Redemption Road (Jackson Falls #5) (22 page)

Colleen

She knew this song. When she was a kid, sometimes late at night,
if the atmospheric conditions were right, Dad would tune in WWVA out of
Wheeling, West Virginia on the old AM kitchen radio. It came in a little
scratchy, waxing and waning, but the music was still listenable. Dad wasn’t a hardcore
country-and-western fan, but he enjoyed it once in a while. Colleen, not so
much. Some of it was okay, but certain singers irritated her with their cowboy
twang. Ray Price was one of the irritating ones.
Crazy Arms
was not
among her favorite songs.

“You have atrocious taste in music,” she said.

Standing in front of her, Harley laughed. “I grew up on country
music. You can take the boy out of the Bible belt, but you can’t take the Bible
belt out of the boy.”

He held out both hands, and she took them in hers. They were warm
and comforting, rough and callused from all that outdoor work. Solid hands,
hands that made her feel safe and protected. He drew her to her feet and they
stood, in no hurry as they gazed into each other’s eyes, clasped hands swinging
idly at their sides.

“When I first met you,” he said, “I could see that you were
hurting, and I’d heard enough about your history to think I knew exactly who
you were. I told myself to stay away from you, told myself you were nothing but
trouble. Beautiful, complicated, and way more trouble than you were worth. I
should’ve known better, because the first time I set eyes on you, I was a
goner.”

“There are things,” she said, “that I can’t tell you. I would if I
could, but I can’t. Not now. Maybe never.”

“Don’t
you see what I’m trying to tell you? They don’t matter anymore.”

And
without conscious decision, they melted together. Delicious full-body contact. It
had been too long since she’d been held by a man, and this particular man felt
warm and hard and wonderfully male. With her arms wrapped loosely around his
neck, she rested her head on his shoulder, and he danced her around the kitchen
in a modified two-step, their half-eaten dinner forgotten. He smelled heavenly,
of musky man and some expensive, spicy cologne. Colleen lifted her head and took
inventory of his features. The full lips, the widow’s peak, the crescent-shaped
scar near his left eye. Said softly, “How’d you get the scar?”

“Hockey
puck.”

“Ouch.”
Impulsively, she reached up and pressed a kiss to the scar. His skin beneath
her lips was hot and smooth. He let out a rush of warm breath that feathered
her hair and tickled her neck, and lust, sweet and delicious, trickled through
her body and settled, a heavy weight, in her pelvis.

His
fingers captured her chin and tilted her face up to his, and those blue eyes examined
every inch of her face. “Seems like forever,” he said, “that I’ve been thinkin’
about this.”

Of
their own volition, her hands tangled in his thick, black hair. “Harley,” she said.

He
pressed a kiss to her neck, and she fisted her hands in that thick mop of hair
as he worked his way slowly, exquisitely, to her mouth. The kiss started out
slow, then it caught fire. She made a soft sound of acquiescence, and they gave
up all pretense of dancing. Tongues entwined in sweet, liquid pleasure, their hot
breaths tangled, gusty and ragged, until it was impossible to distinguish his
from hers. His hands, those wonderful hands, meandered down her body, leaving
fire in their wake. They reached her hips and hauled them hard against his, and
she gasped. Pressed pelvis to pelvis, woman to man, it was impossible to
misunderstand his intentions. “Bedroom,” he said hoarsely.

“Yes.”
The word came out
breathless, almost a moan.

“Upstairs.
You want me to carry you?”

In
spite of her state of arousal, a snort of laughter escaped her. “I’m almost as
tall as you are, Atkins.”

He
arched one of those dark brows. “I’m a good six inches taller than you,
Berkowitz. Are you implying that I’m not capable of carryin’ you?”

“I’m
not implying anyth—
Harley!
” 

He’d
lifted her effortlessly and flung her over his shoulder. “That’ll teach you to
impugn my masculinity.”

“Put
me down!”

