Always and Forever

by Lyn Denison

  “I’ll come down,” Angie said.

  Eons later the elevator doors opened and Angie stepped into the foyer. She wore her work clothes, dark blue slacks and paler blue tailored shirt, and she was so beautiful she took Shann’s breath away.

  “Hi.” Shann managed, feeling extremely gauche.

  “There’s nothing wrong, is there?” Angie asked, a frown of concern on her face.

  “No, of course not. I just—” Shann swallowed again. “I wanted to talk to you.” She made a movement of her hand to encompass the foyer. “Could we go upstairs? This is a bit public.”

  Angie hesitated, and then she gave a small nod. “Sure.” She pushed the button for the lift and the doors slid open again. They stepped inside, and Angie used her key card to activate the elevator. “I’ve just had a curtain company measuring up. Now I have to choose the fabric.”

  As they moved upward a strained silence fell between them. The cubicle seemed to fill with a heavy tension as Shann’s nerve endings clamored their unease. She tried to think of something to say, but her mind went completely blank.

  The lift came to a halt and the doors opened. Shann followed Angie into the unit, and her gaze went straight to the couch in the middle of the room. It was still covered by the colorful blanket they’d left there. Shann’s heartbeat accelerated as memories of their lovemaking catapulted into her mind. She saw their naked bodies, arms and legs entwined, and her skin grew hot. Was Angie thinking about that night? Shann slid a quick glance at her, but the other woman had moved over closer to the breakfast bar and her face was in profile. Shann wanted to go to her, kiss her, make love to her. Yet something made her hold back. Angie’s face was pale, her expression closed.

  “I went to see you at the store, and Joe Radford told me you were over here.”

  The corners of Angie’s delightful mouth rose in a faint smile. “I don’t think the old saying loose lips sink ships features anywhere in Joe’s sphere of reference, do you?”

  “No.” Shann smiled, too. “And I believe he’s still peddling his brother, Wade, as a possible suitor.”

  “Oh, yes.” Angie grimaced. “Wade Radford is still up for grabs apparently.”

  Shann gave a chuckle, nerves still bombarding her composure. “I think I’m going to have to be pretty blunt there. I—” She took a steadying breath. “I told Liz I was going to your shop to check up on her order for tomato stakes,” Shann got out, her voice thin in her ears.

  Angie raised her eyebrow. “You did?”

  “Yes. So by now I’d say she’s formulating the direction of her next interrogation.”

  “Most probably,” Angie said carefully.

  “I left her drinking tea with Leigh.”

  “I see.” Angie’s gaze dropped. “Leigh said she’d had a talk with you yesterday. A long talk.” She leaned back against the kitchen counter, her arms folded across her chest. “She said you talked about old times.”

  Shann nodded. “She called them the good old days.” Shann pulled a face. “I suppose calling the past that depends on how you enjoyed it back then.”

  “Or which angle you were seeing the game from at the time.” Angie had crossed one booted foot over the other now and was giving the toe of her shoe her attention. “From my position off in the left field, so to speak, it wasn’t so great. I watched someone I cared for get desperately hurt by someone I also cared for, and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it.”

  “The responsibility wasn’t yours, Angie. You were little more than a kid.”

  “So were you and Leigh,” Angie said dryly.

  “I suppose we were. We certainly weren’t old enough to handle the emotions of the situation. I know I wasn’t,” Shann added. “I’d say kissing Leigh was a fifty-fifty mix of pleasure and pain.”

  “You know, back then, I was burningly jealous of my cousin,” Angie said flatly. She looked at Shann, her expression inscrutable, then she looked away again. “I wanted you to kiss me.”

  Shann swallowed. “I was far too immature to be kissing anyone.”

  “All very clear with hindsight, don’t you think?”

  Shann laughed humorlessly. “Most probably.”

  “I nearly told Ann about you and Leigh back then, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. When I saw how angry she was when she caught you I was glad I hadn’t.” Angie shook her head. “I did tell Ann that Leigh was lying about it all being your idea. That was something of a tactical error, too, because she realized I’d known about you and Leigh. She turned on me then for not telling her about what she referred to as your abhorrent behavior. On top of that I was in trouble because she decided I was telling lies about Leigh as well. Phew!” She moved her shoulders as though her muscles were tense. “As you said, the good old days that weren’t so good.”

  “I’m sorry you got pulled into it all,” Shann said. “I didn’t know about that.”

  “For the record I thought Leigh behaved pretty badly blaming you.”

  “We talked about all that. Leigh explained why she’d done it and apologized. We made our peace.”

  Angie’s gaze met and held Shann’s. “Leigh also tried to tell me you weren’t interested in her anymore.” She looked down at the floor again. “I believed her because I so desperately wanted that to be true. But then I overheard you and Evan last night.”

  “I thought that was you on the veranda.”

