Can't Hurry Love

by Molly O'Keefe

  She was going to hate herself for using her body to apologize, to atone for all the crimes against him, but it seemed to be the only comfort he would take.

  Carefully, as if he were a wounded animal, she slid her hand up to his shoulder. Half expecting him to pull away, break the contact, she was relieved when he didn’t. But he didn’t look at her either; he stood there, shaking despite his stillness, staring at the dust. As if he’d been so broken he couldn’t lift his head anymore, couldn’t bear to see his reflection in her eyes.

  She wrapped her arms around him, holding him as tight as she could.

  She could feel him pulling away inside his skin and she knew somehow if he did that, he’d disappear. Vanish behind hard eyes, and harder lips. And the man who’d watched her through glass in that parking garage, the man who had sprung the lock on her every single hidden longing, would be gone forever. And that would be awful. Terrible for her.

  But worse for him. Because the anger and the grief and the confusion were all still inside of him, searching for someplace to go.

  And he would ignore them.

  Or worse, he would find another willing body to numb the suffering he’d barely acknowledge.

  And that just wouldn’t do.

  Whether or not he forgave her no longer mattered. Her pride was crumpled under her regret and her lust and her worry for him. She combed her fingers through his hair, gripping him hard until she heard him gasp, and then she put her teeth to his neck, with erotic care, tasting the bourbon and sweat.

  His growl rumbled against her, setting off earthquakes in her body. Rough and uncontrolled, he clutched at her hips, and her body rejoiced even as her heart splintered.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

  As if she weighed nothing, he cupped her butt in his hands, lifting her, carrying her toward the barn.

  Everything in him was strung so tight, pulled taut until his skin seemed ready to split over his heartbeat, over his bones. And she clung to him, wrapped her arms around him, using her flesh to hold his together.

  In the barn, he pushed her against the wall, and that antiseptic fantasy, that lukewarm shell of an idea, was demolished under the reality of this man. The breadth of his shoulders, the strength of his hands on her body.

  He pulled away clothes—hers, his, it hardly mattered, all that mattered was getting closer. All that mattered was touching him as much as he would allow. Taking both of them to whatever limits existed between them.

  She thanked God at the sound of a condom wrapper being torn open, the rough scrape of his knuckles against her core as he slid the condom on using one hand.

  A miracle of dexterity. A blessing of haste. And then he was inside of her, so hard, so fast. So thick and real that she tilted her head back against the wooden wall, her mouth open in a silent scream of pleasure. Her entire body thrown open to the forces at this man’s command.

  And as he pounded his grief out against her, she hoped, she truly hoped, that he found some kind of relief in the violence that raged inside of him.

  The cold draft on his butt forced him to move. Otherwise he would have stayed where he was, plastered against Tori, buried inside of her, his face hidden in the hair that had fallen down around her shoulders. He would hide here, in this sensation. His brain turned low, his body at peace.

  But that chill was getting personal, and if he felt it, she must, too.

  Carefully he pulled away, holding her up when she came off the wall like a poster that had lost its tape.

  “That was way better than how it looks in the movies,” she whispered against his chest, wincing as she got to her feet, and he remembered how rough he’d been. How angry and out of control. It was the arena all over again, but she had met him halfway, taken his fury and altered it into something foreign, something shared. Hard, yes, ugly and raw, heavily painted with the blackness of his grief, but it was theirs.

  In a life lived alone, it was a light in the darkness, a warm glow he could never have expected and could not resist.

  And that he didn’t want to resist it made him panic, as though he was being held underwater. As though he couldn’t breathe.

  She cleared her throat and pulled away from him, taking back her arms as if they were something he’d borrowed.

  Moving like she’d aged thirty years up against that wall, she slowly leaned down to pull up her pants, tucking her T-shirt into the waist, her hands shaking.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Tori—”

  The tears in her bright blue eyes made him feel as if his skin had been peeled away.

  “You didn’t hurt me, Eli. It was amazing. You are amazing. But you don’t like me. You aren’t forgiving me for lying to you and the ridiculous thing is that I don’t care. I don’t have any pride when it comes to you. No control. No self-respect. It’s like my marriage all over again, but with sex instead of money.”

  He had nothing to say to that, nothing to make the shame go away.

  “Nothing to say?” She used her whole arm to toss her hair back over her head, a neat feminine trick. “How did I know?”

  “What do you want me to say, Victoria? That I forgive you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I don’t.”

  “Then … how? How can you …” She gestured back at the wall as though she didn’t have words for what had happened between them. He didn’t really either; it was like stumbling on a new species of horse. “Do that with me?”

  He shrugged. His body and his heart lived in two different counties and weren’t always on speaking terms.

  “I’m not … I’m not doing that again until you forgive me.” She nodded as if seconding her own motion, and he could see he was going to be outvoted here.

  He stared at her, long and hard, deciding that she wasn’t bluffing. Go figure. “Might not happen again.”

  Soda barked somewhere behind them while the bones in her face went soft for one second, as if she just couldn’t hold her expression in place anymore.

  “If that’s the way it is,” she said, “then that’s the way it is.”

