“Your mother’s food is irresistible.” She acknowledged with a grin, and preceded me through the back door into the kitchen as I held it open.
“So, I have my mother to thank for my good company tonight. I accept that. Her chocolate chip cookies have won prizes.”
She leaned back, hips against the counter, looking adorable in my flannel shirt. “I know! That used to piss my momma off so much! All we would hear about after the judging was her ranting about your mother and how she always won first place in the cookie category. Gah! She would get so mad. She’d be in a horrible mood for weeks.” She let out a wistful sigh. “I wish I’d known you when we were kids, like my sisters did.”
“I’m four years older. We probably wouldn’t have run in the same circles.” I grabbed the milk and measured it into a pan to heat.
“You’re probably right. It was just a silly thought. I’m stuck in wishful thinking…”
I set the whisk on the counter. This required my full attention. “What else are you wishing for?”
Her eyes darted to the side as she bit her lip. “That I’d never met Tommy. That I had met you instead.” Her hands gripped her elbows as she hugged herself and studied the floor. With my flannel shirt wrapped around her body, it was almost like an extension of me. But it wasn’t good enough. With a soft slide, I ran my hands up her arms to her shoulders and pulled her into my chest. Her soft cheek pressed against my collarbone as she sighed against me, relaxing into my body.
“I wish that too.” My whispered words rustled the loose curls on the top of her head before I placed a kiss there. But unlike Tommy, I wouldn’t have taken advantage of an innocent, heartbroken young girl, no matter how beautiful and grown up she appeared to be. Rumors about her mother’s harsh ways had been floating around Green Valley for years. But the front she put on in her business—as an earthy, wholesome, mother-earth farmer—kept them as merely rumors instead of fact. The more I gleaned of Willa’s past, the more I believed the rumors about her mother were true. It explained so much about her. She had gone from her mother to Tommy, to alone, wandering aimlessly. She was lost. “Everything will be okay. I promise,” I soothed as I pulled her tighter against me.
Her nod was slight as she leaned away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be sorry for having feelings, Willard.” My smile was soft as I cupped her cheek to brush away an errant tear that she had not managed to hold back.
With a glance at the ceiling she laughed almost artificially then shook her head as if to shake her emotions away. “Okay, don’t let the milk scald. I want to taste your famous hot chocolate,” she teased. Her small smile was tremulous.
“Sure thing, sweetness.” I winked, and to my satisfaction, she blushed. “Grab the cookies from the pantry,” I instructed as I stirred the milk with the whisk.
“Yes sir.” She saluted. A real smile crossed her face this time, bright and beautiful. “And where are the marshmallows?”
“In the fridge.” I added the cocoa and sugar mixture along with a splash of vanilla to the milk and watched her bustle around my kitchen, gathering mugs and a plate for the cookies. Seeing her so comfortable here made my thoughts run out of control. I wanted her safe, happy, in my home, with me. Mine. My heart was a wild thing in my chest and my eyes grew hot with emotion. She was so close, within my grasp, but I didn’t have her, not the way I needed her. Not yet. “Firefly marathon?”
“Of course.” Her smile was quick and easy as she piled marshmallows and cookies on the plate.
“After you, Willard.” My head tilted toward the living room as I gathered our filled mugs and some napkins.
After placing our sweet bounty on the coffee table, I dug out the remote and started the show. “We left off on episode twelve, right?”
“Yeah, ‘The Message.’ This is a good one.”
“You say that as if they’re not all masterpieces,” I chided.
“Whatever was I thinking?” With a bump of her shoulder to mine, she settled against me on the couch to watch. Almost an hour went by in affable silence while we lingered over our mugs of hot chocolate and snacked on the cookies. My arm slipped around her shoulders and she cuddled into my side. We sank into each other, relaxed and comfortable as the next episode started up on the DVD.
“This is one of the three episodes that never aired when Firefly was originally broadcast, episode thirteen,” I murmured.
