Forever…Again

by Maureen Child

  He spoke again as if she hadn’t said anything at all. “I never cheated on her in all the years we were together.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Never even considered it.”

  Confused now, Lily just looked at him. But damned if that flicker of irritation didn’t jump into life again at the pit of her stomach. “And do you want a medal for that?” she asked, feeling almost as though she were defending the long-dead Violet’s right to expect a faithful husband. “Recognition somehow for doing what you were supposed to do?”

  He scowled at her as if he’d bitten into something distasteful and didn’t know where to spit it out. “No, damn it.”

  “Then what’s this about?”

  He stalked away a few paces, then turned around and stomped right back again. “It’s about that this is new to me. All of it.”

  “Huh?”

  “Finally put a stopper on that whole clever thing, didn’t I?” His words were pleased, but his expression still read “frustrated.”

  “Just say what you’re trying to say, already.”

  “That’s part of it, damn it. I don’t know how to say it, any more than I know how to feel it.”

  “If you’re trying to confuse me, you’re doing an excellent job.”

  “There’s something here, Lily. Between us. Something I’m not sure I’m interested in, but something that’s big enough I can’t ignore it.”

  Her heart skittered, and her throat nearly closed. Nothing like hearing that a man was interested in you against his better judgment to make a woman feel special. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that.”

  “Believe it or not,” he nearly snarled, “I’m not looking for your opinion.”

  “Good to know, thanks.” That said it all, she guessed. He was apparently twisting in his own wind of indecision, and she was merely a spectator. “So basically, you’re just interested in my mouth—not what comes out of it.”

  “If you were easier to talk to…”

  “Excuse me?” Lily interrupted him with surgical precision. “This is somehow my fault? I was minding my own business playing baseball and you’re the one who came over with a confessional attitude, looking for absolution.”

  “I didn’t say that—”

  “Of course you did.” She lifted one hand to push her windblown hair back from her face and only vaguely heard the tinkling music from her platinum charm bracelet. “You’re attracted to me, but you don’t want to be. You’re a faithful husband, but your wife’s been gone ten years.”

  “Just a minute—”

  “And,” she held up one hand and kept talking. “You’d like me to know that you liked kissing me, but you won’t be doing it again even though it might get better—No.” She caught herself. “Wait a minute.” She studied him as though he were a tablet engraved with hieroglyphics and she wasn’t quite sure of the translation. “You won’t be kissing me again because it might get better.”

  He inhaled sharply, deeply and looked around the empty field as if searching for help that wasn’t there. Then his gaze snapped back to hers—almost guiltily. “Maybe. Maybe that’s it.”

  Lily shook her head. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

  He blew right past that. “You confuse the hell out of me, and I’m not used to that.”

  “Well, to coin a phrase…duh.”

  He smiled briefly and snorted out a choked laugh. “See? That. I’m not used to dealing with a woman like you.”

  “Like me.” Lily folded her arms across her chest, more for the comfort of a solitary hug than anything else. “You’ve said that before. Define it.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  “Try.”

  He looked out over the empty field where only moments before children had been playing, yelling, laughing. The afternoon was quickly sliding toward twilight. A few birds chattered at them from the trees. From the parking lot came the sound of an engine revving in place. “You were playing baseball.”

  She frowned. “So?”

  “So. Most women your age—”

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry. Most grown women wouldn’t be running around in a field playing baseball with a bunch of kids.”

  “That’s a shame, if you ask me,” Lily said tightly. Here it was. All her life people had looked at her warily. She’d never believed in coloring between the lines. She’d always preferred a scribbled picture to one that was rigidly accurate. So she marched to a different drummer. Did that really have to qualify as a capital offense?

  Here in Kentucky, she’d found people to be more accepting. If she started singing along with the recorded music in the grocery store, more often than not, one of her fellow shoppers would join in, trying for a badly done harmony. If she wanted to wear black jeans and tennis shoes to work one afternoon, and then spontaneously join a baseball game, her coworkers thought nothing of it.

  So why she asked herself, did she have to be attracted to the one man who did care? Why did it have to be stuffy Ron Bingham that had her staying awake nights, thinking of long, slow kisses and soft sweet caresses? Why hadn’t she learned enough to train her heart to be more picky?

  “Maybe it is.”

  “Of course it’s a shame,” she snapped. “Why should we forget to have a good time because we’re not kids anymore?” She took a step toward him and was pleased when he took a step back. “Why should we worry about dancing in the kitchen if there’s no one to see? Why does it make more sense to guard our every emotion and thought and action than it does to just simply relax and enjoy life? Why does everything have to be a major decision?”

  “I didn’t say it did.”

  “You kissed me,” she said, moving another step closer. “I kissed you back. Big deal. The world didn’t explode. Your children didn’t turn their backs on you. The loyal villagers didn’t storm ‘Bingham Castle’ with flaming torches.”

  Another short, choked-off laugh shot from his throat, and he looked as surprised by it as she was. Okay, she was going way over the top here, even Lily knew it. But she wasn’t going to stand there and let him make a federal case out of nothing.

