by Amelia Wilde
He supposed he’d been free for a long time—since high school, he had only lived with Parker during the summers and hadn’t seen his uncle at all in the past four years—but some part of him had still felt tied to Parker. He was the only family Mason had left.
Mason hadn’t seen his mom since the day she skipped town, the summer before his junior year of high school. She used to call every few months, but by the time Mason graduated from college, the calls had stopped. Last he’d heard from her, she was retiring to Mexico with husband number ten, and planned to call with her new number when she got settled.
The call never came.
If Mason cut himself off from Parker, he would truly be a man without a clan.
There had been a time when the thought would have scared him, or at least felt very wrong. Parker hadn’t had to take him in. He could have left Mason to fend for himself, especially after high school, when his nephew was legally an adult. If Parker hadn’t let him shack up with him at the farm during the summers, Mason never would have been able to save enough money to pay for his apartment and expenses during the school year. He would have had to go to school part time, and it would have taken years longer for him to get his M.D.
He’d always felt like he owed Parker, at least a card every Christmas and birthday, and lunch every now and then.
But now…
Well, it was obvious Parker cared even less for Mason than he used to. Mason had succeeded where Parker had promised he would fail and made a liar and a fool of the man who had done his best to convince his nephew there was no point in hoping for a better life. And Parker clearly didn’t like being reminded of it. Any pretense of family feeling between them was gone. It was time for Mason to move on, to move forward, toward a better life. With Lark.
He was going to win her back, and prove Parker wrong about that the way he’d proven him wrong about everything else.
Mason hitched the little fishing boat to the back of his car and pulled down the gravel driveway to his uncle’s farm without a glance back in the rearview. It was too dusty to see much, and he was done looking back.
7
Date Two
When Mason showed up at three on the dot, Lark was already waiting outside on her parents’ front porch. Mason was so glad to see her that he was out of the car and striding up the walkway before he realized she wasn’t dressed for an afternoon on the lake.
In fact, she wasn’t dressed at all.
“What’s up?” Mason glanced down, taking in her oversized gray t-shirt and thin pink pajama pants.
“I’m not feeling well.” Lark sniffed, rubbing her nose with the tissue wadded in her fist. “I woke up sick as a dog.”
“What are your symptoms?” he asked. “Any fever?”
“Yeah.” Lark sniffed again. “Fever and runny nose and I’m achy all over. Must be a spring virus or something. I don’t know, but I’m definitely not up for fishing today.”
Mason shrugged. “Okay. Why don’t we just hang out and watch a movie or something? I can make you chicken soup with extra noodles.”
“No. I don’t want to make you sick.”
“I won’t get sick. I’ve spent the past four years swimming in germs at the hospital. I don’t get sick anymore. Or almost never.” Mason smiled. “Besides, I’d risk a virus to spend the afternoon with you.”
“That’s sweet, but I think I should go back to bed.” Lark tucked her chin, causing her hair to spill around her face, hiding her expression. “I didn’t sleep well last night. I could use the rest.”
“All right,” Mason said, ignoring the stab of disappointment in his chest.
He had been looking forward to seeing Lark again since the moment she closed the car door behind her last night. After their awful first interaction at the wedding, their first date had gone better than he could have hoped. He had woken up this morning feeling certain he was well on his way to winning a second chance, and that date two was going to be even better than date one.
Now, he was going to spend the afternoon alone.
But Lark couldn’t help being sick….
Hmmm. Lark…sick….
Mason’s brow furrowed. Lark was never sick. With the exception of allergies in the fall and a nasty case of food poisoning from a bad batch of raw oysters at a Mardis Gras party in Atlanta about a year after they started dating, Mason had never seen Lark sick.
“I’ll talk to you later, okay?” Lark sniffed as she stood and reached for the door.
Mason stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, letting his fingers brush along the back of her neck.
No fever. Just as he had suspected.
She shivered and glanced at him over her shoulder. “What was that for?”
“Checking your temperature.”
“With your fingers?”
“You’re right. Can’t tell for sure with fingers.” Mason brushed Lark’s hair to one side, baring her neck before leaning down and pressing his lips to the exposed skin.
Lark sucked in a swift breath; Mason’s breath feathered out between his parted lips. God, her skin was as soft as he remembered, soft and warm, smelling pleasantly of shampoo and spiced apple lotion and something mysterious that was Lark’s smell, the most addictive scent in the world.
He’d woken up dreaming about that smell a dozen times in the past four years. Now, here he was, with his lips on Lark’s bare skin and the smell of her filling up his head until it spun, and he couldn’t resist pressing another kiss to her throat.
And another… and another…until she made a soft, pained sound and spun away.
“That how you treat all your patients?” she asked, voice shaking. She was scowling, but Mason didn’t miss the fact that she was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling faster than it should be.
Seems he wasn’t the only one affected by the chemistry between them.
“Only the ones I really like.” Mason grinned; Lark’s scowl deepened.
“Yeah? And how many of those have there been?”
