by Robin Wells
His chest hurt. “She is?”
“Yeah. She needs to know that you care for her and accept her and aren’t judging her.”
“Why the hell would I judge her?”
“She’s ashamed, Zack. She feels like she brought this on herself. And regardless of how she acts, your opinion means a lot to her.” Her gaze rested on him. “If you’re angry, she’ll think you’re angry at her.”
“God.” Zack looked at Katie, drawing strength from the softness in her eyes. “So what do I do?”
“Let her know you care about her and this doesn’t change that. Reassure her that you’re going to let her make the decisions.”
“But this guy should be locked up!”
“We don’t know who he is or where he’s from. You yourself said he’d be impossible to find.” Katie’s eyes were soft, almost pleading. “Zack, Gracie can’t handle a big legal deal right now.”
“You’re right, but damn it…” Zack blew out a sigh.
Katie picked up her purse and headed for the foyer. “I’ve got to meet with my contractor, then get to the salon.” She pulled out her car keys. “Think you can handle picking up Gracie this afternoon?”
Oh, God. What was he supposed to say to her?
Katie must have read his expression. “I have appointments all afternoon, but if you need me, Bev can cover for me.”
I need you. He almost said the words, but years of habit kept him silent. “Nah. I’ll be fine.”
She gave him a long look, and he got the feeling she could see right through him, right through the boiling cauldron of anger, to the fear at the white-hot center. “I’ll call you this afternoon and see how things are going,” she said as she went out the door.
Zack paced the house some more. The more he thought about this A-hole and Gracie, the madder he got. He wasn’t good at dealing with anger. He usually just stuffed it down, but this was too big to stuff. This thing blew off the lid.
For lack of a better plan, he opted to take Katie’s advice. Despite the heat, he ran five miles, then took a cold shower. That barely took the edge off. His chest still felt like a pressure engine about to blow.
He needed to hit something. He stormed to his computer and looked up boxing clubs, then drove to a ratty old gym in Hammond and reserved an hour with a punching bag.
He tied on the rented gloves, pulled back his right arm, and rammed his fist at the bag, right at face level—right where he wanted to hit Kirk or Dirk or whatever the bastard’s name was. Dirt. He’d call him Dirt. He threw a punch with his left, hitting the other side of the A-hole’s imaginary face, and muttered a foul oath. He threw another right, then a left, battering the punching bag with one-two punches, combining every blue word he’d ever heard in new and inventive ways. Wth every blow, he cursed Dirt and Dirt’s mother. He called down various plagues on all of Dirt’s personal body parts. He wished him catastrophe upon catastrophe, all of which would result in his slow and torturous death. He wanted the scumbag to suffer. He smashed his fists into the bag again and again, until his knuckles were bruised, his muscles burned, and his hour was up.
Breathing hard and aching all over, he limped to the shower. He stood under a stream of hot water, then washed up and headed back to Chartreuse.
He was waiting in the parking lot when Gracie got off work.
She stepped out the door, looking small and vulnerable. Everything about her looked sad and lost and a little off-kilter—her choppy black-and-blue hair, her bulging belly, her big saggy purse. A tenderness so intense he could barely breathe swelled in his chest as he watched her.
She scanned the parking lot, spotted his car, then dropped her gaze to the pavement. The tenderness moved to his throat and formed a lump so large and unwieldy he couldn’t swallow. Oh, God—she was ashamed, maybe even scared. She didn’t want to face him.
He watched her skulk to the car, her eyes downcast, one hand on her belly. A wave of emotion crashed over him, immersing him in a truth so profound that for a moment, he couldn’t move. He was no longer unattached. He was attached at the heart, double-bound to this girl and her mother. Gracie and Katie were his girls, and he’d do anything in his power to protect them, to take care of them, to make them smile.
He climbed out of the car and circled it just as Gracie reached the passenger door. She froze, unsure what to do. She wouldn’t look him in the eye.
“Gracie.” His voice cracked as he said her name. “Gracie, honey—it’s okay.”
He opened his arms, and she fell into them. He could feel her baby bump pressing against his side, could smell the scent of Juicy Fruit gum and Clearasil. His heart felt like it was breaking and growing at the same time—as if it had a shell around it that was cracking open, and some new, awkward life-form was floundering out, as clumsy as a just-hatched chicken.
He patted her back as she clung to him and sobbed. They stood there for a long time, long enough that a couple of senior citizens waddled out of the building to stare at them. “Are you okay?” he finally asked Gracie.
“Yeah.” Gracie pulled back and sniffed, wiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands.
Hell. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t any good at this touchy-feely stuff. He shifted his stance and blurted out the most comforting thing he could think of. “Want to go test-drive some cars?”
Her eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah. Let’s drive over to Hammond and check out some wheels. Maybe Kate can meet us there when she gets off work, then we’ll go for Chinese or Mexican or something.”
“Okay. Cool!”
Just like that, things were back to normal. Zack gave a sigh of relief as he climbed into his car. Sometimes you didn’t need to get all wordy. Sometimes the things people needed to hear weren’t things that were said out loud. Sometimes they just needed to know that everything was okay, and the best way of showing that was to act as if nothing had happened.
