Jane Austen Girl (23 page)

And that was exactly what she did, while an owl hooed somewhere down the mountain, and a boat engine hummed on the distant lake.

This kind of kissing was like dancing, dip and sway, give and take, seek and find.

Andy could hear the rasp of her own breathing and with it a ping of reason that made her pull back slightly, look up at him through somewhat dazed eyes. “Wow,” she said.

“Yeah, wow,” he said back.

“That was really nice.”

George laughed. “Should I be pleased with that assessment?”

“You should,” she said.

He pushed her hair back from her face and added, “You’re incredibly pretty, you know.”

She shook her head, starting to voice a denial, then pressed her lips together and said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He studied her for a moment, and then added, “I get the feeling you don’t think you are.”

She shrugged. “Life in the shadow of a drop dead gorgeous mother.”

“She couldn’t be any more gorgeous than you.”

Andy couldn’t deny the words were nice to hear, but he hadn’t met her mother. “She’s pretty gorgeous.”

“Do you like her?”

Andy smiled. “Does anyone like their mother when they’re sixteen?”

“I like mine,” he said, smiling back.

“Yeah, but you’re a boy.”

“True enough.”

“I just mean, I don’t know, my situation’s kind of different, I guess.”

“How so?”

“She left my dad and me when I was three. She was out of my life completely until a few years ago.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah. It did. I’m not exactly sure how I’m supposed to feel about her. My dad tries to act like he’s okay with me having a relationship with her, but I can tell it bothers him.”

“That puts you in an awkward position, huh?”

“A bit. She kind of pushes me to do things he doesn’t agree with.”

“Like this contest?”

She shrugged, looking off at the lake. “I wanted to enter.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

“Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

“I already know you well enough to guess that’s not why you would enter.”

“Why do you think I did?”

“To prove something, I suspect. But you know what, you don’t need to prove anything. I don’t need to have someone else tell me that you’re a winner.”

The words flowed over Andy like warm honey, easing into the cracks of uncertainty deep inside her. “That’s really nice,” she said.

“That’s really true,” he said.

“And I don’t need anyone to tell me what a catch you are. Aside from the royalty and all.”

He turned away from her then, facing the lake that lay at the foot of the mountain. “I’m not being honest with you, Andy.”

Andy heard the now serious note in his voice and wondered what he could mean. “How so?”

He was quiet for several moments, as if he were having difficulty figuring out how to answer her. “I really have no right to be kissing you.”

“But I wanted you to.”

“And I wanted to. Believe me.”

“So what’s wrong with that?”

“There is someone I am expected to marry when I turn twenty-one.”

The answer stunned Andy into silence. She struggled to find a response. “You mean. . .like an arranged marriage?”

He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “For lack of a more modern term.”

“But why?” She heard the crack in her own voice.

“For lack of a better explanation, I believe it might be the only thing that will allow my family’s estate to continue its existence.”

“Because she has a lot of money?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Andy didn’t know what to say. “That sounds so—”

“Medieval?”

“Sort of.”

“Practical is the term my parents use.”

“That’s a lot of expectation for you to shoulder at your age.”

“I guess it’s better than bankruptcy,” he said, a note of bitterness at the edges of the assertion.

“Is she nice?”

“Actually, yes, she is. And probably no more thrilled about the match than I am.”

“What’s in it for her?”

“Her family’s estate borders ours. When we both inherit, the two will be joined.”

“And that’s important, why?”

“It would be hard for me to explain exactly. Ancestral pride, maybe? I don’t know. But her family wants the marriage as much as my own.”

“Mind if I ask why you’ve been kissing me then?”

He turned back to her, and even in the shadowed light, she saw the apology on his face. “Sometimes, I just want to be someone totally different from who I am. I’m sorry for pulling you into that.”

She tried to summon up offense or even anger, but neither one would come. “I wanted you to kiss me. I don’t regret it.”

“You don’t?”

She shook her head. “It’s nice to be wanted.”

