Secret Nights at Nine Oaks

by Amy J. Fetzer

  “Was there a storm or something? The river is wide, but it’s pretty calm.”

  “No, not at first. The sun was setting and it started to rain, but nothing bad. When she didn’t come back near sundown, I went looking again. That’s when I realized she’d taken the boat out.” He glanced at her. “It wasn’t the first time she did something like that to get my attention. So I called the sea rescue, and went looking for her in the speedboat. But even the sea rescue couldn’t spot the boat with floodlights. She just vanished.” He flopped back into the cushions. “I’d hoped she drew in downriver somewhere south.”

  “She didn’t.”

  He shook his head. “The rain worsened. I didn’t come in, just drifted up and down the shore. I stayed out there all night and in the morning, I found the boat. Then her.”

  Phoebe could only imagine what he’d felt at that moment, and knew without asking he’d carried that tortured reminder with him ever since.

  “Cain, she was skilled enough to bring it in, wasn’t she?”

  “I don’t know.” He pushed off the sofa and paced. “No, I know she wasn’t. I let her go out on that boat and she died.”

  “Oh my God. You blame yourself for her death?”

  His gaze slammed into hers. “I killed her! I could have stopped her, carried her back into the house, anything to keep her from sailing. I destroyed her, Phoebe. I couldn’t love her and it destroyed her.”

  “Wait a minute, Lily was a grown woman, and she knew her skill level.” She stood before him, gripping his arms, wanting him to hear her so badly. “She knew she couldn’t sail and yet she did. In a storm. It was all intentional. She took that boat out to kill herself!”

  Cain shook his head. “Don’t you think I want to believe that? She said, ‘I’ll see you later, I’ll come in a minute.’ She didn’t mean to…”

  “Die?”

  “Yes. What did the coroner say?”

  “No injuries, a drowning.”

  “She could swim?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then she didn’t want to.”

  “I should have forced her inside. I should have made her come back.”

  “You should have loved her, isn’t that what you’re saying?”

  He crumpled before her eyes, his shoulders drooping, his head bowing.

  “Oh, Cain.” She brushed her mouth over his, her throat going tight. “Oh honey, you can’t force love when it’s not there.”

  He lifted his gaze to her.

  “There’s no crime in not loving her. There is when you let it keep you from loving.”

  His features tightened, and he bent, calling her name. Before their lips touched, the phone rang.

  Cain straightened, and went to answer it.

  Phoebe hugged herself, watching his expression. He gave nothing away as he hung up. “The jury is in,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Cain whisked her away from the courthouse so fast she didn’t have time to think about anything but that she was free, and Kreeg was behind bars for a very long time.

  On the plane Cain didn’t talk, and barely looked at her. It hurt that he wouldn’t look at her, yet Phoebe left him to his thoughts. She could see his torment, as if he was reliving his wife’s death. When the plane touched down, he looked up as if just realizing he’d been silent for so long. He apologized and within an hour, she was walking back into Nine Oaks.

  On the stairs, she looked down at him. “Cain.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Phoebe’s heart broke. He didn’t have to say it. He was closing himself off. Nothing she’d said had made a difference, and he wasn’t letting her share his burden. Now he was letting her go.

  “I can’t stay here anymore.”

  He jerked a look up at her. “Yes, you can go home now. You’re safe.”

  “Oh Cain. This is my home.” His features went taut. “Don’t you know? You have my heart.” Her voice broke. “My very soul. And that will never change, but I can’t stay with a man who is too trapped in useless guilt to see a future.”

  His features tightened. “Phoebe, please.”

  “No, Cain, it doesn’t have to be this way. Open your eyes! You didn’t do anything wrong! Except give a ghost power over you.”

  His eyes narrowed, and yet Phoebe simply sighed and turned away. She loved him. She’d always loved him, she realized. And now, she would lose him to a woman who’d been dead for five years.

  She came to him like soft fragrance on the breeze, stirring his senses, shifting the air surrounding him.

  Cain felt her touch before he heard her whisper his name. He shifted on the bed and saw an image that would stay with him for a lifetime—Phoebe, naked and ethereal, sliding onto his bed and into his arms.

  Cain didn’t think, didn’t question, and when she tipped her head back, meeting his gaze, touching his face, she gave no answers. Then he kissed her, a deep slow kiss of love and passion. The fast heat and demand they’d felt before was tamed. Now the need to show and revere overtook him. In the back of his mind, Cain knew this would be the last time he touched Phoebe.

  His patience showed in his touch, in the way he stirred her body. Phoebe took what she wanted for herself, sliding down his body to pleasure him like no other. Cain groaned and yanked her up to him, a look full of sensual promise lighting her heart. He tasted her body, claimed it as he had never done before, with complete possession, taking part of her soul with every kiss.

  His hands played over her skin, memorizing her shape, his mouth drawing on her nipples, teeth scraping erotically over the swells of her breasts and lower. Then he spread her wide, and gripped her hips, lifting her to his mouth.

  He laved at her center, making her cry out softly, making her squirm for more. Her beauty enthralled him, burned into his mind and still, he tasted her, toyed with her pleasure. It was his, he owned it, he wanted no man to do this to her. Ever. She was his, he thought. No matter what he felt or said, Phoebe was his.

  And he showed her, bringing her to peak after peak, skillfully letting her dangle on the edge, then releasing her and covering her body with his.

