Driftwood Creek

by Roxanne Snopek

  When he was seventeen, he’d watched nineteen-year-old Josiah pack his bags, knowing it was probably best for everyone. The relief of a quiet house had quickly been dispelled by the weight of parental hope, laser-focused now on their second-born.

  He’d spent as much time out of the house as possible, and he’d discovered blackjack.

  The cards loved him and he loved them back. Every lunch hour and spare period at the exclusive Seattle high school his parents had moved him to at great personal sacrifice, he’d played cards with his friends, relieving most of them of their spending money, but losing just often enough that they’d continue to play with him. At night, he’d played online, honing his skill with cards, if not people. Although tall and strong, he hadn’t been a jock or a nerd or a clown. He’d been a too-serious unidentifiably mixed-race kid who hadn’t dressed quite as well as his classmates and had no car of his own.

  After graduation from high school, he’d worked for his parents for a few years, long enough to be certain it wasn’t for him, then entered college, majoring in business. His parents, still believing he’d one day take over the landscaping company, had been pleased.

  “I figured,” he said, “that by the time I graduated, my parents would have let go of the idea.”

  Since he’d started talking, Jamie had moved closer to him and now the lengths of their thighs were touching. She kept his hand in hers, turning it over, stroking. He had to work to recall the threads of his story.

  “In college,” he went on, “I discovered poker.”

  Five-card stud and Texas Hold’ em were becoming all the rage and he’d dived in. Again, the cards had loved him. He had a mind for patterns and numbers, and an excellent memory. He’d also discovered that the complicated family dynamic in the Low household had given him a gift for reading people.

  By the end of his second year in college, he’d had no need for the money his parents sent, nor what they paid him to work in the summer. He’d tucked their money in a separate account, resolved to return it when the time was right.

  But again, not wanting to rock the boat, or admit his newfound relative wealth, he’d cut sod and shovelled mulch and dragged hoses all day long throughout the summer, and spent his nights making his real money. He’d played mostly online, but dreamed of participating in real-life tournaments one day.

  By his third year in college, he’d had the world by the tail. He’d had a healthy-enough bank balance that the idea of a nine-to-five job had lost its appeal. He’d learned to invest, and diversified the holdings in his parents’ name also. He’d looked forward to paying them back, if not earning their gratitude, then at least assuaging the guilt he felt over not falling in with their plans.

  At the end of third year, he’d returned to work in the nursery again, still unable to tell them that their plans for retirement would not involve him taking over the business. The secret had kept him up at night, but he’d spent the time playing and winning even more. He’d built an online persona that was so much better than reality.

  “I wasn’t that quiet kid no one noticed anymore,” he said. “I was The Prophet.”

  He laughed at the absurdity of it.

  “I bet the girls noticed you plenty.” Jamie gave him a frankly appreciative look that accelerated his pulse.

  He shrugged, not wanting to talk about that. The little affection he’d witnessed at home had made him distrust romantic entanglements. Relationships had been superficial and fleeting, another thing he wasn’t proud of.

  During his fourth year, he had been invited to a stag party for a classmate who was getting married. Delighted and somewhat shocked to be included, Gideon had joined the cohort in a Las Vegas guys weekend.

  Within hours of landing on the strip, he’d discovered that his friends were interested in nothing but strippers and booze, so he’d wandered into the Bellagio and signed up for a tournament.

  “I stayed a full week,” he said. “I was hooked.”

  He’d come clean with his parents after graduation, but they couldn’t forgive him for refusing his place in the business. They’d rejected the money, too, so he’d reinvested it and it had continued to grow.

  He’d taken a job with a marketing firm in Vegas, so he could continue playing, and spent the next several years getting a master’s degree in economics and building his portfolio.

  “I basically coasted,” he admitted. “And then I met Lana.”

  “Lana,” Jamie echoed.

  The air changed between them, grew heavier, laden with something that could be promise, could be dread.

  “She was young, a junior at UNLV, dealing cards on the weekend.” He exhaled through his mouth. “It was a classic whirlwind romance. And it nearly destroyed me.”

  At first, it had been good. She was beautiful, funny, smart, and always ready for sex. What twenty-eight-year-old male was going to argue with that?

  Gideon looked up at Jamie and felt his cheeks heat up. “Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear that.”

  “I could live without it.”

  “Don’t worry, it didn’t last long.”

  The end had begun in a fight about money, of course. His winnings. Their future. Where they were going to settle down. When they were going to settle down.

  If they were going to settle down.

  Lana had decided.

  He had not.

  He’d decided to quit his job for a year, play full-time, take time to travel, apart from Lana. Let her figure out her life, or at least finish her degree. Get some distance, some perspective. A little freedom.

  Instead, she’d quit college, following him from tournament to tournament, then Reno and even Macau.

  As the months went on, and his success had grown and his social world had expanded, Lana’s world had shrunk. Her happiness had hinged more and more on what he said or how he treated her. The pressure had been too much.

  “She was suffocating me,” he said, determined to make a full confession. “I had a whole life, friends, travel plans, and she was always there, waiting for me, adjusting her plans, always expecting something more, growing unhappier by the minute.”

