Stay calm, she told herself. Watch the water.
The panic attack hovered like a silent, hungry shark and then after another thirty seconds or so … disappeared.
Thank God.
She turned off the tap, lay back, and closed her eyes. The only sound was the drip of the faucet, the sizzling sound of tiny bubbles popping. Her heart was quiet, her breathing even, her mind at ease again. It unfolded quietly, like a flower, and revealed one thought only:
Harrison.
He was right down the hall.
The knowledge comforted her like nothing else.
She peeled off her tank and shorts and dropped them to the floor. But the velvety bubbles made her aware of her nakedness, and the heat of the water against her softest flesh reminded her of what he’d done to her in the creek. She spread her legs, let her head loll, and remembered.
God, she wanted him. And she wanted him to see her like this. She wished he were with her right now. But he was asleep, unaware that there was a woman in the tub down the hall fantasizing about him at that very moment.
She gave a little laugh. Probably every minute of every day, a woman somewhere in the world was fantasizing about Harrison.
In just a few hours, he’d be gone. And she’d never be alone with him again. She pressed her eyes shut. Never. The faucet dripped.
Never.
Maybe she shouldn’t marry Dubose.
God.
Maybe she shouldn’t.
The thought ripped through her mind like a bad car crash, demanding attention. She put her fingers in her ears and slipped all the way under the water.
No thinking allowed.
No thinking, True Maybank!
But when she came back up, she was crying.
She got out, her hair dripping down her back, toweled off just barely, tears streaming down her face. Everything sucked. Everything sucked so bad.
Blindly, she padded down the hall in a towel to go to her room, where she’d don another little T-shirt and shorts and … and what then? Go to sleep with sopping-wet hair, cry all night like a helpless fool, and pity herself for the rest of her life?
When she passed the attic door, she stopped.
This.
Inhaling a deep breath, she opened the door carefully, quietly. As she walked up the stairs, she gathered herself, step by step.
She’d marry Dubose.
But she wouldn’t be a victim. She’d made her choice, and she’d kick ass at it.
Yes, she would.
Her studio would be command central. She’d come here to fill her well. To help her get up when she stumbled.
Yes. Yes!
Her hair was like wet rope, but she barely noticed. She dropped her towel. And from a hook on the wall, she pulled down an old buttondown cotton shirt of her father’s and put it on. The laundry label sewn on the inside of the collar said COLLIER MAYBANK. Sometimes she came up here just to bury her face in it. Close her eyes and think about how strong those letters looked. How reliable and predictable in an unpredictable world.
A Maybank was loyal to the end. A Maybank never gave up.
She grabbed her sketch pad. Coolly selected a pencil. Dark silver.
She knew what she had in mind. A wedding collage for Dubose, something they could hang in their bedroom for only them to see. He’d see it every day and understand why she was up in her studio. He didn’t know about it yet—she hadn’t told him, and she wasn’t sure why. She’d need to soon.
The pencil was poised over the paper. Where to begin? She waited patiently, but nothing came. With a small sigh, she put the pencil back in her cup and smoothed the paper out. Maybe right now she was too overwrought to work on that.
No problem. She’d wanted to do a birthday collage for Weezie. One for Carmela, too.
Two projects—two fun ones.
Weezie’s first. She immediately picked out a pink pencil and bit the end of it. Put it back. Maybe that was the wrong color.
Her mind was blank.
Think.
No, no, she’d just work on Carmela’s. She could do this. Just like she had the rest of her life under control. She was competent. She was a Maybank.
But twenty seconds later, she couldn’t even figure out where to begin. A minute later, she started sketching with a black pencil, but she stopped. It was wrong. All wrong.
The paper loomed before her, empty. Taunting.
She blinked and looked around. Her studio was just an old attic with a bunch of junk in it left over from an old lady’s life. And some bad art from a woman who was afraid.
True ripped the blank page out of the book and crumpled it into a ball. The more she worked it, the greater her anger grew. The greater her fear. What was going wrong? She threw the balled paper, a useless act that gave her no satisfaction. So she threw her cup of pencils. It bounced off the wall, hit the floor with a thunk, and the pencils scattered.
She didn’t care about the mess or the noise.
Rifling through her canvases, she saw her life: pent up, confused, angry, afraid. Apart.
When would she get to beautiful? Happy? Where was the canvas of celebration? Inclusion? Peace?
The house was as quiet as ever. For no reason at all, she opened her shirt and looked down at her breasts. She wanted to get more use out of them. She craved touch.
But when she thought of Dubose, the feeling disintegrated.
That’s because you’re stressed, she told herself.
Huh. All she had to do was think of Harrison, and her body sparked to life.
She had to face it: She wanted sex with him. Badly.
Join the club, she could hear Carmela say. The international Harrison Gamble fan club …
She picked a random pencil off the floor—red—and went back to her sketch pad and made bold arcs and lines. Ideas bloomed in her head, came together. They fit not like puzzle pieces but with flow, which she always felt when she looked down a row of tomatoes or blueberries, the line slightly undulating, leaf crossing leaf, dirt clods stationed here and there like miniature abstract statues, the scene bursting with the mayhem of growth.
