The Love We Keep

by Toni Blake

  He gave her a small grin. “Yeah, they were. I was just mad and didn’t want to say so.”

  “Good—because we’ll have leftovers.”

  “I’d, uh, take a second helping.”

  “Will you still have room for brownies?”

  “That’s a crazy question. I’ve never turned down a brownie in my life.”

  “You did earlier.”

  “I was asleep.”

  “Liar.”

  “For a nurse, you’re kinda mean,” he said, gray eyes pinning her in place, the corners of his mouth curving up in a slight smile.

  She had to look away, though she wasn’t sure why. She pushed to her feet, reached across the table, and grabbed up his empty plate. “For a patient, you’re kind of impossible.”

  “You’re not the first woman who’s called me that.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  Talk went on as Zack ate his second plate of spaghetti while Suzanne cleaned up the meal. Good Zack was back. She still couldn’t believe she’d found a good Zack, but...well, life was about perspective and this was certainly a better Zack than she’d known before recently, even if he still held some deep dark secrets close to his chest.

  Despite herself, she continued to have trouble meeting his eyes—they were doing that sparkly thing she’d noticed on other occasions. Probably just low evening lighting messing with your head. He’s probably not flirting—even if it feels that way in certain moments.

  Regardless, she still found it easier to talk to him from the kitchen while she worked. Even if her breasts tingled slightly. Even if the crux of her thighs felt heavy with wanting. From the non-flirting and the not-really-sparkling eyes.

  “Hey, nurse,” he called playfully, “I’m getting up to go to the bathroom.”

  She glanced at him through the doorway. Normally she’d shadow his movements, be ready to provide balance if he started to lose it—but she wanted him to get his confidence back. “I’m here if you need me,” she said, and continued to bustle around the kitchen.

  He said nothing in reply, but just got to his feet and started taking careful steps toward the bathroom.

  “Want some brownies when you get back?”

  “Yep,” he said. “And more wine.”

  They’d both had a couple of glasses with dinner. But one perk of living on Summer Island was no driving to get home—and in this situation, no one even had to walk.

  Though... Zack, crutches, wine. She dropped what she was doing and stepped out of the kitchen—to see him making his way steadily to the bathroom. Okay, apparently the big dinner had kept the wine from going to his head. All the more reason not to balk about either of them drinking a little more, so she opened another bottle.

  While he was gone, she grabbed a knife and the pan of brownies she hadn’t gotten around to cutting yet. Then refilled both their glasses and sat down at the table awaiting his return.

  But as he came out of the bathroom, he said, “Turns out I’m kinda tired, nurse.”

  “After all the sleeping you did today? And the physical therapy you skipped?”

  “Yep, afraid so. You mind if I eat my brownies over here?” he asked, heading for the sofa bed instead of the table.

  If he was tired, better he not push himself and end up falling again—but she felt oddly disappointed. They’d been...having fun. Connecting. She’d thought it would continue—had been ready to suggest they watch a movie or play cards—but it was not to be. Ah, big disappointments, small disappointments—life was full of them. From a dead husband to a tired houseguest. So be it. “No problem,” she said, then carried the tray and knife over, lowering it to the mattress before fetching their wineglasses.

  He plopped down, leaning his crutches against the wall, his pleasant expression fading when he had to use his hands to lift his right leg onto the bed.

  She tried not to let the sight tug at her heart too much. She’d seen him do that plenty of times before, after all, and she’d done it many times herself. Yet something about it left her more emotional than usual. She’d pulled him back from the brink—or he’d pulled himself, depending upon how you looked at it—and they were moving on with dinner and brownies and laughter, but what he’d said was true. In the end, he still had to deal with this.

  Then his eyes fell on the brownies, and he let out a small laugh. “The whole tray, huh?”

  “I didn’t get to cut them yet,” she said, glad he’d lightened the mood that fast.

