Echoes of the Heart

by Casey, L. A.

  “I can’t wait for spring,” I said as we walked, slipping my ice-cold hands into my pockets. “I’m so fed up with the cold.”

  “Really? I don’t mind it.”

  I glanced up at him. “You live in LA; the winters there are pretty much our summers.”

  Risk smiled, then he fixed his scarf in place, hiding most of his face from me. I wished I had brought a scarf of my own because my nose was so cold that it stung. I was confident that I already had wind burn on my cheeks too.

  “God, I’ve missed that smell.” Risk inhaled deeply and exhaled with a satisfied sigh. “Cool, salty air and no humidity.”

  I chuckled. “I guess I don’t notice the smell anymore since I’ve never left.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” Risk said. “Have you never gone on holiday anywhere?”

  “Nope,” I answered. “For lots of reasons. The main one is my mum, I was never comfortable with leaving her even in the early days of her illness. Another is money, I had to save every penny so I could buy my cottage off Michael upfront without needing to apply for a mortgage.”

  Risk jerked his head in my direction.

  “You own the cottage?”

  “Yeah.” I shivered as a breeze swirled around us. “I bought it two years ago. Michael wanted to just give it to me, can you believe that?”

  “Well, yeah, I can,” Risk replied. “You and him are very close now compared to what I remember of you both.”

  “We are,” I agreed. “But I wasn’t about to let him just give me a four-hundred-thousand-pound cottage. It’s tiny but the location is what makes the property value so high. Michael wouldn’t take a penny over fifty thousand, though. I tried to work out a deal to triple it, but he refused.”

  “Why did you fight him so hard on it?”

  “It’s just the way I am,” I shrugged. “I’ve always had to work for what I had and even though it’s not much, I earned it. I guess I felt like I was robbing Michael if I just accepted the cottage from him. Paying him, even though it was such a small fee compared to the house’s value, made me feel better. Like it was well and truly mine.”

  “So that little place is all yours?”

  “Yep,” I smiled. “I love it more than ever.”

  “I think you should invest in getting taller door-frames,” Risk commented, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It’d be nice not to have to duck every time I came by your place.”

  Was he planning on coming by often? I was too chicken to ask.

  I snickered. “I’ll add it to my to-do list.”

  We walked down to the very end of the pier and we both leaned against the railing and stared out at the ocean of darkness. In the distance, the lights of a ship could be seen, as well the flashing red light of a buoy. A wisp of light coated the waterfront for a second or two before disappearing only to return. I glanced over my shoulder and smiled at the lighthouse before I returned my attention forward.

  “You always smile when you look up at the lighthouse. Why?”

  “Because it’s operational,” I glanced up at Risk. “When the light of the lighthouse is working every night, it makes me happy because if someone gets lost out on this side of the ocean, they can follow our light all the way to Southwold where they’d be safe. That light is a beacon to someone’s darkness.”

  “If everyone thought like you did, Cherry,” Risk nudged me with his elbow. “There would be fewer wars.”

  I smiled, then I closed my eyes and hummed with content. Listening to the gentle clash of the waves on the beach not far away, and the slosh of the water against the support legs of the pier gave me a sense of peace that filled me from my head all the way down to my toes.

  “It’s so easy to forget the world when you’re out here,” I opened my eyes. “It feels like I’m in another world when I’m here at night, kind of like being free . . . you know?”

  When I looked up at Risk, his body was turned so his hip and arm rested against the railing but instead of gazing out at the blanket of black water, he was watching me. There was something in his eyes that made my heart skip a beat and caused my throat to run dry.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Because I wanna kiss you.”

  I jolted as if I was electrocuted by the force of his words.

  “What?”

  My voice was a hair above a whisper and even to my own ears it was filled with disbelief. Risk didn’t reply to me, he just continued to gaze at me as if he wanted to take me in his arms and kiss me until my knees threatened to buckle.

  “Risk.”

