by Zoe Dawson
“You sassing me, Chase Sutton?”
“No, ma’am.”
Feeling as if I’d had a close brush with something sweet and dangerous, I held his gaze for a moment, then managed a small smile as I headed for the car. “See that you don’t.”
After locking my doors and walking down the dock, thoroughly impressed with how sturdy, neat, and tidy he kept his boats and moor lines, I slipped into the passenger side of the plane. My stomach jangled, and I couldn’t be sure if it was because of the heady sight of Chase walking down the dock with a cooler, or the fact that I was going to fly in a small plane into parts unknown.
But I trusted him. There was some banging toward the back of the plane, then he removed the mooring ropes. Pulling open the door, he hopped in and settled inside. After going through his pre-flight checks, he taxied away from the dock and out into the channel. Moments later, we were in the air, and I reached out and clasped his forearm.
His skin was smooth and moist. “That was fast.”
“Easy out and easy in. This plane handles like a dream.”
“How long have you been a pilot?”
“Eight years. I wanted to be able to offer my customers fresh fish from the Gulf. This plane paid for itself in a year.”
I looked out to see the land lifting away while we skimmed past chunks of verdant foliage below us. The canopy looked lusher and wilder from the air. The bayou branched off, and then branched again, each arm reaching into another pocket of wilderness. Some of the channels were as wide as rivers, others narrow trickles of streams, all of them part of a vast labyrinth of no-man’s land. The Atchafalaya was primal, and more gorgeous than I could have imagined…and I had already expanded my horizons.
“You had a good haul today?”
“Yes, I went for red snapper. I rent a boat and go out and bait and catch, bait and catch. Then bring ‘em back and fillet them. It’s always a relatively quick job for me. Made all my deliveries.”
He tensed, no doubt regretting that he had opened the door for me to ask about his argument with Brax, but I let it pass, and he relaxed again. I didn’t need to grill him or pry anything out of him. Chase would either tell me or he wouldn’t. To confide in someone was a big step. It left a person vulnerable and exposed. It was up to him to decide when, or if, he would do that.
“I was wondering. After the game on Saturday, would you be interested in helping me install my master bathroom and powder room? I have all the fixtures, and the plumbing is already in, but tile, flooring, and the vanity would go faster with two hands.”
“Yeah, I think I can handle that. I’ll find someone to manage the shop for me. I get a lot of charters on the weekends.”
“You sure that will be all right?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
As the sky darkened, and I saw glimpses of the ocean in the distance, I got excited. “The coast.”
“Yeah. You’ve never been to the Gulf?”
“No. I haven’t taken advantage of the beautiful area where I live. I think I’ll have to change that.”
“I think you should.”
He swung the plane around and lined up with the coast. I saw a lot of houses on stilts pass by beneath us.
“So, can you tell me where you’re taking me now?”
He looked at me and grinned. “The Riviera.”
I laughed. “What? Can you fly at the speed of sound or something?”
“Nope. It’s the La Rivière Acadienne. The Cajun Riviera. This is Holly Beach. It’s been leveled by a few hurricanes, but the locals always return and rebuild.”
“Resilient.”
“Yeah. It’s known for its crabbing and seclusion.”
“I don’t have a bathing suit.”
“I’ve got you covered,” he said with a cryptic smile. Hmm, maybe I would get a chance to skinny dip. The thought of being in close proximity to Chase naked made me shiver.
He landed deftly, beaching the plane on the hard-packed sand, and I got out. He opened the cargo bay and removed a basket, a blanket, and a nylon duffel bag.
He spread out the blanket, set down the basket, and went back for a few Tiki torches, which he stuck in the sand and lit. The soft orange glow spread across the blanket.
“Come on, let’s go for a walk and gather some driftwood.”
He winced a few times as he bent for the wood, and I suspected his sunburn was bothering him. “I think that’s enough,” I said, and we went back to camp. I opened the duffel and found a bikini, swim trunks, towels, sunscreen, and finally the ointment.
