And Then Forever

by Shirley Jump

  The music from the Outsiders was pounding through the open overhead door that Whit raised whenever the weather was good and the music loud. The Outsiders were doing a pretty decent cover of an old AC/DC song. Joey spied Darcy, and when she passed by, he looped an arm around her waist and took the tray from her hand at the same time, leaving it on an empty chair. “Dance with me, Darce.”

  She laughed. “I’m working.”

  “Yes, you are. Entertaining the customers so they leave a good tip.” One hand pressed into the small of her back, Joey sashayed Darcy through the crowd, onto an open area of the deck. Dozens of others pressed in, whooping and hollering and dancing, while the strings of globe lights twinkled in the night sky, and the floorboards creaked in time to the music’s beat.

  Darcy spun to the right, then the left, with Joey keeping pace beside her. Then, above the crowd, Darcy saw Kincaid, standing on the top step, the dog at his side. Her heart leapt. Had he come back for her?

  He was watching her, his face dark, unreadable. Jealous?

  She told herself she didn’t care if Kincaid was jealous. But when Joey brought her back tight against his chest, their hips swinging in rhythm, she didn’t resist, and laughed a little more than normal. A little louder. A little more flirty. Okay, so maybe she was trying to test and see if Kincaid was indeed jealous. The song ended, and Darcy slid out of Joey’s grip. “Gotta go.”

  “Already? The party’s just getting started.”

  “Somebody’s got to refill the pitchers. I’ll be back for an encore later.” She grinned, then spun back into the dim interior of The Love Shack. The restaurant itself was mostly empty, with the majority of the folks enjoying the warm early summer temps and the slight breeze off the ocean. She didn’t glance at Kincaid as she went, because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know if he had noticed her dancing.

  She ducked into the kitchen, heading for the walk-in cooler at the back of the room. She said hi to Grace as she passed, noting the orders ready to be taken outside. As Darcy rounded the corner toward the warming shelf, she saw Jillian, her back against the wall, her head in her hands.

  “Hey, Jill, you okay?”

  Jillian started, then nodded, but her eyes were filled with tears. “Fine.”

  Darcy put a hand on her friend’s back. “You look anything but fine. What happened?”

  “I…I broke up with Zach.” She swiped at her eyes, erasing the tears that had brimmed over. “It was the best thing. We were stuck in neutral.”

  Jillian had broken up with Zach? After eight years together? An engagement? Of all the couples that Darcy had thought would stay together, it was them. “But I thought you two were happy. Getting married.”

  “I think he only proposed so I’d quit asking him where this relationship was going. It’s been a year, and he still doesn’t want to set a date. I want a man who truly wants me, Darce, who’ll go through fire and hell to be with me.”

  Darcy drew Jillian into a hug. It was what Darcy had been thinking for years, but never said to Jillian, because her friend had seemed so happy. She’d just thought Jillian and Zach would go on with the status quo, as they had for so long. “You deserve exactly that.”

  “So do you,” Jillian said into Darcy’s shoulder, then she drew back. “I mean it.”

  “Do you want me to take your tables for a while?” Darcy asked, avoiding Jillian’s other comment. A man in her life, while she was still raising Emma, wasn’t something she wanted to think about or consider. She had enough going on without adding a layer of complication. Like Kincaid.

  Kincaid was a man in her life, a man she still wanted, a man who was doing his damnedest to convince her to try again. And the very same man who could make her lose the only thing that mattered.

  “Thanks, but no,” Jillian said, swiping at her face again, and pressing a hand to her hair to smooth the flyaways. “It’ll do me good to work.”

  “Well, if you need me, I’m here.”

  “Ditto.” Another quick hug, then Jillian went back to her tables, and Darcy grabbed the readied food and brought it out to the diners. By the time she returned to the deck with three pitchers of beer in her hands, Joey had found someone else to dance with, a local artist with a flair for Bohemian dress.

  Darcy gave Joey a thumbs-up, then turned to go back inside—and stopped when she saw Kincaid.

  Dancing with Pamela.

