She smiled at him, hoping it would get his eye to settle down.
“I’d do anything for you, Cheri, even if I wasn’t getting money, but all’s I’m sayin’ is—”
She stepped forward and hugged him. “You have a good night, now, Tater.”
“Oh. Okay. You, too, Cheri.”
Keet, keet, keet!
“Careful not to run over Artemis,” Cheri added, nodding toward the squirrel now standing in the middle of the gravel drive.
Tater Wayne shook his head, laughing. “All right now, I’ll admit that thing acts like a Doberman, but are you telling me you named a damn squirrel? Y’all been in the city too long.”
Cheri giggled. “Artemis was the ancient Greek goddess of protection. I looked it up.”
“Y’all need a dog,” Tater said, heading out with a wave. Cheri made sure Artemis darted safely off around the side of the house as Tater drove away. Thanks to J.J.’s reconnaissance earlier in the day, Cheri now knew exactly where her little preggo roommate was headed—the old wood tongue-and-groove soffit under the eaves. J.J. said she’d built an impressive nest of leaves, fur, dried lake grass, feathers, and shredded paper for her brood, and had chewed a hole clear through to serve as her private entrance to the inside of the house. He’d closed it up.
“You sure you don’t mind sharing your home with a family of squirrels?” he’d asked her. “I can move the nest—put it in a hollow log or something.”
“No!” she’d said. “She was here first, after all.”
Suddenly, strong arms slid across her ribs and pulled her close, bringing her back to the present moment. With eyes closed and neck limp with pleasure, she luxuriated in the feel and scent of J.J. She’d spent the whole day in his company for the first time in a dozen years, and it felt comfortably familiar and like an exotic treat all at the same time.
That morning they’d retrieved more than a dozen boxes of financial records from the old warehouse and hauled everything—including what Cheri had accumulated at the Bugle—back to the lake house, where they’d set up a makeshift office in the back bedroom.
They had enjoyed lunch at Lenny’s in town, and Cheri finally got her grilled pimento cheese sandwich. They stopped off at the house on Willamette to chat with Granddaddy, asking him if her father had left behind any personal record of his time as publisher. Granddaddy had directed them to four boxes in the attic, which J.J. had carried to his truck.
When they’d returned to the cottage to paint, they were thrilled that Tater and Mimi were there ready to lend a hand. Cheri had pulled J.J. aside at one point to ask if the general assignment reporter was trying to suck up to the new boss, and he shook his head. “Nope. Mimi said she admires you and hopes you stay. Personally, I think she’s into the ‘woman on top’ aspect of it all.” Cheri had laughed at that.
And now, as she stood on the porch in the unusually warm night air, J.J.’s arms around her, Cheri felt loose and calm. She’d accomplished a great deal in one day. She was physically exhausted. And she’d had two beers with her pizza. But she knew the real reason she felt so peaceful, so outrageously happy, was J.J.
He’d had her laughing all day, reminiscing about their teenage escapades, filling her in on his life between high scool and his return to Bigler, and his adventures as managing editor of the Bugle. With frequent contributions from Tater and Mimi, Cheri could now say she had the lowdown on the remaining inhabitants of the newsroom. She found out the graphics editor had five kids and coached in the town’s soccer and baseball leagues; the sports reporter ran a statewide foster program for abused hunting dogs; and city editor Jim Taggert was a sought-after banjo picker who’d released three CDs and went on tour every summer. This information did nothing but make Cheri more determined to keep the newspaper in business and her employees’ lives afloat.
Despite all the conversation and laughter, the four of them managed to clean and paint the whole inside of the cottage in a day. It would easily be party ready in two weeks.
“You smell so damn good,” J.J. said into Cheri’s ear.
She laughed, knowing he was exaggerating. “I smell like Sherwin Williams and Murphy’s oil soap.”
“Eau de manual labor,” he said, his chuckle vibrating against the side of her neck. J.J. moved his hands over her belly and cradled her. “With rich undertones of Cheri—pure, sweet Cheri.”
