by J. P. Grider
“Shut what off?”
“Everything. My brain. My heart. The screaming in my head.”
“What’s it screaming?” she whispered.
Noah shook his head, saying nothing, but he felt the words hammering to get out.
She didn’t push the issue. Didn’t ask him again to tell her what was on his mind.
So, it surprised him when his thoughts broke through. “I think I was wrong about my father.” Noah didn’t recognize the cracking in his voice. He lifted his head, and as Rain lifted hers off his shoulder, he leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees and covering his mouth with his hand. “I think he did love me,” he croaked, an inevitable sob erupting from his stomach. “And I was so mean. So hateful.” He couldn’t stop the breakdown now if he tried. “Oh my God, I hated him. I told him so, too, Rain.” He sat up, and when he looked at her again, he saw those hazel-eyes growing big behind her tears. “I blamed him for my mother dying. Like he had anything to do with her getting cancer. I told him I wanted nothing to do with him, and I wished it were him who died.” He brought a fist to his mouth, and then Lorraine took off her little yellow sweater and handed it to him to wipe his face.
“A tissue would suffice,” he said behind a mirthless laugh. But he took the sweater and held it up to his face and instead of drying his tears, he inhaled and blurted, “I’m not your fucking brother, Rainy. I’m not your stepbrother, I’m not your...whatever the hell you think we are that was keeping us apart before this whole surrogacy thing.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he raised his hand. He was on a roll, and there was no stopping him. “We just spent the last year picking up the pieces our parents’ deaths left us with. We had no fucking idea what the hell we were doing but we did it. You did it. You took care of those two kids in there,” he pointed toward the main house, “and got Carter away from drugs. God, Lorraine, we were falling apart. And maybe I didn't do as much as I could have, or should have, but I tried. I tried to get Norah. I’m trying with Carter. I tried to do the right thing. This was all new to me, but...Jesus, I’m making no sense, but my point is, before I got so mad at you for the whole court thing, we were more like parents to those kids. Parents. And parents aren’t siblings, Rain, they’re husband and wife. A couple. Yeah, we’re family, you and I, but we’re, like, married. So, if you want to qualify our family tie, then qualify it as that. Like we’re a married couple. Because, sweetheart, I’m done pussyfooting around this. I’m done fighting with you. I’m done worrying what everyone else will think of me falling in love with my father’s wife’s daughter.” He choked back another sob and continued. “I’m in fucking love with you, Lorraine. I’ve tried staying away. I’ve tried being so fucking pissed at you, to make it easier to keep my distance, but—” He moved closer to her and twirled a piece of her hair between his fingers. “But I can't. Pissed at you or not, you’re all I think about. All my thoughts are of you. All my dreams. All my goddamn nightmares. All you.” With his fingers wrapped around her silky hair, Noah gently tugged her toward him. Leaning in, he said, “I don't know who this fucking Johnny guy is, but I hope to hell he’s not a new best friend.”
Her eyes wide, her bottom lip tucked under her teeth, she shook her head.
Ignoring the drying tears left on his cheeks, he dried hers with his thumb. “Who is he?”
Once she released her lip, very quietly, she said, “The boy whose baby I lost.”
Noah felt the blood drain from his face. From his limbs. His hand involuntarily dropped from her hair, his other hand, from her face. The boy whose baby she—“Oh my God. I never even thought to ask you about…your miscarriage. I'm sorry.” Noah felt like shit. “All this time...I never...I never asked how you got through that.”
“Oh, no, Noah, it's fine.” She waved her hand and wiped her cheek. “We really never had the opportunity. It's okay. I'm okay with it really. Especially now. Since talking with Johnny. It—” She didn't finish. Her sentence came to a dead stop, and that made Noah wonder why.
“Do you love him?” He couldn’t hold it in; he had to ask. “I mean if you do, I get it. You experienced a huge loss together, and I do, I get it.”
She shook her head. “I don’t love him, Noah. I never did. Seeing him, though...it gave me closure.” Rain looked down and said, “I hadn’t realized I needed it, but—”
Noah lifted her chin with his finger. “But you don’t love him.”
“I don’t love him.”
“I’m not your brother, Rain.”
“You’re not my brother.”
“And I love you. I think I fell in love with you the moment you told us how you busted up your nose.”
Her hand instinctively went to her nose, and she looked horrified. “What?”
