I pantomimed a laugh. “Funny.”
He handed me my phone. “If I were you, I’d get the number changed. He won’t be able to call you then.”
I nodded, biting my tongue. “Good idea. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”
He either missed the sarcasm or ignored it. Instead, he accepted his mug and took another big drink.
Mom grabbed me by the shoulders to steer me out into the living room away from where Luke and my father sat discussing the personal security measures I should take. After a few moments of cursing my bad luck, my personal security measures arrived.
Simon gathered me into his arms. “I told you I should have spent the night.”
His hair hung in damp ringlets from a shower. I stood there inhaling his fresh clean scent as he held me.
He rested his cheek on top of my head. “Dani. Dani. Dani.”
Minutes after Luke left, my parents climbed the stairs to their bedroom. Simon and I sat on the couch in the family room, the TV tuned to some too-cute-to-be-real nineteen-nineties sitcom. In moments like these, I wished Simon had wanted me enough the first time to keep me. “What’s that face about?” He tipped my chin up and gazed into my eyes.
“What face?”
“This frown.” He reached out and ran his finger over my lips.
I focused on the TV, trying to will any forlorn or wistful looks from my face. “It’s been a rough night.”
“I’m here now.” He brought my hand to his lips. “Let me protect you.”
“If something happens to you, Simon…”
He kissed the rest of my sentence into oblivion. “It won’t.”
“You don’t know what he’s capable of.” And I couldn’t bring myself to share the gory details.
“I was sheriff here once, you know.”
“Okay, but you’re not now.”
“I still have the gun.”
“Really? Where is it?” Because I hadn’t seen it in ages.
“In my car. Don’t worry. If I need it, I have it on speed dial.”
“I don’t think this is a time for your humor, funny man.” I scooted away, fluffing a pillow for behind my head. Simon watched me, an amused smile playing with his lips as I worked to get comfortable, flopping like a fish from side to side until finally I found a semi-comfortable position.
“Do you remember the fifth grade?”
He wanted to take a jaunt down our middle school memory lane? The inner workings of his mind amazed me. I smiled in spite of myself. “Most of it.” I remembered Simon in fifth grade--adorable even then. He’d always had a sweet face. His playful nature was a bonus.
“Did you know you’re the first girl I ever kissed?”
“Oh, whatever.” I tossed my pillow at him. “You were always holding hands with Leslie Anderson. I know you guys were making out whenever Sister Irene wasn’t watching. And you’re changing the subject right now because you know I’m right.”
“No way. You were the first.” He tilted his head. “You know, people go their whole lives thinking they’ll never feel the magic of that first kiss ever again. They search for that little tingle of thrill. They always wonder why it can’t ever be so perfect again. Most of them don’t ever feel it after that first one, but”--I raised my legs to let him move closer--“I feel it every time I kiss you.”
My heart thrashed around in my chest as though it were trying to escape. “Are you saying I kiss like a fifth grader?” My voice rasped as I tried to make light of his revelation.
He chuckled softly. “We need to work on our communication.” He pulled my hand until I sat up, then kissed the tip of my nose. “I’m saying how much I like kissing you.”
“Well, in that case…” I leaned into him at the same moment he moved forward. We ended up bumping heads. “I think we may have been better at it in the fifth grade.” I rubbed the spot between my eyes for a second before we tried again.
He pulled me close, my ear resting against his heart. “I don’t know. I think we’re pretty good at it now.”
“I think you’re too good to be true, Simon Hunter.”
Chapter 21
My parents left two days later, taking Kieran on an adventure to “where dragons lived,” and my boy couldn’t have smiled wider. I hadn’t been out of the house at all since I arrived, and spending so much alone time with Simon, who always seemed to be touching me in one way or another, wore on my resolve to hang on to the innocence of our relationship. The simple fact remained…. I couldn’t sleep with him until he had all the facts.
