Fall Into Me: Hearts of the South

by Linda Winfree

  He moved, wrapping her legs around his hips and surging inside her. The sudden sensation of being stretched around him took her breath on a wave of pleasure. His moan of satisfaction came out with a hissed breath and he withdrew, easing home again, setting a slow rhythm that she matched with subtle thrusts of her own.

  Resting on one elbow, he cradled her face with his palm and brought their mouths together. His lips traveled over her jaw, to her temple. “Love you, love you, love you…”

  His mantra washed over her, and she whispered her own words of love. She arched closer, wanting more, wanting it all, as desire and sensation coalesced, swirling out, eddying, until they blended and crashed into a climax that left her clinging to him and gasping out his name. She held on, nails digging into his biceps, her gaze fixed on his face as he pushed higher, deeper within her, his lashes coming down as the intense pleasure-pain of climax tautened his features.

  He collapsed into her arms, his face against her neck, hot breath searing her damp skin. Tiny aftershocks of pleasure vibrated through her, and she ran her hand down the indention of his spine. “Oh, Troy Lee Farr, I do love you.”

  His answer was a deep male mutter, as though he was winded and beyond words. She hugged him close and smiled against his hair. She didn’t need the words then.

  She had him.

  “Mmm.” Angel turned into Troy Lee’s warm, naked body as he tossed the covers away and made to rise. She tucked her leg over his thighs and tried to pull him back to her. “Don’t go yet.”

  “I don’t want to.” He hooked his hand around the back of her knee and nuzzled her ear. “But I have to. I’ve got to go home and shower—”

  “Shower here.” She cracked one eyelid. Darkness still hovered beyond the windows. “Troy Lee, it’s not even dawn yet.”

  “Baby…I’ve got to get moving. I missed my run yesterday and I need some miles this morning.” He kissed a hot trail down her throat. Beneath her leg, his half-hard penis twitched. “I have to put together a fresh uniform, plus there’s drive time between here and my place. But, I’ll see you tonight.” He blessed her collarbone with open-mouthed kisses. “And I’m off for three days at New Year’s.”

  “Ooh, you can watch football with my daddy.”

  He closed his teeth on her shoulder in playful retaliation. “Or I could take you to Atlanta to meet my family.”

  “Maybe.” She traced the ridges in his spine. “Staying in bed all day sounds good.”

  “Damn good.” He growled and kissed her cheek. “But I can’t be late for work today.”

  He shifted to sit on the side of the bed and pull on his boxers. She rolled to her side and levered up on an elbow, watching the muscles play in the dim light filtering in from the living room. “Why don’t you bring some things with you tonight? You know, clothes and stuff to leave here.”

  “Sounds like a great idea to me.” He stood, picked up his slacks and tugged them on. The zipper rasped and he slipped his arms into his shirt, leaving it half unbuttoned. With a grin, he rested his knee on the mattress and bent down to kiss her. “Love you, baby.” Moving lower, he nudged the sheet aside and dropped another kiss below her navel. “You too, baby.”

  Her eyes prickled at the pure emotion in his voice and she sat up, winding her arms about his neck and kissing him with everything in her heart. After a moment, he pulled away and bumped his nose against hers. “Later.”

  She tangled her hand in his collar and tugged him close for just one more. “I can’t wait.”

  Angel parked her Mustang beneath the spreading oak tree next to the EMS station, just as she had dozens of times before. Jim’s familiar F-150 waited nearby and she swung out of the low-slung sports car, rubbing her damp palms down her thighs as she headed up the brick walkway to the neat building.

  The bays stood open, revealing both ambulances. A radio played a popular country-music station, and good-natured teasing accompanied the familiar routine of the EMT teams preparing to change shifts, Jim and Clark inventorying their bus while Nikki and her partner cleaned their own. Nikki spotted Angel first and paused in the middle of running a squeegee over the windshield, surprise flashing in her green eyes. “Hey, Angel.”

