He grabbed her hands and pinned them above her head, then leaned down to rub the dirt from his cheek against the side of hers.
“Eweh!”
They were both laughing, chests heaving, before either one of them realized where they were.
The deep blue pools of his eyes watched hers as everything around them calmed except the pounding of their hearts.
Her head told her to move, push him away. She saw the indecision in his eyes as well.
The forest closed in and the chemistry they’d been denying since they met zeroed in on this very moment. Zach’s heated gaze lingered over hers.
“Make me stop,” Zach whispered over her lips.
The brisk staccato of his breath raced against hers.
His lips were so close and the need to feel them too strong to deny. “I-I can’t.”
His eyes searched hers. “I can’t either.”
Zach’s warm breath was nothing compared to his lips. Soft, sensual, and searching. His kiss was so caring and careful she closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel. It had been so long since she’d lost herself in something so basic she’d forgotten how wonderful it was to just be kissed. She moaned and kissed him back, opened her lips against his to play and deepen the feeling they both had wanted for so long.
Zach released the hold on her arms and they fell behind his back to hold him close while his tongue slid beside hers for a solid taste. He was testosterone, and pine…strength and desire all rolled up in one.
His body pressed her into the soft earth and her leg wound around his to bring him closer. She broke contact briefly, then rushed back in for more. The taut muscles of his back narrowed to his waist and tight ass. When was the last time she felt anything so perfect?
They went on like this until breathing became a serious effort and a warm fire pooled just south of her stomach. Zach’s thumb pushed against her breast, and her nipple hardened.
Reason started to leak back in. If Zach was anyone other than Michael’s brother, she’d welcome everything. His kisses, his caress, the erection she felt even now as it pressed through his clothing and against her leg.
She couldn’t do this. Maybe in six months, when she and Michael were divorced…but now? The deceit to Zach, the disloyalty to Michael…
Karen forced her emotions back in and ended their kiss.
Zach watched her under a hooded gaze.
“We can’t…”
He closed his eyes, rested his forehead against hers. “I know.”
She swallowed and tried to catch her breath.
“I should run from you as fast as my feet can take me away,” he confessed.
Remorse laced his words. She wanted to tell him he wasn’t an awful brother and she wasn’t a cheating wife, but that could only lead to an explanation that would ruin Michael.
“Don’t hate yourself Zach.”
“How can’t I? I think about you. Dream about you.” He opened his eyes and found hers again.
“Maybe after this kiss, that will all fade.”
He smiled through the pain. “I’d like to believe that.”
The thought left her cold. She’d dream of nothing but him.
“We should go. Before someone else comes looking for us.”
He nodded, looked as if he were going to kiss her again, but then pulled away and helped her to her feet.
When he turned around, she noticed the muddy handprint on his ass and cringed. She looked down at herself and noticed his print on the side of her waist and breast.
“Zach?”
He turned around and she pointed to her clothing. “Oh, that’s not good.”
“You have a little…” She pointed to his butt. He noticed the damage and smeared a patch of fresh dirt to cover her prints. Karen followed his lead and did the same to herself. After the two of them were satisfied with the hiding of evidence, Karen slid behind him on the motorcycle and he drove her back to the cabin.
Chapter Eighteen
Michael rode up to the cabin, killed the engine on his bike, and jumped off with a smile. He couldn’t remember feeling more relaxed. He really did need to thank Karen for insisting they travel to Utah.
His mother stood in front of the sink washing vegetables when he walked inside. He snagged a carrot from her stash and popped it into his mouth. “Hey.”
“Hi, honey.”
“Where is everyone?”
The cabin was unusually quiet this close to dinner hour.
“Hannah and Judy took off with some friends hours ago. Your dad and Joe are teaching little Eli how to fish…though I’m guessing they just didn’t want to stick around here for me to put them to work. Rena is putting Susie down for a nap in our room, and I think Zach went looking for Karen.”
“Looking for her? Where did she go?”
“Rena said she went for a run. But that was a few hours ago and we started to worry so Zach headed out on a motorcycle. I’m sure she’s fine,” Janice offered. From the expression on her face, she didn’t seem at all concerned.
“There you are,” Rena exclaimed as she walked into the kitchen. She slid an arm around his waist and Michael kissed the top of her head.
“Miss me?”
“Fishing for a compliment?”
“Maybe.” Their banter had always been like this…playful and easy.
Rena gave him a hug. “Can I talk to you a minute?” She nodded toward the door.
“Sure.” He grabbed a couple more carrots and followed his sister outside. They moved away from the cabin and she laced her arm through his.
“What’s up?” He asked between bites.
Rena sucked in a deep breath and didn’t answer right away. When Michael smiled down at her, his stomach churned. “What is it?”
“You know I love you…right?”
He narrowed his eyes and tossed the carrots to the ground. Did any conversation ever start out like that and end well? “Of course. I love you, too.”
She tugged on his arm and kept walking.
“I wanted to talk to you before Karen came back.”
