Right Brother

by Patricia McLinn

  “Why do you think that’s worse than how your parents—your father—treated you?”

  That silenced him. Because as much as they talked around the edges of his nonrelationship with his father, he never got to the heart of it.

  “It wasn’t like I was emotionally abused or neglected,” she said. “My parents did the best they could. It’s just…”

  “That you want better for Ashley.”

  “Yes.” He knew. He understood. Eric never had. How strange, his own daughter and he had never understood about wanting more for her. Wanting better, as Trent said.

  “I’ve learned—a lot—from the mistakes I’ve made. I want Ashley to learn those lessons without having to go through the mistakes.”

  “Sometimes lessons don’t take hold if you don’t learn them through knocks on the head.”

  “Sometimes knocks on the head put you so low you never get up.”

  His quick nod acknowledged she might have a point…and she might not.

  Then he smiled, slow and wide. The smile that changed his face from darkly interesting to heart-hammering fascinating.

  “What?” she demanded, trying to stop herself from smiling back.

  “You get a look now and then that kept reminding me of something. I just figured out what—Ashley when she was learning to walk. A look of absolute determination, followed by absolute satisfaction that she wasn’t holding on to anyone or anything, but was standing on her own two feet.”

  Jennifer Truesdale was more than happy to get off her feet by the end of this business day, some two weeks into the new life of Stenner Autos.

  She took her shoes off and set them on the desk next to her purse. The place had closed hours ago and she was alone, so there was no reason to keep the darned things on.

  There was no reason to go home immediately, either, since Ashley was at Mark and Amy’s house. Mark had been calling “just to talk,” which was starting to seem normal. He and Amy had surprised her by coming to the dealership the day after the reopening. “Not back together yet, but better,” Mark told her. They’d also brought her parents, who had seemed pleased for her, if a little vague on the details of what she was doing.

  That’s when the idea of Ashley visiting them before school started had been hatched.

  Things were going well. With her family. With the dealership. With her running the operation. With Trent coaching. Even with Ashley, who’d served out her two-week grounding with no more eruptions.

  Yes, things were going well. Not absolutely smoothly, but nothing she hadn’t been able to handle. Although there was an odd blip on the statement from the bank. She’d have to look at that more closely.

  They’d sold their first car the first day they were open for business—a reliable used model to Yolanda Wellton, Warren’s mother.

  By the next weekend, when Trent’s friends Ben and Tracy came out to see Trent—and for Ben to sign autographs that drew Bears fans to the showroom—they’d sold six cars.

  Trent had insisted she join him and Ben and Tracy for dinner afterward. And they’d had a lovely evening. Though there’d been an awkward few moments when Tracy cornered her in the ladies’ room and refused to believe there was nothing romantic going on with Trent.

  He hadn’t repeated his invitation to the movies. So that was good. Very good.

  “You didn’t turn the security system on again.”

  “Oh! You scared me, Trent.”

  It was a lie. Her heart had started hammering when she’d seen him leaning against the doorjamb of her office, but it wasn’t from fear.

  “Good. Hope you’re scared into turning the alarm on from now on.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Saw your light on my way back from the high school. You shouldn’t be working so late.”

  “Look who’s talking, Mr. Coach Stenner, just leaving the high school. Besides, there’s a withdrawal on the bank statement I want to look at. I could show you—”

  “Oh, God. Please don’t make me look at bank statements now. That session last week was bad enough. C’mon.” He jerked his head toward the front door. “It’s time for you to be in—to go home.”

  A pulse of heat gripped her, her heartbeat skittered. All because he’d started to say in bed.

  “You’re right.” She levered herself up, hooking her shoes with two fingers and her purse strap with the other hand. “I’m not even going to take paperwork home tonight.”

  “Living wild,” he said from the doorway.

  She smiled as she came around the desk.

  Just before she passed him in the doorway, he flipped the light switch. She stopped and turned toward him.

  With the dark office on one side and the lighted hall on the other it was like the day he’d arrived, facing each other in the showroom, light on half of his face, dark hiding the rest of it.

  But now she knew him. She didn’t need the light to see all of him. To know all of him. To know the good man he was.

  She leaned up and kissed him.

  As simple a kiss as he had given her in the car the night of the benefit.

  But after her lips left his, she didn’t step back. She held still, and felt his even greater stillness. With his head bent, she felt the rhythm of his breath on her cheek, a whisper of it on the side of her throat, as he must feel the rhythm of hers on his skin.

  She dropped the shoes, freeing her hand to curve around the back of his neck, to feel the soft-harsh prickle of his hair against her palm. She didn’t need to draw him to her. He bent to meet her mouth. Kissing the side of it. Then letting her capture his bottom lip between hers.

  Kissing. And kissing again. New angles, different pressures.

  She dropped her purse, and used both hands to explore the shape of his skull, to hold him.

  He gripped her shoulders, pulled her tight against his hard chest.

  Without warning, his hold changed. He grasped her shoulders and put her away from him, against one side of the door frame, while he remained at the far side.

  “We can’t do this, Jen.”

  “Why?”

