by Claire Adams
And then they would wither away and die before life sprouted from the ground again.
“Oddly enough, I did,” I said.
“Despite what happened, I really did want things to be fun for you. I didn’t expect them to get so heavy, and I’m sorry for that,” he said.
“Please don’t feel sorry. I haven’t—”
My words caught in my throat, and he turned his hand up to mine. Our fingers laced, like shoes on a child’s feet, and I raised my teary gaze to him while the moonlight shone behind his head.
“I haven’t ever told anyone some of those things. I knew they’d fall on deaf ears a-and finding someone who—”
“I know,” he said. He squeezed my hand before he brought it to his lips to kiss, and the electricity that shot through my veins caused the tears to spill over onto my cheeks.
“Please, don’t cry,” he said with a whisper.
“I feel so relaxed with you. The most relaxed I’ve felt in a very long time.”
“Then, I suppose it would do you good to know you’re not alone,” he said.
“I know I said some things at the beginning that might have, I don’t know, made it sound like this was just a onetime thing.”
“Yes?” he asked.
“But I really would enjoy getting to know you better. If you wanted to, of course.”
“Are you wanting to get to know me because of this common element we share?” he asked.
“Partially, I suppose,” I admitted. “I haven’t ever found anyone who understood, and it felt good to talk about those things with someone. Someone who understood the complexity of the emotions and the soul-sucking, barren wasteland that happened after.”
“Yeah. I know,” I said. “So, you don’t want to get to know me in a romantic sense?”
“I didn’t say that,” I said. “But for me, right now? What happened tonight was more vulnerability than I ever would’ve experienced with anything romantic. For the first time in years, I opened up to someone. Someone other than David.”
“Honestly? Same here. I mean, I’ve kept myself closed off intentionally because of Jenna, but this is the first time I’ve been around a woman I thought might...”
“Might what?” I asked.
“Might accept me for the package I come with.”
I studied his face and realized how hard that was for him to admit. This strong man, with his broad shoulders and his pulsing veins protruding from his rippling forearms, was simply looking for someone to accept him and his situation. To understand that he had a child and that, for once, they would have to be accepted into the fold instead of the other way around. This man was lonely, and hurt, and he felt that the prime time of his life had passed him by.
“I guess this date didn’t really go like either of us expected, huh?” I asked.
“No, which is why I was asking all those questions,” he said.
“Huh?”
“I was asking all those questions because I was wondering if you’d be interested in trying this again. A second first date, if you will.”
“What if I don’t want to redo our first date?” I asked.
“You’d really call this a date?” he said, chuckling.
“In a heartbeat, I would.”
His eyes connected with mine while the crickets kicked up their chorus. No, the date didn’t go as expected, but it laid this unique foundation found only between the two of us. We shared a fundamental set of emotions and life experiences that we would always carry with us, and the idea of being with someone who understood that, who wouldn’t push me to get over those memories, was something I never thought I’d find. I thought I was forever doomed to listen to people like my sister push me in a direction they thought I wanted to go based on the person I was.
The person I’d been before I’d lost David.
“I think I would enjoy a second date, if it’s alright to leave our first date like this,” I said.
“I think that can be done.” He smiled.
His gaze flickered down ever so slightly to my lips. I caught the motion as the blood began to rush through my ears. I knew that look, and I understood that movement, but before I could decide on what to do with it, his lips were upon mine. They were soft. Sweet. Tinged with the wine we’d indulged in and the fruit we’d fed one another while sitting silently along the shores of Crossroad Lake. His tongue lightly swiped against my lips, and I was surprised when I parted them for him, allowing him entry to a place that had only been touched by David since I’d met him.
And the electricity that flowed up my spine threw my hand to the back of his head.
The attraction I felt to him was unmistakable. He cupped my cheek and cocked his head to the side, and while the kiss deepened, I slid my arms around his neck. The rippling of his muscles and the strength of his arms warmed a part of me I thought had died with my husband, but with every ministration his tongue sliding against mine, it stoked a fire growing within my pelvis.
I hadn’t ever been attracted to someone like this before, and I was even more shocked when I realized that reality also included David.
He finally broke the kiss, and his lips were swollen with my attack. We breathed each other’s air before I sat back down into my seat, and the blush that rose to my cheeks caused a chuckle to pull from Jason’s throat.
“Would you let me walk you to your door?” he asked.
“Will you kiss me like that again?” I asked.
“Anytime you want, Lucy.”
And I held his hand while we walked across his yard and headed for my porch.
Chapter Sixteen
Jason
“Daddy?”
“Yes, princess?”
“I miss my mommy in heaven.”
The words stopped me in my tracks as I walked toward Jenna’s door. She looked so comfortable tucked into her bed with her book on her chest. She loved sleeping with the books I read her at night before she fell asleep, but I could tell there was something else brewing behind her eyes that night.
I walked back into the room and sat down on the edge of her bed before I smoothed the hair from her forehead.
