All I Want Is You (18 page)

But then she bit her lip, remembering the only downside to the whole situation—­well, the only downside to her whole life right now. “I'm just sorry I can't figure out a way to help you stay here, though. Somehow I thought if I could make money selling jewelry that it would help you as much as me, but now that it's happening, I'm realizing that even at the high prices its going for, the earnings just can't add up quick enough.”

He raked a hand down through the air, absolving her. “Was never your problem and I regret ever lettin' you feel it was. It'll work out however God intends,” he said. “But nothin' could make me happier than to see you in love with a good fella. That's more important than money any day of the week, darlin'.”

And though Christy's heart still ached for her grandpa, she understood now how true that was. Or . . . well, she'd always understood it. But she'd just gotten sidetracked for a little while. And it would be easy to blame Bethany for that, but Christy knew her friend had meant well, and she
had
let herself be talked into the ill-­fated plan.

As for Grandpa Charlie, she decided she had no choice but to look at it the way
he
did, only with a more optimistic spin. “I'm just going to believe,” she told him, reaching out to squeeze his hand, “that some kind of miracle will happen and fix everything. Because miracles don't seem so impossible to me lately.”

C
HARLIE
watched Christy exit the room, aware how much brighter her presence made the place. He'd never seen his granddaughter so elated. And he hoped her happiness lasted. It could be fleeting, that kind of joy, based on being in love. ­People changed. ­People had secrets. And . . . some ­people could have the best of intentions but manage to ruin things by thinking they knew every damn thing.

He wasn't usually a cynical man. Or a self-­deprecating one, either. But that last thought took him back once more to that long, hot summer in Destiny that he'd so often revisited in his mind lately. How smart he'd thought he was at eighteen. How wise and practical. But maybe he was too hard on himself. The life he'd led up to then—­humble parents, farm life, small town far away from anything exciting—­had
taught
him to be practical.
Too
practical, it had turned out.

Yet there had been those few sweet, sultry days that summer of 1954—­those few short, wholly glorious, wholly frightening days—­when he hadn't been practical at all.

His father's back hadn't healed quickly. And the heat wave of all heat waves continued to bake the Midwest. In Destiny, the heat had come with drought.

Susan's husband spent his days in distant fields attempting to irrigate as best he could. And Charlie had gone on laboring on the barn by himself, sawing and hammering from sunup 'til sundown, sawing and hammering until his hands were blistered from extra hours and trying to work hard enough to make up for his father's absence. And also trying to keep his frustrations at bay.

Everything inside him burned for Susan, hotter and hotter, seeming to rise right along with the temperatures. When he saw her, those were the worst moments. And—­at the same time—­the best ones, too.

The tension between them when she brought his lunch each day was palpable. And now that he worked such long hours, she'd taken to bringing him dinner, and cold drinks throughout the day as well. She didn't say much, but she didn't have to. When their eyes met, everything they weren't saying was plain to see—­and feel.

By the start of August, the structure was coming together, beginning to look like a barn. A few more days and he'd be ready to start putting on the roof.

He stood back surveying his own work late one afternoon when her voice came from behind him. “I told him it should be red.”

He turned to look at her. She wore a yellow gingham dress and was as beautiful as ever, her hair drawn up into a ponytail, likely due to the heat—­but he liked the way it allowed him to see her slender neck. He wanted to kiss it. Though he had no idea what she was talking about. “What should be red?”

“The barn,” she replied. “I said you should paint it.”

He tilted his head, still not understanding. “Don't believe paintin' it was part of the estimate.”

She hesitated, and he could feel her weighing her next words, deciding how much to say. “I know,” she told him. “But you'll be done soon. If he pays you to paint it, you'll have more to do.”

He kept his gaze steady on her. “And . . . ?”

“And . . . I could still bring you lunch each day. Watch you work. For a while longer.”

Charlie had trouble catching his breath as he absorbed her words. He didn't know how to reply. Because she'd been the one to run away when he'd tried to talk about whatever invisible thing lay between them. But now she wasn't running.

When he didn't answer, she added, “I'll be sad when you're not here anymore. You make me less lonely, even if we don't talk a lot, and . . .”

“And . . . ?” he asked her once more.

