Shelter Me, page 19
The cops had come to investigate and take statements from everyone at the picnic. No one had been found in the woods, and the searchers running had ruined any chance of getting footprints. Considering that somebody at their party could have done this was beyond imagining. That kind of betrayal would destroy her mother. It had to be someone on the outside, like that creepy Kenneth guy next door who still lived with his mother.
Was he watching with binoculars—or night vision goggles—while they struggled to repair the place enough to secure all the animals for the night? They couldn’t bring them all into the house, and they couldn’t leave even a few in the yard for fear they would wander off. There was also the danger of horrible people who trolled at night to steal animals.
A few volunteers had stuck around to help until around eleven, but people had lives of their own, jobs to go to in the morning.
Sierra shoveled and dumped, shoveled and dumped. They couldn’t afford to lose all that food. Now and then, she had to sift out sticks and stones. Crickets and frogs sang in the otherwise silent night. Even the dogs were exhausted from the excitement.
Unable to take the wordless quiet anymore, she figured even small talk would be better than silence where she was left to wonder what he thought—and where they stood with each other. “Mike, thanks for helping—again.” She didn’t know what they would have done without him tonight. “I’m so sorry you’re having to spend your time off doing crappy things like this for us. You should be partying with your friends, decompressing.”
Her boot sank into a wet spot where their intruder had dumped a water container. The squishy earth clung to her footwear even as she tried to take a step. Yuck.
“This is definitely more productive than searching for different ways to overcome hangovers.” Mike worked methodically, moving a work lamp down the line of fences with him as he patched holes with the never-ending zip tie supply.
“You don’t have to spend all your time here.” She watched him out of the corner of her eyes, taking in the flex of his biceps as he worked with his shirt off. As payoffs went for the overtime, seeing Mike half-dressed was a definite bonus. “My mom’s not going to kick you out if you take time for yourself.”
“Thanks. But I’m a big boy. I’m handling the whole decompression thing my own way. And I won’t be able to enjoy jack shit if I’m worried about your family.”
It occurred to her that he excelled at deflection, always turning the conversation back around to her. Or to anything that wasn’t focused on him.
“What about your family?” She could only remember him discussing a father and a grandmother. But where had they been when he got back? “Don’t you want to spend some of this time with them?”
“My grandmother passed away while I was overseas, and my dad . . .” he said tonelessly, shrugging, “I’ll spend a weekend with him before I report in. A little bit of Dad time goes a long way.”
“I’m sorry about your grandmother.” She dropped the trowel and touched his arm, his warm sweat slicking her fingers and tingling her fingertips. “You lived with her for a while, right?”
He moved to the next kennel so her hand fell away, her arm dropping to her side. Was he deliberately shrugging off sympathy to hold back grief, or was he genuinely that over the loss already?
“She brought me up . . . but the relationship wasn’t the same as the sort you have with your family.”
“What do you mean?” she pushed, needing to understand him. She couldn’t deny he was different than before, with new walls that hadn’t totally fallen even after they slept together. He’d hinted that his grandmother hadn’t always fed him and the woman had let him play his guitar in subways. How much more was Mike not telling her?
“My grandmother always found a way to pay the bills, and she sure as hell didn’t let little things like—oh, the law—stand in her way.” His work lamp flickered off and on like the bulb was shorting out.
“How do you mean?” She reached into the supply closet for a stack of clean bowls to replace two in each trashed kennel run. “Come on. You know everything about me, and I’m realizing I don’t know much about you. I never even got to meet your grandmother when we were dating.”
Had he always known they would break up?
“Granny hadn’t planned on bringing up her grandson, but that’s just the way it shook down once my mom cut out.” He paused in his work to tighten the lightbulb in the work lamp before hanging it back on the fence. “Dad deployed often for the extra hazardous duty pay. There still wasn’t really enough to go around. But Granny was . . . resourceful.”
“How so?”
He used a pair of vise grips to bend a ragged chunk of fence to ensure there was no sharp edge that could cut an animal. “She ran short on the rent one month, so she shaved my hair and told the town I had cancer. There were collection buckets all over everywhere. I had a sunburned scalp that summer, but she pulled it off for three months before she got busted.”
Sierra tried not to let her surprise show. No wonder he’d been closemouthed about his grandmother.
“How old were you?”
He bent another jagged bit of metal, overly intent on his task. “Six years old.”
Six? She’d known his mother left, but somehow she’d always assumed he was older than that when it happened. “How was her . . . uh . . .”—scam?—”. . . ruse discovered? Did you tell someone?”
“I knew to keep my mouth shut.” He looked away altogether, weaving a zip tie through the jagged pieces he’d rounded off to close the gap. “She told me we would have to live in the station wagon if I talked.”
Screw walls. They were more to each other than this. She knelt beside him. “Mike, that’s horrible.”
“Yes,” he acknowledged, but without wincing. “My first grade teacher agreed when she figured it out. I didn’t have medicines to take. And I was gaining weight fast. I looked too healthy to her, and she started asking questions.”