I held up the scraps of multi-colored cloth. “You travel with a bikini. Is there something I should know?”
He shook his head and laughed. “Nope. I grabbed it off the rack.”
“Oh, you stock bathing suits.”
“Yes, suits, T-shirts, souvenirs. All of it sells extremely well.”
I nodded. “Well, let’s get your T-shirt off.”
His face changed, but he didn’t say anything. He reached back and dragged the shirt over his head, mussing his hair and only making him look more appealing.
“Turn around,” I said softly. He complied, presenting me with his broad, well-formed back. The sunburn was mostly across the top of his shoulders.
I squeezed out some ointment and smoothed it across his skin. He made a soft, gasping sound of pain.
“Sorry,” I murmured.
His closeness overwhelmed my senses, and I had to concentrate in order to keep my touch light to minimize the pressure and the pain. Trying to struggle against the longing that surged through me, making my heart race even faster, I let out a soft breath. I wondered what it would be like to lie with him, to feel the full, hard length of his body against mine. God, I got the shivers just remembering what it was like to kiss him, and that had ended much too soon.
He jerked when I touched the skin at the base of his neck. I was so aware of him as a man, and so aware of the heaviness low in my body, I almost couldn’t focus, but somehow I managed.
Apparently we didn’t have to talk for me to feel shaky and emotionally exposed. I reached across him to pick up the ointment cap, and screwed it back on the tube, so sensitized to him that I was conscious of every movement, every breath.
I tucked the tube back in the duffel.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, sidling closer to me, reaching for the basket. I turned, and there we were, face to face.
His face went too serious. “You’re making it really difficult to take this slow,” he said. “Damned hard.”
“I said we could slow down, not stop completely,” I whispered.
“Thank God.” The words came out as a puff of nothing.
He covered my mouth, and I sighed in pure pleasure, opening to the light teasing of his full lips. The taste of him tempted me beyond belief, and I splayed my fingers wide against the back of his head, silently urging him to increase the gentle pressure. He did, and I was saturated in sensation as he so softly, so leisurely, so thoroughly, took what he needed and gave it back to me tenfold.
He sighed and eased away, his eyes dark and smoky as he gazed at me. “That was good,” he murmured, then kissed me again, a devilish gleam appearing in his eyes. “Really good.”
“Yes, it was. You’re a pretty good kisser.”
He nudged me with his shoulder, pulling the basket toward him. “Not bad yourself, Yank.”
Smoothing my hand across his face, I pulled him down for another kiss, my lips brushing as I whispered, “You better mean Yank in the best possible light.”
He grinned against my mouth and nipped my bottom lip, then soothed it with his tongue. “Absofreakinglutely,” he deadpanned.
We ate cheese, cold crab meat, and asparagus, along with French bread. He’d also managed to put a bottle of white wine in the basket, and it was crisp, sweet, and delicious. For dessert, plain, ripe red raspberries.
“You’ve got this romantic thing down pretty good, mister.”
“It’s easy
with you, Samantha.”
I leaned forward, and he sampled my offered mouth, slipping his tongue inside, and I tightened my hold on his head, feeling almost as drunk on his absolute sweetness—his kiss slow-moving and savoring—as I was on the wine.
“You’re also pretty good at this picnic meal thing, and made an excellent choice with the wine.”
The sound of the waves was a natural music which, along with the wine, lulled me into relaxing against him. He cupped my cheek and languidly working his mouth against mine, infusing me with a fluttery weakness that was as sweet and as slow as his kiss.
It was a long time before he sighed and eased away, trailing a row of moist kisses along my jaw. Releasing the air in his lungs, he cradled me against him, then rested his jaw against my head, his hand still against my cheek. He held me like that for several moments, then he finally said, his tone quiet. “I think we should talk, Samantha.”
“Only if you want to,” I said. “Don’t feel you have to explain anything to me.”