“I know, I haven’t seen it in years. ‘Heart of Gold’…” she breathed as she stiffened against me.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, fine. It’s been a day, you know?” Her false smile had returned but I had no idea what put it there. I passed her another cookie then settled back in the couch to watch the show—and to keep an eye on her too. She nibbled at the cookie and only half paid attention as the episode began. During the last episode and our previous Firefly marathon, she’d been all in…
My eyes narrowed on the screen as the crew of The Serenity arrived to help an old friend after the town bully threatened to take the baby away from the prostitute he had impregnated.
Abruptly, Willa stood up and stalked to the window. With a sweep of the drapes, she stared outside. “Let’s watch a different one.”
“Okay. Is something wrong? Do you need to talk?”
“No, I just don’t like this one. I can ask for another episode without talking about it, right?”
“You can do anything you like, sweetheart.”
“Maybe I want to do you.” My flannel shirt slid off her shoulders and hit the floor to pool at her feet as she turned around, leaving her in her tiny Genie’s tank top and skintight jeans. I gulped as she prowled toward me, whipping her tank over her head and tossing it behind herself. With two big steps forward she was at the couch, sinking her knees into the cushions to straddle my lap.
“Willa…” I murmured as her lips covered mine and her fingers sank into my hair. My hands slid across her back and down, gripping her hips then drifting around to squeeze her perfect ass in my palms. I wanted her. I was so ready for her that every other thought flew out of my head.
“I want you to kiss me, Everett. Kiss me hard and make me forget—”
“Look at me,” I ordered. Her eyes sparked with need as she met my gaze. No more looking away from me. “I’ll do anything you ask, sweetheart, give you whatever you need.” The promise was as dark as my hidden fantasies of her. The ones I only let out at night when I was alone. I kept them locked up tight, waiting for a moment like this when I could feel her close to me again and unleash them.
Her fingers tightened in my hair as she pulled my head back, crashing her lips to mine once more. She said she wanted me to kiss her, but this seemed to still be her show. Slanting her mouth over mine, she kissed the breath right out of me. Like a riptide, she caught me, no escape, overwhelmed. Hers. “Everett,” she moaned against my lips, letting her body sink down into mine and covering me with the warmth between her thighs while she arched against me.
Hands at her waist, I shifted her to her back on the couch, yanked my shirt over my head and covered her with my body. “Wait,” she gasped, shoving me gently at my shoulder. I moved back while she reached between her breasts to unclasp her bra before pulling me roughly back with a hand behind my neck until we were pressed tight again. Mouth to mouth we breathed each other in. We were so close I could feel her heart beating against mine.
Her eyes shimmered in the dim lamplight of my living room as the TV sounded in the background. I watched as tears formed on her lashes to flow like a river down her temples and into her hair. “Sweetheart, tell me.” I moved to the side and gathered her trembling body into my arms, her head to my chest.
“I’m so sorry,” she choked on the words as she cried. “We can finish. I know you’re hard, I feel it against me. I didn’t mean to get you all worked up—”
“Stop that right now. You don’t have to—”
“But I practically attacked you and now I’m crying all o
ver you—”
“So what? That doesn’t mean we can’t stop. You don’t have to do anything but know that I’m here for you. To listen to you, to hold you, to do whatever you need me to do.”
“Can you just hold me?” I pulled away enough to see her face, her eyes rounded with a surprised expression that shattered my heart.
“I’ll hold you forever if you’ll let me. And I’ll listen to whatever you have to say,” I hinted.
“Why aren’t you mad at me?” Her whispered question pierced a hole in my soul, while somewhere in the back of my mind a murderous rage built against Tommy Ferris.
“Oh, baby, no. I’m not mad at you. Tell me what has you so upset. Please let me help you.”
“I—I was pregnant.” My arms convulsed at the possible implications of that statement. “That episode made me think of it and I couldn’t get it out of my head. Tommy hated the idea. He wanted me all to himself. He told me to get an abortion. But I wanted my baby, Everett. It’s all I ever wanted. Someone I could just love who would love me back…” Her voice trailed off as she buried her face in my chest.
“What happened?” Softly, I brushed her hair back and tilted her face to mine. I wanted her to see that I meant what I said. “You can tell me anything,” I murmured.
