“You’re right,” she said quietly. With no argument, no sass again. “I should travel with my babies. They deserve to see what’s out there.” She looked over at the restaurant and reached for her door handle, but then stopped and turned back to him.
Those Marilyn Monroe lips of hers pursed out as though she were debating the wisdom of blessing somebody’s heart. “And you know what?” she said. “I wouldn’t trade them for the world. Even when they’re whining, even when they haven’t let me sleep in weeks, even when they make me want to pull my hair out. Because they make their own world, and there’s not a pyramid or a mountain or a food in the world—not even sweet tea—that could ever be better than being their momma.”
She flashed a guilty smile and fanned herself with her good hand. “Whew. And that’s quite enough of that. Have you ever had fried pickles, Sergeant Butter Biscuits? Can’t leave the South without having true Southern delicacies, and I’d bet my daddy’s best shot glass this place has some dang good fried pickles. Last one in has to buy.”
She flung her door open and dashed through the thickening rain for the door. Zack followed, but his heart suddenly wasn’t as in it as it should’ve been.
Parenthood was something other people did.
Biological necessity, Zack always assumed. And he’d never had it. He’d been around enough babies in his life to get his fill. Besides, his sisters and aunts and cousins always traded horrific birth stories, talked about calls from the principal’s office, running the kids here and there and everywhere. And his brothers-in-law and uncles and male cousins talked about not getting sex anymore, about spending too much money on sports equipment and piano lessons, about never getting the time for a fishing trip.
But if they talked about the adventure and the world of parenthood, Zack hadn’t heard it.
Not the way Shelby talked about it.
He stepped into the small side room, but the barbecue didn’t smell quite as rich as it should’ve, the checkered tablecloth wasn’t as bright as he expected, and the thought of sweet tea turned his stomach.
Shelby tilted a glance at him and tsked. “Getting old there, Sergeant Saggy Pants? Need me to get you a wheelchair to get your old bones back out to the car? And I’m getting dessert too, since you’re buying. Can’t top peach cobbler, unless it’s August peach cobbler.”
If she knew she’d just shifted the plates under his world, she didn’t show it.
And Zack Montgomery didn’t like being the only one shaken up.
So he did the only thing he could justify in his mind.
He kissed the Southern right out of her.
* * *
The second half of the drive to Savannah took forever. Shelby had half a mind to ask Zack to pull over and join her in the backseat—she’d packed twelve condoms, just in case, and she was pretty sure that coming off her period meant she wouldn’t be too fertile, but still. Even tripling up, they could go four rounds. And they could buy more condoms.
She didn’t know what had shifted, but since the storm hit, Zack had put every ounce of his energy into making her feel like a proverbial woman. The Clairol proverbial, not the biblical proverbial, which Shelby never would’ve told her momma, rest her soul. Even back on the road, Zack kept a hand on her thigh, or squeezed her fingers hanging out of her cast. His voice was lower—still ornery as an old goat, except with enough sexy to make Shelby’s skin itch from her toes to her hairline.
So when they arrived in Savannah and he drove them to a parking lot down by River Street and then pulled her down an alley to a raucous bar instead of checking them directly into a hotel, she nearly lost her mind.
She hadn’t had sex in years.
She hadn’t enjoyed sex in longer.
And if Zack Montgomery gave half as good an orgasm as his smoldering lady-killer eyes and steamy-sinful kisses promised, Shelby figured she’d probably be dead by morning.
In the best possible way.
But he paid their cover and pulled her into the loud, crowded, humid bar with two pianists onstage, pounding and wailing their hearts out.
Zack kept her by his side, her bad arm tucked between them, and pushed to the bar where he ordered two mojitos. Then he led Shelby to the side, and while the two piano dudes launched into some classic Billy Joel, he pressed against her and swayed.
“Dance with me,” he ordered.
She’d wanted an experience.
