The Calendar of New Beginnings (33 page)

“Lucy,” he called out, and she sought his face.

Tension radiated from him as their gazes met. He gripped her hands even harder.

“Let go,” he said, rocking into her.

She tilted her head back as he pressed deeper and felt everything gather and then flash inside her. Her body contracted around him, and she cried out, thrashing against him. He thrust wildly and then froze above her, calling out her name.

The very sound of his voice like that broke something free around her heart. She felt the pieces shatter, and when he folded over her, this time the wave she felt was of the greatest, fiercest love she’d ever known for another human being. Her body seemed to be falling, almost like she was plummeting from a tall cliff. But instead of hitting the ground, she floated, because there was no body after all.

Surrendering to that weightlessness, she felt this new heart of hers expand until she was sure its energy was cocooning him as well. And when he nestled close and pressed his sweaty head to her neck, she breathed him in. The love she had for him continued to expand, and so she surrendered to a place where words and thoughts were no longer needed.

Chapter 23
      

Andy knew he was probably crushing Lucy, but he couldn’t seem to muster the energy to push away. His breath was still coming out in heaving gasps, his heart was pounding, and sweat was coating his skin. Holy freaking Christ. What had just happened?

He hadn’t been with a lot of women, but he’d had a lot of sex. Good sex. Great sex. The kind of regular married sex that used to put a smile on his face throughout the day. It had gotten better with Kim the more they’d done it, the longer they’d been together.
 

He’d thought that was how things worked.

Lucy had just blown that theory to hell. Sex with her was like jumping to light speed, and he was flailing to wrap his shorted-out mind around it.
 

Things had pretty much gone as expected at first. There had been humor between them, and she’d gotten pushy. He’d known she would play an active part.

But something had changed the moment he’d entered her. She’d gripped his hands and opened everything she was to him, and he’d felt like the deepest parts of each of them were merging together. And then she’d come, harder and hotter than he could have ever imagined. The passion between them had been crazy and urgent, and the last threads of his control had splintered. The force of his climax had been absolute and unwavering. His body felt hollow now, but there was this odd expansion in his chest, one that felt all warm and comforting.

He nuzzled her neck, wanting to touch her, to be close to her, to never be apart from her. There was love here. So much love he felt small in the face of it.
 

She was quiet, her breathing smoother than his, and so soft and pliant beneath him. He forced himself onto his elbows and realized their hands were still wrapped around each other. Her auburn hair was mussed, a lock of it laying against her soft, white cheek. The rusty line of her eyelashes curled in the most appealing way. He’d never realized how long her eyelashes were before. He saw every freckle, every pore on her face. It was like every atom that made Lucy O’Brien was suddenly visible to him.

She was beautiful, breathtakingly so.

Her lashes flickered, and her eyes opened. There was wonder there and so much love his heart seemed to fill with it like a water bucket from a well.
 

“Hey,” he said softly.

The only response he received was a smile, and it was enough.

He gathered his strength to shift off her, but she tightened her legs around him.

“No,” she whispered. “Stay.”

“I don’t want to crush you.”

“You’re not,” she said, all soft and warm under him.
 

“Let me take care of this,” he said and dispensed with the condom.

Coming back to rest on top of her, they stayed that way until he got a crick in his neck from being on his elbows too long. When he shifted onto his back, she cuddled against him.

Hours seemed to pass. They didn’t speak, and it might have been the longest they’d ever gone without saying a word. Her hand rested on his chest like she was counting his heartbeats while he ran his hand along the side of her back, marveling at the smooth line of her vertebrae.

Finally, his stomach grumbled, and he sighed.

“You’re hungry,” she said, still quieter, still more peaceful than usual.

“I can wait a little longer,” he said, not wanting to interrupt their reverie.

She made no move to rise, only rested her face on his chest. When his stomach made more noises, she finally pressed up. Her hair looked a bit tangled, which pleased him somehow, and her eyes were like luminous jewels.

“Come on,” she said. “You need to eat.”

He tugged her back, drinking in her soft gaze. “I don’t want to leave this.”

A half smile touched her face. “We won’t.”

But she kept her back to him as she rose and pulled on a robe from her bag, and he could feel that they were once again on unfamiliar ground. At least there were puffy clouds beneath their feet.

She was making sandwiches when he joined her in the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around her middle. The sweep of her mustard-covered knife slowed on the bread.

“Well,”
he said in a deep voice. He hadn’t heard himself sound this way for some time, husky and satisfied, replete from lovemaking.

“Well,”
she replied, resuming her task.

“Can you stop making the sandwiches for just a minute, please?”

She set the knife down on the counter and turned around. There wasn’t a smile on her face, but her eyes were serious.

“Are we going to talk about what we’re feeling here?” he asked, suddenly awkward again. “I…it was cataclysmic for me. You?”

“Same,” she said, leaning back against the counter. “I was trying to credit it to the pillow.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “Seriously?”

Her shoulder lifted. “I’ve never…”

“Ah…it’s an anatomy thing,” he said, putting his hand next to hers on the counter. “I studied anatomy, remember?”

“You always were an A student,” she responded, giving away nothing.

“It wasn’t the pillow. It was us. This.”

She heaved out a slow breath. “I know. I thought it would be good, but I didn’t see this coming, frankly.”

It was hard not to grin. “Neither did I, but as my mother always says, ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’”

She punched him in the chest, righting the easy balance between them. “Thanks for making me think about your mother after I just had wild sex with her son.”

