The First Love Cookie Club

by Lori Wilde

  “He probably wanted to connect with you very badly, he just didn’t know how. Especially if he was clinically depressed.” Tentatively, she reached out and put her hand over his.

  “You know what it feels like, don’t you?” he said.

  “What?”

  “Not being able to fully connect with people even when you want to.”

  She inhaled audibly. “I do.”

  “Help me to understand.”

  “I can’t speak for your father.”

  “No, but as someone who withdraws when you’re under stress, you might give me insight into my dad’s behavior.”

  She paused and he thought for the longest moment she wasn’t going to tell him, then finally she said, “This is how it works for me. The world feels like an invasion. Everything is coming at you so fast. Cell phones, text messages, pagers, traffic noises—“

  “Then why do you live in New York?”

  “Because there is an odd peace in the chaos. You can be in your own little bubble in New York in spite of all the people.”

  “You need to come fishing with me sometime,” he said. “I’ll show you real peace.”

  “I don’t know why I’m the way I am. Maybe I was just born this way. Maybe it was because I was alone so much of the time as a kid. Maybe it’s because I basically parented myself except when I was here with Gram. Whatever the reason, I feel safe when I’m alone and off balance the rest of the time. I live in my head a lot and I love details and information.”

  “But you just said information was an assault.”

  “It is, if I don’t have a time and place to process it in private.”

  “Okay, I can respect that. You need your space and you need a soft place to land.”

  “I don’t expect much from life. In fact, I like it better when there’s not a lot of expectations. The success of The Magic Christmas Cookie caused problems for me. Public appearances are a nightmare. The only way I get through them is by pretending to be Sadie Cool. There’s intense pressure to produce a second book as good or better than the first.”

  He nodded, waited. Let her go at her own pace.

  “It’s not that I’m commitment-phobic or that I don’t want a relationship. It’s just very hard for me to reach out, and a lot of people don’t get this. They see me as distant, aloof, and I suppose I am.” She sighed. “The scar doesn’t help matters.”

  He looked at her, looked into her, and told her with his eyes that it was all right. That her secret was safe with him.

  “I’ve never been very good at relationships. My parents and I barely talk. My agent is my best friend and honestly, I don’t mind. I had a boyfriend in college, sort of. It wasn’t a love match, but he was cute and I was feeling the need for companionship. We hooked up over a mutual love of jazz music and for a little while things weren’t bad. We went out a couple of months and then he started pressuring me to socialize more. Get out. Go to parties. To me that held the appeal of slamming my finger in a car door, but for him, I agreed to try. We went to a new jazz club that had opened up in a rather rundown part of Houston.”

  A thought flashed into Travis’s head. A news story he’d heard about three years back. A fire in a jazz club in Houston that hadn’t been up to code; several people had been severely injured. One person had died. His gut tightened.

  “The club was very crowded and the music was too loud. I asked him if we could leave and he got really angry. Called me a hermit and recluse, said I’d end up an old maid. So even though every instinct in my body told me to leave, I stayed.” She reached for a bottle of water, twisted off the top, took a long drink before continuing with the story he knew was going in a horrible direction.

  “A fire broke out. Someone had been freebasing cocaine in the bathroom. There was a stampede. I got knocked down.” She spoke in a clear, detached, calm manner as if it had happened to someone she didn’t even know.

  “Sarah,” he whispered, but her expression never changed.

  “A burning beam fell across my waist. Someone—not the guy I was with—lifted it off of me and carried me to safety. I spent three weeks in the burn unit with third-degree burns. But I was lucky. It was over less than ten percent of my body. I’ve had some skin grafts. I could have more to reduce the scarring if I wished, but I haven’t had the mental energy to deal with that, especially in the wake of my literary success.”

  “What happened to the boyfriend?”

  She shrugged. “He broke up with me while I was in the hospital.”

  “Sounds like a real prince,” he growled.

