“You didn’t actually cry.”
“I can’t really talk to Misti about it.”
“You can talk to me anytime.”
She returned to her chair, taking a swallow of the now cold coffee.
“You threw the doll out in the yard.”
She shook her head. “I threw it in the trash can.”
Rory propped his elbows on the table, cup of coffee in his hands. “It was three or four feet from the trash when I found it.”
“One of the neighborhood cats must have drug it out.”
She glanced at the doll. It didn’t look any worse for spending the night outside.
“If the doll makes you unhappy, then sell the damn thing. It’s three hundred years old, and there’s a website devoted to it. It’s bound to be worth some money.”
She rubbed her eyes. “I don’t care what it’s worth. It’s cursed, and I won’t pass the curse on to someone else.”
Rory set his cup on the table. “This is the twenty-first century. You can’t really believe in curses.”
“I do now. The doll is cursed, and the women in my family are cursed. It’s why my mother and Misti and I always pick losers. Misti and I will never find someone, never be loved.”
Her voice faded as her anger over the doll’s reappearance began to lose steam. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to stop for a pity party.”
Rory leaned forward, elbows braced on the table. The tattoo on his biceps seemed to stand out. Semper Fi. Didn’t that mean “Always faithful”?
“I have always loved your eyes,” he said. “Spring is my favorite season, and the green of your eyes reminds me of it.” He wrapped a lock of her hair around his finger. “I love the way you adored Misti when she was a baby and the way you look after her now.”
She met his eyes, captured by the intense gaze that had made a seventeen-year-old girl believe he could do anything.
“I love the way your hips swing when you walk and the way you like your coffee pale and half-cold.”
The last brought a reluctant smile from her. “You don’t know me now. We don’t have much more in common than two strangers.”
“I want to know the adult Daira Gleeson. I thought about you often over the years. I imagined you had married some boring guy, who brought you a sense of security, and had a couple of kids.” He reached across the table and took her hand. “I pictured you with a little girl, one who looked like you.”
She’d once imagined having a little girl, one with Rory’s smile.
Rory’s thumb made tiny circles in her palm, turning it into an erogenous zone. Slivers of pleasure traveled from her palm, up her arm, and spread throughout her body. She closed her eyes as Rory pressed his mouth against the spot.
It had always been like this with him. He touched her and narrowed her entire world to just the two of them. He sucked her pinkie into his mouth and she gasped. His fingers brushed the skin beneath her t-shirt. The shirt came over her head, tossed on the floor without a thought. A plain cotton bra restrained her breasts. She wanted to remove it, but her hands were twined around his neck, and she was unwilling to let go, even for a moment.
Her lips parted. She started to tell him to pull it off, but his tongue slipped into her mouth. He tasted like coffee and blueberry donuts.
One of his hands wrapped around hers, pulling her hand away from his neck, placing it against the bulge in his jeans. She let her fingers explore.
Warm fingers brushed her skin just before the front clasp of her bra opened. She moaned against his mouth as his thumb brushed her nipple.
“Shit!”
Before she could ask why he was swearing, he scooped her t-shirt from the floor and pulled it over her head just as the front door opened.
Daira sprinted to the side, out of view of the front door, and pushed her arms through the sleeves, pulling the shirt up long enough to fasten her bra before pulling it back down.
“Did I interrupt anything?” Misti asked.
Daira moved into her sister’s view. The grin on Misti’s face left no doubt she knew what Daira and Rory had been up to.
Warmth suffused her cheeks, and she resisted the urge to fan herself. No point in giving both Misti and Rory the satisfaction.
She glared at her sister. “Any particular reason you’re here at 7:30 on a Saturday morning? Whatever happened to sleeping in?”
“Newsflash. It’s 8:30. How long were you guys making out?”
Rory laughed out loud. Daira’s cheeks went from warm to hot.
“Aren’t you the one always giving me the abstinence lecture?” Misti teased.
“We were just kissing!”
“Uh-huh.”
“You two are going to drive me crazy.” She glanced at Rory. He watched her, his expression both amused and pleased.
She turned back to Misti. “What do you want?”
“Julie’s father works at a lab in OKC. They have a scanning electron microscope. I want to know if I can borrow the doll.”
Rory frowned. “Did I miss something?”
“I’m not sure where it is.”
Misti pointed at the closet. “Probably where you throw everything else.”
“Why don’t you use one of your scrimshaw pieces?”
“Because they’re packed and hard to get to.”
Daira sighed, trying to think of a way out of lending the doll to Misti.
“I don’t need it today,” Misti said. “We’ll be going on a weekday.” She took a step back, a wide grin on her face. “I’ll let you guys get back to what you were doing.”
“Smart ass,” Daira said as the door closed.
Rory hooked one hand around the small of her back, pulled her close, and bent to kiss her.
Daira turned away, her hands pressed against his chest. “Stop.”
Rory’s head came up, and his eyes narrowed. “I like Misti’s idea better. Let’s get back to what we were doing.”
“I shouldn’t have let you kiss me.”