  Pamela had her hands on Kincaid’s waist, tight, possessive, her face upturned toward his, her eyes full of interest. He had his hands on her waist, too, but his attention wavered from time to time.

  Something that Darcy refused to call jealousy coiled in her stomach. She watched him dance, while Mooch sat on the sidelines, waiting, as if maybe she’d be invited to join in, too. Pamela raised her arms to lock them around Kincaid’s neck, bringing their bodies closer, touching.

  Darcy did spin away then, so fast, she collided with a customer, a young man with his arm around his girlfriend. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  Then she ducked back inside and told herself it was because it was too hot on the deck and she just needed a breather. Not because seeing Kincaid with another woman—a friend at that—had driven home one clear fact to Darcy.

  Kincaid wasn’t hers. Hadn’t been in a long time. He could dance with, kiss, make love to anyone else. That realization didn’t surprise her as much as the next one—

  That the thought of Kincaid with anyone else made Darcy want to cry. Darcy, who never cried, never got upset, never got jealous, now felt the hot rush of tears in the back of her throat.

  Kincaid had delivered takeout to Abby earlier, and kept in touch with her by text. She slept a lot now, as the due date neared, and she had told him to stay at The Love Shack and have a good time. Though, he wasn’t sure watching Darcy dance with that buffoon Joey was a good time. When Pam had asked him to dance, he’d said yes, but really, it was because he was wishing he had another woman in his arms. A woman who had looked at him, seen him with Pam, and turned away just as fast. He’d instantly regretted taking Pam up on her offer to dance, but now, it was too late.

  He begged off a second dance, and went back to his table and his temporary dog. Pam went back to her table with her friends, a pout on her face. She didn’t ask him to dance again, but maybe that was because the band didn’t play another ballad for a long time.

  The band had played a selection of rock songs almost all night, staying away from softer ballads and catchy pop tunes. If Kincaid didn’t know better, he’d say the lead singer was working out some frustration in his musical choices. As midnight came and went, a lot of the crowd began to head home, leaving only a couple dozen people on the back deck.

  Darcy came outside, laid some drinks on a nearby table, then paused at the railing a few feet away from him. Night had fallen, but she faced the dark, moonlit sparkled ocean all the same. She drew in a breath, seeming tired, like something was weighing down her thoughts.

  He’d never known Darcy to be stressed or sad. She had always been the life of the party, the one up for any adventure, at any time. But this was an adult Darcy, one who had lived a life that he hadn’t been privy to in the last seven years. His heart softened, and a part of him wanted to take the burden of whatever weight was on her shoulders.

  Kincaid slipped in beside her, Mooch his constant shadow, sitting at his feet. “Long night?”

  She laughed, and the heavy mood disappeared in the light musical notes of her laughter. “They all are during the season. But it’s good. Keeps us all busy and employed, and I’m always grateful for a paycheck.”

  “Seems like all your tables are happy for now,” he said, shifting so his back was against the railing and he was facing her. In the dim evening lights, she looked softer, prettier. It made him think of all those summer nights when they’d been young, and how every night with Darcy had been like a walk in a different world, one where the rules that governed his every move didn’t apply. He craved that world again, craved her. Inside, the
band had shifted to a slow song. The lead singer hit the notes with a melancholy voice.

  “Why don’t you take a break and dance with me?” Kincaid asked.

  “I thought you were dancing with Pam.”

  Did he detect a little jealousy in her voice? That pleased him, and made him wonder if Darcy was missing him as much as he was missing her. “I was. But only because I’d rather be dancing with you.”

  She scoffed. “That makes no sense.”

  “Pam asked, I said yes. But the whole time,” he said, moving closer to her, until his arm was resting against hers and their hips were inches apart, “I was wishing I was dancing with you. Like we did that one night on the beach, under the stars.”

