Aubrey’s eyes slid shut. “I don’t hate you, Sam.” She looked up at him. “I never did.”
His chest expanded with the breath he inhaled. The subtle heat simmering in his soulful brown eyes warmed her skin. “Do you think we can…maybe…be friends again?”
Aubrey was terrified of the hope that sprang forth within her. She’d suffered too many disappointments in her life to ever allow herself to feel the level of promise suddenly racing through her bloodstream.
“Do you think we’re capable of that, Sam?”
“I want to at least try,” he said. Awareness pulsed between them as his earnest gaze connected with hers. “You were my world, Aubrey. I’ve missed having you in my life. I miss hearing you sing. I miss hearing you laugh at my bad jokes.” His voice softened. “I miss feeling you breathe as you lie next to me.”
A whimper escaped her throat. Her chest tightened with emotions—raw, powerful emotions that stole her breath.
“I thought I would hate you forever,” he continued. “But all it took was seeing you again to remember how much I once loved you.”
“Sam—” She grasped for something that would stop her from drowning in his words. “That was a long time ago. We’re both different people.”
“I want to get to know the person you are now. I want to know this Aubrey,” he said, gently pressing a finger to the center of her chest. “Do you think we can pick up where we left off?”
She shook her head. “We were in a bad place when we left off. I don’t want to go back there.” She cupped his cheek in her palm. “I’d rather start fresh. I want to get to know the Sam Stewart who volunteers his free time to build sets for the community theater and teaches high school kids computers on the weekends.”
His brows arched. “How’d you know about that?” he asked, but then he answered before she could. “Your niece.”
Aubrey nodded. “Felicity loves your class.”
“Not as much as she loves singing.”
“No,” she said. “She definitely takes after her Aunt Aubrey when it comes to singing. I just want to make sure she doesn’t fall into some of the same traps I did in pursuit of a music career.”
“Felicity seems to have a good head on her shoulders.”
“Unlike her aunt did back when I was her age?” she said in a light voice, to let him know she was only teasing.
“You had a good head on your shoulders too. You never would have had the confidence to go out and conquer the world if you didn’t.” He grasped her chin between his fingers and tilted her face up to his. “I really want to kiss you right now.”
Aubrey couldn’t help her shocked laugh. “How do you go from hating me to wanting to kiss me in less than an hour?”
“Because even when I did hate you, I dreamed about kissing you. Kissing you has always been one of the best things in the world.”
“Then why are you still talking and not doing it?”
Aubrey leaned forward and met his lips, sinking quickly into his rich, delicious kiss. Desire stole over her, solid and potent, swimming through her veins like a steady river that couldn’t be stopped.
Sam’s hand came around her head, cradling it, his fingers stretching leisurely against her scalp. His lips brushed back and forth against hers, tentatively at first, as if he understood her need to ease into this after so many years apart. Rushing their kiss would be a disservice to them both. They deserved to relish this momentous joining that had been a decade in the making.
When his tongue traced along the seam of her lips, Aubrey’s heartbeat quickened with anticipation. She opened her mouth, accepting Sam’s tongue inside.
She nearly died with that first taste.
So long had she wanted this, craved this. Craved him. Years of harbored hope, damned up and hidden, poured out from her. She wanted to drown in Sam’s flavor, cling to the familiarity of it. Having him inside her mouth after all this time, remembering his spicy, unique essence, the passion in which he kissed, as if his very life depended on it, set her blood on fire. It was so much more than she could have ever hoped for.
“Damn, I’ve missed you,” Sam whispered into her mouth.
She wanted to answer in agreement, but talking was beyond her capabilities. Emotions overwhelmed her. Elation, fear, desire, relief, hope. They all swamped her, creating a muddled pool within her belly.
But it was the fear that shined the brightest.
Aubrey tried to block it out. She wanted to forget everything and enjoy his kiss, but she couldn’t ignore the cautious warning tiptoeing around the edges of her mind. Her self-preservation instinct reared its head, reminding her of the anguish she’d initially experienced at Sam’s cold rebuffs. One kiss, no matter how amazing, would not wash away the pain she’d felt when he’d walked away from her the first time they saw each other a week ago. It would be foolhardy to expose herself to that kind of pain again. She had to be careful this time around.
Sooner than she’d wanted to, Aubrey pushed away. She sucked in several deep breaths before she said, “We need to take this slowly.”
Sam’s eyes were wide, as if the ardor of their kiss had surprised him too. He ran a hand down his face and nodded.
“You’re right,” he said. “I…uh…got carried away.”
Aubrey released a shaky, breathless laugh. “That’s not always a bad thing,” she said with a tremulous grin.
A matching smile slowly drew across Sam’s lips. “We’ve got time to get carried away. I’m okay with taking things slow.” He brushed his fingers across her lips. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m happy you’re back home, Bree.”
Aubrey’s breath hitched at his use of the nickname he used to call her back when they were together. She closed her eyes, soaking in the pleasure of this moment. No matter what eventually came of her and Sam and this new, tenuous peace they’d just found, at this very second her world felt amazing.
The slam of a car door interrupted the quiet. It was quickly followed by the sound of Felicity’s eager chatter.