  “It was a kiss for pity’s sake. And if it gives you this much trouble, then God help you. Because your life really needs shaking up.”

  “I suppose it does.”

  “Oh, trust me on this one,” she said. “It really does. You’re so locked up and closed off you wouldn’t know a good time if it came up and bit you on the ass.”

  He blinked and laughed again. One corner of his mouth lifted and even with the stupid beard, she could see that the crooked smile stayed this time. It didn’t retreat.

  “You’re right,” he admitted after a long minute of Lily trying to catch her breath and come up with yet another string of entertaining insults.

  And his simple agreement threw her off.

  “What?”

  “I said you’re right.” He stepped in closer, eliminating the slight space that had separated them. Lily felt as though he’d taken more than a physical step. It was as if he’d crossed some unseen boundary that had been keeping him at an emotional distance.

  And she wondered if she ought to be glad of it—or worried.

  Lily thought about moving away again, but damned if she’d step back. Now that he was moving forward, was it any time for her to put it in reverse? “Well, that’s certainly a good way to end an argument—surrender.”

  “When I’m outgunned and outflanked?” A dry chuckle rolled from his throat as he smiled. “Hell yes, I’ll run up the white flag.”

  “I should have attacked sooner,” she muttered.

  “You have been,” he pointed out. “I’ve just been dodging the salvos aimed at my head.”

  “Pretty nimbly, too, I might add.”

  “Thanks,” he said wryly.

  “Oh, no problem.” She held up one hand. “No, wait. Let me rephrase…”

  His smile broadened, and there was something in his eyes tha
t shouted at her. Something warm and welcoming and, heck, probably dangerous. But she was in the middle of things now, and Lily was no quitter. So she stood her ground and waited for whatever was going to come next.

  “I have been closed off.” Ron reached for her, dropping both hands to her shoulders and holding on, as if half expecting her to bolt for the tree line. “For more years than I’d care to think about, I’ve been going through the motions.”

  “Why?”

  “Not important right now.”

  Yes it was, she thought, warning bells clanging in her head even while her blood rushed and her heart lifted. His hands on her shoulders sent spears of heat and light to all of the dark, empty corners of her heart. And she didn’t want that light. Not now. Not this way.

  Because she knew that the light wouldn’t be staying.

  The heat would go away again.

  Oh, she so didn’t want to set herself up for another fall. And with that thought in mind, she should have pulled away from him. Turned her back and headed for the clinic. Where there were patients and nurses and midwives and noise. Enough distractions to keep either of them from feeling what they were feeling and thinking what they were thinking.

  But she couldn’t walk away.

  Not while his hands were on her.

  Not while his gaze was locked with hers.

  A part of her brain shouted out the fact that they were in plain view of whoever might happen to glance out the clinic windows. But a louder, more needy voice called out, Who cares?

  “Meeting you, though,” he said, his gaze now shifting, sliding over her features like a whispered touch, “has changed a lot in my life.”

  “Uh-huh.” It was the best she could manage.

  “You make me feel things I’d thought were gone from my life. You make me want things I haven’t wanted in a long time.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “That’s…where the confusion comes in.”

  Lily knew damn well she’d regret this. Heck, a part of her already regretted it. If something happened between them and then sputtered out of existence, she’d be stuck here, living in a tiny town where everyone would know about her latest heartache. She couldn’t be sure, but it might even affect her job. What if Mari took exception to the woman who toyed with her father’s affections? What if beginning something with Ron, ended something in her new life?

  There were too many what-ifs.

  Too many pitfalls looming in front of her to even be considering this.

  But she heard herself say the words, anyway. And she knew she meant them. “This…what’s between us…it doesn’t have to be anything more than what it is.”

  His hands tightened on her shoulders, and his eyes darkened until they were the color of a stormy sea. “I’m too old for stolen kisses and sneaking around.”

  “Who said anything about sneaking?” Lily countered. “We’re both adults. Both single—”

  He winced but she plowed right ahead.

  “Why shouldn’t we—”

  “Have an affair?” he finished the thought for her.

  “Well that sounds a little tacky…you know, drive-bys at a motel on the outskirts of town.”

  He snorted. “Wouldn’t want to be tacky.”

  “No reason for it.”

  “Don’t suppose there is,” he said, and bent his head closer, closer.

  She felt his breath on her face. Felt the heat rising from his body and reaching out to hers. Felt herself bend, her body moving toward his, her face tipping up, her lips parting in anticipation.

  “An affair?” he whispered.

  “Sound exciting?” she asked.

  He stopped, stared at her hard for a long minute. Lily would have given anything to know what was wheeling through his brain at that moment. But his emotions were shielded behind a swirl of desire clouding his eyes.

  And for that one moment, the desire—for her—was enough.

  “I was never an ‘affair’ kind of guy.”

  She knew that, just by knowing the kind of man he was. And still she said, “Times change.”

  “Yeah, they do.”

  “So.” She swallowed hard and risked her heart with a simple question. “You interested?”

  A long pause cost her an agony of uncertainty until he answered, “Oh, yeah.”