“Mmm.” She snuggled into him closer, enjoying the simple act of breathing the lake air. She leaned into the hard heat of J.J.’s body. She listened to the telltale symphony of a fast-approaching summer—crickets, tree frogs, and even an occasional call of a loon.
“I love it here,” she whispered, shocking herself, not because she said those words but because there seemed to be no aftertaste of anxiety. She must be coming to terms with the fact that she loved being at the lake house. She must be getting used to Bigler again. Damn, but Candy was going to freak when she told her.
And just like that, Cheri felt her body clench. What the hell was she doing letting her guard down like this? Her sister hated her and wished her dead. She was solely responsible for people’s livelihoods. And she was living a lie! Tanyalee and J.J. and Granddaddy and Aunt Viv and everyone else in Bigler thought she was rich and successful, and she’d done absolutely nothing to correct them since her return.
And now it was too late! She’d look like a fool if she told everyone the truth now! She was no better than Tanyalee.
“Want to grab a couple beers and sit on the dock?” J.J. asked her.
“You just read my mind,” she said, pushing the uneasiness away again, if only for the time being.
Chapter 20
J.J. looked down at their naked toes drawing cirlces in the dark water and sighed. “This whole day has felt like a dream, Cheri.”
“A real good one.”
He felt her nudge closer to his side and rest her head on his shoulder. They were now hip to hip, their arms forming an X behind each other’s backs, just like they used to do back in school. The moon was up, a sliver above the trees, but it was enough to light up each other’s faces.
“I heard you paid a visit to the Wimbley Real Estate offices this morning,” J.J. said.
“How’d you hear that?”
He laughed. “You can’t be serious. This is Bigler, sweetheart.”
“Hmmph.”
“Not going to tell me what transpired?”
“Just more of the same ugly stuff, I’m afraid.” When Cheri looked up into his face, J.J. was startled by the intense sadness he saw in her expression.
“Baby, what—”
She shook her head and looked away. “I confronted her,” Cheri said, her voice barely a whisper, her eyes focused out across the dark lake. “I don’t know what I expected, but all I got was more bullshit about how you failed to live up to your sacred vows.”
J.J. put his beer down on the freshly sawed boards of the dock. “That’s a fair statement.”
“What?” Cheri turned toward him again, her eyes flashing.
“I did fail. Miserably. I stood there like an idiot and said I promised to love and cherish her till death do us part when I knew it was impossible, since I couldn’t even manage it for the ten minutes it took us to get hitched. I never loved Tanyalee. Marrying her was the biggest mistake I ever made—well, second only to sleeping with her without protection.”
Cheri stayed quiet a long moment, looking down at her feet. “Did she tell you she was on the pill?”
J.J. shook his head. “I’m not going there, Cheri. Please don’t ask me to.”
She let go with a suddenly icy laugh. “Well, she’s sure as hell not going there, so if you want me to know what happened, if you want me to know the truth, you are the only way I’m going to get it.”
“I won’t ruin your relationshp with your sister. It’s between the two of you.”
He watched Cheri shake her head. “It’s already ruined, J.J. She flat-out told me today that she hated me and wished I was dead and that I was to blame
for Mama’s and Daddy’s deaths.”
J.J. jerked his head back in horror. That was pure evil, even for Tanyalee. “You know that’s ridiculous, baby.”
Cheri shrugged. “It’s something I’ve always carried around with me. She was just rubbing it in.”
“That’s the craziest shit I’ve ever heard.” J.J. brought his face down close to hers, trying to get her to look him in the eye. “You were seven years old, Cheri. Your parents went to the beach and there was a gas leak in their rental—how in God’s name was that your fault?”
She flashed her eyes at him briefly, then looked away. “I’ve heard it from Viv, too.”
“Heard what? That you were to blame for them dying? Why the hell would Viv lay that guilt on a little girl? You’ve got to be wrong about that.”