“Who wouldn’t want you, Andy?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.”

He took her hand, led her over to a very large rock. They climbed to the top and sat looking out at the moon-sparkled water below. “Who is he?”

She shrugged. “No one important.”

“Clearly, he is.”

“Someone I used to be really close to.”

“What happened?”

“We grew up?”

“But you still care about him?”

She shook her head and then, “I wish I didn’t.”

“Does he know how you feel?”

“Kyle’s too busy dating the cheerleading squad.”

George looked at her, a small smile at his mouth. “Slight exaggeration?”

“Maybe just slight.”

“Is he a good guy?”

“Except for the cheerleader thing.”

He laughed. “You should tell him how you feel.”

“I’m not sure it matters anymore.”

“Love always matters.”

“I didn’t say it was love.”

“You didn’t have to.”

She considered this, started to deny it, but realized she wouldn’t be convincing. He’d been honest with her. She would give him the same. “I’m really glad I met you, George. Duke of Iberlorn.”

“And I’m really glad I met you, beautiful Andy of Timbell Creek.”

“It is never easy to tell someone what they don’t want to hear.”

Grier McAllister – Blog at Jane Austen Girl

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

All the lights were out when they got there. Bobby Jack flicked on a couple of lamps as they stepped into the foyer. “Want a drink?” he asked, turning to look at her.

“I think I’ll pass on that tonight. Okay if I put Sebbie down?”

“Sure,” he said, calling out, “Flo?”

From the back of the house, Bobby Jack’s elegant hound came trotting up to them. She wagged her tail at Grier, and then she and Sebbie sniffed each other for approval. Flo turned around and trotted off again with Sebbie right behind her.

“She’s probably going to show him the best napping spots,” Bobby Jack said.

Grier smiled. “His favorite activity.”

“Why don’t we go outside?” Bobby Jack said.

Grier followed him through the kitchen to the rock terrace where they’d eaten a couple of nights ago. It seemed as if several lifetimes had happened since then.

“Too cool out here?” he asked.

“I’m good,” Grier said, rubbing her arms against the chilly spring evening air. Bobby Jack walked over to the stone pit at the edge of the terrace and fixed a small fire from a nearby woodpile. Once it was blazing, he pulled two chairs over, and they both sat down.

“Why did you call tonight?” she asked.

He looked at her then, and didn’t answer right away. “I kind of needed somebody to talk to. And I wanted it to be you.”

She tried to look surprised, but she wasn’t. She felt this thing between them as clearly as he did. To deny it to him would be an insult to both of them. “So what is it?” she asked.

He was quiet for a moment before saying, “I think I’ve handled this thing with Andy all wrong.”

“It’s not the easiest job in the world, and besides, Andy’s lucky to have a daddy who cares about her choices and what happens to her.”

“I don’t really think she’s seeing it that way right now.”

 She could hear his hurt and wanted suddenly to ease it for him. She got up from her chair and walked over to him. She took the spot on the wooden bench next to him. “It might feel like she’s pushing you away, but I can tell how much she needs you.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“It’s true.”

They didn’t say anything for a good long while. Night sounds played out around them. A whippoorwill repeating itself again and again. A cow mooing somewhere nearby.  

“Darryl Lee came by to see me earlier,” Bobby Jack said, breaking the silence.

“You two didn’t get in another—”

He shook his head with a look of chagrin. “He actually came by to apologize.”

“Oh,” Grier said, surprised.

“He asked me if I was interested in you, and I said no.”

Grier met his gaze then, unable to deny the crashing sense of disappointment the words brought down on her. “Oh,” she said.

“But I lied.”

“You lied?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“What does that mean?” she asked, shaking her head.

“What do you want it to mean?”

Dancing around the question might have been the wisest choice. Grier couldn’t deny that. But wisdom didn’t win out. “I want it to mean that you’re feeling everything I’m feeling. That every time you see me you want to eliminate every speck of distance between us.”

