You make a good man of me. Paul’s face now floated in front of the bag.
“Why? So you could repent? Did taking care of your sickly wife make up for killing your parents?” She jabbed the bag, once, twice. It struck her as so true, it took her breath away. He’d been stoic, so glad to accommodate her illness. And before that, so willing to protect her from her wretched childhood. His penance. That’s what she’d been, his penance.
She attacked the bag, beating it the way she’d beaten on Mitch’s chest back in New Hampshire. With a last, fierce punch, she sent the bag rocking back, only to have it rebound and knock her backward … into Mitch. They both went sprawling onto the floor, but she wasn’t sure if landing on Mitch’s hard body had saved her much discomfort. With her awkward gloved hands, she tried to right herself. He placed his hands around her waist and set her on the floor next to him.
“I thought you said it didn’t hit back,” she said, trying to gather both her dignity and her senses.
“You pounded on it but good. Feel better?”
Another piece of the glacier broke away, and all at once she felt raw and exposed. She couldn’t meet his eyes, ashamed of what she’d revealed. She wrapped her arms around her legs, gloves bumping each other. “Yeah, sure.”
He shook his head. “You’re doing it again, that frost thing.”
The anger settled comfortably around her shoulders. The ice had reformed its protective shelter around her soul. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry to me. Be sorry for yourself. Jenna, you had it. I could see it in your eyes, you were letting go.”
The current song was softer, and Jenna heard, “For all tomorrow’s lies.” She listened to the words, about having someone to love through the storms, for tomorrow’s lies. She nodded, meeting his eyes at last. “I know. I could feel it breaking away.” She wiped one glove across her cheek, surprised not to find wetness there. “I was afraid,” she admitted in a whisper.
“Of what?”
“Of what would be left once the anger went away. You’re right. It is part of me, and maybe it’s always been part of me. It feels comfortable, like an old friend. Maybe there won’t be anything left of me once the anger’s gone.”
He reached out and cupped her chin, thumb stroking back and forth below her mouth. “Take a chance. It’s better to deal with whatever you’re feeling than to hide from it. Then you can put it behind you.”
She batted his hand away with her bulky glove. “I’ll bet you’ve never hidden from anything in your life.”
He chuckled softly. “Not since my dad stopped walloping us with the ruler.”
“Will you take these off, please?”
He braced her hand between his thighs and untied the laces. When her hands were free, she wiggled her fingers and rubbed the moisture off on her shorts. He bounced one leg with a restless energy she could feel, drumming his fingers on the carpet.
“I’m not ready,” she said, sensing that he was waiting for an answer of some kind. “When I’m ready, I have to do it alone.” If she was going to feel that vulnerable, she didn’t want Mitch there, didn’t want to feel the need to reach out to him.
He got to his feet and extended a hand to her. “It’s all right to reach out for help.”
She eyed him, wondering if he knew how he’d read her mind. Reluctantly she linked fingers with him and let him pull her to her feet. “That’s easy for you to say. You’ve got people here who care about you, who will stand by you no matter what.”
He hadn’t let go of her hand yet, instead squeezing her fingers. “So do you, Jenna.”
His words squeezed her heart the same way his fingers squeezed hers. She thought of Betzi, Etta, Dave and Scotty, all a part of Mitch’s family whether they were related or not. Of course, Tawny wanted to be related, but Jenna couldn’t blame the woman for wanting this, wanting Mitch.
“You were right about the strongest emotions being love and hate,” she said, pulling her hand free because it felt too good entwined with his. “But it’s a lot easier to hate, believe me. You risk nothing by hating someone. You risk everything by loving them.”
With his finger, he pushed away a strand of hair from her cheek. “It’s a lot like the difference between having sex and making love. There’s a hell of a lot more at stake.”
And then he walked past her toward the door. He stopped in the doorway, still finding her standing there with his words knocking her system for a one-two punch. “Are you coming? Or having second thoughts about pounding me into the Christmas season?”
Making love, making love … the words echoed through her mind during the walk back to the house. Was he talking about what they’d experienced? He had used the word love in regard to getting physical, but what did he really mean by it?
If only she could sort out Paul’s part in all this. She had his heart, and that heart still had a connection to Mitch. Mitch had even felt Paul’s love, so how much of that influenced what he now felt for her, whatever that was?
They were walking through the pine trees now, back into night air that was so different from what she was used to, yet felt so familiar somehow. Mitch walked beside her, quiet but for the sound of his footsteps on the pine-needle-covered ground.
Harvey’s fur brushed her bare leg as he waltzed by, making her jump. She patted the place over her heart, that treacherous, mysterious heart, and said, “Scared me. I’d forgotten he was there.”
“Lost in thought, are we?”
“Lost …” She paused, wondering when her heartbeat would at last resume its normal rhythm. “Lost in a vast mining tunnel system without a light.” She could feel his questioning gaze even in the dim moonlight that filtered down through the trees. “Lost in a foreign land without a translation book or a map. Lost like a blind person dropped into the center of New York City. All around me I know the colors are brilliant, yellows, reds, pinks, but it’s like I’m colorblind. They’re there, but I can’t see them.”
