Love in Due Time

by Smartypants Romance

  I glance back at the house and Nathan’s eyes follow the direction of my sight.

  “The Coppersmiths rented their coach house to me when I first started working at the library. The monthly bill was affordable, and they treated me like the daughter they never had. They were unique people and Lodean taught me the ways of Wicca.” Believe in yourself, honey, and the universe will support you.

  “As my neighbors for sixteen years, I was heartbroken when they moved to an assisted living facility in Knoxville. Lodean had dementia.” I shrug with the memory, although I’m not nearly as nonchalant about her disease. “She died a year after their move.”

  My vision blurs and I pause.

  Lodean loved you like a child, Henry told me. She would never rest in peace unless she knew you were provided for.

  “Henry wanted to gift me the coach house and its property. It was one of the most generous gifts I’ve ever been offered, but I never wanted to feel like I took advantage of these people who treated me better than my parents. I insisted Henry sell me the land. I paid one dollar for the house and another dollar for the acre around it.” I smile when I recall the transaction. The shock on the lawyer’s face but the insistence of Henry Coppersmith. He wanted it all legal and written, so no one could take anything else from me. I didn’t have many reasons to remain in Green Valley. I could have gone anywhere after that first year of grief, but their kindness and acceptance gave me new roots. I bloomed where I was planted among the woods, their unconditional love, and a new religion centered around both. The Coppersmiths were family to me.

  “Sadly, Henry died three weeks after his wife. Everyone believed it was one of those romantic moments where a couple couldn’t live without each other. The date was their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. Lodean would have found it ironic.”

  It’s a sign the universe wanted us together for always.

  I glance over at Nathan, finding him fixated on me. The look in his eyes brings heat to my cheeks and I realize I might be talking too much. He’s a vision of calm and collected after our adventurous trek through the woods. His wrist rests on his steering wheel and his large hand dangles beyond it. I’m becoming obsessed with noticing his wrists and I want to reach over and trace the lines of it. The bony edge. The swollen vein. The tender skin underneath.

  “Anyway,” I add, dismissing my rambling and reach for the handle of the passenger door instead. “Thank you for the ride.”

  “Wait.” Nathan hops out and rounds the hood faster than I can say it’s not necessary. He stands outside my door and pops it open, holding it with one hand while he offers me the other. I step out but we don’t move from beside his truck. In fact, keeping my hand in his, I’m pressed up against the side of the vehicle while his other hand curls over the edge of the bed, caging me in. Absentmindedly, he strokes his thumb over the back of my hand, his eyes concentrating on the movement.

  “Can I ask you something? What’s the story with Dwight Henderson?”

  I shrug at first, but the squeeze of Nathan’s hand tells me he isn’t letting this go. I exhale before I relive another painful memory.

  “Dwight is younger than me. He was seventeen; I was twenty-two, and the new librarian. He used to come into the library often to study. He was book smart and working toward a scholarship. He wanted to go to Notre Dame.” I swallow back the images of a young student with big dreams. He was so full of himself. Charismatic and charming and a little dangerous. I had no interest in him. Naomi at twenty-two seemed a world older than a high school teenager.

  I concentrate on the circle Nathan makes over my hand. “He was only in high school, and I think …” It seems foolish to admit what I thought back then. “I helped him study. Worked on problems with him. I think he was attracted to my intelligence.”

  “He had a crush on you,” Nathan says definitively.

  “Maybe.” I chew at the corner of my lip and his thumb strokes increase in pressure, the circling growing more intense and drawn out.

  “Did he make advances? Ask you out?” Nathan’s voice rolls with concern and hesitation.

  “He did, but I didn’t see it as anything more than him offering to buy me coffee to pay me back for studying with him. I said no.”

  Nathan nods, as if piecing together his own version of a rejected seventeen-year-old interested in a slightly older woman.

  “Tell me what ‘capture the witch’ means.”

  I gasp. How does he know about that? “It was a long time ago.”

