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Authors: Abbie Williams

Tags: #Minnesota, #Montana, #reincarnation, #romance, #true love, #family, #women, #Shore Leave

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BOOK: Wild Flower
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“Searching for gold?” I half-teased. I'd asked him on Sunday night about the story Dodge had started to tell on the pontoon; apparently it was an old favorite in the Carter family, but Mathias didn't put much store into its legitimacy. He said he'd heard it told as more of a family legend.

“Gold, land, the next card game,” he teased back. “But I do think it would be incredible to ride towards the horizon all day and not come across any towns, anything manmade. To me that seems like true adventure.”

“It does,” I agreed. “To live in a time when there were still parts of the country that were wild.”

“What would your horse's name be?” he asked. My nipple was full and round against his stroking fingers and I shivered a little, in pleasure.

“I'd have to meet her first,” I said. “I'd have to see what she looked like.” I decided, “She would be a buckskin, black mane and tail, golden body.” I kissed his jaw and then speculated, “I'd maybe name her something like Clover…”

Mathias laughed without compunction at this pronouncement. He repeated, “Clover? What kind of name is that? She'd be embarrassed, trust me.”

“She would not!” I countered, though I couldn't help laughing too. I added, “I had a stuffed horse as a kid. I dragged that thing all over the place.”

“What was her name?”

I smiled as I admitted, “Starry Eyes. But that was the name she came with.”

“Oh my God,” he groaned.

“Yeah, that's even worse than Clover,” I allowed, giggling, tracing my fingertip over the picture, down Aces' nose. I asked, “What color would yours be?”

“I'd want a black stallion,” Mathias said at once, and then his chest vibrated with a laugh. “With a tough name, like…Renegade,” and my own laughter almost drowned him out, but he went on with relish, “And I'd have a hat to match. Christ, I would be such a bad-ass. Gunslinger, gambler, six-shooter, what-have-you…”

Warming to this vision, I supplied helpfully, “And I'd be waiting for you in a dusty little saloon. And you'd have been on the trail for a long time, without a woman…”

He laughed again, low, lightly biting the top of my right shoulder. He filled in, “And I'd catch a glimpse of you and tip my hat, and then I'd say, ‘Ma'am, I'm going to need you to come with me.' See, there's a double entendre right there…”

I laughed even harder at his words, squeaking a little as he nipped along the side of my neck. I leaned to set the picture on the nightstand, then moved fluidly back into his embrace, roughing up his thick black hair. The candlelight flickered over the angles of his face, his straight long nose, his black eyebrows, his seductively lowered eyelids. My ring caught the candle glow and glinted as I used my fingertips to trace over his lips, which sent wings of desire fluttering even more furiously through my blood. As always, staring into his eyes, I felt a surging sense of belonging, of blending together with him. When he was inside of me, held fast and deep, our names further ceased to have meaning; we were simply
us
. Connected in ways I could not completely understand, only felt.

“Do you think we make love too much?” I whispered, my hands on his chest, leaning to kiss the cupid's bow on his top lip, gently touching him with my tongue. I didn't believe we did, but I was also thinking of how everyone teased us, all the time.

“Now you're talking crazy, woman,” he said in response, his blue eyes blazing. He pressed one warm hand against my belly and then immediately lower, his fingers questing, stroking me slowly. I arched against him, curving my thighs around his hips as he eased me to my back.

“Gentle,” I whispered, gasping against his lips as he slid back inside. I was not being coy when I informed him in a whisper, “Your cock is huge, you know.”

He snorted a laugh at this pronouncement, curling his arms beneath my shoulders and holding me tightly, unmoving for a moment. He whispered hoarsely, “How gentle? Show me…”

I smiled against his neck and obligingly set the pace with my hips. He moved accordingly, claiming my mouth. The taste of his kiss, the scent of his skin, the way he filled me so completely; I could never get enough of him, I knew this. Pleasure fired along my nerves, radiating from the center of me as he continued on and on, slow and steady, until I was beyond all sense, crying out his neck. He gasped my name and I held tightly to him as he drove deeply one last time and then fell still.

It was late. Mathias shifted us so that I lay cradled against his chest and fell asleep almost immediately, as the candle dripped its wax and sank lower and lower. I drifted, caught in that almost-dream state in which I was vaguely aware of the familiar surroundings of our bedroom and yet half-sunk into another place. Somewhere far from here and far from what I knew as real.

Knives? Are you out of your ever-loving mind?

You'll be a sensation, girl, if you can just get over the fear of it. Trust me.

Sharp points thud into the wood near my head, but I know better than to shudder. Years of practice, that's what it took to quell an instinct that basic, the one driving me to shrink from blades being whirled through the air towards my immobile body.

