Where Their Hearts Collide: Wardham Book #2 (25 page)

“Being torn between two places. Not giving school my all. Neglecting you and whatever this is between us.”

“Stop saying that.” He rolled his shoulders, as if squaring off for a fight.
“’Whatever this is.’ This is a relationship. I’m your boyfriend. In six weeks, you’re going to go away for a while, and I’ll be your long-distance boyfriend. When you come home on weekends, each visit will further our relationship a little bit, and at some point, I’ll stop being your boyfriend and just be your significant other. In a permanent way.”

“My significant other.”
It didn’t quite have the ring of fiancé or husband, but it was the right sentiment. Why did it leave her unsettled?

“Yeah.”

“What does that mean?”

“We’re kind of getting ahead of ourselves here. Maybe we could agree this is actually a relationship before debating what to call the next stage?”

“No!” She shouted the word, all of a sudden shaking with emotion. “That’s the problem. That’s why I said, ‘whatever this is.’ I don’t know what that means. I don’t know where you see us a few months, a year, five years from now. I’m scared that we don’t want the same things. I’m pretty sure that I want to be more than someone’s
significant other
.”

“What the hell do you think I mean? I love you, Karen!” He wasn’t yelling exactly, but an uncharacteristic frustration crept into Paul’s voice.

“Yeah, well, I love you, too, but that doesn’t mean—” Paul held up his hand and Karen froze.

“You love me?”

She nodded.

“Baby.”

“What?”

“Shut up, that’s what.” With ease, he swept her off the ground and kissed her hard and deep, his tongue gliding hungrily into her mouth. As she slid down his body and found terra f
irma again with her toes, he pinned her tight against him, where she could feel his cock growing with interest. “You love me?”

“Of course I do.” She licked her lips, part nervous energy,
part appreciation for the kiss they just shared.

“And you’re scared.” He shook his head. “Shit, I’ve bungled this.
” He kicked his backpack out of the way and pulled them down to sit side-by-side on the log. “When I said significant other, I meant, whatever you want us to be. Every time you come home, we’re going to lie awake in bed and talk about the future, and I’m going to get little clues about you, and hopefully if you want something straight up, you’ll come out and tell me. And I’ll do the same. No limits here. I’m not saying I don’t want to marry you, I just saying that’s your choice.”

“Okay.” She wanted to say more, but her head was swimming and even though they were sitting, she thought it might be possible that she’d pass out.

“You want to talk about any of that now?”

She shook her head. She really liked the idea of it coming out gradually over time.

“Can I share something that I want?”

“Of course.”
Relief so sharp she could taste it was rolling through her body. A future they would craft together. Holy crap.

He tugged her hand, pulling her up and onto his lap, holding her hips steady as she straddled him. “One of these days, I want to talk about ditching the condoms.” Between them, his arousal was in full-force.
On her hips, his grip tightened. “This is so the wrong place for this conversation, I know, but…”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll look into my options.”

“Something not too long term, maybe.”

It took a moment for his meaning to sink in. Oh. OH.
“Yeah?” First she was going to pass out, now she was pretty sure she was going to hyperventilate.

“Would that be okay with you?” His hold on her shifted, his left hand drifting to the small of her back, his right hand coming around, up and under her shirt, to rest on the softness of her belly. Her sex clenched at the thought of taking him inside her, no barrier, and conceiving a child. “I know this is crazy outside the first date zone, but…”

“We’d have to wait until after I start school, and figure out when would be a good time to take a break. But as long as I get my course work done and out of the way…” She leaned forward and gently bit his bottom lip.

“Yeah?”
He tipped his head back and howled. How he’d ever gotten so lucky, he’d never figure it out. He didn’t deserve this woman, perched on his lap, willing to give him the world. Hot damn.

“We have to catch up with the
kids, who knows what trouble they’ve gotten into, but this is a conversation I want to have again, and again.”

“Yeah?
It’s not creepy?” He grinned and pressed a hard, quick kiss on her kips before shifting her backwards with regret. They both glanced at his erection. It was a shame to let that go to waste, but… “On we go. I just need a minute.”

Karen crossed her arms to keep herself from reaching out to him again. Every
fibre of her being was vibrating with love and happiness.

“You standing there, pressing your breasts together like that…it’s not helping,
ya know?” He groaned as she turned away and before she knew it, his hard body was pressed against her backside. “I like that view just as much. Come on. I’ll think of math, or something.”

When they reached the lookout point, they found the kids relaxing under a tree, eating apples. He dumped his pack next to them and pulled out the sack of peanut butter sandwiches. Karen, though, went straight to the line of boulders that framed the reason why he’d chosen this trail.

“Oh, wow. How did you find this? I’ve lived here my whole life and I had no idea this view was at the top of these trails.”
Below them, green treetops tumbled down a ravine, on the other side of which was the lighthouse point, and to the right stretched the town of Wardham, a neat packet of houses on a grid of right-angled streets, dotted here and there with parks and commercial strips. In front of it, along the lake, the public beach, with Lake Erie glittering with the reflection of the mid-day sun.

“Martinez told me. As soon as I saw it, I thought of you.” He lightly rested his hand on her hip, tugging her close without interrupting her awe.

“Seriously, Paul. I’m just…” She pressed her hand against her chest like she was trying to keep her excitement inside and turned her shining face to look straight at him. “This is the best first date. You were right, this is perfect.”

He grinned.
“Time for our picture?”

“Wait.” She took both of his hands in hers and squeezed
, sending bolts of anticipation up his arms and straight to his heart. “I love you.” She closed her eyes and smiled, then repeated the words, pausing between one. “I. Love. You.”

