“Ha,” she said.
“Oh fuck,” he answered. “Where is your husband?”
“It won’t do you any good,” she said. “He’s under orders.”
“Where is he?”
She inclined her head toward the stable.
He left his coffee on the table and made fast tracks for the stable. Hadn’t they all just had a perfectly nice wedding and reunion? He had no idea what had gone wrong. It had been the luckiest chance meeting of his life—that beautiful, sexy, soft and sweet Nikki had been there. And she had opened herself up to him in ways that led him to believe she found it to be her luckiest chance meeting as well. In his mind everything had gone right and could reasonably lead to many days, weeks, months, years of more nice stuff. He knew he had to invest the time before he could get a clear picture of the future—he’d been as burned as Nikki had—but you don’t bolt when things are going right. And he looked forward to nothing so much as investing the time. With her.
He found Paul and Tom brushing down horses in the stable. He stopped short and took a few deep breaths. “Hey, boys,” he said. “Tom, you mind? Can I have a minute with Paul? I’ll take your brush if you want.”
Tom looked at him grimly, though there might’ve been a little sparkle in his eye. “I heard you did the maid of honor.”
“You know,” Joe said somewhat irritably, “I was busy keeping private things private. I thought she might’ve appreciated that.”
Tommy grinned. “I’d congratulate you, man, but I think you blew it.”
“So I’m hearing. But if you’d been there…”
“Kinky,” Tom said. “Sure I can’t stay? You could think of it as part of my education.”
“Take off,” Paul said.
“Killjoy,” he said, passing Joe the brush and leaving the stable.
“You gotta help me, man,” Joe said to Paul. “I didn’t do anything to her. I mean, I only did to her what she totally… She should not have left in tears. I swear to God.”
“Yeah? Yet, she did. She was all shook up. Vanni was worried about her driving like that—all messed up.”
“No, you have to understand. I—” He stopped. He didn’t like the desperate sound of his own voice. He was not going to do this—he was not going to tell Paul that he held her and loved her all night long and that he was gentle and she was sweet. That they had also been a little wild—beautifully wild. That their bodies had meshed perfectly and their words just as well. That in addition to sex too hot to imagine, there had been tender words, too soft and lovely to explain. He couldn’t tell a guy that. It was beyond him.
“Paul, goddammit, you have to help me with this. I have to get in touch with her.”
“She says she doesn’t want to hear from you.”
“I have to hear that from her. Jesus, I don’t even know her last name.”
Paul stopped brushing and looked at Joe over the rear end of a horse. “I don’t think I’d admit that again.” He groaned. “Jesus, Joe. You screwed the maid of honor without even getting her name?”
Joe lost it. He dropped the brush, grabbed Paul by the front of his shirt and slammed him up against the stable wall with a huge bang. Paul could easily have hammered him if he wasn’t so completely shocked. “I didn’t do that,” Joe said in a fierce, angry whisper. “I didn’t screw anyone! I made excellent love to her and she made incredible love right back to me and it was almost too good to believe. I used six of your condoms and I—” He stopped. He let go of Paul and stepped back. “This isn’t happening to me,” he said.
“I think you might be a little out of control,” Paul observed.
“Aw, come on! Help me out here!”
“Seriously, I don’t think I’d admit again that you don’t even know her last name.”
“What the fuck is it, you jerk!”
“Jorgensen, but you didn’t hear it from me. Okay? I’d like to have sex again in my life.”
“Sex. Sex. It’s all about sex.” Joe shook his head.
“Wasn’t it?” Paul asked.
“Only about half the time,” Joe said. “Paul, will you listen to me a second? It was perfect—the kind of perfect that just doesn’t come along very often. You hear me? It was wonderful. It wasn’t just sex, but don’t get me wrong…”
“You’re going down the wrong road again, buddy. Women don’t want to hear about how great they were in bed.”