Spring Fling Kitty: The Hart Family (Have A Hart Book 3)

by Rachelle Ayala

  Greyheart rubbed against her legs, begging for breakfast. Nadine checked her text messages, mostly from Elaine and Michael, updating her on the aggravation they were causing their father. They hadn’t spilled the plans yet, because Elaine’s latest idea was to have their father believe Nadine was accidentally pregnant by one of his business associates.

  The kitten mewed and butted his head against Nadine’s ankles. She yawned and put the phone away. Being a loner, she’d never gotten this many text messages before, and she wasn’t sure what the etiquette was with group messages. Was she supposed to answer each message so they knew she read them? Or was her sister simply a textaholic with her nonstop messages mostly to keep her in the loop?

  Whatever it was, the constant attention gave Nadine a warm feeling. She was on Team Woo with Michael and Elaine now.

  A message streamed across her screen from Elaine. Nadine, keep up the good job with the BBTs. I have Connor on standby as soon as you spike.

  Nadine giggled at the thought of Connor standing by with a cup and his fist ready to roll. It was a lot better than dwelling on his hasty departure or the whispering kiss that was all too fleeting and unreal.

  Great job, sis, Michael texted. I left a suicide note in Dad’s bathroom this morning. It’s full of cross outs and crumpled so he thinks it’s real.

  I told Dad that Connor and I are taking off to the mountains this weekend to a one room cabin, Elaine texted. Too bad I can’t accidentally get pregnant.

  Which colleague will get Nadine pregnant? Michael texted. All Dad has to do is ask and we’ll be busted.

  Hmmm, I hadn’t thought of that, Elaine texted. Hey, I have an idea. What if Nadine were to go to the cabin with Connor and we tell Dad she slept with my fiancé, but I insist I’m still going to marry him?

  Oh, you’re brilliant! Michael replied. Dad will think you’re crazy. It’ll drive him bananas. He’ll hate Connor even more than he already does.

  Exactly. The message from Elaine chimed in. He doesn’t know what I see in that big lughead. He can’t believe a woman as smart as me is interested in muscles.

  Ha, ha, well, maybe I should tell Dad I’m suicidal because I have a crush on Connor, too, Michael replied.

  Oh wow. So, here’s the plot. Nadine sleeps with Connor and gets pregnant, not really, of course. You’re despondent because Connor isn’t gay, and I’m so in love with Connor I’m willing to take the baby and raise him or her myself. Should we let Mom in on this?

  Several text messages, broken into chunks, flew across her screen.

  Unfortunately not, Michael replied. You know how two-faced Mom is. She’ll run to Dad and kiss his ass, and tell him everything’s okay. She thinks if she throws us under the bus, Dad will give her a free pass.

  Okay, then Mom can’t know the truth. Nadine, you got what we’re saying? Elaine texted. You’re not really going to sleep with Connor, because we’re still going to the fertility clinic, but my parents will believe it. You better make sure your mother doesn’t spill the beans.

  Okay, was all Nadine could get out of her thumbs before another slew of messages flew across the small screen.

  This works out for me, Elaine texted. I have a conference I have to present at, so instead of going to the mountains with Connor, which will be so boring, you know how I hate fishing and lazing around, Nadine will go in my place.

  Oh, and she’s going to be such a little slut, Michael texted. I wish I could go in your place.

  Yeah, but you, dear brother, can’t get pregnant, Elaine texted. Nadine, I’ll text you all the details. You can’t let Connor know or he’ll refuse to meet you there. I’ll tell Connor I can’t drive up with him because I have a consult, but I will meet him later. Then you can borrow my car and meet him there.

  What about my reputation? Nadine managed to thumb after hitting delete multiple times.

  I’ll clear everything up once Dad breaks up with Emmeline, Elaine texted. Don’t worry, sissy, we all love you and will forgive you.

  Except there should be nothing to forgive. Nadine blinked at all the messages. But then, who cared? She’d get to spend a weekend with Connor in a cabin—fishing, hiking, and moonlight walks—maybe even a little kissing. Scratch that, a lot of kissing.

