Down on Love (18 page)

“Why did you walk away?” she whispered, fearful of the answer.

“You were too young.”

“Sounds familiar. I didn’t believe you then, and I don’t believe you now. I was eighteen—completely legal.”

“Too young.”

“So, what, you felt like kissing me just for fun? ‘Hey, I know what’ll be funny—I’ll kiss George, drive her crazy.’”

“I drove you crazy?”

“You knew.”

“I guess I did. A little. Maybe I hoped.” He paused. “So tell me, how much did I drive you crazy?”

“Stop fishing.”

“For the record? I never meant it to be funny. I was dead serious about you.”

“And what about now?”

“Not laughing,” he murmured.

And before she could take a steadying breath, Casey pulled her into his arms and kissed her—again. Softly at first, as if venturing into it to see how she’d react, then firmer, when she didn’t resist. She just couldn’t. It crossed her mind, but her mind was in the process of melting, so she didn’t take the thought too seriously. She did try, for half a second—stiffening in his arms, considering pushing away. Then the feel of his strong, solid body under the heavy fabric of his tux was all she could focus on. She ran her hands up over the lapels of his jacket, across his shoulders, and around his neck—and she melted into him. After all this time.

He was so warm, so real. She could feel the heat coming off his body, and it made her own break out in goose bumps. His hands were hot through the gauzy fabric of her dress, then on the bare skin of her back.

The way he kissed her—was it possible it was a hundred times better than the first time? He was more present, more confident. But she was too. This time she knew exactly what she wanted. And it was more of this. Not content to let him have complete control over the situation, she kissed him deeper, her tongue finding his. He groaned.

“Oh God, Goose—” His lips skimmed the length of her neck to the hollow of her throat.

“Say my real name, Casey,” she rasped, clinging to him, sure that if she let go she’d collapse.

“Georgiana.”

The heat of his breath on her skin as he made his way down, over the exposed swell of her breast . . . it was too much. All of it was too much. A buzz started at the back of her head and threatened to overwhelm her.

Years ago, Casey Bowen had appeared out of the darkness, that familiar mischievous glint in his eye, cool and confident. George never knew what she’d said to him at that moment, because her mind had been racing almost as fast as her heart—Casey Bowen, her ultimate crush, the boy she’d watched every day for years, in the halls at school, on the soccer field, on her front porch as he hung out with Darryl and Sera and Celia and the others in his group of friends. The boy she’d dreamed about, and daydreamed about, incessantly.

And there she’d been, alone in the woods with him, in front of the Love Tree, beside the quietly gurgling stream, trying to calm her hammering heart while he stood in front of her, looking like he wanted to do things to her she’d only read about in romance novels.

Sure enough, when she’d found the nerve to look at him instead of at her shoes, he’d swooped in without a word, lifted her chin, and given her the kiss of a lifetime. Well, it had been. Until now. Now her memories of that young, newly passionate kiss were supplanted with the immediate experience of more heat, more passion, more need.

Casey eased her back, gently, until she was against the trunk of the tree. Just like last time. He nudged his knee between hers and pressed his entire length against her. Just like last time. He kissed her lips again, hungrily, and the buzz at the back of her head intensified. Back then, Casey had run his hands up the sides of her dress, just as he did a minute ago. He’d toyed with the straps of her dress, just as he was doing now. But now his hands spanned her torso, his thumbs slipping under the thin fabric at the sides of her breasts.

So familiar, yet so different. Yet still the same? Was it going to happen the same way, all over again? Was Casey going to lower her defenses, more and more, one by one, until she was willing to do anything and everything he asked?

And then would he change his mind and back away—just like last time?

Despite her body’s fevered response to the feel of his hands, his lips, her mind reacted differently, a flash of panic flaring. She couldn’t go through the same thing a second time. She couldn’t take that chance, couldn’t risk the rejection. Years ago, he’d had her literally begging. And he’d walked away. Now, she was stronger, more mature, able to handle whatever emotional crap men dished out. Except when it came to Casey Bowen? No, even when it came to him. Especially him. There was no way Casey was going to simply pick up where he left off and George would once again do whatever he wished—then end up alone. Not now. Not again.

So George pulled her hands from around his neck, placed them on his chest . . . and pushed.

“Casey,” she half gasped.

Uncomprehending for a moment, Casey leaned forward to kiss her neck again. “You okay, Goose?”

She turned her head away. “No,” she bit out. “Stop.”

His clouded eyes finally focused on her. “What’s wrong?”

“This. We can’t—it’s not—”

She couldn’t look at him, so he tried to put himself in her line of vision. She turned her head the other way.

