Build it Strong (The Ballard Brothers of Darling Bay Book 2)

by Rachael Herron

  “No.” She rolled to her side and propped her head on her hand so that she faced him. “I’m crazy. I feel literally crazy.”

  He nodded. “I feel like someone scooped out my brains and put them in a pan on the stove and then scrambled them, like they were eggs.”

  Her eyes widened. “That’s it. Exactly.” Sun poured over his shoulder.

  He lifted a hand to touch the end of a strand. “Your hair is still dripping.”

  She grinned. “Not the only part of me.”

  He sucked in a breath.

  Her stomach rumbled, loudly.

  “Wow,” Aidan said.

  She pressed a fist against her naked skin. “Oh, my God, that sounded like an animal.” Tuesday felt like an animal—a perfect beast, and she didn’t need taming—she just wanted to be near him. For as long as possible.

  “Good thing I brought provisions.”

  They sat up, wriggling a little self-consciously into their clothes.

  But Tuesday wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed.

  She felt glorious, in fact.

  The way Aidan had looked at her when he was inside her had made her feel like the most beautiful woman in the whole world.

  Sure, maybe he’d been wearing sex goggles. That happened. Tuesday had been comfortable in her own body and in her own sexuality for long enough that it wasn’t a surprise when sex felt good. She’d had enough partners to know what she liked and what she wanted.

  She liked to be fucked hard, so that the pounding set up an answering pulse against her clit, so that her G-spot got stroked directly enough that when she came it was a full-body experience. Tuesday didn’t mind teaching anyone what she liked. She’d been with a couple of men who took offense to her helpful suggestions, and that was fine—she didn’t see them again.

  Aidan got it in one try.

  She’d moved his thumb once, and his eyes had lit up, as if he were thrilled to learn.

  She ate a deviled egg and watched as Aidan ate one, too. He put the whole half egg in his mouth in one bite. He closed his eyes and turned his golden face to the sun and smiled.

  The rest?

  The pace? His rhythm? The sounds he made in her ear, the way she responded to him in kind?

  A slice of fear wriggled under the skin at her wrists, and she took a quick sip of the second bottle of water.

  Nothing was perfect.

  Nothing.

  The man had practically hated her, just the week before. Tuesday tried to keep herself from thinking it to herself, but it was too late.

  “What is it?”

  Had he seen the shadow that had floated across her mind? “Nothing.”

  “Too much paprika.” He nodded as if he were agreeing with a critique she hadn’t made. “I knew it. I got a new brand at the store, and I really think the holes are too wide at the top. A little paprika is good, but a lot is kind of like getting punched in the face—”

  “Why were you mad that I bought the house?”

  His eyes widened, and he coughed around the egg. Maybe she should have waited until he’d finished swallowing.

  But she didn’t take back the question. She waited.

  He shrugged. “Dumb reason.”

  “Tell me?”

  He tilted his head and looked at her, his eyes narrowed. “I’m honestly not sure if I should.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have ulterior motives.”

  “Aren’t those usually secret?”

  He nodded. “That’s the point. I don’t think you’re the one to talk to about this.”

  Diana, I like him too much. Way too much. Tuesday consciously unfolded her posture, the way she did when she was talking to angry parents on Back to School night. “I think I’m exactly the person to talk to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I see the way you look at the house.” It struck her that it was similar to the way he looked at her. Like it was something he needed to keep breathing, at the same time like it was something he wanted to back away from slowly.

  “How’s that?”

  “Like it holds a part of your soul.”

  Chapter 24

  A

  idan felt his throat close up. She was too close, striking at the truth of it. Tuesday was the wrong person to talk to about it.

  Wasn’t she the enemy?

  She had been.

  But did most people want to kiss their enemy to within an inch of her life? Did they want to watch her eyes crinkle in that smile that made him feel giddy? Did they want their enemy to laugh that belly laugh that had the power to brighten an entire city?

