Back Home at Firefly Lake

by Jen Gilroy

  Her fingers tangled in his hair, and she arched into him.

  He tore his mouth away from her breast, then looked into her eyes, shiny and dark blue with desire. He was so turned on, and it had been so long that, for a brief moment, he was dizzy. Her face and body, the firelight, and the soft lamplight all melded together in a golden haze. “Yes.” It was a statement rather than a question. He held his breath.

  “Yes.” Her voice was tight as he eased between her legs and braced himself on his forearms above her. Her hands gripped his hips, lightly at first, then harder, and her tongue delved deep into his mouth.

  Luc forgot about being gentle, and he forgot about being tender as she moved beneath him and urged him on with inarticulate cries. But he didn’t forget about looking at her as he eased into her body. As his gaze held hers, it wasn’t only physical. He was also giving her a small part of his soul.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Snow hit Cat’s bedroom window with a gentle hiss, and the gray light of a winter morning crept through the slatted blinds. She squinted at her trusty, battery-powered alarm clock on the night table. It was only nine. Amy would be at Nick and Mia’s for a few more hours, so she didn’t have to get up yet and could savor this, Luc, for a little while longer.

  Luc still slept beside her. Brown stubble darkened his jaw, and he looked both relaxed and younger. Sex with him had been everything she’d ever imagined and more. But even as they’d shared their bodies, she’d been careful to hold the core of herself back, the part that could get hurt.

  “Morning, Minnie.” His voice rasped in her ear.

  She started and swallowed the emotion lodged in her throat. “Morning.” She’d gotten what she wanted. It had to be enough. “I thought you were asleep.”

  “I wake up fast, thanks to all those years of early morning practices.” One of his arms looped around her and pulled her close to the heat of his body. “You don’t regret last night, do you?”

  “Of course not. It was great.” Except, it could only be last night and, after glimpsing the woman she might have been, she wanted more.

  “It was sure great for me, too.” He settled her into the crook of his shoulder, and his tone had more than a hint of satisfaction. “If we’d had another condom, I’d have wanted to do it all over again.”

  She would have too because his body had been a perfect fit for hers. After they’d made love, they’d snuggled together in her bed where they’d touched and talked for hours. It had been intimate and tender—and it had irrevocably changed how Cat thought about herself.

  She traced one of his hard biceps. His big body bore the scars of the game he’d played for almost his entire life, and each one mapped who he was. What she’d felt for Amy’s dad had been lust, but her feelings for Luc were deeper, maybe even love—if she still believed in love.

  “Since you don’t have to pick Amy up until noon, why don’t I make us some breakfast and then I can drop by the drugstore as soon as it opens. I think we need more practice, don’t you?” His fingers slid through the strands of her hair to zero in on the sensitive spot behind her ear.

  “The drugstore near the town green?” Her stomach clenched. Although she wanted to make love with him again, she couldn’t let herself get in any deeper. He’d been honest. He could give her this, whatever it was, but nothing more.

  “Is there any other drugstore in town besides Doucette’s?” Luc’s hand drifted from her neck downward to her bare breast.

  “No, but you can’t go there.” Cat quaked as he tweaked her nipple. “If anyone sees you buying condoms, they’ll know you’re having sex, and they might guess it’s with me. Half the town saw us together at the carnival and then the Pink Pagoda.” After she’d been the focus of town gossip once, the hurt had gone deep. Ever since then, all she wanted was to keep a low profile. “I was in Doucette’s last week and bought two boxes of tissues and a vaporizer. Twenty minutes later, one of my mom’s friends stopped me in the market to ask if Amy was sick.”

  “Was she?”

  “No. The stuff was on sale.”

  “That’s living in a small town for you.” Luc’s soft chuckle vibrated against her breast. “With all the snow, the road to Kincaid will be impassable until the plows get through. I guess we’ll have to be creative. What do you say?”

  Cat quivered as his mouth captured her breast. “Creative is good.” If last night had shown her anything, it was that she’d never been creative enough. His hand tracked the curve of her hip, and her legs fell apart.

  An instant later, she stilled and surfaced from the haze of sensation Luc was evoking with his fingers and mouth. “What was that?” She rolled into a sitting position and shivered as cold air hit her bare skin.