  “That was nothing compared to the next guy I went out with,” she said. “I told him about the burns. He said he was cool with it. Until it came time to take off my clothes. One look and suddenly he remembered ten dozen other places he needed to be.”

  “He ran out on you after you let down your guard and showed him your scar?”

  “Hey, what can I say? It looks pretty bad.”

  “Asshole.” Travis clenched his fists.

  “That’s just the way it is.”

  “Are you lumping me in the same category with those guys? You think I’m gonna take off on you if you pull off your shirt?”

  Sarah glanced out the window and laughed. “Hey, this is my big chance. Captive audience. It’s the only way the burned girl is going to get laid.” Her laugh was rough, humorless.

  “Don’t …” Travis raised a finger. “Don’t put yourself down that way, Sarah. You’re a fine, gorgeous woman any man would be lucky to have.”

  “In spite of the scars and personality quirks?”

  “Because of them,” he said firmly. “They make you who you are. Strong and independent. Perceptive and calm. Curious and objective. Wise and kind and trustworthy.”

  Her cheeks flushed red.

  “Those two losers are fools. You know that.”

  “So is Crystal.”

  “Yes she is. She left the most fabulous child in the world behind.” Travis got to his feet and crossed the short distance between the fireplace hearth and the table. He reached for Sarah, drew her to her feet, and she let him. He gazed into her eyes, just looked and looked and looked. She held her own and felt the power of their connection. It was beyond anything he’d ever experienced in his life.

  He was in love with this woman, but he didn’t know if she was ready to hear him say it. But he knew she was his destiny as surely as he knew his own name and she’d known it before he had.

  He was attracted to her quiet self-possession. She made him feel restful and steady, as if her calmness granted him permission to take internal solitude seriously. She was like the lake he loved, deep and serene, and she evoked in him the same sense of peace.

  Whenever he was with her, he felt as if he was truly at home. He didn’t have to scramble around to find his identity in meeting the needs of others. In fact, until he was with her, he’d never recognized that he filled his life up with other people so that he didn’t have to take stock of what he’d neglected—himself.

  She gave him permission to find out who he really was. Between taking care of his mother, then coming to terms with his father’s suicide, and finally looking after his ailing daughter, he’d shoved aside his own needs to do what needed to be done, but it left him feeling a little hollow inside.

  He loved how Sarah was free to go her own way; independent of what others expected of her. But this quality also gave him pause. How could she ever put down roots? How could he ever really connect with her permanently if he was always afraid she would simply wander away?

  Travis thought of how his father used to withdraw. He’d stay in bed and sleep for days on end, barely waking up, not eating, not caring about anything. He’d given up on life.

  Sarah wasn’t depressed as his father had been. He knew that. But the potential was there. It worried him, the way she isolated herself at times. Did he really want to get involved with someone who kept people at arm’s length? Especially when he had Jazzy to think about
.

  Except he couldn’t deny the bond his daughter had forged with her. He’d never seen Jazzy this happy. Sure, part of it was due to her renewed health, but the way her face lit up whenever Sarah came into the room did strange and wonderful things to him.

  And around Jazzy, Sarah opened like an unfurling rose. They seemed to feed off each other in a way he could not comprehend. They talked of magical cookies and fairy tales and castles and princesses and once-upon-a-time in way he didn’t get. It was like they created their own little world. He might think that was a bad thing, except when they were together, they laughed in a way neither one of them laughed when they were apart.

  “I’ve waited a long time for you, Travis Walker,” Sarah said. “Don’t disappoint me now.”

  Travis fell into those amazing blue eyes, darker now with a sheen of desire. All traces of the girl next door were gone. She was a grown woman in every sense of the word. He reached to cradle her chin in his palm and felt the pulse under her ear skitter beneath his fingers like a wild thing desperate to escape a trap.

