by Aria Ford
“Mm?”
He had laughed. “Shall I take that as yes?”
I had giggled. “Sorry,” I said, breathing shallowly. “My throat.” I cleared it and he grinned. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
We chatted after that and it amazed me how much we had to say to each other. I was not big on conversation, but talking with him was easy. I caught Brett’s eye on us and if he noticed Carson had taken his place he didn’t comment about it. He just sat down in the vacant chair, popcorn prepared, and ignored us.
That was our first meeting. My attention went to later, to our first time.
We had kissed in the garden, at my parents’ home. It had been summer and I was seventeen and the flowers were in the trees. The air had smelled of dew and roses as my mouth met his. I loved him so much.
I recalled the excitement, the wonder, the slight apprehension as we had left the garden and gone to his place. He was renting accommodation near us, and it seemed no one was home. He had taken me to his bedroom and we had lost ourselves in a frenzy of wonder.
I had expected pain, been prepared for it, but there was none. Carson slid into me with such passion and tenderness that any pain was stopped by the wonder of our loving.
Later, we had laid together on the soft bed and whispered our love for each other. He had said he would always be there for me and I had told him with all the trust of seventeen years that I my heart was in his keeping.
We had seen each other often—every weekend, in fact. It was on the weekend close to Christmas that he gave me the gift I wished I still had.
It was a gold locket, in the shape of a heart. A small one, just as big as the nail of my little finger. It had hung on a slender gold chain.
“A little heart, like the big one you already have: mine.”
He had said it as he kissed my hair. “Oh, Carson. My heart is yours.”
He had laughed. “Well, then. A fair exchange.”
“Oh, Carson.”
We had kissed and made love in the room in his rented lodgings and we had known that the world was ours and our future was set on the path of love.
I sighed. My cheeks were wet with the tears I didn’t know I was crying. My memories were so tender and so beautiful I could have spent all evening lost in them. Why I had let him go so easily, I had no idea. But I had.
I wished I had kept the locket. It would have been a physical reminder of that time, but I had returned it. He had seemed as if he wanted to be rid of me. How could I keep it?
He had gone to the army and I had tried to distance myself. His career took him to Iraq, and my studies took me first to internship and then full-time employment with one of the biggest construction companies in the region. I found it fulfilling, and the work took a bigger place in my heart than it would otherwise have done, filling up the space Carson would have held.
It was not as if I had been alone for those ten years. Lovers came and went, but my heart was never in it. None of them could match what I had with Carson. I knew that.
Now he was here, in the next room. I still wasn’t quite sure how to deal with that. I had not expected to see him again.
I sighed. I was tired. I looked at the clock. It said ten-fifteen. I yawned.
“It’s still early,” I commented to myself. I was really tired though. It had been a long day and a demanding one, I reflected, as I reached for my night-robe and towel and prepared to head across the hallway to the shower.
As I appeared, the bathroom door opened and he stepped out. I breathed in the scent of familiar cologne and unfamiliar shower-gel, all tremulous counterpoints to the underlying musk and clove of him.
“Carson!” I said, feeling my cheeks flare.
He was in the hallway, tall and angular, his body covered with a towel nightgown, facing me. I looked up at his face. His eyes widened, then narrowed.
“Sorry,” he said, a grin on his mobile lips. “I guess there’s only one shower.”
“Yes,” I nodded. I looked around, feeling impossibly shy. He was tall and handsome and I couldn’t help the fact that my eyes roved from his neck—muscled and soft-gleaming in the faded light—to his chest that I could just see through the ill-fastened nightgown. I felt my heart thud in my chest.
Those years of military lifestyle had honed his body to sculptural magnificence, his shoulders broad and muscled, his chest gleaming, the trace of pecs bulging below the nightgown. I even liked his feet, corded with muscles that wound up his calves like rope.