  “What?” Luc raised his head.

  “I heard a noise.” She fumbled for her glasses on the bedside table.

  “It must have been the cats.” He gave her a sexy grin.

  “No, voices.”

  “Michael’s probably downstairs. He comes in early, doesn’t he?” Luc outlined a sensuous path between her ankle and instep.

  “Never on Sundays.” Cat groped for her pajamas, but she hadn’t worn them.

  Footsteps echoed on the staircase landing outside the apartment. “Cat? Are you in there, honey?” Her mom’s voice. “The power’s out and cell phone coverage is down.” There were several sharp raps on the door before a key turned in the lock. “I brought you a mug of tea.” The door squeaked open, and her mom’s voice came closer. “We’re all over at the diner. Amy too. The generator has kicked in, so you come right over to keep warm and get something to eat. Hey, kitties, where’s…”

  In the sudden silence, Luc swore under his breath and fumbled in the comforter.

  “Quick, in there.” Cat scrambled for her bathrobe on the floor by the bed and gestured to the half-open closet door.

  “I’m not hiding in the closet.” He found a towel from Cat’s laundry basket and wrapped it around his hips. “We don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”

  Except, they were both naked and most of their clothes were still scattered across the living room floor. It also wasn’t his mother out there. Cat suppressed a groan. “I just woke up. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  “Cat?” Georgia’s voice this time. “Mia sent you an extra sweater. She knows how you feel the cold.” She made a sound that was almost, but not quite, a laugh.

  Floorboards creaked in the hall. “Do you know where Luc’s got to?” Her mom was in the living room on the other side of the wall from Cat’s bedroom. “He didn’t come back to the house last night after the carnival. With no cell service, his mom can’t reach him, so Chantal asked me to… oh.”

  Cat gestured toward the closet again. “Get in there, now.” Her words came out in a hiss, and she shoved Luc’s buttock through the towel.

  The guy was hard in all the right places.

  Yanking on her bathrobe, she tied the belt tight. She’d never hear the end of this, and it wasn’t like she could pass it off as some kind of misunderstanding. Even if her mom and Georgia didn’t actually see Luc, the evidence was out there as plain as day, right down to the empty condom wrapper. Nobody else in town wore a Winnipeg Jets sweatshirt, either, and that sweatshirt was still on the hall stand where she’d left it with his coat the night before.

  “I’m…” She raked her fingers through her hair, then caught her reflection in the mirror over the dresser. Her skin was flushed, and her eyes were bright. Her hair was tousled, and she looked more relaxed than she had in years, maybe ever. She also looked like she’d had sex with a man who knew exactly how to do it.

  “Take your time, honey.” A gentle clatter followed her mom’s words. “I’ve left the tea on the table for you. I’ll tell Amy you’re fine and that she doesn’t need to come up. She’s in the gallery with Ward and Michael checking the security system. She gave me her key and said it was okay to come right on in.”

  Her daughter. Cat’s mouth went dry. Amy could have
walked in on her with Luc. She glanced at him, where he stood in front of the closet door.

  “I’ll leave Mia’s sweater on the table, too.” Her mom’s footsteps moved farther away. “And I’ll tell Luc’s mom he hasn’t gotten stuck in a snowbank somewhere and frozen to death. Chantal’s a worrier like me.”

  “You can tell her he’s snug as a—” Georgia’s voice shook with laughter.

  “Georgia McGuire, you stop right there and wipe that look off your face. You may be a grown woman, but you’ll never be too old for me to—”

  The apartment door shut behind her mom and Georgia with a bang. Cat fingered the belt of her bathrobe. The silence pressed in on her as cold and impenetrable as an Atlantic sea fog.

  “I should find my clothes.” As Luc gestured toward the closed bedroom door, the muscles in his forearm rippled.

  “Yes, me too.” Cat shoved her feet into the snowman slippers Amy had given her for Christmas. She glanced at the dresser mirror again. Luc was reflected behind her, and the pink bath towel hung low on his lean hips. His chest was still bare, and her mouth went dry. “I’m sorry… my mom and Georgie didn’t think… I’m not… I don’t usually…”

  She’d never brought a man home before and, apart from that long-ago spring break, she’d never had what amounted to a one-night stand, either.