“What? Tell me what’s wrong, I’ll fix it—”

“It’s not about fixing something, Casey. We’re not teenagers anymore. We can’t just go right back to what happened last time.”

“We’re not. This is . . . entirely different.”

“I’m not so sure it is.”

“Goose, that doesn’t make any sense—”

They both jumped when a loud truck horn blared, shattering the remnants of the moment. They stared at each other in the relative silence after the blast, the only sounds their ragged breathing and the rush of the stream below the nearby bank.

“Tow truck,” Casey muttered, stepping back.

She rounded the tree, careful not to touch him, and stumbled up the slight slope, the soles of her sandals slipping on the grass. He reached out to steady her, but she didn’t take his hand. She hurried to the road, where a flatbed sat idling, headlights harsh in the darkness. Casey passed her up, approached the truck cab. The dome light flicked on.

“Hey, Jack,” he greeted the driver through the open passenger-side window.

“Sorry I took so long, Case,” the driver shouted over the chugging of the diesel engine. “Just about finished with my latest piece—couldn’t let it go. Knew you wouldn’t mind waiting a couple of extra minutes, nice night like this . . . pretty date with you and all,” he added, peering past Casey. “Hey, George.” She waved feebly at the mechanic/metal sculptor. Turning his attention back to Casey, the driver said congenially, “Deer, huh?”

“Yep.”

“Claiming the meat?”

“You could have it if there was anything to claim, but it wasn’t hurt—it ran off.”

Jack clucked. “Shame.” He jumped down from the cab and rounded the other side, clipboard in hand. “Just be a minute to get the car on the flatbed, then I’ll drop you off home, George.”

It took her a second to find her voice. “It’s okay. We’re getting a ride—”

But Casey cut her off. “Yeah, Jack, just take George home. Somebody’s driving my truck out for me.”

George took a shaky breath and resisted the urge to wrap her arms around her stomach, which had started to ache.

There was no denying it was full-on, sweat-your-shorts-off summer now. And Casey welcomed it—all of it—because the immediate demands on his senses got him out of his own head: the air so thick with humidity you could chew it, the blazing sun so hot it felt like it was melting the T-shirt right into his back. Skin cancer be damned, he peeled it off, flung it into the grass, and kept digging, furiously flinging up damp earth, as though he were trying to create a hole deep enough to hide in.

Not fast enough. He was spotted.

“Oh, what a sight, and nobody around to appreciate it except me. What a shame.”

“Shut up, Darryl.”

“Gonna talk about it?”

Casey didn’t bother looking up as Darryl’s large shadow loomed over him. Didn’t bother answering, either.

“That bad, huh?”

Casey wanted to say something sarcastic, but he stopped himself and just reserved his breath for the exertion of shoveling.

“Can’t dig forever, you know. Once you hit the water table, you’re gonna have issues.”

Still no reply.

“Might as well talk about it.”

Casey grunted and flung up another clump of earth, narrowly missing Darryl’s feet. “If by ‘it’ you mean you want to discuss how the pumpkin crop is doing, or whether the rain’ll hold off till we pour the concrete for the playground posts,
or
whether the catapults for the punkin-chunkin’ station are going to be delivered this week or next, then fine. Let’s talk.”

“So. Last night—”

“Not on the list of topics. Try again.”

“Look, man, I’m sorry about the truck.”

“Not a problem. Happens to the best of us. That it?”

“Nora told me Jack told her George was crying in his truck on the way home. What happened, dude?”

“And we’re back to what’s not on the list of acceptable topics.”

“But—”

“Drop it, D.” Casey worked hard to make his voice sound cold and final, but inside he died a little. George was crying?
Dammit.

“What did you do, man?”

“Nothing! Why would you think I’d ever—” No. He wasn’t going to discuss this, not even with Darryl. “I said drop it. George is fine, trust me.”

But he wasn’t sure she was. Crying? He’d hurt her, and he didn’t even know how he’d done it. Of course, if he wanted to be self-indulgent and defensive, he could say she’d hurt him far more. What the hell happened? He couldn’t tell Darryl even if he wanted to, because he didn’t know. One minute, elated she’d been willing even to
consider
last night a date, he’d planned on their having a pleasant, no-pressure evening together. The next . . . well. Okay, he’d kissed her. She’d looked so damned beautiful, standing there in the dark, in that low-cut dress. And his instinct had been right, thank God. She’d kissed him back. Good Lord, how she’d kissed him back. He hadn’t felt that way since . . . well, since the last time he’d kissed her. But . . . more. Way more. Back then, it had been all about hormones and the challenge of wooing the elusive George Down. This time . . . He couldn’t even find the words. All he knew was even though his usual body parts were responding, at the same time his heart was just about ready to burst with the feelings she incited in him.