“Let me?” One dark eyebrow rose. “Sweetheart, you met me head on.”
Damn. She hadn’t blushed this much in years. “I didn’t say I wasn’t willing.”
One corner of his mouth quirked, and his head began to lower.
She pushed at his chest. “I meant I was willing then. I’m not now.”
His hands dropped to his sides as he took a step back. Anger flared in his brown eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said “I didn’t mean to sound like a tease.”
“Then explain to me how the hell you can be willing one minute and not the next?”
Not willing? She couldn’t really say that. Rory had always been able to make her want him.
“I just… I think getting involved again would be a mistake. I’m a little too old to just be looking for a good time.”
A change in expression whispered across his face, and she wondered what he was thinking.
He picked his car keys up from the table and started for the front door. He paused with his hand on the knob.
“My parents married straight out of high school, had three kids in the next few years. They both worked at the Holitex factory until it moved. Then they followed it to Florida. I thought of my parents as trapped. My brother graduated high school and went to work for Holitex.”
Daira hugged herself. “Amy said he’s with the Highway Patrol.”
“Now, but when I graduated, he was following in my parents’ footsteps. At eighteen that seemed like the worst fate in the world.”
“Were they happy?”
He nodded. “Still are. That was the life they wanted, something…”
“Ordinary?”
He smiled. “Yeah, ordinary.”
She moved a few steps closer. “Did you like being in the Marines?”
Another nod. “I wanted to see more of the world than Oklahoma. I’ve done that. I wanted excitement. Two wars? Enough excitement for a lifetime. At this point in my life, what my parents have doesn’t look so bad.”
She met his gaze, her shoulders straight. Was he talking about staying in one place? About long-term relationships, or both?
He opened the door and was gone.
****
Janet handed her credit card to the cashier and smiled. Destroying her laptop in a fit of rage had been the act of an imbecile. She couldn’t afford to lose control like that.
“Here you go, Ms. Mable. Would you like to buy insurance for your laptop?”
The perky brunette, probably a college student with two or three boyfriends, rattled on about the insurance.
Janet cut her off. “That’s all right. I’m in a hurry. You have a good day.”
As soon as she was in her car, with the new laptop in the passenger seat, she let her smile vanish. Walking into the store with murder in her eyes wouldn’t have been sensible. That didn’t mean she had to enjoy dealing with imbeciles.
She slammed a fist on the dash. She was so tired of pasting on the big phony smile, of pretending she was a contented spinster when her sisters complained about their husbands not being attentive enough and their children not picking up their rooms. At least they had husbands, men who worked hard to support their families and came home to their wives every night. At least they had children, healthy kids who brought home decent grades and weren’t in juvenile court.
She pulled out of the parking lot. There was Daira G, with the means to happiness in her stupid little hands, and what did she do? Threw it away.
Threw it away?
Maybe the trash hadn’t been picked up in Daira G’s neighborhood.
Maybe there was still a chance for her to obtain the doll. She had to find the woman’s address.
She glanced at the laptop and smiled.
That she could do.
Chapter Eight
Daira pulled the car to a stop near Jeremiah’s Bridge. Her headlights illuminated part of the structure.
She’d only been here once before at night. Of course this wasn’t the original structure. The original was supposed to be haunted by the ghost of Jeremiah, who hung himself here. Cars were said to stall on the old bridge, blood dripping onto windshields. A wave of sadness made her heart hurt. Her mother had ended her life in the exact same way.
She climbed out of the car, slamming the door, feeling less isolated when the sound broke the silence.
Rory had been the one to tell her the stories, standing beside her on a winter night, their breath fogging in the cold, his arms around her to keep her warm. A tiny sliver of moon decorated the sky but gave off virtually no light.
He’d kissed her for the first time on the bridge. Her back pressed against the rail. His kiss… She smiled at the memory. She’d been kissed before, but not like that. No one could make her feel the way he did.
Twenty years later there was little to mirror that night. The air was warm and humid, the moon nearly full, giving off plenty of light. It was true, nothing ever stayed the same.
Her hand clenched, making the plastic bag crinkle. She’d stuffed the doll into it and tied the bag shut, not wanting to see its evil face.
Pulling her arm back, she threw the bag as far as she could. There was no splash. It was as if the darkness swallowed the sound.
The bag floated on the dark water. She stood on the bridge, watching. It might have been more appropriate to throw the bag into the ocean, since the doll was made of whalebone, but she lived in Oklahoma, so the Washita River would have to do.
She turned her back on the doll and walked away.
****
Daira pulled into her driveway, parking next to the silver SUV that hadn’t been there when she left.
The driver’s door opened, and Rory stepped out, closed the door, and leaned against the SUV, ankles crossed, arms folded across his chest.
Daira hesitated, then moved slowly toward him. She was an arm’s length from him when he straightened. His hand reached out, cupping the back of her head, pulling her closer. His head lowered, breath fanning her cheek.
He hadn’t asked where she’d been, but she felt compelled to tell him. “I went to Jeremiah’s Bridge.”
