Heartless (12 page)

“Time to go?” he said. I nodded and he led me toward our shoes, which we gathered, and then we trekked across the sand to the overpass.

We were quiet for a few steps and then he said, tentatively, “You used to pray?”

I bit my lip. Did I want to talk about this? Could I?

I remembered what Josh said in the restaurant, about being stronger tonight than I had been this morning, because I’d taken a risk and tested my strength. And his kiss had given me even more strength.

So I nodded. “I used to pray a lot.”

He waited patiently for me to say more.

“My family used to be…” I paused there. For to me, just those words made a complete sentence. I took a deep breath and continued.

“We used to belong to a particular church. Not a traditional one. But we prayed a lot. Together, as a group, and individually.” I think that was about all I could say right now. I felt something hard and tight lodge in my throat. “I broke from the church years ago.” I added, and then shrugged so as to dismiss the topic. I’d stretched far enough tonight.

I had a sense Josh wanted me to say more, but he also seemed sensitive to my limits.

“Do you have any siblings?” he asked.

Oh no. Not that. It should be a fairly mundane question, expected when you’re getting to know someone. I could have just said ‘no’ and been done with that. But Josh was asking more of me, and it wasn’t unreasonable; he was asking to get to know me. That’s how dating goes. He probably thought he was changing the subject. But he'd asked about the past, and I really didn’t want that to be a part of us, and yet the longer I avoided answering basic questions, the weirder things would get.

“No,” I said. “My parents tried, after me. They wanted a big family.” I choked back that hard tight thing rising up in my throat. “My mother had five miscarriages after me.”

“Oh, wow.” He paused before adding, “That must have been so hard for her. For all of you.”

The last thing I wanted to do was explain just how hard it really had been, how with each subsequent pregnancy and loss my mom went a little crazier, how she blamed herself, and then my father, and even sometimes me, though she didn’t say this outright. It was in the way she looked at me some days, with resentment or despair, or a clingy, desperate amazement. I represented what was possible but what she could no longer attain. I think she felt she had failed, as a woman and a mother. And it seemed, when she couldn’t have two, five, or ten children, she didn’t want to bother with the one she had. Each miscarriage was a heartbreak, for all of us, but for her especially. It was a mind-break, too. Her sanity was compromised but no one knew it until it was too late. I didn’t want to tell Josh all that. I didn’t want to tell him that there were five little graves in the backyard of our family home. Not that it was home anymore.

“Yes, it was hard, but maybe for the best.”

He gave me a strange look, but I ignored it. Given all that happened to our family after, I honestly thought it was a good thing I was the only orphan. Then again, if I’d had siblings, could the Tragedy have been avoided? These kinds of questions should never be dwelled on, Miranda had said repeatedly. The past was fixed. It couldn’t be changed, only accepted, reconciled with, or, in my opinion, forgotten.

When we pulled into my driveway, I saw Josh’s motorcycle parked at the far end near the garage. I stared at the bike for a while, wondering… Once the car motor turned off, it was all but silent, except for distant traffic noise and a few dog barks. Voicing my thoughts, I asked,

“Is it fun? Riding a motorcycle?”

“Usually. I’ll take you for a ride anytime you like.”

“You have another helmet?”

“At home.”

I wondered how often he pulled it out, how often he took girls, braver than I, on dates on the back of his bike.

“Every so often my mom lets me take her out,” said Josh. “I bought her a helmet when I got mine, but it doesn’t get much use.”

I smiled. “Maybe it will now.”

Josh glanced over, one eyebrow raised. “What are you saying? You’re ready?”

“Not tonight!”

He laughed. “No, we’ve had enough excitement for one night.”

Had we? I was nervous about getting out of the car because I wasn’t sure if Josh was going to follow me in, if he expected me to invite him in. For more
dessert
. I grimaced when I thought back to what a fool I’d made of myself at the restaurant. I didn’t want to do that again.

“Do you want … to come in?”

His eyebrow quirked up at a strange angle. “Heather, I have a feeling you don’t mean that as an after-date euphemism.”

“No, no, I guess I don’t.” I looked away, pressing my hands into my thighs.

“As much as I’d love to, I’m right aren’t I?” He stretched his arm out across the back of my seat. His fingers threaded through my hair and held my neck lightly. “Enough excitement for one night, right?”

I nodded, tilting back into his touch.

“I’ll have to come in and get my shoes and helmet, though, unless you want to bring them out to me.”

I laughed, feeling relieved at his gentlemanliness. “Of course you can come in and get your stuff.” I leaned forward to open my car door.

“Wait!” Josh jumped out and ran around the front of the car. With a flourish he opened my door for me.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

He winked. “I did have an ulterior motive. A goodnight kiss?”

That was also my motive for getting him to come in and get his stuff, but I didn’t confess.

I unlocked the front door and he followed me through as I flicked on lights.

Once in the semi-renovated kitchen, I asked, “Will I see you tomorrow?”

He sighed. “I have to work.”

“Here?” Leo hadn’t said anything to me.

“No, another small carpentry job. On the side. Not through Leo. I told you sometimes I have to work on weekends.”

“Where?”

“Beverly Hills”

“Oh.”

“But speaking of Leo…”

Were we speaking of Leo? Not to my knowledge. Josh slipped off his shoes and sat down to put on his boots. “He’s really strict about not getting involved with clients.”

“What do you mean?”

