Mal seemed to sense his sudden emotion and rubbed his back. He leaned into her, let his head rest against hers. She hadn’t asked how he was doing, if he was okay or if he wanted to talk about it. She was just there. He was grateful. He wasn’t ready to put his feelings into words. It would make it too near, too real.
When she slipped her hand into his and held tight, he felt some of the pressure in his lungs ease. At least, enough so he could take a breath.
Travis didn’t let go of her the entire trip.
They rented a car at the airport. Mal took on driving duties while he stared out the window. He should have come back before. The time he’d spent away, the two years in Aruba living out his dream of business ownership, seemed so unimportant now. He’d thought he had years left with his gram. She wasn’t young, but he’d still believed there was time. Time for him to get married, have kids, tell her how much he loved her. And now it was all too late. He let his head thunk against the passenger window.
He felt Mal’s eyes on him. “I’m fine,” he lied.
She patted him on the thigh. “No, you’re not. But that’s okay. You don’t have to be fine. You be whatever you need to be.”
Travis turned his head, still maintaining contact with the cool glass. “You mean that, don’t you?”
“Of course.” She gave his thigh another pat before putting both hands back on the wheel. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”
Travis reached a hand out and touched her arm. A light brush of contact just to confirm that he could, that she was there beside him. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. I want to be here.” She put her hand over his and left it there. Another subtle moment of bonding.
CHAPTER NINE
“MALLORY.” MAL FOUND herself enveloped in a tight hug the moment they entered the house where Travis had grown up. She hugged Donna Kincaid back just as tightly. She could feel the older woman’s body shaking and she rubbed what she hoped was a soothing hand up and down her back.
“Donna.” She didn’t say anything other than her name. There was nothing she could say, nothing that could ease the pain of loss the Kincaids were feeling so deeply. All she could do was be there, a calm and steady port in their storm of sorrow.
“Well, now that I’ve embarrassed myself.” Donna stepped back and brushed at Mal’s shoulder. “I cried on you.”
“I’ll dry, and you didn’t embarrass yourself.” Mal caught Donna’s hands and gave her a reassuring smile. In fact, she thought Donna was holding up well. Better than Mal would have in the same situation. Better than she had when her father had been in the hospital. Oh, she hadn’t cried. No, it had been much worse. She’d buried. Buried her fears and feelings, all the things she wasn’t ready to bring into the light of day, down deep and pretended that they didn’t exist.
She’d succeeded in that nothing had boiled over, but Mal wondered now if that was truly a success, if turning away from all those feelings had damaged her in some way. She squeezed Donna’s hands and then released them so the woman could greet her son.
They clung to each other, not saying anything. Mal let them have a moment, slipping through the entryway and into the kitchen. She filled the kettle with water and turned it on, got down a china teapot and a couple of matching cups from the cupboard. The tin of tea sat on the back of the stove. Mal pulled that onto the counter, too.
Then she started coffee, just in case someone preferred that. She found cookies in the pantry and put them on a plate in a pretty semicircle while the water for the tea boiled and the coffee perked. When she finished, she felt a little calmer, a little more in control.
She could get through this. For Travis.
He and his mother were sitting in the living room on the flowered peach couch when Mal carried in the tray with two pots, cups and cookies. They both smiled, their matching gray eyes watching her in the same easy way. Mal felt her heart thump.
She put the tray down on the old, scarred table. The top of the sugar bowl rattled until she reached out to lay a hand on it.
“Shane and Dad are at the funeral home with...” Travis’s voice trailed off. Mal stopped pouring tea and pressed a comforting hand to his arm while he took a deep breath. “Handling the paperwork,” he finished.
“I couldn’t bring myself to go.” Donna reached out to grip Mal’s other hand. “I should have. She’s my mother. But I just couldn’t...” Mal saw her throat bob as she swallowed, searching for strength. “Thank you for coming. I couldn’t do this alone.”
“You’re not alone.” Mal patted her hand, waiting until Donna let go before she finished with the tea and handed Donna a cup.
Mal looked at Travis, but he shook his head and pulled her down beside him. “We’re here now, Mom. So what can we do?”
Donna’s hand fluttered to her hair. It was perfectly groomed, as befit her position as Duthie River’s best hairdresser. “I don’t even know. There’s so much to do.” Her eyes welled up and she swallowed. “They took her to Doose’s.”
Mal assumed Doose’s was the funeral home. She glanced at Travis. “Why don’t I call them?” The Kincaids would need to make some decisions as a family. Donna might not have wanted to go to the funeral home originally, but she’d want to be part of making final arrangements for her mother.
Travis nodded. Mal’s heart felt as heavy as her feet as she rose and walked back to the kitchen.
The funeral home was polite and efficient, and Mal was able to speak with Shane who guessed he and his father would be another hour. They decided to schedule another meeting at the funeral home later today, so the family could spend some time together before they had to make any decisions on the service.
But when Mal hung up the phone, she didn’t return to the living room. She sat on a wooden ladder-back chair and looked out the window.
