by Jen Doyle
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dorie woke with a start, sitting up straight in the moonlit room. It took her a few seconds to remember where she was: back in Iowa. In her bed, with Nate.
He lifted up his head and gave a sleepy, “Hey.” Threading his hand through the strand of hair that brushed her shoulder, he asked, “You okay?”
Okay?
No. Not even close. She felt like she was headed down a mountain in a car with no brakes and no steering.
“You weren’t supposed to make them love you,” she said, quietly enough that she wasn’t sure if he heard it. Wasn’t sure she wanted him to.
From the way he went still against her, it was clear that he had. “I’m pretty sure Tommy would argue that I was in any way effective,” he tried to joke.
But she could hear the strain in his voice; could hear that he knew it wasn’t a joke for her.
“Is that your plan?” she asked, emotions all tangled up inside and yet still unable to keep from running her hand down his chest. “Whisk me away on a private plane so I’ll forget that this is only short-ter—”
“Don’t you get it by now?” he said, gripping her wrist. “This isn’t short-term, not for me.”
“But it is for me,” she answered, even though her heart was tearing in two. Slowly, painfully, no matter how much she’d tried to keep it whole. “It has to be. Except now you’ve won them over—the one man in the history of the world to do that, by the way—and they won’t understand why I let you go.”
“They’re not exactly my concern at the moment.” It was obvious that he was angry. His pulse was beating wildly against her even as he quietly added, “So maybe you could explain it to me instead.”
She wished she could. She wished it more than anything. Because as she let herself inhale his warm, masculine scent—let herself appreciate the hard and lean muscles as she edged her leg over his—the thought of never seeing him again almost killed her.
But giving in to this? Giving in to him and then having him walk away in the end?
It wasn’t happening. It was her car, damn it, and she was getting those brakes fixed ASAP.
“Tell me what you need,” he said gruffly, as close to pleading as a man like him got. And the tear went deeper.
She rested her head against his chest; burrowed into the hollow of his neck.
She wanted him like this. The two of them alone in the dark without anything else to stand in the way.
But what did she need to be able to believe?
“I don’t know,” she answered, even though with everything in her heart she wished she did.
* * *
The next day dawned crisp and clear. Dorie was up with the sun, completely unable to sleep. She rolled out of bed quietly, careful not to wake Nate.
She threw on her running gear, laced up her shoes and then was out the door. Even at this early hour in the middle of February, there were signs of life everywhere. The doors were already open at Jules’s café and the gas station on the edge of the town center was doing a booming business of trucks from surrounding farms. Everyone she saw waved and smiled, some even calling out her name.
For the first time since arriving in Inspiration, Dorie felt, well, not that she actually belonged, but that she might someday, and not just as a roadside attraction. Plus Fitz and Wash were going out of their way to make her feel at home. Sometimes, she thought, in spite of her relationship—fling—with Nate. Not that they didn’t approve; it was more like they were looking out for her. Making sure that no matter what happened she had a place to land. Which was good because she was going to need it. Tonight was the reopening ceremony, which meant that the thirteenth was the day after tomorrow.
She stopped running when the air abruptly left her lungs. Bent over as the pain shot through her and she tried to catch her breath.
Two days.
This would all be over in two days.
No. She could not be upset about this. How could she look at something this incredible as anything other than a gift? She’d always cherish the memories of this time with him: the night he’d shown up at her door to cook her dinner. The trip to Chicago...
The way he looked at her every single moment they were together. That alone might sustain her for the rest of her life.
So, no. No. She wasn’t going to be sad about this. Not. Sad. And she was going to turn her butt around and get back to him.
She could hear the shower running when she opened the front door. With a smile, she slipped off her jacket and toed off her shoes, then headed down the hall. The bathroom door was open a few inches; she eased it the rest of the way. The shower curtain wasn’t all the way closed, either, and she had to admit, his reflection gave her pause. His hands were flat against the wall in front of him, his head hung down directly beneath the showerhead, the water flowing down over his shoulders and back. If he hadn’t looked so tired—no, weary—she might have feasted a little bit more on the eye candy.
Well, okay, she did feast a little bit. Who could blame her? The absolute perfection of the man’s body still got to her every time.
She stripped off the rest of her clothes and quietly stepped into the shower behind him, her hands wrapping around his hips just as he looked over his shoulder and smiled. “Hey. I thought you went to work.”
Touching her lips to his shoulder blade, she murmured, “Couldn’t sleep. Went out for a run.”
His muscles tensed under her tongue as she licked the water away. “You didn’t want company,” he said, a statement rather than a question. And the second his eyes met hers she looked away. If she gave him an explanation, he’d take it wrong.
He gripped her chin and turned her head so she was looking up at him. Staring down into her eyes it looked like he was going to say something, but instead he... God, she couldn’t even call it a kiss. His tongue swept through her mouth and the intensity of it sent her reeling. She fell back against the wall, flattening her hands against the cold tile behind her. Her eyes went wide as he pulled away. “Nate...”
