the sunlight like shattered gold and the world too still for a single leaf to stir.
He eased the zipper down at the back of her dress, enjoying, lingering over every inch of skin he exposed. Soft as silk, smooth as lake water.
His to touch.
He nudged the straps from her shoulders, gave himself the pleasure of laying his lips there. Stronger than she looked, he thought. Shoulders that didn’t shirk from lifting a load.
He wanted—needed—to help her with the weight.
For now, he gave the dress a little brush so it flowed like air to her feet. The pretty bits of lace she wore echoed the tender green of the dress.
“I bought them special.” She laid fingertips between her breasts when he looked down at her. “I shouldn’t’ve spent the money, but—”
“Worth every penny. I’ll pay you back.”
“I’m counting on it,” she said before his mouth took hers again.
A little stronger, a little deeper now so her head fell back to accept all he offered, to give all he asked.
He drew her down with him so they knelt on the blanket. Their lips broke apart long enough for her to tug the T-shirt he wore over his head; met again as she tossed it aside. Hot flesh under her hands, the water and soap of his shower teasing her senses as she played kisses over the curve of his shoulder.
And still that faint, lingering scent of sawdust, reminding her as the calloused palms reminded her, he worked with his hands.
A quick shiver ran over her skin, ran into her blood when he flicked the clasp of her bra open. Those working hands cupped her breasts, the rough pads of his thumbs stroked across her nipples, waking new needs, churning up a storm in her belly.
Everything in her so full now, so tender and already yearning. But his hands continued to play over her, finding more, stirring more.
He laid her back, ran his finger along the edge of the panties, along that vulnerable line between thigh and center.
That sound in her throat, not quite moan, not quite sigh. It could undo him. His own needs gathered, but he held them, held them, floating his palm over the lace, building the heat under the thin barrier until her hands lost their grip on him.
Her breath quickened, deepened; the lids lowered over the magic blue of her eyes.
His to touch, he thought again. His to have.
He slipped that thin barrier away and took her up, took her over with his hands.
It burst through her, lightning through the storm, slashing pleasure, a new flash of deep, driving need. She dragged at his belt, impatient now for all, to take, be taken.
He drew her up again to help her, then took her hands in his to still them when she yanked at his jeans.
“No rush.”
Her breath in rags, desire a single mad ache, she looked at him—and saw that same need, that same aching.
“Maybe I’m in more of a hurry than you.”
“Let’s just take a minute.” He kept her hands trapped in his, took her mouth again. “I love you.”
“Oh, God, Griff.”
“I need to say it, need you to hear it. While I’ve got you naked on the porch. I love you. I don’t have to rush it.”
“I can’t get a handle on what I feel, on what you do inside me even when you’re not there. It’s so much.” She pressed her face into his shoulder. “It’s all so much.”
“That works for now.” He eased her back so he could bring up her hands, kiss them before he let them go. “It all works.”
He shifted, lowering to the blanket again so she lay over him. He threaded his fingers through her hair, loving the mass of it, the wild curls and color.
She didn’t have his patience, but she tried to find some, guiding him now through the kiss, letting her hands stroke and stir, feeling his heart kick under her lips.
When at last there was nothing between them, she rose over him, took him in.
Filled. Surrounded. Joined.
She pressed his hands to her heart so he could feel it drumming while she set the rhythm.
Slow, she fought to keep it all slow, and found the staggering pleasure of that easy pace. Rolls of it flowing in like a sea, building layer by layer like clouds.
With the air thick as honey, the sunlight streaming, she rode him over that sea, higher into those clouds. She clung, clung, clung to that breathless peak. Then let herself be swept away.
She could hear the birds again, little trills and whistles through the circling woods. She could even hear the faintest rustle of the faintest breeze through the trees, like quiet breath, now that her heart wasn’t hammering in her ears.
And she knew the pure, sated joy of lying limp on the porch, a thoroughly satisfied woman, beside the man she in turn had thoroughly satisfied.
“I wonder what the UPS guy would’ve thought if he’d come driving up to the house.”
Shelby managed a sigh. “Are you expecting a delivery?”
“You never know. I didn’t even think about it. Who could think?”
“It’s nice not to think. It seems I spend most every hour of my day having to do just that. I don’t think when I’m singing, and I don’t have to think when you start kissing me. I guess it’s like a song.”
