by Jewel E. Ann
“Twenty-one,” I whisper.
Nate’s eyebrows draw together.
“Brandon took my heart when I was fourteen. He ruined it for every other man when I was twenty-one and in my third year of college. Premed. I wanted to be a cardiologist because Brandon had a heart condition that had no cure. I told him to just hold on, and I would find a way to fix him.” I lift a shoulder and drop it along with my gaze. “He didn’t wait. At the end of the following year, I dropped out of school … I mean, what was the fucking purpose at that point?”
“I’m sorry,” Nate whispers.
“It was young love. That never lasts, right?” My tears join the shallow water at our feet. “And maybe it wouldn’t have lasted, but his death … it lives inside of my heart like an incurable disease.” I laugh. “Life dies in a blink, but death … it lives for eternity. It’s infected every relationship since him.”
I wipe my tears and glance up at him. “So here’s the whole truth, because I like to share the part that lets me look like a victim instead of the villain that I am. Andy cheated on me because when we were having sex, I called him Brandon. He felt like that was cheating as much as him actually screwing someone else. And this …” I hold up my wrist and tug on the bracelet. “Brandon sold his baseball card collection several months before he died so he could buy this for me. And twenty years after his death, I’m still wearing it. This…” I tug it again “…is the reason Michael left me at the altar. He knew about Brandon. He knew Brandon gave it to me. And he never asked me to take it off during the two years we dated and our six-month engagement. Not once. Until … the night before our wedding, he asked me to not wear it anymore once I became his wife. He didn’t want to share me with my past.”
Nate wipes my tears as I keep my gaze averted to the sliver of light still lining the horizon.
“I agreed. I mean … it’s just a bracelet. Why wouldn’t I take it off and hide it with a pile of photos or at the bottom of a cedar chest along with other sentimental things from my life? The next morning, I woke up and started the fun of hair and makeup, getting ready for my wedding day. My. Wedding. Day.”
I close my eyes briefly and shake my head. “My mom helped me into my dress at the church. She made a few last-minute fixes to my hair. And then she handed me a box—a gift from Michael. A stunning diamond pendant necklace. It looked amazing with my strapless dress. I cried. Mom wiped my tears and fixed my makeup. Then she gave me a few minutes alone before joining my dad and bridesmaids waiting for me at the entrance to the sanctuary filled with our family and friends. I tried to take off the bracelet. At first, I thought I couldn’t do it because my hands were too shaky, so I poked my head out the door and my maid of honor rushed to help me. The second she removed it … I just couldn’t breathe.
“She kept asking me what was wrong. I couldn’t answer. I just knew that the moment she took it off, it felt like she was taking away my ability to find oxygen, and my heart pounded in my chest as panic set in. So I held out my wrist and whispered through labored breaths for her to put it back on. If Michael loved me, he wouldn’t let something as insignificant as a bracelet stop us from getting married. It made perfect sense in my head, so I walked down the aisle. His sister read a bible verse, someone else sang a song, the minister spoke words of love and commitment.
“It. Was. My. Wedding. Day. A perfect September day in the mid-seventies with sunshine and no wind. My dream dress. My best friends in navy blue with bouquets of soft yellows and pinks. Flower girl. Ring bearer. It was perfect … except the man taking my hands to exchange vows wasn’t Brandon. And he didn’t like the shiny bracelet on my wrist. I knew … I knew the exact moment the wedding was off. It was the way his whole body deflated when his gaze landed on my wrist. It was the raw emotions in his eyes when he met my gaze. He knew I would never take it off. And I knew he would never be my husband.”
I rest my hands on his chest and draw in a shaky breath. “Take your daughter home. Buy her the clothes she wants, not the ones you think she should wear.” I slide my hand up to his cheek and brush my thumb over his slight grin. “No buts. No regrets. Okay?”
He wrings out more tears just by encircling my wrist and kissing my palm before brushing his lips to my bracelet and pressing a kiss over it. “Okay,” he whispers.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Nathaniel
I find a brave face. Gracelyn’s hurting. I know that emotion all too well. It’s not like I have a solution. My daughter wants to go home more than anything. Gabe wants to be here where he can cling to what normalcy and routine he has left after so recently losing his parents.