“Gaining weight?” she said slowly, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“School lunches fed me more than I got at home.”
Her hand went to her chest, to her heart. “Your grandmother was limiting what you ate in order to make you appear sick?”
“I didn’t starve, but I sure as hell didn’t get seconds or dessert.” He laughed darkly, the joke falling flat. Damn flat. “We left town before she could get arrested. I’m not sure how long the statute of limitations is on that, but we never went back to that state.”
How could she have not known this about him? How could they have dated for so long, been so intimate, and she had no idea how much of himself he’d kept from her—how much she’d let him keep back. “Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this when we were together before?”
He set aside a fistful of zip ties and faced her full on for the first time since he’d started sharing the story. “Your family is so perfect . . . I just didn’t feel like trotting out my dysfunctional childhood.”
His golden brown eyes were narrow and defensive, his broad shoulders braced. But even with his badass warrior stance, she could only see those eyes in the face of a vulnerable, hungry little boy.
She wasn’t backing down. “Why are you telling me now? What’s changed?”
“Life. Life changed over there . . . this year.” His voice went tight, his jaw flexing.
He leaned forward on one knee and hauled her to him for a kiss, not subtle and not painful, but definitely not gentle. His kiss was raw and full of a need to block out life’s disappointments.
Without another thought she went into his arms. To hell with tomorrow or how they would deal with origami animals or relatives who betrayed a defenseless child.
They were here. Now. And they needed each other. They’d done enough for the night with the kennels. Her mom would come to check on them and see she had a few more places set to settle dogs for the night. That was going to have to be enough until morning.
The ranch had distracted Sierra too many times from whatever was going on with Mike. He needed her, and she was going to be there for him. She stood. Or he stood. She wasn’t sure which, because they moved at the same time. In sync with each other. Needing each other.
She looped her arms around his neck and held on tighter, holding him closer. Her breasts pressed against his chest, the hard muscle of him exciting a shiver of need that trembled all over. She wanted to erase all the things he’d told her, to burn them away with the force of what she felt for him. She let her fingers run wild down his back and up into his short hair, stroking everything within her reach.
He grasped behind her knees and lifted her legs to wrap around his waist, bringing the core of her flush against him. Then he walked outside to the staircase, each step creating delicious friction right where she craved him most. Thank God for the cover of night. She couldn’t imagine how he saw where he was going because she never stopped kissing him. She didn’t think she could stop if she wanted to, each step up to his loft building the heat inside her, flaming to life higher and hotter.
Not even winded, he shouldered open the door. His strength and power and passion sent a bolt of pleasure through her. He lowered her to the mattress with such gentle precision and control while she felt like a wildfire flaming in every conceivable direction. She scrambled for rational thought just long enough to pull his wallet from his back pocket, to find a condom.
He gripped her wrist, nuzzling her neck in a way that sent ribbons of pleasure skimming over her flesh. “You’re not going to need those just yet.”
Sliding his palm up her wrist, he plucked the wallet from her hand and set it aside very deliberately. A shiver of anticipation went through her at the knowledge that she was about to benefit from his slow, methodical thoroughness.
Kiss by kiss, he made his way down her body, stroking and caressing. The barrier of clothes made little difference. Each touch, kiss, nip, lower and lower, igniting her every tingling nerve. His hot breath fanned along the neckline of her thin cotton dress, the proximity of his mouth making her breasts ache for more. His tongue dipped just below the fabric there, but then he was back to kissing her through her dress, working his way down her ribs. Slowing at her waist in a way that made his intentions delectably clear.
He caressed down to her legs, bunching the hem of her dress in his fists and inching it up until she felt the warm brush of his breath across her stomach. Restless and hyperaware, her fingers skimmed his short hair, raking over scalp. The rasp of his bristly chin on her skin as he teased her belly button ring with his teeth, then snapped the band of her bikini underwear.
She had to admire his efficiency.
One tug and air swept over her bared flesh. Her back arched, her whole body under the spell of his touch. He eased to one side of her, propped on an elbow to stare down at her in a way that said he wanted to take time and admire the view. He licked her thigh and then, as her skin cooled, he breathed warm air along her skin. Goose bumps tickled sensation up and down her legs while he stroked the lightest of touches behind her knee. Just inside her hip bone. Through the damp curls above her sex.
“Mike.” She tried to fight the spasm of pure longing, but she did not have the patience of this man. “I’m going to take my sweet time paying your back,” she warned him softly, more than ready to crawl out of her skin.
His slow smile gave her as much pleasure as anything he did to her body.
And then, yes . . . he shifted his gorgeous male body over her again and landed a kiss between her thighs that had her forgetting anything else. He nudged, nuzzled, teased her in the way of a man who knew her body well. He grasped her legs and hooked them over his shoulders, spreading her wider, arousing her faster. Her head dug back in the pillow, and she lost herself in pure sensation.
She hit the brink of an orgasm once and he pulled her back, slowing things down and making the pleasure last. Twisting beneath him, she closed her eyes tight, the vision of him kissing her almost too much for her overwrought senses. But then, as the tension built all over again, she cracked open an eyelid for just the tiniest peek.
