Andra turned away, probably searching for something else to ask for a story about, but all that was left was his closet. His handful of shirts hung to one side, leaving nothing but a vacant rod above the bright-blue cracked paint of the last object he ever wanted her to see.
She paused, and he ground down on his back teeth. She was so careful of everyone normally, she might not even ask, but she’d know it meant something.
Of course she would—it was half a fucking door. Who the hell kept that in their closet? He glanced away, his leg muscles twitching.
“You don’t have to tell me about it,” she said quietly.
This girl. Jesus, this girl.
He stepped up behind her and ran his knuckles down her shoulder blades, so she knew he was there, before he dropped his head to her shoulder and buried his face in her hair. His arms wrapped around her waist, and for a second, he was breathing in frothing floodwater, debris slamming into his ankles as he pulled her higher on the roof, toward safety. He blinked and loosened his grip so he wouldn’t hurt her.
“It was my door.”
Water damage blistered the bright-blue paint, and spots of old mold still dirtied the finish. A rusted doorknob sprouted from one side, the wood broken on the other where it had been wrenched off its hinges. He’d chainsawed off the bottom half to make it smaller to store, leaving just the spray-painted X and the numbers.
“What do the numbers mean?” Her arms covered his, her hands cupped protectively. How long had it been since somebody tried to shield him? His own mother had given that up about the time he grew taller than she was, when he was ten.
LJ pulled his back straight again, but he didn’t let her go. “The one on top is the date the rescuers cleared the house and who cleared it. The one on the bottom is how many bodies they found.”
“Bodies?”
He stared over her head at the numbers. “Some of our neighbors came over to wait out the storm, because my mama’s gumbo is the best for miles around, and she’d made a whole mess of it. When the levee broke, water came into the house so fast we lost Ron Gravier while trying to get up to the attic and out onto the roof. Then it was just me, up there with the women and children. I was only a teenager, but I was the biggest and the strongest by a long shot. I grabbed them, was pushing them higher on the roof when the Graviers’ house came off its foundation next door and came crashing down into ours. When it hit us, half of them went in the water. I was pulling them out, throwing them back up onto the roof, and there was another jolt and Mama went in. It was raining so hard, and the wind—”
He stopped, because there was nothing to say about wind like that. It pushed so hard, there was no standing against it.
“It was the loudest thing I ever heard. All I could think was to hold on to Mama with one hand and the roof with the other. I forgot about the kids.” His voice went hoarse, and he coughed to clear his throat.
He released Andra, afraid he might hold her too tight.
“We got Letty out of the water, but by then, CPR couldn’t bring her back. Or maybe I wasn’t doing it right, because I just did what I’d seen on the poster in the gym. Mama never said anything, but I know if she had the strength, she would have hung on to those kids.” He nodded to the door. “That number two. It’s for Ron and Letty Gravier. We lost Aimee Mitchell off the roof, too, but I don’t know what happened to her body.” He hadn’t seen her in the water, hadn’t seen her ever again. “The number should be three.”
Andra turned around, her eyes dark in a way he hadn’t seen in anyone who wasn’t there during Katrina. He set his jaw, but she didn’t speak. Just lifted his hands and kissed his fists. The right and then the left.
“Tell me how you got out,” she said.
He looked down. “Lots of boats got busted up in the storm, so it took a long time to get some together to rescue all the folks who were trapped. Took days before they got to my house. The news helicopters kept circling, filming us, but they didn’t help.”
Andra’s shoulders clenched. “God. You think when you go through something so terrible, that if one person could see, they’d help. Of course they would.” She shook her head. “I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “Those news crews had cameras, not ropes, and there was nowhere to land. There was plenty of bad in those days. Not enough cops, too many freaked-out soldiers, everything all messed up. But it was volunteers who came and got us off that roof, volunteers who helped us clean up the debris once they pumped the water out. I don’t ever forget that.” He sat down on his bed, the mattress creaking, and he stared at that old half door. “I always meant to frame it. It’s—hell, it’s my whole life, right there. But somehow it never made it out of the closet.”
