One Reckless Summer (31 page)

Mick’s expression held comfort tempered with doubt. She could easily understand why. She had so much more than him. He set aside the can of peaches he’d been holding in his hand all this time and lifted his palms to her face. “How can you feel alone, honey? You’ve got your dad, and your friend, Sue Ann, and all those other people across the lake
who
care about you.”

“You’re right,” she said, feeling a little silly. Compared to him, she had
tons
of people in her life. “But…I guess I feel like the people I love the most are always…abandoning me. Even if it’s not their fault. My mother. Terrence. Snowball.”

His indulgent smile held sympathy, too. “Pussycat, Snowball wasn’t a person.”

She sighed. “But I loved her so much at the time.” She lowered her eyes, gave her head a short shake, and felt truly foolish now. Like the little girl her father had wanted to make of her ever since she’d come home. She supposed that on the inside, part of that girl really did remain. And she supposed it was getting clearer all the time, to both her and Mick, why she’d never gotten another cat.

But what it came down to was—now Mick was going to leave her, too. Mick Brody had become such a large part of her life that his absence was going to rip her heart out all over again. And she was feeling the rip already—the slow, painful tear—as he packed up this house and got ready to pull away from her.

Despite her best efforts, a tear finally snuck free, rolling down her cheek amid the shadowy confines of the little cabin in the woods.
Oh
,
for heaven’s sake
,
stop this.

But now,
Mick
was there for
her
, stepping forward to wrap her in his strong embrace. “Come here,” he said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have pulled you into this so much—
Wayne
dying, coming over last night the way I was.”

Yet she immediately drew back enough to give her head a vehement shake. “No, Mick. I
wanted
to help you through it, any way I could. It’s probably…one of the best things I’ve done for anyone in my life.”

Their eyes met, held, and she melted in the light of his gaze until he softly brought his mouth down on hers.

Mmm
, God,
his kiss moved all through her, like energy, like pure electricity. And when it was over, he whispered in her ear, “It’s the nicest thing anybody’s done
for
me, pussycat. Thank you for that.”

She worked to sniff back the rest of her tears. The kiss had helped. “Are you…coming back across the lake with me? Staying the night?” she asked—and she hoped like hell it didn’t sound needy, but she’d suddenly found herself wondering if maybe he planned to leave immediately,
today
, now that Wayne was gone. Since they’d never talked about his precise plans, and the place
was
sort of a crime scene, after all.

When he nodded, relief flooded her body, especially when he said, “I liked sleeping with you. All night, I mean.”

She smiled up at him. “I liked it, too.”

“But tonight,” he said, “I don’t plan on just sleeping.”

When Mick pushed his way into her slickness, it felt like…coming home. Which was kind of an alarming thought, but there it was. He’d grown accustomed to being with her. And he felt so damn safe with her. Hell—he didn’t even know what safe really
felt
like, but he knew he felt it with
her
. “You’re so hot, baby,” he whispered. With Jenny, he could feel safe and totally turned-on at the same time.

She bit her lip, met his gaze, and lifted her body against his, taking him deeper. He groaned, his every muscle tensing with pleasure, his erection going even harder inside her.

As he moved in her warmth, he couldn’t take his eyes off her face—her sweet eyes, glassy from arousal; her lush lips, looking lightly swollen from kisses. It made him kiss her
again
.

He was connected to her, more than just physically now. He was connected to her in a way he could barely fathom. He’d felt close to her already, but after what she’d done for him last night, and then today…He couldn’t have let any other woman take care of him that way; he couldn’t have let any other woman see him so…broken. But with her, he hadn’t even weighed it—he’d just gone to her when he needed her. And she’d been there, with open arms.

She was different than any girl he’d known. So sweet and loving. So…giving. And sex, the real heat of it, usually faded for him after the first few times with a woman—but with Jenny, that hadn’t happened. It just changed, just got hot in different ways.

As he drove into her tight, welcoming moisture again, again, his strokes growing harder, he just wanted…to make her feel them, feel
him.
He wanted to be tangled up in her, in her body, in her mind. He wanted her so much, in ways he couldn’t even understand.

