“Thank you. It feels a lot better.” My voice sounded foreign and far away. Maybe the pain meds were working now.
“Good. You’re relaxed and loose and ready to surrender to the meds now, I think.”
The weight and warmth of his hands disappeared. The mattress dipped and the scent of him left. I stiffened, lifted my head from the pillow. “Nick . . .”
“Yeah?”
I opened my mouth, grateful I was facedown with my expression hidden, as I willed the words to come. Pride and shame warred within me.
“Zora.” I flinched at his sudden nearness, the whisper of his breath along the shell of my ear. The barest touch as he followed the profile of my nose. “You can have whatever you want. All you have to do is ask. You know that, right?” His hand returned, drawing circles on my lower back with soothing strokes.
My heart lurched at the words, and the surprising tenderness in his voice. I found the courage to work up the request. “Will you stay? Will you stay here with me?”
His hand paused in its circuit. “I’m not going anywhere. Let’s get you comfortable.”
Together, we rearranged pillows until I was less inclined to saw off the insistent throbbing of my foot. He kept distance between our bodies, but I felt his presence.
And I wanted him. I missed the feel of his body against mine. I wanted to shelter under him, to seek refuge in his strength.
What we had was gone, I knew that. Accepted it.
Don’t be weak, came a hectoring voice from the back of my mind.
I shushed it.
Would it be so wrong, just this once, if I chose to remember what was once precious? To take the good instead of fixating on the bad? To relax into the warmth I so badly needed instead of fighting with confusion? To have one night, one bit of sleep, where my mind wasn’t buzzing incessantly with all the what ifs?
Tomorrow, we could resume our roles. I’d renew my senseless efforts to protect a heart I’d already given away. But for right now, just for tonight . . .
I reached back, my fingers blindly seeking until I encountered his hair-roughened arm. I grasped his forearm, my hand sliding to his palm, then tugged his arm over my waist until he had no choice but to move. He inched forward obligingly, sliding into place until we fit like puzzle pieces. Solid warmth surrounded me. His unique smell invaded my senses. His chin nested in my wild hair.
I didn’t want to let go of his hand.
“I’m here, Zora. I’m not going anywhere. Everything’s okay, baby.” His thumb moved along my knuckles restlessly.
I closed my eyes.
In peace.
Chapter Twenty-One
Zora
Sir Duke’s unblinking stare woke me. Soulful, wet eyes peered into mine from less than three feet away.
“Good morning, sweet boy.” I nuzzled his head and he pushed into my hand, teaching me how he preferred his pets.
I took a moment to stretch and take stock. Nick had woken me up in the middle of the night to feed me more medication, then wrapped himself back around me like a barnacle before we drifted back to sleep. Under the covers, he was curled around my non-injured side. Even in sleep, his grip around my waist was firm, and his prickly chin rested on my forehead.
The bed, the sheets, had taken on the smell I craved.
It was heaven. The best I’d felt in a long time.
Nick and I were in bed together. We’d cuddled all night long.
Yikes. So much for keeping my distance.
Sir Duke nudged me with his nose, more insistently this time. I didn’t speak fluent dog, but I finally deduced he needed to, as my grandma Leffersbee would have said, “make water.”
Gently, I disengaged from Nick’s hold, hopped over to the pair of crutches leaning against the wall and shrugged on the fancy robe I’d told Leigh I’d never have an opportunity to wear. Sir Duke followed me through the house, then exploded out the back door into my fenced yard like a canon. I lowered myself to the steps to watch this fascinating dog-horse acquaint himself with the new territory.
Turned out Sir Duke was particular about where he peed. He sniffed around the perimeter of the yard, sampled the essence of several bushes, nose turned up.
What was the criteria for a good pee spot, anyway?
I leaned back on the concrete pillar, resting my uninjured heel on the edge of the step below.
The sky was gorgeous with a burgeoning sunrise. Weak sunlight strained through the lattice of overcast clouds, dispersing scattered light. I breathed in the damp, chrysanthemum-scented air and relished the quiet, the stillness, all around me and in my mind.
How long had it been since I’d sat on my own back porch and took in a sunrise? Why had I starved my soul of these moments?
And why did these revelations have to coincide with the arrival of the big, sexy beast of a man, the former love of my heart, who still slept in my bed?
Sir Duke raised his hind leg in front of a bush, finally satisfied.
I shook my head. Just when I thought I had things figured out, they kept changing.
Business done, Sir Duke headed over to me, picking his way up the stairs on giant paws until we sat hip to hip on the top stair.
I lost track of how long we sat together in the stillness of morning. The giant dog planted his head in my lap and I stroked his flank, lulled to calm by the perfectly measured intervals of his breaths.
“Well, isn’t this cozy.”
I didn’t turn at the familiar voice behind me, but Sir Duke shot up, tail wagging. The screen door scraped opened and Nick lowered himself beside me several beats later. Sir Duke wriggled his head against me on the opposite side, determined to wedge himself between the porch’s stone pillar and my hip.
Sitting like this, all of us in a row? We looked like . . .
Dangerous thinking.
