Kissing Trouble (17 page)

He led her around the car, keeping a gentle arm around her the whole way.

Julie chuckled as they reached the passenger’s side door. “I’m not intoxicated. I can walk.”

“I know,” was all he said.

Shaking her head in dull amusement, Julie started to pull away, to turn towards the passenger’s side door, only to be restrained by his arms. His lips found her temple. His hands slid across her back. She was pulled to his chest. The softness of her thighs pressed into the hard cords of his. His heart beat fast and wild against hers. She felt him inhale against the curls at the top of her head, felt his arms tighten. One hand lifted off her back and slipped beneath her chin, and for the second time that night, her face was offered to his. Her cheek was caressed by the same hand. The curve was traced by the tips of his fingers. Julie gasped. The harsh clap of her heart intensified to a painful crack inside her chest. She watched in wonder and anticipation as he studied her shadowed features. She wondered if he could even really see her when she couldn’t make him out at all.

“Let’s go home,” he murmured at last, pulling her from the spell he had so effortlessly woven around her. “Luis and Shaun probably think we’ve run off and left them there.”

With a weak laugh, she let herself be tucked into the car. He shut the door behind her and hurried around to slip behind the wheel. Julie leaned her head back and relaxed as they set off.

At some point, she must have dozed, because it was only mere minutes later when Mason was shaking her gently awake. They were parked in front of the cabin and the front door was open to the warm glow of the foyer.

Julie grimaced in embarrassment as she pushed straighter up in her seat.  “I’m sorry,”

She resisted the urge to check her chin for drool.

“Don’t be.” He smiled sweetly at her. “You okay to walk?”

Julie nodded and threw open her door. Together, they put the kids to bed and found Shaun and Luis watching some horror movie on TV. Luis beamed when he saw them. He waved.

“Where did you guys take off to?” he asked.

“Took the kids shopping,” Julie said.

“Thanks for asking us to tag along,” Shaun muttered. “Sorry we couldn’t move our busy schedule around.”

“You guys had the keys to the truck,” Mason told them. “You didn’t need to stay here all day.”

Shaun shot him a murderous glower. “We came here to hang out together. Two seconds through the door and you were sucked up her vagina.”

“Jesus!” Mason snapped.

That was the second time Shaun had called her a vagina and Julie had had it.

“The only vagina in this room is you, Shaun,” she said evenly. “Stop being a little bitch.” She turned to Mason. “I’m going to bed.” She cast a glance towards Luis. “Goodnight.”

Without waiting for a comment from anyone, she started up. She was at the top of the stairs when the arguing downstairs erupted. Feeling way too exhausted to have to deal with any of Shaun’s bullshit, she went straight to bed. She was out the second her head hit the pillow.

Only, she didn’t stay asleep.

“J
ulie!”

The desperate wail sent Julie staggering out of bed. Her head rushed from the sudden motion and her stomach roiled in protest, but she stumbled to the doors and threw them open. A scream lodged in her throat when the shadow in the hall jumped, clearly as surprised as she was at not being the only one awake. It was only due to the lit bulb in the hallway bathroom, normally left on so Rick could find his way, that Julie recognized the figure.

“Mason?”

“I heard a scream,” he said, answering her unasked question.

“Who was it?” she wondered, darting anxious glances at the other doors.

“I think Wendy.”

Hand still pressed to her thumping heart, Julie sprinted past him towards Wendy’s room. She pushed open the door and hurried inside.

Wendy, in her
My Little Pony
pajamas, stood by the window. She spun around when Julie burst into her room, followed by Mason. Her face was pale, made paler by the harsh glow of the moon spilling through the glass.

“There’s a man outside!” Wendy said, pointing, jabbing at the glass. “He’s carrying a body.”

“What?” Julie ran to her and pulled her away to take her place at the window.

The world outside was dark. Not city dark where lights from streetlamps and apartments still illuminated even the places that seemed impossibly dark. No one knew the meaning of true darkness unless they’d ever gone camping. But that was what that was—absolute darkness. Everything was a violent smear of black. The light from the moon shone over the grounds only mere feet around the house like a spotlight. Julie squinted, straining to see even a glimmer of movement that wasn’t the trees, and saw nothing.