Except then—
oh God
—maybe he
did
understand.

He’d just never felt it before.

But now it was hitting him hard, like a ton of bricks.

“Aw…aw, baby,” he groaned, “now.
Now.
” And then he came in her, hard, deep, eyes shut, teeth clenched, the orgasm stretching through every molecule of his being, delivering a pleasure so powerful it nearly swallowed him.

And as it finally passed, he peered down into her eyes, lifted one hand to her cheek, and said what he’d just figured out, what had just struck him with sudden and undeniable certainty. “I love you, Jenny.”

Following the light of the sun, we left the
Old World
.

Inscription on
Columbus
’s caravels

L
ying beneath him, she looked stunned.
Shit.
What the hell had he just done?

So he quickly said, “Damn, I’m sorry if that’s weird. I shouldn’t have said it. Let’s just pretend I didn’t.”

And then he rolled off her in the bed. He leaned his head back, to peer upward out the window overhead, trying to catch a glimpse of the moon or some stars. Already, that quickly, he’d started relying on that, relying on the stars to make his troubles feel small. What the hell had he been thinking to say that?

But then her hand was on his arm; she had turned on her side to gaze over at him. Her voice came hushed, pretty. “No, Mick—I’ve wanted to say it, too, but I was afraid.”

Oh. Oh…God. That changed everything. His heartbeat slowed. The world felt right again. Except for one thing.

“I don’t want you to be afraid of me anymore, pussycat.”

Next to him, she bit her lip. “I’m not. I haven’t been for a long time. I just thought…I thought if I said that, it would scare you away.”

He simply shook his head. The truth was, maybe it would have, before now. But the last two days had changed him—no, no the whole last week had changed him. He’d watched
Wayne
die. He’d suffered alongside him. And then, when it was over, she’d…brought him back from that bad place. So he spoke the only truth he could think of in that moment, no longer shy about it. “I’ve wanted you my whole life, honey.”

She sucked in her breath visibly, her eyes filling with some mixture of shock and joy. “You have?”

He simply nodded. Turned toward her in the bed and pulled her naked body close to his beneath the covers. “You were…the perfect girl I could never have. And it turns out that…you’re so much more, more sweet, more hot, more everything, than I could have ever imagined back then. You’re more than just a pretty face, Jenny. You’re…everything a man could want in a woman.”

Jenny could barely breathe.
Oh God.
Mick loved her, too. It was nothing short of astonishing. Big, tough, mean Mick Brody loved her. And in the blink of an eye, everything suddenly felt different, like she
wasn’t
so alone, like crossing back over that lake tonight with him in the dusk, the stars just beginning to twinkle up above them, had meant more than it ever had before. It meant him moving deeper into her world. She could feel it.

“You can, uh, tell me, too, if you want,” he suggested softly.

“Tell you?” She blinked, confused.

He looked her in the eye, even if his expression was a little sheepish. “What
I
just told
you
.”

“Oh.” She smiled, her heart warming. Had anyone ever said those words to him before and really meant it? Had he ever
wanted
a woman to say it before? Her heart told her no; her heart said she was the first, and that made it all the more special. “I love you, Mick,” she whispered in the darkness, glad the moonlight allowed them to see each other. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

He gently closed his eyes—as if savoring it, she thought—and her whole body felt warmer.

“I want inside you again,” he whispered against her neck.

She bit her lip and sighed, suddenly feeling like everything in her life was easier. “I could go for that.”

“You’ll have to help me get ready,” he said. “It’s only been a few minutes, and I’m good, but…”

“You’re not that good,” she said playfully.

He opened his eyes, flashing a chiding grin. “I was gonna say, ‘I’m good, but I shoveled a shitload of dirt into a hole yesterday.’”

“Oh,” she said, short, teasing.

“I’m definitely that good, pussycat, and don’t you forget it.”

“And if I do?”

His grin warmed. “I’ll remind you. Over and over.”