Mason’s smile slipped. “Oh, come on, Lark. I was joking. I never—”
“No, I know there must have been someone,” she said, lifting her chin the way she did when she knew he wasn’t going to like what she had to say. “Probably a lot of someones. You were gone for four years, Mason, don’t tell me you didn’t date anyone the entire time you were gone.”
“I thought we were talking about doctor-patient relationships,” he said, not wanting to talk about other women with Lark. He didn’t even want to think about other women. Lark was the one for him. End of story.
She shrugged. “Well, now we’re talking about boy-girl relationships.”
Mason nodded slowly, buying himself some time. Obviously she wasn’t going to let this go. He’d hoped to have at least one more low key date before they started talking heavy stuff, but if Lark wanted answers he was prepared to give them to her.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll talk about boy-girl relationships. Get your swim suit on and we’ll talk while we catch some fish for supper.”
Lark crossed her arms at her chest. “I told you, I’m too sick to—”
“You’re not sick.”
Her scowl deepened. “You don’t know that.”
“I know you don’t have a fever, and you haven’t had to use that tissue a single time since your first dramatic nose wipe.”
“Dramatic—” Lark’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you calling me a liar?”
Mason lifted his hands at his sides in the universal sign of surrender. “I’m not calling you anything, Lark. I just know you’re not sick and I want to take you fishing.”
“No, you are calling me a liar. I’m not stupid, Mason,” she said, but she didn’t sound nearly as outraged as the old Lark would have. The old Lark took great pride in her honesty. “If you’re going to insult me, at least have the guts to own it.”
“Okay,” Mason said, stepping closer, bracing his hands on the door on either side of Lark’s face, trapping her
within the circle of his arms. She titled her head back, lips parting. “You’re a liar, and a coward,” he whispered. “You’re lying about being sick because you’re afraid to go on a second date with me.”
Lark’s breath rushed out. “That’s a mean thing to say.”
“It’s a true thing to say,” he said gently. “You used to be a big fan of the truth.”
The skin between Lark’s eyebrows wrinkled slightly. “You used to be a big fan of keeping your promises.”
Mason leaned closer, until he could feel her breath on his lips and his entire body hummed from being so close to her. “I’m still a fan. Tell me what you want me to promise, Lark, and I swear I’ll keep it until the day I die.”
“Anything?” Lark asked in a breathy whisper.
“Anything.”
Lark’s eyes flicked from his eyes to his mouth, and her tongue slipped out to wet her lips, making things low in Mason’s body twist. God, how he wanted to taste her, to slip his tongue between her damp lips and explore every inch of her hot mouth. To pull her so close her breasts pressed tight to his chest and her—
“Promise you’ll go away and leave me alone,” Lark said, her words the equivalent of ice water poured down the back of Mason’s shirt.
He frowned. “What?”
“Go away, Mason. I don’t want this. I don’t…” She swallowed. “I just want to enjoy my vacation, and I can’t do that with you showing up every day making me feel all… I just can’t, okay?”
“Making you feel what?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head.
“No, I want to know. I want to know what you’re feeling that has you so scared you’re willing to break a promise to stop feeling it.”
“It’s… This… This just isn’t going to work,” Lark said softly.
“Why not? I thought we had a good time last night.”
“We did have a good time.” She ran a shaking hand through her hair. “Too good a time, and I went to bed feeling sad and alone for the first time since I finally accepted you weren’t coming back.” She lifted her eyes, eyes filled with pain Mason knew he had put there. “It took over a year, Mason. I can’t… I can’t forget that, even if I wanted to, which I’m not sure I do.”
“Why not?” he asked, wishing he could make them both forget, wishing he hadn’t been so messed up that he ran away in the first place.
“I’m stronger and smarter than I used to be,” Lark said. “I can take care of myself and other people and I don’t have to call my boyfriend to see what he thinks every time I need to make a decision.”
“You never—”
“Yes, I did, and we both know it. I was just a kid when we started dating. I leaned on you too much. I don’t need to lean on anyone anymore. Now, people lean on me, and I don’t want to give that up to be some starry eyed kid in love all over again.”
Mason stared hard at her, into her, but she didn’t blink or look away. She was telling the truth. She truly believed this was never going to work out, no matter what Mason did to try to convince her otherwise.
Mason supposed most men would take that at face value, count their losses, and crawl off somewhere to lick their wounds in private, but Mason wasn’t most men.
Parker had been one hundred percent certain Mason would never make it through medical school. In his uncle’s eyes, his failure had been confirmed before classes even started, but Mason had refused to accept his uncle’s bleak vision of his future. Mason refused to accept Lark’s portents of doom, either.
“Six more dates,” Mason said after a long moment.
Lark growled beneath her breath. “Are you listening? I don’t—”
“I am listening,” Mason said in an even voice. “I don’t want you to lose anything you’ve gained. I want you to be strong and independent, but I also want you. With me. And there’s no way I’m giving up on us without a fight.”
Lark sighed. “What if I don’t want to fight?”
“Then don’t,” Mason said, slipping an arm around her waist. “I can think of lots of things I’d rather do than fight, can’t you?” he asked, pulling her close.
