A Shadow on the Ground (25 page)

“It’s from a Woody Allen movie. I just thought of it.”

He kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Then choose me.”

“I’m thinking about it.”

What the hell was she doing?

The more time she spent with Gage, the easier it was to ignore the warning bells clanging inside her head. She’d relied on those bells; they had never steered her wrong. They had kept her heart from splitting into a million pieces. That’s why she was having a hard time accepting the fact that in three short days, the longing she’d felt for him all those years ago had filtered into the here and now. Maybe it had never gone away. Maybe it had lain dormant like a bear in wintertime, hunkering down, sleeping through Christmas, barely anticipating the insatiable hunger it will feel on the first day of spring.

Why had he picked now to show up? Now, when the scars he’d left had almost healed and her life had gone on? She’d made peace with going through life as a solo act. She could go for days, even weeks without thinking of him. Alone was something she’d learned how to do. And she did it well. She still got a pang when she saw a couple walking hand in hand across the Deer Creek footbridge, or when the Wallace’s dropped off their daughter for a piano lesson, and she could see them on the porch, bent over the new baby, eyes shining as they congratulated each other on their perfect life. Gage was a road she wasn’t sure she wanted to travel again. She didn’t want to walk over a mile-high suspension bridge in a windstorm again, either.

But, oh, God, he smelled good. She burrowed her face against his neck and breathed in his scent—male and sweet and addictive. She rubbed her cheek along the edge of his collarbone, back and forth, like a lost kitten who’s found its way home. His thighs pressed against hers as they swayed to the music. His feather soft breath darted across her neck, sending a chain of shivers snaking down her back. Heat flared at the base of her spine. She closed her eyes. As long as she was in his arms, it was all so easy. She could blot out the rest of the world and pretend they were a normal couple, taking things one step at a time without waiting for the ground to open up and swallow her whole. He was charming. Convincing. Tempting. He was a trip to Disneyworld. All she had to do was suspend belief long enough to jump on the tram.

“Morgan?”

She pulled back and looked into his eyes. In the soft amber light, his smoky brown gaze appeared more intense than she’d ever seen it. His dark eyes melted into hers, and she tightened her grip on his shoulders to keep her knees from buckling. He was so near, she could see the tiny blue flecks swimming near the dark brown-green irises. “Lacey's Pond in winter. That's what your eyes look like to me. It’s so deep there, it hardly ever freezes over.”

“Morgan, I need to tell you something.”

“Spilling your guts on a dance floor is never a good idea.” She laced her fingers behind his neck and drew him closer. “Kissing, on the other hand, is highly recommended.”

“This is serious,” he said. “I can’t wait any longer.”

“Neither can I.” She leaned in to him until her lips were inches from his.

“Morgan, please. Let’s go somewhere where we can talk. There’s something about me you need to know.”

She raked her lips across his, tasting them, teasing them. “Well, we can go somewhere.” She pressed her mouth against his. “But I don’t think...” Then kissed him again. “...we’ll be doing much...” And again. “...talking.”

****

It wasn't hard for Gage to rationalize waiting one more day to tell her. Especially when she was standing in the middle of a public dance floor kissing him like there was no tomorrow. In his wildest dreams—and there had been a few of those—he had never expected her to want him again. Or for him to feel the kind of happiness that wrapped around his heart and set him free at the same time. It was better than any dream he could have manufactured. It exhilarated him. Terrified him. He vowed to hold on to the memory, because the one thing, in all certainty, that would split them apart forever was hanging over his head like an anvil waiting to drop. The only chance he had to keep Morgan in his life was to level with her.

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Please, God
, he prayed.
Let me fall asleep in her arms. Just let me have one more night with her, and I swear, I’ll tell her in the morning.

“You know, we’re the Bible Belt,” she murmured. “Are we breaking the law?”

“No, but we're damned close. Let's get out of here before somebody calls the sheriff.”

He threw money on the table, grabbed Morgan's jacket, and led her outside through the swinging saloon doors. They clattered across the wooden porch and hurried past a rowdy, laughing group of people gathered around a concrete ashtray. They followed an overgrown path leading to a wooden gazebo at the side of the building, then ducked into the shadows behind a thick copse of river birch trees.