  He watched her walk away, her body filling out her clothes in a way it never had before. She seemed to be getting more solid, moving into her body to stay. It suited her, taking away all that fragility that was such a lie and replacing it with bedrock.

  But forgiving her was off his map, and he didn’t know how to get there from where he stood.

  chapter

  16

  Celeste earned her first hundred-thousand-dollar check when she was sixteen. She’d come back to Montreal from New York a freshly made woman, with more money than her family had seen in three years combined. She had something called a portfolio, and she wore new clothes with a new attitude. Victorious, she swept into her family’s run-down Victorian in St. Henri and slapped that check down in front of her mother.

  She stood there, expecting gratitude, wonderment even. A party, at least. She’d even smuggled champagne home in her bag, envisioning how adult she’d seem when she popped the cork. How worldly. But instead her mother pushed the check back across the table and said no thanks.

  Celeste remembered laughing. Remembered laughing even though her stomach felt like it had been teargassed.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because you’re more than your looks, and I know this money will make you forget that.”

  Her mother had been wrong. She wasn’t more than her looks, she was the exact sum of her parts—the blue eyes, blond hair, skin the color and texture of milk, her grown-up body and girlish face.

  And the money never let her forget that.

  Modeling had been good to Celeste; she’d kept her career going for longer than most of the girls she’d started with and she’d never needed to take any of her son’s money. Luc had made a fortune in his own right with the NHL by the time he was twenty-five. In the end she’d accepted his expensive gifts—the car when
she turned sixty. Vacations. A very ugly diamond bracelet she treasured like nothing else.

  Now, however, things were different, because she needed his money. And calling her son to ask for it, she had a new perspective on what her mother had said to her in that shabby kitchen. Luc’s career in hockey did not define him for Celeste. He was so much more than his skill on the ice, and asking him for the money he’d earned there seemed like she was putting a box around him. Agreeing that his worth was monetary.

  I’m sorry, Maman, she thought.

  “A spa?” The cell phone connection between Celeste and Luc was crackly, but she could hear—loud and clear—her son’s skepticism. “At the ranch?”

  “Trust me. It will be perfect.”

  “Well, if there’s anyone who knows spas, it’s you and Vicks.”

  “So, the five hundred thousand?” Celeste stared out the kitchen window at the muddy mess of the backyard, the piles of building materials covered in tarps, and tried to pretend she wasn’t begging her son for money.

  Luc chuckled, and the sound was fairly new. Luc had never been a chuckler, but his relationship with Tara Jean Sweet seemed to have turned him into a happy man she barely recognized as her driven, focused son.

  “Maman, it’s okay, you can have the money.”

  Instead of relief, instead of sighing with gratitude, she ran a hand down her throat, across her chest, trying to coax her lungs to breathe.

  She wasn’t in the habit of asking for things. Not since she was a young woman, pregnant and alone on this ranch, begging her husband to notice her. To spend time with her.

  “Thank you.”

  “Maman—” Pity colored her son’s voice.

  “We’ll see you and Tara Jean at the grand opening? We’re setting the date for New Year’s.”

  “Great idea. I’ll make sure it’s on the calendar. And it will take a while, but I’ll get the money into the ranch account.”

  “Wonderful.” She smiled to make the word convincing.

  “Hey, Maman …” He dropped his voice and she could hear him moving, closing doors behind him. “We were going to wait until Tara stops freaking out, but I want to tell you—”

  Please. Please. She closed her eyes and actually prayed to God. Pregnant. Grandchildren. Please.

  “We’re buying a house in Dallas.”

  She blinked open her eyes. It was good news, no reason to feel bad. Her son, close by. “That’s fantastic news, Luc.”

  “Yeah. It is. We’re excited. Tara’s never owned a house before, so she’s taking it seriously.”

  Celeste smiled, thinking about her son’s trashy girlfriend who had more class than most women she knew.

  “Does that mean you’ll be getting married soon?”

  “One thing at a time, Maman.”

  They discussed neighborhoods for a moment, and then Luc finally had to hang up.

  She pressed the phone to her lips, mourning that grandchild who, for the span of ten seconds, had been so real she could feel the baby in her arms.

  In a cold, naked moment of honesty, she realized she was waiting for a grandchild so she could have someone to touch. Someone to shower with affection, someone upon whom she could unleash all this love she kept frozen.

  What if there were no grandchildren? What would become of her? Who … who would she touch? Hug? Who would hug her?

  Because Celeste Baker wasn’t a woman people hugged. Not without written invitation.

  The clatter and bang of workmen entering the house snapped her upright, out of her mood. Gavin came in first.

  He should model, she thought, though she knew he wasn’t that kind of man. But his body, that long, lean, loose-legged walk, would have made him a fortune. Not to mention his eyes, and that careless flop of white-blond hair. That confidence, that delicious masculine poise …

  Celeste looked away, opening the laptop in front of her with sweaty hands. Honestly, sweaty hands—was she sixteen?

  Behind Gavin his crew fanned out through the shell of the house, setting down their tool belts and lunch boxes.

