by Alison Kent
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” he said, setting the guitar on end in the window seat. Then he looked up. “There are a lot of things I don’t want you to know. A lot you never will.”
His words shouldn’t have hurt. Or at least they shouldn’t have caused more than a twinge of reaction. But to hear him put them out there with such bluntness was like being punched in the midsection by a fist.
His striking out was driven by Sierra’s death and Luna’s survival and the ten-year anniversary reminding him of both. She knew that as sure as she was standing here near tears, aching from the inside out, hurt by his indifference when her feelings for him were… No. Her feelings for him were nothing. She had to believe that.
He made it easy when he stood and turned to face the window, his hands shoved into his pockets, his shoulders slumped.
He didn’t care about her memories, or what his family had meant to her—and not just Sierra, but his parents, his younger siblings. How much she’d loved them all. How much she’d loved him, past tense, because she’d known him only then. And this man was not that one. He was so different, angry and mean, and so much more, with the things hiding behind his eyes.
She didn’t know what to say to him, if anything at all, because she didn’t know what he wanted, or needed, or what he was going through. What coming back here had done to him, was doing even now. And so she turned to go, helplessness like a scythe cutting her in half, one part unable to leave, one part unable to stay.
As she reached the door, her footsteps slowed, then faltered, then stopped completely. She shook her head, closing her eyes and seeing again the picture of his silhouette framed against the bare window. He was alone, and lonely, bereft. How could she leave him? How could she continue to be so selfish, thinking of her loss, expecting him to think of hers, too, when his was so much greater?
Knowing she could very well be making a huge mistake, she retraced her steps, continuing to where he stood, waiting long enough for him to know she was there, then placing her palm on his back. He didn’t flinch. In fact, a shudder ran through him, and he flexed as if doing so would keep her near.
Except she didn’t know if it was her he wanted, or just… someone. She didn’t need to. All the things that had brought him here were things she was aware of, for the most part understood, in many cases shared. But touching him without his rejecting her, learning the man he was now, gave her such incredible pleasure that she pushed aside the issue of his wanting her there. It was where she wanted to be.
She slipped both arms around him, laid her cheek against his back, and stacked her hands over his belly. His muscles there contracted as she did. He was warm and solid, and she loved the feel of him, and she didn’t want to let him go, and oh, how had she forgotten what he felt like? It had been so long, and she shouldn’t have missed this so much but she had, and she hated that she had. Hated, too, that she was giving too much meaning to the moment. He would shake off the melancholia soon enough, then shake her off for bearing witness to the weakness.
But he surprised her, covering her hands with his instead, turning in her arms, breaking her hold. She looked up, and he looked down, and whatever he saw in her eyes decided him. So many emotions, like vapor trails, or wisps of smoke, manifested and then vanished, nothing clear or defined, even to her. She was wrapped up in the short years they’d had together, and a decade of deception, and Angel’s arms. Only the last remained as he lowered his head, and through his reluctance, his mouth found hers.
He was warm, and he tasted of anger and goodness and incredible need as much as incredible hurt. She wanted to give to him, and take from him, and fill herself with him, and pour over him as if she were a warm spring rain. This wasn’t a kiss she knew what to do with, or how to respond to, or one she understood. This was Angelo Caffey all grown up, and she’d wanted to kiss him forever. To let her body melt into his.
He angled his head, moving one hand from her biceps to her back, and lower, bringing her body into his, pushing, pressing. They were as close as one, yet many, many things kept them from being together, clothes the simplest to get rid of but a barrier too risky to remove. And yet a part of her wanted that very thing.
She slid her palms from his waist up his back, his shoulder blades sharp beneath her palms, his body lean and dangerously hungry. She wished she knew how to feed him, but she didn’t know more than how to follow his lead. They’d been together, but they’d never been here. This was new, untested, and yet he was a perfect fit, as if fine-tuned by the years between them.
He kissed her hard, and he kissed her with purpose, and he kissed her with his lips and his teeth and his tongue. His mouth was harsh, but his hands were gentle, even while the pressure he used to hold her to him would not easily give. When he pushed his tongue deep to find hers, she met him, and stroked, and played, and when he pulled his tongue free to tug at her lower lip, she tugged back, shivering, tightening, sizzling in her fingertips, curling her toes in her boots.
All too soon, the sound of a text message hitting her phone punched a hole in the moment. She could’ve stood here in this room with him for hours, but he released first her mouth, then moved his hands from her back to her shoulders, before letting her go completely and stepping away.
She pushed her hair from her face, then pushed her fists into her pockets, ignoring her phone, which she hated so much right now. Her hands were shaking, but not as much as her knees, and her mouth was bruised and tingling.
Now that they’d done this, however, they needed to get past it or what was left of their five days would be disastrous. She wasn’t sure how to make that happen, so she reached for the first thing that came to mind. “I was thinking of going to Malina’s for something to eat. I skipped breakfast, and I’m pretty much starving, and he doesn’t close for an hour.”
Angelo’s gaze darkened as it held hers, but she saw a flash, as if he appreciated what she was doing. As if he were no more ready than she was to talk about what they’d done, and what it might mean, if anything. “Malina’s Diner? You eat there?”