But he bent down to kiss her again, cutting her off. Then he was lifting her, holding her high enough for her to be looking down at him, her arms resting on his shoulders. His mouth went to her breast, his tongue lapping at her nipple before he gently bit down. When he wrapped her legs around his waist, she pushed up against him and moaned. She was already wet when he eased inside her, slowly at first, then roughly enough for her to cry out.
“Too much?” he said into her neck, his teeth scraping at her skin as he pulled out.
“God, no,” she gasped, holding his head against her as he pushed back inside of her. Tilting her hips just enough for him to... “Oh, God.” Her head fell back as he thrust again, spreading her, spearing her. A tremble ran through her as every nerve ending stood on edge.
How could she tell him that she wasn’t ready to let him go? That she wasn’t sure she’d ever be?
“Dorie...”
She gave herself over to him entirely, his hands guiding her, playing her, sliding up and over her hips, up her sides, over her breasts until they came to a rest where they’d started, cupping her face. She opened her eyes to find him watching her. Everything stopped as he held her gaze... Until his eyes closed, and his head dropped down, and he sent her flying. Everything burst around her, her body coming to a shuddering stop just as his arm shot out to the wall to brace himself and he groaned his own release.
He rested his forehead against hers for a minute, not saying anything. And she was incapable of speaking after he eased her down to stand on her own and then wordlessly stepped out of the shower. Closing her eyes, she turned her face to the water, knowing that if she gave in and said the word, he would—
“Dorie?” he said, his voice hoarse, and she realized how badly she wanted to hear the words. How much she needed
to hear him tell her he loved her so much that it was somehow all going to all work out, even though that made no sense whatsoever.
The shower curtain swept open and, heart in her throat, she looked into his eyes.
Except what he said was, “Mark just called. He got me on a radio show in fifteen minutes, and then I’m having coffee with Fitz. I’ll meet you at the library at ten.” Then he leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead.
Um... “Okay,” she said to the shower curtain as he closed it. “I guess I’ll see you then.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Nate had woken up that morning knowing he needed a plan—especially given what she’d said in the middle of the night. It had gotten to him, he had to admit: she was possibly the one woman in the world who not only didn’t want any of the things he could give her but actually held them against him.
Yeah, the Boston trip had backfired all right, although not just in the ways Nate had considered. He’d wanted to show Dorie that he could handle her family, that he could give her things no one else could. What he hadn’t anticipated was how much deeper he’d fall. Because the truth was, he’d loved that they couldn’t have cared less who he was. Loved that it hadn’t given him an automatic pass, but instead was as much of a strike against him for them as it was for Dorie. Loved that Dorie gave it right back to them, teasing and goading them instead until they’d completely forgotten about whatever plans they had to test Nate, and were back to teasing her. It was quite the cycle.
He loved it so much, in fact, that he’d even spent an afternoon helping Sean hang cabinets in his kitchen. Which in itself had been fine—in the big-brother-interrogating-the-man-sleeping-with-his-sister way, of course—right up until the moment when Sean had said, “She’s been in love with you since she was thirteen. Every asshole from here to Cape Cod fell in love with her but the only one she ever had eyes for was you. Which worked at the time.”
Nate had been thinking that, yes, he was trying to make it work for him now, too, when Sean had gone on to say, “My point is that she’s never been in love before. Not for real.”
And it had struck Nate that maybe the real issue was that, beyond her slipup that day in Chicago, Dorie had never even come close to indicating that she was, actually, in love with him. The real him, as Sean had so helpfully pointed out.
But as Yogi had said, it ain’t over ’til it’s over. Dorie wanted him just as much as he wanted her—he believed that a hundred percent. She just couldn’t get her thoughts around the logistics of it all. And as he’d gotten into the shower that morning, he’d decided that he wasn’t going to make it easy for her to walk away. Not that he was going to pressure her into something she didn’t want; he was just going to show her that he wasn’t going anywhere. Not for good, at least. Pitchers and catchers, yes. Obviously. But he had every intention of coming back.
Then she’d been there with him, a vision he hadn’t been entirely sure he hadn’t conjured up just from pure desire. Of course then she’d told him she’d gone out for a run alone and it was clear it wasn’t a vision at all. If it had been, then she wouldn’t still be running away from him—literally—whenever he got too close. So he was pretending that it hadn’t bugged the shit out of him. That it was just like any other day in the world rather than two days before what she’d decided was The End.
And here they were at the library where she was buzzing around making last-minute adjustments—straightening a picture here, plucking a book off the shelf and displaying it on the table there—as the clock counted down to four thirty. At the moment, she was biting into one of Jules’s chocolate-covered strawberries, laughing as the chocolate broke apart into pieces that she lightly brushed off her sweater where it hugged the curve of her breast.
“Oh, my God,” she said to Jules, closing her eyes as she licked the strawberry’s juice from her lips. And then she had to go and add, “That’s orgasmically good.”
“Mmm,” Jules murmured, the sparkle in her eye well known to Nate as an indication of nothing good. “Speaking of orgasms, when are you going to—”
Oh, shit, no. “Where do you want these tables?” Nate asked loudly as he came all the way into the room. The last thing he needed right now was for Jules to decide that if she couldn’t fix her own happily-ever-after she’d work on Nate’s instead.