I realized I was staring at him and stepped back, feeling embarrassed. He hadn’t moved, though. If he found my scrutiny shocking, he didn’t show it. In fact, it seemed as if he was studying me too. I caught his eyes lingering at my waist and then moving back to my face. He smiled and my heart flipped.
“You tired too?” he asked. He had a trace of a grin on that quirky mouth and I felt my heart clench tight.
“Yes,” I said softly. “Day’s driving finished me.”
“Join the club,” he chuckled.
“Well. You really did drive a whole day,” I admonished. “Probably without stopping.” I cleared my throat. It was getting hard to breathe here, my whole body slowly flaring up.
“I did stop, once. Just for lunch.” his grin tickled me.
I chuckled. “Carson Grant! You are reckless.”
“You say so,” he teased.
I bit my lip. I had always said he was reckless. He had always denied it. We were in unknown waters, suddenly: at once familiar territory, but rendered new by all that had passed before now. The words were the same sort of thing we would have said when we were younger together and I think the familiarity of it all shocked us both. It was like ten years had never existed and we were seamlessly together.
“I…” I murmured, not sure what to say.
“I guess I should let you shower.” He smiled a little rueful.
I smiled back. “It would be useful.”
He laughed.
We both looked at each other and neither moved. Then he sighed.
“I’ll freeze if I don’t dry off soon. Until tomorrow, then.” He inclined his head, eyes dancing with merriment, and headed up the hallway.
I was left where I was, shower-gel and nightie in hand, rooted to the floor. I could feel my heart slowly returning to its accustomed rate. My cheeks burned.
Did I just bump into Carson Grant, coming from the shower? I wanted to laugh: I felt like I was sixteen and it had the same wild arousal it would have given me then. It did: I knew, as I went into the bathroom, pulling the door shut and leaning against it, that trying to sleep tonight would be very hard indeed.
I had forgotten that the kid’s room was right next door to the guest-room; and that was where Carson was sleeping. I heard him come upstairs and close the door, the sound of him rummaging about to find something in a case. I heard him laugh as he found whatever it was.
My poor body yearned for him. That grunt of laughter worked strange magic on me and made me ready to lie back and feel him inside me. I knew I was getting ready and resisted the urge to slide my hand between my thighs to check. I was not—absolutely not—going to let myself fantasize about Carson now. I must have managed, because the next thing I knew I was lying in my room and someone was making coffee and singing in the kitchen below me.
CHAPTER FIVE
Amelia
I showered and dressed and tiptoed down to the kitchen below. It wasn’t quite eight o’clock yet. My body was not yet used to the fact that I was on holiday. It seemed the only other person in the house who was still on work-schedule was Brett.
“Hi, sis,” he said quietly. He was sitting at the table alone, still in his nightgown, a cup of coffee and his phone out in front of him. I smiled into his bluntly-handsome face.
“Hi, bro. You couldn’t sleep?” I asked. He looked tired, gray imprints under his sky-blue eyes.
“I slept,” he laughed, then winced at the noise. “I just can’t seem to go on holiday.” He sighed. “Old habits an
d all that.”
“Me too,” I nodded.
“Coffee?” He stood and pushed in his chair with exaggerated quietness and went to the kettle.
“Yes, thanks, bro.” I took a seat at the table, breathing in the morning scent of coffee and toothpaste and relaxing in the chic simplicity of my brother’s home’s kitchen. He stirred my coffee and brought it to me—black and sweet, just as I liked it. I smiled.
“You always remember how I like my coffee.”
“Of course I do,” Brett whispered back. “Not just because you’re my favorite sister, but ‘cos it’s the opposite to mine.”
I laughed. “I am your only sister, Brett.” He grinned.
“But you’re still my favorite.”
I sighed and gave him a weary smile. “I missed you.”
“Me too.”
We sat in silence for a while. I sipped coffee and appreciated having time with my brother. It was just like when we were kids. I breathed on the steam, watching it make patterns. He was looking through the open window where the faintest orange sunrise was starting.