She sat down next to him. “Did you ever talk to a therapist, after?”
“No time, no money. For a long time, I was busy trying to get a roof built over our heads again. And by then . . . Lots of people talk about Katrina, everything it messed up, everything it took. I didn’t want to think about it.”
“Funny how the not thinking about it doesn’t make it go away.” She looked down at her jean-clad knees, the right one brushing his.
“No. It don’t.” He slung an arm around her shoulder, and she looked up at him. She put a hand on the bed, pushing herself up enough to kiss his cheek. Her small lips—it was such a tiny gesture, but it knotted his throat all up. He had to clear it twice. “What was that for?”
“Because of course you’d try to save everyone.”
He shook his head, thinking of all the days of digging through rubble, looking for trapped survivors. Splinters all through his raw hands and no way to get gloves or tweezers. Wading through half-submerged streets, the bullet wound in his leg weeping blood under filthy bandages. The air so hot the dirty water started to feel good. “Didn’t do no good. After Katrina, it was too late to really save anybody.”
Her hand traveled up from the bed onto his thigh. “Maybe. But you didn’t give up on them. Just like you didn’t give up on me.”
It was hard to think with her hand so close to his fly, but he managed a laugh out of a dry throat. “You did boil garlic with the skins on. But I think I can make a cook out of you yet.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she whispered, and kissed him.
This time, her tongue took the lead, sliding slow and uncertain along the edge of his. He fought back a groan of pure longing. As soon as she moved, he missed her touch. His hands curled around the warm sides of her waist, holding her steady on the wobbly edge of the mattress.
She felt so good everywhere that at first he didn’t notice the slight tugs at his collar were her fingers, unbuttoning his shirt. As soon as her fingertips took their first, soft taste of his skin, he stalled.
She was undressing him. Andra was in his bed and she wasn’t afraid. She wanted him naked, and she maybe even wanted him to touch her, and just . . . him. She’d chosen him.
He gasped raggedly. “Wait.”
He caught her hand and held on to it so she couldn’t think he was rejecting her. This had to be the first time in years she’d put that hand under a man’s shirt.
“I need a minute.” His cock swelled with every one of his heartbeats. The head was so sensitive, he was afraid if he even adjusted himself, he’d explode.
“LJ?” Her voice shook.
He kissed her knuckles without opening his eyes. “Ah, sweet girl . . . The things you make me feel, I—” Earlier, her eyes had widened at even the words “make love,” but that’s the only thing he could think to do right now. He was bursting with it, emotion exploding out of every pore in his skin. He wanted to surround her in pleasure, kissing her with his entire body. But Andra wasn’t ready, and he knew it. Especially not with him half out of his mind with longing.
He was so damned afraid he wasn’t good for her, and that her daddy knew it and would fire his ass. That
his mama would get sick and he’d have to go back home. He didn’t want to go back, and he was afraid to leave Andra. He was even more afraid that he should.
He cupped her face in his trembling hands, sliding them down her neck, her shoulders. “Listen, Andie-girl. I need to—I want to—”
She bit her lip, and in her hazy green eyes was all the desire and trepidation that told him he was absolutely right.
“Let me show you,” he whispered.
He shot off the bed, and even the change in position was enough to make his dick throb. He adjusted himself gingerly as he crossed to his saxophone case, opened it, and popped the reed into his mouth. He rolled the reed around, wishing he could taste her instead. He wanted to listen to her gasp as his lips explored her skin. Even if it wasn’t today, they would get there eventually. She had to know there was no one who would cherish her body more carefully than he would.
She shifted on the edge of the bed when he came back with his instrument, her cheeks flushed. She still looked confused, maybe the tiniest bit hurt. He tucked the reed into his cheek and ran his knuckles from her cheekbone down to her jaw. “I want to make love to you.”
