He squeezed her with the arm he had around her.
“Thank you,” she finished.
He bent his neck to kiss the top of her head.
Luci smiled yet again.
Then she fell asleep.
Hap
Holding Luci to him, Hap stared at the top of the windows, seeing nothing but dark sky beyond.
He was royally screwed.
But that was okay.
Because she was not.
She wanted it, he could give her this. He did give her this. And he’d continue to give her this.
Then, one day, when some good-looking guy who made more money than him or was more interesting than him or who didn’t give a shit she played opera came along, Hap would be cool.
He wouldn’t be able to hide the pain, but he’d mask the depths of it, and he wouldn’t make it hard for her to scrape him off.
And he’d find a way to keep it cool and still be in her life, a part of the crew.
He was that guy from that Tim McGraw song.
And he was okay with that.
He was okay with anything.
Just to see her smile.
He Would Call
Luci
THE NEXT MORNING, with her espresso held up in front of her, Luci stood leaning her side into the kitchen island, staring out the windows at the sea.
Hap was still in bed, and since he’d done most of the work the day before, when Luci woke, she’d given herself time to enjoy lying beside him tangled up in his warmth before she left him to sleep.
She’d carefully extricated herself, got out of bed, went to wash her face, brush her teeth, put on a light moisturizer, pull a brush through her hair, don a blush satin nightie with delicate scallops of ivory lace at bodice and hem (her favorite) and shrug on her cream cashmere cable-knit robe.
She then went downstairs to confirm what she knew was true—she had the ingredients for Nutella pancakes and a packet of bacon.
Once she confirmed this, she wrapped her arms around her middle and hugged herself with joy that she had someone to make breakfast for.
And that someone was Hap.
Only then did she make herself an espresso.
Caffeine acquired, she commenced making the pancake batter.
That done, she made her second espresso.
Which brought her right there, with Hap sleeping in her bed upstairs, the ocean waves pounding their never-ending beat against the sand, everything all right with the world for the first time in a very long time.
Her lips were curved up as she lifted her espresso and took a sip.
She was lowering the cup when she caught movement out of the sides of her eyes.
She looked that way to see Hap, sleepy-eyed, wearing nothing but his jeans and a grumpy expression, lumbering down the stairs.
Yes.
Everything was all right with the world.
He was not a morning person. She already knew this. But usually it was because he’d over-imbibed the night before.
Luci would discover in short order why he looked grumpy that morning when he came right to her, took her cup out of her hand, put it on the island and yanked her into his arms.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” he demanded, his voice slightly hoarse and still groggy.
“You did all the work yesterday,” she reminded him. “I thought you’d want some sleep.”
“You gettin’ out of bed means we couldn’t fuck before we both got out of bed.”
She melted into him, placing her hands on his warm chest.
“Does that mean you didn’t want sleep?” she asked.
“Do you. If I needed it, crash again after,” he explained shortly, and bluntly. His eyes strayed to the countertop before they came back to her. “You could get up, make pancake batter, and I’d haul my ass downstairs when I got enough shuteye.”
She was sorry she hadn’t gone that route.
“I’ll remember that for next time,” she told him softly.
He grunted unintelligibly.
She took that and being in his arms as confirmation there’d be a next time.
And yes.
All was right in the world.
“Do you want espresso?” she queried.
“Do you have regular coffee?” he queried in return.
She gave him a look.
“Does that mean yes?” he prompted.
“I’m Italian. We invented caffè.”
His lips quirked as he murmured, “Is that true?”
She had no idea.
But her people did it better than anyone in the world, so she felt it was safe at least to say they invented excellent coffee.
She decided not to respond.
Hap’s lip quirk turned into a full-blown smile right before he bent to her and kissed her nose.
Luci froze.
Hap didn’t feel it. He just gave her a squeeze before he let her go and sauntered to the coffee maker (a dual one she’d imported from Italy, rewired for American currents, both of which cost her a fortune, not to mention the appliance, which was far from inexpensive).
But Luci wasn’t thinking about her fabulous coffee maker.
She was thinking that she would have never considered rough and ready Hap Cunningham to be the kind of man who kissed a woman’s nose.
She’d known him years. It was not like he hadn’t had women around their crew.
It was just that it was rare and they never lasted long.
Travis had teased him about this, but only once.
“If they get to meet you, they gotta earn it,” had been Hap’s firm and somewhat sharp reply that had shut Travis’s teasing right down.
At first, Luci had been offended for all womankind at his words.
But at the look on his face, she realized what he meant from what he said wasn’t what she thought.
Instead, it was the fact that he didn’t bring women around them who did not mean something to Hap. If he didn’t think that there might be a future. As you would not introduce someone to your mother and father or close family who you did not feel was important, who you did not want them to know and perhaps like, and perhaps start to make a part of the family, unless you thought they were special. Unless you thought they had staying power. And you definitely didn’t introduce someone who had not proved to you they were special so as not to foist someone on the people you cared about who was not worthy.
