by Aria Ford
I stumbled through from the kitchen to the shower and undressed, plunging my head under the flow of hot water. It cleared my head and, after a few glasses of water to drink, I started to feel a bit less queasy. I shrugged on a bathrobe and headed through to the sitting room, and stared.
Kelly. She was curled up on the couch, the sunlight touching her red hair with slow fire. She was asleep, her eyes closed. She could have been eighteen years old, the lines smoothed from her face, all care and tension gone from her.
I went closer, not wanting to wake her. I knelt and looked at her beautiful, reposeful face. She stirred. Her eyes flicked open.
“Good morning,” I said.
She yawned and smiled. “Good morning.”
I kissed her cheek. “Breakfast?” I asked.
Her smile was as warm as the new day’s light. “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”
I went through to the kitchen and started to cook.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Kelly
Waking up on the couch in Reese’s house, I smiled. It was oddly intimate. This was the first time I’d spent the night with him.
Not that we actually did anything last night.
It felt as if we had. I sat up, stretching. My head thumped a little and I felt tired. But it was a good feeling. My first thought was for Reese. My second was—after I drew in a breath and smelled something delicious—wondering what was going on in the kitchen.
I went through and stood in the doorway. There he was. At the stove, his back to me, Reese seemed to be fixing eggs and sausage. The smell was delicious—it caught at my stomach and reminded me that I hadn’t had dinner yesterday. I watched him work. Again, there was an intimate feel to it. This was the first time I was actually in his house.
He looked up. When he smiled, I shivered. It was a beautiful smile. Natural and sincere, the first real smile I’d seen him give.
“Good morning,” I said. “Can I use the shower?”
His smile widened. “Sure. I promise not to come and watch.”
I blushed and flapped a hand at him. “Reese. You are the wickedest…I don’t have words.”
He laughed. “Go and shower. I’ll make breakfast.”
“Wonderful. Thanks.”
While I was in the shower, lathering my hair with Head and Shoulders, I found myself wondering if the old Reese would have fixed a woman breakfast. The new Reese—the one who had let go of the brittle strong-man image, was capable of truly being strong: strong enough to support and help. Enough to be kind.
I was singing in the bathroom, drying my hair with the towel, when he called from the hallway.
“Breakfast’s done.”
“Okay!” I yelled back. “Here I come.”
I shrugged on my clothes from yesterday—a blue shirt and jeans—and went through to the kitchen. The scent of delicious egg and sausage enveloped me and my stomach twisted in anticipation.
“Oh, wow!” I grinned as I sat down. He had set the table and everything. “This looks awesome.”
“Thanks,” he said shyly. “It’s my favorite breakfast.”
“Mm!” I nodded as I took some of the egg, which he’d scrambled to fluffy perfection. “I see why. You make a mean breakfast, mister.”
He laughed. “Thanks, Kelly.” He looked proud of himself as he sat down and sprinkled salt and pepper over the plate.
“I could wake up to this all the time,” I said dreamily. I meant it. I felt so at peace here, with the scent of breakfast and his strong, secure presence. If all my mornings were this good, my life would be amazing.
He looked into my eyes, and I looked back. It felt like we had both crossed some kind of line into a new space. I felt myself grin. He did too.
“Could you pass the pepper?” I asked. My voice was harsh with emotion. I cleared my throat as he nodded.
“Sure.”
Our fingers brushed as he passed it to me and suddenly my body felt a tingle of urgency that was uncontrollable. I don’t know if it was the breakfast, the feeling of being safe or the new intimacy, but suddenly I wanted him so badly that I couldn’t sit still.
He seemed to feel it too—I saw the look in his eyes change from hungry to a more fine-tuned hunger. He finished his breakfast quickly. So did I.
Then we stood, and by some kind of silent consensus, we moved to the bedroom.
The instant we were in there, he leaned against me. His mouth devoured mine, and my lips parted, admitting his questing tongue. I felt my whole body heat up as he explored me, and I could feel a rising urgency inside me, a need to be possessed by him and to possess.
He growled and pushed me back onto the bed. His hands were undressing me now, ripping off the T-shirt and working at the fastening of my jeans. I felt the heat build in me and knew my clit was throbbing with desire.
He undressed, too, lightning fast. Then he turned back to me where I lay in my undies. He flipped off the straps of my bra and unfastened it with quick expertise. Then he hooked his fingers into my panties and pulled them off in a single swift move.
I gasped as he stroked me, his hands starting at my shoulders and going all the way down to my thighs, a warm, even, smooth sensation. My body twisted with longing and, just when I thought I couldn’t stand more, his hand moved between my thighs.
A bolt of pleasure so intense that I could have screamed went through me as he found my clit and worked it. I was throbbing and hot and ready, and he was taking me higher and higher, moving me to a new place of sensation that I’d never felt before. His fingers clenched and gently pulled and I felt myself shiver with the sweetness of it.
“Aagh!” I screamed with pleasure—it was actually painful. My body was throbbing and bucking and jolting, and then I came.
He smiled and then gently, very gently, his own body trembling with the effort of restraint, pushed into me.