“You’re not just saying that
again because I blew your mind with the view?” He was mostly teasing, but needed to be sure.

“
Nuh-uh. When I think of how many different ways we could’ve not ended up here…I want you to know without a doubt how much I love and appreciate you.”

“Now you’re just spoiling me.” He kissed her forehead
and pulled out his phone to take a picture.

She’d fallen asleep. He didn’t mind, at all, but she wanted to go home.

Not to her room twenty feet away, now occupied by her tenants, and not to his room upstairs, which his inner caveman wanted to drag her up to and never let her out. She wanted to go back to her parents’, where she’d officially moved her stuff at the beginning of August.

Unofficially, half her shit was upstairs.
Where it belonged.

“My mom hasn’t slept through the night in a week, it’s like Chase is a
freakin’ newborn or something. I don’t have to do anything tomorrow, so I can stay up tonight, give her a break, and then she’ll be in a better mood for the weekend.” Karen had launched into a rant over dinner about her brother being picky, and rejecting the nursing home accommodation he’d lined up. “It was his freakin’ idea in the first place. I don’t know why he couldn’t stay in Phoenix. Or Windsor, for that matter. My parents’ house isn’t a rehab facility.”

Paul had met Grace Miller a few times over the month of August, and never seen her anywhere approaching a bad mood, but he could imagine that things in the Miller house were getting a bit tense. Chase had been back for almost a month. A week after he returned, the same day that Karen moved out of her house, he decided he wanted to stay at the Miller place after all. Karen was displaced from the main floor guest room, to the loft, which wasn’t the end of the world, but it started a chain reaction of
little disgruntlements.

He grinned. He shouldn’t enjoy profiting from the misfortune of others, but it didn’t take long for Karen to start hiding out at his place. She’d slept over more nights than not, and been around for part of the days she still slept away from him.

Life was good.

She shifted in front of him
on the couch, and the heavy swell of her breast shifted into the palm of his hand. Life was great. He reached his other arm around her waist, blindly searching for the TV remote.

“Don’t change it, I’m watching that.”

“Your eyes are closed.”

“Resting.”
She yawned. “It’s time for me to go, isn’t it?”

“If you want to.”

“Hush. It’s one night. Audrey will be home for the weekend, so I’ll be here every night until I go.”

Five more nights until she loaded up the Camaro and headed up the 401 to Toronto, and a year of school.
A year away from him. “Listen, I was thinking. When you come home on the weekends, what do you think about coming home…here?”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Are you asking me to move in with you?”

“Yeah. Are you saying yes?” He still had her breast in his hand. He stroked his thumb back and forth over her nipple, enjoying the darkening, glazed-over look she was giving him. Her lips parted, and he rolled her underneath him, holding himself up off the couch until her legs parted and he could settle in his happiest place of all, between them. “Say yes.”

“I would if I could, but I’m being tortured right now.” She panted and arched her back as he bit the tender skin behind her ear.

“I want to know that you’re coming home to me, every time.”

“I am. I will be.” She snaked her hand between them
and reached into his jeans. Oh,
holy mother of
—his eyes rolled back in his head as she did something clever with her thumb.

The torturer becomes the tortured
. He groaned, and she caught his eye.
Kiss me
, she silently begged, and he did, matching the movement of their mouths to that of her hand, building them both to the point of feverish need. They shucked their clothes and he settled upright on the couch, legs splayed wide, and she rode him until they came together.

“Love you, baby,” he whispered into her damp skin.

She kissed his shoulder. “Right back atcha.”

***

The Millers’ hosted a going away barbeque on the beach across the road from their house three nights later. Paul was surprised at how many people went out of their way to greet him, and offer him casseroles while Karen was away. He refrained from pointing out that he’d been cooking for himself for twenty years, and casseroles weren’t really his thing. He figured he might be able to pass them on to Evie Calhoun, who was doing a decent job of hiding her secret, but wouldn’t be able to for much longer. He wondered if Karen knew, and if he should have told her. Not his story to share, though. From the constant vigil Liam McIntosh was keeping over the pretty blond, albeit from afar, it looked like Evie wasn’t completely alone in her journey. And when the town found out…Paul knew that despite the quiet and sometimes conservative nature of the community, when one of their own was in need, they’d band together.

When he found Karen,
a little way down the shore, skipping stones with Megan, he paused and just watched. His women. And Megan was rapidly turning into a woman. They’d celebrated her eleventh birthday the week before, in the city. Karen had tried to beg off, but Susan had called her and the next thing he knew, they were all at the restaurant having a decent time together. Would wonders never cease.

“Come on, we should get back,” he heard Karen call, and he felt the moment that she saw him as they turned to come back. The weight of the air between them lifted for a second, as if pushed outward by the force of her smile, and she picked up the pace a bit, tugging Megan along with her.

“You guys hungry?” he asked as they neared. “Rumour has it they’ve got full-fat sausages on the grill.”

“Are you calculating in your head how many extra miles you’d have to run to make them worthwhile?” Karen laughed, and reached for his hand, linking his family together. On the other side of her, Megan started a monologue about the awesomeness of mustard. The way she sold it, he was convinced.

***

She could hear the phone ringing.
Fudgesicle
. The keys slipped through her fingers. Too many deadbolts between her and Paul’s voice. Back home, she rarely locked her doors; here, she locked them twice just to go to the basement to do laundry. Once inside, it only took three steps to reach her cell on the bedside table. Studio apartments had some advantages. She rang him back, and he answered immediately.