  I’ll do it. Nadine texted. Don’t worry. Connor’s safe with me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Connor parked his red Ford F-150 extended cab pickup truck in the carport and hefted his duffle bag and guitar case from the passenger compartment.

  Cinder bounced out of the cab, eager to stretch her legs and sniff every tree trunk, fence post, and all the interesting scents carried by the air currents.

  The tiny cabin was well-concealed from the road, on a private two-acre spread of pine forest towered over by stands of sequoias. As opposed to coast redwoods, the sequoias were not as tall but had wider trunks. A creek ran behind the cabin, close enough for the musical trickling to be heard inside. The drought had ended this winter, and with the snow melt, the creek would be full as it drained into a small pond on the western end of the property where trout and bass awaited his rod and hook.

  The wooden porch was empty, since they stored the furniture in the shed over the winter, and the windows were shuttered. He’d dust the place and air it out before Elaine arrived. She’d been held up with a consult she couldn’t get out of and had begged him to go ahead.

  “Come on in, Cinder,” Connor beckoned to his energetic puppy. “Suppose it’s fun out there, but you gotta watch out for skunks and other critters.”

  The puppy pranced through the door, her tail pointed straight up as she nosed her way around the tiny one bedroom cabin. Every piece of furniture pulled out to make a bed, and back before they’d all grown up, on those rare occasions his father was able to get away from the firehouse, they would have the entire heart pine floor covered by sleeping bags.

  He entered the bedroom and turned on the lights. His parents always slept here, and while Connor wasn’t an old-fashioned guy, it felt strange to think about sleeping with Elaine in his parents’ room. Not that they’d been sleeping together, what with her schedule and the fact that her hormones were nonexistent.

  He set his duffle on the floor and his guitar case beside it. He should take the sleeper couch and let Elaine have her privacy. It would be less awkward than waking up with a fire he couldn’t put out.

  “Off the bed.” He grabbed Cinder and sent her out the bedroom. “You and I are sleeping on the couch.”

  After dragging in the groceries, Connor unlatched the shutters and opened the windows, letting in the stray rays of sunlight which filtered through the tall trees. The air was piney and fresh, cooling with the approaching dusk. He hoped Elaine wouldn’t get lost in the dark. He’d written detailed directions, and she should be fine, although the last turnoff would be easy to miss.

  He filled the clothes washer with linens and towels, and he wiped down the tables and counters. He supposed he should start a fire. He should start dinner, too. At the firehouse, he and Brian took turns cooking, a secret he never let his mother know because she enjoyed believing the firemen wouldn’t have anything good to eat unless she and Cait brought an endless stream of casseroles to the station.

  Connor, followed by Cinder, grabbed a log from the woodshed and brought it in. He set up the porch swing frame, then attached the chains of the swing. The crickets were chirping and the faintly pink-rimmed sky was giving way to a darker purple.

  Where was Elaine? He glanced at his watch, kicking himself for leaving his cell phone at home, although the signal out here was spotty. It was supposed to be an electronics-free weekend for them to reconnect and find the core of their love which he felt had been buried under all the minutiae of jobs, careers, plans, and schedules.

  Hopefully, her consult hadn’t run overtime.

  He wandered to the kitchen and pulled out a pot. Not knowing when she was arriving would limit the cooking to stews or chili, and with his pissy mood, he was going to get it from
a can. Forget the frou-frou arugula salads and organic chicken stir-fry Elaine favored.

  Connor knocked around the kitchen, making as much noise as he pleased. He banged the pots, snapped the drawers, and found a battered can opener.

  “Dinty Moore it is,” he said to Cinder. “And if she won’t eat it, I bet you would, except it’s not good for you.”

  His concession to Elaine was an iceberg lettuce salad, a few slices of tomato, and store-bought dressing on the side. Dessert? Frozen lemon pound cake and vanilla ice cream sounded about right.

  “Sorry, there’s no Whole Foods up here,” Connor said to no one in particular as he fed Cinder her dog food. What was wrong with him? It was like everything in him rebelled against Elaine. In a way, he was being a jerk. If he’d set out to make Elaine uncomfortable, he sure had by insisting she show up with no electronic devices.

