by Cari Quinn
February first wasn’t that far away. Surely everything could just…calm down until then.
The one piercing thing sucked, though. Seriously sucked.
Lila sighed again. “The next time I get any bright ideas, stop me.”
“Nah. You’ll be happy with the results of even one.”
Lila tried to return Margo’s sly smile. Hopefully she wouldn’t try to deck Nick if he dared even think about her breasts. Right now it wasn’t looking too good.
“Thanks for taking me. I better get inside. It’ll be time for dinner in not too long, and I’m helping Mama making buttermilk biscuits tonight.”
“Yum. I’m already hungry.”
“Me too.” She’d been hungry since about an hour after breakfast.
Not weird at all.
They got out of the car and walked up to the front door of the store. On impulse, Lila tugged Margo in for a hug. “I’ve never had a girlfriend before. Well, not in a very long time. It’s fun. Thank you.”
“It’s fun for me too. Besides, it helps to have someone to commiserate with over those insane men we hooked up with.”
“Truth.” Lila pulled open the door and came face to face with the insane men they’d hooked up with, standing in mirrored poses with their arms crossed.
“Uh oh,” Margo said under her breath.
“Where have you been?” Simon asked.
Margo and Lila exchanged looks. “On an errand.”
“Not another one of those.” Nick moved forward to grab Lila’s hand. “Let’s go upstairs.”
“Wow, that’s subtle, even for you.”
He rolled his eyes. “I have something to show you.”
Margo laughed. “Great line, Crandall. You must have one about etchings too.”
“He doesn’t even know what etchings are. His lines are more of the variety of ‘wanna fuck?’” Simon glanced at the customers standing nearby and smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“Later.” Nick didn’t seem to care about Simon and Margo’s commentary, instead dragging Lila with him toward the staircase that led to the second level.
“What’s the rush?”
He ignored her, tugging her along until they reached their room. He pushed open the door and nudged her toward the bed. “Okay. What do you think?”
She frowned and sat on the edge of the mattress. “About what?”
Grabbing the iPad off the nightstand, he swiped a couple times and held it out to her. “This.”
A beautiful black horse filled the screen.
“Oh my God. She’s beautiful.”
“Her name is Priscilla. She’s for sale. Her family farm’s outside Petaluma, so a bit of a drive. But I figured we could go up there to meet her once we get back home. They’re willing to house her until we have some land of our own.”
“Land of our own? Land?” She set aside the iPad and stumbled to her feet. Eyes already blurred with tears, she strode away from the bed. “Petaluma’s hours away from LA. My job’s in LA.”
“I know that. So’s mine, in case you’ve forgotten. But your parents told me you want a horse and a farm, so dammit, you’re going to have a horse and a farm. We can hire people when we can’t be there. As many as it takes.”
“Do you have any idea how much it costs to run a farm? Even a small one? The man hours are extensive. Animals need lots of care.”
“Luckily I have lots of money, and together, we’re going to make more.”
She stared at him across the bed. “Who are you, and what have you done with Nicholas Crandall?”
“Maybe I’m growing up.” He shrugged. “Maybe I like it here, and I want some of that for ourselves. It sucks New York is so far away from California, but they have plenty of land there too. We can buy some. Some goats and chickens and whatever the hell else you put on a farm. A pig? I don’t know. Beavers and shit too.”
She laughed hard enough to jostle her new piercing against her bra. For once, it didn’t cause agonizing pain, just a flare of heat. “You don’t have to stock a farm with beavers. Depending on the area, they’re just part of the deal. Along with a variety of other creatures.”
“Okay, cool, so we don’t even have to buy them all. Perfect.” He sat cross-legged on the bed and pushed the iPad toward her again. “Don’t you like her? Ricki said she was a great horse. Comes from good stock and all that. She’s a huge animal freak.”
Overwhelmed, Lila grabbed the iPad and scrolled through the pictures. Priscilla was gorgeous, with kind eyes and a glossy coat that gleamed in the sun. “Why are they selling her?”
“Older couple wanting to downsize. But they’re not in a huge rush, so like I said, we can leave her there until we’re ready. I’m thinking once we find like a hundred acres, we can—”
“One hundred acres? Are you nuts? Do you have any clue how big that is?”
He grinned. “Go big or go home, baby.”
Shaking her head, she climbed on the bed and pushed him back into the pillows. She straddled him and braced her hands on his chest, waiting until his eyes settled on hers before she tipped her forehead to his. “You don’t have to do this. I’m not expecting you to turn into Farmer Crandall. I’m happy with you as you are. Just as I hope you’re happy with me.”
“Yeah, that’s why I want to try this new stuff. You’d never expect it, and hell, I love it here. I’m not kidding.” He reached up to brush her hair away from her face. “I know there’s no snow in California, and the extended family thing can’t happen out there, but if we could have a slice of the rest of it…I want it, Lila. I’ve never had a true home. Never had roots. I want my own pig.”
Helplessly, she laughed again. The tears in her eyes were strictly happy ones, and that was a gift of its own. “Ten minutes ago you didn’t know if a farm should even have a pig. Now you want one.”