  “Why do you need to be sorry for anything?” A rueful smile tugged at one corner of Luc’s sensual mouth, and he scrubbed a hand through his hair. “It sounds like your mom’s pretty cool with everything. Once my mom knows I’m not lying in a ditch somewhere, she’ll be fine, too. We’re both adults. We’re allowed to have a life. It’s not like that was Amy out there.”

  Except, in a small town where nothing much happened in the winter, people talked and Amy might hear something that would hurt her. There was a sick feeling in the pit of Cat’s stomach and she sat on the edge of the bed with a bump.

  “If the power’s been out for a while, I guess it’s too much to hope there’s enough hot water for a shower.” The towel slid lower on Luc’s hips.

  She shook her head. “There’s never a lot of hot water here anyway.”

  “Hey.” Luc came around the end of the bed and sat beside her. “It’s not the end of the world. Maybe it didn’t seem that way when we were kids, but people have sex in Firefly Lake. Sure, their mom and sister don’t usually walk in on them, but it isn’t a big deal. I’m not embarrassed by what happened between us. Are you?” His blue gaze sharpened.

  “No.” She wasn’t embarrassed. She’d have sex with Luc again if she had the chance. But sex with him had taken her out of herself, and now she had to put herself back together again before she faced Amy, as well as half the town over at the diner. “Amy can’t guess what happened.”

  “How would she? It’s not like your mom or Georgia are going to tell her, are they?”

  “No.” Cat rubbed her hands.

  “Besides, as soon as I can get to a drugstore in Kincaid, I want it to happen again, don’t you?” He wrapped an arm around her and gave her what, under any other circumstances, would have been a comforting squeeze.

  She did, but, despite the warmth of his body next to hers, Cat shivered. She wanted more than sex. She wanted everything that came along with making love. And after last night, she also wanted more of Luc’s heart and his life than he could ever give her.

  “Your mom looks different.” Kylie nudged Amy’s arm across the table. They were tucked into a two-person booth in the middle of the North Woods Diner, a plate of French fries topped with gravy and cheese curds between them. Her grandma called the dish “poutine,” and Amy had never eaten it before moving to Firefly Lake.

  “Mom looks exactly the same to me. Aunt Mia’s sweater looks pretty on her, though.” Amy wrapped her hands around her warm mug of cocoa.

  Mrs. Liz made the best cocoa, the best poutine and, given the aroma of meat, vegetables, and spices that wafted from the diner kitchen, she must make good chili, too.

  “No, she’s got a new look to her.” Kylie grinned. “Like Mia looked when she and Nick got together. Once they had s-e-x.” She dropped her voice and spelled the word out.

  Amy stared at the marshmallows bobbing in her mug. Even though spelling was hard for her, she knew that word. “My mom doesn’t even have a boyfriend.” Although she’d tried to get her mom and Coach Luc together, the two of them were friends, nothing more.

  “You don’t have to have a boyfriend to have sex.” Kylie pointed to Amy’s mom, who was behind the diner counter with Mrs. Liz. “Look at her and then look at Coach Luc.” She jerked her head in the other direction, where the coach sat with Amy’s uncle Nick and a few of the hockey dads by one of the diner’s curtained front windows. “It looks like they’re ignoring each other, but they’re actually looking at each other every chance they get. That’s a sign something’s going on.”

  “Even if there is, it’s none of your business.” Amy’s stomach got tight, and she moved to the end of the booth, as far away from Kylie as possible. Her mom hated people talking about her, and she always said that gossiping was wrong. She needed friends, but she didn’t need a friend who said things that would make her mom feel bad.

  “I thought you wanted them to have dinner together last night.” Kylie’s gaze was still fixed on the coach. “If they went on a date, maybe they did it.” Kylie’s voice rose above the diner clatter.

  “Butt out.” She tried to make her voice match the tough words because if anybody from school heard Kylie, they might talk about her mom and the coach and that would make Amy feel bad, too. “It wasn’t a date.” Amy gulped some hot cocoa. “Besides, my mom says sex is special. You should only have it with someone you really care about and who cares about you.”