Her chin brushed my chest as she nodded, eyes filled with unshed tears. “Tommy never hit me or hurt me until the end. But he would say terrible things and punch holes in the walls, or throw things, or get into fights in bars, stuff like that. And he always got so mad at me—just like my mother.” The last part trailed off to a whisper and her head dropped to my chest once more. “Once I had my baby to think about, I knew I had to get away from him. I couldn’t let her grow up like I did, and I couldn’t get rid of her. Tommy lost his mind when I told him I was leaving him. He slapped me, shook me by my arms, then threw me to the side. I crashed through our front window—he didn’t mean to do it; he was as shocked as I was, I saw it on his face. Wyatt showed up right as it happened. He called for an ambulance and arrested Tommy.”
“You never told anyone you were pregnant? Not even Wyatt?”
“No. But I told Wyatt I wanted to leave Tommy. He was going to meet me at the house. He wanted to be there just in case. I thought that was silly, that Tommy would never hurt me. Wyatt had talked to me a few times—he knew what kind of person Tommy was, what his temper was like. Wyatt planted the first seeds in my mind that I could leave, that I didn’t deserve the way Tommy spoke to me, and I didn’t have to take it.”
“And the baby?”
“Nobody knows. Tommy doesn’t even know that I didn’t get the abortion. I went to a clinic for prenatal care, the kind where battered women go, so it was all a secret. The window wasn’t high, I didn’t fall far, and I landed on my hands and knees. But the glass cut my arm. I got stitches at the hospital, but I didn’t tell them about the pregnancy. As soon as the doctor finished stitching up my arm, I went to the clinic. Everything looked fine. Her heartbeat was strong, she was moving; she was okay. Then about a week later I started cramping and miscarried. My doctor said it was unlikely the fall caused it, but there was no way to be sure since I was so early in my pregnancy. I was barely four months along, hardly showing at all. I named her Mia. Nobody knows her but me. It’s like she was never even real…”
“Hey, she was real. She was yours and she was real. You knew it when you named her, didn’t you? Mia means mine.”
Tipping her head back, she met my eyes. “Are you for real right now?”
“Yeah, I’m real,” I chuckled in surprise.
“Don’t let me hurt you, Everett. Don’t let me mess this up.”
“Don’t let me go and you won’t,” I pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.
“I think need time. I spent two years driving around in a safe, quiet little bubble with only Wyatt to talk to. I came back to Green Valley. Physically, I’m home. But inside, I’m still running away. It was so quiet on the road. All the noise in my head from Momma and Tommy was gone. I had no one telling me how stupid I was, or pointing out every little mistake I made, or how everything I did was wrong. It was peaceful, you know? I enjoyed the silence and when I didn’t, I filled it with music or a podcast or I would call Wyatt and talk to him. I feel like I need to learn how to be in the world again. And I need to take control of my life without running away. I need to learn how to stand up for myself, and I need to learn how to stay.”
“I’ll give you time. I’ll give you everything. Just don’t let me go.”
“I don’t want to let you go. I want to be with you, Everett. But I want to—I want to be whole.”
“I understand. And I think it’s a great idea. How can I help you?”
“Don’t give up on me?” she whispered.
“Never,” I promised. Her lips parted as she gazed at me. I kissed her, just once, before I pulled her closer and tugged the quilt from the back of the couch to cover us. “We’ll skip this episode, yeah?”
Her chest expanded with a huge sigh before she relaxed against me. “Yeah.”
We kicked off our jeans and shoes to settle in in. Eventually, we fell asleep on the couch, wrapped up in each other until morning.
Chapter Twenty
Willa
“Sometimes the best part of building something new is tearing down what stood in its place.”
Everett Monroe
I sat in Everett’s Bronco, parked at the curb across from Green Valley High school watching Gracie apply layer after layer of black eyeliner until she resembled a raccoon. Or maybe Courtney Love during her Hole days. “Don’t you think that’s enough, Gracie?” I was not an every-day makeup person. I wore lip gloss and sometimes mascara, but only because my eyelashes were blonde. Gracie was on another level. She smirked in the mirror as she applied burgundy lipstick. “I don’t get it,” I finally said.