The
stairs were steep and narrow, and he hadn’t bothered with the light. As he
climbed, she halted her struggle for fear that they’d both go
ass-over-teakettle and land in a bruised and broken pile at the bottom. Miraculously,
they both survived the trip. In the upstairs hall, she said, less vehemently,
“Put me down, Atkins.”

“I’m
not ready to put you down yet.”

Sure-footed
in the darkness, he moved without hesitation to the room that had once belonged
to her sister. Thank God he hadn’t taken her parents’ room as his. Even she had
standards, and that would have felt too icky. He opened the door, marched
across the room, and dropped her unceremoniously on the center of the bed. She
lay there, breathing heavily, in a pool of spilled moonlight. Harley knelt beside
her on the mattress and, without conscious intent, she reached out to him.

The
moonlight softened his features, and she caressed his cheek, his brow. How had
he managed to so thoroughly break down her defenses? He pressed his lips to her
hand, then leaned to kiss her mouth. Already, the taste of him was familiar. They
broke apart, and their eyes met. He reached out a hand and opened the top
button of her shirt. She lay watching the delight on his features as he worked
his way south, one button at a time, revealing inch after inch of her eager
flesh. He removed the shirt and flung it onto the floor. Colleen raised herself
on her elbows, reached behind her, and unclasped her bra. Tossed it aside. “Jesus
Christ,” he breathed, and she wasn’t sure if it was curse or prayer.

In
no hurry, they undressed each other slowly, exploring with hands and mouths,
revealing each other’s most intimate secrets. His body was beautiful. Smooth,
muscled chest. Hard, flat abs. Was it wrong to think of a man as beautiful?  “Do
we need protection?” he whispered.

She’d
been on the pill during her marriage, but she’d stopped taking them after her
husband died. Before that, she’d been celibate for a long, long time. “Yes,”
she said.

He
rolled away from her, opened a drawer in the bed stand, and took care of
business. Returned to her, settling his weight on her slowly, deliciously. “Sweet,
sweet Colleen,” he drawled. “You pretend to be tough, but I can see right
through you.”

“Then
you must know what I’m thinking.”

The
smile started in his eyes and moved slowly to his mouth, shattering her. She
opened to him, wrapped a leg around him as, hard and slick and stunning, he eased
inside her.
“Oh,”
she breathed.

His
eyes watched hers as they moved together in slow, exquisite motion. With her
fingers wrapped around hard biceps, she arched her back, locked her legs around
him, and watched those blue eyes go soft and smoky. All she’d wanted was to
scratch an itch, but this was something altogether different, something light
years beyond anything she’d ever experienced. “Harley,” she whispered.

He
kissed her, sweetly, and then not so sweetly. As their movements quickened, everything
around them was boiled down, reduced to its most elemental quality. There was
no more outside world, no more Colleen, no more Harley, nothing but the
rock-hard pleasure of his thrusts, nothing but her soft sounds of encouragement
in response. Her breath, his breath, her cries and his, mingled and combined
with a single, searing intent, growing harder, faster, louder, until she
shattered into a million pieces and took him with her over the cliff.

Stunned,
she lay beneath his heavy weight, breathless and incoherent and utterly
destroyed. A tear escaped from the corner of her eye. How had she let this
happen?  The timing was all wrong. The man was all wrong.

So
why had nothing in her life ever felt so right?

He
raised his head. Brushed at a tear. “You’re crying,” he said. “Why’re you
crying?”

She
closed her eyes, shook her head, unable to explain it to him when she couldn’t
even explain it to herself.

“Did
I do something wrong?”

“No.”

“Are
you sorry we did this?”

She
opened her eyes, reached up and touched his face, tenderly, with a depth of
emotion that terrified her. “Of course not.”

“Then
what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s
wrong.”

“I’m
not a psychic, sweetheart. If there’s a problem, you have to tell me or I can’t
fix it.”

