Things had eased between them last night, but he was obviously still suffering.
Did you understand, Charlotte Smith, what you had? She sighed and rested her head on one hand. Since she was orphaned, no one had felt a tenth of that for her; doubtful anyone ever would.
But there were times you just had to stand back and admire something beautiful, like a perfect rose or a glorious sunset—or a perfect love—and appreciate it without trying to make it yours. Or wishing for more than the simple pleasure of that moment. The knowledge that such miracles existed.
Miracles, though, carried a cost. From the stories she’d heard and from observing his reactions, Micah Smith had given himself to his wife so completely that when he lost her, he lost himself. She’d never experienced such suffering; the thought of a bond that strong both compelled and terrified her.
The turnoff appeared ahead. She straightened and made it, resolutely ignoring the other thread running through her mind: those drawings, one in particular, and the hours of the night she’d spent poring over them, sifting for meaning as a treasure hunter combs beach sand.
Nonsense. He’s an artist. He draws because it’s what he does.
But so many. Of her. And the invitation to come here…
Don’t read anything into it, Jez. Two more days and both your worlds could be blown to smithereens if that test is positive.
That was the cold blast of water that could rid her of any illusions about sketches or filmy dresses or men who were entombed in a castle of grief.
She nearly turned around then, before he could spot her driving up.
Then, she realized, it was too late. He stood not ten yards away, sweaty and so gorgeous your tongue could fall out of your mouth, clearing tangled vines from the fence.
And clearly no more sure of himself than she was, based on the discomfort on his face.
She drew a deep breath for courage and emerged. “Hi.”
He was silent, his gaze troubled.
She was off-stride herself, no idea what to say to him, how to act. If she should stay or go.
Her history said, flee. Forget this place, this man and all his troubles. His too-potent magnetism.
But she was a woman of her word; she’d offered to help, and help she would. “I, uh, I’ll just put this on the porch.” She took one step, then another until she squeezed past him through the narrow gate opening, cooler in hand.
She’d never finished high school, but she read voraciously. Somewhere she’d learned about pheromones and their deadly allure. The way two people could be drawn into each other’s orbit because chemically they clicked, beyond the bounds of logic or propriety or sense.
Maybe Micah’s receptors weren’t operational.
Unfortunately, hers were on overload.
Hot, sweaty, gorgeous. Talented. Lonely. Strong, yet made vulnerable by an ability to love that staggered her…Micah Smith packed quite a punch, like it or not.
Then his gaze rose to hers, a hot flame of blue, quickly smothered.
But not before her stomach fluttered in response.
“You came.” His voice, in contrast, was leaden.
“You invited me.” Her jaw stiffened. “I’m here to help, but if you’d rather I go, I’ll just leave this food.”
“You cooked for me?”
She already felt enough the idiot. “You don’t eat?”
Behind her, silence. She clenched her fingers on the handle of the cooler.
Then he chuckled. Faint, rusty, yes…but she’d heard it.
When she faced him, chagrin not derision greeted her.
He rubbed one hand on the back of his neck. “I wouldn’t blame you,” he said, nodding toward her white-knuckled grip. “Look—I’m not much good with women.” He shook his head. “Not that great with people in general.”
“Huh. Coulda fooled me.”
His head jerked up, a retort forming.
She found a smile.
His answering one was rueful. “My brothers got all the charm in the family. Lily’s a spitfire, and I always had…never mind.”
Not hard to complete his sentence. “Charlotte must have been amazing.”
“She was.” Those gorgeous eyes sharpened on her. “I’m supposed to get over her. Put her behind me.”
“You will when you’re ready.”
He stiffened. “I’ll never forget her.”
“I didn’t say you should. I’d like to think that if anyone ever loved me that way, he’d always keep a part of me within him.”
“I don’t have the right,” she thought he murmured, gazing off into the distance.
“Why not?”
He didn’t answer, his concentration elsewhere.
Jezebel pressed her lips together and waited. The day’s heat bore down; her shirt stuck to her back. In the still air, she heard the buzzing of bees, a bird’s warble. She closed her eyes and found herself, for once, caught in a moment where she could simply…breathe. Despite the presence of a man she found both attractive and maddening, beyond the grasp of all her worries, Jezebel felt an overwhelming sense of peace.
“She used to say that this was as close to heaven as she could imagine.”
Jezebel’s eyes popped open, to see his unguarded. “It’s incredibly beautiful. How did you find it?”
“My folks hoped to build a house here one day, but Dad died before they got the chance. My mom couldn’t keep up the payments with four kids to raise, so she had to sell. It came on the market when I was in college, waiting for Charlotte to graduate high school. I already knew I wasn’t going to finish. I went away the first year as part of a bargain I made with Mom. She said that if what Charlotte and I had was the real thing, it would survive my absence.”
“Obviously, it did.”
He smiled ruefully. “Absence is too strong a word. I was home every weekend, and we were on the phone each night we were apart.”
Jezebel laughed.
“Anyway, I decided when this place became available that I had a better use for the money I’d saved for college. I offered it as a down payment for Mom first, since it had been her and Dad’s dream, but she said she couldn’t bear to leave the last place she’d lived in with him.”