Cheri shook her head, looking off across the lake. “The night after the funeral, I snuck down to eavesdrop on the grown-ups. Viv, Granddaddy, and Purnell were sitting in the parlor. Viv said it. I heard her. She said that Mama and Daddy needed to get away from me and Tanyalee because we fought so much, because I was such a belligerent and stubborn little girl who’d always resented sweet little Taffy, and the constant yelling and fussing was enough to drive my parents crazy.”
J.J. held his breath. All he could think was, Oh, God, no.
“Viv said that all my parents wanted was a moment’s peace.” Cheri paused, swallowing hard. “And Purnell … Purnell said, ‘They got it, the poor souls.’”
J.J. brought his arm up around her shoulder, but Cheri remained stiff against him. “That was an incredibly insensitive and stupid thing to say,” he whispered. “Sometimes people lash out in their grief, and don’t realize what they’re doing. I’m so damn sorry you heard that.”
They sat quietly for a moment, their toes still circling in the water. Eventually, he felt Cheri’s breathing slow.
“That’s not the only thing Tanyalee told me today, J.J. She warned me that you would turn on me one day and she hoped that God had mercy on me when it happened.”
J.J. shook his head. “Of course she did.”
“Tanyalee told me she had a miscarriage and that was all she’d say.”
Cheri looked up at him again, her face a mask of resigned sadness. “I want to know what’s possible for you and me in the future, but I have to know the truth about the past first. You’re the only place I can go to get it.”
J.J. sat perfectly still for many long seconds, until he knew he had no choice. Cheri deserved the truth. “Yes, Tanyalee told me she was on the pill. She miscarried a few weeks after the wedding but it slipped her mind to mention it to me. I only found out because her doctor’s office left a message on the answering machine.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“So I went looking for her. With a heads-up from Turner, I tracked her down at the Tip-Top Motel.”
“Where?” Cheri’s eyes squinted in disbelief.
“Room 34 to be exact. With some guy.”
“Huh?”
J.J. tilted his head back and laughed. “That’s what I said.” His laughter mellowed into a sigh. “Yeah. Ugly, ugly, ugly. She never admitted it, but I’m pretty sure she was trying to get pregnant again real quick, thinking I wouldn’t notice it was the world’s first twelve-month human gestation.”
Cheri tilted her head and stared at him, her nose and mouth scrunched up. It made him chuckle. He kissed her wrinkled nose. “The answer to your unspoken question is no—we never had sex after that first time, so she had to go elsewhere for what she wanted. I couldn’t do it, Cheri. I didn’t love her—I didn’t even like her. But, I gotta admit, there was a part of me that…”
J.J. managed to stop himself, but knew he’d gone too far, and now Cheri was staring at him. She expected him to finish his thought. “Part of me wanted to get you out of my system, I guess. After what happened in Florida, I knew I’d be dead to you, that this town would be dead to you. I wanted to burn it all away.”
She raised a single eyebrow at him.
“I think I saw those months with Tanyalee as a way to punish myself.”
“For what exactly?”
“For ruining my chance with you—forever.”
J.J. gasped when Cheri slipped her small hand over his. Her skin was so smooth and warm. The delicate bones of her hands wrapped around him like a velvety ribbon, and her thumb rubbed the top of his wrist. “But she trapped you, Jay. She wanted revenge against me. You were just caught in the middle.”
“I wasn’t exactly a victim,” he said softly. “It was my decision to sleep with her in the first place. My penis. My mistake. My responsibility.”
With his free hand he reached over and touched the side of her face. He smiled at the smear of eggshell white that went across her cheek like war paint. Then he ran his hand over her paint-speckled hair.
“What?” she asked, slowly returning his smile.
“You’re covered in paint.”
“Really? Well, so are you. Here, let me help you clean up a little.”
Cheri was suddenly on his lap, her arms around his neck and her lips opening to his. J.J. grabbed her, the need in him immediate and fierce—until he felt himself falling straight over the edge of the dock and into the water.
“Hey—” The cold slapped him and he surfaced with the sound of Cheri’s laughter ringing in his ears. She was already swimming away, though she was laughing too hard to make headway with her sloppy strokes.