  And as she stood awkwardly nearby, realizing she didn’t quite know what to do with herself, he said, “Well, you’re gonna have a hard time cutting ’em from over there, and you don’t want me to do it—I’ll make a mess of it.”

  Okay, she’d been avoiding the bed, but clearly that was silly. So she took a seat facing him on the mattress like it was the normal thing to do. And really, it was. She sat on the bed for some of their exercises every single day.

  She’d grabbed some napkins, too—helpful as they began to indulge in the chocolate deliciousness. “Hope you like them as gooey as I do,” she said, reaching for her wine on the end table up by Zack. The move put her breasts at his eye level, and only a few inches away—igniting the usual ripple of awareness—and she drew back as soon as the glass was in her grasp.

  “For sure,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s just chocolate cake.”

  She smiled. “Finally, something we have in common.”

  “Aw, now,” he said playfully, “seems to me we’re finding a few things in common.”

  She tilted her head thoughtfully. “We’re finding things we don’t hate about each other,” she replied, “which is not the same as having things in common.”

  He just chuckled, and took another swallow of wine. “Whatever you say, Suzie Q.”

  They laughed and talked some more. About the desolation of winter here and how the whole island shut down after the Harbor Street Christmas Walk. Dahlia had volunteered Zack to head up the technical end of the tree-lighting ceremony just last month, so Suzanne asked him how he’d enjoyed doing that. “Organizing twelve thousand lights? It kinda sucked,” he said.

  From there, discussion somehow led to Trent Fordham’s law office above the bicycle livery—and wondering if he’d had even a single client since hanging up the shingle. “All I can say is,” Zack remarked, “good thing the guy rents a lot of bikes come summer.”

  “Meg told me her sister took a management job at the Knitting Nook,” Suzanne said, thinking of island hot spots and jobs.

  “Heard she got engaged, Meg’s sister.”

  Suzanne nodded. “Yep.”

  “Heard you had a thing for that guy, too—the one she’s marrying.”

  Swell. “Yep.” Heat filled her cheeks, and she took a quick sip of wine to somehow try to hide it. Though she was pretty sure it didn’t work.

  “You over him?” Zack asked. “Or does it still sting?”

  She bit her lip, thought through it. And answered honestly, “Both.” Then dared to meet his gray-green gaze. “But mostly the first, I guess. There’s been...a lot to take my mind off the situation since the new year.”

  At this, he laughed and said, “You’re welcome.”

  Even yesterday, Suzanne wouldn’t have dared ask him this, but since they were going down that road and the wine and brownies were flowing, she said, “How about you? Are you over Meg?”

  His expression darkened slightly, but he appeared to think it over before saying, “Same answer as yours, I guess. A couple of weeks ago, I’d have said no. A couple of weeks ago, having her around—or not—still seemed like the most important thing in the world. But guess the accident has taken my mind off her a lot.”

  Suzanne lifted her glass and said, “To silver linings.”

  Zack laughed, perhaps a bit cynically, but agreed, clinking his wineglass against hers. “Silv
er linings.”

  Suzanne couldn’t have explained how, but from there talk shifted to the weather (it was supposed to snow tomorrow) to Koester’s Market (Suzanne filled Zack in on the few people she’d seen there earlier) to Dahlia’s fried chicken (Zack claimed it was the best he’d ever eaten.)

  “Is that really high praise, though?” Suzanne teased. “You’re on a boat half the year, and on this island the other half. How much of the world’s chicken have you really sampled?”

  He shrugged, conceding, “Fair enough.” And just as she worried that her thoughtless reference to his life on a boat might bring him down, his countenance indeed darkened.

  Prompting her to ask gently, “What’s wrong?”

  “Just...Dahlia,” he said. “Every time she comes up I get a little mad.”

  Ah. There was so much to be tiptoed around these days. “I get it,” she said. “I keep trying not to be angry with her on your behalf, but...I haven’t quite managed it.”

  He pointed toward the far corner of the bed, where his phone lay facedown. “Can you hand me that?”

