by Abbi Glines
I opened my mouth to respond as the smell of intense old lady perfume wafted over me.
“Ashton, sweetie, I’m so sorry,” said Mrs. Murphy, one of the ladies from church who Grana had always said needed to wear more makeup to cover her bags and less perfume because she was polluting the atmosphere. Mrs. Murphy stopped in front of me and held out her hands.
Everyone wanted to hug me, as if a hug was going to make me feel better. Mrs. Murphy’s habit of bathing in her cheap perfume caused a headache with close contact. So I patted her hands awkwardly, hoping she didn’t grab mine and jerk me up into her arms. I could see the white, used tissue in her grasp, and I wasn’t thrilled about having to touch it or have it touch me.
“Thanks, Mrs. Murphy.” I replied.
She sniffed and dotted at her eyes with the tissue. “It’s just so hard to believe. I mean, she was just at the ladies auxiliary meeting on Monday. It’s awful, just awful.”
I didn’t need this. Why people thought I wanted to hear about the last time they saw Grana was beyond me. I was trying to forget. I wanted to pretend she and I were going to curl up on the swing together when everyone was gone and talk about funny things we saw or someone said. I didn’t need to get a play-by-play from everyone here on the last time they saw my Grana alive.
“Thanks, Mrs. Murphy. Ashton is dealing with things the best she can. She appreciates your words, but she isn’t up to talking about everything just yet.” Leann’s words were perfect. Mrs. Murphy gave me one last sad smile and nodded before making her way over to someone who would talk to her.
“Thanks,” I said, glancing over at Leann.
She wrapped her arm around my shoulders. “That’s what friends are for.”
I nodded and laid my head over on her shoulder. I was going to miss her this year at school. I’d never had many girlfriends. I’d grown up with the Vincent boys as my two best friends. I wasn’t good with girl friendships. Leann had been my first girlfriend my freshman year. She’d been a sophomore and had taken me under her wing.
“What am I going to do without you this year?”
“You have prince charming. You’ll do fine. Besides, I’ll be only a phone call away.” Tears stung my eyes. I’d lost Grana and I was losing Leann. My world was changing so quickly. I really needed Beau right now. He would make sense of everything. He’d listen to me complain and feel sorry for myself and not try to make me look on the bright side. Wrapped up in his arms was where I wanted to be. Not here with a bunch of people in Grana’s house and a kitchen full of casseroles and pies.
“You want to get out of here? I’ll take you out and get you drunk,” Leann whispered.
I couldn’t leave my parents to deal with all of this alone. “Thanks but I can’t. I need to be here. Grana would want me here.” My heart ached painfully and I fought back the tears. I would get through this. Grana would want me to be strong. If she knew I’d messed around with Beau Vincent today she’d be thrilled. A smile tugged at my lips although my eyes were blurry with unshed tears. The one person that mattered would wholeheartedly support my spending time with Beau. Somehow, that made it all better.
“I’m going to a movie with Leann,” I said as soon as we walked into our house.
The last of the visitors at Grana’s had finally gone, leaving us with more food than we could eat in a year. I placed the sweet potato casserole on the bar and turned to look at my parents.
“You’re going to a movie this late?” Dad asked, frowning as he put down several pies he’d carried inside.
“It’s a midnight viewing for a vampire movie or something. She doesn’t want to go alone, and I need to get my mind off things.”
My mom, who appeared better this evening than she had this morning, smiled. She seemed pleased I wasn’t planning on crawling into bed to cry. I wonder how she’d feel if she knew I was planning on crawling into the arms of the town’s bad boy to cry instead? I couldn’t worry about what she or Dad thought. Staying here, looking into my dad’s sad eyes and at my mother’s tentative smile, would only cause me more pain. When I was with Beau, I could forget for a little while.
“Good. Go out and have some fun. You’ve been spending too much time alone since Sawyer left. It isn’t good to be alone all the time,” Mom encouraged. Dad hadn’t seemed to be able to say much today. Looking at him caused the pain in my chest to reopen. I glanced back at Mom.
