Long Summer Nights (10 page)

He didn’t want this to be so good, so golden, so her.

With each thrust, everything shifted inside him, all the false hopes and old pleas rising in his throat like bile, but it didn’t matter.

For the moment he lived in this dream, he belonged in this dream. He belonged in her.

She was leaving him, he repeated, but his mind didn’t listen. Not now. Tomorrow he would be back in control, but for now, he lost himself all over again.

S
HE SPENT THE NIGHT AT
his cabin. There was grass in her hair, stains on her jeans, her cute pin-striped, button-down shirt would never be wearable again, and there was a long bruise that ran down her thigh.

It was impossible to stop grinning.

Oh, Jenn knew the warning signs. Stupid girl falling for ass-hat treatment because man acts lonely and has tormented bedroom eyes that appeal to her. Then stupid girl throws away her pride somewhere after the bra and before the panties. But she couldn’t stop herself from wanting him, anymore than she could stop breathing, or completing her life-or-death quest for the perfect cup of coffee.

Aaron’s cabin had surprised her. After seeing the rustic and inhumane design scheme of hers, she assumed they were all like that. She’d been wrong. He had a mountain of a bed, with a pillow-top mattress that promised great sex, great sleep and zero back pains in the morning.

Feeling marvelously alive, she stretched against the soft mattress and purred; there was no other word for the rumble that emerged from her throat. “You live nicely,” she told him, wondering why he was so far away. There was a scratched and scuffed dining table, a maze of bookcases that seemed to tile almost precariously and a dorm-size refrigerator tucked in the corner, almost as an afterthought.

“Good morning,” he said easily, politely, distantly. And they were back to square one. She ignored the fleeting hurt in her heart, and her easy, polite and not remotely distant smile stayed firmly fixed on her face.

A large gray cat perched atop the overstuffed bookshelves, watching her with one blind eye, one malevolent one, and a snarl that matched Aaron’s.

“That’s the cat?”

“That’s Two.”

“Two cats?” she asked, blinking to check her eyes.

“His name is Two.”

“Why?”

“One ran away.”

“Your first cat, that I assume you named One?”

“You assume correctly.”

“Creative and imaginative,” she said. The cat growled, low in his throat, and she wasn’t sure if the creature was insulted or jealous.

“He likes tuna fish and has a general hatred for people.”

“Except for you?”

“Including me. He only tolerates me because I feed him.”

“I don’t know. I think that’s affection in one of his eyes.”

“That’s the blind one.”

“What do you write?”

“Fiction.”

She rolled on her stomach, dangling her feet in the air, watching his eyes follow the line of her skin, and she knew he was thinking about sex. Some of the hurt disappeared. “I know that, but what sort of fiction? Mysteries with lots of blood and crazed killers that think of new and painful ways to torture? Adventure books with a cynical spy who seduces women at will?”

He shook his head, and his normally cool eyes were amused. “Postapocalyptical fiction. The general desolation of a barren landscape, a world sucked dry from the greed and brutality of civilization. And the small band of survivors forced to work together or die.”

“I should have guessed that one.”

For a few minutes he watched her, and it was like a fire on her skin. She could see how much he wanted her. See the way his fingers drummed on his leg. It was a heady feeling, but the leash was firmly back in place.

“What did this to you?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, don’t get stupid now. Everything around you is dark and lonely. You’ve picked this place on purpose. It’s not by chance. Why?”

“My surroundings enhance my work,” he said with that absolute certainty that always rings false. As a professional self-doubter, Jenn knew the truth.

“What if that’s not the point? What if all this is a single voice in the wilderness, the mournful cry of a man who hates to be alone?”

“If that were true, I’d be very stupid.”

“Or stubborn,” she insisted.

“That would be what a woman would want to see. But it wouldn’t be real,” he reminded her.

“So, who did this to you?”

“I was born like this. You were born to poke your nose into other people’s lives. I was born to live alone.”

“Except for the cat,” she pointed out.

“Don’t read too much into it. He found me.”

“Where’s the typewriter?”