She licked her lips, but he wasn’t imagining the jump in her pulse that beat so openly in her throat.
“I know we need to take it slow. That there are things that might remind you of something bad, when it’s supposed to be nothing but good.” He touched her chin, lifting it enough that he could leave the softest of kisses on her lips. “So listen instead, because music is always pure. Always safe, the way you are with me, okay?”
Her face changed, warmth spreading through the stiffness of her cheeks. “LJ . . .”
He smiled and closed his eyes, because the way she said his name was a whole different kind of music, and it might be he loved it even more than jazz.
He fitted the reed to his saxophone, stood, and lifted it to his lips. He started low, with the barest hint of sound, like fingers whispering up bare legs. A tease with a vow all wrapped up inside of it.
The first note he gave his whole lungs to was the fullest of his life. It vibrated from his chest all the way down to his toes. He’d half planned to start with one of the jazz standards, but that wasn’t what came out. Instead, it was the rush of watching a beautiful stranger riding a beautiful horse. The twinkle of her green eyes the first time he made her smile. The relief after her second panic attack when she crawled into his lap for comfort.
The notes softened, winding low and sweet and slow. When he opened his eyes, she was smiling. Her arms were hugged around her knees as she sat, totally comfortable on his bed, her belly warmed with his food.
The music looped, deepened, as he imagined how it would be the first time she let him take off her clothes. His lids drooped as he played through how it would feel to have her trust, warm along with her skin. Her thighs opening for him, relaxed and easy.
When he opened his eyes this time, they found hers and held as the tide of the music rushed faster, each return swelling to match the desperation of what he felt. How there could never be enough: enough time, enough pleasure. Enough of her.
He dropped to one knee before her, his fingers flying and lungs burning as he promised himself to her, one note after another in the truest language his tongue had ever known. And when the air ran out, his forehead dropped to her knee, his shoulders heaving as he gasped. Her fingers wound over the sweat-slicked skin at the back of his neck, and she held him. So tightly, her hands desperate, like she wanted to sing back to him but didn’t know the tune.
That night, Andra never went home.
Seventeen
Andra ducked her head, blushing as LJ opened his door with one hand, the other skimming the small of her back as he let her out.
“I don’t understand why you won’t let me make you breakfast,” he said.
“I’m okay. And I still have to shower and change, so I’m running late as it is.”
He ducked his head, nibbling kisses along her neck until she giggled. “Smell plenty good to me.” She swatted halfheartedly at him, and he stole another kiss anyway. “I’ll leave the door unlocked. Whenever you get hungry for lunch, let yourself in and heat up some of the red beans and rice. They only get better the longer the spices soak in.”
She groaned. “There’s no way they can get better. I think I ate four bowls of them last night. Probably won’t need to eat again for weeks.”
“You’re just catching up for all those Salisbury steak years.” She glanced away, and his eyes narrowed on her face. “What’s that look for?”
“Um . . .”
“You didn’t.” He straightened to his full six feet and five inches. “Tell me you did not eat Salisbury steak on my watch.”
“You were at the ranch house! What was I supposed to do?”
He shook his head. “You’re breaking my heart, Rodeo Queen. Cracking it into little bitty pieces.”
She grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him down to her level, loving that he could smile and kiss her all at the same time.
She meant to say something smart-ass, but by the time she got done kissing him, she couldn’t remember what it had been. “Bye,” she said instead.
His grin brightened another twenty watts. “Bye,” he drawled.
He closed the door, and then Andra heard the smacking of exaggerated kissy sounds. “Damn, you two are nauseating,” Stacia said, dropping a tube of sunscreen to the side of her chair on the porch and rising to her feet.
Andra stopped, an itchy flush rising under her clothes. She wanted to dance, to fidget, to brag or laugh out loud. She had no idea what to say.
Stacia laughed. “Yeah, you ought to be blushing, leaving that flashy palomino of yours parked in our corral all night for everybody to see.”