  “Hey, Nik.” At Nikki’s greeting and Angel’s reply, Jim straightened, nearly hitting his head against the open metal door on the lower side of the ambulance. His face froze into a deer-in-the-headlights expression and her hopes that this might not be as bad as she’d feared took a serious nosedive.

  “Jim, can I talk to you a minute?” She folded her arms, rubbing above her elbows, and tilted her head toward the side yard.

  He gestured at the supplies scattered beside the vehicle. “I’m kinda busy.”

  She lifted her chin. “It’s kinda important.”

  His mouth tightened and he glanced around at his colleagues before his gaze landed on Clark’s impassive face. “I’ll be right back.”

  Not waiting to see if he followed, she turned and strode toward her car. Nerves jittered in her stomach, trying to edge their way toward nausea, but she concentrated on breathing through her nose, deep calming inhales and exhales.

  “What the hell is so important?” Jim joined her, nearly hissing the words, and she was glad she’d chosen this as the venue for her revelation. He might not be happy about what she had to say, but he’d watch his damn manners with his coworkers near. There’d be no yelling. “Rhonda would have a fit if she knew I was talking to you.”

  Angel could only imagine. She smothered her snippy retort and tightened her hold on her arms. She’d come to do this and she was just going to do it. “I’m pregnant.”

  Jim scowled and threw out his hands. “So?”

  Anger dazzled through her and she narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you mean, ‘so’? So you might be the father.”

  A rude snort exploded from Jim. “More likely it’s that boy from the sheriff’s department you’re fucking around with.”

  She dug her nails into her own skin. She was not going to go white-trash-crazy-ex-girlfriend on his ass, no matter how badly she wanted to or how badly he deserved it. Instead, she settled for a too-sweet smile. “Hardly, since I was already pregnant before I ever slept with him.”

  “Well, you said might.” He spit into the neat mulch surrounding the oak tree. “Goddamn, Angel, how many of us might there be?”

  At the insult, she straightened her shoulders. “Just one other, and to tell you the truth, Jim, I hope to God it’s his.”

  “Yeah, I’m not that lucky.” Hands propped at his hips, he glared at her. “So it’s not too late for an abortion, right?”

  The air whooshed from her lungs and she tried to quell the crushing pain and fury his callous comment brought. Okay, even she’d thought that at the beginning and she was seriously complicating his life, but overlaid with his hard reaction was the memory of Troy Lee leaning down to whisper a kiss and words of love and acceptance over an unborn child that wasn’t his.

  “I mean, that’s what this is about, right?” Jim’s jaw tightened, taking on a pugnacious angle. “You want money for an abortion?”

  She stared, sure her mouth was hanging open. He thought she wanted…? She laughed, although it was an ugly, derogatory sound even to her. “I don’t need your damn money, Jim Tyre. Hell, the club brings in more on a good Saturday night than you make in a month—”

  “Lord, you’re a bitch.” Anger flushed his face, his nostrils flaring. Yeah, it was a good thing she’d chosen to tell him here. Somewhere private and she might have ended up like one of those poor girls her mama was always talking about from the Nancy Grace show, the pregnant ones whose former lovers murdered them and tossed the bodies. “Then what the fuck do you want from me, Angel?”

  What had she ever seen in this selfish bastard? Maybe it was what she’d hadn’t seen, all the pettiness and the innate self-centeredness that she hadn’t really perceived for what they were, until Troy Lee and his open, giving presence in her life.

  She s
hook her head. “I don’t want anything from you, Jim. I just…I wanted to do the decent thing and tell you.”

  “Decent.” He looked away, his shoulders shaking on a silent, repulsive laugh. “Like you even know what that word means—”

  “Stop.” She shoved the word out from between clenched teeth. “I did what I came to do. You know, and that’s it. You’ve made it really plain you want nothing to do with this baby if it’s yours, and that’s fine with me.”

  “Yeah, you say that now, but when it’s here, you’ll be asking for child support, just wait and see.”

  “Sign off on your parental rights when it’s born and I won’t ask you for a dime.”

  “Get me the papers and it’s done.”

  Would it really be that easy to have him out of her life, out of the baby’s? She wasn’t going to push the point further today for sure. “I’ll talk to a lawyer, see what we have to do.”

