Sticks and Stones (Vista Falls #5)

by Cheryl Douglas

  “But then what?” Gianna asked, biting her lip as she watched a mother pushing a stroller past the store window. “What if I do sleep with him and it’s incredible? What if we connect in a way we never have before?”

  “That’s a good thing,” Gabby said, her brows drawn together. “Isn’t it?”

  “Only if he stays, which is highly unlikely. Come on, his life is in L.A. He’s always loved it there.” She spread her arms. “And this feels like home to me, even though I’ve only been here a short time. No matter how much I love Gunnar—” She slapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.

  Gabby giggled and pointed at her. “Ha! I knew it. You’re still in love with him.”

  “Okay, fine.” She threw her arms up in the air. “I admit it. I’m still in love with him. But I honestly don’t know how the hell it happened. I swore to myself I’d be careful with him this time, that I wouldn’t let my guard down.”

  “So, what happened to change your mind?”

  Gianna’s lips curved into an involuntary smile. “He just became someone else, someone I’ve never known before.”

  “What do you mean?” Gabby asked, looking enthralled as she propped her chin in her hand.

  “I don’t know. The first time around it’s not like he had to work very hard to impress me. He was him, and that was enough. But this time, I wasn’t willing to be charmed so easily and that seemed to make him more determined than ever to win me over.”

  “Uh, honey. I don’t want to rain on your parade. But are you sure he’s not just doing this just to prove a point… that he can have you again if he wants you?”

  It’s not like Gianna hadn’t considered that possibility, but it still hurt to hear her friend suggest it. “That’s why I’m afraid to get in too deep. And I know if I sleep with him again that’s exactly what will happen.”

  “Gi, you just admitted you were in love with the guy. I don’t think you can get in much deeper.”

  “But if I do sleep with him and he goes back to L.A. in a day or hell even a week, I’d feel so… used.” She didn’t think Gunnar would hurt her intentionally. But he didn’t seem to understand the power he had over her, then or now.

  “Have you guys talked about this?”

  “We have.” In fact, they’d talked about their feelings more in the past few days than they had in the last few years of their relationship.

  “And?”

  “He’s still trying to figure things out, I think. He’s ready to make a change in his life, but I don’t think he knows yet what that will look like. He likes being here with me and the girls. I can tell. But for how long?” She ran her hand over her forehead. “We’re talking about a guy who’s used to going non-stop, travelling the world, interacting with different people every day. How can he go from that to—”

  “The peace and quiet of Mayberry?” Gabby laughed. “I don’t know if he can. I suspect he doesn’t know if he can. But are you doing yourself any favors by keeping him at arm’s length until he can figure it out?”

  “But if I let him get too close—”

  “You risk getting hurt again, I know.” She smiled sympathetically. “I had the same issue with Colt. He’d hurt me before. Twice, in fact, and I was determined it wasn’t going to happen again.”

  “Yet, you guys are happily married now, so how did you work it out?”

  “I learned to trust him and he gave me the time to do that.” She swiped a finger across her phone and smiled at the screensaver of her husband. “He was my first love, but no way did I think he would be my last. It seemed every chance he got he hurt me. I was done with it and him.”

  Gianna could relate. She’d felt the same way when she left Gunnar. “What convinced you to give him another chance?”

  “He did.” She laughed. “He wore me down, I guess. He said he’d changed and that he wanted to prove it. I wouldn’t let him at first, but over time, the changes became obvious. I fell in love with him all over again and this time I trusted in his feelings for me.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust in Gunnar’s feelings for me,” she said, wishing she could count on the kind of happy ending her friend described. “I just don’t think he’s capable of feeling as deeply as I am. I know it has a lot to do with the way he was raised, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”

  “Maybe he still has a bit of a guard up too, huh?”

  “I think so.” Gianna knew she wasn’t the only one who’d been hurt. She’d abandoned the man who’d been terrified of being left alone and she knew that must have scarred him. “And I don’t know that he’ll ever be able to let it down, not fully.”

  “And can you live with him if he doesn’t?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know.”

  She told herself when she left Gunnar that she’d find a man who was open and honest, affectionate and transparent about his feelings. While Gunnar was certainly more open and honest than he’d ever been with her about his feelings, he still had a long way to go. And a short time to get there, if the number of times his phone blew up every day was any indication.

  Gianna turned when the bell over the door rang.

  “Hey, ladies,” Billy said, smiling. “I was hoping I could steal you away for a coffee break, beautiful,” he said to Gianna.

  “Go ahead,” Gabby said to Gianna as she gestured toward the door. “The delivery guy will be here soon and I just have to fill him in on the plan today. I’ll be fine by myself for a while.”

  Billy had texted her about dinner a couple of times since their last date and she felt guilty she hadn’t responded. She knew it wasn’t fair to leave him in limbo while she sorted out her feelings for Gunnar, so she linked her arm through his, intent on letting him down gently over coffee.

  The café was just next door, so they exchanged pleasantries while they waited for their order and found a table by the window.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you about dinner,” Gianna said when they were seated. “Things have been a little crazy lately.” And by things she meant her. She’d been a little crazy ever since Gunnar strolled back into her life.

