by Toni Blake
* * *
Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.
Inscription on Columbus’s caravels
* * *
Sixteen
Lying beneath him, she looked stunned. Shit. What the hell had he just done?
So he quickly said, “Damn, I’m sorry if that’s weird. I shouldn’t have said it. Let’s just pretend I didn’t.”
And then he rolled off her in the bed. He leaned his head back, to peer upward out the window overhead, trying to catch a glimpse of the moon or some stars. Already, that quickly, he’d started relying on that, relying on the stars to make his troubles feel small. What the hell had he been thinking to say that?
But then her hand was on his arm; she had turned on her side to gaze over at him. Her voice came hushed, pretty. “No, Mick—I’ve wanted to say it, too, but I was afraid.”
Oh. Oh…God. That changed everything. His heartbeat slowed. The world felt right again. Except for one thing.
“I don’t want you to be afraid of me anymore, pussycat.”
Next to him, she bit her lip. “I’m not. I haven’t been for a long time. I just thought…I thought if I said that, it would scare you away.”
He simply shook his head. The truth was, maybe it would have, before now. But the last two days had changed him—no, no the whole last week had changed him. He’d watched Wayne die. He’d suffered alongside him. And then, when it was over, she’d…brought him back from that bad place. So he spoke the only truth he could think of in that moment, no longer shy about it. “I’ve wanted you my whole life, honey.”
She sucked in her breath visibly, her eyes filling with some mixture of shock and joy. “You have?”
He simply nodded. Turned toward her in the bed and pulled her naked body close to his beneath the covers. “You were…the perfect girl I could never have. And it turns out that…you’re so much more, more sweet, more hot, more everything, than I could have ever imagined back then. You’re more than just a pretty face, Jenny. You’re…everything a man could want in a woman.”
Jenny could barely breathe. Oh God. Mick loved her, too. It was nothing short of astonishing. Big, tough, mean Mick Brody loved her. And in the blink of an eye, everything suddenly felt different, like she wasn’t so alone, like crossing back over that lake tonight with him in the dusk, the stars just beginning to twinkle up above them, had meant more than it ever had before. It meant him moving deeper into her world. She could feel it.
“You can, uh, tell me, too, if you want,” he suggested softly.
“Tell you?” She blinked, confused.
He looked her in the eye, even if his expression was a little sheepish. “What I just told you.”
“Oh.” She smiled, her heart warming. Had anyone ever said those words to him before and really meant it? Had he ever wanted a woman to say it before? Her heart told her no; her heart said she was the first, and that made it all the more special. “I love you, Mick,” she whispered in the darkness, glad the moonlight allowed them to see each other. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”
He gently closed his eyes—as if savoring it, she thought—and her whole body felt warmer.
“I want inside you again,” he whispered against her neck.
She bit her lip and sighed, suddenly feeling like everything in her life was easier. “I could go for that.”
“You’ll have to help me get ready,” he said. “It’s only been a few minutes, and I’m good, but…”
“You’re not that good,” she said playfully.
He opened his eyes, flashing a chiding grin. “I was gonna say, ‘I’m good, but I shoveled a shitload of dirt into a hole yesterday.’”
“Oh,” she said, short, teasing.
“I’m definitely that good, pussycat, and don’t you forget it.”
“And if I do?”
His grin warmed. “I’ll remind you. Over and over.”
“Anytime you want to start, big guy,” she said, and he laughed softly—then began to kiss her, her neck, her chest. She looped one leg over his hip.
“Have I ever told you my favorite things about your body?” he whispered between kisses.
She shook her head against the pillow. “Mmm mmm.”
As he brushed his thumb over the peak of her breast, causing it to bead, he said, “I love the way your nipples get hard so easy.”
It was true, they did—at least when Mick was around. “What else?”
“Your tummy is so soft,” he said, running his palm over it. “And I love this mole next to your belly button.”
