by Cecy Robson
“Let’s go to bed,” he says.
I nod, although I’m no longer sure I can give him what we both wanted earlier.
I wrestle with how to tell him without coming across like a tease. Yet the moment he removes his shoes at the foot of my bed and pulls me beneath the warm sheets, I reminded this is Landon, and I don’t have to worry.
He doesn’t seek sex, he simply seeks my presence, curling into me, his voice and thoughts revealing the extent of his fatigue. “It’s been a shit week,” he says.
“Yes,” I agree. “And it’s only Tuesday.”
He lifts his head enough to check my digital clock, then flops down, tucking me against him. “Technically it’s Wednesday.”
“This is a comfortable bed,” he adds.
I snuggle closer to him. “It is,” I agree, trying not to yawn.
“My bed in Kiawah is more comfortable,” he reminds me.
I won’t argue with that, instead I wait to hear what he’ll say next. “I’ll be out of the office the next two days.”
“Out of the office, or out of state?”
His palm slides over my hip. “Both,” he admits.
I guessed that’s where he was headed. “Oh.”
“I’ll be back Friday morning, but plan to take the day off.” He kisses my head. “Will you take it off with me so we can head to Kiawah and back to that comfy bed?”
“We don’t have to do anything,” he adds when I don’t answer.
Despite my horrible night, I grin against his chest. It’s the same thing he claimed when he tried to convince me to spend that first weekend with him. I know he means it, but I think we’ve gone long enough without doing more. “Do you think it will look bad if we both take off the same day?”
I can’t see his face, but I sense his humor. “I don’t care how it looks. This case, and the one I’m taking for that same sex couple that was denied a marriage license is going to make Ballantyne and Bradly a global name. If they don’t want that kind of attention, I’ll take my clients and go.” He laughs. “And maybe take their cute office manager with me.”
“I couldn’t leave them,” I reply, even though I’m not entirely certain how serious he is.
“Not even for me,” he murmurs.
The seduction in his voice curls my toes. I wiggle them trying futilely to gain some semblance of control. “There’s a lot I would do for you, but leaving Mr. Ballantyne isn’t an option.”
“No?”
“Not yet, not until he retires at least.”
“What about crazy-ass Kee-Kee? I think she’d lose her mind if I stole you away.”
I think about it. “It might upset her.”
“Might? Damn, woman, she’d sure as throat-punch me if she knew I was offering.”
“So are you offering?” I ask.
He quiets. “Maybe one day,” he says.
There’s more to what he says. I can feel it, and I think he realizes it, too.
He clears his throat. “In the meantime, come with me to Kiawah. We could both use some time away.”
He’s right about that.
I adjust my body against his, feeling myself fade as I think through the projects that await me at work. “If I can finish my evaluations in the morning, we could leave around lunch.”
“Yeah?”
I smile, ignoring the yawn that comes. “Yes. I want to be with you.”
The muscles along his chest grow rigid. It’s then I sense a trace of sadness, and maybe a little bit of hope, too. “I want to be with you, too, Luci.”
I hope he means it. I want to give him everything, including what’s left of my heart.
Chapter Nineteen
Landon
We roll into John’s Island around five. It’s slightly warmer here than in Charlotte. I crack the window and breathe deep. The minute that salty air wafts into my nose all the stress from the last few days leaves me and only peace floods my mind. Home, this is what it’s like to be home.
I chuckle when Luci shudders. “Sorry,” I say.
She gathers the travel blanket she brought around her, smiling. She’s done that a lot, smile and laughed the whole way down. If I was worried things would be awkward, that changed when I cracked my first joke and her lovely laughter drifted in the cabin.
As close as we’ve become over the past month or so, we haven’t been physically close. I’ve given her time like I promised, not that it’s been easy. The other night, if it weren’t for that call and dealing with ICE, I would have spent the night with my hips buried between her legs. At least, that’s what I think she was giving me permission to do. But when I returned, that desire I all but felt clawing at my clothes was gone when she opened the door.
She banged her head pretty hard from the feel of it, and I kept checking on her during the night to make sure she was okay. I think anyone else would have blamed her injury for the change in her mood, and maybe I should have done just that. Except there was that familiar shield around her, keeping me from touching her and far away from her heart.
I wasn’t sure what she’d say about coming to Kiawah with me, knowing that offer included my bed. I was prepared to tell her she could sleep in one of my spare bedrooms if it came down to it. Hell, I want her with me more than sex.
But then she said yes, both to the trip, and my invitation for more.
“Are you planning to sleep outside?” I ask, motioning to her blanket.
“Only if you’re bad,” she counters.
I grin. “Does naughty count?”
Hey, she already knows I’m up to no good, might as well make sure she wants to be up to no good with me.
She presses her lips together, trying not to smile and not quite managing. “When you say naughty, what do mean?”
I pretend to give it some thought. “Oh, I don’t know, petroleum jelly on the toilet seat, taking pictures of my ass with your phone, or maybe grabbing yours.” I give her a wink. “I guess we’ll have to wait and find out.”