  “She didn’t want to be left out,” Jamie said. “She knew you were pulling away.”

  “Probably.” He sighed again. “Twenty-twenty hindsight, and a lot of years to sharpen that vision.”

  He’d expected she’d give up and dump him. It had never occurred to him to end things himself.

  But Lana had had no intention of letting him go.

  “Let me guess.” Jamie shifted in her seat. “She got pregnant.”

  “She chose to tell me just as I was on my way out to a big tournament. My reaction wasn’t optimal.”

  It had been an awful scene. Lana had claimed she hadn’t planned it, that she’d been on antibiotics for a sinus infection, that if he didn’t want it, she’d get rid of it. But she’d begged him to decide right then, to change his plans, to give up the game that night and stay with her instead.

  Instead, he’d grabbed another beer and gone to the balcony before he said something he would regret.

  “She knew how important that game was to me,” he said. “It was like I couldn’t compute what was happening. All I knew was that I had to get out.”

  Get out of the room, get out of the house, get away from her, so he could breathe.

  He forced himself to remember the events, now, determined not to let himself off the hook. If he was to tell Jamie, he’d have to do it bare bones, just the facts, no excusing himself or seeking her sympathy.

  There were no excuses and he deserved no sympathy.

  He’d insisted on going to the casino, but he’d spent too much time alternately arguing with and comforting Lana to walk there, as he’d planned. He had to drive, or risk a cabbie not getting him there on time.

  He’d left the garage of their luxury condo, his only thought to get to the casino, sit down at the table, and lose himself in the cards, the numbers, the faces and tics and tells that h
e was so good at reading, even though he couldn’t read his own girlfriend.

  Instead, before he’d even made it out of the neighborhood, he’d looked down for a split second to adjust his satellite radio. A woman bending into the backseat of a car parked on the side of the road had straightened up at the same split second and then stumbled, right into the path of the vehicle.

  All Gideon had seen before the crash was her wide-eyed terror.

  And the toddler in her arms.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A continuing Sun–Mars merger will light your fire.

  Enjoy the heat but don’t get burned.

  —Jamie’s horoscope

  “Oh, Gideon.”

  Jamie pressed her fingertips against her lips to stem her reaction. Gideon was lost in the telling and he didn’t need her bringing him back.

  He’d moved to the upholstered chair next to the window, while she remained cross-legged on the couch that butted up against it in the small room.

  Pulling away.

  Protecting himself.

  “I told you it was ugly.”

  The child had been bruised and frightened but intact. The mother had sustained two fractured vertebrae and a broken pelvis.

  Gideon, of course, hadn’t had a scratch on him.

  Even his car had had only minor front end damage, a sickening insult, a mockery of the devastation that it had wrought under his thoughtless hands.

  He hadn’t been speeding. Witnesses had seen her turn her ankle and fall into his path.

  But those two drinks he’d had earlier had been just enough, and that was that.

  “My emotional state alone was enough to impair me,” he said. “I should have known better.”

  Now she understood why he didn’t drink.

  He fell silent and she let the emptiness stretch out between them. Nothing in the year and a half she’d known him had prepared her for this. Polite, quiet Gideon, who treated everyone with such respect and kindness, who never raised his voice, let alone his hand, to even that nastiest of Olivia’s horses.

  “By the time I got out, my boy was four years old.” He braced his elbows on his knees and hung his head, as if he was too tired to hold it up. “She stuck with me until I was sentenced, but once she realized I was actually going to prison, she cut bait. I couldn’t blame her, didn’t care one way or another, in fact. She sent me a card when the baby was born. Told me his name was Blake. I didn’t feel a thing. You know, Jamie, I’ve always felt badly about that, that I didn’t feel some kind of connection to him.”

  He shook his head, an expression of bewilderment on his face.

  “But why would you?” Jamie worked to keep her tone even. Gideon didn’t need her anger. “How could you feel connected to him? You hadn’t even seen him.”

  “Whenever I thought about him, I pictured that other little boy, in his mother’s arms. He had on a blue jacket and his cheeks were red, like apples.”

  He shuddered, then seemed to pull himself together. “I started an account for him, and set everything up for Lana before I went in, too. House, money. That much I could do.”

  Gideon had been out of prison for two years now. His son would be six years old, old enough to start asking questions, to wonder about his father, to want more than whatever story Lana had made up about him.

  Her heart broke. She leaned forward, clasping his hands in hers. “I don’t know what kind of mom Lana is, or what Elliot is like with Blake. But I know this. Neither of them is you. You’re his father and you’re amazing. He deserves to know you. You deserve to know him.”

  He gave her hands a squeeze, then patted them lightly. “That’s nice of you to say, James.”

  She yanked her hands away, stung. Nice. It was about the worst response he could give her.

  “I’m never nice, Gideon.” She lifted her hand, ready to slap him to prove her point.

  But he grabbed her hand, and before she realized what he was doing, he yanked her to his chest. Suddenly, he was kissing her, as if she were the only thing holding him together.

