Burning Barriers (Barriers Series Book 3) (6 page)

I bring my own glass of wine to my lips and take a long sip of the cool, crisp Chardonnay.
Am I ready to have sex with Jake
? There doesn’t appear to be any red flags getting waved in my head right now, and after the patio incident, my guess is I’m on the right path to recovery.

However, I don’t think there could possibly be anything about Jake that would make me fear him. Just as that thought crosses my mind, I remember something he said. ‘I’ve fucked a shitload of women.’
I’m no better than him, but how did our paths end up following the same course and still end up right where we were the summer after our high school graduation? It’s as though time stood still, and yet it didn’t.

My sister drums her fingers on the vanity, easily breaking my train of thought. “When did you start daydreaming so much? Damn, Lucy. As much as I hate Jake after what he did to you, the poor guy will be having a one-sided conversation if you continue to do this all night long.” Ellen stops talking to unplug the curling iron from the wall. “So, do you think you’ll be all right?”

“You know what? I think out of anyone out there, even if it is Jake, he might just be the one person to help put everything back together for me.” I check myself out in the mirror before standing up from the seat. “I don’t know how to explain it. Yeah, things weren’t left in the best of places years ago. After seeing him the other day… I don’t know… something just clicked again.” I turn to check out my new outfit in the mirror. “It’s as though we’re back where we used to be, and nothing has changed, but yet everything has changed.” I continue to stare at my outfit Ellen had me change into. “I know you hate Jake and all, but seriously, by you making me wear this, I might just hate you.”

I finish buttoning my dress shirt, leaving open the button closest to my neck. I can’t help but wonder what it is about Lucy that still drives me to become a nervous wreck even after all this time apart. I have no idea what I’m doing. I just know that Lucy Wyatt still sets my body on fire, and despite every other screw I’ve had since her, I want her and only her.

Quickly making my way down the stairs of the home I grew up in, I grab my keys from the granite kitchen island along with the flowers right next to them. I hope they’re still her favorite flowers. Sunflowers and purple lupine were what Lucy always brought back after we’d take the horses out for a ride from the ranch when we were growing up. The minute we’d hit the open fields of nothing but purple and yellow, her face would light up. That’s when I knew it. I knew when I was sixteen that I was head over heels in love with Lucy.

I should have listened to my heart rather than my head the day I let her leave this very same kitchen in tears and never come back. As I quickly make my way out the front door, I shut off the lights before closing the door behind me.

Checking the time on my phone, I make sure I’m not running too late. I hop into my truck and carefully place the flowers onto the passenger seat. I swiftly make my way through the packed streets of downtown, thrumming my fingers on my steering wheel to the sounds of Nonpoint’s “In The Air Tonight”. As I pull up to the front of her parents’ house, I turn down the radio before grabbing the flowers and hopping out of the truck. I allow a couple of older women to pass in front of me as they walk their dogs down the street. While I stand there waiting for them to pass, I notice the light on in the upstairs bedroom of the house. I can barely make out the silhouette of what I believe is Ellen.

That crazy ass sister of Lucy’s has literally put the fear of death in me. Whenever she told me to stay far away from Lucy because she had been through enough recently, I didn’t listen and ended up on Lucy’s doorstep the other day. I still don’t know the whole story about what happened to Lucy back in Massachusetts, but when I noticed the raised scar on her neck, I knew it was more than I ever imagined. No scar would ever deter me from her, ever. What’s that old saying? ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ Lucy’s bright blue eyes and wavy blonde hair coupled with her attitude and laughter are enough for me to forget about everything else going on.

After the women pass with their dogs, I make my way up the front steps of the house and ring the doorbell. Moments later, the door swings open, and Lucy’s father stands before me. I eye him cautiously since we haven’t exactly spoken over the years. At least not since he accused me of driving his daughter out of town.

I remember that week as though it was yesterday. I had the whole fuckin’ world ahead of me. I was cocky as all shit. I was single again and preparing to start my freshman year of college and living it up. SJ and I were busy unpacking everything while random chicks filtered in and out of our dorm room. Most of them were holding red plastic cups filled with some potent concoction and throwing themselves at us because they were already heavily intoxicated. I thought things were headed in all the right directions. I had already nailed one chick after being there just one week, and two dorm parties had already taken place that offered a few other possible hookups in the future.

Then, my cell phone rang, and all college plans stopped. My world crashed before my very eyes as my mother’s tearful voice on the other end of the phone line said it all. ‘Your dad had a heart attack. They did everything they could… but it was too late. Jake… your dad didn’t make it, honey.’

A week later, amidst the chaos of moving back to Breckenridge to handle family affairs, I ended up taking over some of my father’s responsibilities at the ranch and helping Mom out the best I could. With no siblings to help me, SJ stepped up and filled in as my adopted brother from that day on.

When I saw Lucy’s family walk into the funeral parlor during my Dad’s wake, I thought for sure the one person who could bring any kind of peace or light back into my life would trail in behind them. I never saw her, and my world crashed even further.

