by Ruby Laska
Back then, they’d shared the ecstasy of a love that was meant to last forever.
Forever.
The word seeped into her mind, even as waves of sensation washed through her as Mac’s hands and mouth worked their magic on her. Forever...that’s what she wanted, she realized with a sudden certainty.
“Stop,” she managed to choke, even as her own body defied her, twisting and responding to Mac’s masterful attention.
“Mac, please, stop,” she said again, begging this time, knowing that if he didn’t she would not have the power to pull away.
But he did. He raised his head to look into her eyes and his hands stilled on her hot skin.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, eyes clouded in confusion and need.
“No,” she said, trying to slow her breathing. “Yes. I mean, maybe. It’s just that—what does this mean to you? I mean, is this a one-time thing? Loving me like this—does it mean something?”
She watched as his eyes slowly cleared, cursing herself for being unable to voice her feelings. Is this forever? That’s what she really needed to know, but the words wouldn’t come.
“You’re asking me...” he said softly, slowly, belying a struggle of his own.
“If you want to be with me,” she finished quickly for him. “I mean, more than tonight. Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.”
Answer me, she pleaded without words, frozen in his stilled embrace, their bodies still melded together, the heat of their skin subsiding slowly. But he did not. His expression was unreadable, his jaw tightening ever so slightly.
“Amber, I can’t—”
He didn’t finish his thought—but he didn’t have to. Shame flooded Amber as she wriggled out of his grasp, the hard wooden edge of the bench pressing painfully against her back. She felt blood rush to her face as she eased out from under him and struggled to right her disheveled dress.
I can’t, he had said, and it didn’t really matter what came next. I can’t be tied down, I can’t make any promises, I can’t predict the future—didn’t they all mean the same thing? Thanks, but no thanks; don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
After all, he’d said those words to her once before. “I can’t,” he’d answered her when she begged him to run away with her, when her world was crashing down around her. Hot tears sprung to her eyes as she gave her dress a last furious tug and backed away from him.
“Amber, come back here,” Mac said, rising, not bothering with his own clothes. “Don’t go like this. We need to talk.”
Sprinting down the stairs to her car, Amber looked back over her shoulder once. She saw Mac standing on the edge of the porch, hands fisted at his side, anguish etched into his eyes as he watched her go.
And she ached to go back to him, to fall into his arms again, to love him and drink in his love for as long as he would give it.
But knowing it would have to come to an end, she couldn’t bear to go back. And the ache inside her was something that all the talking in the world couldn’t fix now.
CHAPTER TEN
Amber clutched the folded scrap of paper as she sat on the edge of her bed and waited. If only she could just turn out the lights and let sleep dull the pain inside her.
But there was one more thing to take care of tonight.
For the tenth time she unfolded the creased paper she’d found shoved under her door. “Room 110,” Dean had written. “Call me as soon as you get back.” The words were underlined several times, and punctuated with a bold exclamation point. So like him. Everything was always urgent when Dean Hamilton wanted it done.
Of course, she had kept him waiting for several hours tonight. In truth, the minute she pulled up in front of Mac’s place, thoughts of Dean vanished from her mind.
And if things had gone a little differently, she might not have come back at all.
That would have been some mess to leave for Sheryn, who’d no doubt exercised all her charms to smooth things over already. Sheryn always came through in a pinch. And she didn’t even like the man.
Feeling a little guilty, Amber had dutifully called Dean’s room. But first she allowed herself a shower. The cool water washed away the bits of leaves and flecks of dirt from the porch, and went a long way toward soothing her pounding heart.
But it did nothing to erase the sensations still prickling her skin. Her palm, where Mac had placed hot kisses that trailed up her arm. Her earlobes, where a light nip had sent bolts of response through her body.
The hot trail his hands had traveled down her body, teasing, engulfing, inflaming along the way. Then stopping, leaving them both in a frenzy of unmet need.
Remembering just ripped open the fresh wound on her heart.
After her shower, Amber removed every trace of makeup and slipped into a pair of shorts and a tee shirt. She intended her discussion with Dean to be a short one, and afterwards she planned to slip under the covers and sink into sleep.
A knock brought her out of her reverie, and Amber shoved a stray lock of hair out of the way before getting up to open the door. She glanced at her watch: nearly one in the morning.
“Hello, Dean,” she said wearily, stepping back for him to pass. He was wearing the sort of thing he usually reserved for his ever-more-adoring public: tight black jeans, black boots, a black silk shirt with silver cording at the yoke. His jet-black hair was perfectly combed. The late hour didn’t seem to have any adverse effect on his good looks.
“Hi, angel,” he said, brushing her cheek with a kiss and then turning slowly, surveying the room. “This place is a real dive, isn’t it? No hangers in the closet, I had to call down for extra towels, and there’s no outlet in the bathroom for a hair dryer.”
It was true that the motel was nothing special, but Amber found herself bristling at the comment. “Well, this isn’t Nashville,” she said as lightly as she could manage. “Folks around here don’t generally spend a whole lot of time in front of the mirror.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh nothing,” Amber said, wishing she could take back the subtle dig. Dean had done nothing to deserve it. “You’re right, this is a one-horse town, and the motel is hardly a four star resort. I guess I’ve just been away from home too long. I’m sorry. It’s just been a really long day...a really hard day.”