“I know. I just needed to adjust to Sawyer being gone. I hadn’t realized how much time I spent with him until he wasn’t here.”
Mom liked my response. She loved Sawyer, but she always reminded me how getting too serious this young wasn’t a good idea. I still had college ahead of me. The guilt of what I was doing with Beau eased even more when I looked at my mom’s smile. I was lying to her about who I was with and what I was doing, but in a roundabout way I was doing what she wanted.
Normally, this was when my dad would tell me to be careful and be home by eleven. Tonight he remained silent, lost in his own world of pain. I gave them one last smile and headed for the door.
Chapter 7
ASHTON
I walked the short trail from my house to the park. I didn’t want to leave my car sitting in the parking lot for everyone to see. It wouldn’t take much for them to realize that Beau had been parked there earlier and now my empty car was in its place. No one expected the preacher’s daughter to sin, but they sure would love to catch me at it. Not that this was a sin, exactly. Well, lying to my parents was, but Beau was Sawyer’s cousin and my . . . friend. I was pretty sure some of the places Beau had touched me and kissed me this afternoon fell into the sin category, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. By the time I reached the park, I’d almost convinced myself of our innocence.
The park was deserted except for the beat-up Chevy truck. I ran to the passenger’s side and jumped in before someone could drive up and catch me. Beau was smiling at me; my heartbeat picked up its pace.
“I really like it when you wear sundresses,” he said before cranking up the truck and pulling out onto the road. I glanced down at the short hem on the baby blue sundress I’d picked out, and a tingle of anticipation ran through me.
“I’m not going back through town. Come over here,” he said, patting the spot beside him. I scooted over as close as I could without my legs touching the stick shift.
“That’s not close enough. Straddle it,” he said. I glanced over at him, and he took his eyes off the road for just a moment to meet my gaze. My heart did a little fluttery thing against my chest. I moved a leg over the stick shift and scooted over until my thigh was up against his. As his hand rested on the stick shift between my knees, I was suddenly light-headed.
“How late do I get to keep you tonight?” he asked, breaking into my thoughts.
“Oh, um, they didn’t say, but then, I don’t normally go out this late. I told them I was going to a midnight movie.”
He shifted gears then rested his hand on my thigh. I was beginning to understand why he liked sundresses.
“Good, we’ve got time to go to the bay,” he replied.
I hadn’t been to the bay in years. Sawyer never wanted to drive out that way. He said the water was nasty, but I always thought it was beautiful.
“I figured it would be best if we didn’t hang out around here.”
I nodded because I understood his meaning. He didn’t seem bothered by the fact he was doing things with his cousin’s girlfriend that he shouldn’t be. The thought reminded me of the image I’d had of Beau the past few years. He played games to his advantage. The sexy rebel who took what he wanted. Except that image no longer seemed accurate. He’d held me today without question as I cried and slobbered all over him. He’d stopped working to comfort me. Someone with selfish motives wouldn’t do that. Besides, if what we were doing meant he had a black heart, then I had one too.
“You’re frowning. What’s going through your head?” he asked.
I thought about lying to him, since I was becom
ing a regular old liar, but I couldn’t lie to him, too. This was something I needed to talk about before . . . well, before we went all the way.
“How I know I’m doing something wrong and I feel guilty, but neither of those things matters enough to make me stop.”
Beau’s hand left my thigh and returned to the stick shift. I studied his large, tanned hand and wondered how it was fair for someone to be given all perfect body parts. His grip on the stick was so tight, the tanned color of his skin had paled. I wanted to reach out and soothe him, make the tension go away, but we had to talk about this. He didn’t say anything else or make a move to touch me. A sick knot of dread settled in my stomach as I waited to see if he was going to turn around and take me back. I’d reminded him of how wrong what we were doing was and he wasn’t dealing with it well. He loved Sawyer, and I’d never imagined he’d do something like this to his cousin. I wasn’t any better. I was supposed to love Sawyer too and I did, but not the way I should. As the silence stretched on, I waited for Beau to turn the truck around and take me back to the park, but he kept heading toward the bay. After a few minutes, when I was sure he wasn’t going to turn around, I relaxed and waited.