With one boot on and one boot off, Josh looked up at me, and I was reminded of a nursery rhyme from childhood—
Diddle Diddle Dumpling, my son John/ Went to bed with his trousers on;/ One shoe off, and one shoe on/Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John
—why did Josh always make me think of the past?… I had drifted but he was still talking.

“That’s why I was kind of cool these past few mornings. I think Leo’s getting suspicious, but he can’t find out that we… you know… like each other.”

Did Josh just blush?

"You like me?" I said teasingly.

“C’mere,” he said, reaching his hands out to me. I stepped forward and he pulled me onto his lap. “I
really
like you.” His arms encircled my waist as he buried his face into my neck. I felt his lips along my collarbone and every inch of me, even where he wasn’t touching me, started to heat up.

“How ‘bout that goodnight kiss,” he murmured, his lips making a trail up my neck to my jaw. I felt his tongue flick at my ear lobe and I gasped at the sensation.

“You like that?” he whispered.

He took my ear lobe between his lips and my body seemed to curl in closer to him without my conscious direction. His hands moved from my waist to my thighs, pulling me tighter against him, and down slightly, so that I felt his hardness pushing up through his jeans. Only fabric lay between us, and it seemed so thin… All of a sudden I wasn’t so much frightened by his body but by my own, which seemed to ignite like a fire and course like a river at the same time.

“Josh…” I whispered just before one of his hands reached up to turn my face, my lips, toward his. His mouth engulfed mine and the heat started moving between us. His other hand, still on my thigh, slid higher, toward the dip between my legs. Only a few thin layers between his hand and my…

My arms had wrapped around his shoulders and I was holding him tight, taking the depth of his kisses, exploring his mouth with my tongue with a fervor I didn’t know belonged to me. I clutched his linen shirt. I forced myself to pull on it, to pull him back away from me. I unlocked from his lips, panting. “You should go,” I gasped.

“I should go.” His voice was hoarse. “I don’t want to… But I have to.” He loosened his grip on me and spread my skirt smooth where it had bunched in his hand. His other fingers trailed down my back making my shiver with pleasure.

With the utmost effort I stood up from my dangerously stimulating position on Josh’s lap. He quickly pulled on his second boot. Standing, he grabbed his helmet and held it over his crotch. I smiled, knowing full well the fullness he was hiding, knowing, too, that one day, when the time was right, all would be revealed…

“I have to work in the morning,” he said in a slightly strained voice.

I nodded. “Right. You have to get your sleep.”

“And this has been more than enough excitement for one night.” He sighed, his features looking resigned, a tad disappointed. Were my cheeks as flushed as his? He looked so handsome, sexy, and just a little bit disheveled from our embrace. How could I let him go home? I had to, I had to, I had to; I had to take things one step at a time.

“You have to work tomorrow,” I said, this time revealing my disappointment because I wouldn’t get to see him.

A thought flickered behind his eyes making his face brighten. “But I don’t have to work Sunday!”

“Oh?” Sundays never were for work when I was growing up, except church work. We used to spend half a day there “praying and playing” with Pastor Guthrie. Since living with Marsha and Wayne, my routine was to sleep in as late as I wanted and do whatever, so long as ‘whatever’ didn’t ring of the religious.

“Are you free?” He asked so politely, as if pretending he didn’t know how small and meaningless my life was. At least it had been until I met him.

“Free as a bird,” I said.

“Are you really ready to go for a ride on my motorcycle? Because if you are, there’s someplace I’d like to take you.”

I bit my lip. Was I ready? I thought of green lights and decided, this time, I wouldn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Josh grinned so wide I didn’t think I’d be able to resist jumping into his arms and kissing those soft lips framing those gorgeous white teeth. But I didn’t trust myself to be able to stop again, and I don’t think he did either. He kissed me on the cheek and I caught one last whiff of his sweet, soapy, manly scent.

“Goodnight, Heather.”

“Night,” I said, looking up into his deep blue eyes. I was sad that our first date was over. Beach-girl popped into my mind and said something consoling,
It’s only the first date. You’re second’s already planned for Sunday
. Yes, it was.

“I’ll call you tomorrow after work,” said Josh, finally breaking my gaze and heading toward the door. “Don’t forget to lock up after me.” He tugged lightly at a curl of my hair and then he was down the steps and turning toward the driveway.

I swooned against the door for a few minutes waiting for his engine to rev up. And then I remembered the rose. I retrieved it from the living room and turned off the lights as I carried the sweet, peach bloom upstairs with me.

Josh

I sit on my bike in the driveway for a few minutes letting my skin cool. How does she do that to me? So much heat… I mean, I know the physiology of it, and I’ve felt it before, but with her it’s
different
. A flame, a fire, it burns, scorches, dies out to sweet embers, but with Heather I feel as if I’m going to combust. Just spontaneously burst into flames and take her with me into the depths of some sort of sexual inferno. Shit, can I handle this? With her, it would not be fucking. And there’s no way I’d be able to douse this heat to something soft and tender like making love. Damn. It would be something else, only I don’t know what. And I have to find out. I
fucking
have to find out.

I walk my bike back down the driveway before firing up the engine. I kick it into gear and head down the road trying not to peel out of there because it’s a quiet neighborhood, but everything in me wants to fly like I got devils chasing me because, shit, I damn well met myself an angel. And when’s the last time I thought about devils and angels? I toss the words over my shoulder like salt to ward off a curse. But I want to thank something, someone, some force, for bringing Heather into my life. And into my arms.