One Reckless Summer

by Toni Blake

  On that particular evening, she briefly considered throwing caution to the wind, climbing back in the canoe with her equipment, and paddling across the lake. Because surely he wouldn’t be out walking again. Surely she could sneak up the hill to the rocks without being noticed.

  But then sense prevailed. He might be able to kiss more softly than she’d first thought, but he was still potentially a criminal. And though he’d never directly threatened her, he’d made it very clear she wasn’t welcome there. And sure, the wild, feral sex had sent a blatantly mixed message—but she had to remember: He does not want you there. He told you repeatedly to stay away.

  So a week after their sexual liaison in the woods, she stood on her dock, let out a sigh, and started dismantling and packing her telescope carefully back in its case, accepting that it would be foolish to go back over to the Brody property and that maybe she just wasn’t meant to see the stars like she wanted to right now.

  Though as she trudged back to the house and stepped in from the hot June night, she couldn’t help feeling a little…let down. Because even if she was enjoying the freedom to do whatever she wanted—or nothing at all—she still wasn’t quite used to spending so much time alone. Or maybe it was disappointment over the stargazing, not being able to reach out to the universe and find that sense of peace it always gave her. Or…was it because Mick Brody apparently wasn’t coming back?

  Uh-oh, bad thought. Because it was good he hadn’t come back, she told herself again as she stashed her telescope in the coat closet. And a soft kiss doesn’t make him any less dangerous, she reminded herself as she went upstairs to change into a pair of cotton drawstring pajama pants with little slices of watermelon on them, topping them with a mint green tank. And as she headed back down to do a little reading before bed, she decided that disliking the “good Jenny” label was one thing, but abandoning her good sense was another.

  She was just about to curl up on the old sofa with Brian Greene’s The Fabric of the Cosmos when she remembered she’d left some gardening tools on the back patio today and there was a slight chance of rain overnight. Rain that would be very welcome, given the unrelenting heat that had been building since her arrival in town, but she didn’t want to be responsible for letting her dad’s tools get rusty.

  So she tossed the book on the couch and went to the back door, pulling it open and starting through—only to find herself face to face, chest to chest, with Mick Brody. His warm hands curled around her wrists to keep her from barreling him over as his deep voice washed softly over her.

  “Hi there, pussycat.”

  * * *

  Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

  Carl Sagan

  * * *

  Five

  Jenny sucked in her breath and tried to get hold of herself. “Um, hi.” She felt how wide her eyes had just gotten, felt even more how close she stood to him. Then she summoned the strength to take a step back.

  “You look surprised to see me,” Mick said, voice low, even.

  She swallowed, wishing she could hide it. Damn it, she’d just never been very good at disguising her feelings. “I…thought maybe you’d changed your mind. You know, decided you could trust me.”

  Now that she’d moved back over the threshold, into the house, he came inside, too. “Can I?”

  As the words turned her indignant that fast, she crossed her arms—and realized that just like once before, all those years ago, the move shoved her breasts higher beneath her already low-cut tank. But she ignored that. “What difference does it make how I answer? You won’t believe me anyway.”

  He shrugged, then smiled lightly as if conceding the point, and it made his eyes sparkle in a way that nearly paralyzed her. “Tell me enough times and maybe I’ll start believing, pussycat.”

  So she pursed her lips and spoke matter-of-factly. “For the twentieth time, no, I haven’t told anyone about you, and no, I don’t intend to.” She really no longer even counted Sue Ann because she trusted her implicitly.

  “That’s good,” he said, that small, sexy smile still playing about his lush mouth. But, oh God, stop looking at his mouth already.

  She watched then, a bit surprised, as he moved with ease from the small kitchen into the living room. Taking a deep breath, she followed, yet stopped in the doorway. It seemed important to keep some distance between them, and she was pretty sure her nipples were showing through her top again—though there was nothing she could do about it but try to at least act unaffected by him. “I was just getting ready to go to bed,” she said—then immediately wanted to bite her tongue. What if that sounded like…an invitation?

  “Sorry, pussycat,” he told her. “I won’t keep you up long, but how about another glass of iced tea? It’s still hot out. And it’s a lot of work rowing across that lake.”

  She stood up a little straighter. She hadn’t even thought before now about how he was getting here. But it only made sense, she supposed, since the road around the other side leading to the Brody place was a long and twisty one. Which, she further supposed, is what made it such a good place to hide…whatever he was hiding. Remember that. He’s hiding something. Something big.

  “Sure,” she heard herself say, heading back into the kitchen—then berating herself as she poured the tea. Why did you say sure? Why didn’t you tell him no, you’re sleepy, or that you’d put it in a plastic cup for him to take with him?

  But as the cold air from the fridge hit her skin, she knew why. It was the mystery of Mick Brody. She hadn’t solved it yet, and she wanted to. No matter how she might try to deny it to herself, deep down inside, she was glad he’d come.

  When she returned to the living room, he’d taken a seat on the couch. She noticed he’d placed her book on the coffee table so as not to sit on it. “Here,” she said, passing him the glass, then sat down across the room in her mother’s old easy chair.

  “That you?” he asked, motioning to the giant photo of her and her mom in the rose-colored dresses.