She sucked in her breath slightly, pleased that something so small and inconsequential was worthy of notice to him.
Then he leaned closer to her ear, his breath warming it. “And I love how wet you get when I touch you.”
She surged with moisture below and informed him, “Apparently just saying it works, too.”
His eyes darkened with lust. “Good to know.”
And then she spoke her own truth, a big truth, something that had been there from the beginning, but she’d never planned on telling him. “You make me…see myself differently. Better. In bed, I mean.”
“You’re amazing in bed, honey. The best. Ever.”
The best. Ever. Wow.
And as Jenny gently pushed Mick to his back and began to kiss her way down his broad chest, over the muscles in his stomach, and lower, she wasn’t sure if it was a reward for what he’d just said, if it was because she wanted to get him ready, or if it was just pure animal instinct. But when she took him in her mouth, the ministrations poured straight from her heart, her very soul. And then his hands were in her hair, stroking, massaging, and he began to murmur, “Aw, God. You’re so good, Jenny…so, so good.”
And when he entered her a moment later, as her body took him deep inside, she bit her lip, remembering those same words, how they’d tortured her, taunted her, when she’d first come home.
But suddenly being good didn’t seem so bad. Turned out there were lots of ways to be “good Jenny.”
The next morning, Jenny found her mom’s old waffle iron on an upper shelf of a kitchen cabinet and discovered it still worked. Her hot, romantic night with Mick had inspired her to do something a little out-of-the-ordinary for breakfast.
Again, still, everything seemed fresh, changed, transformed. As if they’d entered a new, more certain, phase of their relationship. She couldn’t be glad Wayne was dead, but she could sense how it had freed Mick—freed his time, freed his pain, freed his love.
She felt so merry that it didn’t even get her down when, as they cleaned up the breakfast dishes together, she noticed it getting hot in the house and realized the A/C was on the fritz yet again. “Guess I’ll have to call Dad,” she said, almost cheerfully—her cheer fading only when she saw the look on Mick’s face.
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see me here.”
Oh. Good point. She pursed her lips, thinking, then announced, “Well, maybe it’s time he did see you here. Maybe now that Wayne has…passed, it’s not that big of a deal. After all, there’s nothing to hide now. I mean, yeah, he probably doesn’t have the best impression of you from the old days, but we no longer need to worry about you getting caught helping Wayne.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. I still don’t think it’s a good idea, though, and it’s probably risky for me to even be here in the daytime like this.”
Of course, he couldn’t know what she knew—that her dad was already well aware of the whole situation and had promised not to act on it. And she still had no plans to tell him—he just didn’t need to know. It could only stress him out when, for the first time since they’d come together in the woods that night, he was starting to seem truly relaxed. “Whatever you think is best,” she said. “But…I’m not worried.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not the one who committed a crime, pussycat. So instead of calling your dad, why don’t you let me look at the A/C?”
Oh yeah, he had told her he
had experience with stuff like that—it had slipped her mind amid everything else. She motioned toward the laundry room and said, “Be my guest.”
Five minutes later, as Jenny was drying the dishes, Mick reappeared in the kitchen and announced that he needed to get a part for the air conditioner.
“So you can see what’s wrong?” she asked. “That fast?”
He nodded. “Just a little corrosion keeping some parts from connecting the way they should. It’s hard to see if you don’t know where to look.” He wiped his hands on the front of his jeans. “I need to head out for a while today, anyway—I want to load the hospital bed and return it to the medical supply place north of Crestview, and I think there’s a Home Depot near there, so I can stop and pick up what I need to fix the A/C.”
“Want some company?” she offered.
He looked pleasantly surprised. “You want to drive around doing crappy errands with me? Have you ever actually driven the road that leads from my place out to the highway, pussycat? It’s half an hour of curves and ruts each way.”
She shrugged. “I’m not afraid of a few ruts. And maybe I…like spending time with you. Even on crappy errands.”