  Either she’d drive him crazy, climb the walls and drive all over the hills looking for a cell tower, or she’d finally understand why life for him was best without schedules, best unplanned, best lived off social media and away from posts, tweets, and picture taking—in moments captured only by memories.

  Cinder jerked from her dog food bowl and barked.

  Outside, the gravel crunched under the tires of a car.

  Great. Elaine was here.

  Connor fortified himself for the torrent of complaints ranging from his bad directions to the gravel which would ding the paint job on her Mercedes Benz, but foremost would be the spotty cellular coverage, despite agreeing not to bring her phone.

  Cinder’s barking increased in tempo and curiosity. Strange. She wasn’t usually so excited about Elaine. He turned the pot to simmer and wiped his hands with a kitchen towel.

  “Me-yowww!” A gray streak dashed into the kitchen and launched itself onto the counter, followed by Cinder’s skittering doggy claws on the wooden floor.

  A cat? Had Elaine gotten him another pet? But wait. He knew that kitten.

  Connor’s heart bounded as he scrambled to the front door where Nadine was rolling in her suitcase.

  She stopped short, dropping the handle, her mouth open as if about to speak. Framed by the doorway in the last ember of dusk, her hair settled gently over her shoulders and her mouth glistened, lips soft and tender. She waited, watching for his reaction like a woodland fairy caught bathing by the river.

  Even though a thousand questions and recriminations toward Elaine jostled like logs down a raging river, Connor shoved the entire pile of thoughts aside and held out his hand.

  Nadine took it, her fingers wrapping around his. Goosebumps traveled up her forearm to her shoulders. She was wearing a sleeveless plaid Dickies shirt over low-cut jeans and a belt buckle the size of Texas—a lone five-petal plum blossom instead of a star embossed on it.

  And boots, of course, not that he wanted to spend this moment looking at her feet—not when the complete package was so beguiling.

  Entranced and unwilling to break the cadence of crickets and the rustling of pine needles, Connor simply pulled her into his arms and feathered his fingers through her straight, wispy hair.

  He was sure that if he blinked, this heavenly vision would blow away like the last gust of dried leaves before an early ice storm.

  She was warm—hot and cold and every temperature in between. Not letting her go, he wedged her around the heavy wooden door and shut it against the evening chill. He’d meant to have a fire going, meant to serve dinner by candlelight, meant to pour a glass of fine wine and set the table with a bouquet of wildflowers, but the only fire he had going flashed from his heart, and he folded her closer, and bent, not far, because of her height, slanting his head until his lips almost, but not quite collided with hers.

  He felt her breath brush across his whiskers and then her smile as she sealed the gap between them, kissing him lightly, dipping her toe into a placid pool, testing him, tentative and sweet when he wanted, no, needed, so much more.

  He opened his mouth and parted her lips with his tongue, tasting her, knowing she was the cry in the dark, the flame in the cavern, the lighthouse in the fog.

  “Nadine,” he muttered, needing to say her name and fix her presence in this real and earthy time and place.

  “Connor,” she breathed into his mouth and brushed her tongue with his, acknowledging him.

  He picked her up, their lips exploring and delighting in the first blush of a new springtime, and he stepped into the bedroom.

  When he’d laid her on the bed, over his mother’s hobo quilt, a quilt of many colors she’d made as a teen, and he’d spread her hair over the pillow, he knew he was home.

  This was where all roads led. This was his. This was the destiny he was meant to find.

  Lowering himself over her, he made love to her lips, his fingers and hands mapping her out, his body pressed against hers. She responded, like he knew she would, naturally, without a word, drawing her hands over all the places not a soul had ever touched.

  All thought fled, all questions remained unanswered, and nothing existed outside of this hideaway cabin.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Kissing Connor was like skating in the rain, arms wide open, face turned up. Fat drops wetting her eyelids, slicking down the side of her neck, slicing up from the black discs of her roller blades. She twirled and cavorted, oblivious to the clap of thunder and the thousand volts of electric power surging through her veins.