“Yeah, Sheryn said you had to go see the mayor, drop off some stuff. Doesn’t he keep regular business hours?”
Amber colored slightly. “It—he had to work me in this evening. His, um, schedule’s pretty tight.”
Amber regretted the lie immediately. There was no longer anything between her and Dean, so why hide her involvement with Mac? Besides, whatever it was that they had shared over the last few days looked like it was ending as quickly as it had begun.
On the other hand, the less said about Mac, the better. Why dwell on a chapter in her life that she planned to bury? To have returned to Heartbreak and thrown herself at the one man she’d sworn she would avoid, to have shared his bed, to have come close to making love to him under the stars tonight - this behavior was definitely out of character for her. It was best forgotten.
“Yeah. Well. I wish you had told me when I called. I’ve got a session in the studio in the morning.”
“Oh, Dean, I’m sorry. When we talked on the phone, I had no idea that Gray would be able to arrange this meeting for tonight.” Another lie—each was a little easier than the last, to Amber’s dismay. And yet, focusing on Dean took her attention away from Mac, so she forced herself to sit up straighter and concentrate on the conversation. “When do you have to be back?”
“Eleven or so tomorrow morning, so I’ll be cutting out of here by five. Hope I can find a damn cup of coffee at that hour.”
“I’m really sorry,” Amber repeated. She’d have to make it up to him back in Nashville, perhaps take him out for dinner. Or lunch—a nice lunch between old friends. Ex-lovers though they might be, there was no reason why they couldn’t enjoy each other’s com
pany now and then.
“Here, why don’t we sit down,” Dean said, plopping down on the bed and patting the spread next to him. Amber suddenly became aware of how thin the material of her T-shirt was, and wished she’d kept her bra on. Folding her arms on her chest, she sat carefully, putting a little distance between them.
But Dean maneuvered himself closer, placing a hand at the small of her back and stroking her lightly. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said to me, you know, last week.”
Amber nodded and swallowed uncomfortably. His touch felt wrong, all wrong. Unlike Mac, who could send liquid surges of pleasure through her body with a single caress, Dean’s stroking of her skin felt methodical, unwelcome. She tried to inch a little further away. Any further, though, and she was in danger of falling off the bed.
“I think those things needed to be said for a while, Dean. We’ve been sort of drifting, without any direction. And having had a little more time to think I’m all the more certain—”
Dean waved her to silence. “Wait a second,” he said. “Hear what I have to say. I think it’s true, we haven’t been making enough quality time for just the two of us. This career of mine puts me under the lights so often, sometimes I have a hard time adjusting back to being, you know, just a regular guy.”
Despite her exhaustion, despite the ache in her heart, Amber couldn’t help but smile at Dean’s words. “Oh, Dean, you’d never be just a regular guy even if you tried.”
Dean smiled along with her, and Amber realized he heard a compliment in her words. A man with as many fans as Dean had probably came to expect admiration after a while.
“What I’m saying is, I think I can change. I think I can work on the ol’ wine and roses routine. Quiet dinners, walks in the park, all that stuff. Hell, how hard can it be? Let’s give it another shot, what do you say?”
Dean had managed to slide over and hook an arm around her, squeezing her to him, tucking her head under his chin. He began stroking her forearm lightly, but the touch felt almost painful to her heightened senses. She wriggled her way free as gently as she could and turned to face Dean, her knees forming a barrier between them.
“I—I don’t know what to say, Dean. I’m touched that you have given me—given us—so much thought. You...have so much to offer the right woman.”
“You’re the right woman, Amber,” Dean cut in. “Don’t you see that?”
Amber shook her head sadly. “What I see is you throwing yourself into trying to fix something that never really worked in the first place. There’s more to true love than just the number of times a man sends a woman flowers. If I had to think that you were reminding yourself every time you said “I love you”, it wouldn’t mean nearly as much. If you stayed home with me but I knew that deep down you wished you were out with your friends...well, I don’t want a life like that. And...Dean? I think if you look long and hard, you’ll realize that you don’t, either.”
“I have thought about this,” Dean retorted, frustration evident in his voice. “More than you know. I want to be with you. I’ve got it all planned out. After you come home, we’ll—”
He jumped up and dug in the pocket of his tight jeans. “This didn’t go exactly as I had planned,” he said, kneeling down in front of her, to Amber’s horror. “But when we get home, I’d like you to start planning the biggest wedding Nashville’s seen in years. Amber, please say you’ll marry me.”
With a flourish he presented a small black velvet box, tipping up the lid to reveal a diamond large enough to ice skate on.
Mac ground a pebble into the ground with the toe of his boot. It was late. How late, he couldn’t be sure, but the cicadas had quit their droning, the moon was low in the sky, and Heather and Randy were curled nose to nose next to him on the back porch, snoring gently.
Inside, the lights were turned off, but music trailed out on the slight breeze. Against his better judgment, Mac had put on the Alabama album they’d listened to until they both knew ever word by heart. He might as well have been pouring salt into an open wound when he popped it in the player and went to sit out under the night sky, after Amber left.
