The First Law of Love (39 page)

“Tell me once more,” he whispered. “Please tell me once more.”

“I love you,” I told him, knowing what he needed to hear. I could feel his heart beating against mine and I scooted down to kiss him there. I said, “I love your sweet, strong, incredible heart.” Tears splashed from my eyes even as I smiled at him, getting my arms around his waist. “I love you with my whole heart, and you don't doubt it, ever again. Understood?”

He laughed a little, even though I could hear that his throat was choked up. He whispered, “Understood.”

We managed to separate so that Case could hit the bathroom and I could call Camille, knowing that I had to tell my older sister what had happened since last night; I had purposely maintained what amounted to a radio silence with her for the past month, unable to bear to explain to someone else what I was going through. But she and Mathias would want to know that everything in the world was right again; at least, in our little part of it.

My sister answered on the second ring with, “Tish, what is it? It's about time you called me!”

“Case and I are in love,” I told Camille without preamble, my voice quavering, belying the depths of my emotion. Tears flowed into my eyes, blurring my vision, and I swiped at my nose with the knuckles of my free hand.

“Oh thank God,
finally
,” my sister said in response, her voice inundated with relief. She added, “I was getting worried.”

“Milla, I'm so in love with him,” I said, all choked up and trembling. “I turned down the job in Chicago.”

“Good, that's so good,” Camille breathed. “It's what's right, I feel it.”

“I hurt him so much, but it's all right now,” I said, tears streaking my cheeks. “Oh God, I can't even think of being apart from him a day.”

“Oh hon,” my sister said, and I could tell that she was crying now too, though quietly. “I'm so happy for you two. Let me talk to Case.”

“He's in the bathroom,” I said. “I've barely let him out of my arms since yesterday.”

“Everything feels right now,” my sister said. I could hear Mathias in the background then. I looked at the clock on the stove and realized it was going on midnight; I hadn't known it was so late. Away from the phone, Camille murmured to her husband, “Everything's all right, hon. It's wonderful actually. Tish finally realized that she's in love with Case.”

Mathias said, sounding more awake, “Can I talk to him? Oh wait, he's calling…”

Camille put the phone back near her mouth and giggled, saying, “Case is calling Thias right now, on his phone.”

I giggled too, just as Case came out of the bathroom, holding the phone between his right ear and shoulder. He came directly to me; I was wrapped into the flannel blanket from the couch and curled against him, pressing my face to his collarbones.

Back in Minnesota, I heard Mathias answer. Case said into his phone, his voice all husky, “Hey. Everything's all right now. Everything's as it should be. I just wanted you to know. Love you, Carter,” and then he hung up the phone and his eyes were so full of love and intensity that my own phone clattered to the kitchen floor and my arms went around his neck as he swept me into his embrace, holding fiercely, carrying me straight to the bed, where we made love for the countless time since last night, wordless and joyous and intense.

***

Monday morning I decided I
didn't feel like driving into town for work. Perhaps this wasn't the most responsible attitude, but considering that I had signed on to work for Al for the foreseeable future, I knew that Al wouldn't mind me taking a day off; I just wasn't as specific as I could have been, when I called to leave a message that I would be working for him from now on, but that I wouldn't be into the office today.

Hanging up in the predawn light of the kitchen, I leaned the small of my back against the counter and set the phone aside. I clasped my hands beneath my chin, smiling as I studied the first pale streaks of seashell-pink tinting the sky. Smiling radiantly, feeling as though the sun was rising just for us on this morning, for Case and me, and the incredible love that we had found.

I felt my lips tremble with emotion and went running back to the bedroom, where I wiggled immediately under the covers, as I was naked and chilly and craving him, straight into the delight of his warm, sleepy embrace. He was so toasty that I felt certain my skin was steaming where we touched.

“Stay here,” he murmured, still more than half asleep. “Stay in my arms.”

There was no place I would rather be, ever again. I kissed his chin, soft and slow, morning kisses, and then his neck. I whispered, “At least I know I'll be warm enough this winter.”

