Leaving Necessity

by Margo Bond Collins

  His grip on her hand tightened, at odds with his words. “Because I knew you wanted more than Necessity could offer you. I wanted you to have everything you ever dreamed of. I knew you couldn’t do that here.”

  “If you wanted me to leave badly enough to try to convince me you were having a fling with Sara Barnes, then I had nothing to stay for.”

  Flashing lights came over the hill from behind them, limning her face with red and blue in alternating striations.

  Mac didn’t have time to ask, but as he pulled in behind the fire trucks, he had to wonder if she would have stayed with him back then if he’d had the courage to ask instead of trying to trick her into leaving for her own good.

  And what about now?

  If he asked, would she stay?

  Chapter Twelve

  By the time the county’s volunteer fire department put out the raging inferno that had been her company’s battery of storage tanks, it was almost three in the morning, and Clara was almost asleep against Mitch’s chest in his truck.

  Tomorrow there would be people to talk to, reports to make, insurance forms to fill out. But for the rest of what was left of the night, all Clara wanted was a shower and some sleep.

  The realization that Mitch had followed her into the house jarred her out of her exhaustion, though.

  Though he had to be tired, too, his long, slow smile didn’t show any of it. “Shower?”

  Throwing her head back and laughing, Clara took his hand to lead him upstairs. “Sure.” At the top of the stairs, she pulled him into her bathroom.

  Something about it felt clandestine, as if they really were teenagers again, sneaking around to be together without getting caught. This time, though, there would be no Uncle Gavin slamming the kitchen door a bit too loudly, or stomping up the stairs too heavily, or clearing his throat too often, or otherwise making his presence known long before he could make it to Clara’s room to find the door open and the two of them leaned together over a textbook, Mitch’s dark hair more rumpled than it should be, her blonde ponytail messier than it had been when they started.

  The memory made her smile, even as her heart caught in her chest with a deep pang of longing.

  “You okay?” Mitch lifted his lips away from where they had been kissing her neck and regarded her steadily.

  “Yes.” Clara ran her fingers through his hair—shorter now than it had been, shot through with the first few strands of silver, but still soft to the touch. “Just remembering.”

  Panic flashed through his hazel eyes. Clara didn’t bother to clarify what she was remembering, choosing instead to pull his lips back down to hers until she was kissing him again. Even the taste of him was familiar, hot and slightly spicy, with just a touch of Texas dust underlying the more recent scent of smoke from the fire.

  Pulling her closer to him, Mitch deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers in a way that was both brand new and achingly familiar.

  The shape of his shoulders under her questing hands was identifiably Mitch as well, for all that he was no longer the raw-boned teen she had left.

  Oh, no. He had filled out quite nicely. Clara ran her fingertips down the back of his arms, tracing the sharply defined triceps and sliding her palms down to his elbows.

  With a strangled noise in the back of his throat, Mitch slid his own hands down her back until they cupped her ass, then pulled her up against him, the heat of his erection burning through his blue jeans.

  Clara wound her arms around his neck, taking a step backwards and tugging him toward the shower.

  “Should we talk about this first?” Mitch’s actions didn’t match his words, as his fingers worked feverishly at the knot she had tied in the front of the t-shirt she had borrowed from Gavin’s closet.

  “Absolutely not. No talking.” With a final triumphant motion, Clara shoved the unbuttoned shirt off Mitch’s shoulders, baring his broad chest and the hard planes of his stomach.

  Making a strangled noise of her own, Clara moved her mouth to his chest, reaching up to flick her tongue delicately against one nipple, smiling at both the crisp feel of the hair on his chest and the way he both shivered and pulled away from her. “Don’t do that,” he said, but he was smiling, clearly remembering that part of their time together. Reaching over her shoulder into the shower stall, he turned on the water.