“Hey.” He couldn’t have been more tempting if he wrapped himself in chocolate. My heart thumped harder as I stepped behind him, inhaling the scent of his cologne. With a tingle shooting from my chest down each leg, long ignored areas of my body vibrated to life.
“Hey.” With a final quick sniff, I levered away from him. I went in search of the coffeemaker.
“Kelly can’t afford her apartment anymore, and she’s moving in with Gatlin today. I thought maybe you’d like to go along to help?”
Visions of the dream I’d had the night before danced through my head, and I curled my fingers into my palm to keep from grabbing him. While moving furniture didn’t constitute my idea of a party, I would be with Simon. “Sure.”
He leaned in for a kiss that had me rethinking my whole position on temptation and good behavior. I couldn’t take another minute of staring without jumping on him. His smoldering gaze said he’d been equally affected.
“You ready?” His voice had climbed an octave higher than normal. I smiled and he led me out to his car, which presented a whole other problem. Not only were we more confined with no room to flee and no distractions, but his car smelled like him and the scent intoxicated me more than any alcohol that ever passed my lips. During the five minute ride, his thumb rubbed small circles on the back of my hand as he drove.
By the time he parked behind her building, I panted as though I’d run a marathon. A sheen of sweat glistened on his upper lip and, for one second, I smiled, secure in the knowledge our suffering equaled out.
With a lusty gaze up and down my body, he took my hand again. I willed my jelly legs to reform as solids before I climbed out of the car. Hand-in-hand, we walked through the garden courtyard into Kelly’s home sweet home. The front of the building looked like every other apartment building in town--blooming flower beds, a brick front, ornate moldings, and a door stolen from some far off fairytale castle.
Her apartment, however, demonstrated exactly how much color could be stuffed into a single room. The couch, a bright shade of turquoise blended nicely with throw pillows in the same sunny shade as the walls. The dinette set, sitting off on a neon orange rug, had been stained a blond color, and the chairs held cushions that matched the couch precisely. Bright orange lamps cast a triangular glow on the hardwood floor, and the sofa shared space with banana colored chairs that winged each end. The focal point of the room--a movie screen sized TV--hung over an ornate fireplace in a muted, but still quite bright turquoise.
“Wow.”
Kelly strolled up. “My mom liked things very bright.”
I didn’t comment on her use of the past tense. As far as I knew her mother had gone away, not died.
Gatlin handed her a cold beer and a warm slice of pizza. I declined the food, but chugged Keaton’s bottle of water as he stared at his now empty hand. “Gatlin has been working in my closet. I thought we could use my car and Simon’s to transport my clothes while the boys move the furniture.”
Simon laughed. “Sure, Kelly. Bail on us when it’s time to lift the ten-ton couch.”
Kelly smiled at him. “You sound like a big baby in front of your girlfriend.” She pinched his cheeks as he continued to grumble, then raised her hands in surrender. “But, hey, whatever.” Pulling me by the wrist, she tugged me into her room and pushed the door shut. Gatlin popped his head out of the closet.
“Okay, we nee
d details.” She stood with her hands on her hips, a curious glimmer twinkling in her eyes.
“Details?” My innocence wasn’t hard to fake, since I had no clue what she was talking about.
“Yeah. We have a little bet going on.”
“Bet?” I could hardly manage a single word with the scent of Simon’s cologne still fogging my brain.
“Have you and Simon…?” Her head bobbed from side to side.
“Sealed the deal?” Gatlin supplied.
My mouth dropped open.
“Hey, sister,” he continued. “You wanna be in the group, you dish. It’s our rule. We even have a call tree.” He drew imaginary branches in the air. “And if you haven’t, Kelly wins dinner at Hood tonight. If you have, I win something to be determined at a later date.”
I raised my eyebrows at Kelly.
“I get three vetoes plus final say over his prize.”
Who the hell were these people? We didn’t have a kiss and tell kind of friendship. Thankfully, or Kelly would know a lot more about a drunken mistake I’d made with Gatlin.