She stiffened as every inch of her front pressed tight to every inch of his, but after only a moment he felt her soften, melting in his arms. Her palms flattened on his chest, but she didn’t push him away. Instead, her fingers curled into his shirt, making his pulse beat faster. He leaned in, bringing his mouth closer to hers, heart pounding.
He was already imagining the way his first Lark kiss in four years was going to taste when the front door swung open and a rainbow-colored something flew at Mason’s face.
The projectile connected with his nose with an offended squeak, summoning a high-pitched squeal of delight from just inside the house.
8
Mason looked up. Into the eyes of an old not-quite-friend.
“She’s sick.” Aria stood in the doorway with her baby propped on her hip, glaring at Mason with undisguised contempt as Lark pulled away with a nervous cough. “She shouldn’t be getting that close to anyone.”
“So you decided to throw something at me?” Mason asked, glancing down to the concrete to see a garishly colored plastic hammer with a yellow squeaker at one end.
A baby toy. Aria would get her baby girl a hammer. She’d always said girls could do anything boys could do, but better.
“I didn’t want you to get sick,” Aria said in a tone that made it clear she couldn’t care less if he caught the plague and died. Slowly. While in great, great pain. “And it was Felicity who threw the hammer. She doesn’t trust men with facial hair.”
“Mason doesn’t have facial hair,” Lark said, deliberately avoiding looking at Mason, her cheeks still red with embarrassment.
“Must be his face she doesn’t trust then.” Aria didn’t crack a smile. “You’d better come in, Lark. We wouldn’t want you to get any sicker.”
“She’s not sick,” Mason said, fighting the urge to glare at Aria. He didn’t want to get on her bad side, at least not any more than he was already.
“Yes, she is.”
“No, I’m not,” Lark said with a sigh.
“Yes, you are,” Aria said. “Now come inside and get in bed and go to sleep before you do something you’ll regret.”
Lark looked up at Mason for a long moment before turning back to Aria. “It’s okay, Ra,” Lark said, using her pet name for her big sister. She laid a gentle hand on Aria’s arm and the two women stared at each other for a long moment, communicating without words the way the March girls often did.
Mason had always been a little envious of those conversations, wondering what it would be like to be so close to someone that you could speak to each other without uttering a sound.
Finally Aria blew air out through her pursed lips and shrugged as if to say “it’s your funeral,” and Lark turned back to Mason.
“I’ll be down in fifteen minutes. Just let me change and get my bag together.”
She disappeared into the house and Mason was left alone with Aria, who didn’t seem eager to invite him in. Instead, she leaned against the doorframe, baby still on her hip, glaring a hole through Mason’s forehead while Felicity batted at her mother’s long, gold feather earrings.
“So...” Mason said after a long, uncomfortable silence, broken only by Felicity’s baby chatter. “How have things been?”
“I’m a divorced single mother whose ex refuses to pay child support, living with my parents, Mason,” Aria said in a flat tone. “How do you think things have been?”
“Not easy,” he said, feeling like an ass.
“No, not easy.” Aria hitched Felicity higher on her hip.
“Is there anything I can do?” Mason asked.
“Like what?” She didn’t blink.
“My friend Chris Mathis from high school is in family law in Atlanta,” Mason said. “I could ask him to get in touch with you if you have any questions you’d like to ask a lawyer off the clock. I know the fees can get pretty cra
zy when they’re billing you for everything.”
Aria turned her attention to Felicity, smoothing the baby’s wispy red hair away from her face. “No, that’s okay. We’re not going to need a lawyer. I don’t care about the support.”
“Well, if you change your mind, I’d be happy to make the call.”
Aria glanced back at him, her green eyes sad, but clear and strong. “Some things are unforgiveable, Mason, no matter what,” she said, the venom in her voice replaced with the tiniest scrap of pity. “I’m not sure if what you did falls under that category for Lark, or not, but it sure would for me.”
“I made a mistake, Aria,” Mason said, meeting her hard look with a penitent one. “I know that, but it’s not a mistake I would ever make again.”
Aria reached up, gently pulling her earring from Felicity’s fist before the baby could draw it into her mouth. “Maybe you can convince Lark of that, Mason, but I’m a little more familiar with people who swear they’re not going to make the same mistake twice, and guess what?” she asked, bouncing the baby on her hip when Felicity began to fuss. “They always make the same mistake. Always. Sometimes three or four or five times. All giving them another chance does is make you feel like a fool.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been through that, but—”
“But nothing,” Aria snapped, the mean coming back into her tone. “I learned my lesson the hard way, but if I have anything to say about it, you can be sure Lark won’t have to. I’m not on your side, Mason, and I never will be, so you can stop trying to win me over. I don’t need your favors, and Lark needs you back in her life like an octopus needs a hang glider.”
Mason opened his mouth, but before he could speak, he heard the sound of Lark’s footsteps rushing down the stairs. A second later, she was at the door, her filmy black cover-up swirling around her legs as she breezed by Aria with only a slight pause to kiss the top of Felicity’s head.
“Ready?” Lark asked him, brown eyes searching his face.
Mason forced a smile. “Ready.” He glanced back up at Aria. “See you later, Aria.”