by Liz Talley
I still want us to be together.
Please forgive me for jerking the wheel so hard—I didn’t see that tree.
Be okay, Renny. Please say you’re okay.
I love you.
“God,” Renny croaked, tossing the letter on top of the one she’d just read. Her poor heart ached for the past, for the boy who’d been sent away to a new school, a new state, midterm...a boy who thought she wanted nothing more to do with him. How alone he must have felt all those miles away.
She’d gone through all the letters and found the last one to be the most devastating. In his flowing script, he’d begged her to meet him in New Orleans at the statue of Andrew Jackson in the middle of the square at noon, so they could begin a new life. He had saved enough money to get them through the summer and had already applied for grants and housing at LSU.
Had he gone that June afternoon? Had he stood there, hands in his Levi’s pockets, scanning the crowd between the huge banana plants, sidestepping tourists posing in front of St. Louis Cathedral? Had he sat near a palm reader contemplating a future without her?
And what would that future have looked like? They’d shared dreams. Darby’s career had always been sketchy—he’d go from doctor to baseball player to attorney, but Renny had always wanted to work with animals. They’d finish school, build their dream house on the land Darby’s grandfather had left him, and raise a family. They’d kiss each other good-night every night and pay all their bills on time. Church, family and friends. Happy ever after.
Their shattered dreams broke her heart all over again.
“Oh, Darby, I’m so sorry I didn’t know.” She stroked a purring Chauncey as she slumped against the sofa and looked for the crumpled napkin so she could blow her nose, but it was missing. She looked under her crossed legs and beneath the sofa before giving up with a sigh. “Darn it.”
She struggled to her feet and spun around just as the doorbell sounded.
“Great,” she muttered, sniffing and using her sleeve to mop up her face. She wasn’t a pretty crier, so she knew her face was blotchy and her eyes swollen. Whoever was at the door might get an early Halloween scare. She looked at the letters around her before gathering them up and hurriedly shoving them under the sofa cushion. No need for anyone to see her private business.
She peeped through the window.
Darby.
“Oh, crap,” she whispered, tucking her hair behind her ears and giving an extra sniff. She’d come home from her mother’s house, drawn a hot bath, and put on an old sweatshirt and a pair of gym shorts. Her toenails weren’t even polished.
What was he doing here?
The irony didn’t miss her. It kinda smacked her in the head.
“Ren,” he called, knocking once again, and glancing toward her car parked in the driveway. The early evening shadows had fallen, casting burnished fingers of light across the stoop, making Darby’s hair flame golden, making her swallow hard before pulling open the door.
“Oh,” he said, stepping back, “there you are.”
She nodded and gave him a quizzical look, hoping to play off the fact she looked soggy, slouchy and sad by looking put out.
“You okay? Something happen?” He stepped forward, all golden and yummy in the waning sunlight. The same sunlight that probably showcased the start of crow’s feet in the corner of her eyes.
Yeah, something happened.
She’d learned the absolute truth from the woman who had long ago sabotaged their love.
“Nothing. The ragweed must be kicking up.” She pushed her hair back and squinted against the sun. “What are you doing here? Again.”
His eyes darkened, or at least she thought they did. The sun was damn bright. “Sid couriered over the divorce petition.”
“Okay.”
“So I brought you a copy.”
“Okay.”
Darby’s forehead crinkled. Her one-word responses were peeving him, but she didn’t care. She didn’t want him there. After having read those plaintive words he’d written so long ago, she knew how vulnerable she was. Knew he wouldn’t have to push hard to get her to... God, she couldn’t even think what the man could do to her if he so wanted.
“Sid said he could draw up a waiver of service that would shave a couple of weeks off the process. But regardless, we’ll be good to go in 180 days.”
She held out a hand, wondering his true motive. He’d basically repeated the same info he’d given her the night before.
After a look around the darkening neighborhood, Darby turned back to her. “Think I could come in for a minute?”
Her mind flashed to the letters stuffed beneath the cushions. Had she hidden them well enough? Did it matter if he found them? For some reason it made her feel naked, bare to him, and she wasn’t ready to feel that way with Darby.
“Sure, I guess. Come on in.” She stepped back, allowing him to pass, hoping he’d avoid her living room and go straight to the dining table, but like every other man she’d ever known, he didn’t do as she hoped. He headed straight for where Chauncey lay curled up and purring on a fluffy throw pillow.
“Hey, Chaunce,” Darby said, stroking a hand down the cat’s back and getting a loud purr in return.
“Why are you really here?” she asked, shutting the door and leaning against it.
He looked up at her. “To give you the papers, and then I thought we could—”
“You could have given them to me later, Darby. You want something more. I know you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Better than you know yourself. I can feel what’s going on between us. I know it’s not what we expected.”
“You’ve changed,” he said, his voice like a snowflake—soft in appearance but landing with a sting.
“Of course I have. It’s been over eleven years. The accident and losing you affected me. I had to learn how to eat, talk and walk again, all the while believing you didn’t want me. That makes a person tough.”
Darby shook his head and leaned against the cushion with a sigh.