And then . . . it was like a bomb had gone off. She had pushed him away.

He wondered if she was just trying to get back at him. After all, the last time he had been the one to walk away from her. She’d been wondering what had happened for years, and it would make sense if she had enough anger and frustration built up to make her want to exact a little revenge.

She still didn’t know the truth of it. All this time he’d maintained she was too young, and nothing good could have come of it, but he knew that was a lie. He’d repeated it to himself so often over the years that he’d come to believe it, but after last night he knew he had just been making excuses.

Now he remembered his real reason: There was something special about Georgiana Down that confused him and made him more nervous than he’d ever felt in his life. Maybe it was the way her sharp gaze went right through him, all the way to his core, as though she could see everything he was hiding, even from himself. Maybe it was the way his insides squeezed every time she laughed. Maybe it was how he was never sure he’d be able to keep up with her, intellectually and emotionally and every other way. Maybe it was a combination of all those things, and even more he couldn’t quite figure out at the moment. All he knew was she interested him and excited him and challenged him and made him want to be with her.

And he’d blown it.

And he didn’t even know how he’d done it. Except when it came to Goose—no, Georgiana (God, the way she’d reacted when he’d said her name last night . . . at the memory of it, his hands went numb and he fumbled the shovel, nearly piercing his work boot)—when it came to Georgiana Down, he didn’t know which end was up, and then everything went wrong somehow. Happened decades ago, happened again last night. Was he really going to let history repeat itself?

Casey stopped digging. Panting, he leaned on his shovel and squinted up at Darryl. His friend said nothing, just extended a hand down to help Casey out of the hole.

Darryl studied him quietly for a moment. “Fix it, man,” he rumbled.

 

“Going to talk about it?”

“Nope.”

George plopped onto a paint- and clay-spattered bench in the cool of the double-height barn-garage and waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Amelia struggled to get out of her arms, but the place was massively dangerous for a kid on the loose; there was no way George could put her down on the floor. As a compromise, she placed the baby on the bench in front of her and cradled her loosely, her arms constricting every time Amelia tried to get away, which was approximately every few seconds.

“Then what are you here for?” Sera asked, concentrating on rolling a lump of clay into a long cylindrical shape.

“Amelia missed her mommy.”

“Nice story. Wish I bought it.”

They sat in silence for a moment or two as Sera carefully fixed the handle onto the completed pitcher in front of her. Then, “Jack said you were crying last night.”

“That’s not true!” Well, not exactly. George had whisked away one tear that had escaped, despite her best efforts to keep her eyes dry.
One.
How had he seen that? “And since when do you chat with Jack, anyway?”

“He called with the repair estimate this morning when you were giving Amelia her bath. Said it’s the radiator. Plus the front end. And the headlight. And a realignment, of course. It’ll cost you.”

“Surprise, surprise.”

“I told him to go ahead.”

“Shouldn’t it be my decision?”

“What would be the alternative?”

“That’s beside the point.”

Sera was silent as she trimmed some ragged bits of excess clay off the pitcher. After a moment, she muttered, “I knew going out on a date with Casey was a bad idea.”

George took a deep, steadying breath, inhaling the scents of Sera’s studio—wet clay, paint, glaze, the dry tang of the kiln, the faint gasoline smell of the lawnmower against the far wall. She glanced longingly at the yellow square of light—the open barn doors, her escape route back out into the heat of the day. Outside, a hot breeze tossed tree branches, making the sunlight flash and glimmer. She shouldn’t have sought out her sister, but she knew if she stayed in the house, Jaz would pump her for information about last night. She figured hanging with Sera was the better option, because she wouldn’t do that. She was wrong.

“You did not. And it wasn’t a date.”

“Let’s not argue that again. You went out on a date and you came home crying. Just about what I expected.”

“Quit acting like you know everything.”

Sera glared at her defiantly. “I know things. Like how you shouldn’t get all stupid over Casey Bowen. I knew it back in high school and I stand by my opinion now.”

“You . . .
what?
”

George gaped. Sera knew about George’s teenage crush? Impossible. She’d made sure she hid how she felt. She had been—and still was—a master at obfuscation when it came to Casey. There was no way—

“Oh, you thought you were so clever. But I always knew you were in love with him. Everybody did.”

“Everybody?”
George repeated, her voice faint.

