by Maggie Marr
“Thank you.”
The familiar voice jerked Tulsa back to this reality. She stiffened and pulled from Cade’s touch. Savannah stood beside them. Her fingers clasped her purse. Her shoulders were a bit slumped forward and her jaw soft—her eyes a bit reddened.
She opened her mouth to speak, but her chin trembled and she paused, big tears forming in her eyes. Savannah rolled her eyes upward and gazed at the stars high above their heads. She took a deep breath, a cleansing breath, before she settled her shoulders and looked back at Cade and Tulsa.
“Bobby and I decided that Ash should stay here to finish high school.” Her voice was soft and her lips, while they quivered, they still turned up into a smile. “He’ll come to visit and she’ll go to see him—we’ll work it out, but she will finish high school here, in Powder Springs.”
Tulsa’s faced cracked into a smile.
“Sounds like she’s got a couple of smart parents,” Cade said.
“Does Ash know?” Tulsa asked. Her eyes drifted from Savannah toward Ash, who still stood with her friends on the far side of the town square.
“Bobby spoke to Ash about it and it’s all good. Seems she was having some doubts about leaving her friends…” Savannah’s words broke off and her chest started to bounce in the rhythm of soft, gentle sobs. “And leaving me.”
Tulsa stood and wrapped her sister in a gentle hug.
“I’m just… I’m so happy,” Savannah whispered. “I almost lost her, she… she… wanted to leave me, and now…” Her words fell into her silent crying.
“She didn’t want to leave you.” Tulsa leaned back so she could look her sister in the eyes. “She just wants to grow up. It’s a push-pull. You know that.”
They both turned their gaze toward Ash, who now looked over her shoulder toward her aunt and her mother. A tiny hint of a smile as she waved at both. She pointed toward Dylan and then made a steering motion with her hands.
Savannah took a deep breath. “Why is this so hard?” she whispered.
“Because you love her.”
Savannah looked out of the corner of her eyes at Tulsa. “I need to say yes, don’t I? She wants Dylan to bring her home, and I need to say yes.”
“You’re her mom; you need to do what you know is right. What you know she can handle.”
Savannah looked toward Ash, who was still waiting for her mother’s response to her request. Savannah nodded, then held up ten fingers to let Ash know what time she needed to be home. Ash rolled her eyes, shook her head, flashed ten fingers and then two more. Savannah flashed back ten and one more. Ash shrugged and nodded. Negotiations closed, Savannah turned toward Tulsa.
“This is going to be the toughest four years of my life,” Savannah said. “But I am so grateful I get to have them.” Her gaze drifted from Ash to Cade, who still sat on the bench, a silent observer to the McGrath family drama. “Thank you,” Savannah said again, her voice softer, her tone humble. “Bobby told me what you said to him about continuity and stability and family—it meant a lot to him and to Ash.” Savannah paused. “And to me.”
“The best place for Ash right now is here with you—with what she knows. She’s got her whole life to explore the world and spend time with her dad, but right now? Well, it’s a good thing for a high-school kid to have stability and continuity and family.”
“Yeah,” Savannah said. “It is.” She pulled in a tender breath of air and released it. Tension drained from her face and her body. A smile emerged on her lips. “I’ve got to go do my shift at the volleyball booster booth.” She turned and hugged Tulsa. “See you at home,” Savannah whispered and then she glanced toward Cade. “Maybe. It seems to me, with that wolfish expression on his face, that Mr. Montgomery may have other plans for you this evening.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cade stopped his truck under the stand of pine trees beside the tiny hunting lodge and killed the lights. The darkness, deep and black, spread across the sky decorated with millions of pinpricks of light. Even while her heart thumped against her ribs, a stillness from knowing she was exactly where she wanted to be flooded Tulsa’s body and mind. She turned her head slightly to the right and gazed at the handcrafted building with its roughhewn wood, tin roof, and wood-slat porch. A flat stone path led from the gravel drive where they were parked to the lodge. A beaten and weathered welcome sign hung from the door.
