Forty Candles (7 page)

“Need any help, sir?”

“Yeah. I do. Do I want the cheap beer in a can or the good stuff in a bottle? I mean, really, can I taste the difference at this point?” Slurring his words, the man waved at the refrigerator.

“I prefer bottles, myself. If you’re going to indulge, after all…”

“Exactly! You understand. Here, you hold one six pack for me, kay, bro?”

The man passed Jack a six pack and then got another. Almost tripping and falling, he made his way to the register. “I’m a need you to figure out how much change I get back. Not seeing straight, exactly.”

The woman behind the counter looked at Jack, then the man, before taking the entire wallet the man proffered to her.

“Keep a nice little tip for yourself, too, lady.”

“Uh.” The teller took out the money, didn’t keep a tip, and passed the wallet. The man shoved it back in his pocket and said, “C’mon, bro. Let’s blow this posssickle stand.”

Following the man out, he let him put the beer in the golf cart then cuffed him.

“Bro! What you doin?”

“You’re drunk driving. Gonna have to take you into the station. Bro.” He added the last as an afterthought.

“Seriously? It’s a golf cart, dude.”

“It’s a motorized vehicle, sir. It’s drunk driving.”

“What am I gonna kill? Snails? Turtles? What moves slower than a golf cart?”

Shrugging, Jack helped the man into the patrol car. “Sorry, guy. This is the way it’s gotta go down.”

“This sucks.”

“Yup.”

“Can I have a beer for the drive to the cop house place?” The hopeful note in the man’s voice made Jack want to chuckle again, but he kept his cool as Stark tried to sniff the back seat.

Getting to the jail, he offloaded the man and talked for a moment to another officer. This one had an Amish couple in for towing a motorized fishing boat with a horse drawn carriage.

Just another night in the country.

Back in his car, he glanced at Stark. “We have a date tomorrow, buddy. A date with a very beautiful woman who may be your mommy one day.” Although that might be putting the cart before the proverbial horse, he couldn’t help hoping.

Stark slurped his fingers, looking like he would rather eat fries than discuss relationships.

Pulling out, he decided to tell the dog the whole story. “You know how you meet someone and you don’t know they are going to change the rest of your life? That was Chloe, Stark. She moved here and I wanted nothing more outta life than a good football scholarship and maybe a nice cold six pack. Simple stuff, really, but that is the stuff that counts at the end of the day. Well, she moved here and she was more, you know? She was from a city and she had this way of talking, all slick and cool, and I had to ruffle her preened feathers. Gave me endless amusement. She made me want to be a better man. Do something special. Make a difference and all that girly shit. Well, years later and I still find myself pushing a little harder to be something better. Maybe I’m only a small town cop and maybe some days are just taking in drunk golf cart drivers, but there are other days…days where I help people. She is gonna realize, too, that she wants more than just a life by herself. No one wants that, not really. She might not want me but, buddy, she wants to be loved. She deserves it, regardless of what her parents did or didn’t do.”

The dog listened. Dogs were good like that.

“Plus, she is killer in the sack.”

Stark seemed to be falling asleep.

“Guess you don’t want to hear about human sex. Probably pretty boring for a dog.”

But the thought of her wasn’t boring to Jack.

Not boring at all.

“Stark, I don’t think she told anyone that Gary was going to leave her. She’s kept that little secret all these years and I let her. That kind of woman, she’s got more pride than she wants to admit. I think she blames herself, doesn’t think she’s a relationship kind of woman. She’s not, to be honest. Mostly because I messed up. I’m not going to, again. Relationships can work…if you’re both in it for the long haul. For her, I’d wait forever. Want to hear a ghost story, boy?”

The dog snored a little and he dug his fingers into the warm fur, enjoying the companionship. It’d been a long wait for Chloe, and he got lonely sometimes. “I’ll tell you another time, then, Stark.”

Maybe, finally, that wait was over.

If he smiled through the rest of his shift just because he knew he was going to see her tomorrow, well, no one knew.

No one but Stark, and he wasn’t telling.

Sitting in the diner with Harper, Chloe tried to pretend an appetite.