“What typewriter?” he asked, looking so innocent, so clueless, so terribly endearing because she knew he was lying his ass off, and frankly, he didn’t do it well. His eyes shifted to the floor, dodging her eyes as well as her question.

“The typewriter you brutalize every night. I can hear you.”

She thought he was going to lie to her again, but then he met her not-going-to-fool-me eyes, and shrugged. “It’s under the bed.”

Carefully she reached a hand under the wooden bed frame, touched the cold steel and smiled. “When I was a kid, I thought there were alligators under my bed. Some people think there are ghosts and vampires that live there.”

He looked at her, shocked. “My typewriter is not some figment of nightmares. I put it there because I’m tidy.”

Jenn scanned the room, the inches of dust on the books, the mangled white balls that covered the floor. “Not that tidy,” she corrected. “Why do you hide it?”

“When will you stop asking questions?”

“When I’m no longer interested.”

“The apocalypse won’t be here soon enough.”

“Don’t be melodramatic. Last night was pretty awesome.”

When he looked at her with that hungry intensity, she could feel her mouth go dry, and she knew his look was mirrored in her eyes. She wanted him not to be a mistake,
not be a diversion, but every inch of her knew that was wrong. Why did parents always have to be right?

He smiled at her, slow and sad. “She longed for a world where justice reigned, where goodness lived, where music played sweetly in the night. Desperately she believed in things that were not, in hearts long shipwrecked, in blind eyes that pierced the light. In the end, the world was not hers to rule, and heartbroken, she wandered an endless path, finding no peace in her madness.”

Jenn frowned, not sure whether she’d been complimented or insulted or both. “Who said that?”

“I did.”

Certainly she was no expert, but she recognized his talent for what it was. “You’re wasting yourself here.”

He nodded without modesty. “Probably.”

And that was the end of the discussion. That was the way he wanted it, and he would sit in the woods forever. Alone. And the world would never know. It was a crime. She sat up and curled her legs beneath her. “Finish the story, Aaron. You want to. It’s there in your face. It’s the bitch that won’t let you go.”

“Do your job, Jennifer. Write your story, go away. Go explore the world and leave me in peace.”

It was the very worst thing he could say, reminding her of the smarter choice, but he didn’t know that. Or maybe he did. He’d just told her that she believed in what was not, in what could not be, and it was just the way she was. Her very own Twinkie defense.

Moved by those very beliefs she couldn’t set aside, she went to him and pressed her lips to his throat. “This is peace.”

“No. It’s hell.”

But his voice was broken, and his hands pulled her close. Under her hand, his shipwrecked heart raced. It was the best sort of hell.

L
ATER THAT MORNING, THERE
was coffee. Full-bodied, robust coffee with a bold, eye-awakening aroma and the tiniest hint of spice. Jenn’s nose quivered at the scent, already tasting the smooth flavors on her tongue.

“Please tell me I’m not dreaming,” she breathed, shamelessly seduced.

“You’re not dreaming.” He handed a cup to her.

Not trusting him, she took a sip, savoring the ambrosia and the mind-popping caffeine. “It’s perfect. How did you make this?”

“Fresh-ground beans and a coffeepot on the grill.”

He answered so easily as if everyone went though all that work for a cup of coffee. “It’s delicious.”

“Thank you.”

“Have you ever considered a coffeemaker?” she asked, needing to point out that technology had advanced beyond the Stone Age. Now they had the wheel, fire and a strange contraption known as the automobile.

His grunt echoed from a time when Neanderthals roamed the earth. “The flavor isn’t as good from a coffeemaker. It’s homogenized, artificial.”

She took another sip, breathed in the nectar of the coffee gods, and sighed with delight. “Okay, it’s a heck of a lot of work, but it’s good.”

“Sometimes easy isn’t always the best.”

The master of the implied metaphor. She looked him over, and smiled. “No. I guess not.”

He crossed his legs, a curiously protective gesture. “When are you leaving?”

Okay, that was sudden. Jenn scanned for her clothes,
the bra, the one missing shoe. “Leaving for New York?” she prattled, making polite conversation while she got out of his hair as quickly as possible.

“Leaving for downtown Harmony Springs,” he clarified, which was better, but not by much.

