by Alison Kent
"Apple it is. Ben, don't just stand there like you're too much of a man to help in the kitchen. Get Miss Heidi a cup of coffee."
Mrs. Jones stirred fresh apple shavings, cinnamon and sugar into the bowl. "You can tell me all about the party later. Because I do believe it has the sound of a story that could take awhile."
"SO, THE JONESES don't know about The Deck?" Heidi asked, looking up at him from the bottom of the back porch steps. "Or anything that went on at Johnson High?"
This morning she'd found out that Mrs. Jones made a breakfast hard to turn down. And hard to walk away from. Now Ben was taking her to the bam to see Charlie's new foal. And to meet Thackery.
So far they hadn't even made it off the back porch. Heidi had stopped to mb the furry belly of his big dog named Lug, and the cats had descended like ants on a picnic, from beneath the porch, out of the bam, down from the huge oak that shaded the house.
Ben might have to watch where he put his feet, but he wasn't going to back away from the subject they'd been sidestepping all weekend. In fact, he stopped his descent on the last step and, making an effort to keep the weight from a heavy subject, plunged teasingly in.
"You mean, do the Joneses know you're the one who turned my face into this hideously gruesome visage? That you stole away every chance I had to be People Magazine’s 'Sexiest Man Of The Year'?"
She rolled her eyes. "A little scar never stopped Harrison Ford."
"You call this little?"
At his words, she straightened, climbed two steps to take his chin in her hand. She turned his head this way then that. The chain had dented the center of his chin, leaving a Michael Douglas cleft.
She placed the pad of her index finger there, then made a long slow tactile exploration along the curve of his jaw to his ear. She was gentle. She was tender. He watched the scroll of her thoughts in her eyes.
The strip of pale skin was basically smooth, the white line narrow and bare where the bristle of beard should've grown. Her swing had missed both his eye and his ear. He saw her visually measure the distance, saw her register, for the very first time, that her careless heated actions could've cost him either.
Her breath caught. Her eyes brimmed with tears she'd yet to release. His gut clenched hard. Trembling, her hand found its way to his nape. She pulled his head down to trail healing kisses along the injury he'd suffered at her hand.
"Why, Ben?" she whispered at his ear, her breath warm, the dampness of tears on his cheek warmer still. "Why did you tell me to swing?"
He laughed weakly. "I didn't think you would for one thing."
She pulled back to look at him and her throat worked hard as she tried to swallow.
"You were hurting, Heidi. Hurting bad. If you hadn't struck out, you'd've turned all that anger inside." He raised her chin, looked into her eyes. "That scared me even more than the idea of you hitting me."
He'd told her that day that he knew her well. She hadn't wanted to believe him. In their four years of high school, she'd never allowed anyone close. Later, with his arrogance tempered by maturity, he'd realized why she'd kept herself separate.
Her ability to make it from day to day had been steel-forged in her independence. In the way she'd learned never to ask, never to take. And, above all, never to need, as if she'd lose the very tenuous hold she had on the controlling strings of her life if she even thought she had anyone to lean on.
Watching her now, waiting for her to answer, he had more than a suspicion that she still practiced that philosophy.
"I shouldn't have hit you." She tucked her hands in her jeans pockets and moved down one step. "It didn't matter that I needed to 'strike out', as you say. I shouldn't have hit you."
"I'm not going to disagree with you there." He didn't want her to sink into a morass of guilt and remorse. So he laughed. "Of course, I'm not sure I would've wanted you to take out your frustration on my 'Vette either."
But her emotions ran too far in the other direction. She was remembering and reliving and regretting. He knew that when she turned away to hide and he felt the first stirrings of his own frustration. He'd gotten over the incident long ago. She needed to get over it now.
She sank down to sit on the step, buried her face in her hands. "Why are you even talking to me now? And, oh, God, Ben. Why did you want to make love with me? After what I've done? I can understand if it was the IOU, but if it wasn't... then what... why?"