This could have been her dad. Instead of seeing him get better, she could have been making arrangements and determining who to call, how to organize the service, trying to hold herself and everything else together.
Mal pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.
It wasn’t her turn to fall apart. She knew that. Her dad was alive and well, making jokes and growing vegetables in his garden. But it had been close. So close. Too close.
And when she inhaled, it wasn’t the firm and calming breath she needed but one that shuddered and wheezed. One that feared what might have been.
Mal could hear the low murmur of Travis and his mom in the other room. She knew she couldn’t stay at the kitchen table forever. They’d come looking for her, wondering if she’d spoken to the funeral home, wanting to know what was next. And Mal knew she needed to be the guiding hand that allowed them to go through the steps when they felt overwhelmed by it all. But she needed a minute.
Travis found her in there. “Babe? You okay?”
Mal’s head shot up. There were stars in her eyes from the press of her hands. She blinked but they remained. She pasted on a smile anyway. “I’m fine. Just thinking.” She saw his brow furrow, felt guilty that she was adding to his worries. “I’m fine.” She rose and put her arms around him. “Just fine.”
He held her close. She could hear the thump of his heart when she rested her head on his chest. A slow, rhythmic drumming. She let herself be pulled into it, taking strength from the steady beat.
“I’m glad you’re here.” He whispered the words into her ear.
Mal hugged him tighter. She was glad she was there, too, even though the circumstances were less than ideal. But then, what had been ideal the last year? Not a lot. Not work. Not home. Not anything. She looked up at him. This was the closest she’d been to ideal since Aruba. Her heart swelled. “I’m glad, too.”
His arms tightened so much that it hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt. One born from the need for closeness
and support, as though the idea of even air coming between them was too much to bear. He kissed her then. A hard, possessive kiss that lifted her off her feet and into his arms. She couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t care. This was what she needed. What he needed.
“What about your mom?” Mal finally said when she came up for air. She already knew his father and brother would be a while.
Travis worked his way down her neck, biting lightly the way she liked. “She’s gone to the salon to make sure everything’s running. I think she just needed something to do besides wait.”
He licked his way down to the little hollow in her throat and sucked. Mal shivered and pressed closer. His belt buckle bit into her stomach, but she didn’t care. Her hands clutched his shoulders, pulling tighter, wanting more. They had the house to themselves, and the desire for human connection, to feel alive, was so great that she felt weak with it. “I need you.” Her voice came out as a rasp.
Travis’s only response was a low rumbling in his throat as he gripped her thighs, wound them around his waist and headed for the stairs. They bumped walls as they went, hands yanking at hems and zippers, collars getting in the way, always pushing for more of each other.
Mal got one arm out of her jacket before she stopped trying and set her attention back on Travis. Her spine hit the doorjamb as he hurried into his old bedroom. Mal had been in here many times over the course of their relationship, but never quite with this urgency.
The bed was small, a twin that probably hadn’t fit Travis even when he’d been a boy, but that suited her today. Nowhere to go but to each other. Travis kicked the door shut with a bang and Mal twined her arms around his neck. Her jacket flapped around her, half off, half on.
They fell onto the bed, limbs still entangled, mouths kissing and licking. Mal could feel the light sting of Travis’s stubble since he hadn’t shaved, reveled in the rasp of it across her skin, marking her as his in a way she hadn’t been for so long.
“I need to touch you.” His fingers were clumsy, wrenching at the arm of her jacket that was already off, fumbling at the hem of her shirt before skimming along her exposed stomach. She sucked in a sharp breath and tried to help, but her hands were just as clumsy. Shaking with emotion, her movements were thick and sloppy with the need to rush. To get as close as possible to Travis in the shortest time permitted.
Mal heard the rip of a seam and then her jacket was off, her white T-shirt close behind. Travis tugged down the cups of her bra and sucked on her nipples. Her eyes closed as the sharp sensation of pleasure swept over her.
But it wasn’t enough. Not today. She yanked his shirt up, exposing the length of his long torso and the dark tattoos that decorated it. Oh, she loved his ink. The fierceness of it, the way it shifted and moved as though it had life. More than simple body art.
She dug her nails into his shoulders while he sucked harder, pulling the nipple deep into his mouth and then letting go with a pop. Her body grew loose, opened, welcoming him. She lifted her hips and helped wriggle her jeans down her legs. Like the jacket, she only managed to get it partway off, but it was enough.
Travis dragged his own jeans to his knees, rolled on a condom he produced from somewhere and sank into her with a moan.
Mal moaned back. She wanted to feel the connection every time their bodies met. The arch of her back as she took him deeper inside, the way her body wrapped around his. He ran his hands up her arms, pushing them over her head and linking his fingers through hers, holding her there so she was stretched out, exposed.
She rocked harder, setting a fast pace that left no question of whether she wanted to be here with him. This was all she wanted. Their eyes met, the speed of their motions increased. Heat started low in her belly, rippled out in waves until she was warm all over.