“Of course I eat there,” she said with a shrug. “Everyone in Hope Springs eats there. It’s still the only place in town to get breakfast and supper.”
“But not lunch.”
She shrugged again, trying to look away but unable to, and still tasting him, and wishing things between them were different so she could taste more. “You know Max. Serving breakfast and supper has worked for him all these years.” And then she wondered if talking about the diner was Angelo’s way of letting her down easy. “If you don’t want to go, that’s fine.”
His mouth, red and swollen, quirked. “I don’t remember getting an invitation.”
She thought back over what she’d just said, then smiled. “I’m pretty much starving, and wondered if you’d like to go, too.”
“I could eat.”
“Separate cars? Separate checks?”
He laughed, the sound withering and sarcastic and putting them back on an even keel. “Close quarters getting to be too much?”
“Maybe a little breathing room wouldn’t hurt.”
This time his laughter was more resigned, and more genuine. “Yeah. You being here is definitely making it hard for me to breathe.”
She didn’t know what to do with that. She didn’t know at all. “I’ll see you there in a few then?”
He nodded, but several long seconds passed before she heard his footsteps following her to the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Angelo pulled his rental car onto Three Wishes Road behind Luna’s Audi, letting her take the lead for the drive, and not closing the distance put between them by her heavy foot and her car’s many horses. He knew his way to Malina’s. He didn’t need to keep her in sight. And breathing room was definitely a good idea. He just wasn’t sure the five miles he had to travel before sitting down across from her was going to be enough.
Why had he agreed to come with her? Why hadn’t he just
let her go?
The easy answer was that he wanted more of her. And that was the truth. But it wasn’t the whole truth, or the part of the truth giving him grief. He’d been the one to break the kiss when her phone had buzzed, butting into his good time to remind him whose hands were roaming with clever possessiveness over his back, whose mouth was on his, hot and wet and hungry. Whose body was aligned with his, leaving no room for common sense to pass between.
Why had he agreed to come with her? Why hadn’t he just let her go?
The hard answer was that he wanted more of her. And wanting her to any degree was going to cause him the sort of trouble he didn’t need. He couldn’t have her. He could not have her. He should never have let her touch him. He should’ve moved her hands, stepped out of her embrace, given the memories time to fade. He should have set her away, not turned and fallen into her as if she were there to save his life.
Why had he agreed to come with her? Why hadn’t he just let her go?
He parked his car in the space behind hers, watching as she opened her door and stepped out, her body tight, her movements lithe, her bearing confident, her hair like an unraveled rope. He wanted to wrap the mass around his wrist and bind her. He’d dreamed for eight years of doing so again, hoping she hadn’t cut it because he’d complained it got in the way.
Their past was why he’d agreed to come with her. And he hadn’t let her go because eight years of longing meant the roots of his desire ran almost as deep as his anger.
“Ready?” she asked, once he’d closed his door on the strangling thoughts.
“Do you know how many times I ate here in high school? After football games?” He fell into step beside her as they crossed the asphalt parking lot.
She shook her head. “I went to a different school, remember?”
Right. Even though she’d been at all of his games. “You St. Thomas kids had squat for a football program.”
“St. Thomas wasn’t much for athletics,” she said, stopping at the entrance and lifting her gaze to meet his. “Unless you count tennis. And fencing.”
“I don’t,” he said, and reached around her to pull open the door. She stepped through, her shoulder brushing his arm, her hair catching on the sleeve of his forearm and clinging. He left the strands there as she searched out an empty booth and led the way. “You weren’t on scholarship, right? Your parents paid the tuition?”
“They did. And it wasn’t cheap. But I was an only child, and my dad wasn’t a fan of public schools.” She slid into her seat, then smiled as he slid into his. “Funny. I was an only child. For twenty-eight years. It’s hard to realize that’s about to come to an end.”
He pulled the laminated menu from the prongs of the condiment caddy and stared at the clip art of the daily special. “That’s gotta be strange, the idea of being a sister after all these years.”
“You were what, twelve when Felix was born?” she asked, the question returning him to his recent thoughts of his family falling apart, of his impotence at its happening.
He tried to keep the anger from his voice, but doing so made room for regret, guilt. Emotions he hated. It was so much easier just to stay mad, to be brusque, abrupt. “Yep. There were two years between me and Sierra, then Isidora came along four years later. Then Emilio, then Teresa, then Felix all within six years. The house smelled like sun-dried cloth diapers until I was fifteen.”
“Better than smelling like dirty ones,” she said, and after a moment he chuckled.
Their waitress arrived then, her uniform the same red, yellow, and orange of the neon sign spelling out Malina’s above the diner’s front door. Luna ordered coffee, tomato juice, bacon, and biscuits. Angelo chose the platter with the most pancakes and eggs, wishing for a beer to dull the sharp edge of his mood, having coffee instead. He had to remember the things he needed—information, the truth, Sierra’s secrets—and forget the taste of Luna’s mouth.
Once they were alone, she stacked their menus, returning them to the circular prongs as she picked up their conversation. “Why the gap after Sierra, I wonder?”