Since, under normal circumstances, she horked down more than her fair share of breakfast when they met for food, Harper would know something was up if she picked at the food. Even if it was as tempting as sawdust. “So, when is the blessed event?”

Harper added more cream to her coffee before answering. “Two weeks. This sure has been a busy summer for weddings. Anyway, Lucy said the bachelorette party is this Friday night.”

“Do you really want to go see a bunch of strange men stripping down to their shining silver thongs?” Chloe poked at an egg yolk and tilted her head at Harper.

“No. I mean, I have Dylan at home. Who needs strippers?” Harper giggled, happiness written on every inch of her face.

“Everyone needs strippers, dear.” Mrs. Miller, walking past their table with her husband, paused to interrupt their chat. “Strippers make the world just a little more fun.”

Chloe covered her smile. “Seen a lot of strippers, Mrs. Miller?”

Mr. Miller caught his wife’s arm before she could answer, inserting, “She not only saw them. Tell the girls about the time you bit one in the behind, hon.”

“You bit a stripper on the ass?” Chloe didn’t cover her jaw drop.

“Don’t be crass, dear. And before you ask, yes, alcohol was involved.”

“But you guys are happily married and—”

Mrs. Miller cut her off with a wave of her hand. “Happily is the key word there, Chloe. We don’t lie to one another and to pretend that we can’t find beauty in a well-made body of the opposite sex is little more than a lie. I like to look at pretty men. Mr. Miller, here, likes to look at a well put together woman. Nothing wrong with that. That part is nature. Love is coming home to the one that matters, even when their skin starts to sag and their hair starts to gray. You know that, though.”

Actually, Chloe had a hard time believing in it.

Knowing tonight was the big date, she stabbed the poor egg again, since it was defenseless on her plate and therefore easy to abuse. Harper and the Millers continued to speak but all that roared through Chloe’s mind was the knowledge that Jack wanted marriage, two point five kids, and happily ever after.

And though she planned to go out with him tonight, she still didn’t believe it was a realistic desire. She couldn’t have kids, miscarriages proving that when she was younger, and she sucked at relationships.

Why the hell did she suddenly wish she didn’t know those very important factoids?

***

The movie theater was dark and the smell of hot buttered popcorn a rich temptation in the air. Chloe watched the people moving across the screen, but her attachment to the plot was tenuous at best.

How could she even pretend to care what happened to the actors in this stupid movie with Jack, smelling clean and absolutely edible, right next to her?

And his arm kept brushing hers.

Stupid.
It seemed unbelievably stupid to feel a zing of awareness each time his arm brushed hers, but she did.

When his hand curled over hers, in a completely comfortable and wholesome way, she couldn’t help but watch a movie of her own, played behind her eyelids—them as horny young kids in a movie theater doing things that got them kicked out.

She couldn’t remember what movie that had been either.

His fingers ran slowly back and forth across her wrist, causing a fresh wave of lust to break over her.

Did someone just learn to fly in the movie? What the hell was this flick about, anyway?

Not sure, but wishing the people on the screen would distract her from the man currently filling her thoughts, she tried to focus.

His laughter rumbled out of his chest, undoubtedly because of some funny bit of the movie, but the sound rolled her under.

It wasn’t fair she was dying in unrequited lust while he just sat there, enjoying the film.

She released his hand to take a sip of soda. Then, using her newly freed fingers, she trailed a touch up his knee, not looking at him. Casually, she stroked his leg, hearing his breath catch when her fingers dipped in to run along the crease of his jeans.

He didn’t stop her, so her wandering hand became bolder.

Ending the pretense of casual touch while she watched the movie, she shifted her weight to focus on the man sitting in the darkness beside her. He kept pretending to watch the movie, but as she grazed her fingertips around the shell of his ear then along the hard line of his jaw, his breath hissed out.

Leaning closer, she traced his ear again, this time with her tongue, and his soft whisper slid across her skin. “I can’t pay attention to the movie when you’re doing that, Red.”

“Yeah?”

He turned his head, capturing her lips and tasting them. Tracing the seam, his tongue teased as he danced kisses along the corners of her mouth.

