometimes. “Audra—”

“The pasta al forno sounds amazing.” She looked up at me and smiled, an overly bright one that didn’t meet her eyes. She looked back at her menu, the message crystal clear: that topic is off the table.

I sighed. “It is. It’s delicious.”

The waitress came to our table and a few minutes after that, we each had a glass of merlot in hand. “To catching up,” I said, clinking my glass with hers.

As I watched her take a sip and heard her sound of pleasure, I said, “I’ve wondered about you over the years.”

“I’ve thought about you too, Dane,” she said quietly, playing with the stem of the glass. “I’m actually surprised to know you haven’t re-married.”

“You figured I was married?”

She shrugged one shoulder, glancing around the restaurant before looking back at me. “I didn’t give it a whole lot of thought, but, yeah.” She smiled. “I figured a man like you’d be snatched off the market pretty quickly.”

I regarded her for a moment. A man like you. Who was that to her? Eligible? Loveable? Divorceable? “I came close last year,” I admitted.

Her eyes snapped to mine and she blinked. “Oh . . . well, I’m sorry. I mean, that it didn’t work out.”