“Kiss me.” She needed more, needed every part of their bodies to touch, to feel. Travis bent his head, his mouth hot on hers, his tongue following the same rhythmic pattern as his body.
Mal felt the pressure build, the heavy weight pressing and pushing against her until she could stand it no more. She broke the hold of their hands and clutched at him, clasping him toward her as she wrapped her legs back around his waist just as the pressure erupted through her.
Travis groaned again. She could feel her nipples rubbing against his chest, felt the tension as it took hold of him and then swept through in sweet release a second later. They lay there for a moment, panting. Sweat beaded on his stomach and dripped onto her. Mal didn’t move. Except to hold Travis close when he moved to rise.
“No.” It was all she said. All she needed to say. He sank back down to her, his body pressing hers farther into the bed. She could hear his pulse, no longer that slow steady pump, but hard and strong. The kind of pulse that could be relied on. She stroked her hands up and down his back, wanting the contact, the feel of his skin gliding beneath her touch. The ripe roundness of his butt, the ridges of his spine, the hairless patch of skin on his lower back. Mal wanted to touch it all. And did.
Slowly the heat began to fade, dissipating away in the day, though Mal’s desire to stay right where they were didn’t. She shivered.
Travis lifted his head. His gray eyes were warm and heavy, but happy, that pinched look around the edges gone. “Cold?”
Mal shook her head. She didn’t want to break the moment, afraid of what might happen if she did.
Travis smiled. “Well, I am.” He pulled down the covers of the bed, still keeping their bodies tight together and maneuvered her under the sheets. Then he stripped off his clothing and hers.
Mal burrowed against him, sucking up his heat as much as the contact. She remembered this. How on cold nights she’d curl against him or, when she was being silly, cling to him like a koala bear. How he’d sigh and agree when she asked if she could press her cold feet against him. The way she’d wake up the next morning, never quite in the same position but some part of them always touching. Maybe just a hand in the summer when it was hot and even open windows and a light breeze did little to bring down the temperature. Arm against arm in spring or fall, and the full tangle of winter, hands tucked into the folds and hollows of each other’s bodies.
Travis put his arm around her, hauling her closer against him, and pulled the covers up. They barely fit on the bed side by side. Mal was more sprawled across him than beside him.
She closed her eyes, cocooned in Travis’s warmth, his arms looped around her, ensuring full body contact. He kissed the back of her neck, then the side before settling in with a sigh. She felt like sighing, too. Releasing the little tension that remained after sex. But suddenly it seemed like so much effort, drawing in the breath, forcing it back out, when she could just close her eyes instead.
She heard the smooth cadence of Travis’s breath mirroring her own and smiled to herself about how in sync they were, and then she drifted off.
A knock at the door woke her up.
“Travis?” Mal recognized his mother’s voice. Donna cleared her throat. “Are you up?”
When Travis didn’t answer, Mal nudged him in the ribs. He snorted as he jerked to alertness. “Your mom,” Mal whispered and pointed at the door.
God, she was nearly thirty and she still felt as if she’d been caught doing something bad. As though Donna wouldn’t realize their relationship included sex. Of course, it was one thing to know it theoretically and another to find them naked in his childhood bed. Mal yanked the covers more firmly up to her chin.
“Just a sec, Mom.” Travis climbed out of bed, fumbling for his jeans and running a hand through his hair, which was messy from sleep and Mal’s fingers. He started toward the door.
“No,” Mal hissed. “You look like...” Well, he looked like he’d been having sex, which he had, but she didn’t think he should be announcing it to his mother. “Put a shirt on and your socks and do something with your hair.” She smoothed her
own hair and then realized she did not want to be seen at all in her current state and gathered the covers around her and rolled off the bed to sit on the side that didn’t face the door.
Donna would probably notice the messy bed, but at least Mal wouldn’t be in it. Maybe she’d think Travis had taken a solo nap.
Travis opened the door and Mal slunk down a little lower, making sure her head didn’t poke up over the tiny bed.
“Your dad and Shane are on their way,” Donna said. “I finally got ahold of them.”
“I’ll be right down.” Mal peeked under the bed and saw that Travis hadn’t put on his socks.
“And Mal? Is she...”
“She’s hiding behind the bed.”
Mal gathered the covers more tightly around her, as if that would change anything. “I’m not hiding, I dropped something.”
“Okay, she dropped something.” Travis sounded as though he was laughing, but she couldn’t tell from staring at his toes.
There was quiet for a moment and then a surprised laugh. “Well, make sure you’re both covered before you come down. I don’t want your dad to have a heart attack. And put on some socks.”
Mal waited until she heard the click of the door closing before moving, and even then she only poked her head out. Just in case. Travis leaned against the door, grinning at her with his arms crossed so his Celtic cross peeked out beneath the sleeve of his T-shirt.
“You are not as funny as you think,” she told him as she rose to her feet, trying to look dignified, which didn’t really work when her only cover was a rumpled bedspread.
“I am so.” He grinned wider. “And it made my mom smile. Are you going to deny her the solace of humor?”
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