Sam looked over his shoulder toward the house. “I should probably go.”
Aubrey nodded her agreement, even though what she really wanted was to spend the next few hours sitting out here with him under the stars, glorying in this newfound contentment.
“Thanks for coming over,” she said.
“Thanks for not closing the door in my face,” he replied.
Placing one last featherlight kiss upon her lips, he left her standing in the sanctuary of her sister’s backyard, wondering if this place they now found themselves in could last.
“Lord, I hope so,” Aubrey whispered.
She might never have what she once had with Sam, but the thought of there being something new with him gave her more hope than she’d felt in ages.
Chapter 5
Aubrey pressed the repeat icon on her phone’s music app, replaying the old Donny Hathaway song from the early seventies that she needed to learn for the wedding where she would perform next weekend. As the legendary R&B crooner’s soulful voice sang about forever love, she scrolled through the videos on her website. She’d read a marketing think piece earlier today that said a professional performer’s website should not have any videos that were more than a year old. If she adhered to that advice, she’d have to delete half her videos.
She grimaced when she noticed that the time stamp on the clip of her singing God Bless America at a minor league baseball game was from last spring. “Make that more than half,” Aubrey muttered.
Keeping her website updated was the bane of her existence, but as an independent soloist, it was critical to her career. These days her sole income came from singing at weddings and the occasional funeral, which, thankfully, was surprisingly steady work, even though she’d only been back in Maplesville for a month. In a roundabout way, she owed that to Zena’s America Can Sing appearance.
Months ago Aubrey had received a friend request on Facebook from Candy Davis, a singer based in New Orlean
s who, after doing a little investigating, discovered Aubrey was Zena’s voice coach. In a weird case of serendipity, just a couple of days after arriving back in Maplesville, Candy contacted Aubrey in a panic. Turns out the other singer had developed vocal cysts that would require surgery and she needed a soloist to fill in for performances she’d had booked. It had started a chain reaction. Aubrey now had steady singing gigs lined up for the next month.
“That’s trash.”
Aubrey looked over her shoulder to find Felicity staring at the computer, chomping on an apple.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“That website is trash. It looks like something a third grader would do.”
“How so?”
Felicity motioned to the screen. “The font is tacky, and you didn’t embed the videos correctly. You see how they overlap the left sidebar? You need to resize them.”
Aubrey frowned. “I don’t know how to resize them.”
“What has you all pouty?” Deanna asked, coming down the stairs with a hamper of dirty laundry. Thanks to a YouTube tutorial, she and her sister had fixed the washing machine.
“Your daughter called my website trash,” Aubrey said.
Deanna glanced at the screen. “She’s right, it is trash.”
“When did this become beat up on Aubrey day?”
“If you’re going to be a professional, you need to have a professional website, not something you created yourself. You’re a singer, not a website designer. And if you’re going to branch out as a vocal coach, you definitely need to step up your game when it comes to your website.”
“Newsflash: website designers are expensive,” Aubrey argued.
“Get Sam to do it,” Deanna said.
“You should,” Felicity said. “He can help you design a kick a—” Her eyes darted to her mother. Deanna’s brows curved with a warning look. “Kick butt website,” she finished, hunching her shoulders. “Just trying to help,” Felicity said as she took another loud bite out of her apple before dashing from the family room.
“She’s right, you know. Sam is good. You should have him work on the website.”
“I’m not even sure Sam designs websites. I thought his work deals with more technical stuff.”
“He dabbles in design.”
“How do you know what he dabbles in?” she asked.
“Because Felicity has been taking the class he teaches for the past year. He does a little bit of everything. Just ask him about the website, will you.”
Aubrey released a sigh. “Sam and I just started talking again, Deanna. How would it look if I start asking him to do favors for me already? He may think that I’ve been angling for a free website from the beginning.”
“First of all, that’s stupid. He would not think that. And, secondly, I didn’t say you should expect him to do it for free. Hire him. I think Sam would be even more upset if you went to someone else if it’s something he can do. Just ask him.”
“We’re back to me having to pay for a website I can’t afford.”
“I’ll front you the money for the website, Aubrey.”
She shook her head. “You should be tired of paying for everything for me.”
“Would you stop with these excuses and ask the man to build you a damn website,” Deanna practically screeched.
“Okay, okay.” Aubrey put both hands up in mock surrender.
“I swear,” her sister muttered as she picked up the hamper and continued toward the utility room.
But Aubrey still wasn’t sure if approaching Sam about her website was a good idea. The past week had been wonderful, but everything was still too new, too delicate, when it came to this budding relationship the two of them had. She wasn’t even sure if she should call it a relationship. They were friends again. It was…nice. Sweet.
He’d met her once again after choir practice this past Wednesday. They’d sat on the rusty swings behind the church hall and talked about her stint at Disneyland, which Sam was way more interested in than Aubrey would have ever imagined. But then she remembered his love of rollercoasters, so she shouldn’t be surprised that he considered her working for a theme park to be the coolest job in the world.
On Thursday she’d met him at Hannah’s Ice Cream Shoppe after theater practice ended. The nostalgia practically smothered her. It had been the most entrancing trip down memory lane, laughing and sharing heated looks over hand-scooped ice cream sundaes.
