A Crazy Kind of Love

by Maureen Child

  He slipped one finger, then two, into her depths and watched her eyes roll back. “Yeah?”

  “I surrender,” she whispered and rocked her hips into his hand as her climax hit her hard and fast.

  “Me, too,” he admitted, his voice hardly more than a breath.

  Everything in him tightened. He moved over her, spread her thighs and entered her fast and hard. She groaned, went up on her knees and opened for him, welcoming him. He braced his hands on her hips and held her steady while he shoved himself home, giving her everything he had, everything he was. He moved with her, following the rhythm she set, and knew that a blinding, heart-stopping release was only moments away.

  Her tight, damp heat surrounded him as he felt her body convulse around his and he gave himself up to the inevitable. Holding her, he jumped into the yawning abyss in front of them and took her with him as he fell.

  A few minutes later, they were both lying on their backs in the moonlight, struggling for breath.

  “I can’t feel my legs,” Mike muttered thickly on a half-strangled laugh. “That can’t be a good thing.”

  Lucas snorted. “My legs are good, but the arms are gone.”

  “Great. Together we make one whole person.”

  “One whole very happy person.”

  “Goes without saying,” she said softly.

  Turning her head on the pillow, Mike looked at him, and even in the pale light, Lucas saw her eyes shining in the shadows. Amazing eyes, he thought, really amazing. And her hair, long, blond curls tousled around her face, lying across her breast, tempting him.

  Then she smiled.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Just thinking.”

  “About?”

  She laughed shortly. “I thought this fund-raiser thing was gonna be boring.”

  “Usually are,” he admitted.

  “And this time?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good to know.”

  He rolled onto his side and set one hand lightly on the curve of her hip. She sucked in a gulp of air, closed her eyes and released it on a sigh. “What’re you up to now?”

  “About seven inches.”

  She laughed, and the full, throaty sound of it rolled through the moonlit room, ricocheting off the walls and landing in his chest to bubble there with a magic he hadn’t felt in a long time.

  “Rocket Man,” she said when she caught her breath again, “I think I’m starting to like you.”

  “Yeah?” Lucas grinned at her and moved closer, wrapping one arm around her waist to pull her tightly to him. “I might be getting a little fond of you, too.”

  He kissed her, his mouth moving over hers gently at first and then more insistently. Desire spiked inside him, like a sudden fever, and he held her harder, closer, gathering her into him and holding on for all he was worth.

  Time ticked to a standstill.

  He broke the kiss, stared down at her in wonder, and felt . . . words crowding his throat. Words clamoring to be set free.

  Before that could happen, though, a tinny chorus of “Jingle Bells” sang out into the room.

  “What the—”

  She flashed him a quick smile and rolled off the bed. Staggering slightly, she walked to the chair where she’d dropped her purse. Opening the small black bag, she said, “My cell phone.”

  “It plays ‘Jingle Bells’?”

  She shrugged. “I like Christmas. Sue me.”

  “Don’t answer it,” he said suddenly as she pulled the phone free of her purse. She stood in a splash of moonlight that made her seem to nearly glow. And he knew. He wasn’t ready for their alone time to be over. Wasn’t ready for the rest of the world to come crashing back in. “Just turn it off.”

  “Don’t answer a ringing phone?” she asked, clearly stunned. “That’s genetically impossible for a woman.” She flipped it open and glanced at the screen. “Besides, it’s Sam. She wouldn’t call if it wasn’t important.”

  Punching a button, she smiled and said, “Sam? I warn you going in, I’m not really coherent at the moment and—”

  She frowned.

  Lucas watched her.

  She was so easy to read.

  Her emotions clouded her features and widened her eyes. He pushed off the bed and took an instinctive step toward her.

  “Got it,” she said sharply, holding one hand up to him as if to keep him at a distance. “Right. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  She closed the phone, smoothing her fingertips across the cool metal surface. She pulled in a long, shuddering breath before she lifted her gaze to him.

  “What happened?”

  Eyes wide, pain shimmering in those pale blue depths, she shook her hair back from her face and stared at him in stupefied shock.

  “Mike,” he asked quietly. “What is it?”

  “It’s my father.” She lifted one hand to the base of her throat. “He had a heart attack.”

  10

  “Sit down, Jo, you’re not helping anything with all the pacing.”

  Jo flashed her brother-in-law a hot glance, then immediately dialed down her temper. It wasn’t Jeff’s fault that her insides were tied up in knots that kept getting tighter by the minute. This helpless feeling was one she couldn’t handle. She couldn’t stand the thought of not being able to take charge of a situation.

  She supposed that if a shrink ever got hold of her—which would never happen—the doctor would tell her that she had issues.

  Well, duh.

  “I can’t just sit here. We’ve been sitting for an hour.”

  Jeff Hendricks stood up with a smile for his wife, then crossed the mint-green lobby to stand in front of Jo. Dropping both hands on her shoulders, he said, “There’s nothing we can do but wait.”