“Anytime you want to start, big guy,” she said, and he laughed softly—then began to kiss her, her neck, her chest. She looped one leg over his hip.

“Have I ever told you my favorite things about your body?” he whispered between kisses.

She shook her head against the pillow. “
Mmm
mmm
.”

As he brushed his thumb over the peak of her breast, causing it to bead, he said, “I love the way your nipples get hard so easy.”

It was true, they did—at least when Mick was around. “What else?”

“Your tummy is so soft,” he said, running his palm over it. “And I love this mole next to your belly button.”

She sucked in her breath slightly, pleased that something so small and inconsequential was worthy of notice to him.

Then he leaned closer to her ear, his breath warming it. “And I love how wet you get when I touch you.”

She surged with moisture below and informed him, “Apparently just saying it works, too.”

His eyes darkened with lust. “Good to know.”

And then she spoke her
own
truth, a big truth, something that had been there from the beginning, but she’d never planned on telling him. “You make me…see myself differently. Better. In bed, I mean.”

“You’re
amazing
in bed, honey. The best. Ever.”

The best. Ever.
Wow.

And as Jenny gently pushed Mick to his back and began to kiss her way down his broad chest, over the muscles in his stomach, and lower, she wasn’t sure if it was a reward for what he’d just said, if it was because she wanted to get him ready, or if it was just pure animal instinct. But when she took him in her mouth, the ministrations poured straight from her heart, her very soul. And then his hands were in her hair, stroking, massaging, and he began to murmur, “Aw, God. You’re so good, Jenny…so, so good.”

And when he entered her a moment later, as her body took him deep inside, she bit her lip, remembering those same words, how they’d tortured her, taunted her, when she’d first come home.

But suddenly being good didn’t seem so bad. Turned out there were lots of ways to be “good Jenny.”

The next morning, Jenny found her mom’s old waffle iron on an upper shelf of a kitchen cabinet and discovered it still worked. Her hot, romantic night with Mick had inspired her to do something a little out-of-the-ordinary for breakfast.

Again,
still,
everything seemed fresh, changed, transformed. As if they’d entered a new, more certain, phase of their relationship. She couldn’t be glad
Wayne
was dead, but she could sense how it had freed Mick—freed his time, freed his pain, freed his love.

She felt so merry that it didn’t even get her down when, as they cleaned up the breakfast dishes together, she noticed it getting hot in the house and realized the A/C was on the fritz yet again. “Guess I’ll have to call Dad,” she said, almost cheerfully—her cheer fading only when she saw the look on Mick’s face.

“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see
me
here.”

Oh. Good point. She pursed her lips, thinking, then announced, “Well, maybe it’s time he
did
see you here. Maybe now that
Wayne
has…passed, it’s not that big of a deal. After all, there’s nothing to hide now. I mean, yeah, he probably doesn’t have the best impression of you from the old days, but we no longer need to worry about you getting caught helping Wayne.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. I still don’t think it’s a good idea, though, and it’s probably risky for me to even
be
here in the daytime like this.”

Of course, he couldn’t know what
she
knew—that her dad was already well aware of the whole situation and had promised not to act on it. And she still had no plans to tell him—he just didn’t need to know. It could only stress him out when, for the first time since they’d come together in the woods that night, he was starting to seem truly relaxed. “Whatever you think is best,” she said. “But…I’m not worried.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the one who committed a crime, pussycat. So instead of calling your dad, why don’t you let
me
look at the A/C?”

Oh yeah, he
had
told her he had experience with stuff like that—it had slipped her mind amid everything else. She motioned toward the laundry room and said, “Be my guest.”

Five minutes later, as Jenny was drying the dishes, Mick reappeared in the kitchen and announced that he needed to get a part for the air conditioner.

“So you can see what’s wrong?” she asked. “That fast?”

He nodded. “Just a little corrosion keeping some parts from connecting the way they should. It’s hard to see if you don’t know where to look.” He wiped his hands on the front of his jeans. “I need to head out for a while today, anyway—I want to load the hospital bed and return it to the medical supply place north of Crestview, and I think there’s a Home Depot near there, so I can stop and pick up what I need to fix the A/C.”