A warm grin slowly unfurled on his face. “Well, the crappy errands sound a little less crappy now.”
They spent the rest of the morning rowing back across the lake and loading the hospital bed in Mick’s truck, a late-model Ford pickup that fit the description of the one Willie Hargis had seen. She found herself hoping Willie wouldn’t notice it turning out onto the highway today, but reminded herself again that it didn’t really matter—her dad had kept his word, and the worst worries were over now that Wayne could no longer be discovered.
Mick was right—the road to the highway was horrible—and now she understood why no one had wanted to build there when he’d tried to sell the land. The landscape stayed just as steep and craggy most of the way out as it was next to the lake. It was as if the Brody ancestors had picked the worst, most isolated spot they could find to make their home; the part of Destiny where Mick had grown up felt completely cut off from the rest of town.
As they drove together, she found herself feeling bolder, and more curious. About them. Her and Mick. They’d exchanged the big I love yous the night before, of course—and it had inspired waffles, a fluttering heart, and a warmth inside her so intense that she could barely fathom it. Part of her still couldn’t believe it. Mick loves me!
But it left a huge question in the air, too. What did this mean for the future? She’d been happy as a clam all night and morning, but only as they’d rolled the heavy hospital bed up a plywood ramp into the truck had Jenny been reminded once more—Wayne was dead, and Mick’s home was no longer here. Up to now, she’d resisted prying deeper into his plans, but after last night, she suddenly felt she could.
“So,” she said as Mick swerved around a particularly deep hole in the dirt-and-gravel road, “now that Wayne is gone…what’s next?”
He didn’t ask her what she meant—he seemed to know. “I’m not quite sure, pussycat.”
So she got bolder still. “There’s…a house up the road from me for rent. Sue Ann’s great-aunt’s place. I could tell her I know someone who wants to look at it.”
Mick slowly brought the truck to a halt on a flat stretch of road with a steep embankment on one side, a jagged hill on the other, and gaped at her like she’d lost her mind. “Are you kidding? No way, pussycat. I could never live here again—people would run me out of town on a rail.”
Maybe she should have expected that kind of reaction, but she hadn’t. So she took a deep breath and simply said, “Maybe not. Just give them a chance. And there’s a big new development going in near the edge of town—a hundred houses. Brick houses. Where they’ll need bricklayers. It…might make a lot of sense.”
Across the console from her, Mick drew in his breath, looking pensive, doubtful—but not totally unmovable, either. “I don’t know, honey. You know I never had any plans to stay here.”
She bit her lip, thoughtfully, hopefully. “But isn’t it fair to say that…things have changed?” Him and her, she meant.
He drew in his breath, met her gaze. Then said, “The best I can say is…I’ll think about it.”
He’d think about it. As opposed to, no way in hell. This was good. Promising. She held back her smile and said, “That’s all I can ask.”
And then, as he eased the truck forward again, as they rounded a sun-drenched bend, he said, softly, “What if…you came with me? To Cincinnati? Or…anywhere else?” He kept his eyes on the road as he spoke. “I know you’re thinking about taking that job at the high school, but…maybe you could teach somewhere else. Someplace where people don’t know me.”
Jenny was utterly stunned, and touched. He was asking the same thing she was, but in a bigger way. He was saying he wanted to be with her, long term—wanted them to be someplace together. Of course, he’d said he loved her, so maybe she shouldn’t be so surprised—but with Mick, she was. This had all happened so quickly, yet they both seemed so like-minded on it. At least on the wanting-to-be-together part. It felt amazing enough to make her say, “I guess I could consider that.”
Mick still didn’t quite look at her—she sensed this was something very new for him, this idea of building something lasting with a woman—but he silently reached out, grabbed her hand, and squeezed it, saying, “Thanks, pussycat.”
And of course, for her, his suggestion was much scarier than hers—it meant going someplace entirely new, without much of a plan. But she quickly decided it would be unfair to rule it out. Mick Brody had shaken up her life, made her take chances, made her live. Maybe she should let him keep right on doing it.
