Southern Comfort (17 page)

Strangely enough, there was a comfort in Newland knowing that about her. How she liked to be in control. That everyone depended on her. It was a burden she carried, every day, and sometimes it grew so heavy it was impossible to carry by herself.

Still, she didn’t want him going around town blabbing about it to every Tom, Dick, and Harry he came in contact with.

Who was she trying to kid? She didn’t worry about him spilling her secrets to anybody. She just wanted him back. He didn’t seem to care that she lost control with him, that she stopped being perfect and for a few moments was just herself. In his arms, all her defenses had been down, her façade evaporated, and for the first time in a long time she felt exposed, but wondrous. She didn’t have time to think about that, or maybe it was just too uncomfortable.

She whirled around as the door opened. She was all prepared to lay into him, fussing at him about running around after dark in a strange town. Turtle Creek might appear innocent enough, but crime happened everywhere. He could be in just as much danger here as he was on the streets of Chicago. She refused to call bullshit on her own comment.

But she wasn’t able to read him the riot act. It was Aubie who let himself in. He grinned at her. She narrowed her eyes in return.

“Have a good time tonight, sis?”

“Don’t. Start.”

Aubie grinned. “I think I’ll get my stuff and head on back to the apartment. Unless you’d rather I call Gerald.”

Panic shot through her. She’d messed up, and she knew it. But she didn’t need her baby brother rubbing her nose in it. “Get upstairs, Aubie, and get in bed.”

He shook his head with a laugh. “It’s not a school night, Mom,” he taunted. “Though I do have some reports to review before the town meeting next week.”

With that he turned on his heel and headed up the staircase. Natalie managed to hold her spine straight as he disappeared from view. Then she resisted the urge to crumple into a broken heap on the floor.

Her whole life was falling apart. And it seemed there was nothing she could do to stop it. She took a deep breath, one of those breathing exercises she had learned about at the doctor’s office.

There. She admitted it. She had seen a therapist. Just to make sure that she was doing right by Aubie. That was the only reason. And then it just morphed into other things. It was just another of her dirty little secrets that she managed to hide from everybody.

But knowing she held so many secrets buried deep inside only made her stomach hurt. She’d probably have to go to the doctor for that next.

The door opened, but she didn’t turn. She knew it was Newland this time. Her whole body seemed to be in tune to him. Answering a call that his made as he walked into the room.

Dear Lord, what have I gotten myself into?

“Aww … Natty Nat. You waited up for me.”

“Where have you been?”

“At the Last Call Saloon.” He swayed a little on his feet, though his grin never wavered.

“You’re drunk.” She tried not to sound as indignant as she felt but she’d been pacing the floor worried about him while he had been out drinking.

“I didn’t start out that way.” Those exotic brown eyes turned suddenly serious. “Just went in for a minute, you know. And then I met Jack and we drank moonshine. Gilbert and Darrell were there.”

Natalie had seen and heard enough. As much as she wanted to be angry with Newland, she just couldn’t muster the emotion. In fact, she felt a little sorry for anyone who encountered some of the local hooch.

“How much did you drink?” She looped her arm through his and steered him toward the stairs. He stumbled a bit but managed to catch himself. Natalie was grateful. He was too big for her to lug up the stairs alone. And after this evening, there was no way she was asking for Aubie’s help.

“Just a couple. Five, maybe six.” He nodded solemnly. “Seven, I think.”

Seven glasses of moonshine? He was lucky he was still on his feet and not passed out in the street. Natalie pointed him toward the stairs, and said a little prayer that he would make it up without falling and breaking his neck. “Have you got this?” she asked.

He studied the stairs, swaying a bit like a flagpole in a breeze. Then he nodded his head. “Yeah, I can do it.” She hoped so. She needed to get him in bed and get some sleep herself. Tomorrow was Saturday, but she still had a lot on her plate.

She lined herself up behind Newland as he centered himself on the stairwell. “Are you ready?” she asked, hoping he said yes. She didn’t know any other way she could get them up the stairs except of his own accord.