Pressing against his hard body—hard everywhere—with a drink in hand while live music and fresh beer and hot young waitresses flowed around them was an experience.
She wasn’t Shelby Thermokopolos, the underemployed, divorced mother of two.
She was Shelby Thermokopolos, the brave, beautiful, and free.
Her laughter surprised herself. And when she hooked her good hand behind Zack’s neck and pulled him down for a kiss, she surprised herself again.
But then she lost herself in the kiss, in the moment, in that floaty space outside her body where she was watching a carefree young woman dance a ritual as old and natural as anything Zack Montgomery would ever find in his world travels.
But tonight, she got to be his world.
The bar was crowded, the music boisterous, the fun almost overwhelming. The dancing, the singing along, the kissing—it all flowed together until Zack grabbed her hand again and pulled her back out of the bar. It might’ve been fifteen minutes, it might’ve been two hours, but their drinks were long gone, the magnetism between them stronger than Earth’s pull on the moon.
“You’re about to get naked,” Zack breathed in her ear when he reached the car. Instead of shuffling her into the seat, though, he popped the back end and pulled out both their bags. Three minutes later, they entered a hotel, and five minutes after that, their room door closed behind them with a definitive click.
Shelby sucked in a breath.
Brave. Bold. Worldly.
She was no one’s wife. Tonight, she was no one’s mother. She was simply a woman.
And this woman needed to be worshipped.
She ran a hand down his white polo. “This is a one-time thing,” she purred.
Purred.
Shelby Thermokopolos was purring.
Zack reached for the button on her jeans. “If by one time, you mean a dozen times before Sunday, yes.”
His mouth crashed against hers—lips, teeth, tongue, all of it. His hands went under her shirt, her hands went down his pants.
And hel-lo, was that all him?
“Oh, my sweet lattes,” Shelby moaned. “I hope you know how to use that thing.”
“Very well, as a matter of fact.”
He nipped and licked his way down her neck, took special care with peeling her out of her shirt, paid attention to all the right places—her breasts, that perfect spot where her neck met her shoulders, the sensitive skin on the inside of her elbow—and he didn’t say a word about her stretch marks or the extra pounds she hadn’t been able to shake off her middle.
Instead, he caressed her, explored her with hot, hungry, strong hands, and murmured reverent little sweet everythings. “You’re beautiful, Shelby.” “You feel amazing.” “You taste better than ice cream.”
She could’ve easily fallen in love with him without much more prodding.
Instead, she put her mind to stripping him of his shirt, exploring that wide, solid chest—tracing a scar here, a birthmark there—then flicking her tongue over his nipples while she shoved his pants down and stroked the hot, silky skin over his impressive erection.
“Gonna kill me, Shelby,” he gasped.
“At least you’ll die happy.”
He wheezed out a laugh, then carefully flipped her onto her back for a hot, searing kiss that she felt everywhere. Mouth to mouth, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat.
She wanted him.
She wanted him now, and she wanted him later, and she wanted tonight to never end.
But since neither of those were a possibility, she rolled to her side, keep
ing her bad arm out of the way, and reached behind him for the box of condoms. He didn’t blink or laugh or hesitate when she handed him two. “Gonna have to help, sweetheart,” he said instead.
She took her time rolling them on, testing his thickness, squeezing to feel him pulse in response, aching between her legs by simply looking at him. “Jesus, Mary, and Starbucks,” she whispered.
This time, while she cradled his shaft, he threaded his hands through her hair and lifted her face to his. But this kiss was different. Slow. Thorough. Deep.
One of those kisses that made her skin pebble and her heart swell.
One of those kisses that touched her soul.
Zack settled her back on the bed again and leaned over her. Without conscious thought, she spread her legs and looped them around his back. “Zack—”
“Shelby.” He whispered it, and then he pushed into her, hard and hot but slow. Reverent.
He was different. Thicker, longer, and present. With his body, but also with his mind. His full attention.
