The Darling Songbirds

by Rachael Herron

  ‘Oh, God.’ He filled her so much she could barely breathe. ‘Please.’

  Even faster now. She locked her legs around his back and barely had to move to meet his thrusts.

  And still his eyes were on hers, as if he was inside her mind as much as he was inside her body.

  As if it was more than just simple sex. It was as if he was making love to her.

  And with that, Adele’s second climax rose inside her. With every one of his strokes, his pubic bone hit her clit. She writhed harder, the flame rising so high in her chest that she forgot to breathe at all, which was fine, since there was no need for oxygen, not for something as perfect as this – they needed nothing but each other, but this, she needed only him.

  She came, with a low scream, her head tilting back, finally breaking eye contact with him. His pace slowed, as if he was holding himself back, waiting. Waves of pleasure rocked through her, and she kept her hips in tight contact with his. Unable to help herself, she gave a laugh of sheer delight. She lifted her head and opened her eyes again. His eyes were still locked on her face, and as she watched – as she fell into his gaze – he speeded his thrusts, and then, with one sharp shout, he came. She felt his cock jerk inside her, and a deep, river-wide satisfaction filled her. He blinked hard, his mouth still wet from hers, but never looked away from her.

  Adele had never felt so seen. ‘Oh, Kitty Wells.’

  He laughed, collapsing against her, rolling sideways. His arms wrapped around her, drawing her close.

  ‘Well, yeah,’ he finally said, the laughter still thick in his throat. ‘Kitty something, for damn sure.’

  Joy rose in Adele’s sternum, surprising her with how light it felt in contrast to her limbs, which were heavy as river rocks. After sex, Adele was usually the kind of person who bounded out of bed. Normally she would offer her partner a snack, or some water. She’d shower, cut up strawberries, or even do the dishes. In the past, sex had started something up inside her that the actual climax wouldn’t finish. She would usually at least start a conversation. Pillow talk, with a purpose – you were either getting to know someone more, or you were cementing a relationship.

  But here, in his arms, she just felt finished. And safe.

  Adele let her heavy lids close. She was conscious – though barely – that Nate’s arms were going to catch her as she fell into sleep.

  So she fell.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Adele was the perfect weight in his arms.

  It was enough to perturb a man.

  Nate had never felt anything like it before – the way the shape of her body fit his. It was normal for two people not to be comfortable while lying naked in bed together for the first time. Bodies were weird things, and that was fine – that made life interesting.

  But Adele fit him. He didn’t have to shift because the weight of her head made his arm fall asleep. His legs didn’t get cramped, no charley horse attacked his calf muscle. When she blew out a puff of breath in her sleep and rolled to her side, he followed, wrapping his body against hers. He’d never even understood the term ‘spooning’ before. He usually thought of resting in bed with someone as more like a couple of forks tossed haphazardly in a drawer. But Adele just fit there, too. A perfect smaller spoon to his bigger one.

  Nate tightened his arm around her waist. The scent of night jasmine snuck in through the dark, parted curtains. Adele snuggled back against him with a sigh. He’d learned in the last hour as she slept against him that she made the most adorable little sleep noises. She was like a kitten, except she had curves for days and skin like silk.

  Kitty Wells. He snorted softly.

  Adele murmured something that he couldn’t quite hear.

  ‘What was that, darlin’?’ He realised he’d just called her by her last name, and was immediately glad she wasn’t awake to be annoyed with him for it. That must happen to her with every man she dated. And that small thought, of the other men in her life, lit something in him like a cold flame. He didn’t want to think about her with another man.

  Not that he was jealous. He’d never been jealous in his life. Not once.

  But hell, if this was what it felt like, no wonder everyone wrote songs about it. It felt like a sickness deep in his guts. Not pleasant. He shook off the thought.

  ‘Home,’ Adele whispered. She turned in his arms so that she was curled on her side, now facing him. Nate put a hand on the side of her head, brushing the lock of hair out of her face.

