“Holy shit. That was a strike.”
“Mm-hm.” Josie blew on her fingertips, then wiped them on her shirt.
“You’ve never gotten a strike.”
“You don’t know that.”
Ethan got to his feet, shaking his head, then took his time lining up his shot. Josie smiled at his concentration, knowing he’d be damned before he’d lose to her. She tried not to look too hard at his body while he stood there, but couldn’t stop herself. Her eyes traveled up his jeans, focused for a moment on his perfectly tight butt, then continued up his back, where his shoulder muscles tensed.
She realized she was biting her lip just about the same time she sensed Molly’s eyes on her, and she looked over, trying not to flush with guilt. To her credit, Molly kept her mouth shut, but her eyebrows went up in a knowing way, and she narrowed her eyes as she watched Ethan’s ball fly down the lane.
Chapter 30
After Molly had stumbled sleepily out of the truck at Bellinis a couple of hours later, Ethan paused with his hands on the wheel. “So. Where to next?”
Josie squirmed. It was past midnight, and ten years ago, they would’ve sped out to the lake without a second thought, then gotten lost in the blankets in back. She was frightened by how much of her wanted to do it again, especially after Mama B’s little live-for-the-moment speech earlier. “It’s … it’s late.”
“Do you have a curfew?” He raised his eyebrows, the edges of his lips tilting up. God, how she wanted to take her seat belt off, slide onto his lap, and kiss those lips again.
She shook her head and swallowed hard, thankful for the darkness that was hopefully hiding the blush she could feel creeping up her cheeks. “No curfew.”
He reached a hand across the cab and ever-so-gently tucked a lock of hair off her face and behind her ear. “We could just talk, you know. I know I’m a man and all, but I do have the self-control to drive us to the lake, turn off the truck, and just talk.”
“Really.”
“Scout’s honor.” He raised his right hand, then shifted into gear. “C’mon. It’s summer, it’s hot, it’s too early to go home. Let’s go to the lake.”
She grimaced as she turned to the side window. Yes, it was the hot part that was going to get them both in trouble.
When they’d both gotten out of the truck at Twilight Cove, Ethan took Josie’s hand in a move so natural it transported her, like she’d time-traveled back to the days when they were still a couple. “Waterfall path?”
Josie didn’t answer, just let Ethan pull her toward the path that had been one of their favorite walks back then, even in the daylight when they hadn’t been trying to sneak off and be alone. The moon was full and the sky was clear, so the light among the elms and maples was a dappled grayish filter.
She swallowed hard. “This lighting is perfect for a horror film.”
“Don’t worry. No serial killers out here.”
“They always have a first victim.” Josie stumbled over a twig, but Ethan’s strong hand tightened around hers, and she managed to avoid an embarrassing face plant. “Do you remember that time David snuck up on us out here?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“We were so busted.”
“He loved it. Pops gave him my truck keys for the entire next week.”
“Which should have been a pretty strong reason not to let it happen again.”
Ethan stopped on the path, but Josie plowed into him because her eyes were searching out rogue stones and branches. He reached out his other arm to steady her. “Apparently you were a stronger reason to risk it.”
Josie swallowed hard as his eyes searched hers. If he kissed her now, she’d be powerless to resist. The night air, the waterfall path, the sounds, the smells … it was just too much. His arm fell to his side, then he turned back up the path. “And even though I want to stop right here in the moonlight and kiss you silly and remind you of just why I was willing to risk my Chevy for a few minutes alone with you, I’ll be good and keep walking because I promised we’d just talk.”
Josie laughed tightly. Was she relieved? Or disappointed?
“Good boy.”
A couple of minutes later, she could hear the splash of the waterfall that signaled the end of the Abenaki River and the beginning of Echo Lake. Ethan braced his arms on the huge glacial rock that had been their favorite spot years ago, and hauled himself up. Then he reached down and lifted Josie like she weighed no more than a cat.