Newland nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “Here we go.”

It was tough going. Newland seemed to get confused about every step and a half and decided to go down instead of up. Thankfully he only took one complete step down which left a half a step of progress with each two steps he took.

I’ll take it,
she thought. Any advance was better than none.

Three steps from the top, he stopped and slung one arm across her shoulders. They almost fell backwards, but somehow she managed to save them both by wrapping one arm around the closest newel post and hanging on for dear life.

“You’re a good girl, Natty Nat.” He patted her shoulder, his weight resting against her. Natalie managed to get them safely on the landing and steered him toward his room. It was at the end of the hallway. Never before had the hallway seemed quite this long.

“Come on,” she said. “Just a few more steps, and you can rest for a while. How does that sound?”

He pulled away slightly and frowned at her. “I’m drunk, not a preschooler.”

“Oh, yes. I know.” She wasn’t going to argue with him. She had caused that pain in his eyes, which had caused him to walk away, which had him ending up at the town dive drinking his problems away. This was all her fault, and she had to do everything she could to make it right.

He bumped into her, she bumped into the railing. And on down the hallway they went. Finally, she opened the door to his room and helped him inside. He stumbled over to the bed, somehow managing to turn as he fell, flipping himself so he was staring at the ceiling. Well, he would’ve been had his eyes not been closed.

“What a night, huh?” he said.

Natalie didn’t reply. She just grunted as she pulled off his shoes. But the simple act made her think of earlier when they hadn’t remembered to remove their shoes, and that was something better off forgotten.

“Did you know that Gilbert and Darrell make moonshine?”

Natalie dropped one shoe to the floor and went to work on the other. “Everyone knows that.”

“But it made me think. They were at the cemetery. Maybe they … ” His words trailed off into nothing.

Natalie sighed. Whatever he had been about to say was lost to the moonshine. Her gaze ran down him. She should loosen his clothes, maybe take off his jeans or his jacket. But again those sexy memories from earlier resurfaced.

She shook her head and turned away, only to be pulled back as his hand snaked around her wrist.

A strangled yelp escaped her as he pulled her to the bed. She tumbled on top of him, breathless from the fall and the closeness to him. How could a man be three sheets to the wind and still smell like a million sexy things?

“Don’t go,” he murmured, tucking her close to him as he rolled toward the center of the bed.

Natalie was trapped, pinned by his arms and one leg, paralyzed with the need to be close to him.

But he would never know. She could sneak away when his grip slackened and head to her room, and no one would be the wiser.

With that thought lingering in her mind, Natalie relaxed and allowed sleep to take over.

Newland wished that every day he could wake up like this. Except for the headache. It was dull, throbbing behind his eyes though he had no idea where it came from. Maybe he been drinking the night before. Had he been drinking the night before?

He couldn’t remember. Or maybe he didn’t want to remember when his arms were full of sweet smelling … Natalie.

He inhaled that soft, familiar scent. Except the dry-cleaning fluid had been replaced with fabric softener. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, her soft sigh almost his undoing. How did they manage this?

Did he really care? She was in his arms, in his bed, and he really didn’t care how she got there. The main thing was she was there. And as long as he moved slowly, that dull throbbing kept to a minimum. Or maybe it was other sensations he was experiencing that trumped any pain from the night before.

He allowed one hand to run the length of her from her shoulder across her breasts, her flat stomach, to the curve of her hip, and then back up again. Yet, she was real. And irresistible. He planted little nipping kisses along her collarbone, up her neck, across her jaw. She sighed again and he was certain he’d never heard a sweeter sound. He’d been waiting for this for a long, long time. He just hadn’t known it. Or maybe he had been blind by other desires, false desires. This … This was the real thing.

He continued his exploring kisses, wanting to make up for their haste the night before. Their lovemaking had been urgent, frantic, borderline crazy with intensity. But this was different. He wanted to take his time. He had her in his bed, all warmth and satin pajamas. He didn’t take time to think about anything except for right here, right now, and how good she felt. She turned toward him with a sigh, her lips meeting his. He opened his eyes just a peek to see that hers were still closed, and he wondered if she was more asleep than awake.