  Nadine forgot her reason, perhaps she never had one, other than to find her lost half. Life was beginning now, new, shiny, unmarred by the searing scars of heated sand and burning brush.

  She was completely and totally open to Connor—spread underneath him, blanketed under his firm flesh, completely slayed by the fate that would seal her demise.

  And she didn’t care, because the torrential current of emotions coursing through her awakened the wild fire within.

  The soft, tiptoeing kisses were long gone, supplanted by a devouring hungry one, greedy and all-consuming. Every part of her body and mind was electrified beyond belief, and she ached inside, deep and throbbing, needing him to claim and complete her.

  Her fingers massaged his neck, swept through his hair and clawed over his shoulders. Her breath mingled with his, desperate and rough. Her legs were already spread, heated by the friction of his need, separated by two layers of denim and bumping belt buckles.

  Could anything be more uncomfortable and distracting? Not that she’d planned on getting swept off her feet and thrown onto a bed within seconds of stepping into the cabin.

  An ear-piercing alarm screamed, jolting Connor off the bed, and her brain registered smoke at the same time.

  “The kitchen.” Connor pulled her from the bed, then checked the doorway. It was clear, but smoke was coming from the direction of the kitchen. “Go out through the front. I’ve got this.”

  “But Greyheart’s in the kitchen. And what about Cinder?”

  “They’re probably cowering somewhere. Go outside. I’ll take care of this.” Connor grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall where it was mounted.

  “Grey, Cinder, Grey,” Nadine called, coughing and fanning the smoke from her eyes. The kitten darted toward her, followed by the puppy. They’d been hiding behind the couch.

  “The fire’s out,” Connor called moments later. “Where are Cinder and Grey?”

  “I found them behind the couch.” Nadine picked up her cat and opened the front door wide. Cinder nosed around her legs, so she led her out the door where they could get fresh air.

  Now that she was sitting in the porch swing with a puppy on one side and a kitten in her arms, and her sister’s car parked on the driveway—after nearly burning herself down with lust and craziness, now, it was awkward.

  Very awkward.

  She heard Connor’s footsteps inside the cabin as he lifted squeaky windows and cleaned up the mess inside.

  She couldn’t even make a run for it. Her purse and suitcase were in the cabin, and she’d forgotten what she did
with the car keys, probably left them on the floor near the entryway.

  What would she say to him? What must he think of her? There was no answer but the creaking of the swing, the cooling breeze drawing goosebumps of guilt all over her skin, and the snores of the Dalmatian puppy who’d curled up against her side.

  Greyheart leapt from her lap at the slap of the screen door and the sound of a heavy footstep. He must have remembered Connor, and how he’d caught him when he’d fallen from that tree.

  Nadine dared not to look up, knowing judgment loomed over her. She had no excuse. She had come willingly, even sneakily, knowing she would kiss Connor if she had the chance. She hadn’t planned to do more, or was she lying to herself? She wasn’t innocent, that was for sure, and when Elaine found what she’d done, she and Michael would turn against her.

  Daughter of the slut.

  She knew that much Chinese as it had always been directed at her.

  Connor nudged her as he sat down beside her. He kept the swing rocking at the same cadence she had going. The puppy barely lifted her head, tired from the day’s exertions, and Greyheart jumped onto Connor’s lap.

  The silence between them was frigid, unbearable. Swallowing hard, Nadine stared at her hands, clasped tightly over her lap.

  Connor put one arm across the back of the swing, tempting her to lean in. But she remained stiff and unmoving. She knew what she had to do. Apologize and get her things. Take the car and leave.

  “You hungry?” Connor broke the stillness of the evening, dampened with a light fog. “I burned the entire stew into charcoal, but I still have a can of chili, a hunk of cheese, and beer in the fridge.”

  “I have to go.” Nadine stood. “Let me get out of your way.”

  “Nadine, don’t. Sit, please. Let’s eat and then we talk. We need to have a long talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I was wrong, okay? Happy? I need to leave, before I make things worse.” She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes and stepped through the doorway to fetch her things.