“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“It’s, it’s…,” she had to stop herself now as it was on the tip of her tongue.
Maureen’s threat was a real one. She looked into his handsome face and for the second time she lied to him and it killed her inside.
“It’s just so beautiful out here,” she replied, wrapping her arms around him so she didn’t have to look him in the eyes anymore.
“You look upset for someone enjoying the view,” he replied, tilting her head up.
“You sure that’s it?” he asked, searching her face. She tried averting her eyes from his for far different reasons than before.
“I’m sure baby, it just overwhelmed me was all,” she said forcing a big smile and that wasn’t a complete lie.
“When we build our house it’ll have a view three times as good as this. You’ll need an IV, if you keep this up,” he teased kissing the top of her head.
She wanted to say no, she wouldn’t. That his mother’s actions against her would make her a liar, but she didn’t. She held onto him for dear life trying to mentally remember every curve of his body, every kiss, and every touch. Pretty soon it would be all she had left of him and Hamby. Just memories that would eventually fade away and her with them.
***
Heathcliff was outside in the snowed over parking lot of Hamby P.D, his thermos and keys in hand. It had been a long boring day of Hulu marathons at work and he looked forward to his warm bed. As he reached the P. D’s snowmobile, the flip phone on his belt clip started to ring. “Maureen” flashed across the small green LCD panel on the front and he flipped it up in a hurry.
“Hey there,” he answered, the grin on his face, deepening the wrinkles on the corners of his mouth.
“I’m in the mood for company,” she replied and the line went dead.
He looked around the empty street, surprised at her candor, but giddy like a school boy. He put his ski cap on, jumped onto the snowmobile, and took off down the street. He’d waited almost an entire lifetime for Maureen Capshaw and he wasn’t about to let the fact that it was two o’clock in the morning stop him now.
***
They were up early and Kayden was in a particularly chipper mood as was to be expected. He thought his mother actually was having a change of heart when it came to him. Lana observed him as he excitedly held a conference call with Taylor about when the construction would begin. The living room was serving as his makeshift office, until he could secure office space in town. The snow plows were moving in from Shelby and pretty soon people would be able to roam about again.
She’d be able to do what she had to as well. When he was done on the phone, he beamed another smile her way and she tried her hardest to match it, hoping he would believe it and not question it.
“You ready?” he asked her, holding out his hand. She grabbed ahold of it and he pulled her in close, giving her a warm hug and a quick kiss on the neck.
“Ready for what?” she replied, not in the mood for an adventure. She really had to figure out how she was going to leave when they were together practically every second of the day.
“It’s a surprise,” he replied and started walking her to the door. She followed him grabbing the leather jacket from the coat rack and out onto the porch.
***
Before she knew it they were speeding down Deleveaux towards the town square, the ice world tinted in red once again. Hopefully we weren't going to visit his mother, she thought for a moment, but then they passed the hotel. People were starting to come out more now that the snow had stopped falling. It was high enough to ski in, so they wanted to enjoy some of it before the trucks took it away.
They pulled up to a boutique and he turned the engine off. Kayden jumped off then lifted her off, holding her for a few seconds in the air.
“Stop it Kayden,” she laughed embarrassed. People were looking at them, but he could care less, he was ecstatic. Her cell phone from her pocket fell in the snow and he put her down.
“Sorry,” he apologized and picked it up. Before handing it to her, he swiped the screen and held it up pulling her close.
“Say cheese,” Kayden said smiling that big white smile, teeth sparkling in the limited sunlight.
She realized over the last few weeks they hadn’t taken one picture together the whole time. They hadn’t done a whole lot together actually. No dates, no movies, but then again your options weren’t exactly vast up there when it came to entertainment. She would make sure she snapped pictures over the next couple days though. If she couldn’t be with him physically, at least she’d get to have some memories to remind herself that this whole ordeal wasn’t a fantasy.
She leaned into him and smiled as brightly as she could and he hit the camera button. They both looked at the screen and it was perfect, like those cheesy camera commercial couples. She tucked the phone back in the leather jacket and he grabbed her hand again and pulled her into a vintage jewelry shop named “Arnolds.” Now she understood what was so important as he pushed the door open and the bell chimed over their heads. It was the engagement ring.
There was a middle-aged woman standing behind the counter, very refined and very serious. You could tell she was the type of woman who thought more of herself than she actually was. Her hair was short and curly, and looked as hard as a baseball. The smell of Aqua Net confirmed her theory as they got closer to her. The shop had a floral green patterned wallpaper with brown stripes on its walls.
A grandfather clock stood in one corner behind the facing display and other display cases on the perimeter of the walls to their left and right. It wasn’t Zale’s, but it was charming. Kayden pulled her closer and closer to the display and it held a treasure of beautiful, rare looking jewelry.
“Mr. Capshaw,” the woman stated.
It wasn’t a friendly greeting, more formal than anything. She flashed a brown grin, the result of either too much coffee or possibly cigarettes.
“I’m in the business for a ring, Mrs. Arnold,” he said, leaning over the glass display.
“I see,” she replied as she gave Lana a disapproving glare. “You know I’m still heartbroken you and my Melissa never got the chance to marry.”