A sharp gust of mountain air blew against the base of his throat. It rustled the leaves as he pulled her under a limb and leaned her back against the trunk. He captured her mouth again, relieved that the heat they'd generated on the dance floor hadn't begun to cool.

Dusky moonlight filtered through the branches. Morgan’s blue eyes glistened, half-closed with desire. Her lips curled into a smile against his. How many times had he fantasized about those lips, their velvety softness gliding over him, driving him to the brink and back again? A flood of gratitude swelled inside him, expanding his chest until he thought it would rip open. For one small moment in time, he was the luckiest bastard in the world. He was here. Awake. In the dream, with the woman he loved. The woman he had always loved.

She gasped and pulled away. “We could go to the car.”

“Gear shift. No back seat.” He nuzzled the tender spot behind her ear. “And I parked beneath a big. Tall. Sodium vapor lamp.”

“Gotcha.”

He ran his fingers along the smooth column of her throat and held her face in his hands, deepening the kiss, matching each flick and swipe of her tongue with a hunger he wasn’t sure he could control. Her hips thrust against his, warm and pliant, and the tightening in his groin told him things were moving faster than he should let them. But before he could take a breath and tap the brakes, Morgan raked her hands across his back and held him tight, as if she were trying to dissolve into him. Her breasts pushed up and out, rubbing against him, nipples hard beneath her cotton blouse. Suddenly, tapping the brakes, or anything else, was the last thing on his mind. He slid his hand beneath the thin material and skimmed it along the scorching flesh above her jeans until he found the back of her bra. He held the connecting strap between his thumb and index finger, and with one expert snap, unhooked it.

A sharp intake of breath escaped her lips. It sent a shiver rushing through him, and he smiled into her shoulder. It had been a long time since he'd unhooked a woman's bra. Longer than he was willing to admit. Thank God, he still remembered how.

Morgan finished unbuttoning his shirt and began clawing at his belt. It was his turn to suck in air and groan. Loudly. If a possum was hiding within twenty feet, it would either start hissing at them or turn tail and run.

****

Morgan tugged on Gage’s shirt, trying to extract it from his pants. She'd managed to unbutton the waistband of his jeans, revealing a soft thatch of dark hair curling over the plaid elastic on his shorts. But the zipper—the damned zipper—refused to budge. She tried to concentrate. Which wasn't easy with his mouth trailing molten kisses along the slope of her shoulder. His hands caressed the length of her bare back, then stroked the prickly spot where her bra clasp had fastened. She leaned into him and moaned, like an old Basset hound who's finally found someone to scratch under its collar. She cursed and gave the shirt one final tug.
Bingo
.

His hands were on the move again, systematically making their way to the front of her body. Her heart picked up speed. Her breath, when she could hold on to it, came in short, self-conscious pants. Heat burned a path across her abdomen, down her legs, turning them to Jell-O. She had about three more seconds until those magic fingers of his reached her breasts. Four until she threw herself on the ground and pulled him on top of her.

Gage chuckled and turned her around facing the tree. The pungent, earthy scent of moss permeated her nose. He lifted her hair and kissed the back of her neck, lingering in the hollow of her shoulder, then slid both hands around her torso, cupping her breasts. He grazed his thumbs across her nipples, back and forth, until she arched her back. Her hands crept upward along the damp bark until they overlapped. She lowered her head and cried out, aroused to the point of plunging into some dark abyss of heat and need. She longed to see him, touch him, feel the length of him. She needed to know he was as turned on as she was.

She twisted back around and reached for him, feeling his erection strain against his jeans. “No, Morgan,” he said softly. “This one's for you.”

He pulled her to him and backed her up to the tree, kissing her deeply. The rough bark scraped the exposed flesh at the base of her spine, but she hardly felt it. Every nerve ending pulsated to the rapid beat of her heart. Pale blue moonlight filtered through the leaves, threw uneven shadows across the fine, chiseled planes of his high cheekbones. He smiled at her, slashing the dimple on the left side of his face. Then he whispered her name. He might as well have lit a fuse. Desire exploded inside her, and she was tempted to close her eyes and let his touch sweep her into the stratosphere. But she couldn't.