His back bent to his task, his muscles taut and golden in the half-light from the moon steaming in a high window. His shoulders angled beneath her thighs, his hands securing her hips . . . it was all too much.
She flew apart with a shout she couldn’t contain. Her heels dug in his shoulders, her fingers twisting in the pillowcase on either side of her head. And the waves of pleasure went on and on. He worked them with his tongue, nudging each one higher until she was utterly spent beneath him. He rested a cheek on her hip, his breath fanning along her stomach while the ceiling fan ticked overhead.
He didn’t wait long, only allowing her to catch her breath until he ditched his jeans and his boxers. Stripped her dress over her head and off her limp body.
She knelt to help him, wriggling through the opening since they hadn’t even unzipped it.
“Payback,” she reminded him, trailing a hand up his hip toward his straining erection.
She’d missed this. Missed him.
But he caught her hand and held it as he knelt with her.
“Not this time, okay?” He was so rarely serious, especially in bed. “I need this.”
Her heart squeezed tight for all of a second before he pushed her back on the bed.
“I’m all yours,” she said simply. Because in spite of everything, it was true.
For now, with Mike, she could forget. She just hoped that, for a few hours at least, he could, too.
Thirteen
CAT IN HER lap, Lacey sat at the computer desk in the corner of her bedroom, her back to her pristinely made bed. She’d been playing catch-up with work all week after her crazy busy weekend with the adoption event and then the horrifying break-in during the picnic.
Thank heaven, there hadn’t been any major injuries. The police said they were following up leads with some similar break-ins at shelters in neighboring counties. Some dogs had been stolen for fighting rings. The thought of one of her animals being taken like that made her physically ill.
The price of replacing and repairing the gates was near crippling to her already tight budget. She’d also had to face the reality of spending more money on additional security around the perimeter, such as an electric gate and cameras. She wouldn’t be able to take in as many animals, and that hurt. She just had to keep it in perspective.
Hopefully this weekend would be easier and give her at least a brief reprieve. She almost managed to believe herself.
She read the last of the comments in the chat forum for her eleventh grade honors chemistry students in the online virtual school. She was lucky to have the job that allowed her to work from home—and she genuinely enjoyed it. She’d taught AP classes as well, and rumor had it she would be picked up by the local junior college to teach a couple of classes there. She could use the extra money and she’d wanted the job for years. If only she could figure out how to make more hours in the day.
Creaking back in her chair, she picked up the origami dog beside her computer screen. It was starting to get tattered along the edges, like the paper kitty also on her desk. Maybe she should have them laminated so she would always have this last gift from Allen, even if it was just a symbol. But somehow sealing the two origami animals off seemed like she would be turning a page, closing a chapter of her life. Like if she crawled under those covers into the bed alone. Or if she let herself acknowledge feelings of attraction for another man, for Ray . . .
Her mind filled with memories of the surprise awareness in his office, then the way he’d snatched her up to keep her from racing into the barn. He’d only held her for a moment, and it probably meant nothing to him, but her starved senses soaked up every detail.
Not happening. Not yet. Maybe never.
She put the dog back on her desk and finished tabulating grades. She had adopters coming to look at the Bob Marley schnoodle—all cleaned up and ready to adopt. As predicted, the pup had over two dozen applicants within a couple of days. She wished all the animals were as lucky.
Back to finishing work. Three quick discussion paragraphs later, she clicked save and exit. She yanked on a pair of pink Chucks and headed down the hall. She glanced in her father-in-law’s bedroom door, which was cracked, the television blaring while he read a newspaper before supper. More times than not lately, he slept with it on all night. The cuckoo clock chimed six times, and thank goodness Trooper didn’t go berserk over the sound this time. The General kept dog treats in his room, so maybe Trooper was finally feeling secure.
Finally, that was some piece of good news.
“Nathan,” she called to her son on the sofa. When he didn’t budge from playing his video game, she tugged one earbud out. “There’s buffalo chicken in the Crock-Pot to shred up on buns. Salad is in the fridge. Just in case you get hungry before we’re ready to sit down to eat.”
She tucked her head to try to catch his eye. “Okay?”
“Chicken. Crock-Pot. Buns. Salad. Got it.” He tucked the earbud back in.
She slid her hands in her pocket to keep from giving him a massive hug he would just reject. She missed her son, the little boy who ran toward her with a fistful of dandelions. There was something so sweet about those sweaty, chubby-cheeked hugs of a little boy who dug up worms to go fishing with his dad and grandpa.
Nathan and Allen had been at odds, though, in the year before her husband deployed. She knew their son was only trying to assert his own manhood in that timeless male coming-of-age ritual. Allen and Joshua were encouraging Nathan to look into Junior ROTC, which only made Nathan all the more determined to let his hair grow and wear scruffy, saggy clothes.
They would have made it through that rough patch given time. But time had been taken from them, leaving Nathan in a painful limbo she didn’t know how to help him fix.
