by Nicole Helm
He was starting to wonder if he should go back to therapy. If he should introduce Kate to it, but he kept wanting to put that off.
He wanted to put everything off, ignore it all.
For the first time in all this time, that’s exactly what he did. Summer had it under control, and where that had once filled him with dread, in the midst of all this damn fear, all he could be was relieved.
He didn’t actually have more chores to do. He just hadn’t been able to handle Christmas right now. Not Michaela’s angel ornament that she’d bought knowing she wouldn’t see another Christmas, not pretty lights and happy songs and Summer’s beautiful smile at his amazing little girl and Dad in the other room, alive.
It was all too good, and he was so afraid that if he enjoyed it, somehow it would be ripped from him.
So, he did the only thing he could think to do to get rid of the big, pulsing knot of anxiety inside his gut.
He walked over to his father’s woodworking shed. He went straight for the little fridge in the corner, filled with bottles of water…which hid the bottles of beer lining the back.
Dad didn’t touch the hard stuff anymore, but he always had beer on hand. Thack hated that, but he looked the other way because there were only so many fights he could manage, only so many expectations he could deal with.
Would a stronger man know what to do here? A stronger man would have already set the world to rights. Instead, he was looking the other way when he simply couldn’t deal with another thing.
Thack popped the top of the beer and gulped half of it without even taking a breath. Then he moved to the back where Dad hid the recyclables. Thack went to work setting up his very old way of dealing with this overwhelming fear.
He pulled out the targets, the glass bottles, and walked twenty paces away.
Dr. Seaver had given him a litany of coping mechanisms for grief and stress during his years of counseling after Michaela’s death. This one had always been his favorite. He supposed that breaking things on purpose felt like relief because his entire life was spent carefully balancing things so they didn’t break.
He grabbed a bottle, flipped it from base to top, then hurled it at the target hung on the back of Dad’s woodshed. It shattered with a satisfying crash.
He downed the rest of his beer before throwing the bottle, crashing it in exactly the same place. Most of the pressure in his chest stayed tight and hard, but some of it began to ease. He went back into the shed, retrieved four beers, and then set out to drink and destroy.
The people inside that house could take care of things for a while. They’d have to. He was tired of being the only one, tired of all this pressure. He didn’t have any fight left. He was giving up.
Yeah, he would give up. What was the point of all this backbreaking work? What was the point of weathering all these disappointments? A ranch he could barely stand to face most mornings? A father who fought him every step of the way until he landed himself in the hospital? No one else who wanted to really help. Sure, they wanted to offer advice or food, but they never wanted to step in and step up.
Except Summer.
“Thack?”
“Sweet pickles,” he muttered, disgusted with himself that even a crap day didn’t keep him from the stupid euphemism. He turned to face the woman in question. Most of her was hidden in the shadow, only the crown of her hair illuminated by the faint glow from the house.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“What are you doing out here?”
“Your father sent me to… Well, he thought you might need someone to talk to.”
“No.”
“What if I promised to just listen and not say anything at all?”
He knew he should agree to that or go inside. Those were his two choices. The two Thackery Lane choices of adulthood and responsibility. Instead, he polished off his beer.
“So, I think I’ll head home. Unless…you want me to stay.”
He finally found his voice. “Stay?”
“I…” She cleared her throat, not meeting his gaze. “I just meant if there’s anything else you need help with. Kate and your dad are eating.”
If he needed it. What a joke. He needed so much help, and yet he’d finally gotten himself to ask for it, ask her for it, and something else had blown up in his face.
What would have happened if Dad hadn’t called Gabriella? Would his situation have been so much worse? Thack didn’t want to believe in karma or cosmic signs, but weren’t they all here? Every time he stepped outside this ranch and his responsibilities, something terrible happened. How did he keep ignoring that?
He drained the last of his beer and then, with no warning to Summer, hurled the glass at the target, the flame of impotent frustration fading a little when the bottle exploded into a hundred little shards.
She jumped and took a few unsteady steps away from him.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, copying her words. “Here, give it a shot.”
She stared at the empty bottle he’d retrieved from the bin. “A shot?”
“I have it on good authority it’s cathartic.”
“I don’t have anything I need…cathartic-ing.”
“Don’t you?”
She blinked as though he’d caught her in a lie. Had he? She seemed so serene and happy, but she’d said she wasn’t particularly well-adjusted, hadn’t she?
So, he prodded where he never prodded. “Don’t you have anything you’re angry about? Anything that makes you furious with the world? Isn’t there anyone who’s wronged you?”
They were supposed to be generic questions, but suddenly he wanted to know. He wanted to know what had shaped this woman he didn’t understand. This woman who wanted to help. Who had helped—not with meaningless advice or vague offers of help, but by stepping in and doing.
For a second, he thought she might take the bottle and smash it. For a second, he thought she might spill her guts. Eagerness and regret twined themselves inside him. He wanted to know. Wanted to figure her out and unlock the mystery that was Summer.