“And . . . I think about you. At night.” Now her voice came hushed, like
she
was having trouble breathing, too.

And in the course of a few short seconds, a million things raced through Charlie's mind.
Life is short. He's miles away. It's hot as hell. She looks fresh as a breeze. I need to kiss her more than I need air in my lungs. Maybe it's wrong. But it's wrong that she's with him, too.
She was talking about red, but he saw shades of gray. And progressed to other questions.
Will she slap me? Will she run again? Or will she take me to heaven?

And then there seemed nothing else to do but follow his instincts, the urge that had been burning him up from the inside out, consuming him for weeks now. It only required two steps forward. After which he reached out, grabbed her hand. So soft. Or maybe his had just hardened from all the work this summer.

But either way, everything about her struck him as soft and perfect and feminine as he boldly curved his other hand around the nape of that lovely bare neck—­and kissed her.

It wasn't a sweet kiss—­it wasn't the slow, romantic meetings of mouths you saw at the picture show. It was wild and hungry, rough and real—­and she was kissing him back. Sweet baby Jesus, she was kissing him back.

That set off even more untamed need inside him, to know she was in this with him, feeling every bit of it, too, and giving in to it—­and it spurred him to pull her closer. He felt all the more connected to her, forgetting where he was, forgetting the hot sun that blasted down on them, forgetting she had a husband and that this was surely the most illicit thing either of them had ever done. There was only the hot kissing, the touching, the hands that began to roam, explore. There was only the yearning he couldn't push down and had quit trying to anyway.

There was nowhere in the world Charlie would rather have been than standing on the baked brown earth on a farm outside Destiny, Ohio kissing Susan for all he was worth. And despite that, despite the fevered heat of it all, he was trying his damnedest to be a gentleman, not move things too fast here, not push her. But fighting the urges grew useless—­he'd been fighting them for too long already. And when he could no longer resist the desire to slide his palm over the gingham print that covered her ripe breast, she gasped—­soft, pretty, excited—­and let him. Let him squeeze and mold her in his hand as they kissed some more.

Though a sound—­the distant hum of a tractor from somewhere far enough away and yet still too close—­brought back their reality.

“Aw, God, Susan,” he rasped between kisses. “You don't belong with him. You belong with . . . somebody like me.”

He held her in a gripping embrace; her hands pressed deliciously onto his chest. To be touched by her was to be branded—­he'd never stop feeling it. “Somebody
like
you?” she asked, sounding confused. “Or . . . you?”

It gave him the courage to just say it, as he should have the first time. “Me,” he said. “You belong with
me
.”

Her dark gaze went desperate with longing and he brought his mouth down on hers again, unable not to. He'd never experienced such animal responses—­but Susan brought something alive in him, awakened some new part of him he'd never known before.

With one hand he molded and stroked her breast—­the other he clamped possessively onto her rear through the dress and hauled her even closer up against him, wanting her to feel his hardness. She let out another heated, startled gasp—­and then began to move against him, writhing like liquid heat in his arms.

But then it came again, the sound of the tractor on a distant ridge. It might not even be King's; it could be from the next farm up the way or the Dilly place, its dented silver mailbox situated right across the road from Susan's white metal one. Susan's and King's. It was
his
name on the box, after all. His name on . . . her.

And she must have felt all that, too, because the second he stopped kissing her, she pulled back, anguish now painting her expression. “What are we doing?” she exclaimed. “Where on earth can it lead? We have to stop, Charlie—­we have to stop!”

And before he quite knew what was happening, she was breaking free from his grasp and darting away. He turned and watched her go, watched her racing toward the farmhouse up the short dirt lane like she was running from the devil himself. And Charlie had to ask himself—­which one of them was the devil here, him or Donald King?

J
ACK
and Christy walked hand in hand up the beach—­the isolated part again—­after having consumed corndogs and funnel cakes at the Sunset Celebration and then watching Fletcher's show.

When the phone in the back pocket of her shorts buzzed, Jack let go of her hand so she could check it. Peering down, she smiled and announced, “A text from Grandpa Charlie. I texted him earlier, told him what we were eating, and now he wants us to smuggle him in a funnel cake some night soon.”

“Smuggling funnel cake won't be easy, but we can give it a try,” Jack said on a laugh. Then he added, “It's cool that your grandpa texts.”

