Oh, hell, she was in this deep, wasn’t she?
* * *
The rain was coming down so hard that it sheeted over the windows, obscuring the dark sky and the tall oaks and the houses across the street. Sometime in the last hour, Mouse had jumped onto the front windowsill again, scattering the books Fia had picked up back onto the floor except for one, using it for a pillow.
“I think she’s thumbing her nose at the rain,” Fia murmured.
Elliot glanced at the pup, then smiled lazily. “If I had the energy, I’d go dance naked in it. It seems like a hell of a way to celebrate.” He shifted his weight to avoid a button on the red shirt that pressed into his shoulder blade, pulled the shirt out from beneath him, and tossed it onto the floor. It was just a simple button-front, but he was going to keep it forever. When they were old and feeble, he would show it to Fia and say, Remember when you seduced me wearing nothing but this shirt?
He would never be too old or feeble to return the favor.
“Celebrate?” she echoed.
“I’ve waited my whole life for this.”
“We only met a week and a half ago,” she teased.
Stuffing a pillow under his head, he pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. “The moment I saw you, I thought lightning was about to strike. Honest to God, I had to check the sky to make sure we were safe. That was why I asked you for a drink. ’Cause I knew if I let you leave without getting your name, your number, without making a connection, I’d regret it the rest of my life.”
“Aw, that’s sweet.” She rested her hand on his chest, her fingers long and elegant and amazingly talented. “I felt…not lightning, but sparks. When we shook hands, I knew you were going to change my world.”
“In a good way, I hope. But did you think it would happen this quick?”
Her smile was faint and distant. “One thing I’ve learned in the last few years is that everyone has a different perception of time. ‘You haven’t known each other long enough; you’ve been together too long; you’ve grieved too much; you need to hurry up, slow down, wait…’ They don’t understand that life happens in an instant. You meet somebody, and you know this person is going to be important. You blink, and they’re gone. A baby can be created, a loved one can die, you can die, and if you hurry up, slow down, or wait, you’ll miss everything.”
Her sigh blew warm, moist air over his skin, raised goose bumps, and made his nerve endings tingle in anticipation. He vaguely remembered when she was pleading with him the first time—or was it him doing the pleading the second time?—that he had more than one time in him. He could be ready for the third go-round if she just looked at him, but not yet. Not while she was feeling bittersweet.
Tilting her head back, she gave him her regular smile, the one that had captured him the night they met. “Yes, in a very good way.”
Thunder rumbled over the building, vibrating the bed, and lightning flashed, casting a faint glow over the room for an instant. Mouse’s paws hit the floor with a click, and with one leap, she landed in the bed between them. After turning a circle or two, she settled between their legs, her chin resting on Fia’s thigh, and snuggled in.
“You know, for a big tough pit bull, she sure is pissy about a lot of things,” he grumbled.
“Aw, she’s a baby. You said you don’t like storms. And come on, does anyone really like peeing in the rain?”
When she began rubbing Mouse instead of him, Elliot claimed her hand and brought it back to his chest. “I’m actually surprised she’s as easygoing as she is. I know her life wasn’t easy before I found her. Sometimes I think she should be snarling and snapping instead of cuddling.”
“I was a snarler and a snapper for a long time. I hung out with other kids like me, didn’t let anyone get close. God forbid if a teacher or someone tried to be nice. But cuddling’s a whole lot more fun. And having people automatically be nice to you is a hell of a lot better than them taking one look and assuming the worst.”
With another strike of lightning, the overhead light flickered, then went off. The old refrigerator ticked and clanked as it settled, and another level of darkness slid over the room. “Did your forecasters call for just rain or storms?”
She was very close when she grinned, her nose only an inch from his. “Do I need to cuddle with you, too? The baby and I will keep you safe.”
“I ain’t scared of no storm,” he said with bravado. Turning onto his side for a better look at her, he said, “Tell me about your life.”
“You know all about my parents and Scott. That’s pretty much it.”
