Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1)

by Babette de Jongh

  And I wanted to see more.

  He unlocked the car and helped me inside. Then he got in, and I realized that something between us had shifted. He’d let me see inside his heart, even though it was only a quick glimpse, and I felt connected to him in a way I hadn’t felt with anyone in a very long time. My breath started coming faster—that testosterone thing he’d done to me already—and I parted my lips to breathe through my mouth.

  His eyes dropped to my lips, then back up again to meet my gaze.

  He leaned toward me.

  I leaned toward him, across the car’s console. Our breath mingled. He wrapped gentle fingers around my shoulder and pulled me closer. I could taste the warm heat of his mouth even before we kissed.

  And then, we kissed.

  We kissed.

  Oh, my God, we kissed. The sweetest of kisses—soft, shallow, but soon becoming deeper and more meaningful. My eyes closed without my even being aware of it, and when I opened them again, I saw that his eyes were closed, too. Dark crescents of thick black lashes swept his cheek. I ran a hand up along his arm, sliding over his shirt. The contrast of hard muscle under the soft fabric did something to my insides.

  His eyes opened slowly, trapping me in a pool of sparkling amber. He cranked the engine. “Let’s get you home.”

  Butterflies of anticipation somersaulted in my stomach. Neither of us spoke as he drove the few blocks to my house. The riverside restaurant was so close we could’ve walked there and back if we’d chosen.

  The Methodist church was having some event, so the curbside space in front of my house was taken. He parked down the block, and on the walk to my house, he paused to pluck a wild climbing rose from the trellis that arched over old Mrs. Mercer’s sidewalk. He stripped the leaves and thorns from the short stem and tucked the fragrant bloom into my hair.

  Then, we were standing on the sidewalk in front of my house.

  The white planks of the old Victorian farmhouse glowed under the streetlight. The facets of the antique beveled glass front door sparkled in welcome. Chester roused from his spot on the porch rail and meowed, arching his back and rubbing his face against the upright post. Dimly, I heard the dog door bump as Lizzie entered the house from the side yard, ready to meet us at the front door.

  Ian turned me toward him and linked his hands behind my back, holding me loosely in the circle of his arms.

  I licked my suddenly-dry lips. “Would you like to come in?”

  “Only if you want me to.”

  I could have kissed him good night on the sidewalk and gone safely inside. But instead of “Good night,” the words that jumped out of my mouth were, “Come in.”

  Lizzie gave Ian the grand tour, unimpeded by her inability to speak English. “Here’s my dog bed, here’s my toy basket, here’s my treat jar, on the hall table.”

  Ian ruffled Lizzie’s fur and looked at me. “Can I give her one?”

  “Sure. Make yourself comfortable. Pick out a CD. I’ll go pour us some wine.”

  Then I stood in my kitchen, wringing my hands.

  Holy Shit. What had I done?

  Well, I knew what I’d done, and that’s what had me wringing my hands. I had just invited a handsome almost-stranger into my house with the unspoken intent of having sex with him.

  My fingers shook as I took down two fishbowl crystal wine glasses and set them on the counter beside an unopened bottle of Cabernet and a corkscrew. I looked at all the familiar items spread before me, but my mind and my hands weren’t communicating because the rest of my body was yammering on about something else entirely.

  The CD player came on in the living room—Dave Matthews, of course, because who can listen to Dave without wanting to have sex?

  Taking command of my fingers, at least, I opened the bottle. I measured almost exactly the same amount of Cabernet into each glass, then took a sip from the glass I’d overfilled by just a tad.

  Ian came up behind me. “What an incredibly sexy backside.”

  What an incredibly sexy voice.

  Ian reached around me from behind. His arms bracketed me for a moment then curved to hold me close. With my sexy backside cradled by his sexy front side, I was surrounded by his warmth, his spicy scent, and some mysterious, magical pheromone. I let my head drop back onto his shoulder. He kissed my neck, then turned me around.

  He lifted me up until I half-sat on the edge of the kitchen counter. I wrapped my legs around his waist, hooked my ankles together, and rested my thighs on his hard, muscular forearms. My you-know-what was right up against his, and the iron-hard blast-furnace of his erection just about melted my panties.

