So it was now him I was glaring at.
“Spätzchen? What’s that mean?” Addie asked.
“Nothing,” I answered.
“Little sparrow,” Johnny answered.
“Cute,” Addie said through a mouth full of pork and a grin. “And so you,” she added, her blue eyes twinkling at me.
“I don’t make a guy wait a year,” I bit out.
She jabbed her fork at Johnny. “Apparently not anymore. Then again, for that,” she started swirling the fork, also at Johnny, “I wouldn’t wait five minutes.”
“Oh my God, someone kill me,” I said to the roof of leaves over our heads.
“Not gonna happen,” Addie replied cheerfully.
So I turned to Johnny, carefully pulled Brooks from his arm into my own, and decreed, “I’m going for a walk and I’m taking Brooks with me.”
“Don’t take Johnny. We have all sorts of fun things to talk about,” Addie said.
I speared her with a look.
She grinned through more pork at me.
And it was then the most adorable white Labrador in the world bounded toward us then to us, invading the blanket and jumping all over Johnny.
So the exuberant dog wouldn’t wake Brooks, I leaned away but then I stilled.
Completely.
Because Johnny was stilled.
Completely.
The dog danced around Johnny, kissing his neck, his bearded cheeks, butting him with his snout and bending to nose his hand, and Johnny just stared at him.
I also stared at him.
All of a sudden, Johnny took his arm from around me, lifted his hands and captured the dog’s head between them both. Dog and man stared into each other’s eyes before dog took his shot and licked Johnny from jaw to temple.
This was Ranger.
This was his dog.
This was his baby returned.
This was a reunion.
A happy one.
“Boy,” Johnny murmured with such immense feeling, my stomach that had twisted into a painful knot warmed even through the pain.
Ranger’s tail was wagging so hard, his entire body wagged with it.
Finally, Johnny’s eyes lifted and mine went in the direction he aimed them.
And there she was, maybe ten feet from our blanket.
Tall.
Buxom.
A mane of wild, beautiful, dark red hair.
A killer outfit that fit close to the one Johnny was wearing, a slim-fitting, black baby doll tee with what looked like a heart from a playing card on it with some wording in it, seriously faded jeans, worn in cowboy boots and lots of silver at wrists, ears, fingers and neck.
And a face that could start wars and end them.
She was so beautiful, I envied her on sight with such intensity it felt like I shriveled sitting there on my picnic blanket next to Johnny. Shriveled and shrank until I felt two inches tall.
Her face was stricken, pained, tortured.
And then she ran. Like a heroine in a romantic movie, with the grace of the beauty that was just her, she turned and raced through the crowd, bobbing and weaving, her hair flying out behind her, catching the sunlight with a ruby glow.
I was watching her so I didn’t know how it happened but Ranger made a choice and raced after her.
He stopped though. Stopped, looked back at Johnny, and with what looked like a “come on!” jerk of his head toward Johnny that sent his floppy ears flying, he turned and bolted after her.
And I sat frozen in agony on a picnic blanket dappled with sun on a summer day, holding my nephew as I felt the sudden movement beside me when, without a word, Johnny Gamble surged to his feet and sprinted after the both of them.
A Memory
Izzy
I WAS ON the back porch pulling on my wellies the next morning when the door to the house opened.
I looked up and saw my sister standing there with bed hair, in her jammies, looking both just woken up and still tired, with an expression on her face that I was sure I wore the night she arrived and the morning after when I’d looked at her.
“Hey,” she said gently.
“Hey,” I replied strongly.
“You okay?” she asked.
No.
No, I was not okay.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
Her hand came up and in it was my phone.
“He’s calling again,” she said.
She’d turned the ringer back on.
I wished she hadn’t done that.
I didn’t even look at the phone.
“I’m going out to feed the horses and let them loose. I didn’t get to muck their stalls yesterday morning so I’ll come back in, make you guys breakfast, change, but then I have to go back out and do that.”
“I’ll help you when you do.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I will,” she stated firmly.
“Someone has to look after Brooks,” I reminded her.
“He can hang in a stable. Kids for millennia have been hanging around horses and eating dirt and whatever and they survived. Plus his favorite place on earth is with his mom and his Auntie Izzy, so that’s where he’s gonna be.”
I shrugged, bent to my boots and finished putting them on, saying, “If it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me.”
I started toward the screen door of the back porch when she called my name.
I turned to her.
“You should talk to him,” she urged quietly.
Not going to happen.
She liked him. A brief conversation on a picnic blanket and she’d liked him.
This was unsurprising.
He was Johnny.
I nodded, muttered, “Maybe later,” and took off out the screen door.
I headed to the stables trying not to think about the fact that Johnny had called when we were in the car on the way home from the festival yesterday. And we’d headed home from the festival approximately ten point eight seconds after he’d hauled ass after Shandra.
Worse, we’d packed up and hightailed it out under the kind and sympathetic eyes of the many spectators to the reunion of Johnny and Shandra, a reunion that was mere minutes after he’d been cuddling on a picnic blanket with me.