I shot him a glare, and he flopped on his stomach onto the bed with his hands tented under his chin.
“Aren’t you supposed to be moving furniture with Simon and Keaton?”
He shrugged and buffed his nails on his shirt.
“So, I tell you, you tell Jocelyn. Who shares with the rest of the town?” They didn’t need details of my love life, besides there were none to give.
“I do. It’s the bonus of owning the gossip hub of Storybook Lake.” Gatlin fluffed imaginary hair like an old movie diva.
“Thought you went straight.”
He sighed and threw an arm around Kelly. “Old habits.” As a single unit, they looked up at me and waited. “So? Have you?”
In the absence of my best high school friend who’d run off to Texas and only took my calls periodically, I had no one to discuss my romantic issues with. They were all I had, and I needed to talk for a while. I shook my head.
Kelly gasped in shock. “Why the hell not?”
“I’m still married.”
“Not dead.” Gatlin clucked his tongue. “Listen, girl, he is Simon Hunter, hero of all men, fantasy of all women, and he might be content hanging in there for now while he plays the hero to your damsel, but if you don’t give it up soon, he will either A: explode or B: find someone else.” He twisted his shoulder in another diva move. “Seen it happen.”
“There’s too much going on right now for it to be a good idea.” I cocked my head to one side, picturing his hands, those lips, his eyes, the thousand wonders hidden by his clothes.
Before I could expand, a knock sounded at the door, and Gatlin winked at me as Simon walked in. “I just got called into work.” He frowned and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “Maybe you could stay with Kelly and Gatlin tonight. I have to go up to Chicago. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”
“I’ll be fine at Mom and Dad’s.”
“I have a date tonight, but Gatlin could stay with you.”
Gatlin frowned. “A date?”
She rolled her eyes. “For the article.”
I considered the last time I spent the night with him. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him or myself, but people in this town talked. A lot. I didn’t need more drama in my life. I’d once waded into Gatlin infested water. Coming out unscathed had been lucky, but I didn’t see a reason to take another chance if I didn’t have to. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”
Simon took my hand in his and pulled me close to plant a kiss on my lips. What he surely meant to be a quick good-bye kiss, morphed into a prelude to porn. “I’ll try to see you tonight.” His whisper warmed me from the inside out at the moment I’d finally resumed regular temperature from the earlier car ride.
“Okay.” My voice squeaked out of my throat.
It took a full minute for my heart to slow and my breathing to resume a semi-normal rate.
When Kelly and her thousands of belongings were shoved into Gatlin’s rooftop apartment, he packed a bag to stay at my mom and dad’s with me. Packing actually meant grousing over her evening’s plans while he shoved enough clothes for a week’s trip into a bag. For ten solid minutes, he wondered aloud when she’d made these mystery plans and what had tripped her switch about this guy so much she would skirt out on spending time girl chatting with us. He must have missed the part where she’d said this date was for work, but I had no intention on interrupting his rant to inform him. Someone needed to tell her how he felt--and soon--before Gatlin expired from her lack of attention. Since Kelly and I weren’t close, I filed the idea away to share with Simon when he returned.
After a two minute ride and another fifteen minute pout, Gatlin trimmed my hair and touched up my roots. Then we settled in with pizza delivery and an action flick, sating his appetite for action and my penchant for hot actors.
After the movie, and almost twenty minutes of listening to Gatlin snore on the sofa, I climbed the stairs to bed. Around three-thirty, I got my first hang-up call. Another occurred at four-ten, and the last one before I shut off my phone came a few minutes later. How the hell did this maniac keep getting my number and bypassing the block I’d had the phone company put on my account?
Forgetting my guest on the sofa, I stomped down the stairs to fling cabinet doors open in search of my favorite coffee mug. I screamed as though the scary guy from Hellraiser tapped me on the shoulder instead of Gatlin.
“Good morning to you too.”
“Sorry. You scared me.” My heart danced the-Simon in my chest.