She laughs. I do, too, loving the way the tone melds with hers.
“Why did you open the window?” she asks me, settling into her blanket.
“Smelling the salt.”
She looks ahead. “You can smell it, from here?” At my nod she asks, “Are we almost there?”
“To my place, we have a little less than an hour. Too far to see the ocean, but not so far I can’t smell it.”
“Oh,” she says, perking up. Her attention stretches ahead, and I can feel her excitement build. It’s one of those things I love about Luci, when she feels something, especially something as precious as joy, she feels it down to her bones. Like all that zest for life she carefully clutches releases at once.
“Love.” I don’t miss how that word digs its way into my brain more and more around her.
All the parts of me that were burnt to a crisp, rap my knuckles with a perpetual ruler, reminding me the last time I used that word this soon, it didn’t work. It went up in flames shot from a redheaded demon now known as my ex-wife.
Luci’s hand falls to my lap, stroking me lightly. “What are you thinking about?”
“Crabs.” And the evil redhead demon. But she doesn’t need to know the latter.
“Excuse me?”
“You like crabs? There’s this place called Gilligan’s I’d like to take you to. But if you don’t like seafood, there’s a real nice place that serves steaks.”
“We’re not going straight to your place?”
I toss her a playful look. “Now, darlin’,” I say. “I know you’re just dying to take advantage of me and have your way, in all the right ways, but I figured we’d better eat first, or risk dying of starvation.”
She turns her attention to the passenger side window, her face flushed red. “I thought you said we didn’t have to do anything.”
It’s only because I catch her smile in the reflection that I say what I do. “We don’t. You’re the
one taking us to Orgasm Mountain and staring out at the peaks and valleys.”
“Landon!”
“How’s the view from up there? Any sight of Pleasure Hill, Lake Orgy, or Highway 69?” I click my tongue. “And those valleys must be something, huh? Mind if I take a peak in between?”
She covers her face, muffling her laughter. “You really know how to make a woman blush.”
I nod, thoughtfully. “I know how to make a woman do a lot of things, if you know what I mean.”
“Landon,” she warns.
I glance from the road back to her. “I’m sorry. Would you like me to explain?”
“No.”
It’s what she says, but she can’t stop laughing, and all that bashfulness is too cute to abandon this soon. “You see, I’m what some women consider attractive.”
“Are you?” she asks, playing right along.
“And sexy,” I add.
“Hmm,” she says.
“Also dashing, with the right amount of rugged.”
“Rugged?” she questions.
“Just a sprinkle for color and only enough to know it’s there.” I adjust my hand on the wheel. “There’s also what some might describe as hotness.”
“Is there?”
“Of course, you can’t have attractive, sexy, and dashing without hotness.”
“What happened to rugged?” she asks.
“Don’t worry. That’s there, too.”
“You forgot modest,” she points out.
“No, I left that out on purpose,” I tell her. “Don’t like to talk about myself much. It’s bad for my attractive, sexy, rugged, and dashing persona.” It’s hard not to laugh when she giggles, but I push on, seeing how I’m on a roll. “Anyway, like I was saying, I know how to make women scream with pleasure, beg for more, and writhe in ecstasy.” This time I do laugh. “Sorry, I forgot you’ve already seen that side.”
“I have,” she says. She’s looking shy, and maybe she is, it doesn’t stop her voice from growing husky or her from saying what she does. “It’s why I’m surprised we’re stopping for dinner.”
I ease around a pothole in the road and another one that follows. “Did you think I just brought you out here for a toss and tumble and maybe a few licks?”
I mean it as a joke, but she’s no longer laughing. “Didn’t you?” she asks, her voice just above a whisper.
Shit, it’s hot in here.
“No,” I admit. “I want more.”
She doesn’t move, and if it weren’t for me driving, I wouldn’t move either. We’re getting serious, me and Luci, regardless of whether we planned it.
At least, that’s what I want.
I’m not talking a ring and forever. It’s too soon even with feeling everything I am.
I am, however, promising as much as my heart will allow.
“Why did you come?”
“Maybe I want more, too,” she admits.
“Maybe?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch her fussing with her hands. “I haven’t had anyone in my life for a long time,” she says carefully. “Not anyone who mattered, and even then, it wasn’t like this.”
“You mean like you and me?” I’m putting it back on her, not to be a prick, but more to show her where I’m coming from, and maybe where we’re headed.
If I hadn’t taken a moment to glance her way, I would have missed her nod. As it is, I barely hear her response. “Yes.”
“It’s been a while for me too, but the more I get away from it, the more I wish it hadn’t happened.”
“Did you love her?”
Her voice is quiet as it often is, gentle like she thinks she shouldn’t be asking what she does. But she wants to know, and maybe needs to.
I owe it to her to tell her.
We pass one of those rusted old shacks along the road, and several others further down on the same side. I note a beaten down willow tree beside the next, its long, withered branches flowing close to a battered picnic table perched on the front lawn.
I used to be that tree not long ago, until Luci added the blooms, reminding me I’m still alive.
Maybe that’s why it takes me a moment to answer, and a moment longer after that.