“Yeah. And one of those sweet tractors like your dad has. I could drive that shit right up to Ripper Records’ office and give Donovan a heart attack.”
“And me. Driving one of those through downtown LA? Lunatic.” She shuddered and he laughed, anchoring his hand in her hair to tug her face to his.
“I put a deposit on the horse.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Don’t you like her?”
She kissed the wrinkle between his brows. “I love her. She’s a lovely horse. But we haven’t even met her. Do you even know how to ride?”
“Um…”
She laughed again. “I can teach you.”
“A hot blond teaching me how to ride bareback. Hmm.” He rubbed his lips over her jaw. “How fast can I say yes?”
“No bareback for you. Saddle all the way until you know what you’re doing.”
“That worked for us too. I think I’ve figured it out now.”
By the time she focused on his words and not his sexy little kisses down her neck, his dexterous fingers had already slipped under her sweater to tease her belly button. She stiffened as he touched her stomach and relaxed when he moved on, until he followed his usual route up her midriff to her bra.
Specifically, her left breast. The pierced one.
“What the hell is this?”
Without giving her time to answer, he dove under her sweater and peeled down the cup of her bra. She started to laugh, hard, until his lips closed around the tiny gold hoop.
Lo and behold, it didn’t hurt at all. Just felt really good.
So good that she cupped his head and held it against her. She didn’t even jump as he slid his other hand up to caress her other breast.
Warmth spread through her and she reached up to pull off her sweater. Might as well let him see the damage as well as learn it with his mouth.
Not that she had any problem with that at all. Especially since her breasts were reacting just as they should.
Happy breasts.
“Holy shit.” The reverence in his voice made her eager to unclasp her bra and let the cups fall away. She hadn’t taken more than a second to check it ou
t herself, but the way he was devouring her with his gaze made her think he didn’t have an issue with just one piercing.
Turned out Margo was right.
“I was supposed to get two.”
“It’s fucking perfect. Beyond perfect. Did I say holy shit?”
She grinned. “Yes, I think you did.”
His hands came up to sculpt her breasts, his thumbs tipping up the rosy tips until she closed her eyes and released a long sigh. The small hoop on the left pulled just enough to make them hard. Both hard, not just the pierced one. The signal went right to her clit.
Pretty soon she’d be saying “holy shit” too.
“What made you do this?”
“Margo has them. I wanted to do something fun. To be fun for once.”
His silence caused her to open her eyes. “You are fun. You’re great just as you are.” He lifted his hand again and fisted it in her hair, even tighter than before. “I hate that that asshole made you doubt yourself. I wish I could go kick his ass.”
“He didn’t make me do anything. That was my choice.”
Just like it’s my choice to be afraid that if I am pregnant, that you’ll react just like he did.
The thought made her go still. She didn’t want to put anything on Nick that wasn’t his own baggage to carry. The hex comment he’d made to Michael that had led her to put in her earbuds that morning hadn’t helped matters, but she wanted to believe in him.
More than anything, she wanted to believe they’d have time to figure all of this out without a clock ticking over their heads.
“It’s the Oblivion curse,” she mumbled. So far Margo and Simon were the only ones who hadn’t had a pregnancy to deal with before or right after the wedding.
And them. They hadn’t had to deal with anything yet.
“What is?”
She blinked. Thinking aloud again. Fab. “Nothing. Just saying it’s easy to blame Martin when I walked into that situation. I stayed in it, for a lot of reasons that weren’t about him and had everything to do with me.”
He studied her face for a long moment, then slid one more longing glance at her piercing. Effortlessly, he swapped their positions, rolling until she was cuddled against his side. Completely surrounded. The hand wearing her ring—the ring she’d given him—covered her belly.
Tears formed again and again she forced them back. There was no reason to cry.
She was truly happy for the first time in her life.
“How did you meet him? We never really talked about it.”
“It’s a long story. The basics are he had a friend in the area, the friend took him apple picking, he got some apples from a seventeen-year-old wide-eyed virgin who’d never been farther west than the west side of Turnbull. And he offered her music, the surest way to her heart.” She smiled a little at her naiveté. “I didn’t know then that he was married. He proposed to me before his divorce was final. Quite a lot of wooing led up to that point. Limo rides, flowers, candy, fancy clothes. I’d only had a couple boyfriends and they’d taken me to the movies and for ice cream. Martin flew me to LA in his private jet and romanced me at a restaurant that overlooked the Hollywood sign.”
“A guy who ‘romances’ another woman while he’s still married is an A-1 dick. We won’t even mention the seventeen-year-old part. Sick fucker.”
“Not that kind of romances. My wedding dress was very much white on my wedding day.” She gave him a look under her lashes. “Good girl, remember?”
His eyebrow lifted as he stared pointedly at her chest. “With a sexy pink pierced nipple. Sure thing, honey.”
“Good girls can have pierced nipples. Besides, weren’t you talking piercings with Simon?”
“You mean last Christmas? That was a fucking joke.”
“Really? Too bad. I’ve heard it’s quite pleasurable for the woman.” She pretended to tap her lips. “Not that I did any research or anything.”
“You’d be into that?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Stop it. Creepy.”