Not tonight.

Tonight she needed real. And it didn't get more real than standing backed up against a tree with her legs spread and a man's hand inside her pants.

He gazed at her with so much longing, it hurt to breathe. Wasn't this what she’d always wanted from him? The reality she'd yearned for? Wasn't this what she had lost all those years ago and was terrified of letting back into her life? Into her heart?

And then he touched her, and pure sensation took over, and it didn't matter anymore.

He unzipped her jeans and swept his right hand along the soft contour of her stomach, beneath the silky vee of her panties, until two fingers slipped inside and found the mother of all epicenters. His stroke was relaxed and persistent, self-assured without trying too hard. Within seconds she was able to blot out the world and ride the slow, rhythmic wave to the top. When she came, she came hard, rocking into him with a shudder, gripping his shoulder, clutching his hand in mid-stroke to stop the sensory overload. She fell against him, gulping in air as if she'd swum up from the bottom of Lacey’s Pond.

And then she began to laugh.

“Holy—” she said, panting noisily. “All right, Mr. Kirkland. I have two questions for you. Where did you learn to do that? And when can you do it again?”

He laughed and pushed her hair back from her face. Then he kissed her lightly on the lips. “This may be the wrong time to say this. My timing’s always been a little off.” He grinned and shook his head. “Okay, a lot off. But these last three days with you have meant the world to me.”

“They’ve been...not so bad,” she agreed. “Well, except for the dead body. And my brother getting arrested. And your uncle trying to steal our land. And the fire at Bad Moon.”

“I don't want this to end. If I thought for one minute you could forgive the irresponsible kid who was too stupid and too scared to stand up for the only thing he ever wanted, I'd do anything to make it up to you. Your memory has haunted me for so long, I—” His voice caught. “The heart doesn’t give a damn how much time has passed, or how badly it’s bruised, or how hopeless things are. The heart wants what the heart wants.”

“Didn’t Woody Allen say that, too?”

“The man’s a genius.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. His dark gaze held hers. “I don’t want to turn back the clock because then I wouldn't have Jeremy. So I have to believe that all roads lead where they're supposed to lead. Do you believe that? Do you believe me?”

“See, that's the thing. I believed you before.”

“I know you did. And I know trust is something that has to be earned. All I'm asking is for another chance to earn that trust. And to let me love you.”

She lifted her hand. “Don’t say that. Don’t use that word.”

“All right, ‘like’ then.” He wrapped his arms around her. “Please, let me like you, Morgan. Let me like you a whole, whole lot.”

They readjusted their clothes and walked, arm in arm, through the wet grass.

“What did you want to tell me?” she asked. “You said it was important.”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Tonight, I just want to make the rest of the world go away. I want to hold on to this. To you.”

She turned to him. The lilting strains of “Copperhead Road” and the soft, syncopated thumps of the line dancers drifted across the lawn. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

He swallowed a sigh. “I’m trying to hang on to this little piece of hope I suddenly have with you. I wish I were a better person. Someone who didn’t make mistakes. Someone you could be proud of. Someone you could forgive. I have to believe that no matter what happens, everything will work out, and I’m not just some poor, unsuspecting pig, trotting merrily into the slaughterhouse when I don’t have a chance in hell of coming out alive.”

“Maybe it’s your destiny. You can’t screw around with destiny.”

“Destiny,” he said. “That’s an odd thing to start believing in at my age. But I do. Three days ago, my son wouldn't look me in the eye. And now, because of you, he's smiling and calling me Dad again. Three days ago, I was a man still living under my uncle's thumb, so bogged down with regret and guilt, I didn't know if I'd ever dig my way out. Three days ago, you were a memory I’ve spent the last twelve years trying to forget. And now, you’re...here.”

“Tell me what you don’t want to tell me. Just do it fast. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.”

Morgan’s cell phone rang. She fished it out of her purse and snapped it open. “It’s Sean.”

“Morgan, Morgan!” Sean cried. “You’ve got to come home! I’m goin’ crazy here.”