  “Oh!” she gasped, as he settled her onto his lap and cupped his hands behind her head. “This is a surprise.”

  “Don’t talk,” he said, pulling her to him again.

  His lips were as soft and full and perfect as she’d always known they would be. He tasted of fresh water with a hint of salt, the way their skin would taste if they went skinny-dipping where Driftwood Creek met the sea.

  His hands roved over her back, pressing her to his chest, and she could feel the evidence of his arousal hot and hard beneath her.

  She couldn’t breathe. She felt like her heart was going to burst through her chest. Finally, after all this time.

  She tugged at his shirt, pulling it up, over and out, desperate to be closer, to feel his skin against hers, to feel the weight of his body, to explore the planes of his belly, the lines of his back, those gorgeous shoulders.

  “Jamie,” he whispered, his lips moving over her neck. “We can’t.”

  “Yes, yes, we can.” They had to. If she didn’t feel him inside her soon, she’d explode. She’d waited so long.

  She shimmied out of her jeans, tore off her shirt, and was tugging at the buttons of his fly when he captured her hands, stopping her.

  “What?” She hardly recognized her own voice, it was so full of wanting. She was near tears, desperate that he was going to change his mind.

  But that wasn’t it.

  “Don’t hurry,” was all he said.

  And then he proceeded to, very slowly, slip one bra strap off her shoulder, then the other. He sighed, looking at her, and then he trailed his big hand, his big, dark hand, down her ribs, to her hips and hooked a finger under the elastic of her bikini panties.

  She quivered so hard her teeth chattered together. “I’m not cold,” she assured him.

  He gave her a slow smile and glanced down at her nipples. “Parts of you are.” His finger dipped lower. “But other parts are hot. Holy hell, Jamie, how can I resist you?”

  “Why would you try?” she replied huskily. “I’m here for you, Gideon. I’ve always been here for you.”

  His expression clouded at that, and she knew she’d said something wrong.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back with all the hurt fury that had been pent up inside her for so long. She lifted one leg and gripped him behind the knee.

  He pulled her off the couch and lowered her to the floor, tossing a blanket down for her. It was still hard against her ass, but she didn’t care. Finally, she’d show Gideon that they were meant to be together, that they were perfect together. That of all the people in the universe, there was only one of him and one of her and some wise God had put them on the planet at the same time, in the same place so that they could find one another and turn those dark empty spaces light with love and laughter.

  They already shared so much laughter. It was one small step to love.

  “Jamie,” he muttered against her throat. With a calloused hand he kneaded her breast roughly but oh, so perfectly.

  “Shh,” she said. “Don’t talk.”

  Her chest bared, he moved over it with his lips, sucking and biting gently at her nipples until jolts of fire raced down her body, settling into a throbbing heat between her legs.

  He traced one finger up and down her torso again, making her quiver in the moonlight.

  She almost wept. Her voice shook. “Don’t make me beg.”

  His face softened then. He ran his finger down the side of her face, looking at her with something like amazement.

  “You’re so beautiful, my Jamie,” he murmured.

  Her heart soared at the words. “I am yours, Gideon. I always have been. Let me show you.”

  “I’m powerless against you. I should be stronger, but I’m not. God help me, I’m not.”

  And he lowered himself to her again, closing his mouth over hers, their tongues dancing back and forth, sharing breath.

  Then th
e last of his clothes were off and they were skin to skin and she felt the length of him against her, finally, all the glorious, sleek, muscled hardness she’d craved. He lowered his head to her breast and suckled, at the same time dipping his fingers between her legs. He stroked her slick heat and she gasped. She’d been ready for him for so long.

  He slid off to lie beside her while he touched and explored, kissing and fondling and nuzzling, driving her higher and higher until she exploded around him, arching her back, throwing her arms above her, crying out as waves of pleasure crested and broke.

  When she regained her breath, she looked at him. He was gazing at her as if he couldn’t get enough of her.

  “What?” The world was still spinning. “What are you looking at?”

  He smiled. “You.”

  “You’re making me self-conscious. This is supposed to be a two-person game.”

  “I could do that all night.”

  “Said no man, ever.”

  He chuckled. “I’m not saying it’s all I want to do.”

  “Then come here.”

  She reached for him, taking pleasure in his quick intake of air. He groaned as she stroked, slowly, then quicker.

  Suddenly, he froze and rolled away from her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Condom,” he said, through gritted teeth. “I’m praying you have one.”

  “No need,” she said. “IUD. I don’t have any diseases. Do you?”

  She took up the rhythm of stroking him again.

  “No. Thank God.”

  “Shh.”

  She ran her finger over the moist tip, then shifted so that she was straddling him.

  She lowered herself onto him, slowly, feeling her body expand to accept him. At that moment, she didn’t care about anything other than joining herself with him, finally.

  She felt her own passion rising again as they set up a rhythm. He gripped her hips, then reached up to capture her mouth again. They kissed endlessly, and she held his head, running her fingers through his hair. Then the waves began to crash over her again, and she threw back her head, crying out, clenching around him.