“You know she’s looking down on you, right? Watching out for you and making sure you’re safe,” I said.
“Yeah, but I see lots of people hugging their mommies. Do you think she would hug me?”
“She would hug you and kiss you and take you out for ice cream. Just like I do with you,” I said.
“I miss her, Daddy.”
Jenna had never even met her mother, and yet, she still felt this kindred connection with her. She never got the chance to suckle from her mother’s breast or take long walks underneath the trees while her mom pushed her in a stroller. Every time she got sick, she crawled into bed with me instead of with her mother, and every time there was a “Mommy and Me” function, I had to ask permission to come with my daughter because of the outstanding circumstances.
The hole she was experiencing brought tears to the eyes of the one little woman in my life I never wanted to see cry, and that’s when I realized something.
I hadn’t even had a long-term girlfriend since her mother passed, and I started wondering if closing myself off to women was doing her more harm than good.
“I miss her, too, princess,” I said.
“Do people ever come back from heaven?”
“No. No, people don’t come back from heaven.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Well, remember how you like to play in the leaves outside, and you’re always angry with me when you have to come in?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Heaven is like that, but for grownups. They go up there, and they have such a good time that they stay there to keep themselves healthy. Then, when they’re healthy, they can keep watch while they stay happy.”
“So, Mommy wouldn’t have been happy here with me?”
I was at a loss as to what to tell my daughter. I’d tried so hard to comfort her and to be eve
rything I could be for her. I did a damn good job of keeping the one-night stands and the frivolous escapades away from her and where we lived because it would be more detrimental to her than not having her mother.
But now, I wondered if not cultivating any female relationships was doing her as much harm.
“Mommy would’ve loved being with you down here. But, Mommy was also not well. If Mommy was here, she wouldn’t have been able to go do the things I can. Like ice cream and restaurants and running around outside. Mommy knew I could do those better, so she decided to go be in heaven so she could be healthy enough to look out for you. Just like I do,” I said.
“Okay,” she said.
“Princess?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“I love you so much. You know that, right?”
“Daddy?”
“Yeah?”
“Could I sleep with you tonight?”
I scooped her up into my arms and buried my face into her bubblegum-scented hair. So long as I was her father, I’d never deny her the closeness she had with me, and as I laid us down into my bed, she curled into my side and put her arm on my chest. Tears rolled down my face as I watched her fall asleep while her questions swirled around in my mind. No matter how many time I had prepped myself for that conversation and no matter how many times I talked through the scenario in the mirrors of this house, I still felt like I’d handled it inadequately.
Like I’d still done something wrong.
We woke up the next morning, and she was just as bubbly as ever. My eyes stung from the tears I’d cried over her sleeping body, but she was pulling the covers off me, ready to get to daycare. I got us cleaned up and dressed for the day while she ran around the house chanting about how she would get to play in the gym today, but as her teachers saw me walking up with her, they stopped and asked me if I was all right.
I briefed them on the conversation I had with her last night and told them what I told her, and they told me if she asked any questions from them they’d stick to the script I’d already written.
The problem was, I didn’t know if I’d written the right one.
When I walked into work, a seized engine of a sedan awaited me in the garage. I brushed by Mike who was working on yet another minivan, and that meant he probably had a story from this weekend he’d want to regale me with. I set all my stuff in the back before I grabbed a toolbox and wheeled it over, and then I bent down into the hood of the sedan and got to work.
“The man whose car you’re workin’ on’s a real bitch, dude. Good luck,” Mike said.
“You know him?” I asked.
“Fuckin’ changed his tires a month ago and came in here tryin’ to accuse me of puttin’ faulty tires on his car. Said it blew out because the tread was bad.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Fuckin’ prick ran over some bullshit on the road and tore his tire up on the highway. Didn’t wanna fork over the money for another tire. Be careful and make sure ya do it right the first time.”
“I always do it right the first time,” I said.
“Oh, and there’s another car waitin’ out there. Some hoity-toity out-of-town woman who comes to get her oil changed here every so often. I’ve tried to get with her, but she’s all ‘I’m dedicated to my husband’ and shit.”
“Wow, how terrible,” I said, grinning.
“She just doesn’t know what she’s passin’ on. And she’s a stickler when it comes to her oil. You know she brings her own in?”
“She brings her own oil?” I asked.
“Yeah! Some bullshit she gets shipped from New York or something. And then wants us to cover the liability to her car if something goes wrong.”
“Not how that works,” I said.
“Exactly. Crazy people around here,” he said.
I kept working on the car, trying to get everything out of the way before I took the engine out to get a good look at it, but Mike latched onto the silence and misinterpreted it badly.
“So, you haven't mentioned your date with Lucy,” he said.
“I never told you I had a date at all with Lucy.”
“Small town, dude. Remember that. So, how’d it go? You fail miserably? ‘Cause you sure as hell ain’t talkin’ about it,” he said.
“I just don’t wanna talk about it, alright?”