  ‘What about it?’

  Her eyelids fluttered and then opened, slowly. She didn’t jump, exactly, but she did have a moment of looking very surprised. And then very pleased. A smile spread across her face. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi.’ He brushed her eyebrow with his thumb. ‘What about home?’

  ‘What? How long was I asleep?’

  ‘I think we’ve been dozing an hour or two. You said home.’

  ‘I did?’ She blinked, and even though she didn’t move a muscle – he would have felt it if she had – she got further away from him.

  He realised he didn’t know exactly what she counted as home. Darling Bay? Nashville? ‘Where’s home for you?’

  She pulled her hands up into a ball in front of her, as if she were praying. She was still lying on her side facing him, still shin to shin, forehead to forehead. He held her top hand loosely.

  ‘Where’s your home?’ she countered.

  ‘Here.’ This very property.

  ‘But where did you come from?’

  ‘A little inland farming town on the edge of Fresno. Known for nothing but its football team, circa 1996, and the amount of meth produced per capita. It was a good place to leave.’

  ‘When did Darling Bay start to be home for you?’

  Nate still wanted to know why she’d said the word in her sleep, but he’d let her sidle around the edge of the answer if she wanted to. ‘When I got here. Well, it wasn’t instant.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I expect it took at least a day or two for it to sink in.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  Nate moved his hand to her side, where her waist curved in. Her skin was warm, almost hot to the touch. If he had to leave his hand in one place for the rest of his life, he would choose to leave it right here, with her face only inches from his, her breath mixed with his. ‘Honestly? When I met Hugh.’

  ‘What did he say to make you feel like that?’

  ‘It was the way he took care of – of Donna, the bartender. I saw the way he looked at her, even when she was falling down drunk. You could tell a block away he was a good man. A man who took care of other people. Then he tried to take care of me, too.’

  Adele smiled. ‘He would. Did you let him?’

  He paused. ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘Because you never saw it coming.’

  Nate remembered the way Hugh had suckered him into helping him on the property. Just a few minutes of raking in the back – do you mind helping an old man with a back to match? The way he’d made Nate feel like he’d done the best raking job anyone had ever done before. Nate had reacted like a five-year-old being praised for picking up his toys instead of the twenty-four-year-old he was.

  Hugh had made him feel like a son, immediately. And Nate had never been a son to anyone. Not to his dad, whom he’d never known, not really even to his own mother. He’d had to take care of her for so long. That didn’t leave time to look up to anyone.

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Did he call you kiddo?’

  Surprised, Nate pulled back. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Yep. The way he said that, huh?’

  Nate nodded. Shortly after helping Hugh rake, still deciding if he should stick around this small town where his mother was being so well taken care of, Nate had changed the oil on Hugh’s old Bonneville. And Hugh had just jerked his head in a nod and said, Thanks, kiddo. That had been the moment Nate had decided he wanted to stay forever in this town where an old guy was willing not only to giv
e his mom a shot, but to give him one, too. ‘He made me feel like I was really someone.’

  ‘Yeah. He could do that to a person.’ Adele stopped and covered her lower lip with her fingers.

  It felt like she needed a minute, maybe to herself. Nate closed his eyes and just lay there with her, his hand still on the swell of her hip.

  Finally, after he’d counted three cars out on the road (and they didn’t come by that often after dark), she spoke. ‘You’d think home for me would be Nashville. That’s where we grew up, after all. My mom’s grandmother lived on the edge of town, and we all lived with her off and on, when the money was bad. But we always moved so much – anywhere Daddy could get a job doing sound, anywhere Mama could get a gig. We’d move towns even if the gig was only for a month. Chattanooga, Gatlinburg, Franklin, Pigeon Forge.’

  ‘She was a singer.’ Nate thought he’d heard that in Darling Bay gossip, something that was always in fashion in the saloon when one of the girls’ albums was playing on the jukebox. ‘The very first Darling Songbird.’ The one who didn’t make it.

