by Lark Lane
Talk about my taunt backfiring. I only succeeded in embarrassing myself. Not to mention getting hot and bothered all over again. There was no way to deny it. J.D. was hot.
Crap, why did I do that? I hate, hate, hate it when I lose self-control. Still, J.D. gave himself a good look at me, and as I hurried away I was half embarrassed and half happy. I was pretty sure he liked what he saw.
Ahead of me, Frank exchanged a look with the DJ. He gave her a thumbs-up, and she answered back with a thumbs-up and changed the song. The Beach Boys’ Wouldn’t It Be Nice? started to play.
I remembered the ring. Oh, Frank. I had the sinking feeling he was going to propose to Lisa in front of everybody. Guys must think that’s romantic, judging from all the proposals on YouTube, but I wonder about the ones that go bad—the ones that never get posted.
Frank led us to an immense boulder on the east edge of the lawn, one of countless granite outcroppings all over the place that give Granite Bay its name. We climbed up and sat down. The granite felt nice and cool against the back of my legs. I’ve always liked Indian Rock, as my little brother used to call it. When we were little kids we’d come up here and try to pound acorns on the granite.
The excited gleam in Frank’s eye made me nervous for Lisa. I’d hate to be proposed to in front of other people, even if my answer was going to be yes.
“It’s been ages since I had a Friday night off,” she said. “I’m usually working while everyone is playing. This is great.” She leaned against Frank and laughed. She had no clue what was about to happen.
J.D. sat down next to me. He’d exchanged his empty martini glass for a bottle of beer. That was a surprise. I thought he wanted to leave. Brad must have talked him into staying. He crossed his legs beside me and almost set his beer down in a hole.
“Watch out!” I grabbed his wrist.
“What the what?” He frowned at the hole and ran his hand around its inside wall. “Wow. This looks man-made.” It was about five inches across and cylindrical.
What can I say? The sound of his voice was like hot molasses, quiet and strong, with an edge. He had far more self-confidence than I’d expect in someone out of work for three years. It seemed he could stay calm at the center of hell.
“More likely woman-made,” I said. “They’re called mortar holes. Hundreds of years ago, they were worn into the granite by Maidu Indians grinding acorns into meal.”
J.D. looked around. “And the acorns must have come from all these oak trees. That’s cool you know that.”
“We learn about it in grade grade. It’s part of our local history.”
“History.” He nodded. “Brad says you’ll be studying the Maidu up at the dig. A three-week vacation must be nice.”
“But didn’t you just come off a three-year vacation?” I said. His face went red, and I felt like a jerk. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “That was a shitty thing to say. Three years out of work is no vacation.” I was such an idiot.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Trust me. It’s not that big a deal.”
“No, really. I know what it’s like to struggle.” I didn’t want him to get the wrong idea. “People think I have money because I have this house, but it’s not what it looks like.”
“Is this where you grew up?” he said. “This yard is fantastic.”
“My mom did. This was my grandparents’ home.” It was so great he didn’t judge or make a not-clever comment like it must be a real struggle living in such a nice house. “I grew up in Loomis. Close to the vet where Frank works, actually.” I never told my story to strangers, but with J.D. it wasn’t like that. I felt like I’d known him all my life. “My niece and I moved in here with our grandma six years ago. I was seventeen and Stacey was twelve.”
“Where were your folks?”
Crap. I’d gone too far. “They were…” We’d come to the edge of things I never talked about, and I’d led the way. “They died.” Please don’t ask about it. Please don’t ask.
I spread my fingers and pushed my palms against the granite to keep my hands from clenching. J.D. reached over and gently covered my left hand with his.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I inhaled and held my breath and exhaled, so relieved he didn’t press me to say more. I wanted to lean against his arm. It was hard to remember we’d only just met.
“Stacey’s great,” I said. “My niece. She’s away on her high school graduation trip. About a year after we moved in here, my grandma died. See the wisteria blooming at the kitchen window? When my mom was in high school, she and my grandma planted those vines. Grandma told me the hardest thing for her after Mom died was the next spring when the wisteria bloomed. I think she died of a broken heart.”
