The Long Road Home (These Valley Days, #1)

by Bethany-Kris

  Gracen’s brow jumped high. “You think you could get me on your bike?”

  Across the hood, Malachi practically rolled off the stool with his laughter. “That’s not really what I meant—I need another beer.”

  He retreated into the apartment, his laughter still echoing around Gracen while she tried to figure out if he had insulted her or not. Or rather, if he meant for his comment to be insulting. Since she decided she wasn’t that offended—and there was no way in hell he could get her on the back of his bike, anyway, not that he knew as much—Gracen shrugged it off and reached for her first slice of leftover pizza.

  Cold, but still delicious, she worked away at the slice until Malachi returned with a fresh bottle of beer. He finished off the one bottle, setting it inside a cooler next to the car with other empties, before cracking open the new one.

  “I hope the one you’ve got is enough,” he said, nodding toward her beer on the pizza box. “Checkered’s closed five minutes ago.”

  Gracen glanced down the darkened alley thought the spattering of raindrops that had started to fall since her arrival. For the most part, summer showers did little but add a dampness and earthy smell to the air. Like worms, she used to say when she was a girl.

  The air in the rain smelled like worms.

  “This one’s good,” she replied.

  “Gotcha,” he muttered back. “Well, I guess you only have to walk home, right?”

  She smiled at that. “It’s not even that far.”

  He squinted one eye her way, making her grin grow wider at his playful expression. “I’ll still have to walk you home.”

  “Oh? That so?”

  “I never asked if you were scared of the dark, so ...”

  “And if I wasn’t?” she asked.

  Malachi lifted one shoulder like that didn’t matter. “Like I said, I never asked.”

  Smartass.

  But she liked it.

  The two finished off the remaining pizza in the box and sipped their beers in silence. Not that the quiet stillness between them bothered Gracen. It was comfortable, really. Strangely easy, even, for two people who barely knew one another. Eventually, the silence did melt into quiet conversation about safe topics. The weather; even the town again. Malachi’s failed attempt to join the Canadian Armed Forces, which he shrugged off by saying, “I still wasn’t that great with authority.”

  Not that she could get his current job out of him. Or anything else too personal that might give her a look at the man behind the name and intense blue eyes. He could talk her ear off, if she kept him going, but was careful every time he was the center of attention in the conversation.

  She just couldn’t figure out why.

  What was there to hide?

  Thankfully, the rain didn’t last long. Before she could finish her beer, and as Malachi cleared the pizza box into the green trash can everyone in town was required to use, the shower piddled out to practically nothing.

  Gracen gulped in a deep swallow of air, saying, “It still smells like worms.”

  Malachi’s chuckles echoed in the garage as he rounded the front of the blocked-up car to grab the empty beer bottle she held out for him. “What?”

  “Don’t you think it smells like worms when it rains in the summer?”

  He grabbed the bottle with two fingers hooking around hers, but she didn’t let go right away.

  “I’ve never heard of that before,” he admitted.

  Oh.

  “Maybe it’s just me,” she said under her breath.

  “It’s a good description, actually.”

  Gracen finally released the amber bottle to Malachi’s hold, but he didn’t loosen his fingers around hers to let her pull away. “Were you kidding about the bike thing?”

  “Partly.”

  “That’s kind of rude. You shouldn’t tell someone you only want to get them on the back of your bike.”

  “Should I lie?” he asked back.

  Gracen didn’t know what to say to that.

  Malachi wasn’t bothered, continuing with, “I’m not in town for long, and I don’t plan to stick around longer than I’ve already agreed to.” Not that he offered anything in regard to the who of that arrangement. Who did he owe anything, including a timeline of his presence in town, to—the friend renting the pizzeria’s apartment? Unfortunately, she couldn’t name all of her neighbors. Malachi didn’t give Gracen the chance to ask. “I’m not here looking for anything or anyone serious. Don’t take that to heart; you’re gorgeous, decent conversation, and I don’t know how you’re single. It’s a shame. You seem like a great girl for the right guy, but please don’t think you’re looking at him when you stare at me.”

  Could bluntness be a valued trait?

  “You never asked me if I was single, actually,” Gracen said, keeping the nerves out of her voice.

  At that, he smirked. “Or I didn’t care. Maybe you were something interesting to distract myself with when presented with the chance while I’m in this little shithole people around here call home. I’m just trying to be up front about my intentions. You deserve that.”

  And he was honest, clearly.

  Gracen appreciated it.

  “Total transparency?” she offered back.

  Malachi let her fingers go from his grip and wasted no time turning away to get rid of the bottle as he said, “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’ve already told you—I didn’t ask.”

  Right.

  She would try to remember that.

  “Either way,” Gracen said, not wanting to be the only one between them who didn’t make things clear, “nothing serious works for me right now, too. I’m not over my ex, so how about I don’t pretend like I’m not also here with you for a reason.”

  Gracen had no reason to tell Malachi about Sonny—not that she had any intention of mentioning his name. It just seemed unfair to engage in any flirting or otherwise with someone if a hundred percent of her wasn’t entirely in it to begin with.