  “What about this?” Clara lightly nipped the other one, until Mitch pulled her t-shirt, finally unknotted, over her head, using it to trap her arms when she lifted them. Pushing her back toward the spray, he held her still with one arm as he closed his mouth over one breast, using his tongue to play with the nipple through the silky fabric of her bra.

  Giving up any pretense at attempting to escape, Clara reveled in the feel of his mouth on her. As he pulled away long enough to push the fabric out of his way, cool air rushed in, stippling the skin of her breast with tiny chill bumps until he once again claimed the nipple, the flick of his tongue echoing her teasing motion earlier.

  Mitch released her long enough to unhook her bra and toss it and the t-shirt onto the bathroom floor, then turned his attention to the other breast, kneading it lightly even as he licked and sucked at it.

  By the time his mouth trailed down her stomach to the top of her jeans, Clara was trembling. As he licked along the waistband, desire surged through her in a searing wave, rolling from her chest and moving down, as if it had been released directly from her heart. It settled in the deepest part of her as a hot throb of need.

  With a deft motion, Mitch unbuttoned her pants, sliding them off her hips and catching her silk panties with his thumbs on the way down, dropping them atop the shirt and bra.

  Clara tugged ineffectually at the button on his jeans. “Take these off, too.”

  One corner of his mouth crooked up. “Is that an order?”

  “A request.” She matched his smile, but the expression faded at the sight of him as he stepped back and removed his pants. Her mouth dried and she met his heated gaze with one of her own.

  In the shower, they lathered their hands with soap, using bathing as an excuse to rediscover one another’s bodies. Afterwards, they dried each other with towels.

  Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Clara pulled Mitch toward the bed until he lifted her in his arms and carried her the final few feet.

  When he leaned down and deposited her against the pillows, she tightened her hold around his neck. He smiled against her lips and slid one knee onto the mattress between her legs. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Just making sure.” She punctuated her words with tiny kisses.

  Gently, he pushed her back, his palms spreading her knees apart until he could taste her. With long, sure strokes, he laved her with his tongue until she writhed beneath him. The feel of his mouth against her left her wet and panting, aching for more. When she reached down to grab his hands, she felt the crinkle of a condom package, and it only made her want to feel him inside her more.

  “Please, Mitch.” She spoke in the barest whisper.

  He pulled away and ripped open the package, swiftly unrolling the condom over himself.

  Then he paused, hovering over her, holding her gaze.

  “Call me Mac,” he demanded. His own voice was scratchy with need. “I am not that boy you left behind. Tell me you know that.”

  She paused, torn between the ache at the center of her being that demanded he come into her, and her need to maintain control over the situation.

  If he wasn’t Mitch, then who was he? Who could he be to her, if not the boy who had broken her heart and sent her running away from Necessity—running away from her past and everyone in it?

  She knew the value of changing a name. She had done it herself, becoming Clara instead of Clarissa after her parents had died and she came to live with Uncle Gavin.

  Who is Mac?

  Images of him from the last few days flashed across her mind. Serious as he pointed out the numbers she needed to remember on a well read-out. Laughin
g as they circled the skating rink, awkward in ways they had never been as teenagers. Flashing a bright smile as he glanced out of the corner of his eye to see if she caught his smartass comment. Red with anger at Duke Rittman’s sabotage attempt, terrified as he tackled her to the ground in the midst of an explosion. And always, always, concerned about other people.

  Like ice cracking, everything she thought she knew about her relationship with Mitchell MacAllan broke apart, tumbling away and letting loose a torrent of emotion walled up behind it.

  This man was not the boy who had broken her heart ten years ago, convincing her that he didn’t care enough to ask her to stay.

  This man wasn’t capable of that kind of cruelty. In all honesty, he never had been. He had always wanted what was best for her.

  This man treated her—and everyone around him—with kindness.

  With love.

  “Mac,” she breathed.

  At the word, Mac slid into her with a groan, and she met him, pushing until he touched that innermost part of her, the part that had been aching for him for a decade.