  Passing her wineglass into his spare hand, she leaned across the bed, which also meant stretching her body across his legs. At which point she succeeded in knocking the phone off the bed and onto the floor, which sent her scrambling across the covers like a little kid until she could bend over and scoop it into her hand. Rising back up sent a rush of light-headedness through her, and as she spun to face Zack she said, “Whew, the wine might have me a little tipsy.” She shoved the phone at him as she collapsed onto the mattress, her head landing on the pillows beside him.

  “Careful there, Miss Q,” he said with a light laugh. “If you get too drunk to walk, I can’t carry you to bed.”

  Then he looked at his phone only to mutter, “She never called me back.”

  “Dahlia?” Suzanne asked.

  He nodded.

  “I haven’t heard from her, either.” Even after I told her you needed her, even after I practically begged her to get in touch. Something in Suzanne’s soul deflated.

  Setting his phone and her wineglass on the table, he rested his head into the pillow, then turned on his side toward Suzanne, their faces only a few inches apart. “Truth is, I don’t even know what to expect for sure when she comes back.”

  “Oh, Zack,” she rushed to say, “I’m sure she’ll be there for you. Whatever’s going on with Dahlia right now, it’ll pass.”

  He let out a troubled sigh, his eyes still locked on hers. “Maybe. But maybe not. Because... I thought the one person in this world I could depend on was her. And she didn’t come back. I know I could still feel my leg then, but...I still couldn’t believe she left me.”

  In Zack’s voice Suzanne heard something she never had before. It was honesty. It was vulnerability. It was fear. This man who made a great show of not needing relationships...needed at least one.

  She wanted to keep acting like it was okay, like it didn’t mean anything. Truly, she believed Dahlia would come back in spring and would take over Zack’s care. But she wasn’t certain. What was she certain of? The hurt Zack was finally allowing her to see, choosing to let her see. So rather than just keep feeding him assurances born of sheer hope, she instead said, “I couldn’t believe it, either. And I know that must hurt, and that it must...must...”

  “It scares the shit out of me,” he whispered, and their eyes locked and she saw the darkness of being a strong man admitting he wished he had someone like...a mother.

  Suzanne didn’t know why Zack had left home so young, but she knew he’d never gone back. And so they had another thing in common: neither of them had a mom. And the closest thing Zack did have to a mom had abandoned him when he needed her most. Succumbing to the urge to comfort the little boy inside him, Suzanne lifted both her hands to cup Zack’s stubbled cheeks and simply murmured, “I know. I know.”

  But when she connected with his eyes again, that little boy had vanished and all that remained was the virile man—whose mouth opened slightly, whose gaze dropped to her parted lips, who was about to kiss her.

  And this time she wasn’t going to push him away.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  SUZANNE’S WHOLE BODY longed for the kiss when it came, and his mouth pressing down on hers felt sweeter, wilder, than she could have imagined. Why had she pushed him away before? She couldn’t remember anymore, but whatever the reason, it had vanished now, too. Nothing mattered but surrendering to a desire that came barreling through her like an avalanche.

  Her breasts, the small of her back, the crux of her thighs—every sensitive spot on her body ached with wanting as his hand curved over her hip and the kissing deepened, his tongue pushing into her mouth to meet her own. She gave herself over to it, leaning closer, close enough for her breasts to brush his chest, for her pelvis to align with his.

  That, however, sent questions racing through her mind. What if he...couldn’t? And yet he was kissing her, and he’d wanted to before, so did that mean...? It was the first time it had crossed her mind to wonder, too involved in her own longing to even think about his side of that.

  But she got her answer when the hand on her hip pulled her firmly to him—and oh! He could. He definitely could. A gasp of pleasure left her.

  And part of her wanted to be...who she’d always been, in bed. She wanted to lie there letting him take the lead, make the moves. Her backward upbringing had led her to believe that at their core men desired a docile woman between the sheets—and that had always fed into who she was sexually. But maybe she’d changed because right now she wanted to do more than just lie there—so she followed the urge.

