I know I should get down to the mess hall, but the idea of scrubbing away the dirt from the hotel and the regret of leaving Char is too tempting to pass up. I slip into the stall, that barely contains my body, and think of the time I walked in on Char in this same exact kind of shower when we were in camp. Or how we used to lay the skinny mattresses on the floor to build ourselves a bed. And then we’d get as close as we possibly could …
It only takes me as long as squeezing the shampoo into my hands to realize that coming here might be a bad idea. I see Char in every nook of this place, smell her in every corner. And we didn’t even stay in this cabin. But it’s no shit that every single thing reminds me of her. This is where we found each other again, it’s where we fell in love.
I finish the rest of the shower with a lump in my throat and my eyes threatening to spill tears.
When I finally make it down to taco night, I can barely look at the food I’m so depressed.
A WEEK into my stay at Camp Marsh and Willy has had enough of my brooding silence.
“Sit down, now.” He waves to a picnic table outside the canteen and I reluctantly sit down.
For a week I’ve been good. Or … I’ve been decent. Better than horrible. Which I guess isn’t really good. But … I’ve been getting through. I’ve been doing repairs on all of the buildings for Willy and Melody, eating dinner with them each night. I’ve helped out with some of the kids sports games during the day and even been having a drink or two with the counselors by the fire pit at night. And by drink, I mean Pepsi. While I watch the love triangles and ridiculous drama unfold. It’s actually pretty distracting.
And when I lay down in the guest cabin at night, all I think about is Char. I picture her lying on the floor of the cabin with me, touching her anywhere my hands can reach. I dream about her soft body beneath me, the expression she makes when I stroke all the way to the hilt. The noises that she makes and the way she breathes my name as she comes.
My bones and muscles ache from the loss of her. I miss her down to every last tendon, down to my soul.
I fold my hands under my chin and look off into the distance at the campers playing, getting in all the time that they can before the dinner bell rings in an hour.
“Tucker, look at me.”
I direct my eyes to him, if only out of respect. I have no interest in having this conversation with him.
“I know what you’re doing now. And I don’t know why you’ve picked this place to do it. Maybe it makes you feel like a kid. Maybe it’s just all less complicated out here for you. You’re hiding. You’re running.”
I don’t confirm this for him, but I know he’s right. I realized that three days ago. That whenever it got to tough, whenever I felt suffocated in my own skin, I ran.
“Tuck, life has been easy for you.”
I scoff at his statement that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“It has though. Before your injury, you were a golden child. Sure, your dad was a prick. But other people, they put you high up on this pedestal. You never got told the word no. Life never threw you any challenge flags. Football came easy. I’ll bet that throughout high school and college, you didn’t have to work hard at anything you didn’t want to. Am I right?”
I think it over for a minute. He’s right. I wanted to work at football, but school? Classes? Girls? Anything else … it all came easy. Someone else worked it out for me, or the universe just handed me what I wanted at the moment.
“Yeah, I guess so.” I shrug, looking more like a sulking teenage boy than a fully grown man.
“After your injury, nothing came easy. You had to work at everything. And it just wasn’t something that you’re used to. So you started to run. You ran from your life by using drugs. And then you ran from your mistakes concerning that by coming here. And then you took the deal without going to trial. You never fought, you ran. And now, life is getting too hard. People are judging you. Your solution? To run away from the only woman who has ever loved you so completely that she has stuck by you through everything.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if my heart was laying beside us, bloodied and mangled, in the dirt. Willy’s words hit hard. But they’re also true.
“You don’t think I’ve already heard all of this in therapy? I get it. I’m a coward. Why are you doing this?”
Willy reaches out and lays his hand over mine. It’s intimate and fatherly, and while my insides warm, preen to make him happy … I’m also uncomfortable. I never had parental love like this, and I’m not sure what to do with it now.