He set her down, but didn’t let go, and her eyes lifted to meet his. Long seconds passed where all she could hear was the water and her own hitched breathing, but finally Ethan slid his hands ever so slowly down her sides and back to his own. “Right. Well. Here we are. Just talking. Want to sit?”
“Sure. Yes. Okay.” She floundered for words.
He spread his windbreaker on the rock and they lowered themselves to sit side by side facing the lake. “Doesn’t get any prettier than this, does it?”
Josie pulled her knees up to her chest. Through a break in the trees, the lake glistened in the moonlight, the tiniest of ripples breaking its glassy surface. To their left, water cascaded down a series of boulders, pooling waist-deep in a couple of places. The rock they were on sat just five feet above the biggest pool, and unless the wind came from the north, the waterfall’s spray stayed shy of their spot.
“Do you ever come out here?” Her voice was soft as she asked, somehow dying to know that he had never brought anyone else out here.
“Wouldn’t have been the same.”
Josie felt her shoulders relax. He may have moved on, but at least some things he’d kept sacred, like this spot. It meant something to him, too. “Remember how you were going to build a log cabin out on the island?” She pointed at a tiny spot of land in the middle of the lake. It was barely big enough to house a family of otters, let alone humans.
“I had a lot of plans for getting you alone back then.” He smiled as he gazed out at the island. “Funny how reality doesn’t matter all that much when you’re eighteen.”
“Reality’s somewhat overrated.”
Ethan chuckled softly. “This from a therapist.”
“I know. I should know better. So do you still want to build a log cabin someday?”
“Not really. No.” Ethan idly snapped a tiny twig into pieces and tossed them in the water. “So what’s your apartment like in Boston?”
“Tiny. Warm. Smells like bread all day because there’s a deli underneath. It’s nice. Brick. Old.” Josie scrambled to find words to describe it, and couldn’t figure out why it was so hard. Did she not want him to find fault with it, even from afar, even without ever seeing it? Didn’t she love it there?
“It’s—charming, I guess. But mostly tiny.”
“Must be nice to have everything so convenient.”
“Dangerous sometimes. Lou’s pastrami on rye is going to be the reason I die of an early heart attack.”
Ethan leaned back on his hands, casual, like he had all night. “So are you getting rich and famous now?”
“Sickeningly so, yes. I might be able to move to a full eight-hundred-square-foot apartment in a few years.”
Ethan shook his head. “Jos, did you ever, even once in the past ten years, consider coming back here?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you mean back here … or back to you.”
“Either. Both. I don’t know.”
She picked up a piece of shale and started doodling on the rock under her legs. “Of course I did. This place is all I knew. Boston was big and scary. The first year was a little hellish.”
“But you never?”
“I never. I couldn’t. I was trying so hard to make my own way, do my own thing, be my own person.”
“Without me.”
She paused, thoughtful. “No. Not really. It wasn’t nearly as much about that as it was about figuring out who I was, Eth. I knew nothing but this town and Camp Ho-Ho.
We never even took a vacation anywhere else. I’d never crossed the state border till the time you and I snuck up to Montreal, and the second time was when I left for college. I just needed to … I don’t know … it sounds so stupid and clichéd, but I needed to find out who I was.”
“So you got your degree, you started a counseling practice, you got a cat. Does that mean you’ve figured it out?”
Josie doodled faster. “I thought I had.”
“Until?” Ethan’s eyes probed hers.
“Until now, I guess.”
“Now, as in this moment? Or as in this year? This month? This week?”
“Until I came back.”
Ethan nodded slowly and looked out toward the lake. The haunting call of a loon made Josie jump, losing her grip on the rock she’d been doodling with. Ethan looked at her scratches in the rock, then chuckled.
“What’s funny?”
“You are.”
“Why?”
He looked back out at the lake. “Did you even realize what you were drawing there?”
Josie’s eyes widened as she shifted her legs to the side and saw the elaborate heart she’d scratched into the rock, along with the initials JK + EM. How in the world had she done that without even noticing she was doing so?