He's here, you know, the one you been eyeing, girl. Third row, with that same rowdy bunch. Them musicians.

He's here?
A hand curls its fingers tightly around my heart.
Oh Jesus, he's here.

Waiting for my cue, as terrified as a child about to be punished, I listen to the excited buzzing murmur of the audience from where I hover backstage. I have heard it a thousand and more times before now, but never when I knew he was part of it. Through a small rend in the faded red curtain, stage right, I try to catch a glimpse, searching for the outline of his hat; tonight I would be content with even the sight of that.

I see a hand mirror, small and wood-framed, lying on the floor near a discarded costume. I snatch it up and study my face, my slim pale face, with its eyes of two different colors, and the familiar loathing rolls back in, swift as a springtime river.

Oh God, let him come back to me, oh God, I beg of you, let him find me…please, I'll do anything…

I'll do anything…

***

Much later I woke with
a start. Mathias was snoring near my ear, his left arm still draped over my waist, and I pressed both hands to my lower belly in effort to calm my fearful pulse. The dream had come creeping again, of being lost and alone, of being…

Of being without him.

Oh God oh God.

My hands clenched into frantic fists.

It was just a dream, Camille, just a dream.

But I could not shake the sense that it was somehow more and I could not be pacified; my heartbeat only increased.

“Camille,” Mathias murmured in his sleep and I aligned my body with his, pressing close, my face at his collarbones. He shifted, his arms tightening, and stroked my hair with both hands. He put his lips against my forehead, more fully awake now, and whispered, “What is it, sweetheart?”

My tears were warm and wet on his chest, and I could not answer. He murmured soft sounds of love, comforting me, and at last I fell into a blessedly dreamless sleep.

Chapter Five

The evening was perfect for a ballgame; the air had cooled, if only a little, the sunlight the type that made the back of my throat ache it was so beautiful, beaming across the long stretch of freshly-shorn grass and subsequently radiating a brilliant, otherworldly yellow-green. Justin, Rae and I joined the adults and littler kids lounging in camp chairs and upon picnic blankets rather than the small section of bleachers; those were typically left to the high school kids. In a town the size of Landon the teenagers saw each other often, even in the summer, but there was still always an air of gossipy excitement surrounding them, one I remembered well from my own days of claiming the bleachers, giggling with Jo and the other girls as we admired the boys on the field.

Justin's little sister Liz and her husband Mark Worden (known almost exclusively as Wordo) were already there, and we settled beside them. Wordo had a couple of kids from his first marriage, one of whom was on Clint's team.

“Hi, guys!” Liz said, leaning to grab us drinks from her cooler. Liz was little and cute, with the same beautiful coffee-brown eyes as my husband.

“Hi, favorite sister-in-law,” I said with fondness, as Justin set up our lawn chairs.

“Jilly Bean, you look like an angel, I'm dead serious,” Liz said, shaking her head. “That dress makes your eyes as blue as the sky. When I was pregnant I looked like a hippo.”

“You did not, and besides, you were carrying
triplets
, might I remind you,” I said. “Most of us just do one at a time.”

Justin caught me around the waist from behind and bent to kiss the side of my neck, which was bare, as I'd pinned up my hair. He said to Liz, “Jilly is my angel, that's God's truth.”

“You're a goddamn lucky man,” Liz agreed, indicating with a beer can that I should sit.

“Justin, you gotta hear what Daryl thinks about…” Wordo said to my husband, but it sounded like maybe a sports thing, and I tuned him out, settling beside Liz and accepting a can of lemonade from her. Justin crouched near Wordo and Daryl to join their conversation, cracking open a beer.

“Mama, can I go play with those guys?” Rae leaned on my knee to ask, crinkling up one eye as she regarded me. She meant a group of little girls on a blanket about twenty feet away.

“No hug for your Auntie Liz?” Liz asked, stretching out both arms, and Rae giggled, darting into them at once.

“Stay where I can see you,” I told my daughter, and she scampered away.

I scanned the field, where the players were just warming up; I spied Clinty at once, number five for Richardson Plumbing, the sponsor of his summer league. They were playing Huber Auto tonight. I was a mother, but I was also more observant than most, and a girl standing near the tall section of chain link fence that separated the bleachers from home plate caught my eye. It was Claire Henry, who had been Clint's one and only girlfriend in high school. They had dated for part of both tenth and eleventh grade, before Claire broke it off with him. Clint had been devastated for a period of a month, near Christmas of that year, before his naturally cheery attitude had finally reestablished itself. And now here she was, clearly studying Clint. I could tell from his easy posture and the way he was laughing with another teammate that he had not yet noticed her.

“There's Claire,” I said to Liz, indicating across the field.