“Where?” she asked out loud.

“By the lake,” Wendy answered.

Julie felt the warmth and strength of Mason’s body come up against her back. His hand rested on her hip as he leaned to see over her shoulder. His weight rested securely on her and she had to resist the urge to lean back into him.

“I don’t see anything,” she replied.

“Are you sure you weren’t dreaming, brat?” Mason wondered.

“I’m awake,” Wendy insisted.

Julie turned to her. “What are you doing out of bed anyway?”

Wendy shrugged. “I heard a noise.”

Julie took the other girl by the shoulders and gentle guided her back to the bed. Mason remained by the window, looking up and down the yard with his hands cupped around the face he had squished into the glass. He must not have found anything, because he turned away and watched as Julie tucked Wendy into bed.

“There’s no one out there, squirt,” Mason promised as he tugged the curtains over the window, blocking the moon and yard from view. “You probably saw a deer.”

Wendy frowned. “It wasn’t a deer.” But she sounded unsure.

Julie smoothed back hairs off the girl’s face. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now, okay?” She drew the blankets more securely around Wendy’s shoulders. “Go back to sleep.”

With a sigh, Wendy turned onto her side and shut her eyes.

Mason crept out of the room. Julie followed, only after casting an uneasy glance in the direction of the window. Mason was waiting for her when she shut the door behind her.

“Coffee?”

Julie squinted at her watch and groaned at the ungodly hour. “It’s five in the morning.”

Stretching and pulling all of that glorious taut skin and sinewy muscle, Mason yawned loudly. “Apparently.”

Her weary limbs protested the idea of going anywhere that wasn’t her bed, but she knew sleep was only a distant memory. Even if she tried, it wouldn’t come and she would only toss and turn anyway.

“Fine,” she grumbled.

Mason started the coffee while Julie watched the shimmer of light reflecting off the surface of the lake through the patio doors. The sky was lit solely by a slash of orange just along the horizon. The color trickled through the navy blue, painting the peaks of the trees a brilliant gold.

Strong hands settled on her shoulders from behind. The fingers pulled on the knots tightening the muscles and Julie whimpered as every expert knead rolled her eyes up into the back of her skull. Her head dropped back against the hard corded muscles of Mason’s shoulder. Her eyes closed.

“Why don’t you get some more sleep?” he offered, letting his hand slid down her arms to hook around her middle. “I can take the kids.”

Julie shook her head, eyes still shut. “I’m okay. I just need some coffee.”

“Are you sure?” He kissed her temple with the most endearing skim of his lips. “I make a mean bowl of cereal.”

Julie laughed.

“Don’t laugh.” He nuzzled the side of her face, scratching her face with the soft bristle growing around his jaw. “My cereal could win awards.”

Her snort was met with a nip of his teeth against her jaw. She squeaked and tried to pull away.

“You promised we’d talk,” he reminded her, tightening his hold. “I need to know if you’ll give us a chance.”

“A chance at what?” Her voice came out an octave too high. “We live in different provinces. I’m still in school. You have your job. Now, unless all you want is a summer fling, I don’t understand what you want from all this.”

The arms cradling her protectively against his chest stiffened. “That’s not what I’m asking. That’s not what I want.”

“What then?” She turned so they were face to face and she could see the determination in his eyes. “Are you really willing to wait for me while I work my way out of school?”

“Yes!” It was said without a shred of hesitation. “Maybe you didn’t hear me earlier, but I’ve been in love with you my entire life.”

It took a great deal of effort not to fall boundlessly into those words, into the warm promise behind them. She had waited too long to hear them and now that she was, she was filled with pain. Like he had physically reached into her chest, torn out her heart, and mashed it all over again under a mallet.

“Don’t say that.” There was no hiding the plea, nor was she able to suppress the humiliation that came with it.

“Jewels...”

“No!” She planted her palms to his chest and shoved him back a full three steps. “You had years to tell me that. You had years to explain what happened that night. But you choose now to do it? Why?” she demanded.