  Nathan releases his hand from the edge of his truck and tips up my chin, so I look at him. His eyes spark, telling me to trust him, asking me to open up to him.

  “They were just kids,” I tell him—tell myself—but my lip quivers with the memory and Nathan shakes his head, warning me that my explanation isn’t enough. “Dwight and a group of his friends cornered me outside the community center before the annual Halloween party. I kicked and screamed and …” My voice falters as I recall being gagged and tied and tossed into a back seat. I tremble with self-shame at my physical reaction. “They took me to Cooper’s Field where they released me. I might have said some mean things to them.”

  “Mean things?” Nathan snorts exasperated. “He kidnapped you. I think insulting his dick is the least you could do.”

  My head snaps up. “How did you know about that?”

  “Dwight told me. They didn’t … they didn’t touch you.” He looks ready to pummel someone.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know what they intended to do to me, but two men on motorcycles pulled into the field. They demanded the boys let me go. Told me to forget anything happened which I promised to do. I was told to run, and I held my breath until I realized no one was following me.”

  “Jesus.” Nathan hisses, swiping a hand over his head in irritation. “Who were the men on bikes? Do you remember?”

  “I don’t know. Someone named T-bone, maybe.”

  “Repo?” Nathan’s jaw clenches and his hand returns to the truck’s edge, caging me back into his space.

  “Could have been.”

  “Did you call the sheriff?” His forehead furrows with concern.

  “Who would believe me against a group of popular kids? I was the new librarian that no one had heard of and I liked it that way.” I shrug. I didn’t need to be a spectacle in a new town. I’d already been kicked out of my old one. “The motorcycle guys told me not to talk and I didn’t, thinking it was safer for me.”

  “I hate that Dwight did this to you. I hate the rumors about you. You should have …” His voice falters and his head lowers, resting against mine. “I’m so sorry. Holy God, you were lucky.” He tugs me to him, wrapping both arms around me and tenderly holding me with a hand on the back of my head and another at my lower back. It’s nice, comforting, safe.

  Nathan can’t stop stupid men from being evil or immature teens from acting dumb, but the person I need safeguarding from the most is Nathan himself. I’m at great risk of falling for him, and my heart is the part that needs protection.

  “Holy God? Did you mean Horned God?” I question, wishing to lighten the aura around us and not talk about what happened any longer.

  “Who’s a horny god?” He teases, pushing me from him and chuckling hesitantly.

  “Witch humor,” I tease in return, wiggling a brow at him. He laughs deeper, the revelations of the night dissipating for a moment, and he lifts my hand to his lips, kissing my knuckles.

  “I’m so glad nothing happened to you. Well, nothing more extreme …” He tugs my hand to his chest, flattening the palm over his left pec and his heart races underneath the soft cotton of his Henley shirt. I stare at my hand, absorbing his heat and his relief. It’s as if I can feel the tension slowly release from him. He leans forward and kisses me, cautious lips covering mine to reassure me I’m safe. It’s sweet. He’s sweet.

  Please, universe, let me keep him.

  His mouth on mine is all cookie dough in vanilla ice cream and we slowly grow more e
ager, more hungry, more let-me-get-to-the-chocolate-chip-center-of-you. His arms slip around me, tugging me into his chest and I grip his open jacket like I did the other day, tethering myself to him with my grasp. As the kiss heats, he pulls back, breathing heavily and holding me at arm’s length, fingers digging into my shoulders.

  Forget melting ice cream. The fire in his eyes is the color of charcoal, prepped and sizzling with desire.

  “We need to …” He doesn’t finish his thought but swallows hard. I feel the same. Slow down. I should ask him inside, but I don’t know if I’m ready for this, ready for him. Allowing him into my home, my sanctuary, feels too soon, but there’s no denying I want him. I want him like I’ve only ever wanted him because there’s been no one else in between.

  Yet, while my body says yes, yes, yes, my heart says take caution this time around.

  “Does this count as date one?” I inquire, hoping he’ll let us out of his experiment. It isn’t that I don’t want to date him, but I am frightened of what dating him might mean. I’m so drawn to him and I don’t think I can take the heartbreak of three dates, which will only prove we aren’t compatible because we aren’t the Naomi and Nathan of then. We’re us now.