“You were standing there, wide-eyed and bloodied, and I thought, ‘Wow, she’s more adorable than I remember,’ and then you opened your mouth and said you’d fallen out of bed. I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, because suddenly...suddenly, I was overwhelmed with this feeling I couldn’t explain. I hated it.”
“Wait. What?”
With a tender hand, Noah skimmed Rain’s bare arm. “For the first time since I walked out of that mental hospital, there was a spark of something in my heart. The same heart I’d boarded up and nailed shut. I wondered, ‘how the hell did that match get inside, and who the fuck lit it?’” Noah skimmed back down Rain’s arm and took her hand. Then, he took her other hand and stood up, bringing Lorraine with him. “I love you, Tinkerbell. And I don’t wanna fight this anymore.” Noah looked at her with pleading eyes, hoping with his whole heart that she’d stop fighting too.
“People are gonna talk,” she said softly.
“I don’t care.”
“What if we don’t work out?”
“I don’t think that’s a possibility.”
“What if my past really does bother you?”
“We’re both broken, Rain. If my past doesn’t bother you, why should your past bother me?”
“And you don’t think it’s weird?”
“I think standing here answering your questions when I’d rather be kissing you is weird.”
She blushed, and he was unable to resist any longer. Noah let go of her hands, slid one arm around her waist, the other around her neck, and with the urgency of a fireman on his way to a burning building, he crashed his lips onto hers and devoured her sweet lips. But instead of extinguishing his hunger for her, it made him crave more of her. He grabbed the hem of her shirt and yanked it up over her head. After he tossed her shirt to the floor, his followed. With nimble fingers and greedy hands, Noah unbuttoned Rain’s jeans, then his own, and with one hand on her waistband, one on his, he jerked both pairs down to the floor, lifted her up, and positioned her legs around his waist. His lips on hers, his hands on her silk-covered ass, he was carrying her to his bed when she drew back and cried, “Wait.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
“Wait? Really?” His voice sounded like a frog’s under water—so raspy and wet.
Lorraine didn't mean to stop the kiss, especially when Noah’s face was still wet from tears and his heart was still so vulnerable, but she couldn't let him make love to her. Not when she still had something to say.
He sat down on his bed but kept her wrapped around him. “Second thoughts?” he asked, pushing back a strand of hair from her face.
“No. None at all. I just—”
She must have paused too long, because Noah jumped in. “Just not tonight?”
She couldn't help but smile. “Just not before I tell you I love you.”
He drew in a breath, and with both hands, he brushed all her hair off her face and exhaled the words, “You love me?” as if he couldn't believe it.
“Of course I do, you dummy. I’ve been in love with you since you let me fall apart in your arms at my mother’s wake.”
“Then what the hell have we been waiting for?”
“Permission?”
“From whom? We’re the
ones who call the shots, Tink. We’re the adults now. After this past shitty year, we’ve earned that right.”
She wiped at the dried streaks on his face. He hadn't shaved in a while, and she liked the way the course hair felt when she touched it. “Can I ask you something?”
“If you really need to.”
Lorraine could tell that he was getting impatient; sitting on his lap, she was able to feel the impatience beneath her. But she asked anyway. “Can you take me to buy a motorcycle tomorrow?”
“A motorcycle. And we need to talk about this now, why?”
“I guess it can wait.”
“Oh, it can wait.” He brought his lips up to hers, and in one movement, lifted and flipped her over onto her back. “It can wait, because I fucking can't.”
THE MORNING AFTER
The sweet essence of coconut and the aromatic scent of sex hit him before he opened his eyes. “Mmmm.”
“Morning,” her soft voice, the first thing he heard upon waking, was music to his ears.
Gold-speckled hazel eyes greeted his. “Morning, Tinkerbell. Sleep well?”
“Better than I have in a long time,” she whispered.
“Me too.” Noah ran his fingers down her bronzed arm. “So what’s this I hear about buying a motorcycle?”
“I wanna buy one,” she said, running her hand down his arm.
“That’s great, but you do know you need a specific license to ride a bike, aaaaaannnnd you need to take a course before you can get one? I never did look for a class for you.”
She bit her lip upon smiling. “Done and done.”
Noah pulled back and sat up. “Whhaat? You went and got yourself a motorcycle license?”
Sitting up next to him, she said, “Yup. Finished the class. Took the road test. I passed. Now I need to get my own bike. I’ve been renting a Harley, but I thought maybe you could come with me to pick one out as my own.”
“You blow my mind, little one. You make everything seem so...tangible. I wanna be like you.”