Ethan laughed. “Force of habit? I drag you out to one of our favorite make-out spots and suddenly you’re doodling hearts?”
Josie smiled. “I only drew about seven million of these hearts in this rock back then.”
“We’ll have to find our tree sometime when it’s light out. Wonder if our initials are still there?”
“We really were a cliché, weren’t we? Small-town high school sweethearts and all.”
“I don’t know, Jos. It didn’t feel clichéd at the time.”
“Clichés never do when you’re the one doing them.”
“That’s just psychobabble.”
“I do not traffic in psychobabble.” She popped a pebble at his knee, but he grabbed her wrist before she could launch another one.
He held it for an interminable minute, searching her eyes in silence. Finally, he spoke. “What are you feeling right now, Josie?”
God, if she only knew. Scared, hot, bothered, terrified. Sitting here on this rock, in the spot where they’d spent half of two summers exploring each other’s bodies by moonlight, it was impossible to erase those memories and pretend the sound of the waterfall and call of the loons didn’t bring her right back.
It was impossible to pretend she didn’t want to pull Ethan back right now and feel his arms gather her tight, feel his lips on hers, feel his hands roam to places he hadn’t touched for so damn long. It was, in fact, all she could do to stop herself from abandoning all reason and letting it happen.
But suddenly his lips were on hers, and he braced himself at her side as he buried a hand in her hair to pull her closer. Instead of resisting, all she could do was moan as she felt her every nerve ending spring to life.
Forget scared, forget terrified. As she opened her mouth under his and heard his answering groan, all she felt was pure, unadulterated lust.
Chapter 31
As Josie’s lips parted, Ethan pulled her body closer to his. God, he’d waited so long to feel her like this again. She’d never believe he hadn’t had ulterior motives bringing her out here, but damn. He’d do everything in his power to make sure she wouldn’t regret it in the end.
The skin of her neck was silky soft under his hand, and as he lowered his lips, he could feel her pulse flipping like a baby bird’s. He put his left arm around her and felt her relax as she sank backward.
Ah hell. If she did that little moaning sound one more time, he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions.
Pebbles bit into his forearm as he supported Josie’s back, but he barely registered the discomfort. Just as he felt her bones turn to mush, though, she pushed back upward.
“Ooh. Ow.” She reached back to find whatever had jabbed her. She closed her hand around a big pebble and tossed it into the waterfall. “I don’t think I remember this rock being so … rocky.”
“We used to bring a sleeping bag.” He kept his hand tangled in her curls, his lips on her neck, praying for the spell not to be broken.
“We used to get eaten alive by the mosquitoes.”
“There you go again, ruining a perfectly good memory.”
Stop talking, Josie. Stop thinking.
“Sorry. Do you remember, though—”
“Shut up, Jos. You’re babbling. You’re nervous. I get it. But it’s me.” He slid his hands up her jawline and into her hair, forcing her to meet his eyes. “It’s me.” He lowered his lips again, tentatively, then more insistently as she didn’t pull back.
Oh holy heaven. It was all the same as he remembered, only better. Her lips tasted of strawberry and mint, and her hair was still as soft as that ridiculous sweater she’d knit him for Christmas when they were seventeen. It was a little more salon-perfect than he preferred, but at least she’d been letting it go curly again.
She pulled back and braced her hands on his chest.
Ah hell.
He sighed and pulled his hands away from her body, but to his surprise, she grabbed them tightly. “I’m going to regret this. I know I’m going to regret this. I’m going to hate you tomorrow for driving me out here. Hate you for bringing me Morris’s French fries. Hate you for letting me win at midnight bowling.”
She let go of one of his hands and brought hers to his face. “Dammit, Ethan. I can’t do this. I can’t sit here on this damn rock—which is really hard, by the way—listening to the waterfall, getting spooked by the loons, smelling your after-shave … feeling your hands on me. I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?” Even he could hear the raw pain in his voice.