Then he melded their lips, feeding her hunger, and she was lost. His kiss was both so familiar and entirely new all at once. She wasn’t sure if she was starved for the memory of him or the present feel of him, and she determined she’d not break away until she figured out which.

Until a bright light glared beyond her eyelids.

Opening her eyes, she was blinded for a minute by the flashlight in the hand of the theater employee. “Jack?”

“James. How’s life?”

“I can’t believe you two are making out in a movie theater. Get a room. You’re a cop.” James, a kid that Chloe babysat for when he was little, flicked off the flashlight and strolled back down the aisle. “Thought you were a couple of horny teenagers, for God’s sake.”

Giggling, Chloe covered her mouth.

“Well, maybe a movie wasn’t the best idea, Chloe.”

Turning to face him, she tried to stifle her laughter. “Wanna go stargazing?”

“Naw. Let’s finish the movie.” Curling his arm around her, the rest of the movie went by in a blur. No one felt quite as comfortable as Jack did. When he took her home, she was silent for the ride.

Pretty secure that he was staying the night, she let him walk her to her door. When he spun her, pinning her to the door, and closed his mouth over hers, the kiss tasted like a victory.

Until he stepped back and said, “Goodnight, Red.”

As she watched him walk back to his truck, she unlocked the door. Making it inside, she drooped against the door once she closed it again.

Really?

He was just going home?

Peeking out the window, she saw his truck still idling outside.

Biting her lip, she mentally begged him to change his mind.
Just turn off the truck and come back up the walk.

She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until she released it in a whoosh when the truck turned off and he turned the lights back off.

***

Resting his head on the steering wheel, he listened to the truck idle while his body and mind argued over his best course of action.

Every cell in his body cried out to stalk back up her walkway, pin her to the door and kiss her until her eyes went foggy.

His brain said the time wasn’t right yet—that he needed to wait her out. She meant more than hormones and hot skin. She was the woman he wanted to spend forever with.

His heart…

Aw, hell.

Turning off the engine, he covered the space between his truck and her door in record time. A spark of joy lit his soul when her door flipped back open before he could knock. She’d waited, watched, maybe hoped he’d come back.

Her face, the one that haunted his dreams and tempted him with what might have been, seemed full of questions. His only answer was to sling one arm around her waist, lifting her off her feet so he could kiss her with all the need and passion only she seemed able to stir.

A whimper sounded in the darkness, a tiny cry of need from the back of her throat, and he sank into her warmth, her welcome, and took what he’d so long craved.

Her passion.

She was liquid fire, a hot and needy woman demanding he fulfill her and his cock pressed against his zipper, begging to answer. The feel of her breasts, round and soft, made him want to suckle just to watch her come undone.

And to feel them, and her, his again.

Stopping at that point was akin to punching himself in the gut, but he slowed his kisses, raining them across her temple, not quite ready to release her from where he’d pinned her to the door.

She wasn’t his yet.

If he slept with her tonight, by tomorrow she’d be full of reasons why they might not work out, ready and willing to push him a safe distance away again.

He wasn’t Gary. They weren’t her parents.

She still didn’t believe in them. She
wanted
him, maybe just as bad as he craved her, but she still hadn’t admitted she
needed
him.

“Jack?” The question was, in and of itself, a temptation, an offer.

Catching her wrists, he kissed each of her hands. “Goodnight, Red.”

Sure that if she said it, if she actually asked him to stay with her, he wouldn’t be able to walk away, he double-timed it back to the truck. A single wave and he pushed on the gas pedal quite a bit harder than he needed to.

The wind, as it cut through the window of the truck, cooled his ardor.

He couldn’t mess it up again. This time, unlike the last time when he’d proposed to her drunkenly and not proved he meant his words, he’d do it right.

She’d see.

“Did you ever wonder if maybe Jack was gay?”

Harper choked, sputtering on her coffee and appearing to inhale some of it. After a moment to collect herself and a slap on the table of the diner, she blinked past tears to meet Chloe’s searching gaze. “You’re kidding, right?”