  “Don’t you wanna kiss me?” he asked. Christ, he looked and sounded so vulnerable when he asked me that question. “Because I really wanna kiss you, Cherry. So fucking much. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  I heard his words as if he screamed each one.

  “Don’t do this to me,” I trembled. “Don’t tease me like this.”

  “Tease you?” he repeated. “I’m a second away from begging you to let me taste you again.”

  He stepped closer to me, so close that I had to reach out and grab his forearms just so I would have something to hold on to.

  “Risk,” I swallowed. “I don’t think this is a good idea. We’re supposed to be friends—”

  “Yes or no,” he interrupted, his eyes searching mine. “Just say one of those words. That’s all you have to do, Frankie.”

  My mind was screaming to tell him no. To holler that no good would come from us kissing, but my heart and body were demanding I say yes. For years I had dreamed of what it would be like to kiss him again, to taste his lips, to feel them against mine. To be wrapped in his strong embrace and have his touch and smell invade my senses once more. My heart beating against my chest was the only sound I could hear for a moment, until I replied to his question and surprised both of us with my answer.

  “Yes.”

  Risk didn’t need another word, he dipped his head and covered his mouth with mine the second I gave him the green light to do so. His arms went around my body as quick as a flash and suddenly I was hoisted up into the air then my behind rested against the railing around the pier. I didn’t have time to gasp with surprise. My hands instinctively went to his hair and the second his tongue pushed inside of my mouth, I moaned so loudly that he squeezed my hips painfully in response. He was between my parted thighs and through his jeans I could feel his hardened length snugly pressed against my heat.

  I was so overwhelmed with his touch, his very presence, that I felt tears slip from my eyes and slide down my cheeks. Risk moved his mouth from my lips and he kissed away my tears without a word spoken. He was frantic with his movements, but gentle at the same time. It was like he felt what I felt, disbelief that we were together in this capacity again, but overjoyed at the same time. It was a bundle of emotions to sort through, but I didn’t want to focus on how I was feeling. I just wanted to kiss Risk, and focus on his touch, so that was what I did.

  Time was lost.

  I could have been kissing Risk for ten minutes or ten hours. It didn’t matter. All I knew was by the time our kiss came to a gradual halt, I wanted it to start all over again and never end. My hands had dropped to Risk’s shoulders, where I gripped his coat tightly in my clenched fists. I was breathing heavily, so heavily, my chest was tight too. When I opened my eyes and found Risk holding a blue inhaler close to my mouth I parted my swollen, tingling lips and breathed in the medicine he puffed. If I was thinking rationally, I would have been mortified that kissing Risk had me on the verge of an asthma attack. After a few minutes, and a couple more puffs of the inhaler, the tightness in my chest faded and my breathing evened out.

  “Look at me, gorgeous.”

  When I lifted my lids and stared into Risk’s icy-blue eyes, I swallowed.

  “Kissing you almost gave me an attack.”

  He moved his face back to mine and slid his tongue over my lower lip.

  “Yeah?” he rumbled. “Imagi
ne what having sex with me will do to you.”

  I shuddered and couldn’t help but imagine our naked bodies moving together as one.

  “Have mercy,” I swatted his chest. “You’ll bloody kill me.”

  Risk’s smile made my pulse spike.

  “You good?” he asked. “I don’t hear the wheezing anymore.”

  I nodded. “I’m good . . . I didn’t even realise an attack was incoming.”

  “I’m a good distraction from bad things,” he winked. “Trust me.”

  I looked down as he capped the inhaler and tucked it into his pocket.

  “Is that not mine?”

  I figured he took it from my pocket when my eyes were closed.

  “No,” he answered. “I got this one before I went to London this morning . . . I always carried one when we were together. I feel safer having it.”

  I stared at him, and how I felt for him couldn’t be described as anything other than raw love. I loved him. I loved him so desperately and I couldn’t even tell him.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?” He nudged my head with his.

  “For thinking of me,” I said, lowering my eyes to the buttons of his coat. I began to play with them. “You don’t have to carry an inhaler for me, Risk, but you still do . . . after all of this time.”