She heard the crackle of the paper from her position at the door. Her eyes widened as his hand found the crumpled letter and lifted it from where it had been wedged between the cushions. “What’s thi—”
His words died as his eyes moved over the words.
She wanted to tell him to put it down, stop nosing through her house and get out, but she didn’t. When she’d let him in the door, she’d committed to letting him into her pain. Watching realization dawn on his face as his eyes scanned the handwritten letter was akin to watching a car wreck. No looking away. No turning back.
He lowered the letter. “So you had these all along? You lied?”
“No. I had no reason to lie to you. I went to my mom’s today to confront her about what really happened in those days following the accident. After we argued, she handed me a big envelope crammed full of the letters she’d hidden from me but, for whatever reason, kept.”
“You read them?” he asked, placing the letter in his hand on the coffee table. “That’s why you’ve been crying?”
She didn’t answer because he knew she had.
“Ren?”
Crossing her arms, she finally lifted her eyes to meet his gaze. “They made me sad. So?”
For a moment neither one of them said anything. Just stood apart, holding each other’s gaze. Unspoken words filled the space between them, but those words felt too raw to acknowledge. The past separating them felt like a raging river. And she wondered if she’d laid groundwork in crossing that bridge as she’d read those words he’d penned years before.
Or maybe there was no need to bridge the space between them.
“So, you said you had the papers for me?” Renny broke the silence and walked toward the small dining area, separated from the living room by only a change in flooring, and flipped the light switch. Sinking into a chair, she grabbed a pen from the cup on the bookshelf and clicked it expectantly.
Darby pulled out
the chair across from her and laid a folder on the table. “Sid Platt sent me the petition, but not the waiver. There’s nothing to sign yet.”
“Oh. Okay. When you get it, I’ll sign it.”
“Okay.” Darby didn’t look like he wanted to leave anytime soon. Why? Was this just an excuse to see her? She was nearly certain it was, and it both excited and scared her to know they’d broken past the barrier of resentment they’d each carried for so long. But what would that mean? “So you’re certain this union was legitimate in the first place? I read online being married by a boat or ship captain isn’t upheld in the court of law.”
Darby nodded. “That’s right. It’s become urban legend that it’s legitimate, but Sid did some digging around on this boat captain and found the reason why the license was filed and is legal.”
She arched an eyebrow.
“The captain who married us was an ordained minister.”
“That drunk?”
“Well, he wasn’t practicing as a minister at the time, but that’s the reason his deck hands called him ‘Rev’ instead of captain...and the reason he was listed in the yellow pages under ‘Red Snapper, Amberjack and Leg Shacklin’.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. Any other boat captain and we wouldn’t be in this mess?”
“Pretty much.”
She opened the folder, glanced at the legalese within and then closed it. “Okay, I’ll read through this.”
“Good, and if you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them or explain any of the legal terminology.”
“Okay.”
Silence hung over them. Renny averted her gaze and wondered what she could say to one’s soon-to-be ex-husband, especially when she wanted to touch him, wanted to forget those years between them if only for a few hours. Didn’t matter that her rational thoughts screamed the opposite. Whenever he was near, she felt some primeval urge to possess him, mark him, something.
She sighed.
His gaze jerked to her. “Why were you so quick to believe our parents? Why didn’t you have any faith in me?” His words might as well have been bullets. They punctured her heart much the same way.
“Darby, aren’t we water under the bridge? Do we really have to do this? The past twenty-four hours have been almost traumatizing, so let’s not make it even harder by trying to find the root of what went wrong. We never would have worked even if you’d have stayed on the road that night.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because we weren’t meant to be. The stars were crossed for good reason.”
“How do you know?”
Renny covered her face with her hands if only to avoid looking into his seductive blue eyes. In those depths she could see her past, could see the sorrow for what they’d lost, and it pulled her to him. “I don’t want to talk about the past anymore, Darby. Doesn’t do any good. What we had between us is over—”
“Is it? Because something doesn’t feel over. After that kiss in the kitchen—”
“—which won’t happen again. We forgot we’re two different people, two people who have different paths. You’re here visiting before going off to God only knows where, and I’ve built a life here. Neither one of us has reason to think about kisses...or the relationship we once shared. So, please, stop.” Renny pushed back the chair and rose, hoping to close the conversation on that note.
“You’re running from me,” he said, flinging out words like a challenge.
Renny stopped her retreat. “I’m not running, because there is nothing to run away from. What I felt for you was a young girl’s infatuation. It wasn’t love, Darby, or it would have conquered. It didn’t because it wasn’t real. That stupid kiss doesn’t change anything, because we’re not who we once were. Let’s consider it a goodbye, not a hello.”
His chair scraped the polished wood as he stood abruptly. His body crowded her space, but she refused to step back even an inch. “Stupid kiss? I thought it was way better than that.”
She could smell his cologne, something manly and spicy, and his T-shirt hugged his body enough for her to see his lanky youthful chest and shoulders had grown into masculine splendor. Not Arnold Schwarzenegger, but definitely something worthy of good, long contemplation. She raised her eyes to meet his gaze. A spark of something dangerous flashed within the depths. “You would. You always overrated your abilities.”