She wasn’t a duty. She wasn’t an obligation. She was a woman he wanted.
For today. For tomorrow.
But he wanted her. Stretch marks and smart mouth and baggage and all.
This was what being loved was supposed to feel like.
She gasped and rocked into him, threw her good arm around his shoulders, squeezed her eyes shut against the threat of tears. Her cast banged awkwardly, but Zack drove into her harder.
“Don’t stop,” she whimpered.
“Bossy,” he grunted.
Shelby choked on a surprised laugh, and Zack hit the right spot inside her.
“Oh, god,” she moaned.
“You know it,” he said.
She laughed again, but then he hit her special spot again, and suddenly her inner muscles clenched. “Zack…” she cried.
“Let go, sweet Shelby. Let it go.”
And she did. Sweet cappuccinos, colors exploded behind her eyelids and her whole body quaked, from her core out to her fingertips and beyond.
Zack let out a passionate curse, pumped once more inside her, and then moaned her name.
He collapsed on top of her, and she buried her nose in his neck, breathing in the scent of raw, satisfied male.
He was one of those men who could’ve been with any woman he wanted tonight.
And he’d picked her.
And while she wasn’t watching, her heart had picked him.
Whoops.
Chapter 11
Zack was admiring the slope of Shelby’s breasts over room service breakfast mid-morning Saturday—and enjoying the hell out of getting chastised for where his eyes kept roaming—when her cell phone rang. She yanked her shirt on—much to his disappointment—and bounced off the bed to grab it.
“Alexander? What’s wrong?”
Alexander.
Zack really hated that guy. For a lot of things, including interrupting their morning, but most recently for not being very good in bed. A woman like Shelby deserved to be loved thoroughly and needed it regularly. She did too much for her family to not be satisfied. And he was positive she hadn’t been satisfied.
“No, I left you the insurance card,” she said. “Why?”
She got a crinkle between her eyes when she talked to her ex. An annoyed, about-to-start-counting crinkle.
Zack hadn’t heard her count since… huh.
He couldn’t remember. It was earlier this week, but that was all he had.
“You’re where? Why?” she repeated.
If her ex had even half a brain, he’d answer.
“He has what? When did the fever start? Wait… what? And you didn’t think to call the doctor last night? I swear to sweet baby cappuccinos, Alexander, if his appendix bursts, you are never seeing my babies again. You call me and tell me where they take you, because I’m fixin’ to come on down there myself. Right now.”
She pulled the phone from her ear and pounded on the screen, thumbs flying.
Zack was already on his feet. “Shelby?”
She kept thumbing. “What’s the airport code here?”
“Airport?”
“SAV. Right.”
“Shelby. What’s wrong? Is it Braden?”
She gaped at her phone. “Four o’clock?” she said to the screen. “I can’t wait until four o’clock for a flight.”
Zack reached for his shirt. His heart was pounding in a weird rhythm he’d never felt before, and an abnormal panic had his skin quivering. “Shelby. I can give you a ride.”
She swung around to face him, almost as if she’d forgotten he was there.
No—as if he didn’t belong. “That’s real nice of you, but Eglin’s at least seven hours from here, and then you’d have to drive back to Gellings, and—”
“I don’t mind.” He really didn’t.
“Zack, honey, there’s no need for me to ruin your fun time. You stay and enjoy.” Her lip quivered. She blinked quickly and visibly swallowed, then crossed to the bathroom. “I’ll get a taxi to the airport.”
Screw fun. Shelby’s son was in trouble. The dark-haired little guy who tossed balls and airplanes over the fence whenever Zack walked outside. Zack hopped into his pants and followed her to the bathroom. “Hell with a taxi, I’m driving you. Braden has appendicitis? Is that what I heard?”
She tried to squeeze past, but he blocked her way.
