Lead Him Not Into Temptation (Redemption Book 2) (14 page)

I nod in agreement. I may know jack shit about cars, but I feel the same way about my photography. I love capturing those small moments when people don’t think you’re watching. That’s where the real beauty lies, not in anything I could ever pose.

“When I met you, you reminded me so much of Nelly.”

“I reminded you of your truck? Casen, my suggestion would be to offer chocolate and back away slowly. I don’t see this going anywhere complimentary, when the introduction includes you remind me of my once rusty truck I found in a junkyard. Not exactly words which will convince a girl to let you under her hood.”

“You’re killing me, devil woman. Let me finish,” he whines before briefly burying his head in a pillow.

I quietly giggle and then nudge him up. “Sorry, I’m sure this has a fabulous ending.” Yeah, that probably didn’t help contradict the devil woman label. I swear I try to channel my best Mother Theresa, but all that ever comes through is something, which rivals Linda Blair. “Really, keep going. Please. I want to know where the name comes from.”

Casen rolls his eyes, clearly no longer amused with my interruptions and added commentary. “Like I was saying, I kept thinking of Nelly when I was around you. It wasn’t that you reminded me of the actual truck, it was something specific about the truck. I rebuilt everything, my truck was perfect, but I couldn’t get the damn thing to start. I checked and double checked.”

“What was wrong with it?” I ask.

His eyes slide to mine and he grins triumphantly. “The sparkplug,” he announces smoothly. “It’s the tiniest of parts, but if something is wrong with the sparkplug, a vehicle won’t work. When I met you I realized if I let you close enough, you would be my own personal sparkplug.” He grabs my hip and pulls me down to my back and hovers over me. “You’re a massive personality inside this tiny little package. If I didn’t have you or if something were to upset you, my own world wouldn’t work the way it should. I knew you would be that important to me. Am I making better sense?”

I nod and kiss him. Just like that, I don’t mind the nickname anymore. In fact, I now want to hear it more than ever. I’ve never been important to anyone, so for him to see something more than anyone else makes me feel both uncomfortable and special.

Before I can say anything, Casen rips the blanket off me and I yelp from the immediate chill I’m met with. “What the hell?”

“It’s my turn to ask a question. One last one before we have to pack up and return to the real world.” He rubs his hands down my freezing body until he reaches the tattoo on my lower hip. People say tattoos are addictive, but I only have the one and I don’t see that ever changing.

“Tell me the story of this tattoo. I’ve seen a million and a half of those dandelion tattoos with the fuzz floating off into the breeze. This, though, is the yellow dandelion flower. I could understand a rose, or a daisy, even one of those popular lilies, but a dandelion? Most people consider it a weed, not a flower. So, I want the story,” he explains while his fingers trace the outline of my small tattoo. His touch leaves a trail of warmth on my skin, and I silently beg him to continue.

“That’s exactly why I got it. I like to consider myself a person who survives whatever shit pile I step in or get thrown into. I’m not some fragile thing which wilts and dies. Like you said, I’m stubborn. When I decided to get a tattoo to remind myself it’s okay to be a headstrong girl who not everyone is going to like, those popular flowers wouldn’t work. They all need to be taken care of; if their environment isn’t ideal they can’t survive.” As I continue to explain I feel my throat tighten and tears begin to flood my eyes. I rarely cry. I take that back, I don’t cry, but I never talk about my past either, so I guess this attack of the emotions can be expected, but I hold it together. “No, I wanted the weed,” I choke out. “I wanted the plant which people try and kill year after year, yet it continues to return. Its beauty isn’t in the petal. The beauty lies in its will to survive. There was never any indecision, I’m a dandelion.”

I feel a tear get past my defenses and roll down my temple and into my hair. I try to pretend it didn’t happen so Casen won’t notice. No such luck, though. Instead of using his hands to wipe my sadness away, he turns my head toward him and kisses the path of my tear.

“You got part of your description wrong, sparky. You aren’t a weed. You absolutely are a flower. You are the strongest fucking flower I’ve ever met.” His words provoke a few more tears to fall.

Casen then shifts on top of me, and brushes my hair away from my face. “Beautiful inside and out,” he whispers before kissing me and grinding his hips against mine.

When he deepens the kiss, I pull away. “I thought we needed to get ready to leave?” I ask.