“You remember this place?”
“How could I forget it?”
Memory after memory ricocheted through her mind and heat filled her. This was the spot where she and Cade had planned their future. Curled up in front of a fire with a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine between them, they planned where they would go to college, how they would practice law together, when they would get married, how many children they would have. All of it—each plan, each idea, each dream they had for a shared life—was now, years later, merely a memory. And all those dreams would, it seemed, forever remain only memories. Even with Ash’s custody case resolved there was no easy solution to the breach that had shattered their relationship when they were eighteen.
This was also the spot where their teenaged bodies had tangled into one molten mass and with practice eventually found pleasure.
The screen door creaked as Cade pushed the door open for Tulsa to enter. The room smelled of past fires and cigars and the musky but not unpleasant odor of men. This had always been a place that Hudd and then Wayne and Cade inhabited. Once upon a time she may have been the only woman to enter this male-centric clubhouse. A worn rug was just past the threshold on an unstained wooden floor. The inside was utilitarian. A tiny kitchen equipped with a table big enough for poker games and meals, a stove, a refrigerator, and one bedroom.
“I’ll get a fire started,” Cade said. He grabbed two logs and some kindling and lay all of it into the hearth.
Tulsa walked along the wall and gazed at the framed pictures of Montgomery men. This place oozed masculinity. She knew what she was doing here in this place with Cade. They were reliving shared memories and acting upon a shared fantasy. She walked back toward the front room where Cade knelt before the fireplace. She was okay with this. She wanted this, these moments with Cade, even if they were merely pinpricks of time on the trajectory of her life. If they couldn’t have each other for forever they could have each other for now. The fire crackled to life and with it warmth entered the room.
“That helps,” Cade said. He stood and turned to Tulsa. In the firelight she saw the boy that she had fallen in love with as well as the man she desperately wanted.
“You know, the case is over but that doesn’t change anything, it only—”
Cade placed his fingertip on her lips. His eyes looked into hers.
“I know,” he said. “We both know. I live here and you live there. You’re a McGrath and I’m a Montgomery.”
His eyes were serious. He pulled his finger from her lips and let his fingertip glide up the hollow of her cheek. His eyes followed the warm path left by touch.
“I want one night.” His voice was hoarse, rough with need. “One night to ignore all the obstacles. One night to be with you and hold you and love you. I want to wake up beside you.”
His fingers brushed into her hair and with the gentlest of pressures he brought her forward, their lips so close their breath intermingled, the weight of the heat between them, a banked fire that waited for just this moment. Cade licked his lips and looked at her. The tenseness of his want strung his body tight and Tulsa could feel the pressure to take her, to have her, that pulled her to him as if it was a power he could just barely rein in.
“This one night is worth all the pain of every other night that I won’t get to hold you or have you. Tonight we let the past go,” Cade said.
With his words, this edict, this final proclamation, his lips were on hers and the heat burst. The fire raced upward in her body—pulsing and humming to the rhythm of Cade’s kiss. His mouth consumed her. He pressed his lips onto hers with a barely restrained fierc
eness, a possessiveness that devoured them both. His tongue pushed into her, seeking and exploring. Her legs trembled and her hands grasped his back with a solid desire.
With a sense of her need, he pulled her sweater over her head. A gasp rushed through her as his hand reach down and unsnapped the front of her bra and cupped her breast. With a firm hand he pressed and kneaded. Her breath caught. Cade pulled his mouth from hers and leaned his head down; his lips took the tight bud of her nipple into the hot wetness of his mouth. White-hot heat shot through her limbs. His tongue caressed her nipple and a low moan eased from her throat. Heat seared through her body and pulsed to the V between her legs. His hand unbuttoned her jeans and shucked them from her body.
He pulled his lips away and in one strong motion he lifted her. His mouth found hers again and he carried her into the bedroom. He lowered her onto the bed and left her only long enough to start a fire in the bedroom hearth.
