The sky was deep velvet, filled to bursting with little stars shining. Clouds skidded across the moon too fast to drop water. The air was just warm enough that she didn’t go inside to change into pants. So she sat on the table, enjoying the air and the music and the peace. She relaxed, and took a moment to be grateful that she had come. JD was right, there was an elephant in the room. At least now they were speaking again. Now things were getting better. She sat a few more minutes just soaking in the feeling of solitude.
Until JD came out and perched himself beside her. For a long time, he didn’t say anything. When he did open his mouth, it wasn’t anything she’d expected.
“I saw you with TJ a while ago.”
“Huh?” She had no idea what he was talking about. Unless he meant in the kitchen, but that had been nothing—
“I would just recommend that you not fall in love with my brother. I don’t think he wants what you want.” JD didn’t look at her. His posture looked relaxed at first glance, but she knew him better than that.
“Trust me. I’m not going to fall in love with your brother.” How could I? When I’m already in love with you? But she didn’t give it voice. Instead, not liking where that might lead, she changed the subject. “Listen, please don’t think that I don’t appreciate it, but you don’t have to do all this. The studio, the vacation, the boots—we don’t need those things. You don’t owe me anything.”
He still didn’t look at her. “On the contrary, I think I owe you everything.”
She wanted to press him, but didn’t think it would work. So Kelsey reverted back to her old method of silence.
She didn’t have to wait long.
“I’d had Andie for three weeks when I met you. I couldn’t do a thing with her. Then you came along, and started making things work.”
“That’s because I was a female—”
But he wasn’t done, and didn’t seem to care that she was speaking. “I’d been in Nashville for two and a half years. Maybe I am talented, but I was as talented then as I am now. Only after you came along did I begin to make a living at it. I think I actually owe all of it to you.”
Kelsey waited, wanted to be sure that he was finished. “You’ve paid me back. I have a photography studio in my garage. I have clients and the equipment I need. You gave me the kick in the ass to do it. And the whole time I was taking the risk, I knew you had my back. That means the world to me. No one really ever had my back before. Thanks.”
They sat there, looking at the sky, staying quiet, until the music stopped and the sultry female voice on the radio announced that it was nine-thirty on Thursday night and that meant it was two-step time.
JD grinned and hopped off the table top, holding out a hand to her.
Kelsey accepted as he pulled her to him, waiting for the voice to stop and the music to start. The first song was fairly fast, and he spun her breathless around the grass. The second wasn’t quite as lively, but still up-tempo, and Kelsey was grateful for the commercial break. She slipped in through the sliding glass door and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge. She was drinking it outside wondering where JD had gone when he emerged. He slid the door shut on quiet runners. “They’re all asleep.” He smiled.
Then he pulled the water from her hand and drank half of it.
“Uh!” She protested, and he gave it back, grin still on his face while she drank more.
He took the bottle from her hand again and, setting it on the table, pulled her back out into the open grass and into a solid hold, where he proceeded to spin her around again. She was breathing heavily when the voice said, “Okay, a slow one for you lovers out there.” She didn’t make a decision, just followed as she was pulled tighter into his embrace, and danced around the yard.
She didn’t fight it. She couldn’t. His arms around her created a safe cocoon she’d never had with anyone else. The feel of his chest where her cheek rested against it matched the smell of him through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. He kept perfect rhythm to the slow song. Though she couldn’t hear the words, she didn’t need to. She just needed to stay here, like this, oblivious to everything else.
She just needed him. It must have shown on her face when the music ended and she looked up at him. Because she didn’t say anything, and neither did he. JD simply closed the distance between them and kissed her.
She kissed him back, her arms tightening around his waist, her weight leaning into him just a little more. His tongue found hers and his hands found their way up her back, holding her where he had better access. He changed the kiss, making it deeper still, as though she could take everything that he had to give from that contact. For just a moment, he broke the kiss to suck in air.
Kelsey drew in her own breath. And with air came thought.
Quickly she moved her hands around, and pushed against his chest, keeping him at bay if not the feelings. She knew how this would end, and she wouldn’t survive it again. She was still barely surviving the last time. “I can’t do this.”
Chapter 37
“Then don’t kiss me back.” She heard JD pushed the words out through clenched teeth, but they were audible even as he turned away.
“I’m sorry.” Her shoulders slumped, and suddenly it was too cold without JD holding her. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have. But I can’t be your road whore again.”
He whirled on her, his face a mask of uncertainty. “My road whore?”
“You know, one of those girls who—”
“I know what a road whore is!” He roared it so loud she thought he’d wake the entire town. “What the hell did I do to make you think you were a road whore?”
She didn’t know where to start. She’d have to tell him that she’d fallen in love with him, so he’d know that she knew she had concocted everything she felt. Her jaw worked, but no sound came out.
He made sound. “Was it the restaurant? I should have taken you somewhere nicer. I should have gotten a nice hotel, I know . . . I . . .”
“No. It wasn’t that.”