  He remembered that night. He had a hundred memories of Darcy, but that night on the beach ranked pretty high near the top. It had started like most summer nights did, with a bunch of friends, a bonfire and some booze. Then sometime after midnight, Kincaid and Darcy had peeled off on their own. She had a portable radio with her, and they settled in a private space behind the dunes, out of sight of anyone walking the beach. They’d tuned the radio to a local pop station, opened a contraband bottle of tequila—since neither of them were old enough to legally drink yet—and drank and danced and made love, until the sun began to creep over the horizon.

  A smile filled Darcy’s face as if the memory pleased her, too. “That was one hell of a night. But oh, I had the worst headache the next day.”

  He chuckled. “Me, too. I don’t think I’ve been able to drink straight tequila ever since. How about you?”

  She grinned. “Is that a challenge?”

  He reached out, let his hand rest on her waist. She didn’t move, didn’t pull back. He liked his hand there, liked it a lot. And he liked seeing that tease in Darcy’s face again, that little dare that he remembered from years ago. “I think it should be.”

  Darcy arched a brow. “Are you planning on getting me drunk, Mr. Foster, and then having your way with me?”

  “Would that work?”

  “It might have when I was eighteen. But now I’m older and wiser and…” a smile filled her face, “much harder to get.”

  “Oh, really?” The space had closed to just the two of them, as if no one else existed. He could hear the gentle song of the ocean behind them, the low murmur of voices and the heavy undertow of the band. But all he saw, all he was thinking about, was Darcy. “Maybe a challenge would be good for me.”

  “And maybe you’re thinking you have a chance at something you lost a long time ago.” She started to turn away, but Kincaid caught her hand and spun her back against him.

  She collided with his chest with a soft oof, her mouth dropping into a surprised O. Her gaze met his and desire erupted inside him. “Kincaid—”

  “Come back when you finish your shift,” he said, because he didn’t want to let her go, not yet. He wanted to finish this, see where they could go now. He still wanted her as much as he had when they were younger, and he couldn’t imagine leaving this island without trying one more time. “And we’ll share one drink.”

  She hesitated, her wide green eyes on his. “One.”

  “That’s all I ask.”

  “And that’s all you’ll get.” Darcy shook her head and stepped away from him. “I may regret this later.”

  Kincaid leaned closer to her until his mouth was against her ear. “Aren’t you the one who once told me if you’re not doing something you might regret, you’re not truly having fun?”

  “That was a different Darcy who said that, a long time ago,” she said softly. “A long, long time ago.”

  Darcy called Nona and asked the older woman if she could stay the night with Emma. Not that Darcy had any plans with Kincaid beyond the one drink, but she thought it best to let Nona stay in the guest room just in case Darcy lingered too long. Yeah, that was her reason for it. Not because something had shifted inside her when he’d approached her on the deck. It was only because she was feeling a little vulnerable. Late night, pretty sky, good music.

  Uh-huh. Exactly. Not the way he whispered in her ear and sent desire roaring through her body.

  When the night was over and the customers were gone, Darcy did the cleanup, letting Jillian go home early this time. Her friend looked drained, and ready to cry. Darcy’s heart broke for her. It sucked to be on the outside of a couple breaking up, and unable to do anything but just be a listening ear.

  “Do you want to talk?” Darcy asked.

  “No. I just want to be alone. Drink too much wine and watch too much junk TV.” Jillian grinned, but the smile wavered. “Maybe even buy stuff I don’t need off of QVC.”

  Darcy gathered Jillian into a hug. “Okay, but promise to call if you need me to come over. I’ll bring chocolate.”

  “Now that’s a promise I’ll take you up on.” Jillian yawned. And though she looked tired, she looked a little better. Resigned to her decision. “Later. It’s been a long day and I just want some time to…decompress.”

  “Okay. Call me in the morning.”

  “I will.” Jillian returned the hug, then gestured toward the outside deck. “Seems someone is waiting for you.”

  The thought of Kincaid waiting for her—anticipating her arrival—made her heart leap. She tried to tamp it down, but the excitement simmered in her all the same.

  “I agreed to have one drink with him. Just one.” She reiterated the words for Jillian, and herself. It didn’t mean anything.

  Jillian laughed. “We all know where one drink can lead. Have fun.”

