Perhaps because he always came across as impervious to criticism and confident in the extreme, it had never occurred to Dru that J.D. might not think very much of himself. But that was what she was hearing now. He thought there was a relationship somewhere out there for her, but that a lasting bond wasn’t even a possibility for him. He said she deserved someone better than him.
Where was what he deserved in all this? Why didn’t he at least deserve to go into a relationship without feeling certain it would end up in tatters because of him?
She might be fooling herself and setting herself up for a world of heartache, but she thought John David Carver had a lot more going for him than he seemed to think he had. He could have let her walk away, left her believing he’d used her, but he hadn’t. Instead, he’d laid his ego on the line for her to accept or slice into little pieces as she wished. He might never have seen examples of a functional, loving relationship, but he had some pretty decent values of his own, particularly for someone who had grown up without a nurturing influence.
Gripping her sheet, she turned to face him, and he allowed it this time, his arms dropping away. It was too late for her to walk away—the die had been cast last night. If he hurt her in the end…well, at least she would never have to be sorry she’d lacked the guts to go after a dream; would never have to regret having given up before she’d even tried.
“Tell you what,” she said, reaching out to trail her fingers from the hollow at his throat down the clean white cotton of his T-shirt to his sternum, where she pressed her hand flat, fingers spread. “Why don’t we risk it all instead.”
He went very still, the sinew beneath her palm going hard as stone. His eyes were a hazel-green glint behind narrowed lashes as he stared down at her suspiciously. “What—do you want to gamble for my part of the lodge or something?”
“For Pete’s sake, J.D. Of course not.”
“Good. Because I said I was hot to have that sweet body of yours again and again, not that I’m a total—”
“I want to gamble on this need to know you that I have burning here,” she interrupted him, spreading her free hand against her stomach. “And here.” She brought it up to her heart as she looked him squarely in the eye. The sheet began to slide, but instead of making a grab for it, she let it go. “I don’t pretend to know what you feel for me, but I feel something for you, John David, and—”
She saw something flash across his face; then the next thing she knew, he had her pressed up against the dresser, his hands gripping her upper arms.
“Don’t mess with me, Drucilla,” he warned in a low voice.
“I’m not messing with you. I have feelings for you, and I want to explore what they are. I don’t want to back away and pretend last night never happened just so we can work peacefully side by side.”
He kissed her, and it was rough and on the verge of losing control. The sheet had disappeared somewhere, and she had one brief moment to register the softness of J.D.’s T-shirt and the rougher denim of his jeans against her bare skin before he ripped his mouth away and pushed himself back slightly, leaving her to stare up at him.
His breath sawed through parted lips as he looked back down at her. “Then that’s what we’ll do,” he said with a clipped nod, and bent his head toward hers again. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you when everything goes to hell.”
Butch was not the happiest camper in the universe when he watched J.D. walk the stacked Kewpie doll across the clearing. It had finally quit raining around five this morning, but he was cold and wet and hadn’t gotten more than a snatch of sleep here and there all night long.
While his good buddy Carver had been tucked up nice and cozy, doing the horizontal shimmy-shake on a sweetly cushioned female.
The only good thing to come out of the miserable night was that he was now ninety-nine percent certain that this was indeed Loverboy’s digs. He stepped into the clearing the minute J.D. and the woman disappeared down a trail he’d had plenty of time to explore last night. Holier-Than-Thou Carver hadn’t gotten in his car and driven off, and from the looks of things and the few words Butch had managed to overhear just now, he’d say J.D. was walking the babe home. She was probably some chickie vacationing at the lodge or at one of the other cabins farther down the trail.
Butch eased up onto the porch and eyed the shiny red canoe resting upside down on a couple of sawhorses under the roof. Hell, that should have tipped him off right there. J.D. had had a thing for canoes ever since the time they’d thugged one out by the Arboretum when they were kids.
He tried the door, fully expecting to find it locked, but the knob turned smoothly beneath his hand. J.D. was slipping. This never would have happened in his Rat City crib. Living in the sticks was clearly causing him to lose his edge.