He laughed a little, snuggling me closer and kissing my tangled hair. He whispered, “You can count on that.”

“I told Al I wouldn't be in today,” I whispered, winding my legs around his.

“I'll make us breakfast in a little while,” Case murmured; we had made love nearly the entire night through, and he was barely awake even now.

“You rest, sweetheart,” I told him, my eyelids heavy too. “We'll get up later…”

It was nearly noon before Case fried us eggs and bacon in a cast-iron pan on the stove, wearing his gray boxers while I wore an old, faded t-shirt from his high school days, with the word SPICER across the back in red letters. I felt a distinct thrill to be wearing his name this way – the name I planned to call my own someday in the near future. I sat on the counter near Case while he cooked and we kept kissing, enough that the eggs burned.

“I love your freckles,” I told him and I meant that sincerely, though he thought I was teasing. He had mixed up a second batch of eggs, which would probably end up scorched too, as I was preoccupied with skimming my fingertips over each and every one on his chest, his shoulders.

“Who loves freckles?” he teased me, so damn handsome here in the kitchen, half naked and unshaven, with the contented glow of hours of lovemaking. I shivered with delight as I touched his bare chest, his flat belly with its slim line of dark hair that went south from his belly button and disappeared into his boxers.

“Me,” I said, smiling into his beautiful eyes. “I love all of yours. And your hair. You don't know how long I've wanted to touch it.” So saying, I smoothed my palms lightly over the sides of his head, tipping towards him for another kiss.

He kissed me thoroughly, as I stroked his hair. He murmured against my lips, “You touch anything you want, baby, anything at all.” He twined strands of my tangled hair around all four fingers on his right hand, saying, “Your beautiful curly hair. It reminds me of a mane.”

I knew he meant this as a compliment and I teased him, biting his bottom lip just a little, “Well, you certainly gripped it like a mane last night, cowboy.”

He grinned wickedly at me then, tugging me back into his kiss.

We finally had breakfast in the late afternoon, the third round with the eggs and bacon. We sat at the table and giggled at the cats, (we had driven to town on Sunday, both to collect my car from The Spoke and to rescue Peaches before she starved to death, bringing her back out here) who were playing with each other on the back of the couch. And we talked and talked.

“Tell me about Lynnette,” I requested at one point.

Case was forthright. He said, not without pain in his voice, “She never stood a chance. I couldn't truly love her and she sensed that. I tried though. I thought she was going to be the mother of my child and I tried with everything I had.” He drew a breath through his nose and cupped his left hand around mine, gently stroking me with his thumb. He said, “I hid away your picture. I had given up on any hope of us ever meeting again and I was determined to forget about you and love her. We were reasonably happy for a little while.”

“I hate to think about you hurting,” I whispered. “And it's probably so stupid and so petty, but I'm jealous of her. Insanely jealous. I know it's ridiculous…”

He shook his head, saying, “No, it's not ridiculous. If you had married someone before now, I would have been secretly plotting his death. I figured that's what would happen. A part of me always dreaded when Mathias would call, because I thought that he might be calling to tell me that you had gotten engaged, or were getting married.”

“I knew I was coming to you,” I said, studying his eyes. “I knew it deep inside. There has never been anyone for me, but you.”

“Nor for me, but you,” he said. “We've been together before now, I'm sure of it, Tish. I can sense that, sometimes really clearly, like a memory. A memory of something I don't remember from this life.”

“Me too,” I said. I had told him about the photograph of the Spicer family, about how I thought he might have been Cole. At the very least, related to Cole. I recognized, “And it's getting stronger.”

“All of us, you and me, Mathias and Camille, the Rawleys…somehow we've all been together before now,” he said.

“And Derrick Yancy,” I whispered, cringing a little at his name. Though I hated to acknowledge this, I said, “He's known us before too…”

Case nodded agreement. I had yet to tell him about what Derrick had said, both at the Coyote's Den and in the parking lot of Stone Creek; I was too terrified that Case would react badly to this and make good on his threat about killing him. I wasn't concerned for Derrick's slimy wellbeing so much as I absolutely refused to see Case get hurt or taken to jail, or any of the other terrible possibilities that could come from me telling him just now.