He stood, reached for her hand and pulled her up in front of him.

“I do feel that,” he said, his voice dropping so low that she could barely hear him. Still husky, but louder, he added, “In fact, it’s all I think about.”

He slipped his hand to the back of her neck, pulled her to him and kissed her.

There was kissing.

And then there was the
art
of kissing.

Bobby Jack Randall had definitely elevated it to an art. Grier didn’t care to dwell on how he’d come to be so good at it, but even so, Priscilla Randall’s voice came taunting.
There are still times when I lie awake at night, and think about the way he used to make love to me. Like one long passionate adventure—

Grier pulled back and looked up at him, running her thumb across his lower lip. “You know your ex-wife wants you back, right?”

Bobby Jack made a low moaning sound, kissing the side of her neck and teasing her earlobe with his tongue. “Do you have any idea how much I do not want to talk about Priscilla right now?”

“Nonetheless, it’s true.”

Bobby Jack smoothed a hand across her hair and said, “Hey. If there’s one thing you need to know about Priscilla, it’s that she only wants something when she thinks she can’t have it or somebody else might want it.”

“Ah.”

“The truth is she didn’t want me when she had me. It took me a long time to figure that out, but once I did, it wasn’t a place I wanted to revisit.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t sound one hundred percent certain of that.”

“She seems to think she has reason to believe she has a chance with you.”

“There’s only one woman right now I want a chance with.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s so.”

“Does that woman know about this?”

“I’m working really hard to make sure she does,” he said, kissing her mouth lightly and then again more deeply.

Grier closed her eyes and drank in the kiss, one hand absorbing the warmth of his chest. “Are you sure you’re working hard enough?” she whispered at the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, I can work harder,” he said.

“I would suggest you give it your all.”

He dropped an arm to the back of her knees and swept her up in a single, fluid motion. She laughed and let her head fall back to study the star-dotted night sky. “Now what?”

He kissed the hollow of her throat and said, “Now we go upstairs and figure out the rest as we go.”

Grier knew there had to be a thousand reasons why this was a really bad idea. But honestly, at the moment, she couldn’t think of a single one.

When they reached his bedroom, he kicked the door shut behind them, dropping her onto the king-size bed and staring down at her as if he couldn’t drink in enough of her. He reached for the top button of his shirt, undid it, and then one by one, the remaining buttons, shrugging out of the shirt and tossing it on the floor.

He looked like a man who used his body in everyday life, his shoulders wide and carved with muscle. His arms were equally rippled and fit, not in the way of some of the New York City guys she had known, whose fitness came from daily gym workouts. Bobby Jack was the real thing.

She held out her hand to him, and he took it, twining his fingers with hers and sliding onto the bed beside her. He held their joined hands against his chest. Her skin tingled with the feel of him.

The room was nearly dark, but light enough that she could see the fierce want in his eyes, something inside her shifting beneath the realization that it was for her, about her. Not once in her entire life had she ever been drawn to anyone the way she was to this man.

She could feel the empty spots in her heart and her soul begin to fill with something so overwhelmingly real and alive that tears burned her eyes and spilled out.

“Hey,” he said, leaning in to kiss first one eye and then the other, absorbing her tears with his lips.

She closed her eyes then and kissed his mouth as if she had been thinking about it all her life and could not wait another single moment to act on it.

And Bobby Jack kissed her back, a full-on assault to mind, body, heart. He anchored his hands to her waist, fitting her to him, as if they were two parts of a whole, which finally, after a lifetime of searching, had clicked into place.

They kissed each other with all-consuming need, and Grier really couldn’t tell whose was greater, hers or his.

He rolled her across the bed, fitting himself on top of her. He was so much taller, so much broader, and she felt everything that she’d ever imagined she would feel in the arms of a man she knew was right for her.

The phone on the nightstand rang.

Bobby Jack glanced at it, then back at Grier, the look in his eyes telling her how much he wanted to ignore it.

“You better see who it is,” she said.