"Will you hold me, Charlie? I'm cold."
He didn't think that was a good idea. But her request was so plaintive, and he saw her shiver in spite of the steamy night. He pulled her into his arms and settled her against him, tucking her head under his chin. "I didn't clean up before I came. If it bothers you, just give me a shove."
In answer she hugged him close, nuzzling her lips on his neck just above his T-shirt. He was instantly aware of how good she smelled, how soft she was, of her breasts pressed against his chest.
His body started crowding his jeans. He shifted, bringing a knee up in an effort to get more comfortable. She lifted her head questioningly, then she slid her hand down his chest and placed it over his zipper just below his belt. There was no hiding that bulge, no disguising the thrust of his hips into her palm before he could catch himself.
He groaned and shifted her hand to his thigh. "That's just bein' a hound, honey. It's okay. Don't pay it no mind."
She pulled her hand away from his. He saw her reach behind her back under her shirt, her elbows angled like wings. She'd freed her breasts before he realized what she was about, shoving her bra and T-shirt up above them.
He'd touched her breasts before, his hands sneaking under her shirt, long fingers stealing into her bra to tease the nipples till they puckered and peaked. But he'd never seen them. She displayed them proudly to him now, the pale globes gleaming, the perfect dusky circles at their center beckoning.
"Honey, you don't want to do this. Someone might see us."
"I don't care," she whispered fiercely. "I'm cold and numb, Charlie. Make me feel."
She raised up on her knees in front of him, grasping the bottom of his shirt and tugging it out of his jeans and over his head. She pressed herself against him, rubbing her breasts on his chest, and he gripped her upper arms, pulling her more tightly to him when he knew he should push her away.
"Molly, don't do this," he pleaded into her hair. "I'm a mess, honey, I need a shower. I just wanted to make sure you're all right."
"I'm not all right," she cried, nipping at his ear with her teeth. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Ah, Moll, I want you so damn much." He brought his hands around to cup her breasts, circling them until the nipples pebbled into the centers of his palms. "Tell me to get lost, honey. Make me stop."
But she wasn't listening to him. She kissed him open-mouthed, with her tongue. The way he liked. The way he'd taught her. She locked her arms around his neck and leaned backward, pulling him down with her onto the blanket. He helped her wriggle out of her jeans and underpants, kissing her breasts as she arched to him. She pushed his jeans over his hips while he was still digging in the pocket for the protection he'd started carrying a couple months before. He managed to get it on pretty smoothly because, to tell the truth, he hadn't wanted to look like a fool when the time came, so he'd practiced once or twice by himself.
Then everything was a haze of heat and need and friction. She was wet where he touched her. She rose to him when he slid a finger in to test her, like he'd heard to do. But he was too much for her. He knew he was hurting her, could hear her sharp intake, feel her tense when he pushed. She wouldn't let him pull out and finish on top of her. She wrapped those long legs and arms around him and held him deep while he took that sweet, wild plunge into ecstasy.
Her fingers were toying idly in his hair when he came back to himself. His first reaction was one of self-disgust. He was crushing Molly. She winced when he withdrew from her and rolled away. She was tender, he guessed, and he felt even worse.
He didn't know what to do about the damn condom. He bet the cool guys didn't worry about that after. Well, no way was he one of the cool guys. He found a tissue in the pocket of Molly's jeans and used that. Then he straightened his clothes and helped Molly with hers.
He couldn't believe what he'd done. This was the girl who meant heaven and earth to him, and he'd taken her on a threadbare blanket over lumpy ground on a hot, sticky, buggy night. Judging from the streaks on her face, he'd made her cry, too. But then, she needed to cry, so maybe it was a release of sorts. He lay beside her without a clue as to what to do or say.
"I remember, Charlie," her voice came to him on the quiet night, wistful and strangely calm, "it wasn't always bad between them."
He turned on his side to look at her as she spoke. Gently, he smoothed back the hair that clung to her face, wet with sweat and tears.
"I remember when I was real small, he would touch her sometimes...like he cared. And she would touch him back. Then all that stopped. I don't know why. Maybe he had other women even then."
With one finger he softly traced her cheekbone, her nose, her lips, her chin.
"For a long time I thought it was my fault."
"No, Molly, it wasn't your fault."
"I'm very much like him. It's why my mother can't love me." Her lower lip began to quiver and she pulled it between her teeth.
"Shhh, honey. She loves you."
She shook her head side to side on the blanket. "I can't live in that house anymore."
"You'll be leaving for school in a couple of weeks, Molly. You won't have to stay there then."
"There'll still be summers. I can't go back there."
He shrugged. "Then stay with me. It's time I got my own place, anyway. It won't be much, but you'll be welcome."
She rolled her head on the blanket, her eyes seeking his. She rubbed her hand over his jaw and he heard the rasp of his beard against her palm. He hadn't even shaved before he'd come to her. Her delicate skin would be raw from him.
"Will that happen to us, Charlie? Will we end up like them?"
He shook his head in denial. "I swear I'll never hurt you like that." He could read the doubt in her eyes even in the darkness. He pulled his class ring—the only thing he had besides his heart that was his to give her—from his finger and pressed it into her palm, closed her hand around it. "You're mine now, Molly, and I'm yours. For as long as you want me. I'll never hurt you that way."