She attempted a coy look that failed miserably. Kayden shrugged his shoulders, while smiling but Lana could tell his patience was already wearing thin with her.
“Well Mrs. Arnold, Mellie was always a social butterfly. I don’t see how she would have found the time,” he said, with a hint of amusement in his voice.
He sure had a nice way of calling a woman’s daughter a slut to her face, Lana would give him that. Mrs. Arnold gave an embarrassing grin and grabbed the keys from the table behind the counter.
“What can I help you with?” she replied opening the case.
Kayden looked at Lana and waited for her to respond, but she froze. Accepting a ring from him now reminded her of having to leave it and him behind later. She decided not to make it a drawn out affair and would pick something out that was modest so they could be on their way. Lana looked over at the case and quickly understood that modest didn’t exist in there. The stones were some of the most beautiful she’d ever laid eyes on and nothing appeared to be under four karats.
The clearest of diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, as well as chocolate diamonds were before her eyes and she couldn’t help lighting up as she looked over at them all.
“You gonna try one?” he asked.
She glanced up at him from the case and nodded her head.
“Well which one dear?” Mrs. Arnold asked annoyed.
“All of them,” Kayden replied.
Mrs. Arnold’s mouth dropped open.
***
After spending the entire afternoon putting Mrs. Arnold through her paces, Lana picked out a four karat princess cut in white gold. It was the most beautiful thing she had not only seen, but worn before—even if for only a few days. She was in Kayden’s room or what had turned into their room and was putting her clothes in
the suitcase she kept tucked behind his coats in the closet. He was downstairs cooking dinner, so she had time to plan her forced abandonment. Lana caught a glimpse of the light coming off the ring and held her hand up as the flecks danced around in the stones.
Man was it nice, she thought, but I’d give up fifty of them for one Kayden. She thought of the wedding plans they had made one evening in front of the fire. They were just throwing ideas out, but it came together rather perfect in her opinion. He wanted to fly them into New York sometime in the upcoming weeks to pick out the wedding bands and get their registry started. It was early March now and they had decided on a December wedding.
The house would be finished by then and Kayden thought the best way to christen it would be a lavish estate wedding. They would spend two weeks in Bali on their honeymoon before moving back to Hamby for good. It was a fast time table and if she thought she was actually getting married, she would have called her family by now. One day the truth would eventually come out, she hoped, but when that was and if it would make a difference to him would be another thing. She zipped up the suitcase and stood in the closet saying a mental goodbye to him and Hamby. She wept quietly for a moment, then calmed herself before going downstairs.
***
The sun was bright and the sky was a cerulean blue. Paula wore her designer bathing suit like a pro, with tall Louboutin’s. Other women at the pool were shooting her nasty looks but she didn’t notice. She was too busy sipping her Bahama Mama drink and watching the DVR feed from her house on her laptop. From the screen she could she her mom, Kim, Lana and Kayden. She turned the volume up in the headphones to listen in on what was happening.
After the scene unfolded with Lana telling her mother off and stalking up the stairs off camera, Kayden turned to his mom and spoke. Paula couldn’t believe the words from his mouth although she knew everything he said was true. Their mother did treat him badly and so did she at times, but she was happy to see for herself the changes that had started happening in him. Lana was a good influence on her brother and Paula could see herself proud to be his sister again if he kept it up.
Paula also wished she hadn’t seen quite so much of her brother and Lana in their intimate moments and fast forwarded through them. Peaking in on them was becoming like her own “Netflix and chill” and she was hooked now. The time stamp on the video was already a week old and it made her wonder why she hadn’t heard from her brother, mom or Lana yet. She closed the laptop down vowing to watch it all first before she called. She picked up her phone and looked at the signal bar: nothing at all. The signal sucked on their part of the island.
Her mom had no right to tell Kayden who he could be with. Especially pushing that conniving she-slut Kimberly on him to make matters worse. Garrett splashed water at her from the pool and she smiled putting the laptop down, kicking off her heels and jumping in the deep end with him.
***
Kim, Maureen and Heathcliff sat in the small café downstairs at Spence hotel and enjoyed an early dinner. Heathcliff kept shooting loving gazes at Maureen and while sweet, Maureen wasn’t the affectionate type and Kim felt a little bad for him. Maureen chewed men up and spit them out back home, so she doubted there’d be any difference up there. The two were having a conversation under hushed tones but Kim wasn’t paying either of them attention anyway.
She hunched over her laptop and ignored the Cobb salad on her plate, eyeballing Kayden’s twitter feed. The un-block program had taken longer than normal to finish its job, but now she was finally back on hers. As she scrolled down his timeline, a picture of him and Lana popped up on her screen where she then snorted and kept scrolling. Kim clicked on Lana’s twitter profile to check out her timeline, but it was set to private. Damnit, she thought and finally picked up her fork stabbing a chunk of ham and lettuce.
As she chewed, a notification popped up on her laptop, it was from Kayden. She dropped the fork and clicked on it before she got blocked again and was instantly livid. It was a picture of Lana’s man hand wearing a diamond ring, the caption reading: “She said yes!” Kim turned her laptop to Maureen.