  ‘She was the one with all the dreams, but then I came along and ruined them.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t do that.’

  Adele ignored him. ‘She was the reason we formed into our little band. Even when we were so young we practically didn’t know how to read music, she wanted her Songbirds to sing to her. We came here to Darling Bay every summer and every Christmas because Daddy wanted to be with his brother, and Mama didn’t have any family left in Nashville after her mom died. Uncle Hugh was as bad as she was, putting us on the little stage in the saloon. I remember that at our first show, we had to stand Lana up on an apple box just so she could reach the microphone. When Mama died –’ Adele’s voice went husky, but her eyes stayed clear, and stayed on his.

  He stroked her shoulder gently.

  ‘When she died, that’s when we got serious about the band. We owed it to her.’ Her voice dropped. ‘Especially me.’

  ‘Adele –’

  ‘We’d tried to make her happy in life, and it – it hadn’t worked. So we tried after she died.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Then we got known a little bit, and we just started moving around more. I guess I just never felt like I had any kind of home. I love Nashville, and it’s been good to me. But it never … wait. How did we get on this topic again?’ She reached her head forward to kiss him, and the sweetness of her lips, the quick, light heat of them, made Nate want to forget what they were talking about. He stirred again, just thinking about how she had felt underneath him. And on top of him.

  Damn.

  Okay, there would (hopefully) be time for that. He pulled back. ‘But why did you say home?’

  ‘Mmm. It was a dream. A quick, five-second one. I barely remember it.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘I was lost.’ Her hands balled into fists.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. A city I didn’t know. I knew that if I could find the right street, I’d find my way home, but every time I was getting close to it, it changed, and I was going the wrong way again.’

  He rubbed his thumb along the strong tendons in the back of her wrist. ‘What did home look like?’

  Adele’s eyes widened and she rolled onto her back, away from him. Her voice, when she spoke, was surprised. ‘This. I mean, not this.’ Adele waved her fingers in the air. Did she mean the fact that they were stark raving naked in his bed? Because he hadn’t expected that either, least of all the way she fit in his arms.

  She went on. ‘I mean Darling Bay. I guess it’s always been the only home I’ve ever known. Oh, my God. That’s it. That’s what I was trying to find. I can see it now. The street I was trying to find led to Route 119, and then here.’

  Route 119 was a small back road that locals took to get to the main highway. It was the fastest way to Darling Bay. Locals routinely pulled the signs down, to discourage extra looky-loos on the Pacific Coast Highway. There were plenty of Darlingites who thought their town was better off unfound and unspoiled.

  Nate rolled onto his back, too, and followed her gaze. He should be worried about the fine crack that ran from the wall to the old wooden ceiling fan, but at this point, a crack was the least of his worries when it came to fixing up the place. ‘Yeah, I never had a dream about trying to find the road into Fresno, that’s for sure.’

  ‘I was trying to get home. Oh, my God.’

  A chill hit Nate’s skin, as if the fog had just settled low outside and was now pushing under the door, in through the darkened window screen. Something was happening, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Something that wasn’t good. ‘What?’

  ‘This is home.’

  The chill intensified. ‘So you’ve been saying. But I bet a lot of people could have told you that, Darling girl.’ It was a title now, not an endearment. ‘That’s not news.’

  Adele spun upward, pulling the sheet with her. ‘Nate. This is our home. We can’t sell you our home.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ What he wanted to say was much less polite.

  It seemed so obvious, now that she’d had the thought in full.

  ‘Darling Bay. Oh, my God. You know what Uncle Hugh said every time he talked to us on the phone? And in every card he ever sent us? Fly home. That’s what he always told us to do, to fly home, and none of us ever thought a thing about it.’

  Nate sat straight up. He would have been less surprised if she’d sprouted wings from her shoulderblades. ‘You wanna run that by me one more time?’