She still had that ring.
They'd given up any pretense of being just friends after that night. Despite the noses in both families that might have been pushed out of joint, the redneck ruffian dreamer and his classy "college girl" were officially a couple. Molly continued to look at him as if he were some kind of pagan god, when she wasn't worried about how the other women were looking at him. And for his part, he was true to her, although he allowed as how she might have heard differently from some who liked to meddle.
In the end, love wasn't enough, where there was no trust. She'd listened to the stories he'd quit denying and she threw him out of her life. There had been other women since.
But when he'd told her it had been a long time for him, that was the truth. Because the simple fact was, he didn't much care for cold-blooded sex. It seemed somehow joyless as well as loveless. All a matter of technique and timing. When the itch got intolerable, he could always find a woman willing to scratch it, but lately he'd felt emptier, diminished afterward. He'd come to the conclusion that his old man had been right all those years ago. Sex was better with someone you loved.
That was the real kick in the teeth.
He didn't want to love Molly. He remembered too well the depths of his despair when he realized she'd meant what she'd said back then. She didn't want him. He'd come back looking for her, cocky with his newly earned money and his fame. He couldn't find her. His early success was tainted by that loss. He'd thrown himself into his work because he didn't care about anything else. That time had been the most productive of his career, but he remembered it as a black pit.
He looked down at the woman sleeping peacefully beside him. The thought of giving Molly that kind of power over him again scared him witless. Nope, he didn't want to love Molly.
But he did.
Chapter 6
"Mrs. Cochrane?"
Molly jumped when she realized the nurse was talking to her. Had called her name more than once, in fact
. She felt a flush heat her face as she answered, but the woman only smiled.
"You're not used to the name yet. I understand. Your husband's out of recovery now," the nurse continued. "Everything went very well. He's been taken to his room on the unit if you'd like to go see him."
Molly glanced at a sleeping Tobie, undecided.
"I'll let him know where you went if he awakens. The bone marrow takes some preparation, so Tobie won't be getting it for a while yet. I'll call you in plenty of time."
Reassured, Molly bent to kiss her son's brow and left his bedside.
Charlie's room was on another floor in a different wing of the hospital. She was a little out of breath when she reached it and what she found there didn't make her breathe any easier. They'd been told that receiving blood after a marrow donation was not unusual, but seeing the fluid dripping into his arm was unnerving all the same. And he looked so pale. The stubble of his beard stood out starkly against his cheeks like short, black brush bristles. There was a faint sheen on his forehead that might have been perspiration, but his hand was warm when she clasped it. At her touch he dragged one eye open.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
His other eyelid fluttered up and he turned his head slightly to look at her. "You can tell that guy on my behind...with the jackhammer?...he can quit anytime now."
"Are you hurting, Charlie? Do you need some—"
"I'm just kiddin', Moll."
Something about the set of his jaw told her he wasn't just kidding. "Are you sure? Can I get you anything?"
He could still manage that sexy half smile. "Right now I'd sell my tongue for a cigarette."
"This is a hospital, Charlie!" Appalled as she was, she couldn't contain her laughter at his outrageous suggestion.
"You're no fun." His grin widened. "That's not true. You were fun last night."
She caught her breath. His brain must still be addled from the anesthesia, she thought. Neither of them had made any reference to the previous night, though this morning she had caught him watching her more than once with a look she couldn't read.
Before Molly could respond, a nurse came into the room and punched some buttons on the pump regulating the blood flowing into Charlie's arm. Then she claimed his attention while she took his vital signs and checked the bandage covering his hip. Molly noticed the effect of Charlie's potent charm on the woman, even under the weather as he was. How he managed to look roguish in a paisley-patterned hospital gown was beyond her. When the nurse left, she tried to disguise her reaction, but Charlie wasn't fooled.
"She's just doing her job, Molly. And I'm just doing mine." His shoulders lifted under the ugly gown. "If I'm not pleasant to fans, after a while I won't have any fans."
"I know," she answered lightly, looking away.
He was silent long enough for her to feel uncomfortable about it. When she forced her eyes back to him, his were grim. "You're going to have to trust me," he said.
"I know," she repeated, but not lightly. Trust was a quality definitely not learned at her mother's knee.
He let the subject drop. "How's Tobie?"
She smiled weakly. "Sleeping. They said they would call me before they start the transfusion."
"He sleeps a lot. Was he always like that?"
"No!" That surprised a laugh out of her. "Not usually. More like you, as a matter of fact." She came closer to his bed and gripped the side rail. "I want to thank you, Charlie...for what you've done for him."
Somehow she'd picked exactly the wrong thing to say. She could tell by the way his expression closed off from her, the glitter in his eyes.
"He's my son, Molly. This wasn't some favor I did for an acquaintance." His next words carried a bitter bite. "Do you expect me to thank you for feeding him, for looking after him these past years?"
"No, of course not."
"Then don't insult me, Molly."
"I only meant..." But she wasn't sure what she had meant. Before she could continue, they were interrupted. The unit secretary spoke from the doorway. "The transplant unit called, Mrs. Cochrane. They're ready."