No sense. But such unity.
This was the collage about her and Harrison making desperate love between the paddleboards, her bra slipping down into the dark green-brown depths of Biscuit Creek …
It was going to be a celebratory canvas if it killed her.
But she was still angry … her hand movements slowed, then came to a stop. She bowed her head. It would never be a celebration, she realized. Because there was no happy ending to their story.
The attic door opened. The hinges didn’t squeak, but a rush of air came up the stairs.
She knew it wasn’t going to be a psycho killer. The dogs would have put up a fuss. No, it was someone from downstairs. She hoped it was Weezie.
But it was Harrison who appeared at the top of the stairs in a pair of duckie boxers and a T-shirt that read, FBI: FEMALE BODY INSPECTOR. His hair was shaggier than usual, a little flat on one side, which only made him more adorable than ever.
“You’re kidding me,” he said in a regular daytime voice.
She put her finger to her mouth. Though why she bothered after she was throwing pencils and tossing around canvases, she didn’t know.
“Oops,” he said without changing his volume, although his voice was also thick with sleep. “You’d make a great librarian. They’re sexy. Smart. I’ve never met one that doesn’t have a sparkle in her eye.”
“You need to go.” She sent him a small warning look. Nothing too mean. She liked librarians, too.
“It’s four o’clock in the morning.” He yawned and spread his arms wide. His shirt rose, exposing his washboard abs, and stretched tight over his pecs. “Aren’t you gonna pick up all those pencils?”
Mercy. How was a girl to behave herself around such male magnificence? She felt an unwelcome heat in her lower belly. “No. They’re there to keep intruders out. Walk across them at your peril.”
&n
bsp; Which he did without even wincing, all the while looking around, apparently fascinated.
Something in her was shocked that she didn’t feel violated. This was her secret space. Maybe she felt she owed him. After all, he’d shown her his secret place when they were kids … the honeysuckle bower. Or maybe she was incredibly glad to see him.
That was it.
He stood just a foot away from her now. She lifted her chin at his shirt. “I see you made it to Goodwill, after all.”
“Yep.” He looked down at the naughty words. “It’s the same one I used to shop in. I paid a visit for old times’ sake. And I made a little donation.”
Little? She doubted that. “Did you hear a thunk on your ceiling?”
“Yep. And so I lay in bed wondering if you had raccoons or rats in the attic. And then I heard a couple of creaks. I decided to check it out, although it took me a second to find the door. When I saw the light, I knew it had to be you or Weezie. Good thing, because if it had been a raccoon or rat, I woulda screamed like a girl and woken y’all up.”
“No, you wouldn’t have,” she said. “You used to look for snakes under rotten logs. And I know you ate a spider.”
And he was out of her life tomorrow.
“Only once. Remember I had a thing for alligators, too? At least until I found out the Crocodile Hunter was dead. I kinda lost my gator joy after that.”
It was intimate up here. “This was Honey’s special room. I made it into a studio.”
“It’s awesome.”
No, it wasn’t. He was out of her life tomorrow.
“How come I didn’t know you were still doing art?” He scratched the stubble on his jaw, which wasn’t exactly polite, but it was four in the morning. Rules were different then. And she liked the sound anyway. Beast, is what she thought. And wanted him to ravish her.
“I don’t tell anyone,” she said. “Only Weezie and Carmela know.”
“Why not Dubose?”
She shrugged and had to look away.
He went to the window. “There’s a big moon.”
“I know. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
He turned around, his face in shadows. “It’s a super moon. They don’t come around a lot. I saw it tonight and I recognized it. It’s the same moon we had.”
The night they lost their virginity to each other and declared their love, was the understood end to that statement.
She padded over, her arms folded over her chest. “It is a special moon.”
He was looking at it so earnestly, his profile strong and brave, that of a Sewee warrior who’d conquered the world.
All on his own.
They watched a cloud slowly move across the moon’s face. She didn’t want him to go. This was the last time they’d be together like this. Friends. Old lovers. Sharing their own, private space in the world—an enchanted space—for the last time.
“I’ll miss you,” she whispered. “For ten years I’ve been hiding out in the open. My version of Terence Jones. I was too embarrassed to contact you. And ashamed. You came to get me the day after the prom, and I betrayed you.”
“No, you didn’t.” He turned toward her. “I put you in the corner. Tried to force your hand. I’m smarter now. That’s not the way to love. Or be loved.”
“We were kids.”
“Yeah.” He wiped a tear off her cheek with his thumb.
She took a step toward him, and he wrapped his arms around her. Put his chin on her head.
“You’re a good egg,” he said.
She half laughed, half sobbed into his T-shirt. He stroked her hair. She laid her palm on his chest to absorb his heat.
“You’ll keep getting more successful,” she said, “until someday you achieve legendary status. Like Johnny Cash.”
“No one can rival Johnny.”
“Okay, then Tim McGraw.”