“You didn’t mind about…” he tossed a hand toward the stairs indicating—I guessed—Carson’s presence in the room opposite the stairwell.
I sighed. It was typical of my mischievous and absentminded brother that he would have thought to invite Carson when I was here. Quite whether he meant for us to meet up or whether it was a grand overhaul of memory, I wasn’t sure.
“No, Brett.”
“You’re sure?”
Upstairs, we heard footsteps cross the ceiling and someone went into the shower. The kids giggled. I tried to decide what I was feeling.
“It’s just…you might have warned me.”
“Carson?” he asked, sipping his coffee thoughtfully.
“Yeah.” I sighed.
“I’m sorry, sis,” Brett said softly. “It’s just…I couldn’t leave him alone.”
“I know,” I said. “You told me earlier. But…”
“But what?” he asked, brow raised in curious obliviousness.
I stared. “Brett, you might have told me more!” I hadn’t meant to raise my voice, but it sounded as if everyone was waking anyways. “I’m sorry,” I added, slumping a little. “I just find it hard to figure out how much of him has changed and how much hasn’t.”
“I know.” Brett sighed. He slumped forward, elbows on knees. “I just didn’t know if it’d upset you.”
“Well, seeing him face-to-face didn’t seem like something upsetting, so…”
Brett heard the irony in my voice and closed his eyes momentarily. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be,” I said softly. “You didn’t do it.”
“No.” He knew what I meant. The issues with Carson and I weren’t his fault. “Well, I guess I should fill you in on some details.”
“Is he likely to overhear it?” I asked, casting my eyes in the direction of the stairs.
“I shouldn’t think so,” Brett observed. “He’s probably sleeping. We can close the kitchen door if you’d prefer.”
I nodded.
“Carson got back from the army last year,” Brett explained, closing the door and joining me here. “He contacted me about a month afterward. Said he was in Boulder.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know he lived in Boulder. His parents used to live in Aspen.
“He came to see me, once.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know that either. Though I probably should have guessed, since the kids knew who he was.
“He was…quite different.”
“He seemed the same to me,” I said. He was a little older, his face softer with a few lines where there hadn’t been any before, but he still had the same sparkling eyes, the wicked smile. He was Carson and unfortunately my heart hadn’t forgotten him.
“Well, in some way, yeah,” Brett said carefully. “The war…it does things to people Mel.”
“I imagine so,” I said carefully.
“He was…he was having trouble when he got back,” Brett explained. “I think he’s okay now. But it was hard for him at first. To adjust. To return.”
“I can imagine,” I repeated myself, though I wasn’t sure I really could. I had read a bit about the cost of war—the way soldiers were affected by it years afterward, the toll it took on their lives. All I knew about it was that it was beyond what I could comprehend.
“He’s okay now,” Brett said. “At least, he says he’s stabilized.”
“Good,” I said feelingly. The thought of quiet, distant Carson being wounded in ways I couldn’t see troubled me. He was stable; a rock. That was one of the things I had loved about him: that there was never a problem that seemed too big for him. He liked challenges. Actually, he didn’t see anything as impossible, so I guess there weren’t any challenges to him.
“I guess I shouldn’t have invited him here,” Brett said softly. “But I couldn’t not.”
“I understand.”
That, I did understand. Brett was always warmhearted. He had filled our house with people and laughter when I was growing up; and he was always holding open arms out. My mom had always said he was overly-generous, that he would bankrupt himself one day. I hadn’t believed her.
“Reese wasn’t sure about it,” Brett confided.
Reese was always cautious. I thought, not for the first time, that Nature had created Brett and Reese for partners. As careless and lively as Brett was, Reese was thoughtful and reserved. She was a high-powered executive for a boutique chain and she took no nonsense from anyone; not even from Brett. A more light and fun-loving person, Brett’s friendly openness was tempered by her care.
“If you wanted to have him here, I think it was the right thing,” I said hesitantly.
“Thanks, sister.” Brett smiled. He patted my hand where it lay on the table in front of him. “I appreciate it.”