Which worked just fine for Butch. He opened the door, but then had second thoughts and hesitated.
He didn’t have any idea how long it would take J.D. to walk the woman to her room and get back here again. For all Butch knew, his old bud might fully intend to get himself another piece of ass. But he also might just dump her and come straight back to his own place.
And the last thing Butch planned to do was let J.D. know that he was here. His onetime friend was undoubtedly working a job around here—he never had known how to relax worth a damn and just have a good time. If this were a weekday instead of Saturday, Butch wouldn’t have hesitated to grab the opportunity to go in and toss the joint. But he wasn’t about to blow the element of surprise. Butch refused to even acknowledge the oily little roll he got in his gut at the thought of coming face-to-face with J.D.
He looked at the canoe again and then dug into his pocket. The idea that popped into his mind was pretty iffy, but what the hell—it was the best he could do with so little time to work with.
He pulled out his pocketknife and extracted the biggest blade.
Down in town, Kev propped his back against a stack of frilly pillows and watched Char, dressed only in his white shirt, as she bopped around the girliest bedroom he’d ever clapped eyes on. He’d never known so many pink stripes, flowers, and solids even existed—let alone coexisted in a halfway peaceful manner.
When Char leaned forward to peer into the big mahogany mirror that topped her fabric-skirted dressing table, he was torn between watching her fluff up that touch-me-Daddy bubble of blond hair, or the sleek little rump that played peekaboo with his shirttail every time she lifted her arms. A tent began to form in the patchwork quilt across his lap, and he grinned ruefully. You’d think the big boy would be worn out by now.
He couldn’t get over how good it felt to be with her. While he was in D.C., he hadn’t even thought of her—or at least he’d gone long blocks of time without thinking of her. But the minute she’d strolled into his father’s store, he’d felt as if he’d been mule-kicked in the gut. It’d all come rushing back—the wanting, the not being able to have for fear she’d screw up all his plans—and he’d automatically reverted to his old push-away habits.
Now he couldn’t get close enough. Rearranging a frothy little pillow that had slipped out from between his head and the knobby brass headboard, he smiled crookedly at the warm, jumbled disorder of her room. “I’m sorely disappointed in you, Char.”
She whirled to face him, and the smile left his face at the stricken expression in her brown eyes. Hell. He would have thought that after last night she’d fully understand his intentions. He said lightly, “I thought for sure all you masseuse types surrounded yourselves with wind chimes, crystals, and whale music.”
The stiffness left her spine. “Yeah? Well, I thought all you lawyer types slept in your power ties.” One delicate shoulder hitched beneath the Egyptian cotton of his shirt. “Guess we were both wrong.”
But her gaze remained uncertain, and he pushed himself a little higher among the pillows. To hell with keeping it light—if he was going to scare her off, let it be for the truth. “I’m here to stay, you know,” he said. “There might not be enoug
h work around Star Lake itself to set up my practice, but I plan to settle somewhere on this side of the state.”
“And you’re telling me this because…?”
“Because I’m crazy about you and I think we’ve got the potential for something special. And because I don’t want you to think I’m just killing time with you until I can make tracks back to the big city.”
The small smile curving her lips caused more tenting action under the covers. “Take off my shirt,” he commanded.
She looked at him from beneath her lashes. “I don’t think so. I think I might just keep it for a very long time—maybe even forever.” Kev didn’t think she was talking about his apparel anymore, but before he could pin down the look in her eyes, she ran her hands under the collar, flipped it up, and gave him a flirtatious smile. “Besides, I bet a big-time lawyer like you has an entire closet full of boring white shirts.”
“Maybe. But that one’s my favorite.”
“Pooh.” She sashayed over to the bed. “One bland shirt’s pretty much the same as another. What’s so special about this one?”
He lunged, catching her around the waist and tumbling her onto the mattress. Propping himself over her, he brushed away a strand of hair that had flopped over one eye. “It has you in it.”
