“What’s that?”

  Baxter pushed the swing so that he was swinging at the same slow pace as Lauren. “We can’t keep pretending that we don’t know each other.”

  Lauren dug her foot into the ground, stopping the motion of her swing and turned to face Baxter. “I didn’t think that you remembered.”

  “How could I forget?” Baxter stood up and walked in front of Lauren, holding onto the chains of her swing, his hands above hers. He was so close she could’ve reached out and touched him. “Lauren, that was the best night of my life. I never once stopped thinking about you.”

  Lauren looked up at Baxter. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She assumed that she had just been one in a long line of women. Baxter pulled off his glove and cupped her face in his hand, his thumb rubbing her cheek. She held onto his wrist and looked into his eyes, his body shielding her from the soft snowflakes falling from the sky.

  “Baxter, Brock, I…”

  “Just shut up and let me kiss you.” Baxter’s lips were on hers before Lauren could finish her sentence. He threw his other glove into the snow and grabbed her face with his other hand. There was an urgency in his kiss, but the softness of his lips surprised her, and she moaned into his mouth. She knew it was wrong, but never having been kissed with such want as if he was a diver and she was his air, she let herself fully go. She held on to him tightly as the kiss turned from one of urgency into one of indulgence, puffs of steam from their raspy breaths swirled together as their lips slowly reacquainted themselves with each other. The rush and tightness in Lauren’s belly tingled lower and she involuntarily arched her back in an attempt to press her hips closer to his. When it actually pushed her body further away, she stood up, her lips never leaving his. “Brock,” Lauren gasped into his mouth. “What are we doing?”

  “I love it when you call me Brock,” he growled. He picked her up, and she gripped her thighs around his waist, hooking her boots behind his back. This time it was she who was thirsty. She kissed Baxter like he was the last glass of water on Earth.

  Lauren didn’t know when her brain stopped working and her body took over, but when Baxter picked her up and walked her backward until she was pressed against the cold brick wall of the community center building, all her rational thoughts disappeared into the snowy night.

  She rested her head against the wall as Baxter nipped along her collarbone. His fingers pressed into her ass as she laced her fingers together behind his neck. She leaned in and kissed his lips, arching her back while grinding against his body and he pushed back. She could feel his hardness through his jeans, and she moaned into his ear.

  “You’re so fucking sexy.” He looked her in the eyes and kissed her as their bodies writhed against each other. Lauren glanced over Baxter’s shoulder, ensuring that no one from the party had found their way to the back of the building. She slid her hands in between their bodies and fumbled with the button on the top of his jeans. In truth, she wanted nothing more than for Baxter to pull down her jeans, free his cock and fuck her up against the wall. But the last time she had let her body control her life, she ended up with a baby in her belly. And with that thought, all reason returned. She patted the undone button on his jeans and pressed her face into his neck. “Let me down,” she whispered. Baxter nodded and held her gaze as he gently lowered her so that she could stand on her own two feet.

  “We can’t,” she sighed.

  “I know,” he whispered, his breath tickling her neck.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to.”

  Baxter shifted and buttoned up his jeans. “Same. But it shouldn’t be here.” He kissed her jawbone.

  “No, Baxter. It can’t happen at all. And you know that I’m right.”

  Baxter sighed and stepped back from her. “Lauren, you are the most incredible woman I’ve ever met. I will wait for you.”

  “Wait for me?” Lauren was confused.

  Baxter blew on his hands, rubbed them together and then shoved them into his pockets. “Yeah, until the development is done.”

  Lauren took one step back from Baxter, she would’ve taken two, but was met with the brick wall. “You’re assuming that you will win.”

  Baxter sighed and looked up at the sky. “That’s not what I meant.”

  Lauren folded her arms across her chest. “Then, what did you mean?”

  Baxter reached out and pulled one of Lauren’s forearms from their defensive position and held her hand. She kept the other hand tucked tightly against her side. “I just mean, that I will wait for when you and I aren’t on opposite sides anymore.”

