by Radclyffe
“Yep. The front forty is over that rise we passed coming in, but I didn’t think you’d enjoy taking the tractor path to get here, so we came the long way around.”
“How much of it is there?”
“Not all that much. About a hundred acres now.”
Carrie laughed. A hundred acres. “Yeah, kind of a small place.”
Gina stopped the truck, leaned over, and lifted a clean patchwork quilt from the back of the cab. “Can you carry that?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. Wait just a second.” Gina jumped out, pulled a wicker basket from behind the seat, and circled around to open Carrie’s door. “Hungry?”
Carrie clutched the blanket to her chest, reached for Gina’s hand, and carefully climbed down. The ground beneath the ceiling of evergreens was layered with a fragrant carpet of pine needles, soft and yielding beneath her feet. Their tangy sweet fragrance rose to tease her with every step.
“We’re having a picnic, aren’t we,” Carrie said softly.
“Yeah. Is that okay with you?”
Carrie nodded, still holding Gina’s hand and wondering if Gina realized it. They were having a picnic, alone in a hidden spot that Gina chose, a million miles away from her everyday life. Oh, that was more than all right with her.
“I love the idea.”
“Good,” Gina said, relief flooding through her. “You said no pizza and no McDonald’s. My choices were limited, so I thought I could wow you with location instead.”
Carrie glanced sideways at her. Gina had changed out of the work clothes she’d been wearing earlier into a short-sleeved washed denim shirt, dark jeans, and running shoes. Her hair was as windblown as Carrie’s felt, but not long enough to actually tangle. Instead, the dark locks looked wild and as untouched as their surroundings. A lot like Gina. “Oh, believe me, the wow factor is good.”
Gina led her down a slope and stopped by the side of a pond bordered on the far side by a thicket of rushes and marshy grasses. She held her hand out for the quilt and spread it on a grassy patch by the edge of the water. Carrie sat down, kicked off her sandals, and stretched out her legs. She watched as Gina knelt and opened the picnic basket, her amazement growing as Gina removed two wineglasses, folded linen napkins, two plates, utensils, and a bottle of wine.
“I’d almost think you had this planned,” Carrie said. “How did you manage this so quickly?”
Gina worked the corkscrew into the top of the red wine bottle. “The picnic basket has been in my grandmother’s pantry—well, my pantry now—for as long as I can remember. Same thing with the napkins. They’re in the sideboard along with a lace tablecloth that I can’t imagine ever using. The wineglasses, well, everybody has wineglasses, right? Plates from the cupboard, quilt from the bedroom, and—” She reached into the picnic basket and removed two covered dishes and set them on the quilt next to the plates. “Confession time. I called my mother and said I needed food for a picnic right away.”
Carrie laughed. “You didn’t.”
“What else was I to do? You already nixed my number one and two choices.”
“I wouldn’t mind sandwiches. I said no McDonald’s.”
“McDonald’s makes sandwiches.”
“Those are not sandwiches. And stop trying to distract me. What did your mother say when you said you needed food for an emergency picnic?”
Gina looked away, but not before Carrie saw the shadows clouding her eyes. “She didn’t ask.”
“Hey,” Carrie said gently, stroking the back of her hand, “this is amazing. Thank you.”
Gina refocused on her, and the tension left her face. “Well, my mother’s chicken is a wonder to behold. So is her potato salad. You ready?”
“Oh, more than ready.”
Gina uncovered the dishes, scooped out salad onto the plates, and added pieces of cold chicken to each. She handed the plate to Carrie, poured wine for both of them, and stretched out beside Carrie. She tipped her glass to Carrie. “Enjoy.”
“I already am,” Carrie said softly, her eyes never leaving Gina’s. Finally, she tried the potato salad and moaned in appreciation. “Oh my God. This is fabulous.”
“Yeah, there’s not a whole lot of point in learning to cook when food like this is pretty easy to come by.”
“Speak for yourself. Neither of my parents has much in the way of culinary expertise.” Carrie sipped the wine, a nice choice of zinfandel. “But I do make a mean grilled cheese sandwich.”
“I like grilled cheese.”
