The Curse of Tenth Grave

That answered that.

She only called Reyes Mr. Farrow when he was in trouble. Or at least I figured she only called him Mr. Farrow when he was in trouble. He’d never been in trouble before, and she’d never called him Mr. Farrow with quite that tone before, so I put two and two together. I was so good at math.

Reyes stepped from around the counter, already barefoot, and took in the scene. He didn’t seem particularly worried, but he’d probably never had this form of punishment before. He had no idea what he was getting himself into. It was excruciating and required the utmost concentration.

“Places,” she said, using her referee voice. She sat on our sofa, took her board, and spun the little arrow.

I slipped off my boots and shuffled over to the plastic tarp. The tarp, otherwise known as a torture mat, was covered in rows of bright circles. I stepped into my designated spots and waited for my opponent to do the same.

The moment of truth was upon us. Would Reyes scoff and refuse the game? Or would he take the challenge?

With humor playing about his full mouth, he stepped to the opposite side of the tarp and took his place among the circles.

He wore a gray T-shirt, loose except for the shirtsleeves, where his shoulders, the ones you could land a 747 on, and his biceps, the ones you could build a shopping mall on, stretched the fabric tight. The muscles in his forearms flexed as he lifted the hem of his shirt to hook his thumbs in his front pockets.

Cookie spun the arrow on her board and called out, “Left foot, red.”

We both stepped onto the next red circle with our left feet, Reyes turning his back to me, and waited for the next challenge. His wide shoulders tapered down to slim hips, the loose jeans curving around the half-moon of his ass. Even the backs of his arms were sexy.

“Left hand, green.”

Again, we both accepted the challenge, which was by no means easy for either of us. I grunted a little but stayed the course despite my most recent state of inebriation.

“Twister?” Reyes asked as though trying not to laugh.

“Long story,” I said. Twister was Cookie’s way of getting Amber and her cousins to stop fighting when she was younger. There was something about the challenge of trying to balance and twist and turn without falling that got them giggling like, well, children, and magically the fight would be over.

But what Reyes and I were going through was far worse than anything Amber and her cousins had fought over. We were way beyond Barbies and hair clips. At least Reyes was. I still had a tiny thing for both.

“Left hand, blue.”

We moved our left hands again, the position taking some of the strain off my medulla oblongata. Or whatever that tendon between the heel and calf was called.

“It looks like we are going to have some time if you want to explain,” he said, not even winded yet.

“I’d rather ask why you won’t talk to me.”

“Right foot, yellow.”

This was getting awkward. I felt like an orangutan at a gymnastics competition during a floor routine. But Reyes looked as though he were completely in his element. A predator sizing up his foe. A panther readying to strike. His eyes shimmered from underneath his long lashes. His muscles shifted and rolled with each movement. His long fingers steadied his weight, but just barely, as though he were balancing the lion’s share on the balls of his feet.

“I talk to you every day,” he countered. The deep timbre of his voice sent a shudder through me that shot straight to my abdomen and tugged between my legs.

“Left foot, green.”

“So, you’re not going to tell me what’s bothering you?” I asked, fighting my body’s natural inclination to let gravity take hold.

“You first.”

“Right hand, green.”

“Nothing’s bothering me. You’re the one who barely speaks.”

“Left hand, red.”

I almost lost it that time, my fingers slipping when they landed in the circle. Balance was apparently not my thing.

“Dutch, if you are going to lie to me, why bother talking?”

I sucked in a sharp breath of air, then had to let it out again because I’d already started the heavy breathing thing. This game was so much harder than it looked. “I’m not lying. Why do you think something is bothering me?”

“Left hand, red.”

“Again?” I whined, trying to move my hand to a red circle within my reach, but Reyes beat me to it. I had to practically reach under him to get to a circle, our arms touching. I looked like I was ready to crab race. He looked like he was training for an MMA fight. His jeans fit snug across his waist. His loose gray T-shirt fell over a rippled abdomen, the hills and valleys creating soft shadows across the landscape of his torso.

He regarded me for a long moment before saying what was on his mind. “We haven’t talked about what happened in New York.”

“True,” I said, pretending not to struggle for air. “But I haven’t talked about it because you haven’t wanted to talk at all.”

“Right foot, red.”

“Seriously?” I had one chance of doing that without falling, but Reyes was closer to the circle I needed.

And yet he waited, giving me a chance to claim the circle first. That left him with no choice but to practically straddle me to get to the next one. By the time he finished, his face was so close to mine, I would hardly have to move should the next command be “Mouth, mouth.”

“Right hand, yellow.”

Damn.

“What makes you think I don’t want to talk?”

I decided to come squeaky clean. There was no sense in beating the bush to death any longer. We were married. If we couldn’t talk, we didn’t stand a chance. “I don’t know,” I said with as much of a shrug as my haphazard position would allow. “You pulled away. On the plane, I felt you pulling away.”

“We were on a plane. How far could I go?”

“Right foot, green.”

“Emotionally,” I said, sounding like all those women on reality TV shows who whine to their husbands about how they never open up. They never share their emotions. They never let them in.

No. I wasn’t that woman. At least I didn’t think I was until tonight.

“So, we are in a plane thirty thousand feet in the air and you feel me pulling away.”

“Left hand, yellow.”