With the blaze roaring behind him, Cade stood over the bed and watched her. His eyes caressed every inch of her. She gazed at him and grew wetter with the hollowed look of hunger on his face. Her entire body was exposed to his hungry look.
He lifted his shirt and pulled it over his head. His hard-quilted muscles danced with the shadows and light and her body trembled. Cade reached forward and with one fingertip stroked up the inside of her calf. A slow and languid touch. Cade’s finger wound its way up over her thigh where her hips arched in anticipation of his touch—the touch she wanted—the heat pooling between her legs. She closed her eyes and forced breath in and out of her lungs, the pleasure and the desire swamping her, making her body tremble. The hot wetness between her legs begged for him to slip his fingertip under her panties.
The slightest pause just above the sweetest little spot between her legs. But his fingertip drifted upward across her stomach and to her breast.
Tulsa rolled to her side and reached for the button on his jeans and her hands unclasped each button. While he remained still his eyes never left hers. The blackness of his pupils devoured the blue of his eyes. She pushed at his jeans and his cock, long and hard, sprang free. Her hands grasped the top and her thumb ran over the head. Cade bent forward as if the pleasure of it was too much. She stroked upward and down as a thick and rhythmic breath came from him that mirrored the rhythm of her touch.
She leaned forward and kissed up the long, thick shaft, the veins swollen and thick with pleasure. She looked at his face through her lashes as his fingertips made circles in her hair. His face was encased in shadows of desire; his lips parted as his breath came in jagged bursts. She felt him, the need in him for her to take him deep within her mouth, to plunge over his cock and suck, and yet he held still. His thighs trembled under the want, and still she lapped at the head, flicked with her tongue, stroked with her hands—the pressure and touch growing faster and deeper; then when she felt the guttural growl come from him, she plunged her mouth over his cock and took him. She sucked hard and long, stroking him from the base of his shaft to the tip. Cade let loose a low moan. His well-muscled stomach pulled upward as he still bent over her, his hand on the mattress holding him steady. Then in one quick motion, he placed both hands over her cheeks and pulled her away.
“I can’t take that right now.” He gently pushed her onto her back. His solid, thick body was over her now, his cock hard between them. He was on all fours and she reached for him to stroke him, but he bent his head to her breast, sucking and pulling his lips, then moving down over her belly, his hard cock slipping away from her reach. His tongue trailed over her to the edge of her panties. His fingertips danced around the edge that lay in the crease of her leg. Her hips arched high and pressed against him, wanting the pressure of his touch, the sweet release of his cock. Slowly he pulled her panties away from her. He split her legs wide with his hands and lay over her. She felt his breath on her as he parted her. His lips roamed over the inside of her left thigh, the hottest of breaths, the tiniest of pauses, a hint of what might be satisfaction, before his lips touched and teased the inside of her right leg.
Her body arched in rhythm, wanting him. His lips descended again and this time there was the pause and then the searing heat that pulsed through her as his tongue found her hot nub. First he flicked at her, drawing her hips up wildly, and then his mouth covered her as he sucked. His fingers found her and pressed up and into her as his tongue massaged her, drawing her out, forcing her over and over so near to the edge, until her body convulsed and shattered.
Then his mouth was off her sweet spot and covering her mouth, his cock driving into her, the thick, hard shaft filling her and pushing her and splitting her as her mouth took his, and his tongue entwined with hers. Riding higher and harder and further, his body pressed into hers until there was nothing between them, nothing but them together, only them, and they shattered together into millions of sparkling pieces.
*
Cade woke. The room was filled with cold. He rose and placed two logs on the fire. He slipped back into bed and gazed at the creature beside him—Tulsa. His heart felt full. His emotion deeper than just a desire that he’d spent a lifetime trying to deny. He reached out and brushed his fingertips along her cheek. A tiny smile curved her lips and her eyes fluttered open. In the darkness, with the firelight, her eyes sparkled.
“Hey, you,” Cade said. His fingertips played in her hair. A sleepy smile lazed on her lips.