“That’s a large part of it. In the time since Scott’s death, you made a great bunch of friends for yourself.”
“The margarita girls rock.”
“You switched from training clients to riding a desk. What else? What keeps you going? What dreams do you have? What are you happy with, and what would you change?”
Her expression flattened, not as if he’d gotten too pushy, but like she had to give serious thought to her answers. “What keeps me going,” she said slowly, “is my girls. If I wanted to wallow in bed without showering or brushing my teeth, they’d let me do it for a couple days, but then they’d drag my butt into the shower, into clothes, and out of the house. They’re the best friends I could ask for. The best people.”
Elliot knew that and understood it. The bond the women shared was incredible, the sort of thing you heard about happening with guys in combat, the never-leave-a-man-behind mentality. Army wives were strong. This bunch of Army wives were damn near superheroes, and it was due, in part, to their friendship.
“As for dreams…I just want to know that one day life is going to be totally good again. It’s going to take a while. No one grieves on a timetable. If I were the kind of woman who could get over losing Scott just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“then I’d have to wonder what kind of wife I was that I could set him aside so easily. I don’t know if getting married again is in my future, or having kids. There’s just so much I don’t know.” She cut her gaze to his. “Though I’m amenable to both.”
The muscles deep in Elliot’s gut eased their sudden tightening. He’d been born knowing he would have kids. He’d had too happy a childhood not to. Not that he got all soft and mellowy around them, but he’d never met one he didn’t like. A few who needed their butts smacked, but he wouldn’t raise that kind of kid.
Mellowy? You get any more mellow, El, you’re gonna be comatose.
He concealed a snicker directed at his sister.
“But even if I don’t, I dream about being surrounded by families, sharing celebrations and sorrows, being an auntie to their babies, going to a home where I’m welcomed on Thanksgiving and Christmas, giving and asking for advice. I want to be part of a family.”
I’ve got a family. Damn, do I have a family, and every one of them would love you like you were theirs. But he didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t want to do something crazy like ask her to marry him right now. That would really give his mom and Emily something to freak about. You haven’t been together long enough. You don’t know each other well enough.
Like Fia had said, different perceptions.
“And what would you change?”
That flatness came back to her eyes and her mouth. She shifted to stare out the side windows, at the streaky blurred view of the outside world. When thunder boomed, she didn’t flinch—and missed both his and Mouse’s flinches, his ego was glad to notice. He wasn’t scared of storms, exactly. He just didn’t think the sky should start growling and throwing random lightning bolts at them.
Moment after moment passed while she thought, while he looked at her, marveling at his luck. It was too damn amazing that they were lying here in bed together. How easily they could have missed each other in that parking lot. She might have passed with a polite nod, or she might have kept her distance from the odd guy talking to his dog and holding an umbrella for her. They both could have driven away never to see each othe
r again, and that would have been a crying shame.
Or they could have met the next day at the grocery store. The day after that at the lake. He would have gone into Prairie Harts anyway and gotten the job, and sooner or later, Lucy and Patricia would have introduced them. If fate had intended the two of them to get together, it would have happened, one way or another.
He thought she’d decided against answering when she broke the silence. “There are a few things I’d like to change, but a very smart man once told me that everything I’ve been through has combined to make me who I am, and that he likes who I am a lot. If I changed one little thing, who knows what effect it would have on the big picture?”
“Very smart, huh?” He grinned smugly. “Can I quote you on that next time I talk to Emily?”
“You can. Just remember that beautiful brown Stetson that makes you look so damn sexy. What is it? Ten, twelve years old?”
“Split the difference.” He leaned to the other night table, nudged aside the straw hat, and picked up the felt one, placing it on his head.
Sitting up, she let the sheet fall to her hips, her small breasts swaying as she gently shoved Mouse off the bed, then moved onto her knees and settled herself snuggly across his hips. “I would definitely have sex with the man wearing that hat, but you go bragging that I said you were smart, your head might swell too much for it to fit anymore.”