The suspense was killing him, but he kept listening and tried not to jump to conclusions.
“Before she could tell you about our conversation.”
“What conversation?” he asked.
“It wasn’t a conversation so much as me talking to her. She really cares for you, Michael.”
His palms were actually sweating. So much for his perfect day. “I care for her, too.”
“Last year when we all heard about your marriage I remember watching the coverage on TV and thinking it was all a Hollywood stunt. A prank for a movie or something like it. Then after you talked with Mom and Dad and you told them you really were married I still didn’t believe it.”
“We really are married.” He tried to laugh but it came out strangled.
“Yeah, I get that. But you’re not going to stay that way.”
He stumbled, but kept walking.
“That’s what I told Karen. She didn’t seem surprised by my observation.”
Was that what this was about? A divorce? “We have had some problems,” he said. “Being married to me isn’t that easy.” He tried to put the blame on him.
Rena released an exasperated sigh. “Please, Mike. I know you’re not divorcing Karen because it isn’t working out between you. You’re divorcing her because that was in the plan all along.”
The pounding in his temple started to throb. “Did she tell you that?”
“Of course not. And stop looking at me like that. You did have a life here before you moved away, Mike. You might not remember all the conversations you and I had when you were a kid, but I remember them.”
They stopped now, feet from the lake, and were watching each other.
“I think you married Karen because your image needed it. The blockbuster superstar Michael Wolfe needed a wife. So poof! Here’s a wife.”
He swallowed. “Does anyone else think this?”
“Mo
m and Dad? No. And I don’t think Hannah and Judy…or even Zach realize this either. Not yet anyway. Though I think Zach suspects something isn’t right.”
“But Joe?”
“Joe’s my husband. We talk about everything. As I suspect you and Karen talk about everything.”
He wanted to tell his sister she was wrong…he couldn’t.
“Please…please don’t say anything to them.”
Rena tilted her head to the side and offered a sad smile. “I won’t.”
A sense of relief washed over him. At least there was one person in his family that understood his marriage arrangement. One ally when the divorce took place.
Michael hugged his sister.
Before she pulled away, she whispered, “I also know you’re gay.”
When the cabin came into view, Zach felt Karen straighten on the back of the bike. Her arms loosened around his waist and her breasts no longer sat snug against his back. He missed her instantly. He had no idea what he was going to do about his attraction. She was equally torn, desperate even. There were times in his life when he heard about someone having an affair, and he always thought how stupid could two people be? Why would someone risk so much for a fuck? But damn, that wasn’t Karen. This was more than physical and they both knew it. If it were only physical, they’d have probably given in by now, jumped in full force and not danced around with conversation.
No, Zach wanted to explore the woman riding behind him on his bike, and not just in bed. He wanted to understand the sad look in her eyes when she talked about the kids she took such loving care of at the club. Why did she say she didn’t want kids, yet act like they were the most precious thing in the world?
If there was one thing their brief intimate moment proved, it was that he wasn’t sated. He wanted more. So much more.
Zach helped Karen off his bike, held on to her elbow a little too long. Their eyes met briefly.
“Wow! Looks like you two went one-on-one with Loch Ness herself.”
From the porch, Rena sat with Mike, both of them watching them with smiles.
Trusting smiles.
The situation was making him sicker by the hour.
Karen lifted her arms in the air. “There was a flock of birds…I fell in the lake.”
Mike’s smile fell. “Oh. Are you OK?”
“Scared the crap out of me.” Karen offered a coy smile to Zach. “Then Zach started to laugh.”
“Ah, now I understand the mud all over Zach. She hates birds, big brother. With a passion. Telling her they aren’t out to peck her eyes or claw her hair won’t make her believe it.”
“I’m right here! And they do those things all the time.” Karen shuddered. “After last year with Gwen…” She hugged herself, lost in thought.
“What happened with Gwen?” Zach asked.
“There was a guy stalking her, leaving dead ravens at the house, by our cars…” Karen’s voice drifted off and Mike finished for her.
“The guy wasn’t after Gwen, but using her to get to Neil. You met them at the party.”
“Big guy and British woman, right?”
“Right. Well, Neil is an ex-Marine. The guy after him was one of his men back when he served. He took out Gwen and Karen’s neighbors while we were in France.”
“Took out?” Rena asked.
“Murdered,” Michael elaborated. “Thank God Karen wasn’t there when that happened. He left ravens everywhere, apparently.”
“It was awful.” Karen’s voice dropped to low tones.
Zach reached out and rubbed Karen’s arm. He actually felt bad for laughing at her now that he heard the story.
“What happened to the stalker?” Rena asked.
Zach glanced at his brother.
Mike gave a quick slicing gesture to his neck, his explanation clear.
“My fear of birds happened long before last year. It’s just the way I’m wired,” Karen told them.
Thinking nothing of the move, Zach gave her a quick hug. His arm slipped away when he looked up to find Rena staring at him. Mike, on the other hand, was staring at Rena.
“I need a shower,” Karen announced as she ducked away from Zach and up the short stairs into the cabin.