“Because I’m not going to let you off easy like your shrink. I’m not going to analyze you and let you walk out the door thinking you’ve made some big strides today. Hell no. I’m going to tell you this. Get off your ass, stop being a little bitch, and call your wife. Beg her to forgive you and plead with her to take you back.”
A chuckle bursts from my throat before it’s replaced with a frown. “Willy … she’s too good for me. Our life, it will only bring her down. Drag her into the dirt where I reside. I don’t want it to be hard for her. Ever.”
Willy slaps a hand on his knee and starts laughing. Hard. “Son, do you think marriage is ever easy?! I’ve been married to Melody for over forty years and it’s a challenge every damn day we get up. The number of days that have gone absolutely perfect in our marriage … hell, I can probably count them on one hand. Life is messy. And marriage is the number one culprit.”
I lean in, listening to him.
“But does that mean I ever want to give up? Say goodbye and leave Melody? Hell no. I love that woman more than earth itself. More than anything I got, including my own body. I would die without her, and I sure as hell don’t know how I’d be able to do a damn thing if she wasn’t planning it all out. Marriage is worth it, love is worth it, because you work through all of the hard stuff. It’s like a diamond. There is always going to be coal and dirt on the surface, and it may take a long time to dig it out or rub it off. But in the end, you’re left with this thing that is solid, unbreakable, beautiful and perfect.”
He’s right of course, so absolutely right. And now I feel like the biggest moron who ever lived.
Willy must see the horrified shock on my face. “I’d say right about now, you’re realizing how big of an idiot you are.”
“I have to go …”
He calls after me as I sprint back to my cabin. “Tell Charlotte to come out for the weekend! We would love to see her!”
CHAPTER 34
CHARLOTTE
Being at home on this Friday night was not my original plan. I wanted to go to Hunger N Thirst with Jackie, drown my sorrows in a couple glasses of wine.
But the party pooper has to go home for the weekend, leaving me friendless. And lonely. So, I guess I’ll just need to eat this pint of Ben & Jerry’s by myself and sulk into a bottle of white wine.
I’m halfway through my pint and a One Tree Hill marathon when my cellphone rings, and I quickly hope it’s Jackie calling to say she’ll come over.
But I’m completely surprised when I see an unfamiliar number flash across the screen. My heart kicks up a notch, beating into my throat. I’ve been waiting two weeks to see a number, any number, that I don’t know flash across my screen. My hands start to shake as I set down the cardboard tub of Cookies & Cream goodness.
Sending up a small prayer that this will be him, I pick it up. “Hello?”
A small cough, and then, “Charlotte?”
Relief pours through my system, so sweet and sharp that I double over as tears spring to my eyes. “Tucker, thank god. Oh god, thank you for calling.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I never should have left. I just … Char, I’ve been going through some shit in my head. And I’m a fucking idiot.”
My heart might burst out of my chest with all of the emotions rushing through it right now. But mostly, I just want Tucker right now.
“Come home. We can talk this over, please, Tucker. I just want to see yo
u.”
“That’s all I want right now, baby. I know I don’t deserve it, but actually, I was hoping maybe you’d come to me.”
IT TAKES me nearly two hours in the downpour that’s started, but around ten p.m. I finally pull my Jeep onto the familiar gravel drive.
The land is soft and squishy with mud under my tires, my windshield getting pelted by the late night summer storm. Lightning strikes against the mountains in the background, and despite all of nature’s beasts, I’m somewhat at peace to be back at Camp Marsh. Passing the wooden sign, it feels like I’m shedding my skin. And along with it, all my pressures and problems.
I swivel the Jeep out towards the counselor and guest cabins to the one Tucker told me he was staying in. I should have guessed that he came here; it seems to be his natural hiding spot apparently. But I’m glad he came to visit with William Marsh, who I’m sure screwed his head on straight. I would have to thank him for that in the morning.
The rain must have caused everyone to stay inside, because although I see lights on in the cabins, there is not a single sole roaming the camp grounds. Rolling through the misty, dark grounds, it looks so different than when I was here more than three years ago.