  She nodded succinctly, watching him take a sip from the glass, noticing his Adam’s apple and the bottom edges of his hair, damp with sweat. They curled slightly, and she found herself wanting to run her fingers through them to straighten them. “When I was five.”

  He leaned his head back, appearing to study the large image closer. “That’s a really big picture.”

  True enough, it was way too large for the room, overpowering. “I’m thinking of taking it down,” she admitted, “but this is still technically my father’s place, so I’m not sure if I should.”

  His gaze shifted to hers. “You don’t like it?”

  She shrugged softly, crossing one leg over the other. “It’s like you said—it’s too big for the space. And it makes me think about my mother’s death too much since I got home.”

  He nodded. “You look like her.” It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that. “When did she die?”

  “When I was thirteen.”

  To her surprise, he flinched.

  “What?” she asked.

  He shook his head lightly. “I guess I just…figured it was more recent.”

  Because of the shrine, she presumed. “That’s why I want to take the picture down. Dad doesn’t seem quite able to get over it, even though it’s been eighteen years.”

  “Wow,” Mick murmured, still studying the portrait, and looking shockingly…reverent. “That’s something. A guy that crazy about his wife.”

  She couldn’t help being reminded of the “domestic calls” out to the Brody cabin when she was younger and bit her lip. “I guess it’s pretty rare,” she mused, thinking, too, about her own marriage.

  So she was relieved when Mick’s gaze drifted from the shrine to some other old pictures on the wall—until she realized they were of her, in her teenage years. In one, she hugged Sn
owball to her chest. “I remember your cat,” he said.

  Why did that please her? Probably the same reason it pleased her that he’d remembered calling her “pussycat”—it meant he remembered that day as well as she did. Still, she tried to act annoyed. “I remember your friend trying to get her drunk.”

  He shrugged, as if she’d over-reacted to that and was still over-reacting, and she supposed a guy like him couldn’t really grasp how protective a girl could be of her cat. “Whatever happened to that cat anyway?” he asked.

  Jenny cringed at the unpleasant memory. “She got hit by a car.” God, it still stung. It had happened the weekend before she’d left for college. She’d had Snowy since her kittenhood, when Jenny was nine, so it had been a blow.

  “Sorry,” he said, sounding like he actually meant it—and as usual, she knew she wasn’t camouflaging her pain very well. Then he took another drink of his iced tea and shifted his gaze slightly down the wall to a photo of her in her cheerleading uniform, holding her pompoms overhead while doing the splits. “I used to see you,” he ventured. “Cheerleading.”

  Her chest tightened. To think Mick Brody had been watching her then, aware of her then—when she’d been aware of him, too. Only vaguely before that day at the dock—but even then she’d been drawn to study him across a parking lot or the gymnasium, drawn to his lean, lanky boy’s body, his dark looks. And after the dock encounter, she’d sometimes found herself actively keeping an eye out for him on trips to town, especially in summer when people were out and about more.

  She didn’t know what to say, so she just bit her lip, then drew her gaze down, afraid he would see the sex in her eyes.

  “What’s that one?” he asked, pointing to a photo of her in a formal gown, standing next to Adam Becker—they both wore crowns on their heads. Then he lowered his chin, casting another slightly accusing grin. “Don’t tell me you were the prom queen?”

  She tilted her head to one side, thinking how silly something like that must seem to tough Mick Brody. “Guilty as charged.”

  He laughed softly.

  And she couldn’t help saying, “What? What’s so funny?”

  He pinned her in place with those blue eyes of his, even from across the room. “Let’s just say…you’re my first prom queen.”

  Heat climbed her face—and it also invaded down below, in her panties. In her mind, she saw harsh, dark images of them writhing together on the ground.

  He chuckled a little more then. “Hell, I’ve never even been to a dance.”

  “Really?” She wasn’t sure why it caught her off guard, but it was just one more reminder of how different they were, how different their lives had been.

  Instead of answering directly, he tilted his head slightly and said, “What’s that like, pussycat? To do all that high school stuff—the sports, the dances, everything else?”

  She thought back, tried to encapsulate it in a way he would understand. “It’s not for everybody, I guess. But I liked it. It…made me feel good about myself.”

  He laughed. “I guess I’d like it, too, if I had a pretty cheerleader to dance with.” Then he shook his head again. “Damn, I wouldn’t have the first idea how to even do it.”

  “Do what? Dance?”

  He gave a slight nod, then looked like maybe he was sorry he’d said it.

  She decided to put his mind at ease and share the truth of the matter. “No boy knows how to dance in high school. It’s more like…hugging on the dance floor.”

  He looked skeptical. “There’s no moving? Just hugging?”

  A soft laugh escaped her. “Well, you kind of rock back and forth and sometimes turn in a slow circle, but trust me…for seventeen-year-old guys, it’s mostly hugging.”

  Mick shrugged and said, “Now that I could probably master,” making her giggle yet again.

  When her laughter faded, her gaze had dropped from his, but she found herself lifting it back to his face. “I could teach you.”

  He raised his eyebrows matter-of-factly. “How to hug? Thanks, but I’ve already got that part down.”