  He lowered his head and kissed those sweet salmon-colored lips. A tender kiss that contradicted the savage urges raging inside him. It was all he could do not to yank her clothes off her and tug her down on the hardwood floor. But he didn’t surrender to the blood pounding through his veins, surging hotly through his body. At least not completely. Instead, he just kept firm pressure on her mouth while he stroked the side of her neck with his thumb.

  Her lips parted on a soft sigh and she sank against him, her breasts pressing against his chest, her warmth seeping through his skin, stoking the blaze growing inside him. His erection jumped, demanding attention, but Travis held on to his control. Being a father had taught him the value of patience.

  He could wait, no matter how painful. He had to take care with her. She was precious cargo and she’d just entrusted him with her darkest secret and he wasn’t about to disappoint her.

  Sarah’s heart pounded. She was scared, yes, but she wanted this more than anything in the world. They’d been building toward this moment since that day on the parade float. No, longer than that. Since the day she’d burst into the church and told him he was her destiny. This was the moment she finally revealed her secret to him.

  Even though he’d said it wouldn’t matter to him, that no matter what, he would think she was gorgeous, she worried it wasn’t true. What if…

  No. She wasn’t going there. She was going to live in the moment, experience everything he had to offer her, and let the future take care of itself.

  She looked at Travis, saw the nervousness in his eyes, and knew he was feeling just as vulnerable as she was. He was taking a big risk too. Going out on a limb for her, trusting that she wouldn’t abandon him as most everyone else in his life had done in one way or another.

  He trusted her, made her feel safe, and she had to trust him.

  She reached for the hem of her sweater, intending on pulling it up, pulling it over her head, exposing her scarred, fire-ravaged body to him, but he reached out to still her hand with his. “Let me.”

  Trembling, she dropped her arms.

  His touch was cautious and incredibly gentle. Slowly, he raised her sweater, but his eyes stayed on hers. He didn’t look away as his hands touched her feverish skin and his fingertips skimmed along her sides. Like a blind man, he explored the ridges of the scar that fanned out across her belly from her ribs to her pelvis. Then his fingers reached up to remove her bra.

  Emotion clogged Sarah’s throat as she stared into his face and never once saw a flicker of anything but tenderness and caring. Outside the ice storm raged, but in her head she could hear Bing Crosby crooning “White Christmas” and she was fifteen again, innocent and unscarred and madly, truly, deeply in love with this man.

  He pressed his face into her hair and inhaled deeply. “God, you smell so good, Sarah. You smell like home.”

  Finally, he tugged the sweater over her head and flung it over the chair. She tensed, waiting. But he didn’t look down, just kept looking at her. She reached up to splay her palm over his chest, felt his heart thumping hard and steady.

  He kissed her; long, lingering, sweet. Then he lowered himself to his knees, eye level with her damaged belly.

  Fresh fear flashed through her. What was he seeing? What did her body look like to him?

  He pressed his warm lips to the scar, kissing herwhere no man had ever kissed before. “Beautiful,” he crooned between each kiss. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”

  As he kissed and crooned, he undid the snap on her jeans, eased them down—along with her panties—over her hips, to her ankles. She kicked them off and stood naked before him.

  After he’d thoroughly kissed her, he got to his feet again and removed his own pants. They stood naked together and she saw nothing on his face but admiration, respect, and—did she dare hope?— love.

  “Sarah Collier, you’re beautiful inside and out and no scar is ever going to change that and I want to make love to you more than I want to breathe.” He stripped off his own shirt and tossed it beside hers.

  He took the elastic band from her braid and slowly unwound it until her hair was a wavy cascade around her body. “Jazzy calls you Rapunzel. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair so I may climb your golden stair.”

  “You know your fairy tale princesses.”

  “I have my daughter to thank for that. Come down out of your ivory tower, Sarah, and be with me.”

  She kissed him this time, and in her head Bing switched to her second favorite Christmas song, “Christmas Canon” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The smooth romantic music tugged at her heartstrings. She tried to block it. Tried to detach and stop feeling, but all her defenses were gone. In his arms, she was fully, completely exposed.