“The nurses taught him just a ­couple of months ago,” she replied with a smile. Then she raised her eyebrows at him. “Hey, let's take a picture of ourselves to send him.”

They were near the old rowboat they'd seen on the beach before, so now they sat down on one of the seats inside, and Jack held Christy's phone out and snapped a shot.

“It's a good picture,” she said, checking it out, and then proceeding to send it to Charlie.

“Another new memory,” Jack told her.

It was a few minutes later, as they headed farther back up the beach, that Christy ventured, “So, are you ever gonna tell me about . . . you know?”

Jack glanced over at her. Damn, she looked so pretty, her hair blown back by the wind, a fresh touch of sun on her face. She wore white shorts and a colorful tank, the outfit showing off her tan—­somewhere along the way she'd transformed from Alice in Wonderland into the perfect blond beach babe.

And, of course, he knew what she was talking about. She hadn't asked him about it again, not once, between the first night they'd made love and now—­but he knew. And still he heard himself asking, “What?”

“About . . . the girl who hurt you,” she said.

 

“You promised to tell me your history,

you know,” said Alice.

Lewis Carroll,
Alice in Wonderland

Chapter 17

“I
DON'T
like
bringing up something unpleasant,” she went on, “but I feel like there's so much I don't know about you. And I guess I'm curious. I mean, you always seem so sturdy, so strong . . . it's hard for me to imagine you being hurt.”

Jack sighed, took in all she was saying.

In a way, what Candy had put him through had begun to seem a lot further in the past since Christy came along. So maybe this should be easier to talk about now. But hell, where did he begin? How would she take knowing he'd held back something so big from her as an entire marriage?

“It . . . happened around three years ago,” he said.

They still walked, the calm surf tonight just barely lapping at their feet when it came flowing up onto the sand, and beside him, he sensed her waiting patiently for him to go on. And when he didn't—­when he struggled to find the next words, the next
safe
part of the story to tell her, she asked, “What was her name?”

“Candy,” he said. That was safe.

But she waited for more.

And he finally heard himself telling her again the one part she already knew. “Like I said before, she cheated on me.”

He felt Christy's compassion pouring out in her heavy sigh. “I'm so, so sorry that happened to you. I can't imagine how that kind of betrayal feels.”

And shit—­he didn't like this already. Of course she was going to be sweet, sympathetic; it was her nature. But he didn't like admitting that he wasn't always that guy she saw, the strong, sturdy one. He didn't like revealing his weaknesses. Hell, who did?

And hadn't their time here in Coral Cove been tainted with enough unpleasantness already? The last week or so since everything had changed, since they'd had sex and started saying
I love you
, had been phenomenally good. Fun. Happy. The way it was
supposed
to be with a girl you were crazy about. He hadn't had that in a long time. He'd thought he might never have it again. And couldn't Christy use some happy, easy days, too, without worry or angst? Was it wrong to want to keep being strong and sturdy in her eyes? Was it wrong to just want a little happiness for them both?

He'd tell her about his divorce soon—­he just didn't want to get any deeper into this now.

“But enough about that,” he said easily, trying to blow it off.

He felt her draw back slightly to look at him, pausing their steps. “Enough? You haven't told me anything about it yet.”

Her surprise was perfectly understandable, so he was honest. About this anyway. “It's a nice night, Alice. I'm having fun with you. I don't feel like ruining that by traveling back down that particularly ugly path in my life tonight. I'd rather focus on the present. Which is pretty good, right?” He glanced over, gave her a grin.

And she smiled back. “Pretty
great
,” she corrected him.

And he liked that correction. She was amazing, and he wanted things to
keep
being amazing between them. So he asked, “Can you understand why I'm not up for telling you the whole unpleasant story tonight?”

She gave a soft nod.

And his heart warmed as relief flowed through his veins.

He squeezed her hand, a silent thank you for letting him off the hook again.

J
ACK
left Christy by the side door they now usually came in at Sunnymeade. Ron the Nurse had quietly called it the “after hours door” with a wink to Christy soon after their first ­couple of visits. Jack had a funnel cake to deliver and he didn't want it getting any colder before Charlie could dig in to it.

