Their Virgin Neighbor (12 page)

She wasn’t sure what she felt for her
men, her lovers. But right there, with the trees surrounding her,
with the crisp air making her nose turn pink, she knew that it was
something real. Something that was more than just her trying to
claw out of her grief, or discover a part of herself that had lain
undiscovered for so long.

Lee and Jack were hers.

“
Then we…” She paused,
struggling to order her newfound thoughts. “We’re here
because…”

“
Because,” Lee said and
the next thing she knew he was tugging her hand, and Jack was
tugging the other. “It’s time to pick out a tree.”

Chapter
Sixteen

It was the early hours following
Christmas day and Jack was sat outside, feet propped up on the
rocking chair opposite him, a whisky in hand. He’d left Lee and
Anna in bed together. Both had been fast asleep. He’d been tired
too, the day had been frantic, but for some reason Jack had been
unable to settle.

In the end he’d slipped out of the
covers, dragged his pants on, and poured himself a drink. The
outside had called to him, and Jack had heeded it. In a way it made
sense. How many hours had he sat out in the frigid cold or the
blistering heat? In those days there was no opportunity to think,
he’d had to stay on guard, but here was different. No one was going
to jump out at him, no one was going to shoot at him, no one was
going to bother him…at least that’s what he’d thought.

Lee took the seat next to him. Jack
didn’t even need to turn his head to know it was him.

“
You left enough for one
glass in the bottle.”

Jack smiled as he brought his glass to
his lips and took a sip. “Was planning to come back and finish
it.”

“
I have another in the
larder,” Lee said. “Stashed behind your jalapeño supply. We can
crack it open if need be.”

“
Anna will be surrounded
by the smell.”

“
She won’t mind. She’s so
relaxed with us…” Lee trailed off. “Today has been…” He laughed
softly. “Not what I expected.”

Jack nodded. “Never thought we’d have
a Christmas quite like this.”

“
Because you had to cook
dinner or because Anna had me spending half the day decorating the
tree?”

“
Both, I
guess.”

“
It’s certainly been
something different.”

Silence settled between the two men.
Jack took another swig of his drink. It warmed his throat and then
his stomach. No wonder. The cold was absolute. They’d had the
heating running in the house twenty-four-seven for at least the
last month. Anna liked to be warm and Jack, well, he couldn’t
refuse her.

You’ll never be able to
refuse her.

He frowned into his glass. She had
looked so beautiful today. Her hair had been loose, tumbling down
her back. Her nose was pink, seeming to get pinker every time she
scrunched it in laughter or annoyance. And those eyes…his frown
deepened. Jack did not think that he had ever met anyone with eyes
as expressive as hers. It was one of the reasons this relationship
of theirs had lasted for as long as it had. They didn’t even need
to ask Anna questions most the time. One of them said something and
the look in her eyes said everything they needed back.

“
She was happy today,”
Jack said after a moment.

“
She was,” Lee agreed. “We
gave her a good day.”

“
We gave her the
right
day,” Jack
corrected. He was thinking of Bob, Anna’s friend from the city. He
had called to ask Anna to return home for the season. Jack hadn’t
been eavesdropping, the signal had been so poor Anna had called him
back from his office phone, and Bob’s voice was clear over the
wire. When she’d refused the other man’s offer the satisfaction
that had filled Jack was stronger than he’d been comfortable with.
And yet…he knew that being here, with them, was the right thing for
her. They made her happy. They made her laugh. With them the grief
that still ached her lifted.

And it was odd. Jack had wondered,
though he’d never said as much, if there was going to come a point
where he’d feel odd about this relationship they had started to
build. He and Lee were as close as brothers, but his feelings for
Anna were growing every day, and Jack wasn’t sure if jealousy would
come with them.

It hadn’t.

The three of them
worked
.

And maybe it was odd.
Maybe under society’s rules they didn’t quite fit the normal set
up, but Jack was happier now than he had been in a very long time.
When Lee rubbed Anna’s head in the way she liked, it simply made
Jack happy that
she
was happy. When Lee ran his fingers down her thighs and
buried his head between her legs, he watched her sigh with pleasure
and was pleased by it.

He had no idea what any of it
meant…only that it meant something. Which was why he found himself
sat on this chair, the cold air chilling his exposed skin, the
whisky warming him.

* * * *

Lee knew that the words he was
thinking were not exactly the words he should be saying. But they
were there, and in this relationship of theirs, a relationship that
was founded above anything else on total honesty, they could not be
held back.

“
I can’t imagine her not
being here next Christmas.”

Jack let out a deep sigh. “Lee…she’s
only here for the winter.”

“
I know that,” Lee
said.

“
Well then.”

“
But she’s never talked
about going home,” he said. “Oh, I know she’s meant to. That she’s
only here for the winter. And I know she has a life back there.
Friends, an apartment, her business. That guy who keeps calling for
instance, what’s his name, Bob?”

“
Exactly.”

“
But she doesn’t have any
family,” Lee said. “There’s no one there to hold her
there.”

Jack shook his head and took a swig of
his drink. Lee didn’t need to look to know his friend’s face would
be fixed into a frown. “You think we can hold her?”

Did he?
Lee smiled slightly because he didn’t need to
think twice about that. From the moment Anna had turned the corner
of their cottage, her nose pink, her hair moved by the breeze, Lee
had known she was something special. The first time he had run his
hands over her soft skin that feeling had only intensified. He
loved being around her. Loved waking up next to her. Loved talking
to her. And it was weird but it didn’t bother him at all that he
shared those moments with Jack. In a way it made sense. Jack was
his best friend. They had spent an awful lot of their lives
together. Why wouldn’t they share Anna? Why wouldn’t they love her
together?