He stood in front of her, warm and solid and real, one of those colors she couldn’t see. “I don’t know how to help you, Jenna. But I can bring you a light in the tunnels. I can give you a map if you tell me where you want to go. I can lead you out of the city if you hold onto me.” He shook his head. “But the colors … I don’t know how to show you the colors.”
“You’ve shown me the colors. When I’ve let you, you’ve shown me. But mostly I’m afraid to see them.” The air was heavy and still around them. He would show her the way, give her the light, lead her from the darkness, if only she would let him. Slowly she reached out until she felt his skin. Her fingers wrapped around his arm, felt his muscles tighten, then relax. “You said if I deal with my emotions, I can put them behind me. If I deal with the way I feel about you, will I get past that, too?”
“How do you feel about me?”
She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come right away. Finally she said, “I don’t know. I don’t know how I should feel about you. I told you I was lost.”
He leaned forward and kissed her, a warm, languorous kiss that instantly deepened when she opened her mouth to his. Now her heart was pounding like crazy from this, the first kiss that had come from something deeper than passion. He took a step closer, threading his fingers across her temples and into her hair, tilting her head back. Her arms went around his waist, pulling him closer until their bodies flattened against each other. She could feel the length of him press into her stomach. His legs straddled hers, as though he couldn’t bring her close enough.
He finished the kiss, touching his lips to hers a few times, then opening her mouth once again to his. This felt so right, and in his arms she didn’t feel lost anymore. She wanted him to dispel the doubt in her heart — about her heart. But he couldn’t do that; only she could. Maybe he would lead her to the truth.
She heard him sigh, then realized the long, soft sound had come from her. He followed that with another sound that came from deep in his throat. He tilted her head back and
kissed down her jawline. She was swept into a dazzling oblivion, sending her heart into overdrive.
We’ll get caught out here.
Paul’s voice, echoing through her mind and heart as his brother made her crazy with his kisses.
No, we won’t. We’ll be quiet.
Becky’s voice whispered in the dark. Jenna could see them out here in the patch of pines, Becky pulling Paul up against her as she leaned on the tree. “Stop being such a worrywart and kiss me, you fool.” She gave his derriere a squeeze, and he didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed about it.
In fact, Paul covered Becky’s body with his, smothering her mouth and making gusty noises despite his worries. “I want you so bad,” he whispered between kisses, working on the buttons of her blouse. “I’ve got protection.”
“We don’t have to use it,” she said. “I trust you.”
“My dad would kill me if you got pregnant.” He pulled her blouse apart, exposing creamy, full breasts in the moonlight spilling through the trees. His mouth worked down the side of her neck, over her collarbone to nuzzle first one breast, then the other. His saliva left slick patches.
“Paul, Paul, oh, Paul,” she uttered, burrowing her fingers in his hair.
He undid the zipper on her shorts, still licking and nibbling at her breasts. He pushed her shorts down, then stripped down to nothing. With a snap of his arm, he tugged her down to the mat of pine needles.
“Do me, Paul. Do me right this instant.”
Jenna felt herself in the flashback, felt her keen desire to get out before she saw anymore. It was Mitch’s voice that brought her back, though.
“Jenna, for God’s sake, what’s happening?”
She blinked, finding him shaking her the way he had at the house in New Hampshire. “I’m here,” she said, putting her hand to her pounding heart.
“You did it again, didn’t you? Went off on some … journey in Paul’s head.”
She nodded, feeling weird and dirty and oddly aroused at the same time. “He and Becky —”
He dropped his hands and turned. “Jenna, do you know what I think when you do that? That you’re dying. Your pulse is racing, your eyes are blank, and I can’t get you to respond to me. I thought your heart was rejecting like you said it could do.” He exhaled loudly. “What did you see this time?”
She ran her hand over her stomach. “They were making love. Right here.” She’d never seen Paul like that. Of course, she’d never seen him with another woman, but he’d never even been that way with her.
Mitch shook his head, and even in the dim light, she could see frustration in his face. “Why did he pick this particular moment?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because they’d been kissing here against this tree.” The beautiful moment was shattered, and she longed to call it back and forget Paul making love to Becky.
“I know Paul and I made a vow, and I tried really hard to keep it.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Okay, not hard enough, but I tried, and I beat myself up every time I violated that vow with you. Even when I thought about violating that vow. But just now, when I kissed you, it was like I was released from it. I thought, hell, I’m alive and he’s dead, and he doesn’t deserve your love anyway and, well, it just didn’t make sense anymore.” His mouth tightened. “So, did you kiss me back because you saw him and Becky?”
“No! Of course not. That happened after I’d kissed you back. Did you kiss me because you were feeling something from him?”
He took a step away, then turned back to her. “I told you I don’t feel anything from him anymore. I’m not the one having his thoughts while we’re kissing. You are.”
She shrunk back from him. “It wasn’t as if I was thinking about him on purpose, or pretending I was kissing him.”
“Maybe not, but Jenna, I’ll never know with you. I don’t do anything half-way, especially not kissing a woman. Or loving her. But you’ve got all this other crap going on in your heart, and it’s messing with my head big time.”