  *

  Mac knew they should talk first. He had a million things to explain to Clara, more to tell her. But he felt drunk on the taste of her, and when she whispered his name, he was lost.

  Admit it, man. You were lost from the moment you saw her, all those years ago.

  As she tightened around him, calling his name—the one he had chosen for himself, as an adult—he couldn’t hold back any longer, and his own orgasm tore through him, leaving him shaking and spent.

  Later, he promised himself. We will talk about everything.

  It will all work out. It’s going to end up being even better than it could have been otherwise.

  When he woke up some hours later, her side of the bed was cold.

  Pulling on his jeans without buttoning them, he padded down the stairs without turning on any lights. It might have been a decade, but he had once spent almost as much time in this house as he had his own.

  Clara sat in the dark in the living room, a bottle of beer in her hand, the light from the streetlamp outside the window reflected in her dark eyes.

  “Hey.” She offered the bottle to him as he sat down on the other end of the couch from her. He took a long pull from it, then handed it back to her, settling in without saying anything.

  After a long moment, Clara spoke again. “It’s so quiet here.” A wave of her hand took in everything—the house, the street, all of Necessity. “My apartment in New York is never quiet. I can hear my neighbors, cars, ambulances, people talking.”

  “Do you miss it?” He couldn’t imagine living in that kind of din—he could barely stand to go to Dallas for the day.

  Not that the sound of the machinery in the oil field was much better, but at least it didn’t invade his home.

  When he went home, it was to silence.

  He was beginning to think that absolute silence wasn’t the best option, either.

  Tilting her head to one side, Clara considered the question seriously. “I thought I would miss it terribly. And I guess the first night back, I did. Without Uncle Gavin here, everything was. …” She laughed, but the sound was hollow. “Well, it was deathly quiet, I guess.”

  The quiet lasted so long this time that Mac thought maybe Clara had finished, until she spoke again, her voice quiet. “I used to think staying in Necessity would kill me, you know.”

  “I knew.” The sound of a car driving down the street interrupted them, and Mac watched as the headlights bounced off Clara’s face, creating shadows that chased one another until the light was gone again.

  Clara didn’t respond directly. “I don’t think Uncle Gavin ever bought a new mattress for up there.” She waved her hand toward the small bed in her upstairs bedroom.

  “So that’s the same bed we lost our virginity on?”

  “I always preferred to think of it as giving mine away.” She paused. “But yes. The same one.”

  Mac wasn’t entirely sure where this was going, but he was willing to stay and listen.

  Honestly, he would stay and listen to anything Clara had to say.

  Ever.

  The realization shook him, but not as much as it would have less than a week ago.

  Before he had figured out that he still loved her.

  “I didn’t think I would ever see that bed again.” But I’m glad I did, he started to say, until Clara’s laugh stopped him. There was little of humor in it.

  “Me, either,” she said.

  He waited, certain from the quality of silence that she had more to say.

  “I couldn’t sleep earlier. So I came downstairs to review some more of Aerio’s numbers. When were you going to tell me?” Shifting a little, Clara moved deeper into the shadows.

  Mac’s stomach dropped, and his heart began to race. Some part of him wanted to lie, to ask tell you what?—but he knew she might never forgive him if he did.

  Instead, he answered quietly, but honestly. “After you decided not to sell or close.”

  “So you do know that Aerio isn’t a particularly profitable business?”

  More casually than he thought he should be able to, Mac shrugged. “Oil prices are incredibly low right now. It’s a temporary issue. Gavin and I had discussed it, and we were planning to ride out this recession.” He tried to make out her features in the dark, but there wasn’t enough light coming in from outside to do more than cause a reflected gleam from her eyes.

  When she didn’t answer, Mac leaned toward her. “Your uncle saved this town when he brought in Aerio and began working those wells.”