“I’m not trying to be pretty, Willa.”
“You don’t have to try, you just are.”
Her head tipped to the side, followed by her eyes as she looked at me like I was an idiot. “I can’t believe I have to explain this to you. Jeez. When you look like us, the reputation precedes itself, doesn’t it? Tall, blond, pretty, dumb as a pile of rocks, and probably a slut too. Am I right?”
My eyes shifted to the side. That sounded about right. I nodded to acknowledge her observation. “I guess so. I never really thought about it.”
“So, what does the way I look right now tell you about me?” Her hand waved across her face. “All this eyeliner, boots perfect for stomping, ripped jeans—it says don’t fuck with me. If you grab my ass in the cafeteria, you’ll end up with a broken toe. There will always be guys who don’t take hints, like your ex-husband. Clara used him as an example whenever she lectured me about older guys who like taking advantage of high school girls. Tommy was a predator, Willa. And you need to get that restraining order.”
“Gah! If one more person tells me that—I called my attorney this morning, okay. Everyone was right. I did the thing. I’m going to have a restraining order; it is imminent. Maybe even by the end of the day since my attorney is like a dog with a bone and she hates Tommy as much as I do.”
“Well, that’s good.”
It made me uncomfortable to think of my life this way. Like I had been a victim of something; like Tommy had preyed on me. But it was true. I’d been young and stupid and hurting over so many things, and he’d been there to seduce and distract me for every second of it. “You’re right. Clara is right. Tommy was a bad person. I don’t want you to end up with someone like that. I’ll never go back to him. I want you to know that, Gracie.” I was thankful that I’d had two years away from Tommy before I needed to face the possibility of seeing him again. “And who grabbed your ass in the cafeteria? I’ll go in the school right now and yell at someone. Just point me in a direction.”
“I know you’re not going back to him. But he’s in town, and you need to get strong, Willa. Sometimes you have to let the inside and the outside
match. Want to borrow my lipstick? And don’t worry about the ass-grabber. Clara and Sadie came down here and raised hell. He’s gonna be scarred for life and probably live with his momma forever. They scared the shit out of him. It was hilarious.”
“Good. And you also have me now to come to for help, Gracie. Don’t forget it.” I wiped my soft pink lip balm off with the back of my hand, took the lipstick from Gracie, and used the rearview mirror to apply it. Gracie nodded with approval.
“You look like a bad ass. Let’s change the subject, because I have to get to school. I’ll explain exactly how I do it. Don’t be nervous.”
“Are you sure I won’t get into trouble? It’s not an official job.”
“Look, they don’t care. They make money off the pizza regardless. All you have to do is stay in the car. Only go into the restaurant and get a table when you have an order. I updated my website to add your number. The money goes straight to Pay-Pal—bing, bang, boom, you’re done. It’s easy.” Gracie was instructing me in the ways of opportunistic pizza delivering at Pizza Hut. “It doesn’t matter how early it is either. Weird, right? I once delivered a pizza to Sienna Diaz-Winston at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning. She was pregnant, but still. People want their pizza, and they don’t want to put on their pants to get it. Know what I mean?” I nodded. I felt the same way about pizza and pants.
“Hey, wait a second! You weren’t even sixteen when she had her last baby. How did you deliver pizzas?” I didn’t need to live in Green Valley to know about Sienna Diaz-Winston’s business because she was also Sienna Diaz, movie-star, filmmaker extraordinaire, and the idol of my best friend, Sabrina.
“God, you’re such a newb at life.” With an exasperated sigh, she slammed her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. That was mean. You’ve been under thumbs for a long time, Willa, and I’m glad you’re out. But seriously, I do what I want, and you should too. I’ve been driving since I was fourteen. Uncle Keen showed me how. And don’t tell Momma I’ve been talking to Daddy’s side of the family, okay?” I nodded my agreement. “You’re all about taking control of your life, right? Making that money, paying your attorney, being the boss of you. Don’t let rules stop you from getting what you want. Don’t let anything stop you. And no more running.”
Carpentry and Cocktails: A Heartfelt Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 5) Page 15