He hoped the same approach would work with Katie. Yakking about his feelings had never been his style.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Not every kid gets to take her driver’s test in a brand-new Toyota Prius,” Katie said later that night, after they’d arrived home and Gracie had gone up to bed. She and Zack were in the kitchen, and he was opening a bottle of wine.
“Hey, they’re great cars. They’re environmentally friendly and they have great crash ratings.” He popped the cork, then opened the cabinet and pulled out two wine glasses. The fragrance of chardonnay filled the air. He poured her a glass and handed it to her. “You’re okay with it, right?”
She took a sip and nodded. “Yeah.” He’d called and talked to her about it on the phone. She’d joined them at the dealership, and Zack had made sure she was part of the decision.
And then they’d ordered the car, and he’d pulled out his debit card and paid for the whole thing. That part had made her a little uneasy, but she’d come to terms with it. The fact was, he had resources she didn’t. If he wanted to share them with Gracie, well, that was his prerogative.
“This whole parenting thing is a lot harder than I realized,” Zack said.
“Yeah.”
“I never thought I’d get so…”
“So what?”
He shook his head, as if he’d changed his mind about whatever he was going to say.
“Nothing.” He splashed some more wine in her glass. “Anyway, thanks for your advice. Left to my own devices, I would have gone off the deep end, and that wouldn’t have been good for Gracie.” He took a sip of wine, then set down his glass. “So—when did you get so wise?”
She grinned. “I’ve always been wise. You’ve just been too much of a wiseass to notice.”
“Actually, I noticed.” His dimple flashed. “Your wisdom first revealed itself when you prevaricated that summer.”
Katie’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe you remember that!”
They sat on the hood of his car in the bait shop parking lot, and he asked her how o
ld she was. She lied, and he called her on it.
“How could you tell I was lying?” she asked.
“Because you hesitated, then you looked away.”
“I’ll have to remember not to do that.”
He grinned. “The next time you tell a lie?”
She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “The next time I deal with a rude Yankee.”
“What did I do that was rude?”
“You asked me my age, and then you directly called me on an indiscretion.”
“An indiscretion?” His lips twitched up in amusement. “Is that what a lie is called around here?”
“Well, it’s a much nicer term than ‘liar.’ And a Southern lady is allowed to prevaricate about her age.”
“Prevaricate about indiscretions? Have I fallen into some kind of Gone with the Wind time warp or something?” he quipped.
He grinned at her now. “As I recall, every time you learned a new word, you tried to use it in conversation.”
She nodded. “My English teacher said if you use a word three times, it’s yours.”
“And you’d learned that word because you were working your way through a list of books that were required reading for ‘persons of refinement and good breeding.’ ”
Her face heated at the memory. “I didn’t want to be ashamed of who I was and where I was from and what I didn’t know. I didn’t want to spend my life feeling less than other people.”
“You said you wanted to be somebody you could be proud of.”
“Yes.” She took a long drink of wine, moved and a little embarrassed that he recalled all that.
“Remember what I said?” he asked softly.
Oh, she remembered, all right. They were some of the favorite words anyone had ever spoken to her. She’d held them close and etched them on her heart, hoping they were true.
“I told you that you already were,” Zack said.
She glanced at him, then glanced away. His eyes were warm and intent, and she felt exposed to the soul. She nervously took a long draught of wine. “You have an amazing memory.”
“Well, everything about you was pretty unforgettable.”
Her heart thudded hard. “You were, too.” Oh, dear—why had she said that? Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the emotion of the day.
Maybe it was just true.
The clock ticked loudly. Seconds passed, then more seconds. She lifted her eyes and looked into his, and what she saw there made time seem to stop.
Her gaze must have mirrored his, because he said, “Don’t look at me like that, or I’m going to do something I’ll regret.”
“Why would you regret it?” Was that really her voice? It was barely a whisper.
“Because I promised I wouldn’t.”
Her nerves stretched like a tautly pulled rubber band. “Maybe you were prevaricating when you made that promise.”
His dimple winked in his cheek. Her nerves stretched tighter.
And then his smile was gone. He set down his glass and turned fully toward her, his eyes somber and direct. “Kate—I don’t want to do anything you would regret.”
Emma’s words rang through her mind. When all is said and done, which will you regret more: not taking a chance on love, or giving love a chance? Her empty glass made a little tinkling sound as she set it on the granite countertop. “What I will regret,” she said, taking a slow, deliberate step toward him, “is waiting one more minute to kiss you.”
She stepped right up to him, toe to toe, and tilted up her face. Zack’s heart felt too full to beat right. “Kate, don’t start something you don’t want to finish. I have a pretty bad track record of self-control around you.” Which was why he’d decided to continue sleeping in the garage apartment even though Annette was at Dave’s.
She put her hand on his chest. “I don’t want you to have any self-control.”
He swallowed. “None whatsoever?”
“Well, you’ll need to have a little.” She edged closer and kissed his neck.
His arms ached to wrap around her. He resolutely kept them at his sides, his hands clenched in tight fists. “How much?”