I want to pack my freckled-faced friend in my suitcase and steal her away from … from what?
Reality?
Tragedy?
Some days I’m certain the two are one and the same.
She wraps her arms around my neck as I slide mine around her waist and bury my face in her neck.
“Ten years of embracing celibacy. Ten years of settling into a new normal. Ten years and you had to derail me at the finish line.”
She laughs, but I feel her body shake with uncontrolled sobs. “You jerk … you just had to steal that kiss.”
I want to steal so much more than a kiss. As fate would have it, with the exception of my mother and daughter, the women I’ve chosen to love have either died or have already given their hearts to someone else.
“We should head back. The fireworks will start soon.”
“Yes.” She wipes her face and gives me a sad smile.
“Pen pals.” I take her hand. “It’s not sexy, but it’s intellectually stimulating.”
“Not sexy, huh? Clearly you’ve never been pen pals with me. I demand sexy. I demand the occasional poem. Unless you can’t keep up.”
“Oh … I can keep up.”
She releases my hand. “I doubt it!” Her feet dig into the sand, and she swerves up the beach a few feet to the water-packed sand, running as fast as she can.
I grin, just watching her hair blow. Her legs propel her away from me, and when she finally makes a quick glance over her shoulder—that damn flirty over-the-shoulder smirk—I take off after her. She pumps her arms as I keep a steady distance between us. As we near the houses, I close that distance, hook her waist, and throw her into the water.
“Naaate!”
I turn and walk up the beach like it never happened.
“Daaad!” Morgan hops out of her chair on my deck where everyone has gathered to watch the fireworks.
“What?” I respond as I near the boardwalk.
“Watch out!” Gabe yells.
“Oopf!”
Too late.
Soaked Gracelyn jumps on my back, tackling me to the sand. “Not. Cool!” She maneuvers herself on top of me and starts shoveling sand onto me with her hands, like a dog burying a bone. She’s wet and sandy. I’m wet and sandy.
“Look!” Morgan yells as the fireworks start in the distance, about ten houses down from us.
Gracelyn hops off me and tries to brush herself off.
“Here.” Mr. Hans tosses her one of the kids’ towels from the railing.
She holds it pinched from her fingers, away from her body, while tiptoeing to the water spigot on the side of the house.
“You’d better just head in for a shower.” Her mom laughs.
My parents could not have bigger grins on their faces as I follow Gracelyn. I smirk because I can’t not feel their tiny moment of happiness. They never thought I’d recover after losing Daisy and Jenna. This feels like a recovery, but it’s temporary.
“Jerk,” Gracelyn mumbles as she rinses the sand off.
I take the hose from her and hold it over her head. She shivers while running her fingers through her hair, her nipples hard against her thin top. She steps out of the stream and catches me staring at her. I wait for her to make another jerk or pervert remark, but she doesn’t, and she doesn’t pull her shirt away from her chest. My gaze works its way back down her body
as I turn the hose onto my sand-covered body. A boom of fireworks illuminates her for a few seconds. My gaze stops on her fingers rubbing the clasp of her bracelet. After a few more seconds, she turns and takes her balcony stairs to her bedroom.
I finish rinsing off and wind up the hose. After I shrug off my shirt and wring it out, I take several steps toward the back deck and our families celebrating the ending of the day under the kaleidoscope in the sky. Stopping before anyone can see me, I turn and follow my instinct … I follow her. Even if I can’t have her, it doesn’t stop me from being the guy who chases her.
She jumps and turns toward me with her wet, discarded shirt wadded and hugged to her chest as her eyes widen in surprise.
I shut the door, letting the curtains fall shut behind me. “If you take that off…” I nod to the bracelet “…a day from now, a month from now, ten years from now … if it’s not until your next life … I want to be the first to know.”
Her lips part, but her eyes remain unblinking and red with emotion.
“Okay?” I take two steps, putting us toe to toe.
A shaky breath rattles her body.
“Say it.”