“I was thinking.”
“Mmmm.”
“I was thinking you looked like some sort of mountain goddess.”
She choked out a laugh. “Goddess. Do go on.”
“All that crazy red hair, the moon-white skin. So slim and strong, and eyes like blue shadows.”
“Well, that is like a song.” Moved, and a little nervous with it, she rolled over again, propped on his chest. “You’ve got some poetry, Griffin.”
“That’s about it.”
“It’s more than enough.” She traced a finger down his cheek. “You could be a god, all these hollows here.” And down the other cheek. “The sun-streaked hair, all those fine, fine muscles.”
“We’re a set.”
She laughed, lowered her forehead to his. “How deep is that stream of yours these days, Griff?”
“I guess about to mid-thigh—your thigh.”
“That’ll do it. Let’s go splash in the stream.”
He opened one eye, one cat-green eye. “You want to splash in the stream?”
“With you, I do. We can finish working up an appetite, and have another glass of that lemonade while we put dinner together.”
Before he could think of a reason against, she got up, tugged on his hand.
“We’re still naked,” he pointed out.
“No point getting our clothes wet, is there? Let the dog out,” she suggested, then dashed away.
A goddess, he thought. Or what was that thing . . . a sprite. But he didn’t imagine sprites had such long legs. He let the dog out as Shelby ran over his lawn, then, thinking of the more practical, ducked into the house, grabbed a couple of towels.
He wasn’t a prude—and would have been insulted to be termed one. But it felt pretty damn weird to rush over his own front yard wearing nothing but skin.
Before he got through the flanking trees, he heard the splash, the laugh, and the joyful yip of the dog.
She made rainbows, he thought, the way she tossed water up so the drops caught the dappled light and shone into quick color. The dog lapped, barked, swam some in the deeper water, then shook himself in the shallows.
Griff hung the towels over a branch.
“It’s so wonderfully cool. You could drop a line in here, maybe catch something. You follow the stream down a ways where it widens, deepens, you could catch your supper most any evening.”
“I’ve never fished.”
She straightened, naked and obviously stunned. “In your life?”
“I grew up in the ’burbs, Red, spent a lot of time with urban activities.”
“We have to fix that the very first chance we get. Fishing’s good for you. It’s relaxing, and you’re a patient man so it should suit you. What kind of urban activities?”
“Me?” He stepped into the water, and she was right, it was cool. “Sports mostly. Basketball in the winter, baseball in the summer. I never went out for football. I had a pretty skinny build.”
“I like baseball.” She sat down in the water, let it bubble over her. “I believe my daddy might have traded me for another model otherwise. What position did you play?”
“Did some pitching, covered second. Liked playing second better, I guess.”
“How come you’re not playing on the Raiders softball team? The Ridge has a pretty good team.”
“I might try it next year. This year, free time’s for the house. Aren’t you worried about rocks under your ass, or some fish swimming up . . . where I just was?”
She laughed, lay back enough to dip her hair in the water. “You really are citified yet. I know a couple of good swimming holes. We ought to try one some night.”
“Maybe I’ll put in a pond. I thought about a swimming pool, but that’s a lot of maintenance, plus, it doesn’t fit here. But a pond would.”
“You could do that?”
“Maybe. Something to think about down the road.”
“I love to swim.” Relaxed, even a little dreamy, she trailed her fingers back and forth to ripple the water. “I started teaching Callie before she could walk. And we had a pool in the condo in Atlanta, so we could swim all year-round. When she’s a little older, I’ll take her rafting with one of Clay’s groups. She’s fearless, and she’d like that. But I want another year or so on her first.”
She cocked her head. “Have you tried that?”
“The white water? Yeah. It’s a rush. I figured on going again when my parents come down in August.”
Her trailing fingers stilled. “Oh, they’re coming for a visit?”
“Working vacation—they’ll give me about a week on the place in early August. I’ve got some work I want to get done before they do. And I want them to meet you.”
That had nerves dancing in her stomach.
“I want them to see for themselves I’m not exaggerating.”
“You’ve told them about me?”
He gave her a long look. “What do you think?”