  “This is definitely not a date,” he growls, staring down at me. “I’ll be picking you up on Friday at seven. Wear something warm and comfortable. Casual for outdoors.” His eyes rake down my long coat draped to the top of my boots. It’s functional, not fashionable, but it keeps me warm.

  “Friday then,” I say, unable to fight the grin curling my lips. Nathan shakes his head with a soft chuckle.

  “Witch or not, Naomi Winters, you’ve put a spell on me, and I don’t want it broken.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Dewey Decimal Classification: 367 General Clubs

  [Naomi]

  * * *

  When Friday arrives, I pace my living room, chanting words of encouragement and slipping my black tourmaline crystal up and down the leather strap around my neck to calm me. I also wear a bracelet of garnet spessartine—a set of orangish colored, polished stone-looking beads—which opens the sacral chakra, one of the seven which balances the energy in our systems. The sacral chakra is linked to our sexual health. In other words, I don’t want anything holding me back from letting my inner goddess explore a bit with Nathan, should the opportunity arise.

  Am I still concerned about a catastrophe if I’m with Nathan? Not quite as much.

  I mean, the world won’t end, but my heart might not survive him again.

  On a night like tonight, I miss Bethany. I have so many questions. Because while Vilma’s Videos have helped me discover myself, I don’t know how to be with another person. Be yourself, Bethany would say. She was surprisingly down to earth and open about things. Beautiful inside and out, smart, funny, kind, and full of sage advice, I’ll never understand how she got mixed up with a wicked man like her husband Darrell or how she had seven children by him. Some days I’m grateful her soul rests with the angels even if she was taken too young from this earth. Other days, I miss her like crazy.

  A knock on my door makes me jump out of my skin, even though I’ve been expecting him. After I open the door, his eyes roam my body, and for a second, I worry he’s disappointed. I’m wearing an olive-colored dress with thick leggings. My traditional lace-up boots and a bulky scarf around my neck. I don’t own skinny jeans, cute fashion booties, or anything of the sort. My long, loose clothing has been my armor, but in the last week, I find myself wearing a few more revealing pieces of my wardrobe.

  “You look pretty,” he says, and my feminist friends be damned. I’m not changing my appearance for a man, but let’s be honest, when someone calls you pretty as a genuine compliment, you feel it, you own it a little. Let me clarify, a slow change has begun for me, not for Nathan, although Nathan plays a part because of how he makes me feel about myself.

  I argue with myself as my eyes focus on his lips, and I watch as his mouth crooks up at the corner. Dimple alert. Caught staring, I don’t even think I’ve said hello. My gaze shifts to his eyes, finding the gray crystallized with something bright and tummy-dropping. Hunger—for me.

  “You look nice, but will you be warm enough in that if we hang outside a bit?”

  I swipe a hand down my hip. The dress is sweatshirt material with a fuzzy inside. “I’ll be fine.” I reach for my long coat which will keep me extra warm, but Nathan stretches for it as well and then holds it open. I’m awkward in response to his gentlemanly attention. My brain struggles to mesh my memory of Nathan as the slick motorcycle man at the Fugitive, so sure in his appeal to women with this new considerate version.

  He drags my hair from the collar of my coat. Pre-mature gray hasn’t lessened the weight despite the coarser texture. “Your hair is so long and heavy.” The rugged timbre of his voice at my ear sends a shiver down the back of my neck. My mouth waters as I imagine his lips kissing me at the nape. I’m a shaky mess and we haven’t even left yet. The sexual aura-awakening bracelet might be overkill. I’m already awakened to him. To distract myself, I take a fistful of my hair and twist the curls until I can tuck the heaviness under a knit beanie.

  “Where are we going?” I ask, my excitement growing a little bit. I haven’t been anywhere other than library conventions in years.

  “I hope you like it,” he says, scratching at the scruff under his chin, a nervous habit I’ve noticed, which makes him sound hesitant about our plans.