  Tuesday kept her gaze on him. Her leg jiggled, but the rest of her stayed still. “You can tell me the truth, you know.”

  Funny—the idea literally hadn’t occurred to him until that moment. He sat with it for a moment, turning it over in his mind.

  What was the worst that could happen if she knew what he wanted? He wasn’t going to get it anyway, he was pretty damn sure about that.

  “It’s stupid,” he said.

  “Try me.”

  “I wanted you to sell the house to me.”

  Her brows slammed together.

  Yeah, that hadn’t been a good idea.

  But instead of yelling at him, or worse—running away, leaving him alone on the blanket—she said, “That’s why you were trying to scare me off of Darling Bay. Why would I sell you the house?”

  “Because I want it.”

  A smile crept onto her face, but it was wary now. “You forget I teach kids.”

  The implication was he was being a child. I want it! “I know. I told you it was stupid.”

  “I just want to understand where you’re coming from.” She put cool fingers on his wrist, and it felt strangely like a hug.

  This woman threw him. “Are you saying you’d consider it? Selling to me?”

  She bit her bottom lip and then said, “You mean after the show is all done?”

  “Yeah.” Idiotic hope rose before he could squash it back down. “After it’s wrapped.”

  “It’ll be worth more then.”

  It would take him his entire natural life to pay off. “Yep.”

  “And you realize I’m fixing it up. To my specifications. You realize there’s no good reason for me to even consider doing that.”

  “Actually, I’m fixing it up. My brothers. My business. My crew.”

  She picked up a red-wrapped piece of cheese and rolled it in her fingers. “So do you want every house you renovate?”

  Aidan shook his head. “Unsustainable business model.”

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  A small brown bird lit at the edge of the blanket. It hopped its careful way nearer the picnic as if it had seen enough of them in its time to know what it was. The bird was plain. Just a robin. Brown wings, brown-red chest, brown legs.

  It cocked its head to the side, and its glittering black eye sparkled at Aidan as if telling him a secret. I’m beautiful. People don’t see that. But I don’t mind. I know I am.

  The bird pecked at a fallen cracker and took off, half of it in its beak.

  “Nervy bird,” said Tuesday.

  “I like nervy birds.” Aidan took a breath. “And nervy broads.”

  She smiled at that. “Is that what I am?”

  “Big time.”

  “How so?”

  “You moved here from the other side of the country. Alone. To buy a house in a small town where everyone knows everybody, but we don’t know you.”

  She shrugged. “No big deal.”

  “Very big deal.”

  Tuesday unwrapped the cheese and took a small bite. “Please tell me why you want the house so badly. Did you used to live there or something?”

  He barked a laugh. “No way.”

  “Then what?”

  Aidan curved his spine and leaned backward on his elbows. He looked up into the Coulter pine overhead. Is that where the bird had gone? Was it up there enjoying its cracker a
nd watching them flail? “I wanted to live there. When I was kid.”

  Tuesday took another bite of her cheese and waited. Her legs were crossed and both knees jiggled up and down but she didn’t appear nervous.

  Not like him. Stupid. This was dumb, that had she so much fucking stupid emotion about an old wish. “It was just a dumb thing I wished for a lot.”

  “Who lived in the Callahan house then?”

  “Mrs. Brown. She was my third-grade teacher.”

  “Did you have a crush on her?” Tuesday smiled, as if she were joking, but Aidan thought carefully about it.

  “Maybe? But I don’t think so. If anything, I had a crush on her family.”

  Tuesday folded the plastic cheese wrapper and squeezed the wax casing into a ball. Then she moved forward to lay on her stomach, just inches away from him. She propped her head on her hand. “Tell me more.”