“Oooh,” she breathed and beamed up at him. “Good answer.”
19
“Come on, Mom! We don’t wanna be late—J.D. might leave without us.”
Dru looked up from checking the contents of her beach bag to see her son standing by the front door, impatiently shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “He’s not going to leave without us, Tate. Besides, we’re nowhere near late. We’ve got a good fifteen minutes before he asked us to be there, and it’s a five-minute walk, tops.”
She could see by his continued fidgeting that her words had no effect whatsoever, and laughing, she snatched up her bag. “All right, okay—I’m ready, already.”
Tate blasted through the doorway and out into the corridor as if a starter gun had been shot off. Dru’s exit was more sedate, and by the time she’d locked the door behind her, her son was nowhere in sight.
She didn’t catch up to him until she reached the clearing in front of J.D.’s cabin, and then it was to see Tate already on the front porch. He was all but dancing in place next to the canoe.
She smiled at his excitement. Then J.D. walked out of the cabin, wearing a raggedy pair of cutoffs, a black tank top, and flip-flops, and an extra throb was added to her heartbeat.
She hadn’t seen him since late yesterday afternoon. Tate had arrived home from Billy’s around five, and J.D. had hung around for only a short while before bidding them good night and taking off.
She’d known he couldn’t spend the night—not with an impressionable boy in the house. But that hadn’t helped to prepare her for how much she would miss him after he’d left. You wouldn’t think a single night together could make such an impact on her life, yet it had.
It definitely had.
Seeing the anticipation on both male faces as she came up on the porch, Dru was especially glad the weather had turned nice again. J.D.’s eyes were alight, and while his smile wasn’t quite as huge as Tate’s, he was clearly just as pumped up about the maiden voyage of his canoe.
“Give me a hand here, buddy,” he said to Tate as he assembled boating paraphernalia. “Help me check this stuff off against my list. I want to make sure I’ve got everything we need for the big event.”
“Let’s hope you do.” Dru glanced at the stuff stacked on the porch floor. “If you add anything more, your boat will probably sink beneath the weight.”
J.D. flashed her a smile that was every bit as brilliant as her son’s, and Dru felt her heart squeeze at seeing such unrestrained joy on his normally guarded face. He looked as happy and lighthearted as a teenager cutting school to hit the local swimming hole.
But he pretended indignation. “Hey,” he protested. “I don’t have all that much stuff. Do I, Tate?” He didn’t even hesitate to enlist her son’s support, and when it was unreservedly given, the wattage on J.D.’s smile cranked up a few degrees higher. “See?” he demanded. “Your kid agrees. We’ve simply got us a few flotation cushions to sit on, a paddle, and a cooler that’s so small it’s hardly worth mentioning. That’s it. Except for lunch, of course, but as any guy will tell you, that’s not an extra; that’s essential.” He gave her beach bag a nod. “It’s that big ol’ satchel of yours I’m worried about. What’ve you got in there, anyway, primping stuff?”
“Primping stuff!” She swung the bag at his lean hip, but he neatly sidestepped it. “I’ll have you know I’ve got the bare minimum of necessities in here. Well, except for the lunch part. We did duplicate that, because I didn’t know you were packing one, too, but aside from—”
“You brought lunch?” His eyes lit up. “What’d you pack? Chicks always do so much better than guys in the food department, but that’s only because they belong in the kitchen.”
“Oh!” Her bag hit the porch floor. “You are really asking for it now, buster.” She launched herself at him, but before she knew what was what, she was flush up against his body, his arms wrapped around her, pinning hers to her sides.
“Mom!” Tate’s tone of voice said he was not amused. “Leave J.D. alone—we’ve got a boat to launch.” He shook his head in disgust and looked at his hero. “You know what else she’s prob’ly got in there?” he asked in a long-suffering tone that implied cod-liver oil at the very least.
J.D. cocked his head at Tate in a solemn, you’ve-got-my-fullest-attention-buddy gesture while he subtly rubbed his pelvis against Dru’s. “What’s that?”