Mike followed Karen into the cabin, and Zach watched them go.
He dragged his hands over his chest to rub off some of the caked on mud before he made his way to the second shower of his day.
“Oh, boy,” Rena mumbled before Zach could walk by.
“Excuse me?”
Rena shook her head, and didn’t meet his gaze. “Nothing. Think I’ll go find the girls for dinner.”
No sooner did Karen step from the shower than Michael confronted her.
“We need to make our excuses and leave.” He whispered his words and kept glancing over his shoulder to the voices that carried from outside the cabin.
“Rena spoke to you.”
He nodded. “She knows everything.”
“I didn’t—”
He placed a finger to her lips. “I know you didn’t. But I need to get out of here before someone else figures it out.”
His need to leave gave her the opportunity to detach herself from Zach. She’d proved a massive lack of willpower in regards to the oldest Gardner son.
“I’ve already called Tony,” Michael said. “Told him to call an hour from now. As it turns out, production is starting early.”
Michael would run off, and she’d be walking around his house alone once again. “I think I should start transitioning back to the Tarzana house.”
The home in Tarzana was the one she shared with Gwen before she married Neil. The home belonged to Samantha and Blake, and Neil’s friend Rick occasionally occupied it, but with the scheduled divorce approaching, it was always understood that Karen would move back.
“We don’t have to think about that now, do we?”
Karen looked over Michael’s shoulder, then back to him. “I don’t know why we’d wait. You signed contracts. You’re ready for the next couple of years.”
“Let’s talk about this later.”
“All right.”
The smell of charcoal from the barbeque drifted from the grill, reminding Karen that she’d not eaten since before lunch.
Karen soaked in Michael’s family for the next hour. Eli sat beside his grandfather asking him why the sky was blue. She hadn’t really thought kids actually asked those questions, but apparently, she was wrong.
Judy and Hannah were highly animated with the conversation about how far…or in the case of their conversation…how unfar, the football players of Hilton actually got in life.
“C’mon, Rena, who played football when you were in school?”
“Mason Reynolds was the quarterback senior year.”
“Mr. Reynolds?” Hannah cringed when she said the man’s name. “He’s fat…and slow.”
“And bald,” Judy added.
“And living in his daddy’s old home,” Hannah pointed out. “See…another football player doomed to go nowhere and do nothing.”
“Hey, I played football,” Zach protested.
“You’re different,” Hannah said.
Karen laughed and cut into the steak on her plate right as Michael’s phone rang.
He made a show of looking at who was calling. “I have to take this. Sorry.” He jumped up from the table and moved away from the family to talk to Tony.
Zach and Rena watched him walk away while the rest of the family continued with their meal. Karen put down her fork, no longer hungry.
“Most football players peak in high school,” Judy said between bites. “Unless they play college ball.”
Joe laughed and pointed to Eli. “Guess that means you get to play baseball.”
They were laughing when Michael made his way back to the table.
Janice took one look at her son and said, “What is it?”
He released a Hollywood sigh that Karen picked up on but didn’t think his family did. “Production on m
y next film is moving up by two weeks.” He offered Karen a sympathetic look. “We have to get home…tonight.”
“No,” Hannah protested.
“Do you have to?” Judy asked.
“Oh, honey.” Janice looked devastated. “Can’t you make them wait?”
Michael rested a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “Doesn’t work that way. There’s a huge crew being brought in…it’s complicated.”
Nice vague answer, Michael.
The only one at the table who didn’t seem to buy it was Rena. Her gaze skidded past Karen’s only to drop to her plate. She probably blamed herself for his early departure.
Karen scooted out from the table and dropped her napkin onto her plate.
“You can finish your meal,” Janice insisted.
“I’m nearly done anyway. I’ll run upstairs and pack.”
Judy jumped up. “I’ll help.”
Before they reached the cabin, Karen heard Zach say, “I’ll drive you back to the house.”
Karen shoved her cosmetic bag into her suitcase, and rolled her dirty clothes into a plastic bag before pushing them on top of her clean clothes.
“I can’t believe you guys have to run.”
“It’s the nature of Michael’s business. Always on the run.”
“Doesn’t seem fair.”
Karen sat on the edge of her bunk and rested an arm around Judy’s shoulders. “I’m sure he’ll be back more often now that he’s spent time with everyone. And you’re always welcome to visit.”
“I’d like that.”
Karen squeezed Judy and stood to zip up her bag.
Michael made his way to his bed with a tearful Hannah trailing behind him. “You better not fall off the face of the earth again,” she scolded.
“Talk about dramatic, Hannah-banana. I’ll be back.” Michael exchanged looks with Karen as they passed in the loft.
Halfway down the stairs, Zach met her and took her bag. “Let me.”
She mumbled a soft thanks as he jogged her luggage out the door. The lump in her throat was growing as the minutes passed. Having grown up with only her aunt, Karen had missed big family gatherings and good-byes. At this moment, she was happy for that loss.
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