So he walked into the older man's room carrying the paper plate full of fried dough that Christy had covered with napkins—­and as soon as Charlie looked up, Jack used his free hand to whisk the napkins away and quietly say, “Surprise. One funnel cake, just like you ordered.”

As Jack expected, a smile lit up Charlie's whole face. “Holy Toledo,” he murmured, “bring that here to me.”

It was late—­after ten—­and he sat in bed watching TV, so Jack drew closer and passed him the plate, its contents laden with powdered sugar.

“Mercy, forgot how messy these are,” Charlie said, tearing off the first bite and putting it in his mouth, just before letting out an “Mmm, mmm, mmm.” Then he laughed. “I'll have to be sure I don't have any of this sugar on my face before Angie makes her next rounds.”

Jack gave Christy's grandpa a grin. The fact was, he had a lot on his mind at the moment, but Charlie usually put him at ease. So he tried to forget his worries and asked, “As good as you remember?”

“Maybe better,” he replied. Then he leaned slightly forward, looking past Jack. “Where's my grandgirl? You lose her?” Another good-­natured chuckle left him.

And Jack pointed vaguely over his shoulder, down the hall. “She got a phone call right as we were walking in.” Though the mere mention of Christy brought back Jack's discomfort. It had been with him all day, despite repeated attempts to shake it off. Because it was silly—­it wasn't like he was committing a crime here. He just hadn't found the right time to tell her a few things, that was all.

But maybe having had her actually
ask—­again—­
had left him feeling different. Like what before had mostly seemed like self-­preservation now felt . . . a little more like keeping a secret.

“Why do you look so antsy?” Charlie asked then, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Aw hell. Jack tried to blow it off. “Well, I just smuggled contraband food into this place—­how do you expect me to look?” He even ended with a short laugh—­which sounded wooden to him.

Charlie didn't smile. “There's not trouble with Christy?” he asked.

“No, Christy's great,” Jack promised.

“Then . . . trouble at home—­with family? Friends?”

Damn, since when was Charlie so nosy? “Nope—­everything's fine,” Jack insisted.

And Charlie said nothing—­but he continued casting a critical glare Jack's way even as he shoved another bite of funnel cake into his mouth. And his look was so pointed that . . . hell, even without saying another word, the old man had Jack feeling like he was being interrogated under a bright light. Or . . . maybe that was guilt setting in.

He just wasn't convinced he had anything to feel guilty
about
. Exactly. Because he had every intention of telling her about his divorce. He just hadn't done it
yet
.

Still, that imaginary bright light and Charlie's probing gaze compelled Jack to speak, almost against his will. “Let's just say I like it when life is nice and easy, like things have been
here
, with Christy, lately. And I'd rather forget the complicated parts.” He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his khaki shorts, trying to look like he had the situation completely under control. Since he did. More or less.

Yet Charlie's critical expression didn't fade. “There isn't . . . some reason you can't be with her?”

“No. No, nothing like that,” Jack replied quickly. Though he flinched slightly—­and he didn't even know why.

“But you're holdin' somethin' back from her, aren't ya?”

Shit—­did the old guy have ESP or something? Now it was Jack who narrowed his gaze on Charlie. “You're a little too insightful tonight.”

Charlie swallowed another bite of sugary funnel cake, appearing to carefully consider his next words. “It's none of my business,” he finally began, “but . . . relationships are about a lot of things, and honesty is one of 'em. So I'd advise you to come clean with her. Not much can't be fixed with honesty. And faith.”

For some reason, the last part threw Jack off. Charlie had talked about Christy having faith in
herself
when they'd first arrived here, but this was different. And God knew Jack didn't want to prolong this conversation, but . . . “Faith?”

“In her. In you. In the truth makin' everything right. You ask me, most everything in life is about havin' faith.”

It was like a conversation with Fletcher, he realized—­all this talk about faith and believing. And yet . . . Jack wasn't sure why, but it was actually the word
truth
that rang out to him right now, and that he suddenly felt hanging over his head.
The truth is . . . this isn't just about wanting to enjoy this time with her. The truth is that you're worried she won't understand, worried she'll see you differently, worried you'll ruin everything with her by revealing the secrets you've kept.