  “No. How to dance.” She knew a guy like him would never admit to wanting to learn, and—feeling a little sad that he’d missed out on all the things that had made her youth special, more bearable, after her mom’s death—she couldn’t help the urge to make it easier on him.

  He looked doubtful, lowering his chin. “I don’t know, pussycat. Not sure I’m the dancing type.”

  She’d never seen him even come close to looking sheepish before, and “good Jenny” continued wanting to relieve his discomfort. “Come on,” she said. “It’s painless, I promise.” Then she pushed to her feet and moved to the old stereo across the room. She didn’t have any of her own CDs with her, but it was just as well since the stereo was circa 1980s anyway, pre–CD player. So she opened the built-in cabinet and pulled out the first record she found: The Honeydrippers, Volume One. Lifting the cover to the turntable, she carefully lowered the vinyl onto it and set the needle on the second track, “Sea of Love.”

  As the slow, dreamy music filled the room, Jenny stepped near the couch and reached out her hand. When, after a short, tentative look, he took it—that’s when she realized what she’d put into play here. Closeness. With a guy she hadn’t even meant to make more small talk with. It had just happened. What are you doing? Stop this! Stop it now. But she only bit her lip as she drew him to the open center of the room, realizing there was no turning back.

  “The proper way to dance,” she said, nervous but trying to hide it as she looked up into those crystal blue eyes, “is like this.” She placed one of his hands on her hip, then closed the other in her own and assumed the common slow-dance position. “But in high school, it was more like this,” she added, situating both of his palms at her hips and easing her arms around his neck.

  “And then you move,” she said, but that part came out in a whisper, because his hands were on her now and she could smell the musky, woodsy scent of him.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid—what were you thinking inviting him to dance? What a horrible idea!

  Except for the fact that it felt so darn good.

  She looked down, no longer quite able to meet his gaze as they began to sway slowly to the music. His movements were awkward at first, but she concentrated on easing them back and forth, and whispered into his chest, “Shift your weight from one foot to the other, in time with the music.” His motions grew smoother, more comfortable—as her body grew hotter and more sensitive.

  As he caught on, she changed her focus from teaching him the moves to being sure she kept a couple of inches between their bodies. Even though it would have been easy to lean into him. Easy to show him how much slow-dancing could feel like sex when you wanted it to.

  They didn’t speak for a while, the music seeming to cocoon them. They swayed and turned ever-so-slowly, and Jenny got a little lost in the moment, in the simple effortlessness of it, dancing with a man, not thinking very much, just listening to a romantic song her mother had once loved and letting it build a pleasant memory for her.

  “This isn’t bad,” Mick said low and soft near her ear. “Now I can see why guys bother going to dances.”

  Without forethought, she smiled up at him, and realized how close his eyes were to hers, how close their mouths were, that somewhere in the last minute or so their bodies had grown closer, too. She’d forgotten to keep concentrating on the separation, and now her breasts brushed against his chest.

  He gazed down on her with heavy-lidded eyes. “So, did you lose your virginity after the prom, pussycat?”

  She blinked up at him and knew she looked surprised.

  “I’ve just heard that’s how it happens a lot,” he explained.

  “Oh. Well…no.” She glanced down. Despite everything that had taken place between them already, she hadn’t expected to suddenly be talking about sex with him again.

  “Before that?” he asked, clearly curious.

  She couldn’t help laugh
ing. “No again.”

  “Why not?” He sounded sincerely curious.

  And she bit her lip, peering back up at him. “He tried, but I said no.”

  “The guy in the picture?”

  Adam. Her first real boyfriend. She nodded quietly.

  And Mick raised his eyebrows slightly. “You didn’t want to?”

  She didn’t know how to answer except honestly. “I…did, but I wanted to be in love, and I wasn’t. I wanted sex…to mean something.”

  He drew back slightly, clearly caught off guard. She understood why, after their encounter in the woods. “Time changes things, I guess,” he offered.

  Jenny couldn’t help feeling a little embarrassed. By all of it. “What happened with you…wasn’t normal for me.”

  “Why’d you do it then? I would have stopped if you’d told me to.”

  They still moved to the music, swaying gently. “I…can’t explain it.”

  “It was good, pussycat. Really good.”

  She felt his words in her chest, and lower. She felt how close their bodies were now, closer than before, almost pressed together. And—dear God—was he getting hard? There? Against her belly? She bit her lip once more and cast her eyes down.

  A few seconds later, he spoke again. “Thanks for teaching me to dance. It’s…kinda nice.”

  More than kinda. Her whole body tingled, almost pulsing with heat. Feeling a little lost again, to more than just the song, the dance, she lifted her eyes back to his face once more to murmur, “Yeah.”

  Those sexy eyes were fully open now, burning on her like blue flames. “So, back in high school, did people ever, you know, make out on the dance floor?”

  She laughed, nodded. “Yeah, but then a teacher would always come along and separate them.”

  He smiled—yet it quickly faded to something much hotter as he said, “No teachers here now, pussycat.”

  She didn’t answer—too busy trembling inside. Her whole body ached for him. How had she gotten back in this position—aching for Mick Brody?