by Lisa Jackson
Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t. One of her father’s favorite sayings suddenly held a lot more meaning.
Listening to the sounds of the night, she recognized the soft hoot of an owl, the rustle of undergrowth as some night creature passed, the sigh of a gust of sudden wind as it shifted and turned, moving the branches overhead. Nervously she checked the luminous dial of her watch every three minutes.
As the first half hour passed, her reservations grew. How long would she wait? An hour? Two? Until dawn? The first few drops of rain began to fall from the sky.
The snapping of a twig caused her to jump to her feet. Heart pounding in her throat, she whirled, facing the noise. What if it wasn’t Hayden? What if his father...or some criminal escaping justice were hiding in the—
“Nadine?”
His voice made her knees go weak. “Over here.”
She saw him then. His dark profile emerged from a path between two trees. Relief chased away her apprehension and she walked quickly to him.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” he said as she approached, and before she could answer, he swept her into his arms and his lips claimed hers with such hunger, she melted inside. She kissed him eagerly, her arms wrapping around him, her heart thundering. He’d come for her!
His kiss was hot and demanding, his tongue anxious as it parted her lips and easily pried her teeth apart. Together they tumbled to the ground, hands and arms holding each other close. “Nadine, Nadine,” he whispered hoarsely over and over again.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t show up,” she whispered, tears suddenly filling her eyes.
“I said I would.”
“But you were with—”
“Shh.” He kissed her again. More tenderly. “I couldn’t have not come here if I’d wanted to,” he admitted, sighing as if his fate were sealed and he had no way to change it. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be here.”
“I told myself I’d wait until dawn.”
“And then?”
“Then I’d figure that you didn’t want to be with me.”
“If you only knew,” he whispered against her ear, his fingers twining in her hair.
He touched her chin, cupping her face, his eyes dark as a raindrop slid down his nose. “Nothing could have stopped me from being here. Not God. Not the devil. And not even my father.”
She thrilled as his lips found hers again and she kissed him feverishly. He moaned into her mouth as the kiss deepened, touching her very soul. His hands were gentle, but firm, and one of his legs wedged between hers. Her fingers curled over his shoulders and her breath was hot and trapped in her lungs. An uncoiling warmth started deep within her, spinning in hot circles, and caused her to press against him.
His hands found the hem of her T-shirt and explored the firm flesh of her abdomen, searching and probing, moving ever so slightly upward, scaling her ribs. She thought she would go mad with want and her own fingers tugged his shirt free of his jeans and felt the hard muscles of his chest, the light springy hair, the flat nipples that seemed to move beneath her hands. Groaning, he reached into her bra, drawing out breasts that ached for his touch.
Nadine’s nipples reacted and she wanted more. He yanked her T-shirt over her head and gazed down at her. Within seconds he’d disposed of the lacy scrap of cloth and was kneading her gently, his tanned hands dark against her white, veined skin, rain beginning to splash against the ground.
She moaned, and when he dipped his head to suckle, a shock wave caused her to buck against him, her hips instinctively pressing against his.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, his breath fanning her wet, taut nipple and causing an ache between her legs. She writhed as his tongue flicked across the hard tip. She wrenched off his shirt and her fingers dug into the sinewy muscles of his shoulders.
He took her hand and placed it on his fly. She reacted as if burned, her arm jerking backward. “It’s okay,” he insisted, and placed her palm squarely on the apex of his legs again. Her throat felt dry as a barren desert; her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Beneath his jeans, she felt him, hard and anxious. “That’s what you do to me,” he admitted, and she felt suddenly powerful.
Boldly she nuzzled his chest, her hand still in place against the soft fabric of his pants. She scraped her wet tongue across a nipple buried in downy hair and he made an animal sound.
She knew she was playing with fire, that soon this petting and kissing might get out of hand, but she didn’t care. Despite the rain, the night was hot, Hayden was hotter still and she wanted, more than anything, to kiss him forever. With him, her problems disappeared. All that mattered was Hayden.