* * *
Beau pulled onto a dirt road, and through the overgrown grass and weeds I could see a clearing ahead. It was complete with a pier. Beau turned his truck and backed it up so the rear bumper was facing the water.
“Where are we?” I asked
“A piece of property a friend of mine owns. He bought it to build on when he gets out of college,” he replied, and reached to open the door.
I started to scoot over so I could get out on the other side, when his hand touched my leg, causing me to tremble before I glanced back at him.
“Wait here. I’m going to fix it up back there, then get you and carry you back. The grass is high and there could be snakes in it.”
I nodded and watched as he jumped down into the tall grass. The snakes bothered me some, but the idea of him carrying me was causing other ideas to form in my head, keeping me occupied while I waited. Within minutes he was back, standing outside the open truck door. He crooked his finger for me to come to him. I slid over until I was close enough for him to grab me under my legs and carry me. The moment he picked me up, I suddenly worried I might be too heavy. I tried not to dwell on my weight, but I didn’t normally have guys picking me up and carrying me around. Luckily, my weight didn’t seem to be an issue as he carried me around the back of the truck and lifted me onto its bed with ease.
He’d spread out several quilts and a couple of pillows. A cooler was in the far corner. I crawled to the middle and sat down. Beau stood at the tailgate, watching me. The shadows from the moonlight shaded his eyes, so I couldn’t be sure what he was thinking.
“Are you coming?” I asked, almost scared of his answer.
“Yeah, I got a little sidetracked by the view,” he replied.
A shiver of anticipation ran through me as he crawled onto the truck bed. Kneeling in front of me, he reached out to take my right foot and lay it against his jean-clad thigh. Fascinated, I watched him as he undid my sandal and placed it beside the cooler. He placed my foot back down on the blanket then reached for my left foot, and with the same slow careful attention, he removed my other sandal. Once both my feet were bare, he lifted his gaze to meet mine.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “I like your pink toenails,” he replied, glancing back down at my feet. My silly heart thumped wildly in my chest, and I let out a nervous laugh.
“It’s cotton candy. The color is, I mean.” I couldn’t even form coherent sentences.
“I like cotton candy. Those toes of yours just may be sweeter, though.”
As he moved to sit down beside me, his warm hand squeezed my foot closest to him. Neither of us spoke as we stared out over the still water. I’d never been so nervous in my life.
Beau shifted beside me and then lay back on the pillows behind us. I turned slightly to peer down at him. Did he want me to lie down too? Tucking one arm behind his head and stretching the other out beside him, Beau grinned up at me as if he could read my mind.
“Come here,” he said.
I quickly scooted over and curled up next to him, resting my head on his chest. There was a peace in his arms I’d never experienced with Sawyer. It was as if I’d come home after years of searching.
“I love Sawyer, Ash,” Beau said quietly into the night. He sounded as if he were trying to convince me of this. “My whole life, I’ve never envied anything of his. Not his father. Not his mother. Not his money. Not his athletic abilities.” He stopped and took a ragged breath.
My heart ached for him. I squeezed my hand, which was resting on his stomach, into a fist to keep from reaching up and soothing him like a child.
“Until the day I watched from across the football field as he picked you up and kissed you on the mouth,” he continued. “It wasn’t your first kiss. I might have just been fourteen years old, but I could tell I’d somehow been left out of a secret. I wanted to plant my fist in his face and rip you out of his arms. As I took a step toward him, your eyes met mine and I saw the silent pleading for forgiveness or acceptance. I wasn’t sure which. All I knew then was that you were Sawyer’s. My best friend was gone. I envied him and hated him for the first time that day. He’d finally won the one prize I’d thought was mine.”