“The world can wait. There is nothing outside this camper more important than who is in my arms right now.”

I push him off me, straddling his waist and pinning him to the bed. I lean down as though I’m going to kiss him, but I stall just before reaching him. “Don’t you forget it,” I tell him with a sly smile. Casen chuckles and lifts his head to meet me in the middle. Our bodies meld together and once again passion overtakes us. He was right. The world and everything in it can wait.

Casen

“Thank you for dinner,” she says, placing the key in the lock to her apartment.

I wrap my arms around her tiny waist and smell the coconut scent of her hair. “You are very welcome.” I playfully tickle her sides. “Are you inviting me in for coffee or ‘coffee’?”

She laughs and opens the door. “Why don’t you come on in and we’ll play it by ear,” she says, walking through the doorway.

I follow her into the apartment and take my boots off on the rug in the entry. Collages of black and white photography adorn every wall in her apartment. I was expecting vibrant colors, but instead the cozy one-bedroom is subtle, comfortable, and decorated in shades of light green and lavender. The flowers in the vases are fake, which is not surprising after hearing about Jen’s inability to keep plants alive.

“So now that you have me here, what do you plan to do with me?” I joke as I move into the living room and take a seat on the lush cream-colored sofa. Photography books, fashion magazines, and a few pieces of mail are scattered across the dark brown coffee table, but that is the extent of the clutter in the apartment. Campbell told me about an incident in college when she and Vivian hid her favorite designer heels as a way to teach her a lesson in cleaning up after herself. I guess the girls got their message across, because her place is neat and tidy.

“I haven’t figured that much out yet, I figured a movie or maybe a game. I have a closet full of board games.” She throws her purse on the kitchen counter and disappears into the hallway.

“Playing cards for drinking games are kind of a given hanging out with guys, but other than poker, I haven’t ever played any board games. We really didn’t have those when I was a kid,” I explain.

She returns to the living room with a stack of games in her hand and drops them on the floor in front of me. “Well, you have no choice now, we’re playing a game. I can’t let you continue on without having participated in games like Uno or Yahtzee. That’s just wrong.”

“Hey now, you had never been fishing or camping. I think we are pretty even,” I defend myself, sorting through the game possibilities.

“Whatever. You pick something out while I get us some snacks and drinks.” She stands and takes off toward the kitchen. I hear the fridge open, followed by a great deal of crashing and banging from her direction. I’m interested to see what she comes up with because I know her culinary skills are limited. Unless one counts her ability to order takeout, then she’s a pro.

She returns with big bags of candy, a bowl of popcorn and cans of soda. “I have found us a feast,” she says, obviously fond of her kitchen bounty. “What are we playing?”

I hold up the Yahtzee box and shake the dice inside. “It’s on, woman.”

Taking the red box from me, she instantly starts setting up the game on the floor and explaining the objective. By the time she’s done, I’m convinced this is a game designed by elementary teachers to trick kids into learning addition. Nevertheless, the game seems pretty kickass.

“You want to go first?” I ask, shoving a handful of popcorn in my mouth. Immediately I’m thankful for her selection of extra butter as it helps to mask the burnt taste caused by her leaving the bag in the microwave a little too long. Choking down the final bite, I open my Dr. Pepper and wash down the leftover charcoal. I take a mental note to stick with the numerous bags of candy for the remainder of the evening.

“No, you go ahead,” she says opening her own can, which explodes all over her. “Dammit,” she shouts, attempting to shield herself from the spray of the soda. She stands up and rushes to the kitchen for a towel and I quickly move the game away from the sticky mess. Thankfully, nothing is ruined except maybe Jen’s outfit.

She returns sopping wet with a tea towel and an expression, which clearly says, proceed with caution. “Time out for now, I’m going to take a shower and change into some clean clothes.”

I bite back a laugh at the state of her disarray. “No problem, sparkplug, I’ll catch up on my Cosmo and review my Yahtzee strategies.”

She nods and storms down the hall to her bathroom. It’s not until the water pipes rattle to life that I remember the length of Jen’s typical showers. I may be asleep on the couch before I see her again as I’m looking at a forty-five minute to hour-long wait. To waste some time, and keep myself awake, I find tasks around the apartment to accomplish. I finish cleaning up the soda mess, throw away the ruined popcorn, making sure to make a new bowl so she won’t notice my little switch, and stack the board games up. Those tasks took a total of ten minutes, only ten minutes, and the water is still going strong.