She rubs her quivering lips together and blinks, sending a new stream of tears down her cheeks while keeping her gaze locked to my chest.
“Say it.”
She shakes her head slowly. “Y-you can’t ask that … y-you c-can’t just call … dibs on me in the next life.”
“Yes!” I can’t hide my emotions any longer. My fingers dive into my hair as I tug at it, feeling overwhelmed with frustration. They go from my hair to her face, framing it as I back her into the bathroom until her backside hits the vanity. I bend down forcing her to look at me. “I’ve traveled for eight years and countless miles to get here. Right. Here. It’s my turn to get the girl. I’ve earned it. So … yeah … I call dibs. Dibs. Dibs. Dibs! I will fucking level anyone in this life or the next that tries to steal you from me. So just …” I blow out a breath and close my eyes. “Say it.”
She grins. “I’m still having an affair with the young male nurse at the nursing home.”
My desperation slides into a smile as I close the distance to claim her lips. “The fuck you are.”
She giggles into the kiss. “Don’t think you can be alpha with me,” she mumbles as I kiss my way down her neck while ripping away the wadded-up shirt from her grasp.
“Nate!” She grips my hair as my teeth tug at her cold, stiff nipple.
“Nate …” Her voice softens as her body surrenders.
“Dibs …” I whisper along her stomach as my fingers curl around her panties.
Her breaths fly out of her mouth like violent gusts of wind as she leans back and lifts her hips to let me slide her wet panties down her legs, dropping to my knees.
“Dibs …” I whisper again, spreading her legs and kissing my way up the inside of her thigh.
“Dibs …” she moans, closing her eyes when my tongue claims her.
She falls apart on the counter, calling my name. Poor Andy must not have known what the fuck he was doing.
“You are so mean.” She grins, staring at me with a drunken gaze as I stand and unfasten my shorts. “Kiss stealer. A bully claiming dibs on me forever. And then taking me to the edge and making me beg.”
I smirk. “Guess that makes me the alpha, no matter how many fistfuls of hair you try to yank out of my scalp.”
Her gaze falls to my hand tugging down my zipper.
“No condom. No sex.” She crosses her legs and gives me a challenging look like she’s won something.
My other hand slides into my pocket, retrieving a condom. “Condom. Sex.” I toss it onto the counter. “But let’s shower first. I don’t want you to get sand in your mouth.” I throw open the shower curtain and turn on the water.
“How would I get sand in my mouth?” She eases off the vanity.
I step out of my shorts and briefs, knowing her shameless gaze will go right to my erection, and her tongue will instinctively swipe along her lower lip.
Her gaze shoots to mine, filled with realization.
I smile, tapping my teeth together. “Gritty.”
She flips her hip out, crossing her arms over her chest. “What makes you think I’m going to do that?”
I stroke myself several times, gently, really fucking gently because … sand. “Just a hunch.”
“Dream on. You threw me in the water.”
“Get in the shower.”
She narrows her eyes. “You get in.”
She’s her own little firecracker. Anything less wouldn’t be half the fun.
“Fine by me.” I get in and slide the curtain shut, wasting no time squirting soap into my hand and sudsing up. I’m entirely clean by the time she peeks inside. “Come on in.” I shrug. “But only if you want to.”
She rolls her eyes, stepping inside. “It’s my shower.”
“Then you should have called dibs.”
Before she can work another word out of her smart mouth, I kiss her. We kiss until her fingers curl into my chest. We kiss until they slide down my abs like she’s counting them. We kiss until she grabs my cock and strokes it. That’s when she lets go of my mouth and kisses her way down my body.
When whisky eyes find mine, a breath before she takes me into her mouth, I don’t smile. I’m not stupid. Nope. I close my eyes and wonder if the day will ever come that I can really have her. Words mean nothing if another man forever holds her heart. I close my eyes and dream on …
Like forty-somethings pretending we’re still in our twenties, we use that condom within minutes of getting out of the shower—again against the vanity since her parents sleep in her bed. I guess that proves we’re not in our twenties. A couple of twenty-somethings wouldn’t think twice about having sex on someone else’s bedsheets.