“Want some company?” she offered.

He looked pleasantly surprised. “You want to drive around doing crappy errands with me? Have you ever actually
driven
the road that leads from my place out to the highway, pussycat? It’s half an hour of curves and ruts each way.”

She shrugged. “I’m not afraid of a few ruts. And maybe I…like spending time with you. Even on crappy errands.”

A warm grin slowly unfurled on his face. “Well, the crappy errands sound a little less crappy now.”

They spent the rest of the morning rowing back across the lake and loading the hospital bed in Mick’s truck, a late-model Ford pickup that fit the description of the one Willie Hargis had seen. She found herself hoping Willie wouldn’t notice it turning out onto the highway
today,
but reminded
herself
again that it didn’t really matter—her dad had kept his word, and the worst worries were over now that
Wayne
could no longer be discovered.

Mick was right—the road to the highway was horrible—and now she understood why no one had wanted to build there when he’d tried to sell the land. The landscape stayed just as steep and craggy most of the way out as it was next to the lake. It was as if the Brody ancestors had picked the worst, most isolated spot they could find to make their home; the part of Destiny where Mick had grown up felt completely cut off from the rest of town.

As they drove together, she found herself feeling bolder, and more curious. About them. Her and Mick. They’d exchanged the big
I love
you
s
the night before, of course—and it had inspired waffles, a fluttering heart, and
a warmth
inside her so intense that she could barely fathom it. Part of her still couldn’t believe it.
Mick loves me!

But it left a huge question in the air, too. What did this mean for the future? She’d been happy as a clam all night and morning, but only as they’d rolled the heavy hospital bed up a plywood ramp into the truck had Jenny been reminded once more—
Wayne
was dead, and Mick’s home was no longer here. Up to now, she’d resisted prying deeper into his plans, but after last night, she suddenly felt she could.

“So,” she said as Mick swerved around a particularly deep hole in the dirt-and-gravel road, “now that
Wayne
is gone…what’s next?”

He didn’t ask her what she meant—he seemed to know. “I’m not quite sure, pussycat.”

So she got bolder still. “There’s…a house up the road from me for rent. Sue Ann’s great-aunt’s place. I could tell her I know someone who wants to look at it.”

Mick slowly brought the truck to a halt on a flat stretch of road with a steep embankment on one side, a jagged hill on the other, and gaped at her like she’d lost her mind. “Are you kidding? No way, pussycat. I could never live here again—people would run me out of town on a rail.”

Maybe she should have expected that kind of reaction, but she hadn’t. So she took a deep breath and simply said, “Maybe not. Just give them a chance. And there’s a big new development going in near the edge of town—a hundred houses.
Brick
houses. Where they’ll need brick
layers.
It…might make a lot of sense.”

Across the console from her, Mick drew in his breath, looking pensive, doubtful—but not totally unmovable, either. “I don’t know, honey. You know I never had any plans to stay here.”

She bit her lip, thoughtfully, hopefully. “But isn’t it fair to say that…things have changed?” Him and her, she meant.

He drew in his breath, met her gaze. Then said, “The best I can say is…I’ll think about it.”

He’d think about it. As opposed to,
no way in hell.
This was good. Promising. She held back her smile and said, “That’s all I can ask.”

And then, as he eased the truck forward again, as they rounded a sun-drenched bend, he said, softly, “What if…
you
came with
me
? To
Cincinnati
? Or…anywhere else?” He kept his eyes on the road as he spoke. “I know you’re thinking about taking that job at the high school, but…maybe you could teach somewhere else. Someplace where people don’t know me.”

Jenny was utterly stunned, and touched. He was asking the same thing she was, but in a bigger way. He was saying he wanted to be with her, long term—wanted them to be someplace
together.
Of course, he’d said he loved her, so maybe she shouldn’t be
so
surprised—but with Mick, she was. This had all happened so quickly, yet they both seemed so like-minded on it. At least on the wanting-to-be-together part. It felt amazing enough to make her say, “I guess I could consider that.”