His arms surrounded her and he found her lips again. Kissing her until she couldn’t breathe, crushing her naked breasts against his rock-solid chest, Hayden moved against her. His hardness, still encased in denim, pressed deep into her bare abdomen and he shivered, as if trying to restrain himself.
“I should never have asked you here,” he said, breaking off the kiss and breathing hard.
Nadine’s heart dropped. “Why?”
“Because I want to make love to you, Nadine.” He sighed against her hair and all his muscles grew tight and strident. “Nothing else in my life is working and you’re all I think about and I...I want you. In the worst possible way.” He said the words as if they were vile.
“Is that so wrong?” Tipping her face up to him, she blinked against the rain.
He laughed, but there was no mirth in the sound. “Not usually, but my intentions aren’t noble.”
Her heart began to break. “What do you mean?”
Gritting his teeth, he held her at arm’s length, his fingers digging into the flesh of her forearms, his eyes gazing deep into hers. “All I think about is making love to you. Here, on the beach, in my boat, in my bed, in some sleazy motel room. It doesn’t matter where, but I want you. More than I’ve ever wanted any girl. It’s driving me crazy. Right now, all I want to do is push you onto your back, kiss you until you can’t see straight and touch your body in places no one ever has. I want to pry your knees apart with my legs and I want to lie on top of you and make love to you until I can’t anymore.”
She knew she should be frightened, that his words were meant to scare her, but she wasn’t afraid. Even in the darkness she noticed the tortured expression on his face, the lines of self-loathing in the turn of his mouth. The wind lifted his hair from his forehead and blew across Nadine’s skin, but rather than cool her lust, the steamy breath of air seemed to further fan the flames of desire.
He rolled off her and sat on the ground, his arms slung over his knees, his muscular back to her. “I’ll take you home. Come back to the house and I’ll get the car and drive you—”
“I don’t want to leave.”
His muscles flexed. “Really, Nadine, this isn’t right—”
Reaching forward, she traced the outline of one wet muscled shoulder with her finger.
His breath whistled through his teeth. “Don’t!”
“I want to.”
Whirling, he grabbed her offending hand and held it tight in his. “This could go too far.”
“I don’t think it will—”
“Of course it will!” He dropped her hand and plowed ten fingers through his hair. “Are you a virgin?”
She felt as if she’d been slapped. “What’s that got to do with—”
“Are you a damned virgin?” His hands were suddenly on her shoulders and shaking her.
“Yes, but—”
He swore and shoved himself upright. “Get up.”
Suddenly embarrassed, she stood, but couldn’t hold her tongue. “Are you?”
“What?”
“Are you a virgin?”
He rounded on her. His eyes were black as the breathless night. “I don’t see that it matters.”
“You started this.”
His mouth tightened. “No.”
“Good. Then I don’t have to worry about ruining your reputatio
n, do I?” Standing on her tiptoe, she threw her arms around his neck and tilted her head upward. With a groan, he kissed her again, and lightning forked in the sky.
“This is wrong, Nadine.”
“Only if you think it is.”
He was already lowering himself to his knees, kissing her chin and neck, drawing her down and slowly dragging his wet tongue down her breasts as thunder cracked loudly through the hills. As they kneeled in the pooling moonlight, he cupped her breast and placed his mouth around the nipple. Slowly he drew on the dark bud, and Nadine shuddered to her very core.
“Is this what you want?” he asked.
“Mmm.” She couldn’t think or answer.
“Oh, Nadine.” Every muscle in his body went rigid and he drew in a long, ragged breath. His arms surrounded her again and he held her close, resting his chin upon her head. “I think we’d better take this slow...or at least slower. If it’s possible.” He found her T-shirt and tossed it to her. “Take me for a ride...in your boat.”