He exhaled heavily, absently rubbing his thumb against the side of my neck. “Yes, I want to.”
Readjusting his position slightly, he settled me against him as he stretched out on the blanket.
“You know all about what the Colonel did, I’m sure. The gossips were obsessed with it two years ago.”
I nodded.
“What is not common knowledge is that I knew about it long before River Pearl discovered the secret, and the only reason she did was because I had the last of the Colonel’s journals she was looking for.”
I didn’t say anything, just nodded and listened.
“I found the journal one day after school my senior year. When I read it, I was…shattered. Luckily it was after finals, or I’m not sure I would have finished out high school. I didn’t show up for my graduation. While everyone was at graduation, I packed a bag and left. I haven’t been back in ten years.”
He shifted so he could look directly down at me, my heart skittering when I saw the look on his face, the same one I’d seen at Outlaws. Guilt, shame, anger, resentment, and bitterness.
I met his gaze while the faint light cast his face in disturbing shadows.
He stared at me for a moment, then looked away while he smoothed his hand over my hair. His voice gruff when he finally spoke again. “You probably want to know why I left.”
“Yes, I do. I want to know everything about you.”
I wished he would look at me, that he wouldn’t avoid meeting my eyes the way he was. A flutter of uncertainty stirred in my middle, and my voice was just a little uneven when I said, “I would never judge you.” This was all about honesty and openness and trust.
He took a breath and said, “I made myself into everything my daddy wanted. I had followed every edict, got perfect grades, and was the dutiful, golden son. But that day, the day I found out everything was a lie, made a mockery of everything I’d worked so hard to achieve, and I had…nothing. I didn’t know who I was without all those trappings. I knew I wasn’t going to figure out who I was in that beautiful house, so I started from nothing and built a foundation, alone, isolated.”
“Didn’t go over big with your family?” I asked softly, toying with the ribbed neck of his tee.
He finally looked at me, his gaze so somber, sad, and his voice broke. “No. My father was livid, and Jake probably feels I’ve abandoned and betrayed him. And I guess, in retrospect, I did.”
“You had to find your way. How could you be any good to your family until you worked it all out?”
He met my gaze then, his expression drawn; then he frowned and looked away, carefully smoothing back my hair. “That’s just it. I thought I had when my cousin tried to kill us. I thought I could see my family, but my dad was so disappointed, and Jake wouldn’t forgive me,” he said gruffly. “It hit me after I talked to Brax, how empty I was, and it threw me that my daddy wants to move on, to be a family again, and I’m stuck, and I can’t.”
“Oh, Chase…”
The torment in his eyes made my heart stall, while he continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “I can’t get it out of my head that I was stubborn and judgmental when my daddy came to visit. Maybe he’s truly willing to put the past behind us. I never gave him the chance to say so.”
His voice broke, and he roughly massaged his eyes, then he hauled in a tight, unsteady breath. His voice raw with emotion, he continued. “I don’t know what to say or how to make them understand. Even River, who just wants everything to go back to the way it was. It’s never going to happen.”
He swallowed hard and rubbed at his eyes again. He drew another breath and dropped his hand, his expression scored by the same raw emotion that had roughened his voice. He didn’t meet my gaze as he went on, his voice strained to the limit. “But I was so damned torn up inside, and I was having a hell of a battle with feelings I thought I’d buried years ago, that I couldn’t put it all together.”
Feeling such pain for him, I touched his face. My voice shaking with emotion, I told him, “You will. When you’re ready. When you’ve figured it out. They shouldn’t be trying to rush you.”
He buried his face in my neck, pulling the blanket over us as we snuggled together. I tried to handle the ache around my heart. He had a lifetime of change to go through with his family. His aloneness, his wariness, created such a vast hurt in me that I could barely stand it. He urgently needed someone to show him what love was.
Hit by a rush of emotion, I locked my jaw against the awful constriction in my throat.
I had given my all once, everything I was.