  My body responded without consulting me. My arms wrapped around his neck, my lips parted, my tongue slipped into his mouth.

  He opened to me, hot, wet, delicious. His tongue skimmed the roof of my mouth, raising goosebumps on the back of my neck. I was hardly aware of it when he carried me out of the kitchen.

  He took his lips off mine. “Where?”

  I pointed to the bedroom door with my foot and slipped my tongue back into his mouth. He spread me across the quilt, lifted my dress over my head and tossed it aside. His kisses burned a trail—eyelids, cheeks, jaw, neck—then paused to feast on my collarbone. My skin tingled with static electricity.

  “You’re so beautiful.” He caressed my bare breasts. “Your nipples are like little raspberries. I wonder do they taste...” His whispered words trailed away as he nipped lightly then sucked.

  “Lord God.” I moaned, and felt his smile against my heated skin.

  He chuckled, then moved up to kiss my lips. “I hoped you’d remember my name by now.”

  “Ian.” I loved the foreign sound on my lips. “Ian.”

  “That’s better.” With a fingertip, he conducted a lazy tour of my body. From my neck... to the tip of one breast... across ribs... across belly... then lower. “I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I first saw you.”

  I couldn’t help but squirm under his hand. “You have?”

  He didn’t answer, but knowing what I needed, brushed lightly at the edge of my panties. Up and down, up and down, he ran a finger along the thin elastic barrier, finally pressing the edge aside, sleeking his finger inside where I wanted it to be.

  He propped his head on one hand while the other continued its lethal caress. My eyelids fluttered down, my hands fell limp at my sides.

  “Casey.”

  “Ahhh,” I said. But it wasn’t exactly in response to what he was saying.

  “Casey, do you have any protection?”

  “Hmmmm?” I mumbled vaguely. Protection? My parents had encouraged me to keep a handgun, but I refused to have anything like that in my home. Too many children would have access to it. Lizzie would be a much better protector than...

  “Sweetheart.”

  “Mmmm...” I liked the way he said sweetheart. The long E sound was drawn out and the R had a slight burr.

  He took his hand away and adjusted my panties back into place.

  Reluctantly my mind began to clear.

  “Are you on the pill?”

  “Well no, because I haven’t had sex in...” and then I realized. The fact that I hadn’t had sex lately didn’t matter, because I was for damn sure about to. I brought my legs together and sat up. Here was my chance to back out. I could come away unscathed and almost uninvolved. But my body was still under his control, including, apparently, my mouth. “I think there might be something in the bathroom closet.”

  Naked except for a scrap of damp panties, I scrambled off the bed, ran to the bathroom, and yanked open the closet door. Standing on tiptoe, I could see it—The Pink Box—perched on top of a pile of stuff at the very, very back of the top shelf.

  Dimly aware that Ian had come into the room behind me, I dragged out the step-stool and climbed on. I could hardly reach The Pink Box, but I managed to knock it down. It bounced off my shoulder, and Ian caught it.

  “Contraceptive Sponges,” he read aloud. “Expiration date...
about three years ago.”

  “No,” I wailed. Taking the box from him, I read it for myself. “The ink’s a little faded. Could be an eight instead of a three. Do you think...?”

  “I wouldn’t chance it, lass.”

  “Don’t you have anything?” I punched him on the shoulder. What kind of man takes a girl out to dinner without bringing along a just-in-case-condom?

  He gave a humorless laugh and laid a consoling hand on mine. “If yours is out of date, mine has turned to dust by now.” That got a desperate laugh out of me as we stood there in my bathroom, more than an hour away from the nearest all-night drug store.

  “I hate small towns,” I whined, slowly becoming aware that I wore only a small bit of skimpy lace and elastic, while he was still fully clothed.

  “I know exactly what you mean.” He caressed my shoulder.

  I slapped his hand away. “Weren’t you ever a Boy Scout?”

  He laughed and put his hand right back on my shoulder. “If I’d been prepared, wouldn’t you have thought it a bit presumptuous?”