  “I’m not planning on having fun with him. Just…talking.”

  “Uh-huh.” Jillian dug in her purse and came up with a foil lined package. She pressed it into Darcy’s palm. “For when you stop talking and start acting.”

  “I’m not going to need this. In fact, I’m going to put it in my pocket and give it back to you tomorrow.” Darcy tucked the condom in her back pocket. But her mind thought about making love to Kincaid, how damned good that had always been, and how much she wanted him now.

  “If you give that back to me tomorrow, I’m going to be mighty disappointed.” Jillian held up a finger before Darcy could protest. “It’s been a while since you’ve been on a date, and even longer since you’ve had sex that didn’t require batteries. You have a hot guy out there who has been looking at you like you’re the most delicious thing on the menu and he hasn’t eaten in a month.”

  Darcy glanced at Kincaid. “I think he just wants to catch up. We broke up years ago—”

  Jillian gave her a little nudge. “And if you delay any longer, the poor man is going to fall asleep. So go on out there.” Jillian reached over the bar, grabbed two shot glasses and the bottle of Jose Cuervo. “But don’t forget this.”

  Darcy was still laughing as she left the main restaurant and headed out to the deck with the drinks. Inside, she saw Whit and Grace wave to her as they left for the night, their arms around their daughter, which Jillian gratefully accepted with a teary nod. That left Darcy alone with Kincaid.

  Very, very alone. At one in the morning. With nothing but the dark night around them.

  This was crazy. She should lock up and go home, skip the drinks and especially skip spending time with Kincaid. But then she caught his eye, and something went warm and needy in her gut, and she crossed over to his table, to the seat beside him, and laid the drinks on the table. She could have one drink with him and not end up in bed with him. “One,” she said. “No more.”

  He took the bottle, poured the shots, then nudged one close to her. “One.”

  She shook her head, a smile playing on her lips. “I’m going to regret this.”

  He lifted his glass. She lifted hers, and he tapped the shot glasses together. “To old memories and new beginnings.”

  She watched him as they each raised the shots to their lips, and then tipped them back at the same time. The tequila burned like fire going down her throat, lighting a warm path all the way to her belly. “Damn.” />
  Kincaid slammed the shot glass onto the circular wooden table. “Exactly what I was thinking.”

  She settled on the chair beside him, and propped her chin on her hand. The ocean kept up its steady predictable whispering song, and the stars twinkled like smiley faces in the night sky. The tequila had already left her feeling a little warm. Maybe she should have eaten more tonight.

  “I love it out here after everyone is gone.” She looked out at the dark night, at the hints of the sea she could glimpse in the moonlight. “This is my favorite time of day. When everything is asleep, and it’s just…peaceful.”

  “It’s why I came back here,” Kincaid said. “I don’t get much of this in New York. There’s never a time when that city stops humming.”

  “I’ve lived here for so long, I can’t even imagine a place like that anymore.” Darcy leaned back and stretched. Long hours on her feet, carrying heavy trays of drinks and food, had left her achy and tired. She rubbed at a knot in her left shoulder, but the pain stayed, stubborn, insistent.

  “Let me,” Kincaid said. Before she could stop him, he had slid in behind her and was working magic with his hands on her shoulders, rubbing both at once, his thumbs impressing tiny, wonderful circles into all the tight and painful places.

  “Oh my God. That is better than sex right now.” She closed her eyes and leaned into the touch, nearly moaning with his every movement.

  Kincaid chuckled. “Better than sex? I don’t think anything is better than sex.”

  “This is, trust me.” She shifted to the right, then the left, as he adjusted his touch to hit the rest of her shoulders, her neck, the top of her spine. It was just a back massage, she told herself. Not sex with Kincaid. Maybe letting him touch her was the wrong thing to do, or maybe…oh God, yes, right there…it was a very, very good idea. “I swear, you must have gone to school for this. You are way too good at massage.”

  “I’m good at a lot of things,” he whispered in her ear, his voice low and dark and making her crave things she shouldn’t.