  Aidan folded his hands behind his head. Above him, the tree disappeared and he could see the interior of Mrs. Brown’s dining room. “They had this table. This big old long wooden table. In my mind it could seat about thirty people, but realistically it was probably only a twelve-seater. The top of the table was scarred with drink rings and scratches. On one corner you could actually see the word “Caleb” where her son had written too hard on a school paper, the force of his pencil pushing into the wood. I ate at their house once a month, and I can still remember running my fingers along that. Wishing it was my name there. There were always placemats on the table, and to my mind that was the fanciest shit I’d ever seen. At home, me and my brothers ate in front of the TV. When I was little, it was my mom who put our SpaghettiOs in a bowl, and then later, it was our step-dad Bill, but it didn’t usually get much fancier than that. Once, at Mrs. Brown’s house, she served us beef wellington. It was the most amazing meal I’d ever seen—the meat, there was just so much of it, cooked inside the pastry. When I took a bite, it tasted like I thought a dinner in heaven might taste.” He’d forgotten that moment, though now he could practically taste it, the crisp yet soft crust, the tender and salty meat.

  “Why did you eat there every month?”

  Aidan remembered the way Mrs. Brown would ask him at lunch, always on the first Friday of the month, as if she had it written in her calendar. Do you have plans for dinner? Would you like to eat with us?

  As if an eight-year-old would have dinner plans that extended beyond hoping for food. “I think I was her charity case for the year.”

  “Or her favorite.”

  Surprised, he searched her face. “Really? Teachers have favorites?”

  She laughed. “We’re humans, too. Of course we do. I had a girl in my class last year that I considered adopting.” She folded her lips as if she’d said too much.

  “Seriously?”

  “No. Not really. She had a family. Sometimes.”

  “Not a good family.”

  Tuesday, still lying on her stomach, dropped her chin to the blanket and wagged her head back and forth. “The worst.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “You can’t just take the kids you want. It’s called a felony.”

  “Those wacky Minnesota laws.”

  “Go figure. Anyway, so she would have you over for dinner.”

  He closed his eyes and there it was again, that table. “After a while, it felt like I fit in. Her oldest kid, Caleb—”

  “The same one who carved his name into the end of the table.”

  “He didn’t mean to. But yeah. He and I got to be friends. He was only a couple of years older than I was. Looking back, I bet Mrs. Brown made him do it, but he was always nice to me.”

  “How?”

  Aidan loved the way she asked him questions. Her eyes were wide, her gaze pinned to his face. She listened as if the answer mattered to her. “He would play Battleship with me.”

  “Old school.”

  “Yeah. They had all the early video games, too, and we played a lot of those, and watched MTV and blew up marshmallows in the microwave. Once we were fooling around with yellow paint—I think we were helping his sister with a dollhouse. When no one was looking I painted my name under the tabletop, in front of where I usually sat.”

  “Did they ever know?”

  Aidan didn’t think so. He shook his head. “If they did, they never let on. It was like I just fit in there. What I remember best was playing Battleship. Sinking his ships, and howling when he sunk mine.” They would play at the table, at Caleb's carved corner. Mrs. Brown served them hot chocolate, thick with more mini-marshmallows on top. She would ruffle Aidan’s hair and kiss Caleb's head. Aidan would fantasize about her kissing his own head (she never did). “I wanted her to be my mother.”

  “What was your mother like?”

  “She gave birth to me.” He grinned like he was telling a joke, and in a way, he was. His mother had loved their father enough to have three babies with him. That was probably the best thing she’d done as a mother. “No, that’s not fair. Sometimes she tried.” His first memory was his mother screaming at his father about getting diapers for Jake. His father had come home with a carful of stolen Pampers, and the deputy had been on the porch within an hour.

  “But not hard enough.”

  “Nope. Almost never hard enough.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  It sounded as if she really, really was. Aidan felt something in his throat, a small tickle that grew into a small knot. “Not a big deal. She and my dad split up, and she married Bill Ballard. He adopted us, legally.”

  “What about your dad?”