  “No problem,” he said, smiling. “I can see how that would happen, trying to hold down a job and raise two teenagers on your own.”

  “I haven’t exactly been on my own lately,” she said, knowing she had to come clean with Billy if she hoped to maintain a friendship, or even a cordial relationship with him when they passed each other on the street.

  “Yeah, I heard your ex is still in town.” He shrugged when she raised an eyebrow in question. “Not every day a rock star rolls through town. It seems Gunnar is all people want to talk about these days.”

  She knew Gunnar liked to jog in the mornings before he started writing, and he told her he’d made his rounds through the town, chatting with people and signing a few autographs as he went, but she didn’t know he’d become the talk of the town. Not that she was surprised. Gunnar drew people to him like a magnet, and not just because of his celebrity status. It was his magnetic personality, and in the case of women, his raw sexual energy made it impossible to ignore him.

  “I’m sure you must have questions about where we stand.”

  “Hey, you don’t owe me any explanations. We only had one date. I just didn’t want things to be weird between us when we saw each other.” He covered her hand with his. “I’m not gonna lie. I like you a lot, Gianna. But if you and your ex have unfinished business, I get that.”

  Gianna could feel someone’s eyes on her, and as soon as she looked up, a ripple of awareness passed through her. Gunnar. He was standing on the street in front of the café, surrounded by a group of teenage boys who must have been on their lunch break.

  They were thrusting papers at him, which he signed, before crowding around him for selfies. His eyes only strayed from hers long enough to smile for the camera before they drifted back to her. And her date.

  She wanted to run out there and explain to him that it wasn’t
a date, but even before she could withdraw her hand from Billy’s, Gunnar was gone.

  ***

  Gunnar swore softly as he set his guitar aside and scraped his hands over his face. Seeing Gianna with another man had stirred up something in him. Jealousy. Possessiveness. Rage.

  He’d been so good at repressing those feelings when they were together. He could literally stand in the same room and watch a man hit on her without reacting. Sure, he’d been seething inside, but he never revealed his weakness to anyone. Not even Gianna.

  But today had been different. He hadn’t been able to hide it. He was certain she could see it written all over his face when he looked at her… and that goddamn photographer who seemed intent on stirring the pot.

  “Hey,” Gianna said, softly as she walked in the door. Her eyes were wary as she looked around the room. “Have the girls already been home to pick up their stuff for the sleepover?”

  “Yeah, about an hour ago.”

  She nodded, dropping her purse in the foyer. “Why didn’t you come into the café to say hello?”

  He’d gone to the flower shop intent on buying her flowers but passed the café first. “You seemed busy.” He clenched his jaw. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “Are you jealous?” she asked, sounding mildly amused. “That’s a first for you, isn’t it?”

  “What do you think I am?” he shouted. “A robot? You think it didn’t tear me up inside every time I saw some dude hit on you? You think I didn’t worry that he’d be the one to take you away from me?” He jumped up, unable to contain the eruption. “I loved you!” His voice and hands were trembling as he stared at her, watching her shrink in the face of his temper. “I may not have been able to express it,” he said, lowering his voice. “But believe me, I felt it.”

  “I had no idea it bothered you,” she said, taking a step back. “You always seemed so indifferent.”

  “It was an act. It was all an act.” And that was just about the hardest thing he’d ever had to admit because it made him vulnerable. “I was pretending I didn’t care because I didn’t want you to see how much I cared.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said, shaking her head. “Why wouldn’t you want me to know you cared about me?”

  “It wasn’t that I didn’t want you to know I cared,” he said, taking a step closer as his anger faded. “I didn’t want you to know how scared I was of losing you. You were the only person in my entire life who’d ever loved me voluntarily. Not because you had to. With the girls it’s different. I’m their dad. Every kid loves their dad unless they give them reason not to. But you loved me for me.”

  “Of course I did,” she whispered, reaching out to stroke the stubble on his jaw. “It felt like I didn’t even have a choice. My heart wanted you, regardless of how my brain felt. Warning bells were going off in my head like crazy when we first met, but they disappeared the first time you kissed me.”

  “They did?” He held his breath, wanting to hear every last detail about what she’d been thinking and feeling the day they’d met. And every day since. In the past she’d try to open up to him about her feelings and he’d shut her down. He wasn’t shutting her down anymore. On the contrary. He’d give anything for her to open up to him again.

  “Yeah, they did. I knew I had to be with you.” She closed her eyes when his hand grazed her cheek, turning into his touch like she craved it. “No matter the cost, I had to have you.” She laid her hand on his chest. “But I didn’t just want your body.” Her warm, minty breath drifted over his lips. “I wanted the one thing you couldn’t seem to give me. Your heart. Your love. Your—”

  “You had it all along,” he said, cutting her off with a kiss. “You just didn’t know it.” In hindsight he was ashamed of what a coward he’d been. Every woman deserved to hear from her life partner, the father of her children that she meant more to him than anything or anyone else in the world. “Because I failed you, Gi. And I’m sorry about that. So sorry.”

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest. “I was so afraid you’d be gone when I came home today. I thought you’d have said good-bye to the girls and left without a word to me.”