  “Good morning, Celeste,” Gavin said, and her mouth was dry so she just nodded, which for some reason made the dark-haired man behind Gavin smirk.

  Her instincts screamed that she should run up to her room, do the work she needed to do up there, but the wireless worked best in the kitchen and she was trying to get an ad for a spa manager up on several job sites.

  Ruby had also gotten this great idea to email a Dallas morning show about doing a story segment on the spa. A producer had responded to Celeste’s initial email and Celeste had to get back to her.

  “My guys are going to be in here.”

  “Fine.”

  “Great.”

  Animosity rippled through the air; all the other people in the room had to feel it too, like a low-level electrical current. Someone coughed; another man pulled the collar away from his shirt.

  The dark-haired man ducked into the other room and came back with a ladder.

  “Try to stay out of the lady’s way, Thomas,” Gavin said, but his tone said “Careful, she bites.”

  “Will do.” Thomas grinned at her, cheeky and young like a puppy, and she found herself smiling back at him.

  The website was taking forever to load, so she watched as Thomas took out some plans and spread them over what was left of the counter. Then, picking up a pencil, he began to write on the walls.

  An electrician, she decided. Her father had been an electrician back in Quebec. She recognized the symbols. The small tools in his pocket.

  While the little hourglass spun on her screen, and Thomas went about his business, she tried to resist the urge to seek out Gavin. But now that all the walls were gone, he was too easy to find.

  His blue shirt was like a neon sign in the far corner, where he and another man were bent over another set of plans.

  The man should always wear blue. It should be a law. A constitutional amendment.

  “That’s the plumber,” Thomas said, and she realized he’d caught her staring at Gavin and the other man.

  “Winston.”

  She made a little humming sound in response, relieved to see the website working.

  “He’s getting married next weekend.”

  “Who?” Her gaze flew up, only to see Thomas smiling at her.

  “Winston.”

  She hummed, feigning a polite interest as she started to load her information into the website that had finally decided to cooperate. After drafting the ad, she hit enter and the hourglass reappeared.

  Surreptitiously, she glanced back up, watching as Gavin built imaginary walls with his arms.

  “Gavin’s single,” Thomas said, his voice rich with knowledge.

  Hourglass be damned. She stood, pushing back the stool she’d pulled up to what was left of the breakfast counter. It screeched against the tiles, and both Winston and Gavin turned to stare.

  In her prime, when her flesh had brought her gold and her eyes had brought men to their knees, she could have made Thomas crawl across glass just to smell her skin. But now he laughed at her because he knew she was old and her beauty was faded and she lusted after a man far too young for her.

  She didn’t know who she was more angry at, Thomas for noticing or herself for being unable to hide it.

  “Get back to work,” she snapped, and put the laptop under her arm and went to her room to hide.

  A few hours later, hunger drove Celeste out of her room and she was delighted to find the house empty of Vikings and cheeky electricians. She grabbed a yogurt from the fridge and a spoon from the drawer and went out the front door to sit in the shade of the portico to eat her lunch.

  Much to her horror, her spot was taken by a wide back in a blue shirt. Gavin took a bite of sandwich and then grabbed a chip from the bag between his feet. He stared off into the distance as he chewed.

  She wondered what he was thinking about so intently.

  Sports, probably. A man like him. Boxing. Pr
ofessional wrestling, something brutal and raw. That seemed like his sort of thing.

  Trying to be dismissive didn’t change her fascination. Largely because she knew herself to be a liar.

  Poetry, she thought. He could be sitting there thinking of e.e. cummings, and you’re such a bitch you can’t allow him any depth.

  Sometimes, honestly, she hated herself.

  Trying hard not to make a sound, she eased the door open, but he must have seen movement out of the corner of his eye, because he turned and then stood, his lunch held at his side.

  “Sorry,” he said. The ham sandwich, with his mouth-sized bites taken out of it, seemed so vulnerable. Interrupting this man at his lunch seemed akin to finding him with his shoes off.

  How, she wondered, marveling at her own sad thoughts, had she become so isolated? How was it possible that thinking about a man’s feet seemed like an imposition?

  He glanced down at his lunch box and then at the yogurt in her hands. “I’ll get out of your way,” he said.

  “No, stay. Please. I can …” Go inside. Hit myself over the head. Die a painful death. “Make do.” He still stood as if questioning whether she was sincere, or if he wanted to spend any more time with her.

  “This is my favorite spot for lunch,” she said, awkwardly trying to play nice.

  “It’s nice,” he said. “The view is peaceful.”

  “That’s what we’re counting on,” she said. “For the spa.”

  He nodded, then glanced down at his sandwich as if just realizing it was there. “Do you have plans for the barn?” He pointed to the roof of the barn past the greenhouse.

  “Not really.”

  “Perfect spot for a yoga studio.”

  She blinked, stunned at his perception. They hadn’t thought of the outer buildings, choosing to focus on the house, but the barn would be an ideal studio.

  “Some windows along one wall. Re-covered pine floors.”

  “Are you a closet spa-goer?”

  “Men can’t like yoga?”

  “I just didn’t think someone like—” Oh dear. She stopped herself.