“Newland,” she whispered when he lifted away from her. At least she knew who he was, and she wasn’t dreaming he was Brad Pitt or something.

He pushed one hand under the thin sleep t-shirt she wore, brushing his fingers against the underside of her breasts. “I want you,” he whispered. He planted teasing kisses all around her parted lips. She smiled in expectation but her eyes were still closed.

“Yes,” she said.

He wasn’t sure if she was agreeing with the fact that he wanted her or that she was saying she wanted him in return. But until she cried foul, he was plunging ahead.

He slid his hand to the crest of one breast, the nipple pebbling at his touch. He might not have taken his time yesterday, but this morning was all about going slow. What was it the Southerners said? Slower than molasses in January? Yeah, that slow, savoring each taste, each sigh, each texture until they both died from the pleasure of it all.

A knock sounded at the door. Newland jumped from the unexpected intrusion, his head splitting open as he moved too fast.

“Mr. Newland,” Bitty Duncan called, opening the door just a crack. “Are you in here?”

He didn’t have a chance to reply as Natalie came fully to her senses, gasped at the situation she found herself in, and in her haste to get to her feet, rolled off the bed and hit the floor with a heavy thump.

Newland groaned, cradling his head in his hands. Sparks of red and white shot from behind his eyes like crazed fireworks. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Bitty said. “Have you seen Natalie? She’s not in her room this morning. Usually she’s up by now and … Well, I’m a little worried.”

He wasn’t sure how to answer. As soon as the fireworks stopped, he gingerly released his head, peering over the edge of the bed to where Natalie sprawled, tangled up in the sheet and her robe that she had not taken off last night.

Suddenly, everything came back to him. He and Natalie in her apartment, admitting to her that his life was a mess and he wished he had someone to care about him as much as she cared about the people around her, walking to the Last Call Saloon, meeting up with some guy—he thought his name was Jack—and drinking a whole bunch of moonshine. From there everything got really fuzzy until this morning when he woke up with her spooned so closely against him, smelling so sweet that he almost cried.

He looked to Natalie again. She shook her head, holding one finger over her lips to silence him. He knew what she wanted. “I’m sure she’s around somewhere,” he said to Bitty. “But I’m not decent. Can you give me a minute, please?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She pulled the door shut, though she continued to talk through the wood. “It’s just not like her, you know. I’m really sorry.”

Newland looked down at himself. He was still wearing last night’s clothes, except for his shoes, and he felt like an army of barbarians had taken up residence in his brain. That added to his raging hard on and it could be said that he wasn’t decent at the moment. And Natalie was around somewhere. More specifically on the other side of his bed on the floor. But Bitty didn’t need to know that.

“I’ll tell you what,” he started. “Let me get some clothes on, and I’ll help you find her. Sound like a plan?”

He could almost hear a sigh of relief. “That would be great. Thank you so much. Sorry to bother to you.”

“It’s all right,” he said, even though he had to close his eyes. He ran his fingers through his hair to hold his head onto his shoulders while he did his best to get the world to stay still for a minute. He wasn’t sure how he would help her find Natalie. He wasn’t even sure he could make his way down the stairs. Good thing Natalie was right there and not lost after all.

She managed to disentangle herself from the sheet and stood.

He chanced a look in her direction, braving the brutal sunlight streaming through the bedroom windows to get a look at her. He wasn’t disappointed. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair messed up, and her clothes all wrinkled. She had never looked more beautiful. Except maybe last night when she came apart in his arms. She had looked darned fine then for sure.

“Thank you.” She ran her hands through her hair in what he assumed was an attempt to straighten it. All she did was muss it further. He liked her hair like that, framing her face and spilling down her back instead of being skinned back into a prim bun. “I brought you up here last night, but you wouldn’t let me go. Sorry.” She started toward the door in what he supposed was a quick escape.

“Thank you.”

She stopped, one hand on the doorknob yet the door still shut on her hasty retreat. “For what?”