1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Nine

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  “Aaaaamber,” he says.

  “Hello, Caleb!”

  “Shhh. That’s part of the song. It’s about you.”

  “Oh. Okay. Sorry.”

  Caleb nods, takes another deep breath, and starts again.

  This time, the strumming sounds even worse.

  “Amber,” he sings. “A-uhm-ber. She’s like the mooooon.”

  Oh, shit, Amber thinks again.

  He strums wildly, and if there’s a connection between the notes he’s singing and whatever he’s doing to the guitar, only he can hear it. And she would like to stop hearing it. Very soon.

  “She’s like the moon, if the moon was hot and had breeeeeeeeasts.”

  “Put that thing down!”

  Caleb cracks up laughing as he sets the guitar to one side. “I’ve never had one lesson in my life. Some guy left this out here and asked me to watch it while he went inside to take a call from his wife.”

  “Good, ’cause that was God-awful.”

  “But you really are like the moon if the moon had bre—”

  “Shut up,” she says.

  He pats one thigh. “First have a seat right here, sis!”

  A bolt of heat shoots up her spine. As she settles onto his lap, the hard muscles in his thighs flex. He curves an arm around her back. They’re an hour’s drive from anything she’d call home, but still, to be this intimate with him right out in the open makes her feel flushed and light-headed and a little giggly. In its own way, it’s more intoxicating than much of what he did to her body earlier that morning.

  “Now you really do need to stop calling me that,” she whispers with a sly grin.

  “You didn’t seem to have a problem with the whole forbidden passion routine last night,” he says.

  “This morning, you mean.”

  “Details,” he says.

  “That’s ’cause I was doing away with it.”

  “Us being brother and sister, you mean?”

  “Yep.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, you know. By turning it into a little role-play game, it stops being a real label. I mean, people can role-play pretty much anything they want. Cops. Fireman. Cowboys. It usually means they’re not actually any of those things.”

  “I am a cowboy,” he says.

  “That’s true. But for the most part.”

  “I see. So role-play. Was that something they were going do out at Belinda’s sex club?”

  “If you call it that to anybody else, you’ll probably get me fired.”

  “Sorry. Lips are sealed. Promise. I will, however, be willing to consider opening them for other more important activities.” He gives her a gentle bite just above her collarbone, more like a light pinch of his teeth. She grips the back of his head, fights the urge to drive his mouth further down where it can nibble on her breast.

  “The point is that’s not what we are anymore, right?” she asks.

  “That’s right,” he says. “That’s very, very right. We did away with all kinds of things last night. Things that weren’t working for either of us.”

  He rests his head against her chest. She’s breathing deeply for the first time in days. Or weeks. Or months. Years, even.

  “And today, at almost four o’clock in the afternoon, we’re starting something altogether new,” he says.

  “Exactly,” she answers. “New.”

  They hold each other for a while as the trucks blow past them on the highway.

  “Can we start it by getting out of this motel?” Amber finally says. “I’ve kinda had enough of this place.”

  “Ah, really. I’m always gonna have a special feeling for it, you know, considering.” He sits up suddenly. “What’s it even called?”

  “Something shameful, I’m sure.”

  Caleb spots the sign. “The Showtime Inn. Ha!”

  “A shameful name for a shameful place,” she says.

  “Nothing shameful about what we did,” he says, looking up at her.

  He reaches up and smoothes her bangs back from her forehead.

  “I was only kidding,” she says.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Kidding about the motel, I mean.”

  “And not last night?”

  “This morning, you mean.”

  “Details, details,” he says with a grin.

  She bends forward. He closes the remaining distance so they can kiss. “The details were important,” she says. “I liked the details. Very much.”

  Footsteps slap the pavement nearby. A guy’s heading toward the pool clad in swim trunks and a tank top, probably the owner of the guitar Caleb just used to fool her. He smiles at them both, a smile Caleb returns. Then Caleb grabs the back of her neck quickly and brings her ear to his lips. In a hoarse whisper, he says, “My favorite detail was when I found the spot right below your clit that made you whimper like a little kitten, and I sucked on it till you clawed the bed on either side of you like you thought I was going to tongue fuck you into outer space. What was your favorite detail, my little cowgirl?”

  The guy’s two feet away by the time Caleb finishes this filthy declaration. Her breath lodged in her throat, Amber straightens and gives the guy a broad smile. She sat up so quickly her cowboy hat almost came off, but she rights it just in time. Caleb’s whispers have sent shivers of pleasure throughout her body.

  “Thanks, partner,” the stranger says as he picks up his guitar. “Hope you fooled her like you wanted to.”

  “I see,” Amber says.

  “Y’all make a cute couple,” their visitor says with a smile, then he heads off back in the direction of his room, guitar in hand.

  Because they’ve never heard these words before, said with such innocence and so free of drama, the two of them just sit for a while, soaking them in.

  “So,” Caleb finally says. “Where to?”

  “Our presence has been requested at The Haven Creek Inn in Chapel Springs.”

  “Cool. I’ve never been.”

  “Really?” she asks.

  “Nope.”