  “I’d have been hopping mad and thrown you out.” I wouldn’t have even noticed, as we both knew very well. But I appreciated his effort to save my pride.

  “I could give you some relief,” he offered gallantly.

  “No, thank you.” I tossed the dusty pink box into the bathroom trash. “It’d just be torture for both of us.”

  *

  Sunday morning, I woke with a headache. The headache, I could handle. What threatened to kill me was the overwhelming case of unrequited lust.

  I felt incomplete.

  Desperately... unfinished.

  I was familiar with the standard remedies for this ailment. Most left me more frustrated than ever. The only things I could count on to relieve my condition were those that left me too tired to do anything but pass out from exhaustion.

  With this goal in mind, I dragged the lawn mower from the shed and gave the back yard its weekly crew-cut. Then I hauled out the hedge trimmers and attacked the red-tip photina along the back yard fence.

  In the early afternoon, I picked up the last pile of severed branches and staggered toward the heap of limbs already stacked at the curb. A cloud of glowing floaters hovered just in front of me. I was about to pass out, but that was okay, since the remedy was working. I walked into the house to guzzle a few glasses of water and some iced tea with lemon, congratulating myself for a job well-done. I had hardly thought of Ian at all during the last twenty feet of shrub trimming.

  Shit. I’d just thought of Ian. And sex. And lack of sex.

  After Ben, I’d only had one sexual partner, a fellow-dancer-friend-with-benefits, and I hadn’t seen him in months. My heart might not be ready for sex with another person, but my body was way past due.

  It was time for another form of distraction.

  I called Lizzie away from the rabbits she was chasing in her sleep. We were going to my parents’ house, where I could count on chocolate, cherishing, and cheering-up.

  And if that didn’t work, my mom had Valium.

  When we got there, the driveway was empty. I parked at the curb so my car wouldn’t block the drive, and went in the always-unlocked back door. Lizzie splashed into the swimming pool before the gate clanged shut, and I decided to do the same.

  Being human, I had to locate a swimsuit first.

  Tossing my keys and purse on the dryer—the closest horizontal surface to the back door—I went into my old bedroom and rifled through the dresser in search of the raggedy bathing suit I’d been wearing for years. I found it, but it seemed to have aged since its last wearing. Stretched-out leg openings, wavy waistband, dry elastic that had lost the will to snap back. I should have bought a new one when Melody and I...

  My knees quit working. They didn’t give one shit when I fell to the plush pink carpet beside my old canopy bed.

  Stupid, selfish, over-sexed bitch.

  Guilt and shame twined in my stomach and climbed up my throat.

  I’d forgotten.

  For hours, almost a whole day, I had forgotten Melody was dead. A reservoir of tears bulged behind my eyes. My skull felt like a dam about to burst. I made desperate choking sounds that I heard in a strange, detached sort of way as my mind tried to hold onto the last thread of sanity. I could see myself going completely crazy, losing it totally. If I really let my hurt have its way, I might never find my way back again. I realized now, the wave of grief that had knocked Ben to his knees was just now hitting me. “I’m sorry.”

  But being sorry wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough to stop the suffering I knew I deserved. The tears were stronger than I could ever be, and they burst out, coming so fast I couldn’t stop them or even wipe them away.

  I heard Lizzie barking in the back yard. She’d heard me keening and wanted to come inside and make sure I was okay. But I couldn’t move, trapped in an undertow that wouldn’t let me surface.

  Headlights lit up the walls of my old room as my parents’ car pulled into the drive.

  When had it gotten dark? I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and pulled against the bedpost to stand, unlocking muscles gone stiff from sitting so long on the floor.

  Mama met me in the dark hallway and flipped on the light. “Oh, my dear.” She pulled me into her embrace. After a few moments, she led me into the kitchen and dosed me with half-a-Valium and a huge slice of chocolate pie with cream cheese and coconut frosting.

  Lizzie had already been let into the house and fed a plate of leftover stew, so she had no objections when Mom insisted we stay the night. I took a warm bath, and Mom brought hot tea for me to drink and wet tea bags to put on my swollen eyelids. I knew the tea bags wouldn’t do much good, but I used them anyway.