I was sobbing with pleasure as he moved in me. He was so slow and tender, taking me with a passion I had not seen before.
As he started to quicken the pace, I felt myself moving over the edge again, flying in a new place where all that connected to me was the sweet, magnificent wonder of the motion going on inside me.
I was crying out now and so was he, wordless beauty carrying us up and beyond our sensation into a place of radical fulfillment we had not visited.
He cried out and collapsed on me even as I sobbed a second time, feeling the sensation close over me and carry me away.
When we woke up, I found that he was stroking my hair gently. I rolled over and looked at him. My hand stroked him, too, cupping his beautiful face. I kissed his eyelid.
“My dear,” I purred.
He laughed and held me close. “Whew.” That was all he said for a long moment and I felt the joy of his fulfillment inside me like a second slow ache. My belly was liquid with pleasure and I felt like I had been inexpertly put back together, all the places where there had been discomfort or pain subtly rejoined into a whole that knew only bliss.
We lay like that for a long time. I felt his hands exploring my back and let him turn me over. They massaged down my spine and I knew absolute joy as they kneaded out the tension I held there. When he had finished I rolled over and sat up.
“Now you.”
He let me turn him over and I ran my hands down that strong, amazing back. I felt that he was letting himself be with me—truly be with me—for the first time. It was a place of intimacy I hadn’t known could exist. We had both let go of barriers that night. We had both learned to trust.
I felt my hands stroke down his back and I heard his sigh and I knew that this was a place I had never shared with anyone, this closeness.
When I had finished with him I lay down beside him. He smiled.
“Oh wow.”
I smiled at his words. They made me feel so good inside. I rolled over and he held me. We lay like that for quite some time.
Later, he sat up and stretched. “What day is today?” he asked.
I frowned
. “It’s weekend,” I remembered. The thought hit me hard. Monday was a workday. Monday was the day I left.
I blinked and looked away.
“Well,” he said with a grin. “Thank Heaven for that!”
“Why?” I asked, sitting up. I sat beside him, and I knew what he would say.
“Well, that means it’s my day off. I can spend longer in here.”
I roared with laughter as he pushed me onto the bed and kissed me. I wondered if we would get out of bed before midday.
We didn’t spend much time standing up that day. Most of it was spent on the bed and during that time we both learned so much about each other. We learned about pleasure and pain and trust.
“You must really love you grandfather,” he commented as he stroked my hair. “To come out here.”
I nodded. “I do,” I smiled. “Though I’m glad I did.”
He chuckled. “Glad to hear it.”
I smiled. “Glad to do it.”
We both laughed and after a moment I asked him something. “If you were to do anything with your future, what would it be?”
He was so quiet that I thought he’d decided not to reply, when he answered. “Never really thought about it. Never thought past this place. Well…” he frowned. “I think my future is here,” he said slowly. “Fix the ranch, make it productive—I have this idea of growing beans. Ideal climate.”
“Oh.” I frowned. Grandpa grew hay grass. I didn’t know about bean farming, but evidently he’d researched it. “Well, sounds good.” I nodded. Thinking about the future made me upset. I knew what my future held—being a secretary in a firm in LA.
“Weird, that you asked,” he commented. “I never thought about a future, really. Not till now. I guess I didn’t think I had one when I joined the force—and you don’t like to make plans when dying’s really possible—and then after, I think I got out of the habit of planning. Didn’t think I had a future, really. Didn’t think I was worth having a future.”
I closed my eyes, feeling the sadness of that. “Oh, Reese.”
We said nothing more for a while. After a while, my bladder reminded me of needs of its own and I stood up.
“Bathroom?”
“Mm.”
I headed to the bathroom and relieved myself, then, looking out of the window, thought about the way things would change when I left. He would start his bean farming, and Grandpa would be better able to take care of himself. Maybe they’d keep tabs on each other. It might help.
And me?
I washed my hands, my throat tight with tears. I would go back to being a secretary and live in my small apartment under a sky too light polluted for stars.
“That’s your life, Kelly Gowan,” I told myself. “That’s just the way it is.”
I went back to the bedroom and lay down with him for a while. We got up shortly after that. He stretched.
“We should make lunch,” he said with a smile. I nodded.
“I should check in on my grandpa,” I said. “I want to find out how he’s doing…he’s getting discharged tomorrow.”
“Great,” he replied, voice lost as he shrugged on his shirt. Then he added, “if I can help—like with driving or something—just ask me.”
“Sure,” I nodded. My throat was tight. “I will.”
We got dressed and had a simple lunch of baked beans and fried eggs with toast.
While I was sitting at the table, my phone rang. I frowned and went through to the lounge to fetch it. It was Doctor Marsden.
“Hey,” I said, frowning.
“Miss Gowan?”
“Yes? It’s me. What’s up?”
“We need you at the hospital. Your grandfather’s having trouble and we may need to perform an emergency surgery. If you could come down as soon as is convenient?”
“Oh.” I felt my vision swim. “Oh. Sure. Thank you. Yes. See you then. Yes. Bye.”