I spot Tucker’s pickup and pull up beside it, running out of my car and around to the other side to pull out my overnight bag. Who the hell knows what I threw into the duffel I’d packed it so fast. It was a miracle I had matching shoes on. Tucker had wanted me to wait to come until tomorrow morning, but no way was I being separated from him for another minute.
A door slams and I look up to the porch where Tucker now stands. The rain is pouring down on him, his T-shirt and jeans getting soaked. The lightning illuminates him and he looks like an Adonis, standing there looking down at me with this expression full of relief and love.
I’m rooted to the spot, uncaring that I’m getting soaked. “I found you.” I shrug with my bag in my hand.
“Not that hard to do when I wanted you to find me.” He yells out, the rain muffling his voice.
I’m not sure who moves first, but all of a sudden we’re sprinting towards each other. My bag drops, I’m kicking up mud and crying and reaching out for Tucker, who catches me in his arms as we meet in the middle between my car and his cabin door.
“I’m sorry,” he yells over the rain at the same time I tell him, “I love you.”
And then it’s nothing but his mouth on mine, erasing all of the grief and sadness I’ve gone through over the past few weeks. His kiss is an apology, a balm for the pain he put me through. We’re soaking wet, clinging to each other as he hikes me up and I wrap my legs around his waist. A clap of thunder booms overhead as Tucker turns us, our lips never leaving each other as he throws open the door to the cabin.
I cling to him as he brings us to the floor, where my back is greeted by a flimsy construction of mattresses. I break our kiss and grin goofily up at him.
“Our mattress and sleeping bag bed.”
He pushes the wet strands from my forehead. “I wanted to remind us how we were at the beginning. How in love and against the world we were. I’m ready to be that way with you forever. I was scared Char, but now I’m ready.”
He strips his shirt over his head and sends it flying behind us onto the floor with a thud. I mean to answer him, to tell him I love him and will follow him to the ends of the earth, but the words get stuck in my throat. There is six-foot-five-inches of gorgeous, soaking wet man muscles before me, and all I want to do is get naked with my husband and make up with him the only way I know will make us both feel incredible.
We grab at each other, peeling off wet layers and kissing damp skin as we go. Everything is sticky, and each time I lay my lips on Tucker, or he on me, the nibbling or sucking is met with steam against our drenched skin. It’s heady and erotic, and making everything in the cabin hot and heavy. Each stroke of his tongue on my body is like a flame licking up my spine, turning me into a ball of burning need.
Every piece of clothing we peel from each other’s limbs is like another problem gone, another stress forgotten about. All of it forgotten when we’re finally naked, all of the outside pressure and expectation no longer exists. It’s just Tucker and I, body to body, baring our soul and our flesh to each other.
“I love you,” he groans as he slides into me, his eyes, a lust filled midnight black, never leaving mine.
I want to say it back, but my throat is so clogged with emotions that I’m sure I’ll start crying. There are already tears leaking out of my eyes, staining the mattresses beneath us.
Tucker’s big hands hold my face, and I circle his jaw just the same with my palms. Our lips caress and brush together with each slow pump of his hips, and I wrap my legs around his strong torso as he takes us both higher. So impossibly high.
We’re talking to each other with our eyes, communicating the love, desire and pleasure coursing through our bodies. There are no sounds but the pattering of the rain on the roof of the cabin and the claps of thunder. I make out his features in the moonlight, but every once and a while, a lightning bolt illuminates the entire room, and I get to see his full form as he commands my body.
Our releases come on shuddering breaths, the intensity of watching each other quietly unravel at the same time is too much. Our orgasms go on for what feels like forever, until I’m dizzy and seeing spots on the edge of my vision.
Afterwards, Tucker rolls us, his length still hard inside of me. Our arms wrap around each other, my leg thrown over his waist and my head in the brawny nook between his shoulder and his neck. He smells like sex and rain as he leans down to whisper in my ear.