God … I miss my twenties.
For lack of another choice, I have to slip back into my wet, sand-covered briefs and shorts as Gracelyn slides on clean, white panties then pulls on a black cotton T-shirt dress. She won’t look me in the eye, and her teeth work her lower lip overtime. I brace for what she’s working up the courage to say to me.
She clears her throat, sitting on the end of the bed as I run my fingers through my wet hair. “What you said earlier …”
“It was desperate … hopeful … but mostly desperate. If you’re never ready, then you’re never ready. I just had to say it so I could leave without any regrets.” I try to put her mind at ease before she chews a hole in that sexy lip of hers.
Gracelyn plays with her bracelet and nods. “Before … everything.” She laughs a little. “Before Brandon. Before I had the chance to fall in love. I dreamed of you. You didn’t have a face or a name. Your voice was simply a medley of my favorite love songs, the whisper in my head when reading my favorite poems about love. You were the reason I woke up two hours before school to do my hair and makeup in hopes that some boy would give me a second glance. It was you … the idea of you. The dream of you. The promise from my adoring mother that someday I would find my Romeo. When my brain managed to think about something other than hockey or boys … my heart was still thinking of you.”
She curls her hair behind her ear and risks a quick, almost shy, glance up at me. “It’s hard to believe that Brandon was nothing more than something … someone I had to experience to find my way to you. And now it’s hard to understand how you’re here. Yet, you’re leaving. And six months ago, I would have loaded up my car and followed you anywhere and just … figured out how to deal with my past one day at a time, but I can’t follow you. And you can’t stay. And that’s okay. It means we have people who need us … need us to do the right thing more than we need each other right now. So …”
She blots the corners of her eyes. Her bravery is just as beautiful as she is. “I’m going to focus on doing right by Gabe. And in my free time, I’m going to work on these memories that still haunt me. And if some unforeseen path brings us together, I will feel bless
ed beyond words.” Her red eyes meet mine. “And if it doesn’t, I want you to know … you’ve been everything the ten-year-old version of me dreamed you would be. And more. So much more.”
I don’t know what to say. I had no idea we were coming to San Diego so this woman could stitch up every single one of my wounds, kiss every scar, and remind my heart that it has an infinite capacity to love. Swallowing past the boulder in my throat, I run my hand across her dresser to a stack of photos.
“Don’t look at those!” Gracelyn jumps up and reaches for them, but I hold them up out of her reach.
“What do we have here?”
“Ugh!” She steps back and covers her face. “Kyle used to take photos. Candid ones and never anything flattering. My mom brought them from home. She’s been going through some old boxes of his that they still have, looking for things that Gabe might want. For whatever crazy reason, she thought I’d want those. I don’t. They will get burned.”
I grin, flipping through them. A young, long-haired Gracelyn with ten times as many freckles. Several with her tongue out, but not at the camera. He caught her sticking her tongue out at someone else. There’s one of her with her fingers in her ears. One of her sleeping on a blanket in the sun, drool all down her cheek.
“Stop!” She shakes her head. “They are terrible. It was my first summer home from college. All of my freckles had converged into one big freckle face. So embarrassing.” She covers her face.
“This one.” I set the other ones down. “I’m taking this one.”
“You’re doing no such thing.” She reaches for the picture, but I turn away from her. “Fine … at least show me which one so I can accurately plan my level of embarrassment if you show it to anyone else.”
“It’s this one.” I hold it with both hands up in the air so she can see it, but not actually reach it.
“My eyes are closed.” She rolls her eyes.
“You’re giggling. I can almost hear it. And you’re wearing a bikini. The sun is on your beautiful face. It’s … perfect.”
Her smile fades a little as she takes a second look at it. “I was trying to get some sun, and Kyle kept standing in the way, making this huge shadow over me. I was getting pissed off. He tried to apologize. I wanted nothing to do with it—stuck my lip out in a permanent frown. He bet me ten bucks he could make me laugh. I said no because I knew it meant he’d tickle me. He said he could do it without laying a finger on me. So I agreed.” She continues to study the photo, her smile slowly recovering.