  “Hey. Look at me.”

  I lifted my eyes to his.

  “Nine years have passed by, but right here with you, it feels like we’ve lost no time at all.”

  Butterflies fluttered around my tummy.

  “What are we doing?” I asked. “Are we going crazy? Kissing each other like we just did?”

  “If kissing you is crazy, Cherry, I don’t ever wanna be sane.”

  I smiled. “Me either.”

  He lifted his hand and brushed his knuckle over my cheek.

  “We’re complicated,” he murmured. “God knows we are, but can’t we just kiss when we wanna kiss? Being denied your touch, your taste . . . I’d have to go to rehab for the rest of my life to cope, Frankie. I can’t stay sober when it comes to you. I always want you.”

  “I feel the same way about you.”

  He leaned down and brushed his lips over mine.

  “You wanna come back to May’s house with me?”

  I felt my eyes widen and Risk instantly chuckled.

  “Not to do anything like that,” he assured me. “The guys have been hassling me to bring you by, and by ‘the guys’ I mean May, and by ‘hassling’, I mean he has been nagging me half to death so he can see you. Please, put me out of my misery.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand as I tittered.

  “Okay, rock star.” I grinned as I lowered my arm. “Take me to see Blood Oath.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  FRANKIE

  “As I live and breathe, Frankie Fulton is in my front garden. O.M.Fucking.G!”

  The teasing words had barely left May’s mouth before I set out in a run towards him which caused Risk to say, “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” from behind me.

  May caught me when I jumped at him and he just about squeezed the life out of me. He even gave me three kisses on the cheek that made me laugh like a little schoolgirl. A throat was cleared behind us, making May snicker and give me another peck on the cheek. A big one.

  “Great to see you, gorgeous.”

  “May, give it a rest.”

  I ignored Risk and so did May.

  “It’s good to see you too, May.” I smiled up at him. “I think you’ve gotten even more handsome since I last saw you.”

  He bobbed his head in wholehearted agreement.

  “I’ve gotten one hundred per cent more handsome, sexy and everything in-between these past nine years. In case you didn’t know, I’m a sex symbol now.”

  “I was voted People’s Sexiest Man Alive last year and three years ago,” Risk interrupted. “Not you.”

  “I can’t have anything with you,” May hissed at Risk. “Bastard.”

  Their bickering amused me greatly.

  “Still modest as ever, I see, Mr May.”

  He winked, looked over my head and devilishly grinned as he leaned down to kiss my face again, but he suddenly jumped backwards, laughing. The two men walking up behind him shoved May when he bumped into them. One man was someone I once knew well.

  “Hayes!”

  Without a word, he advanced on me and wrapped me up in a bear hug. He kissed the crown of my head which just about melted me. Hayes was always a fantastic hugger and it seemed that that hadn’t changed a bit over the years.

  “Congratulations, Mr Married Man.” I squeezed him. “I’m so happy for you, honey.”

  He gave me another kiss on the head.

  “Thanks, short stuff.” He chuckled as we separated. “I thought my wife was small, but I forgot that you’re a walking hobbit.”

  I playfully thumped him in the stomach as the others stopped chuckling and took a step back.

  “I’m small,” I eyed him. “But always dangerous, you’d best remember that.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of forgetting it, Frank.”

  When I turned my attention to the person chuckling on the right of Hayes, I straightened.

  “Angel,” I held out my hand. “Lovely to officially meet you. If you don’t mind, I’m not counting that night in the diner.”

  “I don’t blame you.” He grinned, taking my hand and surprising me by raising it to his face and gently kissing the back of it. “It’s nice to meet you too, muse.”

  I frowned. “Muse? I don’t understand—”

  “He’s takin’ the piss,” Risk interrupted. “Angel here is still a little jet-lagged. Aren’t you . . . mate?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Angel smiled at me. “Just tired, is all.”

  “Well, that’s nothing a cuppa and good night’s sleep won’t fix.”