“Because no matter how I looked at it, you were too young,” he cut her off. “When I was sixteen, you were thirteen. When I was eighteen, you were fifteen.”

“But that’s still only three years,” she rationalized. “It was still legal in Canada.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t matter. I told you, I wasn’t going to start something between us when I would eventually have to leave. I wasn’t going to ask you to put your life on hold for me.”

“But that was my choice!” she shot back, livid. “You had no right to make that decision for both of us.”

He spread his arms out in exasperation. “Maybe not, but how long do you think it would have lasted, huh? How long would you have waited, going weeks, sometimes months without seeing me? Loneliness is a bitch, Julie. Trust me. It would have eaten at us, driving a wedge between everything we had and I wasn’t going to lose you like that.”

Her anger was stilled by the confusion brought on by his words. “What are you talking about?”

“You were fifteen when I left for British Columbia,” he reminded her. “I would have been your only relationship and it would have been for two months before I left for school. That first year, I didn’t come home until Easter break. That’s seven months. The next time was Christmas. That’s another nine months. That’s twice in a single year. That’s how often you would have seen me while your friends were going out every weekend with their boyfriends and you had to stay home in case I was able to call for a few minutes between homework and classes. You were fifteen, Julie.” He lowered his voice, but she could hear what those years had cost him reverberating through every word. “It killed me, but I wanted you to live. I wanted you to go on dates and have fun.” He dropped his eyes to their feet. “I wanted you to be sure you still wanted me when we met again.”

“That’s crazy.” But there was no anger in the statement. In her. For the first time in four years, the thought of him didn’t fill her with pain and fury, because she understood what he had been trying to do. If anything, it made her heart sink a little deeper in the quicksand that was her love for Mason Brody.

“Maybe,” he murmured with a sheepish quirk of his lips. “But like I said, I loved you enough to let you go for a short time.”

She arched a brow almost teasingly. “You sound so sure that I would still be single when we met again.”

He averted his eyes, but not before she saw the spark of doubt. “I wasn’t sure, but...” His head tipped ever so slightly in her direction and his features became contemplative as he studied her. “I hoped.” He paused before adding, “I also had a very elaborate way of making him disappear if it came down to it.”

Julie burst out laughing.

He didn’t. But he grinned a little. It was dark and there was something there that stole her breath. Her laughter died.

“Tell me about that night.”

The coffee machine took that moment to beep, signaling the end of its brewing. The rich, dark scent of roasted beans momentarily distracted Julie. Her eyes flittered over to the counter where the machine sat, gleaming almost tauntingly, and she nearly whimpered.

Mason chuckled and gave a slight shake of his head as he took a step back. “Come on. I’ll tell you once we get you your fix.”

“God bless you,” she moaned, following him across the kitchen and around the island.

With steaming mugs in hand, they ventured to the table and sat. Julie took the head and Mason claimed the chair on her right. He waited until she had gulped a greedy mouthful that burned all the way down before speaking.

“It was Ian Herst’s graduation party and the entire senior class had been invited. I originally hadn’t wanted to go. Mom was taking the whole family out to dinner and I knew it would be a long time before I would see everyone together like that. Shaun insisted. He pushed and begged, and I think he even threatened me at one point, but I eventually gave in. After dinner, we got into my truck and we drove to Ian’s.” He paused and looked down at the cup cradled between his hands. “The whole way, Shaun teased me about you. I think we talked more about you then anything else. There was even a point where I asked him if he liked you. He doesn’t,” he said when Julie visibly cringed. His smile faded as he continued. “But he liked how it annoyed me. He said it was funny seeing me get all riled up about something, especially considering how stupid I was being. He didn’t understand why I wasn’t just taking what we both wanted when it was clear there was nothing standing between us.

At the party, he joked how it would be hilarious if you showed up. I told him that was unlikely—it was a senior class party and you’d made plans to see a movie at the Cineplex with your friends.”

Julie blinked in surprise. “How...?”

His grin was sheepish. “I overheard you and your friends earlier that day while you were cleaning out your locker.”