  “Mm. You made sure I saw that, didn’t you?” Clara moved out of the shadows long enough to thump her beer bottle down on the coffee table. “Everything you’ve done this week has been calculated to make me realize that Necessity depends on Aerio.” He could barely see her hands as she began ticking off the items on her fingers. “Nate at the skating rink. Shiloh Philips at the café. Josie Zimmerman in the convenience store. All to highlight just how much the company means to Necessity.”

  He couldn’t deny it. “Yes.”

  “And tonight? Was that meant to seal the deal?”

  “No. Clara.” The protest died half-formed, before he could even get it all the way out of his mouth.

  She wasn’t entirely wrong. Sleeping with her hadn’t been as cold and calculating as she made it sound. But if he were completely honest, he had to admit that somewhere in the back of his mind he had thought that maybe if she had an additional reason to stay, she would be more likely to keep the oil company going until the prices picked back up and it was a more profitable business again.

  As if I have ever been enough of a reason for her to stay in Necessity.

  “You don’t have to answer.” Clara’s voice was heavy. Mac could hear the pain underlying her words, but she didn’t give him any time to speak. “You always were good at manipulating my feelings to get the results you wanted.”

  He wanted to tell her she was wrong, that he hadn’t been manipulating her.

  But I was.

  She sighed. “I’m not angry. I know you always believed that you were doing what was best for me. But that was never up to you.” Standing, she tilted her chin toward the front door. “I’ve got a lot to think about. I think you probably remember the way out.”

  He snapped his mouth closed. “I’ll go get my boots.”

  She hadn’t moved when he came back downstairs, fully dressed in his clothes, still reeking of smoke. “I’ll go out the back way,” he offered.

  “No. I don’t care what anyone here thinks, especially Mrs. Jordan. Leave by the front door. Let the whole town see you.” She shook her head and laughed again. “Anyway, it’s too late. She’s already seen your truck.”

  Once again, Mac considered trying to explain his actions, but he could tell it would do no good. Not now.

  Not yet.

  Without a word, he walked out of the house and down the front steps.
<
br />   But not out of her life, he vowed.

  Even if he didn’t know how he would manage it, he was not going to let Clara Graves go so easy this time.

  Never again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bright morning sun shot through the kitchen windows several hours later as Clara stared blankly out over Mrs. Jordan’s flower garden, waiting for the coffee to brew.

  She hadn’t been able to sleep well after Mitch—Mac—had left. Instead, she had spent the rest of the night tossing and turning as she wondered what her life could have been like if she had stayed in Necessity.

  Stayed with Mac.

  What if I hadn’t let him run me off, just because he thought it was good for me?

  Now the lack of rest was showing as a pounding headache.

  Oh, wait. I think that’s actual pounding. On the door.

  Only one person would come around to beat on the kitchen door with what sounded like a stick—or a cane.

  “Come in, Mrs. Jordan,” Clara called. “It’s unlocked.”

  “Oh, good,” the old woman said, opening the door and depositing a white bakery sack on the kitchen table. “You have coffee ready. Have a seat, honey, and I’ll get us all set up.”

  Lacking the energy to fight what was clearly a losing battle, Clara dropped into a kitchen chair while Mrs. Jordan bustled around, setting out plates with fruit-filled kolaches and mugs full of steaming coffee.

  “There, now,” she said, sitting down across from Clara and taking a long drink of her own coffee. “What are you going to do about Mitchell MacAllan?”

  The blunt question surprised a bark of laughter out of the younger woman. She ran a hand through her hair and blew across the top of her mug before taking a sip. “I don’t like being maneuvered.”

  “Humph.” Mrs. Jordan bit down into a peach pastry and nodded thoughtfully as she chewed. “You think that’s reason enough to run off the best man you’ll ever know?”

  Rolling her eyes, Clara followed suit, taking a moment to savor the cherry kolache Mrs. Jordan had put on her plate. “I like my job.”

  The old woman waved away that objection. “Your uncle told me all about your job. Said there wasn’t a thing about it you couldn’t do from right here. We got high-speed internet now. You don’t need to live in New York City.”