Could that person be me? Did I have the courage?
Could I love like that again?
Chapter 7
SAMANTHA
It had been a tiring, labor intensive, emotionally draining day for Chase, and as we lay in each other’s arms, he fell asleep, his breath even, his heavy, strong body relaxed against me.
I thought about what I had experienced in the past week.
Going through what I had with Jeff and Scott had scarred me deeply. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be capable of giving myself over to that kind of vulnerability again.
But then there was Chase, also scarred, still struggling with his own identity, and working to put everything from his past into perspective.
And damn if his struggle wasn’t admirable. He was examining everything, and reconciling his reasons for leaving with his reasons for now staying away. It was more than I had been willing or able to do since Jeff and Scott were murdered. Without answers or closure, the deep wound in me from their deaths remained open and bleeding.
So I understood his fear of challenging that pain again, sifting through it, and finding the answers that were there, but obscured. I wasn’t sure I had that kind of courage.
He stirred and opened his eyes.
“Hey, I fell asleep.”
“So you did,” I murmured.
“Wanna go for a swim?”
I looked up to see stars by the thousands, bright and twinkling above us, and it felt as if they were trapped inside me when he looked at me like that, smiled at me like that. Did I have anything to give at all?
“Sure. Give me those scraps of material, and I’ll change.”
He sat up, grabbed the bag, and then stood, pulling up the blanket to shield me from his silvery blue eyes.
“You expect me to believe you won’t peek?”
“I won’t. My word as a Southern gentleman.”
I raised a brow and he laughed at my skeptical look. His voice low and husky, he said, “Not that I’m not tempted. You’re beautiful Samantha.”
The wind teased across the beach, the moon a little higher, heading toward midnight as it caught Chase’s hair and ruffled the thick mass. I had never done anything so reckless, and I didn’t mean agreeing to fly in a small plane here to the coast on an impromptu beach picnic and camping trip.
It was about this feeling. This kernel of emotion which longed to do a complete buy-in
on Chase Sutton. Every nuance of him, from his bronzed hair down to his well-formed feet. He was six feet of temptation wrapped up in a hard-packed, knee-melting body, with a heart that was true, strong, and courageous, whether he believed it or not.
“Hold up the blanket, Romeo,” I quipped, and he grinned. I went to pull my shirt over my head and I said with a wry inflection, “Close the eyes, mister.”
He dutifully complied, and I stripped off my clothes and donned the skimpy bikini. He might as well see me naked. It was my turn to hold the blanket for him. Right in the middle of his switcheroo, the wind whipped the blanket up and exposed his very gorgeous backside while he scrambled into the board shorts.
He gave me a knowing, sidelong glance, and I laughed. “Don’t blame me. Blame the wind.” I wasn’t going to complain and was, in fact, ready and willing to thank the wind personally.
We ran into the surf, the waves gentle and warm enough, where we cavorted and frolicked until the moon reached its apex. Once we were out and drying off with the towels Chase brought, he pulled some stuff out of the bottom of the basket.
Holding up the marshmallows, he said, “S’mores?”
We made the gooey graham cracker, marshmallow, and chocolate treats and ate them while once again sitting on the blanket, sipping more of the wine.
“This is so peaceful,” I said. I took a bite of the s’more and licked chocolate off my fingers. Chase watched me intently. “It seems like everything just fades away when you breathe in the ocean air and let the sound of the waves crashing lull you into a coma.”
“I think that’s what I love about fishing out here. The ocean is a constant, the fish always biting. I love what I do.”
“Me too.”
“You don’t miss the big city?”
“Not at all. I thought I would, but the quiet, meandering life of a small bayou town suits me.”
“In what way?”
“I know the people. I see them every day. It feels good, and permanent. There’s no rush, ever. If I want to go faster, I can, but I don’t have to, and that helps with stress. Food means something here, and people appreciate my baking, and it serves my soul to feed them. It’s a symbiotic relationship.”