  She spread herself for him and Cain slid smoothly inside her warm wet center. The heat of her nearly undid him and he moved slowly, his tempo measured, her desire blossoming. He wanted to savor each sensation, the womanly muscles gripping and flexing on him, the short gasps tumbling from her lips. He pushed and withdrew, watching her eyes flare, her heart in her beautiful face.

  Cain’s throat locked and he could barely breathe, knowing this was the last time, and knowing he would die without her in his life.

  He groaned her name as he kissed her, quickening, and she clung to him, her limbs wrapped tightly. The spiral of heat climbed as their bodies took control in a powerful rush to find the summit together.

  Then it came, a swell of throbbing skin and heated kisses. His tongue plunged into her mouth as his body thrust hard into her. She whispered his name, he called hers and threw his head back as the tight pulse of their climax exploded and fused between them.

  The moment suspended, heartbeats matched, passion spreading out like ribbons to tie them together. Cain felt everything with an odd clarity and when he looked down at her, she was smiling, her teary eyes so somber and heartbreaking. Cain felt his heart shatter.

  “Don’t leave,” he said, dragging her to his side. “Don’t.”

  She said nothing, stroking his face, his hair, and then cradling him to her breast.

  Cain felt emotion grab him, its powerful surge pulling him in, and he wanted it, desperate to latch on tight. But something else tugged at him, the old feelings, old pain, and it wasn’t till he was drifting off to sleep that he realized the chance of his life beckoned, and his ties to his past were only tattered fringes in his mind.

  Cain stood several yards from the shore and tossed a match on the ruined sailboat. The dry, old wood flamed quickly and he sat on the ground, watching it burn to ashes.

  He let himself b
e burdened by guilt. When he woke alone this morning, the scent of Phoebe lingered, reminding him what he was losing for the sake of a ghost.

  It wasn’t so much her words that changed him, it was realizing he hadn’t thought of Lily in weeks, not in the way he had in the past. Now she was an old memory he tried to keep alive for all the wrong reasons.

  He’d made a mistake by trying to love someone he couldn’t. He bore the burden of giving Lily hope when he should have ended their relationship quickly. He would not shoulder the blame any longer.

  Not at the cost of his love for Phoebe.

  I’m done here, he thought.

  Free. Down to his soul.

  The wood popped and hissed as Cain let out a deep breath. He’d known he would come to this place, this moment, someday, but it took Phoebe’s resilience to make him step this close to his past. She gave him the strength, his love for her overshadowing Lily.

  Ashes spiraled toward the sky and he smiled. With it, went his past. His guilt.

  Then he heard the sound of an engine and twisted to look toward the house. In the distance, he could see figures near the garages—Benson, Willis, Mr. Dobbs.

  And Phoebe.

  Cain jumped to his feet, glanced at the dying embers, then ran toward the house.

  She was leaving.

  Phoebe hugged Benson and tried to hide her tears as she walked to her Jeep. The others departed quickly, and she was opening the door when she heard her name and turned. First she saw the trail of smoke spiraling toward the sky, then Cain walking briskly toward her.

  Instantly she noticed something different about him.

  “I’ve never seen you dress like that.” His worn jeans molded his body, the T-shirt snug over his wide chest, but it was the ease of his stride, the softness in his moves that caught her in the chest.

  “I thought it was time I left some things behind, and buried them forever.”

  Phoebe’s heartbeat skipped and stuttered. “What things?”

  He advanced, his steps determined. “The ogre, the guilt. I needed room for other feelings.”

  “Oh, really?”

  He grinned. “God, I love it when you get that sass in your look.”

  Phoebe’s breath caught as he walked right up to her and cradled her face in his cool hands.

  “Don’t leave me.”

  Tears blurred his image. “I can’t stay here locked away with you.”

  “Then don’t. Open more doors with me.” She started to speak, but he kept talking. “Shh, listen to me. I’ve been an idiot.” Her lips quivered at that. “I let myself be trapped, I made my own life more miserable, and yet, you stuck around, you dragged me out of that dark place. Don’t give up on us now. After all we’ve been through, please don’t.”

  She covered his hands. “Oh, Cain.”

  He swallowed, gazing deeply into her green eyes. “I need you so much I can’t breathe without you. You’re my life. I love you, Phoebe DeLongpree, I love you.”

  “Cain.” Her breath caught and a tear fell. “I love you, too. I think I have for years.”

  He smiled, his own eyes burning as he thanked God for her. The other half of his soul. “Stay with me. Make a life with me. Have babies with me.” He brushed his mouth to hers. “Marry me, Phoebe. Marry me, please.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “Yes, yes.”

  “Ahh,” he said. “Thank God.” He captured her mouth, lifting her off her feet and crushing her in his arms. He peppered her face in kisses and she begged for more, laughing. They tumbled to the grass, the dogs rushing to leap and bound over them and Cain flopped to his back, Phoebe in his arms. She stared down at him, her fingers trailing lightly across his brow.

  “I love you,” he said, his gaze sketching her face, the sunlight glittering in her hair.

  A happy tear trickled down her cheek. “Took you long enough.”

  He laughed and squeezed her and smiled, and with her nestled at his side on the sun-kissed grass, peace settled over them, wrapping them in a bright future.

  Cain kissed the top of her head, and could almost feel his ancestors staring down at them, pleased that Nine Oaks was alive with hope again, that laughter would fill its rooms and shower endless Southern nights with a love that would span centuries.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-7407-9

  SECRET NIGHTS AT NINE OAKS

  Copyright © 2005 by Amy J. Fetzer

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  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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