“Your family is so amazing.” Jezebel didn’t even attempt to keep the envy from her voice. “I would have given anything for that kind of devotion.”
“Where’s your family?”
“I don’t have one.” She jutted her jaw, daring him to delve deeper.
“I’m sorry hear that.” His eyebrows rose, and he surprised her. “But I think you’re wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re as devoted to Skeeter as any granddaughter could be. Darrell has appointed himself your big brother.” His grin was rueful. “I can’t decide if Louie and Chappy are the crazy uncles most people hide in the closet or a couple of overage bickering siblings.”
She had to laugh, even as she marveled at how right he was. And unbent a little. “I grew up in foster homes, and I always swore that one day I’d have a real house, with a white picket fence and babies and puppies and kittens.”
He grimaced. “And I’m standing in the way of that.”
“It’s okay, Micah.” She clasped his arm, and felt a visceral thrill. Quickly, she withdrew. “I can’t imagine how I’d react, in your shoes.”
He stared at her for a moment in which she had the sense that he’d experienced the shock, too. His gaze honed in on her with a flicker of hunger. One hand lifted as if he might touch her, and longing rose within her for him to do exactly that. Touch me, Micah. Let me touch you.
She closed her eyes against the temptation, and as soft as the caress of a summer morning breeze, his fingers brushed her hair. Trailed down the braid from which curls were already escaping. Drifted over the swell of her breast and electrified her every nerve ending. A small sigh escaped her.
The contact abruptly ceased. She braved a glimpse of his features, though she wasn’t sure she
wanted to know.
Heat, fading rapidly into confusion. Tumult.
He stepped away. “I have work to do.”
It isn’t wrong for you to live, she yearned to tell him, but didn’t. He was like an animal that had been whipped, too spooked for easy trust.
So she put the cooler down. “I have gloves in the car,” she said as neutrally as she could manage. “Shall I begin on the roses? I read up on pruning them last night. It’s nearly too late, but it can still be done.”
“Why would you—” He clamped his mouth shut.
“The sooner you’re finished, the quicker you can leave Three Pines,” she reminded him. “And I’m not assuming anything about what will happen then.”
“I don’t understand you.” He didn’t wait for an explanation, though, and started down the steps.
Me, either, she thought.
Her hair was thick and silken, a mass of waves straining to break from their bonds. Micah clenched his hand against the feel of it, so alive and beckoning. Set me loose. Free me.
The call was repeated inside his chest, echoed in his head, a lure he had to ignore, just as he had to disregard everything else about Jezebel Hart that enticed him.
If he’d been in New York, he could have made her one in a string of forgettable encounters, a simple satisfying of a body’s needs in a vain attempt to soothe a restless heart that was weary and sick to death of the constant struggle.
But he wasn’t in New York. Their paths would cross again and again in this tiny town.
And he’d already made a futile effort to put her out of his mind.
Their night together rushed back in, so vivid that he stumbled as he neared the tangle of vines he’d been trimming when she’d arrived. The protective barriers he’d erected crumbled, and he was suddenly right back there with her, lost in the curvaceous body, the generous heart, the teasing eyes that transformed a search for escape from relentless grief into an oasis where he found not only succor for his body but passion and…fun. He’d forgotten about fun. Couldn’t recall the last time he’d laughed before a maddening, too-friendly, too-sexy siren had charged into his misery with an invitation and a dare.
Those stolen moments with her had been etched on his brain like acid, and each time he’d seen her, she’d refused to become ordinary. Invisible.
Worse even than her powerful allure was the crime he’d tried hardest to erase: she’d cradled his head to her bosom and given him ease. Shoved the endless loneliness away.
Sure, he wanted to crawl right back between her thighs and find out if he’d imagined the glory of her, but even worse, he hungered for that respite, that blessed sense of peace. Of hope that, one day, grief would let him be.
That was Jezebel’s unforgivable sin, and the reason he had to get the hell out of Dodge as soon as possible. Before he could falter again.
He had to resist her. Her sin counted as nothing against his own.
Ruthlessly, he hacked at the vines he’d ripped from the tangle, discovering for himself how they were eating away at the once-white picket fence.
I always swore that one day I’d have a real house, with a white picket fence and babies and puppies and kittens.
If any utterance had the power to send him running, that one was it. What an irony that a woman who appeared more suited to a seraglio would have a craving to be June Cleaver.
He was done with that life, that dream.
In that instant, he realized that all he had to do was allow Jezebel to have the cottage, and she’d handle everything, fix it all up. He’d never have to come back to this place. Wouldn’t have his heart battered by the memory of his failings.
He went stock-still and scanned his surroundings. Sought to steel himself against what this homestead meant to him, how much of himself he’d invested in every square inch of earth.
But the roots of a dead love bound him here still, and he would have to sever them as he’d sliced at these vines. The idea nearly brought him to his knees.
Then his gaze landed on Jezebel, clasping a rose cane, her head cocked to one side and, he could swear, her mouth moving as if she were talking to the bush. With a slight gnawing of her lower lip, she made the cut and gingerly laid the cane on the ground instead of dropping it.