  “You do that.” With a hard nod, he turned away. After a couple of steps, he spun to face her. “You listen to me, Angel, and listen good—as far as Rhonda and I are concerned, this baby doesn’t exist. Hell, Rhonda doesn’t even need to know. You got that?”

  “Yeah, Jim, I get it.” She waited for him to walk inside and slowly uncurled her aching fingers from around her arms, surprised to find her hands shaking and red spots of blood under her nails. She expelled a trembling giggle that was closer to a sob.

  Lord help her, she still had to tell Cookie.

  “Here you go. That’ll be one-thirty-six.” Shanna leaned on the diner counter while Mark pulled a couple of ones from his wallet and scrounged for a penny. A speculative light glinted in her startlingly blue eyes. “So I hear Tori got a ring for Christmas.”

  He handed over the money. “Um, yeah.”

  “Never thought I’d see the day when you’d get married.” Shaking her head, Shanna opened the till and made change. He waved it back at her and she slid it into her apron pocket. A grimace twisted her mouth. “Of course, I never thought Tick would either.”

  He reached for his coffee with a noncommittal sound. Shanna had been Tick’s current trying-to-forget when Falconetti had come back into his life, and Mark wasn’t touching that comment. He lifted the large cup in a farewell gesture. “Thanks, Shanna.”

  At the door, he picked up a copy of the local complimentary real estate magazine. Tori was hell-bent they were going to live on the lake after they were married, and since she had him wrapped around her finger alongside her brothers, he might as well start looking. Scanning the listings on the glossy back cover, he nudged the door open with his elbow and took a cautious sip of the strong, freshly brewed coffee. God, he needed the caffeine jolt today. Since the confirmation of Jenny’s death, sleep had been hit-or-miss, and he was feeling the miss bad this afternoon.

  Huh. This one possessed potential. Three bedrooms and a study, a hundred feet of lake frontage, dock already in place…

  “Cookie?”

  He startled at Angel’s hushed voice, coffee sloshing dangerously. He held the cup aloft, steadying it. “Hey. Troy Lee’s not with me if you’re—”

  “No, I was looking for you.” She darted a look around, the street and sidewalk quiet and nearly deserted on this Saturday after Christmas, her bright yellow Mustang the only vehicle parked on this block, other than a couple of county employee vehicles. “Have you got a minute?”

  “Sure.” His instincts pricked up. Something was off—she was pale, looking everywhere but at him, rubbing her palms over her elbows in a nervous, repetitive gesture. If her red-rimmed eyes were anything to go by, she’d been crying. “What’s up?”

  She sank her teeth into her bottom lip and shook her head. Fresh tears shimmered in her eyes.

  Oh, hell. He did a quick visual survey of her, looking for anything to explain her distress. Other than her tears and overall shakiness, she looked like the same Angel he’d always known—turquoise boots, a brown print dress, silver hoop earrings. The only thing missing was her customary denim jacket, and she had to be cold, with her arms bare like that—

  Little red bruises, fresh ones, dotted her arms, the skin broken in a couple of places. Like someone had grabbed her, hard. Scenarios flipped through his brain, none of them pretty.

  “Angel? What happened?” He set his coffee on the windowsill of the vacant building next to the diner and reached for her arm with a gentle hand, turning her slightly to give him a better look at the marks. Son of a bitch… “Did someone hurt you?”

  She burst into tears. Shit. He caught her chin as gingerly as he could and tilted her gaze up to his. “Angel, I need you tell me what happened. I can understand if you don’t want Troy Lee, but if it will make it easier for you to talk to me, I can call Tori—”

  “No!” She tugged her arm free and covered her eyes in an obvious attempt to get herself together. A spurt of hysterical laughter burst from her lips. “God, no.”

  “Okay, but you have to—”

  “I’m pregnant.” She dropped her hand and met his gaze, a hint of defiance in hers. He stared back at her, his lungs refusing to work at all. Everything rolled a degree or so off kilter, but the weekend activity of Coney continued around them—a semi loaded with chickens rumbling through the intersection, a pair of women walking laps around the First Baptist parking lot, even a couple of birds chirping in the big oaks behind the sheriff’s department.