“Then what?”
Kelsey shrugged, still not knowing how to tell him. “Everything.”
He just blinked. He turned. He paced. Then he walked out of the yard. He walked to the back of the grass and just kept going. Right into the woods, with the bears he had warned her about. “JD!”
But he didn’t answer.
Kelsey didn’t care if she woke the kids. “JD!”
The neighbors. “J! D!”
But he had disappeared into the night.
The voice on the radio sliced back into her thoughts. “That one was for all of you out there getting it on tonight. And here’s another fast one for those of you just looking for a little fun.”
She perched on the edge of the table, and waited.
The two-step music ended. Another DJ came on, playing alternative country. She didn’t change the station or turn it off. That would mean going inside, and she was sitting right here, waiting for JD until he came back. Even if that was tomorrow.
The only thing that caught her attention was when the man announced one that was getting its last spin. “These guys have moved mainstream on us. Here’s Wilder with Go to Bed Mad.”
Kelsey laughed a harsh sound into the night. She was certain there’d be no waking up glad here. She’d finally fucked it all the way up. But she stayed put.
She had no idea how much later he showed up. She didn’t hear him approach.
“What are you still doing out here?”
Her voice wanted to croak, her throat hurt just from stress. “Waiting for you.”
She looked up to see him at the edge of the yard, where trees met green grass. “You should have gone inside. You don’t know what’s out here at night.”
“I know you’re out here at night, and I know you didn’t go far.”
JD didn’t look at her. “How do you know that? I was gone a long time.”
“Because you’re you. You wouldn’t ever go off and leave us unprotected.
”
He didn’t answer. Didn’t nod, didn’t concede.
She waited for him. And he waited for her.
Finally, he spoke. “You’ve had plenty of time to figure out how to say it now. Tell me what made you think you were a road whore.” The air seemed to leave him even as he said it. He wasn’t expecting anything good here.
“It was my own stupidity, JD. All me.”
He still hadn’t made any kind of eye contact with her, and he still was exuding a quiet rage. “If you want to salvage anything—anything—of this, you tell me.”
“First off, you got stuck with me. I know it and I’m sorry.”
“How did I get stuck with you?”
She sucked in a breath. “The guys all disappeared pretty quickly. They had other things to do, and you wound up entertaining me.”
JD shook his head. “That’s not the way it happened.”
“JD! You didn’t even hug me when you saw me. Everyone else did, but not you.”
“You looked perfect,” He sighed, “And I was all sweaty and grimy. I didn’t want to mess you up.”
“Trust me, I was far from perfect, I’d been dancing in the third row for the whole performance.”
“And not getting a hug made you feel like a road whore?”
“No! How about the girl in the black lace underwear?”
“What about her?”
Kelsey couldn’t believe he was that callous. She got mad. “How about that she was there? Waiting for you! You went in with her and closed the door! You told her to wait, that you might come back. You told me she’d keep!”
“She was waiting for TJ!” He shot back. “I meant she’d keep for him. That was his room.”
“Then why did you go in and close the door?”
He sidestepped her. “That’s it?”
“No!” He was waiting and she was pissed, so it spewed. “Craig and TJ went out and got girls. So you took what you had. I was just another girl on the bus.”
“There were no other women on the bus. No one ever, except Bridget.”
She didn’t believe that for a hot second. “Then what was with Craig and TJ disappearing into their rooms so fast? What about the fifteen thousand condoms under your pillow? You were clearly stock-piled for far more than one night!”
He looked at her like she was a fool. Then he told her why. “Kelsey, the bed folds into the wall. They all fell out the next morning. I put them there after I opened the bed that night.”
That made her mad fizzle like a loosened balloon. But it wasn’t happiness that replaced it. “So you just took me along for sex?”
He groaned and put his hands over his face. He didn’t say anything for a moment, then he let it all go.
She didn’t think he’d looked at her this whole time, but she’d been watching him. She’d seen his posture change. And now it conceded defeat. “When I saw you in the audience, I thought I’d hallucinated you.”
“Why?”
“Since the night you showed up at McMinn’s, I’ve been watching for you, hoping you’d show up again. It was such a great surprise to have you come out to watch us. And there you were.”
He breathed in and out. “I didn’t get stuck with you. You got stuck with me.”
Chapter 38
JD sighed and tried again to explain. “The guys disappeared so I could have you to myself. I got the condoms out of TJ’s dressing room and put them under the pillow on the off chance that I got so lucky. It turned out so bad that I made you flee a moving bus. I’m sorry that I hurt you. I never meant to.
“I can’t go on like this. But I can’t lose you as a friend. I just can’t. Tell me we’ll find some way around it. I just want things to go back to the way they were.” He looked at her, finally, “Tell me they can go back to the way they were.”
She couldn’t find it in her heart to deny him, so she said the words. “Things can go back to the way they were.”
He nodded and walked past her, in the graying night, toward the sliding door where he was illuminated by the light from the kitchen.