“That’s so…sad,” J.D. said.
“Since then, it’s been me and Stacey. And then Lisa. I’ve supported us on student loans, and Lisa helps out a lot. She offered to get me a job at the restaurant, but I didn’t want Stacey coming home to an empty house after school. I wanted her to have the closest thing possible to a normal—Oh. God. No.”
I’d completely lost track of the conversation beyond J.D. and me. Frank was reaching into his Dockers for the ring. He was going to ask Lisa right here in front of everybody. I looked at Lisa. Her face was lit up with a smile and her eyes were closed, listening to the music. No clue what was coming.
“Let’s dance.” I grabbed J.D.’s hand and jumped up. “Brad, you too.” I had to save Lisa—at the least, protect her privacy.
“What?” Brad looked confused.
“Come on, man,” J.D. said. “Do what the lady says.”
I gave J.D. a grateful look. Together we dragged Brad down off the boulder out to the lawn and blended into the dancing crowd.
Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain was playing. The grass was cool under my feet, and the alcohol was swirling in my head. I raised my arms and moved with the music, well aware I was dancing with two hot guys, Brad in front of me and J.D. behind. I swayed my hips and inched back close to J.D., my eyes closed, my body permeated by music and alcohol and desire.
I called my reaction to J.D. lust at first sight, and it was. Easy to understand. Easy to deal with. I was in tune to his movements. Even with my eyes closed, I sensed his energy so near me. I wanted to feel his arms around my waist and lean back against his chest.
But this was worse than simple lust. This was nothing so trivial. Safe, I thought. I’ve come home. It was survival instinct. I opened my eyes and turned around. J.D. wasn’t where I expected. He’d put some distance between us and was looking at me strangely.
Once again I felt ridiculous. And humiliated. I’d obviously been flirting with him, and he was just as obviously repulsed.
“Damn!” Brad said. “She said yes.” He looked sick to his stomach, watching Frank and Lisa on the rock.
Frank slipped a ring onto Lisa’s finger and they kissed.
“Fuck.” Brad sounded defeated and miserable, and he turned away.
“Brad, I’m so sorry.” I watched him cross the lawn to leave.
J.D. was ahead of Brad, already halfway to the side gate. Disappointment rushed through me. I couldn’t stand it. I had to get away from everything. The noise. The people. I took off the other way, to the safety of my garden.
Chapter 3
Paper lanterns in primary colors flickered in the trees as I fled the backyard, and solar lamps glowed at random intervals along the path to the gardens. I ran under the arching Japanese maple to the roses.
We have two gardens beyond the lawn, out where there are fewer trees and long days of uninterrupted sun. At Lisa’s insistence, we’ve had a vegetable garden for the last three years. My flower garden is next to the veggie garden. As a joke last year, Frank put in a topiary tableau of alpacas and bunnies where the two gardens meet.
The fountain was on, and the sound of the water joined with the wind chimes in a soothing serenade. My rose garden is my serenity spot. Flowers never fail me. I give them what they need
to bloom, and they give my soul what it needs to survive.
The wood nymph and fairy statues greeted me from their hiding places among the flowers. Someone had been here earlier and left a single Peace rose, like an offering, in the iron fairy’s arms. I picked up the rose and inhaled the flower’s fragrance. It made me feel better knowing someone else in the world thought of such things.
I sat down on the iron bench and watched the stars, thinking about J.D. I felt like a disappointed child. Oh-so-sorry for my sorry little self.
I don’t expect to ever have a normal relationship. That way be monsters. I usually don’t even try. After what happened to my family, I had a kind of mental crackup and went on a sex binge. Angry, ride-’em-hard-and-hang-’em-up-wet sex. When Grandma died it got really bad. I had someone new in the house every other night. It only ended when I found that creep watching Stacey in the shower.
So I don’t go looking for relationships now. The very idea scares me. Still, I’m human. Every six or seven months I forget that I’m a lunatic, and my loneliness comes out and demands to be fixed. I find someone, anyone, and it ends in anger and despair and a lonely supply of condoms in my nightstand.