Liz knew all about their history. She said, “Regretting her decision, looks like.”

“Well they went all senior year as just friends, according to Clint.”

“But he never dated anyone else,” Liz reminded me.

“Not yet,” I agreed. “He's so shy in his own way. He's young for his age, you know what I mean?”

“He's sweet as could be,” Liz agreed.

Claire settled into a group of girls on the risers as the game began. I watched Clint lift his ball cap to swipe his forehead with the back of one hand, still clutching the baseball, and right at that moment he saw Claire. I could tell just from the way his hand lowered too slowly back to his side and his spine straightened.

Oh, honey
, I thought, wanting to run over there and hug him. It was never easy seeing your ex.

And it was
just
as I had this thought that Liz said, “Am I seeing things, or is that actually Aubrey?”

My heart stuttered at these words, my eyes immediately flashing in the direction of Liz's gaze. Sure enough, Aubrey Pritchard was mincing across the ball field and it was also apparent that she was coming to talk to us.

“God, Dad told me she was back in town,” Liz muttered. She leaned and poked Justin's shoulder, as he was nearer to her than me, still talking to Wordo. “J.D., I hate to tell you this…”

Justin looked that way as well and I watched how his shoulders squared as though defensively. He rolled his eyes and muttered, “Jesus, here we go.”

He moved at once to sit in his chair beside me, angling closer, almost protectively. Probably I should have found this endearing; instead it just made me all the more pissed off. I wasn't afraid of her. I could hold my own. My heart was clobbering my ribcage.

“Hi everyone,” Aubrey said upon reaching us, no more than fifteen seconds later. She looked totally overdone, even though you could tell she was trying to look sexy; I assumed she was attempting to recreate her high school persona to some extent, as she was wearing jeans of the painted-on variety, a strappy black tank top, her auburn hair straightened to within an inch of its pitiful life. Heeled fucking sandals. She paused a few feet from me and angled herself with one hip jutting.

When no one immediately responded pleasantly, she heaved the tiniest of sighs and shifted so the other hip was prominent. A small part of me marveled at her bravado. She was far too tan and it didn't do any favors for her; that was not me being catty. It just didn't. Her eyeliner was exactly applied and extra black. Maybe she was going through a midlife crisis. I almost spoke this thought aloud to my husband, choking it back at the last moment. Everyone near us was staring at this potentially interesting situation, some with outright curiosity.

Finally Liz asked, with thinly-veiled sarcasm, “So, how's it going?”

“Great,” Aubrey said shortly and then directed her eyes at me, tilting her head to the side as though regarding a child. She said, “You didn't mention to these guys that we talked in the store?”

Justin answered for me, which I really did not appreciate at this given moment, asking her bluntly, “What do you want?”

I could tell from his tone that he wasn't exactly angry; unfriendly mostly, and I could sense his concern for me. He moved his hand gently over my left thigh, closest to him, patting me and then settling it there as though to communicate that everything was all right. Aubrey's eyes zeroed in on this before flickering to my belly. It was the second time today that I had been rudely examined by someone I disliked, Zack Dixon being the first. Feeling as though Aubrey would win some minor victory if I didn't answer her question, I located my voice and said, “I mentioned it. And I am sorry for hitting your car.”

“About that,” she said, flipping her hair to the other shoulder and then focusing upon Justin. Her tone when she spoke to him made my fingers curl inadvertently into cat claws; it was the same one I had heard her use with him when they were still married, a cross between disdainful and commanding. “I need that fixed by tomorrow evening.”

Justin leaned back into his chair and shook his head, a smile that had no relation to humor crossing his face; it was purely hostile. He said calmly, “Dad told you it would be done this week. And that's the end of it.”

I watched as her eyes narrowed at him and suddenly found myself slammed unwittingly back into a memory of our high school days, to this same field in summers long past, when I had once seen Justin kissing her at the fence in front of the bleachers, gripping the chain link on either side of her. He was so passionate, and like it or not (and I fiercely hated it down to the blackest, lowest, pettiest part of my soul) Aubrey had once been on the receiving end of that passion.

“It's not the end of it,” she bitched. “I need my car.”

“It's completely driveable,” Justin said then, still speaking calmly. I sensed that she wanted badly to agitate him, to cause a reaction.

Rae came running to us then, diving for her daddy, climbing onto his lap. Justin cuddled Rae close, ignoring Aubrey; I was the one who couldn't look away from her. Seeing Justin with his daughter seemed to dissolve something on her face. As I watched, a flicker of discomposure moved across the façade of self-righteous confidence.

See that? You lost your chance. He's mine now
, I told her without words, sending the thought whistling through the air the same way I might have swung a bat towards her head. It must have connected pretty well, because Aubrey put a hand to her temple for a split second, before she swept her hair back and resumed glaring at Justin.