A reunion where he’d raced after her, not looking back.
I didn’t take the call because I knew why he was calling.
He was Johnny. He was sweet. He was a gentleman. In the throes of the situation, he could forget me. But he’d see to me when it hit him what he’d done, and he’d be as kindhearted about it as he could when he explained the way things needed to be.
But I didn’t need that.
I knew where I stood even before that happened.
It was nice and all, but unnecessary.
I had to admit, the text that came in seconds after I didn’t answer his call was a surprise.
I also had to admit the repeated calls and texts, none of which I took or looked at, were a surprise too.
However, after I’d phoned Deanna and Charlie and lied through my teeth that I was hungover, couldn’t hack the crowd, noise, smells and heat and we’d headed home so we wouldn’t meet them when they hit the festival later as planned, I’d turned my ringer off so I wouldn’t have the constant reminder that I’d been smart not to let myself think I could have Johnny.
But knowing now without any doubt I couldn’t have Johnny still hurt way, way, way more than it should.
Addie had tried once to coax me to pick up the phone and talk to him. But when I refused, she let it go. Do onto others as you would have them do onto you, our mother taught us the old proverb and she’d done it frequently. Addie lived that, as I did too.
I hit my stables, went through the gate, latched it behind me and set about feeding my horses.
I was dog-tired. I’d slept even less the night before. Still hungover but mostly sick to my stomach about what had happened, not to mention the whole town (well, some of it) witnessing it. Thinking it was
not (exactly) what it was. Not knowing I hadn’t let myself get in too deep (though, if I was honest, I had). Thinking I was just another one who’d fallen hard then gotten burned in the aftermath of Johnny and Shandra.
The last one, but still.
I’d be the object of compassion, I was sure. And that would not be fun, seeing as it would serve as a reminder of what had happened whenever I’d hit Macy’s Flower Shop or the grocery store, or if I ever (which I probably wouldn’t, at least for a while) hit Home again.
But I’d endure.
I’d get through it.
I’d get over it.
And I’d carry on.
Like my mom, in the many and varied ways life could bring me to my knees, I was just going to get back up and keep going.
Mostly because I had no choice.
After I fed my babies, I decided to check supplies of feed and hay. I always carefully calculated the needs of both, because I bought in bulk due to the discount I could get and also bought them both at the same time due to the fact the feed store delivered at a flat rate no matter how much you ordered.
I was low on feed but had plenty of hay.
I could stack extra outside and put a tarp around it, use it first so I didn’t have to haul it in and put in the hay room only to haul it back out again for the horses.
After closing the door on the hay room, I turned to go to Serengeti to see if she was finished eating and ready to head out to her paddock and stopped dead.
Johnny was standing inside the closed gate, his eyes locked to me.
This could not happen and it could not happen for a number or reasons.
First, I couldn’t deal with it. Not then. I needed at least a whole day, more like a hundred of them.
Second, this wasn’t fair. I knew he wanted to do right by me, let me down easy, explain his head was messed up and that was why he was leading me on, try to make me understand in order to make himself feel better while doing it.
But it was my thought in this particular scenario that I got to pick the time that would happen, if it happened at all.
And last, in a fit of heartbroken stupidity I refused to allow myself to dwell on considering it had only been three dinners, two breakfasts, several phone and text conversations but not years of togetherness and a path of broken promises, I’d gone to bed wearing the T-shirt he’d given me.
Therefore right then I was standing before him wearing that tee, an old, threadbare pair of men’s pajama bottoms that I’d cut off at the knees and pulled on to go to the stables, and my wellies.
My hair was a mess.
And I knew I had to look fatigued and perhaps was wearing my heart on my (actually his) sleeve.
So this wasn’t just too soon and unfair.
It was a disaster.
I tore my eyes from him, immediately started moving to the tack room for reasons unknown since I didn’t have to go to the tack room, I had to go to Serengeti, doing this shaking my head and talking.
“You don’t have to do this, Johnny.”
I sensed him on the move but didn’t look at him.
“Izzy, I need you to listen to me.”
I kept shaking my head at the same time averting it. “It’s okay. I get it. You know I get it. You don’t have to do this.”
“Iz, baby, stop for a second and listen to me.”
I hit the door to the tack room, stopped and twisted only slightly to allow myself to look at his chest, a view I had because he’d gotten close.
He had a new tee on today, blue that had a faded American flag all in white on the front.
It was fabulous.
“Honestly, it’s okay. I’m fine. I expected that to happen,” I told him, though I didn’t expect to have to witness it.
“What to happen?” he asked.
I ignored that.
“And I’m still good with Mist coming here, if you are. I’ll go get him though and take care of him. It won’t be hard. Don’t worry. Just text me the address. I know someone who’ll let me use their horse trailer and Charlie has a truck that can haul.”
“Iz—”
“Thanks for coming, Johnny.” I started to open the door to the tack room. “It was sweet.” I lifted my eyes to his bearded chin and wanted to kick myself because my voice was starting to sound husky when I finished, “Be happy.”
