The harmony was a welcome oddity. She ran her palm over his before twining their fingers together, watching his join with hers, the distinction between his large, tanned fingers and her small ones. Tilting her head, she lifted their connected hands to the dim light filtering through the bedroom window. “Your thumb is crooked. It wasn’t like that before.”
“No,” he said. The word came from deep in his chest. All the lazy satisfaction he felt echoed through it and she smiled.
Lowering their hands to her lips, she kissed the crooked joint, lingering for a moment before meeting his eyes, which were open and on hers. Holding his gaze, she did what he’d done a few weeks ago and gave the tip of his thumb a little nip.
The small lines at the corners of his mouth dug in. A light entered his eyes, the same she’d seen the night she first kissed him. It brightened, hardened just as it had then. Need flashed across his face. His fingers tightened on hers, readjusting so he could tug her mouth up to his. The kiss was long and deep.
He broke away. “I love you.”
The words spilled out on a ragged breath. She sighed over them. “If you’d told me that eight years ago...”
“I was trying to find my moment. Pretty sure I would’ve found it sooner than later if I’d stayed.”
“Then what?” she asked after a short pause. At his lowered brow, she added, “It still might not have worked out.”
His chuckle sounded sour. “You still don’t put much faith in me, do you?”
“I put a great deal more faith in you now,” she admitted.
He cocked a brow, looking down as he traced the curve of her shoulder. When he remained silent, she rolled to her elbows, propping herself on them, eyeing him expectantly. “Go ahead,” she said. “Tell me what would’ve happened if things had been different.”
His face softened as he searched hers. “I wouldn’t have let a day go by without you. Not because you needed me, but because I wanted—needed—you. Before I was arrested again, I was already in a place where I couldn’t contemplate not being with you, and I didn’t want to go back from that. I would’ve been damned if I hadn’t found some way for us to be together. That would have been me standing with you in the church, baby or no baby. That would have been my ring on your finger.”
Even as her heart leaped at the possibility, her rational, cynical mind denied it. “You can’t know that, James. We were so young.”
“And, most importantly,” he continued, undeterred, “you would have been happy because there wouldn’t have been a day go by that I wouldn’t have worked myself to the bone to make you not regret a second of it.”
At these words, something began to warm those defensive walls she still carried around. It strengthened, heating the stone of those walls until they began melting and the warmth penetrated the lonely, fragile place within. Her lungs strained as she searched his face once more, seeing nothing but truth.
She felt something else. The waves of warmth and light skimmed across something inside her she hadn’t known was there...waiting all along. The willingness to forgive.
Rising up on her knees, she took his face in her hands. “In that case, I’ve got news for you, hot rocks.” She spread sweet, reverent kisses from his cheeks to his brow, across the ridge of his nose to each closed lid, then over his sturdy chin and finally to his lips where they stayed for a long while. Her brow puckered with ardor and her eyes closed against the dampness behind them. She finally pulled away, only enough to say on a whispered rush, “You wouldn’t have had to work that hard.”
He made a sound in his throat, something caught between relief and longing. Grasping her behind the shoulders, he pulled her back down to him, into him, for another lengthy kiss, one filled with every what-might-have-been.
Eventually, he rolled her beneath him. She welcomed him to her as her hands tangled in his thick crop of hair. His fingers spread as they moved down her sides, over her hips and beneath to lift her up, against him. She opened herself to him freely and joined with him in one fluid wave.
In that moment, she, the eternal pessimist, believed that everything was right in the world—and would remain that way.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WHEN ADRIAN OPENED her eyes the next morning, she was greeted by the fragile blue light that dwelled just before dawn. It was early enough that her alarm hadn’t gone off. Still, something wasn’t right. As she raised her head from the pillow, she saw that the other side of the bed was empty.
James was gone. She simply stared at the wrinkled, abandoned spot where he should’ve been. A chill went through her.
Then she heard the faint trickle of water hitting tile. Glancing over the edge of the bed, she saw the light under the closed bathroom door.
A breath washed through her and she lowered her cheek back to the pillow. He wasn’t gone. He was in the shower.
A smile spread across her mouth. She felt foolish for the memory of waking up the morning after they were together in bed for the first time at The Farm and everything that had happened after.
He hadn’t left her this morning. She’d forgiven him for leaving her before. Adrian was finally willing to bet that, in light of everything he’d told her about his mother and how he felt about her, she could lay her trust in his hands and keep it there.
She’d needed him last night. When she came home from the wedding reception, all she’d been able to think about was Richard’s betrayal. Roxie had been thrown into upheaval. Adrian knew all too well the course she would take from heartbreak in order to cope. Adrian had been there. First there was denial. Then anger, followed by months, maybe years, of cynicism when it came to all things love and commitment.
Adrian had felt guilty for smiling into her champagne for the first half of the night. In some strange twist of fate, she and Roxie had switched places—and the bitterness and pessimism wasn’t something Adrian would wish on her worst enemy. Much less one of her closest friends.