When I went through to finish lunch, my head was swimming. I sat down at the table and put my head in my hands. When I looked up, Reese looked stressed.
“What is it?” he asked. I shook my head.
“It’s okay,” I managed to say. “I…I’ve just got to go now.” I couldn’t think straight. I knew, dimly, that I was in shock, but I didn’t know what to do about it.
“Can I help?” he asked. I shook my head.
“Give me a minute,” I said. I felt my throat close up with tears and went to the bathroom. I shut myself in with my emotions. Somehow, even with our new intimacy, I didn’t want to cry in front of him. My last boyfriend, Rodney, had said I cried too much. He was probably right.
“Whew,” I said, sobbing silently and then making my face respectable under the sink. “I should go.”
I gathered myself and headed out into the hallway.
When I got back to the kitchen, Reese was where I’d left him. He looked confused.
“I have to go,” I said awkwardly. “I’ll see you around?”
“Uh huh,” he said softly.
“Okay,” I gulped. “I’ll head off, now.”
“Mm.” He stood and was gathering the dishes together, taking them to the sink, tidying up.
“Thanks for the lunch,” I added lamely.
“Okay,” he said. “No worries.”
Then I said my farewells and headed off into town.
I drove back with my eyes blurring, suddenly, with tears.
I had two more days here. Then I would leave. I would return to my small, mundane place and my small, mundane life. Maybe that was all I was meant to have; where I belonged.
Right now, I had an even bigger worry, though. Grandpa. I might be worried about my future, but what about him? Would he pull through?
I headed as fast as was possible to the hospital. To discover what happened.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Reese
When Kelly had gone I spent my time cleaning the kitchen. I did it all systematically and slowly. The plates. The pot. The knives and forks. Lastly, under running water, the mugs. It gave me time to focus my thoughts. Whenever I had been stressed in the army, I’d taken the time to clean my weapons and organize my equipment and kit. It was a way of shifting focus, of stopping myself falling into worrying.
This morning had been amazing. But what was worrying Kelly?
The more I thought about it, the more there was only one explanation to me. Someone—a boyfriend—had surfaced.
It made sense. I’d heard nothing of her phone call, except for the fact that the low burr of voice on the talking end was obviously male. She had been relaxed and happy before, and then she was tense and stressed.
She didn’t want to tell me. What else’d she hide? And she was sad…maybe she regrets…this.
I sighed. The thought of Kelly walking away from me was hard. It surprised me to realize just how hard it, in fact, was. Over the short time she’d entered my life, she’d transformed it. She had made me believe I’d done my best. Given me back my faith in myself and my trust—in myself and others.
Now I discovered she was unable to be part of my life.
I snorted, laughing at myself. “You don’t know anything! You don’t even know her last name. She might be married, for all you bothered to discover.”
I didn’t think so, but it was possible. No one had ever mentioned whether she was or not.
I sighed. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I didn’t blame anyone. Not her, not her partner, not even me. To blame would be to say I’d want things to be different and I didn’t. I didn’t regret it.
“If I never found out, I’d still be happy.”
I sighed.
None of this really made sense to me. Thinking’s not your strong suit, Bradford, I thought sadly. I should stop thinking and just go do something.
The farm wasn’t short of things for me to do, after all. It was why I’d bought it. I changed into a shirt and long pants and headed out for a walk.
The sky was a soft gray over the fields and it lo
oked like rain. A much-needed rain it would be too, I thought distractedly. The air was dense with the dusty smell of parched earth. I could hear the faint whisper of the windmill next door, creaking in the gentle ripple of wind.
It was hard. Hard to forget.
I made a catalog of things I had to do. I needed to have the spark plugs checked on the pickup. I needed to repair the roof in the hallway. I needed to finish the barns. And later there were other things to do. Purchase a tractor. Prepare fields. Plow them and find a supplier of decent beans to grow. Find buyers. Purchase fertilizer and chemicals. A system for irrigation. A truck for transport. A place for packing and sorting the products and the labor to help me with picking it.
I chuckled. “It’s her fault for starting me off.”
My plans for the farm had been nebulous before that, the faintest ideas not really fully formed. Now they were growing apace. I could almost see the harvest.
I looked out over the field under the growing storm clouds and headed inside.
I was on the roof, fixing the holes, when the storm came. Being on a roof in an electric storm is easily the worst place for being. I clambered down the ladder quickly and headed into the house, shutting the door fast behind me.
As if you can escape storms that way. I chuckled.
Saying a brief prayer that the place was earthed, I went to the couch and found my phone.
I sent two texts: the first was to her.
Hey, Kelly. Let me know what’s up sometime.
As I pressed “send,” I kind of regretted it. I should just walk away. I should let her get on with her life. It wasn’t fair of me to do this to her.
The second text was to Jackson. I suddenly remembered I was meant to be meeting him in town this afternoon. It was probably just what I needed.
Hey. See you in about an hour, right? B
As I sat there brooding, he called me.
“Hey!”
“Hey, Jackson.”
“Great! When I hadn’t heard from you, I thought you weren’t going to show up. Coming now?”