  Aidan shrugged, looking up into the boughs overhead. “He signed off on the paperwork. Even laughed as they shook hands—I was watching from a window. Easy. I’ve always wondered if Bill paid him off.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to wonder.”

  “That’s one way to look at it. Another way is that Bill loved us so much that he was willing to do anything to raise us.”

  “So he was a good man.”

  “The best.” Bill had loved each one of them differently. When Liam was ten, Bill had bought him a scientific calculator, Liam’s fondest desire. With Bill’s help, Liam learned how to use all the extra and mysterious buttons. When Aidan turned ten, Bill had built him a private workshop in the backyard. It was just a small shed, but Bill had filled it with second-hand tools they’d scrounged together at the flea mart fifteen miles up the coast. When Jake turned ten, Bill had given him his first sailing lessons. “He made us into the men we are. I wish he could have—”

  “What?”

  Aidan consciously unclenched his teeth. “I wish he could have seen that I turned out okay.”

  “He was worried about you?”

  “I guess.” He’d overheard Bill talking to Liam once. Aidan’s the one I’m concerned about. He’s the most like your father. If he’s not careful, he’ll end up in jail. Or worse.

  The memory still hurt, like an old, deep bruise. Bill hadn’t expected much from him.

  He’d been trying to prove himself to a dead man for years.

  Tuesday’s voice was soft. “What happened to your parents? Are they still alive?”

  His mother had left Bill in the end, taking none of her kids with her. “She went back to my dad. Both of them were killed in a meth lab explosion.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So.” She paused, rolling onto her back so that she lay next to him, gazing up into the tree limbs overhead. “Mrs. Brown was the perfect mother.”

  “With the perfect family.”

  “And you think if you have that house and fill it with kids, you’ll finally have that life you wanted so much when you were ten.”

  It sounded stupid every time he thought it.

  Strangely, though, it didn’t sound quite as dumb when she said it.

  No.

  It sounded incredible.

  He rolled to his side. Better to admire the view. He tugged up the edge of her shirt, and she let him. Hi
s fingers traced the soft skin at her side, careful to avoid the scar. “My parents lied a lot. The Browns didn’t.”

  “What did your parents lie about?”

  What hadn’t they? “Everything. Whether we’d eat that night. Where we were going to be living the next month. What that smell was in the kitchen, and why we couldn’t touch what was in their bowls and plastic tubing.”

  “God.” She scrunched her face as if the sun had just blinded her. “I hate parents like that.”

  It felt good to hear. “Once my mom dropped us off at this new school, and she said she’d be back at the end of the day.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It turned out to be a state home, and she didn’t come back for six months. This was about a year before she met Bill.”

  She rolled her head to look at him. Aidan wanted to kiss her, but held himself in check. “That’s awful.”

  “When she finally did come back, I yelled at her. I told her she’d lied, and she denied it.” You didn’t come back at the end of the day!

  I did, too! I just didn’t tell you what day it would be!

  “Mr. and Mrs. Brown had rules. No lying was the number one rule. I saw Caleb tell a lie about where the mouse in the garage had come from, and they were silent. They just waited for him to change his tune, to tell the truth.”

  “Where had the mouse come from?”

  “He’d bought it at a pet store and tried to keep it as pet, but he didn’t want to put it in a cage. He was so upset when it went into the wall.”

  She smiled again, and Aidan felt his heart thump harder than it had when he’d been inside her.

  Those eyes—when they were behind her glasses, they were pretty. When they were naked and looking at him like that? They were bewitching.

  He had a thought then.

  A huge thought, a thought that completed the vague wish he’d felt when he’d kissed her the first time.

  Once he’d had it, he couldn’t stop having it again. And again.

  A child. A girl, or a boy, it didn’t matter. A child with those brown eyes, with her depth of expression.

  With his long nose.

  With her mouth.

  With his hair.

  With her ears.

  “What are you staring at?” Tuesday smiled but she back down her shirt. “You’re kind of freaking me out.”