Then James had showed up at her door. She’d turned to him because she’d been terrified of going back to living that way. This was all new territory for her—the hope, the trust and the wish that all would be well with her and James from here on out. But she didn’t want to lose it. She didn’t want to go back to being the bitter, cynical Adrian.
The door to the bathroom opened quietly. With the light behind him, James stood there for a moment, one of her towels wrapped around his waist. A grin spread across his lips before he reached over and turned off the light. He padded across the carpet to her side of the bed.
“Morning,” he said in a lowered voice before dropping to the edge next to her.
“Good morning, yourself,” she replied. When he turned his hand palm up, fingers spread, she placed hers over it. She let her palm graze back and forth over the top of his before lacing her fingers through his.
His lips lowered to her temple and he kissed her. “I like sleeping in your sheets,” he murmured, a smile warming the words.
She beamed. “You might have to get used to it.”
He chuckled softly, the noise reverberating over her skin. “I like the sound of that.” He ran a hand over her hair. “How’re you doing?”
She peered at him. “I think we both know you’re not my first peccadillo, hot rocks.”
His eyes were impossibly tender. “Just so long as you let me be the last.”
Her heart struck up a quick beat. She watched him grin widely even as she felt her own lips curve. Twining an arm around his neck, she brought his mouth down to hers.
The phone on her bedside table rang. James groaned at the spoiled opportunity. Dipping his head to hers, he reached over and fumbled for the phone as he kissed her. When he placed the receiver in her hand, she turned her face away from his and answered. “Hello?”
“Did I wake you?”
At the sou
nd of her father’s voice, Adrian sat up, keeping a hand on the top of the sheet so that it stayed in place at her collarbone. She cleared her throat. “No, Dad. I’m awake. What’s up?” Peering at the bedside clock, she wandered what Van could possibly be calling for before sunrise.
“I have some news,” Van said. “It’s, ah...a bit unexpected.”
Adrian’s brow furrowed. James had already put his fingers to good use rubbing the tension in her neck. “What is it?”
“I got a telephone call late last night from Detective Fleet,” Van explained. “Remember him?”
Frowning, Adrian tried to place the name. “Fleet.” As clarity struck her, she drew her knees up to her chest. Glancing back at James whose fingers had stiffened and stilled on her neck, she saw his eyes combing her face. “Wasn’t that the detective who investigated the attack on you?”
“That’s the one. It seems he’s made an arrest.”
“What?” she blurted. “How? I thought the case had gone cold.”
“The attacker turned himself in. Guilty conscience or some such thing.”
“Well?” she asked. “Who is it?”
“That Harbuck boy. The younger one, Dustin.”
Adrian’s eyes rounded. Looking over her shoulder she saw that James had sat back against her headboard, expression unreadable. “Dusty Harbuck.” She shouldn’t be surprised. But how many times had she run into Dusty through the years? How many times had he and Radley had beers at the trailer? How many times had he looked her in the eye, knowing full well what he’d done? Anger burned the back of her throat. “You don’t say,” she added for lack of anything better.
“Seems so,” Van replied. A pause wavered over the line. “Thought you ought to know before word spreads.”
Adrian nodded. “Thank you for telling me. How are you handling this?”
Another pause. Then Van answered with, “I’m all right. Your mother’s in a rare state, to be sure. But I’ve given a good deal of thought to the matter through the years. I’m glad Harbuck came clean. However, I made my peace with it a long time ago.”
She licked her lips. They were as dry as her throat. “So you’re okay.”
Van laughed softly. “I’ll keep, opossum. Don’t you fret. Sorry I had to call so early.”
“No,” she said. “It’s good that you did.” Blinking against the sting behind her eyes, she added, “I love you, Daddy.”
“Ditto,” Van said in return. The line clicked as he hung up.
Adrian stared at the phone, brow knitting. True to form, her father was short on words. Funny how a simple “ditto” could mean more than the words themselves.
“Strange,” she said finally, meeting James’s grim stare. “Dusty Harbuck just turned himself in for attacking Dad.”
“I heard,” James said. His voice grated from deep in his chest.
As he held her gaze, she searched his. His eyes were watchful yet open. She saw a thread of remorse there in those Scandinavian blues. A confession all on its own. Her lips parted, went numb. “You knew,” she said quietly.
His Adam’s apple bobbed as her eyes narrowed. When he offered no reply, she scowled. “How long?” she asked, voice rising with the words.
His nostrils flared as he pulled air in. Pushing it out, he said, “Four days.”
She stared at him for a moment, aghast. The anger at the back of her throat built until she tasted it. Finally disengaging her eyes from his, she arched a brow. “Well. Isn’t that something?”
James straightened against the headboard. His hand closed over her shoulder. “There’s an explanation.”
She scoffed. “There usually is,” she muttered, lowering her gaze to her hands in her lap. She felt cold. So cold.
His thumb began to massage the knots building in her neck. She shrugged until his hand fell away and then shifted, adding space between them. Enough to get her point across. “I suppose you were planning on telling me eventually,” she said.