  Angie looked up into Shann’s eyes. “Why did he ask you not to start anything again with Leigh? Why did he feel he had to ask you that?”

  “I was going to explain about that, but when I went upstairs you’d gone to bed.”

  “I’d had more than enough emotional beatings for one day,” Angie said flatly. “I wasn’t sure I could take much more.”

  Shann walked over to join Angie at the breakfast bar, standing close but not touching her. “Evan did ask me not to start anything with Leigh. He was upset because he’d seen Leigh kiss me before dinner. It was a kiss on the cheek, nothing more, nothing less. It was a good-bye, if you like. I told him he had nothing to fear from me and that Leigh loved him.”

  Angie turned to look at Shann. “Leigh told you that?”

  Shann nodded. “Yes, she did. She said she’d made her life and that she was content with it.” Shann’s heartbeat raced as she saw the flutter of a pulse beat at the base of Angie’s throat.

  Angie swallowed. “And Evan knows this?”

  “He does now. He admitted he’d spiked my drink, and he apologized for that, and for all the horrible stuff he and his friends did back then.”

  “I’m glad,” Angie said thickly, and that same heavy silence fell between them. “And I’m glad you came here this morning, Shann,” Angie said at last. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to seek you out tonight.” She swallowed again. “I wasn’t sure you would want me to.”

  “If Joe hadn’t told me you were here, I’d have still been cooling my heels in the coffee shop. All that caffeine would have had me awake for a week.”

  Angie gave a broken laugh. “I’ve been totally miserable since Leigh arrived home. I thought that perhaps seeing her again, you might have—” She shrugged. “I didn’t want you to feel you had to choose between us.”

  Shann wanted to reach out to her, take her in her arms, but she also wanted to explain her feelings to Angie, get everything out in the open. “The way I felt about Leigh, well, I think I clung to that to help me get through those first years after I left home. I don’t know, perhaps it got to be a habit, a nice memory I took out every so often, and then put away again.

  “When Liz asked me to come home I know I hesitated because I knew there was every chance I’d have to see Leigh again, too. Deep down I think I knew that what I’d felt for her was a thing of the past, but a part of me didn’t want to let it go. It was a comfortable skin I’d worn to protect myself from being hurt again.

  “I tried a couple of times to start a relationship, but every time it died a swift death because I had no desire to shed my
protective skin. I had a fair suspicion that seeing Leigh again would mean I’d have to face a few cold hard facts,” Shann shrugged. “Reality, I guess. And that meant admitting that that old skin wouldn’t be as effective as it had been. I was terrified I’d be left vulnerable. Then you walked back into my life and I realized just how vulnerable I could be.”

  Angie bit her lip, her expression concerned. “I never would have hurt you, Shann.”

  “I know that now but I was—” Shann shook her head. “Once I arrived home all the memories, good and bad, flooded back, and I was hesitant to take the chance.” She gave a half smile. “I wasn’t used to existing without my emotional protection. Because I knew that the way I felt about you, well, I could be very hurt.”

  Angie said nothing, but Shann saw her swallow convulsively. She moved away from Shann, putting space between them, stopping beside the couch. Turning, she sat on the armrest, facing Shann again.

  Shann yearned to go to her and unshed tears constricted her throat.

  “I suppose you knew that I had a huge crush on you ten years ago. Actually, I think it was more than an adolescent crush. I lived in hope that one day you’d notice me.” A flush colored Angie’s cheeks. “But I knew it was Leigh you were interested in back then. I spent what seemed like a lifetime worrying that you and Leigh would end up together. I was sure your parents’ and Ann and Mike’s disapproval would only cement your relationship, push you closer together. And then something worse happened. You went away.”

  “I had to get away, Angie. It was too complicated to stay.”

  Angie nodded. “I see that now, but I didn’t know about your pregnancy then. I badgered everyone about where you’d gone. Eons later Liz finally took pity on me and said you’d gone down to Sydney. She also told me you had had Corey. I was devastated.” She held up her hand when Shann went to say something. “Not because of Corey, Shann, but because I thought you’d started a relationship with a guy you’d met in Sydney. So I stopped asking Liz for news about you because it hurt too much. Things got easier and life went on. I threw myself into my work, building up my business.

  “Then, not long ago, Liz said you were coming home. I thought I’d buried my feelings for you but those few words, Shann’s coming home next week, brought them all back to the surface.” Angie made a negating movement with her head. “I wasn’t sure how I felt about you coming home. I told myself it would be great to see you again, that we’d all moved on, that what I’d felt for you was kid stuff, a schoolgirl crush. As far as I knew you could have been happily involved with Corey’s father. Then I heard myself asking Liz if your husband was coming home with you.” Angie grimaced. “Liz told me you’d never married, that you and Corey lived alone. I can’t begin to describe how wonderful that sounded. And how terrifying.”