  Malachi frowned, leaning over the hood of the car and tapping a beat to the matte metal finish with his index finger. “A recent thing?”

  Good God.

  The shame settled deep.

  Gracen blew out a stressed breath. “Not as recent as I would like.”

  “Ah, well, there’s that,” he said, slapping his hand to the hood of the car as he straightened up and glanced back at his bike parked in the alley. “I suppose I really can’t get you out on it now unless I wipe all the water off, huh? I do have a second helmet I can use as long as it makes its way back.”

  “Ah, no. Not even if it was dry.”

  “Seriously?” he asked, swinging back her way with a cocked eyebrow.

  “My mom and dad died in a car crash when I was in middle school. It took me a year to even get on the highway again as a passenger. I got my driver’s license late, and only because I didn’t have a choice. I needed to drive.”

  Malachi’s easy expression melted away to sadness. “I’m—”

  “Sorry, yeah. Most people say that. Anyway,” Gracen said under her breath, wanting to get beyond the pity side of the conversation when someone learned how she’d been left parentless as a preteen. “I’m mostly okay driving now, but I am not getting on that death trap. All I can see is me and pavement, and not one thing in between. I won’t die like that, bleeding on pavement.”

  He blinked, speechless.

  Gracen only shrugged. “Sorry, that was heavy, huh?”

  “I really thought I was gonna be the one to put something like that out there,” he said, putting a fisted hand to his mouth and clearing his throat. “No bike, got it.”

  As long as she didn’t have to say it again.

  “Everything else is probably good, though,” she told him.

  Maybe that could put the two of them back on track.

  Her flippant comment gained all of the man’s attention.

  “Anything?” he clarified, tone dipping and his grin s
exy.

  Even cleaned up and clothed, Malachi was hard to resist.

  Gracen never did this.

  Had not ever done it.

  “I’ve never had a one-night stand,” she whispered, cheeks burning pink as he inched closer to her with every word she spoke.

  “If I’m gonna be in town, it doesn’t even have to be once,” Malachi returned without flinching.

  Gracen laughed out what remained of her anxiety when he grinned salaciously. He had no shame, “I take it, you’ve done this before?”

  “Do you really want to know the answer to that?”

  “Yeah, probably not,” she agreed.

  He stood straight in front of where the car’s headlights might someday be if the job was ever finished. Malachi had to be at least six feet, if not topping it. Just one more thing to make him attractive to Gracen. As a girl who stood five-foot-ten-inches without heels, she’d usually towered over guys for most of high school, if not looked them eye to eye.

  She wanted to look up.

  Be held.

  Consumed.

  The very same way Malachi was currently eyeing her tiny yoga shorts. He truly had been a gentleman earlier—she’d not caught him looking at her ass even once.

  “Is the guy who rents the apartment coming home? You’re not really roommates, right?”

  Malachi shook his head. “Straight night shifts at the mill in Juniper for the month. He does four days on, three off, and they pay his lodging.”

  Perfect.

  “Only shitty thing about it,” he started.

  “Is what?” she questioned.

  “All I’ve got is the couch.”

  “Lucky for you,” Gracen quipped with a wink as she pointed toward the inside rear of the car, “I was kind of interested in that bench seat back there.”

  It was the only thing inside the shell of the car, and since she’d checked it out earlier and determined it was in decent condition, she had zero interest in seeing the inside of an apartment that wasn’t even Malachi’s.

  His head bobbed appreciatively while his gaze darted between her and the car. “You’re not fucking with me here?”

  “We’re both adults here. We can have fun.”

  His lips stretched wide to show straight, white teeth. “Yes, we sure can.”

  It didn’t have to mean a thing, and Gracen wouldn’t feel badly about any of it, either.

  “Is kissing good, or nah?” he asked, finally stepping close enough that his hands came to rest on her bare knees. It was that moment, the second the soft heat of his skin touched hers, that she stopped trembling. Gracen hadn’t felt the shivers until that moment.

  “You’re not cold,” he noted.

  “Can’t say I’m nervous, either,” she replied truthfully.

  The butterflies beating in her belly did all the work there. No, what was left came from somewhere else.

  Excitement, maybe.

  Not that anticipation could fully describe the pit of need pooling deep and widening her thighs with the help of the gentlest push from Malachi’s fingers. In the face of her silent willingness, he stepped in between her open legs, asking, “I’m gonna need to know if we’re doing the kissing thing or not, Gracen.”

  It was almost impossible to tell him no when all she needed to do was tip her head up when he leaned down.

  “If you close the garage door first,” she managed to say with her tone pitched slightly higher. He made it hard to breathe this close, even if the last thing she wanted him to do was leave. The garage had a sliding door to shut, not that she’d ever seen it closed more than a quarter of the way down before. There was always time for a first.

  Malachi only whistled while he studied her.

  It felt different now.

  How did the saying go?

  Ah, yeah. Gracen remembered. The best way to get over someone was getting under someone else.

  “Kiss first,” Malachi offered like he was bargaining her request, “then the door, and we go from there, hmm?”

  Gracen could work with that. “Okay, kiss—”

  She didn’t get the first part out.