Andra rolled her eyes and tried to rein in the smile that wanted to stretch across her face. It had been too many years since they’d talked about boys. She half wanted to, but it felt weird to share details as an adult. She started walking instead, her strides long and self-conscious. Dew dampened the leather of her boots as she kicked through the chilly grass.
Stacia jogged to catch up, following even when Andra started heading up the hill away from the stable. “Personally, I don’t know how you lasted this long. That body and those manners wrapped up in a southern accent? I had at least four Jane Austen love affairs with him in my head the first week he was here.”
“Jane Austen?” Andra wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean?”
Stacia bumped her shoulder. “Lots of talking and longing looks across the drawing room. It’s the way he treats you like you’re a lady, you know? And then he smiles, and my fantasy goes straight from the ballroom to hard-core tack room fucking.” She stopped, her blue eyes going round. “Please tell me you’re getting hard-core tack room fucking.”
“Uh, not exactly.”
Stacia fell silent for a few steps, and Andra’s shoulders clenched more with every one. This is why she’d started avoiding her friend after the attack. As well-meaning as Stacia was, Andra didn’t want to talk about her issues with sex. Though last night, she’d slept in LJ’s bed. The whole night had passed softly, with her twined in his sheets and his bare, muscular arms, without the hint of a panic attack. She hadn’t even been nervous.
Andra bit her lip against a grin she didn’t want to explain.
“I should have guessed you were staying over when I heard that gorgeous saxophone solo last night,” Stacia said. “I mean, I’ve heard him practicing through the wall before, but the other nights, I didn’t have to change my panties afterward.” Andra choked on a laugh, and Stacia bumped her shoulder again, encouraged. “Is that a yes? Did he woo you with his great, big . . . saxophone?”
This time Andra couldn’t hold back the laugh. “You’re ridiculous. And how are you two not best friends? You’d think your minds would have bumped into
each other by now, wandering around in the gutter all the time.”
Stacia hooked a thumb back toward the house. “I’ve got to get breakfast on, so I should run. But if you want to talk more about crushes and boys, well . . .” She grinned. “Then call your brother. He’s got more X chromosome than I do any day of the week.”
Andra rolled her eyes, laughing. “Duly noted.”
“On the other hand, if you want to share any juicy tidbits about how that man uses his saxophone . . .” Stacia walked backward down the hill, her sequins glittering in the light of the rising sun. “Then call me immediately.”
* * *
• • •
LJ’s rocking chair creaked lazily, Andra’s squeaking a faster rhythm next to him. The last rays of the day’s sun baked the browning grass in her front yard, bees humming along over the tops of the scattered wildflowers.
“So . . .” She peeked over at him with a tiny smile, the cute one she used when she was about to give him hell. “Is this it?”
“It?” He worked up an imperious glare. “What else could you possibly need than a pretty afternoon and a porch to enjoy it from?”
She tucked her hands under her legs, pushing off the floorboards with one toe to keep herself rocking. “No, it’s nice, the whole porch-sitting thing. I haven’t done much of it even though I bought the chairs. I just wasn’t sure if maybe there was more to it.”
He wasn’t about to admit it, but he didn’t feel as content on the porch up here as he did at home. The view was incredible, steeply pitched hills with the velvety texture of closely packed trees leading up to distant mountains. Horses grazed in Andra’s paddock like a painting of the life he’d been dreaming for himself since he got his first cowboy hat from the dollar store.
But the contentment of it was ruined by the knowledge that he was exposed to the whole horizon line, so all Bill had to do was walk up over the hill, and LJ would lose his job, his future, and any chance he had at being close to Andra. His chest was as tight as an overwound clock. The way she’d looked at him since last night . . . if he had to leave the ranch, would she try to see him again? It was the kind of thing he knew better than to hope for. It seemed like when you reached that high, life always found a way to slap you back down.
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