  He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb.

  “No, Baxter. Just stop.” Lauren yanked her hand out of his grip.

  “Lauren…” He tilted his head, waiting.

  “No. Listen to me. If I win, there’s no reason for you to stay here. You win, I probably lose my job, the town will hate me, and I will have no reason to stay here.”

  Baxter pursed his lips. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  “Yes. It has to be exactly that way.”

  “Are you sure we couldn’t just…”

  “Fuck?” Lauren growled. “What, bang as we did ten years ago, and then forget it ever happened?”

  “Whoa.” Baxter stepped back and raised his hands like Lauren had a gun pointed at him. “No, that’s not what I meant at all.”

  “I have to go.” Lauren stepped around him and walked away.

  “Wait, Lauren,” he shouted. “Come back.”

  Nineteen

  There was no way he was letting her get away like that. He jogged up behind her, grimacing as his rock-hard erection pressed against the zipper of his pants. He grabbed her arm. “Lauren.”

  His heart sank when he saw that her eyes were welling with tears. He hated seeing women cry. He had grown up with a cheating bastard father and while she had tried to hide her tears from him, he saw his mom cry more than any woman ever should.

  “Can we talk about this?”

  Her chest rose high with her visible sigh. “I don’t know what there is to talk about.”

  “Is there somewhere we can go? Somewhere that’s not freezing?” He blew on his hands; his fingertips were starting to go white.

  “That’s your own fault. You threw your gloves on the ground.”

  He jerked his head up and caught the slight upturn of her lips. “The whole town is here and everything is closed, but…” she began, tilting her head and looked upward, a move he recognized, she did it when she was thinking, “There’s a small chance that the G-Spot is open.”

  “Excuse me?” He couldn’t believe that she had said that with a straight face.

  She laughed and shook her head. “The G-Spot is the gas station. There’s a small diner in there that’s open late.”

  “That’s the best name ever,” he chuckled. Baxter reached up and wiped the wetness from under her eye. “Lauren, we may be professional enemies, but I never want to be the reason that tears fall from these eyes. Ever. Please, let’s go to this spot that may or may not exist and figure out a way that you and I can co-exist in this small town.”

  She hesitated. He reached out and squeezed her hand, resolving any internal debate that she seemed to be having. “Okay,” she said and squeezed back.

  “I’ll call my driver,” he said. He couldn’t believe that she had agreed. He punched in Al’s contact information.

  “And Baxter.”

  He diverted his attention to her while the phone rang in his ear. “Yeah?”

  “It definitely exists.”

  * * *

  Lauren watched Baxter slide into the booth that had been in the general store’s diner since the fifties. If she had seen him in the wild, she wouldn’t have given him a second glance. Not because he wasn’t attractive, it was the opposite; he was too good looking. Like one of those cake show cakes that you wouldn’t dare cut into because it looked better than it tasted. That’s what he was. Fondant, with a smattering of cocky.

  “Lauren, how are ya?” Muriel ambled over to the table, a pot of coffee in her hand.

  “Hi, Muriel. I’m good. And you?” Lauren turned over one of the coffee cups on the table and set it in the saucer.

  “Oh, I’m still going.” The gray-haired woman held up the pot and raised her eyebrows from behind her oversized old lady glasses. “Coffee?”

  Muriel’s coffee was notoriously syrupy. “Sure, I could use a little of your rocket fuel.” She slid her cup and saucer to the edge of the table.

  “And for your friend?” Muriel asked. Lauren knew that the question was less about coffee and more about who he was to Lauren.

  “Muriel, this is my…,” she was going to say friend, but then decided against it. “This is Brock.”

  “Well, hello, Brock. Welcome to Chance Rapids,” Muriel smiled. “Coffee?”

  “Sure,” he flashed his megawatt grin at Muriel.