Explaining why meant he'd have to deal with the emotions he'd suppressed last night. Funny, but he was finally ready. "We have a history, Heidi. You're not a random classmate I hit on for a little one-on-one reunion." He paused, dropped down to the step above her. He braced his elbows on his knees, tickled the head of the kitten who settled between his feet. "Do you remember what I told you last night?"
She sniffed. "Which what?"
He chuckled. He had been rather mouthy. "That who I am today has a lot to do with you."
Denying his words with a shake of her head, she said, "I don't believe that."
He shrugged. "You don't have to. I do. Oh, I would've said you were full of crap if you'd asked me five years ago."
Her head came up. "So what's different now?"
"Me. I am."
This time she looked at him, raised that cocky Joker's brow. "That's it?"
He nodded. "Five years ago, I came home. To Sherwood Grove. Things weren't going well for me and Katherine. I couldn't say why. Just that I didn't feel a part of 'us.' I didn't belong. Or fit in."
"Don't patronize me, Ben."
The return of Mighty Heidi. Even better. "Fine. Here's this." He made sure he had her full attention, that her eyes were focused on his. "There hasn't been a day of my adult life that I haven't thought about you. They weren't always nice thoughts, either."
"What did you think about me, Ben?"
Her eyes were bright and dry. Her curiosity piqued. Her voice had taken on the tenor of cross-examination. Suddenly all this honesty didn't seem like such a good idea.
At the rumble of the kitten's purr, Ben glanced down. Eyes slashed shut, the tiny feline settled her triangular head on his foot. His mind was in chaos and the cat was asleep.
"Ben?"
I hear ya, counselor. "What did I think? I hated you and damned you and worried and wondered. More than anything, I wondered."
"About?"
"How you survived. You lived by the river in a house of tar paper and trash. I lived in the heart of Sherwood Grove with servants and chandeliers. You rode a five-speed with one working gear to school. I drove a Corvette. You had nothing compared to my everything. Yet I didn't have half your self-sufficiency.
"I did what was expected of me instead of thinking for myself. I had it good. I had it great, in fact." He shrugged, trying to dislodge the weight that had descended when she'd turned the questions on him. "Why put out any effort to change?
"Then I thought of you. Living the way you did. Doing what you had to do to survive. Sure, we fought and argued like all kids do, but you never did anything, said anything that couldn't be worked out with a game of pool and a lot of loud music.
"I didn't think anything about giving you that money. That's just how Tannens did things. 'A problem? No problem. Name your price and it's history.'" How many times had that scenario been played out in his father's library?
He looked into Heidi's eyes then, because this was what he'd been waiting fifteen years to make right. "It took me less than a minute to write out a check and hand you what you'd spent your entire life working for. I didn't think about your feelings. And that was wrong."
She was frowning, shaking her head adamantly. "But if you hadn't given it to me..."
"I've thought about that, too. If I hadn't, would you be where you are today?" A second kitten joined the first and the tickle to his toes intensified. "I've also wondered how things might've been different if I'd offered you the loan. If we'd talked about it. If I hadn't arrogantly assumed I could solve your problems with my bank account."
>
Gently lifting a snoozing feline in each hand, he reached back and set them in a quiet corner of the porch. They blinked, glanced around then were up and off, tumbling to the ground before tearing across the yard toward the barn. Ben rolled his eyes. "In-grates."
Heidi laughed. And then she said, "You did solve my problems, you know. If not for you, I doubt I'd've ever made it to the other side of the river."
No. He couldn't take the credit. "You were strong, Heidi. You'd've made it just fine."
"I don't think so. I'd reached the-end of my rope that day." Leaning toward him, she placed her hand on his knee. "When you drove up to the bike racks, I'd been thinking about what I was going to do. I'd been holding on for so long, you know. Waiting to get out of school and out of that place.
"But all of a sudden the only thing I could see was the end. Of my future. My chances. Of my life," she said and her voice dropped.