Tonight I blamed the martinis for impairing my self-control. J.D. was fatally flawed as a potential boyfriend, despite my body’s conclusion to the contrary. It was crappy of me and unfair, but if I ever did manage to keep a man in my life, it would be someone with a consistent employment history.
Yes. I’m a hypocrite. Who was I to judge? I’d never worked anywhere beyond my McJob at the mall. So yes, crappy and unfair of me, but there it was.
Romanticism died for me a long time ago. In the real world, the practical world where I had to live, J.D.’s sexy voice and yummy arms and dark eyes that looked into my soul weren’t enough. His kindness and intelligence and compassionate nature were not enough.
Were they?
“Are they enough?” I said to the flower. Inexplicably, I burst into tears.
Something landed at my feet and broke, covering me with cold liquid. A water balloon. Amid shrieking laughter, another one hit the iron fairy and broke over her.
“Dude!” Someone yelled. The bozos had migrated from the keg.
I jumped up, my pulse racing. In the veggie garden, they were pulling up plants and laughing like maniacs. My hands started shaking.
“Put your hands up!” one of the guys yelled. He held one of Frank’s topiary bunnies between his hands.
I broke out in a sweat and started hyperventilating.
The other guy put his hands up like a referee calling a touchdown.
“Field goal!” the first guy yelled. My hands clenched as he drop-kicked the bunny through the other guy’s arms.
Then the screaming started. Ear-splitting, tortured yowls from hell. My nostrils were bombarded by the scent of pine trees and wet dirt. I clamped my hands over my ears, but the sounds only grew louder and more tormented. I couldn’t get the screaming out of my head.
-oOo-
An Adele song had the crowd moving on the lawn. The singer’s voice was full of sex and desire and longing, but the unrelenting beat wasn’t slow enough. I wanted to wrap my arms around Nora and press my chest to her back, plunge my face into her hair, and feel her body grind against mine.
She moved between me and Brad, her hips swaying and her arms up and bent over her head, turning in a circle, her eyes closed. The worry had fallen away from her face, and she was even more beautiful. I wanted to take her in my arms and never let go.
It wasn’t merely the scent of Nora’s long dark hair that drove me crazy or the lure of her soft skin, or the mystery of her haunted brown eyes. All those things drew me to her before she ever said a word, but I’d hoped her voice would break the spell. That she’d turn out to be an ordinary woman, easy to walk away from.
But then she did speak, and she did become a real person—but nowhere near ordinary. Despite horrible losses, she had so much to give. She looked out for the people she cared about, to the point of taking on heavy burdens so their loads were lighter.
If I didn’t get some space, I was going to grab her and kiss her right there.
I realized Brad had stopped dancing. He was staring back at the boulder Nora hauled us away from. “Damn, she said yes.” From the way things looked, Brad’s angel had just agreed to marry another man.
Shit, the dude looked messed up. Maybe it really was love this time.
Nora’s attention shifted to Brad. She cared about everybody. It wasn’t easy to walk away from Nora. But it was imperative I did. I turned away.
“Brad, I’m so sorry,” I heard her say behind me.
A cloud of mint and rosemary pursued me across the lawn, tormenting me. I couldn’t get away fast enough. As I reached the side gate, Brad caught up with me.
“What are you doing?” he said. “You can’t leave.”
Over his shoulder, I saw Nora on the path to the garden. I wanted to follow her, run my hands through her hair, pull her close and kiss those lips.
“We’ll find another way,” I told Brad. “I can’t do it. I’m getting the Pashley and riding home.”
“Well, that’s just crazy,” Brad said.
“I can’t, Brad. She’s too…”
“I mean it’s crazy to ride right now. It’s getting dark and the Friday night drunks are out. I’ll drive you.”
“It’s not that late. I want the exercise,” I said. “And man, I’m sorry about Lisa. She seems great. She’s definitely beautiful. Tonight the better man did not win.”
“That’s the thing, dude,” Brad said. “When I look at it objectively, maybe Frank is the better man.”