  ‘We can’t sell. I’m so sorry. This is as surprising to me as it is to you.’

  He found himself on his feet, naked, unsure how he got to standing but determined to stay upright.

  ‘Nate –’ Adele reached one hand out to him.

  But he was already yanking up his jeans, jerking on his boots. He pulled his T-shirt over his head, not caring it was on backward. ‘Where the hell is my ball cap?’ He shoved his hands through his hair, which he knew was sticking up wildly from what her fingertips had done earlier.

  ‘I’ll help you – you don’t have to –’

  ‘It’s fine.’ His scowl felt a mile deep, his voice a growl. ‘I’ll get it from you tomorrow.’

  ‘Nate – don’t go. We should talk about this.’

  ‘What’s there to talk about? You’re taking ownership of the Golden Spike.’

  ‘We’ll keep you on.’

  He froze, his arms still at his sides. His breathing was heavy. ‘Mighty good of you, ma’am.’

  ‘Don’t do this.’

  ‘Am I supposed to be happy for you?’

  ‘I can’t do this without you.’

  The dead middle of his chest felt frozen, as if his heart had been dipped in deep well water.

  ‘Please stay,’ she said. ‘I’d love your help.’

  And that was, maybe, the worst thing she could have said to him. Because she wasn’t talking about needing his help as a man anymore. She wasn’t talking about needing him in bed.

  She meant she needed his help with the hotel.

  The sex had probably just been a bonus.

  ‘I know I’m nothing more than the hired help. I’ve been that my whole life, and I’m used to it.’ He finally located his ball cap under the side chair and pulled it on, brim forward. He shaded his eyes as if she were the sun. ‘But I’ll be damned if I play the cabana boy role, too.’

  He slammed the door so hard the shutter on the window next to it fell off the window and hit the porch with a clatter. And if he could have slammed the door twice, twenty times, till this whole side of the hotel fell down, he would have.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Adele slept hard, her dreams bleak, shot with glimmers of silver. One of her dreams was about a dress she’d had, years and years ago, one of her favourite onstage dresses. It looked matte black when she was still, but shined pewter when she shimmied. She’d lost it somewhere along the way, ripped it irrevocably, probably. The stage was h
ard on clothing.

  When she woke, she felt a warmth ripple through her, a happiness that shone the same silver, brightening the room. She remembered Nate’s skin against hers. His mouth, so hot, so giving. So demanding. The warmth of the memory was yellow and bright, the same colour as the sunshine leaking through the curtain.

  Then – home.

  Darling Bay was home. For the first time in eleven years. For the first time, she wanted to stay somewhere for more than just a few weeks, and it wasn’t about work. It wasn’t, by default, Nashville.

  Nate’s thunderous face, as he slammed the door.

  The brightness drained away as she remembered his fury.

  But she hadn’t done anything wrong. She wanted to take over the Golden Spike. To fix it. To make it run. Make it work. She knew she could do it. She was good at running a small business. She was her own business, and she’d been working without a manager, without anyone else for years. She could do this.

  She’d start with the saloon. It would take time to revamp it into something that would pull in both the locals and the out-of-towners, but she was creative. And it was what her uncle would have wanted, not to mention her father. Dead men, running her life, but they were dead men she’d loved with all her heart.

  She would honour her heritage and make them proud.

  And maybe if she did it just right, maybe it would bring her sisters home. Hugh’s plan, all along. She was playing right into it.

  If only she’d done it earlier.

  It would take some time to talk them into it, but surely she could – she’d have a real home to lure them with. For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine sitting on one of the picnic benches in the back courtyard, side by side, heads back, looking up at the stars. Molly, soft and warm on her right. Lana, thin and impatient on her left. With her sisters – the most important women in the whole world, the ones who completed her – Adele could do anything. She could perform open-heart surgery if Lana held the scalpels for her. She could build a spaceship if Molly told her jokes while she did it. Together, they were more than three people. They were Mama’s songbirds.