  “Well, aren’t you cute.” Muriel poured Baxter’s coffee. “Lauren, find a way to get this one to stay in town.” Muriel laughed and walked away.

  Lauren swore she saw crimson rising from the collar of his shirt. “Are you blushing?”

  “She’s very forward isn’t she?” he laughed. “Geez.”

  “She speaks her mind, that’s for sure.”

  “Thanks for not outing me.”

  “Oh, if I introduced you as Baxter Caldwell, you’d probably be wearing that pot of coffee right now.”

  Baxter firmed his lips. “Does everyone in town hate me?”

  “Everyone except all the drunk people at the Winter Carnival right now. But… they might hate you tomorrow when they’re nursing their hangovers.”

  Baxter took a sip of the coffee and when his eyes looked like they were going to bug out of his head, she broke out into laughter. “I should’ve warned you.” She leaned across the table and whispered, “The coffee here is practically a solid.”

  “Whoooo,” he blew out a breath. “I think I’m going to be up for the next three days.”

  “Cheers.” Lauren held up her cup. He met hers and they both grimaced as they sipped.

  The pause afterward was long and awkward. Lauren shifted the saucer around under the mug. “So…”

  She started to say at the same time Baxter starting speaking. “What…”

  “Go ahe—” Lauren started to say.

  “You go—” Baxter said at the same time. The interruptive talk made the awkward silence seem welcome.

  Baxter gestured to Lauren with his hand. “Ladies first,” he smiled. Lauren knew that a serious conversation was on the horizon and didn’t know how to broach the subject. Should she just jump right in? How are we going to not kill or sleep with each other? Was that a good opener? No. She shook her head. She didn’t want to jump into that conversation with him, what if it was over in a few seconds? They might never have the chance to sit across from each other like this again. She hated to admit it, but she felt like she could sit across from Baxter Caldwell and stare into his eyes all night.

  “Not tree planting anymore?” That was the best she could come up with. Where was her wit when she needed it?

  He chuckled. “Sometimes I wish I was.” He raised the cup to his mouth but set it down without taking a sip. He seemed wistful.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “It was simpler back then.” He stretched his legs out under the table and accidentally kicked one of Lauren’s boots. “Whoops, sorry.” He pulled his feet back to his own side of the table and sat upright. “I guess you don’t miss cleaning up after heli-skiers,” he said.

  “I don’t,” Lauren said. “It might have been a simpler time back then for you, but for me, I was working two jobs and dealing with a lot of stuff at home.”

  “Your mom’s cancer,” Baxter said.

  Lauren raised her eyebrows. “How did you know?”

  “We talked about it that night…”

  Lauren knew that they had talked for hours but was surprised that she had opened up about her mom’s sickness. “She didn’t make it much longer after that,” Lauren whispered saving Baxter from the awkward position of asking whether or not her mom survived.

  “I’m so sorry, Lauren.” Baxter reached out and took Lauren’s hand off her mug and held it gently in his.

  Muriel approached the table, “Do you want to order any food?”

  They both looked up at her, neither of them had even glanced at the laminated menus that sat in the wire napkin holder on the table. Muriel stepped back, “I’ll come back,” she whispered.

  Lauren pulled the menus out of the napkin holder and slid one across the table to Baxter. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

  “Ten years,” Baxter said. “Time flies. You’re a powerful woman now; not that you weren’t back then too,” he corrected. “I just mean—”

  “I know what you mean,” she said. “And you’re a powerful man now. Not that you weren’t one back then too.” She volleyed the pseudo compliment back to him.

  “I tried to find you,” he whispered.

  “You did?” This was news to her.

  “Lauren, that night wasn’t just about sex to me. Don’t you remember, we sat up all night talking?”

  “I do,” Lauren said.

  “And when I woke up in the morning you were gone,” he said.

  “I had to go to work,” she said.

  “You didn’t leave anything, a number, a last name, anything,” Baxter said.