  She snorted and forced herself to stand still beneath Jeff’s comforting hands. But she felt something inside her tremble dangerously and she couldn’t allow herself to give in to the fear crouched within. Swallowing hard against a tide of vulnerability that could drown her if she wasn’t careful, she said, “I’m not good at waiting.”

  “None of us are,” Sam said, standing up to join her husband. “That’s why we’ve got each other.”

  Jo nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. Hanging together didn’t make this any easier. In fact, it was a little harder. It was bad enough worrying alone. But watching people you love worrying was just another little pebble added to the landslide that was already crushing her heart.

  As if sensing her sister’s proximity to the edge, Sam took her husband’s hands in her own and squeezed. “Honey, it’s going to be a while here. Would you go over to Carla’s? Check on Emma? Make sure she’s okay?”

  “Emma’s fine,” he said, then pulled her close for a brief, hard hug. “But I’ll go, if you two need a little time to yourselves.”

  “Thanks,” Sam said and went up on her toes to kiss his cheek. Once he was gone, through the double doors leading to the parking lot, Sam turned to face her sister. “Papa’s going to be fine.”

  Sam looked sturdy, assured, confident.

  All the things that Jo wasn’t—at the moment.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Nope. But I believe it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he has to be.”

  Jo nodded, then turned away, not wanting her sister to see the fear in her eyes. Just because you wanted something to go a certain way was no guarantee that it would. If anything, Jo’d always felt that fate had a twisted sense of humor. The harder you wanted something, the more likely it was that you wouldn’t get it.

  Hadn’t she found that out for herself years ago? Hadn’t she learned the hard way that wanting things to turn out right didn’t mean a damn thing?

  She reached up and rubbed the throbbing headache lurking behind her eyes. She understood how Sam felt. After Jo left college and came home, she’d hung on to that same wild, irrational hope. When Mama was sick, she’d prayed and chanted and lit candles and
gone to mass and promised God anything, if He’d just come through for her this one time. She’d promised that she’d never blame Him for what had happened to her. She’d vowed to become a better person—all if He’d only let Mama be okay.

  But it hadn’t changed anything.

  Mama died anyway.

  And took what was left of Jo’s faith with her.

  Sighing, she glanced at an older man, hunched in one of the dark green plastic chairs, his gaze fixed on the muted television mounted high in one corner of the room. Hospital waiting rooms were hideous places. Crowded with tension, draped in mourning, and shaded with shattered fragments of hope.

  Not to mention the smell.

  “We should have called Mike sooner,” she said.

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  Jo shot her a look. “You called me.”

  Sam wrapped her arms around her own middle and hung on. “That’s different and you know it. Mike’s out of town.”

  True. Jo nodded abruptly and changed the subject. Didn’t matter when they had called Mike. The point was, she was on her way here now. She could only hope that by the time Mike arrived, they’d have some good news for her.

  “He’ll be okay,” Sam said again, and Jo wasn’t sure who her sister was trying to convince. Then she jerked when a disembodied voice murmured over the loudspeaker before dissolving into silence again.

  “Of course he will,” Jo said, playing the game because to do otherwise was just unthinkable. She’d keep her fears and her doubts to herself. As she always had. “Where’s Grace?”

  Sam inhaled sharply. “She went to try and find out some information.”

  Jo snorted. “They won’t tell her anything. She’s not family.”

  “Actually,” Sam said, following her sister as Jo headed for the heavy door separating the waiting room from the inner sanctum of the emergency department. “They will. I told the doctor that Grace is our stepmother.”

  Jo skidded to a stop and shot her a look. “What?”

  Sam glared right back and her voice was just a notch below hysterical. “Seemed easiest at the time. I didn’t feel like explaining that my father and his girlfriend were on a date when his heart went wonky.”

  Taking a deep breath, Jo nodded and reminded herself that she was the oldest here. It was her responsibility to make sure the family stuck together. To make sure they all made it through this scary night.

  No matter what she believed.

  “Right. It’s fine.” She dropped one arm around Sam’s shoulders and said, “So, let’s go join our new mom and see if we can find out what’s going on back there.”

  Lucas drove like a crazy man and she would have thanked him for it if she could have gotten her voice to work. She appreciated the fact that he hadn’t asked questions. He’d just helped her throw clothes into the suitcase and then get to the car and get moving.

  Now, the first pale streaks of dawn were just sneaking across the sky, chasing the last few stars into hiding. The world felt hushed, as if the planet itself had taken a breath and held it. On her right, the ocean shone like black glass and the roar and sigh of it felt like a heartbeat.

  The car’s headlights gleamed in twin white slashes in front of them on the nearly deserted coast road. Lucas steered them around a sharp curve and the sweet little convertible hugged the road like a Formula One race car.

  Mike’s heart ached.

  Her stomach spun.

  And her breath seemed clogged in her chest.

  Change.

  It kept coming back to slap at her and she didn’t like it one damn bit.

  Never had.

  When she was twelve and got her first period, everything changed. She went from being thought of as a first baseman to a “girl.” Okay, the upside of that was pretty good, on the whole, but she’d still lost a piece of who she was. Then when she was sixteen, her mother, Sylvia, got sick. Of course, at first, no one knew how sick.