“No clue,” he said, as amused by as he was curious about her interest. It wasn’t like they were intimates anymore, discussing family issues. Except Luna knew almost as much as he did about life in the Caffey household. At least, life before the gaping hole where Sierra had been. Though she didn’t know everything, the bad parts, the damage. He ran his right thumb over a scar on the knuckle of the left. “Sometimes I’ve wondered if my mother lost a child.”
“You don’t know?”
He shrugged. “If my parents had planned to add to the family every two years, I would’ve only been four when she did, since Isidora came along two years after that. I don’t remember knowing she was expecting.”
Their waitress returned then with their drinks. Angelo reached for his mug, preferring the bite of black coffee, watching as Luna tore open a sweetener packet and poured the contents into hers, then added enough cream to make a cow cry. Stirring, her eyes downcast, she asked him, “Do you miss them? The kids? Your parents?”
He hadn’t seen them in eight years, but then, they had disowned him. “Yeah. I miss them, but I guess the move to Mexico helped them get their lives back on track. Though I am kinda surprised they stayed.”
“So they’re still there?”
He nodded. “I get a card from Felix every once in a while.”
“But you haven’t gone to see them?”
“Trust me. They don’t want me there.” His brother’s notes, though short, always ended with the suggestion that he not visit. “I’m the one who called my mother’s family for help eight years ago, remember? It’s just that I thought they’d send money. Or come visit for a while. Not pack them up and take them back with them.”
Luna toyed with her spoon, no longer stirring, but still staring downward. “I’m not so sure your contacting your mother’s family didn’t make the inevitable easier.”
“How so?” he asked, because none of it had made much sense.
Not their walking away from the work they’d loved. Not their abandoning their home and their friends, turning their backs on church and school. Yes, he’d been the one to set things in motion, but he’d never expected his parents to give up so easily. Except hadn’t they done just that the day Sierra died?
Frowning, Luna shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I only heard the rumors. I didn’t get out much the first couple of years after the accident.”
Though after graduation she’d come to see him, visits that for both of them were an escape. “What rumors?”
“That the Gatlins had a lot to do with how bad things got,” she said, and finally, finally looked up.
Now he was the one frowning, her words like a bullet in his head, ricocheting and refusing to settle. Damaging. Their food arrived then, the smells of bacon and eggs and pancakes rising in smoky wisps between them. Angelo leaned forward, his wrists against the table’s edge. “Oscar was the one driving. Why would they go after my family?”
Luna unrolled the paper napkin holding her knife and fork. “Sierra was a scholarship student. She didn’t come from the same social set or tax bracket as the majority of the kids at school. Rumor has it, and Angel, this is just rumor, that the Gatlins blamed Sierra for what happened to Oscar because she didn’t belong at St. Thomas. If she hadn’t been there, she and Oscar would never have met.”
“That’s crap,” he said, fumbling with his utensils, the steam from the food nothing compared to that rolling out of his ears. Sierra had earned her place at St. Thomas. She had more right to be there than those who’d paid their way with cash instead of talent. That the Gatlins, that anyone would think otherwise, would blame her when she’d been a passenger, a victim, when she’d been the one who had died…
“Of course it’s crap,” Luna said, the bite of her words tearing into his musings. “But sometimes grieving families can’t accept what happened as an accident. They have to point the finger at someon
e.”
“You pick up this psychobabble in therapy?” he asked, stabbing his short stack. “A support group? Some self-help book?”
She shook her head, using her fork to split a biscuit and butter it. “When I was in the hospital, and even after I was home and confined to bed, I had a lot of visitors. And did a lot of listening. I guess people would think I was sleeping, or too drugged up to hear their whispers, or even too young to understand the subtext of their conversations.”
“But you weren’t any of those things.” She’d always been bright, observant, and she knew people. Knew how to read them, how to manage them. Look what she’d done to him since he’d arrived. Here he was, still wanting to be angry with her, yet sharing a meal, having a conversation. Sounding a lot like they were on the same side. Like eight years of silence didn’t exist between them. That kiss…
“I don’t know,” she said, dragging a bite of biscuit through a syrup pool. “I slept a lot.”
He looked up, watched her smile as she pulled her fork from her mouth. She continued to smile as she chewed, and he shook his head, returning his gaze to his food, but not before it caught on her hand, where she held her fork. He grabbed for the distraction, because her smile was getting in the way of this being breakfast and nothing more.
Nodding toward her knuckles, he asked, “What’s with the scars? Those aren’t from the accident, are they?”
Having set down her fork, she held her hands in front of her, turned them palms up, then palms down, rubbing at a ribbon of red skin over the knuckle of her index finger with the thumb of her other hand. “They’re from my weaving.”
“They look more like they came from a brawl.”
Her smile softened, as if her thoughts pleased her. “If you mean have I done my share of brawling with scissors and thread and my occasionally recalcitrant loom, then yes. That’s exactly what they are.”
“I wouldn’t have thought working with yarn was as dangerous as working with power tools.” He flexed his own hands, watched the healed strips of his own skin tighten.