Grabbing the large photography book off the coffee table and plopping onto the couch, I hope the pictures are enough to keep me occupied for the next who knows how long. I flip through the first few pages of buildings and pasture pictures, nothing that speaks to me. I think that’s the inspirational phrase used by artsy types. When I notice a bookmark holding the place of a particular picture in the middle of the book, I find myself hoping Jen has marked something spectacular which will help me justify her purchase of this ungodly expensive, and less than impressive, picture book.

Turning to the marked page, I’m immediately struck by the image on the page. The personal meaning of the photo pulls me in and I feel as though I shouldn’t even be looking at the picture. The picture is meant to be a field of healthy, beautiful roses. What stands out is not the sea of red, though, it’s the lone yellow dandelion which stands against the fray. A weed amongst the flowers…a dandelion amongst the roses. This picture symbolizes Jen and for a split second I contemplate ripping it from the book so I can have it all to myself.

A sense of paranoia overtakes me and I listen intently for the water, which is still running. I begin to put the bookmark back in its place, when I notice it’s not a bookmark at all, it’s a letter from her Aunt Maggie. I know it’s an extreme invasion of privacy, but I can’t help myself from wanting to look at it. The postmark is current, yet the folds of the stationary suggest this letter has been opened and closed several times…probably read many more. This letter has held the place of this picture in her book for a reason.

I slowly open the letter, careful not to rip the thinning pieces of paper. A few photos of a little girl drop out into my lap. They’re the same child at different ages; the newest looks to place the girl at maybe age nine or ten. The little girl in the pictures, if she isn’t Jen as a child, is definitely someone related to her. After examining each photo, I place them back in the envelope and turn my attention to the letter. I listen once more for the shower to make certain I’m safe to proceed and then dive in.

DEAR JEN,

I HOPE THIS LETTER FINDS YOU WELL, MY DEAR. IT HAS BEEN A WHILE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE, BUT I FEEL AS THOUGH THIS LETTER IS LONG OVERDUE. I WANT YOU TO KNOW I LOVE YOU LIKE YOU WERE MY OWN DAUGHTER AND EVERYTHING I’M ABOUT TO TELL YOU I DID OUT OF LOVE FOR YOU.

WHEN YOUR FATHER SENT YOU TO ME ALL THOSE YEARS AGO, I NEVER AGREED WITH WHAT HE WAS FORCING YOU TO DO. CHOICES WERE TAKEN FROM YOU, AND I JUST COULDN’T DO THAT TO YOU. YOUR FATHER GAVE ME LEGAL AUTHORITY TO HANDLE THE ADOPTION, TO DISTANCE HIMSELF FROM EVERYTHING, BUT I NEVER DID AS HE INSTRUCTED.

I FOUND YOUR DIARY AND READ ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT THE BABY, HOW YOU WISHED YOU WERE ABLE TO KEEP HER, NO MATTER HOW SHE HAD BEEN CONCEIVED. I READ IF YOU WERE ABLE TO KEEP HER, YOU WOULD NAME HER ABBY. YOUR WORDS BROKE MY HEART. I KNEW YOU WEREN’T READY TO BE A MOTHER, AND YOUR FATHER WOULD NEVER BE ACCEPTING OF WHAT I HAD PLANNED, SO I’VE KEPT THIS SECRET ALL THIS TIME. I THINK IT’S NOW TIME YOU KNEW THE TRUTH.

I ARRANGED THE PAPERWORK AS I WAS INSTRUCTED BY YOUR FATHER, BUT INSTEAD OF ADOPTION PAPERS, YOU SIGNED PAPERS GIVING ME POWER OF ATTORNEY AND GUARDIANSHIP OF YOUR DAUGHTER. AFTER SHE WAS BORN, I SENT HER TO LIVE WITH FRIENDS UNTIL YOU LEFT FOR SCHOOL. THEN SHE CAME TO LIVE WITH ME, WAITING FOR A TIME WHEN YOU COULD BE HER MOTHER. I’M SO SORRY IF THIS ISN’T WHAT YOU WANTED AND FOR NOT TELLING YOU, BUT I DIDN’T SEE ANY OTHER WAY OF SOMEDAY REUNITING YOU WITH YOUR CHILD.