“I wish.”
She closed her eyes, sighing. She didn’t want to leave the circle of his arms.
He rubbed her back. “It’s not as if I’ll never see you. Especially if this thing with Gage and Carmela works out.”
“That’s true,” she said hopefully.
But they both knew it wouldn’t be the same. She’d be with Dubose. Harrison might be with another woman. Who knew?
And once she was married, Dubose would be the one man she’d give access to her innermost heart. That was only right. It was what marriage was about: two people becoming one. She wouldn’t disrespect it by yearning after someone other than her husband. Else why get married at all?
Snack on this, girlfriend. She remembered those words had run through her head the day Harrison dropped her off at Maybank Hall.
“True?”
“Hmmm?”
“Maybe you’d better stop caressing my chest.”
“Oh.” She pulled back, flustered at how curt he suddenly sounded. “Sorry.”
He stared at her a long moment. The sweet intimacy between them was gone. “You knew what you were doing,” he said carefully.
“I said I’m sorry.” She felt guilty. But angry, too. She ran her hand through her hair, suddenly self-conscious. Being in her father’s shirt didn’t help. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“I know,” he said low. “You were playing games. Maybe I’ve been, too, since I got back here. But that moon’s convinced me. I’m not gonna play games with you anymore.”
There was a beat of silence. She didn’t know what to say.
“You’re with the wrong man,” he said, “and we both know it.”
The anger flared up high. “You don’t have any right to say that to me.”
“I can say anything I want. And so can you. You seem to have forgotten that. Or maybe you never learned.”
“I don’t need a lecture. You have no idea what I’ve been through—” Tonight in the tub. This past year. The past ten years.
“You’re still with the wrong man.”
Her fingers trembled. “And you’re the right one? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You know damned well I am.”
She reached up and twisted his shirt with her fist. “I’ve had just about enough of your showing off, Mr. Country Music Star. You don’t like not being number one, do you? That’s all this is.”
“You and I both wish.”
The snarky bastard.
But he was right. Neither one of them needed this … this thing between them. She pulled his shirt tighter. “Prove it to me then. Prove to me I’m with the wrong man.”
“Looks like you’ve got something to prove first.”
“Maybe I do.” She reached up and kissed him, boldly exploring his mouth with her tongue. He tasted of wood smoke and sex. “You may be hot. You may have an official Twitter page and a fan club that holds conventions. But I can live without you and your charm, cowboy.”
“Are you sure about that?” Before she knew it, he’d turned her around and was holding the hand that had gripped his shirt behind her back. Then he palmed her belly and hauled her right up against him.
A deep thrill shot through her. She was trapped against him, her bottom pressed up to an erection worthy of a porno. “Yes, I’m sure,” she lied.
He laughed and kissed her neck—soft, sexy, loud kisses—and lifted his mouth a fraction of an inch. “God, you taste good.”
“Mmmm” was all she could manage, and arched back to give him better access. “Don’t think this means anything.”
“No, this is all a big test. You got something to prove.”
“That’s right.”
While she lay back against him, he unbuttoned her shirt. It landed on the floor, and he turned her back around and went right to her breasts, his tongue hot on her nipples.
The shock and pleasure went straight to her core. She gave a little moan, and her hips thrust forward in response. But she was still in charge of herself. She excelled at staying in control. He might have her body, but he didn’t have her heart.
Nosirree.
> “Sexy,” he murmured, and put a hand in the space between her thighs.
She clenched around his palm while he suckled her breasts and she held on to his hair.
“Why is it so good with you?” She was desperately trying to be furious. “We’ve barely started.”
He lifted his head and kissed her, a bold kiss that promised fantastic sex. “I don’t try to understand it. It’s like trying to understand a pretty tree. Or really good pizza. It just damned is. And you’re glad for it.”
“Come up here.” She ran her hands up his chest to encourage him to straighten so she could tug off his shirt. “Wow.” She pulled back to admire him. “How often are you in the gym?”
“A lot. I have to stay in shape for the road.”
“You look good.”
“It’s lonely”—he pulled her close—“having no one to look good for.” He reminded her of his hand. “Ride it, baby. If you dare.”
Unable to resist the pure pleasure the heel of his palm afforded her, she did just that.
“Sweet Jesus, this is my lucky day.” He watched her through half-slitted eyes. “Admit it. It’s yours, too.”
She was about to come to a rip-roaring climax. “No,” she whispered.
“Too proud for your own good. You always have been.”
She moaned. He was doing everything he could with his hands, and now his mouth, to make her capitulate. “Don’t stop,” she heard herself begging, almost over the edge.
But in one swift move, he turned her around, buckled the backs of her knees with his own, and lowered her to the floor with his he-man grip. Next thing she knew, he was hunched over her. Boxer-less. “Got any condoms?”
She didn’t care. She wanted his hands back on her, playing her like a fiddle.
“My little hedonist.” He chuckled. “You’re annoyed, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“You won’t be for long,” he said silkily.
Sweet Talk Me Page 25