  His mouth twitched, even while lines drew it tight. “Aren’t you the one who had all the reasons—we work together and I’m younger and you want nothing to do with the Stenners. And you don’t trust me.”

  “Trent. I shouldn’t have—”

  “You’re right. You had no cause to trust me. But I’ll give you reason now. I won’t promise anything but to tell you the truth. I want you, Jen. I want to make love to you every way we can think of. So don’t do this if that’s not what you want, too.”

  Each breath burned her lungs. Each pulse of blood seared her veins.

  She reached down for her purse, opened the change keeper and found what she was looking for without fumbling.

  She gripped the solitary key in her fist.

  “It’s what I want, too.”

  Trent didn’t ask why they’d come to Darcie and Zeke’s under-construction house instead of going to his motel or her apartment.

  He wouldn’t have taken her to that motel regardless. Even if it wouldn’t have led to gossip, it wasn’t what he wanted for her. And her apartment…even with Ashley away, he wasn’t surprised Jennifer didn’t take him there. It would be too much of a declaration, letting him too deeply into her life.

  He mentally stepped around that thought, watching her.

  She switched on a small light on the dresser, setting her purse and the key there.

  Echoing her moves without coming close enough to crowd her, he went to the nightstand, turning that lamp on low, dropping his car keys there, then adding the condom packets he pulled from his wallet.

  Her gaze seemed to stick on the glint of those foil packets.

  If she wasn’t sure… It might kill him, but they would not do this if she wasn’t sure.

  He didn’t move, waiting.

  With her gaze still on the packets, she stepped out of one shoe, then the other.

  He star
ted to breathe again. He balanced on one foot to remove shoe and sock, then freed his other foot. His shirt followed in a hurry.

  But with his hands on the snap of his jeans, he slowed.

  Jen still wasn’t looking at him. He’d have traded his best season in the NFL to know what she thought—better yet, what she felt—at that moment. She unhooked the waist of her skirt, unzipped the back and let it drop, leaving her in a blouse that teased the tops of her thighs and whatever she wore underneath.

  Trent couldn’t imagine anything hotter than Jen stripping for him. But this wasn’t a tease that flirted with heat and humor.

  Head down, she started unbuttoning her blouse.

  He watched her, looking for doubt, for regret, for the flicker that would say she had changed her mind, that her mind had overruled her heart.

  What he saw was that she was shy. Not uncertain, exactly, but nervous.

  Her eyes came to his as he closed in on her, her fingers slowing with their work, then stopping.

  He came in close, but not quite touching. Her hands dropped to her sides.

  His gaze following his own movement, he put his right palm on her chest, flat against the center of her breastbone, the tips of his fingers reaching to her throat. Making no attempt to even brush the rise of her breasts at either side of his hand. Not stroking, not moving at all.

  Just his palm, solid and still, against her flesh-covered bone.

  Then he looked into her eyes, already locked on his. Those marvelous eyes that could hold a life, a heart, a soul, all in shades of blue.

  Under his palm he felt her heartbeat, jittery at first, settle to a solid rhythm that quickened. But this quickening wasn’t a sprint, it was a slow, steady climb that picked up his own heart rate, connecting them, pulsing them in sync.

  Harder, then faster, then harder still.

  Her chest was rising and falling in quick, harsh breaths, his hand riding with it. From some distance, he realized his own chest was doing the same.

  Her lips parted. A sound came from them. Not a word, just a sound. Then, “Trent.”

  For a dozen more torturous beats of their hearts he waited, still connected, still in sync. Reluctant to lose this, yet knowing so much more could come.

  A groan wrenched from his throat and he swept her up, an arm under her knees, her arms locked around his neck.

  He followed her down to the bed, the need driving now. And hers as demanding as his.

  They were united in this, too—a bare restraint, layered over the hunger, which both made the hunger stronger and the feeding of it sweeter.

  He refused to tear her blouse, unbuttoning the last few buttons with concentrated caution. She unzipped his jeans with precision. He unhooked her bra and pulled it away from her in measured movements. She slid down the bed to draw his jeans and briefs free, each inch a deliberate decision. He repaid the favor—and the torment—with her panties. She positioned the condom with exquisite care. So exquisite that he had to stop her twice, his hands over hers, while he regained restraint.

  Finally, naked, he rose over her, her hands at his ribs.

  “Jen?” he asked. Because what he wanted for her was no regrets.

  “Yes,” she said.

  She skimmed her hands across his ribs, then down, his muscles dancing in teeth-clenching reaction. She guided him to her entrance, opening to him.

  Hunger roared hard against the veneer of restraint. He stroked into her, felt her arch under him, against him.

  “Jen, are you—?”

  “Okay. I’m okay. Don’t—” she raised her hips against him “—stop.”

  He didn’t. He couldn’t. Not with her body and her voice surrounding him.

  Need and hunger shredded restraint in a stroke.

  There was only Jen. Soft. Strong. Yielding. Powerful. Holding. Meeting. Straining.

  All that she was swirled around him, in him. Circling him, twisting him as he tried to stay with it, to hold on to control even with restraint washed away.

  He felt the power growing.