  It was nice to be pampered for a while, and I knew I needed it, though I didn’t deserve it. After my bath, I put on a T-shirt of Daddy’s and one of Mom’s big velour zip-front robes. In the living room, Daddy stretched out in his recliner, the remote control clutched to his chest, sleeping to the sound of the television blaring loud enough to wake the dead.

  It was good to be home.

  “Lizzie was filthy.” My mother came into the room behind Lizzie, who smelled strongly of peppermint shampoo. Lizzie splayed her feet and shook, leaving her damp fur standing up in spikes—and startling my dad from his before-bedtime nap. “Don’t you ever bathe her?”

  “Huh?” Daddy fumbled for his glasses and snapped down the footrest on his easy chair.

  “I bathed her last week, I think.”

  “Hello, mangy old dog,” my dad greeted Lizzie in his usual way, absently petting the top of her wet head. Lizzie was only two when I got her from the pound shortly after moving back home. She was neither mangy nor old, but that was Daddy’s form of endearment for all canines.

  I grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. “How can you hear yourself think with all that noise?”

  My dad stood. “Come on, Lizzie. Let’s go to bed.”

  Mom planted a kiss on his mouth. “See you in a little while.”

  “G’night, Daddy.” I gave him a hug.

  “G’night, baby girl.” He returned my hug then patted mom on the butt. “Don’t stay up too late. Come on, dog,” he commanded to Lizzie.

  Lizzie looked back at me once then followed him down the hall.

  “Your fur’s too wet for you to get on the bed, you know.” He held the bedroom door open for Lizzie to pass through. “You’ll have to sleep on the floor until...” And the door clicked shut on their one-sided conversation.

  Mom sat in her recliner and I sat in Dad’s. “So,” Mom said, “tell me what’s going on.”

  My feelings were so complex I hardly understood them myself. “I feel so bad for Ben and the kids. I wish I knew what to do for them.”

  “Why do you have to do anything?”

  “Of course, I have to do something.” Couldn’t she see that?

  “Well, it’s a sad situation, I agree with you on that. But I still don’t see
why you feel—”

  “If Melody hadn’t come with me that day, she’d still be—”

  Mom sat forward, making the recliner squeal. “Well, now, you correct me if I’m wrong.” Her face had tightened with something that looked almost like anger. “But it was my understanding that you were going with her. She was the one driving, was she not?”

  I just looked at her. She knew the answer to that question.

  “Sweetheart.” Mom’s voice softened. “You’re always trying to save the world. Just don’t lose yourself in the process.”

  “Mom...” I wanted so badly to tell her about the accident. The part I hadn’t told anyone. The way Melody had died, her last request, and my promise. But if I told even one person, I ran the risk of everybody finding out.

  “What, Casey?”

  “Nothing.” I looked away so she couldn’t read my face. “Nothing.”

  We sat for a moment in silence. Then Mom stood and turned out the lamp. “Let’s go to bed. Things will look better in the morning. Do you need the other half of that Valium?”

  “No.” I still felt sad, guilty, and desperate, but thanks to the Valium, my feelings sat a few feet away, just looking at me instead of trying to poke my eyes out.

  I slept all night and most of Monday morning in my old bed. Classes didn’t start till two in the afternoon, so I could afford to be a slug. Mom served me breakfast at lunchtime, then disappeared into the laundry room. I sat at the kitchen table, looking out the bay window at Lizzie lounging by the pool. My sadness, guilt, and desperation sat beside me, small, quiet companions much more easily managed than the night before when I’d lost it over a stretched-out swimsuit.

  My cell phone broke through my thoughts.

  “Casey, your purse is ringing!” Mom yelled from the laundry room. She carried my brown leather bag into the kitchen by its long strap, bringing with her the comforting aroma of fabric softener.

  I answered the call and listened with a sinking heart. “I’ll be right there.” Disconnecting, I dug through my purse for my car keys.

  Mom handed them over, and I remembered I’d tossed them on the dryer the day before. “That was Amy’s preschool. Ben was supposed to pick her up. He’s AWOL, and Amy’s hysterical.”