“Sunscreen. She never lets me go anywhere without sunscreen. And towels, I bet. Like we couldn’t just drip-dry.”
“Hey!” Dru stuck her nose in the air. “I don’t need this abuse. Maybe I’ll just take my fried chicken and go home.”
J.D.’s arms tightened around her for a second before he turned her loose. “Now, let’s not be too hasty. Whaddaya think, Tate? I mean, girls don’t really belong on boats, since they lack the proper reverence and appreciation. But still, fried chicken.”
“Yeah, Mom makes awfully good chicken—’specially the drumsticks. And I suppose towels aren’t really all that bad. Maybe we’d better let her stay.”
“It’s a sacrifice on our part,” J.D. agreed. “But I think we should.”
“You’re both much too kind.” But Dru couldn’t prevent the grin she felt tugging up one side of her mouth. This teasing J.D. was new and totally surprising—she couldn’t have stopped herself from being charmed to save her soul.
J.D. handed Tate the lunch he’d packed and asked him to put it back in the refrigerator. Then he divided the gear into two piles for Dru and Tate to carry, and hauled the heavy wooden canoe out into the yard. Once it was clear of the porch roof, he hefted the vessel to balance it, upside down, upon his head.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just stack all the stuff inside and have us each take an end?” Dru questioned.
J.D. gave her a purely male look that seemed to demand, Do I look like I need help? as he did something that caused his biceps to leap into prominence. Dru snorted, but she felt heat spread not only up her throat and onto her face at the silly macho display, but also downward from her stomach.
Tate came barreling back, and he and Dru gathered up their loads, then followed J.D. down the trail. A few minutes later they were on Ben and Sophie’s private dock.
As J.D. squatted down to stow everything in the canoe, which he’d tied alongside, Dru stripped off her T-shirt and shorts, which left her in her new bathing suit. After digging her sunscreen out of the beach bag, she slathered some on herself, then passed the bottle to Tate and oversaw its application. She handed him his life vest, then tucked her clothing and the shirt Tate tossed her into the bag with the towels. Giving both males an ironic look, she said, “I think I’ll just leave this here. I wouldn’t want it taki
ng up too much precious cargo space.”
Tate shot her an unrepentant big-toothed grin and clambered into the canoe.
J.D.’s gaze tracked her suit from its low-scooped top to its high-cut bottom as he motioned for her to follow her son into the canoe. Instead, Dru stopped in front of him.
“If you think you’re getting out of wearing sunscreen like the rest of us, buster, you’re dead wrong,” she said. “I don’t care how big and bad you think you are, your skin can be damaged just as easily as Tate’s.”
He went still for a minute, then slowly reached over his back to pull his tank top off over his head. Dru shook lotion into his hand for him to apply to his front, then did his back herself. “Get your face, too,” she directed as she carefully tucked his shirt into her bag alongside her own and Tate’s.
Then she stepped into the canoe, and J.D. uncleated the line and pushed off, stepping into the stern as the boat moved sleekly away from the dock. From beneath her lashes, Dru observed the pure contentment that came over his face when he settled onto his seat and commenced to paddle with strong, smooth strokes.
And her lips curved up in a contented smile of her own.
J.D. couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this mellow. The sun was warm on his shoulders, and the lap of water against the hull and the call of birds flying overhead and roosting in the trees that crowded the shoreline began to supplant the sound of kids’ voices on the swim float. The canoe handled effortlessly as it cut smoothly across the placid water toward the less populated end of the lake.
He watched Tate where he knelt on the forward seat, gripping the sides of the canoe with both hands. Head into the breeze like a happy pup thrusting its nose out the window of a moving car, he bobbed his rump up and down against his heels and chattered with excitement. And Drucilla, who had bullied him into wearing sunscreen so his tough hide wouldn’t be damaged, gave him a soft smile every time he looked her way. Add a picnic of home-fried chicken to anticipate and—J.D. grinned—it just didn’t get much better than this.
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