“I have no idea what I did to deserve you, but I promise you … I will spend every day for the rest of my life thanking whoever or whatever led you to me.”
CHAPTER 35
TUCKER
The storm washed away the past. The water didn’t leave us completely renewed and able to forget; it cleansed and refreshed, taking all of our hurt and mistrust with it.
I wake with Char draped over me, the dewey sunlight streaming through the windows in blissful beams of light, as it only can do after a rocky night of thunder and showers. Last night was the final stage of our grief, the last straw was let go of and swept away under the bridge. My soul feels lighter, the pressure on my shoulders is gone. Where before there was a mental block, an obstacle that kept me from getting too close, from going all in … now there was clarity and the need to share everything with Char.
“Baby …” I kiss her lips and admire the rosy glow of her half-asleep face.
She tosses and groans. “Still sleeping … sex later.”
I chuckle, sliding my hands from her naked hips up, up, up to her bare breasts. I take one in each palm and stroke them, making her nipples bud tightly.
“Okay, fine, sex now.”
Char straddles me, her eyes still closed and her chestnut hair hanging in front of her face. I just wrap my arms around her smooth back and make no move to continue my exploration of her body.
“I just want to talk.” I kiss the top of her head where it rests on my chest.
“Talking boring. Sex fun.” Her gravely sleep voice is adorable and all I want to do is snuggle her for the next few hours. But we need to talk.
“I’m sorry that I left.”
Char blinks her eyes up at me, and I can tell that even through her early morning fog she is listening.
“Ever since I took the deal two and a half years ago, I’ve felt unworthy of you. Like I was dirtying your perfect facade. You are brilliant, this shining star who I was pulling down out of the sky by remaining with you.”
“Tucker, that’s not how you are at all. And I’m far from perfect.”
I squeeze her side. “Oh, I know that …”
She laughs quietly at my poking at her.
“I thought that for so long, that after a while, I started to believe it. And then at the party at Hunter Landon’s house, what that guy said to you, about you. It all came true, ever
ything I was fearing. I was fucking up your life and my filthiness had finally infected you.”
Char sighs, cupping my chin in her small hand. “You make my life infinitely better. Nothing you did or could do has ever ruined me, or made my life worse. Sure, it hasn’t been easy being married to you. But for the life of me, I wouldn’t do anything over. We found each other exactly when we were supposed to.”
I flip her over, needing to look completely into her big brown eyes.
“You’re right. And I see it now. I had to go through all of that shit, endure the injury and the drugs and even prison. I used to lie awake at night, in whatever hellhole I was crashing in at the time, and wonder what the hell my purpose was in life. What path God could possibly have for me if it wasn’t football. And now I know. It was you. It was always you. It just took me a while to get back to you.”
She presses her lips to mine, a soft, sweet taste of passion. “I love you, Tucker Lynch.”
“I love you so much, Charlotte Lynch.”
TURNS out I got my couple hours of snuggling, and a two rounds of mind-blowing sex to boot. When Char and I finally go to get dressed, we almost piss our pants. In our haste last night, we left Charlotte’s duffel bag out in the mud and rain.
Most everything is soaked through, besides a few pairs of underwear, one bra, and two T-shirts. She pulls on her underwear and T-shirt while I go in search of some dry pants.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” She hoots out a laugh when I return with her outfit for the day.
“Hey, at least this pair fits. And at least I found you shorts.”
She pulls the shorts, clad with the Camp Marsh logo, up over her voluptuous hips. She looks hot in her camp gear, and I almost want to take her to the obstacle course and see if we can reenact our first kiss. I’ll have to surprise her with it later.
We walk hand-in-hand down to the quad, the late morning rush of campers heading for activities after breakfast swarming around us. Some of the kids scream hi to me, some ask me who my lady friend is.
The Complete Captive Heart Duet Page 29