“Look at this,” she yelled way too loud in the quiet room, as other patrons were now all looking at the three of them.
“Calm yourself,” Maureen started evenly and cool, “What is it?”
“An engagement ring? Why would he be buying that for her, if the wedding is off?”
Maureen smiled at the not so bright girl in front of her, as she spoke.
“Why wouldn’t he? He has no idea the wedding is even off yet, remember?”
Kim sat back in her chair, and breathed an audible sigh of relief.
“Oh. Duh,” she replied matter of factly and turned the laptop back around to face her. She hit reply on the message but the page was gone again. She rolled her eyes, clicked her desktop and ran her unblocking program again.
“Anyway, the ring is ugly and small. Just like her,” she chimed with a huge grin on her face, then started eating her salad.
Heathcliff gave Maureen an odd glance.
“What’s that about?” He asked, not being in the loop.
“We’ll discuss it later,” she replied giving him a sexy wink. He grinned at that knowing what it meant and forgot what had bothered him about the conversation minutes before.
***
After a dinner of poached salmon, salad and wine, Lana lay on her back across Kayden’s lap on the couch. The fireplace was lit and she listened intently as he read from a book of poems. He was so romantic and it was a major turn on to learn that he was into poetry to begin with. They should have had all the time in the world to learn these little nuggets about one other. He was reading one of her favorites by William R. Stoudt.
Feeling tears well in her eyes as he spoke, she shifted her weight and turned toward him. His strong muscular stomach, was breathing slowly in rhythm with the words he spoke as he finished the end of the poem.
“Life and love run in circles, once begun, the circles never end. Through time, across generations, over distances unimagined, their love maintained its intensity, its warmth, its genuine pull of hearts towards the unknown known. The circle came all the way around and true, genuine love was discovered again, a love that will continue to span the universe and last throughout all time,” he finished.
He put the book down slowly and looked down at her, a faint smile on his face. He gathered her up in his arms, and kissed her slowly. It wasn’t a kiss full of lust, it was normal, patient—an expression of love. She looked into his sparkling eyes and leaned her forehead onto his. She wanted to capture this moment and reached for her phone that sat on the couch next to him.
Sitting up and straddling him, she held it up and snapped a picture of them. Two days left, she thought as she pulled the shirt over his head and tossed it and the phone on the coffee table. They embraced again and their kiss grew more intense, and more urgent for her. Her desire to be with him made her movements erratic and greedy.
He grabbed her hips and stood up from the couch in one strong move. Pushing the coffee table away with one leg he slowly bent his knees until they hit the soft area rug underneath them. He lowered her onto her back running his hand from her neck down her stomach as she arched her back. With her legs still wrapped around his waist he slowly pulled down her panties exposing her the way he liked. He slowly raised her legs and pulled them free where he placed her right leg on his shoulder.
He ran his other hand up her thigh then back down again holding her left leg above his head. Kayden sat up on his knees slightly, which lifted her from the carpet a little and kissed her ankle, her calf, and her thigh. She moaned with every kiss of his mouth as he slowly made his way down to his favorite place. Instead of going there, he grabbed her rear and pulled her up onto his face, holding her up with nothing but his muscular arms, as she balanced on his strong shoulders. He took all of her in his mouth and used his tongue like a joystick as she writhed and moaned, barely able to contain herself.
He finally rested her onto the carpet completely and continued his sweet assault on her. Before she was spent, she eased his head away slowly, then sat up and lowered him to the rug next. Lana kissed his neck, his chest, and traced her tongue down to his abdomen. She took her time removing his jeans, where his manhood was eager to join.
Kayden helped her to get them off, along with his boxer briefs as she gazed up at him, her own wicked smile on her lips and lowered her face to enjoy him. She took both her hands and held onto his thighs and used only her tongue and mouth pleasing him until she was satisfied. She thoroughly enjoyed making him moan as well. When she could tell he couldn’t take anymore, she sat up and reached for his hand where she pulled him up. Lana turned around on her knees and lowered her stomach to the carpet, where she waited to receive him.
In a swift yet gentle move, he plunged into her from behind and she cried out at the familiar feel of him inside her. He reached around to her chest and pulled her up carefully, into a sitting position as he sucked and kissed her neck, while running his hand over her breasts. She pushed down onto him repeatedly in a slow rhythm of their own and could feel every nerve in her body ready to explode. Lana watched their reflection in the floor to ceiling glass windows in front of them. Kayden was watching as well and their eyes locked on one another’s in the glass. He turned her head and kissed her as they climaxed together, where they collapsed in front of the fire, in each other’s arms.
13
Maureen stood in front of her floor length mirror and admired her reflection. She had everything a woman could hope for and at fifty-eight she still had the body of a thirty-year old. As she stood in her night gown and combed her long dark hair, she caught a glimpse of her ring finger and the faded mark where she once wore her ring. She and Vincent Capshaw were married for thirty years—that was more than most people could hope for with the state marriage was in nowadays.
Crashing Into Me (Crashing Into Me #1) Page 13
