Betting on You (8 page)

“That’s on a need to know basis,” Lark said, wrinkling her nose and sniffing. “And you don’t have the need to know. Just wear something you don’t mind getting dirty and plan on going with the flow.”

“Dirty, eh?” Mason asked, obviously intrigued. “All right. I’m staying at the
Motor Lodge
east of downtown. Room 214.”

Lark paused. “So…you and Parker are…”

“Permanently on the outs,” Mason said, but Lark didn’t hear the rage simmering in his voice that usually accompanied talk of his uncle.

“Good,” Lark said, proud of him. “Parker doesn’t deserve a nephew like you.”

“Thanks,” Mason said, with a smile that made Lark’s chest feel tight in the best way.

“You’re welcome,” Lark said. “So, I’ll pick you up at the hotel tomorrow. At seven o’clock.”

Mason cocked his head, and reached out to capture one of her happily wiggling toes between his fingers, sending a shiver of awareness singing up her leg. “Does this have anything to do with what we talked about? About earning your trust?”

“You’ll have to wait and see.” Lark took another sip of lemonade, not surprised to find it suddenly tasted sweeter.

Mood affected the taste buds; she’d realized that not long after she started catering. An unhappy bride isn’t going to like the cake, no matter how moist and delicious the insides or how perfectly light and fluffy the frosting, and a happy bride won’t even notice that the chicken is a little dry or the tomatoes in the salad have begun to pucker.

The lemonade tasted sweeter because, for the first time in four years, she was going to have a chance to make Mason Stewart play by her rules.

And if he played nice…

Well, maybe then she’d have a chance at something even better than calling the shots. She might have a chance at the future she’d thought was lost to her forever, a future with Mason by her side and the kind of love she hadn’t dared to dream about since the day he had left her behind.

Chapter Seven

Date Three

“Turn around and close your eyes,” Lark said when Mason opened the door of his cheap hotel room the next night.

He paused for a long moment, taking in her tight jeans and fitted brown tank top. Lark always looked amazing in a dress—with her curvy bare legs peeking out beneath a swirling skirt—and seeing her in a bikini yesterday had just about given Mason a heart attack, but he had always loved her best in jeans. The woman could wear the hell out of a pair of jeans.

Especially from the back.

“What are you doing?” Lark asked.

“Trying to sneak a peek at your butt in those jeans,” he said, with a sheepish grin.

Lark rolled her eyes. “Tonight isn’t about my butt.”

“I couldn’t help myself. I’m weak when it comes to your butt.”

“Mason, if you don’t stop talking about my butt, I’m going to leave right now.” Lark gave a stern nod of her head that made her ponytail bounce.

Mason put on his most serious expression. “All right. Are you ready to go?” he asked, grabbing his wallet from the table by the door and slipping it into the pocket of his jeans. He had taken Lark’s order to dress in something he could get dirty seriously and was wearing his oldest pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt made whisper soft with repeated washings.

Lark held up a hand, keeping him from stepping outside the door. “I’m ready as soon as you turn around and close your eyes.”

“Why do I have to—”

“Just do it, Mason,” she said, not budging an inch. “Tonight is about following directions, and so far, you stink at it.” She propped her hands on her hips, drawing Mason’s attention to the red bandana in her right hand.

A blindfold?

It had to be. Why else would she want him to close his eyes?

Mason hesitated for a moment. He had never liked surprises. When you grew up never knowing if there would be food in the fridge, or whether your mom would come home at night or disappear with whatever loser she was dating for days at a time, leaving you to fend for yourself when you were barely old enough to reach the kitchen cabinets, when you never knew if New Stepdad was going to quietly resent you or take his frustration at being saddled with someone else’s kid out on you with his fists, you learned not to care for surprises.

Mason liked routine. He liked predictable things and predictable people. It was one of the reasons he had fallen so hard and fast for Lark in the first place. She was silly and unpredictable when it came to making jokes or conversation, but in her day-to-day life she was a creature of habit. She had a routine and she stuck to it religiously. She had a code of conduct for herself that she had inherited from her parents and there was rarely any doubt how Lark would respond in a given situation.

But now…

“Where are we going that I need to be blindfolded?” Mason finally asked, careful to keep his reservations out of his tone.

“We’re going wherever I want to go,” Lark said. “I’m in control tonight. Can you handle that, Mason? Or should we end this date right now?”

Mason didn’t say a word. He just forced a smiled, turned around, and closed his eyes, bending his knees a little to make it easier for Lark to reach the bandana as she tied it snuggly behind his head.

“How’s that?” Lark asked. “Too tight?”

Mason shook his head. “Nope. It’s good.”

It wasn’t good. He pretty much hated this, but it was clearly something Lark was serious about, and if wearing a blindfold and having him obey orders were what it took to regain her trust, then he would do it.

With a smile, if possible.

“Good,” Lark said, slipping her hand through his. “Let me help you to the car.”

Mason ignored the anxiety that skittered across the surface of his skin as Lark led him to her car. He could trust Lark to keep him safe. And maybe that was the whole point of this exercise. Maybe she was testing him to see how much he trusted her before giving him her trust in return.

“We’re at the door. I’m going to help you in and buckle your seat belt,” Lark said. “And then I’m going to drive, and I don’t want you to say another word until I tell you to. Not even when I stop the car when we get where we’re going.”

Or maybe she was just torturing him, getting her revenge for the hell he’d put her through.

“Can you do that, Mason?” she asked.

Mason swallowed hard. “Yep.”

“Great,” Lark said, a slight tremble in her voice that made Mason wish he could see her face.