“Because, moron, if you touch me one more time, I’m sixteen again, losing myself to you on the riverbank.”
“And what is wrong with that?”
“We’re not sixteen anymore. We’re not. We can’t pretend we are.”
“Nobody’s pretending, Jos.” His hand encircled her wrist and he brought her palm to his lips, planting small kisses as he talked. “Everything I’ve said, everything I’ve done, I’ve meant. I was sixteen when I fell in love with you, I grant you that. And I remember every minute of it. I’m not trying to recapture being sixteen. I’m way more aware of reality than I really want to be. But Jesus, Josie, how can you not feel this? How can you not—want this?”
Her breath trembled as she spoke. “I do.”
He paused. “What did you say?”
“I do. I do want this. God, Ethan, I’ve been trying so hard not to want this. But I do.” She slid both hands around his head and pulled him toward her lips, sliding onto his lap at the same time.
“Touch me, Ethan. Please just touch me. Make me forget about everything but you.”
* * *
Josie winced as she dabbed Neosporin on her knee, then covered it with a new Band-Aid. She turned to the desk and slugged down another gulp of Pepsi before turning to the other knee. “Ow. Ow, ow, ow.” It was eight o’clock the next morning and Ethan had dropped her off at her parents’ house a mere four hours ago. He’d said he had stuff to do this morning, so she was alone in the office, having ridden her bike once again.
She pulled her cotton skirt back down over her knees and sat back in her chair, stretching her arms over her head. She might have banged-up knees and razor burn in places a proper lady wouldn’t talk about, but it was a delicious sort of pain. She closed her eyes and tried to wipe the silly grin off her face as she relived last night.
God, it had been good. So damn good. Everything she remembered, only better. Back when they’d been teenagers, their intimate moments had been stolen, enhanced by the danger of being discovered. Last night had held that same sort of secret-lover energy, only this time they were older and wiser enough to know better.
But that waterfall. That rock. Those tumbling, chaotic, beautiful me
mories crowding through her mind as Ethan had touched her, kissed her, murmured in her ear. There was no way she’d have been able to resist him. And she hadn’t wanted to. She’d wanted every kiss, every touch, every lingering, blazing look from his smoky eyes.
She touched her lips, still tender, and she knew her cheeks were still flushed. It was a good thing she’d escaped the house before Mom woke up, or she’d have been totally busted. It was also a good thing Ethan wasn’t here yet. He’d dropped her off with a kiss that could’ve led to much, much more … again. As his headlights swept across the lawn as he backed out of the driveway, she’d almost run back to the car. But she’d closed the door softly and crept to her bedroom, knowing that sleep was futile.
And it had been. She’d lain there for three hours, alternately glowing and scared. They’d been magic together, just like they’d always been. Even at twenty-eight years old, on a rock by a waterfall at the end of a dirt road … it had all been as perfect as it was ten years ago. Ethan was still the same generous, teasing, ungodly hot man he’d been then, but the years had been oh, so kind to his body.
And, by extension, to hers.
But what would today bring? In the harsh light of day, what conclusions would each of them come to about what had happened? About what was going to happen now?
The radio on the counter squawked, startling Josie. Ethan? Are you there?
Josie picked it up and pressed the button. “Ethan’s out. This is Josie. What’s up?”
“Oh. Hi, Josie. This is Nick. Listen, we have an early visitor. I think you might want to come over to the duck pond and check him out.”
“The human kind of visitor? Or the bear kind?”
“Old guy. Says he knows Ethan. Looks like he came through one of the fences.”
“You’ve never seen him before?”
“Nope. He says his dad dropped him off for the day. But seriously, he’s old. Too old to still have a dad alive.”
“I’ll be right there.” Josie clipped the radio to her belt and headed down the stairs and out the front door of the office, walking quickly toward the duck pond. Great. There was a poor, senile old man wandering the park. As she walked, she tried to figure out who she’d call to help figure out who he was and where he belonged.
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