Molly turned back to Charlie. "Stay with him," he said.
Not knowing what to say, she touched her lips to his cheek. Last night might have been a new beginning, but their marriage had a long way to go.
"I don't feel any better yet."
Molly held the place in Old Yeller with her thumb and glanced up at her son. "It took a long time for you to get this bad, Tobie. Dr. Morrissey says it will be a while before you feel like your old self again."
Her gaze shifted from Tobie to the IV bag connected to the tube in his chest. The marrow was almost all in. It didn't look much different from blood, actually. More precious than diamonds. Utterly beyond price. It seemed odd to her that the administration of this life-giving gift could appear so uneventful.
"He didn't know about me, did he, Mom?"
Her head whirled at Tobie's question. The one she dreaded. The one she knew would come, but still didn't have an answer for. "No, he didn't know."
Tobie digested this information for some moments. ' 'Was he famous when you had me?"
She sighed. "You know how long it takes to have a baby, Tobie. He was famous when you were born, but not..."
"When I got started," he finished for her.
"That's right."
"And you thought he wouldn't want me."
She felt as if an animal were gnawing at her heart. "Not exactly, honey. It's complicated. But...whatever I thought...I was wrong."
"Did you love him, Mom?"
Ah. At last a question she could answer honestly, without evasion. "I've loved him since I was younger than you are now. I'll love him all my life."
Tobie moved restlessly in the bed, twisting the sheets. "That's a sad book, Mom. Did you bring any Curious George?"
Molly left the hospital when regular visiting hours ended. Both of her men were tired and so was she. She fixed herself a cup of tea and placed the two phone calls she had promised Charlie she would make.
His mother, still kind if more reserved with Molly than she had been in the past, was happy to hear everything had gone smoothly. Her own uncertain health and advancing age prevented her coming up to meet her grandson just yet, but she hoped to be able to soon. Molly let out a sigh of relief when she hung up. That conversation had gone better than she had hoped.
Harlan Atkins she had glimpsed only briefly the night she had gone to find Charlie. Her call to him was a little more troublesome. An older member of the band, he was apparently Charlie's right-hand man. He was handling things in Charlie's absence, and they had consulted each other several times over the past week and a half. Most of the band members—Charlie's brother, Beau, Jase, the keyboardist, and Dale, who played fiddle—were old-timers and familiar to Molly. The man Harlan referred to as Shooter she didn't know, and he appeared to be trouble. Harlan was anxious for Charlie to get back and Shooter, it seemed, was not the least of the reasons.
Her phone calls out of the way, Molly sipped the tea and glanced around the room. It was too silent in Charlie's absence, but everywhere she saw signs of his presence.
His guitar stood against the wall where her piano had been. He would leave it behind, he told her, when he went back on the road. She remembered enough of what he had taught her to continue Tobie's lessons and it would help pass the time for him.
A pile of his papers lay on the end table near her saucer. More of his scribblings, as he called them. She was tempted to read them, but didn't He always showed her his stuff when he was ready.
The dining counter between the kitchen and living room held the pile of change he emptied from his jeans pockets every night. And a package of gum.
She missed him.
He'd been back in her life less than two weeks and he'd become as essential to her as the air she breathed. She rose, took her cup and saucer to the sink and went to her bedroom, to lie naked in the sheets that still smelted of him.
"I've got
ta go back, Moll."
She nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat. He had already said his goodbyes to Tobie the night before and made arrangements for a cab to take him to the airport. Only two days out of the hospital, and walking with the slight limp that indicated his hip still pained him, he was determined to get back to work. He was stuffing the few things he would take with him into his duffel bag.
"I'll be talking to you and Tobie every day. Any problems and you know I'll be here in a New York minute. But a lot of people are hurting when I can't perform. I've gotta get back."
"I understand." She did. It had just never occurred to her that he would have to leave so soon. But the transplant had gone like clockwork, Tobie's condition was stable, and the next few weeks would be wait and see. Charlie didn't need to be here for that.
"Molly."
She looked up to see him watching her across the expanse of their bed. He was wearing what he'd slept in, the black sweatpants that had been the only thing he could put on over his bandage with any degree of comfort. Loosely tied, they rode low on his lean hips. His discomfort had precluded any lovemaking since his surgery, but at this moment he looked every inch the virile male animal. With an effort she raised her gaze to his face.
"These guys, most of them, stuck with me when my future was no more substantial than the bubbles in my beer. I owe them."
He gathered his shaving things from the bathroom and returned, stowing them in the bag on the bed. "They've got two million dollars worth of mortgages," he continued, eyeing her, "and I've cosigned every one."
She was familiar with this side of him. The man who took his responsibilities, his commitments, seriously. There were those who thought the "good time" Charlie was the sum of the man. His easy manner and lazy smile were deceptive. They sometimes made his success look like an accident, a fluke. But she'd seen how hard he worked for it. There was steel inside him, and she knew it.
"I do understand, Charlie. It's just..."
"It's just that you think I'm gonna jump on every pair of spread legs between here and Amarillo."
Bad For Each Other Page 9