“The closer you get,” Mac sang softly. “The further I fall...” He’d sung that song to Amber then, many times. But he’d never felt it as deeply as he did tonight. It seemed that every time he was with Amber, even as he tried to push her away, she made an even bigger place in his heart. A place into which no other woman would ever fit.
Mac took a long draw on his beer, then set it down carefully next to him. Something his father had said during those last days, when Mac sat next to him watching helplessly as he slowly died in the hospital, was hovering near the edge of his mind. It hadn’t made any sense at the time, and Mac had filed it away with the other memories of his father.
It was one of the few times Pete had ever said anything about women. “Some women,” Pete rasped, his voice a whispered shell of its former self, “are like poison. You know they’re bad for you. You know they’ll bring you nothing but heartache. And you just can’t stay away from ‘em.
“Son, you hear what I’m telling you?” Mac squeezed his eyes shut and suddenly he could see it as clearly as if ten years hadn’t passed. His father, thin and waxy-skinned, lying in a nest of starched hospital linens, his eyes slitted in pain. But using all his energy to reach a shaking hand out to Mac, continuing when Mac wrapped his own strong hand around the cold, weak one. “McBaine men have no luck with women,” he’d wheezed. “Keep your distance, son. You get a taste of the wrong one and your life ain’t ever yours again.”
He’d died soon after that.
Mac’s mother looked elegant in mourning, even if she’d had the house on the market, and booked her flight to Florida, even before the first rain flattened down the dirt on her husband’s grave.
Could his father have really given his life to her, spoken so passionately about her? Mac shook his head slowly. He didn’t get it.
But then, who really understood what went on between a man and a woman? He had told no one the way he felt about Amber. Wasn’t even sure there were words for it.
Poison? Maybe. But if that were the case, it was too late for him. There was no known antidote for the longing Amber’s absence left him with.
She’d asked him for nothing short of forever, and he’d hesitated. Why? Certainly his heart was screaming yes, his body aching for her touch.
He’d hesitated because he’d seen the way she shrunk from the men on the street that first night in front of Buzzy’s.
Because he’d heard the pain in her voice when she recalled the way her mother and she had been treated by the people of Heartbreak.
Because he’d seen the changes that the city had wrought on her, and because he wasn’t at all certain he had the right to ask her to change back.
So she couldn’t bear to come back. Not for good. All right. It was true that Heartbreak had served her up a generous serving of misery. And Amber had triumphed in the end, leaving the town he loved far behind her, shaking its dust forever from her shoes.
But so what? So she lived elsewhere—she was still free, wasn’t she? She hadn’t married, hadn’t truly settled down.
And if he’d been poisoned, so had she. He knew it with a clarity sudden and complete. Amber was no more whole than he was.
All it would take was for one of them to speak the right words, to figure out a way for them to be together.
Well, they had water in Nashville, didn’t they? Hell, a river ran right through the damn place, and there was a huge lake not five miles out of town. And water, to a boy who learned how to take the wheel of a boat practically before he learned to walk, meant boats.
No reason why Junior couldn’t run the place here for him while he opened up McBaine Boats of Nashville. No reason in the world.
Especially if he was doing it with Amber at his side.
Daring to imagine a future with her suddenly made everything seem possible. Leaving Heartbreak was a small price to pay
if it meant he could have Amber. Mac’s pulse quickened as he slowly got to his feet, a smile coming to his lips.
It would be a few more hours until the sun crested the distant hills and another new day broke over Heartbreak. Like every other summer day, porches would be swept, papers would be delivered, coffee would brew. A sleepy Doc Pulaski would open up the barber shop, Lucille would crank up the griddle at the Sunset diner, and they’d be washing the engines out in the bright sun down at the fire station.
This day would be different, though. Because today Mac was going to win Amber DeWitt’s heart for good.
Amber ran the comb through her hair for the hundredth time. She’d slept nearly seven hours after Dean finally left, and the sun was making its way up the sky, beginning to bake her room even through the drawn sheers. She’d taken another shower, mostly to try to force herself awake.
Nine o’clock. The Sawyers were no doubt sleeping in after their amorous evening. Dean was probably more than halfway back to Nashville by now.
Heavens, he was the most stubborn man she had ever met. Amber had been horrified when he launched into his proposal. She’d wanted nothing more than to sink into the floor.
How could they be on such different wavelengths that he thought even for a second she might say yes? Amber gave the comb a final, frustrated yank and tossed it on the dresser. She shuffled through the clothes in the flimsy closet, idly wondering what the members of the Heartbreak city council wore to their meetings, and settled on a fitted white T and ankle-length black linen skirt.
Slipping into black sandals, she reflected that Dean would probably be none too pleased to see her adapting to the more casual way of life of a small town. In Nashville she wore nylons and heels, even in the summer. Jackets topped her outfits, and she shaped her hair each morning with care, and a liberal dose of hair spray.
Today, though, she didn’t have the energy. Her hair would have to dry in the humid air, despite the curls that inevitably would form. And a slick of lipstick and quick brush of mascara would have to do.