  The last thing I expect is where we end up.

  The Canyon.

  Generically named, it’s where locals go for illegal car racing. Red clay and dirt walls are exposed on three sides of an abandoned mine. A dirt track fills the center of the canyon floor. Industrial lights highlight the oval. The air smells like wet dirt, gasoline, engine oil … and bonfires. Three moderate pyres burn at intervals along the side not lined with rock.

  I’ve never been here before, only heard about it, and it’s not a place I thought I’d ever visit. The atmosphere feels sinister, dangerous, and a bit rebellious. It’s definitely a place I would have snuck off to as a teenager, if I had known about it. We were relatively secluded in Cedar Gap—additionally sequestered by our parents. Once Jebediah was old enough to rebel—stealing motorcycles or “borrowing” the car—I’d occasionally be sprung from our parental imprisonment Older than me, my brother sympathized with me on the cage we felt we lived in and he’d allow me to sneak off with him for what he deemed safe destinations. The Canyon wasn’t one of those places, and I’m not the risk-taking girl I used to be. Presently, I’m sorely out of place here among the black leather and exposed skin.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” I say almost immediately after exiting Nathan’s truck. He wears a leather jacket and a dark look on his face as he reaches for my hand.

  “Give it a chance. This place has everything. Good food. Lots of drinks. And heart-racing entertainment.”

  “Racetrack humor,” I mutter, and Nathan squeezes my fingers. My lips twist in disbelief, but I note the food booths and the beer truck as we walk closer to the main crowd of people. This really isn’t my type of entertainment but then again, I haven’t had much adventure in eighteen years. Open your mind, I remind myself.

  “Do me a favor? Just stick it out for a little bit. Hold my hand no matter what though.” The last statement is a warning of sorts. Fortunately, I have no intention of letting him go.

  Nathan leads me to a barbeque booth, and I admit the food smells divine. I decline a beer but don’t judge when he orders one. We watch the first race and I find it surprisingly exhilarating. I’d love to let loose and speed through life, but fear holds me back from doing something so carefree as racing.

  “Wolf, is that you?” A man dressed head to toe in leather approaches us and reaches out to shake Nathan’s hand. Nathan hesitantly chuckles as he grips the offered hand but squeezes mine to remind me to stay attached to his.

  “Catfish, long time no see.” Nathan’s tone sugges
ts otherwise.

  “I knew you’d come around,” Catfish says before turning to an older gentleman next to him. “Dirty Dave, can you believe who snuck in?”

  “Sneaking around always was his thing,” the older man says, his eyes roaming over Nathan before leering at me. I shiver and step closer to Nathan’s arm. “And who is this?” His nose wrinkles like he’s smelled something bad, as if his own name doesn’t suggest something which might stink.

  “This is Naomi. She’s with me.” The way Nathan introduces me turns my head. The deep timbre of his voice speaks of possession and warning in volumes. My other hand reaches for his bicep and I stare at the twitch in his jaw. He’s not only making a statement. He’s telling them something. I swivel to face both men again.

  “Okay,” Dirty Dave says, his voice rough but accepting. His eyes narrow. “Do I know you?”

  I shake my head as Nathan states, “Never seen her before.” It’s more a threat than a declaration of the truth.

  “Come have a drink,” Catfish mutters. He steps away, moving toward one of the bonfires, and Nathan leads me to follow. I want to ask what just happened—what all of this means—but I don’t.

  My nose registers scents from the bonfire we approach. Birch. Oak. Pine. The birch could be a sign of new beginnings, but my surroundings tell me the practice of racing here has been around a bit. Oak—a masculine tree—means money and good fortune. Obviously, money will be exchanged here in hopes of success. Pine is the scent which throws me off and I can only assume it’s convenient for starting fires, as it ignites quickly. Then, I tell myself to quit reading into things. This isn’t Beltane season, nor a Samhain celebration. The sudden roar of engines reminds me this is a racetrack with innocuous bonfires.