  “Mia says that too.” Kylie’s expression was thoughtful. “But if your mom and Coach Luc did have sex, and if they keep having it, he might become your dad. Then you’d have to share your mom with him, wouldn’t you? She might love him more than you.”

  Amy’s chest got as tight as her stomach, and it was hard to breathe. She’d wanted her mom and the coach to get together so she could have a dad, but until Kylie said it, she’d never let herself think that the coach could take her place in her mom’s life. “The coach isn’t gonna be my dad. He and my mom don’t have anything in common.” She shrugged like it wasn’t important.

  “You never know. For an old guy, he’s hot, and your mom might like that. Have you heard what the high school girls who hang out at the rink after school say about him?” Kylie gestured with her hands. “A six-pack or what.”

  “He’s the coach. They shouldn’t talk about him like that.” The backs of Amy’s eyes stung. Her mom loved her. She knew she did. She wouldn’t love Coach Luc more, would she? And why had she ever asked Kylie to help her with that dumb dad list? Kylie was only a year older than her, but sometimes she seemed really old, almost like she was already a grown-up.

  Kylie rolled her eyes. “Why not? The hockey moms talk about him like that, too. I heard them that day I was with Mia when she picked you up after practice.”

  Amy picked at a hangnail on her thumb. “So? The moms shouldn’t talk, either.” But she’d heard the same talk. And she’d also heard her teammates’ moms talking about her mom. How smart she was, as well as a bunch of stuff Amy hadn’t exactly understood but that had something to do with her mom’s dad and her grandma.

  “I think the coach would be an okay stepdad, but you never know. Some guys are nice until they hook you in, but after that they change big-time. I knew this girl in Burlington whose mom’s boyfriend was fine with her at first, but as soon as the mom got pregnant, the girl was packed off to live with an aunt over in Maine somewhere. The guy said he didn’t want a kid who wasn’t his around. What if your mom and the coach had a baby?” Kylie shrugged. “You’re my friend, so all I’m saying is you have to watch out.”

  Amy didn’t think Coach Luc would ever do something like that, but what did she know, really? She to
ok a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Not now and not ever.” Despite the burning sensation behind her eyes, she was almost as strong and powerful as those women who’d come here for the hockey demonstrations. Even when they were her age, she bet those women hadn’t been scared to kick butt when they needed to. “You shouldn’t talk about it, either, because gossiping about people is mean.” If she’d learned anything from being bullied at her old school, it was that she had to stand up for herself. But knowing she had to was still easier than actually doing it.

  “I’m sorry.” Kylie’s voice had a little wobble in it. “I didn’t mean to make you mad. Nick says I have to watch my mouth, but sometimes I forget. Still friends?”

  “I guess so.” The tightness in Amy’s chest loosened a bit.

  “You’re real lucky, you know that? Your mom loves you a lot.” Kylie’s green eyes clouded. “I bet she’d do anything for you.”

  “Yeah, she would.” And Amy loved her mom. Although it was only the two of them, she had the family by birth that Kylie had never had. “Uncle Nick and Aunt Mia love you a lot, too. I heard Uncle Nick say he couldn’t love you any more than if you were his very own daughter.”

  “Really?” Kylie’s eyes got shiny.

  “Yep.” Amy nudged Kylie’s arm. “He’s the best.”

  “He sure is.” Kylie’s voice cracked. “I got lucky with him and Mia. There aren’t a lot of folks out there like them.” Kylie moved the plate of poutine closer to Amy. “Hey, you’ve hardly eaten anything. Aren’t you hungry?”

  Amy shook her head. Although she’d been really hungry a few minutes ago, she wasn’t now. She studied her mom more closely. Kylie was right. Her mom did look different, almost like she was lit up inside, and so did Coach Luc.

  When she’d thought about fixing up her mom with the coach, it had been so she’d have a dad like all the other kids and fit in. If she was looking for a dad, she’d wanted one she could share her sport with. But she hadn’t thought about having to share her mom with him, or that he might not want a kid around. And what if Kylie was right? What if it turned out her mom loved Coach Luc more than she loved Amy?