  His chest tightened further, until he thought for sure he’d suffocate. Hell, he remembered this feeling from the day Jenny disappeared, when the realization that she was really missing, that she wasn’t coming home, slammed into him with the deadly devastation of a speeding freight train.

  He’d felt like this the day Tori had told him they were over too, when he’d believed he’d lost everything pure and good and wonderful that had come into his life.

  “What?” Eyes narrowed to slits glittering with unshed tears, Angel glared at him. “You don’t want to ask me if I’m looking for money for an abortion?”

  His lungs uncramped long enough to let him pull in a modicum of oxygen. His gaze dropped to her arms, folded tight, her fingers digging into the skin above her elbows. She looked even more off-balance than he felt.

  He dragged a hand over his nape. “Is that what Jim did?”

  “Yeah, and I’m a selfish bitch, out to ruin his life.” Something bitter and ugly, like hatred, dripped from her voice. “Like I asked for this.”

  “Did he do this?” He indicated the marks on her arm.

  “No.” She shook her head, her expression set in tense, dejected lines. “I did.”

  “Angel, I—” He rubbed his mouth. A sigh worked its way up from his aching chest. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Well, there’s another difference between you and Jim.”

  He darted a look at her. “I’m sorry he gave you a hard time.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not.” Hell, neither was he. His knees wobbled, wanting to give out on him. Shit, what was he supposed to do with this?

  What was Tori going to do with this?

  The question sent fear crashing through him. She was already insecure where his involvement with Angel was concerned, and even though she’d shocked the hell out of him by bringing Angel to sit at their table the night before, he didn’t have a clue how she’d react to this.

  “I don’t expect anything from you.” Angel spoke in a low, intense voice, hurrying the words out as if she wanted this over and done, wanted to crawl away and hide to nurse invisible wounds. “But I had to tell you. I need to tell my parents and I didn’t want it to get back to you through the gossip grapevine.”

  He nodded, his brain having a hard time sifting through the input. A thought reverberated through his head, offering another explanation for her tears. “Does Troy Lee know?”

  “Yes.” The first hint of real calm flickered in her eyes. “He’s known, almost from the beginning. I don’t want you to be angry with him. It wasn’t his place to
tell you—”

  He waved her to a stop. “I’m not angry with him. I’m just…hell.” A rough laugh scraped his throat and he rubbed at his mouth. “My brain doesn’t want to work.”

  “I’m sorry, Cookie.” Absolute misery coated her words.

  “Don’t be.” He attempted a smile, but was pretty sure it came off more like a grimace. “You didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “I don’t want her to be someone’s problem, Cookie. It’s not fair to make that her life.” A hard swallow flexed the muscles in her throat. “I understand if you’re not interested in being involved.”

  “Her?”

  One corner of her mouth lifted and she gave a half-hearted shrug. “Troy Lee thinks it’s a girl.”

  Even with the surreal quality of the conversation, the reality of the situation was settling in around him, on him, heavily. “Angel, I need some time to get this straight in my head. Can you give me that?”

  “Sure.” She tilted her chin toward her car. “I promised my mama I’d come by today and I need to get myself together before I do, so I’m going.”

  “Yeah.” He tried to shake himself out of the walking-through-gelatin sensation. It didn’t work. “Drive carefully.”

  “I will.”

  He closed his eyes. Her boots thumped on the sidewalk then stopped. “Cookie?”

  His lids felt too heavy to lift, but somehow he managed. “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  He frowned. “For what?”

  Sadness glimmered in her eyes for a split second. “For being you.”

  With that cryptic statement, she spun and strode to her car. The engine fired and she pulled out, soon disappearing down Durham Street.

  God. Mark pressed the heels of both hands into his eyes. What was he supposed to do now?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Behind the wheel of his unmarked unit, Mark made turns as random as the thoughts bouncing through his head. His thinking refused to line up straight, and he needed that more than anything right now.