  Angel winked. “Noted.”

  We never got a chance to go inside May’s house to have any tea because he announced that he was hungry and the obvious choice, to me, for good food, was Mary Well’s but Risk disagreed.

  “You were working there all day, you aren’t going back there for dinner.”

  I understood his logic, no one wanted to go to their place of work when they didn’t have a shift to work, but I loved Mary Well’s. It was a hard job and on most days it was exhausting, but I loved it. I loved the atmosphere, and for the most part there was no drama between co-workers and working for Joe was honestly a pleasure. In many ways, we were kind of like a family.

  “It’s after nine, Mary Well’s is the only place open that does a good burger. Those fancy restaurants in the hotels aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”

  Risk hesitated. “You’re sure?”

  “Of course.”

  With that said, we all piled into the SUV and Risk drove us five minutes away to Mary Well’s. The guys were talking amongst themselves about how the paparazzi that had been staking out May’s house had gotten into trouble with the police. They had been parking on a residential street and loitering, which was uncomfortable and disruptive for the residents so the police were called. They were talking about how it wouldn’t keep them away, but for the time being, they had a little peace.

  Once that conversation ended, May turned to me and told me a bunch of funny encounters he’d had over the years with some of the crazier Sinners. I was cracked up in the back seat the entire time and I was so happy when he asked me to get in a selfie with him because I didn’t have any pictures of us together as adults.

  He put his arm around my shoulder, mashed our faces together, and we beamed like two fools.

  “Don’t post that.”

  We both looked at Risk who was glancing at us through the rearview mirror.

  “Why not?” May questioned, sounding a little annoyed. “We’re just smiling, main man.”

  “It’s not about the picture, it’s about what the crazy Sinners will think of you posting a picture with a woman. That shit will spread online like
wildfire and she’s not getting a spotlight placed on her for it.”

  I didn’t think of that.

  May slumped next to me. “Yeah, you’re right.” He looked at me. “I’m keeping the picture though, I like it.”

  I chuckled. “Send it to me, I like it too.”

  “What’s your number?”

  Before I had a chance to say a word, Risk recited my number perfectly. I said nothing as May tapped on his screen and sent the picture my way. I checked my phone, opened the message May sent and smiled at the picture, then saved it to my phone.

  “I’m going to get it printed and put it in a frame.”

  “You’re cute,” May chuckled. “Save my number, we’re not losing touch now that you and main man are speaking again.”

  I happily did as he asked. When we pulled up to Mary Well’s I hung back as the guys climbed out of the car. Risk came around to the open door and looked in at me.

  “Everything okay?”

  I tilted my head. “How did you know my number?”

  “Frankie,” he snorted. “I knew it by heart, it’s just stuck in my head.”

  “How did you know I still used that number though?” I quizzed. “It’s been nine years, I could have changed it.”

  Risk lost his smile. “Lucky guess.”

  I wasn’t buying it and he knew it.

  “Risk.”

  He shifted.

  “I’ve called you a few times over the years,” he lifted a hand to his hair and ruffled it. “When I wanted to hear your voice, I’d call you then when you answered . . . I could never make myself speak so I hung up. I didn’t do it a lot, just a few times. I swear.”

  My heart just about stopped.

  “You missed me?”

  Risk’s eyes found mine. “Of course I missed you, Frankie.”

  “I missed you too.”

  His shoulders lost some of their tension.

  “Stop dawdling! You both coming or what?”

  “Yeah,” Risk said over his shoulder to Hayes. “We’re coming.”

  I hopped out of the car, Risk locked it up and the five of us strolled into a pretty empty Mary Well’s, which wasn’t all that surprising seeing that it was half nine at night and a weekday. Kids usually came in for late-night dinners more on the weekends and during the summer. Three booths were filled and they were all older couples. Anna Porter, Hannah’s twin sister, and Deena were on shift. Deena was busy cleaning tables but the second Anna saw the guys, she nearly dropped dead on the spot. I had to jump out of the way to avoid being shoved aside by her.