Since she was starting to seem more like herself, he pressed a little closer. All he wanted to do was put her on the countertop and gobble her up. “It was more than wild sex.”

“Yes, it sure was. As I was making the sandwiches, I finally realized why.”

He couldn’t keep from sliding his arms around her waist. “Enlighten me.”

She pressed her lips together like she was trying to find the words. “When I was out on a particularly tough assignment, I would come back to wherever I was staying feeling numb. It was like everything inside me was frozen after what I’d seen. If I had Internet, I’d pull up my computer and write to you—even if you weren’t awake.”

How many nights had he done the same with her? Especially after Kim had died. She’d been his salvation in a way, the one person with whom he could share his deepest and darkest hurts and fears.

“When I finished writing you, I could feel my heart again.”
 

He was stunned for a moment when the words sunk in. “Oh, Lucy.”

She took his hand and placed it over the spot that reverberated in steady, easy beats.

“I felt like that again after we made love,” she said, and he knew it was the first time she’d used that term instead of sex. “Andy, you help me get in touch with my heart. You always have. And today…today you put me into a deeper connection with my heart than I’ve ever experienced.” She looked at him, and he was alarmed to see tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t expect that.”

His own heart thundered in his chest.

“You’ve always helped me feel my heart too,” he said quietly, “even when I didn’t think I had one left.”

She cupped his chin. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said, lowering his head until his mouth was inches from hers. “Thanks for helping me find it again.”
 

And then he kissed her softly on the lips, feeling their hearts dance around each other all over again.

Chapter 24
      

After the photo shoots with two of the male volunteers, Lucy found herself grading her own photos with nothing better than a C for the final product, like the average students in her class. At least her instincts on capturing the perfect moment still deserved an A+.

The lighting on Jill’s face in Lucy’s favorite photo was too harsh, to her mind. The sad-yet-hopeful expression on Old Man Jenkins’ face was a winner, but the flag he was holding looked blurred on the corners. And Rhett Butler Blaylock’s whimsical smile as he kicked back wearing an open leather vest…well, the focus was off ever so slightly on the best photo of the lot. They would need a lot of touching up, and while she knew the images were great, she couldn’t help but feel frustrated.

Andy loved them and kept telling her that she was her own worst critic. But she was three photo shoots into the project, and she was floundering. Doubt seeped into her like unwanted water in a leaky basement. Her mother’s frequent calls and texts didn’t help. Today’s had been short but sweet.

Lucy, I want to see the photos you’ve taken so far. Stop ignoring me. I know your tactics, missy. I have a right to see them.

Perhaps she did have a right, but Lucy didn’t have enough confidence to show them to anyone but Andy. She was tight every time she picked up the new camera, and her nightmares had changed from twisted memories of the village bombing to garish versions of the calendar photos resembling fun-house mirrors. Everything she captured seemed distorted right now.

The only part of her life that felt in focus was her relationship with Andy. She’d never been more in love with anyone. Never imagined it could be possible to want to be with someone every day and night and still want more. Of course, they couldn’t be together every night because of Danny. They’d agreed not to spend the night together in Andy’s house. It didn’t feel right. That meant they met at her house during his lunch hour or spent time together while a family member took care of Danny.

Tonight they were going to have dinner together at Andy’s house and play Wii afterwards, something he and Danny did a couple times a week. Lucy had attended a few of the boy’s T-ball games and hung out with the Hale clan at Sunday dinner.

They were weaving more than their hearts together. They were beginning to weave their lives together. She was trying not to freak out about what that meant for her and her career.

Her vision hadn’t improved past the day of Jill’s photo shoot, but Dr. Davidson assured her it still could. Her color vision wasn’t better, though, and that bothered her.

She was sitting in her home office, grading photos of starving cats and dogs at the local pound, when her phone rang. She picked up her phone because there was no evading the caller any longer. “Hello, Mother.”

“Hello, Lucy. I thought April and I could come over and see the photos you’ve taken so far since you don’t have class today.”

Lucy pushed her sandwich aside. There was no way she could eat any more rye and Swiss. “Mom, how many times do I have to tell you? I prefer to assemble the calendar in draft and show it to all of you at the same time. Most of the people I work with prefer it that way. They can see the complete—”

“I’m not most people,” her mother said crisply. “I’m your mother. Stop putting me off. When I asked you to do this, I thought we could have fun together. I’ve respected your wish not to have me present at every photo shoot, but I want to see what you have so far.”

“Old Man Jenkins would have been uncomfortable with you in the room, Mother,” she said, trying and failing to keep the aggravation out of her voice. “And Rhett probably wouldn’t have been as relaxed if there had been any bystanders besides his wife.”

“You’re underestimating Rhett,” her mother replied in a hard tone.

Lucy didn’t think so. Under that tough, devil-may-care attitude was a vulnerable man full of emotion. He’d gotten all teary-eyed while telling her stories about his uncle. And so had his lovely wife, Abbie. More than one tissue had been passed around. Of course, Rhett blamed it on his impending fatherhood. Lucy knew better.

“Edith said she wouldn’t mind if I come to her photo shoot this weekend,” her mom said, using her words like a railroad worker pounding nails for Union Pacific.

Lucy decided to stop arguing with her. “Mom, I’m really serious here. Can’t you trust me?”

“This isn’t about trust,” her mother said, her tone growing sterner. “It’s about the calendar, and since April and I came up with the idea, we want to be more involved. That means seeing the photos you’ve taken so far.”