I closed my eyes against the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks. I wanted to tell him how I’d never felt faint when Sawyer kissed me or how the earth didn’t move under his touch. Instead I stayed silent, knowing I couldn’t. Even though it was Beau I wanted, I knew I could never have him. These last two weeks were all we had. Sawyer would come home and I would be with him again. There was no other option.
I turned over and propped myself up on my elbow until I was staring down into his somber eyes. I could feel his heart beating fast underneath my hand.
“You were my best friend, Beau. You never treated me or looked at me any way but as a friend. Once I started to change and we all began to notice the opposite sex, you never seemed to care that I was a girl. Sawyer did. Maybe because he hadn’t been my partner in crime. Maybe because the connection I had with him hadn’t been the same as the one I had had with you. But he saw me as a girl. I think deep down I’d been waiting on you, but when he kissed me, I knew it would never be you. I wasn’t the one for you.”
Beau reached up and cupped the side of my face with his hand.
“I was very aware that you were a girl, Ash. I was just scared, because the one person in the world who knew every secret I’d ever had also happened to be the most beautiful girl I’d ever known. My feelings for you were scary as hell.”
I leaned down and kissed the frown between his brows.
“Right now. Right here. I’m yours. Not Sawyer’s. He isn’t who I want. Right now all I want is you.” I chose my words carefully so we’d both understand my meaning.
He took my waist and shifted his body so I was completely on top of him. I lowered my mouth to his and sighed as his hands found the hem of my dress and the warm pressure of his palms ran up my thighs.
Tonight I would give myself to Beau because I wanted to. He was the town’s bad boy and I was the preacher’s daughter. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
“Ash, I want you. Bad, very, very bad. But you deserve better than this.”
I bent back down over him and kissed him again before pulling back enough to whisper, “It doesn’t get any better than this, Beau.”
His hands cupped my bottom and shifted me so I could feel the pressure of his obvious arousal against the warmth between my thighs.
“Please, Beau,” I cried out, not sure what I was begging for but knowing I needed more. His hands gripped my waist.
“Hold on to me, baby. I’m going to take care of you.” The raspy need in his voice only made me more desperate.
His hips rocked against mine one more time, causing waves of pleasure t
o pulse through my body from the friction between my legs. Beau reached up and cupped his hand behind my head and pulled me down until my mouth covered his. This was what I needed. This connection. A raw, needy, honest attraction. Not something controlled and careful. I needed reckless.
Beau’s tongue slid between my lips and began to taste every dark corner of my mouth like I was some exotic treat he wanted to savor. This was the feeling I’d always longed for. In one swift move Beau rolled me over and hovered over me before pressing a trail of kisses across my chest. I needed more. Wiggling, I reached for his hair and tugged on the short strands impatiently. A low chuckle rumbled against Beau’s chest before a warm hand slid between my legs and slowly made its way up my thigh.
I couldn’t keep the anxious sigh from escaping my mouth.
“You’re beautiful, Ash,” Beau whispered as his hand reached its destination. One long finger traced the outside edge of my panties and I whimpered, needing more. “I love it when you make those sweet little noises. Drives me crazy,” he murmured against my neck.
When Beau’s warmth left me, I started to protest, until both his hands slipped under my sundress and his fingers slid into the sides of my panties and began pulling them down. I watched his face as I gasped for air. The excitement and need was making it hard to take deep breaths. The look of wonder and almost worshipful gaze in Beau’s eyes as he pulled my panties off and then folded them and placed them beside him. Finally he lifted his eyes to meet mine.
“Are you sure?” The restraint in his voice was obvious. He would stop if I wanted him to. I trusted him. Completely.
“Yes. Very sure,” I replied pulling one leg up so that my sundress slipped down my leg and bunched at my waist.
Beau’s eyes went wide with excitement. Slowly he reached his hand out to touch my knee before moving the rough tips of his fingers down my thigh. His chest was rising and falling with each quick short breath he took, until his finger slid over my warmth.