“My brother’s boat,” she corrected, feeling slightly wounded. Had she done something wrong? True, she didn’t know much about satisfying a man or even turning one on, but she’d thought, from Hayden’s response and her own, that everything was right.
She fumbled with her T-shirt, then waded to Ben’s boat. Hayden helped her guide the craft to the open water, and once in the middle of the lake, he reached over, turned off the ignition switch and let the boat drift. They kissed in the rain, lips touching as lightning sizzled through the air.
Throwing his jacket over her shoulders, he said, “We’ve got to get home. This isn’t safe.”
“I don’t care—”
“You will.” He guided the boat to the landing and cut the engine again. Helping her out of the boat, he slung an arm around her shoulders. As they walked to the county road, he shoved a lock of wet hair from her cheek. “Aren’t you going to ask me about Wynona?”
“Do you want to talk about her?”
“Not particularly.”
Nadine wasn’t sure she wanted to hear about the other girls in his life and yet she was curious, about everything that touched him. Especially the women.
“She’s the one my parents have chosen to be my wife.”
Nadine’s heart did a free-fall and hit rock bottom. “Your wife?” She was suddenly sick inside. He was going to marry someone else? Oh, God, how could she have behaved as she did? How could he have nearly made love to her?
“That’s what the old man wants. That’s what the car was all about. He gave me the Mercedes as an ‘engagement present.’ Trouble is, I’m not engaged.”
“Yet.”
He touched her arm. “Ever. At least not to Wynona.”
“She’s pretty.”
He snorted. “Do you think so?”
“Mmm.” She shivered. What was she doing out here alone with him discussing the physical attributes of the woman he was supposed to marry?
“Well, so does she.”
“Does...does she think you’re getting married?”
He scowled. “It’s hard to know what Wynona thinks, but I have a feeling that she’d do just about anything to get a piece of the old man’s fortune. Marrying me would be the easy way.”
Nadine’s heart shattered into a million pieces. Hayden talked about marriage as if it were a prize with which to bargain. She considered her parents’ union and knew that wedded bliss was something straight out of fairy tales. Yet she was enough of a romantic to believe that somewhere true love had to exist. It just had to!
She thought of Hayden kissing Wynona, touching her as he’d caressed Nadine, and her stomach roiled painfully. A question loomed between them and she told herself not to ask it, yet she had to know the truth. “You said you weren’t a virgin.”
He didn’t respond.
“Have you...did you...with Wynona?”
Clearing his throat, he grabbed her arm, causing her to stop walking. “Never.”
“But—”
“There was another girl.”
“Trish London,” Nadine guessed.
“So the word got around.” He started walking again, his fingers linked with hers. “Don’t believe everything you hear, Nadine. At least in Gold Creek. People like to stretch the truth.”
She knew instinctively that the subject was closed.
* * *
HAYDEN WALKED HER home. Over her protests, he insisted on seeing that she was safely on her back porch where he kissed her gently, then jogged back toward the road. She watched until he disappeared into the night. After assuring herself that he was really gone, she ran through the drizzle to the tree and climbed to the branch near her window. Carefully, so as not to make any noise, she slipped over the ledge and landed softly on the bare floor.
Letting out her breath, she began yanking off her soaked Nikes, but stopped short when she heard the click of a lighter and watched in horror as her mother, leaning against the bureau, lit a cigarette. The tiny flame gave Donna’s face a yellow, haggard appearance, and her lips were pulled into a deep frown as she drew in on the first smoke she’d inhaled in over five years.
Nadine’s heart nearly stopped. She was caught. There was no way around it.
“Want to tell me where you’ve been?” Donna asked, white smoke drifting from her mouth and nostrils as she clicked the lighter shut.
“At the lake.”
“With?”
“I went by myself,” Nadine said, sidestepping the lie.
“What did you do there?”
“Took a ride in Ben’s boat.”