As Mr. Wyatt stood in front of me offering his condolences, I expected him to say Lucy was back home and would be walking through the door any minute. She never did, and it was SJ who was there for me after I drowned myself every night for a month with a bottle of just about anything from Dad’s liquor cabinet as I attempted to put my life back together in all the wrong ways. So many times I had the freakin’ phone in my hand ready to call her to apologize and beg her to come back. I nearly did one night when I was so rip-roaring drunk and pissed off at the world that it was for the best that SJ took the phone from me until I managed to get my shit together.

Earlier that week, Ellen had run into me in town, saying how disappointed her parents were in the way I treated Lucy. Ultimately, they believed she’d most likely have returned home by that point, if not for me. Weeks turned to months and months turned to years, and well, you can see why standing here in front of Mr. Wyatt is a bit trying.

“Mr. Wyatt, it’s good to see you, sir,” I say as he moves out of the way and gestures for me to come inside. Fortunately, Lucy’s mom never held a grudge against me. I see her make her way from the back patio area into the house carrying a blanket and a wine glass.

“Jake, honey, it’s good to see you again. Come on in. Lucy should be down soon. She had some minor issues with her first outfit, but Ellen is helping her with that now.”

My shoes squeak against the polished hardwood floors as I walk further into the small living and dining area. Scented candles flicker on the dining room table, filling the room with a soothing warm vanilla aroma. I can feel her parents’ eyes burning into me, and it’s almost as though I’m picking up Lucy again for our very first date.

A slap to my shoulder from behind makes me jump inside. I watch as Mr. Wyatt makes his way around me until he’s standing next to his wife. “So, Jake, are you still working down at the Breckenridge Fire Department
part-time
?” I can tell he emphasized the ‘part-time’ just to stick it to me.

“Yes, sir, but that’s my own decision, not the department’s. I still help at Ten Peaks Ranch with the horses and teach the kids when I’m not working. If there was a way for my mom to handle all of it without me, I’d certainly be working at the fire station full-time,” I explain, even though he most likely knows that after my dad died I couldn’t let Mom sell the ranch. It was Dad’s world and his only legacy that would need to continue. If that meant I had to give up a future I once dreamed of, then so be it.

Lucy’s father and I have never been what you would say “close” over the years. Even when I was dating Lucy, he was extremely overprotective and felt I wasn’t a good fit for her. While I was growing up, my dad told me there would always be some people in town that would look at us differently. The Wyatts lived on one side of the river, while the Galloways lived on the mountain. Even though only a short distance separated the two houses, because we lived on the mountain and not in town, we were always viewed as the upper class by Breckenridge standards.

After Dad died, Mom couldn’t live in the house anymore. She moved to the ranch house that she and Dad used whenever they needed to stay over. Now, I’m sure Mr. Wyatt still looks at me as the spoiled rich kid who lives in the three-bedroom mountain villa. He couldn’t be more wrong. Yes, I live there alone, and I don’t have to pay a dime other than the basic expenses, but I do work hard at the fire department regardless of how many hours I put in. It is the one thing that gives me a rush like no other. Aside from the random hookups with women, being a firefighter has been the only thing that could take my mind off losing both my father and Lucy.

Before I can give any more explanation of my life to Lucy’s father, voices from the stairs stop me. I hear the sound of her voice, and my heart races a little more. Then, the clunking of feet making their way down the stairs turns my head. I see the first glimpse of her feet before her face, and I already feel as though I can never let her out of my life again.

The light brown embroidered cowgirl boots throw me for a loop until I see the soft pink lace sundress and denim jacket. Her blue eyes sparkle as they meet mine, and her smile sends chills down my spine as she nears me. This is not the same Lucy Wyatt that I saw the other day. With her curled blonde hair and simple glossed lips, everything about her is causing things to stir in my heart and my pants like never before.

She is quickly standing before me as I see Ellen and her parents make their way into the kitchen area. Her father gives me a stern look before heading to the backyard. I know he wanted to give me a lecture, and I’m sure he probably would have if he had been given a few more minutes before Lucy entered the room.

“Are those for me?” she asks as she grabs her small purse from the table.

“Oh, yeah. I hope they’re still your favorite. I wasn’t sure.” I stop trying to talk before I say something I might regret. I bring my hand up and hand them to her just as I lean down to give her a soft kiss on the cheek. My other hand wraps around her waist, bringing her closer to me. I can feel her breathing increase, and it amuses me that I can still do that to her after so much time apart. My mouth trails along her cheek closer to her ear. “You look stunning, Luce.” I gently push back some of her shoulder-length curls so she can feel my breath along her face. She clears her throat as her hand grabs my forearm. “I never dreamed I’d see you wear cowgirl boots and a denim jacket. I said wear a dress, but that might be the only thing coming off you tonight.”

Gasping, she pulls away, and I’m not entirely sure if I overstepped my boundary or not. I thought from what happened with us the other day that we might have been on the same page. Now, I’m not so sure. I pull back from her and catch a distance in her eyes as her small hands wrap around the flowers. Suddenly, she’s quiet and moving toward the kitchen with the flowers hanging by her side. Opening a cabinet, she pulls out a vase and is no longer facing me as she turns on the faucet to fill it with water. Carefully arranging the stems, she places them one by one into the vase. I see her reflection in the window in front of her. There is no smile and no emotion.

“Luce? Did I say something wrong?” I ask as I move little by little into the open concept kitchen area.