I smiled. Together we sat in the comfortable silence of his kitchen and listened to the noises in the street, the ticking clock, the breeze. The clock said it was eight-thirty and I yawned. I really was tired after the day’s driving.
“Want to go to sleep again?” Brett asked, looking at me caringly. “The rest of them will probably only join us at nine or so.”
“I’m okay,” I lied. In truth, the tension and long drive had just caught up with me. I would love to take a rest. My body just didn’t want to play along and let me off the hook.
“Well, then,” Brett smiled, patting my hand again. “We have a whole week to talk.”
“We do,” I agreed. “Almost Christmas too.”
Brett laughed. “Isn’t it, though? I really should get some last-minute shopping.”
I rolled my eyes. That was typical Brett. “You mean, you haven’t done your gifts yet?”
“Two of them,” he admitted. I laughed.
“Brett, my brother, don’t ever change.”
He chuckled. “I would have thought change was what I needed most right now.”
“No,” I insisted, looking into his eyes fondly. “If you changed, I wouldn’t know what was going on. You’re my anchor. If you weren’t unpredictable, everything would change.”
Brett smiled. “Thanks, sis.”
“Don’t mention it,” I laughed. “Now, I really am going to need some more coffee, before I fall asleep here at the table.”
“I can recommend the spare room.” Brett grinned. “More comfortable by far.”
I laughed. “I believe it, brother. It was last night.”
I stood to make more coffee and pushed my chair in, blinking to keep myself awake. He stood too and hugged me.
“It’s so good to have you here, sis.”
I squeezed his shoulder as we stepped apart, looking up into his earnest, smiling face. “It’s good to be here,” I said sincerely.
As I made coffee, Reese appeared in the kitchen, already dressed. “Hey! Hello,” she said warmly.
“Hi,” I said, then turned back to the minutiae of making coffee. I hea
rd someone cross the ceiling, a heavier footfall, and my heart tightened, knowing who it was. Carson.
The heart is a strange thing and my own had not forgotten Carson Grant.
“I’ll go get dressed,” Brett said, grinning. “I can’t be the only one at breakfast without clothes.”
Reese laughed. “You do have clothes.”
“Well, I’d probably have gotten arrested if I didn’t,” he laughed. “Mr. Peterson next door would have looked through here and phoned the police.”
We all laughed and I felt glad that I had come to visit.
If I could just sort out my feelings about Carson, I thought, I would be completely happy.
While Brett was upstairs getting dressed, the kids came down to join us.
“Auntie Amelia!” Cayley said cheerfully. “There you are.” She slid into the seat beside me and I smiled at her.
“Did you sleep?”
“Very well, thank you.” She replied, voice prim.
I smiled. “That’s good. Josh?”
“I slept like an elephant!” he declared proudly. I frowned, confused.
“How do elephants sleep?”
“No!” he giggled. “Not like an elephant. I slept so big as an elephant.” He held out his arms, an all-encompassing gesture.
“Oh!” I laughed, the inexorable logic of it lifting my mood. “Good.”
Cayley giggled. “Did you sleep as big as an elephant, auntie?”
I smiled. “I slept a bit.”
As Reese passed me the milk and I settled down to breakfast, I thought that if only I could keep my mind off Carson Grant I might sleep as big as an elephant after all.
CHAPTER SIX
Carson
The next morning, I went downstairs at nine for breakfast. I was pleased to find that I was not too late. In fact, it seemed, I was early: Of all the family, only Brett and Reese were down there, having toast in the early morning sun. The kitchen smelled of fresh-brewed coffee and toast and a delicious warmth.
“Morning,” I said quietly, tiptoeing round in my trainers to an unoccupied seat. I didn’t want to wake up anyone who was sleeping. Especially not Amelia. I remembered she loved sleeping in. when I saw an empty coffee-mug on the drainboard, I raised a brow. There were lipstick stains on it and I wondered if it was hers.