“Nothing’s
wrong,” she said again. “There’s nothing to fix. If there’s any problem at all,
it’s that everything is so very right.”

***

Harley
opened the door to the microwave and took out a plate. “Careful,” he said, setting
it down in front of her. “It’s hot.”

“Thanks.”

He
returned for his own plate, sat down in the chair closest to hers. “I’m sure
dinner was better the first time around.”

“Don’t
worry about it. I’ve eaten plenty of nuked leftovers in my time. This doesn’t
faze me in the least.”

He
picked up the salt shaker, poured far too much of it on his food, and offered
it to her. She held up a hand and shook her head. Harley set the shaker down
and took up his fork. “So let me make sure I have this right. His will left
everything to you. But the kids decided to contest it, and they threw you out
and changed the locks. Without a single piece of paper giving them permission
to do so.”

“That’s
about it.”

“Sweetheart,
what they did wasn’t legal. If the will was solid, that house is yours unless
and until a judge states otherwise. In writing. Why didn’t you call a lawyer? 
Why’d you just roll?”

“It
didn’t even occur to me. You don’t know what life was like for me after Irv
died. I was heartsick. I’d given up. And they blindsided me. Just showed up
with no warning. They gave me fifteen minutes to get out, while the locksmith
waited in the driveway. Made me turn over my checkbook, told me my assets would
be frozen until the court made its ruling. I was too tired to fight it. Too
tired to find out if what they were saying was true. I didn’t want the damn
house anyway. With Irv gone, I had no reason to stay there, and I figured that
if they wanted his money that bad, they could have it.”

“But
a portion of that money is yours. Maybe not all of it, but it should be split
up between you and his kids. How much was he worth?”

She
played with her food. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure. We never discussed
it. Money’s never meant that much to me. That’s not why I was with him. I fell
in love with Irv before I knew he was rich.”

“I’m
not licensed to practice law in Florida, but I have a colleague down there. I
could make a call to him, see if we can find out what’s going on with the case.
If you don’t want the house, that’s fine with me, considering that I now have a
vested interest in keeping you here. But you’re still entitled to your share of
the estate. Let me nose around a little.”

“I
suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

While
they ate their reheated dinner, they talked. About her son. His daughter. About
his plans to turn one section of pasture into crops. Maybe barley. Maybe
soybeans. He was still doing research, and hadn’t made up his mind yet. Wholesale
milk prices had taken a painful drop, and he was considering cutting the
milking herd to a more manageable level, making up the monetary difference by
raising some kind of crop that was more lucrative than milk. Times were
changing. Small dairy farms were failing left and right. A man had to do
whatever it took to survive.

The
one thing they didn’t discuss, the one topic they danced around, was the two of
them. Their relationship. The significance of what they’d just done. They both
knew that what had happened between them was more than just sex.  Now they had
to figure out what the hell to do about it. Colleen was loath to give it a
name, and she suspected that Harley knew better than to push it. She needed
time to think this over, time to revisit her priorities.

Time
to consider why it was that life kept blindsiding her like this.

When
she noticed that the clock read eleven-thirty, she shoved back her chair and
said, “I didn’t realize it was so late. I have to be going.”

“Don’t
leave. Stay the night.”

She
managed to skirt him, and was already in the process of tugging her boots on. Zipping
them, she said, “I can’t, Harley. I have a son at home.”

“Mikey’s
eighteen years old. Call him. He can’t possibly expect his mother to be
celibate for the rest of her life.”

She
shrugged on her coat, wound her scarf around her neck, fished in her pockets
for her gloves. “I highly doubt that Mikey has given any consideration
whatsoever to my sex life. There’s too much of an ‘ew’ factor involved. Parents
aren’t supposed to do that kind of thing.”

He
got up from his chair and stood in front of her. “Damn it, Colleen. I’m trying really
hard to figure out how to make something of this—this—whatever the hell it is—between
us. But it’s damn difficult when you might as well have a sign that says
ESCAPE
tattooed on your back!”