  Lauren remembered sneaking out of Baxter’s room just as dawn lit up the silhouette of his face. She had thought about leaving her phone number, she had actually written it down on a piece of paper, but as she watched him sleeping, his full lips slightly parted, she shoved the number into her pocket and had left the room.

  “I didn’t think that you wanted me to.”

  “What would make you think that?” Baxter’s brow was furrowed, and she felt like he was boring holes into the back of her skull as he stared at her. “Fuck, Lauren, we had a connection.”

  “We were kids,” she said. “I had never done that before. You know, a one-night thing.”

  “It didn’t have to be a one-night thing.”

  “I didn’t know that. All I knew is that you were a rich kid, in and out of town for a heli-ski vacation with your rich dad and his buddies.”

  “I wish you would’ve given me the opportunity to prove that I was, that I am, more than that.” Baxter took Lauren’s hand in his.

  “I’m sorry. If I could go back in time and change things, I would.” She pulled her hand out of Baxter’s. “But Baxter, we’re both adults now, and if you haven’t forgotten, we’re on opposite sides of the bargaining table right now. Even if we have a, um, history, that’s exactly what it is – history.” She folded her hands in front of her and stared at them while she spoke. “We can’t do this.” She looked up at him, his hands were also folded on the table.

  “Right now,” he added.

  “Right now,” she agreed. Her chest tightened, she needed to tell him about Tabitha. She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. She squeezed her lips together, How was she going to tell him that he had a daughter? “After the development is…” she paused. This is where they got into trouble earlier, “After the development is either approved or not approved, we can get together and talk about… this.” She pointed to him and back at her.

  “Deal,” he smiled and reached out his hand.

  Like two businesspeople, Lauren and Baxter shook on the postponement of, whatever it was, that they were. Baxter slugged back the last of his coffee. “I’m not going to be able to sleep after that,” he cleared his throat and thumped his fist on his chest like he was dislodging something solid. And just like that, the charge in the air between them was gone. Lauren relaxed back into the booth. They weren’t lovers, they weren’t friends, they were two businesspeople who both agreed that business had to come first.

  “Me neither.” Lauren glanced at her watch and breathed a sigh of relief. It was only eight o’clock. She could still get home and work on the documents she needed to get done for Monday. “I should go,” she said.

  “Let me call the driver and we can drop you at home.” Baxter pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his wallet and left it tucked under his saucer.

  “No,” Lauren said. “I appreciate the offer, but I think I’d like to walk tonight.”

  “Well, let me walk you home then. What kind of gentleman would I be if I let you trudge off into the storm alone?”

  Lauren glanced behind Baxter, the biggest snowflakes she had ever seen were falling heavily in the light of the streetlamp outside the diner window. “I’ll be fine.” She pulled on her coat and hat.

  Baxter’s eyes flashed. “No.”

  “Excuse me?” Lauren put on her red mittens and slid out of the booth. Baxter quickly got into his jacket and hat.

  “Remember earlier? We said that we were putting aside business to be civil. We shook on it.”

  How could Lauren forget?

  “I do remember that.” She turned and yelled goodbye to Muriel. “I thought that we also just agreed that, right now, you are my opponent.

  Baxter grinned. “See, that’s where you’re wrong. Our earlier deal is still good. That new one, it starts first thing Monday. It’s a business deal, and therefore, follows business hours.” He walked ahead of Lauren and opened the door for her. He gestured into the snowstorm like a butler, “M’lady.”

  Lauren couldn’t help but smile. For someone so successful, Baxter was surprisingly playful. “You’re very good at finding loopholes.” Lauren pushed on his chest as she walked past him. “I’ll remember that – on Monday.”

  Lauren slid her hand into the crook of Baxter’s arm, and they headed down Main Street.

  “Do you like living here?” he asked.

  The streets were deserted, the entire community was at the Winter Carnival. The shops were dark, the streetlamps were the only source of light. “I do,” she said. “It took a bit of time to get used to the relaxed pace here, but I’ve grown to love it.”