“There are other ways to relieve stress that aren’t so…messy,” she said, eyeing the shards of glass that littered the concrete pad below the target. She was uncomfortable, linking her fingers together tightly, keeping her distance.
“Name one.”
Her gaze slowly rose from the shattered glass to him. He’d been keeping his distance for these few days, had been overly disengaged from all his interactions with her, and her gaze still hit him like a horse kick.
“Yoga?” she offered, sounding oddly hopeful.
He snorted. Right. He was going to turn himself into a pretzel and magically feel better.
“All right. What about…” She stepped to him, in front of him. Close enough that he could feel her breath and smell the scent that had come to mean only Summer to him. Something herby and floral mixed together. The faintest hint of…sugar?
He shouldn’t look down. He should keep his eyes on the target, but with Summer so close, so pretty, and so very much here when no one else ever was, how did he focus on anything but her?
Her top teeth were pillowed in her bottom lip in that uncertain nibble that all too often caused an unfortunate stirring in his body. Then, in a move he knew he should sidestep—somewhere in the recess of his brain he knew he should step away—her fingertips trailed across the line of his jaw, and it felt as though she was brushing away half his stress. He all but slumped without the weight of everything resting on his shoulders.
All this from a simple touch, just the graze of her fingertips. But she didn’t stop there. No, she took an infinitesimal step closer, then slowly wrapped her arms around his waist, resting the side of her head against his chest.
She was hugging him.
It wasn’t a particularly romantic hug. Tho
ugh her breasts were pressed against his chest, she kept distance between her bottom half and his. Her arms remained still around him.
Comfort. She was offering physical comfort that held no promises, no questions, no added pressure. She was just…giving.
He had no means of fighting selfless giving, no way to push back against someone wrapping their arms around him. He couldn’t remember the last time someone who wasn’t Kate had offered him a hug. The first few weeks after Michaela’s death, people had simply scattered. Her parents had moved, and townspeople had their own tragedies to deal with. Then Kate had gotten old enough to hug him, and she held on so tight. But while those hugs offered him purpose and hope and love, they were weighted down with all the responsibility that Kate represented.
Summer’s hug was simply an offer of safety, a respite from all he’d dealt with this week. As much as he knew he shouldn’t take advantage, he couldn’t resist resting his cheek on top of her head or loosely wrapping his arms around her in return.
Her hair was soft, her body warm and comforting against his. Her arms were loose around him, and yet he had no doubt that if he leaned, she would find whatever strength she needed to hold him up.
He didn’t have a clue how long the hug lasted, and he didn’t want to think about time. This single moment could last all night, and he was positive it would never be enough. Her comfort was a salve, but the minute she stepped away, reality would crash back.
After who knew how long, she did. Summer stepped away and into the shadows. She hugged her own arms around herself, her expression half hidden in the dark.
“Why did you do that?” he asked, his voice not nearly as strong or demanding as he might have wanted.
“You constantly look like someone in desperate need of a hug.”
He wanted to do more than hug her. As platonic as that had been, the absence of her—her arms, her warmth, her smell—all clamored inside him, leaving him desperate for more.
He didn’t know what prompted him to say it, to think it, but the words tumbled out. “There are plenty of things I avoid doing, not because I don’t want to do them, but because I can’t.” Why can’t you? What would be the harm?
She took an incremental step into the dim light. Her tongue darted out, moistening her lips and making him even more uncomfortably hard. In that restaurant the other day, he’d wanted a friend, and he’d been punished for that want.
But after handling the aftermath of Dad’s hospital visit, his defenses were demolished. He had feelings and reactions, but he didn’t have the sense to be careful or even awkward.
It had been his sign, that call about Dad, a reminder he didn’t get things or people. Not like Summer. He couldn’t find the energy to accept that sign anymore, not here with her looking so intently at him.
“What…what kind of things?” she asked, her voice soft and breathless. As if she knew. As if she knew exactly what he’d been avoiding.
He swallowed, closing the distance she’d created between them. “Maybe you should go home,” he forced himself to say. Before he did something he couldn’t take back. Before he did something he’d regret when he had to remember everything he had to do, all his responsibilities, all his stress.
“Maybe,” she returned, not making a move to leave or distance herself again. She dropped her arms and took a step toward him, until the toes of their boots were touching. “But then again, maybe I should stay.”
Chapter 14
Summer’s heart was pounding so hard in her chest, in her ears, she had no idea how Thack didn’t hear it. How could either of them hear anything beyond the furious thumping?
This wasn’t right. Obviously he was breaking down, and she had no right to push herself into all the cracks that were snaking through his distance and control.
But, oh, how she wanted to fill those cracks. When her fingers moved over his jaw, his shoulders had simply slumped, a distinct and visible relaxation. She’d hugged him and felt that hard wall of muscle, strength, and determination losing an ounce of tension.