The weaving of the whole story was clearer now, and for the first time since she’d pulled on her jeans and made the driver stop the bus did she feel that they could find their way back to even ground.
But he didn’t have women on the bus or fifteen condoms in his bed. The guys had left her with him . . . Kelsey rolled the dice.
“JD? I kind of lied to you.”
He stopped just shy of opening the door, his hand still resting on the handle. It had been a hard night already. She knew that she might be making it harder, but she admired his willingness to stay and play it out. He answered her volley, but didn’t turn. “How do you kind of lie to someone?”
“When I was crying,” she didn’t have to clarify it more than that, he knew what she was talking about. “You asked me if I missed Andrew, and I said I did. That was true, I miss him every day.” She took a fortifying breath and plunged ahead. “But I don’t think that’s really what you were asking. I think you wanted to know why I was crying, right?”
He nodded, “Yeah, that’s about it.”
“Andrew wasn’t my husband; he was my baby brother.”
“I know. I didn’t know then, but I know now.”
He didn’t give her any more opening, so she forged ahead. “I was crying because you jumped up before you even started breathing again. You paced, in like two square feet, you paced, and you did that thing with your hands in your hair that means you’re so frustrated you don’t know what to do.”
He pulled his hands out if his hair and jammed them deep in his pockets. She could see it all from where she sat, too many yards away, and her heart cracked a little more. How her body maintained functioning through all this was beyond her knowledge, but she heard him so she must still be alive.
“I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’m going to go inside now.”
He moved to open the door, but she pulled the thread again. “Why? So you can watch me out the window? You won’t leave me out here by myself. You’re too good of a man, JD. Stay, finish it.”
He turned and looked at her, even though she couldn’t see his eyes through the growing dark, where the moon had abandoned them.
She pushed, “Tell me what frustrated you so much that night.”
He shrugged, but his words were solid. “I promised myself that I would talk to you before anything happened between us. That we wouldn’t be in that position where we were naked and didn’t know who wanted something big and who wanted something casual. And I screwed it up.”
Kelsey stopped for a minute. She dug deep, but couldn’t quite find the bravery to pull that thread anymore. She could interpret what he’d said either way. And she knew she’d collapse into nothing if he told her that he’d wanted to be sure she knew it was just casual, that he’d just wanted sex. But she found a little bit of push, and she used it. “Then tell me what you really want now. Do you truly want things to go back the way they were? I can do that,” She took a breath, “But I’m open to suggestions.”
“Suggestions?” He took a few aggressive steps toward her, and she nodded.
“Okay, how’s this?” He took another step. “I want you in my house. At my dinner table. Every day. Saying that you love me.”
“Done.”
She’d already told him that she loved him. That was what she wanted, too.
But he wasn’t done. He let out a sound of exasperation that bordered on laughter, “No, that’s not all. I want you in my arms, in my bed, every night, screaming my name.”
Her mouth fell open, and her body flooded with heat. Her ears rang and her heart thudded.
She was too slow, and he shook his head and turned away. “Since that’s not ever going to hap—”
“Done.”
He stopped cold. For a beat he didn’t say anything, then she heard it. “What?”
She couldn’t run to him, and throw herself into his arms like she wanted to. She couldn’t make her mu
scles respond. But she got her mouth moving.
“I said, ‘done’, but I should have said ‘please’.”
The dark clouds above her took that moment to let go of what they’d been saving all day. The water that soaked her barely registered, except that she was surprised it didn’t sizzle and evaporate the second it hit her hot skin.
JD faced her again through sheets of rain, only the light radiating from the kitchen giving either of them anything to go by. “Kelse?”
“Please.”
He closed the distance to where she sat on top of the picnic table. Stepping between her legs, his fingers found her hips and pulled her to him. He was hard as a rock, and it was almost as though he were testing her. She pressed tighter against him even as she grabbed his neck and pulled his mouth to her.
She led this one, devouring him, gripping his wet shirt in fistfuls, determined not to let him get away this time. She kissed him like the rain was nuclear, and there was no tomorrow. Like nothing else in the world mattered, because right now it didn’t. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him closer still.
Kelsey reached for him again and again, enjoying how he felt so solid beneath his skin, enjoying his skin beneath his t-shirt. The way he had them grinding together, she couldn’t help rubbing back against him. There were practically sparks flying from where they touched. Without knowing how she got there, she found herself flat on her back across the picnic table, with JD still firmly anchored by her legs around him.
The rain came down colder, but JD was protecting her from the worst of it. It was a beautiful night to be making love on the picnic table, the real storm had passed, and his hand belonged on her breast. She was right to strain against him, wanting his touch, and to pull his mouth back down to hers.
She was tugging at his shirt, trying to pull it off of him when he stepped back shaking his head. Kelsey would have been scared, except for the heat in his eyes. Except for the way his every muscle was focused on her. “We have to go inside.”
She shook her head. “No. Stay.”
Our Song Page 31