  “Well, it’s certainly a day for firsts, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” he says with a boyish grin. “When’s seconds?”

  “Bad boy,” she says, then plants a kiss on his lips.

  “So we heading out now?”

  “I guess, yeah.”

  “You guess? What’s troubling you?”

  “I think we should head straight there. She sounded pretty eager. Maybe ’cause I threatened to murder her last night.”

  “Forgive me if I seem confused, but when someone threatens to murder me, I’m usually not in a rush to have them over to the house.”

  “You know what I mean. Last night we had words. I think she wants to make up for it.”

  “This morning, you mean.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Alright, well, still doesn’t explain the long face.”

  “I just don’t want to take separate cars, that’s all,” she says. “You and me, we’ve been taking separate cars our whole lives practically because I was so afraid to be alone with you. And now all I want is to be alone with you. So I don’t know where we’ll leave my car, but fact is, I want to ride with you and I’m not going if I can’t.”

  Her pouty expression earns her a belly laugh from Caleb.

  “Well, that’s a lucky coincidence, miss, ’cause I don’t feel like going if you don’t ride with me either. And while we’re speaking the truth, I don’t feel much like letting go of you once we get there neither.”

  “Unless,” she says.

  “Unless what?” he asks, expression falling.

  “Unless you try playing the guitar again, in which case I might run for the hills and never come back.”

  “Well, I’ll just have to catch you then!”

  She’s not quite sure how he does it, but in an instant, he’s standing and he’s got her in both arms and she’s got no choice but to wrap her legs around him to keep from falling. And just l
ike that, he’s carrying her across the parking lot and back to their room.

  “Or you could just never let me go,” she whispers into his ear as he walks. “That way, you don’t have to risk me running in the first place.”

  “Sounds good to me, darlin’.”

  Chapter 11

  It’s amazing what you can learn about someone after two hours alone together in the car, Amber realizes.

  Like the fact Caleb’s actually a smooth and focused driver, his antics in her driveway the night before not withstanding. Or that he likes country music way more than she realized, and when he sings along with it, he sounds a heck of a lot better than he did during his little comedy routine by the motel’s pool.

  She also feels blessed he’s such a country fan because for the first time in her life, the love songs they’re listening to seem written just for her. She doesn’t find herself thinking things like, “Well, that’s just lovely Miss Hill! But let’s hear about a real marriage!” And when Chase Rice asks her to climb to the top of the water tower so they can kick it with the stars for an hour, it sounds like the invitation is sincere.

  The troubles and pain of the last few days don’t just feel miles away. Rather, with Caleb’s free arm draped across her shoulders and a blazing big sky sunset off to the west, anything seems possible.

  Do you have to have love to feel this way, she wonders, or is this how most people feel when they finally walk through the fires of a fear that’s lain in their path for most of their lives? Love certainly helps, that’s for sure.

  Once it was clear her marriage was in a nosedive, she’d had fantasies of getting in the car and just driving and driving until she wound up in her own version of Chapel Springs, some suitable, peaceful refuge from a life defined by fear and hasty choices. But the trip she and Caleb were on now was of a different nature. They weren’t driving away from something; they were driving toward her mother and The Haven Creek Inn, and the very real fact that people who cared about them both had wanted the two of them to get together long before they were willing to take the leap.

  Some of those people, anyway.

  Rather than stew over what her father might think of this new development, Amber slides out from under Caleb’s arm so she can take his free hand in her own and hold it to her chest. He returns her grip, but his expression seems distant, more distant than someone watching the road.

  “Listen,” he says suddenly.

  Uh oh.

  “What?” she answers.

  “This place Belinda was going to send you to,” he says.

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you really want to go? I mean, I’m asking because you told me about what things were like with Joel, how he went cold on you in the bedroom, and then I kinda barged in and did my thing and… I just don’t want to feel like I took something away from you. Something you needed before…”

  “Are you asking if I needed to sow my wild oats?”

  “Kinda. Yeah.”

  “So did it seem like there was something missing this morning? Did it seem like I was distracted while you—how did you put it? Tongue fucked me into outer space?”

  He grins at the road and bites his lower lip and tightens his grip on her hand. He likes it when she talks dirty. She makes a note of that. Good thing the feeling’s mutual.

  “Is that a trick question?” he asks.

  “Nope. Did I seem distracted?”

  “You did not. You did not seem distracted.”

  “Well, there’s your answer then.”

  “Still, I don’t want to feel like I shamed you out of doing something you needed to do just ’cause the thought of you with other men made me want to break the door down.”

  “Well, if we’re being honest here, the thought of you breaking the door down to keep me from being with another man kinda makes me want to do a repeat of this morning right here in your truck.”

  “Well, we can certainly add that to the list,” he says.

  “Good.”

  “You’re asking me if you’re enough, aren’t you?” Amber says.

  Caleb tilts his head from side to side as if he’s considering her question, then he says, “Yeah. I kinda am, I guess.”

  “Well, I think that’s sweet.”

  “Sweet?” he asks, grimacing.

