TANGO

Puerto Escondido was a laid back surfing town with a hippie-ish mode to it, like the ones in the sixties and seventies that had been scattered around the southern coast of California. The town government had not allowed big corporate and resorts to come in, so there was still a quaint, old fashioned feel to walking its streets and visiting with merchants that Jackson found both charming and calming.

He'd needed to get away from Emily. He hadn't lied to her; it had taken everything he had to keep from running his hands through her hair as the ocean breeze caught it and made it whirl around her head with thousands of sunbursts glinting from the coppers, auburns, reds and golds that made up her curly tendrils. Sometimes, at night, his hands would double into fists in an effort to keep his fingers from running along her jawline, tracing the outline of her face as she stared off into the distance, the moon reflecting in her soft gray eyes.

Before they'd go to bed and told each other goodnight, he'd bend and kiss her cheek or forehead, wanting nothing more than to encompass her in his arms as his mind raced with the words he compulsively wanted to say to her, "I want to make love to you". Words he'd only said to Laney. Laney, he thought, sitting on a bench watching two suffers wade out into the waves. Laney, who for a short while had made him forget about Emily fuckin Masterson.

Laney, the mother of his daughter, Indigo...the sister of his deceased best friend, Rafe, the sister-in-law of Carmen. Yet, he'd never told Em and for months, no, make that years, he'd asked himself, why, and the only reason he could come up with was a sinking feeling of fear...fear that Emily would never forgive him for the betrayal, for not trusting her, for hiding them from her...fear that Emily Masterson would walk out of his life for good.

Damn it to fucking hell and back, he cursed inwardly, I turned on Em when she needed me, because I was so far up Laney's ass... I deserted Em at a time I could have stopped her from marrying that douche. He shook his head, trying to shake the vision of a younger Miss Masterson, showing up unexpectedly in New Orleans and telling him she needed to see him. He'd agreed to meet her in the French Quarter at the Monteleone Hotel, where she was staying, at its Carrousel Bar.

There had been a catch in his chest when he'd seen her all shy and vulnerable, needing him to listen to her, hear her out, tell her not to go through with the wedding. She'd practically begged him to give her some sign of how he felt about her and had hinted that she had feelings for him that were more than just those of friendship.

Eventually, she'd loosened up, as the martinis had started to take effect, and had wantonly flirted with him, letting him know in no uncertain terms that she was ready to take the next step in their relationship... Jackson swallowed down the bile as he remembered the cool way he'd treated her, acting as if he didn't know what she was talking about. Lying to her about what was going on in his life, never telling her about Laney, much less that they were living together, not sharing that he was in law school or that he planned to stay in the Big Easy after he finished, because he was going to marry his best friend's sister. He'd never told her that for years, he'd played with and experimented in BDSM, because his life's goal, before now, had been to one day be that man who would finally please, the redheaded prima donna.

Looking back, Jackson could remember the pain in her eyes, the confusion of not having a clue what was happening as he'd callously walked her tipsy, swaying ass back to her room as though she were a child, making sure she got the door unlocked, stepped inside and then leaving her there in the doorway like a fool, without so much as a backward glance from him. That's how much of a spell Laney had put on him. So much so, that he hadn't even found it in his heart to be kind to the same woman he'd been infatuated with for years.