He slid down, pushing the hat off his head and elbowing it to the side, wrapping his arms around her, and pulling her until their bodies were touching everywhere possible. “I got news for you, sweetheart. My head ain’t the thing swelling right now,” he murmured before kissing her hard and demonstrating for her.
* * *
The power had come back on, and Fia’s clothes had been dried for hours before she gave a thought to actually putting them on again. She was too comfortable in the shirt she’d retrieved from the floor, too taken with the scents of her and Elliot combined on it. Would he notice if she slipped out the door with it? It would certainly bring her sweet dreams.
He’d given her a perfect chance to come clean about her health problems with his question about changes, but she’d just clammed up. The way he looked at her was so incredible: like she was special, important, like he could live without her but didn’t want to. All afternoon and through the evening, he’d touched her, just casual touches, but with such intense emotion. Considering how she’d been raised, the fact that not one but two men had looked at her that way, touched her that way…the odds against it must be astronomical. She wasn’t the princess who lived happily ever after; she was the plain person she’d always been.
But two Prince Charmings thought she was all that, and then some.
Who was she to argue with Prince Charming?
Wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung shorts, Elliot slid onto the bed, carefully balancing a tray holding a plate and two cups of coffee. He’d already fixed dinner for them—a pasta stew that was perfect for a night like this—and then out of nothing, he’d whipped up a pan of brownies.
“I thought only people like Lucy and Patricia could make brownies without a mix.” She took a bite and made her best yumm sound.
“That’s not the first time I’ve made you make that sound,” he teased. “Besides, I am people like Lucy and Patricia. Food is my passion.”
“And I thought I was.”
“Want to put that brownie back on the plate and let me show you?”
“No, no, you can have two passions.” She savored every bite of the small square of chewy brownie, then took a long drink of steaming coffee. He’d sweetened it, which she’d liked, but not so much that it competed with the dessert for the sugar award.
Her sigh after eating another piece was happy and lazy. “I think I’ve gained three or four pounds since meeting you. My doctor will be happy when he sees me next week.”
Elliot’s blue eyes met hers. “Everything okay?”
“Just a follow-up.” And truthfully, the doctor wouldn’t be too happy, weight gain or not, because she wanted him to do something. All the tests he’d run since last fall had been negative for this, promising for that, then turning out negative there, too. He’d exhausted his ideas, and she was left to take pills for headaches, for spasms, to help her sleep, to help her wake up, to help her live. There was an answer out there somewhere, and she wanted him to find it or refer her to someone who could.
She hoped she would be in shape to tell him all that. If she was having one of her attacks, Jessy would have to do the talking for her, and while she was downright scary at times, Fia wanted to speak for herself, the way she’d always done.
“I aim to feed you well.”
“You’ve certainly done that. Tell me, is there anything you can’t make?”
He pretended to think about it, though she was pretty sure he knew the answers right off the top. He wasn’t the type to forget a challenge. “My cookies tend to be tough. It took a hundred pies to make a crust that earned Grandma’s approval. Sometimes my meringues weep, and my macarons would shame any true Frenchman.”
“Aw, poor baby. I don’t even know what macarons are. But you know, if you were perfect at everything, I’d be too intimidated to even talk to you.” She considered another brownie, then decided she’d had enough. She’d still be working off the calories from today’s lunch for a few days, while the pasta and brownies waited in the background, slowly turning to fat.
“I hate to say this,” she began, and Elliot placed his fingers over her mouth.
“Then don’t.”
She kissed his hand before pulling it away. “You need to get to bed.”
“If that’s an invitation, I accept.”
“Three thirty comes awfully early.”
He set the tray on the floor, but when Mouse immediately pounced on it, he rethought the idea and carried it to the counter instead. Coming back, he wrapped his arms around Fia and stretched out, holding her intimately against him. “I can get by on less than four hours’ sleep. For a while.”