Was she nervous? Scared? Second-guessing her decision to act completely out of character and play kidnaper-dominatrix for the night?

Mason didn’t know, but as he allowed himself to be strapped in and waited for Lark to join him in the car, he hoped it was the last option. He wasn’t into bondage or power plays in the bedroom or anywhere else, and he had to confess this kind of thing coming from Lark was completely unexpected and a little…disturbing.

Lark started the car and pulled out of the motel parking lot, heading south, away from town and Atlanta, out into the countryside. Mason kept track of their turns for the first several miles, but after twenty minutes or so, he had to admit he had no idea where Lark was taking him. He didn’t even have a firm grasp on how much time had passed. He was guessing twenty minutes, but it could have been only ten or fifteen.

Time seemed to stretch out forever with his eyesight taken away and not a sound in the car but Lark’s soft breath and the hum of the wheels on the road beneath them. More than once, Mason was tempted to ask where they were going, but he’d sensed Lark was serious about following directions. So he held his tongue and did his best to ignore how uneasy this was making him.

They drove on and on, the road hum turning to a grumble as Lark turned off onto a gravel road. The road tipped up sharply, and Mason knew they were gaining elevation, but that didn’t help him guess where they were going. He and Lark had gone hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills lots of times, but he didn’t think they’d driven far enough to reach any of their favorite spots and the park roads closed at sunset, which wouldn’t be long now Mason was guessing.

He had felt sun shining through the car windows onto his lap for the first part of the drive, but now the inside of the car was cooling down. Cooling, cooling, and the small amount of yellow light seeping through his blindfold faded to blue. Lark cracked the windows to let in a cool breeze and the calls of the night insects and still they drove. Up, up, up, turning three more times before Lark finally pulled to a stop and shut off the engine.

Mason sagged with relief and let out a long breath. Finally. They were here.

Wherever
here
was.

Mason was curious, but he remembered what Lark had said and kept his peace as Lark slammed out of the driver’s side and fetched something from the trunk. He turned toward his door, expecting her to open it, but nothing happened. After several more minutes passed, Mason realized Lark intended to leave him in the car for a while.

He sat in silence, straining for a sign of where she had gone. Once or twice, he thought he heard footsteps and the crack of a twig underfoot, but another thirty minutes—or ten or twenty, he had no idea—passed and the night fell quiet except for the buzzing of insects and the occasional call of a night bird.

Mason’s anxiety turned to irritation and then back to anxiety again when the smell of campfire smoke drifted to his nose. Someone had lit a fire. Was it Lark? Or were there other people close to this place?

He fidgeted in his seat, dying to get out and stretch his legs, his throat aching with the effort it took to stay quiet. He wanted to shout Lark’s name more than he could remember wanting anything in a long,
long
time, but he forced himself to keep his damned mouth shut.

If this was some kind of test, he wasn’t going to fail it now, not when he had already put up with this insanity for well over an hour and a half.

More time passed, minutes that spun around and around Mason’s heart like fishing line pulled tight, cutting off his circulation. Time bled on until Mason’s stomach cramped with hunger and his muscled ached with sitting for so long and his pulse raced with a mix of nerves and fear and anger.

He was angry now. So angry he pressed clenched fists into the tops of his thighs and the back of his neck had broken out in a light sweat.

What the hell was she doing? What was the point of all this? Was forcing him to sit for hours in a parked car really proving anything?

It proves you’re a fool, that’s what it proves.

Mason fought the urge to punch the dashboard, or reach up and yank the blindfold from his eyes. If he was going to be a fool for anyone, it was Lark. If she wanted to make a fool of him, then he would sit here and be made a fool of.

Another half hour or more passed and Mason’s rage gradually faded away, replaced by sad resignation.

She wasn’t coming back. If she were, surely she would have come to get him by now. It had to be after nine o’clock. She must be intending to leave him here all night. Maybe she had had a friend, or one of her sisters, come pick her up further down the mountain. Maybe she was safely back in Summerville right now, laughing about the prank she had pulled on the man who’d broken her heart.

Mason reached across the car, feeling for the steering wheel and the ignition.

She had taken the keys with her. So if she was gone, then he was truly trapped here. Trapped with no idea which direction led back home.

Mason rubbed a fist across his forehead, and sighed. What should he do? Wait here until morning and hope Lark came back to fetch him? Get out and start walking and hope he ran into someone willing to give a hitchhiker a ride in the middle of the night?

And what if this wasn’t a prank, and Lark was out there somewhere, needing his help? What if she had gotten lost or hurt, and that was the reason she hadn’t come back to get him?

He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it another minute in this car. He reached for the handle and pulled, swinging his feet onto the ground as he wrenched the blindfold from his eyes.

“Three hours,” a voice said from a few feet away, making him flinch with surprise.

“Lark?” He blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he saw Lark sitting in a lawn chair a few feet away, holding a book with a reading light clipped to the top of it on her lap.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked, standing as he threw the blindfold into the dirt at his feet. They were parked on a blanket of pine needles about fifty feet from a campsite where a campfire burned. Looking around, he expected to see other campsites, but they were alone. Wherever she had taken him, it wasn’t a public campground.

“You made it three hours,” Lark repeated in a calm voice. “I made it thirty thousand.”

Mason shook his head, unable to hide his frustration. “What?”

“Four years. That’s over a thousand days, over thirty thousand hours.” Lark closed her book but kept the light on. It illuminated just enough of her face for Mason to see the tightness in her jaw and the emotion in her eyes.