I was going to disappear through the door but I didn’t.
The door that I’d opened nary three inches was slammed shut in front of me, and then I was turned around with a hand on my upper arm and I found myself backed up against the wooden wall to the tack room with a hand in my belly.
I looked up at Johnny.
He was angry.
I felt my wounded heart start beating rapidly.
“Need you to shut up, baby, and listen to me,” he growled.
“You really don’t have to do this,” I whispered.
“You really do have to shut up,” he returned sharply.
I stared into his angry eyes.
He was telling me to shut up.
And he was angry.
He was invading my land, my stables, my space with the driving bent to do the right thing and not thinking how I might feel, and he was getting angry that I wouldn’t let him.
And that made me angry.
“Don’t tell me to shut up,” I snapped.
“Izzy, I’ll repeat one more time, you need to listen to me.”
I got up on my toes to put my face in his and retorted, “I don’t need to do anything.”
“Right,” he bit off.
Then his hand was no longer in my belly.
It was an arm wrapped around my waist, his other hand became fingers bunching my hair tight in his grip, and his mouth slammed down on mine.
He kissed me.
I went still for a second in shock before I tried to push at his hold.
My hands encountered broad, strong shoulders and that was it.
I wasn’t Izzy.
I wasn’t in my stables.
I wasn’t angry at Johnny.
I wasn’t heartsore from him either.
My sister wasn’t up at my house with my nephew dealing with whatever it was she was dealing with at the same time having a mind to what was happening with me.
Shandra Whatever-Her-Last-Name-Was didn’t exist.
She’d never even been born.
I was something else, somewhere else, something foreign entirely.
But he was Johnny.
Johnny holding me and kissing me.
And I had become pure need.
I opened my mouth, his tongue slid inside with a groan that drove the burning hunger deeper into my flesh, the marrow of my bones, straight to my soul, and I couldn’t have stopped myself from acting on it if I’d tried.
My hands left his shoulders and went to the drawstring on my bottoms. I pulled it and the baggy material fell to my ankles.
I then went for his belt.
He broke the kiss, lifted his head and looked deep into my eyes.
Then he made a noise, that muted roar of his that now wasn’t angry or frustrated, but ravening.
If I wasn’t already drenched between my legs, that would have done it.
But instead, it made me sopping.
I worked his belt as he lifted my shirt and hooked a thumb in the side of my panties, his other hand reaching behind him.
He pulled my panties down to low on my hip, the nail of his thumb digging into my flesh, the feel of that reverberating right up my pussy, as he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
I got his belt undone and went for the button.
I heard his wallet plop to the dirt before he put the edge of a wrapped condom between his clenched teeth and brushed my hands aside.
I focused on my panties, tearing them farther down and shimmying them until they fell to rest with my bottoms at my ankles.
Johnny dragged his jeans over his ass and the condom disappeared from his teeth.
Withi
n seconds, his hands were at my ass, mine were to his shoulders, and I jumped up.
He kept hold, securing me aloft, taking a step in, pinning me to the wall.
Then he was inside.
I gasped.
He groaned.
And through all of this our eyes stayed bonded.
He started moving and I rounded his hips with my legs, using my calves and heels to dig in, giving me leverage, undulating into his strokes. My hands moved, one clasping hard at the back of his neck, one clenching tight into the thick waves of his hair.
He rounded my bottom with an arm, and his other hand bunched my hair tight against the back of my neck.
His labored breaths clashed with my wisping ones as he stared into my eyes and rode me.
There was nothing while he did.
Nothing for me in the whole world but his eyes and his cock and his hold tight on me and all the amazing, beautiful, wondrous things he was making me feel.
My wispy breaths came faster, whimpers eking through and his grunts started to sound as his thrusts grew in strength and velocity.
My hand at the back of his neck slid around and I caught him rough at its side when all I was feeling, all he was giving me made me start moaning.
“You there?” he grunted.
My arms shot around him, circling his head, yanking it to me, stuffing his face in my neck, and I cried out loudly and bucked in his arms when a climax, exquisite in its purity and intensity and the magnificence of its beauty, tore through me.
“You’re there,” I vaguely heard him whisper before he beat into me faster and rougher, and seconds later I heard and felt the rumble of his long, deep groan against my neck.
He slid in and stayed in, tremors shuddering through his long body, and through them he held me pinned to the wall, impaled on his cock.
I held his head in my arms, face shoved in my neck, my legs tight around his hips.
In Johnny Gamble’s arms. Connected to him. The only place I felt safe. The only place I felt right. The only place I felt free to be whatever me I wanted to be.
And then the world came crashing in.
I’d just fucked another woman’s man.
I was so mortified and utterly horrified that I’d done this, it didn’t even occur to me he’d fucked another woman being some woman’s man.
It was just me.
Me doing the wrong thing. Me hurting a sister. Not even thinking of the consequences. Me taking what wasn’t mine.
The Hookup Page 16