"It wasn't where I lived, the house or the neighborhood. It was my situation. I saw myself becoming my mother." She looked down at her feet. "Taking money from men to survive. Up until that day I never thought I'd sink to that level..."
Ben squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head. He'd never thought about that. Why in the hell had he never thought about that? "I did that to you. That's why you sent me that note."
Her nod was an admission. "And then when you called, I thought you wanted to collect." She laughed. "I didn't know what to do. I'd never thought you'd actually take me up on it. I figured you hated me. That you'd never want to see me again much less..."
"Make love with you? That note wasn't about making love. I might only have been nineteen when you sent it, but I knew that much at least. The note pissed me off. I came close to hating you then. But I called because I wanted to make sure you were doing okay.
"When you wouldn't even talk to me, well, yeah. That's when I thought about using that note against you. I was young and arrogant and convinced you owed me more than money. But most of my anger came from seeing you living your dream while I was living the life expected of a Tannen."
Her smile was thoughtful, gentle. "And now?"
Ah, that was easy. "Now I'm living for me."
She squeezed his knee, patted his thigh then clasped her hands together. "I just can't believe you didn't forget about me the minute you hit the UT campus."
"I told you, Heidi. I think about you every day." He turned his scarred face toward her. "How can I help it?"
"Ben." She moved to sit at his side, to wrap both arms around him and hold him close. "I am so incredibly sorry. I don't even know what to say."
His heart beat faster. "Tell me one thing."
"Anything," she whispered.
"Did you forget about me?"
She shook her head. "Never."
"And now? Where do we go from here?" He clenched and unclenched his hands. This was the hardest question of all because he was not going to let her walk out of his life. Not after this weekend.
Not when he loved her.
"From here?" Her eyes were bright and dreamy when she said, "I'd like to go back to your bed."
SHE UNDRESSED HIM slowly, taking her time with discovery and exploration. His body was beautiful, a work of art worthy of Michelangelo. Sculpted of stone, the master's David couldn't have felt so smooth, so hard.
Ben's shoulders were beautifully wide and strong. She knew their strength from the way he effortlessly held his body above hers when he strained for control. She dropped his T-shirt to the floor and let her hands roam.
His skin was familiar, but she refused to rush what might never come again. So, his biceps, his elbows, his forearms and wrists and palms and fingers received her attention. Each inch of skin, every mole, every freckle, every scratch and scrape and bruise.
Tenderly, gently, thoroughly she grew to know him. These were the arms that had held her close in the night, the hands that had braced her for ecstasy, the fingers that had wiped away the tears of joy her best intentions could not contain.
"Heidi?"
She looked up from the broad palm she was measuring with the press of her thumb. His eyes were the eyes she'd seen in her dreams for more than half of her life.
"I'm six feet tall. I weigh one hundred eighty pounds and I wear a size twelve shoe. If you plan to take this long on every inch of me, we're going to be here for a very short time."
"Why not a very long time?"
"Because at this rate I will be over and done with before you even reach my pants."
"Oh," she said and ran the flat of her palm across his bold arousal to see for herself.
Ben hissed out a long breath between clenched teeth. "What're you doing?"
Playing the vamp was even more fun when she wasn't playing. "Just checking to see what will soon be coming my way."
As groans went, Ben's was tortured. "Funny girl."
"The Joker at your service," she said and opened her mouth against the center of his chest.
Skin shouldn't be strong, but that's exactly how she thought of Ben's. A strength of health and conditioning. And he tasted exactly as she remembered.
While making tiny laps with her tongue on his skin, from nipple to nipple to breastbone to his neck, where she left a tiny lover's mark, she walked her fingers beneath the elastic of his sweats and encountered no underwear.
She squeezed the toned flesh of his buttocks and felt the need to press her thighs tight together to hold back her own rush of heat.
"Heidi?"
"Hmm?" she mumbled. She couldn't talk with her tongue wrapped around his nipple. She'd been thrilled to see his response, to know he shared that point of stimulation.