“What are you doing up at this God forsaken hour?”
I jerked my phone out of my bathrobe pocket and waved it around in the air, glancing at the butcher knife in the block on the counter. “My stupid husband keeps calling me and hanging up.”
He shoved the knives out of reach. “Whoa, girl. No carving the cell.” We waited side by side as the coffee brewed in Mom’s antiquated coffee maker. “Wanna go horseback riding today, or does fun violate one of Simon’s rules for safety?”
I chuckled. “Yeah. We can take the horses out.” Rules, shmules.
“I’ll go get changed.” He raced out of the kitchen and I smiled. I would have to break it to him we needed to wait for daylight, but his excitement had him bouncing up the steps before I ever managed a syllable. Not a full ten minutes later, he bounded downstairs and proceeded to huff, puff, and pout when I said we needed to eat breakfast first. Spending time with Gatlin reminded me of hanging out with a little kid who’d eaten a few too many sugar cubes with his energy drink.
“Don’t forget your mace.” He slammed out the door as soon as the sun peeked over the horizon.
I saddled the horses while Gatlin released the others into the pasture. We rode for about four hours until he started complaining his “man parts” were suffering to the point of never being usable again. When he claimed women of the world would be cheated of knowing what a caring lover he’d become, we turned back.
Brown uniformed personnel huddled in the driveway as we rode up unnoticed. Police lights swirled atop the vehicles behind them. Simon walked onto the patio with Luke. He kicked at the concrete with a booted foot as Luke patted his shoulder. I took off at a full gallop and stopped at the fence line. After I tethered her reins to a post, I climbed over the wooden slats to meet Simon and Luke.
Luke turned to his assembled troops as I tapped Simon on the shoulder.
“I thought you were missing.” Simon squeezed most of the air from my lungs, then kissed the rest of it away.
Gatlin arrived a moment later and chuckled. “Good Lord. They’re away from each other one night and they celebrate like Christmas morning the next day.”
I smirked over my shoulder. “He thought we were missing.”
“I tried to call you this morning. Your phone went straight to voice mail.” He hadn’t stopped shaking since he first pulled me aga
inst him.
Gatlin, however, laughed until tears streamed down his cheeks. “You called the entire police force out here because we went horseback riding?” He gasped for breath, holding his stomach.
It took more than an hour for the police and emergency personnel to leave, and another hour to get Gatlin to go, but finally, we were alone. As ridiculous as I found some of Simon’s safety precautions, it occurred to me how wide open Gatlin and I had been all morning. What if the person taking my pictures for Sean decided to shoot me with something other than a camera? Or worse, what if Gatlin got hurt because of all this mess? How would I live with the guilt?
As Simon showered the smoke smell off his body and hair, I paced the perimeter of the living room, trying to figure out what to do. I couldn’t stay. It put everyone at risk. He came back into the room at the same moment I plopped in my mother’s favorite chair, tears streaking down my cheeks.
He squatted in front of me and put a hand on each of my knees. “Hey. Wanna talk about it?”
I wiped my eyes and looked up at him. I’d loved Simon and been loved by Simon for a lot of my adult life. Now that it almost worked out for us to be together, I had no choice but to leave him. “Not really.” I couldn’t let him go until I told him the truth about Kieran and as soon as I told him how I’d lied, we would be nothing more than two people who fought over custody or support.
He watched me for a minute as I took a few deep breaths to pull myself together. “Are you trying to leave me?”
I couldn’t speak as he pulled me close.
“Don’t go, Dani.” He tilted my face up. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
I couldn’t stop the tears, and he kissed me gently.
“I would die first.”
“You don’t know everything.” I needed to tell him and he’d just given me the perfect opportunity.
“There is only one thing I need to know.” He kissed me again. “I love you.” In the next second, our kissing turned into frantic unbuttoning, desperate touching, and frenzied unzipping. I couldn’t wait any longer. Being a better person would have to wait until later. Much later.
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