  His mouth was hungry when it found hers. His kiss, rough enough to make her breathless. She’d forgotten what that was like, and how much she enjoyed it. She tasted the remnants of his beer on the tip of his tongue while it tangled with hers. Her thighs tightened to his legs to keep him close while one of his large hands rested across her collarbones while his pointer finger pressed under her chin to keep her mouth available to his demanding kiss.

  It was funny that Malachi had said she was something interesting to distract himself with when everything about her life seemed as boring as the town she had never been able to leave. In fact, he was the most interesting thing to have walked in it lately.

  Not that he needed to know as much.

  “Yeah, yeah, okay,” she breathed against his slower pecks and playful nips to her lips that were hard to resist responding with her own. Gracen hadn’t forgotten the deal. Slapping her palms to his chest, she pushed Malachi back a step. His groan and those heavy-lidded blue eyes of his locking in on her didn’t stop Gracen from pointing over his shoulder to say weakly, “Door next.”

  She needed to maintain some dignity even if he made her want to question her own self-respect and boundaries at that very moment. He’d have to deal with it; Gracen unfortunately was.

  Chapter 7

  Malachi Anders had a million things to do. His life had fallen apart the second he rode back into this shithole of a town, and maybe he didn’t have anything except himself to blame for it doing so, but his shitty penchant for self-awareness meant the little voice inside his head wouldn’t shut up whenever it knew he was doing something stupid. There were a million other things to keep him occupied that didn’t include knockin’ boots with a pretty blonde who had been the feature of morning showers for the last handful of days. Only in his mind’s eye, of course.

  See, he had a problem.

  With women, that was.

  Oh, women weren’t the problem. Technically. He loved everything about women, and what came along with desiring one. Too much for his own good, too. The chase, the thrill; even the fall. Yet, his flimsy relationships never survived beyond the initial crash and burn. He fell in lust, rarely in love. From his first kiss at twelve until the disastrous night of his twenty-first birthday, Malachi devoted nearly every waking hour to chasing the next woman when he had been able. Only to realize time and time again that whenever he found himself staring down a mountain of trouble, it was almost always because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.

  The girl with the cop father; the warden’s pet; even the Major General’s daughter.

  Malachi had a track record.

  The last one didn’t end well. After that shit show, he put real effort in not fucking up just to prove that he wasn’t a fuck up. Not that he had anyone left to prove it to—except yourself. There was that, too.

  Three years of a self-imposed celibacy stared him in the face and laughed in the form of Gracen Briggs in the tiniest yoga shorts. Did she realize her ass cheeks peeked out when she bent over? He didn’t think so, and since he had zero plans of sticking around this town for longer than he absolutely had to, what could go wrong? Malachi couldn’t find a reason to say no, just like he hadn’t been able to refuse the business card Gracen had handed him with her number despite knowing taking it couldn’t go anywhere.

  Nope.

  Those damn tiny shorts did it.

  Mostly.

  Just like that his ironclad self-control had folded like a fifteen-year-old getting his dick wet for the first time. A shame, really.

  Knowing as much didn’t stop Malachi from pulling closed the garage door to shut out the street beyond the alleyway while soft laughter echoed from the tempting woman perched on the stool beside the Mustang.

  “Two minutes,” he told Gracen, pointing a finger at her so there was no question who he meant as he headed for the apartmen
t’s open door. “Don’t move.”

  She laughed harder, barely keeping her balance on the stool as she pressed her hands, swallowed by the sleeves of her hoodie, into her stomach. “Where are you going?”

  He wasn’t about to share the secret of his lack of a sex life when it wasn’t going to matter in fifteen or so minutes. However, it also meant he hadn’t kept condoms on hand in a while. Malachi was all for safe sex, and what came with the rest of that good jazz; he’d never, and wouldn’t, fuck without one unless he was ready for the ultimate consequence.

  Malachi didn’t see himself as a father.

  The idea terrified him.

  Nader, on the other hand, kept a box hidden and pushed between his box spring and mattress, so he didn’t have to explain his sexual habits to his conservatively Pentecostal mother who would almost certainly cut off all contact with her son for his preference for casual sex for good despite his father having already demanded she do so for far less.

  Even sinners could be saved.

  Until they crossed the final line, apparently. Different people determined where that line laid, unfortunately. Between people, it was never the same.

  Malachi hadn’t gotten too deep into Nader’s issues with his parents, but he didn’t need to have an entire conversation with his friend from childhood to know the real deal. The guy was practically a grown-ass man; at what point did his mother’s twice-weekly cleaning and cooking sprees in his kitchen equal giving up his right to be a person of his own making? His parents didn’t allow Nader in his childhood home because he wouldn’t attend church. He worked like a dog doing shifts at the mill in Juniper—saving every penny to pay for his jacked-up truck and the car that was a fucking money pit, in Malachi’s opinion.

  He didn’t have time for hours of preaching from the pulpit three nights a week, let alone a female and a whole ass relationship. Nonetheless, Nader wasn’t hurting anybody. He kept a decent job, paid his bills, mostly handled his shit, but it wasn’t good enough for people who demanded his entire life be devoted to the same extreme they sacrificed theirs for.