“Everybody,” her sister confirmed. “You always had this weird look on your face when he was around. Gave new definition to the word ‘moony,’ if you ask me. And you’re not fooling anybody now, either. So what did you do last night to ruin the whole thing?”

“What makes you think I—?”

Sera cut her off with just a look.

“I hit a deer.”

“Oh, I am positive it was more than that.”

“I
hit
a
deer,
” George insisted.

“Mm. And I suppose a stray antler point made that mark on your neck?”

Dammit.
George reached up to cover it at the same moment she told herself not to, so she ended up redirecting her hand to halfheartedly fluff her hair. “None of your business.”

This time Sera laughed outright, but without any joy in it. She carried the pitcher over to the drying rack. “Jack said to tell you he feels bad for whatever happened and he hopes you two will work it out. Said he’s Team George.”

Again with the Team George. “What in the
world
does that mean? Mrs. Osterberg said the same thing to me last week.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find out sooner or later.”

“Are you
ever
going to give me a straight answer to
anything?
”

Sera looked over her shoulder at her. “Why should I? It’s kind of nice seeing you squirm for once.”

“You are so twisted. Why would you take pleasure in any of this—that I’m squirming, as you put it, or that something might be wrong between me and Casey? That’s just . . . just . . .”

“Payback?” Sera suggested.

“For what?”

Her sister hesitated. “Nothing. Forget it.”

“Oh no, you don’t—”

“George. Don’t raise your voice in front of Amelia.”

“Then tell me what is going on in your head,” George growled. “You’re pissing me off.”

“Good. I’m glad. I’ve spent my whole life protecting you and defending you and making sure you were happy, and I’m sick of it. Okay? There. That’s what’s going on in my head. Happy now?”

“You’re incredible, you know that? God.”

Sera picked up her tools but immediately slammed them back down again, making Amelia jump. George instinctively tightened her arms around her niece. “And you’re incredibly predictable. Classic baby of the family—allowed to do whatever you wanted, with no consequences. Well, I don’t have to protect you from yourself anymore. Make your own damned mistakes.”

“What are you talking about?” George stammered, not really sure she wanted to know.

“I was always put in charge of you. I looked out for you in school, out of school. Made sure you never fell out of a tree or drowned at the pool. Never let other kids pick on you, made sure you didn’t make a fool of yourself.”

An embarrassed heat spread through George. She had never looked at their family dynamic from Sera’s point of view. At first her anger flared—how dare her sister accuse her of any of this? But then that was supplanted with the growing realization that everything Sera said was true.

Sera went on, “Oh yeah, it was all about precious George. And then you had to go and be the smartest one in the family, so of
course
we had to do everything to make sure you went off and made something of yourself. I wasn’t
allowed
to complain that you got to go away to college, got to live in Boston, never had to come back here if you didn’t want to. But then I realized that if you were gone, you weren’t my responsibility anymore. Why do you think I never bitched too much when you didn’t come home for anything important, like Dad’s retirement, or my wedding? I didn’t care. It took the pressure off me. The only thing that bugged me? That I was stuck here.”

“You weren’t stuck,” George whispered around a lump in her throat. “You could have done anything you wanted to, gone anywhere, any time. Nobody ever forced you to stay here.”

“All the same, I felt like I had to. You were gone, and I felt like it was my responsibility to stay here for Mom and Dad. There I was, covering for you
again
. Then—then! Oh, well,
then
you got famous, and wasn’t
that
just the most amazing thing. Yeah, it was just the icing on the cake.”

“I’m not famous,” George protested, but Sera just rolled her eyes. “I’m not. I’m supremely fucked up, is what I am.” She ignored Sera’s wince at her profanity and plowed on. “I have a weird career nobody understands, and I barely make enough money to live on. Plus I have no home, no boyfriend, and no life.”

“At least you got out.”

“Huh. I’ve gotta tell you, living alone in a strange city isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You’re not missing anything.”

“Maybe I wanted to find that out for myself,” Sera muttered, leaning against a set of shelves holding her finished pieces. She randomly plucked at a raised dragonfly perched on the edge of a large platter. “I dreamed of going to New York, you know. Didn’t do it. I dreamed of maybe trying some other sort of art besides just pottery. Didn’t do it.”

“But . . . look at everything you
did
do! You have a wife, a beautiful baby, a home. And you’re an artist! Your stuff is gorgeous!”

George looked past Sera to the items on the shelves, took a closer look at what her sister had recently created. Each piece was decorated with at least one winged creature—dragonfly, bee, butterfly, fairy—often more than one, sometimes clusters. Sera had been dreaming of flying away for years now. George had just never noticed it.