At this he gave a clipped laugh and suddenly he was the man she didn’t know. A naval officer, calm, confident and oozing something she wanted to grab hold of.
“You were always such a challenge, Renny. Ever since I first met you, you’ve kept me on my toes, blackberry girl.”
Shrugging a shoulder and trying to ignore his old nickname for her, she twisted her lips. “I’m a Southern girl. We don’t take crap off—”
She couldn’t finish her sentence...not when his lips were covering hers.
“Darby,” she murmured against his mouth as one hand crept through her hair to cup the back of her head as the other wound round her waist, drawing her to him.
“Shut up,” he whispered, silencing her with his kiss, a sweet, erotic delving that made her bare toes curl into the carpet. And like the night before, she felt her defenses weaken and her blood sing with a new desire, something she’d never felt with the man holding her—a woman’s need.
It bloomed in her blood, rare and strong.
She deserved more than a kiss.
More than the goodbye she never got.
His hand glided up her back, like a flame licking her spine, while his tongue traced her lower lip before plunging within her mouth. She wanted to forget all she was and get lost in Darby.
But she couldn’t forget who she was.
“Darby,” she said as she pulled back.
He blinked at her with sexy bedroom eyes. “Yeah?”
“We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Why not?”
“Because it will complicate matters. Sex does that.”
He dropped the hand threaded through her hair and it ripped through a tangle, giving her added clarity. “Sex?”
She rubbed her lips together, but didn’t step away. “Sorry, I shouldn’t make assumptions based on incomplete data.”
“What?”
“Oh, I... Never mind.” But the word “sex” sat there, goading her. She wanted him. So why not? Why not take some pleasure for just this one night? She was a big girl. She could control her world. Hadn’t she proved that for the past ten-and-a-half years?
Darby jerked his gaze to hers. “How was that incomplete data? I’m pretty certain it was explicit. Concrete. Rock-hard concrete evidence.”
“I felt it.” She met his eyes, met the challenge. “But if we go there, we’re opening up a whole new can of worms. Can you handle that? ’Cause I don’t know if I can.”
Yeah, that was the enormous question in her mind. Making love with Darby would be good—it always had been—but could she handle the fallout if her heart got involved?
The trick was to keep her heart out of it.
Sex and friendship—she’d had it before with several other guys. Never had to even dip the slightest bit of her heart into those treacherous waters. But could she do that with the only man she’d ever loved?
If they went there.
Not a given that both of them could handle sex at this point, even if her own body nagged her to give it the ol’ Harvard try.
He quirked an eyebrow and his lips curled at the corners. “I’m fairly certain I can handle anything you throw at me, Renny. I know I want to handle every piece of you in the most loving and delightful of ways.”
“You can’t jump in just because you’re horny.”
He laughed again, but this time he tugged her to him, his hands sliding up her back, causing her stomach to dip, hot molten need to stir in her pelvis and her breasts to feel tingly and heavy. “I’m jumping in because I’m horny.”
“Not a good enough reason. You can’t take back sex. Once it h
appens, it’s done.”
“Okay, it’s more than being horny. Being with you doesn’t scare me, Renny. Quite the opposite. I can’t seem to stop wanting you. It’s about a man and a woman. Me and you. Living in the moment, taking a little pleasure from this messed-up load of crap we’ve been handed.”
“Bet you say that to all the girls.”
He ducked his head and kissed her again, doing it so well she could hardly catch her breath. Then his mouth moved to her jaw, sliding around to her ear, sucking in her earlobe, before he whispered, “We’ve always been good together in bed. Give me what I want.”
She snapped her head up, pushing him back. “No, you give me what I want.”
At that moment, Renny felt a little crazy, a little out of control. She’d spent every day since the accident safeguarding her world. How long had it been since she’d lost herself in the magic of lovemaking? Way too long.
This time nothing inside her wavered.
After all, they were consenting adults—adults not involved in a relationship with someone else. Adults who wanted each other, who needed something more right at this moment.
What would it hurt?
People hooked up with exes all the time, didn’t they?
Tonight she wanted what was taken away from her.
Darby.
She didn’t need to keep him forever. Just for right now. This night. It wasn’t about love, sorrow or tenderness. It was about grabbing hold of this man and driving out all the pain he’d given her. She needed very adultlike, self-serving, healing sex.
Darby’s blue eyes flared as she jerked the hem of his shirt up, revealing a taut stomach and a broad chest lightly sprinkled with golden hair.
“Nice,” she breathed, sliding her hands up his hard stomach, savoring the feel of him beneath her fingertips. She looked up, pleased at the incredulity on his face.
“You have changed,” he said, with a devilish grin.
“Can you handle that, too?”
Darby’s gaze slid from hers to her body, undressing her with his eyes. Those blue eyes lingered on the racing pulse at her throat, then at the way her nipples stood out against the cotton of her shirt and finally at her bare thighs. “I’ll risk the danger if I can taste you, touch you, make you moan, make you shudder against me.”