“Well.” She sat up again. Those nerves were doing an enthusiastic clog dance now. “Um. Well, my family has a big backyard party early in August. If the timing’s right, and you think your parents would like to come, they’d be welcome.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. Are you cold?”
“No.” More than nerves, she thought, and glanced—suddenly uneasy—over her shoulder. “A goose walked over my grave, I guess. But I’m glad you brought the towels.” She rose, water sluicing off her skin, reached for one. “I didn’t think about drying off.”
He tipped her face up. “Do you have a problem meeting my parents?”
“No. It makes me a little nervous, but that’s natural, isn’t it? It’s . . .” She hunched, shivered. “Something between my shoulder blades, and now I’ve got the willies for no reason I can name.”
She wrapped the towel around herself, felt marginally better. So she leaned into him. “I’m nervous about meeting your parents, but I’m glad I will. I think it’s nice they’d come down here to help you with the house, spend time with you. And I think they must be good people to have made someone like you.”
“You’ll like them.”
“I bet I will. Let’s go in, all right? I can’t settle this itch between my shoulder blades.”
He took the other towel, then her hand.
Field glasses followed them through the trees, across the lawn.
28
Shelby let her mother talk her into a facial. She should’ve known better as being next to naked on the reclining chair under a blanket was kin to being in a closed box when dealing with Ada Mae.
“It’s nice Griffin’s people are coming down this summer. I told you how we met them last fall.” Having done the cleansing, the toning, the gentle exfoliation, Ada Mae used her truly skilled fingers to apply a thick layer of energizing mask.
“They couldn’t have been nicer. I took over a basket of tomatoes from my garden, and we sat down and had some sweet tea on the front porch where his mama’d been working on some of the garden. Why, she’d hacked and cut and dug away at that scrub and tangle like a woman on a mission from God. Poison ivy in there, too. I showed her how you pull up some jewel weed, use the juice of it when you get poison ivy on you. Being from Baltimore, she didn’t know about that.
“We had a good chat.”
“You took tomatoes over so you’d get invited to sit on the porch.”
“Neighborly is, neighborly does. I’m saying Natalie—that’s his mama’s name—is a good woman. And his daddy—that’s Brennan—he’s a fine man, fine-looking, too. Griff favors him to the life, I swear. You know what else?”
“What else, Mama?”
“They’re just as fond of Matt, just like he was one of their own, and Emma Kate right along, too. That tells me something about a person, that they can embrace somebody into the family, blood or not. This mask’s just going to set awhile. I’m going to do your hands and feet while it does.”
Shelby might have said not to trouble, but no one in the world gave a foot rub like Ada Mae Pomeroy.
“You need a fresh pedicure, baby girl. And don’t say you don’t have time. Everybody who works here has to show off the products and services—you know how your granny feels about that. You need some pretty summer toes, that’s what. We got that Wistful Wisteria. It’s a good match for your eyes.”
“All right, Mama.” She’d see if Maybeline or Lorilee could squeeze her in for a quick one.
“Your skin’s looking just beautiful, and so are you. It does my heart a world of good.”
“Home cooking, steady work and seeing my own baby girl thrive.”
“And regular sex.”
Shelby had to laugh. “I guess I can’t say that’s not a factor.”
“I know you still have worries, but they’re going to pass. That Jimmy Harlow person, he’s thousands of miles away doing God knows what to who. But I say if the FBI hasn’t found him, he’s taken himself off to somewhere foreign. Gone to France.”
Eyes closed, her feet already in bliss, Shelby smiled. “France?”
“First place popped into my head. But he’s gone.”
She slipped booties onto Shelby’s rubbed, creamed and very happy feet. And started on her hands.
“Just like that no-good Arlo Kattery’s gone, maybe for five years in jail, I hear. And Melody Bunker, too. Word I get is when she gets out of that fancy rehab place, she might be moving up to Knoxville, where Miz Florence’s brother lives.”
“I don’t care where she goes or what she does. I swear, all that trouble from her seems years ago. It’s hard to believe it was only weeks. I wonder at someone like her, Mama, who thinks so much of herself she can’t see she doesn’t leave much of a mark on anyone’s life.”
“She tried leaving one on yours.”
“Well, she didn’t.”
“You’re doing something with your life, Shelby, and we’re proud of you.”
“I know you are. You show me every day.”