  But slowly, things changed. Soon, Mama wasn’t waiting in the kitchen with a snack and a smile when Mike got home from school anymore. Most days, she was taking a nap or sitting in a chair with her rosary in one hand and the TV remote in the other.

  Naturally, Mama’d refused to see a doctor at first, claiming that there was no reason for that—it was just the “change” hitting her hard.

  Change.

  An ugly word, even back then.

  But it wasn’t the change, it was cancer, which brought along its own version of change. And by the time it was discovered, it was too late to do anything but fill up the days and weeks with as many memories as they could.

  The whole family had shifted, as if they were all trying to fill in the hole Mama’s illness had made in the family circle.

  Jo came home from college, Sam too, eventually. Papa spent more and more time taking long drives alone and Mike . . . Mike ran.

  She sighed, propped one hand on the car’s window frame, and held her aching head up as her brain continued to spin through the years, back and forth with a wild, frenzied pace.

  All the running she’d done and she never got far, thanks to the native-drum system operating in and around Chandler. She’d grown up in that little town and everyone there knew who she was and where she belonged.

  Even when she hadn’t known the answer to that question herself.

  So they’d called the cops.

  Called Papa.

  Called Jo.

  And every time Mike ran, they brought her home again.

  Until that last time—

  She shuddered and sucked in air.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.” Sure. She was great. Racing home in the dawn, sitting beside a man who’d just taken her body to all kinds of new places, running to find out if Papa was alive or dead.

  Yeah.

  Fine.

  She’s out getting laid while Papa’s at home maybe—

  “Damn it, I should have been there,” she blurted, lancing the pool of guilt inside and letting the venom spew.

  “What?”

  She turned her head to look at him. In the glow of the dashboard lights, his profile was harsh and lined with shadows. His hands were fisted on the steering wheel and he never shifted his gaze to her. Thankfully. Since on her right was the ocean and a damn steep cliff.

  “I said I should have been there when Papa needed me.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He took the next curve at a speed way higher than the one recommended by the road builders. Mike grabbed hold of the window frame with one hand and checked her shoulder strap with the other.

  “I said bullshit,” he repeated, jaw tight, eyes narrowed. “Don’t start beating yourself up over this. Sometimes shit just happens and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

  Mike just stared at him for a long minute. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and blinked when the wind icing through her open window slapped it right back across them again. What kind of “shit” had happened to him?

  For two months they’d known each other and it was only now she realized that though she’d told him practically everything about her family, she knew next to nothing about his.

  “Speaking from experience?” she asked.

  “You could say that.”

  “Want to talk about it?” She shifted a look at the darkness stretched out ahead of them.

  “No, I don’t. Especially now.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “What part of ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ wasn’t clear?”

  “What’re you so tense about? I’m the one with an emergency, remember?” She turned in her seat to face him and watched as his jaw tightened even further. Much more and his face might snap. “For God’s sake, I thought you might want to talk. Keep my mind off what’s happening with—”

  He shook his head and snorted. “I don’t want to talk. Not looking to share and bond here. Just because we had sex, doesn’t mak
e us a couple.”

  “Screw you.” Mike reared back as if he’d hit her. All those hours with him. Intimate, open hours where she’d given him more of herself than she’d ever given to anyone. And apparently, they’d meant nothing.

  Good to know.

  God.

  She felt more alone than she ever had and she was sitting practically on top of him. Damn little cars. No room to move away. Nowhere to go to escape.

  Nowhere to run.

  He slammed one hand against the steering wheel. “Look, I’m . . . sorry, okay? Didn’t mean to—”

  “Oh,” she said tightly, “don’t back off now. I think you said just what you mean.”

  “You’re upset and—”

  “Ya think?”

  “I’m just trying to say—”

  “Oh, trust me, you’ve said enough, Rocket Man.”

  He looked at her, and in the dashboard lights, his eyes were shadowed, dark and dangerous. “You want to unload on me because you’re worried—”

  “You think this is unloading?”

  He shot a look at the road, then his gaze was on her again. “You don’t know me.”

  “And don’t want to.”

  “But I know you.”

  “Wow, psychic, too.” Anger churned, blurred her vision, cut off her air.

  “I know you well enough to know you’re mad at me so you don’t have to be mad at your father.”

  “For a smart man,” she said quietly, “you’re an idiot. You should really shut up now.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to talk.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Tough shit.”

  She laughed harshly, and it scraped her throat, making her eyes tear. That’s what was bringing tears. Not him. Not hurt. Pain. “Gee, such an intelligent comeback. You must be a scientist.”

  “Damn it!”

  His shout startled her.

  She flicked a glance at the road and screamed, “Lucas!”

  “Shit!” He stepped lightly on the brake, pumping it as he turned the wheel into the curve in the road. The tires squealed against the pavement and sounded like a terrified scream.

  Mike grabbed hold of the window frame and squeezed, fingers white, breath strangling in her chest, eyes wide as the white guard rail loomed ever closer.