“Dad will fix it up for you, no worries,” Liz said, clearly trying to diffuse the tension.

“Aubrey, could you move?” Wordo asked her then, with complete politeness. He added, “I can't see the game.”

Clint jogged over to us, coming to a halt at Aubrey's side and asking Justin, “Dad, you got the truck keys? Quick, I gotta grab my extra glove.”

Justin hooked an arm around Rae's waist to anchor her while he shifted to unzip the side pocket of the backpack we had toted with. Finding the keys, he handed them up to Clint, who responded with a quick thanks and raced away.

“‘Dad?'” Aubrey repeated.

Rae tucked her chin on Justin's shoulder, facing me, and implored, “Mama, I gotta go potty.”

Justin told me softly, “I got it, baby. You stay here.”

His eyes held mine, caressing me, and he said without words,
Please don't let Aubrey upset you. Please, Jilly
.

I'm trying
, I said back.

Justin rose, lifting Rae to his left forearm. In the evening sun I studied him momentarily through Aubrey's eyes, a clear picture of what she had left behind and what she could never have again; it wasn't just that he was so incredibly sexy, with his long, lean build and powerful shoulders, his arms that rippled with muscle, his handsome face with its chiseled jaw and intense eyes. It was the sense of tenderness that he exuded as he carried his child towards the brick restrooms on the far side of the field. He was a man who loved his family with his whole heart. A man who cared passionately for those he considered his. My eyes moved from following my husband and daughter, back to Aubrey's face, and I didn't need to be particularly observant to realize that something akin to regret was coursing through her as she also watched their progress.

The game was getting rolling; Clint had located his glove and jogged to join his teammates as they waited to bat. Liz shot me a look, eyebrows raised, nodding towards Aubrey, who was still blocking Wordo's view; he was craning his neck to see around her.

“I'll be sure to tell Dodge to call you as soon as the car's fixed,” I said.

Aubrey turned back to me, shading her eyes against the last of the sun to peer down at me. Two bracelets on her right wrist clacked together. She all but snapped, “I'll call him myself, thanks.”

This time I did nothing to disguise the anger that leached into my eyes. In high school I had been intimidated by her, terribly so, but that was long ago. I lifted my chin and said with venom in my tone (Gran and Great-Aunt Minnie would have been proud of my assertiveness), “Suit yourself.”

Aubrey offered me an acidic glare before walking away, hips rolling.

“For fuck's sake,” Liz said, and Wordo laughed. People around us were looking between Aubrey and me, and I felt uncomfortably hot in my skin, as though it had been steamed and shrunk. My heart began to ease back to a more regular speed, but the clenching in my gut would not be likewise settled. Even knowing that it was impossible, it needled me on some level to realize that she wanted Justin back, that she dared to even think that there was a chance of that.

Justin returned five minutes later, toting Rae, taking his seat beside me again. He leaned and cupped the back of my neck, gently, teasing the curls that formed there in the humidity. His touch sent little spikes of pleasure along my nerves, but I was not in the mood to be stroked, and twitched my shoulders irritably; my stomach was still unsettled and as a result I was extra cranky. Justin recognized this and wisely refrained from commenting.

It's not his fault
, I reminded myself, grudgingly.
You can hardly blame him for what his ex-wife does
.

There was plenty of noisy bustle in the crowd as the game went on beneath the evening sky, darkening now to indigo; the field lights blinked to life. Clint was crouched low over second base, forearms to thighs. He rocked side to side, eyes intent upon the batter, Wordo's son Jeff. The pitcher wound up, then released the ball in a flowing motion, graceful as a dancer. Jeff connected with a crack like that of a rifle shot in the distance, and Clint became a blur. The crowd erupted as Jeff sailed past first base and continued towards second, Clint rounding third for home.

“Go Clinty!” screeched Rae, bouncing up and down on Justin's lap.

Clint ran full-bore, arms churning; we were all screaming for him. I marveled at my little boy all grown up, a high school graduate, the same boy who had slept in my bed with me for years after his dad died, the both of us comforted by one another. Waking up with his feet pushing against my back, having to carefully unwind the blankets from him so that I wouldn't freeze. My boy, who would still snuggle onto my lap if he wouldn't squash me in the process.

He crashed into the catcher in a flurry of limbs and was a second later declared safe. I smiled, clapping wildly, as Justin whistled and Rae tried to imitate him, hooking her pinkies in her mouth. I giggled at the sight. Clint stood up and brushed dust off his backside, grinning hugely and looking adorable. I saw Claire watching, standing now, closer the chain link fence, her solemn eyes on my son.

BOOK: Wild Flower
11.78Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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