“I thought I did,” I finally answer. “But I was wrong.”
“How do you know?”
“That I was wrong?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Because love, the real kind, doesn’t fade away.” The thought used to tear me apart. But for the first time it doesn’t. The only thing I sense is relief. That, and now hope.
I lift her hand and kiss it when I catch her softening features. Be it the way the sun beams against her face, or be it simply Luci, I can’t get over her beauty.
“So what will it be, darlin’? Someplace rustic or someplace elegant?”
“Let’s go with rustic,” she says. “I have a feeling that’s where you’re leaning toward.”
Now, I’m the one who quiets. “It is, but if steak is what you want, that’s where we’ll go. You’ve been without that smile I like for too long.” She grins in the way that lights her eyes. “Yeah, that’s the one,” I say.
“Let’s do seafood. If you’d like, we’ll try the steakhouse tomorrow.”
“Sounds good,” I reply. “Besides, I like showing you off.”
If you ask me, I can’t think of a better woman to have on my arm. The more days that pass, the more I want to show the world how special she is to me.
The silence spreads between us as softly as that red blanket she tucks beneath her chin. As much as I welcomed all the laughs on the way down, I welcome that quiet with equal force. It’s comfortable, easy, there’s no underlying dread of what may come, what’ll piss her off, or how she’ll treat others around us. That’s what my life used to be. I guess it took leaving to make me see how bad it was.
“Are you okay, Landon?”
I didn’t realize she was looking at me. I grin, passing my thumb along the ridges of her knuckles. “I am,” I admit.
I hold her hand the entire way to Gilligan’s, even as I park. It makes it challenging, but I find it harder to let her go. It’s only when I cut the engine that I finally release her. I wait for her to slip into her coat before I open the door and step out.
Luci isn’t used to having a man do things for her and doesn’t wait for me to open the door. I don’t argue with her. I simply reach for her when she comes around.
Gilligan’s is a hardcore hole in the wall. Wide wood planks make up the siding and steps, and its high triangular roof is probably older than I am. Their food can’t be beat and Gilligan would shoot down from heaven itself to rough up anyone who said otherwise.
Ever since I was a kid, it’s always been one of my favorite places to eat. I never really brought another woman here, unless you count my mother. It was below the standards of the women I dated, especially the one I married. But if I was going to bring any woman, I’m glad it’s Luci.
Luci doesn’t care about cloth napkins or waiters with fancy accents. Just the other week she was perfectly content eating a hotdog when I took her to the zoo. The zoo. I offered to take her anywhere she wanted and that’s where she picked just so she could see their new baby gorilla.
She glances up, smiling. “This here is what we call a real Southern restaurant,” she says, imitating my accent and speech.
“Yes, ma’am, it is,” I agree.
The lack of windows gives the interior a very dark look, but the activity of the bustling waitresses, the loud voices of parents fussing over their children, and the booming laughter that never seems to fade is what gives Gilligan’s life.
“Hey, y’all,” the hostess says when she sees us.
Her name is Lashanda. She used to say, “Welcome to Gilligan’s,” when my folks and I first started coming here. But it didn’t take her long to figure out we were local so her greeting switched real quick.
; “Evening, ma’am,” I say. “Two for dinner, please.”
“This way, sir.”
I guide Luci ahead. The center tables are wide and long, and the ones in the booths are only slightly smaller. Every table sits a minimum of eight comfortably and every four place settings there’s a large hole with a bucket beneath to dump garbage and shells.
There’s barely enough room for one adult to walk through the aisles. But the atmosphere is friendly, and the service is classic Southern charm.
Lashanda motions to one of the large booths. “Wow,” Luci says, taking in the size.
“You want ‘wow’, y’all have to check out the king crab legs. It’s our special tonight.”
“Thank you,” Luci says.
Luci scoots in first, I start to follow when I hear, “Landon? Is that you?”
Jesus, God help me.
I turn around slowly to catch Trin, Callahan, and Cal junior perched in his daddy’s arms walking toward me . . . Directly in front of my folks.
Oh, shit.
Trin reaches up to hug me, her lips pursed the same way they did when we were kids and she snagged me doing something I shouldn’t be doing. “What are you doing here?”
She’s asking me, but poking her head around me to see who I’m with.
“Ah, what are you doing here?” I reply, patting her back like a moron. I look ahead to my mother whose eyebrows are almost to the ceiling and to my father who’s narrowing his stare. “I thought y’all were in Tennessee.”
“Business was concluded faster than expected, son,” my father drawls. Like everyone else, his attention drifts to Luci. I clap Callahan on the shoulder. He looks at me, pretty much in the way any decent man would look at another about to be humiliated.
“Payback’s a bitch,” he whispers.
Never mind. Maybe he’s just revving up to enjoy the show.
“Hi, Momma,” I tell her, bending down to embrace her.
“Hi, baby,” she says, barely glancing at me.
“Hey, Daddy,” I say.
He shakes my hand, cocking a brow and tilting his head in the direction of the table. “I have a date,” I begin.