“Hmm.” Another long, lung-burning drag on the cigarette. The tip glowed red, the only light in the room. The smell of burning tobacco mixed with rainwater. “Where?”
Shrugging, Nadine replied, “I just drove it around.”
“Alone?”
Obviously her mother didn’t believe her. “I...I overheard you and Dad. The fight. I...I had to get out.” Nadine tossed her sodden hair over her shoulders.
“So you walked nearly two miles in the middle of a thunderstorm and then spent the next three hours cruising around Whitefire Lake in the dark. Is that what you expect me to believe?”
“Yes.”
Sighing, her mother rested her forehead in her hand. “Of all my children, Nadine, you’ve given me the least amount of grief. Kevin...well, he’s got his problems. When he couldn’t play basketball anymore, he quit school and checked out—thought his life was over and took a job at that damned mill. As for Ben...we all know what a hothead he is. He thinks all problems can be solved with his fists or...in the case of girls, by opening his fly.” At Nadine’s swift intake of breath, she added, “I hate to admit it, but Ben’s girl-crazy. As for you... Oh, Nadine...” Her voice trailed off and she drew long on her cigarette again.
Nadine felt miserable. She’d never intended to disappoint her mother.
“So, now, tell me. My guess is that you were meeting a boy. Was it Sam?”
Nadine shook her head wretchedly.
“Then who?”
“I...I can’t say.”
“Why not? Won’t I approve?” When she didn’t answer, Donna made a quick waving motion in the air. “Well, no, I suppose I won’t. Meeting any boy this late at night is begging for trouble, Nadine.” She sat on the edge of Nadine’s bed, and the old mattress creaked. “I...I guess I should have told you this a long time ago. Maybe you’ve already figured it out, but Kevin wasn’t premature. I got pregnant and had to marry your father.” She worked the fingers of her free hand through her hair. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I probably would’ve married George anyway. But faced with having a baby, well, I just didn’t have any options. So there was no way out. I was stuck.” Blinking hard, she added, “I just don’t want the same thing to happen to you.”
“It won’t,” Nadine said, though her tongue tripped a bit when she realized how close she’d come to losing her virginity this very night. If Hayden had pushed her, seduced her, she wouldn’
t have argued the point. Contrarily, she wanted to make love to him.
“So who’s the boy?”
“Mom, please, don’t ask.”
Stubbing her cigarette angrily in a dish on the bureau, Donna set her jaw. “Are you going to see him again?”
“I...I don’t know.”
“I’ll make it easy for you. Don’t see him again—ever.” Her mother stood and advanced on Nadine. “I’ll find out, you know. This is one helluva small town and someone will figure out who you’ve been sneaking around with. The truth will come out, Nadine, so don’t protect him. He’s probably not worth it.”
Nadine’s mind spun with thoughts of Ben.... No, he would never rat on her, but Patty Osgood would and so would Mary Beth Carter. A lot of people had seen her climb into Hayden’s speedboat at the lake. Her mother was right. It wouldn’t be long. But she wouldn’t be the person to name him. No. Instead she’d warn him that her mother was on the warpath.
“Well?”
“I can’t, Mom.”
Her mother’s lips drew into a disgusted line. “Well, whoever he is, I hope he’s as noble as you are.” She walked to the door, but stopped, her hands resting on the knob. “It goes without saying that you’re grounded. For the next two weeks. And if I ever catch you sneaking out of this room again, I’ll put a lock on the door and bar the windows.”
“Mom—”
“Don’t argue with me, Nadine. And believe this,” she said, turning, her face a study in determination. “I’ll do anything, anything I can to prevent you from making the same mistake I did.”
She slipped through the door and slammed it, her warning echoing through the room.
* * *
“THE BASTARD!” DONNA threw her dish towel into the sink and tears began to run from her eyes. Her husband tried to comfort her, to place his big hands upon her shoulders, but she shrugged him off. “How could you, George? How could you believe Garreth Monroe?”