  “Now, why would I do that?” he asked, inhaling her sweet scent as he buried his hand in her long hair.

  “You looked so angry,” she said, skimming his back through his thin cotton shirt with her nails. “I didn’t know what to think.”

  “You want to know why I was so pissed?” he asked, tipping her face up to his as he decided to go for broke. “Because the woman I love more than life itself was holding another guy’s hand.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Sssh,” he said, silencing her with a kiss. “You want to know what I’m thinking and feeling? I’ll tell you. I knew exactly what was on Billy boy’s mind when he looked at you. He wanted you. He wanted to experience all the things with you that I have.” Memories came flooding back as his grip on her tightened. “He wanted to wake up with your body wrapped around his. He wanted to hear you whisper in his ear that you loved him. He wanted to sink himself so deep inside you—”

  She blushed as she placed her fingertips over her lips. “Believe me, we never would have gotten there. His kiss did nothing for me.”

  Gunnar narrowed his eyes, his jealousy and possessiveness renewed. “He kissed you? When?”

  “Uh, that night we went out for dinner. He walked me to the door and—”

  “Hold on a second,” he said, shaking his head. “He kissed you when you were twenty feet away from me?” He glanced at the hardwood slate behind her. “You mean right behind that door, he kissed you?”

  “Yes, but it was no big deal. It wasn’t even—”

  He took her mouth, hard and possessive, as he backed her against the door. “Did he kiss you like that?” Before she could answer, he took her mouth again, reaching beneath the skirt of her long dress to stroke her smooth thigh. “Or how about like this?” He stole her breath, consumed her moans, and left her staring at him, glassy-eyed, trying to make sense of what just happened.

  “No, nothing like that,” she finally whispered. “Because you’re the only one who can make me feel like that when you kiss me.”

  His lips twitched in satisfaction, but he was far from amused. How could he be with the image of another man’s lips on Gianna’s still fresh in his mind? “I grew up being jealous and envious of what other people had,” he said, trying to make her understand why he’d tried so hard to repress that emotion. “They had parents, money, and a home of their own. They got to go to college. They had siblings and a support system who would always be there for them. They got new clothes, not hand-me-downs.”

  He’d never told her how he felt because he didn’t want her to feel sorry for him. He’d never wanted anyone’s pity. “I told myself I’d have every goddamn thing I ever wanted someday and when I did, I’d never have to be jealous of anyone again.”

  She listened, her eyes scanning his face as she waited for him to continue.

  “I had the most beautiful woman in the room on my arm every time we went out together. I knew that. I told myself no one was man enough to take you from me, so I wasn’t worried. That’s what I told myself.” His stomach tightened as the truth he’d been suppressing spilled from his lips. “But it was a lie. Deep down inside was this scared kid who didn’t think he was good enough to hold on to a woman like you. Someone so smart, so beautiful. So good.”

  Gianna was well educated and well-read. She loved books and all the knowledge she gleaned from them. He, on the other hand, barely finished high school and he’d always been ashamed of the differences that separated them. He’d bought his way into the finest places. But she’d been born with an effortless confidence and class that meant she fit in wherever she went.

  “Funny you should say that,” she said, leaning her head against the door at her back. “Because I was the one who didn’t feel I deserved you. Here you were this big-time musician,
making money hand over fist, filling stadiums around the world, and I was just this simple, small-town girl who hadn’t even travelled outside the country until she met you.”

  He’d never seen a glimpse of insecurity from her in social situations, but then maybe he hadn’t been looking for signs of discomfort. He’d been too busy trying to ignore all the men determined to take her away.

  “What? Why would you feel you didn’t deserve me?” He swept his hand up her body, from her thigh to her ribs, finally resting there. “You’re gorgeous. You’re sweet. You’re smart. You’re every damn thing I’m not, Gi.”

  “You’re wrong. When I look at you, I see everything I’m not.” When he would have objected, she rested her finger against his lips with a smile. “You’re outrageously successful and ambitious and talented.” She smirked, ratcheting up the temperature in the room a few degrees. “God, are you talented.”

  “Gi, I—”

  “Just hear me out,” she said softly, her gaze drifting from his. “I was afraid everyone would think I was a gold-digger. I mean, I didn’t have a career. I didn’t even know what the hell I wanted to do. How pathetic is that? I just felt like I was drifting with no real purpose.”

  “You can’t be serious.” He considered her job, the one she wanted, raising their kids and no one could have done it better than she did. “You’re an amazing mom, Gi. Our kids wouldn’t be who they are without you. What could possibly be more important than that?” Most of the women who travelled in his social circles with rich husbands had housekeepers and nannies, and even without careers, they couldn’t make time for their children.

  “I looked at you, lighting the world on fire with your music, and just felt so inadequate. Like I should be doing so much more with my life, you know?”

  No, he didn’t know. She’d volunteered for numerous causes, from helping the homeless to unwed mothers, and knew she’d chaired countless events. “Honey, you’ve done so much more good in this world than I have.” He’d thrown plenty of money at problems. He’d even performed at some charity events, but he hadn’t bled for these causes the way Gianna had.