She laughed and rolled away from him again, then flicked a glance at him over her shoulder. “Should I worry this is the first time you’ve passed up sex to chat?”
“Um, no.” He shifted his hips and she blinked at the steel club against her ass.
Okay, so no problems there.
“This rocked my world.” His hand came up to her newly pierced nipple. “But you are my world, and that includes what’s in your head. That’s more important than anything else.”
She pressed her face against her arm. “He doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Yes, he does. Every place you’ve ever gone, everything you’ve ever seen or thought or done matters. It’s all part of the whole. And the whole is more than I’d ever hoped for.”
She tried to swallow over the rock in her throat. “You’re a poet, Nicholas Crandall.”
“Nah. I still want to fuck you more than anything.”
Grinning, she shifted onto her back and lifted her hand to brush his hair away from his face. “Funny. I want that too.”
21
Nick
Christmas Eve brought another snowstorm. No one was surprised. Not even Nick.
He walked around outside the main store at twilight, clomping through the heavy snow with the dog at his heels. His dog, Klepto. Lola was inside, taking a nap with Lila on the bed in their room. She’d been awfully tired lately, and he’d found himself fussing more than he was used to. She pushed herself so hard. Lived on stress. Eventually it caught up to everyone, he supposed. And she was on vacation. Extra naps were part of the deal.
Even so, seeing them curled up together had made him want to stay close to guard them in sleep.
Having something precious was the most dangerous thing of all. Far worse than having nothing. Because he’d discovered he lived in constant fear he would lose it.
Lose her.
So he’d made himself go downstairs and summon the other dog, his, who had holed up with a shredded newspaper and a thiefed sock. Laverne’s from the looks of things since it had a cat face on it and whiskers and he was almost certain Lila didn’t own anything like that.
Women were mysterious though. You never knew for sure.
It could’ve belonged to one of the others too. They were all still there for Christmas, but tomorrow everyone would start clearing out. Simon and Margo were headed to Boston to visit with her parents, and Juliet would likely tag along. Gray, Jazz, Molly and the baby were heading back to California the day after Christmas, thanks to Jazz’s doctor’s appointment. Deacon and Harper and Lexi would split not long after, since she had catering stuff out the wazoo. Michael and Ricki were flying back together in a few days too.
The Oblivion/Warning Sign holiday season was about to end. And he was almost sad.
He’d told Lila the truth. He’d never had a real home, not one that had lasted. Sure, when he’d been a kid, there had been good times. Great ones. He treasured those memories of his mother swinging him and Ricki around and playing with them in the yard. His dad trying futilely to get him to play baseball, finally realizing Ricki’s swing was ten times better than his. He’d been the band kid in the corner, not into sports. Not into a lot of stuff. His sister had been the bubbly, fun one until their mother had left and day by day, he’d seen those bubbles pop.
As the years had passed, she’d changed into a caricature of herself, and he was still the same, just harder. Just more bitter and used up, even though he’d been at the beginning of his life.
Mistrusting had come easily to him. Too easily. He’d missed out on a lot because he’d always been looking for shadows and skeletons. Always waiting for something he loved to get snatched away as his mother had been.
But she hadn’t been snatched. She’d walked. So he’d learned early—love meant loss. Don’t love, don’t lose. So simple.
He’d done a bang-up job of it for so many years. Other than Simon and Snake and Deacon, he’d never really invested in
anyone.
Then Snake had gotten hooked on horse. Deacon had decided he wanted a different life. He wanted to strive for more than a shitty basement apartment and practicing in a laundromat. Slowly, he’d started to distance himself.
At least he’d had Simon.
Until he didn’t have him anymore either.
Music had been the one thing that saved him. The reason he could still breathe when the pain got to be too much. His guitar never abandoned him. As long as he could play, he could make it through.
He’d almost retreated behind the mask of his music when Oblivion had broken up. Shattered in pieces. But by then, he’d had Lila. He’d nearly run from her too. She was going to leave him.
Everyone he had ever loved had left. One day or another, by choice or by circumstance, they always left.
Except she hadn’t. She wasn’t. She was wearing his ring, as he was wearing hers, and he’d bought a goddamn horse.
She wasn’t going anywhere.
But he was. He was leading his dog back to the chapel where he’d fought with Simon that first night, standing so alone in the shrouded darkness as snow hammered the roof. Heavy flakes battered the world into submission, then blanketed it until all sound fell away.
He had no reason to go to the chapel. Other than the pull he couldn’t deny.
When he saw the footsteps on the path and the flicker of a lighter inside, he understood.
Deacon had been right about second chances. He wouldn’t have one with Snake. Simon was still around.
An asshole for sure, but he was still around.
“Come on in, boy,” he said to Klepto, who’d taken to hiding between Nick’s legs when approached with intimidating situations. Like the old chapel where he’d first been wrangled by Nick and Simon.
Only a week and a half ago.
He reached for the door handle and yanked it open with a creak of hinges. Stepping inside, he let the flare of light Simon had made guide the way to where his best friend stood near an old husked out pew. There were half a dozen of them, all in various stages of disrepair. Some had holes in the seats, some were missing the end cap or kneelers. All looked like they’d seen better days.