The corners of his mouth moved. “The first time I kissed you was on Jeremiah’s Bridge.”
With his index finger, he stroked her lower lip. How could a simple touch send a current through every inch of her body?
He was limned in the light from her porch. He’d always been tall, but the years had filled out his chest and broadened his shoulders.
Her eyes moved to his face, only to find his gaze locked on her. She couldn’t look away.
He stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. She knew he was giving her time to pull away, to tell him she didn’t want his kiss. She watched him lean in, making no move to avoid him.
His lips were warm and gentle as his arms came around her.
She leaned against him, letting him take her weight. She clung to his shoulders, keys still in her hand, her breasts pressed against his chest.
His tongue stroked hers. She moaned against his mouth.
White light swept over them. She closed her eyes tighter, barely noticing the slam of a car door.
“Way to go, Daira!” her neighbor’s teenage daughter shouted.
Rory pulled back. “We’re not putting on a show for the neighborhood.” He took her hand and began leading her to the house. “Give me your keys.”
There didn’t seem to be any point in arguing. She handed the keys over, and he unlocked her door. She frowned. It was her home. Shouldn’t it be her show?
Rory pushed the door closed and reached for her. He nuzzled her neck, giving it a little nip. She let out a shriek, then laughed.
His weight shifted from side to side as he toed off his shoes. He pulled her t-shirt over her head, following with his own.
She nearly groaned aloud at the feel of his warm skin against hers.
His hands worked their way between them to unclasp the front hook on her bra. He pushed it off her shoulders.
She reached for him, wanting to pull him close, but he had other ideas. His hands cupped her breasts, thumbs moving lazily over the nipples. She looked up. His gaze was intense, focused only on her.
“Rory?” His name came out breathless, pleading. One corner of his mouth twitched.
“It was always good between us,” he said as he bent to take one nipple into his mouth.
She gave a soft gasp, arching her back to press her breast against his mouth. Every nerve in her body seemed to be either in her breast or concentrated between her legs.
She didn’t want him to stop, but she didn’t think she could take much more. She started to tell him that just as he swept her up in his arms.
“This time it’s going to be even better,” he promised.
He carried her to her room and lowered her to the bed. As his hands reached for the buttons of his jeans, she shook her head.
“Daira—”
“Condom. I’m not on the pill.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t had a reason to be this last year.”
“Shit.”
“Don’t you macho guys carry one in your wallet? You used to.”
He glared at her, and she laughed.
“I think there are still some in the medicine cabinet.” She had used them when she and Ted first became intimate, until she had time for the pill to take effect.
“Leftovers from your ex?”
“No condom, no sex. I don’t know what you picked up in the Marines.”
“Damn it. I took care of you when we were a couple of horny kids. I’m not going to do less now.”
He turned on his heel, stomping through the open door of the bathroom. A click as the medicine cabinet opened, followed by a louder click as it closed. He reappeared with the open box of condoms.
She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think one would have sufficed?”
“No. Besides, there are only three in there.”
“Ambitious, are we?”
> He tossed the three condoms onto the nightstand. His hands moved to his jeans and seconds later, he stood naked before her. She ran her tongue over her lips.
The years had been good to Rory. The flat stomach he had in high school was still flat, the muscles well-defined. Dark hair covered his chest, tapering to a fine line as it traveled over his abdomen.
He leaned over the bed, tugging her jeans down her hips. When she was as naked as he, Rory bent over and kissed her stomach. Her muscles clenched, and she closed her eyes.
His hands parted her thighs. Disappointed there wasn’t going to be more foreplay, she waited for him to enter her.
She jumped, gasping in surprise when his fingers parted her folds.
“I’ve been thinking about you ever since you walked into the shop, even before then, if you want to know the truth.”
He slid a finger into her. She pressed against him, wanting more.
He stretched out next to her, bending to lick a nipple. “Don’t you dare think about someone else while I’m making love to you.”
Like she was capable of thinking about anyone but him. She shook her head. “You either.”
Rory chuckled, a low sexy sound. “Believe me, you have all my attention.”
She turned onto her side, and he shifted in order to keep his finger inside her. A second finger joined the first.
She trailed her fingers down his stomach, then took him in her hand. Had he always been this hot? Had his skin always had a velvety feel?
She rubbed her thumb over the tip, smearing the moisture there. A smile of satisfaction curled her lips when his body jerked, telling her without words what her touch was doing to him.
She swung her leg over his hip, opening herself for him. When his fingers slid from her, she guided the tip of his erection to her opening, rubbing it against herself.
He pressed against her hand, trying to penetrate her.
“Condom.” Her voice was so airy and hoarse she was surprised he understood her.
Swearing softly, nearly contorting, he grabbed a condom from the nightstand. He tore the packet open with his teeth.
She helped him slide it over his erection, their fingers damp with each other’s moisture.
He entered her gently, pulling back, entering a little farther each time. She grabbed his upper arms and closed her eyes as he filled her.
The Bone Bride Page 4