Blushing furiously, Dorie gratefully answered, “Right over there. Let me help you.” Before he could stop her, Dorie lifted up one of the six-foot tables folded up against the wall and hoisted it over her head.
With a glare thrown back over his shoulder at Jules, Nate went after Dorie. “Help,” he stressed, reaching over her and taking it out of her hands. “The intention being that two people are involved.”
“And yet here you are, going all he-man on me.” She folded her arms in front of her chest, a hint of a smile in her eyes. “So what’s my part in this?”
“You tell me where to put it.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s just too easy.” The smile broke out into a full-out grin. “You know exactly where I want you to put it.”
Hell, yes, that was too easy. He put the table down on its edge, using it as a screen as he backed her up into the wall. Pressing up against her, he bent down and nuzzled her ear in the way that made her curl up into him. “Don’t tempt me, woman.” It made her giggle, too.
He loved it when she giggled.
She nudged him away with her knee even as she pulled his head over to kiss him square on the lips. A playful nip that turned into something a whole lot deeper when she tilted her head just so. Still holding the table upright with one hand, he used the other to draw her knee up and wrap her leg around him.
“Mr. Hawkins, this is not proper behavior for the library.” She ran the tip of her finger down his chest, coming to a stop at his waistband, a mere inch away from his dick.
“You’re right,” he said, unable to keep the huskiness out of his voice as he ran his hand up underneath her skirt, right up to where he was cupping the curve of her sweet ass. “But just the other week the librarian was a whole lot friendlier.”
Her chest heaved as she took in a deep breath of air, and then she closed her eyes and grasped his shirt in both hands. With one hard yank, her mouth was on him, her tongue claiming his. Her kiss was as hard and hungry as his was, and when she finally tore her head away, they were both breathless.
After a minute she put her finger to his lips. “Hold that thought.” Then she slipped out from under his arms and, smoothing down her skirt, walked away.
Shit. Nate let his head clunk against the wall. When he finally managed to get his bearings again, he pulled away the table to see that, not only was Jules still standing there, she’d been joined by Fitz and Wash. And now all three of them were just staring at him.
“Not a word,” he snapped. He wasn’t out of the woods yet. He’d done everything he could possibly think of and yet he wasn’t out of the goddamn woods. He had to get her to talk to him tonight. If he had to tie her down to make her listen to him, he would.
Although, to be honest, that sounded good regardless of the circumstances.
The night was spectacular. She was spectacular. She welcomed everyone as if they were an old friend, even those she hadn’t yet met. Every child who walked in got a hug or a high five, and every family got handed a big shiny Mylar balloon. “The other kind isn’t safe for the littlest ones,” she’d said, shrugging. “And I got a good deal on the framing; I had money left over.”
“Bet you’ve never had a girlfriend who bargain-shopped,” Jason had teased after that.
He still didn’t, unfortunately. Not by a long shot. But Nate just smiled as if he was entirely okay with the state of their relationship.
Though Nate couldn’t honestly say he’d spent much time in this building up until these past few weeks, even he could tell that wh
at she’d done was transformative. Everything looked like the balloons: big and shiny and new. But at the same time, the rooms were as solid as they’d always been. As though the building itself knew that it was one of the few that had been there from the founding of the town itself. One of the beacons of hope that had remained standing while over half of the rest of the town lay in shambles around it.
And seeing everyone come out reminded Nate of how much he loved Inspiration. Not just because it was one of the few places on earth where no one really cared who he was—as long as he kept bringing in bags of ice and unloading trays of food for Jules, at least. It was more that everyone showed up. That everyone wanted to be there—wanted this to be a success, whether it was the basketball team or the reopening of the library.
There was the sound of someone clinking on a glass and Nate, along with everyone else in the room, turned to see Fitz standing on the newly polished and gleaming circulation desk. Once she had everyone’s attention, she jumped down to the floor.
“Thanks, everyone, for coming tonight. In a few minutes you’re going to hear from our newest addition to Inspiration. But before we introduce her, Mama Gin would like to say a few words.”
Nate leaned back against the wall, unable to take his eyes away from Dorie.
From the other side of Wash, Deke laughed softly. “So is this just a temporary thing, or do we make sure everyone else is hands-off even after you’re down in Mesa with all your groupies?”
“Boys,” Mrs. Bellevue hissed.
“Sorry, Mrs. Bellevue,” they all chorused.
Nate was actually more than happy to be scolded into silence. He knew what his answer to that question was, but he still wasn’t sure that Dorie agreed. And anyway, his mom was talking.
“...tonight. Before she begins, however, I wanted to...”
There was a rustle in the crowd behind Nate as people parted to make way for a new group of arrivals. For some reason, this group had attracted more attention than usual and even his mother looked up. From where Nate was standing he couldn’t see who it was, but a look of surprise came into Dorie’s eyes, and then a radiant smile over her face as she blinked as though she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Then she whispered something to Fitz who, in turn, said something into his mom’s ear.