Have a seat, I told my heart. We’re not a family. He’s a man you haven’t known in twelve years. Maybe he didn’t cheat on you, but he sure as hell left. There’s no mistaking that.
I took a deep breath and steeled myself for whatever came next. Nick’s lean hip inched closer into my soft one.
“Good morning.”
I turned my head and found him closer than I expected, gaze fixed on mine with disquieting intensity. He looked rested. The shadows under his eyes were fainter. Dark strands of hair rioted all over his head in delicious disarray. I wanted to run my fingertips through the hard-scrabbled growth of beard.
“Good morning, yourself. You look like you finally got some sleep. God only knows how.”
“Best sleep I’ve had in over ten years.” The quiet intensity in his voice quickened my breathing. “I see you snuck out and hobbled around on that foot.”
“I’m still able-bodied. Just a little slow. And Sir Duke has needs,” I said pointedly. The dog nudged farther into my lap as if validating the statement.
Nick shook his head at his dog. “He seems to be doing all right.”
“I wanted to thank you.” I stared fixedly ahead into the yard and the struggling summer flower bed badly in need of weeding. “For everything. For taking me to the hospital, sitting there with me all that time. Everything you did afterward.” Heat warmed my cheeks. Thankfully, he didn’t jump on that comment. “You were right. It wouldn’t have been nearly as comfortable a night without you.”
Silence.
His fingertip hooked under my chin and steered my face to his. “Don’t you understand? There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing.”
My insides turned to mush. Help me, God.
“I wish you’d let me do more.”
“You’ve done enough. More than you should. But I’m grateful for you being here. It means a lot. I didn’t remember you didn’t like hospitals until after we’d gotten home, so this was selfish of me. I know how hard your mom’s car accident was all those years ago. I hope being there didn’t stir up any memories for you.”
Two starlings took flight from the nearby tree, tiny bodies encircli
ng in an aimless, careening trajectory.
I watched their progress until they were out of sight.
Nick was silent, his face averted.
“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, bringing it up.” I rested my hand atop his hand on the concrete step. Despite our close proximity the previous night, the gesture somehow felt unbearably intimate.
Maybe because it was, now. Things had changed between us; there was no mistaking that.
His eyes, when they finally met mine again, were full of something so bleak and terrible my breath caught.
“Let’s get some breakfast in you.” He stood, efficiently scooped me off the steps, and herded both Sir Duke and me into the kitchen.
It was a hell of an effective way to change the topic.
Once inside, I watched him as he moved around my small kitchen and acquainted himself with the disorganized contents of my cupboards and drawers. He’d pasted on a smile for me but I read the tension in his tightly drawn shoulders, read the turmoil tight on his face. Something was wrong and he was doing what he’d always done: suppressing some powerful emotion while focusing his energy elsewhere.
“Where do you keep your whisk?”
I rose from the kitchen table and tucked a crutch under one arm.
“Don’t get up. Just point.”
“It’s my kitchen and you don’t know your way around. Plus, I wanna watch what’s happening. I have a feeling you haven’t cooked for yourself in a long time. You might not know what you’re doing.”
I wasn’t fooled by the wry grin he sent my way. “You don’t remember my killer omelets?”
“I do. But when was the last time you made one?”
He intercepted my progress to the sink, cutting me off at the butcher block-topped island. His hands went to my waist and he lifted me, deposited me on a nearby counter.
“You can watch from there. But don’t move again.”
I pointed out the correct drawer and he retrieved the whisk.
“So, what do you think of my house?” I looked around, trying to see my house, my life, through his eyes.
He hesitated as he reached for a mixing bowl. His head was behind the door of the refrigerator when he finally answered.
“Well . . . it’s a fixer-upper, right?”
“Yeah. I was supposed to fix it and flip it.”
He squinted at me as he cracked eggs into the bowl. “So, why didn’t you?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. It grew on me. Then Leigh came to live on the other side and flipping it didn’t seem so important anymore. Is it that bad?” I looked around with new eyes, assessing the hardwood floors that probably needed updating sooner rather than later and the worn cabinets.
“It just doesn’t look like you. I keep expecting Scooby Doo and the gang to show up and investigate a haunting, that’s all.”
He passed my Bluetooth speaker and his phone to me. “Be a good sous chef and get these connected.”
I blinked down at his phone in my hand, opened, unlocked. Unguarded.
I was pretty sure this exact scenario would be Walker and Jackson’s worst nightmare.
“What are you going to play?”
“You’ll see. I think you’ll like it.”
He was right. I did.
He picked one of the playlists from his streaming service, a virtual love-letter to Motown, heavy on Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin.
“I see my father’s influence had a lasting effect,” I said, after we’d both bopped around to Stevie’s “Sir Duke.”
He smiled from his post at the stove where he waited, spatula in hand, to flip the omelet. “Yes. Although I never picked up his signature Soul Train moves.”
“Thank God for that.”
“Eh, he wasn’t half bad.”
“I was similarly corrupted by your mother’s Coldplay obsession. I can’t hear ‘Yellow’ without hearing your mother sing it. I still remember her impromptu concerts, singing into the empty paper towel roll in the kitchen.”