In realizing this, at the time, those years ago, she’d wondered why the few who had proven themselves special to Hap had not gone the distance.
She’d then not thought about it, only wishing eventually he’d find his someone.
Now, that curiosity came back with a punch.
But those few women she’d seen him with, he’d shown affection, for certain, he hadn’t shied away from it.
However, he’d never kissed any of them on the nose, not that Luci had seen.
It was an exquisite feeling. Like a surprise treasured gift. A man handing you a glorious diamond bracelet on any old day . . . just because.
She wanted to touch her nose. Seal the trace of his lips there so she could feel it forever.
Instead, she picked up her espresso and pivoted to face him.
“Do you need help with that?” she asked.
He turned from his stance in front of her coffee maker, holding the filter in his hand.
“Water goes in here.” He stabbed his finger toward where the water went on the coffee maker. “Coffee goes in here.” He snapped the filter up. “Hit that button and then magic.”
“Yes,” she murmured, lifting her cup to her lips to take a sip, but she watched him as she did so.
He pulled the tin of Illy to him and yanked it open with great force.
Hap would be the bull in any china shop.
Luci found it fascinating.
And endearing.
He’d shoved the filter in and flipped the switch when he turned to her. “Babe, you gonna feed me or stand there staring at
my ass?”
She chuckled softly but denied, “I wasn’t staring at your ass.”
Well, not the entire time.
“Question still stands,” he returned.
Hap was hungry.
Luci made a move.
She was dropping a dollop of Nutella in the center of some batter on her griddle when Hap called, “Luce.”
She turned to see him sitting at one of the stools opposite her, across the island.
He had his long, thick, blunt fingers wrapped around a white mug resting on the counter.
“Our talk,” he said gently.
She drew in breath, nodded and turned back to the stove, setting the Nutella aside and pouring more batter over the pancakes before she went to the frying bacon.
He didn’t speak while she did this so she told the bacon, “You can start while I cook, caro, if you like.”
She said that, but she didn’t want him to start.
She didn’t want anything to puncture this bubble of bliss they had. He’d talk of the outside world. Of work (and him going back to Bragg, which was not far away, say, like Australia, but it wasn’t right down the street either). Of Sam and Kia. Of things not having to do with the sun shining and the ocean beating into the beach and the pancake batter bubbling and him at her island drinking coffee and his scent on her sheets upstairs.
But they must.
They had a future, she hoped.
She was looking forward to her future with some relish for the first time in a very long time.
They had to get on with it.
“Normally, probably for both of us, we’d give this time, get our feet wet, feel it out, before we brought anyone into it,” he began.
She turned from the bacon, only halfway, but her head moved fully to look at him.
He had his focus fully on her in return.
“Go on,” she urged.
“Baby, I gotta tell Sam.”
She pressed her lips together.
The Code.
She returned to the bacon.
“Luce,” he called.
“Do what you must,” she told the bacon.
“Luciana, honey, look at me.”
She pulled in another breath and did as he asked.
“We give this a couple of weeks, a month, two, then tell Sam, he’ll go apeshit.”
He was right.
“I know,” she replied, and gave the pancakes her attention by flipping them.
“So he’s gotta know. Next weekend. I’ll tell him.”
She again turned to Hap. “Next weekend?”
“Yeah. I’ll come back out, let him know we gotta have a chat, we’ll chat.” He looked down at his coffee and started mumbling to say, “Maybe at Skippy’s.”
“I’ll be with you.”
His gaze lifted to her and he shook his head. “No, Luci.”
“Yes, Hap.”
“That isn’t a good idea.”
“For you? For me? Or for Sam?” she queried.
“For Sam,” he answered.
“And why is Sam the priority in this scenario?” she inquired.
Hap shut his mouth.
Luci continued speaking.
“Kia will be there, as will I. We’ll give him his home turf, as you Americans put it. You can take him out on the deck. Kia and I can stay inside. That way you’ll have some privacy. But I want reinforcements, in the form of Kia, and I want to be there to offer support . . . for you.”
He tipped his head to the side. “You gonna budge on that at all?”
“No.”
His eyes danced with humor and he lifted his mug to take a sip.
“You have to go back today, yes?” she asked.
He nodded his head, lowering the mug. “Yeah.”
“I’d like to see you this week, have more time to, as you say, get our feet wet.”
She wanted to hold her breath when she said that but she didn’t want him to notice her holding her breath, so she didn’t.
“Already figured that out,” he declared. “I’ll see if I can get off a little early on Wednesday, come get you, bring you back. We’ll have dinner along the way. If you can get away from the shop, you stay a couple of days, we’ll come back Friday night or Saturday morning. But I’ll have to work, babe. So bring shit to keep you occupied while I’m at the base.”