Lee paused, his drink halfway to his
mouth.

Love?

Was this love? He wasn’t
sure that he
did
love her, but then he wasn’t sure he
didn’t
. One thing he did know was
that he wanted Anna in their life, and he was willing to do
whatever it took to keep her.

“
Why the hell not?” he
asked, lowering his glass. “She’s happy here with us.”

“
She’s still grieving,”
Jack said.

And yes, she was, Lee recognized that.
The shadow he had seen in her eyes the first time in his studio was
still there. Sometimes it dimmed, sometimes it was almost gone
altogether, but it came back. Still, he knew it was simply a
question of time. As the months went by she would hurt less and
laugh more. They could help her to do that, Lee knew they could.
“She’s getting better.”

“
I know,” Jack agreed.
“But you’re missing my point. Here, right now, with us, she is
doing what she wants to do. But we can’t forget that she’s
delicate, vulnerable. She’s wrapped in this sort of bubble with
us.” He paused. “We pleasure her, we make her happy, but she is
completely sheltered from the consequences of her
actions.”

“
Consequences?”

Jack looked up, his gaze fixed on the
nighttime sky. “Her grief is blinding her,” he said slowly. “It’s
like when we came home. You remember some of the crazy things we
did? You disappeared for months, doing that stupid bike ride
through South America.”

Lee winced, remembering
just how stupid he had been. It was luck more than anything that
had brought him home and the only way he could explain it to
himself now was that he had needed to
do
something. When they’d lost their
friends…when they’d been the only ones to come out of that
attack…

“
I needed some
space.”

“
You took a risk,” Jack
said. “Some of the areas you rode through…”

“
I made it out
okay.”

“
You were lucky
to.”

Lee snorted, even as he tried to push
away the memories of those dark days. “You can’t say shit. You were
jumping off buildings. Climbing sheer cliffs.”

“
Chasing the adrenaline,
my friend,” Jack said. “Trying to numb myself and make myself
feel.” He paused. “You know what I mean.”

“
I do.”

Jack sighed. “But you’re
right and my point is that to Annie we’re
her
crazy. We’re her bike ride, her
rock climb. With us she can forget that she’s hurting. She can
forget that she’s taken herself completely out of her real
life.”

Lee frowned, not liking that analogy
at all. “You think we’re a phase?”

“
Not a phase, no,” Jack
said. “I think we’re easy. I think we make her feel good. And I
think that when the time comes, when her lease comes to an end,
she’ll wake up and move on.”

“
I don’t want her
to.”

His words were blunt. Falling between
them and exposing the truth that they both felt.

“
I don’t want her to
either.”

Lee sighed and stood up. He walked
over to the edge of the verandah and looked out at the wide space
in front of them. He loved this place, loved the way it soothed
him, the way it had always soothed him. He’d loved it more since
Anna arrived.

He had to ask the question that was
burning inside him.

“
Jack, what do you feel
for her?”

“
You’re seriously asking
me that?”

Lee turned to look at his friend. “Why
not? I know it’s not just sex for you.”

“
And you know that
how?”

“
After our years of
friendship?” Lee asked. “Hell, I know you as well as I know myself.
Better even. I see the way you look at her. I see how you are with
her. And there’s no jealousy between us.”

“
Some might say that
is
because
it’s
just sex,” Jack said.

“
No,” Lee said. “There’s
no jealousy
because
we both want her to be happy. It doesn’t matter if it’s you
making her happy or me. So long as she’s happy we’re happy.” He
paused. “I’ll go first. I care for her.”

A moment or two passed. Lee wasn’t
sure if Jack was going to be speak. But eventually he did, his
words coming out in one long drawn out sigh. “Yeah. Me
too.”

It was all or nothing now. “The way
it’s going?” Lee said. “The way I feel when I’m around her. This
could be the real thing, Jack.”

His friend’s head shot up. Even in the
dark surrounding them Lee could see Jack’s eyes widen.
“Shit…Lee…”

“
I know. Seems weird
saying it,” Lee said. “But she’s exactly what I would look for in a
wife.”

It seemed that Jack could not hold
back either, not now it was all becoming clear between them. “Me
too,” he said. “Only we both can’t fucking marry her.”

“
No,” Lee agreed. “We
can’t. But she can stay here with us. We can carry on as we are.
The three of us.”

“
For how long?” Jack
asked.

Lee had thought about this a lot over
the last few weeks, and he was at the point of thinking that this
crazy relationship of theirs could last for some time. As long as
everyone was happy, as long as everyone felt comfortable, why the
hell not? “For as long as it works.”

Jack stood too to join Lee at the edge
of their farmhouse. His breath came out in little clouds of frost.
For a moment Lee was transported to another time, another place, he
had to give himself an inward shake to come back to the
present.

“
Lee,” Jack said. “What
you’re suggesting…even if I did want it—”

“
Do you?”

“
Right now?” He paused.
“In this exact moment? Yes, I do. But, Lee, we’re assuming that
Annie would want the same thing. It’s different for us. We’ve lived
out here for so long. We left conventions behind a long time ago,
and after some of the things we saw? Was it any wonder?”

“
Conventions don’t mean a
lot when people are dying around you.”

Jack nodded. “Exactly. You know, I
started to think it would be this way until the end. Me and you out
here, doing our thing.”