She rubbed her fingers across the beard stubble on his chin. “I need to go home. I don’t have a car here, or clothes, and you really don’t want to wake me up and throw me out in the predawn hours when you leave for work.”
“I wouldn’t do that. And you look really good in that shirt. I can come back on my break and take you home.”
“Or…” She wiggled free, stood up slowly, and undid the buttons on the shirt. When she finished, she shrugged out of it and threw it at him. “You and Mouse can spend the night at my house, and you won’t have to disturb either one of us when you leave.”
“That’s a deal.” He reached for her again, but she backed away until she was in the bathroom, door closed behind her. She pulled on her bra and panties, glad that she had a fondness for wearing pretty underwear all the time and not just when she thought she might get lucky, then she tugged her dress over her head. Other than some kinks in her hair and her makeup having completely disappeared, she looked pretty good for someone who’d passed the afternoon and evening being wanton.
When she returned to the bedroom to find her shoes, Elliot was packing a small ruck with clothes, a plastic zipper bag filled with dog food, and another with brownies. He added his toothbrush, toothpaste, and razor, helped her into a slicker, and handed Mouse to her. “Is she too heavy for you to carry?”
Fia snorted. “I used to bench-press more than I weighed.” She pulled the hood in place, snuggled the dog beneath the rubberized fabric, and headed for the door.
They ran through the rain, shook it off inside the truck, then made the same trip to her front door. Remembering her fall last week, she stepped inside cautiously, turning on lights, kicking off her shoes. Her little house lacked the coziness and warmth of Elliot’s apartment, but that would change now that they were here. They would leave their scents in the air, all over the bathroom, in the shower, and all day tomorrow she would smell hints of him everywhere she went.
Her idea of heaven.<
br />
* * *
It was after ten when they finally went to bed, cuddling, playing, but going no further than that. As award-worthy as the sex had been, Fia was a tad sore where body parts that weren’t used to being rubbed had been rubbed very well. In its own way, the cuddling was just as good. It was something she’d always longed for and had never gotten enough—would never get enough of.
The bedroom was dark and still, Elliot sleeping soundly with one arm flung over her hips, when Fia realized in that first groggy instant of wakefulness that she was actually awake. Rain pounded the roof and splattered against the windows, and from someplace nearer came slow, steady breathing. Opening her eyes, she saw Mouse’s dim form standing beside the bed looking at her. “What’s up, baby girl? Do you need to go out?”
The dog didn’t turn and trot to the door but instead stood on her back legs and rested her front paws on the mattress. Her way of asking for permission to get into bed with them? Though in Fia’s limited experience, Mouse didn’t ask. She just did.
An instant later, pain shot through Fia’s foot. Gasping, she sat up and bent her leg to massage her toes. Sometimes she could ease the spasm before it reached medication stage. Please, God, let this be one of those times.
Her toes were curled tight, the curve of her arch exaggerated, her foot twisting as the muscles contracted. She’d scoffed once at a story about spasms so severe that they fractured bones, but that was before they had become a regular part of her life.
As she tried to work the curve out of her big toe, Mouse trotted to Elliot’s side of the bed and barked sharply.
“Hush, Mouse,” she hissed, but the dog barked again.
Elliot rolled over, his face pressed into the pillow. “C’mon up. Jus’ don’t crowd.”
Mouse barked again. If the first had been a request for attention, this one was a demand. Quickly, before Elliot could fully awaken, Fia patted his arm. “Go back to sleep. I’ll see if she wants to go out.”
With a grunt, he dozed off again, not moving when she eased out of bed. Her foot protested when she put weight on it, but she gritted her teeth, hobbled out of the room, closed the door as soon as Mouse was out, too, and by the dim light of the bulb over the sink, she limped into the kitchen. After giving the dog a treat to keep her quiet, Fia settled on the couch and went back to work massaging her foot. It didn’t seem to be helping, she noted grimly, but at least the spasm wasn’t getting worse, and hallelujah, her other foot and hands felt perfectly good.
A Summer to Remember Page 18