  The eddy rose, with him, then higher and higher. Over his head, sucking him in, so he spun with it. Faster and harder. Until his lungs burst with the hoarse, harsh cry of it. And he drowned.

  In Jen. For Jen.

  They lay on their sides, facing each other. His bottom arm stretched across the mattress between them, his hand curved around the back of her neck. Her bottom arm crossed over his as she rested the back of her fingers against his jaw.

  In her eyes, he saw possibilities. Possibilities he had never imagined for himself.

  Possibilities he feared he could never fulfill for her.

  “Jen—”

  “Shh. Not now, Trent. Not yet.”

  Her voice, just her voice, had him hard again.

  Maybe it was the memory of how that voice had sounded calling his name as she climaxed.

  She took his top arm from where it had rested at her waist, and positioned it so his palm was once more flat against her breastbone, then she put her own palm against his breastbone.

  Their heartbeats stuttered, raced, then settled. As they lay there, looking into each other’s eyes, they felt the heartbeats come together. Then slowly begin to rise, each beat harder and faster than the one before.

  Jennifer woke without doubt. Without confusion. Without fuzziness.

  Clear and sharp and sure. She knew where she was and why and with whom.

  Trent.

  That’s the way she’d awakened each time they had made love in these three nights before Ashley’s return.

  During the day, they worked as usual: her, all day at the dealership; him, splitting between coaching and the dealership.

  At night they came back to this bed in the guest room of Darcie’s house.

  He brought her a new rose each night. She didn’t know whose garden he was raiding, but they were lovely.

  Sitting on the bed, they ate peach pie and cinnamon ice cream from Loris’s Café. He talked about coaching, about the individual players and about the team. She talked about the dealership, its progress, the concerns. Stenner Autos remained in the red, but it wasn’t bleeding Trent’s money as badly after only a few weeks of being open. She was proud of that.

  Once, she brought up the sales of the old parts, how the effort was picking up steam, having already paid for the cost of the Web site. She’d said Franklin had done them a favor by accumulating those parts, and he might enjoy hearing that he was contributing to the dealership’s revival.

  But Trent teased her about bringing the bottom line into the bedroom, and closed the conversation with a kiss.

  She would have liked to have talked to him more about his feelings about his family. About his childhood. About what was happening between them. But any time she considered opening one of those doors, she had a vision of Trent opening doors that she’d kept closed.

  So they didn’t talk of important things. They made love. Long and slow, fast and hard. Always good.

  And each time she woke to certainty, and to Trent.

  Solid and real, he lay on his stomach beside her now. No, half entwined with her. His arm angled across her torso, his face turned on the pillow so each of his breaths breezed her shoulder. And she was half entwined with him. Lying not quite on her side, with the hand closest to him curled under his side and her opposite leg flung over his.

  She listened to his breathing—felt his breathing—and tried to make sense of her own emotions. How could this be? How could she feel so certain?

  “What are you thinking?” His voice was as deep as the black of his lashes, as rough as the stubble on his chin.

  “I’m—I’m thinking that bodies are weird.”

  He chuckled. “There goes my ego.”

  “No, I meant mine.”

  “Weird is not the word that comes to mind.” He kissed her shoulder. Then skimmed his mouth down to her nipple, circling it with his tongue, drawing on it until she moaned.

  She held his head to bring hi
s mouth to hers, kissing him, long and slow.

  But when the kiss ended, she came back to the topic. “But I’m serious. Bodies truly are weird.”

  “Uh-huh.” He nibbled at her shoulder.

  “I was never more comfortable in my skin than when I was pregnant with Ashley. And at the same time it was as if it wasn’t my body at all. As if an alien had taken it over and I was just along for the ride. That’s sort of how I feel when we make love.”

  She expected him to tease that she was likening him to an alien taking over her body. Instead, he propped his head on his hand and watched her, his eyes solemn.

  “You feel the most comfortable in your skin when we’re making love?”

  “Yes…well, no.” She had said that, hadn’t she? “I mean, because it’s not exactly a comfortable sort of thing. But the most like I belong, like—” Like she was doing something higher, belonged to something bigger than herself. The way she’d felt when she was carrying Ashley. So she forgot herself. Lived beyond her body, beyond herself. But she couldn’t tell him that. It sounded too…too big. “Like I did when I was pregnant.”

  She shifted one shoulder, acknowledging her verbal ineptitude.

  “Would you like to be pregnant again? Have more kids?”

  “You know, I never thought I would ever want to for a long time. But I think it’s connecting with Mark, and even some with my parents that has me feeling different. My family isn’t perfect, but there’s good in them. I think there must be good in every family.”

  He said nothing.

  “No family’s all bad,” she added.

  Even if he argued with her, it would mean talking about it. It would open the subject.

  “So, now you’re thinking you’d like to have more babies.”

  “I doubt I’ll be in a place in life where it would be right to have another baby, to give a child stability and the kind of home…” She couldn’t finish the banalities. “Yes, I’d like to have more babies. But I accepted a long time ago that I won’t.”

  The next two weeks were an exercise in juggling.

  She had a daughter and the dealership pulling her away from him. He had the football team and the dealership pulling him away from her. And they both had desire drawing them together.