“I’ll remember that the first time I have you to dinner.”
“All right.” Gina leaned on an elbow, as relaxed as Carrie had ever seen her.
Whatever memory had brought out the shadows had passed.
Carrie stretched her bare toes toward the still pond. A blue heron lifted out of the reeds on the far side and wafted majestically into the sky. Frogs thrummed a deep chorus, and a pair of dragonflies flitted by in the midst of an aerial mating dance. The air sang with the promise of endless summer. “This place is amazing. Does anyone ever come here?”
“Not anymore. I used to swim here when I was a kid.” Gina looked around and slowly shook her head. “It seemed so much bigger then.”
“Perspective,” Carrie murmured. “Things always seem different, unchangeable and forever, when we’re young.”
“I haven’t been here since high school.”
“I’m glad you brought me.”
Gina captured Carrie’s hand and slowly entwined their fingers. “Me too.”
Chapter Nineteen
A shaft of sunlight reflected off the still surface of the pond and illuminated Gina’s face, painting the angle of her jaw and the arch of her cheekbone in brilliant gold. A butterfly lifted from a stand of wild tiger lilies, its multihued wings sparkling in the air. Carrie committed the mental snapshot to memory, hoping she could hold the image forever. In that still, quiet moment, she understood beauty as something that lived in the heart.
“I’m afraid to breathe,” she whispered. “I might break the spell.”
“You won’t.”
“I love that you brought me here. I’m just having a little trouble thinking right now.” Carrie brushed her thumb over Gina’s fingers. “This place is amazing, and you’re very beautiful.”
“I can’t think of anything except you right now,” Gina murmured, sliding closer until their shoulders and thighs touched, food forgotten, the taste of wine still on her lips. “I have to kiss you.”
“Before you do,” Carrie murmured, caught in the shifting depths of Gina’s fierce gaze, “tell me there isn’t someone with a claim on you.”
Gina stilled, her fingers tightening on Carrie’s. “What if I can’t?”
The disappointment was piercing, larger than she expected, huger than it had any right to be. But there it was. A sharp, cold blade sweeping around her heart, severing ties that promised to bleed forever. “Then I think you probably shouldn’t kiss me.”
Gina had lived with one truth for so long she couldn’t find another, but she gripped Carrie’s hand, held her still when she would have pulled away. “What if I told you it was an old claim, a memory more than anything else?”
“Then I’d say it must’ve been a powerful love.” Another time, Carrie would have asked who, would have asked more, but she knew, somewhere inside, what the answer must be. Today, this moment, the only answer she needed was the desire in Gina’s eyes.
“There’s no one today—not Pam, if that’s what you were thinking.” Gina knew they were balanced on the edge of possibility, on one side of the precipice a retreat into the world she’d defined for herself, convinced herself she wanted, and on the other side, a dangerous path she wasn’t sure she could take. All she knew was in this moment, she hungered. “She’s a friend of my brother’s, and I barely know her.”
“A kiss might be a very bad idea,” Carrie murmured, caught between desire and confusion and unable to look away from Gina’s mouth. A kiss wa
s just a kiss, she’d said that before, hadn’t she? How could she have been so wrong.
“Why?” Gina curled Carrie’s hand against her chest, letting Carrie feel the flight of her heart, the rush of her breath. “Can’t you tell how much I want you?”
Carrie pressed her palm flat against Gina’s chest. Gina trembled, a fine shiver that raked through her like wind in flames. “You have to get to the game.”
Gina laughed unsteadily. “Who are you trying to convince? Yourself or me?”
“Oh, I don’t need to be convinced about the kiss.” Carrie traced a finger along the edge of Gina’s jaw, slid her fingers to her nape, stroked the soft skin beneath the collar of her shirt. “I’ve been thinking about another kiss since—”
Gina’s mouth stopped her words, stopped her breath, stopped every single thought. Gina’s mouth was a hot demand, insistent and possessive. Gina’s kiss asked no questions, offered no answers, only claimed.
The kiss pierced Carrie’s deepest reaches like a clarion call.
This is who I am. Here is what I want. Let me have you.