  His mouth moved closer still. Just a breath away now. Lily held her breath and tried to hear past the rush of her own blood and the thundering of her own heartbeat.

  Then their lips met and a rush of sweet longing pushed through her body, making her grateful for the support of his broad, muscular chest. His hands dropped from her shoulders to her waist and as he wrapped his arms around her, Lily surrendered herself to the sensations rattling through her.

  Desire gripped her by the throat and squeezed.

  Every inch of her body pulsed with a driving, primitive need that she’d never known before. Not even when she was a kid and in the first throes of passion. What she’d experienced then had been fumbling, grappling youth. Exploration, discovery.

  This was different.

  Exploration was different now.

  The territory was familiar, achingly so, but the journey to the heart of it was unique. Marked by galloping heart rates and strangled breath.

  He touched her; she moved into him.

  She sighed; he groaned.

  His tongue caressed; hers responded.

  He swallowed her breath and gave her his.

  A soft warm wind wrapped itself around them, entwining them in the scents of summer. As if from a distance, the sound of that same wind dancing through the leaves of the nearby trees sounded like a symphony of sighs.

  Lily’s arms wound around Ron’s waist and held on for dear life. All around her, her world was shattering. Tipping on its axis.

  But she couldn’t seem to care.

  All she wanted, all she could think about was the next kiss. The next touch. The next sigh.

  She wanted to feel his hands on her naked skin. She wanted to lie alongside him in the moonlight and define every hard-muscled inch of him with her fingertips. Images filled her mind and left her shaken. She’d never known such an incredible sense of need. It spiked higher and faster than she’d ever experienced before.

  Lights exploded in her brain, dissolving any further attempts at rational thought. She didn’t mind a bit. There would be time later for rehashing this. For rethinking it and wondering if she’d done the right thing, said the right thing.

  If it had been as magical for him as it was for her.

  His mouth slid from hers, down along her jaw and to her neck. Lily tipped her head back and stared at the cloud-streaked sky leaning toward twilight. His mouth moved over her skin, his tongue traced warm, silky patterns across her neck, and she shivered as the sky above her darkened into a soft, violet haze.

  “Lily,” he murmured, and his voice seemed to vibrate inside her. He lifted his head and stared down at her.

  She blinked to clear her hazy vision and met his eyes, stormier now, darker and yet wilder.

  “I don’t know where this is going,” he said thickly, as if every word had been squeezed from a too-tight throat. “All I know is, I want you.”

  Lily sighed and reached up to cup his face between her palms. “Good.”

  Chapter Seven

  Blood rushed back into Ron’s head. His vision swam for a split second before clearing and focusing in on the woman in front of him.

  Lily Cunningham.

  The woman making him crazy.

  Her brown eyes sparkled, the flash of silver at her ears winked in the dying light of the sun, and her mouth—that incredible mouth of hers—smiled and tempted him into another taste.

  He didn’t take it.

  Because he knew if he had one more taste he’d need another and then another. Considering that they were standing in the middle of an open field, and easy prey for anyone with a tendency for snooping, that probably wasn’t a good idea.

&
nbsp; Besides, saying he was ready for an affair was easier than actually beginning one. The word affair, at least to him, brought up mental images of sneaking around, cheating on your spouse, avoiding private detectives. Stupid. Hell, he knew it was stupid. Vi had been gone a long time, and it wasn’t as if he’d lived like a monk for the past ten years.

  But this was different.

  Lily was different.

  She wasn’t the kind of woman he could take out to dinner and then casually forget about.

  Time spent with Lily would be etched into his mind. He knew that already. For the simple reason that he lay awake every night, remembering every moment he’d spent with her. The way she smiled. The way she laughed.

  God help him, the taste of her.

  He’d known from the moment he first saw Lily that she was going to shake up his life. The only question remaining was…did he want his life to be shaken?

  “Looking for a way out?” she asked, and doubt shimmered in her big brown eyes.

  “No,” he said, quickly enough to convince her and disguise his own doubts. “Just thinking I’d like to take you to dinner.”

  She blinked up at him, clearly surprised. Pure Lily, he thought wryly. She could blithely suggest an affair and then be jolted by the idea of a dinner invitation.

  “You mean a date?”

  “Is that so hard to imagine?”

  “No. I just didn’t expect it,” she said, staring up at him as if trying to divine his thoughts. Good luck with that. Hell, even he couldn’t make sense of his thoughts.

  “Good. About time I did something unexpected, don’t you think?”

  She tilted her head to one side and studied him through thoughtful eyes. “The de-stuffifying process?”

  “Not as painful as I might have thought.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  She smiled, and Ron’s gaze fixed briefly on her mouth. It took a second or two to force himself to meet her gaze again. “I can pick you up in an hour?”

  Lily checked the delicate platinum watch on her left wrist. “An hour?” Then she glanced down at herself, noticing as if for the first time her dusty jeans, battered red tennis shoes and the grass stain across the front of her sweatshirt. Wincing, she looked up at him again. “Can we make that two hours?”