Surely a hug was better than bashing glass bottles against a wall. Surely understanding was a better salve than violence, no matter how harmless that violence might be.
She wanted to do it again. Her hand on his jaw, a simple hug. She wanted to feel the way it affected him. She couldn’t stop herself from wanting something far more complicated.
She wanted to feel his mouth on hers, for one thing. Would it have the same effect on him? Could she help him and find out what he tasted like, all at once?
She was trying to find an altruistic reason to force herself to close the distance between their mouths, and that was ridiculous. If he wasn’t going to do it, she should. They couldn’t stand this close forever, or her heart might actually burst.
Something had happened to him, inside him, after that phone call about his father in the restaurant, and if he couldn’t get past it, well, she could.
She could say something. She could grab him by the shoulders and pull him down to meet her mouth. She could get up on her tiptoes and kiss his neck. There were nearly a million things she could do. She’d been not-so-subtly fantasizing about exactly this, about the moment when the spark between them would catch and lick to life.
If only one of them would move.
As if he heard the inner workings of her mind, his arm moved. Slowly, hesitantly, his hand rose to her face and hovered just next to her temple.
She didn’t breathe. She was afraid if she inhaled or exhaled, it would break the spell. This had to be a spell, after all, a remnant of that fairy magic Kate was so enamored with. But if Summer really had fairy magic, his mouth would already be on hers, and she would know what it was like to get something she wanted.
The very tips of his fingers touched her forehead, gently brushing some stray strand of hair away. She tried to keep her eyes open, to soak up the moment. It probably wouldn’t be much more than a moment, after all, and she wanted to relish it forever.
But his fingers trailed down her cheek, and she couldn’t keep her eyes open or her breath held. It came out in a whoosh as the pads of his rough fingers trailed across the soft skin of her jaw, just as she’d done to him.
He didn’t stop. The backs of his fingers trailed down her neck, and she had the terrible realization that she’d actually groaned. All he’d done was barely touch her in the most innocent of places, and her chest was tight and jittery, her stomach was doing rolling flips, and a kind of aching need she’d never experienced before was building low in her stomach.
No one had ever made her feel quite this…valued. It was an odd word, an odd feeling, and yet the fact he was being so careful and controlled was the opposite of everything she’d known before.
His hand went around the back of her neck under her hair, so she could feel each finger pressed firmly against her skin. He was holding her there, as if he needed her not to move.
She would gladly never move if he’d keep looking at her like she might have all the answers. As if she might mean something. So few people looked at her like that. Okay, no one looked at her like that. Even though her family had come to accept her, they still regarded her with an ounce of…what do we do about Summer?
Thack seemed to know exactly what to do about her. She needed him to…to… She didn’t know. His face was still so close, and she didn’t know what she needed, only that she wanted his hands. His mouth. Things she’d never allowed anyone to do to her. She wanted to grant him access to all the parts of her she kept hidden. His mouth still hadn’t touched hers. He hadn’t moved past putting his hand on her neck, holding her there, holding her. It felt as if her heart beat in every place his fingers pressed, as though her entire existence was centered in those five points.
Her breath was uneven at best, everything inside her waiting and wanting and wishing. She couldn’t take it anymore. “What are you thinking?” she ask
ed, her voice shaky, her breathing too shallow and quick.
“That I should go. I should be in my home taking care of my daughter, my father, and every other damn responsibility that’s on my shoulders.” His grip seemed to tighten on her neck, and her head fell back farther, meeting his stark gaze more head-on. Because for all his shoulds, he wasn’t letting her go.
“So why aren’t you going?” She had to know. What was keeping him here? She needed to hear that he felt some inkling of that same energy that had thrummed between them from the beginning. Not just friendship, but this.
All the potential of this.
“Because…” His voice was rough, and his eyebrows drew together, only visible in the dark because they were so close. “Because I don’t fucking want to go.”
And then his mouth was finally on hers, soft and hot, demanding. She had to hold on to his jacket to keep her balance, to keep her mouth fused to his, because now that the flame had finally licked to life, she never wanted it to go out.
She never wanted this to end.
There had been so few kisses in her life, and they all paled in comparison to this. To Thack and the way his fingers tangled in her hair, and his palm cradled the back of her head, and the way he held her with a certainty, a sturdiness, that left no room for fear.
He was solid, every part of his body so hard, except his mouth. That was soft, as was his tongue, softer as it trailed across the seam of her lips, asking for entrance. She gave it. Willingly, perhaps emphatically.
Yes, emphatic, as she loosened her grip on his shirt and wrapped her arms around his neck instead, bringing him closer. They were pressed together, her chest crushed to his, her thighs pressed to his, every part of her touching him hot, so hot, and every part of her not touching him dying for the pleasure.
His free arm came around her waist, but more, his fingers trailed under the hem of her coat and shirt, so that his bare palm rested against her bare back, pulling her more firmly to him.