Again she repeated the sequence, appearing to be hurt by each cut and murmuring thanks when she finished.
The gesture should have been ludicrous, but it was oddly moving. If ever he required proof of how she would cherish this place that held pieces of his soul, he had it now.
Maybe he couldn’t yet sunder his attachment to his home, but he could begin the process. He crossed halfway toward where Jezebel stood but couldn’t manage the rest.
He spoke in a rush before he could change his mind.
“I’ll let you have the cottage.”
She froze. Slowly, she faced him, her eyes huge and equal parts fear and hope. “You’ll sell it to me?”
“Rent it.” He couldn’t do more just now. “That’s all I can promise.”
Her smile was a summer’s sun, every bit as blinding. “Oh, Micah, I promise you I’ll be a good steward of it. You’ll never have to worry a second.” She began a little jig, then faltered. “Are you sure this is okay for you? I couldn’t bear it if my happiness caused you more pain.”
He wasn’t, but her joy made him want to keep that smile shining. “I’m fine.”
She beamed and hugged him hard, then bestowed a kiss to what should have been his cheek.
But it landed at the edge of his mouth.
Both of them jolted at the hammer-blow of memory.
He stilled, and their lips were only a breath apart, her eyes wide and uncertain.
His chest was tight, everything in him suspended.
But so aware of her. Of how she lightened his heart. Her kindness, her giving.
Close, so close she was, that sense of hope, of sunshine and laughter, of strength and resilience when he was held together with the faintest of threads.
Too much in her called to him. He narrowed the gap and brushed his lips over hers, soaking up the life in her, the warmth he so sorely needed.
As their lips met in a kiss more chaste than seductive, he began to register her lush body against his, the lure of her bright spirit reaching inside him. He tightened his arms around her back, seeking. Settled her along the length of him.
Felt the urge to groan at how good she felt.
She leaned into him, gave one tiny, breathy moan—
He took her mouth then as he’d wanted to a hundred times since they’d made love, those wide, delicious lips that had the power to dissolve all rational thought. He yielded the fight to resist her, just for a minute.
Just one, then he’d—
But one became two, and her hands slipped into his hair. Against his chest, the abundant softness of her breasts. One arm encircled her waist and that hand slid down her curvaceous hips, pressing her into him.
He did groan, then, and angled his head to go deeper into the silken warmth of her mouth, while he wrapped her braid round and round his other wrist to anchor her in place.
And all the while, inside him was an ocean’s roaring, waves crashing against the stones of his heart and drowning out the sounds of anything beyond the stunning demand to have this woman. He gripped her harder, and she responded with a passion that almost obscured everything else.
But in the tiny pause between one wave and the next, his conscience began to whisper.
Until finally, he heard it.
He broke away with a gasp. What was he doing, all but devouring Jezebel right here, at Charlotte’s house? “No.” He backed off. “I can’t.”
Her eyes were huge and dark with passion, and she blinked as if emerging from a spell. “Wha—”
He looked around himself for answers. “Not here. Not where—” He wheeled to escape what he’d done.
She caught his hand, and when he tried to shake her off, she only clasped tighter, pulling him to fac
e her. “Sh-h, it’s okay. I understand.”
“Let me go,” he said, as if he did not possess the greater strength by far.
“Come with me,” she entreated, drawing him slowly but firmly into the shade of a stately oak, murmuring a steady stream of soothing sounds, all of them words he couldn’t hear for the tumult inside his mind. “It’s okay, Micah.”
“You don’t get it.” Misery made his voice savage. “I want you to go.”
“I will, but not like this. Just sit with me a second.” She tugged at him with the clear expectation that he could do nothing to refuse her.
He gathered his wits and yanked his hand from hers. “No. Get the hell away.”
“Micah.” It was the voice that could quiet a rowdy bar, not loud, but calmly insistent on his attention. “I’m not going to leave you believing you’ve done something wrong.”
He stared at her. “You don’t have a clue what I’m thinking.”
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “We’re attracted to each other, powerfully so. It’s not criminal.” She glanced up from where she sat on the grass. “And it doesn’t have to be serious. You still eat, don’t you?”
“What?”
“You eat food. You drink water. You even have a beer. You walk in the sunshine. Talk to other people. Charlotte can’t do any of those things. Do you stop all of them?”
Fury blinded him. “Don’t speak her name.”
Spots of color flared in her cheeks, but she rose to stand and pressed on. “I know I’m not her, and I’m definitely no saint. Feel free to keep reminding me of that, just in case I ever manage to forget.” Her voice took on a bitter cast, and he realized that he’d never heard that tone from her.
Hands on hips, she stood inches away from him. “You’re a male in his prime, and your body requires more than mere food and water. You were once totally alive—” She flung out a hand. “As this place clearly demonstrates.” Then she pinned him with her own anger. “The crime is to stop living, to rob the people around you of the man who could create this beauty, who could live life so richly. I don’t have to know Charlotte personally to understand that she’d be the first to tell you to climb out of that grave that’s not big enough for both of you.”
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