“When did Lynnette leave?” I whispered after a moment.

“She found your picture,” he said. “I told her I had gotten rid of it, but I lied and then she found it, tucked in my things. I couldn't bear to not have it near me, and she ripped it to shreds in front of me. I wanted to hit her. I'm so ashamed of feeling that way, because it reminds me of something my dad…something my dad would have felt…”

I moved directly into his arms as he sat on the chair, straddling his lap and holding his head to my breasts.

He said quietly, “She left me after that. I drank pretty heavily for a few months or so. And then a year passed and then one day Clark told me that Camille had told him that you were coming to Jalesville for the summer. And that was the day I realized that maybe I still knew how to hope. That maybe things truly do happen for a reason.” He rested his chin between my breasts and his eyes made my heart gallop fiercely. His hands were strong and firm around my waist.

“They do,” I whispered. “I believe that they do.”

***

Clark called to invite us
to dinner about an hour later.

“So, I heard you talked to Mathias,” I heard Clark say after Case answered. We had been almost asleep in the afternoon light, cuddled close on the unmade bed, and my head was cradled on his chest.

I could tell Case was smiling, even though my eyes were closed, smiling just like I was. He said, “I did. Everything's all right now. I feel it.”

“I'm so happy for you two, son,” Clark said.

“We're so happy too, I can't even describe it,” Case said, his deep voice hoarse with emotion.

“You and Tish want to join us for supper pretty quick here?” Clark asked.

Case winked at me and whispered, “What do you think?”

And I said to Clark, through the phone, “We'll be there.”

***

We decided to take the
horses. In the barn in the exquisite evening light, Case held me to him; we could not stop touching, could not stop kissing.

“I'm here with you,” I marveled again. “And I can touch you whenever I want to.” So saying, I pulled his lips back to my own.

He crushed me closer in response, his mouth so sweet and hot upon mine that I could have died happy too. In the quiet peace of his well-cared-for barn, time seemed to stop for us, as though allowing us this moment all to ourselves. It was only Buck releasing a deep, whooshing whicker from his stall that broke us apart, and we laughed.

“Easy, boy,” Case said. He told me, “Sweetheart, I'll teach you how to saddle them next time, how's that?”

I nodded agreement. I said, “I want to learn everything about how to take care of them.” Hearing the chickens, I added, “Them too.”

He sent me a grin as he lifted the saddle and I melted away. I begged, “Can we ride Buck together?” I looked towards Cider and apologized, “Sorry, girl…”

“Of course we can,” Case told me, resettling the saddle. He explained, “It's easier without one, if we ride double. I'll just get his bridle.”

Again he boosted me first before climbing behind, using the corral fence as a ladder, as Buck wasn't as polite as Cider. Case's arms came around me and I shivered with pleasure. He gathered the reins and led Buck to the road with both his hands and a brief tightening of his knee on the horse's flank. Once we were headed towards the Rawleys' place, he said, “You take the reins, get used to Buck a little too. It's better with me behind you, since he's not so well behaved as Cider.”

I curled my hands around the leather straps and Case wrapped his hands around my waist. He murmured, “You're so delicate. You feel so good in my hands.”

“I'm hardly delicate,” I contradicted, trying to concentrate on handling Buck, who was altogether different than his sweet-tempered sister. He tossed his big head and neighed, side-stepping impatiently, and Case's hands moved from my body at once, closing around the reins above mine and tugging his horse back into line.

“Quit that,” he scolded the animal. “You know Tish. You better get used to her riding you.”

I giggled a little, scolding, “Don't make him feel bad.”

He laughed at my words, kissing the side of my forehead. He said, “He doesn't feel bad, sweetheart, trust me. He's the luckiest horse in the world, with you on his back…in fact…” He nipped my earlobe and murmured seductively, “I was hoping to get you in the very same position above me, a little later tonight…”