"You're moving faster, baby. And that's a good thing. But the parts you're moving toward are in an even bigger hurry."
His impatience thrilled her. She wanted him as mindless as she'd been when he'd finally entered her in the pool last night. "You don't believe that patience is a virtue?"
"I believe that good comes aren't for those who wait."
She groaned. "Funny man."
"You're rubbing off on me."
"I'm rubbing on to you."
"So rub more already."
"I hate to rush. I'd like to linger."
"I hate it when you linger. Faster, deeper, harder. That's my motto."
"Ben, you are such a guy."
"I certainly hope so."
"So, act like a guy and kiss me senseless."
She didn't have to ask him twice. His lips pressed hers and his tongue stroked hers and his hands worked her T-shirt up to her shoulders and off her arms. His hands found her breasts, cupped and fondled and squeezed.
She gasped when his mouth took over, sucking hard. She arched toward him, her hands gripping his biceps as he bent her back over his arm. She gave herself up because she had realized last night that there was nothing that drove her as thoroughly wild as his mouth on her breasts.
Except for his mouth on her stomach. She moaned as he kissed his way to her navel, plying the flat of his tongue to her skin. The pressure tickled and aroused and the room's cool air on the hot moisture of his mouth hardened more than her nipples.
She couldn't wait for him to take off her pants. To move his tongue the way that he did between her legs. To tickle her thighs with butterfly kisses, to draw on her feminine flesh with his lips.
His fingers were finally at her zipper and he was skimming her jeans over her hips and lowering her back onto the thick quilted coverlet. And suddenly she stopped him, because she wanted to see him in broad daylight, to watch his face as her mouth made love to him.
He frowned when she pushed him back, a frown that grew panicked as she sat up, found the waistband of his sweats and flicked her tongue over his navel as she freed him from his clothes.
Then she kissed him where it counted and exalted in the response of his body, the heat of his ragged breath, the moans that began belly deep to squeeze his chest, the crush of his hands in her hair and the pulse she measured with her tongue.
But he wasn’t having any more of that and when she looked up into his eyes he pulled free of her mouth and tumbled her back onto the bed. He made swift work of whatever clothing still hung from ankles and knees and then he was over her, entering her, burying his body deep within hers.
He loved her slowly, moving nothing but his hips, then refusing to move at all when she squirmed and begged and slapped his butt. His chuckles vibrated through her breasts and he kissed her gently, capturing her hands above her head.
Then he began the true torture, refusing to give up her mouth, denying her use of her hands and moving his knees to the outside of hers. He started with long slow strokes, withdrawing from her body completely, then easing the whole of his length back in.
How unfair that he treat her this way, holding her still for this intense pleasure. Mind-blowing. She'd heard that term used in reference to sex. She'd scoffed. But now she knew. Ben had reduced her to nothing but feeling, nerves and skin and warm wet friction.
She ripped her mouth free because her release rejected silence. This was love and it was loud and liquid, with sticky moist skin and grunts and whimpers and nasty words and moans. This was love and she was making it with Ben, with her mouth and her fingers and her thighs and her sex.
But most of all, more than anything in the world, she was making it with her heart.
Chapter Eleven
Senior year
HEIDI WONDERED what a straight shot of bourbon would feel like going down. If it would drown out the embers sizzling away the lining of her stomach.
Or if it would just go ahead and take away the rest of everything she cared about.
After the day she'd just had, the four years she'd just finished, numbness seemed like a great way to spend the rest of her life.
No more hurt, no more humiliation and certainly no more hope.
Slamming her high school locker closed for the very last time, she pulled her daddy's creased and battered brown derby low over her ears and pushed forward through the rowdy crowd of Johnson High graduates.
The class of 1984.
Notebook paper in balls and sheets, shreds of book covers and strips of crepe paper streamers littered the hallway along with snapshots and sketches and magazine covers and calendars all ripped from locker walls.