James looked pained. “If he didn’t turn himself in. That was the deal. He had until the end of the weekend to come clean or I’d do it for him.”
“Until the end of the weekend,” she repeated, pursing her lips. “How kind.”
His head tipped back slightly at the dark words as if she’d struck him. His jaw hardened but it wasn’t in anger. More like resignation.
Adrian ran her tongue over her teeth. “Dusty’s your buddy. My father’s just the man who held you back for a summer. It doesn’t exactly even out, does it?”
“Adrian,” James said with a shake of his head. “It’s not like that. You know it’s not.”
“Then tell me,” she said with a jerk of her shoulders. “Go on. Tell me what I’m supposed to believe.”
“I gave him four days to make it right,” James told her. “That’s all there was to it.”
“Well, I’m so happy it can be so simple, so cut-and-dried for you,” she said, and crawled out of bed.
“What are you doing?” he asked, not moving.
“I’m getting dressed,” she said, picking up her scattered clothes. “I have work. Responsibilities. I don’t have time for this.”
He blew out a breath in disbelief. “That was fast.”
“What?” she asked, wrestling her sweater over her head. “What was fast?”
“You,” he said and lifted an empty hand. “Losing faith in me.” He snapped his fingers. “That quick.”
“Dusty Harbuck almost killed my father and you covered for him, however briefly!” she all but shouted. “What do you expect from me? A peace lily?”
James got up from the bed in a quick, deft move. He was towering over her before she knew it. “I came here last night to tell you. I got advice from Cole and then I came here, to you, because I wanted you to hear it first.”
She braced her hands on her hips and said nothing.
“I gave Dusty four days to come clean because your father deserved to hear it from him, not me,” James told her. “He deserved that kind of closure. But yesterday, the deadline elapsed so I planned to go to The Farm today and tell Van face-to-face with you beside me. But you don’t believe that,” he added before she could voice her doubt. “Because however much we’ve built together, however much you say you want me in your bed or your life, there’s still a part of you that’s holding back. And that part of you, however small, is riddled with doubt. Whatever’s happened between us now, however many times you say that the past is dead, part of you hasn’t let go of the betrayal you felt back in the day. And I’m starting to realize that no matter how long or hard I try, it never will. Am I right?”
“Really?” she tossed back. “You’re accusing me when you know damn good and well that it’s you on trial here?”
“I wouldn’t be on trial if anything I’ve done over the last month meant anything to you. If you’d really started believing in me again,” he pointed out. When her jaw dropped, he nodded. There was a grievous but certain gleam in his eyes. “But who can blame you, right? I’m just that guy who broke your heart. How does that ever equate to love and trust and all the things that come with it when it’s real?”
As he scooped up his clothes, she frowned at the phoenix on his back. “So I’m the liar?”
“I should have seen it,” he muttered, shoving a foot into his pant leg. “You were quick to leave the house after we slept together the first time. Even quicker to run when Cole accused me of transporting drugs. Now that I think about it...you’ve never had any faith in me. Not since I left. If this had gone down differently, if I hadn’t gotten caught up in what was between us last night and had told you about Dusty, I wonder how many times I would have let this happen before realizing you were never mine. Not completely.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asked as he shrugged his shirt over his head. “Afte
r this, you honestly expect me to see anything but your four whole days of silence?”
“No,” he said as he walked back to her slowly. “And you know why? Because you might have feelings for me. You might even love me a little, but not near as much as you did eight years ago when you vouched for me. You were sound asleep when I left your room that night. You couldn’t have known when I actually left. Given my history, you could’ve easily drawn the same conclusion your parents and everybody else had. But you didn’t. Without hesitation you got in your car and drove to the police station so that I could walk free. Now ask yourself why you’d do such a thing then and why you can’t do the same now.”
He wanted her to make another leap of faith. A blind, reckless leap. She shook her head. “What if I don’t know why?” she asked. It was a challenge. She tried desperately to hide the fearful plea behind the words. “What if I can’t do it? What are you going to do about it?”
His shoulders lowered, deflating. “That’s the kicker.” He blew out a bitter laugh. “There’s nothing I can do, is there? Except wait.”
“You’d...” She blinked several times, doing her best to hold his steady gaze. “You’d do that?”
“Wait?” His eyes skimmed her features, the warmth of longing fighting against the bereft shadow in them. “Yeah. I’d wait for you.”
“And what if I never...” Adrian sighed, trying to loosen the knot in her chest. “What if I can never give you what you want?” What if I can never give you all of me?
James looked at some point beyond her. Defeat crossed his face and strengthened there as he rubbed his neck. “Then I guess you’ve got your reasons. All I can do is respect that—because I love you. I love all of you. Even that broken piece inside you that I can’t seem to reach.”
In the silence that followed, he stepped toward the door. “Y-you’re leaving?” she stuttered.
“I’m going next door,” he said, resigned, as he reached for the bedroom door. He looked back at her. “Unless you have something you want to tell me.”
His Rebel Heart Page 24