But maybe you're making way too much of this.
And Charlie was right. Maybe if he was just honest with her, it would be okay.

Before Jack could conjure a reply, though, Christy came whisking into the room, her pretty face fraught with distress. Charlie tuned into it immediately, too. “What's wrong, darlin'?”

She let out a sigh, her hazel eyes downcast. “My boss called. Someone quit at the store this week and she needs me back by Monday.”

No one said anything for a moment, absorbing the news. And then Christy went on. “Silly, I guess, to be so bummed. I mean, it's a vacation, and most ­people aren't lucky enough to have one as long and open-­ended as this one has turned out. But I guess somehow it had started to seem . . . like something that didn't have to end. So now that it suddenly does, I'm just caught off guard. And sad that it has to be over.”

Christy had just echoed Jack's feelings about the trip perfectly—­and he had a feeling Charlie probably felt the same. With no clear conclusion to their stay in sight, it
had
been all too easy to feel almost like it could go on forever.

Jack watched as Christy stepped forward toward Charlie's bed. “It's been so nice spending time with you. I . . . don't like leaving you alone here.”

Jack saw the sorrow etched in Charlie's eyes—­but the old man forced a smile to say, “I'm not alone, sweetheart. I have lots of friends here. Ron, Angie, Mrs. Waters down the hall . . . and lots of other ­people, too.”

“But it's not the same as with me and you know it.”

Charlie let out a small laugh. “You're right, it's not. But I was fine before and I'll still be fine. And I'm thankful we've had such a good, long visit—­and I'm more grateful than I can say to Jack here for helpin' to make it possible.”

Jack barely knew how to respond. He'd long since forgotten that he had, in fact, done that. And he couldn't help thinking about how if he'd known then what he knew now how he'd have handled everything differently—­how he'd have happily insisted on paying for the whole trip, and offered Christy her choice of the resorts up the road.

And the idea of that didn't appeal so much because of the level of luxury he could have offered her—­since he thought they'd both enjoyed the Happy Crab more in some ways than some big, upscale hotel—­but it appealed to him, he realized, because . . . honesty was just easier. And because—­hell—­maybe
dis
honesty had taken more of a toll on him with Christy than he'd understood until this moment.

“Well,” he finally said, “it turned out to be a great trip for me, too, in lots of ways.” First he made eye contact with Charlie, and then Christy, to whom he also gave a loving smile.

When she smiled back, his heart expanded in his chest.

And shit—­he needed to tell her the truth.

And he would.

And everything would be better then. Much, much better.

U
PON
returning to the room that night, they made love. Christy thought of it that way now. It sounded dorky to her in a way—­so old-­fashioned—­but there was no other term for it that encapsulated what she felt when she and Jack had sex. And it wasn't that it was all quiet and serene—­it wasn't. Sometimes it was wild, and letting Jack guide her in that direction, as well as opening up to him that much further, made her feel all the more intimately tied to him.

In fact, after round one in bed, she'd taken a quick shower while Jack fell asleep and she'd been standing at the sink outside the bathroom, naked, running a cool cloth over her face, when she glanced into the mirror to see him behind her, his eyes warm and sexy and overflowing with fresh desire.

And when his hands closed over her waist, then glided smoothly down over her ass, she sensed what was coming. She bit her lip, sucked in her breath, met his gaze in the glass. And their eyes stayed locked as he eased his magnificently stiff erection inside her. Now that was openness. That was intimacy. And Jack somehow made that easier and more natural than she ever could have imagined.

She let out a little cry at the entry—­and moaned as he slid deeper, deeper. She'd never had sex standing up before and it sent a startling sensation down her legs while delivering a fullness that stretched far beyond the spot between her thighs. “Oh God,” she whispered. “I feel you so much.”

He lowered a kiss to her shoulder, and then followed it with a little nibble of his teeth that—­when added to everything else—­nearly shattered her.

I think I love you more every minute.
But she couldn't say that. Maybe she should be able to say anything to him now—­that was what this kind of closeness was about, after all—­but they were leaving soon, and she didn't know how that would change things and it was scary. What if she'd gotten too comfortable in Coral Cove? Jack had turned this into her own personal paradise, and she wasn't sure what life would be like after this—­when they weren't in paradise anymore.