Signs of Life
Page 11
A knock at the door pulled her from her musings. It had only been fifteen minutes since she’d called for the pizza, but Seagull was such a small town— more of a village, really— that it only took Bryce, the delivery boy, a few minutes to walk it down Main Street, hang a right on Driftwood Lane, and up that long flagstone walk to the door.
Corinne’s hand was on the doorknob when she heard a dog bark. That was odd; none of her neighbors had dogs; the family up the street had a Schnauzer but it was a yappy little thing, unable to produce the deep-chested woof she’d heard.
Was she going crazy, or did it sound weirdly familiar?
She swung open the door and found— Wyatt standing there, Leo at his side, an uncharacteristically nervous smile on his handsome face. Mr. Goodwin’s ancient pickup truck rattled down the lane, the wheezing of its muffler fading as they rode away.
Corinne gaped.
Wyatt smiled some more.
Corinne kept gaping.
Wyatt’s smile began to fade.
Leo whined and pawed at Corinne’s knee.
“Corinne?” said Wyatt, now beginning to look concerned. “Is it— bad that I’m here?”
“No!” burst from her mouth. She reached for him, or maybe he reached for her, but the end result was that they were in each other’s arms and kissing like it would save their lives.
“Corinne Wade!” scolded Mrs. Roebling from next door. “On your front porch, in front of God and everyone!”
Corinne jerked back, her mouth tingling from the force of Wyatt’s lips. “Sorry!” she yelped, and with a handful of Wyatt’s coat, pulled him inside.
Leo darted in between their legs and immediately began to sniff all the amazing new aromas. Corinne just dragged Wyatt in for another kiss, and they spent a few very fine moments exploring each other as if they’d been parted for years instead of mere days.
“Okay,” Corinne panted when they finally pulled away. “It’s good that you’re here. Very good. And I’m not complaining. But… why?”
“My brother is a massive pain, but he made me realize what a selfish ass I was being.” His eyes were brilliantly green as they roamed over every feature of her homely face, and he was smiling as if he were gazing upon something priceless and beautiful. “I have no right to make you leave everything behind to be with me.”
“You aren’t making me,” she protested. “You’re— you’re worth it, Wyatt. I’m happy to do it, if it means being with you.”
His smile could have rivaled the sun, in that moment. “I know. That’s why you deserve better.”
He dropped a suitcase, which Corinne hadn’t even known he was carrying and which she only just realized he had continued to hold.
“So, if you want me, too— if you don’t mind— I’ll come here to live with you, instead. We will,” he corrected, looking over at where Leo was making himself at home in Corinne’s father’s old wing chair, somehow having shoehorned his bulk into it he grinned a big doggy grin at them before burying his nose in his fluffy tail and closing his eyes. “If you don’t mind,” Wyatt repeated in conclusion.
“Of course I don’t mind,” she murmured, reaching for him once again, this time only kissing him briefly before engulfing him in a hug, her cheek pressed to his. Her mind whirled with what it meant; she didn’t have to leave all her beloved, familiar people and places. She could share them with Wyatt, in fact, which was something she hadn’t permitted herself to even dream of, for fear of the longing for it being more than she could bear. “But on one condition.”
“Name it,” he said instantly. “Whatever you want.”
“We have to go back to the cabin often,” Corinne told him. “For Christmas, in the summer… all the time. I love it there. It’s where we found each other.”
She pulled back to look into his face; he was happy, even joyful, and because of her.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he told her, and kissed her again, so passionately that they were startled into jerking away from each other when there was a knock at the door.
“That’ll be Bryce,” Corinne said thickly, her mind hazy with desire. It had only been a few days since they’d last made love but her need for him burned just as strongly as ever. His was no less fervent, if the lusty way he was gazing at her were any indication. “With the pizza.”
“Pizza?” If possible, his face went from joyful to radiant. Maybe he was beginning to see the benefits of not living on a mountain an hour away from everything. “I get to have you and pizza?”
“We’re a full-service island,” she said with a laugh as she headed for the door. It only took a minute to take the box and hand Bryce the money, and the second the door closed again, Wyatt grabbed the food and put it on the nearest horizontal surface, which ended up being the sofa.
Then he tugged her back into his embrace, reluctant to be parted from her for even a moment.
“Love and pizza,” Wyatt whispered as he peppered her cheek and throat with kisses. “Seagull Island has it all.”
Thank you for reading & reviewing!
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About the Author
Sloane Reynard has been writing for over thirty years, but it's only now that she has decided to publish her work to the world instead of saving it for a select few.
When she's not working, Sloane is playing with her cats, Fiona and Jasper, cooking (she likes baking and is the queen of buttercream frosting), and puttering around her little cottage in the woods.
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