  And then Sarah just started to cry as she’d nevercried before. This moment was too beautiful to be believed. Every dream she’d ever dreamed, every hope she’d ever dared hope about Travis Walker was coming true and her heart filled with more love than she could ever express. It leaked from her in great rolling sobs.

  Travis’s eyebrows rose in alarm and he enveloped her in a tight hug. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she blubbered through the cascade of tears. She wanted to stop, but she couldn’t, and that scared her because she’d never had much problem detaching. But with Travis, there was no detaching. She felt him everywhere.

  “Sarah, you’re scaring me.”

  “I’m fine. Everything is wonderful, perfect.” She swiped at the tears with the back of her hand.

  “Please, Sarah,” he said, his voice raspy, “please don’t break me.”

  “Never, Travis, never,” she pledged.

  “C’mere.” He took her hand, guided her across the room, and sank down onto the cool blankets, pulling her with him. The white winter sunlight glinted off the icy wonderland outside, spilling the bright white color through the window, slanting over the bed. Sarah realized she’d never made love in the daylight. Before, no afternoon delight. But now, everything was pure delight. How had she gotten here, to this most exalted place?

  They were belly to belly—hers scarred, his flawless—gazing into each other’s eyes.

  He rolled her over in one fluid movement until he was on top and she could feel his body heat radiating over her. “Like it or not, Sarah, this means something,” Travis murmured.

  “Yes,” she said, wondering again how in the world she’d gotten here, to this cabin in the woods with the man of her dreams.

  “This isn’t like the night I pulled you from the lake. That was hard, frantic—“

  “Lust.”

  “This is different.” He stroked a finger down her cheek and briefly she closed her eyes against the intimate feel of his work-roughened skin. “We’re both going to be different after this.”

  “I know,” she whispered.

  She felt the head of Travis’s penis expanding against her thigh. Gazing into his eyes, she
could feel the shift start, subtle in the beginning, but definite, concrete, something you could bank on. It was like the unexpected ice storm, slipping into the midst of a warm winter morning, inconvenient and sharp, but exciting and dynamic, a blast of frisky freshness upsetting the languid status quo. It made her feel incredibly alive.

  “I’m going to make love to you now, sweetheart,” he whispered.

  The rising wave of her desire swept her along as if she was a grain of sand sucked into the undertow and carried out to sea.

  “Make love to me,” she murmured, and ran her palms over the hard plains of his masculine shoulders, his muscles tensed with holding his weight above her. She wanted him so desperately. Even more than the night he’d saved her from drowning in the lake.

  He kissed her then. Each kiss growing sweeter and sweeter.

  She felt his erection stretch and tighten. Justthinking about having his cock inside her made her arch her pelvis upward. But, simultaneously, he arched his back, pulling away, teasing her.

  “Hey, no fair,” she whispered, and reached up to splay her palm against his beautiful ass.

  He laughed. His penis hard as cement jutting into her scarred belly.

  She pushed his ass down with her palm, letting him know where she needed for him to go.

  He lowered himself down, but did not enter her. Instead he moved against her, rubbing the head of his penis against her straining clit, a perfect rhythm building. Then suddenly he stopped and looked deeply into her eyes. “You are an incredible woman, Sarah.”

  He was totally into her. She could see it in the hotness of his gaze. He made her feel like she was the center of his universe, cherished, admired. A heated flush rushed up her chest to her neck to burn her cheeks. How she’d once fantasized about a moment just like this one!

  Everything in her universe dissolved except for this man—the bed, the cabin, the storm. Nothing existed but the two of them, floating on the up-draft of something monumental.

  And then slowly, he eased into her.

  She hissed in her breath on a sigh and let her legs fall fully open to him. His strokes were easy, tender, careful, but sliding in deeper with each controlled thrust. A groan of pleasure slipped from his lips and Sarah smiled up at the ceiling, her heart overflowing with joy.