“I think not.” I got the bike out of the back of the SUV. “You’re an organizational genius, not to mention a tech billionaire.”
Oops. We both looked around to make sure no one was listening.
“Yeah, there’s that,” Brad said. “But can I cure a sick alpaca? Do I make Lisa laugh? No. And no.”
“And you suck at cranberry martinis.”
There. He laughed. He’d be okay.
“I thought I was going to puke,” he said. “Give me a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale any day of the year.”
While I strapped on my helmet, Brad turned his SUV around and headed down the driveway. I mounted the bike, eager to burn off my frustration. It was a beautiful evening, the stars were blazing, and there was a perfect crescent moon. I breathed in the scent of the lilacs that lined the driveway. Brad was going to be okay. I was going to be okay.
Fuck Steve Heron. We’d just have to get our ducks in a row before MolyMo could make its move. Everything was going to be okay.
I heard a scream like it was the end of the world. Then another.
Nora.
I spun the bike around and headed for the side gate. It was slightly ajar, and I plowed into it, knocking it wide open as I rode through. The music had stopped and people were just standing there on the grass, stunned and confused. They parted like I was Moses when they saw me coming.
I hit the pathway to the garden and rode past Frank and Lisa, both running toward the screams.
“Dead!” Nora stood by the fountain, screaming. “You’re dead! Dead!”
Half a dozen clowns from the party surrounded her, staring, doing nothing. Shitheads.
“What are you doing to her?” I said. I tossed the bike to the side and tore off my helmet.
“Nothing, dude,” one guy said in a drunken haze. “We were just having a water balloon fight.”
“Yeah, just having some fun,” said another. “Harmless.”
I put my arms around Nora, but she fought me.
“Dead!” she screamed and pounded on my chest. Her fists were clenched and hard as rocks.
I hugged her tighter.
She seemed to calm down, if slightly. “You’re all de-e-e-e-ead.” Her screams morphed into sobs.
“It’s okay,” I said. I hugged her and kissed the top of her hair. “I’m here.”
&nb
sp; “Time to go,” Frank said to the clowns behind me, all business. He sounded like someone you didn’t want to cross. Maybe Brad was right about that guy.
“Now.” Lisa glared at the assholiest of the assholes until he nodded.
I rocked Nora in my arms. Over and over, I told her everything would be okay, with no idea of it being true. In the distance I heard Frank and Lisa chasing off the drunks and shutting the party down.
“You’re dead,” Nora whispered, staring into space.
Her hands were still clenched into rigid fists. I pried them open and rubbed the skin. In one hand she held the rose I’d left earlier with the fairy, and it fell to the ground. Her palm was bleeding from a thorn imbedded in her skin. I pulled the thorn out and lifted her hand to my lips and kissed her palm.
“Dead.”
I dropped her hand and lifted her chin. Made her look at me. Her eyes slowly came back into focus, and she seemed to recognize me. Seemed to know where she was.
“Fuck.” The word escaped me before I could think. I bent down and kissed her on the mouth. I wasn’t being Sir Galahad, far from it. It wasn’t a kiss of comfort. It was a kiss of desire. I wanted as much from Nora Deven as I wanted to give to her.
I wanted her to kiss me back.
Chapter 4
They were all still dead, but the pine tree smell faded, replaced by the scent of my roses. I heard the fountain and the wind chimes. In the distance Lisa yelled at someone to get the hell out and go home.
What happened? One minute I was sitting on the iron bench in the garden, smelling a Peace rose, watching stars brighten in a darkening sky. The next minute I was in J.D.’s arms.
He kissed me. His lips were soft but firm, and at first gentle. I melted into his embrace. Safe here. His tongue pushed into my mouth and a thrill of heat and desire shot through me and down between my legs. I pressed my hips against him and reached up behind his neck, my fingers in his hair.
I had to have him. Please let me have him, just once. Just once let me feel like a normal girl with a normal boy, doing something normal and wonderful. Lies, all lies. There was nothing normal about it. I just wanted him to cover me with kisses, and touch me in places that would drive all the other feelings, the bad feelings, away.