“I was having a really good dream that involved you and a hunting lodge,” Tulsa said, her voice soft with sleep.
“Not a dream.” He returned her smile and pulled her closer with his arm. He needed her closer, the heat of her, the scent of her, the want of her. He took a deep breath, needing her to fill his lungs. “This is as real as it gets.” With his words the smile eased from her lips and was replaced by a more serious look. A look that seemed to turn toward the impermanence of this moment. This want between them that withstood heartache, battles, death, rumors, time, and distance.
“But only for tonight,” Tulsa said, her breath heavy after her words, as though she wished the thought to be different.
“I want more,” Cade said, his voice strong yet soft. The idea of Tulsa in his life again took root.
“I’m not sure how that would work.”
Cade pondered her words, turned them over in his mind. Finally he said, “We don’t need to be certain of how it would work. We just need to know that we want to try.”
Tulsa’s gaze dropped away from his face as though she couldn’t get her mind to surrender to the thought. The idea that they could surmount the obstacle that still lay between them. The obstacle that stood like an impenetrable mountain, the obstacle of Connie and Hudd. Their beliefs were so fundamentally different as to what had happened that night.
“I don’t want to be held hostage by what happened. I don’t want to lose you again over a tragedy from nearly two decades ago. Neither one of us can make guarantees about the future, but we can agree to try.” He tilted her chin up and caught her gaze. “Can’t we at least agree we deserve to try?”
“Yes,” Tulsa whispered, a tentative smile curved onto her face. “We can agree to try.”
A solid hope encapsulated Cade’s heart and then he pulled her close, determined to never let her go.
*
When Tulsa woke the next morning, the spot beside her was cold. Sunlight streamed in through the windows. She glanced around the room, but she was alone. She heard the muffled sounds of Cade’s voice in the other room. His tone rose and fell, but she couldn’t make out the words. Once he was finished on the phone, she heard his heavy footfalls until he stood in the doorway.
“You’re awake.” He stood stiffly, one hand on the doorjamb, the other still holding his phone. His posture didn’t match the passion, the emotion, the vulnerability that had charged between them the night before.
“And cold,” Tulsa said. A shiver chased up her spine and she pulled the quilt tighter around her naked frame.
“I’d start a fire
but…” His eyes met hers. “We have to go.”
She didn’t ask why—his stance, his demeanor, his hard eyes, all indicated that whatever the reason, their leaving was a must and her knowing why was irrelevant. Tulsa slid across the rumpled sheets until her feet touched the cold floorboards. Cade had been honest; last night he’d said he wanted only one night. One night to be beside her, to love her, to wake with her—and he’d had all three. His words of a possible future together had been fantasy. A fantasy fueled by pheromones, and sparkling stars, and lust, and the darkness of night. Now he stood alone on the other side of the room, already clothed. He turned away from her and faced the window, as if embarrassed by the vulnerability of her nakedness.
She reached for her underwear and jeans. A heavy feeling pulsed through her; she was neither embarrassed nor ashamed. She was a grown woman who wanted sex with him, who cared for him, but perhaps in the slimmest of moments she’d hoped, thought, that there was a chance to overcome the boulder that still lay between them. His cold look and solid stance, the way his eyes darted toward the door, longing to be free of this moment, told her that her slim hope had been an impossible dream.
“It’s my dad,” Cade finally said, as though the word “dad” caused a knot to form in his throat. “He’s in the hospital again. That was Wayne. Last night—” Cade ran his fingers through his hair. “It was a stroke and I just… I guess I feel like I should have been there.”
“Will he be okay?” Tulsa stood and slid her jeans up over her hips. Gone was the stoic coldness of Cade, replaced by a worry that hung in his eyes.
“They’re not certain yet about the physical and the mental impact. They’ve got him medicated.”
Tulsa pulled her sweater over her head and slipped her curls out of the collar. “You want me to come with you?”
Cade looked up and the tentative questioning in his eyes was her answer. He wouldn’t have to ask out loud.