“Y’all in a load of trouble now, girl,” he said, heading after her.
“No!” she shrieked. “Stay away!”
A few loons decided to join in her protest.
“You want to play, do you?” As J.J. closed in on her, Cheri began kicking her feet hard and fast, shooting water into his face.
“No! Stop!” She was laughing so hard she could barely get the words out.
J.J. was suddenly aware that all this noise was the most beautiful music he’d ever heard, a crazy cacophony of loons, laughter, and lake water. He began laughing, too, gasping for breath as he reached one of her flipping feet.
“Gotcha!” He yanked her toward him and her sweet ass slammed into his belly. J.J. flipped her over and got an arm under her back, reached his feet down into the muddy lake bottom for leverage and began hauling her out through the reeds.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, her fingers already tearing at his shirt buttons.
“Somewhere warmer and drier.”
“What y’all fixin’ to do with me?” When J.J. saw the mischievousness in her eyes, his heart nearly broke apart. Here she was—tight in his arms, joy in her heart, her fingers doing their best to get his clothes off—and he wasn’t sure he could handle this much luck. He hadn’t felt this hopeful since the day he stood on her front porch in Tampa, and she’d answered the door, smiled, and threw her arms around him. “Ain’t made up my mind yet, sugar,” he said. “You got any ideas?”
“Yeah, I got a few,” she said, just before she put her hot lips on his cold, wet chest, and began kissing down his sternum, her tongue flicking at his ball bearing of a nipple until bolts of pleasure shot through his boxers.
J.J.’s feet hit hard ground and they cleared the water without a moment to spare. His knees were on the edge of giving out, not because the woman in his arms was a burden—Cheri barely weighed anything—but because his dick was getting so hard he had forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other.
“I thought maybe we could take a shower together,” she said, biting down on his other nipple. “The grout’s dry.”
“Oh, fuck, that’s the best grout-related news I’ve ever heard.”
She giggled, and the second her lips left his flesh he pulled her higher and clamped his mouth on hers as they tackled the front steps.
“Keet!”
The squirrel had returned to lodge her most recent complaint with the landlord. J.J. paused the kiss long enough to address her. “Now you just hush for once, you bossy thing. This is none of y’all’s
business.”
He placed Cheri down on the porch and they both began ripping their sopping wet clothes off their bodies. As he peeled everything off, J.J. was suddenly relieved that he’d left his wallet, phone, and keys inside the cottage before they’d gone to the dock.
Moments later, he was still struggling with his boots and socks as he watched Cheri scurry through the living room, bare-ass naked, past the ugly green couch under a clear plastic drop cloth, and down the hall to the bathroom. The vision of her pink and perfect little body made his hands shake, which only added to the frustration with his wet bootlaces. He grabbed the wet condoms from his jeans pocket, and ran through the living room, water flinging with every step.
* * *
The feel of J.J.’s solid flesh under her soapy fingers was glorious. The sensation of hot water pounding onto their cold skin made her shiver with pleasure. The erection pressing up against her belly had her dizzy with lust. It had been many months since she’d been with a man, but it had been many long years since she’d been with J.J., and she had no intention of waiting a second longer.
“Have you figured out what you’re going to do with me?” she teased him.
“Hell, yes,” J.J. said. “I’m gonna make up for lost time, Cheri. I’m gonna make up for every month that went by that I didn’t have you to laugh with and love and make hot and wild love to.”
“That sounds like a big job.”
“Fortunately, I have everything I need.”
“Yes, you do,” she said.
J.J.’s hands slid up and down the sides of her body. His palms cupped her ass, pressed into her hips, brushed down her thighs and up again. She was well aware how hungry he was for her—he was eating her up with his hands, devouring her with his eyes, consuming her with his lips.
“I want you bad, Cheri.”
“I want you, J.J.” Her pussy throbbed. She felt like she was going to come just by being in close proximity to the heat and desire shooting off his body.
“Tell me,” he growled into her ear.
“I always have. I always will.”
“What? You what?”
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