Carrie grasped Gina’s shoulders and surged against her, crushing her breasts to Gina’s chest. Gina gasped and deepened the kiss, her lips a relentless victor, taking and taking until Carrie couldn’t breathe. She twisted her fist in Gina’s hair and dug her fingers into the rigid muscles of Gina’s shoulders, dragging Gina over and down. Then she was on her back, and Gina was above her, braced on one arm, the other hand on her hip, and Carrie had to close her eyes against the sunlight blazing in Gina’s eyes.
Gina’s leg slid over hers and wedged between her bare thighs, catapulting Carrie to a screaming pinnacle of need. Carrie’s skirt rode up to her hips, molding around Gina’s rough denim-covered thigh the way she wanted to encase Gina inside her. She arched and grasped Gina’s ass, pulling her tighter, writhing against the unbearable pressure tormenting her swollen flesh. Gina made a growling sound low in her throat, her fingers tightening on Carrie’s hip, and abruptly rolled on top of her, her weight a tantalizing promise of power and possession.
Carrie rubbed the thin cover of her silk panties against Gina’s jeans, and the ache grew more urgent. She curled her calf over Gina’s, desperate for just a little more, just a little harder, God, just right there.
Gina drove her leg harder, higher, obeying Carrie’s demand.
“God! Wait!” Carrie broke away, throwing her head back as she struggled not to come.
Breathing hard, Gina buried her face in Carrie’s neck. “I’m about to lose it.”
Carrie brushed her mouth over Gina’s ear. “So am I. I’m right on the edge of crazy. Do. Not. Move.”
“I better.” Gina shoved herself up on both arms and planted her palms on the quilt on either side of Carrie’s shoulders. Carrie’s face was flushed, her eyes bright, her lips swollen. Gina hungered for her, starving for all the years she’d pretended not to feel the gnawing ache in her depths. “If I touch you again, I’m going to put my hands on your skin and I’m not going to stop.”
Carrie swallowed, torn between unbearable need and a deeper demand she couldn’t define. “You should get off me right now. Another second, and I’m going to beg for your hands all over me.”
Gina groaned and closed her eyes, forcing herself to roll over onto her back, her chest heaving, her heart threatening to explode. Carrie’s hand grazed her bare arm, fingers gliding lower. She clasped them desperately. The sun burned against her closed lids. She might be dying, the pleasure was so sharp. “I can call one of the guys, have them stand in for me tonight at the game.”
“And then what?”
Gina turned her head. Carrie watched her from beneath half-lowered lids, her eyes deep pools of desire, daring her to drown. “Then I can take off all your clothes and make love to you right here until…”
“Until?”
“Until you can’t breathe anymore. Until I can’t move anymore.”
Carrie laughed, sounding a little insane to her own ears. “The first time you do that, I intend to be in a bed.”
“Negotiable?”
“Maybe, but not tonight.”
Gina rolled over, gently clasped Carrie’s jaw, and turned her face until she could kiss her. She was careful with the kiss when she’d been reckless before, gentle where she’d been rough. “I hear you. I just want you so damn much.”
“I know.” Carrie smiled a little tremulously. “It’s safe to say you make me crazy like nobody else. Which is a good reason to stop.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I’m just…”
“Afraid?” Gina wondered what Carrie saw in her eyes, beneath the terrible need. Could she see the terror, the remorse, the guilt?
“Maybe.” Carrie pushed herself up, pulled her skirt down. “I don’t usually lose my mind from a kiss.” She glanced at Gina. “We should go or I’m going to make you kiss me again, and I don’t think I’m going to let you stop this time.”
Gina lowered her forehead to Carrie’s and groaned. “I’m not sure I can walk yet.”
“Good.” Carrie pushed away, tucked in her shirt, and pulled on her sandals with shaking fingers. Gina scared the hell out of her. No one had ever turned her on so much, so fast, and made her want to be taken so badly. She needed time to figure out what she was doing. She needed not to make a mistake. If she hadn’t already.
*****
Abby stopped halfway up the staircase to the loft and rapped on top of the wooden railing to announce herself. “Blake? Okay to come up?”