She could not be happier he wanted her at his home, and even happier it wasn’t just a night to show her the place, but instead a couple of days.
And she could definitely get away from her shop. She had other people running it, so she wasn’t tied down to it. She went in often when she was in town, but they did all the work, so she was free to live her life.
Regardless of all that, she blinked at him. “That’s hours of driving for you.”
“I do it nearly every weekend,” he reminded her.
“I can drive to Bragg, Hap.”
“Yeah, then we’d have two cars when we come back, and I’d be following your ass rather than it bein’ in the passenger seat of my truck.”
He had a point.
“I like drivin’,” he went on.
Good to know since he did so much of it and was offering to do more.
“And you can’t Uber to Bragg,” he finished.
“I can hire a driver,” she told him.
“A what?” he asked.
“A driver. Like a limo, though I won’t hire a limo, just a town car or something like that.”
“To drive you to my suburban bachelor pad that I’m gonna have to spend tomorrow and Tuesday nights cleaning so it won’t have you demanding I take you to a hotel?”
She smiled at him.
He studied her with curiosity, but there was something hidden in his gaze before he asked, “You can spend money on just about anything, can’t you?”
Cautiously, due to whatever he was hiding, she replied, “It’s just a driver. Sometimes, if I’m going to be gone for a while, I hire them to take me to the airport.” When he said nothing, she added, “It’s less expensive than parking my car there for weeks.”
“Right,” he muttered.
“It isn’t any trouble, bello,” she told him quietly.
“Probably should check the pancakes, Luci,” he suggested.
He was right. So she did.
Though she couldn’t help but think he was trying to take her attention away from him.
The bacon was ready to go to the plate she’d readied with paper towel on it. Therefore, she did that before she scooped the pancakes onto two other plates she’d gotten down. She added bacon and took them to the island to find Hap up, getting cutlery. He’d already got out the butter and syrup.
They settled in and Luci picked up her fork.
“Just let me come get you, yeah?”
His soft words made her turn her head Hap’s way.
“If that’s what you want, Hap, then of course,” she agreed.
He grabbed her at the back of her neck, pulled her in and touched his mouth to hers before letting go and reaching out to slide the butter her way.
She felt odd about their exchange.
She did not feel odd about Hap wishing her to use the butter first.
And she definitely did not feel odd about how he expressed his gratitude when he got his way.
When she had her pancakes ready, Hap ordered, “Eat fast, Luce. You cheated me outta an orgasm this morning. I’m feeling payback.”
Luci smiled at her pancakes.
She never ate fast. Food was there to savor.
That morning she set a personal record with how quickly she consumed her pancakes and bacon.
“I need you to explain something.”
It was late afternoon. They’d spent most of the day in bed.
There’d been lovemaking. There’d been napping. There’d been kissing and caressing. There’d been whispered conversations. And they’d gone down to make sandwiches and retrieve chips and dips, the detritus of this on the floor beside her bed.
>
But mostly, Hap seemed content to spoon her across the bottom of her bed, under the comforter, their heads on her pillows he’d bunched there, holding her to him and watching the sea.
Another lovely realization about Hap. He not only gave sweet kisses on the nose, he was content just to hold her and stare at the ocean.
She was relaxed. Feeling more tranquil than she had in years.
It seemed Hap was in the same state.
So she didn’t want to do what she was going to do next.
But she felt she must. It was the only thing weighing on her mind. Even Sam and what was sure to be his volatile, negative reaction towards Hap being with her didn’t intrude.
This did.
Hap’s arm resting along her waist curled in. “What?”
She turned to her belly and looked at him. It pleased her greatly after she did that he fell to his back so she could move into him, chest to chest, eye to eye, her hand curling around the side of his neck.
“Your aversion to me getting a driver,” she stated.
That hidden look came into his eyes.
Luci stroked the underside of his jaw with her thumb. “I just want to understand.”
He shifted his gaze to the ceiling and said nothing.
She was about to prompt him gently when his gaze came back to hers.
“You gotta know. It’s actually a shock you don’t know. Unless . . .”
He didn’t finish his thought, so Luci asked, “Unless what?”
“Do you know how I grew up?”
Oh no.
That thing wasn’t hidden in his eyes any longer.
It was locked there.
“Hap,” she whispered, but said no more.
“I don’t know what that means. Do you, or don’t you?”
There were several things wrong with this for the both of them.
The first was what he was asking without simply asking it.
Had Travis told her about him?
The answer was no. Travis told her (almost) everything. Things about his brothers those brothers would wish to stay hidden?
He would never do that.
The second was that there was something to know about how Hap grew up, something he’d lock away, hide.
Which meant it was something bad.
And last, he did not feel comfortable with mentioning Travis, which had its own special list of problems.
Loose Ends Page 8