She pulled her shirt over her head, not bothering with a bra. “I didn’t realize I was an imposition.”

“A distraction,” he corrected, his gaze fixed on her chest, which made her feel somewhat better, although it still meant he wanted her gone. No, he thought this would break her, but he was wrong. Jenn had survived missteps over and over again.

After she tugged on her sandals, she smoothed her hair into something less tangled. “I’m going to interview the mayor.” Hopefully he’d have something good, something interesting, something that would keep her job. Usually Jenn was a little more focused than this, a little less…distracted.

She looked at the cause of her distraction and frowned. He stood all the way across the room, as far from her as humanly possible, but the distance never mattered. Sex hadn’t made it better, only worse. The pull between them hung in the air, as constant as the moon’s pull on the tides. She could feel it and he could, as well.

“Come down later. I’ll make dinner,” he offered.

Dinner? That was new, that was different. That was progress, she whispered to herself. No, she argued back. He probably wanted to watch her eat, so the next day he would use the details when he poisoned her in his book.

“You’ll hunt it, skin it, roast it over the fire?” she asked, trying to make a joke, needing to clear the fragile hopes from her mind.

He grinned at her, and fragile hopes bloomed anew. Much like weeds. “Takeout. There’s a great American
fusion place about a mile north of here. I’m not the complete Neanderthal you think I am.”

Right.

D
INNER WAS AS GOOD
as Aaron had hoped. He’d bluffed about the restaurant. Yes, he’d read about it, heard Carolyn gush about it, but he’d never eaten there. He didn’t need ornately presented meals, or delicate sauces or quiet companionship, but when Jenn studied him, her eyes were unflinching, and yet still welcoming. He realized how isolated he’d become. Since he’d been in Harmony Springs, he’d forgotten what music sounded like, he’d forgotten how food could taste, he’d forgotten all those quiet details of life that were starting to come back.

She had a way of getting to him, getting beneath his skin. There was a sharpness to her, a determination that he respected and understood. But when he talked to her, he could
feel her,
as well. Feel her emotions seeping into him. Aaron liked being the clear-eyed narrator in his own life, grasping the truth in human nature in all its selfish misery. He knew that when feelings boiled to the surface, some of that unvarnished honesty disappeared, and got lost in the mix.

“How’s the article coming?” he asked, watching as she scooped the last bits of her chocolate mousse.

“Not well enough.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You promise not to laugh?” she asked, but she didn’t mind being laughed at. He knew that now. She made fun of herself as naturally as she took a breath, but it wasn’t to put herself down. Jenn was happy, and she didn’t care.

“No,” he teased, pleased to see her smile, but it disappeared too soon.

“They’re cutting staff. My job’s on the line. Lizette and
I are fighting for one position. She’s winning. She’s got the scoop on the councilman who was just indicted for construction kickbacks. She’s also sleeping with our boss.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t compete.”

“Yes you can,” he encouraged, foolish words that had no basis in reality. He only wanted to make her feel better. No story on Harmony Springs was going to beat one on corruption and scandal. It was the dirty laundry that fed the news. It was the sordid dishonesty that people ate up in droves. He could look at his royalty statements, and know that nothing titillated the public’s appetite like the great flaws of mankind.

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“With your writing.”

“There’s no story here. There’s no late-breaking headlines up here.”

Yes, there were.
She had no idea what was here, and it made him uncomfortable, made him guilty enough to want to correct her, want to spew out his life story in full three-column, above-the-fold details, but he didn’t. At the end of the day, at the end of two weeks, Jennifer Dade would go home, return to the city where she belonged, and Aaron would be back to where he started.

In the end, he protected himself and his work above all. Jenn would land on her feet. He could even help her. That thought made him feel proud and noble, generous. Human. “I could help you.”

“How?”

“There’s lot of things to write about. The abandoned sanitarium with the tunnels underneath. Isaiah’s Purple Heart that he won in Korea, or the Summer Festival. It’s all here.”

“Do you think that’s enough? It doesn’t sound like much.”

No, it probably wasn’t enough, but there were other things, too, he told himself gallantly. Pieces that only he knew. The dark secrets of the area.