“Yeah,” Blake called.
Abby climbed the rest of the way up and stopped at the foot of Blake’s bed. He was propped up on two pillows in his usual attire of cut-off sweats and a loose short-sleeved T-shirt, his laptop propped up against his knees. His hair was a half an inch longer then he usually wore it and tousled, his unlined face free from pain. His face had changed in the last two years, especially since he’d started hormone therapy. Like all boys his age, his facial bones had started to grow heavier, his jaw thicker, his features losing their youthful, androgynous beauty and edging toward handsome. His body, too, had changed even before the surgery. He’d gotten taller, added muscle to his torso.
She stood just taking him in, the familiar push-pull of love and worry washing over her. She would have worried about him under any circumstances. Growing up was always difficult, fraught with challenges and changes, and as her life in the ER testified to every day, victim to danger and fickle fate. Blake wasn’t that much different than any other teenager in so many ways, except one, and every day those differences grew less apparent.
“What, Mom?” Blake regarded her curiously. “Are you worrying about something again?”
Abby laughed. “You are not supposed to be able to tell what your mother is thinking.”
He rolled his eyes. “Then maybe you shouldn’t think so loud.”
“Good advice. How are you doing?”
He shrugged. “I’m fine. I’m really bored.”
“I’ve got a couple of surprises for you.”
“Yeah?” He dumped his laptop onto the bed and sat up straighter.
“Flann stopped down to the ER this afternoon and dropped off a new vest for you.”
He grimaced. “Oh, my favorite thing.”
“I think you’ll like this one better than the binder one. It’s lightweight, zips up the front, and doesn’t have much in the way of shoulder straps. Flann says it’s your step-down vest.”
“It’s gotta be better than the corset I’m wearing.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. “Can I change into it now?”
“Sure. You want some help?” He usually said no and she expected him to again. Being independent was very important to him, and she suspected he was still a little shy about having anyone see him without a shirt on.
“Okay, thanks,” he said after a pause. “I think the Steri-Strips are ready to come off too.”
“We’ve got some new ones. I can r
eapply them if it looks like you need them.” Abby hesitated. “Unless you want Flann to do it.”
Blake grinned. “Don’t worry, I know you can do it just as well.”
Abby laughed. “You probably don’t want to mention that to the God of surgery.”
“No way,” Blake said. “So do you want to do it now?”
“Sure.”
He gripped the bottom of his T-shirt, and as she had done hundreds of times, probably thousands of times in their life together, she stepped forward, grasped the bottom edge, and lifted it up over his head as he raised his arms into the air.
As his head came through and she freed the material, Blake smiled. “I could probably have done that by myself.”
“Habit. It’s a mother thing.”
“Yeah.” He released the Velcro straps that ran along each side of his binder, unzipped the center portion, and carefully unwrapped it from his chest. He sighed and wriggled his shoulders. “Boy, that thing sucks. What’s the new one look like?”
Carefully not looking at him yet, Abby opened the plastic bag and extracted the replacement vest, a lightweight white stretch material that was more fitted and styled like an undershirt. She held it up.
“Oh yeah, that’s a lot better.” Blake sat down on the side of the bed. “So, what do you think?”
Abby placed the vest along with her second package on the bed and pulled over a chair so she could sit. She tilted the shade on the bedside lamp to focus the light on his chest. Two or three flesh-colored paper strips covered the lower edge of each nipple. Their edges curled loosely and she doubted they were doing much good at this point. Scattered black and blue marks, already fading, dotted his upper chest and sides. Except for a little swelling right underneath his nipples, his chest looked like any other adolescent boy’s. “Everything looks great. You’re right, those Steri-Strips need to come off.”
Blake gently ran his fingers over his chest. “It’s kind of amazing.”
“It is.”
He met her gaze. “Not what you expected when I was born, huh?”
Abby took his free hand. “You know, from the time you were little and didn’t always do what I expected you to do, I reminded myself you would be your own person one day. Every parent has to learn that lesson sooner or later. All I wanted for you was happiness and that you have the life you want and the love you deserve. Nothing has changed about that.”