  “Terrifying?”

  Angie nodded. “I was terrified you’d decided, well, that you weren’t a lesbian. I desperately tried to warn myself that you might have been simply experimenting with Leigh and that you’d decided you didn’t prefer women. I told myself that we were all older, that we all change. But I was afraid I hadn’t.” She paused, bit her lip. “When I saw you I knew I hadn’t.

  “After that night, here in the unit,” Angie swallowed, “I let myself hope that you could love me, too. But when Leigh came home I was so desperately afraid seeing her again would make you . . . I was sure you still had feelings for her. When you walked up the steps and saw her you went pale. You couldn’t take your eyes off her and I . . . well, part of me just withered and died.” Angie straightened, moved away from the couch, stood with arms folded facing Shann. “I didn’t know what to do. Me, cool, together, always in command of the situation, Angie Callahan. I wavered between gracefully stepping aside if Leigh was what you wanted, and making a fight for you. And I’ve been like that ever since. Standing ineffectually on the side, watching you.”

  “Never ineffectually.” Shann laughed softly. “But you did hide your feelings so well I was worried you’d changed your mind about me.”

  “Changed my mind?” Angie rolled her eyes. “I’ve loved you for so long, Shann.” She gave a hiccuping laugh. “I was so afraid you and Leigh, well, I couldn’t bear the thought of you getting hurt again.” She stopped and ran a shaky hand through her hair. “I love you so much, Shann.”

  “And I love you, Angie Callahan.” Shann walked across to her, gently pulled her into her arms, held her close, breathed in the familiar delicious scent of her. And then she lifted her head, looked into Angie’s shimmering green eyes. “Right now I want to kiss you within an inch of your life, make love to you so you’ll never want to leave this unit,” she said huskily. She leaned forward and kissed her, gently at first, and then they strained together, desire rising in them both, until they drew breathlessly apart.

  “I think I need to sit down,” Angie said brokenly, and they moved back over to the couch, sinking down onto it, arms entwined, and they kissed again.

  “I think I’ll have to keep this old couch,” Angie said some time later when they sat back in each other’s arms. “It’s become something of a family artifact.”

  “Definitely an heirloom. Shall we get a plaque?” Shann giggled. “Although I’m not sure what we could write on it that would be suitable for general exhibition.”

  “Censored due to possibility of arrest?”

  They laughed and then sobered, and their lips met again.

  “I can’t believe you’re here in my arms,” Angie said. “This morning I was so sure I’d lost you.”

  “You never did lose me,” Shann told her. “I was just slower at working things out than you were. But I’m here, and I’m staying right here if you’ll have me.”

  Tears glistened in Angie’s green eyes and she dashed them away. “I’ve been so—” She sighed. “I just wish I could have read our last page first,” she said. “It would have saved me loads of heartache.”

  “I’m sorry, Angie.” Shann gave a crooked smile. “Maybe there’s some way I can make it up to you.”

  Angie gave a soft laugh. “Without getting us arrested, do you mean?”

  “I’m sure Liz would bail us out,” Shann murmured lowly, and slowly pulled Angie’s shirt from her waistband, sliding her hand upward over Angie’s midriff to cup a full, lace-covered breast. Angie moaned and arched against her.

  “Tell me there are no more curtain measurers due to arrive and interrupt us.”

  Angie shook her head. “We’re all done with measuring. Unless you’d like to help me choose fabrics. I have a pile of swatches—” Her fingers began to unbutton Shann’s shirt.

  “I’m afraid I can’t say much for my ability to make color coordinated choices just at the moment.” Shann watched as Angie reached the top button, pushed the shirt open, let her fingers tease Shann’s nipples as they thrust against her bra. She drew a steadying breath. “And please tell me you don’t have to get back to work any time soon,” she continued thickly.

  Angie undid the press-stud at the waist of Shann’s jeans, pulled down the zipper. “I think I’ll risk the boss firing me. What do you think?”

  “You have the cutest boss, did you know that? I could really make a play for her. She’s absolutely gorgeous. Her kisses are exquisite.” Shann drew in the scent of Angie’s skin. “She smells divine. And I think she rather likes me.”

  “Oh, I’d say she more than likes you.” Angie kissed her eyebrow.

  “You know, I think you should consider giving Joe Radford a raise. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known you were here.”

  Angie gave a soft laugh and drew back to look at Shann. “Only on the condition you tell him in no uncertain terms that you’re not interested in his obnoxious brother Wade.” She held Shann’s gaze. “Or anyone else well-meaning family and friends try to match you up with. Especially handsome members of any and all bands.”

  “I’ll put the word around that there’s only you.”

  Angie held her gaze. “There is?”

  �
��Absolutely. I love you, Angie Callahan.”

  “And I love you. Always . . . and forever.”