Did he love her? Her throat went tight at those words, and though she should be responding to his other words, she couldn’t get past the question in her mind. Did he mean loving her or making love to her, or were they the same to him?
“Come on,” he said before she could gather her words together. “Let’s go back to the house before I do something rash.”
“Like what?”
“Jenna,” he growled, “Don’t push me right now.”
She didn’t want to leave things like this. Something inside her desperately wanted to make things right, but she didn’t know how. Everything he’d said was true.
As they reached the door leading into the house, she said, “I told you I was lost.”
That stopped him, stiffening his body like a board. He slowly turned around. His voice was low and somber. “Maybe I don’t have a map or a light. Maybe I can’t help you after all.”
He walked inside, leaving the door open for her to follow. She walked up and closed it, needing one of the nightly walks she used to take back home. First she walked around the massive house, realizing she was looking for Mitch in the kitchen. This wasn’t working; she needed him out of her mind, before she went that way herself. Too late! an inner voice taunted. Not Paul’s but her own.
Mitch’s bedroom light burned now, and she stood beneath the balcony feeling her body pull her toward the exterior spiral staircase that led upstairs. She slowly wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, longing to feel his lips there instead.
What a mess she’d made of her life, this new chance. She turned and walked back to the stables, listening to the crickets’ song and the shuffling noises of the horses in their stalls. She leaned against the outer fence of the ring where Mitch taught underprivileged kids to ride. And he had room to talk, messing with his mind big time! The man was a bundle of contradictions, tender and hard, passionate and cool.
She kicked at the fence with the tip of her sneaker, her mind sliding back to their kiss in the woods. The man could kiss, that was for sure. And he was right; he did it one hundred percent. She felt that stirring in her body, the longing and the fear. She let out a long sigh and pressed her forehead against the post.
“How could you let this happen?”
She didn’t even know if she was addressing herself or Paul. She stepped through the gap in the fence and looked at the ring. Then she started dragging her foot through the dirt, making a large half-circle around the outer edge. Then two eyes, big round ones with pupils. And a nose. She didn’t know if it looked like a happy face, since she couldn’t see anything clearly in the moonlight.
When she stepped back out of the ring, she felt lighter. The clouds skittered across the slate gray sky, making the moon wink at her. She leaned against the post again, and stared at the pocked complexion, clear at this cycle.
Whatever Mitch had meant by loving her, she knew one thing: she loved him. But he only deserved one hundred percent, and she wasn’t sure if she could give him that.
She looked over at the ghostly happy face in the ring. “How can I give anyone that when I’m not a hundred percent myself?”
Mitch sat on the balcony, feet propped up on the railing, cold Lone Star beer in his hand. He’d watched Jenna walk out to the stables, and just to make sure she returned safely, he waited until she walked back to the house. He didn’t know what she was doing over there for so long. He’d had to quell the desire to find out for himself in the name of making sure she wasn’t in trouble. He couldn’t shake the memory of her standing in the water looking out to sea as waves crashed in all around her. He now knew that Jenna would never throw away her life like that, but she was sure good at tempting fate. He laughed, chugging down another swallow of beer.
Fate was tempted.
For the first time in a while, he was spoiling for a fight. Not with some stupid punching bag either. But hell, what would that accomplish? Same thing it accomplished way back when, a whole lot of nothing. Guarantee he’d still be
just as frustrated with Jenna when he got back all black and blue. He took another swig of his beer.
She was right: it was easier to hate than to love, but he wasn’t an expert in the latter category. He’d always chided Paul for falling hard. In truth, the thought of being consumed by a woman worried him, and if Becky had talked Paul into killing their parents for money, Mitch had good reason to worry. But here he was, consumed from the inside out. And he would kill for her, but only for her protection.
She was wrong when she’d said he wasn’t afraid of anything. Spooked horses, wicked windstorms, none of that bothered him. What ripped through him when he held Jenna in his arms, now that was spooky.
He rubbed the churning in his gut, leaning his head back against the chair. The sky was mottled with clouds lit up by the moon. A romantic evening one might call it, if one were so inclined. Romantic enough for a kiss in the woods. He let out a long breath and trained his gaze toward the east again.
Years ago that shrink had said Paul was the shadow twin. But when Jenna had stiffened and told him about “seeing” Paul, Mitch had felt like Paul’s shadow. Jenna might not still love Paul — he didn’t know. But the heart that brought her to him also stood between them.
Maybe he was being insensitive. Sure he was, an insensitive wife-stealing bastard, especially when she’d looked so innocent and vulnerable and told him again that she was lost. He pounded the arm of the chair with his fist, feeling his stomach twist the way it had then. He’d walked away from her, and then she’d walked away from him.
Mitch didn’t hear her or see her … he sensed her. She walked out of the woods and across the small parking area, arms around herself. He waited until she was almost beneath his balcony before saying, “Punch out any bags?”
She stopped and looked up through the railing. The bars of light filtered down over her face. “I didn’t even try to go inside. And I didn’t see any eligible men to exorcise my demons with.”
In a Heartbeat Page 23