For the first time since her phone rang, she looked him in the eye. And the only thing he saw was raw, angry, scared—no, terrified—mama bear. “Get out of my way before I have to show you how my daddy taught me to hit like a girl.” She fisted her hand and growled at him. “And trust me, Sergeant Sugarbuns, it’s gonna hurt.”
Something was hurting, and it wasn’t anything Zack had ever felt before. Not his pride exactly. He didn’t have room to be insulted—what had he blabbered yesterday? That he wanted to see the world? Nothing holding him back or tying him down?
She was giving him an easy out. Exactly what he should’ve wanted.
But this was more than being insulted that she didn’t think he could take a day to drive her to the Panhandle so she could be with her sick baby.
This felt like being completely cut out of her life. And he was insulted that she didn’t want him there.
He wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t an officer like her twat of an ex-husband. He wouldn’t have known any better that Braden should’ve gone to the doctor last night.
He was a useless, selfish ass who only cared about seeing the world that had been here for millennia instead of embracing the world that existed inside each generation that inhabited it.
“I’m driving to Florida whether you’re with me or not,” he said.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Zack,” she said, his name soft and gentle and so un-Shelbylike that a quivery panic erupted in his chest, right about where he would’ve sworn his heart should’ve been. She opened those hazel eyes, a plea and a helplessness and a stubbornness all jumbled together in there.
“Don’t say it,” he growled. “Pack your bags. And then get in the car.”
And when she did, without any further argument, everything in his world shifted out of alignment.
The Shelby he knew didn’t take orders. The man he wanted to be wouldn’t issue her orders. But if she was willing to go, on his terms, it meant one of two things—either he’d broken her, or Braden was in bad, bad shape.
And he didn’t know which scared him worse.
They stuck to the interstate for faster driving. And it was among the tensest seven hours of Zack’s life.
Shelby said hardly anything. Not to him, anyway, no matter what he tried. She texted on her phone most of the way—her girlfriends, he assumed. And when she did talk, it was on the phone with her ex. They were approaching Tallahassee—still three hours from Eglin—when Shelby got the news that Braden was finally heading into surgery.
She didn’t cry, but she did hold up a don’t speak hand signal every time Zack opened
his mouth.
It was almost six o’clock when Zack finally pulled up to the hospital. He parked as close as he could get to the door, but when he turned off the ignition, Shelby put a hand on his arm.
“Thank you,” she said.
You’re dismissed.
She didn’t say it, but Zack heard it all the same. “Shelby—”
She cut him off with a plea from those beautiful hazel eyes, broken and worried and defeated. “Zack, you’re more than I could’ve hoped for, and I had a really nice time. Thank you for last night. I—I needed that. And thank you for driving me here. But now I need to go be Supermom. My babies come first. They’re all I have left. It’s not you. It’s my life.”
And he didn’t fit.
He shouldn’t have wanted to fit.
But he did. He wanted to go inside with her and check on Braden. He wanted to help Hailey.
He wanted to hold Shelby’s hand and promise her everything would be okay. And then, when everything was better, he wanted to take her back to Savannah.
He wanted to hear her laugh on a powered glider over the Atlantic. He wanted her to sass him instead of admit that the Spanish moss on all the old gnarled trees was pretty.
He wanted her to put some life in his life. Some challenge. Some perspective.
“I’ll come in with you,” he said.
She shook her head. “That’ll get old, Sergeant Wanderlust. You’re fixin’ to move and I’m fixin’ to keep making my life.” She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You go enjoy the beach. One of us should.”
“Shelby—”
“Don’t make this harder, Zack.” She lifted her chin, but there was a wobble to it. And he could tell by the flash of pride in her eyes that she didn’t want him to see it. “Just let me go.”
Even though it went against every impulse and urge he possessed, he did.
He let her go into the hospital by herself.
And he felt like the biggest jackass on the face of the planet when he did. Worse than her ex-husband. Worse than anyone.
Not because he let her go.
But because he didn’t deserve to go with her.
* * *
Moonshine & Magnolias Page 7