After the errands and a nice lunch at a café in Crestview—the first time they’d ever eaten in a restaurant together—they headed back to Mick’s cabin, where he still felt safer leaving the truck. Even though Jenny knew he didn’t have to hide now, he seemed to think it wise to remain out of sight, and she could live with that for the time being. It was dusk by the time they rowed back across the lake, but he fixed the A/C while she grilled chicken breasts and corn on the cob on the back porch.
They made love in the freshly cooled house, in the living room this time, like when they’d first met—not for old times’ sake, but because at that moment, the bedroom had just felt too far away. And as they lay mostly naked together on the couch beneath the old crocheted afghan, Jenny suggested yet one more trip back across the lake—to look at the stars.
“Woman, you must think I’m a machine,” he groused beneath his breath. “Digging graves, rowing boats, keeping you satisfied in bed—a man needs to rest once in a while, you know.”
“I’ll row,” she volunteered. “And you are a machine. A sex machine.”
He shrugged easily against a throw pillow. “Well, you got that part right.” Then he kissed the tip of her nose. “And I’ll row.”
After climbing up on the same rocks that had brought them together in the first place, and without even setting up the telescope, Jenny leaned her head back and said, “Look up, Mick. Look at the sky.”
When he did, she heard his sigh of awe. The night was particularly clear, and the hour was just right to see the Milky Way streaming across the cosmos in all its illuminating glory.
“The Milky Way,” she informed him. Then explained how the galaxy was shaped like a disk and the Earth was near its outer edge. “So what you’re seeing is…all the trillions of stars stretching across it to the other side.”
“That’s pretty amazing,” he murmured. “How have I not seen this before?”
“Well, in the city, lights and pollution block it out. And you have to have a clear night at the right time of year. And you have to remember to look up, too,” she teased him, since she was pretty sure he hadn’t been very aware of the stars before she’d come along.
“I’ve been doing that a lot more lately,” he confirmed. “You’re right, about it making your worries seem l
ess important. It helped sometimes, in those last days with Wayne.”
He kissed her then, and she teased him that if he stayed in Destiny, they’d have this great view all the time. He teased her back that if she came to Cincinnati, he’d be keeping her too busy in bed for her to have any energy to go stargazing.
After finding Saturn and Venus and the Hercules Cluster through the telescope, they came back to her house and slept in her bed in their underwear, and Jenny wasn’t sure about where to live—but she loved knowing that, one way or another, it was going to be with Mick. He wasn’t going to leave her.
She’d spent all summer thinking that by now, August, she’d probably be alone, without a lover, and mourning the loss. Instead, she had a man who loved her, a man who she loved—and trusted. A man who made her feel wonderful about herself. A man who was going to stay in her life and not leave her feeling abandoned.
The following day, Jenny and Mick sat at her kitchen table nibbling at the last bits of breakfast—scrambled eggs and sausage links, with English muffins. She didn’t normally make such hearty breakfasts every day, but having Mick around the house gave her the urge to…be domestic, and to keep their strength up after the workouts they gave each other in bed every night.
“I’m gonna head back across the lake for a while this morning, pussycat,” he said after draining his glass of orange juice. “Got a little more work to do.”
“I’d go with you again,” Jenny replied, “but I have lunch plans with Sue Ann and some other friends today.” The truth of it was, she was so deep in that “in love” stage that she wanted to spend every minute with him. But she was old enough to know you didn’t throw your girlfriends over for a guy—no matter how hot and sexy he was.
“No problem,” he said. “I’m just gonna do a little more cleaning and load some more junk in the truck to be hauled away—stuff that should have been done years ago. And maybe I’ll let the air out of the blow-up mattress I’ve been sleeping on there, since I…kind of have a new bed now.” His eyes sparkled lecherously during those last words, turning her moist below—even this early in the morning.