  “Yes. I think it’s sweet that the most beautiful man I’ve ever met in my entire life, probably the only man I’ve ever really loved, just a few hours after giving me the best orgasm of my entire existence, is asking me if he’s enough. It speaks well of your character. I don’t want your head to get so big your Stetson won’t fit.”

  “Sassy,” he says, and gives her left thigh a hard, loud slap. “Sassy girl, Amber Watson.”

  “That’s me!”

  “But you’re not answering my question.”

  “Well, the funny thing was, about five seconds before you pulled into my driveway last night I was about to throw in the towel on the whole idea.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, for starters, Belinda wouldn’t tell me anything about it. Honestly, I still don’t know anything about it. I know it has a name, The Desire Exchange. I know that they were going to try to give me some kinda drug to relax while I was there, which I had no intention of taking. And I know we were supposed to be gone for two days. But that’s it.”

  “But you said yes?”

  “I said yes at first ’cause when Belinda talked about the place, she got this look in her eyes, like… I don’t even know how to describe it. But I thought, here’s one of the richest women I know, who could have pretty much anything she wants, and when she talks about this place, I don’t know, it was almost religious.”

  “Huh,” Caleb grunts.

  “But she’s the one who said I shouldn’t go. And she said it after she saw the way we looked at each other. She said I didn’t need the place or what they had to offer. She said what I needed was right there in front of me and his name was Caleb.”

  “Caleb Eckhart,” he says quietly.

  “Yep,” she answers.

  He smiles, brings her hand to his mouth and gives her fingers a gentle kiss.

  They’ve passed through Austin. The rolling green landscape of the Texas Hill Country spreads out before them now, painted with oranges and deep reds by the westward leaning sun.

  “There was one other thing,” Amber says.

  “What?”

  “There was an application process and for part of it, I was going to have to write down my deepest sexual fantasy. Those were Belinda’s words. Deepest sexual fantasy. The one I was afraid to tell anyone.”

  “You just have one?” Caleb asks.

  “Dirty boy.”

  “Dirty girl,” he answers.

  They both stare at the beautiful countryside in silence for a few minutes.

  “You can tell me, you know,” he finally says. “Your fantasy, I mean. Doesn’t matter how deep or how dark.”

  “Yeah? And then what?”

  “I’ll do my best to make it real. That’s what.”

  He takes his eyes off the road just long enough to give her a devilish wink. Between this simple gesture and the promise he just made, her breath catches and her cheeks flame and her heart skips a beat. Maybe a few beats, she can’t really be sure.

  Why the hell not? she thinks. But as soon as she goes to speak, a cold weight settles down over her chest. A day before the fantasy would have seemed fairly tame, as sex fantasies go. Now, not so much. Caleb might not consider it so tame considering it involves being lost in the woods.

  “Amber?”

  “I’m working on it,” she says.

  “No rush,” he says. “Maybe writing it down’ll be easier, when you’re ready.”

  “Maybe so.”

  Her heart’s racing. If she doesn’t tell him now, she’ll feel like she’s withholding something of value. But will the fantasy still work for her now, given the awful story she just learned of what her dad did to Caleb the night his
parents died? The thought of Caleb forcing himself to act out some sort of sex scene that might stir such a painful memory, just because he’s desperate to make it work with her, fills her with anxiety. For so long now, she’s felt like little more than the victim of her husband’s betrayals. She never felt like she was even capable of hurting Joel; that’s how little the man seemed to care for her. But now, all of a sudden, she’s responsible for someone else’s heart.

  “Hey,” Caleb says, “did I push a little too hard there?”

  “No,” she answers.

  “Prove it,” he says, curving his arm around her shoulders, pulling her body into his as he drives confidently with one hand.

  A few minutes later, the gates to The Haven Creek Inn come into view.

  Chapter 12

  The Haven Creek Inn sits on a large hill that dominates the property’s eighty acres of live oaks, sloping green lawns, and winding hiking trails. The main building, a two-story L-shaped structure of roughhewn stone, is perched on the hill’s crown, the rocking-chair studded porches on its first and second floors commanding gorgeous views of the expansive landscape to the west.

  Her mom asked them to meet her at the newest guest cottage, so Caleb drives past the inn’s main building, past the half-circle of smaller guest cottages that dot the hill’s gentle slope, past even the large, rectangular swimming pool framed by a smoother version of the roughhewn stone used in the main building.

  In the early evening dark, Amber can see flickering candles lining the serpentine front walkway of the newest guest cottage. Each glowing candle bag is cut with the inn’s logo, a half-moon partially shaded by tree branches. None of the cottages they pass on the way had string lights laced through the gutters of their shiny metal roofs as this one does. Her mother must have added this glittering touch just for her as well.

  Just for them, she realizes.

  And there’s her mother, standing on the front porch, dressed in a white polo shirt bearing the inn’s logo, the same shirt she always wears when she’s on the job. She’s flanked by two of her closet friends in the world.

  Because she’s only four foot nine, most people mistake Nora Donner for a small child from a distance. She’s pushing sixty, but she has a child’s energy level combined with a desperate desire to please. Some call her codependent, others simply call her kind. Amber’s in the latter camp, and her mother goes back and forth between the two, which is probably why she and Nora have been close friends for years.