“Oh, that bad, huh? Did you tank? Was she bullshit? Oh, dude, was she a bad dick sucker? I can’t be with women who can’t suck good dick.”
“Look. I don’t wanna talk about the date. It went fine. We went to the lake, we drank wine, we ate food, and we went home. The date was simply payment for work I’ve done on her car. Heap of junk, if you ask me.”
“And you didn’t play up the payment angle? Dude, I would’ve totally asked for a taste of that pussy as payment. I need to educate you more, man. How’d you get your damn nickname again?” he asked.
“Who gives a shit about a prior nickname?” I asked.
“Oh, man. That date must’ve been murder,” he said.
I was getting really agitated with Mike. There was no way I could explain to a guy like Mike what happened between Lucy and me on that date. There was no way I was divulging the stories she told me, and I sure as hell wasn’t telling him the stories I told her. There was a connection that drew us together last night, and the kisses we shared shot electricity right to my dick before I finally let her go inside. She was soft pressed against my body the way she was, and when her knees grew weak, I caught her before she hit the ground.
I felt strong again, wrapped around her. I’d looked into her eyes and didn’t see just a sexy woman, but I saw a hurting woman who was in need of a knight. I’d been rendered helpless when Danielle’s uterus spontaneously ruptured on the hospital bed. I’d been rendered helpless as she bled out while I held her child in my arms on the other side of the room.
But with Lucy, I was no longer helpless. I had something she needed, and she had something I wanted.
I felt like the situation was out of my control, but in all the best ways possible. This path we were hurtling on was like a runaway comet barreling toward Earth. You couldn’t do anything about it except brace for impact unless you wanted to go nuclear and risk destroying everything around you just to disrupt that path.
And going nuclear wasn’t anywhere near my style.
“Did ya at least get a kiss?” he asked.
“I got multiple actually,” I said.
“So, it worked. Your strategy of the lake and the wine and the cruisin’ with the windows down, it worked. Ya got yourself a kiss.”
“Sure, Mike. The strategy worked,” I said.
“Well, you couldn’t sound more depressed about it if you tried,” he said.
“This engine’s just a fuckin’ wreck, is all. Look at this bullshit. Look at what’s happened to the pistons.”
Mike came over and looked over my shoulder before he laughed and slapped my back.
“Looks like a late night for you,” he said.
“Shit. I’d fuckin’ leave this thing here overnight before I messed with a babysitter for Jenna just to fix a damn car. Take care of it, and ya don’t have to leave it overnight.”
“That’s my motto,” Mike said.
“No, your motto is ‘Come One, Come All, Mothers of All Ages.'”
“And boy, do they come in droves,” he said.
We laughed at the joke while the garage slowly got busier, and when Mike passed behind me, I grabbed his arm.
“I’ve been meanin’ to ask. Have you told anyone about that Maximum thing I mentioned a little while back?”
“Honestly? A few people. I mean, I thought it was a good laugh, and it wasn’t a bad thing, so I didn't think it'd do any harm,” he said. “Why? Something happen?”
“Nah, nothin’ happened. I just think maybe the rumor’s gotten played up wrong, though.”
“What makes you think that?” he asked.
“Just a hunch.”
I’d never li
ved in a small town, but I knew enough about sexual jokes to know that Maximum was a funny one. When Lucy had questioned me about it, she looked a bit more taken aback and disgusted about it, in a way. I wanted to ask her what the rumor was she’d heard, but I figured how badly could it have been altered from Mike to her? It’s not like this town was very big. In the grand scheme of small towns, this one was at tiny as they came.
But, with everything brewing between Lucy and me, the last thing I wanted was some stupid rumor I’d bragged about my first week in town to be what did us in.
Whatever “us” was.
“Relax, man. You’re too high-strung today. Maybe you should’ve at least gone for a little dry humping with that date. Would’ve done some good to your stress levels.”
I threw my rag at Mike, and he laughed before tossing it back at me. I couldn’t fault Mike for the reasoning he had for talking about the rumor. And anyway, it wasn’t like I’d told him not to tell anyone. I practically opened myself up to the kind of reputation I had back home merely by mentioning it.
I just hoped it didn’t get in the way of Lucy and me.
Chapter Seventeen
Lucy
The ground was cold with the morning dew as I slinked around on my stomach. My chest was burning, and my nose was flaring, trying to smell and see anything that would help me out of this situation. My heart raced, and I clutched my rifle close to me, scared to make a noise for fear it would alert someone, anyone, to my presence.
Twigs broke in the distance, and I froze, listening for the sounds of whatever was coming toward me. Stomps hit the ground, shaking it underneath me, and all at once, my breathing ceased to exist. Twigs broke, leaves crackled, and the stomping became running, and soon the pace was getting closer and closer, matching my heart pounding faster and faster.
I had to aim and shoot, and I had to do it now. If I didn’t, it would be over. The effort to get where I was now would be lost to the echo of the woods.
“Lucy?”