Rain laughed. “Yeah well, so, will you take me, or do I need to go by myself?”
“Not a chance. I’ll take you.”
“Good.” She got out of bed, picked up her bra and panties, and put them on. “When I get back from my five o’clock class, we’ll go.”
Noah, still naked, followed her into the main room where she put on her jeans and blouse and grabbed her little yellow cardigan. “Uh, they probably don’t open until at least ten. Why don’t you come back here and climb back into bed with me until then?”
“Right. I’ll be all sweaty and—”
“And I think I’ll like that very, very much,” he said, repeatedly raising his eyebrows.
“No. I don’t want my grandmother to know I spent the night here. Hopefully, she didn’t figure it out.”
Noah’s shoulders dropped. “I thought we talked about this.”
“We did,” she said, taking his hands. “I just want to tell her first, before she figures it out on her own. Out of respect. Make ya a deal?”
“A deal, huh?”
“Yeah. You don’t take me to buy the motorcycle until I tell her.”
“Okay. Deal.”
FOUR HOURS LATER
“Noah.” Mimi greeted him with a warm smile when he walked through the back door. Tink, Carter and Norah were all sitting at the kitchen table. “I hear you two are finally going to give it a shot.”
“Finally?” Noah asked, giving Lorraine a questioning look.
“Guess you were right when you said you thought my grandmother knew about us.”
A satisfied smile spread across Noah’s face.
“I think you two are perfect for each other. And you shouldn’t worry about what anyone thinks. Only what feels right in your hearts. Right, kids?”
Carter’s face had that ready-to-puke look, but Norah was smiling. “I think it’s cute,” she said.
“Thank you, Corrinne. Mimi,” he said instead, when she’d raised her brow at him. “Thank you, Norah. And Carter, after the vomit settles, hopefully you’ll get used to it.
Carter just said, “Eww.”
Mimi tapped Carter on the head and said, “Now go. Go enjoy your first full day as a couple.”
LATER THAT DAY
Noah helped Lorraine pick out a brand new 2016 SuperLow 1200t, and side by side, they rode off into the sunset.
Until they reached Noah’s old home in Augusta just after dusk.
They parked their bikes on the lot across the street and took off their helmets. Standing side by side, their eyes on the large house in front of them, they held hands. “Thank you for coming here with me, Rain,” he said quietly.
She nodded. She knew he didn’t need a response.
Noah spent many silent minutes staring at the place where he grew up. Lorraine imagined it wasn’t easy for him to look at, knowing he could never go back, but she understood his need to do so.
“You think he knew I loved him?” he asked into the warm, quiet night.
“I do. He knew it was difficult for you to deal with your mother’s death, but I don’t think he ever thought you didn’t love him.”
Noah nodded. “Do you think he was okay with me thinking he didn’t love me? I can’t believe he did, ya know, and I was so hateful and everything.”
“I think he knew you were troubled, Noah. I also think he knew that deep down, you knew he loved you.”
Noah finally turned his head from the house to look at Lorraine. “You think so?”
“I do.”
Noah turned back toward the house, and Lorraine saw the corner of his lips rise toward his cheek. He squeezed her hand again, then let it go. “You ready to go home?”
Yeah. She was ready to go home. To their home. To their family.
The End
THANK YOU
First, I would like to extend a very gracious thank you to all my readers. Thank you for taking an interest in my stories, and thank you for spending your precious time with my characters. I hope you’ve fallen in love with them as much as I have. Each character I develop becomes someone I’ve made a home for in my heart. Hopefully, you have room for them in your heart as well.
Thank you to the very talented Murphy Rae from Indie Solutions for making my amazing cover. I fell in love with it at first sight.
Thank you so much to my beta readers—Marilyn Schmidlin, Jennifer Sweetman, Pua Tavai, and Nathan McKenzie. You don’t know how much your input has helped me. I am so grateful that you guys took the time to read my story—both versions. All my love to you. xo
Thank you to the musicians who inspire the words I write—specifically, Chris Daughtry (my most favorite favorite vocalist, songwriter, rocker in the world—your music and your voice reach somewhere down deep in my soul so much so that I can hear your songs long after the music has stopped) and Keith Urban (whose song Break On Me inspired this particular story). I could not write without listening to your beautiful songs.
And as always, thank you so much to the people who mean most to me in the entire world—my family. I am more than lucky to have you in my life. I love you. xoxo