Aubrey had been hesitant to engage in any public displays of affection. Her reluctance to start the rumor mill churning had trumped her longing to take that next baby step with Sam, but he didn’t seem to share her reservations. He’d taken her hand in his and held it for the entire hour they’d sat at the picnic table outside Hannah’s.
She listened as Sam told her about Dale’s girlfriend, Nyree Grant, and her group of friends who’d just opened the Any Way You Want It Salon and Spa in the old Whitmer Mansion on Silver Oak Drive. Aubrey had never seen anything more adorable than Sam admitting that he’d had his first ever manicure and loved it.
They shared a kiss over their ice cream sundaes. It had been soft and sweet and not even remotely as passionate as the kisses they’d shared in the past, yet it still made her toes curl when she thought back on it. His mouth had been both tentative and sure, as if he’d wanted to go all in with the kiss, but was afraid he was moving too fast, too soon. He’d told her as much once he released her lips. His earnest regard for her feelings caused her heart to melt like cotton candy in a rainstorm.
It would take very little for her to fall in love with Sam again.
If she was being honest, Aubrey could admit that she’d always been a little in love with him, even back when he’d hated her. Now? Well, now she had zero chances of not losing her heart to this charming, considerate Sam who cracked stupid jokes and balanced a whipped cream-covered cherry on his nose just to make her laugh.
Was she willing to test their renewed friendship for the sake of getting a new website? Maybe Deanna was right. It wouldn’t hurt to ask him.
She picked up her cellphone and studied it. She couldn’t call Sam because he hadn’t given her his number. It was something that had needled her all week. She felt the same way about that stupid Facebook friend request. She’d resent it earlier this week and found herself checking obsessively, hoping to see that he’d finally accepted her as his friend.
Deciding it did her no good to sit there and stare at her phone, Aubrey got in her sister’s car, intending to drive over to Sam’s. But as she sat in Deanna’s driveway, the car idling, she realized she had no idea where he lived. Aubrey put the car into reverse and, with trepidation thrumming through her veins, drove to the one place where she knew she’d find the answer.
She pulled into the double-car driveway of his parents’ home fifteen minutes later, next to an old pickup and behind a sandy-brown sedan. The single-story ’80s style ranch house, with a bay window in the breakfast area and dark green shutters, had been like a second home to her back when she and Sam were dating. Myra and Charlie Stewart had been far too trusting back in those days. Aubrey now wondered if they’d both really believed that she and Sam were doing homework all those afternoons they’d spent in his room, reenacting scenes from the romance novels Sam would sneak off his older sister, Latrice’s, bookshelves.
Aubrey pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, moaning at the memory.
Just as she got out of the car, the front door of the house opened and Myra Stewart walked out with her purse over her shoulder. She stopped when she saw Aubrey.
A sinking feeling formed in the pit of Aubrey’s stomach. She’d been close to both his parents when she and Sam dated, but she knew they both must have hated her after that video came out. She closed the car door and started for the house, feeling nauseous as Myra walked toward her. But then the other woman smiled and picked up the pace of her steps.
Her arms were outstretched by the time she made it to Aubrey. She enveloped her in a hug, squeezing
tight.
“It’s so good to see you,” Myra said, planting a loud kiss on Aubrey’s cheek.
Emotion held Aubrey’s voice hostage. It clogged her throat, making it painful to swallow.
“It’s good to see you too, Mrs. Stewart.”
“You’re no longer seventeen. You can call me Myra now,” she said with a laugh. “I was hoping you’d eventually make your way here.”
“I…” Aubrey took a breath. Tried again. “I wasn’t sure I would be welcomed.”
Myra captured her cheeks between her palms and smiled. “There has never been a time when you were not welcomed here. Well, except right now, because I have an appointment to get to.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Aubrey said. “I didn’t mean to stop by unannounced. I was just looking for Sam.”
Myra’s eyebrows arched. “That’s encouraging. You and Sam seeing each other again?”
“We’ve talked,” Aubrey said.
“Hmm, from what I hear you two did a little more than just talked while at Hannah’s the other day.”
It was a wonder Aubrey’s clothes didn’t catch fire with the rush of heat that raced across her skin.
Myra burst out laughing. “Look at that blush,” she said, her smile so big now it surely hurt her cheeks.
“I guess I should have expected that word would get around,” Aubrey said.
“Well, I couldn’t be happier,” Myra said, delight twinkling in eyes that looked so much like her son’s. “Sam is probably at his place,” she said. “He mostly works from home, unless one of his clients requires onsite help. He lives in The Carriage House. It’s one of the newer condominium developments on Highway 421. Do you need directions?”
Aubrey took out her phone and typed in the address Myra gave to her. “Thank you so much for this.”
“Anytime. Come by sometime next week,” Myra said. “We have a lot of catching up to do.”
Aubrey nodded. “I will. It’s so good to see you, Myra.”
“I’m happy you’re home, honey.” She kissed Aubrey’s forehead, then tapped her on the shoulder. “Now, move out of my way. You’re blocking my car.”
Any Time You Need Me Page 7