The song transitioned and Aretha took over, singing, “Ain’t No Way.”
Nick stared into the skillet, though I doubted he saw its contents.
“Time to turn,” I said, fighting the inclination to climb down from the counter to help. To gather him in my arms and hold him close, close enough that I could share his burden and ease whatever put the current look on his face.
He seemed to return from his reverie, shaking his head. “I’d forgotten about that. I remember the time I found her in the kitchen, in the middle of the night, listening to ‘Fix You.’ Singing along, looking so sad. She turned it off when she saw me. For a while, I’d wondered who she wanted to fix. Later, I realized it was her. She wanted to fix herself.” His eyes closed briefly. “That was right before we left.”
He passed by me to grab the plates he’d set aside.
I grabbed the corner of his shirt and pulled him back in my direction.
Surprise bloomed on his face as he allowed me to tug him into my space, in the space between my legs.
“Nick.” I hesitated, suddenly at a loss for words and courage.
I almost regretted my moment of impulsivity with him this close. With me on the counter, our height disparity was nearly eliminated. There was no missing the banked heat in his eyes, the way he ever-so-slightly bit his lip when his gaze moved over my face and settled on my mouth. I couldn’t ignore how stark fear leaked into my bloodstream and set my heart on a new, galloping pace. But I also couldn’t turn from the concern, the deep abiding love I’d always had for the boy who became this hardened man.
“I know it’s been a long time. Things haven’t been easy between us. But I want you to know . . . I’m always your friend. I’ll always care. Whatever’s wrong, I understand if you’re not comfortable telling me or wanting me to know. No matter what, even if I’ve wanted to kill you recently, I’m here for you.”
His chest lifted. His throat worked. His hand came to a rest against my face. I leaned into it, sighed when his thumb traced a coarse trail against my cheek. My grip on the hem of his T-shirt tightened, exerted more pressure, pulled him farther into me. I gathered the courage to meet his eyes and lost my breath at the raw need, the wanting, in his eyes. His hands slid around my sides and crushed me to him. Relief overcame me when, finally, his mouth lowered to mine.
Nick
I didn’t know how to be gentle or gentlemanly now that I was here with Zora in my arms, finally, after all this time. After years of yearning for her, of dreaming of this moment, wishing for the day, for the moment that would bring her back and make me whole again, here I was.
Her mouth was soft and warm. I took all she offered, followed the shy invitation of her tongue, and claimed her taste. Her hands slid around my neck, branded me with cool fire, urged me closer. She pressed the round softness of her breasts against me until I was painfully hard and desperate. I was desperate to feel all of her against all of me, to be inside her, to possess all of her, all distance, barriers, secrets removed.
Secrets.
Oh yeah.
The fire alarm erupted with an ear-splitting shriek.
Thank God. I pulled away, worked to reclaim control.
Zora hissed.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s okay. My foot—”
So much for displaying my competence. I managed to further mangle her foot and burn our breakfast in the process.
In the time it took to air out the kitchen and get Zora resettled at the kitchen table, I’d decided.
No more putting if off. I had to tell her what happened. Not telling her and acting on my ever-deepening feelings was deceitful.
I had to tell her the truth.
Now.
I tried, Mrs. Leffersbee.
I turned her chair to face me square on and captured her hands in mine. A sick, queasy feeling twisted my stomach as something like apprehension entered her eyes. God, I was so close. I prayed this moment, this revelation, didn’t set us back again. �
�I need to tell you what happened that night.”
Her eyes got big. “What night?”
“The night I left.”
She took an audible breath. Seeing the slight tremble in her hand as she pushed her hair behind her ear made me feel like a dick.
I should have done this sooner. But in truth, there really hadn’t been a good time.
“So, something happened before you gave me the letter? You weren’t just planning to disappear the whole time?”
It hurt that she’d ever believed that was a possibility. “Never. I never would have left you, or our plans, if I could’ve helped it.”
“Then what happened?” She wrapped her arms around herself, a self-soothing gesture that almost broke me. I hated that I was the thing that could break her.
But it was time. Time to tell her the truth about the past, if I ever wanted any chance of a future with her.
I gripped my water glass, played a mental edition of Jenga with my thoughts. Where do I start?
“I took my mother to Michigan after her first drug overdose here in Green Valley.”
She leaned forward, her eyes huge in her head. “Overdose? What? What happened? Were you with her?” She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. Only answer if you can, if you don’t mind telling me.”
I shrugged. “It’s simple and short.” Now you’re lying to yourself. “Won’t take long. You remember those days when Mom was disappearing, not calling? Lost for days?” I closed my eyes against the memories. That time in my life had demonstrated the remarkable elasticity of the human heart, how it accommodated both profound love and profound disappointment. I’d loved my mother and could never adequately articulate the enormity of my devotion to her.
But I’d hated what she’d become, the things that she did for a time.
I’d hated how my anger changed me, how much it had reminded me of my own father.
“I got angry. Lost my temper.”
Been There Done That Page 23