“Enough to let me take your clothes off.” Her palm moved from his chest to his face, then slid across his cheek, cool and soft. “And then you’ll need to take off mine. Then I intend to kiss you from head to foot and back again, making sure to hit every spot in between. And then I want you to do the same to me.”
Dear God. His hands flexed. His fingernails dug into his palms. “I don’t think I have that much self-control. At least not the first time.”
“Well, then…” Her breath tickled his skin. “We’d better get the first time out of the way so we can get to the second time.”
She stood on her tiptoes, pulled down his head, and kissed him. It was more than lips on lips; it was heart on heart, soul on soul. She was in his arms, his mouth was on hers, his body pressed against hers. All the rage he’d felt today had been a crucible, burning away everything but one immutable truth: Katie was a part of him. Just like the child they’d created together, Katie was a part of his soul.
He’d been lying to himself all these years, pretending he was detached, disengaged, and uncommitted. The whole time his heart had belonged to Katie, and he’d been in denial. He’d told himself that women came and went, that sex was just sex, that relationships were interchangeable, and he’d believed his own lies. But the truth was in his arms. There was no one like Katie.
She made him feel things beyond the physical, things beyond words or even music.
He couldn’t get close enough. He needed to be over her and in her and joined with her. He lifted her off her feet. She wrapped her legs around his hips. One hand on her back, another under her bottom, he carried her out the kitchen door, across the dog run, and through the side door of the garage.
He staggered up the stairs to the apartment, kissing her as he carried her, her fanny bumping against his thigh with every step. He pushed the bedroom door open with his foot. The hinges squeaked and the door flew wide. So did Katie’s heart.
Katie felt the bed give beneath her as he gently set her on it, then leaned in to kiss her again. She inhaled his breath, wishing she could inhale all of him, wanting to just take him in. She tugged up the bottom of his polo shirt, anxious to feel his skin, needing tactile proof that he was here and she was with him and this wasn’t a fantasy.
He yanked the shirt over his head, then set to work on the buttons of her black linen top, starting at the top and working his way down. He pulled the fabric apart and unfastened her black front-open bra, exposing her breasts. “Kate,” he murmured. “My beautiful, beautiful Kate.” Carressing her softly, he leaned in and closed his lips around her nipple.
A hot wire of pleasure burned straight to her core. He unfastened the button on the front of her khaki skirt and pulled down the zipper. It was the same skirt she’d been wearing the day he’d come back into her life. She realized she’d been waiting for this moment ever since he’d walked into her salon.
Why had she fought the inevitable? Zack was like gravity. As surely as a dropped spoon would fall to the ground, she would fall for Zack. He was like oxygen—essential and elemental. The lack of him left her gasping.
No, wait—the nearness of him left her gasping. A moan of pleasure escaped her throat as his mouth moved to her other breast.
Her head lolled back. If a person could die of pleasure, she was in imminent danger. And she didn’t even care. Her heart was singing as Zack played her body, kissing her breasts, working down her skirt. She felt as if she were both dreaming and waking up, both going away and coming home. Zack was familiar and new, exciting and reassuring, all at once.
His mouth moved up to her neck, then on to her ear. Her skin pebbled in goose bumps of pleasure. “Kate,” he murmured, as if her name were a prayer.
His hands touched her face, and she thought she would die from the tenderness of it. His forefinger traced the outline of her lower lip. His g
aze had weight and warmth, a caress in and of itself, as he looked at her. He kissed her again, and then his mouth moved lower, back to her breasts, down to her rib cage.
He eased down her skirt, his lips following.
“Wait,” she murmured.
He immediately froze and looked up at her.
She smiled. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”
His teeth flashed in a grin. “Well, l can fix that.” The muscles on his flat stomach rippled as he stood and kicked off his loafers. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his wallet, then extracted a foil packet and tossed it on the bed. He peeled off his jeans and boxer briefs, revealing his enormous arousal. Her mouth went dry at the sight of him.
And then he was back at the bed. He pulled off her skirt, then gently lifted her left foot and removed her sandal. He did the same with the right one, kissing the top of her foot as the shoe dropped to the floor. His mouth moved to her ankle, then up her calf, to her knee, along her inner thigh, all the way up to the edge of her scanty black panties.
The ache inside her became a throb, and then a hungry, pulsing need. “Please.” The word came out half whisper, half moan as he peeled her panties down her legs.
He parted her with his thumbs and kissed her there, where she was dying to be touched. He stroked her with his tongue and fingers until she was panting and quaking, shuddering on the edge, but not wanting to fall alone. “Zack,” she whispered. “I want… I need…”
You. All of you. Filling me, completing me.
He reached for the packet of foil, and then he was over her. He took his time, moving slowly, filling her inch by exquisite inch, inciting her with his deliberate slowness until she was gripping his hips and urging him on.
And then they were moving together—rising and falling, taking and giving, leading and following each other to the edge of the world, to a cliff so exquisite, so beautiful, so intimate, so deep that all she could do was close her eyes, hold on, and fall.
He followed her there. They lay together, spent and sated and weak-limbed. He rolled over onto his side, one arm behind her head, the other on her belly.
