She wished that her heartbeat skipped because she was panicked about being caught in the limelight again. But she knew perfectly well the erratic pulse and humming in her veins was all owing to the man who’d once vowed to love her forever. The man whose kisses had turned her inside out.
No way could she risk being close to him again.
“What will it be, Lark?” His voice broke through her scattered memories, terse and deep, while the engine of his high performance car purred with the promise of a fast getaway. “They’re coming.”
Why, in that moment, she chose to peer backward like Orpheus turning to see Eurydice, Lark couldn’t have said. But the sight of the small group running with their microphones and recording equipment finally got her in motion. Especially when someone shouted, “Lark! Lark Barclay, have you reconciled with Gibson?”
She’d been recognized.
Another, deeper voice called, “Will you convince him to return to hockey?”
Her throat dried up. And this time, her speeding pulse had everything to do with panic.
Better to risk the emotional fallout of spending time with Gibson than to be surrounded by her old enemy the sports press.
Launching forward, she rounded the vehicle and flung open the passenger door before heaving herself inside the air-conditioned interior.
A second later, Gibson punched the gas, hurtling them out of the parking lot and away from the cameras. Her relief lasted for about a nanosecond before Gibson’s silky baritone filled the coupe.
“It’s good to see you again, Lark.”
Judging by how fast her head whipped around, her forest-green eyes narrowing at him, Gibson would have thought he’d insulted Lark.
But then, hadn’t that always been the way between them? He’d continually been a step behind his razor-sharp ex-wife, too consumed with his career to give her the time she deserved, and too slow to understand her moods and needs.
Except, of course, for one sort of need. They’d been remarkably in tune sexually no matter how much the rest of their relationship fell apart. And how was it he’d wound up thinking aboutthatten seconds after seeing her for the first time in two years?
She looked incredible, of course. Her minimalist wardrobe—a taupe-colored skirt and chestnut brown boots with a white button down today—always let the woman shine and not the clothes. Her one sexy accessory was her long, dark hair woven into a thick braid.
“Did I say something wrong?” he asked, pinning his eyes to the road and keeping them there. He headed west, ready to put distance between them and the media hounds sniffing out a story about his retirement.
In his peripheral vision, he could see Lark leaning into the leather seat, hear her heavy plait falling from her shoulder to rest beside her with a softthunk. He had fond memories of the silky mane rarely seen loose. He’d found it sexy as hell to be the man who saw her undone at the end of a day.
“Just surprised you’d be glad to see me after the way we parted.” Her voice always had a note of authority in it, like she’d never second-guessed herself in her life. He’d always assumed that it must be reassuring for her patients, who had to trust in her judgment. “You told me it would be best not to contact each other anymore.”
Ah, damn. Just hearing his emotional words flung at him dragged him to the past and that painful day when she’d ended their marriage. His fingers flexed against the steering wheel as he turned onto the road that would lead to Catamount.
“I didn’t mean we shouldn’t ever speak again,” he clarified, checking his rearview mirror to make sure they weren’t followed. “At the time, I’d hoped taking a breather from one another would make it easier for us both to move on.”
In the silence that followed, he mentally laid odds on her response. Something sharp without being downright cutting. He could envision her perfectly, recalling the way she preferred the thoughtful consideration of her words over blurting out anything to fill a conversational void. His gaze might be on the county route winding alongside the Yampa River, but his mind’s eye saw only Lark, her lips pursed in thought.
Which led him to think about her mouth and how she never wore lip color. He’d loved that about her, the way she never hid behind makeup, never felt the need to camouflage herself. With Lark, you got exactly what you saw, and when it came to her lush mouth, that was an excellent thing. Her lips required no help to be seductive.
And the lack of cosmetics made it simpler to tasteher.
“Did it?” she asked softly, her thoughtful tone surprising him as much as the question itself. “Did the absence of contact make moving on easier for you?”
The confidential note in her voice catapulted him back to late night pillow talk. Long distance calls from the road when he’d been in some nameless hotel with the team, and she would pick up the phone even if she were half-asleep to ask him about his day. Why hadn’t he asked about hers more often? Why hadn’t he thought to put her first in his life?
“Tough to say since it was still...difficult,” he admitted, downshifting as he slowed for a stop sign. “But I thought maintaining a friendship would only make it harder to get over you.”
He’d been vocal about wanting to stay together. To work through her problems with his career. But there had been more to it than that, and he’d never been able to pin down what had been the final straw for her. She’d always kept some part of herself tightly closed. She’d given him her body, but he’d never been sure what was going on in her mind. One day, he’d returned to their Los Angeles home from an eleven-day road trip through Canada and she’d had her bags packed.
That had been the second worst day of his life, topped only by the last time they’d been in a courtroom together to dissolve their brief marriage. He couldn’t bear a repeat of that pain, her rejection rattling him to the core. He hated failing at anything. From when he was young and his father abandoned the family, his job was to fix things for the people he cared about. His family and teammates. But Lark didn’t need any fixing. And it had left him unsettled—not always in a good way.
“Right.” She bit out the word, a chill creeping into her voice as she shifted in her seat. “You didn’t want us to be friends. So why bother offering me a ride when the wolves are at our heels, all thanks to your decision to retire in Catamount? It wasn’t difficult enough when we both lived in LA? Now we need to be neighbors here?”
Gibson ground his teeth together as he accelerated.