  The urge to loop her leg up over his hip. Though it was his right hip, so did he feel it? She didn’t know. The urge to press her hands to his chest and push him onto his back. And the urge to straddle his hips, longing to feel that hardest part of him where she was the softest. The sensation rushed from her center outward, vibrating electricity through every inch of her flesh.

  “Sure you want to do this, Suzie Q?”

  The question halted her, alarmed her. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. They were going to talk about this? “Do you?” she asked.

  “Hell yeah.”

  “Okay—me, too,” she told him before he could say anything that might make her stop. She hadn’t had sex since Cal died. She’d kissed a few guys who’d turned out to be losers. And she’d suffered her big crush on Beck Grainger, a pursuit which had led to no kisses at all. But this was more than kissing and her body craved the connection.

  As he pushed up her sweater and she helped him off with his hoodie, she experienced a profound rush of gratitude for what they’d been through together the last few weeks. It was the strange intimacy they’d shared that made it feel safe, right, for him to suddenly see her in her plain pink bra, for him to lift his hands to the sides of her breasts, stroking his thumbs across their peaks. That same intimacy made it okay for her to run her palms over his muscled chest.

  At times, brief bursts of shock broke over her: This is Zack! How can you be touching him this way? How can he be touching you? But each time, she pushed it aside. It’s because you both want each other. And oh God, how had she never really seen how hot he was?

  Being mildly, pleasantly intoxicated helped. When her bra was gone and she bent toward him, lowering one breast to his waiting mouth, she simply closed her eyes and sank into the sensation washing through her. When together they pulled down her blue jeans and panties, she surely blushed, but again she shoved the timid woman she’d once been into the furthest corner of her mind and let hunger guide her.

  “I’ll need you to help me,” he said, regarding his own pants. Did it embarrass him to ask? She hurried to pull them down, to show him she didn’t care about his leg being different and that he was still every bit a man to her.

  Of course, that left him naked. That left her eyes fli
tting downward, left her gasping slightly, left her body longing and aching. She rose to her knees to lower herself onto him.

  “Look at me,” he murmured.

  She did, their gazes locking as their bodies slowly joined. Her every nerve ending sizzled, even as she felt the need to say, “It’s been a while. It might be difficult—”

  Before she could finish the thought, though, his hands, fingers, were curving past her ass, helping to part her until she sank down and—oh, he was inside her and the sensation stole any other thoughts.

  Her body moved on him in tight, rhythmic circles. As he molded her breasts in his hands and they kissed some more, she got lost in it all—until bliss broke over her like a dam bursting, the pleasure nearly crushing her. It shook her to her core, left her collapsing atop him, had her kissing his neck and wanting to somehow just crawl inside him and be a part of him.

  She vaguely wondered if maybe they’d change positions now—but just as quickly realized that without the use of his right leg, maybe this was it. And that was okay. To make sure he knew that, she raised upright on him again, gazed down, bit her lower lip. He thrust up into her, making her moan as he drove upward—deep, deep, deep—until he was coming inside her, both of them crying out.

  Part of Suzanne wanted to crumple over onto him, cuddle with him. She’d just remembered at least one of the reasons this was probably a bad idea—sex, for her, equaled attachment. Sex for most women equaled attachment—it was a physiological fact. She already suffered that aching bond; it was in her now and there was no going back.

  But she couldn’t let him see that, couldn’t turn into a Stage Five Clinger. Because they’d just had very undefined sex, and the one thing she knew about Zack? He didn’t like relationships or, God forbid, commitments. And so despite the innate longing to press her body closer to his, she instead summoned the strength to roll off him, lie beside him.

  He looked over at her. “I think you’re too drunk to walk to your bedroom, Suzie Q. Better stay here for the night.”

  She smiled, relieved. Because how strangely awkward would it be to do this and then go sleep in her own bed? “Just so you know, though,” she told him, “this didn’t happen because I was drunk.”